Hero Blues

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "No, cookie, you've got enough to do," Reggie said, when Jane finally got frustrated enough to call and ask for an assignment. "You've got to get ready to move on. When the time is right, you have to be ready to go."

  "I've been ready to go for years," she said, fighting not to wail or whine.

  "The problem is having the place to go to, am I right?"

  After she hung up, she realized something important. Reggie hadn't asked her where she was trying to move, where she wanted to go. Jane suspected her teachers knew. She supposed that because they hadn't asked, hadn't made suggestions...maybe they were pleased?

  Just around Thanksgiving, Jane decided that sitting and waiting and expecting someone to keep her updated was ridiculous. If she was going to move to Neighborlee, she needed to act like someone getting ready to move. She subscribed to the Neighborlee Tattler. She programmed her search engine on her computer to flag any stories that appeared on the Web dealing with the town, any police news, TV broadcasts, following up on personalities. Digging further on anything and anyone she learned about in the town and surrounding area kept her busy in the evenings and helped her ignore the constantly fluctuating feelings about the Ghost. Honestly, when was Fendersburg going to accept the fact the Ghost was gone, and nothing they could do or say would bring him back or get him to apologize for abandoning them?

  She learned about the major businesses in Neighborlee, the community leaders, and town stories and legends. The town's resident comedienne was Lanie Zephyr, daughter of Charlie and Rainbow. Jane shivered a little when she found out Lanie and her brothers were adopted. In fact, Lanie was a few years older than her and had been at Neighborlee Children's Home at the same time as Jane. She had been a school teacher, until she rescued one of her students from his bad choices on Senior Prank Night and broke her back, putting her in a wheelchair. She was a reporter at the Neighborlee Tattler now, and played on a wheelchair basketball team called the Ezekiel's Wheels.

  Jane learned that the Tattler had been bought just at Thanksgiving by a conglomerate of small, once- or twice-weekly newspapers. Following up on the conglomerate, she learned it was a family-owned corporation and the patriarch of the family had come from the Neighborlee Children's Home. She found it odd that she couldn't get into the records for the Neighborlee Children's Home earlier than the days when everything was computerized. The children's home records hadn't become Internet-accessible until about ten years ago. How was she going to get into those records and find out about all those children who had been abandoned and grew up at the children's home or were adopted out, like Lanie Zephyr? There was no way of identifying those children unless they became public figures and that detail was listed in their biographies, like Lanie, Daniel Swaggertson, the mayor, and several business owners.

  "That's something I need to do when I move to town, I guess," she told Katie during an evening phone call of griping and speculating.

  "When? Not if?"

  "Don't you go getting pessimistic," she retorted, and stuck her tongue out at the phone. She and Katie laughed together. "I don't know, it's like..."

  "Like maybe something or someone is keeping important information like that from leaving the town boundaries?" Katie suggested.

  "Maybe. Who knows?" She looked around her apartment, caught somewhere between packing and unpacking. She had been too optimistic, jumping the gun and packing back at the beginning. Then, when she needed things to keep living in Fendersburg, she had started unpacking. Every time she got a bit of news of progress from the landlord, she started packing again, but when there was another delay, she unpacked a little bit.

  Her tiny electric ceramic Christmas tree sat on the mantle of the electric fireplace. A wreath lay on the floor where she was in the middle of unwinding a strand of multi-colored lights and replacing them with tiny faceted red and gold ball ornaments. Her shop was decorated for Christmas. She had only been able to do that by considering it part of the deception, so people they wouldn't link her to the Ghost leaving.

  Maybe she should wait out the Christmas shopping season, and then have a post-holiday sale like she always did, but sell everything. Make no effort to re-stock. Empty out her shop as much as possible. Even sell the display cases, if she could.

  "Call it a renovation sale," Katie said, when Jane related what she had been thinking. "Then, when you close the door, people won't be surprised, won't panic."

  "If my shop isn't ready in Neighborlee, I'll just put everything in storage, if I have to. Temporarily move back to the Sanctum. There's plenty of room there. What I need to do is take the first step and break free of this place. I have to stop waiting."

  As if making that decision was a signal or had tripped a switch, things happened and got moving elsewhere. The landlord called from Neighborlee, saying the building inspector had approved the renovations and repairs and final inspections would take place after the New Year. She could start planning to move in January. Jane sent him a check for a security deposit, and made a Sunday trip to Neighborlee to look over her apartment and hire a handyman to get to work on renovations.

  Monday, she put her Going out of Business sign in the window of Lazy Days Spa, in among the Christmas decorations and day's special signs. No one remarked on it at all that day. They were too busy exclaiming over the Christmas tree designs and other decorations on their fingernails or declaring they had to get a massage right that moment, that Christmas shopping was wearing them down, and what were those delicious aromas coming from those amazing candles? Jane didn't know if her extended holiday hours were a blessing or a curse. How much proof of the obliviousness of the people of Fendersburg could she take?

  She let out a shriek of utter relief when she retreated to her apartment, and collapsed on her couch, in the dark, to listen to Christmas carols. She had survived her first day of Going out of Business.

  Two minutes later, buyer's—or was it seller's?—remorse struck.

  If her life was a horror film, or a farce, this was the point where all the bad news would start rolling in. She would find out that Neighborlee had an insane asylum at the north end of town and a federal prison at the south end, and despite the renovations and repairs and the building inspector's certification, her building was prone to gas leaks, stubborn plumbing, ghosts, and had lost six tenants in the last four months.

  "No. It's going to work out. I've earned it," she told herself repeatedly.

  She certainly couldn't stay in Fendersburg. Even if no one noticed her Going out of Business sign, she couldn't, wouldn't turn back now. Learning to be blind and deaf to the minor catastrophes that happened all around her had been torture, and even after all these months, she hadn't learned the lesson nearly well enough. Letting Timmy Higgs suffer for his nastiness and refusing to pick up after lazy, irresponsible people was easy enough. Refraining from tripping shoplifters and chasing after runaway baby carriages was not. So she didn't. She could still manage such rescues without anyone guessing. It was some help knowing that people in town were more alert, the police more active, and people watched out for themselves. But it only helped a little.

  The fact that the accident and crime rate continued to trickle downwards rather pointed out she wasn't needed after all. Plus, if she continued along that line of thought, it rather proved that the Ghost's presence had only made things worse. Besides encouraging people to be irresponsible, it encouraged criminals to be more active, presenting them a challenge.

  No, she couldn't simply slide back into her role of invisible guardian. Not when she had said good-bye. It wasn't like she could change the color and design of her costume and pretend to be someone else. The first time something happened that fit the pattern she had established, people would assume the Ghost had come back. They would be even harder to work with than before.

  Time to move on.

  At least she liked Neighborlee, the people, the town, the quiet, and the handsome men in scuffed work boots, jeans and late model pickup trucks. Leaving Fendersburg was a step
up, right?

  Things continued moving in the right direction. Her shop sold out, the shelves emptied out. Maybe people weren't oblivious so much as conniving. No one mentioned her Going out of Business signs because they didn't want anyone else to notice. Every time she marked something "on sale," it sold out that day. It was like her regular customers were stocking up against famine. Jane considered the possibility that she would have little to nothing to move into her new shop in Neighborlee. She could start from scratch. That was both good and bad.

  The Tattler came in the mail the day after each issue came out, and the issue immediately after Christmas proved more than interesting. A story featuring the Tattler's copy editor and new advice columnist, Lanie Zephyr, was tucked into the bottom of the fourth page, discussing how several lunatic former residents of town had targeted her for harassment. The three boys who had been involved in the Senior Prank Night accident where she broke her back six years before had left the military—joining the service had been part of their sentence—and had come back to Neighborlee to exact punishment on her. One of the young men was clearly out of his mind, because he had been raving when the police captured him, claiming Lanie could fly and had infected him with the ability. He claimed that many people in Neighborlee were freaks, dangerous, and needed to be wiped out for the safety of the whole world.

  A side bar to the story noted that when the reporters tried to go back the next day to interview the prisoner, he was gone. Supposedly, officials carrying documents granting them custody of the young man had come to take him away. No one could verify if they were military or some other branch of the government. The other two young men who had been part of the plot had also vanished. Their families wouldn't reveal where they had gone. Witnesses who didn't want to be identified reported seeing two elderly men driving a windowless black van, escorted by four men dressed all in black, wearing sunglasses, ominously silent and yet threatening.

  "No, no, no," Jane murmured, conjuring very clear images of how the vanishing of the three young men had occurred. Because she had been the subject of a similar maneuver years ago.

  She had a massive after-Christmas sale going on at the spa. Otherwise she would have taken off immediately after reading that story to go visit the Sanctum and check in with Reginald and Demetrius—and the new students of the Sanctum. Jane had to settle for calling them on her walk home. She couldn't use her phone while flying because the Ghost field interfered with phone reception, and she needed to walk to calm down. It was a windy day, darkly overcast and howling. No one was close enough to overhear, and she honestly didn't plan on saying much of anything that she would have to be afraid to have overheard. She planned on doing a lot of listening.

  "Hello, dear," Demetrius said, picking up the phone when she expected to get the answering machine. "I thought you'd call as soon as you got that newspaper."

  "Are those boys with you?"

  "Oh, yes. Fascinating stories to tell us. The most damaged of them, well...he's the first one of us to come out of Neighborlee since we rescued you."

  "So he can fly, but he's mental and blamed that on Lanie Zephyr?"

  "Hmm, that requires some investigating. Those boys have brought us some interesting, dangerous news. It looks like there is someone else out there. Someone who knows about the abandoned children like us. Someone who wants us. Not sure what they want to do with us. Janie-gal... How are things coming along for moving to Neighborlee?"

  "Coming. I suppose you know I've been going out of business?"

  "Finally. You've given those idiots in Fendersburg too much time."

  "And enough rope to hang themselves?"

  "Janie, be careful. Move slowly. Whoever got to those boys broke them. That's the nice way of saying it. Reginald still gets into fuming fits that make my ears scorch, and I've been fireproof where he's concerned for decades. They programmed those poor lads to do things that were entirely against their natures. Made young Parker think he was going insane. Whatever they suspect about us and our kind isn't quite clear. I want you to make friends with whoever you can. That spa of yours is the perfect venue. Make friends, keep your eyes and ears open, and look for troublemakers. Find out what people know. We'll be taking everything you send us, finding out whatever we can from out here, and... Well, the Council agrees, we need to prepare for war."

  "I'm going in to defend Neighborlee, is that it?"

  "You're going in to defend all of us, cookie."

  * * * *

  Neighborlee wasn't even in another time zone, and it was north of the latitude holding both the Sanctum and Fendersburg. Despite its proximity, the move felt like going into another hemisphere once Jane crossed entered Cuyahoga County. It felt like one of those unseasonably warm January days that could go straight through spring in three days and turn into summer and last until November. Jane had to laugh as she drove down the streets of Neighborlee to get to her new store and home. She had the driver's side window open, enjoying the warm breezes, and seeing the deep puddles and water running into the sewer gratings from the last of the melting snow. Her realtor, Debbi Kunardi, said to park in the little lot behind the building, accessible through the narrow alleys that ran between every three buildings in the long strip of shops. She would be waiting inside. Jane saw her standing in one of the big show windows, tearing down the thick brown paper, as she drove up.

  The Spindelmutter building looked incredible. The power washing treatment had brightened up the brickwork, making it look crisp and new and fresh, changing the color from drab brown to a muted red. She hadn't even noticed the name, Spindelmutter, was engraved in gray granite across the middle of the second floor, right under the long strip of windows, because the building had been so grimy. Now the name stood out in proud glory. Jane approved. She felt a little breathless as she drove down the alley next to the building and parked in the little lot.

  All this was hers now. If she made a success of the spa like Lazy Days had promised to be a success in Fendersburg, maybe in a few years she could negotiate to buy the building, instead of just renting.

  If the shop was a success and her mission here was a success.

  If, if, if...

  The crew Debbi had hired on Jane's request had been doing a lot of scrubbing and hauling away of unnecessary debris, and she was eager to show off the building now, even before the renovations started. Jane was surprised at how much bigger the building looked without the empty, broken display cases and wire on the walls and empty crates and cardboard boxes. The bright winter sunshine spilling inside made a difference, and helped her firm up some ideas she had for painting. They started the tour with the basement, where Debbi showed her the repairs to the foundation that had been required by the new zoning codes and the building department. When they walked around the main floor, they threw ideas back and forth for things like movable display tables versus built-in shelving and racks. Or maybe she would install a grid that would hang from the ceiling so Jane could attach chains and poles for instant clothes racks. The pseudo-cobblestone flooring was perfect just as it was.

  She wrote down the names of various local handyman businesses, along with Debbi's assessment of their reliability, ease of working with them and how busy one or the other might be at this time of the year. Debbi was one of those people with her finger on the pulse of all the businesses. She certainly seemed to know what everybody was doing.

  They went up to the second floor, which had been used as a small workshop and storage for the previous several tenants. Jane thought about accessibility, and wondered about the costs of installing a small elevator, or how much space she would lose with a ramp, to make the second floor accessible to customers. If the physically handicapped couldn't get upstairs, that would limit what she could offer. Maybe that was why the previous tenants used this floor for themselves and not for customers. The third floor was her apartment, and she sighed in quiet delight when she saw the skylight, which she had entirely forgotten about. This was definitely going to be the bes
t place she had ever lived in. Wide open spaces, not much in the way of walls, lots of cupboards and closets. Three times the size of her previous apartment for about two-thirds of the cost of rent. She was going to have fun decorating.

  Immediately, the dishes and other housewares she had seen on sale at Divine's Emporium came to mind. Definitely, she was going to have fun, and Divine's would be the first stop she made—to shop, as well as let Angela know she had come back.

  A tiny shiver ran through her, when it occurred to her that it might just be futile to try to hide her return from Angela, and anyone foolish enough to try might just regret it.

  She forgot that uneasiness when Debbi showed her one of the four doors all in a row was actually a short stairway giving her access to the flat roof. There was storage on the roof, along with what she assumed were covers for the building's HVAC units. Jane couldn't remember if anyone had mentioned the roof to her before, but she imagined coming up here to stargaze, or maybe even sunbathe on her days off. She saw the frames for what looked like long tables. When she asked, Debbi confirmed her suspicions. Previous tenants had set up gardens here on the roof. Jane definitely planned on having a garden of her own up here, flowers as well as vegetables. She could do a whole spectrum of herbs, maybe grow enough to package and sell them in the shop.

  Debbi was either very good at what she did, or she had a touch of Gift, because she immediately started rattling off information on greenhouse supply stores in the area, places to get seedlings and all the equipment she would need for her rooftop garden. She finished by pointing out the places where a cabana and wading pool and deck chairs had been set up in the past. It was like a tiny private country club up here, where one could gaze down on the streets of Neighborlee. Few buildings in the area were taller than hers. Jane wondered if it was a city ordinance. She had looked up information on the town and discovered the tallest building was owned by the resident private detective, John Stanzer.