Strange Alchemy

by Gwenda Bond

  After the others are in, I hesitate instead of starting Polly’s car. “Are you sure Sidekick will be all right here?”

  Polly’s riding shotgun, and she doesn’t answer.

  Kirsten insisted on bringing the few remaining doughnuts along with us, and the sagging box is propped on her knees in the backseat. Polly’s head whips around at the sound of the doughnut box opening. She frowns at Kirsten. “Get control of yourself.”

  Gretchen reaches out to grab another doughnut for herself, frowning too. Like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She complained in the house that the sugar in the doughnuts made her stomach hurt. I had to explain that’s because she usually refuses to eat carbs or refined sugar. Gretchen’s expression then mimics what her face looks like now, disapproval tinged with confusion.

  I felt the urge to explain what carbs and refined sugar even are. Which is ridiculous. She’s obsessed with them. The day the overly skinny and diet-obsessed Gretchen Wolcott doesn’t know the definition of these things — along with descriptions of every diet popular in the past five years — is the day that my ancestors turn out to be witches, people who sold their souls to some weirdo with an Elizabethan mad science lab.

  Oh. Well.

  “Let me just go get him,” I say. I should keep Sidekick with me, in case these girls forget that dogs aren’t something they eat when the doughnuts run out. Okay, that’s not fair. They’re acting strangely, but surely they wouldn’t…

  I glance in the rearview. Kirsten’s cheeks puff out with her fifth doughnut.

  Actually they might. And I’m leaving here with no intention of being the one who brings them home.

  “Gretch is frightened of dogs,” Polly says. “Best leave him here.”

  Gretchen offers no agreement or denial.

  I reluctantly nod. I’ll come back for Sidekick later. Before these girls make it home, as soon as I manage to ditch them. Sidekick won’t know to worry, anyway; he’s probably snoozing or nosing through the trash for wadded up napkins with doughnut residue.

  I start the car and drive toward town as fast as I dare, meaning the speed limit. The feds will no doubt still be looking for me.

  My hands clench for a moment on the steering wheel as I think about their crazy theory… and my dad. The snake on my face makes me feel closer to him than I have since before Mom died. He bore this curse too, and I’m beginning to understand what that means. It isn’t just a birthmark. It’s something that snakes its way inside too. Dad wasn’t strong enough to fight it. The curse beat him.

  What if I’m not strong enough either?

  I shake my head. I have to be.

  Polly barks a choppy laugh that barely sounds like her. “Having a conversation with yourself, Miranda?” she asks.

  “Just an earworm.” I slow the car as it enters a line of vehicles heading into downtown. I refuse to glance over at my friend… my friend who is being extremely weird. I want out of this car. “We might as well park back here and walk it, don’t you think?” I ask.

  “Fine,” Polly says.

  I pull up to the curb and turn the car off. Walking with the others to the courthouse square is risky, but a crowd will be the easiest place to lose them. At least the agents only met me once, and I don’t fool myself that my face is capable of launching a thousand ships or lodging in someone’s memory. They are trained to remember, though. I’m not fooling myself about that either.

  Polly grabs my arm before I can get out. “It is good to see your face.”

  Whatever fate I’m fleeing, these guys may have already faced. I wanted Polly to come back, and I certainly hadn’t wished for the other missing people to be gone forever either. That they’ve returned should be a good thing.

  “You too,” I say.

  I slip the strap of my bag over my head, and we leave the safety of the car. We join a horde of townsfolk swarming toward the square.

  The air smells of sunscreen and sweat, of summer’s end. I realize there’s every possibility the town rumor mill already knows I’m suspected in Dad’s death. Not that they ever cared about him before. Then again, the chief will try to keep it quiet for Grant’s sake, and there’s the return of the missing to fill the ever-present need for something — or someone — to dissect with the scalpels of gossip. Maybe no one knows yet.

  Based on the size of the crowd in front of the courthouse, everyone left in Manteo has turned out. The news trucks squat in the same locations they claimed before. Near one, Blue Doe has a microphone gripped in her hand and a wild gleam in her enormous eyes. The courthouse itself is cordoned off by police tape, setting a perimeter about fifteen feet past the columns and broad porch. A lesser mass of people wait inside the cordon, standing with such patience it’s clear they’re waiting.

  The local police have help from state troopers on keeping gawkers away from the tape, while one of the older officers on the porch uses a bullhorn to repeat: “Only the missing are requested past the cordon. If you’re one of the missing, come up to the courthouse.”

  Gretchen and Kirsten move toward the tape immediately, a state trooper shooting them a nod and smile as they go under the cordon.

  When Polly doesn’t follow, I pat her shoulder. “You should go with them now,” I say. My voice shakes a little, and I hope she doesn’t hear it.

  “You will wait for me?” Polly asks.

  I’m a terrible person. “Of course,” I say. “Now, go. Your parents are probably worried sick.” If I remember correctly, I think they live somewhere in upstate New York.

  Polly’s lashes flutter, and she says, “I forgot about them… my parents.”

  Where were Polly and the others for the days they were missing? Where would make her forget about her parents?

  “They’ll never know that,” I say instead of asking. “Go on.”

  Polly blinks at me, then finally walks toward the trooper and under the yellow tape. I turn away quickly when he shifts in the direction Polly came from. Going into a crowd full of law enforcement is not among my smartest decisions ever. If this were one of my favorite shows, I’d scream, ‘Get out of there!’ at the screen.

  I thread my way back through the crowd, intending to do just that.

  “Is that everyone?” officer bullhorn says.

  The crowd continues to talk. They’re busy speculating about how much tourism will pick up after this, how it must’ve been an arranged stunt, who was in on it and who wasn’t. I can’t blame them for spinning theories to make sense of the mystifying event now that the missing people are herded before them, no longer missing.

  “Silence, please!” the officer roars into the bullhorn. “Now, do we have everyone?”

  The crowd stops talking, necks craning to see inside the cordon. I stop too. I’m afraid to keep moving when no one else is.

  “Last call for members of the missing to join us behind the tape,” the officer says.

  I turn and watch Chief Rawling come through the front door of the courthouse and stride over to take the bullhorn. “Welcome back, everybody,” he says. “We knew the town would want to see you, to know that everyone is okay. That’s why we’re doing things this way. If you could just stay here, we’ll be coming through to take your names and then escort you inside for your statements. We’ll get you back to your families as quickly as possible.”

  Being in the crowd has felt like being under a spotlight the whole time, but suddenly the snake pulses on my cheek. I scan the mass of people and, all the way on the other side of the square, Bone is pointing at me. I read his lips: “There she is!”

  He’s with his friends, but his father is standing behind them, and he cuffs Bone’s ear. Dr. Roswell focuses on my location. The crowd has begun a low buzz of conversation after the chief’s announcement, and that saves me. I have to get out of here.

  I take one last look at the courthouse, at the missing. They�
��re arranged in a familiar formation. Some are higher, standing on the landing between the columns, and some lower, down the stairs, on the sidewalk and lawn. In tidy rows, each of them turns to the other in sequence. They aren’t wearing the gray cloaks from my dream, but their arms wind through the air in the same fashion.

  The crowd hushes again, and I have trouble breathing. This is no dream. I force myself to look away from the movements of the no-longer missing and discover Roswell cutting through the crowd toward me. He drags Bone along by his arm.

  I shove my way past people murmuring about the bizarre arm-waving actions of their returned friends and family mem-bers. Grant trusts Roswell, but I barely know him. And I definitely don’t trust Bone.

  I get to the crowd’s thinner edge, ready to head for Polly’s car, but I can’t resist checking behind me one last time, to confirm what I saw. The missing people remain clearly visible on the raised landing and just below it in their rows. But they stand normally now, arms relaxed, making me wonder if I imagined their actions.

  No. The crowd — other people reacted. This isn’t like at the theater with the ship. Everyone else saw their movements too.

  About to take off, I almost miss him. He walks under the police tape and enters the rows of the returned people. He stops and looks, unmistakably, at me. I wouldn’t recognize him if I hadn’t seen photos from their wedding day. That suit was from the Salvation Army, but this one is nicer. Better cut. He could be a businessman.

  Instead, he’s my father.

  I can’t breathe.

  He’s dead. I saw his body.

  But now his hair has been trimmed into a tidy cut, and no stubble shadows his cheeks. His complexion is pale instead of ruddy, his eyes clear. I never knew Dad could clean up so well.

  He tilts his head down, as if to greet me.

  I want to go to him, as if compelled by some magnetic force. I take a step toward him without meaning to.

  “Come to me.” The whisper seems to come from beside my ear. I stumble.

  “Miranda Blackwood!” Dr. Roswell calls out, and a few people nearby notice me.

  “Poor girl. Her father got murdered — that family truly is cursed,” someone says to the person next to them, and Roswell calls “Miranda!” again.

  I snap out of my blind-need haze. No one else recognizes Dad. And why should they, when I barely do? They might gossip about him, but I doubt anyone has ever bothered to look too closely. To them, this man is a clean-cut stranger in a suit. They probably think he’s a disappeared tourist.

  The man who has to be Dad — but who doesn’t feel like him, somehow — curves his lips in the slowest smile I’ve ever seen. The expression is as foreign as his made-over appearance. I’m certain the voice next to my ear was his, even though his lips didn’t move, except to offer that slow smile. Even though I didn’t recognize the voice as Dad’s.

  A couple of rows away from him, Chief Rawling holds a clipboard and talks to one of the returned. He pauses to scan the crowd, which probably means he heard the good doctor’s shouts. The woman the chief was talking to swiveled. It’s Polly. The sun falls directly on her features, her face pinched as she follows the chief’s lead and scrutinizes the surge and press on the other side of the rope line.

  I shrink behind a large man in the crowd, hiding. My father is dead. I call up the memory of him on the shiny table in the funeral home, the cold air and antiseptic smell of the room returning like a sudden sweat.

  “Miranda!” The shout sounds nearer. “I just want to talk. It’s about Grant!”

  Nice try. That crackpot is going to get me caught.

  I make sure the keys are ready as I head toward Polly’s car. There’s no looking back this time, no Sidekick to get distracted by the evil phantom ship, no one but me. And then I’m behind the wheel, tossing my bag into the back, and turning the key in the ignition, jerking the car into drive and out of the spot.

  I execute a three-point turn in the middle of the wide street. I’m not willing to do a drive-by of the scene or risk getting caught on a throng-blocked street. Just this once, I don’t miss Pineapple; Polly’s is a far more reliable getaway car.

  In the rearview mirror, I spot Dr. Roswell standing on the street behind me. His hands are propped on his hips, and his face is as pink as Bone’s when an insult lands. Too bad if I hurt his feelings. Grant can apologize for me later. I don’t have time to worry about him.

  My only worry is for my father — or is that the man wearing my father’s body? Dead men don’t hit the salon and go out for a stroll, not even on Roanoke Island. Or do they?

  I have no idea where I’m going. I just drive.

  Chapter 24

  GRANT

  I wait as long as I can stand. I compose a symphony with the drumming I inflict on my legs. It helps me ignore the spirits. But I can’t sit tight any longer. Either the drugs have worked their sleepy magic or my plan has tanked and I’ll be headed directly back to this jail cell. There’s one way to see whether my fate is door number one or…

  “Opening door number two,” I murmur.

  I stick my hand through the bars and fit the pilfered key into the lock. I clamp on to the door with my other hand and avoid a clank by holding the metal in place when the tumbler releases. Slowly, I crack the door open and move into the hallway. The spirits are faint, only a few shadows, their voices quiet enough to shut out. It’s almost like they’re worried about giving me away.

  So far, so good. No angry young officers or federal agents in sight. I hurry up the hall, stepping softly, glad for my sneakers. I hit the end of the hallway, the front door of the station in sight, and judge it an acceptable risk.

  The cough startles me.

  In the waiting area, Officer Warren slumps in a chair. He looks like he’s fighting hard to stay conscious. I check the station floor and spot the FBI agent. He lies forward on the coffee table, his head on his arms like a kindergartener at naptime. If kindergarteners were bald and wore black suits.

  Officer Warren’s next sound is a massive yawn mixed with a frustrated moan. He manages to get out, “Don’t… be… stupid.”

  I note the gun loosely gripped in the cop’s left hand. “I’m not,” I say. “That’s always been one of my biggest problems.”

  That and the dead.

  The officer clearly puts forth a massive amount of energy to get his next sentence out. “You’ll go to jail. For real.”

  I nod. “Probably.”

  “I hope whatever you’re leaving for is worth… that.”

  She is, I think without a pause.

  I go for the door. “I’m not leaving, I’m staying,” I say, shocked to discover it’s true. Under my breath, I add, “For once.”

  I press the glass door, then crook my head back. The officer may or may not be asleep, but I say, “You’ll both be fine once the drugs wear off. I’m not that stupid.”

  As I hit the parking lot, I consider my options. They aren’t great — none of the things I need to do mesh, and I have no idea where to find Miranda. I scan to make sure the area is deserted and stop dead.

  Across the street in the police station parking lot, the driver’s side door of an unfamiliar blue Toyota swings open. Before I can take off, someone steps out of the strange car, someone who isn’t a stranger. Her hand grips the top of the door.

  Miranda.

  I blink, wondering if she’s an apparition, but, no. She shines like a star compared to the shadows that flicker in the air between us. What’s she doing here?

  We both stand where are, looking at each other in disbelief.

  I move first, jogging over to the car, and she walks forward to meet me. I stop, and she does too, half an arm’s length separating us.

  Miranda puts her hands in her pockets.

  I grin at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurts. “For pushin
g you down.”

  Wait… what? When did she push me down? I remember being in sand, but I thought I fell into it when the spirits came back with such strength.

  A few whisper, but I press them away. I focus on Miranda.

  “We have big problems,” she says, talking fast. “Huge, really.”

  “Well, yeah. You’re a federal fugitive,” I offer. “For one.”

  “Oh,” she says, “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I am too,” I say. “A fugitive, I mean.”

  She angles her head in the direction of the station house, “You didn’t?”

  I duck my head. “I did.”

  “You escaped from jail?” She says it like it’s the craziest thing ever, which it sounds like when she puts it that way.

  “Guilty,” I say. I fidget a little, embarrassed.

  Miranda’s hand comes out of her pocket, and she pushes the top of my right shoulder with her palm. She shakes her head. “Get in the car, Houdini.”

  I get in without a word and so does she. She shakes her head at me again and puts the car in drive.

  I pat the dash. “Whose is this?”

  “Polly — the stage manager at the show. A friend,” she says. “Or she used to be.”

  “How are you?” I ask. “Last time we were together, you were… freaked. Understandably freaked.”

  “I’m more freaked.” She bites her lip, foot on the brake as she turns to face me. “But about yesterday…”

  I don’t want her to apologize again for whatever it is she believes she did wrong. Has no one ever just forgiven her? Given her the benefit of the doubt? Made her understand that being yourself is enough to make things very, very hard sometimes?

  Before she can say anything else, I touch her cheek, below the evil birthmark, the one that shouldn’t be on her skin. I stroke my hand over the curve of her cheek, reassuring her without words that I’m here. That I’m not going anywhere.

  She looks at me, eyes big and wondering, not protesting, and I think about kissing her. That’ll be how we get busted. Well, judge, they were apprehended lingering outside the jail while making out in a stolen car.