River of Blue Fire (73 page)

The object on the wooden stand was quite simple—a slightly irregular circle of yellowed ivory or bone, stood upright like the mouth of a tunnel, the whole thing including its almost invisible support bar no more than a hand's length high. Had it not been the only adornment in that otherwise purely functional room, Calliope would barely have noticed it. Instead, she found it hard to look away.

“. . . and that is why, of course, I find your suggestion that this particular myth may be part of a ritualistic killing very unpleasant.”

“Oh! I'm sorry.” To cover her embarrassment at having stopped listening, Calliope shook her pad slightly, as though it had frozen up. “Could you just say that again, please?”

The professor gave her a hard-edged look, but her voice remained even. “I was saying that there is a sector of native Australian society that believes the Dreamtime is coming again. Like most fundamentalist movements, it is a reaction to suffering, to political disenfranchisement. And not all who believe this are fools or dupes, either.” Here she paused for a moment, as though for the first time considering what to say next. “But there are some who believe that they can hasten this return of the Dreamtime, or even shape it to their own ends, and they are quite willing to pervert the rituals and beliefs of their own people to do so.”

Calliope felt a rising spike of interest. “And you think the killer might be someone like that? Someone who's trying to perform some ritual, some magic, to bring back the Dreamtime?”

“Possibly.” Victoria Jigalong looked far unhappier than seemed appropriate. Calliope wondered if it pained her to speak of what seemed an example of her own people's gullibility. “The Woolagaroo is a potent metaphor in some quarters—and not just an example of technology's troubling side. There are those who see it as a metaphor for how the white man's attempts to remake the native peoples in his own image will eventually backfire. That his ‘creation,' if you will, will turn on him.”

“In other words, some people use it as an incitement to racial unrest?”

“Yes. But remember, even in these unsettled times, it is a myth, and like all my people's myths, what is beautiful in it—what is
true
in it—is not to be confused with what sick or unhappy minds might make of it.” Oddly, this stern woman almost seemed to be asking the policewoman for understanding.

After Calliope had thanked her and was standing in the doorway, she turned and said: “By the way, I couldn't help noticing that ring of bone on your bookshelf. Is it a piece of art, or an award of some kind? It's really quite beautiful.”

Professor Jigalong did not turn to look at the shelf; neither did she answer the question. “You seem like a good woman, Detective Skouros. I am sorry for my earlier sharpness.”

“That's all right.” Calliope was flustered. The professor's tone had gone strange and hesitant again. Was it going to turn into a come-on after all? Calliope didn't know quite how she felt about that.

“Let me tell you something. Many people are waiting for the Dreamtime. Some are trying to make it happen. These are strange days.”

“They certainly are,” she said quickly, then wished she had kept her mouth shut. The woman's stare was very, very intense, but that was no reason to babble.

“Stranger than you know.” Victoria Jigalong now turned and walked to the bookshelf. She took the bone circle down and ran a reverent finger around it, like a nun telling the rosary. “And in these strange days,” she said at last, “do not underestimate someone who summons the Woolagaroo magic. Do not take the Dreamtime idea lightly.”

“I don't take anyone's beliefs lightly, Professor.”

“We are not talking of beliefs any more, Detective. The world is coming to a great change, even if most cannot see it yet. But I should not keep you any longer. Good afternoon.”

Half an hour later, Calliope was still sitting in her department car in the parking lot, playing back the interview as she stared at her notes on the Woolagaroo myth, and trying to figure out what in hell
that
had all been about.

C
HRISTABEL waited and waited outside the metal door, trying to make herself not be afraid any more. It seemed like there was a dragon behind the door, or some other kind of monster. She was afraid to knock, even though she knew it was only Mister Sellars on the other side. Mister Sellars and that bad, scary boy.

When she finally felt brave enough, she banged on the door with the stone, the little code that Mister Sellars had taught her,
bump-bumpa-bump-bump
.

The door opened. The boy's dirty face looked out at her.

“I want to see Mister Sellars,” she said in her most serious voice.

The boy opened the door to let her through, and she crawled past him. He smelled. She made a face at him and he saw it, but he only laughed, a little hissing sneaky sound like Mystery Mouse.

Inside the tunnel it was hot and wet and cloudy, and at first she couldn't see very much. There was a little stove on the floor, and a pot bubbling on top of it, making the steam that made it so hard to see. The air smelled funny, not sour like the boy, but like something from the medicine cabinet at home or one of the things her daddy drank.

When she was inside the door, she stood up. She couldn't see much because of the cloudy air and she didn't know where to go. The boy gave her a little shove, not too hard, but not very friendly, making her trip and almost fall. She was scared again. Mister Sellars always called out hello to her, even when she came without talking to him on the Storybook Sunglasses first.

“You bring some food,
mu'chita
?” the boy asked.

“I want to see Mister Sellars.”

“
Ay, Dios
! Go on, then.” He walked up behind her like he would push her again, and Christabel hurried along the wet concrete so he wouldn't touch her.

Mister Sellars' chair was standing empty in one of the wide places in the tunnel, which made her even more scared. Without the old man in it, it looked like something from the news on television, like one of the spaceship things that landed on Mars and began making little machines like a mama cat having kittens. She stopped and would not go near it, even when the boy came up behind her. His breathing seemed very loud. So did her own.

“This little bitch all crazy,” the boy said.

Something stirred in the shadows beyond the chair. “What?” asked a quiet voice.

“
Mu'chita loca
, seen? She say she wanna talk to you, but she jumping all around. I don't know.” The boy made a snorting noise and went to do something with the pot full of boiling water.

“Mister Sellars?” Christabel was still scared. He sounded funny.

“Little Christabel? This is a surprise. Come here, my dear, come here.” She could see something waving just a little, and she walked around the chair. Mister Sellars was lying down on a pile of blankets, with another blanket over him so that only his head and arms stuck out. He looked very skinny, even more than usual, and he did not lift his head up when she came close. But he did smile, so she felt a little better.

“Let me see you. You will forgive me for not getting up, but I'm afraid I'm rather weak just at the moment. The work I'm doing is quite tiring.” He closed his eyes, almost like he was going to sleep, and waited a long time before he opened them. “Also, I apologize for the atmosphere. My humidifier has malfunctioned—that means it stopped working—and I've had to improvise.”

Christabel knew what ‘malfunction' meant, because Rip Ratchet Robot said it on the Uncle Jingle show whenever his rear end fell off. She wasn't quite sure what Mister Sellars meant, though, since his humidifier didn't have anything to do with his rear end, as far as she knew. She wasn't sure about “improvise” either, but guessed it had something to do with boiling water.

“Are you going to get better?” she asked.

“Oh, I expect so. There's a great deal to be done, and nothing will be accomplished with me flat on my back. Well, actually I could be standing on my head and it wouldn't make any difference, but I need to be stronger.” He opened his eyes wide for a moment, as though he were really seeing her for the first time. “I'm sorry, my dear, I'm babbling. I'm not feeling very well. What brings you to see me? Shouldn't you . . .” he hesitated for a moment, as though looking at something invisible, “be in school?”

“It's over. I'm going home.” Christabel felt like there were secrets to tell. She didn't want to talk about school. “How come you haven't called me?”

“As I said, my dear, I'm working very hard. And I don't want you to get into any trouble.”

“But why is
he
here?” She was whispering now, but the boy still heard her, and laughed. For a moment she wasn't scared of him, she just hated him, hated his stupid face always hanging around when she came to see Mister Sellars. “He's not good, Mister Sellars. He's bad. He steals things.”

“Yeah, s'pose you go to
la tienda
and buy all that soap, then?” the boy said. He laughed again.

“That's not necessary, Cho-Cho.” Mister Sellars' trembly hand came up like a branch blown by the wind. “Christabel, he stole because he was hungry. Not everyone has a nice family like you do, and a warm place to sleep and plenty to eat.”

“
Verdad
,” said the boy, nodding his head.

“But why is he your friend?
I'm
your friend.”

Mister Sellars slowly shook his head, not saying no, but sad. “Christabel, you are still my friend—you are the very best kind of friend anyone could have. The help you gave me is more important than you could ever know—you're the hero of a whole world! But right now I have to do the rest of my work, and Cho-Cho is better for that part of things. And he needs a place to stay, so he's staying here.”

“And if I don't stay here, I tell those army
vatos
that there's a crazy old man living under their base, seen?”

Mister Sellars' smile was not a happy one. “Yes, there's that, too. So that's all, Christabel. Besides, you can't keep sneaking out. You'll get into trouble with your parents.”

“I won't!” She was angry, even though she knew he was right. It was getting harder and harder to think up reasons to go off on her bicycle alone so she could bring bags of bread and half-sandwiches and pieces of fruit from her lunch to the boy and Mister Sellars. But she was afraid that if she stopped coming, the boy would do something bad—maybe take Mister Sellars away somewhere, or hurt him. Her friend was very thin and not very strong. Right now, he looked really sick. “I don't care if I get in trouble, anyway.”

“That's not a good way to think, Christabel,” Mister Sellars said gently. “Please, I'm very tired. I'll call you when I want you to come, and you're definitely still my friend. Your job right now is to be Christabel, and make sure your parents are happy with you. Then, if there's something big and important I have to ask you to do, it will be easier for you to do it.”

She had heard this kind of talk before. When she wanted to have her hair cut in the same style as Palmyra Jannissar, the singer she saw all the time on the net, her mother had said, “We don't want you to look like Palmyra, we want you to look like Christabel.” Which meant N-O spells “no.”

“But . . .”

“I'm sorry, Christabel, but I really must rest. I've worn myself out working in my garden—it has grown so tangled! . . . and I must . . .” He let his eyes close for a moment. His funny, squishy face looked empty in a way she hadn't seen before, and it frightened her all over again. She felt very worried—he didn't
have
a garden anymore, now that he lived in a hole, not even one plant, so why would he say something like that?

“C'mon, weenit,” the boy said, standing over her now. “
El viejo
‘s sleepy. Leave him alone.”

For a moment, because he said it strange, she almost thought he cared about Mister Sellars. But then she thought about how he lied and stole, and knew he didn't. She got up, and for the first time she knew what it meant in her stories when it said “her heart was heavy.” Something inside her felt like it weighed a million pounds. She walked past the boy and didn't even look at him, although she could see out of the corner of her eye that he was doing a stupid bow, like someone in a flick. Mister Sellars didn't say good-bye. His eyes were already shut, his chest going up and down, up and down, fast but gentle.

Christabel did not eat much of her dinner. Her daddy was talking about bad things at work, and about pressure he was under—she always imagined it like the roof that came down and squished people in
Kondo Kill
, which she saw once at Ophelia Weiner's when all the parents were having a party downstairs—so he didn't notice that she just kind of rearranged her food on her plate, pushing her mashed potatoes into a funny skinny shape that sort of looked like she'd eaten some.

She asked to be excused and went to her room. The special Storybook Sunglasses that Mister Sellars had given her were sitting on the floor near the bed. She looked at them and frowned, then tried to do some of the arithmetic problems in her school workbook, but all she could think of was how sick Mister Sellars had looked. He had seemed crumpled up, like a piece of paper.

Maybe the boy was poisoning him, she thought suddenly. Like in Snow White. Maybe he was putting something bad in that boiling pot, just like the poison that the bad queen dipped the apple into. And Mister Sellars would just get sicker and sicker.

She picked up the Storybook Sunglasses, then put them down again. He had said he would call her. He would be angry if she called him, wouldn't he? Not that he had ever really been angry with her, but still . . .

But what if he was going to get poisoned? Or maybe even just get sicker from something else. Shouldn't she bring him some medicine? She hadn't asked him because she was so unhappy, but now it seemed like he might really need some. That boy would never be able to get medicine, but Christabel's mommy had a whole cupboard full of things—patches and bottles, painblockers, all kinds of things.