The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

by Jennifer Crusie

  ‘Jude will help,’ Maxine said eagerly.

  ‘Jude will not help,’ Xan said. ‘Jude is finished. Mare has chosen Crash. It’s going to make things difficult, but I’ll simply have to adapt.’

  ‘No.’ Maxine drew closer. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, Jude will try harder. Don’t fire him or turn him into something, he’ll do better, really…’

  The cream was ready, so Xan tuned Maxine out and picked up three glass beads strung on a silver thread, beads she’d separated temporarily from the see glass. ‘Deirdre, Elizabeth, and Moira,’ she said over the cream and the beads, as Maxine leaned still closer, pleading with her. ‘May your deepest passions be unleashed-’

  ‘Please, Xantippe,’ Maxine said.

  ‘- may your wildest fantasies come true-’

  ‘- he’ll try really hard-’

  ‘- may this night make you one with your true love-’

  ‘- Xantippe!’

  ‘- so I say, so be-’

  Maxine moved to grab her arm and knocked the cinnamon box and the see glass into the cream.

  ‘- it,’ Xan said, and watched as the cream began to turn dark as the entire box of cinnamon sticks and the see glass sank to the bottom of the pan. She sighed and dropped in the Fortune sisters’ beads, too.

  Maxine stood frozen as Xan turned to her.

  ‘That was bad, Maxine.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Xantippe.’

  Xan looked down at the rapidly darkening cream, sighed again, and then took a glass rod from the table and fished out the see glass, letting the cream drip from it before she wiped it clean.

  Maxine swallowed. ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  ‘Now?’ Xan poured herself a drink. ‘Now there’s going to be a hot time in the old town tonight.’

  Maxine’s eyes got huge. ‘It’s going to burn down?’

  ‘Only figuratively. Go home, Maxine.’

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘The spell was meant for the sisters only,’ Xan said. ‘That’s why there were only three beads. But you blundered. You knocked the whole see glass in, so now the entire town-’

  ‘What about Jude?’

  ‘Forget Jude. He’s finished.’

  ‘What do you mean, finished?’

  ‘Go home, Maxine.’

  ‘No, please!’

  ‘Home, Maxine.’

  Maxine backed toward the paneled door, sniffing, her breath coming in mewing sounds. She stopped when she had it open. ‘Xantippe?’

  Xan was still watching the dark cream bubble. It had been such an elegant spell, so beautifully subtle, so carefully aimed.

  Now it was going to be a fuckfest. She put her forehead in her hand. ‘Xantippe?’

  Xan raised her head, looked into Maxine’s terrified little eyes, and raised her hand.

  ‘No!’ Maxine screamed and dove through the door, letting the panel slam behind her.

  Xan watched in the see glass as Maxine landed in a sobbing heap behind the Dumpster.

  She was going to have to do something about Maxine. She turned back to the glass, decided that Salem’s Fork was not something she wanted to see tonight, and covered it with a velvet cloth before leaving the room.

  Dee was still a block away from the inn when she spotted Danny’s Triumph at the curb. Absently rubbing at her right shoulder blade, she stopped dead in the street.

  Should she go on up? More important, would he talk to her? Would he understand?

  Dee didn’t even want to think about the scars Danny could inflict before he left. Or that she could inflict on him. What choice did she have, though? What choice had she ever really had?

  Her pulse had speeded up again, and she had to lay a hand on her chest to help her breathe.

  ‘Danny?’

  He was sitting on the white wicker swing on Velma’s front porch. Dee realized he was bent over, his head in his hands. She strode up the sidewalk.

  He jumped to his feet. ‘Dee?’

  His face looked drawn, his hair spiked from where he’d been tangling it in his hands. His smile, when it came, was lopsided and sweet. Dee ignored the flare of panic in her chest and kept walking. She met Danny at the bottom of the porch steps.

  ‘I went to your house,’ he said, giving her a quick, hard hug, ‘but you weren’t there. I’m sorry.’ Another hug, then he pulled back, running a hand down her face, as if apologies had to be tactile. ‘I really am. I wish I had a good excuse for taking off on you like that. My mother would have called me everything but a Republican for what I did.’

  She fingered his hair back into a semblance of order. ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry I upset you.’

  He dipped his head. ‘I guess I’m a little touchier than I thought. After what happened to my family, I’m afraid all New Age psychicbabble just sets me off.’

  Well, good. Dee wouldn’t have wanted to feel too good before she had her come-to-Jesus meeting with him. Over his shoulder, the curtains shifted in the front window, and Dee caught a flash of Velma’s face. She was amazed the little woman had the restraint to stay in the house.

  ‘Would you like to take a walk?’ she asked Danny.

  He took a wry look at the sky. ‘It looks like it’s going to rain.’

  True. Dingy gray clouds scudded fast, and the air was thick with the smell of unsettled dust. Dee wished like hell it would just rain and get it over with.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said.

  Are you a prognosticator, now?’

  The clouds reflected in the cerulean of his eyes, like a portent of things to come. Dee tried not to shiver. ‘Nah. I just know the weather here. Come on.’

  ‘Will you go to France with me when we get back?’

  He was smiling. She did her best to smile back. ‘Only if we can bring Lizzie, Mare, and Pywackt.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be fair if I saw Montmartre and they didn’t. Besides, Py’s always had a hankering to see France. He collects Edith Piaf records.’

  Danny shook his head. ‘Cool cat. Come on.’

  Somehow they ended up hand in hand. Dee didn’t mind. She relished the feel of his callused fingers as they wound around hers. The sense of belonging. It was nice for a moment to just pretend she was doing nothing more than taking a walk with her honey.

  It was Saturday. A chorus of lawnmowers serenaded the street. A couple of kids were skateboarding beneath the overgrown elm trees that lined the sidewalk. Pete Semple had his garage open and was hammering on something. Mrs Ledbetter hurried past with an armful of groceries. Nobody paid attention to Dee and Danny.

  Dee rubbed at her shoulder again, wondering what she’d been thinking to believe she was brave.

  ‘Has Xan called you again?’ she asked.

  ‘You want her to?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I want her to do. It just matters that she doesn’t hurt you.’

  Danny looked over at her, every instinctive suspicion plain in his bright blue eyes. ‘We’ve had this discussion, Dee.’

  ‘No we haven’t,’ she said. ‘Not really. It’s why it’s important we have it now. Has she called?’

  ‘No. Should she?’

  ‘I imagine she will, and when she does I need you to tell me right away. I’m not exactly sure what her strategy is this time. I just know she has to be stopped. Which is why I’m talking to you now.’

  ‘I guess I still don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, I hope I’m going to clear it up for you.’

  Because above and beyond the obvious dilemma, if Dee couldn’t prove what she was, he would never understand what a threat Xan was. Not just to her and her sisters. To him. Xan would delight in breaking Danny James.

  ‘What do you need to tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a shapeshifter.’

  Good God, where had that come from? Hi, my name is Dee and I’m a shapeshifter. I’ll be taking questions now.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised if Danny just picked up and ra
n off. Instead he pulled her to a halt, still holding hands right in the middle of the sidewalk. One of the skateboarders missed them by inches and yelled invectives.

  ‘My sister Lizzie changes silverware into shoes,’ Dee said before she could chicken out. ‘My sister Mare can rearrange furniture without using her hands. My mother could tell the future, and Xan can… well, you saw what she could do this morning. We’ve had these gifts since we were young. Well, actually, since puberty. For the women they arrive then and then wane… change at menopause. I think that’s why Aunt Xan is on the warpath again. She’s just about that age, and I think it terrifies her.’

  Danny gave her a bemused smile. ‘All she did this morning was convince me to see you.’

  ‘She wasn’t there, Danny,’ Dee said. ‘No matter what it looked like. She was a suggestion. Xan deals in suggestion.’

  ‘And you, uh, shift into…’

  She rubbed a finger between her eyes, where a headache was blooming. ‘It depends. I’m still working on control. When you came yesterday morning, you remember the owl sitting on the table?’

  His smile had long gone. Now he was looking nervous. ‘Yeah?’

  She did her best to smile. ‘Twee. Twee.’

  Brandon Upshot rode by on his paper route and almost clipped Danny in the head with a copy of the Salem Times. A car came the other way. Danny didn’t notice.

  Suddenly he grinned as if it were the greatest joke in history. ‘Of course you were. And I…’

  Dee pulled her hand away. He could have at least tried. She’d already turned for home when he caught hold of her -unfortunately by her right shoulder, which made her yelp.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. I think it’s just time for me to go home.’ Especially since her shoulder had started to burn the minute he’d touched it. Maybe she should have somebody look at it.

  ‘No, really,’ he said, frowning over her back. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

  And before she could protest, he’d pulled her cardigan and T-shirt down far enough to make her blush.

  ‘Dee?’

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a butterfly. It’s a symbol of, oh, I don’t know. Having the courage to fly. Well, I fly all the time. I didn’t need an insect on my back to help me. I’ll probably be the only hawk with a butterfly on its back. All the other hawks will laugh at me.’

  He was smiling. ‘It’s beautiful. And so small. I really like the color’

  Dee turned, trying to see. ‘Color? It’s black.’

  ‘It’s green.’

  Which made Dee shake her head. ‘Of course.’

  She tugged her clothes back up. ‘We’ve gotten off topic, Danny. You either need to take me seriously, or I go home alone.’

  He flailed a bit, shoving his hand through his hair. ‘You’re asking a lot, Dee.’

  ‘I know.’ She was asking everything. ‘Believe me. Will you come to the house?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She nodded. He took her hand again and they walked on. The trees were beginning to writhe as they passed, and Dee could smell cut grass and a hint of rain. The very air was in turmoil, as if Mare had been weaving her fingers through it. It gave Dee a chill.

  They reached the house to find it dark and empty. Lizzie had obviously cleaned, because there wasn’t anything out of place. The only thing Dee heard was the throb of complete silence.

  Something was wrong, though. Off. Dee stopped in the middle of the living room floor, but she heard nothing but her own steps echo off the hardwood. She thought to call out, but Lizzie’s door was closed. She looked hard into the shadowy corners without seeing anything. She took a sniff.

  Ah, that was it. It was the power signature in the air. She caught Mare’s licorice and a whiff of Lizzie, gardenia and roses. And there, underlying it, a new scent. A tang of spices that made her think of something ancient and powerful and beautiful. She looked toward the bedrooms. Even though she couldn’t hear anything, she felt it. Power. Hell, there should have been waves of purple wafting out from beneath the door.

  Was Lizzie here? Was she okay? Was it this Elric she was sensing?

  ‘She’s fine,’ Danny said.

  Dee turned on him. ‘Could you at least wait for me to say it out loud?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘No, Danny. I didn’t. And how do you know Lizzie’s okay? She just lost her guy this morning. This guy I’ve never met…’

  ‘I hear it. Like I heard the witches. This gives me a good feeling. A… hmmm, wow. Whatever she’s been up to, she’s enjoying it.’

  ‘Well, thanks for putting that image in my head.’ His grin was impish. ‘You wanted me to believe I can hear things.’

  ‘I just don’t want to hear what you’re hearing. Not about my little sister’

  ‘From what I saw of her, she’s not so little.’

  Dee physically turned him for the stairs. ‘Come on. I brought you here to see my studio. Not eavesdrop on my sister’

  Dee’s studio shared the second floor with Mare’s bedroom. Fourteen steps up and a slide of the hand along the banister from the outside world to hers. She had no control over the outside world. The downstairs rooms were kept fairly anonymous. Even her own bedroom was nondescript. Pale gray walls, black duvet, and thrift store dresser. Zen, Lizzie called it. Disinterested was the truth. What was the point of decorating a room that would see such uninspiring use? Dee saved all her whimsy for her studio.

  She climbed the fourteenth step and led the way into her room. She flipped the light and held her breath.

  ‘Good God,’ Danny breathed, frozen to the spot.

  Dee stayed where she was by the white hutch she used as a storage cabinet. This room was her sanctuary, her soul. It was what kept her sane when the responsibilities and the isolation wore her away. It was the only place on earth she didn’t feel like somebody’s mother.

  The studio faced south, a stark wood-floored, slant-ceilinged, well-windowed space furnished in secondhand rockers, her grandmother’s trunk and a pair of cluttered worktables she’d painted cobalt teal, the very color, she realized, of Danny’s eyes. Multicolored bottles filled the sills to catch the sun, and every flat surface held a vase or bowl or pot stuffed with flowers from the garden. The air was thick with their scent. Her easel stood by the north wall, and jewel-toned saris draped the windows in purples and reds and oranges. Travel posters took up the stark white walls. Vienna, Rome, Bali. Peru. And, of course, Montmartre.

  ‘You’ve really never been to those places?’ Danny asked, bemused.

  Dee looked at the Byzantine dome of Sacre Coeur. She knew how many steps it took to get to that door, too. ‘Some day.’

  He turned to look down at her. ‘I’ll take you.’

  God, she wanted to just say yes. ‘Thanks for the offer. But there’s stuff you need to know first.’

  ‘About your painting, obviously.’ He walked over to where canvases sat stacked against the bare white walls. He bent, hands clasped behind his back as he studied each one carefully. Dee rubbed her hands along her jeans and prayed for strength.

  ‘Do you know what that is?’ she asked Danny as he stood considering a painting that looked like a patchwork quilt of greens and golds. ‘Salem Valley. See the river snaking through? And the cliffs at the edge? See the design?’

  It was what she painted. The designs of her life. All experience reduced to geometries and color, as primary as it got.

  ‘I shifted into a hawk to get that perspective. I also ate two mice and chased a pigeon for three miles. And that one, the violet and green? It’s the flowers on Salem’s Mountain.’

  He tilted his head, trying to pull a flower from the simple lines.

  ‘I was a hummingbird to see that. Exhausting. Those little bastards never stop fighting. And a cat to see the white one. It’s a garage door.’ Titanium white on Payne’s gray on burnt sienna with just a stroke or two of alizarin crimson, the composition of genteel decay. ‘I trotted all ove
r town for two weeks before I found that one. A subject has to strike me, and it usually doesn’t until I’m shifted. The one by your arm is the sun reflecting off the rim of Linda Rose’s trash can. I was a rat that day. Rats see a lot. And they have a passion for trash cans.’

  And, of course, if I even tried to have sex with you, I’d turn into your mother faster than you can say Oedipus.

  He stopped in front of each painting. He fingered through the stacks as if checking CDs in a record store. He was silent. Dee waited where she was, her hands twisted together, her chest suddenly constricted with dread. Say something.

  ‘These are beautiful,’ he breathed, turning on her, his hands up as if trying to take it all in.

  ‘I use acrylics. They’re cheaper, have purer color, and they work faster. I get up before the sun comes up so I can be shifted and anonymous by the time I’m seen. I’ve only been caught once. Fortunately it was a frat jock on the way home from a kegger. Much better than the time in Ames, Iowa, when I got mad at Lizzie’s high school principal and turned into a rott-weiler in his office chair. That was the second time we moved. The third was when Mare started her period in the middle of chemistry lab. Everything in the room started flying. She almost burned down the school. Well, we didn’t move because of that, really. It was that Xan smelled Mare’s power coming on and-’

  ‘Dee,’ he said softly as he came up to her. ‘Shut up.’

  He laid his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. He looked down at her as if discovering something amazing. His eyes, like pools at sunset, seemed to glow in the dim light. ‘You don’t show these, do you?’ Not a question at all.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re personal.’

  ‘They’re unique and amazing. You could be famous.’

  Dee scrunched up her face. ‘Oh, yes. I enjoyed being famous so much I changed my name and moved across the country. I’m happy as I am.’

  Her heart had gone on alert again. She was trembling. He stroked her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing to do, and it took her breath, because it was so alien to her. It made her shoulder flare, as if his fingers had lit that butterfly into sunlight. It made her ache. This was so important. Didn’t he know how important this was?