Indigo Springs

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “What?”

  “She’ll fuck you over and leave again.” He hurled a stone, again hitting the pole.

  Natural athlete, Astrid thought irrelevantly, shocked by his vehemence. The silence stretched, until finally she made herself laugh lightly. “You’re trying to distract me, Jacks. Did the watch bring us out here or not?”

  “Maybe this is my idea of a cool date.” He kissed her hand, bowing extravagantly.

  “Goof,” she said. “Come on, Jacks, perfect timing. Produce.”

  He put a hand to his ear, as if listening for guidance…then pulled her from the edge, out of sight.

  “Is it your dad?”

  “Garbage truck.” He was speaking right into her ear, his voice low. He’d pulled her into a crouch, and one of his arms was over her shoulders.

  “Jacks?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You basically own the place, right? We’re not trespassing.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why are we hiding?”

  “Good point.” He didn’t let go, though, just looked at her steadily until she felt a little weak-kneed.

  “Cut it out, Eligible,” she said, giving him a playful shove. They straightened up as the truck pulled in to collect the plant’s trash. Astrid raised a hand, trying to look less furtive, but the driver didn’t look up. The loader grabbed the glass factory’s Dumpster and flipped it, emptying the week’s trash with a bang.

  “Look.” Jack pointed. A box had fallen out of the Dumpster, hitting the ground as the truck rumbled away down the factory road.

  “Let’s go.” They descended the ladder, Astrid first. The box had tipped and spilled, revealing a collection of faded toys: action figures, a six-gun, a plastic box full of polished stones, and a rusty tractor. “Dad kept the toys around for when he had to bring me to work. He must’ve tossed them.”

  “Maybe he’s given up on you taking over.”

  “Never.” He was looking at her expectantly.

  “What?” she said.

  “Are they chantments?”

  “Oh.” She touched them one at a time, dropping one of the stones with a hiss of indrawn breath when it turned out to be sea-glass.

  “Cut yourself?”

  “No. Vitagua doesn’t like sea-glass. Don’t ask me why. Albert didn’t tell me yet.”

  “Should I throw it out?” He picked it up, brushing away a caked-on bit of grit.

  “No, it could be useful. Maybe it’s why the watch brought us here.” He’s uncontaminated, she thought as Jacks rolled it on his palm. Dad had checked her for contamination before making her his apprentice. Maybe…

  She felt a twinge of unease at even considering Jacks as her apprentice. What would Sahara say?

  No. It wasn’t fair to ask, not with Lee trying to stick Jacks with the Fire Department.

  “Some treasure.” He stuck it in his shirt pocket. “Rubble that hurts you and no magic toys.”

  She shook her head. “Albert used sea-glass in my initiation. Maybe it means I should get an apprentice.”

  “Figure out what you’re doing before you go teaching anyone else, okay?” Her fingertips were burn-reddened where she had touched the piece of glass; Jacks took her hand, examining them professionally.

  “Albert and I played poker sometimes, you know? Just penny stakes, but—”

  “Was he any good?”

  He kissed the burns and released her. “So-so. His luck was terrible, but the man could definitely bluff.”

  She hugged him then, blushing, before tossing the remaining toys back in the garbage.

  • Chapter Thirteen •

  They were almost back to the highway when Astrid’s mobile rang.

  It was Sahara. “Where are you guys?”

  “Nowhere much,” Astrid answered, and as Jacks braked and shot her a look of inquiry she mouthed, The Princess.

  “Can you meet me somewhere?”

  “We’re headed home.”

  “Not the house.” Sahara’s voice was taut with excitement…or tension? “Get Jacks to pick a site.”

  “She wants us to meet her out in the middle of nowhere,” Astrid said.

  He pointed to a gravel lane branching north. “Tell her we just reached the exit for Tishvale.”

  “Sahara, you remember where Tishvale is?”

  “The ghost town? Did the magic watch bring you there?”

  “We just hit the exit when you called.”

  “I’d say that’s a yes.”

  Astrid said: “Do you remember how to get here?”

  “Yeah, I’m on it.”

  Jacks asked: “Has someone found out about us?”

  Astrid’s heart pounded. “Sahara, are we busted?”

  “Not by a long shot. Tell you everything when I get there.” With that, Sahara hung up.

  Tishvale lay on the banks of Teale Creek, a fast-running stream that had hosted a momentary 1850s gold rush. Panners headed to California tried their luck up and down the creek, with enough initial success that a few cabins sprang up on the riverbank, along with a saloon and general store. The would-be founding father of the town, one Ernie Tish, had been raising money for a church when the gold vein they were mining was tapped out.

  Astrid and Jacks parked the bikes and took a leisurely poke through the remains of the cabins. Overgrown and rotten, they were encrusted with the remnants of high school bush parties: bottles, cigarette butts, litter from spent fireworks, and even the occasional shotgun shell.

  “What if we are busted?” Jacks said.

  “Sahara said we weren’t.”

  “If it happens one day, then.”

  Astrid shuddered. “Dad got away with it his whole life. Why shouldn’t we?”

  He didn’t answer, just glanced down the road, where Sahara was pulling up in Mark’s car.

  “Well?” Jacks demanded as she parked and darted to her trunk, yanking out her laptop bag.

  Sparkle from the backseat drew Astrid to the car. Cardboard boxes were jammed in the backseat, all brimming with garage sale junk—toys, old books, shoes, cassette tapes, dishes, a set of wax fruit, and clothes.

  “What’s all this?” she said.

  “Crap from Mrs. Skye’s basement,” Sahara said. “Guys, I’ve just been chatting online with Marlowe.”

  Jack sat on the stump, frowning. “The woman from the newsgroup? The one whose chantment almost killed her?”

  Sahara nodded. “Remember the posts dried up just as they got interesting?”

  “How could we forget?” said Astrid. The trio of chantment-users had been discussing ways to use their chantments without draining a user’s “life force”—as Happypill had put it—when Eldergodz stopped posting. After that, the others agreed to move their conversation offlist.

  “I’ve been surfing around looking for Marlowe and Happypill,” said Sahara. “I found an e-mail address, dropped her a message. She sent me back a Web address.”

  “Let me guess,” Jacks said. “Chantments-dot-com.”

  “Nah. It was one of those free pages with about five billion pop-up ads.”

  “What did the page say?” Jacks asked.

  “First it said Eldergodz was dead. That he stopped posting because he roasted to death in a fire at his pub…. I guess he was a bartender.”

  “Dead?” Astrid said. Jacks’s hand tightened on hers.

  “Yeah. Marlowe had autopsy photos.” Sahara grimaced. “Said if I was smart, I’d stop asking questions.”

  “But of course, you weren’t smart,” Jacks said. “Why are we talking about this way out here?”

  “After I blew off her suggestion to turn off my machine and walk away, Marlowe sent a link so we could chat directly. She told me the guys who got to Eldergodz got to her too. Her gas pipes blew up and the magic bookmark burned. She’s been homeless ever since. She’s totally paranoid…thinks whoever did it is still after her.”

  “Witch-burners and chantment thieves,” Astrid said, quoting Albert. She pulled a c
eramic sailboat out of one of Mrs. Skye’s boxes. “Maybe it’s true.”

  “You didn’t tell her where we are?” Jacks said.

  “No. No names, no locations, nothing,” Sahara said. “I did promise we’d mail a chantment to a friend of hers.”

  “You promised what?”

  Astrid dug at a scab on her knuckle, bringing vitagua to the surface of her skin and chanting the tacky sailboat statuette. Her headache diminished.

  “Hey, Wizard, you with us here or are you just playing with the sparkly things?”

  “I’m listening, Princess,” Astrid said.

  “How could you make a promise like that?” Jacks demanded. “Without consulting us?”

  “You weren’t around. Marlowe had fifteen minutes in some Internet café. She’s convinced Albert’s bad guys are chasing her, she lost everything she owns, and she wants some magic that’ll help her keep from getting murdered. Pardon me for making a judgment call.”

  “It wasn’t your call to make,” he said. “Astrid?”

  She sighed, not wanting to referee a fight, and examined the newly made chantment. The grumbles had whispered something about Aladdin’s lamp when she made it. You got a genie from that lamp if you cleaned it, she thought, rubbing a smear of dust off its sails.

  She immediately felt her memory sharpening: every idea she’d had lately about work, the house, and the chantments fell into order, neat as books organized in a library. She knew who owed her money and how much, she thought of four more gardens where she and Dad had worked together in the past. The Albert memories came together like a jigsaw puzzle: there were still holes and gaps, things she didn’t know, but fresh details shone out.

  Trivial facts—phone numbers, gardening articles she’d read, even years-old conversations—were all dusted off, handily at her command.

  So was everything she knew about how Sahara’s mind worked. “Let’s hear her out,” she said to Jacks. “We aren’t out here in the middle of nowhere for no reason.”

  “Right you are.” Sahara grinned. “I didn’t offer Marlowe a chantment for free.”

  “No? What did we get besides a stranger who knows we can provide her with chantments?” Jacks asked.

  “Marlowe was hoping these Internet buddies of hers could help her figure out how to run her chantment without frying herself. When they disappeared, she decided to take a risk. She bought a nice thick journal, stuck her bookmark in it, and asked it to cough up the answers on magic. She had a massive seizure, and ended up in hospital for a week. When she finally made it home, she found the journal had been filled with information about chantments.”

  “There’s a book?” Jacks said.

  “Magic lore,” Sahara said. “Instructions.”

  “So…we get the book, she gets a chantment?” Astrid said hopefully.

  “Ha,” Sahara said. “Don’t I wish. Marlowe scanned me one page as a sign of good faith. If we send a chantment care of her friend, she might send more.”

  “Fantastic,” said Jacks. “Why not give her our address and ask her to move in?”

  “Stow it, Eligible. Don’t you want to see the page?”

  “Of course,” Astrid said.

  “Good.” Sahara popped open her laptop and started booting. “Did I just see you make a chantment, Astrid?”

  “I don’t think the sailboat uses much juice.”

  “I brought the stash from home.”

  “Let me try again.” She reached for another sparkly object—a beaded purse this time—from the boxes in the backseat. She chanted it, enjoying the rush of energy.

  By now the computer was up and running. Sahara double-clicked on an icon and an image filled the screen—a primitive line drawing. Nonsense words were scrawled beneath it. Beneath those, typed text read “Phonetically spelled-out cantation for converting heat to magic.”

  “Are those waves?” Astrid asked, flipping the purse chantment in her hand as she looked at the picture.

  “Sand dunes, I think,” Jacks said. “See the curl here? It’s more evocative of sand. Is this a Native petroglyph?”

  “Maybe if my risky little business arrangement works out with Marlowe, you’ll find out.” Sahara scrolled down, revealing more instructions. “First I hold the chantment in both hands and recite the text below the picture. Did you make something exciting, darling?”

  Astrid handed it over. Sahara read the syllables, a mishmash of baby talk and Latin-toned phrases. The rhythms had the singsong lilt of the vitagua grumbles. As she finished, the air seemed to crackle, hazing ever so slightly and then clearing again.

  “Okay,” she said. “What does this thing do?”

  Astrid plucked a feather out of a tattered pillow resting atop one of Mrs. Skye’s other boxes. “Put the feather inside, close the purse, and then open it again.”

  Sahara obeyed. As its clasp snapped shut, the purse bulged. When she opened it a sequined egg rolled out, bursting apart to reveal a full-grown goose sitting amid a pile of gold glitter.

  Sahara flinched, startled, and the bird flew away, honking. “Geese and golden eggs. Very useful.”

  “Do you feel tired?” Jacks turned from the petroglyphs on the laptop to close observation of Sahara as she transformed two more feathers, dumping the eggs on the hood of the car so the birds could hatch there.

  “Nope,” she said. “Not tired, not hungry.”

  He felt her forehead, then laid a finger on her throat. “Your temperature’s fine. Pulse seems normal.”

  “Supposedly it converts ambient heat to magic,” Sahara said, tapping the laptop. “Does it seem any cooler?”

  “Maybe,” said Astrid. “Do a few more?”

  “Always happy to work a little sorcery,” Sahara said.

  Astrid took a stone pestle from the box. Would it be safe to make three chantments if they shipped them out of town right away?

  Sahara shoved another three feathers in the purse. Three more geese hatched and then flapped away. She reached for the pillow again, but Jacks stopped her.

  “I feel fine, Eligible.”

  “It is getting cold,” he said. And it was—they were exhaling clouds of mist, as if it was midwinter.

  “Look,” Astrid said, pointing. Frost was spreading in a circle from Sahara’s feet. Water had condensed on the bumper of the car, and the air was noticeably chilled, as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud.

  “It is drawing heat,” Sahara said, closing the laptop and tucking it into its bag. She grabbed a handful of feathers, then glanced at Jacks. “What do you think?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Push it a little further.”

  She did, closing the feathers into the purse and then opening it on an eruption of geese. They flapped out of the open mouth of the purse, flying in every direction, honking loudly as gold sequins pooled at her feet. The circle of frost on the ground spread, climbing up the tree trunks and silvering the log cabin walls. Astrid, Jacks, and Sahara began to shiver as a patch of Teale Creek froze over.

  “I bet this is how Marlowe got discovered,” Jacks said. “If our yard starts freezing in June—”

  “So maybe it’s not the most useful thing we ever learned—,” Sahara began.

  “Maybe your Web buddy wants us to get caught.”

  “She’s got a book, Astrid,” Sahara said. “A whole book. Think about how much we don’t know. Isn’t that worth a bit of risk?”

  “Albert wouldn’t have thought so,” Astrid said, chanting the pestle. The circle of ice was still spreading, even though Sahara had stopped making geese. A breeze ruffled her hair.

  “Maybe the next trick she teaches us will be more discreet,” Sahara said.

  “Jacks?” Astrid said.

  He pinched up a frozen chunk of moss. “It is risky. But I’d like to know more about what we’re doing.”

  “So we’ll send her a chantment?” Sahara asked. “We’ll talk to her some more?”

  “We’ll be very very careful,” Jacks said. “Nothing about who we are
or where we live, nothing about Astrid making chantments.”

  “Careful is my middle name,” Sahara said solemnly, and when both Jacks and Astrid laughed she looked hurt, just for a second, before joining in.

  The ice on Teale Creek crackled; the air was warming.

  “I guess the purse took all the heat it needed,” Jacks said.

  “At least we know how to do something big, if we need to,” Sahara said.

  “Let’s hope we never need to,” Astrid replied, gazing skyward. Far above them, the flock of geese had stopped its confused circling, forming a large V and following its leader north.

  • Chapter Fourteen •

  “Over the weeks that followed, we learned many things,” Astrid tells me. “Some from Albert through the memory flashes, some from Sahara’s Internet friend, but most by trial and error. It was a crash course in learning about the invisible world, an exercise in giving up the things we’d always known with certainty.

  “Sahara put it this way: Suddenly, after a lifetime, gravity was optional. Momentum and inertia were just ideas—stronger than myths like the Tooth Fairy, but still just recommended guidelines for being normal.”

  Her words ring true. Since Astrid’s arrest, the world has been dealing with this same paradigm shift. We are in the grip of a collective nervous breakdown, complete with riots, skyrocketing drug use, and mad swings in church attendance. No amount of hysteria, prayer, or government action has stopped the spread of magic…or of fear. The spiritually rootless are flocking to Sahara’s cult to the dismay of sincere pagans.

  “There have to be some rules…some limitations.”

  “Sometimes it depends on the chantment,” Astrid says. “For the mermaid pendant to work, you had to say the name of the person you were…persuading to do something.”

  I nod. “And this need chantments have for energy?”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “Magic needs power. Most chantments fed off the person controlling them.”

  “That explains Patience’s appetite and her sugar cube habit,” I say. “But the energy required for some of the things Sahara has done—”

  “Marlowe taught us cantations for drawing energy from other sources,” Astrid says. Pictures emerge on cards, smears of blue ink on slate. She holds up the sand dune. Nonsense syllables—the cantation, presumably—are etched beneath it. “This is the one that converts heat to magic.”