“Lunch.” She relaxed back into the pillows.
“They needed to get out,” Ev said. “Looked like scarecrows. When’d you fall sick?”
“Saturday, I guess. The cat died.” Her throat closed and she blinked away cold tears.
Ma stroked her hair. “It piles up sometimes.”
“What day is it now?”
“Thursday.”
Familiar, panicky tension from the Albert days made her rise again. “Work…”
“Jacks called your clients,” Ev said. “Nobody’s going to can you for breaking down this once.”
Astrid didn’t answer, just huffed faintly.
“He’d a lick of sense, he’d have taken you to the hospital.”
“It’s just a cold, Ma.” The words came out a wheeze. She levered herself upright, trying to look healthy.
“You and your dad,” Ev said. Not affectionately, but not angrily either. Awkward silence bled from that, until she said, “I brought something for you.”
“What, Ma?”
“Back when you were…” She paused, her mouth working. “When I was pregnant with you, I was stuck in bed a month.”
Ma, talking about pregnancy. Astrid’s throat clogged. “I didn’t know that.”
“Blood pressure. Albert brought me this to pass the time.” She handed Astrid a heavy bundle, wrapped in polka-dot tissue paper.
“What is it?”
“I’d have wrapped it if I wanted to tell you?”
Another chantment? Astrid tore the paper aside, dismayed by how exhausting the effort was. Inside was a wooden case, a pine box with brass hinges and a clasp. Ma handed her a key and she fitted it to the lock.
It was a small dulcimer, sized right to sit on the bed, with two small silvery mallets.
“Before I married, I played in the town pipe band.”
“You? Bagpipes?”
“Lot of old Scots in this town. I was one of the first girls they let in the band. I’d half forgot, but the therapist has got me going on all sorts of nostalgic…”
“Yeah? You gonna start playing again?”
“Nah. Half the band’s died off.” Ev set the dulcimer on the bed. “And I don’t have the wind for it now.”
“You’re talking like you’re old, Ma. You’re not old.” She touched a mallet to one string. A chime sounded, high and—as far as she could tell—completely unmagical.
“Albert gave my pipes away.”
He’d probably chanted them. “I’m sorry.”
“He gave me this when I was laid up. Figured it would keep the boredom away if I could pick out a tune or two.”
“We could get you new pipes.”
“I spend my days walking around town with a mail sack. I’m not strapping on the bagpipes in my leisure.” Ma grinned. “I did dig out my father’s old camera. Thought maybe I’d start taking pictures again.”
“I don’t remember you doing that either.” Then she flashed on the albums: shots of Indigo Springs in the seventies, wildlife in the ravine…There’d even been a group of older men in kilts.
“I had the camera out the other day when…” Pausing, Ma actually blushed.
“What?”
“When I was watching Olive.”
“You were taking spy pictures of Jacks’s mother?”
Ma fidgeted, embarrassed, and Astrid felt like she’d spoiled something. To smooth the moment, she asked: “Were any of them good?”
“Lord, I’m not about to develop them. Give me another week, I’ll expose the film and toss it.” Raising the mallets, Ma began playing, mixing silvery chords into a cheery Highland reel.
Astrid shut her eyes, trying to imagine her mother in a kilt, marching past the fire hall with a bunch of geezers, leading a parade, perhaps, a funeral procession….
Morbid thought.
They’d gone to school together, Ev and Albert. Suddenly Astrid wondered: How had he charmed her? Her laid-back, lazy-seeming father, her serious, musical mother. He hadn’t magic-mermaided her into loving him, had he?
No. Dad wouldn’t. Besides, he hadn’t become the chanter until after he was married.
The reel ended and Ev handed her the mallets. “You try.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ll point at strings, you hit them.”
“Okay.” Following Ma’s fingers, she plunked out a creditable version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
“See? Easy.”
She tinkled out random notes, pleased by the way the chords hung in the air. “You were in bed how long?”
“Five weeks. You came late, remember?”
“Right.”
“First and only time you were. Perfect attendance at school…” Stretching, Ev opened the curtains, cracking the patio doors and letting in a blast of air that set Astrid to shivering. Then her hand came to rest on Astrid’s bureau. “Did you find Albert’s clippings after all?”
“What?…” Then she remembered—Ma’s vitagua contamination. Sahara had printed out some news stories from the Web, about people in trouble they might send chantments to. They were in the top drawer, below Ev’s palm. “Snoop.”
“Hyperobservant,” Ma countered, with a trace of her Everett Burke huffiness but no anger.
“They’re for Sahara’s self-help website.”
“I had a tough time getting Jacks to leave,” Ev said. “He’s awfully fond, isn’t he?”
“Ma, my love life…”
“None of my business, true. But I wouldn’t sit around waiting for a better offer. I’d run her down.”
She pulled the covers tight, her teeth chattering. “How did Dad catch your eye?”
“We told you this story a hundred times, kid.”
“He won a track meet and you melted? You must have cut out something. I mean, Dad was…” She wheezed. Dad was a magician, a miracle worker. A hero. “Dad couldn’t have been the Springs’ most eligible bachelor.”
“Ah, the shiftless Lethewood boys,” Ma said musingly. “They were too. Wouldn’t stir if they were boiling over. But when Albert was racing…it’s like he was trying to catch something. He had a way of wanting things, Astrid.”
“And he wanted you like that?”
“Like I was air and he was drowning,” Ma said, half smiling. “When he caught me, he seemed to appreciate it too. But when his great-grandmother died he changed. Started running again, but to the flea markets. Grief does funny things.”
Astrid took Ev’s hand again, feeling the callused firmness of it, remembering holding it as a kid, little fingers swallowed in Ma’s, safe in her strong grip.
“You cut yourself,” she said, rubbing a small scab.
“Caught the rough edge of the Johnsons’ gate latch.”
Astrid let her hand fold over the scab, dropping her arm to the covers. Knowledge hummed in her. Third time’s the charm, she thought, and she picked up one dulcimer mallet, plonked a note. Ev took up the other mallet.
Astrid tugged on the vitagua inside them both, pulling the little bit inside her mother ever so gently through the break in her skin. She watched Ma from the corner of her gaze as they improvised music together.
Vitagua flowed out of Ev bit by tiny bit. A tablespoon, maybe two. Unlike the iced slush in Astrid’s body, it was warm and mobile. She pushed it against the cold places in her lungs.
Then there wasn’t any more to draw, just the inevitable residue, a blue tinge around the picked scab.
A thumping sounded at the front door.
“I’ll get that,” Ma said.
“No, I need to get up.” She tottered to her feet, discovering as she did so that she was wrapped in Sahara’s pajama top. Clove oil wafted up as she buttoned it.
The banging stopped. Astrid headed downstairs anyway, struggling against a sense that the floor was rocking back and forth. Dizzily, she fixed her eyes on the upper corner of the hall and squeezed the banister.
The walls lurched—taking her frozen stomach along for the ride. Ma laid a
hot hand on Astrid’s shoulder. The room wobbled, and then froze in place.
“You okay, baby?”
“I’ll make it.” She shuffled across the unfurnished expanse of the living room, wrinkling up a white sheet that lay spread on the pink carpet. The doorknob was cool to the touch, setting off more shivers as she grasped it.
The porch was empty. Out of habit she glanced down.
“What are you doing?” Ev asked.
“Looking for a killed…bird. I forgot for a second about Henna being dead.”
“Henna’s what?” The voice was unexpected and shocked.
Wobbling, Astrid turned.
Sahara’s ex, Mark Clumber, was at the edge of the living room, wearing smudged glasses and a stricken expression. Seeing him, Astrid lost her balance. She fell against the doorframe, openmouthed and gasping. Mark. Come to take Sahara away?
They might have stayed like that forever—or at least until Astrid collapsed—if Ma hadn’t intervened.
“Your Henna passed last week, son,” she said. Kicking the sheet on the floor aside, she led Astrid to the stairs and nudged her so she sat. “I’m sorry to have to tell you.”
“Dead,” he repeated. “A car hit her?”
“Ah…” Ev paused. “She fell sick? Astrid?”
She nodded dumbly, distantly noting that Mark’s hair was thinning. In high school he had dyed it a vivid tangerine. Now it was a collection of mottled blue and green swatches, mixed with hanks of his natural color, a light brown that implied blondness without achieving it. Behind the glasses, his eyes were two different shades of brown—one walnut, one cedar. His teeth had been rigorously straightened.
Sahara bullied him into getting braces, then complained about how dumb they looked, she thought.
Mark and Sahara had become close after Astrid dropped out of high school to save Dad’s gardening business. He’d barely been on her radar until it was too late.
“It happens with animals, sometimes,” Ev said. “One day they’re good, the next…”
“Henna wasn’t old,” he said, cleaning his glasses with his shirt. “You did feed her?”
Astrid wiped her mouth, remembering her teeth in the cat’s neck, fur bunched around her lips as she tore vitagua out of Henna’s body.
She examined Mark critically, trying to disperse guilt with contempt. He was unshaven, and his pants hung on him like old banana peels. He wore a white tank top speckled with brown stains and his mismatched eyes were shadowed.
“Was there an autopsy?” he asked.
“For a cat?”
“Come to think of it,” Ev said, “you did bury him awfully quickly. Whose idea—?”
“Ma—” Then she saw Ev’s eyes were twinkling. “You’re joking,” she said, almost voiceless with surprise.
“Son, it’s not a person. And it’s a hundred degrees out. Of course they buried it fast,” Ev said.
Mark shook himself. “Right. No autopsy.”
Astrid buried her head in her hands. The room lurched, and she hissed uncomfortably. A tense silence fell.
“Where’s Sahara?” Mark said at last.
“Shouldn’t you be with your new girlfriend, Mark?”
“I don’t have a new girlfriend, okay? I’m miserably single, unlike you two.”
“Pardon?”
He sneered. “You finally get her on her back, or are you just borrowing her pajamas?”
“What do you care?” Astrid’s stomach leapt again, but this time the room wasn’t spinning.
“Fine. Be her exotic rebound fling. Just don’t be surprised when she finds an excuse to toss you away.”
“Excuse? You cheated on her.”
“And I quote, what do you care? I just want the car and an apology, okay? Then I’m out of here.”
“Apology for what?” Clapping a hand over her mouth, Astrid coughed. Blue ice sprayed her palm, melting into her skin. She put it behind her back.
Ev had bent to pick up the sheet on the living room floor. Now she straightened, folding the fabric. “Excuse me, son. Am I to understand you came all the way across the country to hear Sahara Knax say she’s sorry for something?”
He scowled at Astrid. “Tell her.”
“It’s Mark’s car, Ma. Sahara took it.”
He was looking at her expectantly, tapping the toe of one dirty running shoe. “Tell her the rest.”
“Rest of what?” She fought another cough.
“You help her do it? You bitch.”
“Son, you’re not staying if you can’t be civil.” Ev caught Mark by the shoulder and pushed him into a chair.
He started to rise. “I—”
“Young man.” There was no Everett Burke in Ma’s tone—just the old steel. Mark stayed put.
“Honestly, Mark,” Astrid said. “I don’t know what else you’re talking about.”
“She didn’t gloat?”
She shook her head.
“Little Miss Busyfingers has a vengeful streak. She gets out here and decides she doesn’t like the deal we made over the ‘Ask Suzu’ page. She goes on the Web, spreads rumors—an impostor’s writing the advice column—”
Astrid interrupted. “You did put new columns up.”
“Then she gets cute. She hints around the newsgroups that Suzu is missing. Suddenly Sahara’s fans are calling Boston Homicide, claiming someone’s killed their guru.”
Ev frowned. “Surely the police could determine that Sahara wasn’t dead.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Mark said. “But guess what my neighbors told ’em? ‘Mark had a fight with his girlfriend and nobody’s seen her since.’ ‘Mark’s car’s missing and my dog found her hair in his trash.’”
“Why didn’t you just have her call them?” Ev asked.
“She won’t answer my e-mails,” Mark said.
“She wouldn’t do that,” Astrid said.
“Then why are the cops convinced I’m Jack the Ripper?”
“Sounds like you should have gotten to know your neighbors,” Ev said. “If they’d come to like you—”
“Why didn’t you just call?” Astrid interrupted. The ache in her chest was getting worse.
“Because he’s hooked on melodrama.” Sahara stepped through the back door, a nasty gleam in her eyes that hinted she’d been eavesdropping for a while. “You blew town, huh? Way to convince them you’re innocent, moron.”
• Chapter Twenty-One •
Always the big entrance, Astrid thought tiredly as Sahara and Mark began to shout. Rising voices battered her ear drums, and all Astrid could do was wheeze.
Finally Mark began stamping his feet, drumming the floor with his boot heels until everyone shut up. “The cops think I killed you.”
Sahara laughed. “Honey, you’re in no danger. You’re innocent, remember? They can trace my credit history.”
Head sick. Astrid thought uneasily of the vitagua contamination. “Sahara, you didn’t.”
“Mark, as long as you don’t confess or run, they’ll work it out. Oh wait…you ran.”
“I want the car.”
“Too bad. I crashed it.”
“What?”
“It’s slag, Mark. Wrecked it on my way out West. Had to bus here from Chicago. Right, Astrid?”
No. The word rose to her lips. Then Sahara’s amused mask slipped. Desperation flickered in its place—a plea for solidarity. “Yes,” she said. “She hit a tree. She still had a shiner when she arrived.”
Ma coughed, disappointment stamped on her face. Sometimes, Astrid thought, you couldn’t win.
Mark’s jaw worked furiously. “Wrecked. Sure.”
Sahara spun abruptly, emptying her purse onto the counter. Her fist closed on the mermaid pendant.
“Wait,” Astrid said. “We don’t need to go crazy here.”
But Sahara had already dropped the pendant over her head. “Mark, we’re not going to argue.” Her voice thrummed, and Astrid’s skin buzzed with vibrations. A glass beside the sink s
hivered and cracked. “Mark, go back to Elaine’s for the night. Hang out, eat dinner at McMurdy’s, do whatever, but keep your mouth shut.”
Mark’s chest jerked, shoulders rolling inward as if he’d been punched just below the throat. “Shut,” he mumbled, pushing his glasses up on his face.
“Talk to anyone you want, just don’t go whining about me,” Sahara clarified. “Come back in the morning and we’ll discuss the car. Okay?”
“’Kay.” He lurched into the hall.
Astrid glanced at her mother, only to find her watching Sahara vacantly.
“Ev?” Sahara asked. The buzz in her tone lessened. “How you doing?”
“Fine,” Ma said distantly.
“Listen, why don’t you go too? Help Mark get home to his sister’s. Then go about your day.”
Ma followed Mark without another word.
“How could you let him in?” Sahara swooned against the counter. She pulled an energy shake from the fridge and struggled to open the can.
“Did you really set the police on him?” Astrid said.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Sahara, you…zapped him. Zapped them both.”
“Mark resigned from my life. Guest appearances are not allowed.”
“But if the police think he killed you—”
“Cheating, fickle piece of…If I had any guts, I’d have set him on fire.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?”
“You framed him for murder!” She fought down a cough, pain sparking through her chest. She was freezing.
“It just worked out that way.”
“That’s…”
“Crazy? I’m not contaminated anymore, remember?”
Residue, Astrid thought, but the anger in her friend’s eyes kept her from saying it.
“Maybe you just think I’m a bitch.”
“Mark won’t back off just because you used the mermaid on him. You have to talk to him every day now, remember?”
“Ah, sweet wizard.” Drawing composure around herself like a shawl, Sahara kissed Astrid’s head. “Our situation has improved since you fell into your enchanted sleep.”
“Meaning?”
There was a thump from the direction of the bathroom.
Sahara groaned. “Idiot. He went the wrong way down the hall.”
Mark and Ma emerged from the hallway before Astrid could intercept them. Ev had Mark by the arm, leading him back toward the kitchen and Sahara.
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