by Norah Wilson
“It’s good,” Connie said. “Like this.”
Connie lowered herself to the ground and rested there.
Rested. Freakin’. There! Atop the ground, like a regular corporeal being.
“Omigod! How are you doing that?” Maryanne asked.
Before Connie could reply, Alex supplied the answer. “Copper! Oh, man! You made a floor of copper and you can actually rest on it. You don’t have to be in idling mode all the time, hovering and hovering.”
“Yes!” Connie said, obviously pleased that they understood. “Very good rest.”
Brooke lifted her gaze from the copper-strewn floor back up to the ceiling of tree branches. “Okay, the floor I get. But how did you get the branches to do that?”
“Copper,” Connie replied.
Brooke snorted. “What? You throw some copper on the ground and suddenly trees decide to braid their limbs to give you a roof?”
“No,” Connie said. “Like this.”
She picked up a pair of copper pipes, the ends of which had been bent into a crude hook, and levitated so she could reach the ceiling. There she demonstrated how she could use the two pipes to grasp a tender new branch and pull and push it into the intricate arrangement.
“Holy shit!” Brooke exclaimed. “Of course! You can manipulate your environment with copper, because you can pick it up. It’s solid to you, and solid to everything it touches.”
“This is great, Connie,” Alex said. “You’ve made yourself a home.”
“Please sit,” Connie invited.
They sat. And what an amazing feeling! So easy! Until Brooke rested on the copper, she hadn’t really thought about how much energy they expended with all that hovering.
“Wow, copper to rest on, copper to wear while you soar... You must never get tired,” Brooke marveled.
“Oh, but I am tired. Very tired. I can’t really go home. Connie... my other Connie—the real Connie—is gone.”
Crap. Of course. She’d been locked out of her body by those murdering sons-of-bitches. Getting out of body was nice. Better than nice. But Brooke wasn’t sure she’d like to be out here indefinitely, with no way back in.
“Do you know how long it’s been?” Alex asked softly. “I mean, how long you’ve been out here. How long since... you were whole?”
“Forty-nine years,” Connie answered. “Soon to be fifty. I keep track of every day.”
They were all silent a while, absorbing the magnitude of that.
“Where’d you get all this copper?” Brooke asked, looking around.
“Stole it,” Connie replied, and Brooke was pleased to hear the smile in her voice. “Copper piping from empty houses. Thousands of pennies. Lightning rods. Grounding bars. Electrical tubing. Cookware.”
“Jewelry,” Maryanne said, picking up a large brooch.
“Yes, jewelry,” Connie said. “If I can pick it up, it has enough copper in it.” She leaned closer, as though to confide something. “And those boxes people use? Like typewriters but with a TV screen they stare into all day? There’s copper, in them too.”
“Computers, you mean?” Alex asked.
“I guess.” Connie shrugged. “I reached into one once and felt it. That’s how I find copper,” she explained. “Some copper too tight.” She interlocked her fingers and tugged, demonstrating immovability. “But the copper in these boxes—I can lift it right out.”
The processor chips! Brooke laughed in delight. “Good for you, Connie. That’s about the best use of a motherboard I ever heard of.”
“Motherboard?”
“That’s what they call that piece you can pick up.”
Connie nodded. “Baby shoes work too,” she said, “but I never took them.”
Brooke frowned. “Baby shoes?”
“The bronze dipped ones,” Maryanne supplied. “You know, electrically plated.”
“Almost every house has them,” Connie went on, “but I couldn’t take them. Wrong.”
Brooke flashed back to her apartment in New York and the sweet pair of copper-plated booties that sat in her mother’s knick-knack cabinet. Unaccountably, she wanted to cry, but thank God, that wasn’t a possibility for a caster. Then—dammit!—she felt her original crying back in the attic.
Brooke felt around for an object on the floor to distract herself and came up with a bundle of wires. “I guess copper wires are in good supply,” she said. “There seem to be enough of them in this... ” What the hell was it? Oh, hell, a doll! A flipping doll! Her fingers flew over it, feeling its features. Copper tubing for limbs. Copper wire to bind the limbs together. Fine, fine copper wires for hair. Had Connie scratched a face onto it? Back in the attic, tears flowed out of her original like she’d sprung a damned leak. God, Brooke, grow a skin, why don’t you?
“Give her to me,” Connie said, holding out her hand.
Brooke was only too glad to pass the sad doll off.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“My baby.”
“May I see it?” Alex asked gently.
Reluctantly, Connie passed it along.
Alex felt the dolls features much as Brooke had just done. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Can I pass it to Maryanne?”
“No!”
For a split second, Brooke thought the protest came from Connie, but it was Maryanne herself who’d said it.
“I mean, that’s not necessary. Give it back to Connie, Alex.”
Alex handed the doll back to Connie, who cradled it tenderly and cooed to it as though it were a living child.
Brooke shivered.
Eventually Connie looked up and said, “It’s okay.”
“What’s okay, Connie?” Alex asked.
“That you read my diary. I’m glad you did. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.”
“That’s right,” Alex said. “We would never have tapped the window, never have said the words.”
“Did you want out too?” Connie asked.
Alex shuddered. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I did. Desperately.”
“Me too,” said Maryanne.
“Me too,” Brooke agreed.
Again they were silent for a while. A long while.
Eventually, Alex sighed. “We need to get back. We all have school tomorrow.”
Immediately, Connie shot up from her resting spot. “Of course. I’ll take you back.”
The return trip was uneventful. Brooke spent her time searching out and committing to memory landmarks to help her find Connie’s... lair, if ever she had to again. From the way the other girls searched the landscape, she was sure they were doing the same.
When they within a mile of Harvell House, Connie pulled back.
“You can find your way from here,” she said.
Alex turned and laid a hand on Connie’s shoulder, but Connie flinched back. Undaunted, Alex said, “Come in with us for a while.”
“No.” Connie shook her head. “Never go back!”
Brooke snorted. “Way to go, Alex. Invite her back to the scene of the crime. That’d be real pleasant for her.”
“Shut up, Brooke,” Maryanne said.
Brooke shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”
Alex took Connie’s hand. Connie pulled back, but Alex gripped her hand tight. “That’s okay. We understand.”
“Will you... come out again?”
“Tomorrow,” Alex assured. “And every night we can. You don’t need to be alone anymore.”
Brooke could have sworn that Connie gave Alex’s hand a reciprocal squeeze before she pulled away.
“Tomorrow,” she echoed, then melted away into the night.
Chapter 26
Worry the Woods
Alex
She realized it all at once—the crows were quiet. Their raucous calls had followed her from the moment she entered the woods, but they’d fallen off completely now.
Alex’s backpack weighed a ton, and she paused a moment to shift it yet again from one shoulder to the other. Well, okay, mayb
e it didn’t weigh a literal ton, but after carting it this far over rough terrain, it sure felt like it.
Of course, it didn’t help that she’d carried the damned thing around with her all afternoon at school rather than shove it into her locker. Not that there was much likelihood of anyone breaking into her locker. She still had enough of a badass reputation left over from last year that most kids wouldn’t dare touch her stuff. Still, she hadn’t wanted to take the chance of someone stumbling onto what she’d hidden in the bag. And part of her just didn’t want to part with the precious cargo within it, even for a few hours.
There was a wide fallen tree in her path. Dead branches and pinecones snapped under her booted feet as she straddled it and climbed over. The noise boomed in the cold woods. The silent woods.
The too-silent woods, she realized. It wasn’t just the crows that had fallen silent. There were no animals around. They wouldn’t venture this close to Connie’s home. Hell, she hoped she was close!
At least there was no snow to contend with. They’d had some in Northern New Brunswick, but so far, none in Mansbridge, thank God. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come. No way would she endanger Connie by leaving a clear trail straight to her nest.
A train whistle sounded—the same one she often heard after school when a freight train went through. After these last two years at Streep, the sound barely registered anymore. But today, it sounded unaccountably mournful. So much so, it set an ache of loneliness throbbing in her chest.
Alex encountered another fallen tree. With a determined sigh, she clambered over it and continued on.
Brooke had been waiting for her after school, but they’d parted company on the sidewalk outside the Academy.
“Where you off to?” Brooke had asked, when Alex had said she’d catch her later, and turned the other way—in the opposite direction from Harvell House.
“Just got stuff to do.”
“Want me to take your book bag back to the house for you?” she’d offered. It was another small peace offering, for Brooke’s screw-up of the other day.
“No, but thanks.” Alex had held it all the closer as she’d walked away, and she tightened her hand on the wide strap now. Partly in reflection, but mostly because she could feel herself losing her balance.
Alex’s foot slid sideways on a mossy rock hidden underneath the fallen leaves. With an umph, she went down, her hands shooting out automatically to protect herself.
“Crap!” Thank God for her heavy coat; she could have gotten a stick between the ribs. Pushing herself up on her knees, Alex pulled off her bright-orange mittens to examine her palms. No cuts, but there were two good-sized indentations on her left palm that stung like hell. It would have been so much worse without the mittens, an impulse buy at the checkout this afternoon.
Deciding to rest a moment, Alex sat back on her heels and checked her pocket for her compass. If it went flying from the fall, she’d sure as hell want to find it. But it was still there, undamaged, complete with the price tag still on the back.
She’d raced to the mall when the lunch bell rang. Bypassing the noisy, jammed food court, she’d headed for the hardware store that anchored the far end of the mall. She’d shopped quickly and carefully. Then she got in line to pay for her purchases behind a queue of slow-moving senior citizens, all of whom seemed bent on telling the lone cashier their life histories. Seniors discount day, she realized, with a groan.
Almost as an afterthought she stopped into the little, family-owned sporting goods store on her way to the mall exit. She was going to be late for Chem class, and that bothered her more than she was accustomed to, but she snagged the last compass on the shelf.
“Going hunting, Miss?” the gray-haired clerk had asked, smiling in a grandfatherly way.
“No, just... orienteering.”
Grandpa had nodded. “Oh that sounds like fun!”
Alex hadn’t needed the compass to find her way into the depth of the woods. She’d always had an excellent sense of direction. And though perceptions were different in her caster form, not to mention her visit had taken place in the black of night, she knew she was heading in the right direction. Just the same, she wasn’t so stupid as to do this unprepared. On that thought, she pulled the hunter’s orange hat further down over her ears.
She heard the muted crack of a rifle shot, way off in the distance, but she wasn’t overly worried. No prey, no hunters. And this part of the woods was indisputably barren of wildlife. No fat, thick-furred squirrels rattled the branches above her. No timid deer bounded away from her with the white flag of their tails held high.
She was close to Connie’s home. She knew it. She felt it!
Holy shit! And then she saw it!
Alex stood. Without looking down she brushed the twigs and leaves from her sleeves as she walked forward. She swung her backpack high again onto her shoulder.
Connie’s hiding place truly looked like a ‘nest’ to her now, in the light of day, one Alex might have walked right by had she not been looking for it.
Even knowing about it, she might have walked on by if she hadn’t tripped.
Fate, she thought, smiling. It has to be fate between us.
The low canopy of bent branches was hidden down in a tangle of tall, thin, grey-barked trees and strategically scattered branches. Enough leaves still clung to enough branches to enhance the screen effect.
Alex took a few steps forward, but stopped suddenly.
She couldn’t just barge in. This was Connie’s home.
Alex drew a cold breath. “Connie? Connie Harvell?”
She spoke quietly. Not just to blend in with the day but because she didn’t want to startle her. They’d met as casters, but Alex was acutely conscious that Connie had never seen her flesh self before.
“It’s me, Connie... Alex. Alexandra Robbins. Remember? We met. We’re friends. I was here last night with Maryanne and Brooke.”
Alex waited. She hoped. But nothing stirred from within Connie’s little sanctuary. Alex’s heart sunk and she lowered her head in frustration. All this way and Connie wasn’t here. This long trek through the cold, alone and—There was a dark movement. She caught it in the periphery of her vision and she turned toward it. Alex didn’t hear anything, but she saw the empty blackness coming out from the trees, carrying her copper doll.
Despite herself, Alex’s pulse quickened. Even though she knew it was Connie, a tingling of fear rode up and down her arms. She knew she stood before a caster—a form she’d so often taken herself. But it was one thing to be a caster and feel the night, and another thing to actually see a caster in the day. To see that complete, black emptiness against the light of day. Alex smiled—no way would she let Connie see her little niggling of fear. Nor her sadness at the sight of Connie holding that doll, knowing she must have fled the nest with her ‘baby’ when she’d heard Alex approaching.
“Hi Connie,” Alex said.
Connie waved—widely—as she came closer. Then she waved widely again as she stood before Alex.
Of course! Anything said by a caster, Alex couldn’t hear when she wasn’t in cast form herself! This was going to be a one-sided conversation, unless Connie gave that primal shriek. And that, Alex did not want to hear.
Connie reached out a hand. Not to Alex’s hand but toward her face. Alex’s heart beat all the faster, but she held her ground. She fought down the urge to flinch as a dark finger rose toward her. Without touching Alex, Connie’s finger went to first one, then the other, metal ring on her bottom lip. Connie shook her head, pulled her hand away slowly and held it nervously back behind her.
Alex understood. “Oh no, Connie,” she said, gently. “It doesn’t hurt, at all. It’s a piercing.”
She seemed to hesitate, her dark head cocking slightly to the side.
“I did it on purpose. Really. I paid someone to do it. It’s sort of... a fashion statement, I guess, for some of us.”
Connie nodded.
“See this one?” Alex pulled
her dark bangs back to show the barbell through her left eyebrow. “That was my first.” She had three more piercings—a naval piercing with a simple barbell and two dermal anchors on the small of her back—but she had no intention of baring them.
Connie crooked her baby under her elbow as she clapped her hands.
“I brought you something,” Alex said. The fear was gone and her smile was no longer forced. She swung her backpack around to the front and unzipped it fully. Alex pulled out the white plastic bag. She started to hold it out to Connie, then remembering Connie couldn’t grasp the bag, opened it herself.
Connie’s dark form leaned forward as she peered inside. Her head jerked up again suddenly, and Alex knew she was looking into her eyes.
“It’s copper,” Alex said. “Copper fittings from the hardware store, all different sizes. And about fifty old pennies I scrounged up. And there’s copper wire there too, Connie—a bit of it anyway. I thought, well, maybe you could use it to make things... you know?”
Connie bounced up and down like a kid at Christmas. Alex dumped the copper things from the bag and they both knelt on the ground. Connie set her doll beside her, leaning it up against a tree trunk in a sitting position as if the toy could watch. She tucked a few pieces of the copper under her own knees so she could rest there without hovering. Then she started fingering through the goodies, holding pieces up to her empty face and turning them before her. Every once in a while she’d shake her hands, hunch her shoulders and almost vibrate with excitement.
“Want me to help you take them inside?”
Connie stopped suddenly and shook her head. She pointed at Alex, expanded her arms widely and shook her head again.
“Got it!” And Alex did get it. She wasn’t in cast form. She couldn’t move through the trees and branches like Connie could to maneuver the copper in through the smallest breaks. Alex would no doubt crash through like the proverbial bull in a china shop—and do more damage than good. But Connie’d left the nest with her doll, so surely she knew how to manipulate the copper through the branches with minimal damage.
Alex laughed as she watched Connie’s enjoyment. The other girl twisted her body around to sit cross-legged on the copper she’d been kneeling on, but in the process, her right foot struck Alex’s backpack. Instead of passing harmlessly through it, Connie’s foot knocked the backpack over onto its side.