The engine was louder now, louder than it should be. Fate wanted me to know she was here.
Val stood at one of the windows, his wolf sitting solidly within him, ready to become one creature, ready to fight, if needed. “She’s, no, they’re pulling up on the side of the road.” He turned his dark glittering gaze to me. “Three of them.”
“Well, that explains the engine noise.” Fate could take any shape she desired. She was a god, after all. I had never met her, in any form, in all the years I’d been standing this post.
I didn’t like gods much, and in return, they largely ignored me.
But not this time. Not today. Because of one bad decision I’d made years ago.
Several bad decisions, I thought as the months Card had stayed here on my land, his feet on these stones, his laughter in this air, rolled through my mind. Or maybe not all of them had been bad.
“She is one,” I said to Val. “She is three. Usually three when she wants to make a point.”
“Or negotiate,” Card said. “Who are you talking to?”
Card sat slouched at my kitchen table, but the edges of him had tensed. As if he expected me to set him up for an ambush, which, frankly, the jury was still hashing out the pros and cons of that.
“I should just give you to them.” I placed my plates in the sink, then adjusted the straps on my overalls. I was glad I’d gone with the tank. It made my tattoos more accessible.
“You should,” he agreed.
“Your problems are not my problems,” I said.
“They are not.”
I turned and put my fists on my hips. It wasn’t like him to be this downtrodden and agreeable. I didn’t like it.
He didn’t move, but his gaze hungrily took in the fiery glow of the tattoos covering my arms, down to my fingertips, flicking up to the ink on the wide swath of skin visible below my collar bones.
“Are you going with me to talk to them,” I asked, “or are you hiding in here like a coward?”
“You’ll let me claim sanctuary?”
“Until I hear their side of this story, yes.”
“All right.” He drew his fingers over his mouth, and I noticed the tremble in them. “All right. Yes. Thank you, yes.”
“You might want to hold off on the thanks until I decide if I’m gonna let them drag you out of here by your balls.”
He blinked, then stood, but there was a flicker of life in his eyes. “Graphic. Also, I do remember the secret ways.”
“What secret ways?”
“You have portals. Every Crossroads does, so every Crossroads can travel to each other’s place if they need to. Which none of you do because you are the most anti-social, territorial... I see by the look on your face I should shut up. But you know I could find the portals if I needed to. Get out of here quick.”
“Like you wouldn’t just use your magic to Walk.”
“I...don’t do that.”
“Walk?”
“Magic. Any magic. I mean, except for today, because I didn’t think you’d let me through the wards. Though now I realize I could have just used the portals.” He made a frustrated growl.
“No, I closed the portals,” I lied, wondering why a wizard wouldn’t want to use magic.
I walked out of the kitchen and headed to the door.
“You didn’t,” he said from behind me. Then, closer, “Tell me you didn’t close the portals. Why would you even block the secret way—oh. Never mind, I know.”
He very much did not know, because I hadn’t actually deactivated the portals. But now I was curious. “You don’t know.”
“Right. My lips are sealed.”
I paused with my hand on the latch. “Why do you think I would close the portals? To keep you from using them? You aren’t that important in my life, Card. Haven’t been in a long, long, very long time.”
“I didn’t think... You know I don’t always think everything is about me, right?”
I scoffed.
He set his shoulders, and there was that immovable object stance, along with a little more light in his eyes. “Because of your father. That’s who I thought you were trying to keep out.”
He didn’t say it with any heat. As a matter of fact, his words were kind.
But it still hit me like a punch to the gut. “My dad is not welcome here,” I said, my voice sounding like it came from a distance.
“I know.”
“If he tried to use the portal, the Crossroads would eat him.”
“I know.”
“I set wards just to make sure he doesn’t think this place is his anymore. Not after he left it and tore out its heart.”
“I know. Ricky.” He touched my elbow, his fingers carefully not brushing any of my tattoos. “I know. If you closed the portals to keep him out, that makes sense. You have every right to do so. You have every right to tell anyone they can’t be here. This is your home.”
I pulled away from his touch and cleared my throat, a little embarrassed just the mention of my father had made me react so strongly.
“If I catch you trying to use the portals, I’ll tell the house to eat you too.”
“I’ll bring the gravy.”
I shook my head at his smile, then opened the door, stepping out onto the porch that ran the full back side of the house. “Let’s get this over with, so you can leave.”
The property sat on the southwest side of a random crossroads south of Joplin, Missouri. Not a lot of people came this way. Hornet wasn’t so much a town as a forgotten little spot so near the Oklahoma border, folks who did wander by to see if they could catch the Spook Light down at the Devil’s Promenade never stayed for long.
We had fields, trees, flowers and grasses, and lots and lots of blue sky, but the magic of the place wasn’t something most people noticed. So they moved on. Moved away.
Not me. I had been raised here. Loved it here. And always would.
I walked across the old porch boards, power flowing through the house to pool around my feet. My tattoos warmed and pinged. The magic, which was never asleep, bloomed as I called all the ragged bits of power that filled the house to me, to my skin. To my command.
I leaned against the post at the top of the stairs, just as I always did. And then—
—heat and cool ribbons, the hush of ancient songs caught frozen in the breath of spirits long slumbering—
—the Crossroads opened to me like a gate, like a book—
—spells twisted, languages called out in harmony, power echoed with the galaxy’s light—
—and that power was me, and I was it, and all within these walls and land struck a perfect bargain of alignment.
Here, on my land, here, at this Crossroads, even the gods would be challenged to unseat me.
The sweet, deep tone of becoming one with the Crossroads rang out softly, and the wards and guards I’d worked into the edges of this place flared in response.
Fate, all three of them, noticed.
“That was very dramatic of you,” Card said, coming up on the other side of the stairs and leaning into the post there. No sound rang out from his contact, but the magic deepened ever so slightly, as if it remembered him and his roots here.
“You brought Fate to my doorstep, Card. Fate.” I stuck my hands in my front pockets and inhaled the sweet, warm morning air. “What the hell did you want me to do? Offer them cookies?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you never cease to surprise me, Ricky. That’s one of the things I lo...like about you.”
Yes, I’d heard what he’d almost said, and yes, I ignored it.
“That’s Fate?” Val asked. He’d winked into existence below us on the grass in front of the stairs, his wolf at alert, ears up, tail stiff.
Usually Val got right up in everyone’s face, knowing they couldn’t sense him. But this time, he stayed near me.
I didn’t know if he was afraid of facing the god, or if he was staying close to try and protect me from Card.
Maybe both.
“That’s Fate,” I said.
She’d come in three different vehicles: a mint-green Vespa, a baby blue VW van, and a black and red three-wheel Slingshot, all of which were pulled off the road nearest my field.
“Maiden, Matron, Crone, right?” Val asked. “Young, middle-aged, and old?”
“Yep.”
The three women left their vehicles and walked to the edge of my property. I thought about flexing, and forcing them to stay there, but this land was built to welcome, to bring in those who searched for knowledge or aid.
Besides, I’d rather not walk out there to talk. Staying connected to the Crossroads by remaining on the porch gave me the advantage, however slight that might be.
It was interesting to watch them pause. Then Clotho, the youngest, took a step onto the grass. She smiled when nothing happened and waved her hand over her head.
“Hello!” she called out. “Are we welcome to come up to your house, Crossroads?”
“Yes,” I called back. “As long as you come without violent intent.”
The middle-aged Fate, Lachesis, laughed, and it was a fall of music. “I don’t suppose all of our intents will be violent,” she called to me.
“Good enough. Come on in.”
“You sure?” Card looked and sounded easy as a summer’s day, but he gave off sparking little snaps of worry that echoed through the Crossroads.
“You need to calm down and let me do what I do best.”
“Kiss?”
Nope. I had not just heard him say that.
“What did you just say to me?”
He glanced over, took in my stance, and held his hands up in defense. “You’re an amazing kisser. I’m sorry. But you said what you do best. Obviously, I’m a little nervous here, and that was not the right direction to take the conversation, and you couldn’t have been talking about kissing.”
“Obviously.”
“Because obviously you were talking about...se...”
“Crossroads,” I growled, knowing he was doing this to rile me up. Or to dispel the tension. Could go either way with him.
“The best thing I do,” I said clearly, “is act as a Crossroads for people looking for help and magic. You, however, are about to run out of both those things from me if you don’t zip it.”
He opened his mouth, his eyebrows raised, like he was going to argue.
“That? What you’re about to say? Don’t.”
He shut his mouth. “It would have been nice.”
“I do not care.”
“It would have been sweet.”
“From that mouth?”
“It would have been honest.”
Oh, I had no doubt.
“I am holding your life in my hands,” I reminded him. “The life of your tree. Don’t make me regret that.”
“Crossroads,” the eldest Fate, Atropos, said as she stopped beneath my porch, “we need a word with that thieving seedling next to you.”
“Unless he agrees to talk, you’ll be speaking to me.”
Three faces turned to him, three sets of eyes, light blue to deepest midnight, waited. The Fates were beautiful. But in that beauty was a terrifying power.
The youngest wore a summer dress covered in flowers that bloomed on a woven vine. She had pulled the curls of her hair back in a simple ponytail, a soft green ribbon holding it there. Her skin was smooth and dark as an autumn sunset.
The middle Fate’s face was sharper at jaw and cheek, the glint in her eyes hard. Her hair was darker, flowing in waves down to skim the waist of her blouse and broomstick skirt. A silver peace sign necklace glowed in the rosy morning light and brought out the rose undertones in her dark skin.
The elder Fate had on a black leather jacket over a deep red tank and matching red leather trousers. Her steel-gray hair was braided and gathered off a face transcending the beauty of her age to something that belonged on oil paintings and sculptures.
“Well?” I asked Card. “Do you want to talk to her?”
I figured he’d say yes. He liked the sound of his own voice, liked catching people in the clever twists and turns of negotiation.
If I were in his place, I wouldn’t allow anyone to speak for me, and certainly not someone with whom I had a dodgy history.
“No,” he said, surprising the heck out of me. “I’d rather you speak for me, Ricky. I trust you.”
The smile he threw my way wasn’t filled with his usual swagger. It was filled with hope. Maybe even desperation.
And even though he’d left me without a word all those years ago, and even though he’d showed up on my doorstep with nothing but trouble in his eyes, his tree didn’t deserve to die for his stupidity.
“All right. I’m speaking for Cardamom Oak. Tell me your story. What’s your grievance?”
The youngest, Clotho, smiled, pleased with this outcome, though I didn’t know why. The other two scowled.
“He stole from us,” the matron, Lachesis, said. “Three coins.”
“He only knew he was delivering an envelope to a woman who claimed it was hers.”
“He knew the coins were ours,” the eldest, Atropos, said.
“Even if he did, he wasn’t the one who wanted them taken.”
“That is a very fine line you’re drawing, Crossroads,” Lachesis said.
“He doesn’t have the coins anymore.”
“But he knows where they are,” Lachesis pressed.
“Maybe,” I shifted my stance, folding my hands together and activating layers upon layers of connections to the magic in this place. “You know where they are too. You’re Fate. They are your coins. You know whose hands they are in.”
Clotho stepped forward. “We don’t. Isn’t that a thing? We should, of course we should, but we have no idea. We didn’t even know they’d been stolen until very recently. Then we saw who had touched them and that he paid with two. We know two were spent, not gifted.”
“Then you can collect them from those two places,” I said.
Clotho winced. “No. He stepped into the threads of destiny and consequences. Depending on the actions he takes, or refuses to take, many...things will happen. Some good, some...bad.
“If we retrieve even one of the coins, there will be consequences no human in the world would want to pay.” She made an explosion sound and popped her fingers open like fireworks going off.
Well, that didn’t sound good.
“You want a deal?” Atropos stepped forward, leather creaking with the movement. “Then let’s make a deal. The threads of destiny are ours to influence too. What do you want, Crossroads, in exchange for Cardamom Oak?”
Whoa. She was going full exchange of life and free will. It was very old-school god shit. The whole sacrifice-his-life-on-an-altar-for-my-forgiveness song and dance.
Card didn’t say anything, but he was breathing deeply and slowly, as if readying himself for a dive to the bottom of the ocean.
I thought about making him sweat a little more, but I did not play games with gods.
“There is nothing you can give me that would make me trade his life. Really,” I said to Fate, and to Card, “You should know me better.”
Card’s breathing hitched, and a light sweat broke out across his forehead, one single bead dripping down his temple to his jaw.
“But,” I said, “the coins are lost and need to be found, and I don’t want...” I made the explosion sound and flashy fingers. “So let’s come to a reasonable agreement for finding them and returning them to you.”
“You really don’t have to—” Clotho said.
“Yes,” Lachesis interrupted. “Let’s make a deal with you, Crossroads. May we come in for tea?”
The house hummed in warning, and everything in me rang with alarm bells. “No, I think we can handle this out here. Card, do you know where all of the coins are?”
“No.”
“Do you know where two are?”
“Maybe.”
Well, hell. “Do you know where one is?”
He nodded. “I think I know where one is.”
“All right. We’ll get them back to you as soon as we can,” I said. “You have my word.”
Card gave me a curious little look I couldn’t interpret before turning his attention back to the Fates.
“No,” Atropos said. “This isn’t something we want lost in the world only to be returned in hundreds of years. We want the coins now.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said.
“He’s a wizard and a dryad,” the eldest Fate said. “He can find them with a snap of his magic.”
I wasn’t so sure of that.
“We need time to find the coins,” I calmly insisted. “We need time to retrieve the coins. We need time to bring you the coins. Unless you want to help us out with any of that?”
“These things are not ours to meddle in,” Atropos snipped.
“Well, we could meddle a little,” Clotho said.
Both older Fates turned toward her.
“What has gotten into you?” Lachesis asked. “We talked about this.”
“We talked about a lot of things,” Clotho said.
“And we decided,” Atropos said.
“Well...” Clotho hedged.
“Clo, really?” Lachesis asked.
“Just... I had time to think, Lach. While we were driving over,” Clotho said.
“Why?” Atropos grouched. “Why do we let you spin? We should switch jobs.”
Lachesis opened her mouth, but Atropos rammed on. “No. I have a better idea. I should just take all the jobs. Spin, allot, and end. Things would get done a lot faster around here.”
“Faster?” Clotho said. “Nothing would get done. You’d just...” she made scissor motion with her fingers, “...snip off everything. Plant a seed? No, that takes too long to grow. Snip. Watch the sunrise? No, takes too long. Snip. Finish one game of cribbage? Nooo, takes too long, Clo, even though I was finally going to beat you. It would be all: Snip. Done.”
“We each have our job,” Lachesis interrupted. “We will each do our job. This hasn’t ever been different,” she added with a glare at the eldest, “and it never will be. We know this.”
For a moment, their eyes spun with copper, silver, and gold, with the knowledge and power of a godhead they’d embodied for as long as time had existed.
Or maybe longer. I’d have to check my records.
“Fine.” Atropos crossed her arms over her thin chest. “We do our jobs.”
Clotho grinned. “Like I was saying, I’ve thought this over, and there’s interfering, and there’s just... you know...” she shrugged, “fate. What is now, will not be what is then, but what should have always been. This,” she said with a wink, “could be a beginning. The faster the coins are returned to us, the better from humanity’s point of view. Do we agree?”
Lachesis nodded. “I agree.”
Clotho looked at Atropos for confirmation.
“I thought you wanted to take your time to find the coins, maybe go on a picnic with the dryad,” the eldest Fate grumbled.
“Do you want this to be done fast or slow?” Clotho asked her.
“Fast. As if you have to ask.”
“Then fast it is. Crossroads, please let Cardamom Oak know he has until noon tomorrow to find all three coins and bring them to us.”
“That’s not going to be long enough,” I said, “especially since he doesn’t know where two of them are.”
She nodded and shut one eye like she could better see the in-betweens of the world that way. “It could be enough. It’s not generous, but two out of three of us are very angry he took our coins.” She grinned. “You don’t have to guess who isn’t angry about it.”
“Why aren’t you?”
I had long ago learned never to trust the word of a god. Too many loopholes, too many pitfalls. A couple friends of mine were wandering Route 66, doing the bidding of a god due to a promise that god had made them.
Of course that god had brought Brogan back to life in exchange for the errands he and Lula were running for him, so I knew they had gotten something more than promises out of the god.
They had gotten a second chance together.
Who, in this wide world, wouldn’t want a second chance with their true love?
“Why aren’t I what?” the youngest Fate asked.
“Angry at Card for taking the coins?” I wasn’t going to say “steal” because technically he had taken them away from the woman who was actually trying to steal them from Fate.
“I’m...curious,” Clotho said, no longer looking quite as young, quite as innocent and free. “How did he manage to do it without us knowing? How did he even know where the coins would be?”
“A woman hired him to fetch an envelope she said would be left in a diner in the Wallowa Mountains.”
All the Fates held very still. Even the wind and leaves and clouds stopped moving. All bird sound, all insect clicks, silent.
Only the Crossroads behind me whispered and shifted with power, ready to attack or defend if needed.
“That is interesting,” Lachesis finally said. “But not the matter at hand. We want the coins returned. All three. By noon tomorrow.”
Atropos sneered. “You may be able to protect the dryad, but if we don’t have our coins, we will end his tree. We will fell it with one blow. Burn it with one match. Or let it be devoured slowly by beetles from the inside out.”
Card swallowed. It was a dry click in his throat.
“But,” Clotho said, “we won’t do that, any of that, until after noon tomorrow.”
I knew that was the best deal I was going to get out of Fate, and since neither Card nor I were bleeding, it was better than I’d hoped for.
“Where will we find you once we have the coins?”
Clotho smiled again, and it was brilliant. “Camper van.” She pointed at the VW bus on the side of the road. “We’ll just move down to the wider pullout and wait.”
“That van’s going to be uncomfortable as hell,” Atropos said.
“Aw, come on, Atro, you liked hell,” Clotho said.
“I only liked it a little bit.”
“I brought a blow-up mattress,” Lachesis said. “And pillows and other comforts. We will be fine.”
“Plus, it was your idea to hit the road, Atro,” Clotho said.
“I didn’t mean we had to sleep in a van,” the elder Fate said.
“Well, we are a god,” Lachesis said. “I’m sure we will adjust as needed.”
“Fine,” Atropos said. “Let’s get this over with. Do you agree with the conditions of our deal?” She leveled a steely glare at me.
“In exchange for Cardamom’s tree to be safe and whole, and never again be threatened or harmed by you or anyone you send. And also for Cardamom’s life to continue as it ever has, unchallenged by you in the same way it has been before this incident. For that, we will return your three coins by noon tomorrow.”
All three gods had the same narrowed-eye look on their faces. “You’ve worked with gods before, haven’t you?” Lachesis asked.
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Clotho said quickly. “We don’t need other negotiations. Those are the terms, and if you agree, we agree.”
Lachesis shook her head. Atropos stared up at the sky and muttered about youth and impulsiveness.
“I agree,” I said, “on behalf of Cardamom Oak.”
“Then it begins,” Clotho and Lachesis said at the same time.
“And it will end soon enough,” Atropos warned. “Enjoy your very short time left, little seed,” she said to Cardamom.
He didn’t reply, which was best. I was his voice, and he had a tendency to open his mouth and fuck everything up.
“So,” Card said, “now that we’ve come to an agreement, I wonder if you—”
I pushed off the post and wrapped my big hand over his stupid mouth. “Nope, no. He does not wonder anything. We are done here. All the way done. Completely, completely done.”
The Fates stared at him, as if willing him to find a way to get out of my hold, which I knew he could do. He was a wizard, and that step Val had witnessed was something Card used to do all the time.
He wasn’t a person who could be kept unless he wanted to be.
The moment stretched, then Atropos turned on her heel and stomped off toward her Slingshot.
Clotho smiled. “I knew this would work out. Didn’t I tell you it would work out?”
Lachesis pressed her lips together as if she wanted to say something else.
“I’m just so glad we decided on a road trip,” Clotho continued as she walked slowly back toward her Vespa. “Aren’t you glad?” she yelled to Atropos.
Atropos swung onto her Slingshot and gunned the engine to drown out the younger Fate’s words. She pulled out onto the road and took off.
Lachesis turned away, seemed to remember something, and turned back.
“You will have allies, Crossroads,” she said. “You will not like all of them. But...well, it is your choice if you take their assistance. Remember where your journey will take you, and spare no time looking backward for the gifts you seek.”
She disappeared, then reappeared behind the wheel of the van.
The van and Vespa engines rumbled, and the two Fates rolled down the road to the pullout just on the other side of a stand of trees where Atropos had stopped.
“That could have gone worse,” said Val, who had been silent this entire time.
Card reached up and pressed his fingertips to the back of my hand. The contact was electric and familiar.
I realized I was still holding him, my hand over his mouth. I’d also stepped into him, so that his broad back was against my stomach and breasts, so that his hips, if I took that slightest step forward would slot to mine.
The pressure of his fingers changed, became feather light as he dragged one fingertip over the back of my hand, pulling magic across the ink there.
I stepped back and dropped my hand off his mouth.