Indigo Springs

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “Sounds okay,” Jacks said. “Wizards and magic and mythical creatures were hidden here while in the real world the bad guys thought they were winning.”

  “Yeah,” Astrid said. “The real became more safe, predictable. The witch-burners succeeded in creating a near-monopoly on magic. Unfortunately, they weren’t content. They wanted it all.”

  “What happened?” Jacks demanded.

  “A battle, I think.” She rubbed her temple. If she touched the ice floe again…

  “No, you don’t,” Jacks said, catching her hand.

  They reached the edge of a glassine stretch of ice, where the air was misty and marginally warmer. Stalagmites of vitagua jutted upward from the mirror surface of the ice, forming a forest of widely spaced columns. Some were only pencil-thick, thin poles of blue that came to pinpoints at waist height. Others towered hundreds of feet tall, their bases as wide as the trunks of ancient redwoods.

  “We need ice skates,” Sahara laughed.

  “Why are we going this way?” Jacks asked.

  Astrid pointed. The spaces between the stalagmites were alight…and the light wasn’t blue. It was gold. “We need to learn all we can.”

  They skated into the glow, Astrid leading until she rounded a wide stalagmite and almost slipped. Jacks caught her before she could fall.

  She had nearly bumped into an ice statue of Albert.

  He was ten feet tall, dressed as usual in jeans and a T-shirt. Hair shagged around his face in a mane. One empty hand curved outward in a gesture of offering. Instead of his habitually weary expression, he was smiling.

  “Daddy,” Astrid said. Albert looking happy…so bright and heroic.

  A half-dozen birds were frozen in the ice at his feet, gawking accusingly at her with dead eyes. Her face warmed with a rush of fresh tears. She looked away from the disturbing reproach she sensed within the small corpses.

  Dad. She had been his apprentice, and she had forgotten….

  She touched his leg, and the thoughts of the frozen people of the unreal grumbled through her. The ever-present pain in her head hummed back, trying to drown it out.

  Back in the real, nobody remembered Dad. If they thought of him at all, it was as a bum, a petty crook, a burden on his family. Here, where nobody could see it, he had a monument.

  “Magic exists in the shade, Bundle,” she mumbled, only stepping back when her tears ate into the chiseled ice of his leg.

  “Come on, honey,” Sahara said at last. “Come on, there’s more to explore and we’re getting cold. You got here once, you’ll figure out how to return.”

  Jacks agreed. “You can bring flowers next time, okay?”

  Astrid rubbed her nose, smiling weakly. They moved on, and behind a stalagmite of blue ice they found another statue, a woman Astrid recognized from old photos—Albert’s grandmother. Farther still was a man who might have been Granny’s father. After that it was strangers….

  “Who are they?” Sahara asked.

  “The other spring-tappers,” Astrid said, quoting yet another grumble. “Everyone ever initiated into the mysteries of the Spring.”

  They slid on in silence, briefly looking over each statue until Jacks stopped short before a statue of a woman with long braids, clad in an old-fashioned dress.

  “Elizabeth Walks-in-Shadow,” he said.

  The sculpture of Elizabeth was different from the others…darker. Flecks of red were dispersed through its icy body like poppy seeds in a cake, and instead of radiating goodwill, her face was tired and severe.

  Jacks’s mouth hung open. “I was sure she’d been murdered to shut her up about the potlatch fire.”

  Astrid brushed her fingers across the surface of Elizabeth’s statue. Another rush of information jolted through her. “She was attacked. Instead of dying…Jacks, she’s in there.”

  “Alive?”

  “Half alive, like the birds,” she whispered. Her heart was hammering. She clutched his hand. Something wrong, something bad…the grumbler was laughing again.

  “Alive,” Sahara scoffed. “She’d be two hundred.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Astrid insisted. “Vitagua isn’t water. If you’re submerged, you don’t drown. Your spirit mixes into the spirit water. If you’re frozen…”

  “What?”

  “Frozen,” she stammered. “Get the body into ice before it cools. Only way to save—”

  “Astrid!”

  She fought to anchor herself in the present, gulping air, fighting back horror. Words battered her eardrums, shrieking: basement, window, snipers, blood. She pressed her fists to her ears.

  Jacks asked, “Do the grumbles say who killed Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth. She mouthed the name and the din quieted. “Her…apprentice found her as she was dying and…”

  “Put the body into ice to save her, you said,” Jacks said. “Save her—can she get out of there?”

  “Get out,” Astrid whispered, pushing the words past a throat-clenching mixture of terror and hope.

  “Let her be, Jacks.” Sahara’s voice cut through the hubbub. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”

  “She’d just…be able to say what happened,” Jacks said. He stared up at Elizabeth’s face, amazed. “She could tell me.”

  “You and your obsessions,” said Sahara. “Astrid, we’re almost there. Can you keep going?”

  “Yes.” Taking their hands, Astrid slid closer to the blazing golden light. They were near enough now that it was almost blinding, a hot wash that outshone the blue light emanating from the largest stalagmites.

  Frozen inside another column was the source of the glow—a man blazing gold from head to toe. He was clad in peculiar armor, translucent plates that covered his body. His hair was red, and a fiery, transparent sword blazed in his grip. His left hand, its fingers twisted, clawed for the open air. He was encased in frozen vitagua, all but the tip of one fingernail. That had melted free and was stuttering with sparks that melted whatever they touched, leaving a thin ribbon of vitagua twisting against the bottom of a deep pothole.

  Gazing down, Astrid spotted something dull and red.

  “What is it?” Sahara crowded close.

  “It’s our house,” Astrid said. “The bottom of our fireplace. See the red? It’s the bricks Albert used to seal off the bottom of the hearth.”

  “Why? I thought he wanted chantments disseminated to the masses.”

  “To slow it down?” She peered into the crude hole, an icy bowl with a groove where the melted vitagua ran. The thread of spirit water wiggled like a tongue working at a loose tooth.

  “This is where our drip comes from?” Sahara said. Her hand stole toward the melted spirit water, but Jacks pulled her back. “You said we’d never find it, Jacks.”

  He tugged Sahara beyond reach of the stream. “Not funny.”

  “It would be if you had a sense of humor.”

  “No quarreling.” Astrid blew on the exposed fingertip of the frozen man and the candleflick of flame died. “Let’s see what this guy has to tell us.”

  “Your head is going to explode if you keep that up,” Jacks said.

  “Just a touch,” Astrid said. She reached up, brushing the nub of a finger.

  And began to burn.

  • Chapter Nineteen •

  She was a witch, that’s what she was. A witch in need of burning, her and her unholy relics and all her allies. Anyone contaminated, anyone who knew—they would all die.

  Astrid was seeing through the witch-burner’s eyes, absorbing bursts of knowledge as her body heated, cooking. His name is Patterflam, she thought, or maybe she said it aloud. “He is the last great leader of the—”

  He was a witch-burner.

  People put to the torch—a dozen memories of executions, a hundred. She saw him scouring the Colonies for magic, seeking to bring the world under control, under the hand of his brethren. They thought when the New World was subjugated the battle would end, but the savages and their magic wielders had bee
n crafty. Patterflam grew old, and even as the Brigade furthered its power, as they learned to contain enchantment within crosses and potions, he grew increasingly sure that their success was incomplete.

  The burn was spreading from her hand. Distantly, Astrid felt her friends trying to separate her from the point of contact.

  “Astrid, he’s killing you!” Faraway worried voice.

  “Don’t leave me, Sahara…,” she mumbled.

  “Can’t get her off—”

  “She’s burning up!”

  Fighting pain, Astrid pressed her other hand to the wall of vitagua. Now there was even more information, all of it confusing, and he was killing her, torching her, and she had no apprentice. The well would close and the unreal would be worse off than before.

  “Vitagua has the following qualities,” she heard herself say through chattering teeth: “It’s fire-averse, cohesive, can be contained in glass, and tends to freeze unless heat is available to keep it warm. It’s drawn to living tissue. Vitagua is as dense as crude oil or blood and cannot be mixed with water. It expresses, to some extent, the collective will of the people of the unreal.”

  “Tell them to get you out of this!”

  She blinked, saw her clothes were smoking, knew Sahara was yanking on her belt, that Jacks’s hand was burnt and blistering as he tried to pry her from the ice floe.

  “Patterflam was trying to burn the unreal,” she said. “That’s when magic changed from mist to liquid. He and his men were using heat against us, so we fought back with cold. Magicules were everywhere, a fog. The air was blue. The fog condensed to a vitagua sea; the sea froze. Chill fought heat, ice fought fire.”

  One of the grumbles made a suggestion. “Break my skin,” Astrid said.

  Sahara dug in her fingernails, cutting into the flesh of Astrid’s arm. Eyes streaming, Astrid pulled vitagua up from within herself. It shot from the small crescent-shaped wound, splattering the icy wall and her hands.

  Freeze it. She had to freeze it.

  “Cold,” Astrid said. “Cold, cold, all of it. Chilly, chill it, make it cold, everything freezes…”

  Vitagua flowed between her and the witch-burner, its movement sluggish as it turned to slush. And suddenly the burning sensation was gone; a layer of liquid magic broke the contact between her fingers and Patterflam. Jacks and Sahara tore her free.

  Shivering, Astrid looked up. Patterflam’s hand was covered in a layer of blue ice. The exposed, burning fingertip was wholly encased.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I tried too hard.” She could feel the liquid inside her cooling. “Overcompensated. Panic, you know. Sahara, did the vitagua touch you?”

  “No,” Sahara snapped.

  “Overcompensated how, Astrid?” Jacks demanded.

  It was hard to breathe. The interior chill was spreading and her guts felt icy. “Needed to freeze Patterflam…froze everything.”

  “We have to get home,” Jacks said. “Astrid?”

  “I can try.”

  “Is that safe?” Sahara asked. “You screw up now—”

  “Who can know?” She felt dreamy; the only thing keeping her awake was the ache in her head.

  “That’s not good enough.” The edge in Jacks’s voice brought her focus back.

  Her right eye throbbed, bringing more tears. Cerulean snowflake-shapes etched over her vision. The coils of her dragon earring were painfully cold. There was a distant groan from one of the larger ice formations, followed by a crack so sharp, they felt a shock through the air.

  Sahara was rubbing her arms. Jacks’s palm was burnt.

  “You’re wheezing,” Sahara said, her voice an accusation. Her hand closed over Astrid’s elbow, extending the arm. For Jacks to see, Astrid realized. On her wrist was a blister of frozen vitagua.

  “I’m okay,” she tried to say, though her voice sounded harsh and the left side of her face wouldn’t move. Frozen vitagua had congealed between her back molars, and she couldn’t close her mouth.

  “Astrid.” Jacks moved into her narrowing field of vision. His hands, burning hot, cupped her face. “You brought us here, sweetheart? You have to take us back.”

  “I’ll try.” She imagined the ravine, the tree that sheltered Henna’s grave…go home, no place like…

  There. A twist of muscle, and was that a hint of warmth? Astrid opened her eyes, certain she’d see the ravine again. But they were still surrounded by creaking stalagmites of blue ice.

  “Try again,” Jacks said. His teeth were chattering. “Think about picking blueberries in the summer, the wildflowers. Remember when we were out hiking the creek and that eagle splashed down in front of us?”

  “Young eagle,” Astrid said through numb lips.

  “It flapped up, clumsy, a fish in its talons—”

  “You painted it.”

  “Take us there,” he urged.

  “I need a second,” she interrupted, mushing away from the glowing body of Patterflam and forcing them to follow. Her legs gave out at Elizabeth’s statue.

  “Astrid, we have to get you out of here.”

  He’s right. I can’t stay here. I should try to move. But it was so hard to breathe. Her friends’ voices were rising even as they got farther away.

  Oceans of frozen vitagua, she thought. She could stay here with it, wait for the thaw. If they all stayed—if they froze—neither Jacks nor Sahara could leave her.

  No, the grumbles said. And for the barest of instants, their voice seemed familiar. You’ll pull yourself into the real any second now. There’s so much that hasn’t happened yet—the flood, the fight with the witch-burner, the standoff with the police—

  Sahara leaving.

  Astrid’s heart slammed; her body jerked. Terror flooded adrenaline through her system.

  She was alone in the backyard, freezing despite the scorching sun overhead. Her hands were soaked in vitagua, stained to the elbows.

  She stood. Her lungs were full of ice, and she couldn’t draw a proper breath of the hot summer air.

  Her friends…

  Jacks appeared, sliding into the real almost weightless, like a balloon. Sahara was heavier. She was turned away, facing the icebergs.

  Astrid coughed, her body painfully cold. Jacks closed in, taking her into his arms as the world darkened.

  • Chapter Twenty •

  Astrid didn’t remember them putting her to bed. Her awareness blurred as she hit the lawn, face tickled by the sharp blades of new-cut grass in the backyard. When she sharpened again, the world itself had gone fuzzy, all dimness, close air, and blankets.

  The vitagua within her had pooled into a mass of slush around her lungs. It hurt to cough, and she couldn’t draw air to speak. She tried to use her affinity with the stuff to push it out to her extremities, but it was too solid. Trying to move it was agonizing; it wouldn’t flow.

  Jacks held her hand, his skin unbearably hot, hanging on even when she tried to yank loose. Sahara piled blankets and chattered stories, making Astrid sip glass after glass of lukewarm tea. It didn’t help; her teeth rattled and she shivered constantly.

  Words and phrases bubbled through her mind, grumbles mumbling about vitagua and magicules. They were the voices of the frozen people of the unreal. Was she supposed to melt them all free?

  No. Not just her. Dad said there were other springs.

  He’d also said someone was closing them.

  The Brigade. Patterflam called them a Brigade.

  What if one day Astrid was the last remaining chanter? What if she was the only one now? Her fear grew; her mind circled the glowing blue icebergs as if tethered to them. All that ice. All those people.

  Fragments of knowledge churned in her mind, solutions to problems she had never studied. Dad had rationed his store of information on magic. He’d give her a minuscule drop of vitagua and a sparkly object and let her chant one thing a month. Chanting takes something out of you, he’d told her once—I don’t want it stunting your growth.

  “Co
ffee stunts your growth and I drink that, Daddy.” Saying it set her to coughing.

  She’d make a chantment; he’d send it away. She hungered for more. The tiny drops of vitagua murmured like a kettle on the boil—she could sense secrets trapped within the spirit water, answers. It was all connected, all alive, and it never forgot anything.

  To this, Dad had only one answer: No.

  One autumn morning she ditched school and went alone to Mascer Lane, slipping into the house through a basement window. The fireplace had not yet been bricked over; back then, the crack in the hearth was a hairline. Astrid laid a hand over the gap, pulling vitagua into herself.

  “Teach me,” she had whispered and the grumbles had gotten clearer. Most didn’t speak English, but that made it easier to pick out the few that did.

  Astrid coughed and thrashed in bed, lungs frozen and achy. “Sorry, Daddy,” she croaked.

  It was Sahara’s and Jacks’s voices that finally lured her away from the guilt and the memories. The customary sharpness eased out of their tones, fading into sober discussion, and then—blessedly—agreement. Burying the hatchet at long last? She strained to hear what they were saying, but cold fluid had clogged her ears.

  She was distantly aware of moaning a protest when Jacks released his grip on her hand. Then Sahara’s long fingers twined with her own, and Astrid finally slept.

  Daylight woke her, needle sharp against her puffy eyelids. The ringing in her ears had quieted in the night, and the familiar burn of her constant headache was almost welcome. A soothing smell—cloves—permeated her senses.

  Ma was there.

  Ev was still dressed as a man, but she wasn’t in suspenders. Better yet, she had a bra on. Her chin was plucked, and her hair was free of pomade. Short blond curls framed her face.

  “Yet another bender, kid?” she said, tugging the covers up over Astrid’s arm.

  Fear brimmed over. “Sahara isn’t gone?”

  “Don’t move. Yes, she’s gone—I sent them both for lunch.”