The Forever Drug

by Lisa Smedman

  We swapped small talk for a minute or two before I got to the point.

  "I want to rent your boat, Lucie. I need to get to Prince Edward Island. Tonight. I just need a ride over—I'm not sure when I'm coming back, so you don't need to wait for me. In fact, it would be better if you didn't hang around."

  "Quoi?" Lucie's broad forehead wrinkled as she raised her pale eyebrows. Her already wide eyes got even bigger. "You are not involved with za bridge t'ing, are you, Romulus?"

  "No," I reassured her. "But it's frigged me up. There's someone on the island who needs my help, and now I can't get to her because of the trouble with the bridge."

  I pulled a credstick from my pocket. It held the pay I'd received for the freighter raid, minus a few expenses—every nuyen I had. I held it out to Lucie. "I've got about five hundred nuyen on this," I said. "You can transfer whatever you need to cover your fuel expenses and your time."

  Lucie gave my a shy smile. "Zat is all right, Romulus," she said. "If you are helping someone, you will need zat credit. I will donate my time, moi. Just buy me a bite to eat some time, and we will call it square."

  "Sushi?" I asked.

  Lucie's eyes lit up. Raw fish was her favorite food. "Bon!"

  The crossing to Murray Harbor didn't take long— it's only about a fifty-klick run across the strait. As the Selkie cut through the choppy seas, I listened to the tridcasts on Lucie's satellite-dish telecom. The UCAS military was about to impose a curfew in Charlottetown, starting that evening. The Magical Task Force had already made some arrests—it sounded like our division was rounding up anyone who was even part Mi'kmaq Indian. In retaliation, the radicals had used a ball of magical fire to set fire to Green Gables House, the historic Cavendish home that was the setting for the Anne of Green Gables novel. By doing so, they'd brought the uprising onto the world stage; so popular was P.E.I. with Japanese tourists that the Japanese prime minister had expressed his country's "greatest sympathies and condolences for the UCAS's terrible loss."

  There was no mention of Murray Harbor on any of the tridcasts. But no news was good news, as far as I was concerned.

  Despite the fact that Prince Edward Island was formerly a Canadian province unto itself, it's not much more than a fly-speck on the map. Charlottetown, the only "city," has a population that has stagnated at the thirty thousand mark since the turn of the millennium.

  The island is long and flat, with gently rolling hills. It lies low in the water like a canoe, the highest point barely one hundred and fifty meters above sea level. Its forests were felled centuries ago, and the early settlers divided up its muddy red soil into a patchwork of family farms. This was pretty much the state of things until just after the turn of the millennium, when the VITAS epidemic wiped out one-third of the island's population.

  Agribusiness seized the opportunity and moved in, buying up farms at bargain-basement prices. By the 2020s, eighty per cent of the island was owned by a single corporation: Universal Foods.

  Three decades of mismanagement by Universal

  Foods had rendered the land all but worthless. Overirrigation and heavy fertilizer use depleted the soil, and the widespread use of a single strain of genetically altered, frost-tolerant potato that could be grown year-round brought on a blight. When profits declined, Universal Foods moved on.

  Then Dunkelzahn bought up the ravaged properties, promising to restore the island to its former pastoral beauty.

  Dunkelzahn built an estate there in the early 2050s. Suddenly, P.E.I. was in all the tridcasts as the media tried to figure out why the dragon had chosen what appeared to be a magically insignificant place. Rumor had it that the estate's gardens and mansion had been laid out by a master of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of geomancy.

  For a while, the island's tourist industry really got a boost as mages from around the world came to search for the "ley lines" that supposedly converged on the estate. But after the estate was turned into a public park in 2057, per the instructions in Dunkelzahn's will, the mystery surrounding the place dissipated. Pilgrims to the park went home disappointed after they discovered that mana levels weren't peaking there—or anywhere else on P.E.I.

  Lucie turned her boat into the long, narrow bay that gave Murray Harbor its name. We pulled up to the wharf just as the sky was beginning to lighten.

  The eastern horizon was a brilliant salmon pink, and it brought to mind the rhyme we'd learned as kids: "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning." I wondered if the hot spell we'd been having lately was finally going to break. If it was, we'd be in for some weather. I was glad I wasn't a sailor.

  There isn't much to Murray Harbor. It's got a hundred or so wood-frame houses, a handful of fresh seafood shops that cater to the tourist trade, and the usual collection of family-owned general stores and boat-repair businesses. I didn't see any sign of the UCAS military—just sleepy-eyed fishers setting out before sunrise in their draggers. The largest of these fishing boats were fully automated, with everything from engine to capstan operated via vehicle jacks by a single rigger. But most were old-fashioned: conventional fish boats that took a crew of four or more to operate. Some even had wooden hulls. The smell of fish, hot diesel fumes, and rusting metal hung in the air over the wharf like a thick fog.

  I waved goodbye to Lucie and jandered up the sloping ramp that led up to the town itself. I didn't dare shift into wolf form; even at this early hour there were people on the streets, and I didn't want anyone calling the local Lone Star detachment to say a para was on the loose, especially when tensions on the island were already high.

  I walked back and forth through town, inhaling deeply and trying to pick up Jane's scent with my blunted human senses. It didn't take me long to cover the entire town. By then the sun was up and people were sitting on their porches, drinking their coffee. I could smell its pungent odor, along with the other smells of breakfast: frying bacon and fish, toast, and the sweet smell of homemade jam.

  But not a whiff of Jane. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I'd jumped to conclusions and followed a false logic trail.

  Then I saw the child with the face of an old man.

  He was walking toward the town's elementary school behind a group of children who looked about six to eight years old. The other children were skipping and laughing as they tagged each other, but this boy was not included in their game. He was slower than the rest, moving with a painful shuffle. I didn't realize why, at first. Having just spent time with Lucie, I didn't think anything of the boy's snow-white hair. But when he glanced back over his shoulder I saw his wrinkled face and age-spotted skin, and the white whiskers on his chin. He looked like a man in his seventies as he trudged along in an oversized sweater with holes at the elbows and faded blue jeans.

  I stepped downwind of the boy and sniffed. He smelled like a man in his seventies. And his Native features tagged him as Mi'kmaq. I stared at him in horrified fascination, realizing that his physical debilitation was the result of the drug testing that Jane had conducted in this town, several years ago. The full impact of what had been done here struck me then. The New Dawn Corporation had been testing the drug on children. On infants.

  I could only pray that Jane hadn't known what she'd been part of. And I thanked the spirits for her memory loss. The people of Murray Harbor might tell her what she had done, but Jane would forget all about it the next morning when she awoke. Her short-term memory loss suddenly seemed like a blessing, instead of a curse.

  As the wizened-looking boy trudged into the school yard, he was met with jeers. He jerked to a stop and looked around uncertainly. At first I thought the other kids were teasing him about his appearance. But as I got closer, I heard what they were saying.

  "Dirty Indian!"

  "My dad said ya couldn't trust anyone who come from away."

  "Bridge-burner!"

  They were just children, repeating what they'd heard over breakfast that morning. But it was ugly. My hackles rose.

  When one of them picked up a stone a
nd threw it at the prematurely aged boy, I lost it entirely. "Leave him alone!" I shouted.

  I was halfway into wolf form, my shirt tearing, before I realized what I was doing. By the time I'd shifted back into fully human form, the children in the school yard were a screaming, tangled knot as they fought to get into the safety of the building.

  Frig. Talk about blowing your cover.

  "Thanks, mister," a tiny voice whispered beside me.

  I looked down to see the boy staring up at me with his old man's face. I rested a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "That's all right," I said.

  "How come you got pointy ears?" the boy asked. If I'd had any doubts about his true age, his candid question would have erased them. Only children are that blunt.

  "I'm a shifter," I answered.

  "What kind?"

  "Wolf."

  "Oh." The boy thought that one over. "My uncle has pointy ears too. He lives with gran and me. He's a dwarf." He sized me up a moment more before adding, "His beard is longer than yours."

  Chuckling, I stroked my beard. Then I froze and sniffed my hand. After touching the boy's shoulder, my palm had picked up a scent that was faint, but unmistakable. I bent lower and pressed my nose against the sweater the boy was wearing. It smelled of wood smoke, wool, tobacco, and fried fish. And of something else that made the breath catch in my throat.

  Jane had worn this sweater. Her scent was faint, as if the sweater had barely touched her skin before she'd taken it off again. But the scent was fresh.

  "Is that your uncle's sweater?" I asked as I drew away. "It looks too big for you."

  The boy nodded.

  "Where do you live?" I asked the boy. "I'd like to meet your uncle."

  I heard a commotion from inside the elementary school: excited children's voices and the lower voice of an adult. I decided I'd better get the frig out of here, before the local police picked me up on a charge of uttering threats, or child molestation, or some other crazy thing.

  The boy didn't seem to be keen on sticking around, either. I guided him around the corner and up the street. But he wasn't going anywhere fast. His hands were gnarled, the knuckles knobbed and twisted with arthritis. I suspected his feet were the same.

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  "Kloqoej," he said. "That's my Indian name. It means 'old man star.' You know—like a comet, with a beard. But they call me Paul at school."

  "Would you like me to carry you, Kloqoej?" I asked.

  He gave me a measuring look. He'd obviously been warned against trusting strangers. But I'd just saved him from a nasty situation, and it was clear that walking home again wasn't going to be easy for him. I watched him decide he could trust me.

  "All right," he said. "I live down by the beach."

  I boosted the boy onto my back and walked in the direction he indicated. His home turned out to be a small cottage at the end of a stretch of red sand on the outskirts of town. It wasn't far from the beach; the smell of salt water and seaweed hung in the air, together with the smell of wood smoke. The house itself was painted white, with a red door at the front that was open a crack. Wood smoke curled from a chimney that was starting to lean as its mortar crumbled, and the roof tiles were patched in several places with smears of black tar. A large, rickety-looking porch that jutted out of one side of the house had a railing that was studded with sea shells, feathers, and animal bones.

  As I got closer, I noticed a design on the front door of the cottage: a circle with lines inside it that formed an eight-pointed star, with a spiraled knot at the center of the star. It was vaguely reminiscent of the hermetic circles that Dass used in her spellcasting, but with Native overtones. Then I recognized the design: it was patterned after a dream catcher, a fad from the last century. Back in the days before the Awakening, people had hung dream catchers in their homes, believing that they prevented nightmares by somehow "catching" the bad dreams. It was totally bogus, of course. Magic had yet to arise in the world, and all the dream catchers caught was dust.

  As I approached the house with Kloqoej on my shoulders, the breeze coming off the ocean shifted, carrying the smell of dog to me. As soon as it saw me, a male rottweiler that had been sunning itself on the beach leaped to its feet and charged. I'd been expecting him; I'd smelled his mark on several of the bushes beside the gravel driveway, and could tell from the tinge of anxiety in the spoor that he was a timid dog, all show. I met the rottweiler growl for growl, bristling and adopting a dominant stance, making sure Kloqoej remained high on my shoulders. As soon as the dog was close enough to catch the overtones of wolf in my scent, he skidded to a stop. With a soft whine he lowered his head to the ground in a gesture of submission.

  The wind also carried the smell of a meta: a dwarf male. I spotted him at the side of the house, near a battered-looking pickup truck that was parked next to a messy-looking wood pile. He had a high forehead and a black beard that hung halfway down his chest, braided like a pony tail. I thought, at first glance, that his hair had been styled in dreadlocks, but then I realized the "dreads" were actually sleek black feathers that had been woven into his hair. He wore a red flannel shirt, jeans, and heavy work boots. His prominent cheekbones and dark brown eyes pegged him as Native.

  The dwarf had been tucking chunks of firewood into the crook of his short but powerfully muscled arm. When he heard the rottweiler barking and saw me dominate it, he dropped the wood, a surprised expression on his face. Without a word he turned and entered the house. As I set Kloqoej down on the ground, I heard low voices inside: the dwarf's and a woman's. Since neither one seemed about to come out and greet me, I strode to the front door.

  I knocked, and the voices fell silent. The smell of aromatic tobacco smoke wafted out through the open door. I glanced behind me at Kloqoej, but he just shrugged. The door began to swing open as I knocked a second time.

  "Hello?" I called out. "Your nephew had a bit of trouble at the school yard, so I helped him get home. I just wanted to let you know he was all ri—"

  The sight of the woman in the rocking chair stopped me cold. Even though I'd only caught a one-second glimpse of her on the trid, I recognized her at once as the passenger on the back of the rigger's motorcycle; she'd been riding with him last night, when the Confederation Bridge was destroyed. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise as I considered the impossibility of the coincidence: of all of the people in Murray Harbor, I had befriended her grandson. If I hadn't been in human form, my ears would have been flat against my scalp by now. I took a step into the dimly lit room to get a better look.

  I wasn't the only one suffering from the shock of recognition. I know it sounds impossible, but I could see it in the old woman's eyes that she recognized me, too. She sat impassively in a rocking chair, smoking a clay pipe. Despite the fact that the day was warm, she wore a heavy blue wool coat. Its sleeves, hem, and wide collar were trimmed with red fabric that was finished with ornate white embroidery. The floor boards under her chair creaked as she rocked slowly back and forth. Her eyes stared at me, nearly lost in a face that was a sea of wrinkles.

  The room was so full of clutter that I didn't see the dwarf, at first. The bookcase he was standing next to was as tall as he was, and had blocked my view of him as I came in through the door. But now I could see the miniature crossbow that was mounted on his forearm, and the silver point on the bolt it held. The tip was aimed directly at my chest. Just looking at it made the crease the elf's silver bullet had torn in my side begin to ache.

  "Nikani-kjijitekewinu said you would come," the dwarf said. "She is a great puoin; she can see ten days into tomorrow."

  I wondered if the old woman could also see into the astral plane—if she had spotted my true form. I trembled with the urge to shift into wolf form, to hurl myself at the dwarf's throat. I knew it would be suicidal, but sometimes your animal instincts just overwhelm you. I was glad this wasn't one of those times.

  "Sorry," I told the dwarf. "You've got the wrong man. Whoever you w
ere expecting, I'm not him." I began easing back out the door.

  The old woman fixed me with a look. "You came for Jane," she said. "Now that you are here, you must stay."

  I froze. I glanced at the woman and then at the dwarf. The silver-headed arrow was a good argument to stick around.

  "You know her," I said at last. "Her scent is on the sweater Kloqoej is wearing."

  The old woman rocked forward in her chair. "Jane did us a great wrong. She hurt our children."

  "Someone hurt her, too."

  "Yes," the old woman said. "They stole her keskamzit, her power. But you can help her to get it back. And then she can heal our children."

  "Where is Jane?" I asked. I didn't smell her scent anywhere; I was certain she wasn't here in the cottage with us. But my hopes were rising that I'd see her soon. They were speaking of Jane in the present tense. That meant she was still alive.

  The woman waved away my question with the hand that held her pipe. Then she returned its stem to her mouth and sucked on it. She sat smoking for a full minute, her eyes staring off into space. My frustration rose with each wordless puff of smoke. I stifled a growl in my throat and forced myself to wait for her answer. But instead she began to inhale deeper and deeper, almost hyperventilating on the tobacco smoke.

  I shot a look at the dwarf. "What's she doing?"

  "Her power rises in her as she smokes," he said. "Wait."

  Something happened to the old woman then. The hand holding the pipe dropped into her lap, and her eyes rolled back in her head. She started to tremble and I could smell sweat breaking out on her body. Her body gave one final, violent convulsion and then she slumped back in her chair, as if she'd lost consciousness. The chair rocked gently back and forth, creaking softly.

  "What's wrong with her?" I asked.

  "Wait," was all the dwarf would say.

  After a moment, the old woman opened her eyes. In that same instant, I could hear the sound of a helicopter, off in the distance.