Indigo Springs (25 page)

“Are you insane?” There was no force behind Jacks’s words.

“They already think he’s a killer,” Sahara said, tugging Mark inside. She called out, “Sheriff Lews? Pete?”

A muffled call came in response.

Sahara’s voice was thick with Siren vibrations. “Mark says keep your distance and everyone will be fine.” She slammed the door and, coaxing Mrs. Skye away from the window, shut the curtains with a snap. “That’ll buy us some time to fix things.”

The old woman curled out of her grip, lifting Sahara’s fingers off her braceleted wrist with visible distaste. “By blaming him?” she said slowly.

Sahara ignored her. “Mark, go do some crazed gunman stuff. Make sure nobody can see inside. Block the back door. Don’t get shot.”

Wordlessly—eyes blank—Mark moved to comply.

“Kids,” Mrs. Skye objected, physically interposing her frail-looking body into Sahara’s path, “think about what you’re doing. Mark didn’t kill the Chief.”

“She’s right.” Astrid’s gut twisted as she watched Mark disappear upstairs. A smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and her ears rang from the sound of the shot. She was full of vitagua and the headache had returned full-force, gnawing at the right side of her head. “We can’t make him out to be some hostage-taking stalker type….”

Sahara groaned. “It’s just for a little while.”

“We can’t,” Astrid insisted.

“So…what? We let him go, he tells the truth, they bust in here and get contaminated by the spilled magic?”

“No…but when you say you think this is fixable…how? Jacks, what should we do?”

Jacks was staring at her, half-smiling, and Astrid remembered she was wearing the lipstick. She’d put it on before coming up to talk to Sahara. Had that only been an hour ago?

She rubbed her mouth fiercely, and Jacks looked around the room, taking in the spill and the body of his father.

“We do have to hide the magic before anyone else comes inside,” he said. “Saving Mark’s our second priority.”

“But how? How do we keep him out of trouble?”

“Yeah, smart guy—how?” Mrs. Skye crossed her arms.

“All I know is we can’t let half the town troop through this mess and get contaminated.”

“Right,” Sahara sneered. “Contamination’s so awful.”

Astrid shuddered. “We clean up, then I’ll confess.”

“No,” Sahara objected.

Astrid paused, foundering on everything she knew, or would know. Confessing. When would that happen? And Sahara going away. She had to find out what triggered the departure—find out, and change things so she stayed. Jumbled knowledge assailed her, and she couldn’t sort through it. “Is someone crying? Is it me? Blood on my dress, freezing the birds—”

“Hey, focus.” Sahara snapped her fingers. Terrible knowledge shimmered, just within reach…then slipped away.

“More people,” said Mrs. Skye as car doors slammed.

“I’ll get the kaleidoscope,” Sahara said, heading upstairs.

Astrid rushed to catch up, murmuring: “We ought to have Mark let Mrs. Skye go.”

“And have her tell them
you
killed the Chief?”

“Ask her to keep quiet.”

“Too risky. She’s pissed at us, didn’t you notice?”

“Use the mermaid—zap her.”

“She’s practically deaf.” Sahara shook her head. “Siren doesn’t work on her.”

“What?”

“The hearing aid—she’s partly deaf. Remember it didn’t work through the phone, either? It doesn’t work, I’ve tried.”

Astrid felt a pang of disappointment—she’d believed Sahara had scruples about brainwashing the old woman.

“I’ll fix it, Astrid. I promised, didn’t I?”

“Don’t bark at me. It’s not my fault.”

“So it’s mine?” Sahara said.

Yes, she thought, and tension boiled between them until Astrid grabbed the kaleidoscope, leaving the question hanging. She peered through the house walls to the street. “Three squad cars,” she reported. “The whole Sheriff’s Department. Pete Lews is knocking on doors. Evacuating the neighborhood? I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Don’t you know anything that will help clear away all the vitagua we’ve spilled?”

You spilled, Astrid thought, but anger wouldn’t help. “It’s been weeks since I remembered anything new.”

“Okay. Let’s think—oh! Is there anything of Albert’s left in the house? Something you haven’t already touched?”

“I doubt it,” Astrid said. She started opening her dresser drawers, poking through her tools and treasures. As the items passed through her hands, pieces of insight came to her—thoughts about the objects’ history, old memories of occasions when she’d worn them, ideas about what kind of chantments they’d make—

“Nothing?” Sahara asked.

“Not yet.” She thumbed through the clothes in her closet, dragging her finger over the hangers. Nothing. “Where’s that dulcimer Ev gave me?”

“Ahh.” Sahara chewed her lip. “Jacks was playing with it on the back steps yesterday.”

“Did he bring it inside?”

“Astrid, you already touched it.”

“Gotta try.” She thundered back downstairs, only to be brought up short by the sight of Mrs. Skye draping a paint-spattered sheet over Chief Lee’s corpse. Shaking, she slipped into the kitchen, where Mark was heaving the refrigerator up against the back door. He had taped black garbage bags over the windows, cutting them to fit precisely. The darkened room was already getting stuffy.

Astrid said, “Jacks, where’s the dulcimer?”

He pointed, and Astrid snatched it up, squeezing both the mallets in one palm, straining. She had a brief sense of her mother, pregnant, bored, and bedridden.

“Jacks, do you have anything of Albert’s?” Astrid asked. “Anyone? Patience, he ever give you anything?”

They shook their heads, but something flickered over Sahara’s face.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“We’re in trouble here, Princess. Give it up.”

“I just thought…” She jerked a thumb in the direction of Albert’s funeral urn.

“Oh,” Astrid said, voice small.

“No,” Jacks said. “You don’t have to, Astrid.”

But she did.

Face pallid, Jacks handed over the urn. Astrid knelt on the floor, unscrewing the top. The mouth of the aspen container was as wide as her wrist. She slid her fingers inside, straining to just brush the ashes, to disturb them as little as possible. Grit raked under her nails.

“Is it working?” Sahara asked.

“Hush,” Astrid said, and then the past swept her away.

She was at Liv Celedine’s place, planting petunias for an upcoming wedding. It was the day before Albert was sentenced for the house-renting swindle, the last time they ever tended a garden together.

They had been trying not to fight. Albert didn’t want to leave Astrid in charge of the magical spring.

They were almost done when a tree swallow swooped out of the ravine and hit Liv’s front window.

“And then you bleed out,” Astrid had said, irrationally, scooping up the bird. The vitagua in the unreal grumbled a suggestion, and she scratched off a scab on her wrist. Pooling vitagua in her hands, she immersed the corpse. Blue steam rose from her cupped palms.

“What the hell?” Dad was at her side, eyes wild as he looked around for witnesses.

“He doesn’t have to die,” Astrid had mumbled as she chilled the vitagua-soaked bird. Now it was iced: a faceted lump the size of a bar of soap that threw sparkles of reflected blue light around the yard.

Dad threw a rag over her hand, hiding the lump of ice.

“Dammit, kid! What’re we supposed to do with that? Stick it in the freezer for the witch-burners to find?”

“Dad—”

“That’s it, Astrid. No more improvising.”

She laughed. “Stop me.”

He slapped her, hard, horror on his face mirroring the anger rising within her.

She had knelt, sweeping dust off the sidewalk.

“Bundle…,” Albert pleaded.

She pulled on the unreal. Vitagua seeped out of the concrete, a perfect circular puddle with a circumference just wider than the cube of iced bird. “Live,” she said, and birdsong rang through the vitagua. She slid the cube into the pool and it vanished, leaving the circle of vitagua in the sidewalk.

“Astrid!”

“Okay, go back,” she said.

The puddle glugged. The grumbles hummed and murmured.

Nothing happened.

She put her hand on the puddle. “Go,” she said again, and the grumbles disagreed. They’d waited so long. Their time was approaching, why wait, why wait?…

“Someone’s coming,” Dad said, voice desperate. Astrid pushed, trying to force the vitagua to vanish. And it did. There was a crackle and the puddle was gone, replaced by broken chunks of sidewalk.

Albert let out a long trembly breath.

Then the ground began to shake. The gazebo wobbled, tumbling roses to the ground. There was a low rumble that became a roar. Astrid and her father were thrown to the ground.

I did this, Astrid thought. Did I just get us both killed? But the quake stilled a moment later. Dad hobbled to her side, favoring his ankle.

“You okay?”

She felt tears threatening. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“I’m gonna check on Miz Celedine,” he said, staggering to the house.

Sirens began to wail across the ravine. How many people had been hurt by the earthquake…had she hurt?

A horn blared nearby and she sprinted to the road. What she saw there chilled her heart: a postal service van had struck a blue sedan.

Ma, Astrid thought, but she could see the drivers climbing out, one uniformed postman and old Reff Jundy. They were laughing, clearly okay.

It could have been Ma, she thought, and she turned back to the Celedine place. Albert was pressing a bloodied rag to Liv’s forehead.

He’d been right all along. She wasn’t careful enough.

“I have to quit,” she murmured.

You can’t quit, the grumbles said. She’d been initiated—there was no way to undo that. Till death do us part…

She was pacing when her father returned. “I have to quit.”

“Calm down, Bundle,” he’d said. “You just need to learn some caution.”

“If I can hear the vitagua, I’ll want to improvise,” she said. “You never wanted me to be the chanter, Dad.”

“Astie, Bundle—who would I find to take your place?”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone in jail.”

He sucked on his lips, coloring. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, infuriatingly reasonable. “If I found someone, and initiated them…what if they were more powerful than you? How scared would they be?”

“I don’t care,” Astrid said, thinking of the mangled mail truck. “I could’ve killed someone!”

“Don’t panic on me,” Albert said. “You just do things how I showed you—”

“I can’t!”

“Bun, I’m scared too. Granny couldn’t do half what you can with magic. And you’re still young, still learning. How’m I supposed to teach you? But quitting—”

“I’ll hurt someone.” She wiped her nose.

“Bundle…”

“Stop calling me that!”

Albert put his dirty hands on her shoulders. “I been careful about the magic all my life. Never had more than a few drops of spirit blood in me at once. Granny Almore, she took in the stuff by the quart, and it made her peculiar. She knew things, Astrid. Told me once I’d die a-suffering…I never figured it was good to know so much.”

“You’ll be in terrible pain at the end,” young Astrid agreed, and then moaned as she heard her own words. “Don’t you see? I can’t stop myself.”

Dad’s mouth worked soundlessly for a second. “I know it’s going to be hard for you. I should’ve done better. Should have risked it maybe, peeked at what’s to come…”

Her words came in bursts between dry sobs. “It doesn’t—matter because I’m—quitting!”

“Bundle, I know you end up the well wizard. I know. You can’t back out—”

“Stop me.” She yanked free, backing up against the remains of the gazebo. With the nails of her right hand she scratched hard, digging into the flesh of her left arm. When the skin broke and the vitagua welled up, she grabbed the only thing she could think of, the thick gold twist of her three-part dragon earring. She pulled and vitagua flowed into its gold coils. “I’m forgetting it all, Dad.”

“You can’t hide from this.”

She’d bellowed then. “Find someone else!”

“Okay,” he said, putting up his free hand in surrender. “Okay, Astrid. I’ll get someone. You don’t—”

She hadn’t listened. There was one way out. She finished making the chantment, feeding vitagua into it, then releasing the dragon from the pinch of her finger and thumb. As her hand dropped to her side, everything she knew about magic drained out, like water soaking into a washrag. She wiped her teary eyes, mumbling. “Magic magic, go away.”