Matchbox Girls (6 page)

“She’s just a baby,” said Marley defensively. That baby’s claws were sinking into her hand quite painfully, though. “Maybe you’d better introduce yourself before I let her go again.”

“That would be a mistake,” the little figure snapped. Then he took a deep breath. “But you’re right. Fine! I am the great fairy Tinker Chime, here to—what? What?” Marley was giggling.

She fell back onto her bed, still holding Neath to her chest. “Chime? Like, a bell? I love this dream!” He looked so affronted that she had to work hard to stop herself from bursting into peals of laughter. “Sorry, Chime, you were saying? Here to...?” And she snickered again, unable to stop herself.

The great fairy Tinker Chime hovered over her head, near the canopy of the bed. “You’re not very nice. I’ve probably found the wrong dream and you’re not the one with the important destiny.”

Marley gazed up at him thoughtfully until the pain from Neath's claws forced her to shift her grip. The cat squirmed away from her and stalked to the edge of the bed, where one of the posts led up to the canopy. Chime shot out from under the canopy and up to the ceiling.

“She can’t fly, glitterbrain,” Marley called after him.

“Yet! She can’t fly
yet
!” called back the piping voice.

“Oh, come on. Tell me about this great destiny. Fair warning: You probably do have the wrong person, though. Action Girl’s down thataway.” She pointed
yonder
.

A tiny pair of intense violet eyes peeked over the edge of the canopy. “To be honest, at this point, we’d take even a decent destiny. Maybe even a mediocre one.”

“Desperate times!” She watched Neath crouch, her tail lashing back and forth. “You’d better talk fast.”

Chime somersaulted into view, hovering beyond the bed. “My lady, you are called on to rescue—”

And the dream shattered, torn asunder by the gouge of pain in her back and gut. For a moment, she saw Chime’s mouth moving, before he and the bedroom around him shriveled like paper in a fire. Then it all blew away, nothing more than dried wisps of grass. Beyond stretched a desolate sunless wasteland, where nothing moved. A thousand eyes watched from the heavens and the moon was a clockwork machine with a face she could not read. She took a step forward and fell through, into stars—

Marley opened her eyes. One twin had her head butted up against Marley’s back, while the other had her feet planted in Marley’s stomach. One of them was snoring lightly. She hadn't noticed them crawling into bed with her, and she wondered vaguely when they'd done it. Neath was nestled next to her head.

She sighed and adjusted herself and the children so she wasn’t in danger of twinjury, and closed her eyes again. She could remember the dream with Tinker Chime clearly, more real than a childhood memory. But when she tried to recapture the light-hearted state of mind and return to the dream, all she could see was the wasteland, and all she could hear was Neath’s growl.

-seven-

T
he children dragged Marley from bed far too close to dawn, ignoring her sleepy complaints. Branwyn, already up, laughed at her.

“Did you encourage this assault?” Marley settled onto the barely used sofa bed, legs crossed, and ran her hands through her tangled hair. Her eyes fell on the box one of the fairy dolls had arrived in, and she remembered her dream again.

She picked the box up and turned it over. There was a picture of each doll in the toy line on the back, but they were all girls. No little fairy boys, which she thought showed a lack of imagination.

Neath settled into her lap. Marley blinked. Branwyn was talking. “Yup. I also fed them breakfast while you were sleeping the morning away.” She was already dressed and ready for work. The twins, Marley noticed, had made their own dressing choices: Lissa was in one of Marley’s own t-shirts, dress-sized on her, while Kari had chosen a violet swimsuit.

“Thanks,” Marley said grudgingly.

Branwyn continued, “The wildfires are worse today. They’ve started talking about evacuating certain areas. Keep an eye on it. I’m taking this—” she hefted a duffel bag “—to work, just in case.” With that, she left, abandoning Marley with the two preschoolers.

The morning passed. Chaos occurred.

It was a beautiful day despite the fires charring the mountains. A nearly annual occurrence, the danger they represented to the civilized parts of the Valley varied from year to year. Right now, they were a television worry compared to the continued mystery of Zachariah’s disappearance. Marley tried to listen to the news on the radio as she navigated her way through some errands, but the chatter of the girls in the back seat drew her attention. They hadn’t liked changing clothes at all and she was anxious to keep them in good moods.

Their last errand was to the Pasadena Central Library. She wanted to do some research while the girls entertained themselves in the children’s section; Penny and Branwyn didn't call her Research Girl for nothing. Finding a library was always her first recourse when she ran into something new, although it had been months since she'd felt inspired to research much of anything.

The reference librarian suggested the encrypted book was a prank or prop, which Marley rejected purely on gut instinct. She spent an hour moving back and forth between the stacks and a bank of computers, and finally collapsed into a chair, rubbing her eyes in annoyance. She’d learned nothing about Zachariah, a little about Senyaza Corporation, and quite a lot of utterly useless information about encryption techniques. She could have spent all day there, but the twins were getting bored despite their basket of books.

Lissa knelt on a chair at a table, pretending to read in a voice too loud for a library, while Kari sat under the table, playing with her doll and listening. Marley moved to their table to quiet Lissa and smiled to herself as she noticed that the book, full of pictures of a pixie’s adventures, was upside down. The little girl noticed Marley and abruptly fell silent.

“Would you like to go back to the children’s section and I’ll read this to you?”

Lissa shrugged and pushed the book across the table. Marley glanced at the open page as she picked it up. She frowned and ran her mind back over what Lissa had just been saying.

“Can you really read, Lissa?” She'd been more fluent than Marley had believed possible in somebody who wasn't even in kindergarten.

Lissa shrugged again, acquiring a familiar uncomfortable expression. “I dunno.”

Kari scrambled out from under the table. “She can!”

Marley said, “It’s all right if you can, Liss. It's very good! I just didn’t know.”

Lissa addressed the table sulkily. “Can’t. Not properly. Real reading is with all the letters.”

“Oh.” Marley frowned. “You've got the book at home, then? You've memorized it.”

“No...?” said Lissa uncertainly. “Kari just found the book and wanted to hear the story.”

“Because it's like the dolls Miss Penny gave us,” explained Kari. She glanced sideways at her sister. “Reading is reading, Liss.”

Lissa hesitated until finally Kari poked her viciously. “I just say what the book tells me. That’s all.”

Marley realized that Lissa's body language was identical to Kari's right before she admitted she could open the SUV. There was another secret here. She shook her head in wonder and said brightly, “Let’s check it out so you can finish reading it at home.”

As she started to the self-checkout counter, her gaze fell on a man sprawled in a soft chair, who was looking at her. He had a worn paperback closed over one finger. Something about him was familiar. He seemed lanky, even sitting down, with unkempt black hair and shadowed eyes. He wore hiking boots, faded black jeans, and a worn grey t-shirt.

He met her eyes and stood up.

Marley’s breath caught in her throat. He’d been at the park the day before, eavesdropping on her conversation with Jeremy the lawyer. At first she’d thought he’d been Jeremy’s ally and then, when the lawyer had left, she’d thought he was just a passerby.

There was an intensity in the way he stared at her that made her certain she’d been right the first time. She dropped her gaze quickly and hustled the children with their books to the manned checkout station. He followed her.

She attended with rather less than half an ear to the librarian’s idle conversation as she scanned the books. From the corner of her eye, she could see that the tall man had paused a couple of yards away, still looking intently at her.

She took a deep breath as the librarian slid the books into a bag for her. What could actually happen, surrounded by the patrons and staff of the library? If he made a scene, they’d kick him out. Better to have a bad encounter inside than out. So she wandered over to the New Books section, towing the kids after her, and waited until he approached her.

His voice pitched low, he said, “Miss, I need to talk to you.”

“No,” she said firmly, giving him only a cursory glance. “Go away.”

He stared at her, mouth tightening, “I know you’re one of Zachariah’s allies. I know you’re trying to keep the kids safe. But—”

“I said no,” Marley repeated, raising her voice. “Please leave me alone.” She looked over at him again. It was a mistake.

He shimmered, as if tears were pricking her eyes. Her stomach twisted and crimson crept across the blur of her vision until the man’s face was covered in blood. Something bad was going to happen soon. The idea—no, the
understanding—
slammed into her head like a spike:
He would die soon
. The frustration on his blood-washed face was the beginning of a path that led directly to... emptiness.

She swayed, trying to gulp down the panic. This hadn't happened in years, and it had rarely been this bad. She squeezed her eyes shut until she felt the insane certainty recede. She knew it was insane; hadn't she had visions like that growing up, visions which were no more likely to come true than a horoscope? For a moment, the light over his head seemed very bright, and then all was a blur again, from the real tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she gasped out, and turned and fled.

Five steps away, she realized Kari had slipped out of her grasp and was standing four-square in front of the man, staring up at him defiantly.

“Kari!” she cried. The little girl jumped and then raced after her, grabbing her hand again.

They made it through the science fiction section to the library foyer before he caught up with them, darting past Marley as she juggled books and children to stand in front of the second set of doors, blocking their exit. He spread his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Just outside the library entrance, a teenage girl sat on a bench, holding in one hand the leashes of three good-sized dogs that lay at her feet. She turned from watching the parking lot to peer through the glass windows of the foyer. She looked from the tall man to Marley, and frowned.

Marley fumbled at the inner doors behind her, ready to retreat into the main library again.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “But those people out there might.” He pointed out at the parking lot.

She couldn’t watch him and look at the parking lot at the same time. He lifted both hands as if to show they were empty, and then pushed the door open and went outside. When it swung shut behind him, she quickly scanned the parking lot.

It wasn’t even half-full on a day like today, and the minivan from the day before leapt out at her. She could see two people inside it. It was right next to her car. On the other side of the minivan, a sky-blue sedan’s doors opened and people spilled out and began milling around both the sedan and the minivan.

Marley’s shoulder blades touched the wall of the foyer, and she found herself sinking down it. Lissa climbed into her lap as soon as she was sitting on the ground. “What's going on?” the little girl asked. “Are we going home?”

Marley squeezed Lissa with one arm, and pushed herself back to her feet, sliding the girl onto her feet again. “Soon. I just have to talk to this man.” As if he heard her, he opened the foyer door again.

Kari turned around. “You said no. Why? How are they going to hurt you? Will they push you down? Or hit you?”

 He looked down at Kari and said, “Maybe. They might take her stuff, too.”

Kari turned serious eyes to him. “Why?”

The tall man opened his mouth to answer and then hesitated. He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He raised his eyes to Marley. “I know them, though. I know who... sponsors them.”

Marley looked at him sidelong. The overwhelming certainty that he would die soon did not reoccur, although she still vaguely felt that something unpleasant would happen.
That
feeling, at least, was one she was used to.

She peered out through the window again. The people surrounding the minivan were laughing and horsing around with each other. They were young and casually dressed, clean-cut and well-groomed. “Sponsor? They look like college students.”

An unexpected smile briefly quirked the corner of the man’s mouth. “You could say they’re interns.”

“Uh-huh. Scary, dangerous interns. And what do you want?”

“For starters, I’d like to find Zachariah.” There was an edge to his voice.

“So would we. I'd like to have a little chat with him about his idea of advance planning.” She looked outside again. Some of the college students were watching them. So was the girl with the dogs.

“How did you end up with his kids?”

She transferred her gaze back to the man. “You know what bothers me about you? How you found me at that park yesterday. How both you and that other guy found me, if you’re not working together. I mean, I left Zachariah a note, but I didn’t include a last name, an address, or an intended schedule. So, okay, if the lawyer guy has been watching Zachariah for a while, the park was a pretty good guess. We meet there a lot. But you just asked me how I ended up with the kids. Which was in the note. So how did you know I was involved? How did you know to find me yesterday if you didn’t see the note? Something doesn’t make sense here.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide. His mouth opened, and then closed again.