Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  Bella went to sit behind Jackson, setting her hands in her lap in her dignified fashion, and Jackson cleared his throat dramatically, called for a beer, and then waited for someone to bring it to him as the tribe laughed to each other. He cleared his throat again, sipped at the beer, and then nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “Tonight, we have new members, but tonight we also have old memories. I think the two live together well, when you’re Makkai.”

  “There are cultures out there that sing. The Makkai have never been much for singing, though we don’t hold ourselves above belting out a tune when the muse at the bottom of the cup takes us. You might think that it’s because our culture, the pieces that are important to us, they have the touch of the ancient to them, and they need to be told in calm words, serious words, around a fire, in the deep of night, but there’s no proof to that. Maybe it’s that we just like to let our instruments do our singing for us.

  “Whatever the reason, we have always told stories. Always kept ourselves close into our stories, weaned our children on them, lay our elders to rest on them. Although a Makkai never rests, because of our stories. They might live forever, so long as there are Makkai left to talk about them.

  “This is such a story. A man lived his life and he died, but the life that he lived was much too large to fit into the span of years he actually lived it, and so it spun on, year after year after year, too many to count, up to today, and so he is still a part of the Makkai, and still lives through the Makkai who live on yet today.

  “The man’s name was Oak. He had another name, we assume, one that his mother deemed to give him, but from boyhood, he had always been called Oak because he had a body like a great tree, and a mind of unmoving wisdom to match. His father was an upright man, well loved by his wife and his children, and Oak was a tribute to his father that any man could envy. He was gentle with all living things, but stormy and powerful in the light of injustice or tragedy.

  “At the appropriate time, he found a woman that he loved and who loved him, and they were wed in a ceremony that was traditional to those days. And for a time, they were happy.

  “As good as it is to have a happy life, and how no Makkai would scoff at a man who simply lived his life happy and then died, we know that such men don’t live on in story. Oak became a father once, twice, thrice, and he and his wife traveled the world as they saw fit with two other families of a similar state. And there was a day that they were camped at the side of a river, intending that they would cross it the next day. Oak was working on one of the wheels of his wagon, which had gone over a rock and broken a spoke, while his wife and his three children played in the water, washing and taking their leisure, as it was summer and the weather was fine and hot. Several of the other families were out with them, though none of the men, for a Makkai man in those times found little time for leisure while the sun was yet up and the wagons stopped. This isn’t because the work was so burdensome, but rather because a Makkai who is stopped is driven to work until he starts again, and Oak was no different from any of them in this.

  “He tended the animals and the wagon and then set to work on the wheel when he heard a great rush of water. No one knows for sure what caused it, whether it was a blockage upstream that abruptly gave, or a great flooding rainstorm that washed out the river all at once, but before anyone could react, both shores of the river were under rushing water and all of the Makkai were washed away.

  “Oak found himself down river some distance - had no measure of how far he had come, as the water ran fast and simply finding a solid point to lay hold of was all he could think of. He immediately started looking for the rest of his family, for the other Makkai he’d been traveling with, but there was nothing but water and debris as far as he could see. The river had flooded wide, and he found himself in a tree dozens of feet from the still water at the edge of the flood, and even as he held firm, dead trees and clumps of earth went spinning past him at a rate that told him that he would not be safe if he tried to make for shore.

  “Oak, though, was not a man to be deterred by danger when the lives of his family and friends were at stake, and once again he plunged into the water, swimming for everything he had, and finally reaching the shallow water, where he was devastated to find the body of a Makkai woman. He pulled her ashore and lay her at rest for the moment, saying a brief word over her and promising both her and himself that he would return for more proper rites once he knew what had happened to the others.

  “He continued down river as fast as he could on foot, and he found one of the men sitting on a tree with his head in his hands.

  “’What are you doing, man?’” Oak asked. ‘Your wife and your children may yet live, and you sit here, doing nothing.’

  “’I am broken,’ the man said, crying into his hands. ‘My legs are destroyed and I could only just pull myself out of the water. I cannot search for them and if this is what happened to me, I fear that they are all dead.’

  “Now, Oak knew that the third wife was dead, but he kept this to himself because it was of no value telling a man who had already given up hope.

  “’You are Makkai,’ Oak said. ‘Not only will you recover, you will fight for your wife and your children so long as you have breath. Now, I know you cannot walk, but I will find help and send them back to you as soon as I can. You have crystals in your pocket. Take them out and see what you can do for yourself and your family, as little as it may be. I’m going on.’

  “And he left the man and kept on.

  “Around a bend and through a thick cove of trees, he found three little girls, none of them his own, shivering and afraid and clinging to rocks just off shore.

  “’Hold on,’ Oak called to them. ‘I will come and get you, and take you back to your father. He’s very worried about you.’

  “’Our mother was with us,’ the oldest girl cried to him, ‘but the river washed her away when we caught the rocks. Please go and find her.’

  “And her pleas moved him, though he held firm, going to bring each child to shore and then walking with them back to the man with the broken legs for him to watch over them.

  “The sun was beginning to set, now, and he ran, following the river past where he had found the girls, on to a place where the river was much, much wider. In the dusk, he could see that there was an island in the middle of the river, a big one with trees and rocks, and that there were at least a few things moving on it. He squinted and he used a focus stone to find that that was what had become of most of the gypsy horses that had been pulling their wagons. They milled on the island, agitated and afraid, but he saw that, even as he stood, the river was going back down. He found a tree that had been pushed over by the great onslaught of debris, and he twisted it further, moving it to point at the island so he could find it again, and he whistled to the horses, loudly, so that they could hear that he was alive.

  “’I will come back for you,’ he said to himself, ‘but now I must keep looking for Makkai.’

  “And again he went on.

  “When the darkness had claimed all of his ability to see, he stopped, going away from the river to find dry wood and kindling. He started a fire, then wrapped a great bough in grasses and lit it, taking as much dry grass with him as he could carry and he kept on. Now his progress was slow, as he had to keep stoking his torch and when he ran out of grass, he had to leave the river and find more. But he traveled with a bright torch, and it was a good thing, because near the deepest of the night, he found two little boys, the ones whose mother he had found first. They were huddled up in a tree high overhead, but they called to him when they saw the torch, and he called them down.

  “’But the water,’ they cried.

  “’It is gone,’ he answered. ‘Come down and walk with me so that I can keep an eye on you as I keep going.”

  And the boys climbed down to him and he saw that they were shivering in the dark and the cold, so he walked with them to the dry where he lay a great fire.

  “’S
tay here,’ he said. ‘I will come back for you soon.’

  “And the boys hugged each other and sat close to the heat as Oak went on.

  “Dawn was beginning to approach now, and he worried that he might never see his wife and his children again. As he walked along the river, he heard a shout, and he looked across the river to see the third Makkai man on the far bank. The man shouted something to him, but the sound of the water was too much for Oak to hear him. He knew there was a place a little ways back where the river narrowed and deepened, and he thought that he might be able to hear, with his focus stone, there, and so he communicated his intent to the Makkai man by way of hand signals, and they both made their way back.

  “’Have you found anyone?’ Oak called.

  “’Your smallest daughter,’ the man called back. ‘She is very ill, and I fear for her life.’

  “Oak was very grieved at this, but he could not cross the river.

  “’I found your sons,’ Oak said. ‘They are at a fire staying warm, and I do not believe either of them is injured. Your wife is dead.’

  “The man’s face fell, and he dropped to his knees for a moment, then stood and motioned that he would go back to Oak’s daughter. Oak indicated that he would continue going on. There was one woman, his wife, his son, and his oldest daughter yet missing, and he would not rest until he found them.

  “He kept on through midday, and the river continued to drop. He found small pieces of things that they had been carrying in their wagons, so he knew that his family could have washed down this far, but he feared for the two young boys, alone far behind him, and he knew he must turn back.

  “Little had he gone, though, before he heard crying in a bush nearby, and he went to find a young boy there, a stranger to him.

  “’Where are you from?’ Oak asked.

  “’My village was along the river,’ the boy told him. ‘Water came and swept it away, and me with it. I held on to a section of roof for a long way, but it fell apart, and then I tumbled with the water until I came to rest here. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know where any of my village is.’

  “So Oak took the boy with him as he went back to find the other boys, and he took the three of them back to the man with his daughters, a journey that took the rest of the day. He found, there, the third man and his own youngest daughter, and he saw that she was indeed greatly injured, eyes closed and breaths short and shallow.

  “Because there was nothing else they could do, they brought the broken man up to beyond the flood line and they set a fire there and they tended to the injuries as best they could.

  “And Oak sat and watched over his injured daughter and spoke quietly with the other healthy man.

  “’Gypsy wives are strong,’ he said to the other man. ‘I believe that mine may yet live.’

  “’I hope that she does,’ the other man said. ‘She may be the only hope for the two of them.’

  “He indicated the broken man and Oak’s daughter, and Oak agreed, though both of them knew that, without crystals, the hope for both of them was limited. They spoke for a short time about the outsider boy, each agreeing that they needed to try to find his home, but the other man thought that they ought to keep him for a short time, while they recovered their possessions and tried to find a way to continue forward, while Oak thought that they needed to find the village as soon as possible, in case there was a way they could help, there.

  “’We are built for life with few things,’ Oak said. ‘They are not.’

  “’Few, maybe,’ the other man said, ‘but we have no food. We have to see to our families first.’

  “And so it went. As dawn approached, there was a noise behind them, and Oak’s wife struggled through a thicket of underbrush and into the firelight.

  “Oak held her close, overjoyed that she lived and that she was well enough to come to him on her own, but she was angry with him.

  “’Why are you here, relaxing in comfort, while our children are still missing?’ she asked.

  “’There are too few of us and too many of them,’ Oak said. ‘I had to stay here to watch over our daughter.’

  “’Well, I am here now,’ the woman said, hugging him once more. ‘I will do what I can for her. You go. Bring back my children to me.’

  “And he kissed her once and departed immediately.

  “Now, all of the food that they had had was gone, and so Oak was forced to scavenge as he walked, hunting down berries and insects as he could, but he did not slow. The mark of the flood was on the land and mud covered everything that had been underwater, and so when he wanted to find anything to eat, he had to go up into the dry space above the flood line to look.

  “And there, around midday, he heard a small voice.

  “’Daddy?’

  “And his heart broke and he would have wept, but that he was too eager to find the girl who had spoken.

  “Deep in a thicket, he found her laying in a deer hollow. Her face was muddy but for the washed-clean tracks of tears that yet fell, for in her lap, she held her brother.

  “’He isn’t moving, Daddy,’ she said. And Oak went to his son.

  “The boy was of a solid build, fourteen summers now and growing fast. Oak was amazed that his daughter had dragged him this far away from the water, and that she had stayed with him for the next two days. He put his fingers to the boy’s skin and found it cool, but not cold.

  “’Has he spoken at all?’ Oak asked. His daughter shook her head, still crying. And Oak feared that the boy was dead, simply not given up yet, but he did not tell his daughter, because she had held him all this time and kept hope.

  “’What crystals are you carrying?’ Oak asked, her, and she showed him. Oak searched the boy’s pockets as carefully as he could, but found nothing that had additional use. And he was near despair.

  “What could he do for the boy now, without crystals, without help, without so much as a morsel of food to give him? He looked at the tears streaked down his daughter’s face and he knew that he could not give up without at least trying.

  “Now, all Makkai know, just as well as everyone else, that most stones are made up of a marvelous assortment of crystals, just muddied together so much that they are useless and inseparable. This thought occurred to Oak in that moment, and so he carefully lifted the boy from his daughter’s lap and crawled back out of the deer hollow, walking down to the riverside where the great river boulders were, and he used his hands to wash one clean. His daughter, standing beside him, wiped it with her skirts until the rock showed through, and then Oak put his son’s limp body across it and he put his hands on the stone.

  “No one before or since has attempted what he attempted that day, but Oak put all of his will, all of his might, all of his power into finding the healing crystals in the river boulder, and then, with great physical effort, he charged them. Some hardly even believe it, but the boulder grew hot, and then, before his eyes, his son’s skin went from blue to pink and his son’s breathing deepened and evened, and soon his eyes opened and he sat up.

  “Oak held his son close, picking up his daughter as well and carrying them a great distance before he would let either of them walk on their own, and they went back to find the little camp again where the rest of the Makkai waited.

  “The other gypsy wife had found her way back while he had been gone, drawn by the smell of smoke, and once they recovered the horses, they spent great time and energy ensuring that the young outsider boy returned to his family.

  “This is what family means to the Makkai, and we treasure it.”

  The Makkai sat around the fire for a long time after Jackson ended his story, and finally he looked back at Bella and then stood.

  “We are a tribe, but we are also a family,” he said, looking at Reece and Tiffany. “Welcome.”

  The greetings were somewhat dampened as the Makkai considered the story, but then the bowls of beer came out and the instruments began to sing and the evening took a turn for the cheerful as B
ecca sat between Dawn and Grant.

  “It’s too quiet,” Dawn said again. “It’s just not right.”

  Lighting struck Bella’s trailer that night.

  The camp was in an uproar after the deafening strike, in the midst of a clear night, woke everyone up. Jackson and Bella tried to calm everyone, and in the middle of it, Dawn grabbed Becca’s hand and pulled her into the trailer, where everything still smelled of ozone and fried wiring.

  “I need you to help me,” Dawn said quietly, standing over a small tray of water.

  A year since Bella’s dog had died, and nothing had happened. Even the most paranoid in the tribe had nothing they could point at and say that it might have been the curse greater than Bella tripping at a campfire or catching her skirts on a nail. They had begun to whisper that sometimes a dog just dies.

  Sometimes.

  And each time Becca had heard it, she’d thought of that tray of crystals, the way that they’d shot away, the way that the Bellas had looked at each other when it had happened.

  And now she stood over just such a tray, much reduced in size and full of clear water rather than murky corn starch, but there it was. Dawn handed her a clear plastic bag full of crystal shards.

  “How has your memorization been going?” she asked with just a hint of humor.

  “I passed earth at the festivals,” Becca said, trying to pretend to be insulted, but too much in suspense to do it justice.

  “Good,” Dawn said. “I have a list from Bella for how to order them, and then…” she looked at Becca with real concern, “I’m supposed to test the crystal.”

  She nodded with her head to a blanket on her bed and Becca frowned.

  She should have known that Bella would be carrying the same kind of crystal her mother had been keeping at her house, but she was still surprised.

  “You?” Becca asked. “Shouldn’t she do it?”

  “She told me to,” Dawn said. “I don’t want to, either, so I wanted you to be here. What if I mess it up?”