Hand in hand, they stood in the tub like a pair of small children waiting to cross the street. No, Peasblossom realized as the mist cleared. Not children. Something else.
Their eyes were wide and dark, their features fine boned and beautiful. They were unclothed but not visibly gendered, their bodies leanly muscled and compact. Water droplets clung to their sleek hides like moonstones in the predawn light.
The taller of the pair had deep brown skin and ink-black hair. Its companion was green skinned and more delicately made, with hair like the inside of an abalone shell, iridescent rainbow pale.
Peasblossom now found himself under the sofa, his mind and body at war. Every hair on his coat longed for the fire escape, the open air. He gritted his teeth and crept out a few inches until he could see Pallas. She still slept, none the wiser. The cat’s pulse soared as the pair exited the tub in an effortless leap, hands clasped, landing softly.
They lifted their faces to the open window to meet a sudden breeze, eyes shining as their hair snaked along the hardwood floor. Unfurled, the strands were longer than the creatures were tall, floating to dance around them like seaweed in a slow current. As if sentient, the pale tresses reached for the dark, sliding together and moving apart in a series of shapes that struck Peasblossom as a form of greeting or celebration—now flower, now feather, now honeycomb, now moon.
Peasblossom tensed, ready to spring as they moved toward Pallas, but found he could not move. The smaller of the pair hovered near the sleeping girl, hands spread above her forehead. In the moonlight, Peasblossom could see the fine webbing between its fingers. The creature closed its eyes. Suddenly, Pallas was rising! She floated up from the floor like a helium balloon, her skin lit with the same lunar intensity as the creatures’, her hair alive like theirs, a golden cape around her shoulders. After an interminable moment, Pallas exhaled, coming to rest on the floor as if rising and descending were the most natural processes in the world.
Peasblossom’s pelt twitched with the painful need to go to his young friend, but he remained pinned where he was, unable. His frustrated meow came out a strangled croak. The larger of the pair acknowledged him with a neutral glance and returned its attention to Xochi, resting brown fingertips lightly on the young woman’s forehead.
Minutes passed.
The creatures were utterly still.
Birdsong and garbage trucks announced the coming morning. Pallas and Xochi slept on, unaware of the newly formed beings beside them.
When the creatures finally sprang back to life, their speed was uncanny, taking them from the center of the attic to the window seat in the space of a single breath. They paused on the sill, silhouetted against the paling sky, their lashless eyes reflecting the streetlight’s final glow.
Suddenly able to move again, Peasblossom reached the window in time to see them balanced on the highest branch of the hawthorn in the side yard. He slipped out the open window to the fire escape as the creatures joined hands and stepped into the air, hair billowing above them like parachutes as they floated to the ground.
It was a shock to see them outside the attic—a confirmation that, against all logic, Xochi and Pallas’s nonsensical ritual had summoned these very real otherworldly beings. Peasblossom climbed down the dew-slicked fire escape with the speed of a much younger cat and leaped onto the damp grass as the duo rounded the corner toward the street. Panting, the cat reached the front yard. Hand in hand, the creatures approached the curb, their hair still streaming behind them as if they were moving through water, not air. A bank of fog lumbered up the hill to meet them and rolled to a stop. The pair embarked, melting into the soft gloom of the San Francisco morning.
7
Predictions
Xochi woke on the sitting room floor. She vaguely remembered Pallas shaking her sometime in the early morning, telling her to go to bed. She should have listened. She rubbed the kink in her neck and yawned, metal grazing the roof of her mouth.
According to James, her tongue was supposed to be too swollen to eat or talk, but it felt almost normal. She tried to remember her last physical injury. Had she healed especially quickly when she’d cut herself on her pocket knife last year? She’d broken her arm when she was thirteen, but that had taken forever to heal. In her small bathroom, she examined the piercing. A little redness, but that was all. She yawned again, then groaned, remembering the mess in the bathtub, but when she returned to the sitting room, the tub was spotless. Pallas must have cleaned it, the little neat freak.
Pallas’s bedroom door was open an inch. All that was visible under the creamy pile of comforters was a bare foot. The mattress was so thick, Pallas needed a step stool to get into bed. The Princess and the Pea, Xochi thought. Grinning, she remembered the bookstore cat. Was he asleep somewhere in the pile?
A shower worked out the knots in Xochi’s back. She pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, and red high-tops and drew a sooty outline around her tired eyes. A comb was her one concession to last night’s makeover. She had to admit it—Kiki and Pallas had been right about her hair. Taking a final look in the mirror, she put on some cherry lip gloss, messed up her bangs and clasped Loretta’s necklace closed at the back of her neck.
Her stomach growled, and the ache in her temple told her it was hours after her usual morning coffee. Checking her jeans for money, Xochi headed down from the attic. On the second landing, she stopped. The narrow stairway widened, and it was a short flight down to the main floor if you kept going straight. If you veered left, there was an unexpected passage leading to a door. “Kylen’s Lair,” Pallas had explained during Xochi’s grand tour of Eris Gardens. “I almost had his room myself. We flipped for it, and Ky won. I’m glad now, but back then I was all about the secret passages. His room used to be the butler’s. I guess butlers needed to sneak around a lot.”
“Does Kylen?” Xochi had asked.
“Ky likes a mystery. And he eats secrets for breakfast.”
“What do you mean?” Of all the people at Eris Gardens, Kylen seemed the least thrilled about Xochi’s presence and the hardest to figure out.
“He just kind of . . . knows stuff,” Pallas said. “I used to lie to him to test it out, but all he has to do is touch you, and bam! Game over. He knows.”
There was a sound coming from Kylen’s room now like the purr of an enormous cat. Xochi walked closer until she stood pressed against the heavy door. It vibrated under her ear, the old wood breathing like part of a living tree. She closed her eyes, every sense engrossed in sound. It took her a second to realize the door was giving way. She stumbled inside.
Kylen sat naked in the center of the cluttered room, a cello between his legs, his skin washed in watercolor reds and blues by the light filtering in through a pair of intricate stained glass windows. His long, dark hair was loose around his angular face. His eyes were rolled back, unseeing, as he slid the bow over the strings.
Backing away as silently as she could, Xochi was nearly through the door when she bumped into a table sending a stack of tarot cards flying. They fell like cherry petals in a windstorm, settling around Xochi’s feet, all facedown except one.
Queen of Cups, she read, gazing at the image of a woman obscured by rippling water. Xochi blinked as a second card made a belated fall. “The Tower.” Xochi said it aloud before she could stop herself. It was ominous looking, with a dove fleeing a burning ruin. What does it mean?
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Xochi jumped at the sound of Kylen’s voice. His dark eyes were all pupil.
“I’m so sorry,” Xochi said. “It was the music—I was listening and the door just opened.” Kylen’s blank expression stopped her. “I’ll go.”
He pulled his bow away from the strings, bending gracefully to dislodge a card wedged under the end pin of the cello, his muscles as defined as a dancer’s. He seemed to not care at all about being naked. He held the card out. A man and woman stood
before a priest, a white and a black cherub on either side of them. The card was labeled The Lovers.
Xochi took it. “I have a feeling this isn’t about falling in love.”
“If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”
Xochi opened her mouth to thank him, apologize, something—but his eyes were closed, the bow poised again against the strings. Xochi backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
She wanted to sit on the landing till her legs stopped shaking, but the idea of Kylen leaving his room and finding her there kept her moving.
In the front hall, she collided with Bubbles. Her curls were secured atop her head with chopsticks. A ruby sparkled in her belly button, peeking over her pajama bottoms. Aaron was behind her in an unbuttoned plaid flannel with polka dot boxers and wool hiking socks, the Tibetan death mask tattooed over his heart glaring under his friendly face.
“There you are!” Bubbles hugged her, giving her shoulders an extra squeeze. “Where’d you go last night?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I know what you mean.” Aaron rubbed his temples. His knuckles were scratched and swollen from drumming.
“Rough night?” Xochi asked.
“Wait a second.” Aaron squinted. “You didn’t have that before. Let’s see it.”
Xochi stuck out her tongue.
“You got it last night?” Bubbles leaned in closer. “But it’s already healed.”
“I know,” Xochi said. “Weird, right?”
“Damn!” Aaron said. “Who did it?”
“James.”
“James at Pagan? I tried to make an appointment to get my ears redone and they put me on a waitlist for June! Can I see one more time?” His eyes widened as he studied Xochi’s tongue. “Nice jewelry, dude. Most tongue bars are plain, but there’s engraving on yours, some kind of Celtic knot.” He elbowed Bubbles. “The babysitter’s got connections.”
“Pallas is too old to have a babysitter,” Bubbles said. “Didn’t we decide on ‘governess’?”
“I don’t know,” Xochi said. “I’m not sure I’m the governess type.”
Pad emerged from the guest bathroom wearing a towel and a smile. Besides the mermaid on his forearm, he had a half sleeve on his muscled upper arm, a watery Japanese collage of waves and seaweed and tentacles. His nipples were pierced with small silver hoops.
“Why are you down here?” Bubbles asked. “Too many models in your bathroom upstairs?”
“Water pressure,” he said, his accent milder than it had been last night, more a lilt now than a brogue. “Why are you two accosting the governess?”
“She wants to be called something else,” Bubbles said. “She says she’s not the governess type.”
“But she is,” Pad said. “Like Mary Poppins, only hotter.” He grinned.
Beware the siren song, Xochi thought.
Bubbles frowned. “Mary Poppins was so strict. Xochi’s more of a Fraülein Maria, don’t you think?”
Aaron nodded. “Totally, dude.”
“I used to play the guitar,” Xochi said. “But I’m not a nun. Also, I can’t sew.”
“Not a nun?” Pad draped his arm around Xochi. It was warm and slightly damp. He smelled like Ivory soap and breakfast. “Good to know.”
“Stop!” Xochi laughed, pushing Pad away. “I’m going out for a bagel. Do you guys want anything?”
“What are you talking about?” Bubbles took her hand. “It’s blueberry pancake day, sweetie. You follow me.”
“I already ate about fifteen of them,” Pad called, heading back upstairs. “Better hurry before they’re gone.”
“I’m still not over your tongue,” Aaron said, shaking his head.
“I got too high and took a walk, and then I had to pee. Pagan was the only thing open. James let me use the bathroom. He kept calling me Persephone, saying it was a long walk back from Hades. He said the piercing was an offering to the goddess.”
“Unbelievable,” Aaron said.
“I believe it,” Bubbles said. “I think the governess is just getting started.”
8
Los Banditos
Sunshine steamed the dew off the shrubbery in a neighborhood of well-kept bungalows. Peasblossom’s stomach grumbled. He’d skipped breakfast to follow this hunch, and now it was easily past lunchtime with nothing but water. He sighed and found a likely shrub. As he finished his business, laughter and bird droppings pelted him from the trees.
Cherry-headed conures! A pandemonium of parrots—rogue pets and their descendants—shook the blades of the date palm overhead.
Tail in the air, Peasblossom turned and walked stiffly away. He wanted information from the garish, gossiping little clowns, but he was no spring kitten. They’d toy with him all day if he betrayed any sign of weakness.
He left the cul-de-sac and walked down Chestnut as it curved to face the bay. Before he turned the corner, the flock followed, settling into an overgrown fig. Whoever said cats were the curious ones had never met a parrot.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” they called. He’d heard somewhere that conures weren’t great talkers, but that was only what the clever little monsters wanted people to believe.
“Kitty kitty kitty kitty!” The flock tossed the taunt back and forth like kids playing keep-away. Peasblossom crossed the street.
“Hey, Cat, what gives?” The intonation was brusque and mannered, classic old-time gangster. The parrot who landed on the sidewalk before him had clearly been raised with the television on.
“Just out for a stroll,” Peasblossom said. A car door slammed. The bird startled. Peasblossom walked away.
A green youngster with yellow markings, smaller than the others, possibly an escaped parakeet, grazed Peasblossom’s head and landed on a bush behind him. She wolf whistled, high and clear. Not a talker, perhaps. A breeze from the sea held a hint of cedar and sulfur, a teasing reminder of the bathtub creatures.
The parakeet flew to a tree behind the cat. Peasblossom followed and the bird flew on, retracing the path he’d taken an hour before, down Grant Street. The bird stopped again at a staircase, one of the many jungled paths leading through the maze of residential North Beach. Again, a wolf whistle. The rest of the flock invaded the canopy. Peasblossom dodged their droppings.
At the top of the stairs, he found the scent he’d been searching for all night—mossy and fungal and overly ripe, with a strong marijuana overlay. Emerging from the foliage, the view opened on a paper-white sky and inky water. The wind was shrill with gulls. On a bench with a cigar-sized spliff in her hand sat the object of Peasblossom’s search.
At first glance, she appeared to be a drugged-out refugee of the sixties in dirty tie-dyes and a series of unraveling shawls, but in her natural state, the Mushroom Hag was much smaller, older and odder than she appeared to be aboveground. Unlike the majority of strange folk haunting the forgotten corners of San Francisco, the Hag was no European transplant.
“How’s it hangin’, Cat,” she said. “Long time, no see.”
“You’re looking well,” he said. In truth, she was more ragged than the cat remembered, with layers of dirt-spattered finery and twigs and debris in her long, tangled hair.
“Don’t sweet-talk me, amigo,” the Hag said, glancing sidelong at the cat. “I’m looking pretty rough, baby. I got down last night. If I’m lying, I’m crying. But hey, man! Happy Equinox. Winter is over, baby. Here comes the sun!”
“Happy Equinox to you.” Peasblossom bowed. They sat in silence. Alcatraz emerged from the fog. The Golden Gate Bridge was poppy-bright against the gray of the sea and sky. The Hag took a long drag of sweet herbal smoke. She offered the spliff to Peasblossom, but the cat shook his head.
“I need to ask you something,” he began.
“Not here,” the Hag hissed. “The feds, man. They got the whole joint b
ugged. Let’s make like bananas, baby.” She stood, swaying. She set the half-smoked marijuana cigarette on the bench. “Some high-heeled rich girl on the wharf floated me that kind bud last night, put it right in my hand wrapped in a five-dollar bill. The next freak that sits here—happy birthday, merry Christmas!” The Hag cackled. “It’s karma, baby, you dig?”
“Of course,” Peasblossom said.
The Hag teetered down the steps. Peasblossom followed her up Kearny Street to the abandoned reservoir that had been a neighborhood eyesore since the forties. Her coordination improved as she ducked under a gap in the chain-link fence and slipped into an opening in a blackberry thicket.
The tunnel was old and hard packed, swept clean of debris. She was closer to Peasblossom’s size now. Her skin had tightened around her face, making her ears and eyes seem alarmingly large. “The pink pill makes you larger,” she sang. “The kind bud makes you small . . .”
After several forks and turns, the Hag stopped at a doorway hung with a beaded curtain. “Mi casa is su casa, baby,” the Hag said, throwing off a layer of shawls and rolling up her sleeves. Peasblossom hunched on a braided rag rug as she plucked foul-smelling herbs from various scavenged containers and dropped them into a dented pot, adding water from a corked glass bottle that looked less than clean. After making a neat fire in her round-bellied stove and putting the pot on the burner to boil, she sat in her twig rocker and listened to Peasblossom’s story.
In the firelight, her sharp features softened, and Peasblossom was surprised at her almost regal bearing. Her moment of calm ended before he could finish his tale.
“They’re coppers!” she hissed. “Pigs, man! The fuzz! If they’re here—like for real, baby, not like you got dosed in the park—that means trouble, Cat. Bummer days, man. Bum-mer days.” The Hag began to giggle, then cackle, dissolving into raucous laughter as she twisted the hem of her filthy skirt. After drinking a cup of acrid-smelling tea and warming herself by the stove, her black eyes went from hazy to sharp once more.
All of Us with Wings Page 4
