“Money might be a big issue,” Maston commented. “People don’t want the gold standard anymore. I can’t blame them. Who needs gold right now? Most folks aren’t starving. There’s lots in the stores left. I got people collecting up canned and dried goods to keep on reserve. Plus there’s a ton of MREs from one of the military bases around here. But in a few years, we’ve got to have farmers growing crops and raising herds of the animals we need.”
I didn’t say anything because he was right.
“I just got a note from a fella down South who says he’s got a herd of dairy cows.” Maston grinned suddenly. “We can thank him for the cheese and the butter. But he’s got a problem with some kind of critter that is killing some of his people. A new critter. Apparently, it’s got one giant lizard like body and a bunch of heads.”
Suddenly, I understood why I was here. I was the communication device that was vital. And I had said something to McCurdy about leaving. Time for a little one-on-one meeting with the moody seventeen-year-old. Draw her back in. Make her an offer she can’t refuse.
“And you want me to go see if I can talk to it, er, them?”
Maston nodded. “There’s the clever young woman I know that you are.”
And there’s the smooth charismatic politician that I knew he was. Color me cynical.
“McCurdy said something to you,” I said.
The President nodded. “You’re one of a kind so far. There’s a lot of right special folks wandering into the Capital every day, but you, you can do something that we desperately need.”
I bit the side of my cheek and winced. I hated when people did that. “We need you, Sophie. Only you can do this.” Wait, no one had really said that to me before. Except maybe Zach, and I didn’t remember him saying he needed me. (Didn’t saying “I love you” mean something similar? It made me want to do the pouty face that had always irritated my mother to no end.)
I wanted Zach. I wanted to be back in California. I had left trying to find something. Now I knew exactly what I was missing. That was my home. Zach and the others were my family. Spring and the other firefly pixies, and even Lulu, were my family, too, and I needed all of them.
The President was speaking again, and I had missed some of it. Then the gist of it wandered into my feeble brain.
“You’re offering me a job?” I asked incredulously.
Maston nodded. “Sure. I don’t think we could do this thing without you.”
“What if I left anyway?”
The President guffawed loudly. “I reckon we’d have to persuade you to come back, now wouldn’t we?” And somehow it didn’t sound like a joke to me.
Chapter 16
What Was I Thinking?
Without knowing why it had happened, I felt as if I had been backed into a corner. On one side, the President said that he needed me. He needed Sophie. I knew that he needed someone like me to smooth things over with the new animals and to help with understanding why things had changed. On the other hand, I saw things I didn’t like. The people who had the special connections with new animals were segregated from the other people. I was the single exception, and somewhere in the depths of my brain, I suspected it was because the President thought he needed me too much to alienate me. More importantly, I saw that some of the people in the new administration took advantage of their positions, like Mario and Jack. They didn’t bring up the fact that I had bitch-slapped Mario, but I also didn’t bring up the fact that they were a little too demanding and way too grabby. I suspected that if I had, I’d get a whole “Oh shucks, ‘twaren’t nothing but a big ol’ misunderstanding” response.
The government wasn’t the democratic nation of equals that it had pushed itself to be.
Landers’ last words to me were etching a hole in my brain. “She’ll have to decide for herself. I’m not going to make it easy for her because—” I was going to have to track him down and force some answers out of him. Then I was going to have to talk to that solitary girl with the large eyes and the puma mark, sitting isolated in the lobby as if her heart was breaking.
It wasn’t as easy as I had thought. Work details were emerging, and people scattered to the four winds. I couldn’t find Landers or the girl with the mark on her face. The people with special connection to new animals didn’t want to speak with me, not even the girl with the green hair and the snake.
And I had things to do. I had animals to talk to. I had to continue working to keep a worried peace between the old and the new. Busy became my new middle name.
I settled into a troubled routine. Some days Lulu, the firefly pixies, and I would go out into the greater Washington D.C. metroplex and talk to new animals. We compiled a list of beings in the area. Not all of them were friendly. Some of them were very unfriendly. Some of them wanted nothing to do with humans. Some of them had human counterparts already. Some of them were like the hydra and needed bribery to work out details, but it wasn’t the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced, and life was teaching me some skills I had never mastered such as patience and tactfulness.
Other days we helped scrounge for whatever was deemed necessary. Still, other days I spent in the Library of Congress reading about mythological creatures. It turned out that sometimes there was a grain of salt in some of the legends. Sometimes.
Sometimes I saw McCurdy and the military he’d helped to create. They brought things back they thought were useful. There were machines they thought they could cut up and adapt to steam engines or things they thought they might be able to use in a manual method. Sometimes the things were covered up as if they didn’t want everyone to know. Sometimes I even wondered what they were trying to hide, but I chalked it up to McCurdy being inscrutable, which was ultimately one of my mistakes. McCurdy also brought back reports from distant groups of humans, discussing what they saw and what was in their areas.
I read the reports about various other creatures. Then we would travel there. We didn’t go more than a few hundred miles away from the District. I also made friends. The people who were in the District were there for the same reasons that I was. They wanted to find out what their role was in the new world. They wanted to find out what was next. Even McCurdy was on that level in some capacity.
Time slipped past. I allowed things to slip away that I should have attended to before, that. I realized later I had become complacent. Then, there was no longer time left.
The first day that the cherry blossoms started to bloom around the tidal basin, the President announced there would be a party at the Naval Observatory. Special invitations were sent to those who were key to President Maston’s administration. I didn’t have an official title. (My unofficial title was only in my mind. The Prez’s animal freakoid was what usually popped into my head.) But I did get the special invite. So did Lulu. As a matter of fact, there were a number of people who were invited, and I couldn’t understand rhyme or reason for it.
Lulu dragged me into Georgetown for a dress. “You have to dress correctly,” she told me with a superior smirk. We got a ride on one of the steam-powered wagons on its way into Arlington for something or other. We strolled down M Street, which Lulu informed me had the best shops. “Had” was the operative word. I just hoped that we could find a dress that matched my combat boots. Also, I needed something that went well with Japanese broadsword. It couldn’t be just anything.
As I tried on various dresses, I thought about Zach. I hadn’t dreamed about him for two months, and it was bothering me. I wanted to dream about him. I wanted to have the inane dream conversation with him. I wanted to tell him I was coming home as soon as I wrapped up the party. I saw their need for me, but I was needed elsewhere, and I had made a promise.
Lulu frowned at me and dragged me into the front of the store where the light was streaming in from the windows. She made me twirl twice and blinked as she read the tag. “Victorian, gothic, flamenco cocktail dress,” she said. “Black, of course.”
The dark color made my skin look as pale as mil
k. I tended not to tan, even though I spent a lot of time outside. The dress showed my scars on my shoulder and back, but I didn’t really care. It also showed that my muscles in my arms were pleasingly carved from using the broadsword in practice. The frothy lace on the bottom half of the dress danced around me as I spun around. All I needed was fishnet stockings.
Lulu read my mind and held up a package of the right kind of stockings. “If you have to wear the boots, then here you go.”
She directed me to a full length mirror and stood behind me. “You need a haircut and makeup,” Lulu pronounced. “You go down three doors on the right and find Zizi. She does hair and has a pretty good business. I’ve already paid. I’ll look for my dress.”
I stared at myself. The last time I had really looked in a mirror, I hadn’t looked like this. I looked grown-up, and startled, I realized I had passed my eighteenth birthday and hadn’t even remembered. The woman looking back at me was the same height with the same shock of black hair. Her eyes seemed to be a softer gray, the color of a dove’s wing. Her face was sculpted with high cheekbones I would have killed for in high school. There was a long neck and a toned body covered with black lace and a black leather bustier emphasizing her breasts and the slightness of her waist. She didn’t look like me. She looked exotic and wild. That woman needed a sword in her hand and fire truck red lipstick. I blinked and tried to adjust my eyes. The person in the mirror blinked, and her eyes widened. Oh, it was me, but I just wasn’t going to get used to that.
Spring flew into the room and dropped into my hair, breaking my concentration. “Soophee looks like a giant dark flower,” she sang. It took me a moment to understand that Spring was trying to compliment me. They didn’t wear clothing, and they didn’t really understand why we did, especially when the weather was good.
“Thank you,” I sang back. “I’m telling them tonight that we’re leaving. I haven’t said anything to Lulu yet, so don’t talk to her.” Lulu had learned some of the firefly pixies’ language. Mostly, she could ask how they were doing or announce that she had to go to the bathroom, but she was working on it.
“Good,” Spring sang chirpily. “The sisters are ready to return.”
I changed back into jeans and a baseball jersey. Then I carefully wrapped the dress into plastic that I could carry and went down the block. The firefly pixies exploded onto M Street, headed for a patch of tulip blooms in pots in front of a deserted restaurant. I saw several butterflies heading for the hills before I went inside the place Lulu had directed me to.
Zizi was a dark-skinned woman who had an exotic accent from the Caribbean. She had come to the District in the nineties and never left, even when her entire family had vanished. She cut hair in exchange for food or other items she needed. Lulu had already traded with Zizi in order to get me to have my hair done.
Clora was sitting in one of the chairs when I entered. Her belly was large enough to compare to a watermelon, and she rested her hands on top of the lump while Zizi trimmed her carroty hair. Zizi glanced at me and said, “With you soon, gorgeous.”
I sat down and looked at a magazine that discussed why premarital sex was pertinent to good relationships. I didn’t want to think about that. It made me think of Zach. I thought I had grown up as much as I was going to get. Had I gotten the answers I wanted by running away to Washington, D.C.? Mostly. Was I ready for that relationship with Zach? I didn’t know. But there was only one way to find out.
Clora saw my dress while Zizi was finishing her hair and made me take the plastic off to show it to her. Both older women eyed me oddly and then the dress.
“It’s certainly your style,” Zizi said. “Will you be wearing the sword with it?”
“And the boots,” I said firmly without hesitation.
“You’ll look beautiful,” Clora said. She winced and tentatively patted her belly. “Braxton Hicks contractions. The baby’s practicing to come out. With my luck, it’ll be tomorrow.”
Zizi suddenly stood still with one hand resting on Clora’s shoulder. The comb she held in the other hand stayed in midair, and her eyes stared into space. “No, she’ll be here in a few weeks. Maybe less.”
The voice was so firm that neither of us doubted her. Occasionally someone said something or did something that reminded us that we were survivors for a specific reason.
“Healthy?” Clora asked hopefully.
“Oh, she’ll be as healthy as a horse,” Zizi said but it didn’t sound as positive as I would have thought. I couldn’t help thinking about it, and the words zinged through my head. “She’ll be as healthy as a horse,” not “You’ll both be healthy as horses.”
My eyes connected with Zizi’s brown ones. There was a message there, and she shook her head minutely at me.
Clora brushed off her lap and lumbered to her feet with a groan. “I won’t be able to walk much longer,” she said. “My ankles are swelling. Doctor says it’s normal though.”
Zizi pointed at me and then the chair. As I sat, Clora looked expectantly outside the window. “Looks like it’s going to be sixty degrees today. I’ll take my time. The baby’s bouncing around so much that I won’t be able to go fast.”
“Sit down, and I’ll find you transport,” I said. “I saw a wagon on the corner up the street. Scroungers are going through that city block. It shouldn’t be a problem to—”
Clora smiled. “I’ll enjoy the walk. It’s only a mile and a half.”
I frowned at Clora’s back as she went out the door. When the door shut, and Clora disappeared to the left, I said, “What did you see, Zizi?”
Zizi brushed my hair and then spritzed it with water. “You won’t tell her.”
“Not unless there’s something I can do to change it,” I said.
“No, there’s no way to change this,” Zizi said sadly. “The baby will be fine.”
“The baby will be,” I repeated, “but not Clora. What if we have the doctor look at her again?”
I looked into the mirror in front of me and watched a woman I had met once before. She was in her early sixties. Her hair was a curly gray cap. Her skin was burnished mahogany. She knew things, and I didn’t have to confirm this. She was like Gideon and some of the others I had met. She had known about her gift for years, but she never used it. Most importantly, she didn’t talk about it now.
Zizi took a deep breath. “She’s not there in my head.”
I waited. Zizi began to cut my hair. She didn’t ask what I wanted done. Lulu had probably informed Zizi how to cut it. Unless it was a spiked Mohawk, I didn’t really care. Finally, Zizi’s glance caught mine again. “Clora vanishes in my head. Once she gives birth, it’s as if she simply disappears.”
Lulu came in, carrying an opaque plastic garment bag and whistling “American Pie.” A cloud of firefly pixies followed her and swarmed over the beauty shop. Zizi blinked at the green pixies surrounding her. She gently shooed one off her scissors.
“Soophee is missing HAIR!” one of the pixies sang/shrieked. They were outraged until I explained it would grow back. Theirs wouldn’t.
“Let me finish,” Zizi said softly and continued. The firefly pixies supervised and made suggestions after Lulu turned a few pages in the books for them. I didn’t bother translating the suggestions.
“Let’s do some makeup,” Lulu said. “Foundation. Blush for those high cheekbones and eyeliner. A really cool eyeliner. Cleopatra-like to match the dress.”
I would have blown her a raspberry, but I didn’t want to move while Zizi was trimming my ends. I tried to figure out what Zizi meant. I didn’t know what Zizi had seen or hadn’t seen in her head. “Did you see her dying?” I whispered. I didn’t really want to ruin Lulu’s day.
Zizi shook her head, avoiding my eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “It doesn’t work that way. She’s just not there anymore. Don’t ask me anymore. It hurts to think about it.”
Two more women came into the shop. Zizi was doing a booming business. Just about everyone had been invited to th
e Naval Observatory for dinner and dancing, and just about everyone was dressing up for the occasion. After all, it had been a grim eight months. People were just beginning to get past what the change had done. They had formed new relationships and found other purposes in life.
And it had been five months since I had seen Zach. And it had been ten minutes since I had last thought about him.
Oh yes, I was leaving. I didn’t care if they wouldn’t let me ride their train. I didn’t care if I had to walk the entire way. All 2,950 miles of it.
But first I had to make sure of a few things.
One, I had to make sure that Lulu didn’t die.
Two, I had to find out what was going to happen to Clora and consequently prevent it.
Three, I had to find out why Landers and the others were ticked off and fix it.
Four, I needed to convince Maston or McCurdy that they needed to get a clue or their whole “Let’s rebuild the U.S. of A.!” was going to fail miserably.
I let Zizi dab on makeup and do eyeliner, but I wouldn’t let her do the whole dark gothic princess thing. Lulu was severely disappointed I wouldn’t go for the tiara with the black rhinestones.
What could I say?
Chapter 17
The Plot Thickens…
Lulu loftily informed me that her transformation was going to take time. She would meet me later at the hotel. I was instructed to change and be ready to leave at sunset. I was also informed that I would not mess up my makeup under pain of death. Leaving Lulu at the mercy of Zizi, I trudged back to the hotel, unable to get a ride because the wagon I saw before was long gone by the time I got there. I did make one stop and broke into a shop near George Washington University. I didn’t really break in because someone had been there before me and the lock was broken. I wasn’t adhering to the no-looting mandate, but I didn’t care. They had cleaned out all of the things I didn’t want and left some of the things I did want. And even more surprisingly, they had what I wanted in a woman’s style, designed to be worn with evening apparel. It only needed a few adjustments before it would go with the dress I had picked. I even got two because I was going to use both. I almost smiled to myself. Almost.
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