Chapter 25 #16
Beth shook her head.
“I’ll join you in a minute,” Kuhn said. When they were alone, he looked at Beth. “I like you. I do.” He wagged a thumb toward the door to indicate Castelletti. “But sometimes we wonder if you’re on the wrong side of the river.”
When she was alone, Beth braced her head in her hands. Then she sat up, looked around the empty room, and finished typing her report for the Chloe Peterson investigation.
23
When he got home, Forrester set the package on the kitchen table. He’d opened it at the precinct, in case there was something inside that he didn’t want Aisha to see, but he hadn’t opened the letter addressed to them both.
“Where’s Jazz?” he asked when Aisha joined him in the kitchen.
“In her room, doing homework with Davie.” She looked at the box. “Charles? Is something wrong?”
“This came for us.” He opened the box and stepped aside.
Aisha picked up one of the scarves. “This is gorgeous work. And so soft!” She wrapped it around her neck and stroked one end.
“There are two more scarves and…”
“Oh,” Aisha breathed as she lifted one of the skeins of yarn. Then she looked at the symbol on the brown paper wrapped around the skein to keep it tidy. “Oh!”
“They’re from Colin.” Charles watched his wife. The symbol had looked familiar, but he hadn’t been able to place it.
“How much money did you tuck into the suitcase?”
He frowned at her. “Why?”
She held up the skein. “There is a specialty yarn shop in Barker and one in Lovecraft. I’m on the mailing list for both of them. When a shipment of this yarn becomes available, their customers are notified. You place an order the minute you see the notification, and there is a four-skein limit.”
“I gather it’s expensive,” Charles said. Browsing yarn shops and making things for friends and family was a passion for Aisha, and he’d never asked about the price of her purchases.
“It’s expensive,” she confirmed.
Charles opened the letter. “Let’s see what Colin says about it.”
Dear Mom and Dad,
The suitcase arrived. Thanks for sending the T-shirts.
I ended up giving a few of them to the children in the community where I’m staying.
They were a big hit since no one had seen material like that—at least not with colors and pictures.
The people here feel it’s important to exchange gifts, so they gave me these scarves to send to you, and I thought Mom would enjoy having yarn that’s made here.
Could you send more T-shirts in my size for me and also in a size or two larger in case other people in the community would like to have one? In colors. White doesn’t attract interest.
Also, please don’t send any more ear coverings. Tia says since they aren’t made from a material that is native to this place, they fall under the “pack in, pack out” category of items for disposal.
“Ear coverings?” Aisha muttered. “And what kind of material…” She blushed.
“Is that why you asked me to pick up a box of condoms when I was sure we had an unopened box in the bedside table?” Charles asked.
“He’s on his own, and a teenage boy…” She ran her fingers over the yarn. “I didn’t want him to do without birth control if he found himself in a situation where he should use it.”
Aisha had done such a good job of tucking that box into the suitcase, he hadn’t noticed it when he packed the half-full box from his drawer. But ear coverings?
“Do you recognize the symbol?” he asked.
“We think it indicates that the yarn comes from llamas or alpacas, or a combination of both. It’s a unique blend, and there is no information about the manufacturer.” Aisha looked at him. “You think this is where Colin ended up? But…He’s somewhere on Wyrd. Isn’t he?”
“He’s someplace connected to the island.” He looked at the letter.
I don’t want to worry you, but being in this place is a chance that won’t come again.
Tia said I can stay for twelve weeks as a kind of foreign exchange student—learning about their culture and their language and living a different kind of life.
Like a young Starfleet officer on a diplomatic mission.
I really want to stay. Even if I had to come home tomorrow, I wouldn’t want to go back to school.
Not until the other bullyboys have been sorted out.
And I have a feeling that Devl and Acid aren’t going to be able to come back at all.
A lot of hard feelings might get stirred up if I come home soon and they can’t.
I’m safe here. I really am. So I’m going to stay for a while, and then I’ll focus my intentions on reaching Destiny Park.
I love you both. And Jazz too. I hope she likes the scarf.
Colin
“Twelve weeks?” Aisha’s breath caught. Then she wiped the tears from her face and pulled her shoulders back. “I’ll go to the school tomorrow and explain that Colin is finishing up the school year as a cultural exchange student, and will make up the rest of his classes when he returns.”
“I’ll go with you and clear out his locker,” Charles said.
“I can do that.”
He smiled. “Teenage boy, remember? He might be embarrassed by what I find, but his mom seeing something he’d prefer she didn’t see?”
“All right, we’ll both go.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t know about the other boys.”
“I didn’t see any reason to tell him.” Charles held his wife close. “He’s out of reach but not out of touch. The suitcase reached him; his gifts reached us.”
“I think I’ll use some of the yarn to make a scarf for Davie. He’s the only friend who has stood by Jazz.”
“As Jazz has stood by him.”
Aisha kissed him, then stepped back. “If you would put the box in my craft corner, I’ll get supper started.”
Charles took the box to the family room and left it in Aisha’s craft corner.
Condoms as ear coverings.
He did a quick scan of the bookshelves in the room and found the children’s book Animals Around the World. He flipped through the pages until he found llamas. He studied the ears. Then he closed the book, tucked it back on the shelf, and returned to the kitchen to help his wife make supper.
24
Late that evening, Beth turned the pages of the sketchbook filled with drawings of the Arcana—drawings she suspected had been made by Arianna Greenwood, the woman she had seen in a vivid dream.
She hadn’t gone to Wyrd on her day off to stay at the hotel and wander around Destiny Park.
She’d wanted to bring this sketchbook and show it to someone at the pavilion.
Lucas Frost, maybe, or the Ladies Three.
Maybe they could help her fill in the missing blanks of her childhood before she had ended up living full-time with Bonnie Wilson.
But she’d been wary of being seen as too “friendly” with the Arcana, wary of the schism that was forming between her and her colleagues because she received more information from the Arcana than they did.
Beth closed the sketchbook and put it away. Even now, she was afraid of being honest about the things that pulled at her, resonated with her. If the police who were trained to deal with Wyrd thought that she was strange or unnatural, what sort of future did she have?
Maybe Ian Kuhn was right. Maybe she was living on the wrong side of the river.
25
“You said you loved me. You said if I gave up my people and went with you—”
“Your people are fucking strange!”
“—you would take care of me forever. And now you’re going back on your word?”
“You have horns, Maxie!”
“I’m half Arcana.”
“Fucking horns growing out of your head!”
“You knew what I was before you asked me to go away with you. Why do you sound so shocked now? You’ve seen them every night you enjoyed having me under you.”
“And you didn’t enjoy it?”
“Not as much as you wanted to believe.”
“Laura has no complaints about me!”
“Does she know you won’t walk away with the money my people provided to support us?”
Silence.
“What changed between us?”
“You got pregnant!”
“You got me pregnant.”
“It’s bad enough that we can’t go out after dark without you wearing some ridiculous scarf on your head, what are we going to do with a kid who has horns?”
“The horns might not show, even in moonlight or starlight.”
“I’m not taking a chance of being saddled with a kid like that. Either get rid of it now or pawn it off on someone else later, but we’re not keeping it.”
“Then you keep nothing that comes from me.”
“Maxie, wait. Maxie!”
“There were complications during the birth because of the mother’s unusual heritage.
The doctors couldn’t save her, but they did save the child.
When she was admitted, your mate listed you as the child’s father and gave the hospital—and me—your last known address.
It took us a few days to locate you, but your daughter is ready to go home.
” A pause. “Your mate wrote you a note while she was in labor. I promised to give it to you once I located you.”
“I don’t want the fucking note, and I don’t want the kid.”
“I suggest you read the note before you decide, but know this: Right now, I represent Maxine Greenwood’s branch of the Arcana.
If you don’t take your offspring from this place and take proper care of her, the Arcana will twist your fate until you are caught in an insatiable desert of misfortune—and there you will stay for the full measure of your life. ”
“Is that a threat?”
“That is a promise.”
“A baby? What are we supposed to do with your ex’s baby?”
“Look…”
“And what does this mean? ‘Your fate was sealed when you turned away from me. Your continued existence—and the existence of your whore wife—now depends on how well you take care of the child you planted in me.’ ”
“For fuck’s sake, Laura, how am I supposed to know? She was probably high on whatever drugs they give women when they’re pushing out a kid.”
“What’s with the package?”
“It’s a book and an old, worthless ring. I was told they have to go with the kid, always. Or else.”
“Or else what?”