I got back an image of the Andanstans digging around the tree trunk, then shaking their heads. No sand. I broke a branch off, mentally. Want the sap? A drop of blood? A lock of hair?
They sent back a scene of them working together for a change, making wet sand into mud to stick the branch back on. Okay, they didn’t want a pound of flesh.
I flashed the picture I’d done of them keeping the cruise ship afloat. Heroes. Thank you. I showed the happy people on the beach. We need our sand. I switched to a different image, of us bearing gifts. What is it you want?
Too big.
Too big? They wanted something so big we could never give it?
Then I heard the clacking sound that meant Oey was as frustrated as I was. I looked around and she was perched on the blanket beside me, the fish tail drooping onto the sand, but in my mind, too. In my head, the parrot was glorious, in iridescent colors, with gleaming scales at the split tail end. In actual fact, she still looked bedraggled, dull and patchy. “Welcome, my friend. Are you well?”
She shrugged. “Thtill molting.”
I held out my sand-filled hands. “Can you understand them?” It was a relief to my aching head to use real words.
The parrot head bobbed.
“Will they talk to me?”
“Too big.”
Ah, I was too big. Humans did not exist on the same plane. One shouted word could blow them away, and they refused to work together to form a coherent mental link. The otherworldly fireflies didn’t have a big vocabulary, but I could feel their basic fear, trust, need. These guys had one overreaching emotion, obviously anger, but individually they couldn’t project it to my mind. Thank God. It must have been Oey translating.
“Do you know what they want from us? I get the bit about honor and returning favors and paying back debts now, but no one has any idea what we can give them to get our sand back.”
“Pwethouth.”
“Something priceless?”
The little dudes in my hand hopped up and down. It felt like dry raindrops.
Oey clacked her beak and slapped the fish tail against my foot. Yeck, fish slime. “Pwethouth.”
“Oh, precious. They want something precious.”
Head bobbing from the parrot, less pushing and shoving from the sand. Maybe they were listening to Oey’s telepathy, in their own language.
“Pwethouth.”
Jimmie must have watched The Lord of the Rings with Oey. “That’s Gollum’s line, but we don’t have any magic ring to give you. You guys are the magic ones; we just have traces inside us. We might have enough gold, like in the ring, though. Is that precious enough?” I tried to imagine the sun coming out, sprinkling a shower of gold dust across the beach.
Oey said no and the little guys in my hand, maybe fifty of them, fought to pull scraps of the stocking over their heads
“Okay, no showers of gold dust. What else do we have that you consider precious?”
“Thand,” Oey answered for them.
“Yeah, I can see that. So it has to be something we consider precious, right?”
Oey fluffed the scrawny chest feathers, as if proud that one of her pets had done a trick right.
I thought about it, and the first thing that came to mind was a portrait of Louisa and her children, especially that little pink bundle she kept pressed against her body. What could be more valuable? What would we never, ever part with? I doubt any of us could survive the sorrow.
“Awwgh.”
“Right, no human sacrifices. But, Oey, you are precious to us. Even the Andanstans proved themselves invaluable. Are you asking us to give up our joy in having you come among us?”
I could feel a rash forming on my hands from tiny pricks. Some joy.
The beady parrot eyes looked at me. I felt a shiver up my spine.
“Very well, it’s not for us to give you up.” That would be like Little Red deciding he’d rather live in California. I thought about what was most important to me, what I would be devastated to lose: Little Red. Matt. My pain in the ass family, even the crazy village. “Are you asking me to leave all of them?”
Now I got a sharp pain in my gut, not from the sand, but at the thought of giving up Little Red. Or Matt, now that I’d found him. The rest of them I could keep in touch with like I did now with my parents, unless the petty tyrants demanded I go into the witness protection plan or something as permanent and complete. But Matt? “Is that what you want? Me to live without love?”
I saw a picture of me, Moses at my side, Little Red asleep on my foot and Matt’s arms around me. Oey’s wings enfolded us all. I felt warm.
“Petth. Mine.”
I sighed in relief. “Thank you. What then? Should I give up my life’s work that means so much to me, my drawing and writing?” I could take over as Matt’s receptionist, I supposed, or be full-time mother to those triplets.
“Mine. Not thandth.”
Okay, I didn’t have to sacrifice myself, my loved ones or my cherished raison d’être to save the sand. Something else.
“I’d give you some of Carinne’s magic if I could.”
“Aawgh.”
“That’s what I think of her skill, too.” I wasn’t getting anywhere with the sand, so I figured I’d try fixing the sister. “Can you help her? She is miserable now.” I tried to explain about her long-range sight, and the horrors of Brock and bad futures. I pictured some of the scenes Carinne might have seen when gangbangers and soldiers turned thirty-seven, if they did.
“Cawwy.”
“No, I don’t think she’s the nickname kind. She’s very serious, burdened as she is.”
Oey flapped her wings. They were bare in spots, with no luxurious, long wing feathers. She did manage to flap hard enough to blow the sand out of my hand. “Oh, no! Now they’ll be madder than before!”
Oey jumped on where they’d fallen. I had no idea what that accomplished, but my hand stopped itching.
“Cawwy.”
“Carry? I should carry you? Will you let me take you back to Rosehill and Jimmie? He thinks you don’t like him anymore.”
“Thilly Immie. Petth.”
“Yes, I know that. You saved his life. You’ll always look after him. But what about Carinne?”
“Cawwy. Cawwy. Cawwy!” Oey shouted.
I finally got a mental picture of her with a parrot on her shoulder. Oey’d claimed another pet. “Great. But what good will that do?”
I heard something like a chuckle come from deep in Oey’s chest. “Cawinne thees at Oey age.”
“Which is . . .?”
I heard a word that went on and on, but I couldn’t understand the image that went with it. “I guess it’s pretty old. So everyone here would be dead by then, and she’d see nothing?”
Oey’s head bobbed in satisfaction.
So she wouldn’t see tragedies or murders or wretched lives. “But she won’t be able to help people, either.”
“Fith or fowwu.”
Fish or fowl? Which meant she could suffer, or she could be blind to the future, shut off from her personal magic. “But you are both fish and fowl. Both. Can’t you help her see the good, without the sadness?”
“Thit happenth.”
I knew it well. “But you can’t be with her every minute. I know you need to swim sometimes, or go off like now to lay eggs and molt. How will she manage, other than staying in her room at Rosehill all the time?”
She cocked her head sideways, thinking. “Fevver.”
“She’ll get sick? It’s only a cold. Maybe the flu that’s going around.”
“Fev-ver.” Oey plucked at one sad dropping wing.
“A feather will help her when you can’t?” I thought of Dumbo, flying with the feather in his trunk. But that didn’t end too
well, did it? “It will give her the courage to try?”
“Come. Cawwy.”
We went down the beach, Oey heavy on my shoulder, that slimy tail flapping against my back. Moses galumphed ahead, Little Red hopped at my side. We reached a boulder and a screen of reeds behind it. There was a nest, in a hole with high sand walls. The Andanstans were on guard, I sensed, united and ready to fend off seagulls or snakes or water rats.
The nest glowed with Oey’s lost feathers, with the glittering iridescent colors of the eggs, with an aura even I could see. I sank to my knees to admire all the beautiful colors, the life I could sense within the eggs, the excitement and wonder.
“There are so many of them! And here I worried about having triplets.”
Oey stared at me, from the top of the nest. “More petth?”
“Not soon.” Then I had an idea. “Maybe Carinne could have one of your babies to help her?”
Oey shuddered and nudged some sand over the eggs.
I understood. Oey didn’t share. Besides, the hatchling would be too young. If Carinne saw through its age-view, they’d both have to see infants die.
Worse and worse. The very idea had me shaking and shivering. That or I was catching Carinne’s cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I had a feather, and a fever.
Oey plucked one from the nest for Carinne, one for Jimmie, then, after thinking about it, one for me. I didn’t want to ask, though I wanted one of the beautiful feathers more than anything, especially if it could lend a little strength and courage and magic. I needed it. Besides, why should Carinne get one and not me? I know that sounded like jealous resentment, like “Dad likes you better,” but I talked to Oey first, and Jimmie saw the parrot first when he was a sickly boy. Carinne had never even met the birdfish. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to see the hybrid parts that I could. Maybe she wouldn’t see the wisdom and the love.
I clutched all three feathers to me before Oey could change her mind. “Do we owe you another favor now? Will the feather make Jimmie Harmon strong? Will it really help Carinne? Can you come back with me to test if your presence lets her walk through town or come to the festival on the beach? And have you come up with any idea of a courtesy gift for the Andanstans so that we’ll have a beach to hold that festival on?”
But the parrot was gone, without giving any answers. I didn’t see the sand people anymore, either, just sand, so I headed back toward the blanket, feeling sicker and sicker as I gathered up my stuff. Every step felt like a sledgehammer to the brain, and my sweatshirt was too hot, but my feet were too cold. Shit. I hated being sick and this felt a lot worse than Carinne’s sniffles.
Susan took one look at me and said she’d walk back to her parents’ house rather than ride in the car. The restaurant had a busy weekend coming up and she couldn’t afford to get sick, but she’d make me chicken soup.
Harris had no choice. He drove me to my mother’s place, set all the alarms, then drove into town to get whatever Walter at the drugstore recommended, and chicken soup and orange juice from Joanne’s.
I took a hot shower, hoping that would warm me, but I only felt weaker afterward. Before I collapsed, I called Matt to tell him I’d stay here. I didn’t want to give him the flu.
He laughed. “Do you think I wouldn’t have your germs by now? I feel fine.”
I wanted my own bed, my own house, and a good night’s sleep. Besides, I didn’t want Matt to see me all pale and clammy-skinned, maybe sick to my stomach or worse. I had pride too, like Oey.
“Does Harris think you’ll be safe there?”
“The place is like a fortress. And Deni is in the city, remember? Besides, I have a feather. A beautiful green one, with yellow and blue and red edges.” I had it tucked in the buttonhole of my heavy flannel pajamas, the ones with little monkeys all over. I didn’t want Matt to see the jammies, either.
“A feather, huh? Um, sweetheart, I think you’re delirious. Get Harris to drive you to the emergency clinic.”
“No, it’s a real feather. Real magic. I’m not afraid the flu will kill me, for once. You know, turn into some weird mutant bacterial pneumonia, or cause a fever that’ll fry my brain cells. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll come right after work to check. Meantime, take something for the fever, maybe put a cool washcloth on your head. Get some sleep. I’ll bring a can of chicken soup as soon as I can get out of here.”
My hero.
I took a couple of Tylenols and made some tea, but I couldn’t sleep yet, not with so much to do and my energy and ambition slipping away as fast as the sand from the shore. First, I had to cancel the gold collection and the diamond dust preparation, the kids’ poems, Grandma Eve’s herbs, a bunch of other projects I had the villagers working on. I thought about sending a town-wide email, but I didn’t have enough addresses.
I told everyone I could reach, between coughs and sneezes, that reverent gratitude just wasn’t going to make it with the sand-nappers. They wanted something precious, priceless, and tangible. Pass it on. We needed new ideas.
“And you need soup, Willy,” someone offered. “Sweet and sour egg drop soup is what I always get for a cold.”
I thought of the eggs in their beautiful nest. And Oey. Nah.
Someone offered her great-aunt’s silver tea service. Someone else a signed Shakespeare folio. A Honus Wagner baseball card that might or might not be counterfeit, a child’s first tooth, a signed Tiffany lamp. The judge suggested a green card, so the Andanstans could be legal citizens, or he could get the mayor to give them a key to the city.
“But we don’t want them to stay!”
“Oh, right. How about clemency for the theft of the sand? I don’t hand that out often, I can tell you.”
My eyes were getting blurry and I had to call from a prone position, but I couldn’t rest yet. Besides, my stomach didn’t feel right. No matter, I had to talk to Carinne.
“How do you feel?”
“Crappy.”
“Me, too. I think I caught whatever you have. But how is Jimmie? I’m really worried about him, if he’s got this bug, too.”
“Yeah, we’re all concerned. He refuses to go to a doctor. Says his health plan won’t cover it.”
“Get Monteith to enroll him with the Rosehill staff.”
“There’s still a waiting period. But we found a doctor who’ll make house calls. And Jimmie swears all he needs is some tea with a dash of whiskey. So far he’s finished off two cups of tea and a bottle of bourbon. He seems okay.”
“Great. Tell him Oey misses him, and she’s looking better. I could see feathers starting to sprout. She’ll be coming home soon.” I hoped. “And she sent a feather for each of you. If I can’t bring them in the morning, I’ll send Harris with them.”
“That’s all right, Willy. We aren’t in any hurry to get feathers. Didn’t they used to burn them under peoples’ noses to wake them from a faint? We’re not that bad here, though I think Jimmie’s passed out. Monte says sleep is the best thing for him.”
So I tried to explain to Carinne Oey’s plan to help her situation. How she could walk around with an ancient parrot on her shoulder and never see the horrors.
She wasn’t sure about always seeing blanks. Like putting on a TV and only getting static snow. And what could she do?
She could help the professor the way she was doing, or she could go back to being a guidance counselor, as long as Oey was with her.
“Hey, most guidance counselors aren’t clairvoyants. I bet you’re the only one. And they still help the kids with intelligence and training and caring, if not magic. You’re going to be meeting students who are as confused about their talents as you are. Your experience alone should let you empathize and give good advice. And when Oey’s not around, maybe the feather will help keep the voices and the panic away.�
��
I could hear her wondering if she should ask Cousin Lily to make me soup.
“It’s a special feather, one from the nest. It’s better than a fish scale, trust me. This one is beautiful, and I think it’s supposed to give you courage to face what you need to do. Or make you feel better, like Doc Lassiter’s touch does.”
“Do you feel better?”
I couldn’t remember when I felt worse. “I don’t think I’m dying, anyway.”
“Have you been taking Jimmie’s cure-all, too?”
No, but I held all three of the feathers in my hand when I made the last call. I did feel a little better. Maybe the Tylenol kicking in. Maybe the tea. Maybe the feathers?
* * *
“Mom, I’m sick.”
“I’m in Philadelphia. Call your grandmother.”
“I did. She’s sending over some herbal teas.” And most likely chicken soup, if I knew my grandmother. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I wanted to warn you, is all. You shouldn’t come out here until I’m better. You could catch the bug and miss your first rehearsal. Or you could look pale and sickly.” Like I did.
“Hm. I placed all of the puppy mill dogs except for the Maltese Matt said the Willinghams want. Nice people. But there’s a lot of work to be done with these new greyhounds at the rescue center. They’ve never had a toy or gone up stairs.”
“Great, you stay there and get them in shape for wonderful new homes. Bye, Mom.”
“Wait, Willy. The jackass called.”
“Dad? What did he want? Did he have a premonition?”
“He left a message. I guess it’s a warning. He said I shouldn’t be upset because stress isn’t good for a person’s health. That he always loved me. That he was never unfaithful to me during our marriage.”
Wow. I guess Dad found a feather, too. “What else did he say?”
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