Stray Magic

by Jenny Schwartz

  “Digger!” I shouted.

  Tabby took that as an excuse to lurch forward.

  “Stand down,” Digger ordered, his sergeant voice bellowing across the yard.

  Tabby froze.

  I straightened cautiously, but kept a hand on her collar till introductions had been made and Tabby accepted Jarod.

  “We’ll work on her taking orders from you,” Digger said to me.

  I nodded. Tabby was too dangerous to run free if she only listened to him.

  “You have the back corner room over the kitchen,” Stella said to Jarod. By her focus on him, it was clear Mike hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said his son was a favorite with her. She smiled and patted his arm, and he smiled down at her with relaxed affection.

  Then he aimed his smile in my direction. “I’ll dump my gear and come help you. Clearing out the shed will go quicker with another pair of hands.” He wasn’t as tall or as wide as Digger, being more on the wiry side, but Jarod looked fit with a working man’s muscles rather than a gym-body. If he’d arrived a few minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have had to argue with Stella about her over-exerting herself. Jarod and I could handle cleaning out the shed before the geese arrived just fine.

  He disappeared into the house for a few minutes, and re-emerged without Stella, and with his shoulder-length blond hair tied back in a ponytail. “Stella’s making lunch. She doesn’t think we’ll sort the junk appropriately, but she’ll correct our efforts later.” He grinned at me and kept talking. His chatting didn’t seem to slow his work rate.

  He’d been living in Baltimore and working as a window cleaner. “Office windows.”

  I shuddered. “I hate heights.”

  “No problem. I never feel freer than when I’m up high. I’ll handle all kittens from trees rescues and replacing roof shingles.”

  “I don’t think we have any kittens.”

  “Ah! You’re a literalist. You and Stella will get along well.”

  We traded life stories. He was only a couple of years older than me, but had worked a number of different jobs.

  He saved his best story for when we gathered to eat lunch. “I saw a griffin up close and personal in Baltimore night before last. That’s when I decided to come home. I like to sit on the roof of my apartment building. It was still light out, but not really. Colors were going gray. From the corner of my eye I saw this big shape. I turned and it was a griffin. I’ve seen lions in the zoo, but this was easily double that size, and while it had a lion’s body and four paws, it had an eagle’s head and wings. Except it wasn’t really a blend of the two. It was just itself.”

  I nodded, understanding what he meant. I’d seen images of griffin sightings. Most people were paying attention to the dragons and ogres, but the griffins fascinated me. They didn’t look regal like the dragons or brutal like the ogres. They seemed fierce. More than the other creatures, the images of them struck me as showing personality and judgement. The griffins were watching us.

  “The streetlights had come on,” Jarod said. “They lit the griffin from beneath, making it look as if his body and feathers shimmered with gold. Frankly, he didn’t look as if he ought to be able to fly. His body was too massive for his wings. But there he was, soaring along the street at just my eye level. Some idiot in the street fired a gun. Then more people joined in. When the bullets started hitting high up on the buildings I realized they were trying to shoot the griffin. He didn’t appear to notice the bullets at all. But he noticed me.”

  Jarod paused to eat. An infuriating smirk showed he loved having us hanging on his every word.

  Digger scooped more potato salad onto his plate. The homemade dish was studded with thick chunks of ham.

  I crunched on a piece of celery.

  “The griffin looked at me with one massive eye, and that eye was so intelligent. It felt as if he’d read my soul in a split second.” Jarod wasn’t smirking any more. “That’s when I understood that these creatures weren’t something we could wrap into our society and keep going. They have their own needs. Their own agenda. I tried to convince my friends that we needed to get out. But lots of people think that humans banding together is the answer. They’re crazy. The city is going crazy. Getting out of Baltimore, getting home, I saw some crazy sh-stuff. I nearly had to abandon my truck and walk, but I had my gear in it, so I took the backroads and here I am.”

  I propped my elbows on the table as I cradled my mug of coffee.

  “Here we are,” Jarod corrected himself. “Preparing to survive the apocalypse.”

  Chapter 3

  “Are you sure you’re okay with spending the money?” Stella asked me for the third time.

  I processed the payment online. Money transferred instantly from my account to that of the farmer’s whom Stella had negotiated hay, straw, oats and wheat from. “You said we need this stuff.”

  After hearing Jarod’s story of the griffin, money felt somehow nebulous. I wanted tangible assets. Having feed and straw for livestock seemed far more practical than money in the bank. We would put the feed in the barn, near the bags of pet food Digger had gotten for Tabby. “I don’t care…well, I care, but I can accept that the guy is gouging us. It’s the law of supply and demand.” Rather than putting my phone back in my pocket, I plugged it in to charge. “If he doesn’t deliver it tomorrow morning as promised, Digger will go and fetch it.” I was confident that he would, too, and that Jarod would go with him. Judging by the guns he’d unloaded from his truck, our latest “family” member had been trained by his dad to protect what was his.

  We worked through the afternoon and early evening, settling in the piglets—so cute! I had to remind myself that I’d be eating them in a few months, and not to get attached—as well as the geese. Angus from the poultry farm next door brought over the chickens, approved Digger’s repairs to their new home with a grunt, and departed. Either he was a man of few words or seriously preoccupied.

  Colleen stayed longer, talking inside with Stella.

  Tabby and the geese had a stand-off for an hour before seeming to agree to mutually ignore one another—as long as Tabby didn’t try to eat their food. The hissing and wing-flaps made it noisily obvious that such thievery was not allowed.

  Digger laughed.

  We ended the day in front of the television with the volume turned low so that we could talk. Surprisingly, Jarod was relatively silent. Far more than me, he was glued to his phone. Stella knitted, and Digger had brought a kitchen chair into the living room, setting it on an old rug before starting to clean the two hunting rifles that had been Stella’s husband’s.

  “I’ll patch up the smokehouse, tomorrow,” Jarod said. “When Craig and Ryan finally get here, we’ll go hunting. Craig’s driving up from Nashville, so I get why it’s taking him so long. But Ryan ought to be here by now. New York,” he added with a glance at me. The reports coming from New York weren’t good. Riots engulfed my home city. Jarod visibly shook off his worry for his brothers. “Not the time of year for hunting, but wild hogs always need their numbers thinned. Eat what we can and smoke the rest.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Digger said. “Amy, too, if she’s up for it. Give us a sense of how each of us operates.”

  And if I could hit a moving, and more specifically, living, target. “I’ll go.”

  “Yeah, sista,” Jarod teased me. A motor rumbled, the loud growl of it coming closer. “Hey, that’s Dad’s monster.” He walked out. The front door opened and closed behind him. “Hey, Dad.” His footsteps crossed the front porch, and there was a thud as if he’d jumped the steps. Then came a heartrending shout. “No!”

  I leapt up.

  Digger grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind him. In his free hand, he held a pistol. Where he’d hidden it before was a mystery. “Wait inside. See to Stella.”

  Worriedly, I turned back to her.

  “I’m okay,” she said. She had the remote control, and switched off the television. An instant later, she switched off the lamp beside
her. With the room dark, we crossed cautiously to a window.

  The moon and starlight showed Jarod and Mike hugging each other, with Mike saying something over his son’s shoulder to Digger.

  The jerk of Digger’s head was as emphatic as a curse. He jogged inside. “Ryan’s dead.”

  “Dear God.” For a moment, Stella stood stricken. “Amy, start coffee and get out the whisky.” She went out to the men.

  “Jarod’s mom?” I asked Digger.

  “Long gone.”

  I put the coffee on and hovered in the kitchen, unsure whether to stay or go, especially as men’s footsteps came closer. Maybe Jarod and Mike would want privacy, not a stranger.

  But a single glimpse of Jarod’s grieving expression and my feet decided for me. I raced up to him and hugged him, feeling his arms close too tight around me. I tightened my own arms. Tears burned my eyes as he hid his face against mine. When he released me a little, I turned to Mike. “I’m sorry.”

  Mike tossed back a shot of whisky, and nodded.

  “Living room,” Digger said. He held the whisky bottle and glasses.

  Stella carried in the coffeepot and mugs.

  I sat with Jarod on the sofa. He seemed to need to hold someone.

  Mike gave us the rest of the story, as much as he knew, in jagged sentences.

  Ryan’s girlfriend was a Queens girl who’d resisted leaving the city. She’d wanted to stay, and for him to stay, even as riots broke out. In the end, he’d gotten killed, shot, trying to stop a pair of thugs from stealing his dirt bike. The police and one of Ryan’s friends had phoned Mike with the news.

  “I told Craig before I drove here,” Mike said hoarsely. The whisky he’d swallowed had to have burned the whole way down. “We can’t pick up Ryan’s body till the riots are over.”

  “Dad—”

  “No! I am not losing another son. That girl. That Shayna. She called me, too.”

  Jarod went still. “She phoned you? That b—”

  “She said she was pregnant with Ryan’s kid and we had to come get her. Said it wasn’t safe in the city anymore.”

  Terrible swearwords burst from Jarod.

  Stella regarded him sympathetically. “Ryan had cancer as a kid. That’s when their mom left. The treatment left Ryan infertile.”

  Sickness rose in me, a sourness as vile as Shayna’s actions. First, her delays had kept Ryan from coming home, being safe, and now, after he was dead, she’d lied to try and get herself to the safety she’d denied him.

  We sat in silence, till Jarod broke it. The tension of anger and grief that had gripped him was gone and he slumped with exhaustion. He’d only arrived here, today, and had worked hard after a dangerous journey. He needed to sleep. “I’m going to bed. Amy, can I sleep with you? Just sleep. I’m one hundred percent gay, but I don’t want to be alone, tonight.”

  “Of course.” I’d never shared a bed with a guy, but the bed in what had been Gramma’s room was large. “Mike can have your bed. The sheets are clean.” And Mike shouldn’t go home to a house empty of family or drive drunk.

  Mike didn’t respond, but Digger met my eyes and nodded. He’d look after his friend.

  Stella rose. “Bed sounds good. And I’ll say a few prayers.”

  “Thank you, Stella.”

  In bed, Jarod curled up and sobbed.

  I’d anticipated some such reaction, and had a box of tissues on the table near me. The thought slid across my mind to find or make handkerchiefs soon. Our tissue supply wouldn’t last, but handkerchiefs were reusable.

  Jarod snuffled and slept, exhaustion releasing him from his grief.

  I rubbed his back a final time before letting sleep claim me.

  Morning brought Jarod’s other brother, Craig; red-eyed from driving all night and hyped on caffeine. We’d been up for a couple of hours and hard at work. Mike chopped wood and Jarod repaired the smokehouse, both of them moving with iron focus, as if the physical labor could keep their grief at bay.

  “Why don’t you have the television on?” Craig demanded. “Turn the TV on.” He was a fraction taller than Jarod, but just as skinny. He had short, dark-blond hair and a scraggly beard. He was a roadie, based in Nashville. Or he had been. Would any of us return to who we’d been or to our old dreams after this was over? Whatever this was.

  In the living room, Stella sat in her recliner in front of the television. The rest of us were too dirty—or too agitated in Craig’s case—to sit.

  “Dear heaven,” Stella exclaimed.

  Craig slashed his hands through the air. “The radio said he’d be speaking to us.”

  The “he” was a red dragon. The where was Tokyo, the city as bright as ever with its millions of lights.

  “Humans,” the dragon began. How he could speak was a mystery. His long, scaled muzzle was too full of teeth to form human words. Yet, there he was onscreen addressing a planet of terrified people. It was ominous to hear ourselves referred to as “humans”. We were no longer the sole sentient species on our planet. “You have seen my dragon kin and a few representatives of other races. As a collective, we are the Faerene. We have what translates as magic to your understanding. There are far more of us than you have seen.”

  He paused, and the camera operator took the chance to pan back, revealing the red dragon’s immense size as he stood in the street.

  The dragon resumed. “All healthy worlds have a shield that protects them from invasion. Unfortunately, you have weakened your world so profoundly that Earth’s shield tore. We entered through the Rift and we now guard it. Far worse than us exists in the universe. The sooner the shield is restored by balance being returned to your planet, the safer humanity will be. However, I am not here to deceive you. The price of restoring your planet will be tremendous. This is not a debt you will repay to us, but an overdue accounting Earth demands of you for its survival.”

  Jarod squeezed my hand and I realized I’d clutched hold of him at some point in the dragon’s sinister speech.

  “We will allow you to keep your internet for three days. We hope that your governments and informed authorities will use it to advise you and to prepare for what is coming. Within a month, electricity will fail. Petroleum-derived products will return to the earth. There will be no fuel for your machines. Plastic will vanish. I tell you this so that you can prepare. But you won’t be able to hold back the apocalypse. Three days from now, bodies will disappear after their death. They will be returned to the earth, immediately. This will continue for six months, if not longer, and I’m sorry to say, but you will be grateful for this mercy.”

  The implication was dauntingly clear. So many of us would die that the Faerene were saving us from digging mass graves.

  The red dragon stared straight at the camera. It was as if he looked directly at each of us. “The best advice I can offer you is to prepare to live in the era your history terms the Renaissance. You have knowledge of your world and how to prosper in it, but you will be constrained from destroying it a second time.”

  The dragon leapt into the air, flapping his massive wings.

  The picture cut out, but a shaken voice directed viewers to wait. “We have been told that there is something we must all see in Fukushima.”

  “That’s where the damaged nuclear plant is,” I said.

  Two minutes later, the image onscreen showed the red dragon diving down at the plant…and eating it!

  The reporter’s voice reached a new pitch of shrillness. “Dragons are eating nuclear power plants around the world.”

  The screen stayed on Fukushima a while longer, but then other plants were displayed, each with one or more dragons crawling over them.

  “They’re telling us that nothing we can do to them can as much as scratch them,” Digger said. “That they eat nuclear missiles for breakfast.”

  There was too much to unpack from the red dragon’s message. I needed to do something real. “Speaking of breakfast. Craig, have you eaten?”

  “Maybe. Sometime.�
��

  “When did you last sleep?” Mike growled.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I headed for the kitchen, and pulled on a clean apron over my dirty clothes. It was honest dirt, at least. I scrubbed my hands and dried them before opening the pantry. Stella and I were still to take stock of the food situation, but I knew where the buckwheat flour was stored. I mixed up a huge bowl of batter and began making an equally large stack of pancakes.

  Digger quietly got out canned blueberries and made a fresh pot of coffee.

  The Faerene Apocalypse had been announced, and we were going to have brunch. It sounded ridiculous, but the food steadied everyone. Color returned to Stella’s face and she began making plans. Plans were her security blanket.

  “If we’re facing a return to centuries ago, it’s a good thing no one in Bud’s family ever threw anything away. We’ll need to go through the attic, barn and sheds for what we can use. Anything without plastic and reliant on human muscle rather than electricity or gas has just become valuable.”

  “And any tasks that need electricity or diesel power get done now, while we still have the ability,” Digger said.

  Mike swore. “You’re right, but that’s damned annoying. I’ll need to rig up a forge. If being a mechanic is no longer important, I’ll need to be a blacksmith. We’ll need coal to get the fire hot enough.”

  “Will they, the Faerene, let us keep steam engines?” Jarod asked.

  “Were there steam engines in the Renaissance, doofus,” Craig responded.

  My phone rang. “Mom?” I answered, bewildered. I pushed back from the table and walked outside. Tabby followed me out of the porch. The geese eyed me from a distance.

  “I don’t believe in these dragons for a minute,” Mom said. “But I do believe there are people stupid enough to plunge the world into chaos for some environmentalist nihilistic cause. So I wanted to phone you while I still could. Your message said you were in Pennsylvania. Are you still there? Are you safe?”

  “I’m in Apfall Hill, Mom, and yes, I’m safe. There are good people here. I’m staying with—”