Physics and birthday cake: just another party at the Masons. That same air held aloft the wings of the plane that sped her to her parents. Except that what her parents had told her about her very birth, the circumstances that defined her, wasn’t real. They had lied to her, the one they loved the most.
For the second time in her life, Ondine felt a tear roll down her cheek and she wiped it away self-consciously, glancing over to see if the woman reading a magazine next to her had seen. She hadn’t; she was actually asleep, the magazine open in her lap, her head tilting toward the aisle, a line of drool beginning to bubble out of her open mouth. The woman’s obliviousness somehow depressed Ondine even further. Why the tears now, after so long? She thought about that one day with Nix, after the party; she had cried then, too. Was it that she wanted someone to notice her? At the same time, she wanted to pull a tissue from her purse and wipe the woman’s drool away. She wanted to mother her. She wanted her mother.
Now there was no stopping the tears. All Ondine could do was cover her face with her hands and try to keep her shoulders from shaking.
“Are you all right?”
The voice was soft and female and seemed to come from somewhere far above Ondine, but when she opened her eyes she saw that it was a flight attendant leaning over her, speaking in her practiced flight attendant voice.
“Can I get you anything?”
The woman was pretty, slight and spry with tilted brown eyes and soft, coiling brown hair gathered in a bun. Ondine found herself surprised that she was black. She figured the woman was about her mother’s age. Usually she didn’t go for ethnic solidarity stuff, but today the fact of the woman’s brown skin — and her big liquid eyes, understanding and compassionate — calmed her.
She straightened up and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I’m all right.” She pointed to her nose. “Allergies.”
A knowing nod signaled that both of them knew her wet eyes and red nose had nothing to do with allergies, 30,000 feet above the earth. But the flight attendant played along anyway.
“Recycled air,” she whispered, mindful of the sleeping drooler. “Terrible for the sinuses. Can I bring you something? A juice or a soda?” She smiled. “Might help clear something up.”
“That’s okay.” Ondine straightened again, pulling her shirt down and adjusting the collar of her jacket. She was aware that she hadn’t changed clothes since the trip with Nix. Her mother would tsk.
Her mother. And who, exactly, was that?
The flight attendant paused, frowning, and Ondine thought she was going to try to help again. But all she did was reach into the jacket pocket of her fitted uniform and pull out a cocktail napkin, and, with an amazingly deft touch, wick the moisture off the chin of the woman sitting next to her. The nonchalant tenderness of the gesture nearly sent Ondine into a fresh spasm of sobs — if only her problems could be fixed so easily — and it was all she could do to smile at the flight attendant before the woman pocketed her napkin and continued down the aisle.
Ondine turned to the window. It was dark, so all she saw was her blurry reflection. She closed her eyes lest the image set off a fresh bout of existential confusion. It wouldn’t be bad to get a little sleep. She felt her limbs unwind, loosening her seat belt so she could slide deeper into her seat. Not a minute later she felt a rustling. Her neighbor must be getting up to go to the bathroom, she figured — but when she opened her eyes she saw that the drooler was still asleep. Ondine’s tray table had been lowered, and on it sat a glass of club soda — her favorite drink on a long flight — complete with a lime and a swizzle stick, a white cocktail napkin beneath. On the napkin were written the words:
Tomorrow morning. Grant Park, the rose garden. We can talk there.
Her lips felt dry, her throat and mouth parched. She had wanted that club soda.
She pulled the napkin from under the drink and crumpled it up and put it in her jacket pocket. She looked to her neighbor, who was in the same position she had been last time Ondine checked, her mouth slightly open, her head listing to the left, almost to her collarbone. Everyone else was asleep.
A bell chimed. The FASTEN SEAT BELT sign had been lit. A woman’s voice came over the PA.
“Ladies and gentleman, Captain Thomas has turned on the fasten seat belt sign in preparation for landing at Chicago O’Hare. Please return to your seats if you’re moving about the cabin and —”
Tray tables, seat backs. Ondine was just about to take a sip from her club soda when a flight attendant appeared to collect her cup. This one had frizzy blond hair and coral lip-stick and a smoker’s ring of wrinkles around her lips. Ondine rose to look for the earlier stewardess, bumping her tray table and causing her seatmate to wake suddenly with a small “Oh dear!”
The woman started, her hands flying. The glass of club soda spilled all over Ondine’s lap.
“Hon, tray table up.” The blond stewardess reached across her for her empty cup.
Ondine, sopping, forced herself to speak.
“I’m sorry. Can you call the stewardess —”
“Flight attendant?” the woman corrected, her eyebrows raised.
“I mean flight attendant. Can you call the flight attendant who was just here? Who gave me my club soda?”
“I’m sorry, hon, but we’re about to land. Can I help you in some way?” As she spoke she deposited Ondine’s cup in a trash bag and locked the tray table up in one continuous, well-practiced motion. She even managed to push Ondine’s seat-back button, so that she was propelled suddenly forward. “Sorry,” the woman said through a tight smile. “FAA regulations. Here are some napkins.”
“It’s okay; it’s okay.” Ondine readjusted, trying to keep the woman’s attention. “She’s black, the stew — the flight attendant. She gave me my club soda and I wanted to ask her something.”
The blond woman’s face was blank. She shook her head and pursed her seamed lips. Ondine felt her seatmate trying to pat away some of the water that had spilled on her knees, mumbling, “Oh dear, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“No flight attendant on this aircraft who’s black, darling.” And, smiling blandly, she turned down the aisle.
Ondine pulled the napkin from her jacket pocket with wet fingers and looked at it. The words were still there: Tomorrow morning. Grant Park.
She looked out the window at the sky, completely dark now. Her heart beat faster. In the reflection she could see her neighbor pulling a packet of tissue out of her purse.
“I am really such a klutz. God —”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Ondine turned and showed her the napkin. “Can you read this to me?”
The woman looked up once, as if to try to understand why she wanted her to do the task. She put the soaked tissues in the seat-back pocket in front of her and began to pronounce the words:
“Tomorrow —” She paused, cleared her throat, and started again. “Tomorrow morning. Grant Park, the rose garden. We can talk there.” Her accent was slightly nasal: tawk for talk. Ondine figured she was from the East Coast. “Okay?”
“Thanks. I’m just … I’m just having trouble with my vision.”
The neighbor nodded knowingly. She had curly brown hair and deep-set, pinkish eyes. “Happens all the time on flights. Believe me. I used to sell industrial chemicals — traveled all over creation. Good gawd my eyes were dry. Drops?” She rifled through her purse and pulled out a bottle of Visine.
“No. No, thanks.” Ondine waved it away.
“Listen, I’m really sorry about the drink.”
“It’s all right. Don’t worry about it.” The water was the last thing on her mind. She concentrated on what was happening around her. The woman talking. The lights of the grid of Chicago rising up to meet the plane, the dimming cabin, movements of one of the flight attendants somewhere ahead. A baby’s cough.
“Well, it was just really klutzy of me. And I deprived you of necessary hydration! These long flights, they’re killers. When I was in corporate, I told my husband, M
ike, I said, ‘Mike, remind me to buy Visine before I go on a trip.’ Of course, he’s the forgetful one…. I typically am the, you know, anal one. Virgo. But Sagittarius moon, which makes us get along well, Mike and me. Anyway …”
And the saleswoman of Ondine’s former life continued this way until they landed. Mike; astrology; Des Plaines, Illinois; Visine versus propolis eyedrops; the Midwest; O’Hare; and reverse commute. Chicago hot dogs versus East Coast franks. The rose garden in Grant Park. Oh, that is beautiful. Ondine didn’t have to speak once. Normally she would have been irritated to the point of nausea. But tonight — with the lights of Chicago approaching quickly under them, like hieroglyphics explaining some future self Ondine would not, could not, understand — she was grateful for the distraction.
CHAPTER 19
THE MIDLEVEL BRICK BUILDINGS of Portland’s seamier district bordering Burnside tapered to a sprawling D’Amici’s, a car dealership, cell shop, pizza parlor, and finally, the pretty, shaded streets heading up toward Forest Park. The apartment buildings ended, yielding bigger, handsome houses, and Nix stayed to the outside of the sidewalk, avoiding eye contact with the few desperate housewives and their mini SUV strollers out on a cold, windy day. He would keep his eyes on the ground, but not for long. He was coming into something and he knew it.
Without much effort he gained the top of the first hill and started to move through the forest pathways that afforded a shortcut to the lookout. He remembered these trails. He thought of Finn, and missed him, and Evelyn, and his old, dust-mellowed life. It was late afternoon; the sunset that was supposed to define the meeting time was more of a hopeful projection than a reality; the sun was no more than a vague splotch of lighter gray sinking somewhere toward the hills behind him. There had been a brief break in the rain during the morning, but it was coming again, from the north, and Nix knew that whatever meeting there was would be a short one. He imagined Morgan D’Amici wouldn’t tolerate the whipping rain for more than a minute or two. Her carefully blown-out hair wouldn’t stand for it.
He pulled his jacket around him, conscious of the fact that he’d now worn these clothes for several days straight and didn’t smell a thing. Crazy fairies’ shit don’t stink. The unlikely thought made him laugh. He’d had a sense of humor once.
The bench was there, right where it used to be. On it, Moth, with his back to Nix, looking a bit more hunched than usual. Next to him sat a figure in a toxic orange Final Home parka, the hood pulled up, smaller than Moth. Morgan. On time, of course. Little Miss Can’t-Be-Wrong. They looked like any other disaffected, partially employed, overly educated young Portland hipster couple, watching bad weather for kicks. Nix half expected Moth’s arm to casually drape around her. They’d kiss. Then some entanglement involving facial piercings.
He walked up sideways, careful to let them see him first.
“Nix.” It was Morgan who spoke, almost kindly, a greeting he did not expect. Then Moth offered a hand. Nix was surprised to see the little X tattoo still there, as if all the signs of the world had changed since their last meeting. Which, in a way, they had.
Moth, seeing his gaze, exposed his wrist.
“That’s the mark. You probably recognize it already. All lings have one. You’ll be getting one at the next gathering. You too, Morgan.” Moth moved his eyes to the girl.
Nix took Moth’s hand and shook it, and nodded to Morgan. She nodded back, her face warmed from the reflection of the orange parka, against which her eyes, he noticed, looked particularly large and blue.
“So,” Moth said.
He’s never done this before, Nix thought, and as if in answer, Moth cleared his throat and began.
“I’ve never done this before. So —” He moved his eyes side to side. “You’ll have to forgive me if I fuck up now and again. The first fuck-up is that Ondine isn’t here. And that you, Nix,” Moth said, nodding at him, “missed the initial lesson. Neither of these things is unmanageable.” He smiled affably and Nix realized this was his great gift. Moth’s smile was big and white and winning. And until proven otherwise, not very trustworthy.
“You’ll realize that fay like to speak in precise terms, so unmanageable is one. Fatal would be a misstatement, since very little is, in fact, fatal to us. To our bodies, yes.” He switched his glance to Morgan and grimaced. “But that’s for later. Right now I want to make it clear to both of you that besides Ondine, you are it for this ring. There are no other new changelings right now in Portland. And since you already sort of know each other — that makes my job easier. It’s the one good thing about smaller places. In New York, god, I’ve met guides that have ten, fifteen lings they have to deal with. Not that this is so awful, but man, it’s a lot of work. Anyway …”
Moth’s tangents and shaking knee irritated Nix. What about Neve Clowes? he wanted to scream. And Tim Bleeker! Standing listening to Moth ramble, Nix wondered whether he had missed Viv’s instructions for a reason. Was he meant to figure this out by himself, using his own senses? Otherwise, he would risk faltering under the shaky guidance of the one who was now moving erratically, circling, circling, into a long story about his experience with the bust in Eugene, a story complete with keg stands and vomit.
“He was fucked up, man.” Moth laughed. “So fucked up — I think he was pissing on someone’s stereo when he finally passed out —”
Nix interrupted him. “Moth, dude. We’ve already heard this story in several versions. You’re kind of — legendary, you know? Can we get to the point?”
Moth’s face got serious and Nix sensed something there he hadn’t noticed before. Hardness? Protection? Morgan, too, watched the older boy from the corner of her too-blue eyes.
He stood up. “Sit down, son.”
“Naw, I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not. Sit down.”
Nix felt his legs weaken and then burn, as if exposed to some chemical. He reached down to touch them, but Moth shoved him toward the bench and Nix, unclear as to what was happening to him, unwillingly took his seat.
“Good. Now. Some people take a little time to get into things. Don’t be a punk, all right? I’m your guide, and that’s how it’s going to be for the time being. Like it or not. If you’re as good as Viv says you are, you will learn from a changeling as clumsy and simple as me. Then you’ll go on to heights I can only dream of. Got it?”
Nix nodded and the burning in his legs ceased.
“You arrogant fucks. The reason why I was telling you that long-ass story was that Bleek was my partner. Okay? I know Bleek. I’ve known him for a long time. Bleek was in my ring. He and I were close — as close as the two of you will get.”
Morgan and Nix looked at each other, and Morgan dropped her eyes.
“Our guide was terrible. Not really interested in preparing us for the exidis. Which is, as you already know … well, it’s more than a little scary. Anyway, we didn’t understand. We had this idea — this first idea. Why not see what this dust stuff the scia were giving to us at the Ring of Fire would do to the general population? We already knew it had once been used for the pets — this wasn’t exactly broadcast, but our guide —” Moth shook his head. “Our guide, he trusted us. Too much. So that’s what we did. Bleek got a supply and we started leaking it. Just a little at first, mostly for girls at parties, or to make something happen.”
He looked at the two. “It’s the worst thing about this; I’ll tell you right now. The boredom. While you’re waiting for the exidis. All you want to do, once you find out, is see what it will get you. Nothing in the human world seems off-limits anymore.” Moth’s eyes were glazed. “Can you imagine how boring that is?”
Nix and Morgan stared, mystified, and Moth shook it off and continued. “Anyway. You will. So it was kind of a joke, see? A lark. Except it wasn’t. Bleek had it all figured out. He’d found out way more about what the stuff could do to humans than I had. The man had a plan, you know? Me, I was just having fun.”
Morgan spoke. “And what happened?” Nix was
surprised her voice was so measured.
“You know.”
“I know? What are you talking about?”
“You were at that party, Morgan. I remember. And Bleek remembers, too. We’ve known about you for a long time. You were too young to be at that kind of party, by the way.” Moth smiled, and some touch of big brother came out. “But then, you always were a little precocious.”
Morgan looked away and Nix wished he had access to the girl’s thoughts. He couldn’t read her in the way he did Moth, or even Ondine, despite those clear, light eyes.
“Anyway, for your edification, Nix, since you were in Alaska — we got arrested, no one posted bail, but Bleek got off somehow. I spent three months locked up. Jail, man. I couldn’t do anything about it. There are things we can do, with magnetization and electricity — what I just did to you — and some stuff using the bodies of other living creatures … morphing, basically —” Nix saw Morgan look up then and thought of the burning in his legs a few moments before. Morphing? Was that what the crow was, in the clearing with Bleek and Neve, at the Ring of Fire? But Moth was speaking quickly and Nix realized he had better pay attention if he was going to do anything about Neve.
“… But I didn’t know any of that then. I was just getting started. And Viv did exactly nada to change my situation. Maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson, or test me.” Moth observed the two, looking into their eyes to make his point. “The scia are very careful about getting found out. They have to live in their bodies much longer than the rest of us and must conserve their energies. They are also very particular about who undertakes the exidis. If your will is not aligned, you don’t go. If you have a cutter in your ring, you don’t go.” He paused. “Until the cutter is eliminated. But we’ll get to that.”
Moth sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. “Anyway, you can imagine it had quite an effect on my ring. The time for our exidis came and went. Our guide — he fell apart — and Bleek was designated a cutter. Now I figure it was all a setup on Bleek’s part — the whole thing. He chose his path. And since then” — he cleared his throat and looked up at the mountains — “he’s been using it for the hunt.”
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