Thistle Down

by Irene Radford

  Chase stood with his mouth hanging open as Thistle wavered, shimmering in and out of view. The outline of wings in the shape of thistle leaves sprouted across her back as she collapsed. Her skin took on a decidedly lavender tone. Deep-purple highlights shone in her black hair.

  Then the heat made everything in the room look off kilter.

  He shook his head free of the illusion and took a good look around, assessing the situation. As he’d been trained to do. He plucked the receiver out of Thistle’s hand and briskly ordered an ambulance and a cruiser.

  Then he found the thermostat and turned it off. Next to it, he found the ceiling fan switch and flicked it on. Mrs. Spencer must have mixed them up. What else could he do?

  Windows. Cross ventilation. One by one, he unlatched and raised as many windows as he could reach behind more overstuffed chairs, bookcases, knickknack tables, and just piles of stuff. He opened the front door as well, after releasing two deadbolts, a security chain, and the normal knob lock.

  Why all this security and leave the back door open? He’d looked. Thistle hadn’t forced her entry.

  The dog began licking moisture off Mrs. Spencer’s face. How long had he been locked inside with her? He didn’t seem to be in much better condition than the woman who had taught fourth grade to nearly everyone in town.

  He grabbed the glass, returned to the kitchen, and filled it. The first lot went into the dog’s dish beside the fridge. The second glass he dribbled on Mrs. Spencer’s brow and wrists.

  Thistle stirred, too, as the fan stirred up enough of a breeze to lighten the air.

  He watched as the light glinted off the heat aura that looked like wings, then dissolved as she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her skin remained very pale and lavender tinged.

  “Get yourself some water in the kitchen. I hear the ambulance coming,” he ordered. When she’d slumped through to the kitchen, he shook his head again. “It’s the heat. Has to be the heat. I did not see Pixie wings. I really didn’t.”

  Horace licked his hand. His golden eyes told Chase he was lying to himself.

  Dick would laugh himself silly at Chase’s lack of belief in the face of this evidence.

  Thirteen

  DICK LEANED HIS HEAD BACK against the wall where he sat in the utilitarian chairs of the community college’s free clinic waiting room. He always had to wait for his appointments to review the drug samples the volunteer physicians dispensed and to explain the new pills his company needed him to get them to try.

  Nurse Edwards appeared at the door to the inner sanctum. Dick started to rise, grabbing his case along the way. But she beckoned the teen with the bloody elbow and forearm instead. “Skateboarding without pads again, Josh?” she quipped.

  Dick settled back into his chair, squirming to find a more comfortable position. Yeah, he had an appointment, but patients came before pharmaceutical salesmen.

  At least no one else had come in for the last half hour. Maybe he really would get to see the doctor on duty soon. In preparation, he pulled up a spreadsheet on his netbook showing all the samples he’d left here in the past six months and the ones he’d retrieved because they expired before anyone got around to prescribing them.

  He couldn’t concentrate. Images of Thistle in her purple-flowered sundress dancing in his arms last night kept morphing into his faulty memory of the girl with purple hair he’d kissed . . . oh, so many years ago.

  And then there was the annoying buzz of Chicory, the blue Pixie at the nursery. His tune clashed with Thistle’s.

  Had he imagined the entire episode? He didn’t think so. The logical, science-trained portion of his mind told him Pixies didn’t exist. And they certainly didn’t grow to human size, losing their wings, their magic, and their purple skin.

  The woman he and Dusty had taken in had to be a con artist, just like Chase insisted.

  And yet . . .

  He didn’t want her to be.

  “I know better,” he muttered, applying himself to the spreadsheet, marking items nearing expiration and others that turned over rapidly.

  An ambulance wailed in the near distance.

  Uh-oh. Dick stood to peer out the high window of the clinic. The siren came closer. Only the one siren, no police cruisers or fire trucks beforehand.

  Dick stepped closer to the window. Sure enough, the white-and-red vehicle screeched to a halt in the covered drive adjacent to the clinic. An EMT thrust the vehicle’s double doors open with extreme haste, letting them slam against the side panels. Another uniformed attendant hastened from the front to assist with the gurney.

  Part of Dick needed to run out and check the swinging IV to make sure it didn’t come loose from the patient’s arm. “I’m not on duty,” he reminded himself.

  He did what he could, running around the corner and slamming the automatic open button on the sliding door. Then he pushed it open faster than the programming wanted him to.

  “Thanks, Dick,” the EMT said as he passed, pushing the gurney.

  “Mike, is . . . is that Mrs. Spencer?” Dick asked. “Our fourth grade teacher?”

  “Yeah. Heat stroke. Her dog alerted a passerby who broke in and called 911. If she hadn’t turned off the heat and dribbled water on her brow and opened windows, we might not have been in time.” Then Mike was past Dick and into the tiny emergency room attached to the clinic.

  “Looks like I’ll be here a while,” Dick sighed and returned to his computer.

  Another flurry of movement at the clinic front door broke his limited concentration. A police cruiser had pulled in behind the ambulance.

  A flash of purple, then the door came open. Chase, red-faced and sweating, dragged a protesting Thistle by the hand. She dug in her heels and leaned backward. She’d changed from her parade costume, back into the rumpled sundress.

  Chase compensated for her resistance with a mighty thrust worthy of a shot put Olympian, propelling the woman forward against the receptionist’s counter.

  “What’s wrong?” Dick jumped up and examined Thistle’s wrist for signs of bruising, or dislocation.

  She yanked her hand back and used it to rub her midriff, further creasing the cotton dress he’d bought her yesterday.

  “I got word of a break-in at Mrs. Spencer’s. Found this one administering rudimentary first aid,” Chase said, not in the least apologetic for his rough treatment. “I don’t know if I should book her, or thank her. First, I need the doc to check her out, make sure she’s okay. She collapsed from the heat. Seemed very listless and tired until I got her to drink some water.”

  “I didn’t break in. The back door was unlocked, and the dog told me his lady needed help,” Thistle insisted. She turned her eyes up to Dick, imploring him to believe her.

  “You talked to the dog?” Dick wanted to give in to her silent plea for help and understanding.

  “Actually, he talked to me, but I couldn’t understand much. Mostly he howled and whined. I peeked through the window and saw the lady on the floor. I knocked on the front door. Horace led me from window to window until I found the back door unlatched. She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”

  All three of them looked to the receptionist for information.

  “We all had Mrs. Spencer for a teacher at some point, but patient privacy prevails. I can’t tell you anything more than that she’s alive,” the forty-something woman said. Janet Boland, according to her name plaque, with artful gray streaks highlighting her brown hair, nodded at them and then said, “Damn computer. It’s frozen and won’t let me access any files.”

  “Last I heard, Mrs. Spencer had moved to Salem to be with her daughter.” Dick leaned over the counter, trying to pick out words and phrases on the computer screen. “Try control/alt/delete.”

  “I did, and it won’t work. I’ll have to manually power off and reboot.”

  Dick checked his netbook. It scrolled automatically through his open database, from top to bottom, then bottom to top.

  He shook his head and t
urned it off.

  Ms. Boland gave up on her computer and fell into easy gossip mode. “Apparently, the daughter wanted to put down Mrs. Spencer’s dog. Too much trouble. He’s almost as ancient as Mrs. Spencer and has bladder control problems.”

  “Horace only has a problem when no one remembers to let him out,” Thistle insisted.

  “Who told you the dog’s name?” Dick asked, surprised and delighted.

  “Not Mrs. Spencer. She was unconscious when I got there. EMTs said she’d been out for quite a while,” Chase added.

  “Horace told me,” Thistle said. She rolled her eyes as if everyone talked to dogs and understood them.

  “Wait a minute. You said you didn’t understand what the dog said.”

  “Well, I got a few thoughts. Everyone knows their own name and how to communicate it. And he said ‘help us.’ I knew I had to get in and do something.” She shrugged.

  Dick’s gaze met Chase’s over the top of Thistle’s head. Neither understood precisely what was going on.

  Dick had an idea, but it warred with everything he’d been taught.

  “The daughter called us this morning to let us know Mrs. Spencer had moved back home yesterday. She wanted us to be aware that the old lady was alone,” Janet Boland added. “I hate to see these old folks come in to emergency like that when all they need is a friend.”

  Thistle stilled. Her eyes flicked right and left, seeking something, a connection. Then she dropped her gaze to her feet. “I know how to be a friend. It’s what Pixies do best. We offer friendship to anyone who can see us as Pixies and not just dragonflies.” She shot Chase a wicked glance.

  “Can I go now? Dusty says I have to find a job and move out. But I don’t know what I can do, or where to go.” Fat tears welled up in Thistle’s eyes.

  “My sister is heartless,” Dick said, offering Thistle his clean handkerchief.

  “Sounds to me like she’s practical and cautious,” Chase sniffed.

  “Wait a minute.” Dick needed to think—and think fast. “We’ve got a lot of old folks living on the ridge in those ancient houses with outdated plumbing and no air-conditioning. Many of them live alone. In this heat they need someone to check on them, make sure they drink enough water, turn on the fans instead of the heat, let the pets out. What if a bunch of people chipped in and paid Thistle to do that?”

  “Loaves and Fishes does a lot of that,” Ms. Boland said. A note of caution drew the words out.

  “But not all of them sign up for Meals on Wheels. Like Mrs. Spencer. She was a proud old lady, wouldn’t take charity. Said she didn’t need it,” Chase mused. “And those volunteers only come once a day, and not always on weekends. They are volunteers, after all, and there are only so many of them.”

  “I bet they don’t stick around to make sure the folks eat or drink,” Dick expanded on the topic. “Or let the dogs out.”

  “I’ve got a patrol officer checking the neighborhood now,” Chase said. His fingers tapped a rhythmic pattern on his utility belt, a sure sign that he was thinking as fast and furiously as Dick. “But I haven’t the budget to do it all day every day. Especially with Festival in full swing and someone selling illegal firecrackers to teens. You might have a good idea, Dick. At least until the heat breaks. Come winter, we’ll have a similar problem. Making sure furnaces work and don’t spill carbon monoxide.”

  Thistle looked around sniffing the air. “Ten degrees cooler tomorrow and the next day. But no rain in sight. And the third day the temperatures go back up into the nineties again, with higher humidity.”

  “We wouldn’t be able to pay her much. And someone would have to take her around, introduce her to everyone, including the neighbors,” Dick thought out loud. His gaze met Chase’s again.

  “Dusty could do that. She takes library books to the old folks; she could introduce and vouch for your friend,” Ms. Boland suggested.

  “I suppose. Funny how Dusty will sit and talk to those old folks but hides from people her own age.”

  “Maybe the elders are so grateful for company, they make her feel welcome and don’t judge her if she has a smudge of dirt on her nose, or she says something awkward,” Thistle said. “Maybe she collects stories about olden times from them. They don’t get bored talking about the past.”

  “I’ll make up a list of candidates,” Ms. Boland said. “And I’ll chip in ten bucks a week.”

  “Wh . . . what about Dusty telling me to move out?” Thistle asked on a sniff.

  “I’ll talk to my little sister. As far as I’m concerned, you should stay with us. We’re right in the middle of the district you need to patrol.”

  “Thank you. I know how to be a friend. I can do this. You can trust me to be a friend to these people.” Thistle placed her hand on his chest and looked up at him with deep purple eyes full of gratitude and . . . and something Dick couldn’t quite define.

  His heart melted, and logic flew out the window. He knew those eyes. He’d seen that expression before . . . The day he wiped her wings free of the dog drool Chase had used to glue them together.

  Chase turned away from Dick in embarrassment. Thistle was looking at him in awe, as if he was a superhero.

  That was his friend, Dick. Defender of the innocent, protector of the vulnerable. Who was it had first given him that nickname?

  Chase thought it was his youngest sister Ginny who’d first used the phrase. How many years ago?

  Their sophomore year in high school. Spring term . . .

  Chase threw his book bag onto the bench seat of the booth in the far back corner of Norton’s Family Diner, the booth Mom reserved for Chase and his friends after school. He and his sisters had to come here and do homework right after school. That was the rule. This wasn’t football or wrestling season, so he’d jogged down from school as soon as the final bell rang at the end of eighth period. He had to jog everywhere to keep in shape.

  “Mom, can I have a Coke?” he called into the back.

  “Help yourself, dear. And fix glasses for your sisters,” his mother leaned out the order window from the kitchen.

  The smell of hot grease for fries and grilled burgers made his stomach growl. “The girls aren’t here yet. Ginny has play practice and Lynette wants to watch cheerleading practice so that she can learn some moves and try out in the fall,” he said, explaining their absence. “Can I have a burger?” he asked hopefully as he pulled the lever on the soft drink machine and watched the brown liquid foam on top.

  “Your dad’s cleaning the grill. It will take a while to bring it up to temperature again. How about a piece of pie. I think there’s still some fresh apple.” His mother ducked back into the kitchen.

  Chase studied the pies in the rack. The apple was almost gone. Maybe he should save that for Dick; it was his favorite, and he hadn’t been too happy lately, what with Dusty in the hospital and all. “I’ll have the lemon meringue,” he said to his mother.

  He’d barely settled at the table with his math book when Dick slumped through the door. He dragged his book bag on the floor and practically fell across the bench seat.

  Mom saw him coming and placed the last piece of apple pie in front of him along with a tall glass of milk. His mother’s rule.

  “How was school today?” she asked them both.

  “Biology’s a bunch of crap,” Chase spat. His text sat in the bottom of his bag, practically accusing him of neglect.

  “No, it’s not. It’s the best class I’ve got,” Dick responded, perking up a bit. He took a big bite of pie. “It’s World History that’s too boring for words, and Dusty’s too sick to help me with it.” His fork sank back to his plate, and he looked like his pie tasted bad, but he was too polite to spit it out.

  “Any news about your sister?” Mom sat down next to Chase and leaned across the table toward Dick. She patted his hand.

  Chase suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy, sort of like when he made a touchdown in the first quarter of his first junior varsity football game. His mom was the
best, letting the kids hang out here after school, making sure they got snacks—often without paying for them—and just being a good mom to all of them.

  Especially now that Dick’s folks spent so much time at the hospital with Dusty.

  Ginny and Lynette burst through the front door in a clatter of laughter and banging books. Five other kids, mostly juniors, followed them and took a seat across the way. At thirteen, his sister Lynette was just beginning to show signs of growing up. Chase worried about her and the rough boys in her class. He knew what guys thought of girls. She wasn’t safe. He’d have to have a word with some of them, prove to them they didn’t want to mess with her, or they’d have to mess with him. Ginny was eleven and still very much a little girl. She spent a lot of time with Dusty, despite the two-year difference in their ages. At least she had until Dusty went to the hospital nearly a month ago.

  The girls went about fixing their own snacks. They wanted the chocolate cake instead of pie. Too sweet by half for Chase, especially with the Coke.

  “How’s Dusty?” Ginny asked right off, like she did every day.

  Dick kept his face down and didn’t answer. If Chase didn’t know better, he’d think Dick was crying.

  He wiped his face and looked out the window at another troop of kids aiming for the front door. These were seniors, and the entire crowd orbited them, hoping for a crumb of wisdom or a brief glance of notice.

  “What is it, dear? Maybe we can help,” Mom said to Dick while keeping an eye on the newcomers.

  “No one can help. Dusty’s got leukemia. It’s a kind of cancer.” Dick gulped his milk, his Adam’s apple bobbing suspiciously fast as he drank.

  “Leukemia. That can be bad.” Mom sat back a bit. “Depends on the kind of leukemia. There’s one that I’ve heard has a really good recovery rate, if they catch it early.”

  “Th . . . that’s what the doctors told my folks. They caught it early. They can treat it with chemo. But they want to wait until they have a bone marrow donor lined up for afterward. If they can’t get a perfect match, they don’t know if she’ll get better or not, even with chemo.’Cause the chemo destroys her marrow and her immune system. She can’t live long . . .”