The wind picked up a little, offering a moment of relief from the heat. Winn felt the sweat on his body soak in the air, cooling him. A little dust blew up from the ground under the spindle, into his face, and he coughed.
I should never have spread her ashes here, he thought, the same thing he thought whenever it was dusty outside and it blew in his face. I could have taken them somewhere else, Lake Mead, or Snow Canyon, somewhere like that. But no, I had to be lazy and spread them right here, thinking this was all she deserved. Now she invades my lungs every time the wind kicks up. Still bugging me from the grave.
He crushed the cigarette into an ashtray on the table and got up, pulling his beer from the cup holder. He walked into the trailer. The cooler didn’t take long to make the air in the trailer tolerable. He kicked off his boots, letting them fall on the kitchen floor, and walked back to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. He started the shower, and waited for the water to reach the right temperature.
He looked down at himself, then up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Exposed. Deem seemed to think she didn’t know that much about me, he thought. She doesn’t need to know everything. She knows about my mother, that she was gifted, that she was absent. Deem freaks out about anything sexual, so there’s no point in telling her about the women or the men I’m seeing. I hope she knows I’m loyal to her. I’d help her with anything she needed, and I think she’d do the same for me. But she doesn’t need to know everything about me. Everyone has some things they keep to themselves. There are some things that don’t need to be told.
He got into the shower and washed the day away, letting the water run over him and cool him down. He felt a hundred percent better.
After he dried off, he walked back to his bedroom, still naked, and laid down on the bed, letting the air from the cooler blow over him. He reached for the clicker and turned on the TV, flipping through channels, looking for something to take his mind off Deem’s conversation. The more he tried to avoid it, the more it bothered him. ‘There are times when I feel like I hardly know you,’ she said, like she wanted to know more. Should I change that? Should she learn more about me? She may not like what she learns. And what was all that about unintended consequences?
He began to feel a little sick as dread washed over him. He closed his eyes. For a moment he panicked, worried that sleeping would invite the horrors from the past, but then he relaxed, remembering that the horrors were gone. Paid for. They hadn’t come in years. There was no reason to fear sleeping anymore; they had been banished a long time ago, and sleeping had been safe for over a decade now.
Still, he couldn’t stop the dreaming, and the moment he closed his eyes always seemed to unnerve him, afraid of what the night might bring. Idiot, he thought. You fixed it, he won’t be there. What was the point of paying the price if you continually imagine him showing up?
▪ ▪ ▪
Carma raised a wine glass and said, “To Awan and his team! Indian Springs owes you all a debt of gratitude that they have no idea they’ve incurred, and will never repay. But I intend to repay you, with a piece of pecan pie drizzled with a warm rum sauce and whipped cream!”
There were groans around the table as people contemplated trying to eat more. Carma had already stuffed them with savory pies. Wine glasses clinked, and Deem said, “Honestly, Carma, I can’t eat another bite!”
“Now I know you’re lying, and you’re so awfully thin, my dear,” Carma replied. “A man likes a little something he can hold on to.” Deem began to blush. “These pecans were grown in the orchard right outside, and they have properties that will make you irresistible to men.”
“I’ll have a piece,” Winn said. Deem looked up at him and snickered. He enjoyed saving her from situations that embarrassed her, though he wasn’t above creating those same situations from time to time.
“Excellent!” Carma said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll dish it up in a little bit, so prepare yourselves!”
“I don’t know what you put in these pies,” Winn said, forking another lump of meat and crust into his already stuffed mouth. “They’re sick!”
Carma turned to Deem. “That’s good, right?”
“Yes, very good,” Deem said.
Carma raised a hand to her forehead, rubbing it. “It’s been incredibly difficult to keep up with current vernacular over the years, but I must say, I have tried my best. ‘Cool’ was extremely confusing for me, but now I think I’ve got it down. It means the opposite, right? My pies don’t make him sick, right?”
“Correct,” Deem assured her.
“It’s like, your pies are so good, it’s sickening,” Winn said. “Are you sure there isn’t some Sweeney Todd action going on here?”
“I assure you there is nothing human in these pies!” Carma said, smiling. “Well, not that I’m aware of, at any rate. Deem, more wine?”
“I think I’ve had enough wine, too,” Deem said.
“You’ve certainly developed a taste for it, haven’t you?” Carma said. “And now that you’re not excommunicated, you’ll have to repent for each and every gulp!” She smiled.
“I’m going to wait for a while, and repent after I’ve got a good batch of sins built up,” Deem said.
“That’ll take years,” Winn cracked.
“Awan, how long before the blood souring takes? Is it immediate?” Carma asked.
“Yes,” Awan answered. “It’ll taint their offerings right away, they’ll all be rejected. The Callers will abandon them. I’m going to go around town and tell people they can stop paying. It’ll take longer for the kidney trouble to show up.”
“I appreciate that you don’t want to kill them outright,” Carma said, leaning forward and pouring another glass of wine for Deem, who tried to object but was ignored. “Back in the day people would find themselves strung up or cut for the littlest offenses. Things seem so much more civilized now. Why don’t all of you take your wine glasses into the sitting room, and we’ll relax and chat in there for a while. I love these chairs, but my butt hurts after more than an hour in them.” Carma immediately rose from the table and grabbed her glass, walking into the other room, leaving the others behind.
Winn noticed that Deem seemed a little wobbly as she stood. “If you decide to drink that glass Carma just poured for you, just sip at it,” he said.
“Of course she’s going to drink it!” Carma hollered from the other room.
“I’ll go slow,” Deem said, looking at Winn and smiling. “So this is what feeling drunk is?”
“Yes,” Winn said, walking around the table and taking her by the hand. “And you don’t want to go any further, or you’ll know what praying to the porcelain god is.”
“Huh?” she said, following him into the sitting room.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Awan said, following her.
They walked down a couple of steps and landed in the room filled with sofas and chairs. Winn watched as Deem set her glass carefully on a side table and plopped into her favorite chair. Winn dropped onto a sofa and Awan sat next to him.
“God, I love this view!” Deem said, staring out the large floor to ceiling windows that faced the back yard and the hill that rose dramatically behind the house, lit with little yard lights. Bugs hovered around the lights and she could see bats darting back and forth, snapping up insects.
“I talked with Lyman earlier today,” Carma said, entering the room with a tray filled with cordials. She set the tray down on a table near the windows. “Help yourself to any of these you want.” She walked to an oversized chair and sat in it. “He was wondering, Deem, if you’d be willing to help him out with a little project.”
“What?” Deem asked.
“Naturally he asked me to have you talk to him about it yourself,” Carma said. “You know how he likes you.”
“What time?” Deem asked, blushing again.
Carma checked her watch. “Let’s see, it’s just after nine, and the moon’s out arou
nd two. About five hours from now. I hope you can stay.”
“Sure,” Deem said, leaning back in her chair.
“Lyman does seem to have his finger on the pulse of what’s happening around here,” Awan said. “And he seems highly intuitive. I’m still impressed on how he picked up on Winn.”
“That’s right,” Deem said. “He was the one who knew about you being ‘blank,’ just from meeting you. It’s what wound up saving us from Ninth Sign.”
“Did you ever figure out what that was about?” Carma asked Winn. “Why you’re a blank? We didn’t talk much about it after it happened.”
Winn considered how to respond. When he’d first found out he was blank, and was used to hide things from Ninth Sign, he felt embarrassed. Although it surprisingly wound up being an asset in that case, he always figured his deficiency would be a liability, and he still worried that it might hamper his ability to help Deem and Awan going forward.
Deem’s words to him the other night about not knowing much about him had been rattling around in his mind, and the mixture of the company and the wine made him feel relaxed, as though he could open up to these people without fear of judgment or repercussion.
“Well, I have been thinking about that,” he said. “And I think I know why I’m blank.”
“You do?” Awan asked. “Why?”
“Well, it’s a long story,” Winn said. “And you may not like it.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will like it!” Carma said with enthusiasm, delighted at the prospect of Winn telling a tale. “Doesn’t matter how it ends. I’ll like it.”
“I’m warning you, it’s long,” Winn said.
Deem closed her eyes and sunk further into her chair. “I’d like nothing better right now than to relax and hear it,” she said.
“Me too,” Awan said.
“Alright,” Winn said. “If you insist.”
“I insist!” Carma said, jumping out of her chair. “Just let me adjust the lights down in here. This room is too brightly lit for a good long story!” She walked to a dimmer on the wall, and lowered the level of light coming from the overhead fixtures. The lights outside became brighter, and Carma walked back to her chair. “There we go. Alright, Winn, begin!”
Winn took a deep breath and exhaled. “When I was eleven, my mother and I lived in a trailer court outside of Tucson…”
Chapter Two
Winn rested his head against the plywood platform in the tree and turned up the volume of his CD Walkman. Above him was a sea of green leaves and branches, swaying gently, creating a perfect hypnotic visual to The Dandy Warhols in his ears. Brent was supposed to meet him here, any minute. Spare time was always spent listening to music.
He felt the platform shift a little under him. Last month he and Brent had secured the platform with an extra round of nails, nervous that it might slip out of the tree if they didn’t take steps to make it more stable. Now he felt comfortable that it wasn’t going anywhere, thanks to Marty, who had loaned him the tools to do the job. Marty was an old man who lived in the trailer court and had always been friendly to Winn ever since they moved in years ago. He even contributed some of the ¾ inch plywood they used to make the platform.
He sat up and looked down into the trailer court. No sign of Brent yet, so he laid back down. To reach the platform, you had to climb up the back of Winn’s trailer, then jump to a branch, and from there, climb the rest of the tree. Winn’s mom didn’t like them climbing on the trailer, so they had to do it quietly when she was around, which wasn’t often. She was usually at work, or occupied in the trailer with a boyfriend. When she was occupied, she was louder than their climbing.
The droning music in his ears made him feel like floating, so he slipped into the River and let himself rise a foot or so above his body. A couple of weeks ago he’d been lying on his bed, daydreaming, when he closed his eyes and found he could drift into a place where he could see unusual things. He turned over and saw himself lying on the bed, and it had scared him so badly he forced himself to open his eyes. He found that he quickly returned to his body and everything was normal.
When he summoned enough courage, he tried it again, not turning to look at himself. His bedroom changed in little ways – some things were dimmer, and some things changed color. For a while he thought he was dreaming, and that somehow he’d been able to stay awake during the dream.
He only told two people about it – Marty and Brent. Brent seemed skeptical of it until Winn demonstrated it for him by hiding under a blanket while Brent held up a series of numbers with his fingers, and Winn had been able to name the series exactly. After that, Brent spent a good deal of time trying to emulate Winn’s ability, but not succeeding. He asked Winn for details on how he made it happen, hoping he could duplicate the effect Winn described. It never seemed to work for Brent.
Winn considered talking to his mother about his ability, but decided against it. Rifts between them had increased recently, as Winn became more outspoken about his dislike of the various boyfriends she brought home. Winn’s mother worked as a waitress at a lounge a couple of miles from the trailer court, and she frequently brought home a patron. Winn had grown used to the noises coming from his mother’s bedroom – it was a trailer, so you could hear everything. The guys she brought home always seemed to drink everything in their refrigerator and never replenished what they took, and that pissed Winn off. He complained to his mom about it, and they argued. She always won their arguments, with Winn being ignored for a few days as punishment for crossing her.
So he told Marty about his ability instead of his mother. Marty didn’t talk down to him, and he knew he’d at least hear him out before scoffing. Marty seemed surprised when he told him, and he offered to prove it the same way he’d proved it with Brent, but instead Marty said that he believed him and he didn’t need to prove it. He also told him it was called ‘the River,’ and not to tell other people about his ability, that it wasn’t a good idea to make it known to others. Winn hadn’t thought to ask him how he knew what it was called.
That was weeks ago. Since then, Winn found himself willing to venture a little further than just hovering above his body. He had managed to float a few feet away, always staying within his room. He felt that as long as he could see his body, he could return to it.
He found it particularly easy to slip into the River when he was listening to The Dandy Warhols, and as the music droned repetitively in his ears he let himself drift up and look over the edge of the platform, surveying the trailer court. He could see his trailer below him, and to the right, three trailers away, the trailer Brent’s family lived in. Still no sign of Brent yet. Between their trailers and across the driveway lived Jeanette with her little rat dog, Ears. The outside chair that Jeanette usually sat in was empty at the moment, so she wasn’t on patrol, spitting out comments and yelling at her dog. Winn didn’t mind her, though she scared some of the other kids in the trailer park. He thought she was entertaining, even when she got drunk and started screaming obscene things as people walked by.
To the far left, toward the back of the court, lived Marty. He had a nice double-wide trailer in a shady, secluded spot at the end of one of the driveways. The yard around his trailer was well maintained, like a real yard outside a normal house, with a small lawn and a fence. It looked like he’d lived in the trailer court for a long time.
Marty was one of the first people Winn had become friends with when he and his mom moved in. Back then, Marty’s wife, Rita, was still alive, and she made lemonade and invited kids from the trailer park into their home for a drink. When she died a couple of years ago, the lemonade stopped, but Winn had still visited Marty frequently. He knew Marty was lonely, and he felt sad for him. Marty told him he’d been married to his wife for thirty-three years.
Beyond the trailer court, past Marty’s trailer, was open desert. They were on the outskirts of a Tucson suburb, and most of the new development had gone in the opposite direction. That was fine by Winn; he and Brent love
d to explore in the desert, slipping under the chain link fence at the back of the property and disappearing into the bush, discovering garbage in washes and capturing lizards. Recently they’d been bolder and gone as far as the hills. It took a good twenty minutes in the hot sun to reach the hills, but things cooled down once you got there, as there were trees with shade as you entered a small canyon.
Winn wanted to drift in that direction and explore some more, but he wasn’t comfortable leaving his body alone on the platform. He could faintly hear the music, back in his physical ears: “If I could sleep forever…” What if he were to roll off? What if Brent showed up, and thought he was dead? What if birds found him, and pecked out his eyes?
Instead, he dropped back into his body, feeling the oddness of the River leave him, replaced by the sleepy melancholy of the music. Just wait here for Brent, he thought. Listen to the music and wait.
▪ ▪ ▪
It was now well past the time they’d agreed to meet, and Winn decided to leave the treehouse and ride his bike around the trailer court, looking for Brent. As he was descending onto the trailer, Brent rounded the corner of it and stopped dead in his tracks, watching Winn climb down. He was holding something.
“You’re ditching me?” Brent asked.
“You’re a half hour late,” Winn said, a little irritated. Brent was always paranoid that Winn was trying to ditch him. This wasn’t the first time Brent had mistaken his own lateness for some lack of loyalty from his best friend. It was an aspect of Brent that Winn liked the least, and he didn’t think he should have to defend himself for it – but he did, anyway. “I was coming to look for you.”
“My dad kept me, made me clean up the trailer before I could go,” Brent said. “You won’t believe what I read in here!” He held up a book.
“Yeah?” Winn asked skeptically, heading back up the trailer and into the tree. Brent followed. “What?”
The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) Page 2
