Ah. That must be the point. The woman wanted her to know: I have my eyes on you, delinquent.
“What?” Ellie asked. “Do I need to sign a release form to be on your TV show?”
The woman didn’t respond—didn’t even smile or frown—so Ellie pushed ahead, determined to enjoy the damn rocks. She could ignore the rude interaction; that woman was a stranger, one of billions. Ellie would never see her again. As her father always said, “Bad vibes are water off a duck’s back. As you know, duck feathers are coated with hydrophobic oils that repel water. It’s crucial for their survival.”
The duck feather routine got wearisome, though. Ellie had brushed off more rudeness than she could quantify. Why did strangers take one look at her and think, This person is no good? Some of them probably treated all youth like potential troublemakers. That didn’t explain why, when she and Jay went to the local mall, loss prevention agents and security guards only followed Ellie around department stores.
Ellie called Kirby to her side. She touched his shimmering brow, and he affectionately leaned into her hand. Kirby may not have a cold wet nose or silky fur anymore, but his love for pats and scritches had survived death. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Good, good boy.”
The museum was an open space with rows of glass display cases. Ellie felt the camera’s gaze on her back as she approached the first case. It was filled with samples of fool’s gold and rainbow-glinting peacock ore. Two of her favorite minerals. She didn’t care that they cost nickels. They were beautiful.
As she leaned over the case, admiring each sample, Ellie wondered if her posture was too threatening. Maybe she should fold her hands behind her back to prove that she wouldn’t smash the display case and run off with enough mineral loot to buy a hamburger from McDonald’s. How long should she linger? Too quick, and she’d seem antsy. Too slow, and she’d seem covetous. Where were those cameras, anyway? No, don’t look. That might seem suspicious, too. Ellie didn’t want to look suspicious. But most of all, she didn’t want to seem bothered. Because why should Ellie moderate her behavior because of some mean woman? Why should she care about the opinions of a stranger?
Why did she care?
Her phone rang. Ellie had assigned personalized ringtones to all her family and friends; this ring was an energetic melody that reminded her of rah-rah cheer songs. She glanced at the screen. It read: “CALL FROM JAY.”
She answered, “What’s up, Baby Oberon?”
“Again? Hah. Is that my new name?”
“It depends. Do you love it or hate it? Can’t be ambivalent about a nickname.”
“I like it, but don’t drop the second part.”
“You are, like, ten millionth in line for the throne of black roses?” Ellie asked. “Doesn’t that make you some kind of royalty?”
“Not at all,” he said. “All I have is the power to make light. And not a lot of light, either. I can barely read a book with it.”
“Can your sister do magic too?” Ellie asked.
“No. She doesn’t practice like me, though.”
“Why not?” Ellie asked. “Is she worried about destabilizing reality? Pretty sure that’s not gonna happen with parlor tricks.”
“Ronnie says that cell phones make more light than twentieth-generation wisps, so there’s no point in wasting time on parlor tricks. Plus, she’s worried about the environmental impact of magic use. She can step through fairy rings, but that’s not actually a power. Still. Creating a little blip of light is way less damaging to the environment than ring transport. It’s like comparing the CO2 emissions of a motorized scooter to those of a whole airplane.”
“Y’all lucky,” Ellie said. “I’d give up my bike to travel between Austin and New York City in a millisecond. It’s not like I hate driving across Texas with my dad, but after hour six, my butt starts to fall asleep, and the whole road trip loses its charm.”
Simply put, fairy rings were portals powered by fae-realm magic and composed of fungi and flowers. There were Ring Transport Centers in most major cities. Ellie couldn’t use the rings, however, because all portal travel had to be approved and facilitated by fairy folk, and fairies didn’t like “strangers.” Strangers, in their opinion, constituted anybody without familial ties to at least one interdimensional person, commonly known as “fae.” That wasn’t Ellie. Every time she had to pay for an expensive airline ticket or miss a field trip, her disdain for the otherworldly snobs increased. It seemed cruel that humanoids from a different realm could discriminate against her—and others—on her own homeland. The “fair” in “fairy” didn’t stand for justice, however, and they didn’t care about any rules but their own.
“Sorry,” Jay said. “I wish I could help. There’s a loophole, you know.”
“Is it marriage?”
“Maybe.”
“I’d rather spend hours in a hot car, but thanks anyway.” She winked, which, in retrospect, was a waste of energy. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check on you,” Jay said. “Are your lungs okay? You didn’t inhale any river water, right? This guy I know told me about something called secondary drowning. Which … okay, so, it’s a fatal condition that can happen up to a day after you get water in your lungs. Are you having trouble breathing? Does your chest hurt?”
“Nah. Don’t worry. I feel great.”
“Um, okay. Be mindful about your oxygen intake.”
“If I stop breathing oxygen, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” he said, in a genuine way that made Ellie feel guilty about her use of sarcasm. “How’s the drive?”
“We’re taking a short break. I found a fossil shop. If they have something small and harmless, it’d be nice to practice waking up prehistoric ghosts. Keep my mind occupied.”
“Can you do that? I mean. Can you wake up extinct creatures?”
“Definitely,” she said. “My grandmother found a woolly mammoth tusk ages ago. It took, like, four decades, but the mammoth is now her best friend. She doesn’t need a car anymore. She just rides the mammoth to town when she needs groceries.”
“Are all your ancestors basically superheroes?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We live in the shadow of Six-Great, though. She had a better resume than most tall-tale characters.”
“That’s a glass-half-empty mindset. You’re an intergenerational team! Her shadow and your shadow are the same thing. Growing with time, soon eclipsing us all!”
“Thanks, Jay.” She smiled; Ellie wished they’d connected by video chat so he could appreciate how much he’d cheered her up.
“Ellie …” He trailed off.
“Uh-huh? What’s up?”
“What else can I do to help?”
She considered his question. Ellie did not know whether the police, based on Trevor’s autopsy results, would pursue a homicide investigation. As a person in a glass-half-empty mood, she suspected that the coroner would take one look at his injuries and write “accidental” on his death certificate. They might try to confirm the cause of death with a psychic, since psychic visions weren’t magic; like ghosts, they originated naturally, and could therefore be used in a court of law, much like expert testimony. However, police psychics were notoriously unreliable. It was difficult to have detailed visions on demand and easy to mistake imagination for the truth. Still, Ellie had promised to give the police a chance to react.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t start harmless information gathering.
“Actually, yes,” Ellie said. “How well can you research?”
“Very well,” Jay said. “Ronnie can lend me her student password to the Herotonic University digital library. They have books, newspaper archives, articles. Lots of stuff.”
“Google is your best friend for this task, I figure. We should learn more about Abe Allerton, the murderer. What kind of man is he?”
“A-b-e A-l-l-e-r-t-o-n?” Jay asked. “Is that how you spell it?”
“Hopefully. Try alternate spellings if that one does
n’t work.” She leaned against a wall and idly looked at a chest-high, violet-tinted geode beside her. If she squinted, it resembled a mouth with jagged crystal teeth. Before Ellie understood how geodes formed, she thought they were monster fossils. Imprints of ancient faces frozen in rage or yawning hunger.
“Abe Allerton,” Jay repeated. “He’s from Willowbee, Texas, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you know anything else about Abe?”
“He has a son who used to be in Tr—in my cousin’s third-grade class. Two years ago. Other than that? Abe is a stranger. I can’t even guess his motive.”
“I’ll do my best. Cyberstalking is easy, really. Everyone’s online somewhere.”
“Except my grandmother,” Ellie said. “Eh. Never mind. I forgot about the viral video. Somebody filmed her during a grocery run. The mammoth was invisible, so it looked like she was levitating ten feet above the ground.”
“Can you forward me that link?”
“Sure. Oh, and give me another call when you’re finished with research. I’ll be on the road until late tonight. Actually, we’re passing through Willowbee around nine. So if you can pin down information before then …”
“Fingers crossed,” he said. “Be safe.”
“You too. Jay, we don’t know how dangerous Abe is. Don’t draw his attention. Just do a basic search, okay?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Talk to you soon.”
As the call ended, Ellie stepped into a new row of display cases, and there it was: the fossil collection. Spiral ammonite shells, pocked coral, fanlike crinoids, and trilobites with delicate spines. There were shark teeth, too, but none came from a megalodon.
No matter. Ellie wanted to start small, anyway. Her grandmother did not make the jump from dog ghosts to mammoth ghosts overnight; she’d practiced on Cambrian cockroaches and puppy-sized dinos. The Earth’s old dead napped below a Mount Everest of younger souls. It helped to have a connection—a body imprint, tooth or shell or bone, preserved as rock—if you wanted to wake them.
Ellie lingered over each object, grasping for their ghosts. It became apparent that sight alone could not connect her to them; she needed to hold the fossils, feel their shape and size. She went to the gift store, a dimly lit room with several shelves of polished rocks, minerals, and fossils. Ellie chose a ten-dollar trilobite. The inch-long arthropod was trapped in a chip of limestone, but most of its body had been exposed and polished.
At the register, Ellie asked, “Do you know the species of this trilobite?”
The gift store cashier, a teenage version of the woman up front (perhaps they were mother and daughter), shrugged. “Not sure. How many species are there?”
“Over twenty thousand,” Ellie said. “According to your exhibit.”
“I haven’t visited the museum,” the cashier admitted. “This is just a summer job, and I’m not into rocks. Ten dollars, please.”
After the exchange of cash and change, Ellie asked, “Can I get a receipt?”
“Why? We don’t allow returns.”
“I know. Still need one, though.”
“Ahhh. Right.” The girl scribbled an itemized list on a Post-it note. “Here. This’ll have to do. Have a good day.”
“You too!”
Back in the convenience store, Ellie filled a Styrofoam cup with lukewarm coffee and carried it to the checkout counter. “Just this,” she said.
“Drink costs one dollar,” the beehive-haired cashier informed her. “Twenty-five cents extra if you want dairy creamer.”
“No creamer.”
“Did you pay for that fossil?”
“Sure did.” Ellie stuck the Post-it note to a one-dollar bill, slapped them both on the counter, and walked away.
Water off a duck’s back.
EIGHT
WHEN ELLIE AND HER father were ten miles from Willowbee, Jay called back.
Ellie had spent the past hour staring out her window, daydreaming about the shadows alongside I-35. If she concentrated, Ellie could feel her consciousness brush countless others; they were ghosts in the underworld Below. She wondered if she could wake them all up. How long would they play in the dark until they drifted off to sleep again? Could she entice the wild ghosts to follow her to Trevor’s grave like a funeral procession? Would their little parade frighten Abe Allerton from Willowbee so much, he’d confess everything about his crime to the police?
Like many daydreams, hers were unrealistic. Of course wild animals wouldn’t follow her. Ellie could no sooner command a dead doe than a living one. And in the case of the dead doe, it had the capability to tap into massively dangerous paranormal strength. Ellie pulled her consciousness away from the dozing dead. She didn’t want to risk an accidental stampede. Instead, she ran her fingers over the trilobite, memorizing its segments and shape.
Her phone played the familiar cheery tune. “You’re just in time,” Ellie said, answering Jay’s call. “I’m nine minutes from Willowbee. What did you find?”
“Tons. I’ll text you images later. Long story short, Abe Allerton is a family man, a Boy Scout leader, and he lives on the fringe of Willowbee. I even know his exact address, because he hosts charity events every month. Like, according to this public announcement, the Willowbee bicentennial celebration will be in his mansion this summer. Everyone’s invited. There’s a lawn party and a masquerade ball. He’s giving away a free trip to Hawaii.”
“Uh. Whoa.”
“Plus, based on reviews from Rate-a-Doc.com, his patients love him. Ellie, I have to ask something touchy …”
She braced herself for the question: Are you sure Abe is a murderer? He seems like a first-rate guy.
“Go ahead,” Ellie said.
“Are you sure you’re safe? Abraham Allerton is … well … he’s rich and connected. Remember those charity events I mentioned?”
“Yes. What about them?”
“He also hosts the Holiday Policeman’s Ball. Profits go to needy children. I’m not saying the police are in cahoots with a murderer, but—”
“I get it. Local law enforcement knows Dr. Allerton, and they probably like him. I need more proof. Any proof, besides a dream.”
“I wish I could help, but his online presence is sparkly clean. I can’t find a single negative article. Like … one person gave him four out of five stars on Rate-a-Doc, but she only subtracted points because—and I quote—‘Dr. Allerton is often busy, so it’s difficult to schedule appointments.’ That’s hardly a bad thing.”
“Ugh.” She rolled her fingers against the window pane, thoughtful. “How about this: text me his address. My dad can drive past the mansion and let us scope it out.”
“What was that, Ellie?” her father asked, pointedly lowering the radio volume.
“Don’t eavesdrop, Dad!”
“I’ll send it,” Jay said. “Promise you won’t get hurt?”
“Fortunately, due to parental supervision, I won’t have the chance to do anything risky. Anyway. I appreciate it. You’ve already helped a lot.”
After hanging up, Ellie took the GPS from its window mount. “Ellie,” her father said, with the stern I-so-do-not-have-time-for-this tone he used on misbehaving puppies at work.
“I’m just plotting a quick detour in Willowbee. My friend found Abe Allerton’s address.”
“Legally?”
“Completely. What, you think I know hackers?”
“Don’t all kids these days?”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”
Ellie’s phone beeped. An address popped into her messages: “19 Rose Road.”
“Ah, here it is, Dad. I can’t make you drive anywhere, but … you promised. Remember? We’ll honor certain last wishes together. As a family.”
“If it’s fast,” he said. “No getting out of the car.”
“That’s fine with me!” She punched the address into the GPS and turned up the radio, blasting his eighties rock. Her father promptly lowered the
volume to a respectable level.
“Don’t want to announce our presence with Bonnie Tyler,” he said.
They took the next exit and started driving through a strip of undeveloped country, a buffer between Willowbee and the hustle-bustle traffic on I-35. Alone on the two-lane road, her father turned on the brights. They were in a flat, prickly corner of Texas. Cacti, shrubs, and mesquite trees flanked the minivan, and tracts of grazing land were delineated by barbed wire fences. In the distance, Ellie saw a white rectangle. It appeared to be a sign of some kind. She could not make out its message yet.
Kirby barked once, sharply—an alert. He’d been riding in the back seat, a content shimmer. Kirby always traveled well. As a living English springer spaniel, he’d press his nose against the window and enjoy the view. He probably did the same as a ghost, but it was difficult to tell without his breath fogging the window.
“What is it, boy?” Ellie asked. She loosened her seatbelt and looked behind her. “Dad, did you hear that?”
“Kirby barked?”
“Yes. He’s not supposed to make sounds unless …”
“Hm?”
“Unless he senses danger.”
Willowbee was the kind of town that announced itself. As they neared the sign, Ellie read the cutesy-quaint slogan written in a whimsical, curling font: WILLOWBEE, TEXAS. POPULATION = JUST ENOUGH! The word Texas looked new, as if fresh paint had been applied over graffiti. Ellie wondered what the paint was hiding.
There was a symbol on the back of the sign, a plump, snakelike creature with squiggles radiating from its body.
“That must be their high school football mascot,” her father said, but he sounded uncertain.
The van skirted downtown Willowbee, a few blocks of well-maintained brick and wood buildings. Ellie saw a church, a shopping plaza, and a spired town hall. Outside the cozy library, a sign announced: HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY, WILLOWBEE! VISIT OUR HISTORY EXHIBIT TODAY! Tourists probably visited the town for a taste of old-fashioned Americana. The town architecture was unusual for the region; it seemed inspired by colonial New England.
Beyond the shopping district was a neighborhood of two-story wooden houses with too-green, freshly cut grass lawns. South Texas was naturally a dry, yellowish country during the best summers. That year, a drought had aggravated matters. In some cities, people barely had enough to drink. The lush grass of Willowbee must take daily watering. It had wealth.
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