Indigo Springs (29 page)

“No,” Sahara said.

Astrid tried to close his eyes and then pulled back, horrified, as she streaked blood over his face.

“Astrid, we have to get out of here.”

“Jacks,” she said, trying to shake him awake. Stupid skinny runner, she’d thought, when Albert first introduced them. He’d been on the track team. He’d been quiet and polite, hard to hate.

Jacks had taught her to ride and raft. He’d taken her out caving for her birthday last year. He’d driven her to Ev’s house from the hospital the night Albert died. He’d helped her move into and then out of Jemmy’s place.

“Albert keeps trying to get you to leave town,” she murmured, brushing his forehead with the back of her hand. She felt like she was falling into a well of ice water. “He gives you the watch. He tries to save you.”

She sobbed. “You were right about Elizabeth. It was important, Jacks, I just didn’t see…”

“Astrid.” Sahara shook her shoulder. “Snap out of it.”

She jerked away, furious. “He loved me. He always—”

“Astrid, baby…”

“Don’t call me that.” Wiping her nose, she hunched over him, pressing her face to his, kissing his limp mouth. “I’m sorry, Jacks, don’t go, please don’t…” Her eyes snapped open.

“What is it?” Sahara said.

“Now’s when I remembered the dead birds at Albert’s feet,” Astrid said.

“What?”

She got up hurriedly. “He’s not quite gone.”

“What? He is, honey, he’s dead,” Sahara said.

“Help me pick him up.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Don’t call me that!”

“There’s no time,” Sahara said. “The house is falling apart. We have to make a run for it.”

“Pick him up!” Astrid shouted. She lifted Jacks under his shoulders, struggling to stand.

Dropping the pillowcase full of chantments, Sahara took his feet. “What’re we supposed to do?”

“Remember Elizabeth?” They bore Jacks’s body down the hall, back to the vitagua frozen in the corner of the laundry room. Laying him out on the floor, Astrid blew on the ice and it melted again. With a small come-hither twitch of her fingers she drew the vitagua under Jacks.

“Elizabeth Walks-in-Shadow? What about her?”

“She was enclosed in vitagua by her apprentice. She was dead, but she hadn’t quite died.”

“Astrid.”

“I’ll do anything,” she begged.

“What are you doing?” Sahara said.

“I practiced on animals when I was a kid,” she told Jacks. “The grumbles knew this would happen….”

They wanted him to die…. They knew I’d do anything.

Yes…this was right. Jacks’s arms flopped outward, and for a second he looked like a kid learning to float on his back. He sank into the liquid as Astrid brought the temperature of the magic down.

His eyes opened.

“It’s going to be okay,” she promised, and kissed him.

Jacks sighed, once, a long rattling exhalation, just as his face went under. Astrid froze the vitagua around him in an inch-thick layer. “Ice sculpture. Mixed media, vitagua and artist,” she said, and giggled.

“Don’t you go hysterical on me,” Sahara warned.

Astrid pulled the paintbrush out of her hair. Laying her hand against the ice of his blue-cased fingers, she chanted it. “Something to connect us. Jacks, please, let me keep something of you.”

Jacks did not react. As the vitagua surrounding him hardened from slush to ice it sparkled, diamond hard.

“Then I slide him into the unreal,” Astrid murmured to the floes. She pushed, hard, and the statue of Jacks slid to the crack in the wall, where all the frozen vitagua lay waiting to break through to the real. Ice stuck to ice as he made contact.

Astrid leaned a cheek against the ice. “If you stay exposed, they’ll come and burn you. You waited so long to get loose; do you want to throw it away?”

Murmurs came back to her from the ice. Reluctance, anger. Jacks was a fyrechild, the enemy.

“I’ll do anything,” she begged. “Please, keep him safe. I’ll bring the thaw. I’ll melt it all.”

After a second, the vein of ice vanished, taking Jacks with it. Broken bricks and cement were all that remained.

“Astrid?” Sahara’s alchemized fingers fell on her shoulder.

Astrid worked her mouth open and shut. “Then I say what do you think Jacks was trying to tell me? About Albert’s wedding? And you say—”

“It’s when he fell in love with you, dope,” Sahara said. Tears sparkled in her eyes but did not fall. “I guess it’s just you and me now, huh?”

Squeezing her paintbrush chantment, Astrid sobbed.

There was no time to mourn.

She had dropped her head onto Sahara’s shoulder to weep, but within seconds Sahara pulled away. “Listen, we have to escape before they shoot someone else.”

“Escape? But Jacks—”

“Honey, I know. But the house is falling. It’s time to go.”

It was true. Mildew bloomed across the walls as the pipes rusted and ruptured. Underfoot, chunks of concrete cracked through the linoleum.

“We need chantments,” Sahara said.

Astrid gulped. Could she have foreseen Jacks being shot? If she could work out why Sahara was supposed to leave, she could do better, prevent it….

I know we fight, she thought. All I have to do is not fight her. Go along with whatever she says, siphon her next time she’s sleeping.

The grumbles howled with laughter.

“No fight, no breakup,” she said. “No fight—”

“You say something?” Sahara was grabbing up random items, stuffing them in the pillowcase as she towed Astrid toward the stairs. They shuffled along, Sahara looting, Astrid in tears, and as they got to the foot of the steps a blast of water hammered them.

Mrs. Skye had coaxed Mark out of hiding. Eyes bulbous, his damp skin patterned in red and black, he played the firehose cup over the dying fires.

“I’ve got the saltshaker,” said Mrs. Skye.

Astrid turned her face to the wall, shivering.

“It’s okay, Pat—it’s too late,” Sahara said.

“Too late?” Mrs. Skye took in the bloodstains on them both. “Stupid kids. Is he dead?”

“It’s not Astrid’s fault,” Sahara said.

“Whose is it, then—yours?”

“Can we focus on getting away? Come on, Astrid, you made things, right, for our escape?”

No fight, no breakup. Head lowered, Astrid pointed at a yellow throw rug. “It’s a flying carpet.”

“That’s you and me, then.” Sahara stepped on the carpet, pulling Astrid with her. “Pat, take Mark out the front door.”

“Part of gang,” Mark gurgled.

“Not on your life,” Sahara said. The carpet rose off the floor—one inch, then two…

“There’s vitagua here.” Astrid stepped off. She could sense it nearby, calling. She pulled, and the freezer door flew open as if punched. Vitagua rose from within. Patterflam kicked it shut, she thought.

“Fabulous,” Sahara groaned. “Can you absorb it?”

Astrid reached for the fluid, then quailed. “Fighting…can’t…”

“We aren’t fighting.” Sahara took her by the shoulders. “Astrid, if you leave the vitagua here, people will get contaminated, right?”

No fight, no breakup. Even so: “You want to get away with as much magic as I can carry.”

There was a crash upstairs. Mark flinched.

“Go on.” Sahara brushed a curl off her smoke-streaked forehead. “You know you can’t say no.”

Stretching out her hands, Astrid drew in the vitagua. The grumbles became a riot of shouts. She kept on, drinking it in until liquid magic lay under her skin, within the folds of her brain, behind her toenails. Voices slashed at her and she screamed, flailing.

“I maxed out, Will,” she wailed. “No more, don’t make me.”

“It’s okay,” Sahara said. “Nobody’s forcing you.”

“Liar.” She tried to focus on the future, the next few minutes. The cacophony chattered about everything, too many things.

“No more,” she moaned, covering her ears.

Sahara crawled to the freezer, thrusting her hands into the fluid.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Skye demanded.

“Helping.” Sahara’s eyes darkened, and the patterns in her hair clarified. Her arms began to tuft, the hairs on her wrists fluffing into pinfeathers.

“Owwww,” Sahara said happily.

No. Astrid froze the last of the vitagua solid, so it was too cold to flow through skin. She ended up holding an icicle the size of a baseball bat.

“Jesus, Astrid, I’m trying to help.”

“Now’s when I recognize the pattern,” Astrid said. “It’s turning you into a starling.”

Throwing back her head, Sahara buzzed with birdy laughter. “It’s for the best. I feel great.”

Don’t fight. “You’re
changing
. This is the part where I remind you—”

“I don’t care about some curse! Patterflam’s dead, the Chief’s dead. Astrid, this is magic. We’ll fix the ozone layer, reforest the Amazon. Jacks would have wanted—”

“Leave Jacks out of this.” Icy tears froze her eyelashes. She heard Jacks’s voice among the grumbles, imagined him behind her, ready to catch her if she lost her balance. But he wasn’t; if she fell, she’d end up on her butt. She moved without premeditation, tucking the paintbrush into her hair, wishing him back, wishing for help. Her fingernails changed to brushtips.

Images bloomed on the walls—Sahara, at the lip of a volcano. Half animal and half woman, she had mad eyes, starling wings, and red-tipped talons.

“This is what you become,” Astrid said. The house creaked. Plaster rained down from above.

“Astrid,” Sahara said soothingly. “I know this is my fault. I should have been more discreet. But if we get out of here with enough magic to protect ourselves, I’ll make it all up to you.”

“How could anything make up—?”

“It’s just the two of us now.” She stroked Astrid’s cheek. “I know what you need, what you’ve always—”

“I need Daddy,” she said. “I need Ma and Jacks.”

“You need
me
.” Sahara leaned close. “The important thing is us.”

No fight, no breakup. Astrid trembled. “You, me, and the spirit water?”

“Darling, you’ve wanted me since grade school.”

Since forever. “You’re saying—you’ll love me, right, if I need you to?”

“Oh, my euphemistic darling. I’ll fuck you brainless.” Sahara kissed her on the mouth with chilly, beak-hard lips. Their tongues met for an instant.

She pulled back with a gleeful inhuman wink.

Astrid straightened, stunned, sucking wind. Crashes sounded above them in the attic—termites were reducing the beams of the roof to powder.

Satisfied, Sahara put on Siren. “Mark?”

“No!” Mrs. Skye bellowed. “You said you wouldn’t do this again!”

“Gotta hide this last bit of magic, Pat. Mark, come here.”

Face slack, Mark marched forward. Mrs. Skye couldn’t hold him. She looked at Astrid, pleading.

“And here’s where it finally comes apart,” Astrid said. She snatched the mermaid from Sahara’s chest, snapping its chain with one jerk of her work-muscled arm.

“Run!” Astrid screamed, and Mark stumbled backwards.

Sahara gaped at Astrid, eyes brimming. She tore a fistful of hair—hair mixed with feathers—out of her scalp. A furious, buzzing
snnk-snnk
hummed in her throat.

“Sahara, I’m sorry, but—”

“Don’t. You don’t want me, that’s your choice.”

“Because you couldn’t buy me off with sex? Sahara—”

“Give me the mermaid.” Sahara grabbed, and Astrid pushed her away with the frozen club of vitagua.

“Sahara, stop it.”

“Give me Siren!”

“I can’t.”

With a shriek Sahara pounced on the icicle instead, wresting it out of Astrid’s hand. She smashed it into the banister, breaking off a sharp edge, and then drove the point into Mrs. Skye’s chest. The old woman collapsed, and Sahara kept pushing.

“The mermaid, Astrid, now.”

“Now’s when I finally tell you no.” Cold tears ran down her face as Astrid melted the icicle embedded in Mrs. Skye’s chest. Blood and vitagua poured down the old lady’s blouse. For a dreadful moment, Astrid thought she had a third death on her hands.

No, she thought, she’s breathing….

Sahara pounced on the magic saltshaker. “She doesn’t have to die, Astrid.”

Grumbles jabbered, making her head ache. “Is this where I take that from you?”

“It will heal her, right?” Sahara held it up. “Trade it for the mermaid.”

“No, Sahara,” Astrid repeated. It was just as hard the second time.

“Maybe you think she might as well die. She is cursed, after all.”

“Nobody else dies.” Astrid pulled on the vitagua in Sahara’s wrist, upending the shaker over Mrs. Skye. Bright healing stars drifted downward from the chantment. The ugly blue wound in the old lady’s chest closed itself.

Sahara hurled the saltshaker away. It fell against a smoldering pile of wood stakes and melted, filling the air with the smell of burnt lilacs.

I could hold you, Astrid thought, and what hurt the most was she suddenly didn’t want to. She released the vitagua. Sahara rubbed her hand.

“Go,” Astrid told her.

Mrs. Skye groaned, folding over onto herself.

“Another contaminated victim,” Sahara huffed, stepping onto the magic carpet. “You saved her life? So what?”

“I save her?” Astrid asked. “Has that happened yet?”

Smirking, Sahara stamped on the carpet. It rose, lifting her up the stairs. She maneuvered it through a widening gap in the roof and was gone.

She didn’t say good-bye.

“Cursed,” Mrs. Skye rasped as Astrid watched Sahara fly away. Her face was growing whiskers, a snout. A black bear? “I’m cursed.”

“No,” Astrid whispered. “I fixed you. If I could…Jacks? Did I do something? Did I save her?”

Smudged paint ran over the freezer. Staring at the images, Astrid reached out to the spirit water on the floor as Mrs. Skye continued to change, her canines getting longer, her hands becoming paws.

She traced the vitagua around Mrs. Skye’s bracelets.

“Astrid?”

“You’ll be okay,” she said, concentrating. It was like chanting anything—instead of binding magic into an object, though, she was sliding the chantments into the woman’s flesh, joining them.

Mrs. Skye seemed to grow, her limbs stretching waxily. Then she melted. Suddenly her face was Chinese, delicate and young, with wide, wise eyes.

No whiskers, no fur. She appeared human.

“Mrs. Skye?”

The goddess gaped, touching her face. “What happened?”

“I meant to do your bracelets,” Astrid said. “I forgot you had the lipstick.”

Blinking, Patience became misty. She tumbled past the freezer, sliding through it as if it wasn’t there. She solidified, and her features changed again. “I can’t control it.”

Astrid stared at the radiant woman beside her. “There was never a normal life, was there? Now was when I realized there was never any hope I’d be able to hide being the spring-tapper. I screwed up.”

Patience tugged on her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We ask you to leave us,” Astrid said. “But you don’t trust us to do the right thing, do you? You feel responsible.”

“Kid, if you’re going to run…”

“I don’t run for months.”

“We can’t stay.”

She had let Sahara go. Had wanted her to leave. Despair rose in her. “Let the house fall.”

Patience grunted, sounding like a cranky old woman. “This is no time for suicide fantasies.”

“Mark was gone. There wasn’t anybody left for you to protect, Patience.”

“I’m not leaving you here to get crushed, kid.”

Astrid sighed. “I could go into the unreal; freeze over.”

“That would be avoiding the problem.”

“It’s what I did all summer.”

“Summer’s over.” Patience took her by the chin, holding her gaze as debris fell around them. “You think you lost everything? Think there’s nothing left?”

“Jacks died. I let Sahara go.”

“There’s always something else.”

Rubbing her face, Astrid nodded. “Ma. I have to go with her.”

“So let’s go,” Patience said. “There’s nothing else to do here, is there?”

“No,” Astrid said. “You were right. Summer’s over.”

They crept up the buckling basement steps, making their way across the living room floor. Its once-pink carpet was gray with mold. The shredding wallpaper stank of old glue and the fireplace was breaking into dust. Plaster dropped from above and Astrid heard sizzling inside the walls.

“Bad wiring, bad plumbing.” She stubbed her toe on a hunk of molding. “Bad Astrid.”

“Keep going.” Patience tugged her away from the stairwell. Was it yesterday that they’d moved in?

“When did Ma attack Olive?”

They reached the half-open front door, with its rotten, sagging frame. Patience pressed her against a wall.

“We’re coming out!” she yelled. “Don’t shoot!”

A nova of spotlights shone on the porch. Outside, soldiers were shouting. One of them—Roche probably—had a bullhorn. “Hold your fire, you morons, hold your fire!”

“Then we went to jail for a while,” Astrid said. “Believe it or not, you’re going to like it there.”

As they stepped out into the media glare, the house collapsed behind them.