“Jesus, Sal! Where did you get these?” She looked at them like each one was a hundred-dollar bill. “This is enough for more than a month!”
“Just take them,” I said. “They’re for one person too, so they should be fine for your aunt. And this makes up for me not being able to get water for you myself anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
I hesitated. Mother Morevna had dropped them, but I reminded myself, they couldn’t have been hers. She had probably been on her way to Mr. Jameson’s office herself and forgotten. And Lucy’s aunt had Dust Sickness. How could I refuse her after what had happened to Mama?
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
Lucy suddenly threw her arms around me and held me in the sweetest-smelling hug I’d ever had. “Thank you,” she said. “So much.” Then the hug was over, and Lucy stuffed the rations into her bag. “You don’t know how much this means to my family. You’re the real miracle worker, Sal. Not Asa Skander.”
Asa Skander. All the warmth and pride went out of me like air from a balloon.
She rolled her eyes. “Asa this, Asa that. People acting like he’s some kind of messiah, here to help heal the Sick and lead us out of the desert. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now. People are even slacking off in their duties, thinking he’ll save us all. They only got fifteen barrels of corn done yesterday. Fifteen when they should be getting fifty.”
So it was worse than I thought. If people thought of Asa as a messiah, what must they think of me? How would they ever see me as anything but a weak, scared false prophet now? And if they were banking on a miracle, how would we ever harvest enough to please the Dust Soldiers?
“People love a mystery,” she said almost apologetically. “But you did half that spell. And I’ll make sure to tell everybody what a good job you’re doing.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Really.”
“Well, I’d better get going,” she said. “Try not to worry about Asa. Everything will sort itself out. You know, you should go see him. Go and talk it out.”
“Maybe I should,” I said. My penny thrummed against my breastbone. “Maybe I will. It couldn’t make things worse, I guess. Thanks, Lucy.” I stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. Hug her goodbye? Wave? I felt like I needed to do something. “Well…” I said finally. “See you later, I guess.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, grabbing my wrist. She pulled me back and stopped me in front of her, looked up at me in a scrutinizing sort of way that made my heart give a sudden, strange thud. Then she reached up and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ears.
“There you go, girl.” She smiled. “Pretty as a picture.”
Then, with a flounce of her bright flour-sack skirt, she turned and headed back out into the streets, leaving me fighting back a blush.
No one had ever called me pretty before.
CHAPTER 9
3 MONTHS
AND
15 DAYS
REMAIN.
Asa had been hiding for three days—far longer than it had taken to rebuild his body. He had lain there, half-corporeal on the bloodstained floor, unable to think or feel, and when he woke again, his stomach was nearly turning itself inside out with hunger. He rose gingerly and ate a pound of raw salt pork rations in one gulp. He followed this with six eggs, shells and all, and drank nearly a case of water rations before he stopped to catch his breath.
Asa went to the bathroom, washed up, and pulled on a clean set of clothes. In the mirror, he looked thin, wan, used up. He didn’t feel 100 percent better, but he ran a comb through his hair anyway and put on his spectacles with the shattered lens. Magic was no joke. It regenerated, of course, but he would have to pace himself better next time. And on top of all of it, the people of Elysium just wouldn’t leave him alone.
When he opened his door the morning after the dust storm, there had been a crowd of people on his doorstep.
“Can I help you?” Asa asked.
But they’d all begun speaking at once, shouting, clamoring as they pushed forward.
“Help us, please!” they cried. “Use your magic!”
“My daughter is Dust Sick!” one woman said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it in hers. “Can you please come and see her? Come and heal her!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Asa pulled his hand from hers. “But I… My magic doesn’t work like…”
“We know what you can do!” she shouted. “You can do what even Mother Morevna can’t! You’ve been sent to help us all! To get us out of this mess!”
“I—I don’t know about that, ma’am!” he said. “I’m just a magician! I—I can do a little magic here and there, but I’m just a magician! I—”
But the crowd didn’t want to see a trick. They wanted real magic. Powerful, impossible magic. They wanted a way out of this terrible, miserable Game, once and for all.
“Help us!” shouted a man in the crowd. “Lead us out of this desert! We believe!”
“We believe!” they chanted. “We believe!”
Everyone was so close. Too close. Asa sent a pulse of magic and sent them staggering. Then he ran back inside and shuttered all the windows, locked the doors. Terrified, he crawled under the kitchen table and waited for the people to leave. For the next two days, he’d barely moved, except to slink to the kitchen to eat and make coffee. And though the crowds had dwindled to only one or two visitors per day, there had been a number of letters and notes slipped under his door, no doubt requesting some kind of supernatural aid he had no authority to give.
So when he heard someone knock on his door, Asa held his breath and waited for whoever it was to go away.
“I know you’re in there,” said a female voice. “And you and I need to talk.”
Uh-oh, Asa thought. Maybe if I slip out the window?
“It’s Sal Wilkerson,” the girl said, getting irritated. “The one who let you in! So return the favor!”
He supposed she was right. Asa crawled out from under the table and went to the door. He opened it a crack and looked outside. Sal Wilkerson was standing on the porch with her hands on her hips, looking unhappy.
“Is anyone else out there?” he asked, eyes darting. “Are they looking for me?”
“If you mean the crowd of people standing around your soapbox, yes,” she said. “But they’re not around right now. I guess I scared them off. So let me in. We need to talk.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Asa said. “If you’re coming in, hurry.” He opened the door, and Sal hesitated for a second, looking past him into his dark, bloodstained house; then she darted inside.
She looked around, her expression a mixture of curiosity and horror.
“So what brings you around here?” Asa said, doing his best to slick his hair back down. “What do you need to talk to me about? More questions about quarters? Or maybe nickels or dimes?”
“Obviously you weren’t honest with me before, so I’m going to ask you outright, one more time: What is going on? Why did you really come here?”
“Like I said at the gate and in the cell, I am stuck here.” Asa crossed his arms as he’d seen humans do when they were being obstinate. “That’s it.”
“Fine, don’t tell me,” said Sal. “But know that you’ve made my life way more difficult than it had to be. Running up there and fixing everything—”
“Are you… mad at me?” Asa asked. “For saving you?”
“Yes,” Sal said. “And, I mean… no. But—”
“I just wanted to help,” Asa said. “You needed help and I thought I was doing the right thing and…” A sudden, awful thought. “Did I do something bad?”
“It’s not that it was bad bad. It’s just…” She paused, looking for the right words. “It’s not what it’s supposed to be, you know? I don’t know if you know about my past, but I’ve been through a lot. And it’s a really big deal to me that I’m the Successor. That I got the chance for people to trust me again. And then you came along, and you’re new and
powerful and… you have no idea how hard I worked only for you to come in and undo so much all at once.”
“But you’re the Successor!” Asa protested. “Surely the people see you as that.”
“That’s what I’m supposed to be,” Sal said. “And I’ve been working so hard to be what they need me to be. What I feel like I need to be. But here, people have one impression of you and you stay whatever that is in their minds forever. It takes a miracle to change minds here.” She looked at Asa. “And when you saved me, it kind of undermined all that. It made me look bad and it made you look…”
“Like a threat,” Asa groaned. “A threat to your power. Oh no… I’ve disrupted everything.”
That’s why the people of Elysium were at his door. They were looking to him as their leader now and not who they were supposed to be looking to. He had really messed things up this time.
“That’s the last thing I intended,” he said. “I’m not here to try and… and usurp anybody’s power! I’m just trying to figure things out right now. Make the best of my situation. And I don’t want everyone at my door, thinking I can do miracles! I don’t want this! What can I do?”
Sal blinked. “So you’re not some messiah sent to lead us out of the desert?”
“Of course not!” said Asa. “I’m as shocked as you are!”
Sal took a moment to digest this; then finally she spoke.
“Look,” said Sal. “I believe you when you say you didn’t intend to disrupt Elysium or whatever. But the damage has been done. Mother Morevna’s authority and mine have been undermined, and I know what that’s like. When the people think there’s some way out of here, they stop focusing. When the people aren’t focused, they can’t be productive, and if they can’t be productive, we can’t produce enough for the harvest, and if we don’t, then everybody dies.” She took a deep breath. “And it’s my job as the Successor to help make sure that doesn’t happen.”
It was a very bleak picture, indeed. Asa felt something that must be regret, maybe mixed with a little bit of shame, wash over him.
“So what do we do?” Asa asked.
“We have to find a way to set things straight again so we can get back to… what we’re really supposed to be doing.”
“Sounds good to me,” Asa said. “But how do we do that?”
“I don’t know,” said Sal. “But we’ve got to figure something out. Soon.”
They sat there at the table for a few tense, awkward moments. Then Sal got an odd look in her eyes and said, “You don’t have any books here, do you?”
“I sure do!” he said. He bent and picked up his corner of the kitchen table and pulled out the worn, bent paperback book he’d been using to level it. “I took this out to try and read it the other day, but…” He shrugged. “I’m more of an F. Scott Fitzgerald type, I think.”
Sal held the filthy book by its corner, looking at its cover. “Brothers of the Western Sage,” she read, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She shrugged. “Well, it’s better than nothing, I guess.”
She put the book down on the table, then spilled some salt from the saltshaker into her hand. A feeling of electricity began to surge around her. Magic, Asa knew. He leaned forward to get a better look.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Rhapsodomancy,” she said. “Mother Morevna told me about it once. It’s a kind of divination where you ask a question, then open a book, and whatever line you put your finger to answers your question. Or it’s supposed to. I’ve never tried it before.”
She looked down at the book. “Here goes nothing,” she said. She closed her eyes and dropped a pinch of salt over the book. Asa felt a strong surge of magic, heard her whisper something under her breath. Then the book’s pages began to turn, flipping faster and faster, until the book suddenly stopped its page riffling and fell open. The magic ceased its surging, and Sal opened her eyes. Then they looked down at the open book together. There on the page was a black-and-white illustration of two cowboys in the street, hands hovering over their gun belts, with a quote beneath it.
“‘… and the two of them took to the dusty streets to settle things the cowboy way,’” Asa read.
He paused, feeling a little sorry for Sal. “Well… I thank you for trying, I suppose, but the two of us are anything but cowboys. Maybe Frankenstein next time? Or Moby Dick?”
But Sal’s eyes were alight with an inner flame that was a little intimidating.
“The cowboy way…” she said softly. “Of course.” Suddenly, she pulled another, tiny book from her pocket and opened it, riffling through its pages. “Aha!” she said. “I thought I’d seen that somewhere! It’s perfect!”
“What?” Asa asked, feeling suddenly nervous. “What’s perfect?”
“A duel,” Sal said, her eyes glowing. “We can have a duel!”
Asa’s mind was suddenly filled with images of cowboys facing each other in dusty streets, crying “Draw!” and shooting, falling to the ground to lie twitching as their blood sank into the dust.
Asa gulped. “Well, you see, I’m kind of a… er… conscientious objector when it comes to guns.…”
“No, I mean a Witches’ Duel,” she said. “‘A Witches’ Duel is a time-honored way of settling disputes between witches when there does not seem to be another alternative.’” She read on a little ways, then said, “‘Despite its name, a Witches’ Duel, is not necessarily deadly and is over when one witch has displayed her dominance over another.…’ You see? It’s perfect.”
“So you just want to… to duel out in the street?” Asa said.
“No,” Sal said. “I want to fake a duel. I want to rig the duel so I win. Then the people will see that I’m the stronger witch and maybe they’ll leave you alone.”
Asa considered this. A duel was one thing, but a fake duel was another. A fake duel was a performance, just like his magic shows. Harmless. Entertaining. He nodded.
“I’ll do it,” he said. Then he had a sudden, sobering thought. “Won’t Mother Morevna object to something like that?”
Sal furrowed her brows and went quiet. Mother Morevna. She gave the impression of a woman who liked to be in control. And she certainly wouldn’t allow something like a duel to happen on her watch.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Sal said finally. But the fire in her eyes hadn’t gone out. “You just wait for word from me, all right?” she said. “And thank you.”
And with that, Sal rose from the table and headed back outside, leaving Asa in his kitchen, holding his cowboy book, wondering what on earth he’d just gotten himself into.
The light went on in Lloyd Jameson’s bedroom—the light that would only come on if Miss Ibarra was doing as expected and the whole idea wasn’t some magical flimflam. Jameson rolled out of bed and pulled on some trousers. He snugged into his boots and pulled his shotgun down from its spot on the wall. His jaw was set. His eyes were grave. He did not look at the photograph of his wife and daughter, standing in front of their ranch in Amarillo. He did not.
But he did look up at the church, at the window where Miss Ibarra was wide-awake and shouting to wake the dead. Across the hall from her, he saw a light come on in Sal’s room. He saw Sal, carrying a kerosene lamp, head out into the hall, probably to try and comfort the woman. That would be like her. Then, through the hall window, he saw Mrs. Winthrop come up the stairs and shoo Sal back into her room. After a moment, the kerosene light went out. But Sal wouldn’t be asleep. Not after that. He sighed. He’d have to tell Sal about her one day. But not today.
Mr. Jameson strapped his rifle onto his back and looked out into the night. Making his breaths and boots as quiet as he could, he pushed open his door and slipped out into the dark streets. From his place in the night, he scanned the walls, looking through narrowed eyes for something, anything out of the ordinary.
And then he saw it.
Up on the wall, a shadow moved. It was smaller than a man, larger than a child. Familiar. And it too was good at moving quietly. It
had scaled the wall with a rope and pulled the rope up behind it. Then it secured the rope on the lip of the wall and crawled down. Were there more? Jameson felt like there were—there had to be. No one could survive in the desert alone. But if there were, they didn’t follow. This shadow, solitary, slipped down the wall. Then it pulled the rope free, caught it, and coiled it around its torso. As it turned, Jameson could see that it had a dark bandanna around its face and a satchel on its back. It looked one way, then another, then darted directly under a guard tower and hid in the shadow of a nearby house.
Jameson looked up at the guard tower. The guard, young Joe McPherson, was asleep and drooling, his arm dangling down at his side. Jameson almost cussed him; then he saw the others. All the other guards in all the other towers—or at least all the ones Jameson could see—were fast asleep. A dreamy blue silence had fallen, hanging around each tower like a low cloud.
“Goddamn magic,” Jameson muttered. That’s what it had to be, after all. Only magic could do something like that. And this wasn’t good. This complicated things. He loaded his shotgun and followed the shadow.
It slid from dark place to dark place, weaving through streets and under clotheslines. Jameson followed at a distance, watching to see what it did. It kept moving, past the church and toward the building that housed the sacrifice to the Dust Soldiers.
Just like the guards in the towers, the guards placed at the front of the doors were slumped down, asleep in the dust. A damn powerful spell, Jameson thought, to work over such a distance. The shadow slipped between them soundlessly, pulling the keys from the pocket of the one on her right—the shadow was a her now, he knew—and fitting the key neatly into the lock.
It clicked and the shadow disappeared into the yawning darkness, shutting the door behind her. For a moment there was a glow under the door—Mother Morevna’s trapdoor spell, perhaps. Then it went dark again. She’d gotten past the circle somehow.
Jameson slunk closer. He had options. He could trap the thief inside the building—there was only one way out, after all. That would be the easiest thing. Perhaps the smartest thing. But it somehow didn’t seem fair. And if the thief was who he thought she was, it didn’t answer any of his questions. No, he would see what she did.
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