“How did that work out for them?”
“It mostly worked. They flew across the ocean like birds. It was still a long and dangerous trip, but they were getting there. Only right toward the end, there was a storm that swallowed the boat, sail and all. They managed to get a tire tube free and took turns, one of them sitting in it while the other one held on and pushed while kicking. Finally they got up on the beach in Miami at night.”
I smiled. “I grew up just outside Miami.”
“Lots of Cubanos, yeah?”
“And Russians, believe it or not.”
He looked me over. “You mixed?”
I nodded. “You’re Cuban?”
“One hundred percent.” He turned back to my leg, uncapping another color. “So anyway, Pipi and Puto, they had to hide out on the streets for a while, but they stuck together and found some other Cubanos, and found out about a man who ran a truck that would take them up north some ways to work on farms or construction. They knew it would be good. They were gonna make some money, and figure out how to get legal, and maybe while they were working one of their ideas would turn out to be really good and it would help them make even more money. Eventually they planned to get rich and bring the family up, and show them they weren’t just pendejos.
“So they worked hard, but they got cheated a lot, and there wasn’t nothing they could do about it. They couldn’t save up nothing and they couldn’t get legal. They had a couple of good ideas for making the work better, but the bosses just stole their ideas and didn’t pay them nothing extra. Finally they decided all they could do was run away from the bosses and try to make it on their own. But then they didn’t have no place to go and didn’t know what to do next. So they just kept moving, trying to find a place to be safe.”
“What happened to them?” I was getting really invested in his tale. More colors bloomed on my leg as Teo worked and talked.
His eyes, which he kept fixed on my leg, grew solemn. “It got to be winter. Things were pretty hard for them. No money, no food. They found places to hide but never anyplace they could stay. It was hard to trust anybody. Finally they went to a farm to look for work, but the farmer said there wasn’t any work for them while it was cold. But Puto was getting sick and needed to rest, so Pipi took him onto the farm in secret to find a place for them to hide and get warm while Pipi stole food for them. It wasn’t enough, though. Puto was too sick from the cold, and there was no place for them to go to get help. Puto died while they were hiding there. Pipi had to bury him with his own hands.”
We were both quiet for several moments. “That’s awful,” I said at last. “So sad. What did he do after that?”
His shoulder lifted and fell. “He had to keep going for both of them. Do whatever he had to do to make a better life so it wasn’t all a waste. He gets by okay. But he’s never gonna be the same. Always a darkness follows him.”
“I kind of thought this story was going to have a happy ending.”
“It don’t got an ending at all yet, for Pipi at least.”
“I hope it gets happier for him, then.” God, this world was so fucking hard sometimes. It made me weary.
He looked up at me. “So the thing is, Pipi couldn’t fix everything. But he tried. Took care of his brother. Puto wasn’t alone when he passed. He had love. Still does, wherever he is.”
I nodded. “Point taken.” I didn’t really know what else to say, so I craned my neck to look at my leg. I was shocked by the intricacy of the artwork there. It was an abstract design, patterns of colors radiating in bands and mandalas of various shapes and designs, and it was lush and beautiful, like some kind of tapestry. “It’s gorgeous,” I breathed.
“You think so?” He beamed at me, then got down low to look at it critically from different angles. “I like it. It’s good, right? Sometimes I think maybe I could be a tattoo artist. I like drawing on people.”
“You should,” I said. “This is fantastic work. I think you’d be really good at it.” I glanced at my watch. Shit. “Oh crap. Teo, I have to get going soon. I’m supposed to catch up with my friends at their camp. Is there anything I can do to help clean up?”
“Plenty.” He started capping the markers, and pointed over to a long table where big plastic tubs had been set up. “Washing station’s over there. Thanks for pitching in.”
I bit back a sigh. Dammit. I needed to get back over to Free Radicals, but I couldn’t get out of this now that I’d opened my mouth. Well, I’d washed plenty of dishes in diners and dives for under-the-table money. I’d just get it over with as quick as I could.
After I’d worked for a while, I was tasked with taking a bucket down the road to the spigot to get more clean water to finish washing the dishes. I hurried the whole way there, getting more impatient every moment and noticing that we were starting to lose the light. A cluster of white-robed people carrying lamp supplies and long lighters were in procession along the road, pausing at intervals to light the lamps that hung from big iron hooks stuck in the ground.
As cold water splashed into my bucket, I saw a figure approaching me. I was certain it was one of the fae creatures. She was just under five feet tall, with wide-set eyes that sat deep under high, arched brows. She had masses of long curly hair, thick and tangled like Spanish moss growing on a tree, with glow sticks stuck like chopsticks in its mass. In her striped romper and knee-high sneakers she could have been any raver chick here, except that her fingers were just a bit too long, her head a touch too big, the way she moved just strange enough, that I knew what she was before she said a word.
“Thank you for the mask,” she said by way of preamble. “And the circle. It has been a long time since I have been able to walk around out here.”
“Sure thing.” I turned off the spigot, trying not to stare at her.
“You have to come with me now,” she said. “I have to show you something important.”
I frowned. “Can it wait just a few minutes? I have to bring this water back to my camp and finish the last of the cleaning.”
She stared at me like I was speaking nonsense words. “It is this way.”
“Tell me what it is,” I said. “If it can wait, it’s going to. I have to finish what I’m doing.”
“It is important,” she said, like I was an idiot.
“I got that.”
“Over here,” she insisted, and tugged on my wrist. The contact felt strange, like my skin could tell that her hand wasn’t really human flesh.
I glanced back in the direction of camp, cursed under my breath, and set the bucket down behind the spigot. “This better be good,” I said. “And quick.”
She didn’t seem fazed by me, but at least set off at a trot toward the center of camp. I followed. She led me past the showers and veered off to the path toward the pond. There were a few people swimming at this point, but not many, and no one paid any attention to us. The path curved around beside the water all the way to the upper end, where a willow’s delicate branches stirred in the quiet twilight air.
“There.” She pointed to the ground just before the tree. The fading light was leaching the color out of everything, but I could tell that there was a large discolored patch of grass that was different from what surrounded it. This grass was dry, brittle, brownish. I got down on my knees to peer more closely at it. It appeared to just be dead grass, but it seemed wrong, somehow. I noticed a faint dark mottling across the blades.
I stood up again and shook my head. “I see it, but I don’t know what you mean. Why is it important?”
Her strange wide-set eyes were grave. “This is féar gortach,” she said. “Hungry grass.”
“What does that mean?” I crouched back down and reached out to pluck a bit of it.
Her hand clamped down on my arm and she yanked me back with enough force that I toppled backward and sat hard. “Do not touch it,” she snapped. “You will
get the hunger too.”
“What do you mean that I’ll get the hunger? What is this stuff?” My stomach prickled.
“Poison in the land,” she said. “It is a curse.”
In an instant I’d sobered all the tequila out of my system. I stared up at her as I rubbed the spot on my arm where she’d grabbed me. “The demon,” I said. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
To my surprise, she shook her head. “It is a tainted spot, but his kind could not create it. Only my kind could. But our land depends on this land. None who dwell near here would curse their own home.”
“So there’s some other fae, but who doesn’t live around here, who came and, uh, planted this stuff?”
“There must be,” she said. “But to do so is an act of war.”
Great. A whole other bad guy and a fairy war. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear. “But what does it mean? What is the hunger?”
She stepped back from it and crouched beside me, staring at it as though she expected it to reach out and grab her. In my head I named the grass Audrey II. “Féar gortach is powerful magic but very toxic. In the old days it was used to punish invaders, trespassers, who disturbed the ancient pathways between your world and ours. Most of those paths are gone now, and we have no cause to use this curse. I have only heard of it, never seen it, and never known anyone who did. It is also hard to accomplish. It must be a very exact spot, and the spell is rare to come by.”
My skin crawled and I scooted another foot or two back. The darkness that was slowly closing around the camp began to feel ominous. “I have to tell someone about this.”
“It is best to keep others away,” she said quickly. “It is too dangerous.”
“You still haven’t told me why.”
“You interrupted,” she reminded me in a very reasonable tone. “The magic awakens suffering in the grass, in the very earth. Silently, it wails for blood and tears. And it becomes outwardly twisted, as you see it now. Any unlucky human who treads upon the grass catches the curse, like a disease. But the curse is still within this patch of ground, poison festering in a wound, and others who touch it or walk upon it will also find themselves possessed of a terrible, unceasing hunger that can be neither denied nor satisfied. No matter how much those humans eat, they will swiftly starve to death, unless the curse is broken.”
I shuddered. “How swiftly are we talking about?”
“Oh,” she said, “no more than three days, at most.”
My stomach dropped. I had to force out my words. “Can you--can you tell whether anyone has walked on this grass?”
“Of course,” she said, and pointed. “Cannot you see the blood spattered on it? Someone soon will die. And their grave will grow féar gortach as well, and so the poison spreads.”
I stood up. Sitting on the ground, even several feet away from the spot, was feeling a little too risky. “And how do you break the curse?”
She was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“What?” I felt my head get light.
“The reason I call it an act of war is that the only times it has been used since the old paths faded away--or so it is said--are to poison an enemy’s domain among my kind, either to weaken them or to drive them out of their home in order to invade it. Whoever laid the curse has the ability to break it, and will only do it when they have gotten what they want. There may be some who know the rite of curse-breaking, but that knowledge is as rare as the spell itself.” Her face finally looked troubled enough for my satisfaction.
“Can you find someone who can help? Quickly? Like, really really quickly?”
“I can try. But we want something from you in return.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.”
“We want you to help us find our enemy here just as we are helping you find yours. Whoever it is, they must seek to hurt our lands. Otherwise the féar gortach would be too dangerous for other ends.”
I flipped through her words, measuring them for potential loopholes that could come back to bite me in the ass. But I couldn’t see any reason not to accept, and it’s not like I had a whole lot of time to haggle over these things. Make deals now, deal with it later. Whatever. Anything, to make progress. “I will. And I don’t know how or why, but I’ll tell you that I’m completely certain that your enemy and mine are in this together somehow. This isn’t a coincidence.” If I’d had any doubt about that, the timing of the victim’s demise demolished it. Vivi’s demise, I reminded myself with a sick feeling in my gut.
She nodded. “Then we are allies in this.” Without another word, she turned and ran off into the trees, the glow from the sticks in her hair dancing like fireflies as the gloom swallowed her from sight. I took one more look at the patch of dead, blood-spattered grass, and speed-walked the hell out of there back to the comforting noise of the festival.
Okay. Somehow, we needed to cordon off that spot to try to keep anyone else from walking on it. It wasn’t exactly a heavy traffic area, but people did circle the pond, so it wasn’t out of the question. I needed to talk to my friends and find out if they knew anything about how to deal with a victim of hungry grass. And I needed to talk to Vivi and tell her what I knew, even if she thought I was crazy.
I thought back over my encounters with her so far. She’d been hungry and eating every time--in fact, when she didn’t have food, in the yurt at Science Faction, she’d all but mugged Joe for his snacks. I wondered if her features were always so taut and angular, or if she was already showing signs of wasting away. Crap.
I had just gotten back to the main path to head back to my camp when Sara came running up to me, her eyes wide with panic. “There you are! Are you all right? What happened?”
“Uhh...what?” My mind was still beside that willow tree and the bloody, brown grass.
“We’ve been looking for you. I went to your tent to see if you were there, and the people in the camp next to you said you’d gone to get water and hadn’t come back. So I went down to the spigot and found the bucket there and you nowhere to be found. I freaked out.”
“Oh, shit.” I clapped a hand over my eyes. “The dishes. Goddammit. They’re going to think I’m a total flake.”
“We should head back there. I think I got them kind of worried.” She chewed her lip.
“I’ll check in and then head over to Free Radicals if the others are there,” I said. “We should all meet up as quick as we can. I have to tell you all what I found out.”
She didn’t bother asking questions, just set off to round everyone up as I headed back to the spigot and collected my water bucket. I lugged it back to camp in a hangdog sort of way. Most of the folks had drifted off, but Teo was still sitting in the shade tent, smoking. “Get lost?”
“Sorry.” I winced at his sharp undertone. “I suck. I just--got distracted. What’s left to do?”
“Not much. We did all we could. There’s a couple of pans left that need washing and that’s about it.” He wasn’t making eye contact. Shit, he really seemed pissed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ll come by and help you guys clean up after a meal tomorrow. Or I’ll get you firewood or ice, whatever seems fair.”
“I vouched for you, with my camp. You made me look like an asshole.”
“I did a lot of the dishes before we needed fresh water.” The fae encounter was eating holes in my stomach and I was stressed about getting over to Free Radicals. It made me defensive. “A lot of your people didn’t pitch in at all.”
“Wow.” He glared at me and blew out a stream of smoke.
“Look, I’m grateful for dinner. I really am. And I mean it, I’m sorry I got diverted. I’ll finish up the last few things, and if you want me to do more tomorrow to make it up, I will. But just--it was something important, okay? I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”
“Whatever.” He sipped his
drink and I thought I heard him mutter something that sounded like drama queen.
“Whatever,” I snapped back. I set about washing and drying the last few things, my scrubbing fueled by anger and guilt. When I was done, I took the dirty water to a dump spot. All around, people were getting ready for the night’s festivities, dressing and linking glow sticks into necklaces and bracelets, and pre-gaming with cocktails at camp.
I was aware of my own clothes, plain and rumpled and smelling of smoke. I wished I had party clothes to change into, but I barely had any clean clothes left, let alone anything fancy. I pictured myself as a burner Cinderella, lugging gray water with hands cold and chapped from dishwashing, in threadbare grungy clothes. But there was no fairy godmother to wave a wand and ensure that my only care was getting dressed to go out and party all night, or what fun thing to do first and whether I’d get drunk enough to make out with a stranger before midnight. The fairies here were strange and sinister, and my otherworldly godmother was more the “offer you can’t refuse” type.
Right now, there was no one letting me off the hook for feeling responsible for whether or not an innocent person was going to starve to death in a couple of days.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Everyone else had gathered at Free Radicals by the time I got there. Cherry was mixing cocktails. “No reason we can’t be civilized about our monster hunt,” she joked, but it was gallows humor. All of them were tense.
“Anyone know where Vivi is?” I sank into an army surplus camp chair.
“Napping,” said Sarafina. “I swung by Science Faction to invite her to happy hour here, but she said she was tired.”
“Was she eating?” I asked. “Or talking about being hungry?”
She raised an eyebrow and thought about it a moment. “Actually, yes. She was making short work of a box of crackers. Why?”
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 20