by Greg Keyes
Maybe something that would end it and give him his name back.
He patted the white dog on the head, then mounted back up.
“Let’s go hunting, boys,” he said.
SIX
THE VIRGIN GHOST
So, why?” Veronica asked, as Aster fiddled with three large backpacks in the corner of the kitchen. They already seemed to be mostly packed, but she was adding tins of food, crackers, and an assortment of fruit.
“I thought that was understood,” she replied. “I have to cure my father. If I don’t—well, you saw what he did to Ms. Fincher and Mr. Watkins. There’s no telling what he might do if he ever manages to leave the house.”
“No,” Veronica said. “I mean why are you here? You and your father? He said something about kingdoms . . .”
Aster paused. “We really need to get going,” she said.
“Going where?” Veronica pressed.
Aster zipped up one of the backpacks and started on another.
“The fact is, Veronica, I don’t really know why we’re here. I think we’re lost. Dad was running from someone, or something. We were on the run for a long time. And then we came here, and he said we were safe. But he’s never told me who we were running from, or why. I think it has something to do with my mother. I think she was killed, or . . . I don’t know. I’ve gone through his things, but there’s nothing about her. Only I did find out how to go back.”
“Back to whatever he was running from?” Errol said.
“It’s the only way,” she said. “Unless you know someplace in this world where I can find the water of health.”
“Is it the same place I was?” Veronica asked.
“Dad calls them the Kingdoms,” she replied. “They’re all connected but sometimes it isn’t easy to get from one to another. Some parts of the Kingdoms are nearly impossible to reach. We could go back in where I found you, but the vadras would be waiting for us, and for all I know that place is a thousand miles from where we want to go. So we won’t go that way, not when I have an easier route.”
“So when do we start this quest?” Veronica asked.
“Right away,” Aster replied. “As soon as I’m done packing.”
“Aces!” she said. “Can I go to the bathroom first?”
“Sure,” Aster said. “Down the hall to the left.”
“Thanks.”
Errol tried not to watch Veronica go, without success.
“Oh, dear,” Aster said.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “You know about this stuff. You said it yourself. Geez, why didn’t you warn me?”
Aster shrugged. “Maybe I should have, but I don’t think it would have done any good.”
“Well, I don’t trust her,” Errol said. “How sure are you about this whole ‘three companions’ thing?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “I needed you to find her, I need her to enter the Kingdoms—yeah, I need all three of you.”
“But if you only needed me to find her, then why do you still need me?”
“Because I do, Errol, okay?”
“Listen,” he said, “no need to get testy. I told you I’m with you. Just—she makes me uneasy, is all.”
“I’ve never heard it called that before,” Aster said.
“Ha, ha.” He watched her pack for a moment.
“How can we leave him alone? Your dad?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “But I’ve got no choice. He has a bathroom, and he can summon food and drink . . .”
“Mostly drink, from what I can see.”
“Yes,” she said. “The main worry is if someone else comes, like the police. But I have no solution. There isn’t anyone I trust to watch him. We’ll just have to hurry, that’s all.”
“It’s like leaving a ticking A-bomb. Except you don’t know when the timer is going to go off.”
“He’s my father, Errol. I—wait.”
He followed her to her workshop, where she rummaged for a bit before finding something that looked like a necklace made of amber pearls. Then she went back to her father’s rooms.
“You can listen,” she said, “but stay out of sight.”
She opened the door.
“Streya?” her father murmured. He sounded even drunker than before, close to passing out. He spoke very slowly and deliberately. “I was just looking at your pictures. Reading this—is it true?”
“It’s true,” she said. “Listen. You understand why you’re trapped in this room?’
“I did it myself,” he said.
“Right. But now you’ve begun to summon things from outside the house. I’ve nearly been hurt twice.”
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“It happens when you don’t read the wall. When you panic.”
“Yes, I see that,” he said.
“I can’t always be here,” she said. “I’ve got to go to school.”
“I know,” he said. “You’ve grown so big. You look like your mother . . .”
“There’s no time for that,” she said. “Just listen. You sorceled a woman and a man into that bottle there,” she said. “You need to extract one of them, or I’m going to be in big trouble.”
“The man or the woman?”
“The woman,” Aster said.
After a pause, Errol heard a sort of burping sound.
“Thanks Dad,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
“Oh!” he heard Ms. Fincher say. “I don’t—what are you doing?”
“Come with me, Ms. Fincher,” Aster said.
Ms. Fincher appeared in the hallway. She was wearing the necklace.
They went back in the kitchen.
“Ms. Fincher,” Aster said.
“Aster?” Ms. Fincher replied.
“First off, don’t ever take that necklace off, or ask anyone else to take it off for you, okay? And don’t get close enough to my father for him to take it off you.”
“Okay, Aster,” she said.
“Second, I need you to tell anyone who knows you visited my house that everything is fine here, that there’s nothing for anyone to worry about.”
“But that’s not true.”
“Right. You’ll have to lie. Use your imagination.”
“Okay,” Ms. Fincher said.
“Also, you know my father forgets. When he forgets, bad things happen. So I need you to stay here and remind him every twenty minutes or so about what’s going on.”
“But what about my job?” she said.
“Get a leave of absence. Tell them somebody died or whatever you think is most plausible. And under no circumstances are you to take any orders from my father, or anyone else but me.”
Ms. Fincher nodded.
“That’s all,” Aster said. “Best get on those things now.”
“Very well, Aster,” Ms. Fincher said. “Can you tell me where a phone is?”
“Down the hall,” Aster replied. “Past the clock.”
They watched her go.
“What did you do to her?” Errol asked.
“The necklace, a trinket of my father’s,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten it.”
“How could you forget something like that?” he asked. “You could get Sara Carver to wear it and make her do anything.”
Aster smiled slightly. “I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. In detail. But using this stuff—especially outside of the house—is dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
“Dad says it can attract attention,” she said. “The wrong kind.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t—”
“You were the one who said I needed to do something,” she reminded him. “Now I have a little piece of mind.”
Then she frowned. “Where’s Veronica?”
“She went to the bathroom, remember?”
“That was a while ago,” Aster said, her voice rising in alarm. “And anyway, if she doesn’t eat—”
“— then why does she need a bathroom?” Err
ol finished.
She wasn’t in the bathroom or indeed in the house at all. Veronica, the virgin ghost, was loose.
Veronica ran as fast as she could—not because she was afraid the witch and Pinnochi-Errol might catch her, but because she loved the feel of it, the bare soles of her feet on the asphalt, the wind in her hair. It was a little upsetting that her lungs weren’t heaving for breath and she felt no pulse of blood in her body, but hey—you got what you got.
She laughed, trying to imagine the looks on their faces when they figured out she was gone. Holy cow, did they think she was nuts? Why in the world would she want to be mixed up in any sort of business with Aster and her crazy father and some Kingdom who-knew-where? If she went with them she would as like end up in another swamp with another creek man—if not the same—and that she wasn’t up for.
She noticed she wasn’t getting tired, which seemed like a bonus of her condition. What did being alive have on this, really?
She laughed with delight when she spotted a red bicycle in the front yard of a trailer, and a few minutes later she was cruising in style, remembering how she could ride without hands. She wasn’t at all concerned by the woman shouting after her, demanding she bring her son’s bike back.
She started trying to figure out where she was. The ride from Attahacha Falls hadn’t been that long, so she wasn’t that far from home, but nothing looked familiar, so she just followed the road until she came to a crossroads, and she sat there for a moment. She thought she knew where she was, then, and turned left. If she came across Tucker’s store in the next half-a-mile, she would know she was on the right track.
She hadn’t peddled a hundred yards, though, before she started having some doubts. There was a big brick house where one shouldn’t be, and it didn’t look new, and a little farther on a right turn that ought not to be. But then she saw the familiar sign with the dinosaur on it and Tucker’s store, exactly where it should be.
But then she got closer. The sign was there, yes, but all cracked, and a chunk with the dinosaur’s tail missing. The concrete around the pumps was all broken, with weeds pushing up through the fissures. The windows were all either shattered or boarded up.
She rested on the bike, balanced on one foot, remembering. There had been a jar of pickled pig’s feet on the counter, and every time they went in, her dad had offered to buy her one, and she always made a face. On hot days, she would go inside and put her nose down into the open coolers and suck in the cold hair until her hair felt frosted. They had fifty kinds of penny candy. They had a cup on the counter from which they sold single cigarettes. She had taken one when she was thirteen while Mr. Tucker was busy with another customer. It had been her first.
How long had she been dead?
A little less upbeat, she continued on down the road. When she came to the junction with 25, she got another surprise. She didn’t remember anything being on that spot except pine trees; now a big, bright, mostly orange and yellow building stood there. She sat wondering at it for a moment.
It was about twice the size of Tucker’s store, and it had eight gas pumps instead of two. Two cars were at the pumps, but she didn’t see any attendants. It looked like the people were just pumping the gas themselves. It was all very bright.
Inside she found no open coolers—they all stood upright, like refrigerators with glass doors. She saw lots of drinks—especially beer—but she didn’t see any grape Nehi. Even the stuff she recognized looked weird.
Of course, she didn’t have any money anyway. And she didn’t eat or drink.
“Kid!” someone shouted—a fat lady behind the counter.
“Ma’am?” she said.
“You can’t come in here barefoot.”
“I can’t?” They hadn’t cared at Tucker’s.
“No, you can’t. Now get on out.”
Veronica returned to her bike and peddled on. She knew where she was going, but more and more she worried about what she would find there.
The little blue house she remembered wasn’t there, but plenty of others had taken its place. They were all big, and they all looked kind of the same. They all had really nice lawns.
She couldn’t even tell exactly where her house had been, so she knocked on the door that seemed about right. When no one came, she rang the bell, but that didn’t get her an answer, either, so she moved on to the next one. There was no one home in that house, either, but about that time she caught a familiar smell, a sense of something. Humming, she rode down the row of houses until she found the right one, and knocked on the door.
He was kind of lanky and had a little beard. He was wearing a swimsuit and his hair was wet. She wasn’t sure how old he was.
“Yeah?” he said.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” she said. “I’m looking for a Mr. and Mrs. Hale.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he said. “Do they live around here?”
“They used to,” she said.
He laughed. “No one used to live here,” he said. “They built all of this last year. Some of the houses still aren’t finished.”
“I’m sure this is where they lived.”
He was taking her in, now, and liking what he saw. She smiled.
“Do you—uh—want to use our phone?”
“I wouldn’t know who to call.”
He looked down at her bare feet. “These people you’re looking for, the Hales—are they relatives?”
“My mama and papa,” she said.
“You don’t know where your parents are? What—did you run away or something?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Something.”
“Well—look, come in. We’ll check in the phone book, okay? You can’t just wander around . . .” he didn’t finish, but just waved her in.
“Well, that’s really nice of you,” she said.
Inside the house was big, too, with high ceilings and a fancy kitchen. In the back were glass doors, and past that she could see a patio and a big swimming pool.
“You must be rich,” she said.
“My dad does okay,” he said.
“What about you? Do you go to school around here?”
“Yeah, at the community college.”
“Oh, college man,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, rummaging through kitchen drawers. “Where is that phone book?”
“I hope you didn’t invite me in under false pretenses, sir,” she said.
“I—no,” he said. “Just looking for the phonebook.” But he paused.
“Hey—how long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“It’s been a while,” she said.
“I can make you a sandwich. You want something to drink?”
“That would be lovely,” she said.
“How about a beer?”
“That sounds great,” she replied.
He opened two beers. She forced herself to swallow a little.
“I’m not sure where that phone book is,” he said. “Mom always puts it in the weirdest places.”
“I’m in no hurry,” Veronica said. “I was just noticing what a lovely pool you have out back. I’m afraid I must have interrupted your swim.”
“That’s okay.”
“I love to swim myself.”
“Yeah?”
She could see it now, the thing she had smelled. He had been careful not to ask her age, hadn’t he?
“I don’t think we have a suit that would fit you,” he said. “I can make do,” she told him.
They had only gotten a hundred yards down the road when a lady waved them down.
“Look limp,” Aster said. Errol tried to oblige.
Aster rolled her window down.
“Hi Ms. Wesley,” she said.
“Hello, Aster,” Ms. Wesley said. “I—what in the world is that?”
“That? Oh, science fair project. What can I do for you?”
“Huh,” Ms. Wesley said. “Well, listen, a blonde girl just came by here and stole
Billy’s bike. You know, the red one?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“I called the police, but I don’t have a car. She can’t have gone that far. If you see her . . .”
“I’ll do what I can, Ms. Wesley,” Aster said.
Aster wheeled up to the quick-stop and dashed in. She came out under a minute later. Errol stayed ducked down in the seat.
“She was here,” she said. “A girl on a red bike.”
“So we’re on the right track,” Errol said. “Good guess.”
“Not so much a guess,” Aster said. “She’s going home. Or thinks she is. Her parents moved to Atlanta twenty years ago, and there’s a new subdivision where she used to live.”
“You know a lot about her,” he said.
“I’ve been researching her for years,” Aster replied. “I had four candidates for a full-dead, but she was the most likely.”
She sped along and turned onto new pavement and into the subdivision.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I remember them building these.”
“We can’t miss her here,” Aster said. “If we miss her here, there’s no telling where she’ll go next.”
“Calm down,” he said. “There’s the bike, over there.”
She pulled up in front of the house and knocked. There was no answer. She tried the door, but it was locked. Errol watched her run around the side and pull herself up to look over the cedar privacy fence.
She dropped down.
“Oh, crap—Errol, get over here, fast!”
No one seemed to be around, but he still felt exposed loping across the lawn. Aster had climbed the fence by the time he got there, and he found—to his delight—that he could easily vault over it.
At first he didn’t see what the fuss was about, but then he realized two people were at the bottom of the swimming pool.
He dove in.
Veronica wasn’t happy when he pulled her off of the man, but she relented after a few hard tugs. He grabbed the fellow and brought him up to the surface.
“Crap,” Aster said again. “Is he dead?”
“He’s not breathing. Do you know CPR?”