Well, shit, she thought.
19
Manfred woke up the next morning thinking about Mamie. Since he was a great believer in taking a hint from his own brain, after he’d had his granola-bar breakfast he called Safe Harbor. He was connected to the room she shared with Suzie, and it was Suzie who answered the telephone.
“Hello?”
“It’s Manfred. How is Mamie?”
“Better,” Suzie said immediately. “She’s better! Your friend Fiji came, and she held Mamie’s hand and prayed over her or something. By that point, we wouldn’t have minded if she’d gotten out a feather headdress and danced around the bed with a rattle. But she closed her eyes and her lips moved, Fiji’s I mean, and Mamie’s sleep got better, more natural. Her legs quit moving, and she didn’t toss and turn any more. This morning she woke up and asked for breakfast!”
“I’m so glad. Has she walked any?”
“Just to the bathroom and back, but that was more than she’s done in days.”
“That’s great! That’s just . . . great.” Manfred couldn’t think of eloquent words.
“We’re so relieved. Maybe she’ll gain her ground back, now.”
“I hope so. I’ll be over to visit in a day or two.”
“Bring me a Hershey bar! With almonds!”
He smiled. Suzie had a sweet tooth, especially for chocolate. “I will,” he said. “Let me know if anything changes, okay?”
“Sure, kid. Thanks for getting that Fiji to come. It’s the weirdest thing, neither Tommy nor me can remember her leaving.”
“What?” Abruptly, Manfred was less happy.
“Yeah. I guess we were so tired watching over Mamie that we fell asleep. She must think we’re a couple of old farts. But that’s okay with me. She pulled the iron out of the fire.”
“I’m glad she could help.” Manfred hung up. He didn’t know what to make of Tommy and Suzie’s falling asleep. But he felt much better, on the whole, so he was inclined to dismiss it.
Manfred knew—in the grand scheme of things, as Xylda used to say—that Mamie couldn’t live many more years, or perhaps many more months or weeks, even. But if she could live and enjoy that time, he would be happy. She was such a sweetie. He couldn’t remember her ever saying a bad word about anyone.
Except Shorty Horowitz, one of the other seniors who had been at the Midnight Hotel. Mamie hadn’t been fond of Shorty.
And she’d said something less than flattering about Fiji, when they’d been eating at Home Cookin. In fact, she’d referred to Fiji as “lard butt,” and he’d had to remind Mamie that Fiji was his friend.
Manfred had forgotten that until now. He considered the irony, that it was Fiji who had saved Mamie from mental torment. And he was sure that Fiji would have done so even if she’d known of Mamie’s disparaging comment. Manfred postponed work to cross Witch Light Road and thank her.
He found Fiji sitting on her back porch, Mr. Snuggly at her side. She looked stern, an expression he’d never seen on Fiji’s face before—aside from the time she’d gotten so exasperated at a private detective named Shoshanna that she’d frozen her in her in place. While Shoshanna had stood there, immobile, in Fiji’s driveway, Fiji had driven away. And her face had borne this same expression.
“Good morning,” Manfred said, approaching cautiously.
Her face lightened. “Oh, hi,” she said. “I hope your friend is better.”
“That’s what I came to tell you,” he said. “She is. She seems at peace, and she got up and walked a little today. And not in our direction.”
“Good to hear,” Fiji said. “Want a cup of tea? Got the time?”
Manfred glanced at his watch. “Sure, I have a few minutes.”
In no time at all, he was ensconced in the chair beside hers, with a cup of tea. He’d declined an English muffin.
“Does it bother you, what Chuy and Joe said?” he said, after a period of comfortable silence, broken only by the licking sounds of Mr. Snuggly cleaning his paws.
Fiji gave him a blank look.
“That they see ghosts. Did you know that?”
“No, it doesn’t exactly bother me,” Fiji said, though she looked uncomfortable. “I guess you mean, does it bother me that they see my great-aunt.”
Manfred nodded.
“Maybe it should,” Fiji said. “That might indicate her spirit isn’t at rest. But I don’t know that’s actually what it means.” Her shoulders rose, fell. “Maybe she made such an impression on her surroundings that a simulacrum repeats her actions. Maybe it means she’s serving time in purgatory. I can’t determine why they see her. So it would be kind of silly to get all worked up over it. I think I’m more—maybe ‘concerned’ is the word?—that they’ve been seeing ghosts all this time and this is the first I’ve known about it. Did they not trust me with the information?”
“I thought the same thing,” Manfred said.
“It would be interesting to know exactly what these ghosts are doing. Are they creating new actions and actually living some kind of life? Are they simply repeating patterns they established when they were alive? Are these the same kind of ghosts that show up at your séances?”
“I wondered all that, too,” Manfred said, relieved. “If they are the same, you’d think I could see them, right? After all, I’m kind of in the ghost business. Spirit business. Whatever. I guess I’m feeling some professional jealousy.”
“Would you want to see ghosts like they do? All the time?” Fiji was very serious, and he gave the idea some thought.
“I don’t think I’d want to every day,” Manfred said finally. “But maybe if I could switch it on and off, it would be . . . interesting.”
“I would not want to see Price Eggleston stab himself every day,” Fiji said.
“God, no!”
“Or Aubrey.” She’d been Bobo’s girlfriend. “I didn’t like her when she was alive. And she looked pretty awful dead. That’s another question I want to ask Chuy and Joe. Do the ghosts look like their living selves?”
“Maybe we can just ask them.”
“Maybe. We’d sure have to pick the right moment.”
“Fiji? What are they?” This was the first time Manfred had dared to ask.
“I think you know what they are,” she said.
“Are they . . . really angels?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, what do I think?” Manfred translated her expression. “I think they are. But they’re not the kind of angel that was in Jesus’s tomb.”
“No,” Fiji said. “They’re not. I’m sure they’re fallen.”
“What did they do wrong, you think?”
Fiji drank some tea while she thought about her answer. She said, “You know how when Jesus came, he brought a new philosophy. Before that, the word of God was always along the lines of, ‘I’m going to smite your enemies if you’re faithful to me, and you can take an eye for an eye.’ Well, under the new policy, you were supposed to turn the other cheek every time you were struck. Here’s my theory, and it’s based on tiny bits of conversations I’ve had with them over the years. Chuy and Joe just couldn’t make that change. They couldn’t agree to turn their other cheeks. So here they are.”
Manfred digested that, once he’d gotten over his surprise that she’d actually answered him. He said, “Their punishment was being banished to Midnight?” That was faintly amusing.
She laughed. “Yeah, doesn’t seem right, does it? Let me remind you, this is just my theory. I only know they were humans hundreds of years ago, then angels, and now they’re sort of in between.”
“But they have families! I remember when Chuy’s family came to visit.”
“They reconnected with their descendants,” Fiji said. “And somehow got them to believe they remember them. That’s a lot of pronouns, but you understand. The des
cendants believe Joe and Chuy are current relatives. It’s a comfort to Joe and Chuy, and they can do some good for their families that way.”
Manfred nodded. “I can see that they don’t believe in waiting for after-death justice,” he said. “When I think about the Lovells.”
Fiji nodded back at him. “Big clue,” she said. She sat forward in her chair, and he realized it was time for him to go.
“Good-bye, Fiji, and thanks again for helping Mamie,” he said. “You’re a good neighbor to have, and I know she would tell you how much she appreciates it if she were a little more together.”
“De nada,” Fiji said. “I better open up the shop.”
“Me, too,” Manfred said. “Time to start answering phones.” He reached down and scratched Mr. Snuggly’s head, which the cat accepted regally. “Have a good day, Snug. Hey, how does it feel to know that Rasta’s owners are angels?” The cat strolled away with his tail held high, as if he had barely noticed Manfred.
Fiji laughed as she stretched. “Are you trying to put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day?” She was only partially kidding. “Mr. Snuggly feels it very deeply that I’m just a witch, and Joe and Chuy aren’t human anymore. On the other hand, Snug can talk. Rasta’s just a bunch of fur and bone, Snug always says.”
“I’ll try to be more tactful,” Manfred told her. He worried a little about Fiji as he was crossing the road. She’d given him much more information than he’d expected, almost as if she weren’t thinking about what she was saying. Abstracted. She’d seemed abstracted. As if she were thinking about something else entirely.
He shrugged. She hadn’t complained or asked for his help. As he went back into his own house, Manfred was thinking, I know a pair of angels. I talk to angels. I live on the same street as angels. And across from a talking cat and a witch. And yet, he admitted to himself, this didn’t feel strange at all. It felt quite normal.
20
Fiji was not a happy witch. She remembered over and over that she’d deliberately caused pain to Teacher.
But she’d felt it was necessary, and nothing had happened to change her conviction. Necessary steps (maybe necessary evils) didn’t always make you feel good afterward.
Plus, she’d called Bobo when she’d promised herself she would not do so again.
Plus, the creature was talking to her.
Its voice was not coming as frequently, which she figured was due to the fact that no one had died at the crossroad in five days, but she still felt it thinking at her.
Fiji was glad she had several customers that morning, and that not a single one of them was suicidal. Fiji would have enjoyed closing the shop for lunch and walking down to Home Cookin, but she wasn’t ready to face Madonna.
Fiji had a strong feeling that Teacher would know why he had been stricken, and she was pretty sure he’d share that with his wife. If he did, Madonna was not the kind of woman to take an attack on her husband lying down. Madonna would find some way to retaliate, if she got the chance. Better, and safer, to eat canned soup and grilled cheese in her own kitchen . . . if only she’d had some soup. Her Piggly Wiggly trip had not been as comprehensive as she would have liked.
Feeling irritated with herself, and therefore the world, Fiji pulled on her jacket and walked over to Gas N Go. She had completely forgotten about the new manager until he looked up from his card game. Not tarot, she saw. Solitaire.
“Oh, hi, new guy,” she said. “I’m Fiji Cavanaugh, I live in the house with the Inquiring Mind sign in the front.” He was good-looking in a very stern and dark way, but she found she wasn’t afraid of him as she often was of overtly lovely people.
“Fiji,” he said, tilting his head courteously. “I’m Sylvester Ravenwing. Can I help you today?”
“I need soup,” she said.
“Second aisle, second shelf on the left,” he said, and went back to his game.
It was kind of pleasant to be left in peace. Teacher, in his interim stint as manager, had always been so glad to see someone that it had sometimes been hard to get out of the store, and Shawn Lovell had always been so eaten up by his worries that shopping had been something of an ordeal.
“So, you think you’ll be here for a while, Sylvester?” Fiji asked. She put the can of Campbell’s Bean and Ham on the counter.
“I do think so,” he answered. “This all you want?”
“Yep. See you.”
He nodded as graciously as Queen Elizabeth II and went back to his card game as soon as he’d handed over her change.
On her way home, Fiji realized that Midnight had its own little rainbow. Madonna and Teacher and Grady were African American, Sylvester was Native American, and though Suzie hadn’t lived at the hotel for long, she had been born in Hong Kong. Midnight, crossroads of the world, she thought, and smiled to herself.
Back in her own warm kitchen, Fiji added some leftover vegetables to the soup as it was heating and got out her frying pan for the grilled cheese sandwich. She was so hungry she considered making two and sliced extra cheese.
Fiji was surprised to hear a knock at her back door while the first sandwich was sizzling in the pan. She sighed heavily, to show the fates how reluctant she was, before she answered the door. “Olivia,” she said, trying to sound welcoming. “What can I do for you?”
“You can make me a grilled cheese sandwich,” Olivia said. “That smells great, Fiji. And while we eat, I have something to talk to you about.”
“Okay.” Fiji was mildly interested. She and Olivia were not bosom buddies, but Olivia was never boring. Fiji popped another sandwich into the skillet. In a very few minutes, Olivia having declined any soup, they were sitting at the kitchen table together eating and talking.
“Lemuel has a new vampire buddy,” Olivia said, apropos of nothing.
It was easy for Fiji to see this was not a good thing to Olivia. “I’m guessing you’re not crazy about this development?” she said.
“It’s a woman,” Olivia answered.
“Oh. Gotcha.” But after she thought about it longer, Fiji wasn’t sure she really did. “Surely you don’t think Lemuel is two-timing you?”
“No.” Olivia’s face was grim. “But she’s got something he needs, and he bought her from Joseph Velasquez.”
“What’s she got that Lemuel needs?”
“She can read Etruscan.”
“Well, shit. No way to compete with that.” Fiji was bewildered but also amused.
Olivia laughed, a harsh sound. “Nope. Since I don’t think anyone left in the world except a few vampires can speak or read fluent Etruscan.”
“So why does Lemuel need an Etruscan speaker? Oh, wait. The travelogue, the one he’s been trying to translate . . . and it was taking him so long, right? That’s in Etruscan.”
Olivia nodded. “So until the book is translated, we’ve got little Miss Subservient living with us.”
“What’s her name?”
“Christine something. She’s from Dallas; she lived in a vampire nest there. Lemuel has nothing to do with them, especially Joseph, the leader.”
“How did he know Lemuel needed an Etruscan speaker?” Fiji was confused.
“He didn’t until we showed up asking for one. We found Christine in the Vampire Directory. So we gave Joseph, the sheriff, a present, and he gave us Christine. Whose maker was Dr. Parker Quigley.”
“Am I supposed to recognize that name?” Fiji was embarrassed. “I don’t.”
“I didn’t, either,” Olivia said. “Don’t feel bad. As I’ve since found out, Dr. Quigley was a kind of shady and scary guy in his day—surprise, surprise. Because of his research into ancient Egyptians and ancient Roman burial customs and rituals. Anyway, while he was doing more research, he eventually ran across an Etruscan vampire named Arria Auclina.” Olivia pronounced the name carefully: Ar-REE-ah Aw-CLEE-nah.
“An
d this Arria Auclina made him a vampire.”
“You got it. She was pretty excited that someone was interested in her people. And she taught Dr. Quigley Etruscan, to keep the language alive. And then he taught Christine. In another huge enormous totally unbelievable coincidence, Dr. Quigley was the vampire Lemuel ran across in New Orleans. He gave him a dictionary, to help in translation. But the dictionary was pretty crappy, as it turns out, so that’s one reason Lemuel’s had such slow going getting the book translated.”
“This is kind of convoluted,” Fiji said.
“No shit. Joseph, who evidently is Christine’s boss, decided she was expendable. Turns out the vampires of Dallas have been feeling ‘bad emanations’ from Midnight.”
“That’s a lot of vampires thinking about us. I’ve always been glad Lemuel kept them away from here,” Fiji said. “When the daytime people were here looking for Barry, it made my skin crawl.”
Olivia looked at Fiji doubtfully. “You’re not saying Lemuel makes your skin crawl,” she said, in the tone of someone who is just making certain of a fact.
“No, I’m used to Lemuel and I talk to him the same way I talk to anyone else.” Though I almost always think before I speak with Lemuel, Fiji added silently.
“He’s one of a kind,” Olivia said proudly. “Almost literally. At least, he’s really rare.”
Fiji carried the plates and her bowl over to the sink. “So I guess you have a goal in coming to visit? Not that I’m not glad to see you and share lunch and a good story with you,” she said over her shoulder.
“I do have a purpose,” Olivia admitted promptly. “Lemuel happened to be outside Teacher and Madonna’s trailer last night, and he heard them talking about you. Teacher said he’d been in your house, and you’d caught him, and then evidently you paid him back?”
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