Chapter 46
October
Rachel worked on strengthening her flight muscles. If she’d put in this much effort at the fitness center toward building up her shoulders and pecs, she would have looked like the Hulk’s girlfriend. Only she wouldn’t be green.
Her reward for such diligence was practicing her wing flapping on a low perch close to her cage.
“Think of it as training wheels,” Lucas said when he encouraged her to let go of the death grip she had on his finger and step on the perch.
“This perch is low enough to the ground that if you lose your grip, you won’t fall far enough to hurt yourself—and you won’t fly so high or fast if you do take off that you’ll hit a wall or a window. ”
Yeah. Right. Jumping off a cliff is perfectly safe. You probably don’t even need that parachute.
She wished Lucas could sell the idea a little better.
And sure, the perch being low to the ground was a good thing—much better than having a parent bird shove you out of the nest or off a cliff face to encourage that first flight—but being this close to the floor, would anyone notice her before they stepped on her?
“I’m going to close the door between this room and my office,” Lucas said. “We might have some visitors I’ll need to see, and it would be better if they didn’t see you or Faulkner.”
She twittered at him.
“You’ll be safe, Rahele.” Lucas left the room and closed the door.
She trusted him, trusted the Arcana, so she would believe she was safe. She didn’t have a mama bird or papa bird pushing her out of the nest before she was ready to fly.
But she did have Faulkner, who sashayed across the floor as only a crow could do. He stopped beside the perch and stretched his neck toward her.
What was dangling from his beak?
The dangling thing wiggled.
Twittering wildly, Rachel flapped her wings and forgot to hold on to the perch. She landed a few feet away.
Faulkner moved toward her.
Rachel tried again, flapping her wings furiously and flying a few more feet while she twittered for help. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas!
The door eased open just enough for Lucas to look around.
“You’re flying,” he said. “Well done.” Then he looked at the crow. “Faulkner, I don’t think Rahele is ready to eat a piece of worm.”
Rachel flapped her wings and twittered to make sure both males understood that Rahele was definitely not ready to eat a piece of worm, that Rahele was never going to be ready to eat a worm or any kind of insect or crawly thing that other larks might choose to eat.
Rahele was going to be a vegetarian lark.
But after she’d managed to get herself back on the perch and Lucas had gone back to his office, she watched Faulkner eat the worm—and her writer’s brain, for one tiny moment, wondered what a worm tasted like.
44
After exchanging money for the coins used in Wyrd, Charles and Colin Forrester boarded the ferry and paid their fare. Colin chose to ride inside and slid into one of the seats midway up the cabin. Charles settled into the aisle seat next to his son.
Colin leaned against him and whispered, “Is the person who exchanged the money and told us the fare…?”
Male or female? That was the boy’s question. “I don’t know,” Charles replied.
“Why did…the person…ask if you were taking the ferry for personal reasons or for the police?”
“When we go over on police business, the fare is usually a silver coin.”
Colin stared at him. “They charged you more because you’re off duty?”
“Shh.” The sound came out sharper than he’d intended, but you could never tell who might be sitting behind you or walking up the aisle and would overhear something best left unsaid.
“The fees for some things have a set price, while the fees for other things, like the fare to ride the ferry, are flexible. You either pay the fee or you walk away.”
“But that was ten dollars for each of us. Seems like a lot for a short ride.”
A ride that can take a few minutes. Or a day. Or a year. Or forever.
A woman wearing enough perfume to make Charles’s eyes water hesitated at the seat in front of him.
He’d noticed her at the dock when she gave him a flirtatious smile, which he didn’t return.
He’d been standing behind Colin, letting the boy make his own exchange of money for coins, so the woman hadn’t seen the boy—or hadn’t realized they were together.
Now she looked at Colin’s skin tone. It could have been a light tan that was the result of being out in the sun during the summer, but it wasn’t.
The woman’s face froze, and the look she gave Charles was no longer flirtatious. She deliberately went up two rows of seats before sitting down.
Another woman slipped into the seat in front of them and turned to look at them.
Charles felt a jolt of recognition. This was the unidentified woman who had accompanied one of the Nightingales to a bank.
Sitting this close to her, there was no denying that she was Arcana.
There was something about them that was unmistakable once you understood why a person made you feel like prey.
“It’s fortunate that she didn’t sit here,” the woman said. “She’s doused in so much scent you’d be hanging over the side of the ferry, gasping for breathable air, by the time we were halfway across the river.”
She wasn’t speaking in a loud voice, but her words carried.
The perfumed woman twisted in her seat. “You have some objection to my perfume?”
“Every living thing has an objection to your perfume.” The Arcana smiled at the woman.
It wasn’t a nice smile. “They’ll make you wash it off before they let you into the pavilion.
But you already know that since this isn’t your first trip across the river.
Just like you know that the hotel won’t let you in smelling that way, so your choice will be the public restrooms or the river. ”
“I don’t need this crap.” The perfumed woman stomped toward the back of the ferry, shoving aside people who were trying to enter the cabin. She gave Charles a particularly venomous look as she passed his seat.
“Why is she mad at you?” Colin asked, remembering to keep his voice down.
“He didn’t defend her entitled right to asphyxiate the rest of us,” the Arcana said cheerfully. She turned in her seat, opened her tote bag, and pulled out a paperback—a novel written by Rachel Nightingale.
Charles felt chilled. Coincidence? Or was she deliberately mocking him? Or offering him an opening to ask a question? She knew who he was; he was sure of it.
He thought about all the things he couldn’t ask this Arcana woman, especially in a public place like the ferry—and he considered the one thing he could ask.
As the ferry left the dock and started across the river, Charles leaned forward.
“I heard that the people who truly care about her know she’s safe. ”
No names, no specifics. None were needed. They both knew who he was asking about.
“Then you heard truth,” the Arcana said quietly.
He would be satisfied with that.
Colin wondered what he was missing. Destiny Park was nice enough, with all the beds of flowers, the meandering paths that were sheltered by trees, and the little bridges that went over tiny creeks that spilled into pools of water; but it wasn’t strange or scary.
Okay, one of the statues in the ornamental lake had a spooky vibe, since the woman looked like she’d been locked in an underwater cave for years and years, wasting away but not dying and now finally reaching the surface to exact revenge on…
Well, he wasn’t sure, but if she was in a computer game, she would be one of the monsters you had to beat to escape and return home with the treasure.
In fact, all the statues gave him the willies because they seemed so real, like they might shift position any minute now or get up and go on a coffee break.
The truth was, the Isle of Wyrd and Destiny Park seemed a bit lame.
A bit tame. At least the part Dad was willing to let him see.
Looking for a moon gate was a big no. If it wasn’t for what happened to Ted Ocampo and Darren Palmer, he’d follow Dad around for a while before campaigning to visit the food stands, which had looked pretty awesome.
But Darren had died in some kind of weird-ass way, and Ted was still so freaked out, he was being homeschooled this year.
Colin wasn’t sure if that decision was because of Wyrd or because Darren’s pack of bullyboys was blaming Ted for Darren doing something stupid and wanted some put-you-in-the-hospital kind of payback.
Colin and Dad returned to the area around the ornamental lake. He didn’t know who to ask about finding the weird in Wyrd. Not Dad, who had been looking a little pale since he’d talked to that woman on the ferry.
Wyrd feels a bit tame? Then reframe. That’s what Mom would have said.
He looked at the pavilion and the area around the lake.
On an alien planet, this would be the safe place for visitors and diplomats to meet the native people, to sample some of the local foods, to participate in some activity as a gesture of goodwill.
That’s what Captain Picard would have done if he was leading a mission to meet a race that the crew of the Enterprise hadn’t encountered before.
Maybe the Arcana disguised themselves in some way until they decided the visitors could be trusted.
Was that what had spooked Dad about that woman on the ferry? Had he realized she was one of the Arcana?
Colin glanced at his father, who seemed lost in thought, before wandering over to the lake. The stonework that contained the water was waist high on him—a height that probably kept most kids from falling in or thinking it was meant to be a wading pool.
He leaned over, studying the water. So dark. Most ornamental ponds or lakes that he’d seen had the bottom painted a light color or a bright blue to make the water look pretty or to reflect the sky. This one?