Black Magic (14 page)

She called Andy and he picked up his cell on the second ring.

“Are you at work already?”

“Such as it is,” Andy said. “What’s wrong?”

Of course he would jump to such a conclusion. She rarely called him. Since she’d moved to Elysian, she had felt like a burden. She felt guilty calling him, taking him away from his glowing life to support the dying embers of her own.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “Just the opposite, in fact. How about lunch today?”

“Let me check my schedule. I can wedge you in. Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere cheery,” she said. “Pick me up here at noon and don’t be late.”

“Not one minute,” Andy said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

She hung up and went to the day room. Walking Bear had his usual seat at the picture window. She came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Good morning. What do the birds tell you today?”

Walking Bear grabbed her fingers. His hand was rough, calloused, strong. He looked up and straight into her eyes. She could not remember the last time they had such direct, intense, unnerving eye contact. His brown eyes seemed to go on within him forever.

“It’s all wrong,” he said. “Fall is almost here and this is all wrong.”

Dolly’s hand started to hurt.

“The birds are too active. Rabbits scamper and don’t rest. There is no balance.”

Every sentence Walking Bear said got progressively louder and his grip on her hand tightened. She began to be afraid. He was a big man and if he got out of control…

“Walking Bear, please,” she said as she tried to squirm her hand free of his.
 

“Look!” he shouted. “You’ll see it if you look!”

His voice had already carried to the nurse’s station and Nurse Coldwell had come at a run. “Walking Bear!” she yelled. “Let Dolly go!”

Walking Bear released Dolly. He stood and turned to face Nurse Coldwell. He towered over the shorter nurse, his shoulders still powerful despite his age. His face was a confused mixture of fear and anger. “I’m sorry. But the animals… there is something wrong.”

Strange outbursts from patients were just another part of the day at Elysian. While Walking Bear wasn’t one of the regulars, the staff’s training kicked in no matter who was involved. Two other, larger male nurses followed in Nurse Coldwell’s wake. Walking Bear’s jaw went slack, and he looked like a child who realized his last tantrum had crossed the line. He raised his hands waist high.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

The male nurses stopped on either side of him. Their eyes darted from Walking Bear to Nurse Coldwell and back, waiting for the order to restrain.

“Why don’t we go back to your room to relax, Walking Bear,” Nurse Coldwell said. Her tone was a command, not an invitation.

“No problem,” Walking Bear said. He left the day room, head hung, with the two male nurses in tow.

Dolly watched the episode with distress. Walking Bear might have had a few delusions about his pseudo-Indian heritage, but in all her time at Elysian, she had never seen him agitated or even hint at becoming violent. His perception of a connection with the local wildlife’s consciousness was harmless. Walking Bear was one of the few here she could count on to have a clear head.
 

Why did he have to do this on a morning when she felt so wonderful? Was there some fixed amount of mental health available at the home? When she felt great, did someone else have to feel bad? She certainly hoped not.

Shane Hudson missed all the morning’s day room excitement. Normally, he’d have been there by now, but this morning had unfolded as anything but normal.

Progressive nerve damage was a bitch. The affected extremities didn’t hurt or feel any different. As far as Shane could tell, his legs were as good as they had been when he played wide receiver for Citrus Glade High and when he stalked the humming factory floor at Apex Sugar. He just couldn’t move them well. His brain sent the command, but his damn legs screwed up the reception. At first it was weakness, then he needed the cane, then the goddamn chair. The quack doctor said it was just a matter of time before the dying nerves withered away completely and he would need to be lifted out of bed, unable to make the short walk to the bathroom or his chair. Then he’d be back where he started eight decades ago, laying in a bed, pissing into a diaper. Screw that.

This morning he pulled back the covers and stared down at his legs. Atrophy had worked its evil spell on the muscles and his legs were a shadow of their former glory. He reached down to swing them over the edge of the bed and to his shock, they beat him to it. The message to move got through and the two happy volunteers slid out over the side of the bed.

Shane stared in disbelief. The worthless sons of bitches were finally reporting for work? He reached down and felt the muscles in his calves. The flaccid little bastards had a little spring to them for once. He massaged them and felt a tingle, like when a limb wakes up from being asleep.
 

He scooted off the edge of the bed and gingerly stood, putting most of his weight on his arms. His legs didn’t do the usual spastic shudder. He lifted his hands from the bed, and shifted his weight to his feet. It wasn’t the normal, panicked, temporary return to verticality, but a stable, confident stance. He stretched to his full height and gave his knees a little flex.

Shane smiled. The old legs felt
good
. Not ready to kick the shit out of a lazy Apex employee
good
yet, but a hell of a lot better than yesterday, or even last month. Whatever brought this improvement on, he’d take more of it.

In the privacy of his room, he paced the floor with steady steps, reacquainting himself with life from five-foot-nine point of view. With every liberating stride he relived some slight he had to endure trapped in that goddamn wheeled prison of a chair. No more of that shit.

But when he left his room late that morning, after Walking Bear had returned to his, Shane rolled out as he had the day before, black oak cane across his lap. He wasn’t about to share the news of his rejuvenation with the inmates, or the staff of this dump. He’d nurture this cure on his own, hold the news to himself until the right moment to awaken the others to the triumphant return of Shane Hudson, and the distribution of some serious payback. With accrued interest.

Chapter Thirty-One

It wasn’t possible.

Felix Arroyo held an orange in his hand that could not be. This little green ball had been shriveled and undersized the day before yesterday, the leaves around it curled inward from the lack of moisture. If someone wanted pictures to define a failed crop, his acreage was the model grove.

But the fruit at his fingertips now was something completely different. The plump sphere had a healthy, waxy feel. The robust, dark green skin shined in the morning sunlight. The tree’s leaves opened wide, speckled with the daybreak’s dew. Felix ducked his head between the branches and drank in the tangy scent of ripening citrus. It had to be a dream.

The three-row swath of rejuvenated trees swept across his grove west of CR 12 to the far end of his property. Two-thirds of the way down, another north/south band of brighter green trees intersected the first at a right angle. In all, a quarter of his crop looked as healthy as an Ag college demonstration plot.

Carlina approached from between the verdant rows of trees. She carried a handful of bright wildflowers in her gloves.

“These are from the field across the property line,” she said. “Our good fortune spreads.”

“I don’t understand it,” Felix said. “I’m happy about it, but I don’t understand it.”

“How can you not understand? You see the healthy trees. They form the cross.” Carlina raised her flowers to the sky. “God is the source of our gift. Our prayers are answered.”

It was a miracle, Felix knew that. And as far as he knew, the Lord was the only source of those.

Reverend Wright awakened to his own religious epiphany that morning.
 

Years ago, a member with extra concrete and the skills to use it had built a little fountain in front of the church. Water poured over a low precipice and into a narrow white pool. It was supposed to represent the River Jordan, home of St. John’s baptisms, praise Jesus, but lately it looked more like a soupy green gash between the concrete walkways. The pump was weak and the level of chlorine it took to keep the algae down made entering the church akin to walking through a bleach factory. Dissolved minerals had stained the waterfall an ugly rust red.

When he arrived at the Congregation of God Church that morning, the water in the small fountain at the entrance sparkled crystal clear. Water flowed over a bone white waterfall and danced all the way to the drain at the pool’s end before its return trip. Reverend Wright had tried every remedy at Glades Hardware and nothing had restored the old fountain to its former glory. Yet somehow, overnight, it turned pristine.

As the Reverend stood in admiration of God’s wonders, Maribel Wilson walked up beside him. She added her off-key contribution to the choir each Sunday, but her collection basket contribution more than made up for it in the Reverend’s eyes. She only came up to the Reverend’s shoulder. She wore a wide straw hat and big sunglasses, the uniform of her morning constitutional.

“Reverend,” she said. “You cleaned the fountain.”

“As always,” he answered, “I cannot take credit for the work of the Lord. It was that way when I arrived.”

Maribel edged her glasses down her nose and gave the area a closer inspection. “Really? Wait, there’s something else…”

The Lord’s bounty did not stop at the fountain’s edge. The flowers along both sides of the walkways were in full bloom. The ornamental yews sprouted bright green growth. Between the fresh water and the budding bushes, the air had the sweet smell of spring.

“God has blessed us,” the Reverend said. “Just this Sunday the congregation prayed for the health of our church and our prayers have been answered.”

Maribel looked unconvinced. The Reverend knew even the most devout usually were. This backsliding society had so conditioned everyone to scientific explanations. The search for a rational, though reaching, alternative hypothesis always blunted the acceptance of miracles. Nonetheless, he certainly would not look at the Lord God’s handiwork as anything but divine.

“I am already filled with the fire of the spirit for this Sunday’s sermon,” the Reverend said.

Maribel voiced some encouraging words and continued her morning march through downtown.

The Reverend looked at the war memorial across the street, a bronze statue of a doughboy that paid honor to the county’s fallen dead in the Great War. The sparse grass at the statue’s sandy base had turned a luxuriant green. And it may have been his imagination, but the statue’s head had lost most of that mottled patina that made the soldier look like a leprosy victim. It shined with a ruddy, brown color.

The meaning could not be clearer. Like manna from heaven, like the destruction of the walls of Jericho, the condition of the memorial was a sign from God. Clearly the Congregation of God Church was the epicenter of the Lord’s blessing and from here it was spreading across town, first to a symbol of the righteous defenders of freedom, then further on to the current keepers of the faith. Even the most unrepentant would be unable to deny what their eyes saw. A great awakening was being visited upon the town, and Reverend Wright would be here to lead it.

He looked down toward Main Street and thought of the first change the upcoming awakening needed to sponsor. The eradication of the blasphemous Magic Shop.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Shane Hudson rolled into the day room. Chester Tobias and Denny Dean had the usual table with a mass of dominoes spread out between them. Shane took his spot at the table’s head.

“Doing okay, Shane?” Denny ventured. “Little late to the game this morning.”

“Never better,” Shane said. He meant it more than the two could know. He gave each a visual once over. “How you two feeling today?”

Chester gave his right shoulder a roll and winced. “Damn bursitis lit into me this morning. Woke me up about three a.m. Asked for a shot of something, but you know how that works around here.”

Shane turned his head to Denny, who looked flattered that he cared. “Not bad. Something in the breakfast gave my stomach the usual roll but the rest of me is fine.”

Well, whatever mojo Shane tapped into last night apparently wasn’t universal. He gave the room a quick sweep. Chief Stupid Bear wasn’t at his post for some reason, but a half dozen of what Shane called the Drool Patrol were out and about. Three of them looked, for the first time in ages, alert. Their eyes didn’t stare off into space. They moved from object to object, as if some long dormant recognition routine had been reactivated. One of the old geezers was actually watching TV, his head rolling in sync with the game show’s big flashing wheel as it spun for prizes.

So there were winners and losers in this recovery lottery. As long as he was one of the winners, he didn’t care about the rest of them. Well, he cared about Dolly Patterson. He’d be happy if she was on the loser list. That smug bitch could use a shot from the head of his cane, and once he was back on his feet, he’d be sure to give it to her.