The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  Cinderella leapt onto the brown blanket that covered Astrid’s bed and sat, watching her. Astrid put the gown up in front of her again. The bedroom door banged open.

  “How come you don’t have any money?” her mother said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need to borrow some.”

  “I don’t have any,” Astrid said. It was a lie. She actually had a baggie of money hidden in her desk, up against the back of a drawer. She also had a twenty-dollar bill tucked into a book. In total, she had fifty-eight dollars and twenty-three cents. She had counted it twice the night before.

  “Yeah, I know that. I checked just now,” said Mother.

  “You went in my purse? You can’t go in my purse!”

  “You live under my roof, you live by my rules. Now I need to borrow money for grocery shopping, and seeing as you supposedly work so hard, you ought to be able to lend me fifty.”

  “I can’t. I get paid on Friday, but I need the money for a rail pass and my cell phone bill.”

  “Is that the cell phone that you didn’t answer when I called you today? Is that the one?” Mother’s voice was loud in the small room and Cinderella jumped off the bed.

  “I was working all afternoon and all evening. I’m not allowed to take personal calls.”

  “And what, you don’t get breaks? You can’t spend two minutes to call your own mother?”

  “Look, you didn’t want me to bring home pretzels, so I didn’t. What else do you want from me?” Astrid shouted.

  “I want you to quit being a bitch! Now give me fifty. Consider it rent.”

  “I’m not even eighteen yet.”

  “So you’re old enough to work, have a cell phone and graduate, but not to pay rent? Bullshit. You give me the money now. I know you have it. You hoard it like there’s no tomorrow.” Her eyes scanned the room, and Astrid knew at that moment that her mother had searched for it earlier. “How much did you make with your last paycheck?”

  “I don’t know. I need to save it for New York.”

  “So you lied. You do have money.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Did you spend it on drugs? Is that it? Hanging around with that deadbeat cousin of yours? Smoking weed?”

  “He’s not a deadbeat, and he’s your nephew.”

  “Elliot is a waste. He thinks he’s having some spiritual experience surfing and living in that disgusting trailer.”

  “It’s not that bad. And he sells stuff online and goes to college.”

  “The junior college is not real college.”

  “Like Columbia? How about Harvard and UCLA? Are those real colleges?”

  “Don’t you talk back to me! Now give me the money.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  Mother slapped her hard across the face, and for a second, Astrid lost her balance and bumped into the closet door.

  “Where the hell is it?” Her mother’s face was inches from hers, and Astrid could smell the wine on her breath. She wasn’t sure if her mother was drunk, but it didn’t really matter. She’d hit Astrid whether she was drunk or sober.

  Astrid shook her head. “I don’t know.” She knew she should just give Mother the money, but she needed it. It was her only hope of a decent future. Besides, she’d get hit either way. Might as well be hit and keep the money. She knew such calculations were probably wrong, but she had been making them for years. Clean the house and be hit for doing it incorrectly, or be hit for not doing it at all. Read a book in her room and be yelled at for avoiding her mother, or sit in the living room and be yelled at for any one of a thousand things.

  Her mother looked at her, her eyes darting from one of Astrid’s eyes to the other, as if trying to discern if she was lying. She hit Astrid in the mouth, hard. Astrid cried out as her lower lip smashed against her teeth.

  “You are going to give me that money, right now, or you are out of this house right now. And I don’t care where you go.”

  Astrid hesitated. She could go to the shelter, but it was almost eleven o’clock at night. She could sleep on Elliot’s floor, but all her things were here. And her mother would tear apart her room and take the money anyway. Either way, her mother would get it.

  She pointed at the desk drawer, her hand shaking. She tasted blood in her mouth, just a little. She didn’t touch her mouth, as she didn’t want to provoke her mother. Tears of rage stung her eyes.

  “Oh, what?” said her mother. “Are you going to cry now too? Such an adult.”

  Astrid looked down. Her mother pulled open the drawer and dug through the pieces of charcoals and stubs of colored pencils that her art teacher had given her. Mother pulled out sketch pads and tossed them onto the desk.

  “Back of the drawer,” said Astrid. The sooner this was over with, the better. Her mother reached back and pulled out the baggie of money.

  “This is it? That’s all you have?”

  Astrid nodded.

  “You have to be on drugs. I knew it. What else would you do with all that money?”

  “I had to rent my cap and gown. It was fifty dollars.”

  “Shit. Fifty dollars? That’s highway robbery. I can’t believe they charged you that much.” Her mother looked at her like they were on the same side now. She had softened a little. Good.

  “I know. I didn’t have much left after I paid for that and bought my rail pass.”

  “I’ll pay you back when I get paid,” said her mother, walking out of the room. “Oh, and you’re grounded for a week for lying.” She pulled the door shut behind her and Astrid sank down on the bed. She pulled a compact mirror from her nightstand and flipped it open. It was old and shaped like a pink clamshell with a regular mirror on one side and a magnifying mirror on the other.

  Damn. Her lip was bleeding. She touched it, feeling how swollen and painful it was. Something about the pain was soothing, and she sucked at the blood. She put her face into her pillow and cried. How was she going to get to New York with no money for a plane ticket or rent for an apartment? Even the dorms required a deposit.

  Cinderella jumped up beside her and nosed at her hand. Astrid rolled over and stroked the cat, resting her ear against her side, letting the low rumble of her purr drown out the drone of the television outside.

  Chapter 4

  Astrid jolted awake. A sound hung in the air, like a voice. It had said her name, she was sure of it. The echo of the sound was there for just a moment, and then her head cleared and her room was just as it always had been. She thought it had been a woman’s voice, but it had also sounded like her own. Maybe she had made a sound in her sleep and woke herself up.

  On her ceiling, two triangles of shadow pointed toward the closet like twin pyramids. She glanced at her alarm clock, the source of the only illumination in the room. Her metal bell in the shape of an owl was sitting in front of it, the peaked feathers on its head casting the shadows. The body of the owl was hollow, and the clacker clinked against the inside as she moved the bell to the other side of her nightstand. The clock read three thirty-nine in the morning. What had awakened her? She glanced down beside the bed into the kitten box. Cinderella was awake, staring at the window, her body stiff. The cat rose, but her eyes never left the blinds. The faint light of a nearby street lamp cast yellow lines on the carpet.

  Then Astrid heard it: a click-clack sound, like stones being knocked together. It clicked once, twice, paused and then clicked a third time. It stopped for a few moments, and she thought she heard some kind of scuffling in the dirt outside her window. Then more clicking. Something was outside, very close, and it was right by her window.

  Then there came a second sound. Tok, tok-tok, tok. It was almost like the sound of the stones, but more hollow. This sound was a little farther off.

  Cinderella let out a low growl
and jumped out of the box. Astrid had left the door ajar after scavenging for dinner and Cinderella snaked through the opening, her tail puffed up and hair standing up along her back. The clacking noise came again. The bell on Cinderella’s collar jingled as she walked down the hall, followed by the flap of the cat door in the kitchen swinging open and shut.

  The kittens mewed and squirmed, and Astrid hung her arm over the side of the bed, stroking them. Their little bodies were warm and soft. The female poked her nose into the blanket over and over, searching for her mother to nurse.

  “It’s okay. She’ll be back,” she whispered. She should get up and see what was making the noise, but she hesitated.

  Tok-tok.

  The sound was closer now, but the stone noise had stopped. The jingle of the bell on Cinderella’s collar grew faster, like she was running. It stopped for a while, then started up again, moving closer to the house.

  Astrid got up and stepped quietly to the window. She pulled down one of the blinds with her finger. There was movement off to one side, but it was not white, so it couldn’t be Cinderella. It was just the bushes moving in the wind. The yard was covered in weeds and overgrown grass with a rickety, patched up fence around all three sides. A barbeque rusted near the back door, next to a cracked set of plastic chairs and a table. The yard was empty except for Cinderella at the back door. The cat door flapped and the jingle came down the hall.

  Then something moved on the back fence. Astrid had not seen it before, as it had been so still. It was a giant crow, perched and looking off to the side. The thing was enormous, with a curving beak and heavy black claws. Was that the thing that had made the sound? She had heard crows make noise before, but that sound was different. But this crow was too large. She had heard of ravens and knew they were similar to crows, so this might be a raven. That was all the sound had been: a raven. It must have moved from under her window to the back fence. She relaxed.

  The raven turned toward her back door and she caught the gleam of light in its black, shining eye. Then it dipped its head, pushed off the fence and flapped away, its wing beats slow and strong.

  The backyard truly was empty now, with only the movement of the plants in the wind giving it life. Astrid looked down. Under her window grew a huge, gangly geranium bush. Its branches and leaves were thick, but she could also see to the ground in places. There were stacks of stones. There were three stones in each stack and she counted at least six stacks. They were set in a circle about three feet across. She recognized the stones. They had come from the side of the house, where her mother had once arranged a bunch of decorative gray, black and white river stones in a planter. But that was back when she and Astrid’s father had been married. The stones had been sitting there for more than a decade.

  “What the hell?” she whispered. She wanted to tell herself that a person had stacked the stones, perhaps her mother. Or maybe a neighbor kid had snuck into her yard during the day. But she had heard the sound of the stones. She wanted to think that the raven had done it, that somehow it had gotten its body into the cramped space between the geranium branches. But that was impossible. The space was too small for a bird of that size. Someone, something, had stacked them just now.

  She felt someone watching her and spun around. Cinderella stood motionless just inside the door, her eyes lamp-like in the dark, watching.

  “You went out there,” Astrid whispered. “What did that?” She looked back out the window, but then let the blinds snap back into position. This was too strange for comfort. Whatever was outside, she didn’t want to see it.

  Cinderella climbed back in with her kittens and lay down on her side, allowing them to nuzzle up to her and nurse. She glanced at Astrid, and then licked her babies.

  Astrid sat on the floor beside the box, her back against the side of her bed. “Were you worried about your babies?” She stroked Cinderella, but the cat did not purr. “Is that it? You were making sure they’d be safe?”

  Petting the cat made her feel a little better, but her heart was still beating hard. She got up and cranked the plastic rod on the side of the blinds to make sure they were closed all the way. Then she closed her bedroom door. If Cinderella had to go to the bathroom, she would have to wait until she got up.

  The morning was only three hours away, and once it was light, she knew she wouldn’t be so afraid. Things were always worse in the dark.

  Chapter 5

  Elliot shouldered his backpack and grabbed the bag of leftover pretzels and day-old hot dogs from the tiny refrigerator in his trailer. He locked the trailer door and zipped up his jacket. It was June, but the morning air was still heavy with a layer of fog and the air had a crispness to it. He had twenty minutes before he had to catch the bus for his Art History class. By the time he got out of class, the sun would have burned off the marine layer and he would have to get ready for work at the boardwalk.

  The bus stop was adjacent to the public parking lot for the beach and across the street from a mini mall. Elliot knew the spots where the homeless people congregated and knew some of the regulars by name. They wouldn’t be hard to find. He rifled through the bag as he walked, counting up how many items he had. He gave most of the food to two men panhandling near the mini mall and continued on toward the bus stop. Sitting against the wall of a building near the bus stop was Mick. He was one of the regulars who was almost always somewhere near the beach or the boardwalk.

  “Hey, Mick. Are you hungry?” asked Elliot, holding up the bag.

  “You got any money?” asked Mick. Like most street people, he was wearing layers of clothing. He was in his forties, but the years on the streets had taken their toll. His brown hair had no gray in it, and though his face was weathered and his skin rough, Elliot could see that he once might have been good-looking.

  “No, no money,” Elliot said. “Just food. Here, take the rest.” Elliot handed him the bag with the last two hot dogs and a pretzel. Whatever Mick didn’t eat now, he could eat later.

  “I don’t need food. I’m full already. The birdman fed me.”

  “Okay, if you don’t want it, I can give it to someone else.”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I said I needed money,” said Mick.

  “Sorry. I can’t help you there.”

  “Aww, c’mon. You have to help me. I need a bus ticket. Things around here are getting crazy. Real crazy.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

  “It won’t. You don’t understand. You won’t let me tell you.”

  “Fine, tell me what’s happening that’s crazy.” Elliot wasn’t sure he should be encouraging Mick, but he felt guilty just walking away. Some of the surfers who were friends with Elliot called Mick by the moniker Creepy Mick. From conversations with him, Elliot had gleaned that he had spent time in hospitals where they had given him anti-psychotic medication, but he now had nowhere to go and he no longer took whatever medication had once been prescribed. Mick also claimed that he had fought in Vietnam, but when Elliot reminded him that he would have only been a child, Mick had gotten angry and yelled at him.

  “Things are changing. Like over there.” Mick pointed over to the bus stop. “There was something else in the street over there, this thing with smoke coming out of a pipe on top and it made such a loud noise, like a dragon or something.”

  “That’s the bus. It’s fine.”

  “Jesus Christ! Listen to me. Why won’t you just listen for a second?” Mick started to stand up, using the wall to steady himself. Elliot took a step backward. He wasn’t normally afraid of Mick, but if the man decided to take a swing at him, he wasn’t going to just stand there.

  “Right the hell over there,” said Mick, taking a shaky step forward. “It wasn’t a bus. It had people in it, yeah. But it was different.”

  “Okay, I see,” said Elliot, looking at the bus stop as if considering
what Mick had said. There was no sense in riling Mick up. The poor guy had enough problems.

  Then Elliot noticed something about Mick. He normally had a beard, but today he only had a day’s worth of stubble. He must have had a shave recently.

  “Did you go to the shelter?” Elliot asked.

  “No, I’ve just been out here.”

  “Then how did you shave? Two days ago, you had a beard.”

  “The birdman helped me out.”

  Again about the birdman. Mick had only started talking about this person in the last two weeks and he mentioned him more and more often. Mick settled back into his spot against the wall and pulled his jacket closed. He looked at Elliot as if daring him to say anything.

  “Well, it was good seeing you,” said Elliot. “I have to go to class.”

  “I’ll be here when you get back. Maybe the birdman will be here too.”

  “Maybe. I’ll see you later.” Elliot turned away.

  “Wait! There’s something else. It’s important,” called Mick.

  Elliot turned back. Was this a play for attention, or did he actually have something important to tell him? He knew that some of the homeless were so starved for companionship that they’d talk his ears off if he let them. Mick usually wasn’t too bad.

  “My friend says not to worry too much about your girl, but keep an eye on her.”