Authors: Stan Crowe
Lindsay watched after the woman until she disappeared behind an apartment building, and then stood and dusted herself off. The faint sounds of the old lady’s screaming echoed among the residences and Lindsay knew the stranger would be back sooner or later. Glancing at the open door, the dusky interior of Aunt Fey’s Roadside Wishouse was shrouded in ebbing mists. Though she had no interest in breaking and entering, Lindsay still thought it no crime to peek inside, and get some advance warning of what she’d face when Fey returned.
First, she circled the bus, searching for signs of the conflagration that had destroyed the bus and its occupant three years before. The closest thing she found was the black smudges of exhaust around the tailpipe and around the Tennessee license plates. Aside from its clearly aged condition, the bus looked perfect. She made her way back to the open door, and gagged at the smell. Still unable to see much, she took a step back to get some air, and then stuck her head through the opening. When her eyes adjusted, they widened at what she saw. Strings of Christmas lights like jungle vines crisscrossed the ceiling and dangled at random, all across the interior. Under the multi-colored caress of light, mostly-unidentifiable items were stacked in piles that seemed to grow from the narrow, linoleum walkway and vinyl countertops like strange weeds. A powerful odor of animal mingled with incense and… beef stew…? assaulted her nose, but she adjusted to it faster than she thought possible. Small, sparkling charms danced and twirled on thin chains suspended from the ceiling, mimicking the starry sky Lindsay wished she had a better view of. Finger-sized figurines and a menagerie of religious icons and symbols were scattered about. Airy, transcendent music rounded out the mystical ambiance. Worry shivered down her spine, but she stood her ground. She could face the old woman when she returned. She hoped.
“So what do I do,” she said, looking up to find her wishing star again. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I put that all behind me.”
No answer.
“I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since that summer. Besides,” she chuckled bitterly, “he’s probably married to Molly by now. Or maybe dead?” The image of a horde of women dog piling him popped to mind. One of Clint’s hands waved desperately above the rabid crowd, and she giggled despite herself.
She immediately remembered why she’d forced herself to evict his memory—even the barest thought of him woke that old dragon inside. If this whole wish business was real, could she wish that he would appear of out nowhere and be her personal love slave? She could wish Molly right out of the picture, and wish that Clint were actually happy with her, instead of merely pretending, the way he had on that beach on Bainbridge. She could wish—
“Stop it, Lindsay,” she chided aloud. And yet, what
did
Fey’s appearance imply? She’d left Clint on the excuse that her services were no longer needed. That was true, had the gypsy actually been cremated in the RV fire. Did she still owe Clint the closure of finding Fey? Did she still owe him
anything
? She thought about the ethics class she’d taken her sophomore year, but that seemed to be a cop out—in her heart, she knew what she really
should
do.
But how could she ever face him again?
She shook her head, and sat sullenly on the curb next to the Wishouse, losing herself in a modicum of star gazing while she waited.
Fey returned sooner than Lindsay expected. The hedge in front of her exploded in a splinter of twig fragments and tiny leaves as the goat she’d seen earlier burst into view. It was headed directly at her.
Lindsay yelped, and threw herself aside. The goat charged through the space she’d barely vacated, and shot past the bus. Lindsay got upright again, only to be plowed over by a shrieking gypsy. Lindsay recovered quickly, and watched as the pair did several laps around the bus.
The goat got smart first.
Lindsay cocked an eyebrow as she watched the animal skid to a halt at the rear of the bus, quickly flip around, and then lower its horned head to roughly where Fey’s midsection would be. Lindsay held her breath in anticipation of Fey screaming around the bus and into an injury waiting to happen.
She was disappointed. So was the goat.
“Gotcha!”
Lindsay gasped as a small, haggard form plummeted from the roof of the RV, directly onto the goat. The poor thing bleated in surprise, and went down.
“This’ll teach you to run from your Auntie, now, won’t it?” Fey cackled as she put the goat in an odd sort of headlock. A struggle ensued, but Fey showed surprising strength for someone of her size and apparent age. In less than a minute, she had the creature halfway back in the vehicle.
“Um, excuse me,” Lindsay ventured. The old woman ignored her, and continued wrangling her pet. “Pardon me, but… are you Alfeyra Belkin? A-kay-a ‘Aunt Fey’?” Still no response. Instead, the goat was finally swallowed by the dark maw of the bus, its pleading bleats still slipping through the doorway. Fey followed the goat inside a moment later, slamming the door shut behind her.
Lindsay stood, confused and slightly stunned, for some time. Did she knock? Did she come back in the morning? What was the proper protocol for dealing with insane spinsters who showed up randomly in front of your apartment in the middle of the night? Ultimately, she decided to try knocking again. The first raps went unanswered. She tried again with the same results, and twice more, to no avail.
“Well,” Lindsay said to herself, “I guess the doctor is out for the evening.” She turned to leave, but a feeling that she should wait stopped her. She waited for what seemed like an hour before finally deciding the old woman must have fallen asleep. Hopefully Fey would still be there in the morning. Lindsay considered sleeping on the curb, but one look at the rocky ground and rough, dry shrubs persuaded her that her bed was the better option she’d just sleep with her ears open in case the goat-wrangling gypsy decided to drive away early. She stood, stretched, and started for her apartment again. A click and a sharp creaking sounded behind her. “So you’re going to bang on my door like a crazy person and run away? Are you one of those punk high school kids that always try spraying words all over my house?”
Lindsay spun around. Protruding from the RV was a small, slightly upturned nose. A shadowed face trailed in its wake, but Lindsay could see the pair of faintly gleaming eyes set in the dark recesses of the eye sockets. Though the very idea was ridiculous, Lindsay had the feeling that the old woman
should
be luminescent.
“Well?” the woman said. “Answer me!”
Lindsay stared for a moment, and then swallowed. “You… are you Alfeyra Belkin? Late or otherwise?”
The gypsy snorted. “I’m never late. People think time’s supposed to mean something. ‘Be here!’ Or ‘Do such and such now!’ Or ‘Hurry up, moron! I’m late for work!’ Always in a rush to do the same, stupid thing every day.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Lindsay replied. “I meant, ‘late’ as in ‘deceased.’”
At that, Fey let loose a howl of laughter, and then spit Lindsay with a stare. “Do I
look
dead? Public schools. What are they teaching kids these days? ‘Are you dead?’ she asks. What an imbecile.” She resumed chortling.
“I’m sorry, but are you Alfeyra Belkin? Aunt Fey?”
The old woman stopped. “Oh, so you can read huh?” She stuck her head and an arm out, and waved at the title emblazoned on her mobile home. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Lindsay made to speak, but the old woman ducked back inside, and yanked the door shut. Lindsay stood agape for some time. Protocol be hanged. If this was how the crone was going to treat her, then she was going back to bed, thank you very much. She whirled and stalked back toward her apartment.
The door creaked and groaned again before she’d taken three steps. “Well, are you just going to pace in the dark like an idiot, or are you going to come in?” Fey called at her back. Lindsay stopped, and slowly looked back over her shoulder. The old woman was stooped in the doorway, and was straightening a small, wooden stepstool in front of her door. As Lindsay turned around, Fey flopped a tiny, blood red rug on the steps, and bowed almost mockingly before backing into the void of her motor home. Lindsay peered carefully at the stepstool and its ominous rug, and shuddered slightly. She knew what was beyond that door; it wasn’t encouraging.
“Grow up, girl,” she muttered. Setting her jaw, she stepped resolutely into the bus.
TWENTY-FOUR
Using a goat as a seat was distinctly uncomfortable on several levels. Lindsay shifted and fidgeted, feeling guilty as the creature bleated softly beneath her. Against Lindsay’s protestation that sitting on a goat was cruelty to animals, Fey had insisted that, “Altimus applied for that job and got it.” After that, Lindsay was instructed to sit quietly while Fey “handled a few things”; notwithstanding the discomfort, Lindsay got the distinct impression it was best not to resist.
As Lindsay maintained her precarious perch, Fey busied herself in the small kitchen near the middle of the bus. “You’re not an easy woman to find,” Lindsay said conversationally.
“I travel. That’s why I have wheels on my house.”
“You prefer to live alone?”
“Of course not. Why do you think I’ve kept Altimus with me all this time?”
Lindsay had nothing to say to that. Instead, she watched quietly as the gypsy set a slightly-rusted kettle to boil on an electric stove that could have been new when her Grandma Wistisen was a teenager. Fey waited until a spear of steam came shrilling out, and then dropped in a handful of dried leaves. With that, she excused herself to the restroom at the back of the bus, made rather un-ladylike noises for a full five minutes, and then emerged to clean her hands. She returned to the kettle, opened the lid, and peered inside. A heaping tablespoon of sugar went into the kettle, and then another. Fey stirred the liquid violently and then unhooked a mismatched pair of mugs from the rack above the stove. She poured tea into each mug, before sipping lightly at one of them. Even in the umbra, Lindsay could see the sour face the old woman made. There followed the addition of three times as much sugar, as well as some additives Lindsay wasn’t certain she wanted to guess at. At last, Fey sipped her tea again, smiled, and let out a great sigh of satisfaction. She repeated the ritual with the other cup, and brought it to Lindsay.
“Thank you,” Lindsay said, “but I’m not much of a tea…”
As if she hadn’t heard the young attorney, Fey stooped down next to her, and held the tea up to the goat’s lips. The creature made a noise that sounded eerily pleased, and began lapping the tea vigorously, jerking its head up and down, roughly jostling Lindsay. This continued until Altimus gave an annoyed goat scream. Lindsay jerked in surprise.
“No,” Fey scolded. “You already had one.”
The goat screamed again. Lindsay found herself very unnerved.
“Fine. But only one more.” Fey got the goat a second cup of tea, and then dropped the mugs in an over-filled sink not much larger around than Lindsay’s face. She turned back to Lindsay and flashed dingy teeth. “Now, where were we, dear?”
“I’m Lindsay.”
“That’s nice. Rolling Stones?”
Lindsay blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Let me guess. You’re more of a Pink Floyd fan.”
“I… don’t follow.”
“Neil Diamond? AC/DC? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir?”
“I’m sorry, but you’ve completely lost me, Aunt Fey.”
“Fine!” Fey huffed. “Wild card then. And you’ll just have to deal with it.” She reached over to the counter, knocking several odds and ends to the floor, and mashed a button on a half-buried CD player. A cheerful male voice replaced the previous eclectic music with a song about a nationwide club for young men. Lindsay developed a sudden, strange urge to form letters with her arms.
“Happy now?” Fey asked testily.
“I was fine with the ambient-style stuff.”
“Will you make up your mind?” Fey nearly yelled. She plopped herself on a small stool an arm’s length from her guest. “Let’s get on with this, then, and then you can go play whatever music you like on your own time. So go on. Tell me.”
Lindsay arched an eyebrow, and shifted her rear end to a different spot on the animal. “Tell you what?”
“What do you mean ‘tell you what’? People don’t come here for the rousing company or intellectual stimulation.”
“Then why
do
they come here?”
Fey rolled her eyes. “Good grief,” she murmured. “I
know
you read the sign on the outside. That’s why you’re here.”
It clicked for Lindsay, and she blushed slightly, but realized that Fey wasn’t exactly the least ambiguous person she’d ever met. “Ah, yes. To make a wish.”
“Very good,” the gypsy said condescendingly. Without warning, she whacked the CD player, and the song jumped to a country western tune. “So get on with it.”
“Well,” Lindsay began slowly, “I was actually hoping you could answer a few questions first. You see, I have… an acquaintance who once… enjoyed your hospitality.” An image of Clint and that award-winning smile flashed, unbidden, through her mind, and she fought down the emotions that welled inside her.
“An acquaintance, you say? Who?”
“Ah, well, it was several years ago. I was wondering—”
“What’s his name, sweetheart. I’m pretty sure he has one.”
Lindsay blinked in surprise. “Well, then, um, it’s Clint. Clint Christopherson.”
Lindsay fully expected Fey to close her eyes and meditate until the name suddenly popped into her mind. Instead the hag all but leapt from her stool, straight at Lindsay. Lindsay started, and fell backward off the equally startled goat, which stumbled across her feet and landed on her legs.
“Thank you, Altimus,” Fey mumbled. “I was about to ask you to move.” Fey stooped in front of a small cupboard along the wall, and opened the door. From it she pulled a very modern-looking laptop computer and a power cord. She plugged in the laptop, and it fired up with barely a whisper. Lindsay gasped.
Fey gave her younger companion a look. “It’s called a computer. They can do all sorts of really neat things these days. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one.”