The Stargazers (26 page)

She walked fast
toward Mama Iris’s peeling white farmhouse. The light from a lamp illuminated a window, and she didn’t even have to knock when Mama Iris opened the door. “I had a feelin’ you’d show up sooner than later,
” said the old woman
. Aster turned and w
aved as her
father backed out of the driveway and drove back toward town.

-23-

Aster stepped into Mama Iris’s abode feeling numb, but when she
really
saw the inside of the place, her mouth dropped open. The front sitting room was nothing but books stacked from floor to ceiling.
It dwarfed the collection at Bryon’s house.
Not an inch of the wall
space
was visible behind the towers of tomes, and the same could be said for the furniture, save for the rocker situated by the window and the table lamp whose light Aster had seen from outside. A woodstove sat in the corner and the room smelled of cloves and cinnamon, a comforting scent that reminded her so much of home her heart wept a little.

“So many books... You’ve read them all?
” Aster picked up the first book she saw.
The Da Vinci Code
.
The words made no sense to her
.

“That’s a fun one there. The folks here are real weird about the
ir gods
. Sorta like some of the folks back home, but without the wisdom or imagination. Can I pour you some iced tea? I make it special with my homegrown verbena and honey. It’ll help settle your nerves. You look like you need it.”

“Yeah, I definitely do.” She followed the old crone into the kitchen, which was surprisingly clean and free of books. A spray of freesia sat in a vase on the little table, giving off a strong floral scent. The tea Iris handed to her was cold and delicious, and she soon let out a breath of air she didn’t realize she’d been holding in.

“That Sheriff Kennedy is a good man, isn’t he?” Iris asked her. Aster stared into her glass of tea.

“He’s nice.” She struggled with something more to say. Her emotions were all mixed up. She wanted to laugh and cry and scream all at once.

Iris put her hand over Aster’s and gave it a light and knowing squeeze. “He ain’t goin’ anywhere. You can bring your thoughts to him when the time is right. So just put it out of your head
for now
, dear girl.”

“I will try.
One thing at a time.”

“That’s right. We have other work to do.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Come on. I’ll show you.” Iris led them out her backdoor, which was filled with the warmth of the early morning sun. More than an acre o
f earth was
devoted to Iris’s garden, which boasted several vegetables in addition to
the strawberry vines
. A grove of apple and pear trees lay beyond it.

“Do you care for this all on your own?”

“Nah,” said Iris. “I hire out as needed, though I can count on my neighbors to lend a hand in exchange for some of the bounty. It always works out.”

Iris hobbled around the other side of her porch and fetche
d several wooden baskets. “But today, you’re my worker. We’ll harvest the berries together
. It’ll go real quick with the two
of us. After that,
we’ll see what else there is to do.”

For the next hour, the women filled baskets full of the plump red berries. The tips of Aster’s fingers went scarlet as
some of the
overripe fruit squished in her hand. She healed
what she could
while taking note of how it made her feel. By the time they had harvested three rows of plants, her back was throbbing and several more brown spots had formed on her hands. It
confirmed what she most feared
.
Using the Old Magic in such a way was aging her, much like it would if she passed it to her child.

“Why does
it have to happen this way?” Aster
set the last basket of berries on the table with the others and showed Iris the spots on her hands.

“It’s the universe, seekin’ balance. You give and it takes away. That always been the way of th
ings.
”

Aster sat down
and rubbed the small of her back
. “But that still doesn’t explain why us. Why were we cursed with this charge to hold the magic the way we do?”

Iris took a seat and propped up her legs on a stool.
“
That’s a long story best left for another day. You need to focus on the now. You can’t fix what made them women believe what they believe. You can only fix what you end up doin’ about it.
”

“
Of course I know that
. It’s
just those prophecies they told me growing up. Are they true? They’ve
e
choed in my head my entire life, and I hate them
.” She thought of the last time she’
d recited the old tale about the evil sprite
, when she ripped into the paper of her sketchbook in a fit of rage.

“
Like any prophecy, there’s a tiny bit of truth hidden in a whole bunch of bullshit. But lemme ask you somethin’. Even if it was all true. Even if it was all as your Mamma and Lily told you, would you do it?”

Aster gazed out at the garden, where a group of brown rabbits was munching at the carrot tops. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”

“Even if it meant the end of your world?”

“I’d rather kill myself to fulfill the obligation. If there is an obligation to be fulfilled.”

Iris didn’t say anything for a few minutes after that. Aster wondered if her answer had stunned her into silence. “Is that what you plan to do?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. Aster looked over and saw that the old woman’s face had gone pale, and it was completely drained of its good cheer.

“I don’t know what I plan to do. I don’t want to die. All I keep thinking about is what you told me yesterday when we first met. You said I had to go my own way. That way hasn’t become clear yet
, but think I’ll know what it is when it comes.”

Iris
’s smile slowly lit up her face.
“Good fo
r you, darlin’
.
You’re thinking like an independent woman, which is more than I can say about anybody livin’ in that world of ours.
”

“Well, except Oleander. She’s off on a whole other plan
over here. I can’t figure out what it is yet, but she needs to be stopped.
I plan to go back home and get my mother and Lily to help me.”
And they will
. Gods help me, they’ll do everything I tell them to do. It’s because of them and their lies that we’re in this mess.

“How do you plan to get home?”

“Larkspur will go through and get them. They will come.”

They sat in silence for awhile and Aster noticed the sun was cresting toward the noon hour. Mama Iris got up to go inside. “I’ll make us some lunch. You sit here and think as long as you need to.”

After a f
ew minutes of ruminating on self-sacrifice and a possibly bloody confrontation with Oleander, she decided that the only thing she wanted right now was
to talk to Bryon. This would likely be the last time she’d get to see him before she we
nt back to Ellemire
.
And she could see nothing beyond that. Dared not to, really.

She went into the house and found Iris scooping something between pieces of bread.
“Can I speak with Bryon
?”

“
You mean call him?
Phone’s
here on the wall.”

She stared at the
strange device and its
pad of numbers for a minut
e. “How do I use this thing
?”

Mama Iris laughed and pulled out a thin book from a kitchen drawer. After a moment of
flipping through it, she picked up one piece of the device and showed Aster how to hold it to her ear
.
Then she punched some buttons.
“You’ll hear some ringing and then some voices. Talk naturally.”

After a couple rings, someone answered.
“Quick Lube, oil changes and more. This is Onyx.” 

What an amazing device!

“Hello Onyx?
This is Aster.
Um.
I
s Bryon there?”

She
heard a
clunk
followed by him yelling, “Bry, ball and chain on li
ne one!” Then another rustle and then he said, “H
e’ll be here in a sec.”

“Thank you
.”

“No prob.”

Another minute or two passed and the sound of a breathless, “Hello?” filled Aster’s ear.
He must have come at a flat run.

“Hello.
I
hope you weren’t too busy
.”

“I’m never too busy for you
. How are you? Need anything?”

Aster could think of a million and one things she needed
right then
. A ticket
out of reality was one of them
.
And maybe one for Bryon too so she wouldn’t have to leave him.
“Can we meet someti
me this evening? I need
to see you.”

“All right. Definitely. Um, how about the place I first took you?”

Ah, the burial mound. What a way to come full circle.
The omen should have worried h
er, but that didn’t occur to her until much later, when everything had gone so terribly wrong.

“I’ll see
you there,
”
she said, and hung up.

-24-

Aster whittled away the rest of the afternoon at Mama Iris’s strawberry stand
,
drinking tea and selling fruit to the occasional passerby. Iris told her stories about her life, both in Ellemire and in this world. She was particularly amused by one where Mama Iris had used her plant growing abilities to win the blue ribbon at the Miller’s Glenn pumpkin contest so many times that
she finally had to drop out because
people were sneaking onto her property to steal her soil.
“They thought all the magic was in there, but of course it’s in here.” She wiggled her fingers and tapped her temple.

When the sun was on its way toward the horizon, Aster stood up to go. “It’s time to meet Bryon. After I say goo
dbye to him, I’m leaving for the Tree
.”
Maybe if things went well enough, she could even convince Bryon to drive her there.

Iris stood up and held out a hand. “Hold on now, girl. You’ve got a lot of determination about t
his, but you got no real plan. If that’s really Oleander
squattin’ in Miss Ivy’s body, she ain’t here just to stop you from doin’ what you was sent here to do, or she would have killed you in your sleep on the first night.”

“I considered that.” Actually, she hadn’t, but she wasn’
t about to say so
.
“
I
just don’t know what she wants from me.
”

Iris raised an eyebrow. “You’re jokin’, right? To someone like her, you’re like the golden ticket to get into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.”

“Huh?”

“She wants to use you for somethin’. Probably more than one thing. Your magic, most of all.
If she gets the best of you,
both
our worlds will be in a world of hurt.
”

She was right of course
, but she still wasn’t going to confront her aunt without reinforcements. Aster
picked up her backpack still heavy with the water and Ruby’s homemade bread. “I’ll take care of her. At the very least, she has to pay for what she did to Ivy. But I
need to get to the
park. Bryon will be waiting.”

“Cut through the path that runs through the woods behind the house. There’s an old bicycle next to my porch. They’re a little like the velocipedes back home, only with two wheels instead of one. Watch yourself and don’t trust nothing
and nobody
but yourself. You’ll figure this out, and if there’s nothin’ else you can do but…” She paused and tears welled up in her eyes.

She hugged her great aunt. “I won’t put myself on the Giving Altar unless I know for sure that’s what I must do. I promise.”

Iris nodded and tears spilled out of her eyes. “That’s a good girl. Now get up on that thing and ride. That is, if you can.”

Aster laughed. She’d ridden a few velocipedes in her life. None since she was a child, but she was pretty sure it was impossible to forget. “I think I can manage. Thank you, Mama Iris.”

The two women embraced and Aster set off, grabbing the bike on her way. It was old,
but well maintained with a
big comfortable seat. The ride through the woods was smooth along the well-worn path
, and she had just enough light to see by
. She rehearsed in her head how she was going to tell Bryon goodbye and then go confront the most dangerous person she knew. The weight of both tasks was nearly crippling. But maybe Ruby would help her.