“STALE BREAD, old canned goods, really any food past its expiration date. The older, the better.” Noelle held up the jar of red currant jelly she’d been eating with a spoon so I could see the best-by date—April 18, 1987. “This is perfect. Genny found it in a box of our mother’s stuff in the attic when she went looking for childhood toys. It should sustain me for some days. More recently expired food is less effective, but can be made to serve.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Gross!”
Sparx leaned forward and peered into the jar—though I wondered how well he could see anything given Noelle had unscrewed most of the lights. “Fascinating.”
Noelle shrugged. “Necessary. And, rather surprisingly, quite delicious.”
My mother looked up from where she was sitting on the floor, an ancient Black Canary action figure held in one hand and Batgirl in the other. She shrugged. “Noelle’s always been a little odd.”
Said the expert, I managed not to say.
Then, as if she was reading my fearful mind, “It’s all right, Kalvan. I’m not that far out there at the moment. I know Noelle’s dead and the current situation is temporary. She explained it while you were at school.”
Because that’s super reassuring! “I … uh, that’s good, Mom. It’s just…”
“You’re worried.” She sighed. “You probably should be. I’m not … I can’t hold it all in my head right now. Sometimes I can tell exactly what’s real and true, but too often I can’t. Oscar used to anchor me, and before him, your father, Nix. But now I’m adrift. Noelle is helping as best she can. She got me to check the bills today. I was late on the power and the trash, and they were about to cut off the Internet.”
“What?!?” It hadn’t even occurred to me to think about that stuff. Realizing we’d come so close to being cut off made me feel like I’d eaten live worms for lunch.
“Don’t worry; I got it all sorted.”
Noelle nodded. “Automatic bill pay is a marvelous thing.”
“For how long?” I asked, feeling sicker by the minute. I had no idea how much money we had, or if my mother would be able to work regularly, or anything about our finances at all, really. I’d never needed to know.
“Quite a while. I shifted nearly all of the money out of the joint savings account and put it into my own checking. That way if Oscar comes back he can’t…” Her eyes widened suddenly as if she was seeing something over my shoulder. Then she turned away, back to Batgirl and Black Canary, singing softly. “Ash and char, sun and star, wind and smoke, ash and oak…”
Before I could say anything, Noelle caught my wrist and headed for the stairs. “Don’t. We need to talk.” Her grip was soft and cool, but unbreakable, like a steel tool with a rubber grip.
With Sparx trailing behind, Noelle led me up to the back hallway—a windowless space that was probably the second darkest spot in the house after the basement. “She’s been like that off and on all day. It’s not the worst I’ve seen her, but…”
“But what?” I demanded.
Noelle took a breath and sighed. It was only then I realized she’d had to consciously choose to breathe. She did it again now, before she began to speak. “Genny’s always had issues, Kalvan. Since we were little girls. But it got especially bad when she first tried to go away to college.”
“Tried?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yes. She ended up in a mental institution for a few months. Genny sees and hears things that aren’t there sometimes, and most of her problem isn’t about magic even if that’s where it started. It’s brain chemistry. Depression, delusions, hallucinations, paranoia sometimes. Her medications cover some of that, but she also needs anchors to help her sort the real from the imagined when things get bad. People she can trust to be real. Back in her college days, that was me and your grandmother—Grandpa Howard was already dead when she had her first episode—but neither of us had the right sort of powers to do anything for her magically. Fire only feeds the flames of her madness. Later, Nix did much of the work. Then, apparently, Oscar.”
“What—Nix? You say that like my dad had magic, too.”
“Of course.” Noelle nodded. “He was a powerful sorcerer and a good one, and he used his skills to help your mother. I assumed you knew that.”
“I … really?” I was so confused. “I don’t know anything about my dad. Mom never talks about him. I thought from that first conversation you didn’t like him.”
“I didn’t. At least not at first, but he grew on me. Much of it was simple prejudice on my part. Earth powers have always made me nervous. Dirt smothers fire, and all that.”
“Hold on, my dad had the same kind of magic as Oscar?” The idea made me feel like I’d swallowed a grumpy rat to follow the worms. “That’s terrible! Oscar was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and my dad was an earth power, too?”
“Is an earth power, Kalvan. Is. He’s still alive … ish. Honestly, I wish he hadn’t passed beyond any reaching.”
Wait, what now?! Before I could ask anything more about my dad, Noelle continued.
“As much as we had our differences, he was always good for Genny, and she’s in a bad place. If there was any way at all to reach him…” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, that’s completely impossible. Death has given me a connection with earth that’s letting me help more than I used to, but I won’t be able to stay very long. Here in the North, life is weak and easier to fight while the snow flies, but spring will come. At some point after that I will lose the battle. Too soon it will all be on you and—”
“Me!?!” That drove every question about my dad out of my head. “But we both know fire can’t help her, and I don’t know what to do, and I’m only thirteen, and—”
“And it’s not fair. Not even a little bit.” Noelle put her hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. “I know all that, but lots of things aren’t fair. Like having to master the Darkness, or dueling with Oscar, or being attacked by delvers. But you handled all of that, and I’m sure you’ll manage this, too.”
Which makes exactly one of us, I thought.
“How?” I whispered.
“I don’t know, Kalvan, I don’t know. But I know you’ll find what you need if you search inside yourself.” For one brief moment, she looked as if she wanted to say more. Then she shook her head and turned away.
* * *
Sparx tapped the side of the big steel mixing bowl, making rainbows ripple on the inch of gasoline in the bottom. “I think we’re ready.”
I knelt beside him in snow gone slushy with the spring melt, and glanced anxiously around. “I hate this idea. Someone is going to call the cops about thirty seconds after we light the gas.”
“Which is why we’re doing this on the railroad tracks a few blocks from home and not in your backyard.”
I nodded warily. “Does it really have to be at midnight?”
“Yes, and a full moon would help, but this can’t wait. We don’t know how long your aunt can hold herself free of the grave, and your mom’s not going to get better on her own. We need to figure out what you can do to help her, and the fire bowl is the best tool I know when you’re looking for hidden answers.”
“I—eep!” I pointed at a pair of yellow eyes that had suddenly appeared on the slope above us. “What’s that?”
Sparx looked up. “Coyote, I think. Big one.”
“In the city? And why are its eyes glowing?”
“They’re not glowing, they’re reflecting. There’s a streetlight on the slope behind us. And, sure. With the parks and the lakes and the cemeteries there’s a lot of cover and decent hunting between all the fat squirrels and half-tame rabbits.”
“Like you?” I jokingly poked him in the ribs, though the glowing eyes gave me the creepy-crawlies.
“No, not like me. Animals actually see what’s there even when you humans do not, O Accursed Master. No coyote wants a mouthful of fire.”
“So, why is it staring at us?” The yellow eyes held my own.
“How should I know?” He sighed. “Look, if it really matters, why don’t you ask it?”
“For starters, funny bunny, I never learned to speak coyote.”
“It’s not all that different from fox. Listen.” He let out several sharp yips and something between a howl and a long bark.
The eyes blinked. Then the coyote, if that’s what it was, let out a low whine and a couple of yips of its own.
Sparx yipped back twice and the eyes lowered as though their owner were settling down to wait. Sparx turned back to me. “See? Nothing to worry about. Now can we get back to doing what we came to do?”
“What did it say?”
“She said this valley is her territory, and wanted to know if we were planning to stay long. I don’t think she likes people very much, which is quite sensible for an urban coyote. I told her we’d be gone soon enough, but she might want to move off for a while anyway.”
“That seems like an awful lot to say in a couple of yips.” I eyed him skeptically.
“It’s a very concise language and as much conveyed by subtle movements of the ears and nose as by words. With that settled, would you please light the bowl? It’s cold out here.”
The eyes still made me nervous, but Sparx was right and the slush had long since soaked through the knees of my jeans. Breathing in and then slowly out again, I framed the words I would need and began to speak in the language of fire. “Ash and char, sun and star, wind and smoke, ash and oak.”
As each word left my mouth it formed itself into a glowing ideogram, hovering briefly in the air before dropping down to land on the edge of the bowl. Ash went first and landed beneath Polaris, the star of the north. Char took station on the south side of the bowl. The others followed, filling in the eight points of a fiery compass rose. I’d never used the next few lines in a real spell; only practiced them as part of my lessons.
“Words of fire, light a pyre. Words of art, open hearts.”
The ideograms slid down into the bowl, igniting the gasoline, which bloomed into a flower of cobalt fire. Now I had to imagine what I wanted to see and know, and hold that in my heart while I spoke the final piece of the spell.
Show me what I need to help my mother. I still had trouble with a lot of fire magic, but this part felt easy. There was nothing in the world more important to me.
“Flame of earth darkness brightens. Flame of truth the blind enlightens.”
The heart of the fire flower brightened and clarified until it looked like a sphere of aquamarine embedded in the center of an enormous candle’s perfect flame, or one of those onion domes you might see capping an orthodox church.
Please. I need to see.
For several long seconds nothing happened. Then, slowly, like a face taking shape out of the random arrangement of tiles in a floor, an image began to form. It took me several beats to recognize it as the back of a person’s head, dark haired and leaning forward. Even as I realized what I was seeing, it turned, exposing a too-familiar face.
Oscar! Oscar, as I had only seen him a few times; with all the planes of his face gone hard and flat, his features as cold and inhuman as if he were a stone playing at being a man. A power of earth and rock. The Corona Borealis winked into being on his brow, dark and tarnished—Winter’s Crown.
“No.” I leaned backward, away from the flames. “I won’t let us fall into his power ever again.” If Oscar was the only thing that could help my mother, there was no hope.
“Wait,” said Sparx. “The vision is not yet finished.”
The Crown shimmered and Oscar’s features began to change and flow. Moving with the slow, inexorable pace of lava devouring a village, it became another face. My real father’s—the one I saw in my dreams sometimes with a clarity my memories didn’t possess—but still carved from stone. The Crown had vanished. But this doesn’t make any sense. My dad can’t help; Noelle said he was beyond any reaching … Before I could finish my thought, the fires flickered again, restoring the Crown while Nix’s features blurred into …
“NO!” This time I shouted and leaped back, kicking the bowl over in my hurry to get away from the vision and spraying liquid fire across the slushy ground.
“No.” More quietly, but just as emphatic, because the last face I had seen in the fire was mine. My face as hard and granite-cold as the others; my face in stone and crowned with the Corona Borealis in all its summer glory.
“I don’t understand.” I glared at Sparx across the broad puddle of burning gasoline. “I don’t understand any of it. What’s going on? Why did it show my father? Then me as a creature of earth? And as the Summer King?”
“I don’t know.” Sparx shook his head. “And I don’t like it. The Crown is fallow, but when the season turns, someone must become the Summer King. At first I thought it might be your father, given his face in the vision, but then it ended with you.”
“You don’t think it’s going to be me, do you?”
“I very much hope not.” The hare looked more worried than he had at any time since we fought my stepfather. “The Crown should never go to one so young. It’s a magic for the mature, both of body and spirit. I doubt you have strength to bear it.”
“But?” I glared at him. “You didn’t say it, but I know there’s a but.”
“But, barring death or other special circumstances, the reigning monarch may choose their own successor. When Oscar threw the Crown at you it left a mark where it shouldn’t have…”
“Oh.” I touched the silver pyramid I had thought so dashing when I first noticed it, and swallowed hard.
“That’s not good.”
“No.” He hunkered down in the slush and started pulling the flames from the burning gasoline into himself. “It’s not.”
“What about the other part, my face in stone? Is there something there you don’t want to tell me, too?”
Before he could answer, the coyote suddenly threw her head back and let out a long, mournful howl that seemed to go on forever, rising and falling until it became …
“Sirens!” Sparx’s ears popped straight up. “That’s probably about the fire. We’d best make ourselves scarce.”
I couldn’t hear them yet, but I nodded and followed him away from the tracks. It wasn’t until I bent to duck through some brush that I thought to wonder about the coyote and her timely howl. But when I glanced at where I’d last seen her eyes, I found only darkness.
I half wanted to question Noelle more about my dad when I got home, but the vision of him looking so much like Oscar haunted me. Earth power scared me, and I didn’t think I could bear it if he turned out to be pretty much the same sort of man as my stepfather. Besides, if he couldn’t be reached anyway, maybe it was better not to know. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
* * *
After a nearly sleepless night, I zombied my way through the first two hours of my classes with Sparx hiding out in my bag. I’d tried to convince him to stay home and keep an eye on my mom, but after the delver attack, he flat refused to let me out of his sight.
Third hour was Modern American History with Rob. As with most academic-type classes at Free, the room was set up with long tables forming a sort of squared-off U shape around the outer edge of the classroom with the teacher’s desk in the opening. All the chairs were on the outside of the tables, facing toward the center. The effect was to create a big circle with the teacher’s place only slightly more important than the students’. There was some lecturing, but part of the Free School deal was that you were supposed to read up on the topic so classes could happen as a give-and-take discussion of the material.
Most of the time I liked it that way, even when it meant I had to work harder than I would have in a regular school—there was no faking it if you didn’t do the homework or know the material some other way. But today was a big exception. I was totally zonked and having a brutally hard time keeping my eyes open.
When Rob started talking about the debates in the House of Representatives leading up to the Iraq War, Dave actually had to elbow me a couple of times to keep me from nodding off, and I caught some very disappointed looks from Rob. I tipped my chair back onto two legs, leaning my shoulders against the wall and balancing there in an effort to force myself to pay attention or fall on my ass.
It was soooo hard to stay awazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …
BANG!
“Augh!” The back of my head bounced off the wall hard enough to make the room flash bright white for an instant. “What?!? George Bush! Oil! Desert Storm!”
I blinked madly, trying to bludgeon my brain into working. Around me, the whole room broke out laughing. I looked up into the eyes of the teacher staring at me from the other side of the table.
“Did we have a nice nap, Kalvan?” Rob’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Are we refreshed and ready to take on an exciting assignment in the world of history? A five-hundred-word paper perhaps? Delivered aloud to the class in one week? On the subject of today’s discussion. We are? Excellent.” He picked up the yardstick he’d used to smack the table and went back to his desk.
Dave leaned in close and it was only then I noticed he and Ellen were hanging on to my chair so it wouldn’t tip backward and dump me on the floor—probably at Rob’s direction. “Sorry, man, but you started cutting Zs with a noise that would have done the old band saw in the shop proud. I couldn’t cover it. Rob called your name twice before he came over.”
I shook my head slightly, not wanting to draw any more attention than I already had. “S’okay, s’not your fault. I should have just skipped class and caught a nap. Think I’ll do that ’stead of lunch.”
Dave nodded. “Good plan.”
I managed to keep my eyes open through the fifteen minutes until the bell rang. Then, while most of the kids headed for the cafeteria, I made my way to the back door of the main stage. I knocked—twice slow, three times fast, twice slow again. It opened a few minutes later and a senior named Clayton waved me inside before heading back onto the stage where he started running lines from a play with some girl whose name I couldn’t remember.
There were ten or twelve students scattered around the ridiculously oversized theater—a remnant of the much-better-funded mechanical arts high school that had originally occupied the building. Free had inherited the building third or fourthhand, probably because it was cheaper to house us in the worn-out old school than tear it down. I was too tired to even pretend to say hi to anybody, so I headed around to the front of the stage where a panel that was supposed to be locked let me slip into the darkness beneath.
The distance between the boards above and the black-painted concrete below was about two feet at the front of the stage, but the floor sloped down as you moved toward the back, where there was nearly four feet of clearance. Decaying props and bits of scenery filled most of the space, with a few narrow aisles that allowed actors access to the trapdoors in the stage above. I could hear kissing noises in the darkness down one of the side paths. Normally that would have been enough to send me back the way I’d come.
Instead, I went on until I got to a little three-quarter-sized recliner against the back wall. I’d spent a week sleeping there in the lead-up to my duel with Oscar, so it was a bit like coming home … in a weird sort of way; and I was out in seconds.
… and for seconds. Or at least that’s how it felt when I woke up as my chair went over backward and landed with a thump and a big puff of dust while I flailed around wildly.
“… the heck?” I blinked muzzily at the face above me. They were bending forward so their features were upside down in relation to me and difficult to sort out. But not for long. “Josh!”
“Mornin’, pumpkin.” He wore a grimly satisfied sort of smile that made me want to punch him in the nose, as I’d done once before.
Before I could respond in any way, there was a bright flare and Sparx appeared on my chest, interposing himself between me and Josh. “Back off, bitter water boy!”
Josh chuckled. “Aren’t we a feisty little bunny this afternoon?”
I put a calming hand on Sparx’s back where the flames rippled and churned angrily. “What do you want, Josh?” I didn’t like him, but for reasons that had nothing to do with friendship, he’d helped me against Oscar and I owed him.
“Mostly to see you land on your face instead of your back, but I don’t always get what I want. Herself wanted me to tell the stone man’s son that a fancy crown won’t keep his head on his shoulders and that delvers dig deep and think shallow.” Herself was an elemental spirit and the embodiment of the Mississippi.
“How wonderfully vague.” I gently shoved Sparx off my chest and sat cross-legged on the back of the overturned chair. “At least it’s not something half as specific as a riddle this time. I loved the last pair.”
Sparx put a paw on my thigh. “Kalvan…”
“What?!”
“When one of the great elementals decides to warn you about something, it’s best to respond politely and gratefully. She didn’t have to give you clues for the fight against your stepfather, or spit you out when you went under the ice after the duel.”
Josh smirked at that. “Listen to the bunny; you’ll live longer.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, then, I’ll be sure to send her a thank-you card as soon as I figure out what she’s talking about. In the meantime, I’ve got classes.”
What I really wanted was more sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. I sure didn’t want to sit around chatting with Josh, but I couldn’t make him go away since he’s twice my size and has magic to boot. So I snatched my backpack and pushed past him to the nearest trapdoor leading onto the stage. Shoving it open with a crash, I climbed up between Clayton and his scene partner, who both glared at me. I ignored them and kept going.
“Kalvan!” Josh followed me out into the hall. “I’m not done with you—” He stopped speaking abruptly and turned back toward the theater when a small knot of girls came around the corner—which was a huge relief.
Right up until the girls started giggling and one said, “Hey, Morgan, isn’t that your new boyfriend?”
I saw Morgan and Lisa then and blushed hard.
Morgan’s face darkened as well. “Stow it, Angie.”
“Look at those red faces,” said Angie. “I think I’m on to something. What were you and Lisa doing all alone with Kalvan and his little friend at the wedding garden? It sounds awfully romanti—”
The girl’s voice cut off abruptly as Morgan dropped and pivoted, kicking the legs out from under her in a move straight out of an action film.
“Oh yes, I’m head over heels in love with a boy who barely comes up to my chin.” Morgan rolled her eyes as she came back upright, then stepped in close to me. “It’s so much fun when I have to bend over to kiss him. See.” The boots she wore gave her seven inches on me and she made a show of leaning way down to bestow an air kiss a few inches from my unbandaged cheek.
Then she shoved me away hard enough that I stumbled and landed on my butt before she turned back to the other girls. “Is that what you wanted to see, Angie? I hope so, since it’s a one-time event, because barf.”
And wasn’t that just great for my ego. I mean the idea of me and Morgan going out—if I were even really interested in going out with someone—was about as likely as a gopher dating a racehorse. Morgan started to walk away. I didn’t move—mostly because I didn’t want to draw her attention.
The sharp voice of our principal, Aaron Washington, cracked out. “Morgan, Angie, Kalvan, my office. Now.” His eyes scanned the group. “Lisa, you too. Let’s go.”
Great.