Indigo Springs (19 page)

He tugged Sahara beyond reach of the stream. “Not funny.”

“It would be if you had a sense of humor.”

“No quarreling.” Astrid blew on the exposed fingertip of the frozen man and the candleflick of flame died. “Let’s see what this guy has to tell us.”

“Your head is going to explode if you keep that up,” Jacks said.

“Just a touch,” Astrid said. She reached up, brushing the nub of a finger.

And began to burn.

She was a witch, that’s what she was. A witch in need of burning, her and her unholy relics and all her allies. Anyone contaminated, anyone who knew—they would all die.

Astrid was seeing through the witch-burner’s eyes, absorbing bursts of knowledge as her body heated, cooking. His name is Patterflam, she thought, or maybe she said it aloud. “He is the last great leader of the—”

He was a witch-burner.

People put to the torch—a dozen memories of executions, a hundred. She saw him scouring the Colonies for magic, seeking to bring the world under control, under the hand of his brethren. They thought when the New World was subjugated the battle would end, but the savages and their magic wielders had been crafty. Patterflam grew old, and even as the Brigade furthered its power, as they learned to contain enchantment within crosses and potions, he grew increasingly sure that their success was incomplete.

The burn was spreading from her hand. Distantly, Astrid felt her friends trying to separate her from the point of contact.

“Astrid, he’s killing you!” Faraway worried voice.

“Don’t leave me, Sahara…,” she mumbled.

“Can’t get her off—”

“She’s burning up!”

Fighting pain, Astrid pressed her other hand to the wall of vitagua. Now there was even more information, all of it confusing, and he was killing her, torching her, and she had no apprentice. The well would close and the unreal would be worse off than before.

“Vitagua has the following qualities,” she heard herself say through chattering teeth: “It’s fire-averse, cohesive, can be contained in glass, and tends to freeze unless heat is available to keep it warm. It’s drawn to living tissue. Vitagua is as dense as crude oil or blood and cannot be mixed with water. It expresses, to some extent, the collective will of the people of the unreal.”

“Tell them to get you out of this!”

She blinked, saw her clothes were smoking, knew Sahara was yanking on her belt, that Jacks’s hand was burnt and blistering as he tried to pry her from the ice floe.

“Patterflam was trying to burn the unreal,” she said. “That’s when magic changed from mist to liquid. He and his men were using heat against us, so we fought back with cold. Magicules were everywhere, a fog. The air was blue. The fog condensed to a vitagua sea; the sea froze. Chill fought heat, ice fought fire.”

One of the grumbles made a suggestion. “Break my skin,” Astrid said.

Sahara dug in her fingernails, cutting into the flesh of Astrid’s arm. Eyes streaming, Astrid pulled vitagua up from within herself. It shot from the small crescent-shaped wound, splattering the icy wall and her hands.

Freeze it. She had to freeze it.

“Cold,” Astrid said. “Cold, cold, all of it. Chilly, chill it, make it cold, everything freezes…”

Vitagua flowed between her and the witch-burner, its movement sluggish as it turned to slush. And suddenly the burning sensation was gone; a layer of liquid magic broke the contact between her fingers and Patterflam. Jacks and Sahara tore her free.

Shivering, Astrid looked up. Patterflam’s hand was covered in a layer of blue ice. The exposed, burning fingertip was wholly encased.

“Are you okay?”

“I tried too hard.” She could feel the liquid inside her cooling. “Overcompensated. Panic, you know. Sahara, did the vitagua touch you?”

“No,” Sahara snapped.

“Overcompensated how, Astrid?” Jacks demanded.

It was hard to breathe. The interior chill was spreading and her guts felt icy. “Needed to freeze Patterflam…froze everything.”

“We have to get home,” Jacks said. “Astrid?”

“I can try.”

“Is that safe?” Sahara asked. “You screw up now—”

“Who can know?” She felt dreamy; the only thing keeping her awake was the ache in her head.

“That’s not good enough.” The edge in Jacks’s voice brought her focus back.

Her right eye throbbed, bringing more tears. Cerulean snowflake-shapes etched over her vision. The coils of her dragon earring were painfully cold. There was a distant groan from one of the larger ice formations, followed by a crack so sharp, they felt a shock through the air.

Sahara was rubbing her arms. Jacks’s palm was burnt.

“You’re wheezing,” Sahara said, her voice an accusation. Her hand closed over Astrid’s elbow, extending the arm. For Jacks to see, Astrid realized. On her wrist was a blister of frozen vitagua.

“I’m okay,” she tried to say, though her voice sounded harsh and the left side of her face wouldn’t move. Frozen vitagua had congealed between her back molars, and she couldn’t close her mouth.

“Astrid.” Jacks moved into her narrowing field of vision. His hands, burning hot, cupped her face. “You brought us here, sweetheart? You have to take us back.”

“I’ll try.” She imagined the ravine, the tree that sheltered Henna’s grave…go home, no place like…

There. A twist of muscle, and was that a hint of warmth? Astrid opened her eyes, certain she’d see the ravine again. But they were still surrounded by creaking stalagmites of blue ice.

“Try again,” Jacks said. His teeth were chattering. “Think about picking blueberries in the summer, the wildflowers. Remember when we were out hiking the creek and that eagle splashed down in front of us?”

“Young eagle,” Astrid said through numb lips.

“It flapped up, clumsy, a fish in its talons—”

“You painted it.”

“Take us there,” he urged.

“I need a second,” she interrupted, mushing away from the glowing body of Patterflam and forcing them to follow. Her legs gave out at Elizabeth’s statue.

“Astrid, we have to get you out of here.”

He’s right. I can’t stay here. I should try to move. But it was so hard to breathe. Her friends’ voices were rising even as they got farther away.

Oceans of frozen vitagua, she thought. She could stay here with it, wait for the thaw. If they all stayed—if they froze—neither Jacks nor Sahara could leave her.

No, the grumbles said. And for the barest of instants, their voice seemed familiar. You’ll pull yourself into the real any second now. There’s so much that hasn’t happened yet—the flood, the fight with the witch-burner, the standoff with the police—

Sahara leaving.

Astrid’s heart slammed; her body jerked. Terror flooded adrenaline through her system.

She was alone in the backyard, freezing despite the scorching sun overhead. Her hands were soaked in vitagua, stained to the elbows.

She stood. Her lungs were full of ice, and she couldn’t draw a proper breath of the hot summer air.

Her friends…

Jacks appeared, sliding into the real almost weightless, like a balloon. Sahara was heavier. She was turned away, facing the icebergs.

Astrid coughed, her body painfully cold. Jacks closed in, taking her into his arms as the world darkened.

Astrid didn’t remember them putting her to bed. Her awareness blurred as she hit the lawn, face tickled by the sharp blades of new-cut grass in the backyard. When she sharpened again, the world itself had gone fuzzy, all dimness, close air, and blankets.

The vitagua within her had pooled into a mass of slush around her lungs. It hurt to cough, and she couldn’t draw air to speak. She tried to use her affinity with the stuff to push it out to her extremities, but it was too solid. Trying to move it was agonizing; it wouldn’t flow.

Jacks held her hand, his skin unbearably hot, hanging on even when she tried to yank loose. Sahara piled blankets and chattered stories, making Astrid sip glass after glass of lukewarm tea. It didn’t help; her teeth rattled and she shivered constantly.

Words and phrases bubbled through her mind, grumbles mumbling about vitagua and magicules. They were the voices of the frozen people of the unreal. Was she supposed to melt them all free?

No. Not just her. Dad said there were other springs.

He’d also said someone was closing them.

The Brigade. Patterflam called them a Brigade.

What if one day Astrid was the last remaining chanter? What if she was the only one now? Her fear grew; her mind circled the glowing blue icebergs as if tethered to them. All that ice. All those people.

Fragments of knowledge churned in her mind, solutions to problems she had never studied. Dad had rationed his store of information on magic. He’d give her a minuscule drop of vitagua and a sparkly object and let her chant one thing a month. Chanting takes something out of you, he’d told her once—I don’t want it stunting your growth.

“Coffee stunts your growth and I drink that, Daddy.” Saying it set her to coughing.

She’d make a chantment; he’d send it away. She hungered for more. The tiny drops of vitagua murmured like a kettle on the boil—she could sense secrets trapped within the spirit water, answers. It was all connected, all alive, and it never forgot anything.

To this, Dad had only one answer: No.

One autumn morning she ditched school and went alone to Mascer Lane, slipping into the house through a basement window. The fireplace had not yet been bricked over; back then, the crack in the hearth was a hairline. Astrid laid a hand over the gap, pulling vitagua into herself.

“Teach me,” she had whispered and the grumbles had gotten clearer. Most didn’t speak English, but that made it easier to pick out the few that did.

Astrid coughed and thrashed in bed, lungs frozen and achy. “Sorry, Daddy,” she croaked.

It was Sahara’s and Jacks’s voices that finally lured her away from the guilt and the memories. The customary sharpness eased out of their tones, fading into sober discussion, and then—blessedly—agreement. Burying the hatchet at long last? She strained to hear what they were saying, but cold fluid had clogged her ears.

She was distantly aware of moaning a protest when Jacks released his grip on her hand. Then Sahara’s long fingers twined with her own, and Astrid finally slept.

Daylight woke her, needle sharp against her puffy eyelids. The ringing in her ears had quieted in the night, and the familiar burn of her constant headache was almost welcome. A soothing smell—cloves—permeated her senses.

Ma was there.

Ev was still dressed as a man, but she wasn’t in suspenders. Better yet, she had a bra on. Her chin was plucked, and her hair was free of pomade. Short blond curls framed her face.

“Yet another bender, kid?” she said, tugging the covers up over Astrid’s arm.

Fear brimmed over. “Sahara isn’t gone?”

“Don’t move. Yes, she’s gone—I sent them both for lunch.”

“Lunch.” She relaxed back into the pillows.

“They needed to get out,” Ev said. “Looked like scarecrows. When’d you fall sick?”

“Saturday, I guess. The cat died.” Her throat closed and she blinked away cold tears.

Ma stroked her hair. “It piles up sometimes.”

“What day is it now?”

“Thursday.”

Familiar, panicky tension from the Albert days made her rise again. “Work…”

“Jacks called your clients,” Ev said. “Nobody’s going to can you for breaking down this once.”

Astrid didn’t answer, just huffed faintly.

“He’d a lick of sense, he’d have taken you to the hospital.”

“It’s just a cold, Ma.” The words came out a wheeze. She levered herself upright, trying to look healthy.

“You and your dad,” Ev said. Not affectionately, but not angrily either. Awkward silence bled from that, until she said, “I brought something for you.”

“What, Ma?”

“Back when you were…” She paused, her mouth working. “When I was pregnant with you, I was stuck in bed a month.”

Ma, talking about pregnancy. Astrid’s throat clogged. “I didn’t know that.”

“Blood pressure. Albert brought me this to pass the time.” She handed Astrid a heavy bundle, wrapped in polka-dot tissue paper.

“What is it?”

“I’d have wrapped it if I wanted to tell you?”

Another chantment? Astrid tore the paper aside, dismayed by how exhausting the effort was. Inside was a wooden case, a pine box with brass hinges and a clasp. Ma handed her a key and she fitted it to the lock.

It was a small dulcimer, sized right to sit on the bed, with two small silvery mallets.

“Before I married, I played in the town pipe band.”

“You? Bagpipes?”

“Lot of old Scots in this town. I was one of the first girls they let in the band. I’d half forgot, but the therapist has got me going on all sorts of nostalgic…”

“Yeah? You gonna start playing again?”

“Nah. Half the band’s died off.” Ev set the dulcimer on the bed. “And I don’t have the wind for it now.”

“You’re talking like you’re old, Ma. You’re not old.” She touched a mallet to one string. A chime sounded, high and—as far as she could tell—completely unmagical.

“Albert gave my pipes away.”

He’d probably chanted them. “I’m sorry.”

“He gave me this when I was laid up. Figured it would keep the boredom away if I could pick out a tune or two.”

“We could get you new pipes.”

“I spend my days walking around town with a mail sack. I’m not strapping on the bagpipes in my leisure.” Ma grinned. “I did dig out my father’s old camera. Thought maybe I’d start taking pictures again.”

“I don’t remember you doing that either.” Then she flashed on the albums: shots of Indigo Springs in the seventies, wildlife in the ravine…There’d even been a group of older men in kilts.

“I had the camera out the other day when…” Pausing, Ma actually blushed.

“What?”

“When I was watching Olive.”

“You were taking spy pictures of Jacks’s mother?”

Ma fidgeted, embarrassed, and Astrid felt like she’d spoiled something. To smooth the moment, she asked: “Were any of them good?”

“Lord, I’m not about to develop them. Give me another week, I’ll expose the film and toss it.” Raising the mallets, Ma began playing, mixing silvery chords into a cheery Highland reel.

Astrid shut her eyes, trying to imagine her mother in a kilt, marching past the fire hall with a bunch of  geezers, leading a parade, perhaps, a funeral procession….

Morbid thought.

They’d gone to school together, Ev and Albert. Suddenly Astrid wondered: How had he charmed her? Her laid-back, lazy-seeming father, her serious, musical mother. He hadn’t magic-mermaided her into loving him, had he?

No. Dad wouldn’t. Besides, he hadn’t become the chanter until after he was married.

The reel ended and Ev handed her the mallets. “You try.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll point at strings, you hit them.”

“Okay.” Following Ma’s fingers, she plunked out a creditable version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

“See? Easy.”

She tinkled out random notes, pleased by the way the chords hung in the air. “You were in bed how long?”

“Five weeks. You came late, remember?”

“Right.”

“First and only time you were. Perfect attendance at school…” Stretching, Ev opened the curtains, cracking the patio doors and letting in a blast of air that set Astrid to shivering. Then her hand came to rest on Astrid’s bureau. “Did you find Albert’s clippings after all?”

“What?…” Then she remembered—Ma’s vitagua contamination. Sahara had printed out some news stories from the Web, about people in trouble they might send chantments to. They were in the top drawer, below Ev’s palm. “Snoop.”

“Hyperobservant,” Ma countered, with a trace of her Everett Burke huffiness but no anger.

“They’re for Sahara’s self-help website.”

“I had a tough time getting Jacks to leave,” Ev said. “He’s awfully fond, isn’t he?”

“Ma, my love life…”

“None of my business, true. But I wouldn’t sit around waiting for a better offer. I’d run her down.”

She pulled the covers tight, her teeth chattering. “How did Dad catch your eye?”

“We told you this story a hundred times, kid.”

“He won a track meet and you melted? You must have cut out something. I mean, Dad was…” She wheezed. Dad was a magician, a miracle worker. A hero. “Dad couldn’t have been the Springs’ most eligible bachelor.”

“Ah, the shiftless Lethewood boys,” Ma said musingly. “They were too. Wouldn’t stir if they were boiling over. But when Albert was racing…it’s like he was trying to catch something. He had a way of wanting things, Astrid.”

“And he wanted you like that?”

“Like I was air and he was drowning,” Ma said, half smiling. “When he caught me, he seemed to appreciate it too. But when his great-grandmother died he changed. Started running again, but to the flea markets. Grief does funny things.”

Astrid took Ev’s hand again, feeling the callused firmness of it, remembering holding it as a kid, little fingers swallowed in Ma’s, safe in her strong grip.

“You cut yourself,” she said, rubbing a small scab.

“Caught the rough edge of the Johnsons’ gate latch.”

Astrid let her hand fold over the scab, dropping her arm to the covers. Knowledge hummed in her. Third time’s the charm, she thought, and she picked up one dulcimer mallet, plonked a note. Ev took up the other mallet.

Astrid tugged on the vitagua inside them both, pulling the little bit inside her mother ever so gently through the break in her skin. She watched Ma from the corner of her gaze as they improvised music together.

Vitagua flowed out of Ev bit by tiny bit. A tablespoon, maybe two. Unlike the iced slush in Astrid’s body, it was warm and mobile. She pushed it against the cold places in her lungs.

Then there wasn’t any more to draw, just the inevitable residue, a blue tinge around the picked scab.

A thumping sounded at the front door.

“I’ll get that,” Ma said.

“No, I need to get up.” She tottered to her feet, discovering as she did so that she was wrapped in Sahara’s pajama top. Clove oil wafted up as she buttoned it.

The banging stopped. Astrid headed downstairs anyway, struggling against a sense that the floor was rocking back and forth. Dizzily, she fixed her eyes on the upper corner of the hall and squeezed the banister.

The walls lurched—taking her frozen stomach along for the ride. Ma laid a hot hand on Astrid’s shoulder. The room wobbled, and then froze in place.

“You okay, baby?”

“I’ll make it.” She shuffled across the unfurnished  expanse of the living room, wrinkling up a white sheet that lay spread on the pink carpet. The doorknob was cool to the touch, setting off more shivers as she grasped it.

The porch was empty. Out of habit she glanced down.

“What are you doing?” Ev asked.

“Looking for a killed…bird. I forgot for a second about Henna being dead.”

“Henna’s what?” The voice was unexpected and shocked.

Wobbling, Astrid turned.

Sahara’s ex, Mark Clumber, was at the edge of the living room, wearing smudged glasses and a stricken expression. Seeing him, Astrid lost her balance. She fell against the doorframe, openmouthed and gasping. Mark. Come to take Sahara away?

They might have stayed like that forever—or at least until Astrid collapsed—if Ma hadn’t intervened.

“Your Henna passed last week, son,” she said. Kicking the sheet on the floor aside, she led Astrid to the stairs and nudged her so she sat. “I’m sorry to have to tell you.”

“Dead,” he repeated. “A car hit her?”

“Ah…” Ev paused. “She fell sick? Astrid?”

She nodded dumbly, distantly noting that Mark’s hair was thinning. In high school he had dyed it a vivid tangerine. Now it was a collection of mottled blue and green swatches, mixed with hanks of his natural color, a light brown that implied blondness without achieving it. Behind the glasses, his eyes were two different shades of brown—one walnut, one cedar. His teeth had been rigorously straightened.

Sahara bullied him into getting braces, then complained about how dumb they looked, she thought.

Mark and Sahara had become close after Astrid dropped out of high school to save Dad’s gardening business. He’d barely been on her radar until it was too late.

“It happens with animals, sometimes,” Ev said. “One day they’re good, the next…”

“Henna wasn’t old,” he said, cleaning his glasses with his shirt. “You did feed her?”

Astrid wiped her mouth, remembering her teeth in the cat’s neck, fur bunched around her lips as she tore vitagua out of Henna’s body.

She examined Mark critically, trying to disperse guilt with contempt. He was unshaven, and his pants hung on him like old banana peels. He wore a white tank top speckled with brown stains and his mismatched eyes were shadowed.

“Was there an autopsy?” he asked.

“For a cat?”

“Come to think of it,” Ev said, “you did bury him awfully quickly. Whose idea—?”

“Ma—” Then she saw Ev’s eyes were twinkling. “You’re joking,” she said, almost voiceless with surprise.

“Son, it’s not a person. And it’s a hundred degrees out. Of course they buried it fast,” Ev said.

Mark shook himself. “Right. No autopsy.”

Astrid buried her head in her hands. The room lurched, and she hissed uncomfortably. A tense silence fell.

“Where’s Sahara?” Mark said at last.

“Shouldn’t you be with your new girlfriend, Mark?”