Neon Blue

by E J Frost

  “May I?” She gestures toward one of my guest chairs. “It was such a lovely day that I thought I’d walk over the bridge, but my feet are not thanking me now.”

  If she’s walked all the way from Cambridge to Government Center, her feet won’t be thanking her. Particularly since her low-heeled boots look very stylish but are not what my Dala would have called ‘stout walking shoes.’

  “Please,” I say, nodding at the chair. When she sits down, I sink into my desk chair.

  She crosses her legs, smoothes her tailored maroon slacks over her knee and smiles at me. Her smile’s disarming.

  “You must be wondering why I’m here,” she says.

  “As lovely a day as it is, it seems like a long walk for no reason.”

  “Ah, but I hate telephones. Modern technology.” That infectious grin again. I find myself smiling back at her. “I wanted to thank you, and although I adore writing notes, I like to have at least met my correspondent first.”

  “Really, there’s no need.”

  “Please don’t be modest. Modest people are terribly boring, don’t you think? You’ve recovered a valuable antiquity. That at least deserves a personal thank you.”

  I tilt my head at her. If she’s a practitioner, she knows exactly how worthless that ‘valuable antiquity’ is. “I was happy to help.”

  “I understand from your friend, Mister Goldberg, isn’t it?” At my nod, she continues, “That you won’t accept any financial remuneration.”

  “Is that what Manny said?” I’ll strangle him.

  “Was he wrong?”

  I shrug. Maybe there’s a reason Manny didn’t want me to take anything from the Museum. I trust his judgment. “It’s fine.”

  “Well, I would like to thank you more tangibly, if I may. I don’t know if you’re familiar with our collection?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  The infectious smile returns. “Could I tempt you with a private tour? We have a number of pieces I think you would find interesting.”

  I scratch at the back of my neck, which is a little sweaty from standing over the cauldron. I’ve never been particularly interested in magical artifacts. Ro was the one who filled our dorm room with little bits of crap she said had ‘magical resonance.’ But I don’t want to seem ungrateful. “Okay, sure.”

  She claps those small, white, deceptively strong hands together. “Oh, good. I brought along a little something to entice you, but I wonder, would you like to step out and enjoy this glorious day? We could go for a cup of coffee, if you’d like.”

  Whatever she’s brought along can’t possibly be as tempting as an offer of coffee. “Sure. There’s Borders on School Street. It’s only a few blocks. Are your feet up to it?”

  “I’ll manage.” She picks up the alligator handbag she’s set at her feet. For a moment it looks sleek and maroon, a match for her svelte pants suit, but then I see it more clearly in the afternoon light. It’s a worn brown, the edges fraying, the handle imprinted with the shape of her hand. My Dala had a bag like that. She called it her ‘medicine bag’ even though she never carried anything more magical than a hair comb in it. She had it for as long as I could remember. My cousin Stefan gave her a new handbag for her birthday every year, just to twit her. She thanked him, carefully wrapped the new bag in oilcloth, and put it up in the loft of her caravan. I found thirty-six handbags up there when I cleaned out the caravan after her death. Her medicine bag was hanging on the back of the kitchen chair, where she’d hung it the night before I called the ambulance that took her to the gorgio hospital where their drabba couldn’t save her.

  I shake myself and smile at Timmi.

  She holds out her bag with a self-deprecating smile. “Tatty, isn’t it? But I adore this old bag. I can’t bear the thought of parting with it. It’s such a good friend. I’m afraid I’ll still be carrying it on my dying day.”

  “I was just thinking that my grandmother had a bag very like that.”

  “Did she? Where did she come from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Not at all. Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly. My family are travelers.” That’s not entirely true. Studying European history at Wydlins helped me identify places in my family’s stories, and I’m pretty sure they came from Italy and Poland before they immigrated to America via England. Finding copies of my Dala’s tarocchi cards in one of my college textbooks on the Italian magical tradition pretty much confirmed it. But I don’t know where my Dala was born, so that part is true enough.

  “Travelers?” She pauses for a moment and then her eyes widen. “Oh, I see. Roma.” She rolls the ‘r’. That hint of an accent comes through and this time I place it. Greek.

  I nod.

  “You’re very fair for a Rom.”

  I shrug. “I’m only half. My mother’s family’s Lithuanian.” Which is about all I know about my mother’s family. I’ve never spoken to any of them.

  “Do you travel yourself?”

  “No.” I rise and hold the door open for her, hoping my movement will close that topic of conversation. It’s hard enough to have the demon poking around through my past. I don’t need random strangers doing it, too. “Let me just tell the receptionist I’m stepping out.”

  I stop at Evonne’s desk and tell her I’m going out for coffee. She immediately digs in her drawer and pulls out a rumpled five-dollar bill. “Could you get me a bag of whatever we had this morning? It was better than sex.”

  I glance covertly at Timmi, see the small smile that says she’s overheard. I take the five from Evonne with a grimace. “Sure, no problem. Back in a bit.”

  When we step out of the office, Timmi is still smiling her small smile. It widens when the golden autumn sunlight hits our faces. I join her in smiling up at the sun. A gentle breeze blows my hair around my shoulders and I inhale, feeling my lungs expand, feeling my whole body breathe. Whatever concerns I have about the purpose of Timmi’s visit, whatever terrors further association with the demon holds, these fears are hard to hold onto as I breathe in the clean, clear Air.

  “Isn’t this weather just marvelous? I adore autumn.” She begins walking down Ridgeway Lane and even though she’s a head shorter than me, I have to stretch my legs to keep up with her. Stupid kitten heels. If her feet are sore, you’d never know it from her stride. “I don’t come over to this side of the River often enough, you know. Look at that! Have they just gilded the Dome? It’s as shiny as a new penny.”

  I glance up at the golden dome that tops the state house. Remember Jou admiring it. “It does look nice in the sunlight.”

  “You’re not impressed, I can tell,” Timmi says, with a very slight chiding tone to her voice.

  “Monuments don’t do a lot for me,” I admit. “And I’m not crazy about what goes on in that particular monument.” Thinking of Ro and her manipulations, I shake my head. “Politics.”

  “Ah, yes, indeed. What do you think of this most recent scandalbroth?”

  “About Andy Smith, you mean? I’m not really following it.” Even though, indirectly, I might have caused it. “Grace Ross has my vote.”

  “Because she’s a woman?” The chiding gives way to amusement.

  “Because she’s not a Republican.” Neither is Andy Smith, of course, but the Democrats have swung so far to the right since nine-eleven that it’s hard to tell them apart. “I’m afraid the Big Dig has soured me on the mainstream parties.”

  “It has been very inconvenient, hasn’t it? But won’t it be lovely to have this emerald necklace running through the city?”

  “If it’s ever done.” I shrug.

  “Surely restoring the green to the heart of the city is worth some inconvenience.”

  She says ‘the green’ like it should be capitalized. Is she Wiccan? “I guess.”

  “Change is inconvenient, isn’t it?” She winks at me. “Especially at my age, I long for constancy. But that’s an inclination that must be fought. If we stop changing, we stultify. Change is necessary. No matt
er how inconvenient. Or frightening.” Her blue gaze sharpens, turns penetrating.

  I use the turn onto Bowdoin Street as an excuse to look away. Whether she’s just talking generally or has somehow picked up on my personal issues, I don’t know, but I don’t want to continue this conversational path. “How do you get to be a museum curator?” I ask, without any attempt at subtlety.

  She laughs, and it’s an honest laugh. Slightly infectious. “You attend a very snooty and overpriced liberal arts college, from which you graduate with honors in art history. A distinction which guarantees you will never be able to earn a living wage.”

  I laugh. “I had a lot of trouble getting a job out of college, too.”

  “Ah, but did your well-meaning but utterly misguided family secure you a position as a unpaid research assistant to compound your misery?”

  Most of my family was dead by the time I graduated. “No. I’m afraid I fell into the food service ghetto for a while.”

  “Flipping burgers would have been preferable to my first few years at the Museum. I spent them in the basement, cataloguing African beetle carcasses, of all things. I’m not sure what was more repugnant, the breath of the curator I reported to, who had the most shocking halitosis, or having to handle all those desiccated insects.”

  I laugh helplessly.

  “I abhor arthropods,” she continues. “And homo sapiens with bad breath. Particularly when they positively malinger over you. But I endured, and outlasted assistants with much more glamorous assignments. Don’t you find that it’s sometimes simply a matter of persistence? Once I had the opportunity to move on, I discovered I’d developed quite a passion for moldering old oddments. So here I am.”

  “Was his breath really that bad?”

  “Worse than a dung beetle’s. And I can say that from personal experience.” She grins merrily. “And you? How did you rise from the food service ghetto to running a fabulously successful fertility clinic?”

  I immediately dispute the point I’m always careful to argue with outsiders. No one needs to know how successful we are. “Our track record is a little better than traditional fertility treatments, but I like to think that’s because we take a holistic approach. As for how I ended up doing this, well, it wasn’t by design. I graduated college with a similarly useless degree.” A double-major in English Lit. and alchemical magical theory, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I couldn’t find a job so I took whatever I could to pay the bills. Once I got on my feet, I did my own thing for a while. Consulting. But it was very isolating, being on my own.” Sometimes I didn’t talk to another human being for days. Which was why catching Brian cheating – facing being so alone in the world, and being so lonely – hit me so hard. Not that anything can excuse trying to drive home after drowning that loneliness in a pitcher of margaritas. “I got lucky when I met Lin.”

  “Isn’t it amazing what a difference one person can make?”

  I nod. Becoming Lin’s partner made all the difference. Saul dumping me hurt but it didn’t shatter me the way finding out about Brian did. I had Lin and the clinic to fall back on. Life went on. At least until the demon came crashing into it.

  “Are you married?” I ask. She’s not wearing a wedding ring, but neither did my Dala and she was married to Goppy for more than thirty years.

  “To my work.” She gives me a gentler, more self-deprecating version of her infectious grin.

  “I know how that is.” And work’s proved a better balm than margaritas.

  We turn at the top of School Street. Walk past One Beacon in the building’s long shadow. Timmi nods towards the glass and granite front of the Omni Parker House. “Rumor says it’s haunted.”

  “I’ve heard that, too.” But I’ve never investigated. I don’t do random ghosts.

  “Have you ever been inside?”

  I shake my head. Way too rich for my wallet.

  “Shall we?”

  I glance dubiously at the glass façade. “Borders is just down the street.”

  Timmi laughs. “Another time then.”

  I follow her past the fancy hotel, dodging around a couple coming through the revolving front door. The woman is toting a fluffy beige thing under her arm, which on first glance I take for a fur hand-muff. I’m about to hiss “fur is murder” at her, when the freaking thing’s head turns. It’s a dog. With a fox face and little tufty ears. The woman’s carrying a goddamn Pomeranian in a little bag under her arm, while the man on her other arm talks a thousand miles a minute into his cell phone. Ugh.

  Timmi suddenly links her arm in mine and rolls her eyes conspiratorially. “Canis familiaris make such vulgar accessories, don’t you think?” She whispers.

  I giggle.

  Timmi follows the couple with her eyes. “And her shoes clash with the pooch. Someone should tell her.”

  She’s right. The woman’s wearing leopard-print high heels that don’t quite work with the beige fluff under her arm. “Mixing genuses?”

  “Taxonomically appalling.”

  I laugh so loud the woman turns her head to look at me. I duck and hurry down the street, not wanting to cause a scene.

  At Borders, we order coffee and at Timmi’s urging, double-chocolate muffins, and find a table in the sun. I’m about to fish my moldavite out of my handbag, when Timmi opens hers and takes out a shell that she sets carefully on the plastic tray between us.

  I brush my finger over the smooth, white curve of the cowrie shell. Feel the gentle tingle of a charm. I smile. “Mine’s moldavite.”

  “May I?” Timmi holds out her hand. I rummage through my bag until I find the little gem flower and drop it onto her palm. “Ooo, that’s a lovely piece.”

  “Ebay,” I say.

  Timmi smiles. “I meant the charm. Very strong and, mmm, tidy. I like the structure of your magic very much, Tsara. Isn’t it liberating to be able to speak freely?”

  I nod and accept the moldavite when she passes it back to me. Take my cup of vanilla mocha and blow on it before I take a sip. Yum.

  Timmi does the same and smiles appreciatively at her dark roast. “What shall we talk about then?”

  What she wants from me. “Anything you like.”

  “Well, we’ve covered the weather and politics and our respective occupations. I guess that just leaves men and magic.” Her infectious grin widens.

  “Let’s skip men.” Too raw a topic right now.

  She rubs her hands together. “Magic it is.”

  “Are you just a collector or do you still practice?”

  She arches one white eyebrow. “Just a collector?”

  “Sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant it to.”

  “You’re forgiven.” How can her eyes twinkle so merrily? Is it glamour? I tilt my head so I can use my peripheral vision. She’s not glittering. “Not everyone shares my passion, I realize. I did practice, but these days I find it exhausting. I’m content now to preserve our magical history. And occasionally to mentor the younger generation, if they’re deserving.”

  Is that what she wants? An apprentice? Should I be flattered? “Are they?”

  She shrugs one shoulder and takes a sip of her coffee. “Not often. I’ve had some spectacular disappointments, particularly of late. Forgive me for saying so, but the young can be so single-minded. So incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Especially young men. Don’t you find?”

  “I thought we were skipping men.” The demon’s pretty darn single-minded, and he doesn’t even have the excuse of youth.

  “Yes, of course. Disappointments are best forgotten anyway. Shall we talk of possibilities, instead?”

  “Sure.”

  She leans forward and says conspiratorially. “What possibilities do you think we might discuss?”

  I shrug. “I’m not really sure.”

  “Tsara, are you playing coy with me?”

  Am I? I wasn’t trying to. I’ve never been approached by anyone wanting to mentor me before. I already have a house-full of ghosts who are
more than happy to offer me advice, usually when I don’t want it. “Sorry. Are you offering to teach me?”

  “Would you like that?”

  “I . . . might.” My voice still sounds cautious, even to me, but inside, I’m warming to the idea. I was never happier than I was at Bevvy, and it wasn’t just being in an environment where my talents were nurtured. It was learning. I love to learn. And I promised myself I would keep it up after I graduated. But I’ve been so busy doing the work that pays the bills that I haven’t done anything about keeping that promise. There are whole realms of magical knowledge that I barely touched on at college. Demon-lore, for example. “I’d always understood that the different Elements couldn’t offer each other much.”

  “Who told you that?” She dismisses the idea with a wave. “I might struggle to teach a water witch, but Fire and Earth are kindred spheres.”

  “This is . . . it’s very kind of you, Timmi. You barely know me.”

  She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I like the little I know. And, forgive me for saying so, but you’re leaking power like a sieve, my dear. I could feel it as soon as I picked up the ring. There was nothing left of the Great Seal.” I hang my head and she gives my hand another squeeze. “But your magic . . . overpowering. It smelled like Christmas, to tell you the truth.”

  I chuckle. “Holly. Other people have told me my magic smells like holly or mistletoe.”

  “Yes, quite.” She releases my hand, breaks off a bit of her muffin and nibbles it. Washes it down with a sip of coffee. “And woodsmoke. I caught a hint of woodsmoke in your office, too.”

  Probably the charred carpet. Or maybe eau de demon. “I’m not very good at smelling magic. I don’t smell anything off you.” I can smell the demon’s magic sometimes, though. That hot spice that makes my whole body tight.

  “Well, that’s the first thing I can teach you. My magic smells like rosemary or sandalwood, depending on whom you ask. You won’t be able to smell it out here, and it wouldn’t hurt to try in a place imbued with my magic. Shall we schedule a little practice in my office after the tour?”

  “Sure.”