Indigo Springs (16 page)

“He’ll agree with you. He always agrees with you.” Sahara’s voice was surprisingly free of rancor, her manner, suddenly, almost meek. “Do you have to do it now?”

“Yes, now.” Before you change your mind, Astrid thought.

“Okay. How?”

Blushing, she explained what she had done to Henna.

“You
bit
my cat?”

“It seemed…right,” she mumbled, and her face was hot. “I was improvising. But with you…”

“Yes?” Maddening furled eyebrow—Sahara amused, the same expression she’d worn before kissing Astrid so many years ago. “You don’t want to bite me?”

“Dammit, don’t tease.” She ruffled Henna’s fur and showed her the bite marks, which had turned a bright bloody red. Henna growled halfheartedly, dozing.

Sahara said, “I wonder if they’ll scar?”

“You can’t see them through the fur. But I did think…what if we tried breaking the skin with a needle? It’d leave less of a mark.”

“Worth a try,” Sahara said. She reached for a pair of fingernail scissors. “Astrid, please don’t do this.”

“Sahara, we have to.”

A full-body sigh from Sahara. She offered up her hand.

Summoning the choking well of vitagua into her throat again, Astrid sat on the bed. Sahara raised her wrist to her mouth. Astrid’s teeth pulled toward the skin of their own volition.

“Ready?” she tried to say, but the vitagua got in the way—it came out a gargle.

“Just do it,” Sahara said.

The clovey scent of Sahara’s hair, so close, wafted through her. Astrid took her friend’s hand and pulled on the vitagua inside her body, ever so carefully this time. There it was, a thin cold vein under the skin, a blue patch on Sahara’s hand. Wincing, Astrid pressed down with the scissors, only to find she couldn’t make the cut.

“Wimp.” Sahara took them from her briskly and drove the blade home. A bead of blue welled from the puncture.

Holding her gaze, Sahara raised her wrist to Astrid’s lips.

There was a passing warmth…and then the cold liquid moved. Astrid pulled more gently than she had with Henna, and vitagua—so much, too much!—eased over her lips. Imaginary knives cut through her skull, and the vitagua grumbles got louder.

“Ow.” Hands trembling, Astrid gathered her friend into an awkward, unrequited hug. She won’t go anywhere, she thought: she loves the magic. It’s just blue-goo inspired craziness. Delusions. “How do you feel?”

“Normal,” Sahara said, bursting into tears.

Astrid held her in stunned disbelief. Sobs racked Sahara’s body, shocks intense as hammer blows. The fabric of Astrid’s shirt got damp, then soaked. Quiet miserable wails: they couldn’t all be about a little lost insight, could they?

“Shhh, shhh,” she murmured, thinking of glasses and spilled water and residual contamination as Sahara keened, butting her head against Astrid’s shoulder.

“It’s not the goo,” she managed finally.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s, it’s…Mark.”

“It’s okay, Sahara. Shush.”

Eventually she did, running down and sniffling. “I can’t go out like this.”

“You look fine.”

“You have low standards.”

“You always look fine to me,” she said, and Sahara tensed up. She added, “It’s okay. I’ll do the junk run.”

“Mrs. Skye?”

“I’ll pick her up.”

Sahara squeezed Astrid tighter, holding her close. “You won’t go yet, will you?”

“Not until you’re ready.”

“I’m such a pillowcase. You’d think nobody on earth ever got dumped before. It makes me so…”

“Depressed?”

“Mad. I should’ve spit in Mark’s face. Cutting off my hair and taking his car, some revenge.”

“Call up a pizza joint in Boston and send him a hundred Hawaiian extra cheese—”

“Well…I did that too,” Sahara said. “Sort of.”

“Then you’re ahead. You got the karmic last word.”

“I’m gonna end up an unloved old hag like Mrs. Skye—”

“It won’t happen.”

“No?”

“I love you, Sahara.”

Sahara punched her lightly. “We’ll see how long that lasts once you’ve shacked up with a nice sperm donor.”

“Just because you vanished the second you had a boyfriend…” Sahara’s eyes brimmed again and Astrid found herself holding her friend through another bout of crying. This time the contact, skin to skin, brought a crawling sensation of dread. Sahara was already regretting that she’d let Astrid drain out the vitagua. But there was always more magic in the fireplace….

Sahara shoved her away. “G’wan. Git on the road.”

She’s got the greeds, one of the grumbles sing-songed.

She quashed the voice. The vitagua was out, most of it anyway. Sahara would behave reasonably. And Astrid could make sure there was no more contamination available. Sooner or later she’d find a way to truly uncurse Sahara.

You’re gonna contaminate someone, Dad had said. He’d known it would happen. But she could still make it right.

“I’ll bring some cream for your coffee,” Astrid promised. The warmth of Sahara’s body tingled on her skin as she fled.

From the first Mrs. Skye had reminded Astrid of a honeybee—she kept her salt-and-pepper hair shorn close to her scalp, and was always digging in her purse as if it were a pollen-rich chrysanthemum. She wore two tarnished silver bracelets around her skinny wrists, two-inch bands with native designs on them—a frog on the left arm, an eagle on the right. When she rooted around in her bag, the bracelets jiggled, the stylized faces of the creatures drawing Astrid’s gaze. They had lots of what Dad had called sparkle, those bracelets.

But if she chanted them, they’d have to be sent away. Sahara had offered to polish them once and Mrs. Skye refused. “Shine ’em up, someone might take ’em,” she’d explained.

Now here was Astrid, topped full of vitagua and half contemplating the same theft.

They had never been alone together. Whenever Astrid was working on the old woman’s garden, Sahara came along, chatting with Mrs. Skye, helping make plans to keep the old woman’s predatory niece at bay. The attention seemed to pull Mrs. Skye out of her blur of fatigue, to bring her into focus. She told Sahara about dead friends and old town gossip as she fed her tea on her broken-down porch. They competed, arguing over who’d had more boyfriends, who was prettier at age seventeen, who was smarter, funnier.

Mrs. Skye swore that, like Sahara, she’d been an Alpine Princess.

Astrid had doubted the old lady’s tales, but today as she chauffeured her through town Mrs. Skye raised her hand, time and again, to greet various white-haired Springers. They waved back with unfeigned enthusiasm.

“That’s Penny Flayer—I fixed her up with her second husband,” Mrs. Skye said. “And the old gent there, I helped his wife rebuild an antique crib for their granddaughter.”

“My grandfather made furniture,” Astrid said.

“That’d be Ev’s dad, Struan MacTavish?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t very good.”

“Played the pipes like a dream come true, though. I did okay with the woodworking,” Mrs. Skye mused. “Sahara found my tools in the basement.”

“Could you still? Are your hands wrecked or anything?”

“I got nothing to build,” the old lady said.

They were jouncing along in the truck, two people who’d thought themselves acquaintances, suddenly realizing they were little more than strangers. The set of Mrs. Skye’s jaw was tense. Nerves about her doctor’s appointment?

Sahara would know how to calm her, Astrid thought, or would have known before I leached the vitagua out of her.

No. That was silly. Sahara was plenty sensitive before she got contaminated. She hadn’t needed magic.

What
did
you say? You offered reassurance, right? You said everything would be okay.

She’d opened her mouth to say it when Mrs. Skye broke out in a crooked-toothed smile, grinning with approval at the hardware store wall and the outlines of Jacks’s mural.

“Thought he was the quiet one.” She fumbled with her hearing aid.

“I don’t see the joke,” Astrid said.

“Who’s he got it in for? The Mayor? Indigo Springs Historical Society?”

“The only ax Jacks has to grind is with his father.”

“Chief Lee? Sure he’s got a big enough stone?” Mrs. Skye chuckled as Astrid parked at the doctor’s office. “I’ll be half an hour, sweetie.”

“Okay.” Backtracking to Nathan’s hardware store, Astrid found Jacks squatting beside the road, poring over his mural sketch and a stack of paint color cards.

Crouching beside him, Astrid looked at the roughed-in mural. It showed the interior of the shop as it might have been at the end of the nineteenth century. Women in long dresses waited as aproned shopkeepers weighed salt and flour on old-fashioned scales. Children ogled glass jars of candy and cooed over hair ribbons.

She frowned—then hastily tried to assume a neutral expression.

“Go on,” Jacks chuckled. “Critique.”

“Well…isn’t this a little conventional?”

“It is a public mural.”

“Jacks, it’s practically an advertisement.”

“You think?” Face innocent, he examined a paint sample the color of vitagua, Indigo Springs blue.

“Mrs. Skye thinks it’s hilarious.” Astrid looked over the wall, looking for changes, areas where he’d worked hardest.

“Does she? Good.”

There. Across the scene, at the far end of the store, was a window. A little Native girl peered through the glass, watching a shopkeeper sell a carved necklace to a white man. Her face was familiar….

“No,” she said. “This isn’t about the potlatch fire?”

“Massacre.”

“Nobody proved it was arson.”

“Nobody tried.” He tossed her a thin book—
The History of Indigo Springs.

“Jacks, you’ve got to forget about that girl.”

“I’ve learned her name—Elizabeth Walks-in-Shadow.”

Sighing, Astrid opened the book to the marked page and found a black-and-white picture of a Native woman in a dress and bonnet.
THE GHOST OF INDIGO CREEK
? read its caption.

Jacks read over her shoulder: “‘After the flames died down, frantic villagers searched the smoking remains of the Indian settlement. The results were a grim reminder of the frailty of the human body. Nineteen souls were lost in the blaze….’” He looked at her expectantly.

“‘Its origin was never determined,’” Astrid finished.

“Never. Determined. ‘What is known is the deaths effectively ended the dispute over the town’s desire to extend its boundaries beyond Gibraltar Lane.’”

“Jacks, someone’s gonna hear you.”

He raised his voice. “‘After the burials, a young girl named Elizabeth Almore began to insist the fire was set deliberately. Elizabeth was a half-breed—’ Charming term.”

“It’s an old book written by an old bigot, Jacks.”

“‘Elizabeth’s grandfather was Godfrey Walks-in-Shadow, hereditary chief of the immolated tribe. Though only eleven at the time and fully integrated into the God-fearing white community of her father, Elizabeth insisted that any objects or relics recovered from the fire belonged to her. She brought the matter to court when she reached adulthood, but by then the artifacts had been dispersed. Elizabeth herself vanished before the case could be heard. Local legend has it that she was murdered, and that her spirit haunts the ravine where Indigo Creek flows.’”

“Jacks.” Her heart was pounding. “Say your great-grandfather was totally corrupt and covered up the cause of the fire. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Is that what you think?”

“You’re doing this to annoy your father.”

“You of all people should be happy about that.”

“You can’t pick a fight with everyone in town.”

“They’ll be too chicken to mention it, trust me.”

“They’ll complain to the Chief.”

“No!” He opened his mouth, aping shock.

She rubbed her temples. “Jacks, remember about keeping a low profile? Being invisible, all that?”

“If people are pissed at me, who’s going to notice you?” He bumped his forehead against hers.

“Nobody proved anything,” she insisted. Jacks paced the wall, scrutinizing his work. As he reached the corner, a woman on Rollerblades almost slid into the traffic on the highway. He lunged out and caught her.

“Good thing you were there,” Astrid heard the woman say as he steadied her.

“Johnny-on-the-spot, that’s me.” He glanced fondly at his watch.

Astrid kept her voice low as he strolled back. “Do you think we got used to the chantments too easily? We use them all the time.”

“Mark of our generation. Get a gadget, use a gadget. We’ve got no fear of the unknown…as long as it’s plastic and fits in your hand.”

“There’s a cost, though.” She thought of the waves of fatigue that came when she used the pocketknife on the dead animals Henna was bringing home. She thought of Marlowe. They needed a power cantation that could be used safely.

And nothing Astrid had remembered so far explained the headaches. Magic never caused her pain when she was a kid.

Jacks held her gaze. “Yes, it’s weird and yes, there’s a lot we don’t understand. But we’re on top of it.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“That’s the vitagua talking. You said it was making you paranoid?”

“Yeah.”

“When you make a chantment, you feel better?”

“Yes. When there’s less magic in my body, the grumbles quiet.”

He gave her forehead a quick kiss. “So fight off the heebie-jeebies until we get that crap out of your system.”

“Right.” She conjured up a smile and found it rested more easily on her face. “I’ll go pick up Mrs. Skye.”

The sense of relief was short-lived. As she crossed the highway, she tripped on a crack in the pavement. She would have pitched facefirst into the curb, but strong hands caught her from behind, arresting her plunge.

“Whoa there, Astie.” It was Chief Lee. “’Bout time you learned to walk, isn’t it?”

“Seems like.” Her face flushed; she could see Jacks’s mural a hundred yards past him, and the image of Elizabeth made her feel like a kid caught breaking school windows. “Thanks for catching me.”

“Sure thing.” He patted her arm, looming over her with an air of uncertainty.

“Something I can do for you, Chief? Or are you checking my gait?”

“Peace, girl. I know we got off on the wrong foot way back whenever—”

“You called my father a perverted souse.” Dad was a hero, she wanted to add; she blazed with a desire to bellow Albert’s true story from the top of the fire tower.

“I’m not saying it ain’t my fault.”

That was a change. “What do you want, Chief?”

He shifted from foot to foot. “You kids making out all right in the new place? Jacks all right?”

This was about Jacks—he wasn’t haranguing her for fun. Astrid relaxed a fraction. “He’s feeding us a lot of sprouts.”

“Goddamn Olive and all her Wicca bull.” His face pinched. “I ought to send you girls a side of beef. And…Jacks and your pretty friend…they’re an item?”

“Jacks and Sahara?” She laughed. “They’re getting along, barely, for my sake.”

“Oh.” Clearly this wasn’t the answer he’d expected, and he foundered. “Hear your mother’s better.”

She nodded.

“That’s good,” he said. “Listen, Astie…Astrid. Could you tell Jacks something for me?”

Anything to get out of this conversation. “Sure.”

“Could you—oh! There he is.” The Chief took a step toward the department store. Then traffic bunched up, forcing him to stop. Astrid edged toward the truck, but the Chief swiveled. “I gotta see him.”

“Go to it,” she said, gesturing across the street.

“I want to say: Whatever he’s got to tell me, I mean to listen. He’ll open up if he knows I’m listening, right?”

“You’ll have to take that up with him.” She thought: Jacks thinks the potlatch fire was arson. He thinks your great-great-grandfather was paid to cover up a massacre.

The Chief made another attempt to jaywalk, nearly getting clipped by a red SUV. Then his radio squawked. “Astie, one other thing.”

She had almost escaped. “Yes?”

“I heard Jemmy Burlein was bitching about how Albert owed her money when he passed away. If you’ve got anything extra…” He looked embarrassed. “It’s none of my business, I know you two are quits—but she’s not doing too good with that hippie bike store.”

“You there, Chief?” the radio barked.

He snatched it up, pivoting away from Main Street and Jacks, loping in the direction of the fire hall. Raising a hand good-bye, Astrid fled. The grumbles chattered at her. It was a relief when Mrs. Skye reappeared.

“How’d it go with the doctor?” she asked.

The old lady shrugged. “Not sure. Lilla—that’s my niece—phoned him, asked him to send the assessor back. Says he needs to know there’s food in my fridge and cleansers under the sink—signs I’m keeping up with home life, you know?”

“We’ll go pick up whatever you need,” Astrid said. “Sahara and I will help clean.”

Playing chauffeur for the old woman took the afternoon: fetching groceries, hearing aid batteries, a mop and pail. Then, desperately hoping to rid herself of some of the vitagua she was carrying, she took Mrs. Skye into the antique store, one of Albert’s old haunts. “Let’s get you a rocking chair or something. If you can’t rebuild it yourself, you can teach me to help you.”

“Fair enough,” Mrs. Skye agreed, but Astrid’s eye had moved on; an old tripod glinted at her from the murky depths of the store. She bought it, mumbling something about giving it to a friend before bundling it into the truck like a thief. The allure of the thing was impossible to resist—with the added reservoir of vitagua she’d absorbed in draining Sahara and the cat, it was all she could do to keep from chanting it right there in the shop.

Dour inner voices gnawed at her: It won’t matter, it’s all going to fall apart….

Mrs. Skye picked up a chair and a couple of picture frames. “Sahara says my walls are too bare. Lilla had me thinking I needed to move into one of those geezer farms. You girls hadn’t helped me…”

Astrid flushed, pleased. “It’s okay. Did we get everything you need?”

Mrs. Skye flapped a hand at the local shoe store. “Doc was eyeballing my beat-up sneakers. You mind?”

“Go ahead.” The bike store was on the corner anyway. “I’ll be next door talking to Jemmy.”

Jemmy Burlein was a fragile-seeming nymph with Irish coloring and long limbs. She had been an all-star basketball center in high school, the undisputed goddess of the court, queen of a circle of horny boys and admiring, jealous girls.

She and Astrid had lived together for two years. It had been a sensation, that relationship—Jemmy was supposed to have stolen Astrid from an engineer named Stew Murphy. Town gossip had Astrid and Stew on the brink of marriage; in truth, they’d split up well before Jemmy came along.

When Albert died, things with Jemmy had fallen apart in their turn. Astrid had moved back home, hoping to keep Ma’s growing oddness in check. Jemmy had opened the bike store and begun a long-distance relationship with a homeopath from Seattle.

Astrid found her onetime girlfriend just completing a sale, sending a young boy and his mother out of the store with a bright orange bike.

“Hi,” she said, faintly awkward. “I heard a rumor today—Dad owed you money?”