A War of Daisies

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  Dynah came running outside before they even reached the front door. “Penelope!”

  For a moment, Penelope thought her sister would hug her, but she stopped a couple feet away and they stared at each other awkwardly. “So, Roy?” Penelope finally said.

  “I need to head home and check on the chickens,” Willow said, making her escape. Penelope knew her friend had no interest in caring for the ill.

  “Thank you,” Dynah said to Willow. “Really.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Willow moved Bullet into a trot and headed south.

  “How’s mother?” Penelope asked as they took Domino to the barn.

  “Not good.” Dynah’s brow wrinkled and her face went red and splotchy. “I—I don’t think father—Roy—will make it—” and Dynah cut off, her voice choked with tears.

  “I brought some herbs from my clan,” Penelope said, patting the leather pouches tied to her saddlebag.

  “What will those do?” Dynah asked suspiciously.

  “Help him heal,” Penelope said in a tone that brokered no argument. If they wanted her help so desperately, they would have to accept what she offered. She was not the same Penelope who had left forty-eight hours ago. Silence and acquiescence were her false gods no longer.

  She strode into the house, Dynah at her heels, and made her way back to the bedroom. Her mother looked up weakly, hopelessly, as Penelope entered the room. Their eyes met, and an understanding passed between them. Though they had never been close, they were still mother and daughter. Penelope saw the acknowledgment in her mother’s eyes, that things had changed and would never be the same again.

  When Penelope sat down at the end of the bed, her mother got up and left the room for the first time in two days. Dynah’s gaze swept back and forth incredulously between the two of them, and then she too sat down, on the other side of the bed. Penelope opened the pouch of herbs and took out the cedar bark.

  “Go make a tea with this,” she told her sister.

  Dynah nodded and went to the kitchen, and Penelope placed the sage in a metal cup on the bedside table and lit it with flame from the candle burning there. The sweet smoke began to waft up into the air. She strode around the room, letting it purify the toxic air. When Dynah returned with the tea a few minutes later, she wrinkled her nose but kept her mouth shut. They dribbled the tea slowly into Roy’s mouth. After, they sat in silence for a long time. Their mother did not return, and Penelope heard her snores coming from the sitting room.

  Finally, Dynah said, “What next?”

  “We wait,” Penelope answered.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Felicity

  Felicity’s mother had not recovered when the next music rehearsal came around a couple days after dinner with the preacher. She half expected her father to tell her she couldn’t go alone, but he said nothing, and the church was only two blocks away from their house, after all.

  She considered riding Music to practice, the thing a proper lady would do, but then, upon further reflection on the fact that no one had instructed her one way or another, Felicity chose to walk. Her boots were sturdy, and a little exercise never hurt anyone. So, a bit of dust from passing buggies would settle on her pale green dress and her pure white bonnet. Worse things could happen. A shiver of rebellion stirred inside her chest as she set out on her own.

  The church was a large, plank-sided building. A sturdy gold-painted cross rose into the sky above it, and illuminated by the mid-afternoon sun, it spread radiance across the town. There had once been an attempt at growing grass in the yard, but the river ran a good distance away, and the unforgiving Colorado sun had long since shriveled the green blades into short brown spikes that looked like a strange fungus across the sandy earth. Felicity strode across it, her boots crunching with each step until she reached the wooden steps leading up to the door. She opened it and stepped inside. The single stained-glass window on the far side of the interior cast rainbow hues across the floor and up one wall.

  “Felicity!” called Abigail. “So glad to see you.”

  Travis lifted a hand in greeting from his spot seated at the piano near the altar. Several other musicians nodded in greeting as she approached.

  “Your mother couldn’t make it?” the preacher asked.

  “She’s not feeling well.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “I’m glad you could join us in spite of that.”

  “Happy to be here,” she said with a shy bob of her head.

  “Well, why don’t you get warmed up while we wait on a couple more people?”

  Felicity nodded and took a seat next to an enormous harp. It was bigger than the one she had at home, and not so finely tuned, but she played it often and her fingers found their rhythm almost instantly. Without her mother’s penetrating gaze, she found she could focus much easier. She ran through the songs she would play at the fair, closing her eyes as the music moved through her, a vibration in her chest, in her bones, in her blood.

  The other players arrived, and they worked through several songs together. After a while, Abigail asked Felicity to switch to the piano to play alongside Travis. He smiled as she joined him on the bench, and they practiced several new songs duet style. After they had warmed up and gotten accustomed to the close proximity of their bodies on the bench, and their hands playing the keys right next to each other, something of a silent competition formed between them. A subtle thing; one would play a challenging note to take the song to the next level and dart a glance over at the other. After a while, the rest of the players paused to watch them, and when at last they grew tired and cut off, laughing, the room filled with applause.

  “That most certainly must be the finale of the fair!” someone called.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Abigail said.

  “Back again tomorrow, same time?” the preacher said, looking around at everyone.

  They all nodded in agreement and began to depart.

  Felicity felt elation swell inside her. She finally fit in somewhere. Even Travis seemed to enjoy her company. How was it they’d gone to school and church together for so long and never spoken before? It had to be the music, she thought. She’d finally gotten a chance to play something she enjoyed. Not something her mother forced upon her. All that talk of shortcomings and failure, when the source of the whole thing was her predetermined disappointment. Felicity hoped, for a fleeting moment, that her mother never came to another practice.

  “Goodnight, Felicity!” Travis called, heading out the back of the church with his mother.

  The preacher stepped out front with a couple of the players, and for a moment Felicity found herself alone in the church. She realized she’d never actually stood there by herself. It was so rare she stood anywhere by herself, other than her brief escapes to the barn. She paused for a moment to relish the serenity of it, closing her eyes. Tasting her freedom.

  A sound, the beating of wings, soft and somehow golden. Felicity opened her eyes, thinking a pigeon or a dove had made its way into the building. It wasn’t a bird.

  Tall, with silvery hair that brushed his shoulders, seeming to both absorb and reflect light off of it. His wings were golden, a soft, warm glow like candlelight, and he had brown skin like hers. A beam of blue light from the stained glass illuminated him, made him even more ethereal and impossible.

  “Hello, Felicity,” the angel said in a voice of moonlight and clear, flowing water.

  She couldn’t find words to respond.

  “You’re in shock. Understandable.” He bowed his head gracefully. “We don’t have much time, however, and it’s very important that we speak.”

  The angel seemed to radiate, to burn, like the light of a thousand stars. Felicity felt like all the world had fallen away except for her and the angel. Perhaps it had.

  “What I’m about to tell you will be vital in the coming days. But I’m afraid you won’t remember this conversation, not until you need to. Now hear my words…”

  Felicit
y walked down Main Street. The sun shone brightly, and she’d had a lovely music practice at the church, and she was happy. It occurred to her how foreign and strange the emotion felt, because it visited her so seldomly.

  She also realized she had no idea why she’d decided to walk down the street. She paused, feeling a sudden sense of unease, like she’d forgotten something. Why was she here? Why hadn’t she gone back to her house after practice? Her mother would be furious if she found out.

  But Felicity couldn’t bring herself to care. She didn’t have to have a reason to stroll down the street and enjoy the sun. She could walk through town without a destination. She could wander purposelessly like so many others. It made her feel a bit giddy.

  And it was with that feeling bubbling up within her that she turned a corner and ran smack dab into Dynah Johnston.

  Not a passing glance or graze of the shoulders, but a full-on collision. They both fell backwards onto the wooden walkway, almost as if propelled away from each other. Blinking in shock, Felicity looked at Dynah, and Dynah looked at Felicity.

  “You,” Dynah said. Something of awe and fear and curiosity rang in her voice.

  And Felicity knew precisely what she meant. “From the dust storm. And the lightning strike. Yes.”

  They stared at each other again. Felicity’s heart raced, and it wasn’t from the jolt of falling and getting the wind knocked out of her. She reveled in Dynah’s beauty, and it wasn’t purely envy, not like the other women in town. Felicity was fairly certain none of the other women in town felt the way she felt about Dynah.

  Dynah looked around as if suddenly realizing that sitting on the ground in the middle of town wasn’t really appropriate. “Here. We can help each other up.” She reached across to Felicity and grabbed both of her hands, and they used each other as counterweights to rise. A spark of electricity zinged between them.

  “Hey, can we… talk? Somewhere private?” Dynah asked.

  Felicity nodded, her words dying in her throat. They stepped into one of the alleys between buildings. Dynah looked back at the busy street, then lead them even further away from the hustle and bustle, until they stood in the shadows of an old distillery. There they stopped, and Dynah opened and closed her mouth a few times. Felicity waited for her to speak.

  “I know I look a fright,” Dynah said. “My father has been ill for days and I’ve barely left the house. But I had to pick up a few things for my mother.” She patted the satchel at her side.

  “You look… perfectly fine,” Felicity managed. There was no reality in which Dynah wasn’t gorgeous, although she could see purple rings under her eyes from lack of sleep. “I’m sorry about your father. I hope he’s improving?”

  Dynah nodded. “My sister—well, you probably know, I think everyone does—she’s half Navajo. And she brought back some herbs from her tribe. They actually seem to be helping.” She shrugged and smiled; it was the tired, delirious sort of smile of someone hanging on at the end of their rope.

  Felicity nodded. “I’m glad to hear that.” A pause. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “Well,” Dynah took a deep breath, let it hiss out between her lips. “Has anything… strange… happened to you? Since the dust storm?”

  Felicity’s eyes widened. Surely she was dreaming. Here she stood, speaking to the prettiest girl in town, someone she’d never imagined had even noticed her, and that same girl had asked the question that had haunted Felicity for the past week.

  “Yes,” she said. It rushed out of her mouth, breathy and desperate. “And you?”

  Dynah nodded, a grimace twisting her face. “I thought at first it was stress, because my father got sick and all, but it kind of started before that even.”

  “What kind of things happened?”

  Dynah twirled a red curl around one finger. “Just… I don’t know, seeing strange things. Odd feelings.”

  “Like the lightning is still moving around inside you?” Felicity whispered.

  Another nod, tentative. “And seeing things that aren’t there. I mean, that can’t be there, you know?”

  “Things just keep… happening around me,” Felicity said, clasping her hands anxiously in front of her skirt.

  “Yes,” Dynah said. She let out a deep breath, a breath that seemed to carry all the weight of the world. “I’m so relieved it’s not just me.”

  She reached out for Felicity’s hand, and when their fingers touched, another electric spark shot between them. Both girls jerked back and looked down at their hands as if they were monsters. Slowly, Felicity reached out again. It happened a third time. She moved her hand back only a little, hovering her fingertips a couple of inches from Dynah’s. That shimmering light, the light she’d only seen before when alone, moved across her skin and arced over to Dynah’s hand. They stood there, feeling electricity move between them without even touching, watching the glow across their skin.

  “How is this possible?” Dynah whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Felicity said. Then, “Do you think the others have felt it, too?”

  An odd look passed over Dynah’s face, as if the thought occurred to her for the first time, and yet not. Like she realized something else. “I need to ask my sister,” she said. “And Willow.”

  “Willow?”

  Dynah’s eyes widened. “The fourth person in the cyclone. She cut off her hair so no one would know a woman was entering the race. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t.” Someone pretending to be a man was the least of Felicity’s problems right now. The other secrets they kept were monumental in comparison. “So, what do we do now?”

  “I need to get back to my house, check on my father,” Dynah said. “I’ll ask my sister if she’s noticed anything. Let’s meet back here tomorrow. The traveling merchants should all be setting up down by the arena.”

  “Three o’clock?” Felicity suggested. “By the arena?”

  “It’s a date,” Dynah said.

  Then she turned and strode off down the alley, leaving Felicity alone. Felicity felt relief and hope in her heart. She bowed her head in a quick prayer of thanks and was about to follow Dynah back to the street when she heard something behind her.

  Spinning, her eyes searched the shadows at the end of the alley. If anyone had heard them… seen them…

  Another rustle. Felicity strode forward, though fear clawed at her insides.

  Then she spotted them.

  Skeletons. That’s what she thought they were at first. But they moved, and she realized in horror that they were people. Living, flesh and blood. So famished they looked like something from the grave.

  As her eyes took them in, she experienced another jolt of shock. She recognized the two people on the ground, huddled next to a pile of broken barrels. The man and the woman who had tried to rob them. Tried to steal Music and their saddles and bridles.

  She remembered what she had screamed at them that day: “You don’t know the meaning of true hunger.”

  Well now, clearly, they did.

  And Felicity knew that she had somehow caused this.

  She doubled over and retched against the wall of the old distillery. Then she turned, stumbling, and fled the alley. She didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dynah

  When Dynah got back to the house, the doctor was there checking on her father. She put Moon in the barn, then hurried inside. Penelope sat in the living room as their mother spoke with the doctor. Dynah poked her head inside her parents’ bedroom door.

  “He’s doing a lot better than he was yesterday,” the doctor said, looking up at her mother from where he bent over her father with his stethoscope. “Not out of the woods yet, but I’d say it’s looking positive.”

  Her mother crossed herself and looked up, murmuring a prayer of thanks. Dynah could still see the dark aura around the doctor, but it had faded to a smoke-gray. She looked over at Penelope, who stared back stoically.

  “And you say yo
u’ve been using these herbs?” The doctor asked.

  Dynah stepped out of the bedroom and gestured for Penelope to follow her outside. Penelope gave her a questioning look but did as requested. They went out through the front door and around the corner of their house. Dynah stopped in the shadows at the back, where cobwebs clung to the eaves of the roof. She turned to face Penelope.

  “What’s going on?” Penelope asked.

  “I need to ask you something,” Dynah said. But now that it came down to it, reluctance made her balk. Their relationship was just so… complicated. It had been easier to talk to Felicity, a complete stranger. “The other day… the dust storm,” Dynah began. “It was strange, right?”

  Penelope stared at her, silent.

  “I mean, the lightning? How we were all unharmed?”

  Something moved behind Penelope’s eyes this time. Dynah pushed forward. “Has anything else… odd… been happening to you since then?”

  “Like what?” Penelope finally said.

  The front door opened and the sound of the doctor’s voice could be heard. Their mother called them to fetch his horse. “I’ll show you,” Dynah whispered, and she gestured for Penelope to follow her again.

  They went to the barn, and Dynah got the doctor’s horse out of one of the stalls. She led the gelding around to the front of the house. As they approached, Dynah leaned over to Penelope and whispered, “Watch the doctor.”

  Penelope shot her a look but kept her mouth shut. Dynah handed the reins over to the doctor and waved farewell as he mounted up and rode off down the dirt road. She could see the ghostly gray outline shifting around him the whole time.

  After he rode out of earshot, Dynah turned to her sister. “Did you see it?”