Neon Blue

by E J Frost

  “I’m sure you understand that we practice alternative medicine here. Dr. Hua specializes in acupuncture and I specialize in herbal therapy. Do either of you have personal or religious beliefs that would prevent you from participating in these treatments?”

  Mister – who listed his religion as Catholic on the intake questionnaire – glances at Misses, but she shakes her head and taps her bright red fingernails against the wooden arm of the chair.

  “I also understand that you’ve had in vitro treatments and know that fertility treatments often result in multiple births. Are you opposed to having multiples?”

  Misses shakes her head again and taps the nails faster. Mister says slowly, “Really, we’d just like to be able to have one.”

  I smile. “I hope we’ll be able to help you with that.”

  “Your success rate is . . . well, it’s impressive.”

  I nod in acknowledgement. I don’t tell him our real success rate, because a hundred-percent success rate defies modern medicine and would bring unwanted scrutiny down on our happy little operation.

  “Okay, the last thing is timing. I understand that you started your period five days ago, Mrs. McNulty, is that right?”

  A nod of the raven head.

  “That’s ideal. I’d like to start you on the herbal therapy today. You’ll need to drink five ounces a day for the next ten days. Many of our clients like to mix the solution with yogurt, which is fine. You should abstain from alcohol and caffeine while you’re on it—”

  “I’m off all that already.” Misses waves a red-tipped hand. “Totally macrobiotic.”

  “Chicken and brown rice,” Mister murmurs. I look at him sympathetically. So much sacrifice for something that should be so natural.

  “Well, you should be able to go back to a normal diet after this.”

  Misses snorts. “And that’s it?”

  “No, I’d like to make an appointment for Mr. McNulty on Monday with Dr. Hua for an acupuncture session.” Increasing Mister’s sperm count at the time the potion should start working on Misses is never a bad idea. “And, of course, you’ll need to make time to be together over the next two weeks.” For couples who have been trying for as long as the McNultys have, that’s often the hardest part. Fertility treatments strip what should be a spontaneous act of love down to timetables and syringes. It’s hard to rekindle the romance. “If you need any help with that, we can offer you a special set of appointments.”

  Mister looks bewildered but Misses shakes her head. “I think we’ve wasted our time.”

  I give her a hard look. “Mrs. McNulty, why did you come here?”

  She rolls her black-framed eyes. “A friend of a friend recommended Dr. Hua.”

  “And was the friend of a friend successful?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You will be, too,” I say, with calm assurance. “Evonne will provide you with the herbal solution and can arrange a time for Mr. McNulty with Dr. Hua.” I write out a slip for Evonne. Ten days, straight fertility potion, although I suspect I might need to add an aphrodisiac if Mrs. McNulty doesn’t get pregnant this month. I stand and walk around my desk, holding out my hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

  Misses propels herself out of her chair onto her high red heels and stalks out with a terse, “Come on, Howard.”

  Mister rises slowly, looking confused and a little embarrassed. He takes my proffered hand and I smile at him. “Mr. McNulty, can I make a suggestion?”

  “Uh, yes, what?”

  “Candlelight. And flowers.” Even an alpha bitch like Mrs. McNulty should like flowers.

  He frowns. “I, uh—”

  “Trust me, Mr. McNulty. The treatment works, but you have to make time for it.” And babies should be conceived after romantic, candle-lit dinners. In love, not desperation. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

  “Right. Nice, uh, to meet you.”

  I wait until after he leaves to wipe my hand on my smock.

  Lin cracks open the door to my hearth room with a cheerful, “I can’t believe I missed hazelnut.”

  I glance up from the bubbling cauldron and smile at her. “I’ll make another pot after I add the amber.”

  She comes to perch on my work-bench, carefully outside of my casting circle. “I heard you met the McNultys.”

  “Mmm-hmm. He has one of those terrible limp, damp handshakes—”

  Lin shudders sympathetically. “Like a defrosting jellyfish.”

  “Exactly.” I stir, watching the color closely. The powdered amber needs to go in after the potion’s turned a deep emerald green. It’s still a medium grass color. “How did the Cowrie birth go?”

  She shakes her head. “C-section.”

  I sigh. “She wanted a natural birth so badly.” It was the one thing Alice Cowrie said to us from the start. She would do anything, try anything, but she wanted to deliver naturally. I wanted to cry when she developed placenta previa in her second trimester.

  “She has a healthy baby boy—”

  “Which is all anyone can ask for,” I say with a grin, a refrain Lin and I repeat to each other whenever we feel any sense of failure.

  “Did you start Mrs. McNulty on the magic milk?” she asks. Lin and I have thrown around a number of different names for the fertility potion, but we haven’t yet found one that really fits.

  I nod. “Mr. McNulty’s got a low sperm count, so I made an appointment for him with you next week.” The potion darkens and I sprinkle in the amber counter-clockwise with a satisfied sigh. Now it can simmer for a few minutes unattended while I make coffee. I retrace my casting circle widdershins. “Mrs. McNulty’s so high-strung that she might benefit from a round with the needles, too.”

  “Ah.” Lin shifts on the bench. “And how are you doing in that quarter? You seem a little, tense, today.”

  I shoot her a grin over my shoulder as I measure out beans into the grinder. “You would be, too, if you’d had to deal with Mrs. McNulty.” I wait until the whirring of the grinder stops before I add, “Actually, I bumped into one of my old clients this morning, Manny Goldberg. Have I mentioned him to you before?”

  Lin shakes her head, her silky black pony-tail swishing.

  “Divorce lawyer.”

  Lin sucks air between her teeth. Having been taken to the cleaners in her own divorce, I know she has no good feeling for lawyers.

  “He’s not a bad guy. Especially for a lawyer. He helped me out during . . . you know. He’s had a ring go missing.”

  “Not a wedding ring, I’m guessing?”

  I chuckle. “No.” I lean against the counter and inhale the fragrant steam that wafts up from the coffee-pot. “It might be an inferiarcus.”

  “A what?”

  “A demon-summoner.”

  Lin’s smooth brow furrows. “I thought you didn’t deal in anything like that.”

  “I don’t,” I assure her. Lin’s one of the most open-minded people I’ve met, probably because she comes from a long line of wizards. But she’s wary of anything that smacks of the diabolical. I can’t blame her; I am, too. And I don’t even have any ancestors who lost their souls to yaoguai. “But I know someone who might be able to help.” I scratch at an itchy spot behind my ear, sweaty from standing over the cauldron. “Thing is, I haven’t spoken to her in years. And the last things we said to each other weren’t very nice.”

  That’s not exactly true. The last things I said to her weren’t very nice. In fact, they were the worst things I’ve ever said to anyone, and they still make me cringe when I think of them. How could I have been so mean?

  “Ah.” Lin’s all-inclusive qualifier. “Were you friends once?”

  “She was my room-mate in college.”

  Lin raises an eyebrow.

  “And my best friend,” I admit.

  “And you haven’t spoken in years? How . . . unlike you.”

  Even though she’s referring to a very sore point – my break up with Saul four months ago,
since which I’ve refused to even say his name much less take his calls – I have to laugh.

  “You definitely need some needle-time.”

  I pour us two cups, stir in the sugars and hand one to her. “You’re on. How about after dinner?”

  She gulps down a mouthful. “Oh, about that.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Ah, just, um, would you mind if I skipped dinner tonight?”

  “’Course not.” I shrug. We usually eat dinner together after work, but only because neither of us has anyone else to eat with. “Something come up?”

  “Kind of.” She peers into her mug like there’s something floating in her coffee. “I bumped into someone from med school at the hospital. He, um, suggested we have dinner after he finishes his shift.”

  I wolf-whistle. “Linnie’s got a date.”

  “It’s not a date-date,” she protests. “It’s just dinner.”

  “Uh-huh. Enjoy your date.”

  “Thanks. I thought I might go a little early. You know, shower.” She flicks her pony-tail, which looks perfectly clean to me.

  “Oh, definitely a date.”

  She rolls her dark eyes. “Anyway, would you mind taking my five o’clock?”

  “No problem. Have a good time.” I move back toward the cauldron, which will need my attention soon. “And don’t forget, safe sex is good sex.”

  “It’s just dinner!”

  I know her so much better than that. “Don’t forget the condoms,” I sing-song to her retreating back.

  Chapter 3

  The fall sunshine has turned into a grey drizzle by the time I close the clinic and walk to the T. I turn up the collar of my jacket and wish weather spells weren’t so dangerous. With global warming, no one would suspect anything if Boston had a warm, dry fall.

  But it would probably cause another tsunami in Asia or something equally horrible. That’s the tricky thing about messing with the weather. Nature demands balance. And it tends to right the scales on a global level.

  I sigh and tuck Manny’s redwells under my arm to keep them from getting wet.

  The T’s steamy. I find a seat and rock my way slowly across the Charles River. At Porter Square, the train releases me from its humid embrace, back out into the rain, and I run the three blocks to my duplex.

  My tenant’s sitting in the porch swing, smoking one of the hand-rolled cigarettes that I won’t let him smoke in the house. A cloud of blue smoke has gathered under the porch eves.

  “You would pick tonight to work late,” my tenant says as I run up the steps.

  I glance up at the house, which looks fine. “What’s wrong, Shah?”

  He nods glumly at the door.

  “What? Oh for . . . you locked yourself out again?”

  “If you’d get a deadbolt like everyone else it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  I’ve told him a dozen times that he can replace the lock if he wants to. He just doesn’t want to pay for a new lock, and since I’m not the one who keeps locking myself out, I don’t see any reason I should foot the bill. I roll my eyes as sort through my keys to the spare key for his side of the duplex and unlock his door. “There you go.”

  “Thanks. Hey, where’s your friend tonight? You know, the one with the great hair?” He wiggles his bushy eyebrows suggestively.

  “On a date,” I say pointedly. I told him he should have asked Lin out long ago. Shah’s face falls. “G’night!”

  I open my own door and slip inside. The house is dark and quiet. Empty. I don’t bother to turn the lights on as I walk through to the kitchen. I could use my Sight to see in the dark, but I know the house so well, I don’t bother with that either. In the kitchen, under plastic wrap, pork chops marinating in Lin’s homemade hoi sin sauce sit beside the sink. I’d planned to grill them for dinner. I look at them dispiritedly, then stick them in the fridge and pour myself a bowl of cereal.

  I hate eating alone.

  I carry my cereal through into the dining room and eat disinterestedly while I spread out the English file on the dining table. Reading through it slowly doesn’t tell me anything new, and when I reach the last page, and the bottom of my bowl, there’s nothing left to do but call Rowena.

  The number I have for her is five years out of date. On my way back to the phone in the kitchen, I detour into my herbarium and collect a silver-embroidered pouch. A pinch of faerie dust sprinkled over my address book yields a new number with a Back Bay dialing code.

  She answers on the first ring. “Hello, Tsara.”

  I grip the receiver tightly to keep from dropping it. “I forgot about your precognition.” I clear my throat and try to recover with a little laugh. “You could have called me.”

  “I only knew it was you when I picked up the phone. How are you?”

  “Good, good. How are you?” It comes out stiff, stilted. Painful. It used to be easy to talk with Ro. Until she began summoning demons.

  “Good. Busy. Is this a social call? Because this isn’t really the best—”

  “Oh, sorry. Should I call back another time?” Maybe I should give the crackpot in Philly a try.

  “If you don’t mind . . . actually, how about we get together? I haven’t seen you in ages,” she says, as though we’ve just drifted apart after college instead of imploding. “Do you want to do lunch? There’s a place around the corner that has wonderful coffee.” She laughs her bright laugh.

  She remembers. We used to have our best talks over espresso double-shots at the Java Xpress on Main Street. When we were still at school. When we were still on speaking terms. “Sure. What’s good for you?”

  “Oh, tomorrow would be fine. Do you want to come down to the boutique? Say one-ish?”

  I have a one o’clock appointment. Lin will have to cover for me for once.

  “Okay. What’s the address?”

  She laughs again. “You mean you can’t find me?”

  I sigh. “Tracking charms were never my best thing.”

  “Well, it’s nice to know some things haven’t changed.” She gives me an address on Newbury Street. “See you tomorrow, Zee-Zee.”

  Her use of my college nickname should remind me of good times. Instead it makes the house seem darker, emptier. The sound of the rain pattering against the windows colder and louder. “Bye, Ro.”

  I stand with the dead phone in my hand, in my dark kitchen, and listen to the rain, until a voice says from behind me, “Feeling sorry for yourself, eh, beti?”

  I hang up the phone and turn to the ghost behind me. “Hi, Dala.”

  She settles heavily at the kitchen table, turning slightly in the seat and propping one hand on her knee, the way she always did when she was alive. The pale shadows of three silver bracelets slide down her arm. Bracelets I now wear on my left wrist. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I sit down across from her. “Nothing a good chat with my Dala can’t fix.”

  “Now I know you’re trying to get around me. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s raining. I’ve never liked the rain.” Which is the truth. Rain always makes me blue. Give me sun and wind any day.

  “But that’s not what’s got you down at the mouth. What’s got you calling that gorgie Rowena Martin after all these years?”

  “Manny Goldberg. He’s lost an inferiarcus. She’s the only one I could think of that might be able to help.”

  My grandmother’s ghost shakes her transparent head. “Bengui.” She spits ephemerally. “You know better, beti.”

  “Manny’s in trouble. The ring belonged to a client. He’s been accused of taking it. I said I’d try to help.”

  She sighs heavily. “I know you feel you have a debt to him—”

  “Without him we’d be having this conversation in Bridgewater State.”

  “You could have gotten yourself out of that. I would have helped you.”

  I shake my head. “What’s the point of having rules if you break them as soon as there’s trouble?”

  “Beti, your silly rules are
for gorgio—”

  “Dala, please.”

  “Well, that’s all by-the-by. Why didn’t you try a tracking charm before you called the demon-girl? Dearie dubbleskey, you could use the practice.”

  “Thanks, Dala.”

  “Well? It’s still a good idea.”

  “Mmm. Maybe afterwards.” I slap my knee, my grandmother’s old sign that the heart-to-heart is over. “First, I have two love potions to do. And a rose-colored glasses charm to squeeze into two little pieces of plastic. I hope I don’t make him go blind.”

  She frowns at me and disappears in a strange folding motion, like rolling up a shade.

  “I hate it when you do that,” I say to the empty air.

  Happily, it doesn’t answer.

  Midnight’s come and gone by the time I climb into bed. The bed’s chilly, empty. My face is flushed from standing over my cauldron, but my feet are cold, and after lying shivering for a while, I climb out of bed and pull on a pair of fuzzy white ankle socks.

  “Very sexy,” I tell myself as I climb back into bed. If Saul was still here, he’d be laughing his ass off. But, then, if Saul was still here, I wouldn’t have cold feet.

  I lie in the icy bed, too tired to sleep. My mind’s still working. The rose-colored glasses charm wouldn’t bind to the contacts. It kept slipping off. Lying on my workbench like a dropped flower petal before vanishing back into the aether. There’s got to be some way to make it work, but I’m too tired to figure it out.

  My thoughts turn instead to my ex-lover. How much I liked climbing into bed with him at the end of each day. How much fun we had together at the beginning. How much the hard words we threw at each other at the end hurt. Maybe I am impossible to live with. Too self-centered, too involved with something he couldn’t understand. Maybe it was too hard for him to deal with cantrips doing the chores, my midnight trips into the woods, and the occasional shape-shifting or fae dinner guest.

  Or maybe he was just an inflexible bastard who couldn’t give me what I needed.

  I listen to the sound of rain and think about Saul until tears run down my temples like the raindrops on my window.