Absolutely Captivated

by Grayson, Kristine

K.

  At the pool—

  Kyle sighed, looked down at his bare feet, then at the stairs several feet away. He’d be an ice cube by the time he got to that pool.

  But he sucked it up, and walked—not hopped—to the stairway. The concrete there was smooth, and the railing wobbly. He hurried down, his feet making a slapping sound. The stairway turned toward the center of the complex, into a little breezeway with a Coke machine, an ice machine, and a pay phone. Just beyond it, in a fenced-off alcove, was the tiny, square-shaped thing the manager called a pool.

  He hobbled across the breezeway, avoiding bits of glass and gravel, until he got to the open gate door. As he got close, he could hear laughter floating across the breeze.

  “…so much better than being in that cave.” Clotho’s rich voice had a touch of laughter in it. “I do like seeing the sun now and then.”

  “It was better than a cave,” Lachesis said. Kyle knew it was Lachesis, not because he recognized her voice, but because these women always spoke in order: Clotho first, Lachesis second, and Atropos last. In the three days Kyle had known them, they hadn’t varied the pattern once.

  “Caves aren’t that plush,” Atropos said.

  “Whatever,” Clotho said. “It’s just nice to see the stars.”

  Kyle pushed the gate open and stepped into the pool area. Lawn chairs that had once been white but were now a kind of dingy gray surrounded the pool. An umbrella teetered over a glass-topped table. Tiny hotel towels sat on the concrete near the square pool.

  “Come on in, Kyle,” Lachesis said. “The water’s nice.”

  All three women were swimming back and forth in the tiny pool. And, Kyle blushed to realize, they weren’t wearing anything. Or at least, it didn’t seem like they were.

  He immediately covered his eyes.

  “Oh, dear,” Atropos said. “This New World puritanism is something I really do not understand.”

  “It’s pretty simple,” Clotho said. “It comes down to upbringing. The children simply do not understand that the body is a natural thing, that there is no shame involved in nakedness and—”

  “You could get arrested, you know,” Kyle said as he pushed the gate open, careful to keep one hand over his eyes.

  “Really?” Lachesis asked. “How delightfully medieval.”

  Kyle stepped through the gate.

  “Where are you going, Kyle?” Atropos asked.

  “Back to the room.” He stopped though. He was pretty angry. He didn’t realize it until now. He had listened to these women this afternoon, when they told him to have a heart-to-heart with his dad, and then they said he could talk to them. And now that he wanted to, they were—well, nude.

  “I thought you wanted us to be available for conversation,” Clotho said.

  “I did,” Kyle snapped, his anger finally coming out. “But I can’t talk to you like this.”

  “Like what?” Lachesis asked.

  “When you’re—naked.” Just saying the word made him blush even more. He was glad it was dark.

  “Oh, child,” Atropos said. “We didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. We’ll get out.”

  “No!” Kyle said, and sprinted toward the stairs.

  “With our clothes on.” Clotho’s voice floated after him.

  He stopped in front of the Coke machine. It hummed. He swallowed hard, hoped his dad hadn’t heard him yell, and said, “You will?”

  “Certainly.” As Lachesis spoke, water splashed. The women were getting out of the pool.

  Kyle didn’t turn around. He stared into the parking lot, and the passing trucks beyond, wondering how these women got away with all the things they did. They pretended they didn’t know money—Kyle had to explain the difference between coins and cash to them at the Quickie Mart outside of Salem; they seemed to know some things about the culture, like HBO, but other things, like laws, eluded them.

  Dad simply said they were nuts, but that was a blanket description which really didn’t get to the heart of the problem. They might have been nuts, but they were nuts in a really odd and consistent way.

  “All right,” Atropos said. “We are—what is your word?—decent.”

  “Which, if you think about it,” Clotho said, “goes right to the heart of the point. ‘Decent’ would only be used in this context if nakedness were somehow indecent.”

  “Which is why I made the point,” Lachesis said.

  Kyle turned around. Slowly he let his hands drop from his eyes. The women, wrapped in big, fluffy robes, were sitting in the ancient lounge chairs.

  Lachesis was bent at the waist, drying her red hair. She was built like a plus-sized model—his dad had called her zaftig at the wedding and Aunt Viv had punched him—and yet she looked the best in the robe.

  Atropos had her robe wrapped around her knees. She was as thin as Calista Flockheart, only prettier, with black hair that fell to her shoulders. But the thinness probably made her as cold as Kyle was. His feet felt like little blocks of ice.

  Clotho stood up. She was the blond, and looked kinda like pictures of Kyle’s mom (whom he couldn’t remember). Clotho pushed the gate open and held it for him.

  “We’re sorry,” Atropos said. “If we had realized you would be uncomfortable, we wouldn’t have gone swimming.”

  “It’s not just me,” Kyle said as he walked back to the pool. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you could get arrested.”

  “Why?” Clotho asked as she closed the gate behind him.

  “Because you’re in a public place. You can’t be nude in public.”

  “See?” Lachesis said. “It seems to me that was a plot point in one of the movies we watched.”

  “Probably several, but Henri—” The women always insisted on calling Uncle Dex “Henri” for reasons Kyle didn’t understand— “said that we shouldn’t learn everything we know about modern culture from the television.”

  Atropos seemed puzzled by the statement even though she was the one repeating it.

  “You guys are really weird,” Kyle said, as he sank into one of the lounge chairs.

  “I thought you didn’t like that word,” Clotho said.

  “So I was right,” Kyle said. “You could overhear us.”

  “Just that part.” Lachesis sat up, the towel wrapped turban-like around her hair. “Then we decided we’d better come down here so you could have a private talk.”

  “How did it go?” Atropos asked.

  Kyle shook his head. “Not good. That’s what I came to tell you. My dad doesn’t believe in magic. He never will, so stop trying to convince him, okay?”

  “We never said you had magic.” Clotho sat down beside him. The plastic lounge chair squeaked under her weight. “We said you would develop magic at twenty-one.”

  “And then you’d be exceedingly powerful,” Lachesis said, “so you really should begin your training now.”

  “Well, my dad’s not going to pay for any training.” Kyle couldn’t quite fight the feeling of disappointment. “He thinks I’m just goofy, that there’s a logical explanation for everything, and he doesn’t believe in predicting the future.”

  “What about his magic?” Atropos asked.

  “Shush,” Clotho said. “We’ve done enough.”

  Kyle shrugged. “My dad doesn’t have magic.”

  “Certainly he does,” Lachesis said. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “I thought you needed a ride to L.A.,” Kyle said.

  “I’m sure there would have been others to take us,” Atropos said.

  “Now I understand why Vivian was worried about our safety.” Clotho leaned back in her chair. “We are becoming too impulsive.”

  “That’s for another discussion.” Lachesis put her hand on Kyle’s arm. He jumped. “No one ever taught your father the rules of magic?”

  “Why would they?” Kyle asked.

  “Oh, dear,” Atropos said quietly. “And here we are, taking him to his soulmate.”

  “Huh?” Kyle asked.

>   “It’s all right, dear,” Clotho said. “We do need Zanthia’s help as well.”

  “Dad’s soulmate is named Zanthia?” Kyle asked, feeling confused.

  “Shh!” All three women said in unison.

  “You should never discuss someone else’s soulmate before the souls mate,” Lachesis said.

  “Who are you guys?” Kyle asked.

  “Well,” Atropos said, wrapping her robe tighter around herself. Kyle had guessed right; she was just as cold as he was. “You weren’t that far off with the Wyrd Sisters.”

  “You heard that too?” Kyle felt his cheeks heat up. He didn’t like calling people names because they might overhear—heaven knew he always did at school, even though he pretended like he hadn’t—but he was talking to his dad for heaven’s sake. And that was private.

  Clotho shrugged. “It was part of the same discussion.”

  “It was what made Clotho decide we needed to come down here.” Lachesis’ towel turban was slipping slightly, giving her face a pirate-like air.

  “She’s not real fond of that nickname,” Atropos said.

  “I didn’t give it to her,” Kyle said, his voice rising with the denial. He kinda had, but he wasn’t going to admit it, at least not in this way. “I mean, it’s Norse. You know, the myths.”

  “We know the myths.” Clotho stretched her bare legs out. She had goose pimples running along her calves. “We’re the Fates, child.”

  “Or at least, we used to be.” Lachesis sounded sad.

  “Used to be?” Kyle asked.

  Atropos waved her hand. “Long story, and one I’m sure you’ll hear when we meet up with Zanthia.”

  “Names!” Clotho and Lachesis said in unison, as if they were reminding Atropos of something.

  Atropos clapped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Fates?” Kyle said again. “The ones who determine life and death?”

  “Yes, child,” Clotho said.

  “You’re not making this up?” Kyle asked, feeling his neck get warm, too, as his blush moved down. “Like using the names as a test or something, like for school?”

  “What do you mean?” Lachesis asked.

  “You know, like I was supposed to notice that you were named after the Fates or something.” Kyle put his feet on his chair and rubbed his cold toes. His hands weren’t much warmer. But it gave him an excuse to keep his head down. “I don’t remember ever learning your names. We had to memorize the Muses. There’s Erato and Terpsichore and Polyhymnia and—”

  “Oh, please don’t confuse us with those bores,” Atropos said.

  “Besides,” Clotho said. “They stopped working as a unit centuries ago.”

  “Millennia,” Lachesis said.

  “Three women can get along,” Atropos said. “Nine, however—”

  “It does make things dicey,” Clotho said.

  “And you would have to mention Polyhymnia,” Lachesis said. “Religious poetry is one thing, but religious music—”

  “That’s not fair,” Atropos said. “There was a lovely Golden Age—what, a few years ago? That Bach fellow—”

  “Like Johann?” Kyle asked.

  The three women—Fates?—nodded.

  “That was centuries ago,” Kyle said, feeling shocked.

  Clotho waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m still not certain of the ways that mortals tell time. A century, a year, what’s the difference?”

  “Decades,” Kyle said.

  “Still, we’re not to the central point,” Lachesis said. “Which is helping you.”

  “If your father won’t acknowledge his magic, then there’s not much we can do,” Atropos said.

  “Don’t you have magic?” Kyle asked.

  “We used to,” Clotho said, and all three women looked very sad.

  “It’s part of that long story,” Lachesis said.

  “Oh,” Kyle said. “Well, look, my dad might wake up and find me missing, and if he does I’m in a heck of a lot of trouble, so I’m going to go to bed. Just don’t talk to him about this, okay? And all the magic stuff? Tomorrow, let’s just drive. Really, it’s for the best.”

  The Fates nodded. Kyle nodded back, like a grown-up would, and then he stalked away from the pool, not caring that the concrete seemed even colder than it had a moment ago, and that he was hitting rocks with his bare feet.

  Served him right for listening to other people. It didn’t matter that Aunt Viv had found someone who appreciated her psychic powers. It didn’t matter that Uncle Dex believed in (and maybe even had) magic.

  All that mattered was that Kyle’s father didn’t believe in psychic powers or magic, no matter how much psychic ability Kyle had.

  And he had to remember that, instead of getting carried away because someone else found the secret to happiness.

  Kyle hurried up the stairs, ripped the note off the Fates’ door, and let himself into his own hotel room. His dad was still asleep, only he’d rolled away from the door. His even breathing reassured Kyle, as Kyle pushed the door closed.

  It was the two of them. It had always been the two of them.

  And it always would be.

  Four

  A few days later, Travers found himself sitting on a Las Vegas freeway, wondering when his life had spiraled out of control.

  He was hot. The air-conditioner in his SUV was running at full blast, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was sitting in the sun, his hands pasted to the steering wheel, trying to negotiate all the traffic on Interstate 15 heading into Las Vegas.

  Kyle was buckled in beside him, staring gape-mouthed at the conglomeration of hotels and goofy architecture that made Vegas a place out of nightmares. The SUV was paralleling the Strip and to the right were some of the architecturally strangest buildings Travers had ever seen.

  A large green hotel that went for stories. A replica of the Statue of Liberty, almost hidden by all the buildings, a replica of the Eiffel Tower (who would go to that thing? Why not go to the real one?), and a volcano that spewed fake lava into the overheated air. There were pools and marble statues and big, big, big signs advertising names Travers had never heard of and a whole bunch that he had.

  In the back seat, the three Wyrd Sisters, as Kyle had once called them, were arguing quietly about their next course of action. At least, Travers thought they were being quiet. He wasn’t sure. He had the radio on full blast, letting Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson and Oak Ridge Mountain Boys speak for him.

  Travers wasn’t about to get into a conversation with those three women again, if he could help it.

  He wasn’t even sure how he ended up in Las Vegas with his son at his side, and three of the craziest women he’d ever met in the back seat. Sure, he knew the sequence of events. Those were easy.

  First, he had driven the women to L.A., and asked where they wanted to be dropped off. They had no idea, so he had taken them to his house (mistake number one), where they examined the phonebook and let Kyle look on the Internet for this woman they were supposed to see.

  Her name, apparently, was Zanthia, but she answered to Zoe as well. (Everyone the Wyrd Sisters seemed to know had more than one name. Even the guy that Vivian had married had a different name, at least according to the three women.) This Zanthia was a private detective, according to the Wyrd Sisters, and should have been fairly easy to find.

  Of course, she wasn’t easy to find. There wasn’t a Zanthia as a private detective anywhere in L.A. Nor was there a Zoe as a private detective. Not in the phone book, not on the Internet, and not at any of the big firms that the Wyrd Sisters had convinced Travers to call.

  Then, it turned out, this Zanthia/Zoe woman had been a private detective since the 1930s which, in Travers’ book, meant she was either dead or retired, although the Wyrd Sisters didn’t think so. Kyle, bless him, didn’t do the math, so he didn’t think the history was strange either.

  He just continued his Internet search, going through old databases that the libraries had set up until he found her.
Zoe Sinclair, Private Detective. With an address from the 1940s.

  Of course, the Wyrd Sisters were convinced that was their woman, and they insisted that Kyle do a broader search. Any private detective anywhere in the nation with the name Zoe Sinclair.

  Because, one of the Wyrds (Clotho?) had said to Travers, she would probably have moved on by now. It’s quite a problem when you don’t age properly.

  Kyle had nodded, as if that statement had been logical, and at that moment, Kyle had discovered a Zoe Sinclair who worked out of Las Vegas.

  This was where the sequence of events got strange.

  The next group of events was one long blur consisting of Kyle begging Travers to take care of the Wyrd Sisters and get them to Vegas, Travers calling Viv to ask her what she had gotten him into, Viv refusing to answer the phone (it was her honeymoon, after all), and Kyle throwing a temper tantrum right around bedtime.

  So the Wyrd Sisters had spent the night in Travers’ house in the Hollywood Hills, and the next morning, he awoke to find them sitting at his table, counting pennies, hoping that $3.56 would be enough for bus fare.

  Event Six was the clearest, though. Kyle pulling Travers aside and saying, Dad, look. They’re just not like normal people. You can’t let them get on a bus by themselves. That’s what Uncle Dex was worried about. You need to hand them off to someone.

  Like the Olympic Torch? Travers asked, too exhausted to worry about his sarcasm.

  Exactly! Kyle had said, and clapped his hands together.

  And somehow Event Six had led to Event Seven, which was Travers pouring everyone into the SUV all over again, and heading out across the desert to Las Vegas.

  Eight hours, six traffic jams, and one mistaken casino lunch stop later, they were pulling into Sin City proper, with no real idea of where they were going, and no plan on how to get there. Kyle had downloaded maps for this Zoe Sinclair’s office, which happened to be somewhere called Fremont Street, which looked like it was just past the downtown.

  Drivers zoomed in and out of the lanes as if they were playing bumper cars. The traffic in Las Vegas was heavy, but not nearly as heavy as L.A. traffic. At least in Vegas, the traffic kept moving.