Phoenix Falling

by Laura Bickle

  Petra felt her brow furrow, and she set the pen down. “What’s going on with him?”

  The nurse shook his head. “He hasn’t been sleeping well. He’s been having some hallucinations. Sometimes, it’s like he’s not even here.”

  Petra felt her gut clench. “His Alzheimer’s is progressing.”

  “It seems like it. The doctor will be by on rounds later, and I know she’ll want to talk with you about his treatment. Maybe switching up his meds. It’s okay for you and Sig to go back, though. He’s been awake for several hours.”

  Petra nodded slowly. “Thanks. I appreciate the heads-up.”

  She and Sig walked slowly down the green-glazed tile hallway. She always had a knot in her belly every time she visited. She feared opening the door to his room to find an empty bed, and being told that her father had died without her at his side. They’d had, at times, a contentious and distant relationship. But he was her father. And the only alchemist she knew.

  Petra knocked softly on the door to his room.

  A snarl emanated from inside. “What now?”

  Petra opened the door hesitantly. Her father sat in his wheelchair, still dressed in his pajamas, with a blanket spread over his lap. His arms were crossed over his thin chest, and his face was screwed up in a scowl. Beside his unmade bed, on the nightstand, Petra took in a collection of geegaws: a dismantled cigarette with the tobacco arranged in an intricate circular design around the paper, a silver dollar, a handful of pennies, and what looked like a dried-out apple with toothpicks jammed into its desiccated flesh.

  His face cleared immediately when he saw her. “I thought you were the damn night nurse with a cup of pills.”

  Petra shook her head. She came to sit on the edge of the bed opposite him. Sig slithered around her legs and put his front paws on her dad’s knee. The old man grinned and chuckled as he bent close for Sig to wash his face with his tongue.

  She was, truth be told, glad to see him lucid. Such times seemed to be dwindling. A couple of days ago, she’d come by to find him in bed muttering about suns and lions. Alchemy. He had seemed not to see her, then, and called her by both her name and her mother’s, even as he reached out to touch the pendant around her neck. But she was relieved that he recognized her clearly today.

  “I brought you something,” she said. She pulled a muffin out of her jacket pocket and gave it to him. It was the reverse of when she was a child and he would bring her a candy bar from the vending machine at work. Then, he’d been a respected chemist, and she’d been seven years old.

  Her father snatched the muffin away and tore into it greedily with liver-spotted fingers. Crumbs fell into his lap.

  “How’ve you been?” she asked cautiously.

  His shoulders stiffened, then sagged. “I can’t sleep. No matter what pills and shots they give me, I just can’t. I wake up ten times a night.”

  “Is there something waking you up?”

  He leaned forward. “I hear things. Sometimes, it’s voices, voices coming up from the drains in the bathroom. Laughter. Sometimes it’s a bell. I don’t know.” His watery eyes turned to the window. “I wonder what it means. If it means anything.”

  “I don’t know.” When she’d found him in the nursing home, she’d sworn to herself that she would always be honest with him. “Did you tell the doctor?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “No. They’d decide I was crazy.” He looked at her and then amended: “Well, crazier.”

  Petra leaned forward to hug him. He seemed thinner than he’d been since her last visit. She’d have to bring him more muffins.

  “You look good.” Her father patted her cheek when she sat back down on the bed. “That new body is doing good things for you. You look strong.”

  She looked away, down at her hands. Hands that were hers somehow, but that she hadn’t worn for the past few decades. “It’s taking some getting used to.”

  “You’ll just have to break it in. It will come.” He said it with such certainty.

  But she didn’t want to talk about the body. Her body. It was still hard to think of it as hers. She changed the subject clumsily. “Have you been following the fires on TV?”

  Her father nodded vigorously. “Yes. Terrible thing. All those animals and all that wilderness affected.”

  She took a deep breath and told her father what Gabe had seen in the sky and the meteorite crater she’d discovered on the ground. When she finished, he was leaning forward in his wheelchair with his elbows on his knees, eyes glittering in interest.

  “My gut says it’s some kind of fire elemental at the root of this. Too big to be a salamander. Those little critters are subtler in their mischief. But it could be the work of a drake, dragon, phoenix . . . something on that order. Something big.” He spread his hands out. “Something with wings, so that would rule out the drake. Probably a dragon, too . . . a dragon would den up and not be gadding about in the sky in broad daylight. They’re cagier than that.”

  “You don’t think it was a meteorite? I mean, it is time for the Perseids . . .”

  He chuckled. “If you really thought it was a meteorite, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Petra pressed her mouth into a thin line. He was right.

  He continued: “The phoenix, if that’s what it is . . . it’s a symbol of a completed cycle. The old myth is that the phoenix burns and is reborn in its ashes. In alchemy, it’s a sign of transition from the physical to the spiritual, of freeing one’s spiritual force from earthly bonds. It’s both completion and beginning anew, the ultimate purification. Alchemists would associate its presence with sulfur and gold. It’s a sign that the Great Work is close to completion.”

  Petra frowned. “I found something that looked like sulfur there. I have to test it to confirm. And basalt. There was melted basalt, sluicing off in a pattern of seven rays . . . sort of like what’s depicted on the Venificus Locus.”

  “It seems like it would be the hallmark of a phoenix, evidence of an alchemical operation. It’s likely that it slept there, and then rose automatically, as part of its cyclical programming.” Her dad tapped the side of his head, seeming deep in thought.

  “Awesome. Just awesome.” Her shoulders slumped. She had been so hoping for a meteorite. That would have been something she could have written a paper on, a mystery that she could have unraveled using scientific methods. There was no writing a paper on a rogue phoenix or putting it in a test tube. And such a creature would be just as difficult to wrangle as rogue meteorites.

  “Sorry. I am often the bearer of bad tidings.” Her dad spread his hands helplessly.

  “Not your fault. I asked.” She took a deep breath. “I just hope that this doesn’t have anything to do with Lascaris. But it probably does . . . it’s probably something he got involved with in his time on earth. So I guess what I really hope is that it’s not a sign that he’s back, somehow.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Gabe has his watch. And it’s trying to start keeping time.”

  “I’ve been looking for clues about his whereabouts,” her dad offered. “I’ve taken a few trips into the spirit world, and . . .”

  “Dad. No.” She shook her head, slinging hair into her face. “I don’t want you risking yourself.” The spirit world was a dangerous place, and given her father’s fragile mental health, she feared losing him in it.

  The old alchemist’s shoulders drew up around his ears. “I do what I want, dammit.”

  And that was true. All the time that she’d known him, no one could dissuade him from taking off on quests. Being bound to a wheelchair was no obstacle to him.

  “Yeah, Dad.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know.”

  “The good news is that I haven’t seen any signs of Lascaris there. Yet. But things are unsettled in the spirit world. Lots of energy moving around, creatures hiding.” He frowned. “I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, but I will.”

  “Dad, please.” She reached forward and took his lined hands in hers. “
This isn’t good for you. Just leave it to Gabe and me. If he shows up in the physical world, Gabe will know about it. And if he’s in the spirit world, and he stays there, he can’t hurt us. Okay?”

  He looked away, his mouth stubbornly taut. She knew that she couldn’t force him to stay on this plane. She couldn’t force him to do anything, any more than her mother had been able to force him to stay home and be a dutiful husband and father.

  She let go of his hands. “So what does a phoenix want? How do we get it to stop torching the backcountry and . . . I dunno . . . go to sleep again?”

  Her dad looked her straight in the eye then. “I have no idea. But I can look—”

  “No. No!” she said, regretting even bringing any of these issues up with him. “You stay. Stay here and . . .”

  Her phone rang in her pocket, and she thumbed the button to answer. “Hello?”

  Her friend Maria’s voice came over the end of the line: “It’s Maria. Is it a good time?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “It’s Nine. She needs to see you, as soon as possible.”

  “Is she okay?” Petra blurted.

  “Yes, yes. She’s fine. But she needs to talk to you about something she saw in the Eye of the World.” Petra imagined that she could hear Maria’s lips pursing at the end of that. Maria had as much concern about Nine wandering into the spirit world as Petra had for her father.

  “Understood. I’m at the nursing home now, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Petra hung up and turned to her father. “I’ve got to go. Will you . . . will you stay here . . . and out of the spirit world if I bring you more muffins?” It seemed ridiculous to bribe a grown man this way, but she was desperate.

  Her father screwed up his face in thought. “Hmm. What kind?”

  “Any kind you want.”

  “More chocolate?”

  “Yes. I’ll bring you more chocolate muffins.”

  He nodded. “Okay, then.”

  “Great.” She leaned forward to kiss him on the top of his shaved head, resolving to bring lots of muffins and not bring up supernatural things with him when she returned. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Sig stood up from where he’d been draped over her father’s feet and stretched. Her dad scratched his ears before Sig followed Petra to the door. Petra slid out into the hallway, Sig tangled at her feet, and she closed the door.

  “Ms. Manget?”

  She turned. A woman with a stethoscope draped around her neck was holding a clipboard. Petra swore in the back of her head, knowing she’d been busted by someone with serious authority for having what looked like a dog in the nursing home.

  Sig was not worried. He cocked his head in his best “cute puppy” expression and perked up his ears. Damn. He was getting good at that manipulation.

  Petra cleared her throat. “Yes?”

  “I’m Dr. Vaughn. Can I speak with you?” No mention of Sig. The doctor was deliberately not looking at Sig, so Petra nodded.

  “Of course.”

  Petra followed the woman down another hallway to a small office. The office smelled like lavender. Behind a scratched metal desk stood a wall of files and a chair. Dr. Vaughn slid into the chair and gestured for Petra to sit on a sofa opposite the desk.

  Petra sat down, sinking deep into the chenille sofa. Sig wound around her feet and sat down, pretending to be a good service animal.

  Dr. Vaughn clasped her hands. They were spotted with freckles and the fingers decorated with rings. “I wanted to talk with you about your father’s condition.”

  “I am hearing that he’s not doing very well.”

  “Your father’s chart shows a lot of ups and downs. When he first came here, as you know, he was catatonic. He stayed in that state for years. He made a stunning improvement, against all odds, shortly after you found him a year ago. He had a good several months in which he was lucid for more days than not. He was generally aware of his surroundings, alert, and responsive. Even though he refused all therapy.”

  “Yeah. He’s not the most compliant guy. Getting him to talk to a therapist would be a tough sell.”

  “It’s not just behavioral therapy. He rejected physical therapy, too.” The doctor’s mouth turned down. “Despite rejecting physical therapy, we think he can walk. He just doesn’t want anyone to know. One of the orderlies has been leaving his favorite socks on a top shelf in his closet as a test. He seems to be able to get them down and on with no problem. And there’s lint on the bottom of the socks, like he’s been shuffling around.”

  “He’s a stubborn man.” This, Petra knew, was an immutable law of the universe. Like gravity. But her heart lifted at the idea that his physical health, at least, was improving.

  “Yes. In the last few months, though, we’ve seen a gradual decline in the amount of time he’s lucid. He has good days and bad days, but the bad days are outnumbering the good ones.”

  Petra leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “I’ve seen him when he’s not all there. He’s a handful.”

  “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, he’s very quiet, almost like the catatonic state he was in before. Other times, he’s grown violent. Last week, he took a swing at an orderly who was trying to wake him up for breakfast.”

  Petra frowned. “I didn’t know.”

  “Most of these incidents have centered around sleep, and they happen at night or early in the morning. The majority of the things that get moved around in his room move at night, too. I’m suspecting a sleep disorder of some kind. Possibly more than one. I’d like to run a sleep study on him, but he won’t allow monitors to be attached. He even tears off a heart monitor. We haven’t been able to get a good EKG for him for months.”

  Petra’s thoughts scraped against what she knew of her father. Perhaps he was dipping into the spirit world as he slept, and was coming back disoriented. But who knew? Maybe the old alchemist had figured out a way to levitate his socks to him from the top of the closet.

  “I’ve seen in his file that you have health care power of attorney over him,” Dr. Vaughn said. “We need to run some tests on him, like the sleep study and some brain imaging, to give us some information that will help us treat him and hopefully reduce the speed of his decline.”

  Petra flinched. “You didn’t say ‘reduce his decline.’ You said ‘reduce the speed of his decline.’”

  “Yes. Your father, sadly, is going to decline. It’s inevitable. We are honestly just trying to reduce the speed of it, to give him—and you—more time.”

  Petra didn’t want to lie to her father, and it seemed as if the doctor wasn’t going to lie to her. Petra stared down at her hands. She and her father had had little time together. He’d vanished when she was a teenager, and Petra had not found him again until a year ago. It wasn’t fair. There was just too little time. She sucked in a breath. “Regardless of whether I give you permission or not, he’s not going to submit to those tests.”

  “That’s why we want your permission to do so. We would have to restrain or sedate him in order to accomplish some of them. But, in consultation with my colleagues, we do agree that’s in his best interest.”

  Petra’s stomach churned. Allowing them to do this could very well sever the fragile bond she had with her father. “I don’t know.”

  “At the very least, we would like to set up a camera in your father’s room, so that we can more accurately gauge his sleep patterns and physical abilities.”

  “You want to . . . spy on my dad without him knowing?” It seemed like such an affront to what little dignity her dad had left.

  Dr. Vaughn made a little moue with her mouth. “Yes. That’s the least invasive way we can think of to figure out what he’s up to.”

  And what her father was up to . . . might involve things that should remain hidden. What if her father really had figured out a way to levitate his socks? What arcane rituals was he conducting with the tobacco mandala and coins at his bedside? What if he was talking to spirits at night?
Having a party with them? Her dad, at the very least, deserved privacy as a human being. If he was dabbling in alchemy, they couldn’t find out about that. Not ever.

  She shook her head. “No. No surveillance. I will talk to him, see if there are any tests he might willingly submit to. But I won’t force him.”

  Dr. Vaughn sighed and laced her glittering fingers together. “At least, think about it. What we learn about him could extend his life.”

  And that was the rub, wasn’t it? They might gain a few months, even years, by strapping him down and poking at him . . .

  . . . but her dad was going to die anyway. And she wasn’t ready for that.

  Chapter 6

  The Rattler Spills His Guts

  Nobody ever confessed their secrets without motivation.

  There were lots of motivations, to be certain. Sometimes secrets were disclosed for money. They could be told to impress or intimidate someone else, to gain unfair leverage. Sometimes people vomited them up to avoid punishment or to cut a deal with the law. Once in a while, they spilled their guts just to be able to sleep at night. When a secret came out, there was always a reason. And if there was one thing that Sheriff Owen Rutherford had learned in twenty years in law enforcement, it was just as important to know the reason behind spilling the beans as the secret itself. Knowing the light of one showed the shadow in the other, and the truth usually lay somewhere between the secret and the reason. And a secret was what had called him to the jail today.

  He had something else on his mind, to be certain. And that something was the Magpie Fire. The fire was out of his jurisdiction, burning on parkland. But that could change at any time. Owen had canceled all leave requests and sent as many deputies as he could spare to the border of his county and Yellowstone to close off roads, ferry supplies, and maintain order with the Park Service. He’d been spending his days developing evacuation plans in case the fire crept beyond the roadblocks and threatened civilians. Parkland was relatively easy to clear; people didn’t have homes and property that they would stay to defend. Enforcing an evacuation got tougher when a person’s whole life was in the path of the fire. And there were a whole lot of cantankerous old dudes in his county who felt like they were God with a fucking garden hose, able to start a Great Flood around the foundations of their houses.