A half-hour later, I was climbing the stairs of the hotel. Upstairs in my room, I dressed, feeling a little like an idiot in a bustier and lace, unused to anything but jeans and t-shirts. Besides, I was thinking of a number of things to include visions of things that had not yet come to pass. Once, I had compared premonitions to a house of cards. It had to be built carefully with each card just so or it would collapse into a pile of flattened cardboard. It was an apt analogy.
I went downstairs to where Dr. Ignatius (for his sins) Taggert had set up his shop. As I approached his door, I saw him walking from the stairs at the other end of the hallway. He carried a tux contained in a clear plastic bag. Everyone was getting into the mood. It made me smile even though at the same time, I wanted to pull out some hairs to get everyone’s head out of the clouds.
“Doc,” I said, and Ignatius stopped by my side. I looked his tux up and down. It was plain black in last year’s style. The lines were elegant and modern. The matching black bow tie was in a little bag that hung from the hanger. There was an address printed on the plastic bag. We hadn’t been the only ones running around Georgetown. “Looks good,” I said. “You wear one of those before?”
“Twice. Once at my senior prom and once at my wedding,” Ignatius said with an uninviting smile. “Then I burned it when I got divorced.”
“Sorry,” I offered.
“Don’t be,” he said. “I wasn’t.”
Now for the statement of the hour. “About Clora,” I began.
Ignatius tilted his head at me. I didn’t know how he did it so far to one side without falling over. After a moment, he motioned me inside his office. It looked pretty much the same. He’d added some medical equipment in the last few months, but it was still a controlled mess. After he hung the tux up on a brass stand that also held a medical specimen skeleton, he turned back to me. “She’s fine. The baby’s fine. She’s got a little water retention. Her blood pressure is under control. Why are so many people asking about her?”
I pursed my lips. The people who were asking questions were the ones with a little twinkle of things to come. “You’ve heard the rumors, right, Ignatius?” I asked. I didn’t know why, but I liked calling him Ignatius. It was such a cool, weird name. It made me want to repeat it ten times in a row, even while I was thinking about the baffling, sickening stuff that wrapped around my gut and squeezed like a maddened python.
“Which rumors?”
“We’re all psychics of some kind,” I said bluntly.
“We’re all something,” he admitted.
“Clora isn’t going to make it,” I said, and the words sounded cold even to me. “I don’t know why. Maybe you should look at her again. I’ve found that with foreknowledge there’s a chance to change the future.”
“I’ll look at her again,” Ignatius said reluctantly. “You know all the clairvoyance in the world doesn’t mean we know everything that’s going to happen. In fact, because we know something might ensure that it’s fated to happen.”
“Do you believe I can talk to all the new animals?”
Ignatius nodded. A few of the firefly pixies buzzed around his head and he gaped fascinatedly. The girls had their favorites. I could practically tell who was a good guy and who was a bad guy based on their perception. It was an odd measurement on whom I could trust. The pixies hadn’t been wrong yet. They had been reticent and plain old close-mouthed but not wrong.
“Everyone’s got something,” I said. “Some of them just a little something. The doctor back in California called his something ‘healing hands.’ He’s better than ibuprofen. It didn’t touch the broken rib, but it was great for a headache. Maybe you have something like that, too.”
Ignatius gazed at me in a way that told me he wanted to say something, but he was a little afraid to speak out. Ultimately he said, “I have dreams. Sometimes I remember them. Sometimes they come true. It’s usually small things. It’s going to rain. I felt a pain in my hip in my dream, and the next day I got hit by a bike messenger. Bruised my hip something terrible. Never anything big. Nothing like a plane crash or a death in the family.” His eyes examined me, as if he was waiting for me to mock him. I didn’t say anything. I kept my face neutral. “Things like that,” he added after the silence threatened to smash down on us like a huge breaker, “I’ve heard the stories. Not everyone wants to share those parts of themselves.”
I sighed. After all these months, after seeing the things we’ve seen, after being in the place we were, it was still hard to accept the unacceptable. The sun still rose in the morning. The wind still blew. Clouds still swirled far above our heads. We still lived in a changed world. And it wasn’t going to change back.
“I have to pay attention to the visions I see,” I said. “If I don’t, people will die. People shouldn’t have to die because one person has lost their ability to think rationally.” I looked around his office. The conference tables were cluttered more than ever. Finally, I noticed the bone I had shown him. “Did you figure out anything about that bone?”
Ignatius shook his head. He wasn’t answering me but clearing his mind. “It’s interesting but nothing I can answer without more information. Someone died when it happened. I would like to see the rest of the bones you saw. I’d like to know if the clothes were cut, as well.”
“I didn’t think I would have access to a forensic pathologist,” I said wryly, “or I would have brought them, too.”
“You look good,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, “in a steampunk, gothic, Lolita fashion. I wouldn’t have chosen combat boots to go with that dress though. Maybe six-inch heeled black pumps. Something with a silver tip. The hair cut is cute. Like a pixie.” He winced. “That wasn’t supposed to be a pun.”
I shrugged. It was nice to have a pseudo compliment. I wished Zach could see me. I had a sudden longing in me that begged me to stuff my backpack with my meager possessions and head west. I could get down the road with a bicycle, and there were bunches to be had.
But there were a few things to finish. I had to because no one else would.
“You staying in D.C., Ignatius?” I asked softly.
“Staying?” he repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“Things change,” I said. “People change.”
“Huh. You and McCurdy,” he said mildly. “You’re more alike than either of you would want to admit.”
I didn’t see McCurdy much. Sometimes he wanted in-person reports about various wildlife. He asked specific questions about the dangers of such animals. He was interested in the hydra, for example, but I said that I felt like it wasn’t a threat to the local humans once it had been placated. Moreover, if the humans kept up their side of the bargain, it might even be a big help to them. “McCurdy comes to see you?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” Ignatius said. “I thought you knew about—” and the doctor cut himself off because he realized he was about to tell me something I might not know and that might be an intentional slight on the captain’s part.
“About what?”
“I’m not sure if I should—”
Normally I would have brought out the big blade. It was a very nice persuader. However, I happened to like the doctor and his weird ass name. The firefly pixies happened to like him, too. I couldn’t use the broadsword to threaten everyone. “Go with what your gut thinks on this one, Ignatius,” I advised.
He took a step over to the table with its piles of books, papers, and medical tools. He picked up the tibia I had brought him. “Here’s your bone,” he said. I could see this was something that had been occupying his mind, and he wanted to talk about it. Then he dug in the piles next to him and held up another bone. I wasn’t an expert, and I didn’t have Zach’s knowledge about bones, but I thought it was another tibia. It was a little larger than the one I had found. It had a similar cut, leaving only the bottom half of the bone. “This is the one that McCurdy brought in.”
Oh, frackity fracking frack.
McCurdy had reacte
d strangely when he had seen the Colorado tibia. I hadn’t really taken note of the fact but he had. Why? He had seen something like it before, and he hadn’t been to Colorado. Then he had brought it to Ignatius to get a forensics opinion on it.
“Something similar happened to the person who belonged to that tibia,” I stated.
Ignatius smiled grimly. “Well, yes. I attributed it to a new phenomenon that happened about the same time as the change. It doesn’t seem to happen much, if at all anymore. The decay of the remains is about the same. I would guess it occurred right around the time of the change. Based on what you said, I believe it was exactly the same time, although I would need electricity and advanced equipment to date the decay more precisely.” He shook his head sadly. “Steam power isn’t going to work for that equipment.”
I stared at the bones. “Did the captain happen to say where he got his tibia?” McCurdy was as busy as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. He was all over the place trying to shore up the defenses of the District of Columbia. He was also playing the front man for the President. He travelled many places in the time that I had been here. Although I took my orders from him, I worked for the President, and the President stayed in the District. I stayed almost as busy as McCurdy and our paths didn’t cross much.
The errant thought came cascading into my brain. They kept me busy on purpose. They wanted me to stay away from the people with the new animals. I’ve been a fool.
“Here in the District,” Ignatius said, comparing the bones again as if he couldn’t quite understand why they were so important. They were bones, not the formula for perpetual energy. (Silly Sophie.)
The mysterious man/creature Bansi popped into my head. He had been near where I had found the bones. He said he had been drawn to that place, and he could understand the firefly pixies’ speech as well as I could. But the girls wouldn’t talk about him. They were uncomfortable about him. Spring had only said something about “Old magicks.”
Then Bansi had asked, “Do you think that when the new technology began in the form of electricity and telephone lights and computer devices, that they did not have their own gods? Technology, you see, is borne of magic, just as everything in this universe. Did you ever wonder if there was a Big Bang? Consequently, did you ever wonder what was there before the Big Bang, because surely there couldn’t have been nothing?”
There had been more. “A sea of dreams that rolled over the world,” he had said. He had jerked his head back toward the mountains in the distance. “The seas came next, the mountains will drift, taking it all back, and only the very special will remain to see what will happen next.”
“Mountains of dreams,” I said.
“What?” Ignatius asked. “What mountains?”
“Where in the District did McCurdy find that bone?”
Ignatius stared at me. He didn’t like my directness. I could almost read his mind. He had just remembered that I was merely a child to him. He might not even know how old I was, but he wasn’t answering to me. His shoulders straightened up because he didn’t care for my directness.
“WHERE?” The firefly pixies burst into the air, startled by my outburst.
Ignatius flinched. “By the Naval Observatory, jeez.”
My eyes were dragged to the bones. The Naval Observatory, which was a place that gave me a sensation that was similar to when I had been in Sunshine, Colorado. I should have known. But I hadn’t seen other bones at the Observatory.
It was because the bones had been cleaned away.
The Naval Observatory was like Sunshine, Colorado. It was a before-place that had before magic. The before-magic hadn’t changed when a sea of dreams had roared over all of us. “Technology is borne of magic,” Bansi had said.
“What do you know about the Naval Observatory?” I asked calmly.
“The U.S.N.O. is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the U.S.,” Ignatius said with surprise in his voice. “It was created in the 19th century to maintain naval navigation objects, I believe. The first superintendent had the first time ball in the United States.”
“What’s a time ball?”
“It was a device that was used to signal mariners of the proper time. It was usually dropped at a certain hour, and since the observatory is up on a hill, it could be seen from the river. I believe the modern U.S.N.O. was the authority in precise time, time interval, earth orientation, and astrometry.”
“Magic,” I whispered.
“Not magic,” Ignatius said derisively. “Science.”
“Science is magic of a different type.”
Ignatius stared at me. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t think I could explain even if the right words came out of my mouth,” I said with a grim laugh. “You’ll excuse me, Doc. I’ve got to do some things.”
I didn’t look, but Ignatius watched me leave, still holding the two tibias in his hands. I stopped at the door and asked over my shoulder, “Do you anything about a town in Colorado called Sunshine?”
Ignatius shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Why do you ask?” I didn’t answer.
I stomped down the stairs, and Spring sang into my ears. “What is Soophee doing? The sisters think this is a good time to leave this place. It is time to go home.”
“I need to finish some things,” I sang back.
Spring flew irate circles around my head. It was something she did when she was annoyed with me. It happened more often than I cared to admit.
When I reached the lobby I went out the front, almost running Lulu down. Her hair and makeup were perfect. She looked like a million dollars, if a million dollars had been still worth a million dollars. “What’s up?” she asked.
“I’ll be back in a while,” I said. “I need to ask someone a question.” Or two or three.
Spring was utterly disgusted by my unwillingness to do what she wanted, and she went with Lulu. Only a few of the other firefly pixies continued to follow me. They landed in my hair and held on as I strode out to the street.
“By the way,” I called back to Lulu, “you’re going to look great in that blue dress.”
Lulu glanced down at the opaque garment bag she held. “But you didn’t even see it yet,” she said. She thumbed the bag and then yelled after me, “You’re not going to do stuff in your dress and makeup, are you? Actiony-warrior stuff?”
“Maybe!” I yelled back. Then I added, “Oh yeah! Probably!”
There was a man standing next to a saddled horse at the curb. He was looking at a Fodor’s book of Washington, D.C. I got up next to him and put my hand on the horse’s neck. “Do you mind if I borrow your horse?” I hadn’t ridden a horse since my trip to the hydra. I wasn’t an expert rider, but as long as the horse wasn’t feisty, it would be okay. I needed to find out some answers before I saw the President.
The horse turned his head and looked at me. His eyes were solid and the color of a turquoise stone and the size of a baseball. Two blue-green baseballs stared at me. “I’m not a horse,” he said.
I almost leapt backwards. Just when I thought nothing else could surprise me, something did. The firefly pixies could speak some English, but they didn’t really like to, so finding another animal who had learned the language was stupefying.
“I need a ride to the Anderson-Malone Hotel,” I said to the horse who I decided wasn’t a horse.
The man closed the Fodor’s. He thrust it into a vest pocket. He had a million pockets in the vest and stuff in each one. He was prepared. “Funny, that’s where they told us to go stay.”
The horse who wasn’t a horse sniffed my hair. Flowers buzzed around his ears, and he flicked them impatiently. She landed on the ridge above his eye and leaned over to peer into it. “She smells like one of us,” the un-horse said.
“Great,” the man said, looking at the firefly pixies swirling and diving around us. “My name is Meka.” He was a great tall man with burnished oak skin. His eyes tilted up at the corners, and he had a generous smile. “She
can’t ride hers, can she?” He chuckled.
“Neither can you, tubby,” the un-horse said with a wide horsey grin.
“Your mama,” Meka said immediately with good humor.
Fantastic. I had been going to steal a horse, and instead, I had run into a team of comedians. New comedians.
Chapter 18
So Thick, It’s Like Glue…
The un-horse became very cooperative when I told the pair my name, although I hadn’t been expecting that reaction. “Sure, we’ve heard of you,” the new animal said. His name was Horse. It was apropos. It was what Meka had called him when they had first met, for lack of a better name.
Horse nickered suddenly as if he had thought of something. Meka climbed onto the saddle and easily pulled me up so that I sat behind him. The great fluffy lace of the dress was hiked around my thighs, but at least I wasn’t running across the city dripping with sweat. Meka had offered to let me ride in front, but I wasn’t about to sit where I couldn’t get off quickly. “They tell stories about you,” Horse said.
“Who’s they?”
“Humans. The animals who came after. Whispers in the wind,” Horse said wryly. I leaned around Meka’s bulk and watched the un-horse’s ears twitch as he talked. Those ears were expressive. “You’re famous.”
Mountains of Dreams Page 17
