Indigo Springs (13 page)

Jacks’s body bunched, as if he was going to put on a burst of speed and pass the turnoff. Then his tire slid, and he had to brake.

Astrid stopped beside him. “I guess we’re here?”

“I guess,” Jacks grunted. They pushed the bikes to the gate and he punched a code into its electronic lock. The latch clunked.

“Chief gave you a code?” Astrid asked.

“Last time he started in on me about coming to work here.” He frowned at the two-story brick factory. “I keep telling him to sell the place and retire.”

Stubbornness is a family trait, Astrid thought. “Aren’t you afraid we’ll bump into him?”

“Doesn’t seem likely, the way my luck’s running.” Even so, he didn’t object when Astrid chose to push her bike all the way around to the back, out of sight of the road.

Peeling off her helmet, she eyed the building. oregon bottleworks, est. 1812, was painted on a sign hung at roof level; the letters looked newly retouched.

“We going in?”

“That I don’t have a key for, but there’s a ladder to the roof. Want to see?” He trotted to the corner, peeking around in a way that suggested he was more spooked than he’d admit by the prospect of seeing his father.

Astrid followed, expecting to find a fire escape. Instead Jacks was halfway up an aluminum ladder with i.s.f.d. painted on every other rung. Up top, she found a tar-and-gravel roof punctuated by humps of moss. Rain-bleached playing cards, beer bottles, and poker chips were scattered among the rocks. Jacks lifted a blue tarp that lay flat in a corner, revealing a card table underneath.

“Dad has poker games up here in the summer sometimes.”

“That’s funny,” she said. “I knew you played, but I didn’t know he does.”

“Dad was the one who taught me. Manly arts are required learning for the Glade men.”

“Poker’s manly, huh? But you don’t play together, you and him.”

“Not in ages,” he agreed, letting the tarp fall.

Astrid nudged a beer bottle with her toe. Much of what Jacks did was an obvious reaction to the Chief’s values: embracing his mother’s peacenik politics, refusing to hunt or fish. A natural athlete, he had shunned team sports, depriving his father of a football or baseball star to brag about. Instead he favored uncompetitive pursuits like hiking and rock climbing. His friends were all good guys, but they too might have been hand-picked to annoy the Chief. Unemployed stoners, Lee had called them once.

Unemployed stoners. She was suddenly angry. Woolly-headed nature freaks. That ol’ drunk Al Lethewood.

“What do you think of the view?” Jacks said.

“We’re on the Bluffs,” she answered, surprised. A stand of wood sheltered the factory road. It hid the near side of town, the part that was tucked against the low edge of Indigo Creek and the ravine. Across the ravine the land rose again, and Astrid could see the steeples of the Catholic and Baptist churches, the courthouse with its scaffold-encrusted dome, the beige-and-yellow block of the high school. A tall rocket-shaped slide poked up above a line of maple trees, marking a playground where Albert had taken her as a kid. Flags drooped from poles here and there; the breeze was too gentle to unfurl them. Blue mail trucks hunkered around Ev’s post office, which in turn was dwarfed by the fire hall’s four-story training tower.

“Why did you quit the Fire Department, Jacks?”

He kicked a bottle over the edge of the roof. “You ever wonder how the town can afford six firefighters and a truck? The Sheriff’s Department has two deputies.”

“Never considered it,” she admitted.

“I wondered. I was in the fire hall, where the records live, so I had a look. I found out the building was bequeathed to the volunteer fire squad of the day—not the town, as you’d expect—in the eighteen hundreds.”

“So?”

“That was right after their chief dropped the investigation into the fire at that Native potlatch.”

He was watching her face carefully, trying to look neutral, but Astrid could sense his tension.

“Okay, I admit it’s suspicious. Who did the bequeathing?”

Right answer—he relaxed a hair. “The name on the records was Lionel Sparks.”

“Never heard of him.”

He pointed up at the fire hall. “He owned that hill and all the timber rights for fifty miles in every direction. Pillar of the community. The sort of founding father libraries and highways get named after.”

“Like I said, never heard of him.”

“I went to Kettle Falls and Wallowa. He’s all over their historical records. Ran a lumber mill, hired hundreds, blah blah blah. Union-buster too—he had this crew of thugs who burned out a labor meeting once.”

“Burned out. You think they set the potlatch fire?”

“It’s suggestive, isn’t it?”

“Jacks, I’m having trouble seeing why the Chief would care about any of this. It can’t affect the department’s reputation now.”

“The story goes that twenty years after the potlatch fire, one of the survivors started making trouble. Said she could prove the fire was arson. She disappeared.”

“Which still sounds like ancient history.”

“My great-great-great-grandfather Glade gave Lionel and his firebugs an alibi for the night this witness vanished. Sparks probably had her killed—”

“Or maybe just run out of town,” Astrid said.

“Either way. The great-Grandchief lied, and ten years later Lionel died and left the department an endowment.”

“Endowment?”

“Enough to run the department pretty much forever, salaries and all…as long as they invested well and raised money to keep up with inflation and capital costs.”

“It was a payoff?” Astrid asked.

“Huge payoff.”

“That is awfully ugly.” She scratched her head. “Still, Jacks—”

“What?” His voice was sharp.

“You know your dad isn’t my favorite person, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And I understand why you’d be mad—”

“Try sickened, Astrid.”

“Sickened, then, if your ancestors covered up a bunch of murders and got paid for it.”

“Are you saying that’s not the logical conclusion?”

“I’m saying what could the Chief do about it now? It’s over a century ago.”

“He’s damned well making sure it stays buried in the past, that’s what.”

She slipped an arm around him and squeezed. “Albert and I weren’t speaking much before he died. I don’t know what happened—”

“Maybe if you keep gardening, you’ll find out.”

“Maybe. My point is that if anything happens to Lee, you could find yourself wishing—”

“Dad’s indestructible.”

“He runs into burning buildings for a living.”

“For fun,” he grunted.

“As for the bottle factory, if he wants you to have it, so what? You could turn the place into studios. The view…I had no idea you could see so far.”

“You sure you haven’t been out here before? Your amnesia…”

“It’s not amnesia,” she said, letting her hands rest on the roof. She felt no sense of her past, but as the metal flashing warmed under her skin, she did feel a thread of something else. “It’s an old building….”

“You can tell that just by looking,” Jacks said, and the sensation faded.

She brushed dust off her palms. “This is neat, Jacks, but I don’t see anything lucky around here. Are you sure it was the magic watch that brought us?”

“Must’ve—I hate this place.” Picking up a weathered tree branch, he staggered around the rooftop, pretending to dowse for water. “Did you ever want to move away?”

“Leave Indigo Springs? No.”

“I don’t either, you know. Want to leave.”

“What about school?”

“My scholarship applications keep going astray,” he said. “Maybe school’s not meant to be.”

“Meant to be,” she echoed skeptically.

“If you believe in magic, why not destiny?”

“You make your destiny,” she said.

“Is that your philosophy or did Sahara give it to you?” Avoiding her sharp glance, Jacks hurled the stick, bouncing it off the factory flagpole. “Sorry.”

“What is your problem with her?”

“She dumped you,” he said.

“We weren’t ever—”

“I saw you kissing,” he interrupted, “before she left.”

Astrid shut her eyes, letting the memory in just for an instant. Sahara in her Alpine Princess dress, the tiara on her head. The first kiss nothing more than a triumphant smack aimed at Astrid’s cheek and coming square on the lips instead. Shared glee at Sahara’s having won the crown, nothing more.

Mischief had risen in Sahara’s eyes. She’d kissed Astrid again…and suddenly they were making out. All her hopeless fantasies about necking with her best friend had come true. Her hands wrapped around Sahara’s waist and their tongues slid together. Astrid’s imagination leapt to the end of her favorite daydream, the one about the two of them living together. The rest of her body stayed closer to the moment, singing with desire as her hands inched up the bodice of the ballgown dress, toward her breasts….

But Mark Clumber’s voice had rumbled up the hallway, and when Astrid tried to pull Sahara away, to flee in the opposite direction, the mood passed.

Sahara had straightened her crown. “Wanna pick this up tomorrow?” she’d said. “I ought to give someone his walking papers.”

“Yes,” Astrid had said. “Oh, yes.”

But the next day Sahara was gone.

“She didn’t mean anything by it,” was all she could say now.

“Actually, Astrid, that’s my point,” Jacks said. “People were like toys to her even before she could use the magic mermaid to make them into her little puppets.”

“I don’t see you complaining about the lucky watch.”

“I’m not using the watch to warp people’s brains.”

“Jacks, the mermaid may be the only thing standing between Ma and a nervous breakdown. And it burns energy, just like the other chantments. Sahara won’t…”

Won’t what—start a cult? The grumbles mocked her.

“She’s not going to start a religion with it,” she said, feeling shivery and untruthful.

“I suppose you think she won’t split town either.”

“Sahara went to college, Jacks. It’s not a crime, it’s what’s you do. Grow up, go to school. She’s back now—”

“She came because she had nowhere to go. She’d be gone if not for the magic.”

“She’s been hurt. She needs to feel safe.”

“She needs to feel like the center of someone’s universe, Astrid, and you indulge her. Sooner or later she’ll find someone else to worship her, and then…”

“What?”

“She’ll fuck you over and leave again.” He hurled a stone, again hitting the pole.

Natural athlete, Astrid thought irrelevantly, shocked by his vehemence. The silence stretched, until finally she made herself laugh lightly. “You’re trying to distract me, Jacks. Did the watch bring us out here or not?”

“Maybe this is my idea of a cool date.” He kissed her hand, bowing extravagantly.

“Goof,” she said. “Come on, Jacks, perfect timing. Produce.”

He put a hand to his ear, as if listening for guidance…then pulled her from the edge, out of sight.

“Is it your dad?”

“Garbage truck.” He was speaking right into her ear, his voice low. He’d pulled her into a crouch, and one of his arms was over her shoulders.

“Jacks?”

“Yeah?”

“You basically own the place, right? We’re not trespassing.”

“Yes.”

“So why are we hiding?”

“Good point.” He didn’t let go, though, just looked at her steadily until she felt a little weak-kneed.

“Cut it out, Eligible,” she said, giving him a playful shove. They straightened up as the truck pulled in to collect the plant’s trash. Astrid raised a hand, trying to look less furtive, but the driver didn’t look up. The loader grabbed the glass factory’s Dumpster and flipped it, emptying the week’s trash with a bang.

“Look.” Jack pointed. A box had fallen out of the Dumpster, hitting the ground as the truck rumbled away down the factory road.

“Let’s go.” They descended the ladder, Astrid first. The box had tipped and spilled, revealing a collection of faded toys: action figures, a six-gun, a plastic box full of polished stones, and a rusty tractor. “Dad kept the toys around for when he had to bring me to work. He must’ve tossed them.”

“Maybe he’s given up on you taking over.”

“Never.” He was looking at her expectantly.

“What?” she said.

“Are they chantments?”

“Oh.” She touched them one at a time, dropping one of the stones with a hiss of indrawn breath when it turned out to be sea-glass.

“Cut yourself?”

“No. Vitagua doesn’t like sea-glass. Don’t ask me why. Albert didn’t tell me yet.”

“Should I throw it out?” He picked it up, brushing away a caked-on bit of grit.

“No, it could be useful. Maybe it’s why the watch brought us here.” He’s uncontaminated, she thought as Jacks rolled it on his palm. Dad had checked her for contamination before making her his apprentice. Maybe…

She felt a twinge of unease at even considering Jacks as her apprentice. What would Sahara say?

No. It wasn’t fair to ask, not with Lee trying to stick Jacks with the Fire Department.

“Some treasure.” He stuck it in his shirt pocket. “Rubble that hurts you and no magic toys.”

She shook her head. “Albert used sea-glass in my initiation. Maybe it means I should get an apprentice.”

“Figure out what you’re doing before you go teaching anyone else, okay?” Her fingertips were burn-reddened where she had touched the piece of glass; Jacks took her hand, examining them professionally.

“Albert and I played poker sometimes, you know? Just penny stakes, but—”

“Was he any good?”

He kissed the burns and released her. “So-so. His luck was terrible, but the man could definitely bluff.”

She hugged him then, blushing, before tossing the remaining toys back in the garbage.

They were almost back to the highway when Astrid’s mobile rang.

It was Sahara. “Where are you guys?”

“Nowhere much,” Astrid answered, and as Jacks braked and shot her a look of inquiry she mouthed,
The Princess.

“Can you meet me somewhere?”

“We’re headed home.”

“Not the house.” Sahara’s voice was taut with excitement…or tension? “Get Jacks to pick a site.”

“She wants us to meet her out in the middle of nowhere,” Astrid said.

He pointed to a gravel lane branching north. “Tell her we just reached the exit for Tishvale.”

“Sahara, you remember where Tishvale is?”

“The ghost town? Did the magic watch bring you there?”

“We just hit the exit when you called.”

“I’d say that’s a yes.”

Astrid said: “Do you remember how to get here?”

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

Jacks asked: “Has someone found out about us?”

Astrid’s heart pounded. “Sahara, are we busted?”

“Not by a long shot. Tell you everything when I get there.” With that, Sahara hung up.

Tishvale lay on the banks of Teale Creek, a fast-running stream that had hosted a momentary 1850s gold rush. Panners headed to California tried their luck up and down the creek, with enough initial success that a few cabins sprang up on the riverbank, along with a saloon and general store. The would-be founding father of the town, one Ernie Tish, had been raising money for a church when the gold vein they were mining was tapped out.

Astrid and Jacks parked the bikes and took a leisurely poke through the remains of the cabins. Overgrown and rotten, they were encrusted with the remnants of high school bush parties: bottles, cigarette butts, litter from spent fireworks, and even the occasional shotgun shell.

“What if we are busted?” Jacks said.

“Sahara said we weren’t.”

“If it happens one day, then.”

Astrid shuddered. “Dad got away with it his whole life. Why shouldn’t we?”

He didn’t answer, just glanced down the road, where Sahara was pulling up in Mark’s car.

“Well?” Jacks demanded as she parked and darted to her trunk, yanking out her laptop bag.

Sparkle from the backseat drew Astrid to the car. Cardboard boxes were jammed in the backseat, all brimming with garage sale junk—toys, old books, shoes, cassette tapes, dishes, a set of wax fruit, and clothes.

“What’s all this?” she said.

“Crap from Mrs. Skye’s basement,” Sahara said. “Guys, I’ve just been chatting online with Marlowe.”

Jack sat on the stump, frowning. “The woman from the newsgroup? The one whose chantment almost killed her?”

Sahara nodded. “Remember the posts dried up just as they got interesting?”

“How could we forget?” said Astrid. The trio of chantment-users had been discussing ways to use their chantments without draining a user’s “life force”—as Happypill had put it—when Eldergodz stopped posting. After that, the others agreed to move their conversation offlist.

“I’ve been surfing around looking for Marlowe and Happypill,” said Sahara. “I found an e-mail address, dropped her a message. She sent me back a Web address.”

“Let me guess,” Jacks said. “Chantments-dot-com.”

“Nah. It was one of those free pages with about five billion pop-up ads.”

“What did the page say?” Jacks asked.

“First it said Eldergodz was dead. That he stopped posting because he roasted to death in a fire at his pub…. I guess he was a bartender.”

“Dead?” Astrid said. Jacks’s hand tightened on hers.

“Yeah. Marlowe had autopsy photos.” Sahara grimaced. “Said if I was smart, I’d stop asking questions.”

“But of course, you weren’t smart,” Jacks said. “Why are we talking about this way out here?”

“After I blew off her suggestion to turn off my machine and walk away, Marlowe sent a link so we could chat directly. She told me the guys who got to Eldergodz got to her too. Her gas pipes blew up and the magic bookmark burned. She’s been homeless ever since. She’s totally paranoid…thinks whoever did it is still after her.”

“Witch-burners and chantment thieves,” Astrid said, quoting Albert. She pulled a ceramic sailboat out of one of Mrs. Skye’s boxes. “Maybe it’s true.”

“You didn’t tell her where we are?” Jacks said.

“No. No names, no locations, nothing,” Sahara said. “I did promise we’d mail a chantment to a friend of hers.”

“You promised what?”

Astrid dug at a scab on her knuckle, bringing vitagua to the surface of her skin and chanting the tacky sailboat statuette. Her headache diminished.

“Hey, Wizard, you with us here or are you just playing with the sparkly things?”

“I’m listening, Princess,” Astrid said.

“How could you make a promise like that?” Jacks demanded. “Without consulting us?”

“You weren’t around. Marlowe had fifteen minutes in some Internet café. She’s convinced Albert’s bad guys are chasing her, she lost everything she owns, and she wants some magic that’ll help her keep from getting murdered. Pardon me for making a judgment call.”

“It wasn’t your call to make,” he said. “Astrid?”

She sighed, not wanting to referee a fight, and examined the newly made chantment. The grumbles had whispered something about Aladdin’s lamp when she made it. You got a genie from that lamp if you cleaned it, she thought, rubbing a smear of dust off its sails.

She immediately felt her memory sharpening: every idea she’d had lately about work, the house, and the chantments fell into order, neat as books organized in a library. She knew who owed her money and how much, she thought of four more gardens where she and Dad had worked together in the past. The Albert memories came together like a jigsaw puzzle: there were still holes and gaps, things she didn’t know, but fresh details shone out.

Trivial facts—phone numbers, gardening articles she’d read, even years-old conversations—were all dusted off, handily at her command.

So was everything she knew about how Sahara’s mind worked. “Let’s hear her out,” she said to Jacks. “We aren’t out here in the middle of nowhere for no reason.”

“Right you are.” Sahara grinned. “I didn’t offer Marlowe a chantment for free.”

“No? What did we get besides a stranger who knows we can provide her with chantments?” Jacks asked.

“Marlowe was hoping these Internet buddies of hers could help her figure out how to run her chantment without frying herself. When they disappeared, she decided to take a risk. She bought a nice thick journal, stuck her bookmark in it, and asked it to cough up the answers on magic. She had a massive seizure, and ended up in hospital for a week. When she finally made it home, she found the journal had been filled with information about chantments.”

“There’s a book?” Jacks said.

“Magic lore,” Sahara said. “Instructions.”

“So…we get the book, she gets a chantment?” Astrid said hopefully.

“Ha,” Sahara said. “Don’t I wish. Marlowe scanned me one page as a sign of good faith. If we send a chantment care of her friend, she might send more.”

“Fantastic,” said Jacks. “Why not give her our address and ask her to move in?”

“Stow it, Eligible. Don’t you want to see the page?”

“Of course,” Astrid said.

“Good.” Sahara popped open her laptop and started booting. “Did I just see you make a chantment, Astrid?”

“I don’t think the sailboat uses much juice.”

“I brought the stash from home.”

“Let me try again.” She reached for another sparkly object—a beaded purse this time—from the boxes in the backseat. She chanted it, enjoying the rush of energy.

By now the computer was up and running. Sahara double-clicked on an icon and an image filled the screen—a primitive line drawing. Nonsense words were scrawled beneath it. Beneath those, typed text read “Phonetically spelled-out cantation for converting heat to magic.”

“Are those waves?” Astrid asked, flipping the purse chantment in her hand as she looked at the picture.

“Sand dunes, I think,” Jacks said. “See the curl here? It’s more evocative of sand. Is this a Native petroglyph?”

“Maybe if my risky little business arrangement works out with Marlowe, you’ll find out.” Sahara scrolled down, revealing more instructions. “First I hold the chantment in both hands and recite the text below the picture. Did you make something exciting, darling?”

Astrid handed it over. Sahara read the syllables, a mishmash of baby talk and Latin-toned phrases. The rhythms had the singsong lilt of the vitagua grumbles. As she finished, the air seemed to crackle, hazing ever so slightly and then clearing again.

“Okay,” she said. “What does this thing do?”

Astrid plucked a feather out of a tattered pillow resting atop one of Mrs. Skye’s other boxes. “Put the feather inside, close the purse, and then open it again.”

Sahara obeyed. As its clasp snapped shut, the purse bulged. When she opened it a sequined egg rolled out, bursting apart to reveal a full-grown goose sitting amid a pile of gold glitter.

Sahara flinched, startled, and the bird flew away, honking. “Geese and golden eggs. Very useful.”

“Do you feel tired?” Jacks turned from the petroglyphs on the laptop to close observation of Sahara as she transformed two more feathers, dumping the eggs on the hood of the car so the birds could hatch there.

“Nope,” she said. “Not tired, not hungry.”

He felt her forehead, then laid a finger on her throat. “Your temperature’s fine. Pulse seems normal.”

“Supposedly it converts ambient heat to magic,” Sahara said, tapping the laptop. “Does it seem any cooler?”

“Maybe,” said Astrid. “Do a few more?”

“Always happy to work a little sorcery,” Sahara said.

Astrid took a stone pestle from the box. Would it be safe to make three chantments if they shipped them out of town right away?

Sahara shoved another three feathers in the purse. Three more geese hatched and then flapped away. She reached for the pillow again, but Jacks stopped her.

“I feel fine, Eligible.”

“It is getting cold,” he said. And it was—they were exhaling clouds of mist, as if it was midwinter.

“Look,” Astrid said, pointing. Frost was spreading in a circle from Sahara’s feet. Water had condensed on the bumper of the car, and the air was noticeably chilled, as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud.

“It is drawing heat,” Sahara said, closing the laptop and tucking it into its bag. She grabbed a handful of feathers, then glanced at Jacks. “What do you think?”

“Sure,” he said. “Push it a little further.”

She did, closing the feathers into the purse and then opening it on an eruption of geese. They flapped out of the open mouth of the purse, flying in every direction, honking loudly as gold sequins pooled at her feet. The circle of frost on the ground spread, climbing up the tree trunks and silvering the log cabin walls. Astrid, Jacks, and Sahara began to shiver as a patch of Teale Creek froze over.

“I bet this is how Marlowe got discovered,” Jacks said. “If our yard starts freezing in June—”

“So maybe it’s not the most useful thing we ever learned—,” Sahara began.

“Maybe your Web buddy wants us to get caught.”

“She’s got a book, Astrid,” Sahara said. “A whole book. Think about how much we don’t know. Isn’t that worth a bit of risk?”

“Albert wouldn’t have thought so,” Astrid said, chanting the pestle. The circle of ice was still spreading, even though Sahara had stopped making geese. A breeze ruffled her hair.

“Maybe the next trick she teaches us will be more discreet,” Sahara said.

“Jacks?” Astrid said.

He pinched up a frozen chunk of moss. “It is risky. But I’d like to know more about what we’re doing.”

“So we’ll send her a chantment?” Sahara asked. “We’ll talk to her some more?”

“We’ll be very very careful,” Jacks said. “Nothing about who we are or where we live, nothing about Astrid making chantments.”

“Careful is my middle name,” Sahara said solemnly, and when both Jacks and Astrid laughed she looked hurt, just for a second, before joining in.

The ice on Teale Creek crackled; the air was warming.

“I guess the purse took all the heat it needed,” Jacks said.

“At least we know how to do something big, if we need to,” Sahara said.

“Let’s hope we never need to,” Astrid replied, gazing skyward. Far above them, the flock of geese had stopped its confused circling, forming a large
V
and following its leader north.