Strange Medicine

by Jim Stein

  Uktena pawed the ground, tearing up great strips of earth. I waited in silence as he struggled with something. The odd trees swayed, blurred, and disappeared into the grainy fog that was Tokpela, the nothingness before creation. It was the substance my hiding spell drew upon and what existed between the various supernatural realms. I often passed through Tokpela when entering and leaving true dreams.

  “I am constrained from aiding you directly.” At first I thought he was shrinking, but it was the perspective of distance as I withdrew from Uktena’s lands. “We may not enter the third world, but…” More scraping as mist rose to swallow him. “Perhaps another can.”

  A dark form crouched on all fours beside the dragon, looking small by comparison. Dwain? No, the sprite drifted off to my left, doing the backstroke through thickening fog. He gave a sort of half-salute and disappeared with a grin. I tried to copy him and paddle back toward the dragon, but the swirling vapor had no substance and my hands slipped through without resistance.

  Uktena cocked his head at my antics. A pair of golden eyes, smaller yet just as intense as the dragon’s own shone through the fog near his feet. A moment later, all was mist except for two pairs of eyes regarding me, until they too winked out and I fell through nothingness into slumber.

  8. The Band Plays on

  H

  AIR TICKLED my nose. I tried to swat it away, then blew, not wanting to open my eyes. Just a few more minutes would be wonderful. The annoying sensation and a sharp pain in my neck forced me to wake. Dull morning sun filtered through a forest of dark strands. When I batted them away they moaned and shifted, which put me off balance.

  “Crap!”

  I hit the hard-packed dirt backside first and tried to blink my eyes into focus. Quinn moaned again and sat up on the bench we’d shared. Her nylon jacket rustled as she slapped at a dark spot under her shoulder.

  “You drooled all over me!”

  “Sorry. It got cold.” I wiped my mouth, which tasted of things long dead, and spoke off to the side. “You don’t make the greatest pillow.”

  The way she looked around as I rubbed my neck made me glad we hadn’t had pillows. She would have hit me with one if it was handy. Instead, Quinn straightened her clothes, stretched, and poked at the dead coals with a stick. All the while her slippery pink jacket slithered and hissed.

  “That’s insanely annoying. Maybe you should go back to leather.”

  A frown creased her face as she stood with hands on hips—yet the sound persisted. Beyond Quinn mist still swirled up from the river, but the water had grown yellow-brown overnight. The waves formed oddly regular ripples, seemingly frozen in place under the fog.

  “That’s not water.” Quinn pointed out past the bank.

  “What?” I scoffed, then frowned as I squinted through mist the color of blowing—“Sand! Holy crap, the river’s filling up.”

  The hiss I thought had been her jacket came from the river as tons of sand inched toward us. My mind caught up to my eyes with a disorienting lurch. Downstream was an unbroken ribbon of desert winding between Jersey and Pennsylvania.

  “We’re lucky.” Quinn reached out with her power. “The water’s cutting a path beneath. Otherwise we would have woken to a flood. Give me a minute.”

  A handful of people emerged from buildings and vehicles to gawk at the scene. I waved Pete over as he stumbled to button his jeans.

  “Nope. Nothing I can do. There’s just too much volume.” Quinn dropped her outstretched hand.

  “Get everyone moving and find Mr. Conti,” I said as Pete joined us. “It isn’t safe here.”

  “How’s this possible?” Pete asked, his eyes wide.

  “The problem’s bigger than we thought.” My statement earned quizzical looks. “I had a few dream visitors last night. I’ll explain on the drive. For now, we need to head down to Wilmington while there’s time to cross.”

  “I’m not sure that’s still a good idea.” Quinn eyed the sand as it continued to pile up beyond the bridge. “Maybe we can head north and cross above Old Philadelphia? Sort of get on top of the sand.”

  “Public works says the other two bridges are out.” Pete shook his head. “Even if we sneak across up at Bristol, bringing buses down through the ruins won’t work. There’s no way those streets are passable and circling the city would take days.

  We didn’t have that kind of time. Clear water glimmered under the rising sun way downstream where the rusting tanks of an old oil field squatted on the far shore.

  “We’ll just have to outrun it, hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and hope we have time to get everyone back across. Quinn, give the rest of the Stubborn Six a heads up.” Speaking of the team, there was one in particular I needed to talk to. “I’m going to find Dwain.”

  Finding a sprite is easier said than done. By the time the caravan was loaded and ready to go, I still hadn’t spotted Dwain, but I was sure he’d catch up. There was no time to wait because sand already spilled over low spots along the bank where reeds rose in a phalanx through the shoreline muck. Mr. Conti walked up to my window before boarding his bus, looking more somber than usual.

  “We’re ready.”

  ***

  “He wants me to be a stupid radio?” Anna’s huff of indignation fogged the glass and made it difficult for Piper to see her opening as the convoy pulled out.

  “To be fair, radio was my term.” Piper flipped on the defroster and eased the big black SUV onto I-295 southbound behind a shining silver and red bus. Another big engine roared behind them, and the band’s RV lumbered into line.

  The teen in the passenger seat folded her arms and glared out the window. Bold geometric patterns covered a pink top that should have clashed with the starbursts adorning her pale-blue capris, but Anna pulled it off. The Brights loved loud ensembles. Piper smiled. It was part of what made them unique. Of course, she couldn’t get enough of their stories about using the magic they’d all inherited from Kokopelli, but she also genuinely enjoyed their company. Aside from the bright clothing, they were simply good people.

  She reached over and poked Anna under the ribs. When the girl turned away, Piper poked again. The corner of Anna’s mouth quirked up, though she tried to hide her face. Piper tickled her fingers back and forth until laughter finally exploded from her passenger.

  “All right. Stop.” Anna slapped her hand and sucked in a big breath. “You win. I’m not really mad, but relaying messages seems pretty lame, like put the little girl out of harm’s way lame.”

  “My brother can be old fashioned. You got pretty beat up on the road, and he doesn’t want to see you put in that position again.” Anna’s face darkened, so Piper rushed on. “It isn’t in a ‘she can’t take it’ sort of way. If I know Ed, it’s more of a ‘she’s already had her fair share of trouble’ way. He’ll want to spread the bad shit around.”

  “Except when it comes to him. He’s always in the thick of things.”

  “True enough.” Piper wasn’t sure where this was heading, but talk was better than brooding silence. “And you definitely can hold your own. You kicked ass during the fighting.”

  “Well…I was pissed as hell.”

  “And wasn’t going to take it anymore.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know where that came from.” A pretty tinge of red crept into Anna’s cheeks. “Ed tried to get me to recreate the spell, but I can’t whip my Spirit energy up to that kind of frenzy again. He hasn’t had much time to work with me.”

  Oh my god. Did this little thing have a crush on her baby brother? No, that didn’t feel right. This was just about the magic. Piper knew how it felt to be powerless. Her own ordeal had driven her efforts to understand magic she couldn’t wield.

  “Listen, I’ll talk to him and try to get you on the A-team. Not to be confused with the A-Chords because, girl, I’ve heard you sing and…well, we just can’t go there.”

  “Really?” Anna was all sunshine and smiles again. It suited her. “You’re the best! You’re the be
st, I don’t jest, yet I have something to confess.” She sang the last in a lilting soprano-tenor-dying-chicken, crossing notes with wild abandon as she fought to suppress a giggle.

  “Stop it! My ears are bleeding.”

  “Be a tease, don’t you please, they will know you as Louise.” Anna snorted and rocked in her seat.

  “For the love of God, no more. My kidney and left eye have ruptured.”

  Piper turned up the volume controls on her dash, and the A-chords album blared out on a wicked bass beat. Anna matched her grin and lit into the new lyrics like a tiger tearing into raw meat. Of course she knew the song. All the Brights had the band’s music down cold.

  Well two could play at that game. Piper lent her own—not insignificant, and certainly not in pitch—voice to the cacophony. The pair ditched their problems and tooled down the road amid laughing, singing, and rattling windows.

  ***

  I floored the accelerator and raced back toward the convoy along a clear stretch of route 322. The city workers had been right, Philadelphia’s south-most bridge was in no condition to bear traffic, but the side trips gave us a chance to check on the sand. Sluggish water flowed around the broken footers of the old Commodore Barry Bridge. The encroaching sand was nowhere to be seen upriver, but sparkling ribbons in the murky brown waters foreshadowed its coming.

  “Four hours to get halfway, but the road ahead is clear,” Pete said as I turned back onto 295. “Ought to make camp by two.”

  “But how fast will the river fill up?” Quinn leaned in between the front seats.

  “It’s only come a couple of miles,” I said. “We’ll have two or three days. That’s going to make getting up into town and back challenging, especially if we can’t get the buses in close.”

  “Maybe it won’t even reach that far south.” Pete’s raised eyebrows said he didn’t really believe it.

  “We’ll have to station our three firespeakers at intervals to keep abreast of the sand. Anna’s our strongest, but I have the others talking well enough to give warning.”

  “What about help from the horned serpent?” Pete asked.

  I’d filled them both in on how Uktena hijacked my dream. Unlike true dreams with Koko, the images of the serpent’s domain weren’t burned into my mind. I recalled his offer of help, but not the specifics.

  “Well, he better cough up something soon if we’re going to stop this damned desert. At a minimum, some sunscreen for your sensitive skin.” Quinn ran a finger over my cheek, which made it hard to concentrate on navigating the cracked road. “You don’t have my natural immunity or even Pete’s farmer’s tan for protection.”

  “Hey! My skin’s a perfect golden brown.”

  “Not from the neck down and knees up,” Quinn’s grin faded as our shining procession came into view. “Are you going to tell the others what you saw in Milwaukee?”

  “I guess.” But I’d rather have answers first. “If we get communications back, Mr. C might be able to help them deal with the critters coming off the sand. We’ll give the Brights a heads up too, but I don’t want to cause a panic in the general population. Even though we’re out of the closet—so to speak—the others won’t fully understand.”

  “Phffftt, like we do?” Pete had that right.

  We passed the last half of the trip in virtual silence, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts. Spindly pines stood dense to either side of the highway, stretching out across what had once been fields of tomatoes and beans. Broken houses sat within trees as did the occasional rotting strip mall, but for the most part it was simply pine barrens. Something about the naturally sandy soil attracted the sickly-looking evergreens, and I wondered how they would fare in the alien sands encroaching on our world.

  We continued past the bridge to Wilmington, keeping to the Jersey side in search of a decent place for a temporary camp. Broken highways formed a tangle of pavement leading to the bridge, and we stopped at a vast expanse of concrete standing apart from the surrounding wilderness.

  “Must have been a major shipping exchange.” Pete whistled as he walked along raised docks backing to a long warehouse.

  “No sleeping quarters, but Meg packed an entire bus with tents, cots, and bedding.” I checked my watch. Three o’clock.

  The buses pulled beneath rusting canopies to escape the blazing sun, and our camp took shape amidst organized chaos and Meg’s direction. The band set up along the loading docks. In spite of our time crunch and the problems I’d seen in my dream—or perhaps because of them—Mr. Conti remained determined to treat our refugees to a healing concert. Jinx backed Pioneer down close to the improvised stage and ran cables from the motorhome to a sparse array of amps and speakers.

  After the show, we’d send our firespeak scouts upriver, then start our trip back up to Philadelphia in the morning. Sitting tight for the night chafed, but getting everything set up was critical. We needed several buses to handle the evacuation, and once we left, the others were stuck.

  “Do we really have time for this?” Pete eyed the band.

  “Of course we do.” Dwain strode up and jumped into the discussion.

  “Nice of you to join us.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “Had a few errands to run.” In addition to his commando outfit, a leather-wrapped handle attached to a wide blade rose over each shoulder.

  “Are those machetes?”

  “And a few items to pick up.” He gave me a wink in place of further explanation. “The music is needed. Your boss gets it. That man’s a gem. This will be the best concert ever!”

  “Can’t drive many speakers, and the acoustics sort of suck,” I said.

  “Won’t matter. You’ll see.”

  By four, everyone was tired, sweaty, and ready for a break. The people fell onto blankets and folding chairs as the A-Chords tuned their instruments. Billy slid out from behind his keyboard and strode to the mic stand.

  “Heck of a day. Am I right?” At nods from the audience he continued, “A big thank you for everyone’s hard work. To all those hoofing supplies, planning the route, or simply keeping calm, you helped make leaving home a little more bearable. A special shout out to Meg Pullman and Mr. Conti for having us ready to move on a moment’s notice. Where are you?” Mr. C gave a little wave, and Meg raised her hand as color rose to her cheeks. “Give them a big round of applause.” Clapping erupted from all around, and Meg dropped her hand to cover a self-conscious smile. “We can do better than that. Give it up for your friends, your neighbors, yourself. We’ve all done one hell of a job!”

  The applause turned thunderous. Billy knew how to whip up a crowd. The new order was skewed toward older folks, but age didn’t dim the enthusiasm. Blue veined hands slapped just as hard as my own, which were stinging as Charles’ drums led the band into the opening number.

  Music rose to envelop us. Dwain was right—the acoustics didn’t matter. The hard seat didn’t matter. In that moment, even the loss of New Philly didn’t matter. We’d make a new home. Our friends and neighbors made up New Philly, and by the gods, we’d get the rest of our people out.

  “This never gets old.” Pina stood just behind Dwain and me, and I grinned as a kind of wholeness settled over me. “Oh, here come the words. Such a perfect selection.”

  The three of us bobbed to the beat. Jinx’s voice sang out with harmony supplied by Billy’s deep voice and a lilting prelude from Quinn.

  Where do I sit, where do I stand,

  I have no confidence in hand,

  For my country and my lovers…my sisters and my brothers,

  As far as I can see, there’s no place for you and me,

  Where do I call home?

  The song spoke of displacement, of losing yourself in the shuffle. A tingle crept up my spine as the singer found safe haven, a place to plan and prepare. Pina’s shoulder jostled mine as she swayed with the music. Dwain did the same on my left, and I found myself joining in.

  Waves of stillness rose from the sprites,
soothing my worries and calling my Spirit energy, which rose alongside their own. I squinted and could actually see the shining nimbus rising over their heads, arching over the crowd from our spot in the back row. Other shining arcs rose from the far side and even from behind the warehouse.

  What the heck? I scanned the crowd. Small figures in simple clothing stood around the perimeter, mixed in with New Philly’s displaced citizens. Perhaps two dozen sprites swayed to the beat and pushed shimmering magic into the air to form a dome over the area. The few gaudily-dressed Brights among the audience unconsciously added their own calming power to the working. A thread even rose from Quinn as she plucked out the backbeat and echoed Jinx’s words.

  Our combined energy pulsed golden and sheer as a soap bubble in my magical Sight, but I knew the shield was strong; I’d seen it before.

  “Are we in danger?” I risked interrupting her spell, needing to know what this was about.

  “No, silly.” Pina flashed me a smile and squeezed my knee. “Just a little something to keep it that way. Now shush and enjoy the song.”

  Feeding someone else’s spell felt strange and unfocused, but I trusted the sprites and let my energy flow into the protective dome. The final chords rang out, drawing one last wisp of power. Anna was down front with Meg and Mr. Conti. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but her final contribution rose in twin columns, one golden and the other dark and coppery. Thunder echoed as the protection snapped into place.

  “How long will it last?” I wanted to be mad at Pina for not being around, but that was impossible given she’d brought her people out to help keep my own safe.

  “Long enough.” I frowned at her vague words—there was too much at stake. “Oh, don’t be like that, Edan. It’s difficult to tell, but with your people adding power, I would guess two or three days. Now, enjoy the show.”

  The audience couldn’t see the spell. The magically inclined would have to slip into the Sight to make out the faint dome of protection, but the show did more. The air of desperation and depression eased. People were friendlier, rested easier.