Child of a Rainless Year (53 page)

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Authors: Jane Lindskold

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There is something in the air of New Mexico that makes the blood red, the heart beat high and the eyes look upward. Folks don’t come here to die—they come to live and they get what they come for.
—Marian Russell,
Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell
Along the Santa Fe Trail
You don’t adjust to something like that all at once, at least I certainly didn’t. I told Mikey and Domingo my story, and they listened without asking questions or scolding me for my impulsiveness. Mikey did a few things that involved teleidoscopes and phone calls. After that, perhaps seeing something in my eyes that I did not, Mikey packed his bags and went home. He left several phone numbers and an e-mail address. I won’t need a kaleidoscope to find him again.
Domingo found Phineas House’s neighborhood wasn’t zoned for a horse any longer, so we placed Shooting Star in a local stable. I’ll probably keep her, though I can’t ride. I can always learn, and if I’m no good at it, well, that mare deserves a retirement. The carriage and Colette’s teleidoscope seem gone for good.
I went down to the Plaza and found Paula Angel. We went to a bar that doesn’t exist and drank beer. She listened as I told her what had happened to Colette. Then she said something strange.
“I thought something big had happened. Everything feels different. It’s like there’s been more than that rainstorm. Something was hanging over the city. Now it’s gone. Can’t you tell?”
I didn’t try to pretend I didn’t understand. “Somehow I broke whatever made Phineas House divert liminality. It doesn’t work in the fashion Aldo Pincas intended anymore. It’s still an unpredictable place—any house with that many thresholds is going to be—but the hold Aldo Pincas established is gone—for good if I have my way.”
“And you will,
amiga,
” Paula said. “One thing that you have in common with Colette. You’re both stubborn as mules.”
“I have a lot more than that in common with Colette,” I said, but I didn’t clarify. I was still coming to terms with the peculiar circumstances of my … you can’t really call it birth, since I was never born, and creation doesn’t fit either, since Colette didn’t create me, just stole a copy of her favorite thing. Herself.
Whatever. I was. Even though Colette was now gone I was still here. I’d decided to stay in New Mexico. Despite the changes, the silent women are still active in Phineas House. There’s a lot more there to discover.
And, lest I fool myself far worse than Colette ever did, I should be honest. Domingo is also one of the reasons I’m staying. He’s done a lot for me these last couple of weeks while I’ve been wandering around in something like shock. He’s the one who suggested to me I write this down, get my thoughts in order, at least for myself. When I told him I wasn’t much of a writer, he said it didn’t matter.
So I started writing, and it came a lot easier when I started thinking of it not as a journal or an account, but as if I was telling Aunt May what had happened, just like I would when I’d come home from school and she’d look up from her housekeeping or the book she’d been reading and make time to listen. She always did.
Domingo’s good at listening, too, and I find myself wanting to learn that skill, so he can have someone to listen when he needs an ear. Domingo’s been alone a long time. I know what that’s like. When I remember that first kiss, I think we’re both going to be learning what it’s like not to be alone.
I’m looking forward to it.
I had to do one thing before I could get settled in this strange new life. I waited almost a year to do it though, and it’s not like I put things on hold while I did. Domingo doesn’t stay in the carriage house anymore, for one, for another I’m teaching a few classes at the local high school: art for kids who are at risk. It feels good. This year when I go to the State Fair, I’ll be looking at my student’s work in the school show. I’m riding Shooting Star in a beginner’s event, too.
A year to the day that Aunt May and Uncle Stan died, I stole away from Domingo’s side in the bed we share in that front room. I went across the landing to Colette’s suite. It’s still furnished pretty much the same as she left it, but only because Domingo and I are still working out the details of how we’d like the suite to look when we take it over. Every time we think we’ve made up our mind, we find something new in some room or box or chest. I think Phineas House is playing with us. I really don’t mind.
I sat at the vanity and opened the drawer where the kaleidoscopes are kept and pulled out Saturn’s leaden one, the one meant to reveal secrets and hidden objects. I concentrated, thinking back to this day a year ago, hoping for a revelation. Even in my new happiness, I had remained haunted by the possibility that Phineas House might somehow have engineered Aunt May’s and Uncle Stan’s deaths to get me to Las Vegas. I had to know the truth.
The mandalas cleared quickly, easily, pulling back to show a clearing vision among a surrounding cloud of pale yellow stars. Then I was among the vision, above it, part of it, through it.
A familiar sedan drove down a quiet road I knew very well. I’d been there many times before the crash, but only once after. My heart hurt with raw grief as I looked with longing at Uncle Stan at the wheel, Aunt May at his side. She was talking. Her hand rested on his knee.
All at once a large cottontail rabbit ran out from the underbrush on the side of the road, right out in front of the car. Uncle Stan twisted the wheel in an attempt to avoid the rabbit. He did, but overcompensated. The car went out of control, hitting a tree. Both passengers were flung forward.
Tears flooded my eyes, blurring the details, even before the vision ended. I didn’t need to see more. An accident. That was all. Just an accident. I wept with renewed sorrow, but with relief as well. They hadn’t died because of me. It had just been one of those things.
I heard soft footsteps, looked up, tears making rainbows of the light from the hallway. Domingo touched my shoulder, took the kaleidoscope from me and set it safely away. He didn’t ask why I was crying. I think he knew.
“Come back to bed, Mira, or maybe we could go downstairs. It will be morning soon.”
We went downstairs where coffee was waiting along with sweet rolls. Holding hands, we rejoiced in the colors of the sunrise.
So, Aunt May, you kept a journal for me. I’ve been writing this account for you. You’ll never read it—or maybe you will. Maybe you’ve been reading it all the while, looking over my shoulder as I type these words into my computer. Never mind. What’s important is that I’ve tried to tell you. I’ve found the answers. That all they led to are a whole lot more questions is fine with me.
You gave me a way to accept such things once long ago, back when you were on your oriental religions kick. Remember that opening verse from the
Tao Te Ching?
I think I understand at last.
“The Way that can be known is not the eternal Way.” That’s because every Way we understand opens up a host of new possibilities. We all live in liminal space. I’m just lucky enough to see the lines.

 

Las Vegas, New Mexico, is a real town. Most of the places mentioned in this book, including the Montezuma Castle, are also real. You can go visit them, though I should probably note that as of this writing, tours of the Castle are only available one day a month. If you arrive on any other day, you will be politely turned away, as this is a working college campus.
Most of the historical events recounted in this book are also real. Las Vegas did have dual governments for a long time. The Castle did keep burning down and getting rebuilt. You can read more about these events in the various books I cite in my chapter headings. All of these are real books.
Phineas House, however, does not exist—at least not in this Las Vegas, New Mexico, at this time.

 

Although it’s almost proverbial that writers work alone, there are always those who contribute to the evolving work, sometimes without even knowing they’re doing so.
Child of a Rainless Year
benefited greatly from my generous friends.
Paul Dellinger shared with me his memories of reporting and living, then and now. Lupé Martinez was of great help in acquiring a couple of obscure texts and in confirming some Spanish phrases. Jeff Boyer very kindly let me use the true story of the cow. Gail Gerstner-Miller generously trusted me with books from her collection of rare works about ghosts. In her professional role as librarian, Gail also helped me hunt up a couple of elusive facts.
When I started telling her about the history of Las Vegas, New Mexico, Bobbi Wolf was the first person to mention liminal space. When my editor, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, made almost the same comment in response to the same stimulus, I decided this was something I’d better investigate. Thanks, too, to Teresa for trusting me, though I gave her the slimmest of proposals. She was also right about which paragraph came first.
In Las Vegas, New Mexico, I met with universal warmth and interest, even from people who didn’t know I was researching a book. The tour of the Montezuma Castle was made all the more wonderful by our charming crew of international guides. To those of you who are considering visiting Las Vegas, I say, “Do it!”
My husband, Jim Moore, drove with me to Las Vegas, took pictures for my reference, and listened to me as I exclaimed with delight over seeing things featured in a book he hadn’t yet read. He encouraged me to sit and draw (though I have no talent), didn’t laugh when I developed a fanatical attraction to anything brightly colored, and, when the book was finally written, served as my first reader.
Yvonne Coats served as a second reader and made several valuable comments.
By the way, if you want to learn more about my writing or to contact me, try my Web site:
www.janelindskold.com
.

 

Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls
The Buried Pyramid
Child of a Rainless Year
Through Wolf’s Eyes
Wolf’s Head Wolf’s Heart
The Dragon of Despair
Wolf Captured
Wolf Hunting

 

I watched, mesmerized, as Mother transformed herself from a pale ghost into the beauty who still commanded legions of admirers. Fear throbbed tight and hard within my chest. No longer did I want to be discovered, for I knew that I had stumbled on a mystery greater and more terrible than that of Bluebeard’s murdered wives. I had seen the secret magic of color, and how color made lies truth and truth lies.
Even at that young age, I knew I could not be forgiven my discovery … .
“Lindskold conjures the atmosphere of nontourist New Mexico, beautifully evoking Las Vegas’ long, turbulent history while spinning a fantastic yarn about Mira’s odd inheritance. Neither an explosive story nor an edge-of-the-seat-thriller, the novel’s strength lies in the unfolding of Mira’s character.”
—
Booklist
(starred review)
“I loved everything about this book.”
—Charles de Lint, in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

 

Turn the page for a preview of
BY JANE LINDSKOLD
I
“Morning falls on the just and the unjust,” I observe, and the nurse smiles politely and continues brushing my hair.
Betwixt laughs from where I clutch him in my hands, the other head, Between, snores. He is not a morning dragon.
“Turn us over, Sarah,” Betwixt coaxes, and I do this carefully, balancing the four stubby legs on my pant leg just above the knee.
Betwixt growls approvingly, “That’s a good girl. Now, be a love and scratch in front of my left horn, right above the eye ridge.”
I do this, studying my friend as I do. Betwixt and Between are a two-headed dragon. They are small as dragons go, standing only seven inches at their full height and running only ten inches long from barrel chest to tail tip. They also have blue scales, red eyes, and smell faintly of strawberries.
The nurse interrupts my thoughts and turns me to face the mirror, “There, now, don’t we look pretty this morning?”
I look, pleased as always by the effects of my weekly bath. Hair straight but thick, shaded the yellow-white of cream, falls shining to well past my shoulders. My skin is fair and touched with rose. My eyes are the pale green of milky jade.
Smiling, I borrow Bacon’s words, “There is not excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
When I finish dressing, I “run along” as the nurse tells me, firmly holding Betwixt and Between. Breakfast for ambulatory residents is being served in the cafeteria. I get on line, place my dragon on my tray, and accept what is handed to me.
“A day without orange juice is a day without sunshine,” I say to Jerome, whose dark face parts with a bright smile.
“You’ve got Polly well trained,” another worker says.
“Sarah,” Jerome replies. “Her name is Sarah.”
“Polly’d be a better name,” the other laughs. “The loony who never says what but anyone else teaches her—just like a pet parrot.”
Jerome gives some soft reply. He is a Witness and always turns the other cheek.
I see something in his eyes, though, and whisper softly, “Beware the fury of a patient man.”
He nods once and I move on and find a seat at one of the tables. Between is awake by now and with Betwixt is eagerly awaiting his share of my breakfast. First, I dip my index finger in the juice and place a drop on each dragon’s tongue. Then I take the plastic jelly packet, break the blister, and squeeze a tiny dab of jelly into each of the dragon’s mouths.
A shadow falls over the table and with a scraping of chairs two people join me. Both are men. Both are like me, insane.
Ali is schizophrenic. Often he is drugged so heavily that he shuffles like a zombie. He must be throwing his pills away again, because his tiny eyes in his swollen, porcine face glitter with malice.
Francis is manic-depressive. I do not need to see his bright, mismatched clothes or the nervous way that he flutters his longboned hands to know that he is currently manic. The way he laughs as he takes his seat and nudges Ali, who “accidentally” shoves my tray, spilling my juice onto my toast and eggs, tells me.
I suppress tears and hear my dragons hiss. Then I cut the ruined part from my toast and squeeze the remainder of the jelly onto it. The eggs are beyond saving, the juice mostly gone. Because of my grooming, I have missed the early service and already the food line is closing down.
Ali and Francis don’t like that I am ignoring them. Ali reaches to grab Betwixt and Between. They hiss warning as my free hand flashes out, faster than Ali’s flabby paw. I tuck the dragons onto my lap and finish my toast.
“Hungry, Sarah?” Francis asks.
I nod slowly, wondering if he is sorry for what he made Ali do.
He sniggers. “Then you shouldn’t feed your breakfast to a rubber dragon!”
Seething, my temper hisses. I see that lined up on his tray are three linked breakfast sausages. They are cold, and white grease congeals on their edges, but they look better than my soggy, orange juice-flooded eggs.
Again, my hand flashes out and I seize the sausages. Jumping from my chair, I laugh.
“The line between hunger and anger is a thin line.”
Then, my dragons in one hand, the sausages in the other, I dart away. I finish my breakfast in the ladies’ room, carefully washing my hands after. I am finger-combing my hair into order when the five-minute bell buzzes.
Seizing Betwixt and Between, I scamper to the sewing workshop. Ali and Francis will not follow me there. By evening, they will have forgotten—I hope.
I am ruining a zig-zag stitch seam when a group of people come into the workshop. Nani, the workshop moderator, rises from the machine where she is sewing a fine seam and goes to meet them.
I immediately recognize Dr. Wu, who supervises my Wing at the Home, but the woman accompanying him is a stranger. She is tall and curvaceous, with golden hair and a sunscreen-pale complexion.
The buzz of conversation from those patients closer to the front alerts me that something interesting is going on. I stop my machine and remove the shirt I am sewing. Picking up my ripper, I begin methodically removing what I have sewn, all the while stretching my ears to hear what the visitors are saying.
“I think you are distorting the definition of functional, Dr. Haas,” Dr. Wu is saying angrily. “Yes, some of these patients can walk and feed themselves after a fashion—if someone supplies the food—but they are not fit for mainstream society.”
“Come now,” Dr. Haas says in measured, reasonable tones that make me shiver. “Certainly you are being overcautious in your diagnosis. I see nearly twenty adults in here, all busily working. If they can work, they can get credits; with credits, food can be found.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Nani snaps. “Work such as these patients are doing here has been done solely by machines for centuries. There is no market for these skills. What we make here is cycled back into the Home to help defray costs.”
Dr. Haas’s cool smile turns predatory. “Cost is the bottom line here. The beds are needed to take care of completely nonfunctional patients. Those you are coddling will be reclassified and discharged. Perhaps some of the borderline cases can be given work as orderlies.”
Their progress through the room has brought them up beside my table. Trembling inside, I quickly feed the shirt fabric back into the machine. Dr. Haas pats me on the shoulder, but her attention is for Dr. Wu.
“Tell me what’s wrong with this lovely child,” she purrs.
“Sarah was diagnosed initially as autistic. She is hardly a ‘child’ either. Her records list her as nearly thirty. That innocent expression you mistook for youth reflects her utter inability to relate to her environment.”
“She does not show the withdrawal characteristic of autistics,” Dr. Haas challenges.
“No,” Dr. Wu hesitates. “That was the initial diagnosis. In the past five years, she has become more responsive to external stimuli, but hardly in a constructive fashion.”
Dr. Haas interrupts him and turns directly to me. I shrink away from her bright green eyes, cuddling Betwixt and Between for comfort.
Baring perfect teeth at me, Dr. Haas asks, “How are you today, Sarah?”
I stare blankly.
“Sarah’—That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“What’s in a name?” I manage.
The golden eyebrows shoot up as Dr. Haas turns accusingly to Dr. Wu. “Shakespeare?”
“Sarah shares a trait common to autistics in that she has a nearly perfect memory for the oddest things. We had a patient here several years ago who read a wide variety of works—especially Shakespeare and other literary classics—to Sarah for hours on end. Sarah appears to have retained a great deal of what she heard.”
“Can she communicate, then?” Dr. Haas seems anxious.
Nani replies, “Poorly, after a fashion. If she attaches importance to some phrase, she will recycle it.”
Something in her posture tells me that she is already defeated, despite the brave smile she gives me.
Dr. Haas’s smile is broad, but unauthentic. “Well, I think Sarah is a fine candidate for reprocessing. With her looks, she can find work as a model very easily. We’re doing her a favor, helping her out of the nest.”
They move on. I sit unmoving at my machine. No one seems to care.
“History?” the stern man at the terminal asks without turning to face me.
I stare, poised in the doorway for flight.
“What is your history?” he snaps again.
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?” I ask.
He swivels his chair and studies me. “Oh, yes, I was warned about you. Give me that disk.”
I extend the piece of plastic and he drops it into the terminal.
“Patient’s History—Review—” he tells it.
“Sarah. No surname. No precise date of birth,” the disembodied voice announces. “Admitted from Ivy Green Institute, private facility.”
A light begins to flash and the voice states without change of tone, “Classified! Classified!”
The man studies me for a moment, then shrugs, his face falling into lines of habitual boredom.
“Don’t matter,” he says, punching a button. “Computer, reprocess patient as socially functional and discharge her.”
The computer grunts and he hands me another plastic disk. “Here’s your walking papers, Sarah. Go out of here and turn left. They’ll send you on your way.”
I stand frozen. He repeats his instructions more slowly. I turn and walk to the door. Betwixt and Between mutter comfort, ignoring that in my unhappiness I am swinging them upside down.
The normally sepulchral discharge area is in chaos. Myra Andrews, who usually spent her days watching the soaps, is frantically processing orders. Her subjects are panicked men and women who, until that morning, had been cloistered, in many cases for most of their adult lives. Various flunkies drafted from other areas try to keep order. I recognize Jerome from the cafeteria. He waves but is too busy to stop.
Another flunky takes my name and gestures me into line, where I find that both Ali and Francis are in front of me. Too numb to be surprised and welcoming them as something familiar on a day too full of change, I smile.
“So, you’re getting out, too?” Francis says. He’s clearly verging on his depressive phase.
“They can only set free men free,” I reply.
“You’re right, sister,” Ali agrees, seeming to have held on to his belligerence. “We were long ready to get out of here. They aren’t throwing us out. We’re leaving!”
We huddle together: frightened, defiant, numb. Orderlies arrive and take charge of us. My flunky is a lady I faintly recall from the Library staff. She is chatty and kind.
“Come along, Sarah. First, we’ll get you your medical clearance.”
She takes the hand in which I do not hold my dragons, leading me like a child. We go to a temporary bank of medical scanners. They are easy to use, but a bored-looking tech drifts over to assist.
“If the patient checks out clean,” she explains to my escort as they match my body to the human silhouette on the chair, “then press this tab. It’ll give her a whole host of immunizations and a five-year sterilization.”
“Five years?” my aide seems concerned. “That’s quite a while, isn’t it? What about the patient’s civil liberties?”
“Flip’em,” the tech replies. “If I had my way, we’d sterilize them permanently. What good can a crazy contribute to the gene pool? Anyhow, check the chip when you finish the outprocessing. Technically, these folks remain the wards of the state for the next decade. Loco parentis.”
She laughs at her own joke as she helps me to my feet. Next, my aide takes me to a supply heap. Digging through various stacks—much of it clothing I recognize as having been made in the sewing workshop—she packs a nylon travel bag.
When she hands it to me, I realize that it is so light that it couldn’t possibly contain more than a single change of clothes and possibly some extra socks and underwear. I sling it from my shoulder and let Betwixt and Between perch on top. They have been very quiet, but I feel that their ruby eyes have missed nothing.
The last thing my aide gives me is a plastic credit card, not unlike the ones we use in the Home for merits and demerits. She points to the glowing numbers.
“This is your money, Sarah. It’s not much, but if you are careful, you should get by. Do you understand?”
I don’t, but I nod.
“Good. Can you read?”
I shake my head. She frowns and puts aside a list she had been about to give me. For a moment, I think she will say something. Then she takes my arm and leads me to the exit door.
“Good luck, Sarah,” she says and pushes me gently through the doors that open before me.
I step and find myself facing the busy street I had often watched from the windows. Newly processed patients huddle singly and in groups, uncertain what to do. I see Ali and Francis and hurry toward them, the enmity of the morning forgotten.

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