Wildcat Fireflies

by Amber Kizer

  Tears wet the holey wool blanket I pushed into a pillow shape beneath my head. Purring, Mini licked my face, scratching my cheeks with her claws in her haste to comfort me.

  There simply can’t be a God. Or destiny. Or magic.

  When I woke, Mini was gone, as she always was, until someone else labored toward death in one of the rooms above my head.

  People have the most reasonable explanations for the most unreasonable experiences. Science explains away more phenomena than religion ever will.

  Meridian Laine Fulbright

  October 21, 1981

  CHAPTER 6

  “Are you Good Death? A Window Light?” Rumi repeated with shining eyes.

  Tens and I glanced at each other while Rumi’s question hung in the air between us, a tangible thing. This was new territory. Do we tell him? Do we trust him? Could we let anyone in on this conspiracy of silence? Certainly not in the first few minutes of meeting a person. Right? If only the world were different.

  Rumi waved his hands, then folded them beseechingly, “Wait, forget I asked. Why would you tell me? Maybe someday you’ll tell me, you’ll trust me and the hope of that will sate. That’s the juste milieu.” He inhaled, paused, exhaled, and asked, “What can I do for you?”

  “What do you mean?” Tens asked.

  “I take these matters seriously. By making the Spirit Stones, these precious handles, and by hanging them, I signaled my willingness to help the unseen. The inexplicable. I opened myself to the knowable, the whispered, the Good with a capital G. I proclaimed my devotion to the gods and goddesses, to creators and enlightenment.” He entreated both of us with his eyes, his expression. His entire being radiated sincerity. “So what can I do? What do you need?”

  “Um, well—” I didn’t know how to reply. Maybe he knows more about the town than we did. I believed I needed to find a ready soul to make contact with Auntie again. “Do you know where the closest hospital is? Trauma center? Cancer ward?”

  “Are you sick? Shall I call nine-one-one? Where did I put the phone? I had it this morning. Didn’t I?” He jumped up and started lifting cushions, opening drawers.

  Tens joined him, lightly touching Rumi’s shoulder to get his attention. “No, no, we’re looking for someone.”

  He quieted, thoughtful. “Well, of course there’s the big complex downtown, but there’s also a smaller sufficient hospital here in Carmel. Let me write down directions. Where is that pad of paper? A pen?” He patted his pockets, until Tens handed him a pen and a napkin to write on. “Thank you.”

  I walked over to where he scribbled. Risking exposing more than I maybe should, I asked, “We’re also looking for a girl and a cat in a nursing home? They seem to predict death? Does that ring any bells?”

  He studied my face and finally announced dejectedly, “They foretell death? I don’t think so. It sounds like something I’d remember.” He dimmed like a cloud blowing across the sun, but soon brightened. “Let me put the word out and see if my circle of friends know anything.”

  Tens cautioned him, “We need to do it quietly.”

  “Got it. Discreetly, of course.” Rumi nodded, handing Tens the napkin with directions on it.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure. I will find you at Helios with any information. Or you can come here anytime, day or night. My living quarters are back behind the studio. I’m up all hours. I’ll help you. Whatever you need.”

  I stiffened. How does he know about Helios?

  He must have read my panic. “Don’t worry, Joi is a friend. She knows I keep an eye on the place at night and didn’t want me to worry when I saw lights tonight. Nothing sinister. She takes in strays, and has a good heart. Most of this town has Lightened souls.” He patted my hand without stopping.

  “Do you think we could take a look at your family’s papers sometime?” Tens asked, gliding toward the door, tugging me with him.

  Delight splashed across Rumi’s face. “I was hoping you’d ask. Absolutely. Let me know if you need me. Anything.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” I extracted my hand from his with one final squeeze.

  When we walked outside, the cool night air tickled my nose and a breeze played with my hair.

  “He reminds me of Señora Portalso.” I broke our silence as we walked back to Helios and the truck. Señora had called me “pretty light” and seemed to see my Fenestra form before I even knew it myself. She’d turned out to be a friend, someone who followed the signs and let the Divine guide her. Maybe Rumi is too? Can there be a type of human who shelters our secrets and helps us with the mundane? I shivered at the feeling of déjà vu. “Was that whole conversation surreal, or was it me?”

  “Rumi’s definitely not what I anticipated. I don’t know how he stacks up against Señora because I wasn’t conscious for much of Señora and her doctor daughter’s visit.” Tens’s cruel bout with Rocky Mountain spotted fever and the attempt Nocti made on his life to get to me, to make me choose between doing the right thing and losing Tens forever, was seared into my brain. With every detail so fresh in my head, I often forget he barely remembered anything from that time.

  “She believed in Fenestra, in the Creators’ intervention. She was willing to—what did Rumi say?—‘be open to the unknowable.’ She helped us, me, Custos, when she didn’t have to.”

  “And he reminds you of her?”

  “I think he’s sincere.”

  “I get that too. But it’s so hard to believe.”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed in us two months ago. It makes sense this is more complicated and complex than we know.” I linked my fingers with Tens’s and stepped closer, my feet moving double time to keep up with his long-legged strides.

  “Hmm. Maybe.” Tens pulled out his keys and broke the physical connection with me to pet Custos’s head.

  Staring at the cottage, I climbed up into the truck, enjoying the knowledge that for tonight at least this was ours. I love the cottage, this parcel of earth. Potential sang through me. “Nice to have a friend, though, right?”

  I rewound Rumi’s family history through my head as we drove in traffic toward the trauma center. Can it be that there are people who know about us, who will help us, who care about our well-being? Can there be a support system to help me find other Fenestras? Fenestras of Irish and Welsh heritage? Are there more of us around the world? It felt almost too good to be true.

  “Mm-hmm,” Tens answered, lost in his own thoughts, giving nothing away.

  * * *

  A harried desk clerk blinked at us while shuffling papers. “You’re not from here, are you? Can’t be. Why would we name it I-you-poo-y? Really? Say the letters. I-U-P-U-I.” Her tone implied I’d personally insulted her.

  “Oh, sorry.” Even begging might not be enough to receive forgiveness if her expression was anything to judge by.

  She cleared her throat as if ready to begin a lecture. “No problem. I’m here to teach tourists, not save lives. It stands for Indiana University and Purdue University at Indianapolis, just so you know.”

  “Thanks.” I tried to not aggravate her more, but clearly my mere presence on the planet was enough to make her day a bad one.

  Tens broke in, saving me from the gathering wrath. “We’re looking for Mrs. Eleanor Reynolds. She’s a friend of the family.” He pushed me behind him, as if he might get her to forget we were connected in any way.

  She sighed, aggrieved. “Let me check.” She clicked through the computer screens, the furrow in her brow never smoothing. “She’s not listed. Are you sure she’s here? She could be at Methodist. Or maybe St. Vincent’s?”

  “This is where Grandma said, but her cell phone cut out. She never remembers to charge the battery.” Tens turned on the charm and gave her his hundred-watt smile.

  Why don’t I get that smile? I tried to make myself shrink deeper because it seemed to be working.

  Tens asked, “Which floor is oncology? We’ll find Grandma; she’ll tell us what’s going on. We lo
ve Mrs. Reynolds. I’m going to feed her parakeets while she’s here, but she’ll be worried if I don’t reassure her they’re going to be fine.” Words and lies rolled off his tongue like melted chocolate. I envied his ease.

  I could feel ready souls all around me. Maybe this is a bad idea? I couldn’t back down, though, because Tens would never let me try again. The little hairs on my arms reached skyward and the need to sneeze grew stronger as we waited.

  The clerk smiled back at Tens, completely ignoring me. “You’re not really allowed to walk around the eighth floor without having a specific patient to visit. It’s policy.”

  “Don’t worry, Dinah.” Tens leaned in like they were the only two people on earth, as if he hadn’t glanced at her name tag. “We won’t tell anyone.” He pushed me toward the bank of elevators, not giving her time to respond.

  “Smooth,” I said. There was already another person bugging her as the door closed behind us. “You’re almost invincible when you’re all charming.”

  Over the days of traveling from Colorado to here, and from reading Auntie’s journal, we’d learned that short of a straight-up mass-casualty tragedy, cancer was the best opportunity to find a soul ready to go. That popular slogan about cancer not taking away dignity or hope or self-worth, or any number of other things, is bizarrely ridiculous. People who sling that around have never been on the far end of the cancer fight. It strips everything, save the desire for relief. It’s like swimming in the Nile without a life vest and dressed in raw meat for the crocs to dine on.

  “Can you teach me how to be that adept?” I poked a finger into his ribs.

  He brushed off my sarcasm and grabbed my hand. “Have you eaten enough today for this?” His tone betrayed his concern.

  “I’m doing fine. Don’t worry.” I hoped I sounded confident and prepared.

  Tens laced his fingers with mine. I tightened mine around his as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Human beings might have evolved past thinking of themselves as predator or prey, but our nervous system had not. Those parts of me bristled every time I was around death and the dying. At least now I considered it an early warning system and it didn’t scare me. Not as much.

  As the doors to the elevator opened onto the oncology ward, I heard alarms and bells start to go off around us in a strange techno-symphony. Nurses and doctors scurried like hamsters in plastic balls. Going nowhere fast, but frantic.

  My vision blurred and the edges darkened as Tens guided me toward an empty alcove with a bench. I grabbed the edge of the bench as the first soul hit me. I think Tens laid me across the cushion, then draped himself over me as I was towed under, to the window.

  Auntie had started my Fenestra practice with a summerscape window, but since her death, for reasons unknown, I couldn’t manage to secure the window itself. If I did my job correctly, according to Auntie, I was the conduit, the window to heaven, to good. The dying saw me not as a teenage girl, but as the bright light enveloping them and guiding them past the physical death into the spiritual energy of the After. I provided the window in a room of my choosing and stood back while the soul transitioned across like a kid sneaking out of the house through his bedroom window. I stayed on this side of the exchange, but what the soul, the dying person, saw, and who greeted them, was entirely up to them, or the Creators. I didn’t know how that worked; I simply knew the dying recognized the scenery and the people coming toward them. I didn’t usually, until Auntie appeared.

  One, two, three …

  But it wasn’t working the way she’d taught me. The windows changed, rapidly, as each soul used me. They changed with the souls, everything different each time. Auntie made me believe I picked the window and the soul picked the scenery and the people. It wasn’t quite working that way. Maybe it’s a learned skill.

  Like I was watching a travelogue slide show on fast-forward, my brain couldn’t keep up with the changing frames and scenes and people. Modern architecture with lots of glass and light and chrome gave way to stone arches, then bamboo with rice paper. Each soul threw me into its own tableau. Four, five …

  I knew enough, barely, to simply breathe through the changes. Not to try to make sense of the flashes. It was disorienting if I tried to follow it like a movie, so instead I let it flow around me like a busy avenue full of sights and sounds, without focusing on any of the details. Since these were souls whose bodies were in the hospital they blinked from injured in hospital gowns and bandages to whole and strong like hitting the refresh button on an Internet browser window.

  Six …

  A seventh window, the one Auntie had practiced with me, segued into my vision. Its billowing white lace curtains and sunny weather felt like coming home. The scent of fresh-mown grass and apple blossoms drifted over the breeze and stirred my hair. “Meridian.” Auntie!

  I ran closer to the window, and Chrystal Stans, breast cancer victim, crawled through, oblivious to me. I braced against the sill and leaned in, over, toward my name. “Auntie!” I called.

  There in the meadow below was Auntie with the injured woman from before lying at her feet. “Look for Father Anthony … help … Custos … knows … four … three …” The static between her words was like a bad cell-phone connection with other conversations breaking through.

  The injured woman lay on the ground, almost in a trance, her waxy melted skin flickering from solid to a milky, transparent shadow. She appealed to me with her eyes. For what, I wasn’t sure. Auntie continued to gesticulate and mouth words, but I couldn’t hear her.

  Back on the hospital bench, in Tens’s arms, I must have lost consciousness. When my eyes blinked open, we were in the truck. I groaned.

  “Damn it, Merry, I knew this was a bad idea.” Tens drove like he was being chased. “You never listen to me.” Frustration and anger vibrated through his words.

  I licked my lips and tried to swallow around the metallic taste in my mouth. I leaned against the passenger-side door, praying for my strength to return. I waited. I let him rant because I deserved it. Being a Fenestra was a destiny, a genetic predisposition toward being part human and part angel. But it was also a skill set that took time and practice to master. I’d learned reading from Auntie’s journal that centuries ago there were more of us, as well as special convents that started teaching little girls how to do God’s work. I had a crash course over two weeks with Auntie while she died. I was still a novice, and without a Master, like Auntie, to teach me what my limits were, too often I forced my fledging abilities off the ledge to fly.

  Back from Indianapolis, we once again passed the sign welcoming us to Carmel and pulled into the parking lot behind Helios. A lamp burned from inside the tearoom, and the cottage blinked with twinkling fairy lights outlining the eaves, windows, and door.

  Tens carried me from the truck and plopped me onto the bed most gracelessly. Gently, but not happily.

  Custos raised her head from her relaxed position on the couch and whined a little at us in question. When did she go from the truck to the couch? How’d she beat us inside?

  It wasn’t that I was ill any longer, in pain on a daily basis. All of my childhood I’d been racked by mysterious illness, injuries, bruises, and headaches. Because I didn’t know that I was a Fenestra—much less how to be one—the souls of animals who used me tangled my energy in theirs when they went through. My physical self was adversely affected on the tangible plane. If I hadn’t been with Auntie, a human soul who used me could have entwined so completely in my energy that they dragged me through. They could have killed me without meaning to. Now that I knew how to operate the window I was no longer in danger of being twisted up in the dying, but I didn’t quite have a handle on large numbers of souls using me concurrently. It was like running a marathon without proper training. “I need to do that more often.” Training. Why not?

  Tens shot me the dirtiest, angriest glance. “Over my dead body.”

  “Funny.” I didn’t have the energy to laugh at his serious, if odd, declaration. “The
only way it’ll get easier is to do it more.” Right? It makes sense to me.

  He shook his head, ripping at the laces on his boots. “You didn’t see yourself. You paled to chalky paste. And … your hair.” His voice grew gravelly and lowered an octave.

  “What about it?” I pushed myself up on my elbows to watch him.

  “The curl left. It was like a drooping plant.”

  “Seriously?” I put my hand to my head and felt the curls limp beneath my fingers. I joked to lighten the mood. “Do you know how many hours I’ve spent trying to straighten it? And that’s all it takes?”

  Cool. But cool wasn’t the word Tens needed to hear right now.

  My hair hack job had grown out to the point it brushed my shoulders even in the curliest moments, but I preferred it straight. I guess we always like what we aren’t born with better than what we are.

  “This is not a styling tip.”

  “I know.” I sighed. I wanted him to smile again. Worry made him loud.

  Stamping in his sock feet, Tens marched over to the kitchen area and picked up a note card. “Joi left us soup, rolls, dessert, and a coffee cake in the fridge.”

  “Wow. Nice.” I toed my sneakers off onto the floor by the bed.

  “You think it’s safe?” Tens sniffed at the containers.

  “I’ll take my chances.” If she is Nocti, I deserve whatever I get. TSTL. Too stupid to live.

  “I know, it’s just that—”

  I straightened at the self-doubt in his voice. “I get it. You want to protect me, but you can’t necessarily protect me from doing my thing.” The food isn’t the problem, my talent is.

  “You take too many chances.” Dishes rattled and cupboards slammed. He wouldn’t look over at me. Not even for a second.

  “I’m doing my job.”

  “It’s not the transitioning, Merry. It’s searching out the dying to do so many all at once. You could hurt yourself.”