The Stargazers (17 page)

“Huh? Oh. I can’t see a thing in all this dark.
Where are the lights?
” The words lacked any of Ivy’s underlying pleasantness and warmth. And her speech was clumsy and slurred, as if she’d forgotten how to use her tongue.

“Well… the power’s still out from the earthquake,” said Tonya with a
note of concern in her voice. It was a
mazing that the girl could keep it together at all. Aster was about to faint from fright, and she was hidden behind a locked door. 

“I know about the earthquake, girl! Why don’t you fetch me a lantern then?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Quick footsteps retreated and Ivy’s feet moved closer to the basement door. A second later, the knob turned, but it was stopped in place by the bolt. Aster had never been more grateful for a locked door. She
had no idea how they
would explain their presence down here if Ivy discovered them.

Aster felt Ruby squeeze her wrist and the other girl made pointing and unlocking motions with her hand. Aster understood. Ivy had the key. This was confirmed by the jingle of a keychain on the other side of the door. Hot blood throbbed in Aster’s ears as her heart hammered away in her chest. They were stuck. It was too late for them to get down the stairs and hide without being heard.

Ruby uttered a minute squeak when the key slid home, but then their savior intervened. A yellow glow filled the kitchen. Tonya had returned with the lantern. “Here you go, Miss Ivy.  Is there anything else you need? There’s hot water in the heater for you to get a warm bath if you want me to run one for you.”

Ivy grunted. “Fine, do it. Go on.”

The key
slid back out of the lock and the heavy f
ootsteps f
aded toward the living room and eventually up
stairs. Aster and Ruby huddled together for a few minutes, clutching one another in their horror. Once they were sure no one was there, they arose and emerged from the basement.  After she shut the door, Ruby leaned against it and exhaled a shaky breath. “I normally get off on tempting fate, but that was way too close.”

“So you believe me then?”

Ruby nodded slowly. “Yeah…something’s not right.”

“What do you think she would
have done if she saw us?” Aster already had a good idea, but she wanted to hear the other girl say it.

“I don’t think she would have killed us, but we would have wished she had. I’ve been living with Ivy for awhile and I’ve seen her around town my whole life, so I know her. That
…
thing isn’t her.”

Aster sighed with relief. “What do we do now?”

“We go to bed and hope like hell she’s better in the morning. After that…” Ruby seemed at a loss.

Aster supposed there wasn’t much else they could do right now. It had been a very full and stressful day for everyone. While Ivy may have encountered something amiss up in the woods, they were too frightened and fatigued to do much about it now.

Arm in arm, the two girls climbed the stairs to their bedroom, tiptoeing past Ivy’s room.
Ruby guided her away from the squeakiest spots on the floor.
Once they were up on the third floor, they changed into pajamas and slid into their beds. A few minutes later and nowhere near sleep, Aster felt a nudge on her shoulder. Ruby stood over her with the big, dark eyes of a frightened child. “Do you mind if we shared beds for tonight?  I… I don’t want to be alone.”

Aster scooted over to make room and turned onto her side. Ruby got in, facing her and the two linked arms.
There was no more kissing that night, but
their contact seemed to create a circle of security, not unlike how she felt as a child when she’d snuggle against Dahlia after a nightmare. Ruby seemed to feel it too, because seconds later, she closed her eyes and not long after that her breathing slowed to a regular, sleeping rhythm that Aster followed into her own fitful sleep.

*
**

Oleander watched the two whores sleep with a disgusted sneer
.
She should have known the pink-haired tramp
would come over here and involve herself with another little slut just like her.
She could smell the hormones wafting off the two of them like sex stink. What would Lily make of this little development? If only she could send a portrait of this little love scene back to the old bat, just to break her heart.

But this ragamuffin girl seemed different
from the other wilting flowers in this house.
Her boyish haircut and scarred arms were like armor, which meant she was probably as malleable as clay on the inside. Oleander might be able to use her eventually.

The journey following the full transformation was wrought with agony of every kind. First, she hadn’t a
nticipated problems with her
old muscle memory holding sway over limbs that were now shorter and stouter. This Ivy was soft of flesh after years spent in a world where she
likely
had to do little by
way of actual labor
. As a result, she was hea
vier and clumsier.
Oleander stumbled and fell countless times as she dragged her doppelganger
’s body
to a clear spot where she could steal her clothes and dispose of the body.

She was unable to bring a potion in great enough quantities to dissolve an entire corpse. Instead, she used what she liked to refer to as an “insect siren,” which would call out to all the creatures that loved to dine upon dead flesh and make Little Miss Ivy a feast for the entire kingdom. However, her new fat fingers were as ungraceful as sausages, and she
had
dribbled some of the liquid down the front of her dress
as she removed the cork. A
tidal wave of insects rose from the ground and filled the air
around her, she screamed
as hundreds of beetles, flies, ants, and worms lit upon her body, squirmed up her legs, and knotted themselves in her wiry hair.

Running down the path and beating at her head with one hand, she dug in
to
her bag with the other for an antidote: a simple floral spritz of gardenia and citronella. But one bug had locked its pincers around her earlobe, and she fell to the ground howling her voice hoarse. She ripped the bug off her ear and crushed it in her fist. Shards of its exoskeleton dug into the soft flesh of her palms, but she didn’t care. Finally, she located the bottle of spray in her bag and kept squeezing the bulb until nothing more came out.

Once she had brushed the last bug off her body, she staggered toward the place where Ivy’s body lay. Or once lay, rather. The hordes of insects had reduced the witch to nothing more than meat-flecked bone and a clump of hair, and there would be organisms along
soon enough that would
take care of that by nightfall. Although it was a struggle to even remain upright after everything she’d been through, Oleander was satisfied with her work and ready to move on.

It took her several hours to figure out the operation of the woman’s motorized carriage.
After a search, she’d located a tome that held the vehicle’s demonic secrets. No incantations or spells were required. It seemed the entire contraption worked off of nothing more than a coordinated operation of the hands, feet, and eyes
.
Not much different from riding a horse in many respects, once one got the feel for it.

Darkness had fallen by the time she had driven to the end of the forest road. The ride had been filled with a series of stops and starts, as she kept confusing the pedals that made the vehicle (called a “sport utility vehicle”
by its handy reference tome) move forward or stop completely.

The road that she had come to was buzzing with activity as more of these vehicles, many of varying shapes, sizes, and colors, zoomed by at dizzying speeds. They all had bright yellow eyes on the front of them that blinded her if she looked too close. Oleander sat and watched this activity for quite some time, baffled by how the people here could live this way.

The
man who ended up helping her
just happened to be walking down the side of this very road. He wore a strange hat with a brim that jutted from the front. He stopped when he reached the truck. His eyes passed over drying blood stain on her dress before meeting hers.
“
You all right, ma’am?
” the man had asked. 
“Looks like you had yourself a accident.”

“I need you to drive me to Oasis House.”

“Wassat?”

Oh how her head hurt. She wasn’t sure how much more idiocy she could take for one day. “I need you to climb into the coach seat of this horseless carriage and take me to Oasis House.”

“That a hospital? Looks like you need a hospital, lady.”

He’s holding out for something. Coin, perhaps. Give him coin
. Ivy’s purse was sitting in the seat next to hers. She had no idea what the currency of this world looked like, but she found a wad of green papers stuffed in Ivy’s wallet and held them up. “I will give you this if you take me where I want to go. And stop asking your stupid questions.”

The man’s eyes widened at the sight of the money. Things weren’t all that different in this world after all. “Well climb over to that other seat, then. I ain’t got a license, though, so if I get pulled over, I’m gonna tell the cop you coerced me.”

Oleander didn’t know what any of that meant. She just scooted over to the other seat and leaned back.

“Oh looky here. You has a GPS,” said the man. Oleander cracked open her eyes and watched the man tap his fingers on a small brightly lit box attached to the vehicle’s front window.
A few seconds later, it started talking with a cold woman’s voice she didn’t much care for.

She attempted to decipher the signs and strange blocky spires of this world, but
her eyes and head
continued to throb. It was made worse by the speed and motion of vehicle, and
her limbs felt as h
eavy and useless to her as hams. “So what’s your name,” the man asked. “Can I at least have that much?”

“You have your money. That’s all you need.”

“Have it your way, lady.” He reached forward and pushed a button. Screams and the ugly wail of some alien instrument filled the interior of the cabin. It made her teeth rattle in her head.

“What is that infernal noise?” she cried.

“Noise? That’s AC/DC! Classic rock, baby doll.”

“Turn it off! I can’t take it!”

The man looked over at her again, seeming to weigh his options. Oleander
pulled her bag closer. The knife was within easy enough reach to slit his throat with if he so much as moved a finger toward her. He seemed to sense some of this, because he looked forward again and made the vehicle silent again. Well, as silent as it could be with that dead woman’s voice navigating for him.

“When you make your last turn before we get there, I want you to stop and get out. I will finish the journey myself.”

He looked at her again with a question undoubtedly in his mouth, but something in her eyes must have frightened him again, because he just gave a shaky nod. “Whatever you say.”

About ten minutes later, he slowed the vehicle down and pulled to the side of the street. They were in an area that was crammed with houses. Oleander wondered how the people around here could breathe being so close to one another. “Just drive a little ways down this street and you’ll be there. I can already see the si
gn from here. Just on the left.”

“Yes yes. Now get out.”

“Look, lady, I don’t know what happened to you, but I—”

Oleander drew the knife out of her bag with liquid speed and held the tip against the stubbly flesh of the man’s neck. The blood from its last victim looked black under the orange colored lights hanging over them outside. “I have had the worst day imaginable. If you would like the opportunity to use the money I have given you, I suggest you get out now and without another word.”

The man clearly knew the value of his own neck. He opened the door and stepped out. By the time Oleander had climbed back into the driver’s seat, he was walking back the way they had come. After some fiddling with the stick between the seats, she was moving forward at a crawl down the sleep
ing
street. As the man promised, the sign for Oasis House was just ahead on the left. The rest of the houses had their carriages parked on little concrete pads in front, so Oleander decided to do the same. However, just as she was making the approach, she mistook the stop and go pedals again. The vehicle lurched forward a
s
Oleander’s foot fumbled to stop. There was a loud screech followed by a crunching thud as the front of the carriage collided with a tree.

She’d knocked her head hard on the wheel and sat there for a few minutes, her rage bubbling like acid in a cauldron.

So her start as Ivy had been rougher than she’d expected. Already, she had frightened one girl here, and if she wasn’t careful, she would wind up alerting Aster f
ar too soon, if she hadn’t
already. It wouldn’t do for the little tramp to know someone else was at the wheel of this little ship just yet.