Indigo Springs (4 page)

“This Crucible wasn’t recovered from your house.”

She sighs. “The pencil sharpener and knife are gone by the time I get arrested.”

“Gone where?”

“With Sahara.” With visible effort, she lowers the hand hiding her face. “After the sharpener, I thought again of gardening. But it was late. I could hear Jacks washing paintbrushes, and I didn’t want to pass him in the kitchen. My head hurt, and the wooziness had gotten worse.” She twists a curl of hair around her index finger. “If I’d gone out right then, maybe it would have gone different.”

“Different how?”

Her answer is a dark, bitter grunt. She leans back, and I catch another glimpse of the bright blue fluid. It is bubbling in the well of her damaged ear. Rounded with surface tension, it shivers with her pulse, moving with a liquid weight that reminds me of blood.

I’ve seen this fluid on TV, at the heart of a swarm of deadly alchemized wasps and flowers.

“I went to bed,” Astrid says. “I lay there with the kaleidoscope and stared into other people’s houses. I spied on my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Skye, who was scrubbing her kitchen floor. She was crying, completely freaking out. I thought about the gold flakes and whether money could help her. I thought about Ma and Olive and how much Albert had cost them over the years. Magic, turning lead into gold…I could help everyone….”

“Your first thought was helping Mrs. Skye?”

She shrugs: according to the psych profile, Astrid rarely admits to being altruistic. “I wouldn’t have wanted to end up like that. Alone, half-crazy. Watching her, I remembered I wanted a real home, a family. Kids, husband—”

“A husband specifically? You’ve had female lovers.”

“Anyone,” she insists, coloring. “The point is I hoped to use the chantments to pull my budding family together. Keep Sahara in town, mollify Jacks, y’know?

“Soon enough I got my hands into a garden, and learned what the chantments were, that they had to be a secret.”

“But by then you’d already told Sahara and Jacks.”

“It was my first big mistake.” The bead of blue liquid in her ear seems to strain upward, reaching skyward. Then it sucks back down, out of sight.

Next morning Astrid crawled out of bed, fighting uncharacteristic grogginess, and was startled to see the magic toys on the dresser.

She had forgotten them.

Snatching up the watch, she tracked Jacks to the back steps. He was basking in the sun, wearing only a pair of old jeans, an electric razor beside his hip. Henna lay beside him, snoozing, as he browsed the
Indigo Dispatch
’s crime report and obituaries.

It was a perfect spring day. Breezes ruffled the new-green leaves of the birch trees in the ravine beyond the back alley. The air was laced with a scent of lilacs.

A cloud scrolled over the sun, changing the light and rendering Jacks’s skin colorless. Suddenly he resembled a statue, muscles sculpted in marble rose and dusty shadow. The scar on his finger stood out as the lone burst of color, a twisting line the pink of young earthworms. Smudges of paint edged his fingernails.

The cloud moved on, resurrecting him.

Astrid asked, “Can I join you?”

“You’re the landlady.” His voice was neutral.

She swallowed. “Normally I’d have no problem parking in the dog house. But I have something to say. So tell me what I’ve done and get it over with.”

Jaw clenched, Jacks looked up.

The scowl vanished. Scrambling to his feet, he gave her a strained grin.

“Jacks?”

“Ah…good morning?”

“Good morning,” Astrid said. “Hi. Hello also. Now spill. What’s wrong?”

He held out his newspaper, seemed to remember she hadn’t asked for it, and snatched it back. “I’m…what?”

“Aren’t you mad at me?”

“What?” He shoved the paper at her again, and Astrid yanked it away. The back page tore off in his hand. “Mad?”

“Jacks, you’re killing me. You sulk for two days and now when I’m brimming with news, you’re acting like someone hit you with a shovel.”

That seemed to penetrate. He cleared his throat, favoring her with a gaze so intense, she felt as if he were staring straight into her heart. “I’m fine. And I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“Thanks. Now, I wanted—”

“It was a long couple days,” he interrupted. “Moving here. Then Sahara showing up suddenly…”

“You knew she was coming.”

“She was late…”

“And you hoped she wouldn’t come?”

He dipped his head. “Sorry.”

“Please stop apologizing.” She took the paper inside and dumped it on the counter before checking the coffeepot. All she found was a half inch of scorched sludge. Jacks followed her, still staring.

“Is there dirt on my face?”

He gave her the smile that made Springer women go weak at the knees. “You look great.”

“Great, sure. Listen, once Sahara’s awake—”

“She’s up.”

“Really?” She raised her voice. “Sahara, come down here, okay?”

There was an inarticulate response from upstairs.

“Maybe we should go out for breakfast. I’m starving.”

“It’s too late,” Jacks said.

“Late? It’s not late.”

“It’s ten thirty—you slept in.”

“I never sleep in.”

“There’s nothing wrong with sleeping in, particularly if you’re up late having fun….”

“It wasn’t fun exactly.”

“Maybe next time it will be.” His tone was barely suggestive, but there was a wolfish glint in his eye.

“Brunch, then. We’ll go to brunch.” The intensity of his stare was making her itchy. “Jacks? Okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Brunch and talk.” He blinked. “Talk?”

“Sahara, come downstairs! Yes, Jacks, talk. Remember the stuff you found in the pantry?”

“Stuff.”

“The Albert junk?”

No reaction. She had brought the watch downstairs with her; now she dangled it in front of him.

“I saw it last night. So?”

“Dad wanted you to have it.”

He squinted at the masking tape. “Perfect tigers?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t put it on yet—” But he had slipped it on, snapping the buckle shut.

“Probably doesn’t work,” he said. “What time is it?”

Astrid’s grip on the counter tightened, but nothing happened. “Ten thirty-two.”

He set it. His eyes came up, and the playful light surfaced again.

“So…brunch?”

He brushed a curl off her forehead. Then Sahara burst into the room, trembling and on the verge of tears.

“What’s wrong?” Astrid said.

“Mark’s locked me out of my blog.”

“Pardon?”

“He’s put new content in my ‘Ask Suzu’ column.” She ran both hands through her hair, tugging at the butchered hanks.

“Did he have your password?” Jacks asked.

“I changed it. But the site host is one of his jerk-off friends—”

“Sahara—”

“Eleven hundred hits a week, Astrid! I had ad revenue! I was getting kickbacks from this bookstore for recommending self-help books, I had my own mouse pads….”

“Sahara,” she said, more loudly. “Mark can’t deprive you of a source of income. I’m positive that’s illegal. That’s illegal, Jacks, right?”

“Probably.” He glanced at Albert’s watch, gave her one more smile, and trotted outdoors.

“Look at me,” Sahara muttered. “I’m so mad, I’m shaking. How does this happen to me?”

“Take it easy, Princess.” Astrid gave her a quick hug. Her skin was ice-cold. Another lost memory flashed through her mind: Albert, playing hide-and-seek with the two of them. “Along with the house, my dad had this lawyer—”

“I can’t pay a lawyer!”

“Shhh.” She thought of the gold dust. “I’ll scrape up the cash.”

Sahara stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “What good’s a lawyer?”

“We’ll get a…you know—to make Mark stop?”

“Injunction?”

“Injunction, sure, and we’ll make the computer guy give you back your…”

“God, Astrid. Access. Restore my access.”

“Then you write an article explaining that an impostor hijacked your blog.”

“Forget it,” Sahara said, pacing to the fridge. “We get into wrangling and Mark’ll claim he helped develop it.”

Feeling whiplashed, Astrid said: “I thought he did.”

“Knave—whose side are you on?” She fell into a chair. “I can’t do it. Write him and tell him to back off. Threaten to face him in court. Just the thought of him makes my skin burn. Does that make sense?”

“Like there’s a fire just inches away, and the fuel is how you can’t believe he lied,” Astrid murmured.

“Is this how being dumped feels?”

“It gets better,” Astrid said.

Sahara blinked, then turned away almost guiltily. Then she brightened. “Know what? I was using my radio show to promote the blog, and Mark never kept up with the fan forums on the station website. He won’t know that password. I’ll plant a rumor that the site’s changed hands.”

“Fan club? You have fans?”

“Bunch of women who think Suzu’s terribly insightful. Very gratifying to my ego, even if they are a bunch of flakes who love being in crisis.”

“You’re heartless.”

“Oh, some of them are nice enough. They’ll be ripe for conquest after I drive ‘Ask Suzu’ into the hole.”

“You’re going to start from scratch?”

“Suzu is tainted,” Sahara said. “Hey, weren’t you bellowing my name a minute ago?”

“Yes. I want to take you guys out for brunch. I have something to tell you.”

“It’s not another speech about getting along, is it?”

“No.”

“You haven’t signed us up to dig ditches or pick litter or give horsie rides to disabled babies? I know you groove on that kind of thing, but—”

“It’s news. Important spine-tingling, eye-popping—”

“Fabulous. I am all ears.”

“I want to tell you at the same time.”

“So tell Eligible to get his ass in here.”

“Right. Don’t move.” She stepped through the porch door, expecting to find her stepbrother spread out in the sunshine again. But Jacks wasn’t there.

Her hand dropped to the porch rail as she scanned the yard and alley. The backyard was in sharp focus—each leaf on every tree diamond sharp, the lilac scent gentle and mouthwateringly sweet. She felt as if she could taste the moisture levels in the soil. I’ve been here before, with Dad, she thought. Right on this spot.

That’s impossible…the first time I came here was after I inherited the place….

“Is Jacks coming? Astrid?”

“No.” Disappointment broke the spell. She gazed at the lawn, wondering if its fading clarity had anything to do with Jacks and the magic watch.

“We can’t go off to lunch, can we? I thought your mom was coming over.”

Astrid sighed, rubbing her temples. “I forgot.”

Something glinted at her from an upturned pile of soil near the demolished blackberry brambles. She nudged it with the toe of her boot to shift the softly piled dirt. It was an aluminum hand-rake.

“Where’d he go?” Sahara’s voice made her jump.

“No idea.” She peered between the garden shed and the fence. Instead of Jacks she saw Henna exploring the crawlspace, eyes gleaming.

Sahara strode barefoot to the edge of the alley. “Is he communing with the ghost of the ravine?”

“You see him?”

“No, just being frivolous. Now, what’s the news flash?”

“Not without Jacks.”

“Spoilsport. Are you pregnant?”

“I wish.”

“Please. You don’t need a miracle to get knocked up. That only takes a drunk trucker and fifteen minutes.” Producing a small camera, she clicked at a tree swallow that was sitting in Astrid’s bird feeder.

“What are you doing?”

“Bucolic images for a new blog.” Wheeling, she aimed at Astrid, focused, and clicked. “Aimed at New Age and Green-types.”

“Don’t.”

“Too late.” Electronic chatter warbled from the machine. “See? You look wonderful.”

“I look like a wild animal.” Astrid scrutinized the proffered camera. Orange lipstick from Albert’s junk bag was smeared around her mouth. Clearly ill at ease, she was standing against the garden shed like a prisoner awaiting a firing squad.

Still, there was something…scrubbing her orange-streaked mouth, she frowned at the camera screen.

Sahara crowed. “Told you.”

“You are not putting pictures of me on the Internet.”

“This is just for me. In ten years, you’ve sent one picture of yourself. For the blog, I want nature stuff. Flowers. Animals. Fluffy bunnies. A shot of the creek  if we can find one that doesn’t look like a swamp. Earth mother fodder for my web groupies, you know?”

“There’s a spot half a mile along the trail,” Astrid said. Pleasure over the fact that Sahara wanted her portrait warred with odd discomfort; she hated being photographed. “The stream widens, willows overhang the bank, cattails—”

“Perfect,” Sahara said, then glowered at the camera. “I doubt this shitty digital will do it justice.”

Astrid pursed her lips. “Does that mean you stole the camera from Mark?”

“I’ll replace it as soon as I’m working,” Sahara said. “You want it?”

“That means yes?”

“Yes, it’s the Unfaithful Prick’s camera. Hey, maybe we can think of some way to ruin him.”

“I came up with a lawsuit.”

“Can’t, I told you.”

“Then—” Astrid frowned. The scent of the garden shed, of its rain-wet cedar planks drying in the sun, momentarily overwhelmed her. She turned, and the hexagonal paving stones half buried at the edge of the flower bed took on an illusory significance—as if they were grave markers, or clues on a treasure map. “You see that?”

“What?” Sahara scanned the yard.

“Never mind.” Tingles crawled up Astrid’s arm. She bent to pick up the hand-rake. It was sun-warm, and as her fingers closed on it she flashed on Albert.

Daddy, smoking a pipe and using a magic toy—a plastic net—to lure in a cloud of butterflies.

Wait—they’re called chantments, not magic toys.

“Astrid, are you listening?”

“Just tell people the truth, Sahara. You broke up and Mark took over your Web thing.”

“Blog. And nobody takes advice from a romantic loser.”

“Mark’s the loser,” she said with automatic loyalty.

“Oh, Mark’s gonna be the loser.”

Dad taught me about the chantments, Astrid thought. Her head was starting to hurt again.

“Mark’ll lose his shorts. I just have to figure out how.”

She spoke slowly, trying to concentrate. “Basically you want to stop people looking at the Suzu net site?”

“Blog, blog, blog. Where’ve you been living, a cave?”

“Could you use a computer virus?”

“That only works in movies.”

“I’m not a technology person, Sahara.”

“Who said the revenge has to be high-tech?”

“Can’t you just have a normal breakup?”

“Astrid. Most beloved, dearest friend.” Sahara threw an arm around her shoulder. “Mark cheated on me. As the wronged party, I’m allowed some vindictive behavior, which he’s supposed to suck up without retaliation. But here on the moral high ground, I’m pursuing my life without any payback—”

“Unless you count stealing his car.”

“Which I bought in repair bills.” Sahara plucked the aluminum rake out of Astrid’s hand. “Stop undressing the garden with your eyes and give me your attention.”

“Give it back,” she said, reaching for the rake.

Sahara tossed it away. It bounced off the cedar tree, scudding through the grass. “Where was I?”

“The moral high ground.”

Beneath them, the lawn jolted.

Astrid stepped in front of Sahara, putting her body between her friend and the lurching sod. There was a noise like a burp—a froggy, resonant croak. Long cedar-colored tendrils emerged from underground, knotting between the tines of the rake. Daisies and buttercups burst from the lawn, blooming, then fell onto the writhing cedar strands, which wove themselves into a flat surface.

Finally wordless, Sahara gaped, openmouthed.

The cedar strands twisted out and up, growing three feet high before weaving themselves into a basket. The motion stopped when the handle was completed and the basket was filled with yellow blooms.

Wiping a sudden sheen of perspiration from her brow, Sahara reached for the basket.

“Don’t touch—,” Astrid said, but she had already picked it up, stroking its curves in disbelief.

“How did you do that? Did you do that?”

“I—”

“It happened.” She stared at Astrid. “You saw it, right?”