“Relax, Lady Ah Toy. I am paying. For the both of us. And since she’s so pristine, I’ll pay double the usual rate.”
Elton brought out a thick stack of paper money and placed it on the counter. Ah Toy didn’t touch it. Olivia still expected Ah Toy would do something to resolve the situation, that there was no way she would be forced to do anything. But Ah Toy just looked at Bill and then at Olivia. At last, she relented, taking the money from the counter and walking away. She even left her post near the entrance, retreating to the back of the parlor, unable to witness what would happen next.
“There you go,” Bill said. He got up from the stool and stretched his arm out, offering his hand to Olivia. “Shall we retire as well?”
There was nowhere to run. Elton waited for her at the end of the bar. She thought about jumping over the counter but Olivia didn’t believe she’d be able to outrun them. Bill took her by the hands and led her deep inside the house, to one of the empty rooms. Elton took a couple of bottles of whiskey from the bar, leaving behind more money, and followed Bill. Olivia felt as though she were being led to her grave. By the time they reached the room and Bill had placed her on the bed, Olivia’s terror had transformed into unbridled rage.
The figures of Bill and Elton pouring whiskey and laughing to each other in drunken revelry blurred together. Olivia heard them as if from a great distance. She imagined a great tidal wave washing over her and these men, cleansing the world of them, and a rumbling swept over the room. The bottles and cups began to vibrate and the water in the men’s drinks shook with Olivia’s rage. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she found Bill and Elton dripping wet, drenched in their own drinks, the cups shattered, the bottles of whiskey empty and broken.
“She did this,” Bill said.
“Must be some kind of witch,” Elton said.
The men took Olivia by the arms, dragging her out of the room and into the parlor. They found it emptied and they walked right into Ah Toy, holding the shotgun up cocked and ready. When Bill saw her, he erupted in laughter.
“By noon tomorrow every one of you will be dead and this building will be ash,” Bill said.
“Maybe the others are witches, too. Could be a whole coven of them here, right under our noses,” Elton said.
“Let her go and I’ll let you live,” Ah Toy said.
“The penalty for witchcraft is death. This girl is a witch,” Bill said as if speaking to children. Some measure of fear flashed over his face and Ah Toy caught it as one catches a ray of sunlight in between boards of wood. Spittle collected on Bill’s lips and dripped piecemeal onto the ground as he spoke. Olivia’s arms were red where the men held her. Their grip was so tight that she no longer felt much of anything from the tips of her fingers to her elbow.
“A gray stain on the ground. That’s what all of you will be if you don’t let us through,” Bill said.
“Let her go,” Ah Toy said.
Now Elton had his revolver out as well and he pointed it at Olivia’s head.
“Kill us and she goes, too. And others will come for the rest of you. There will be nowhere to hide. No power to keep you from us. Attacking one of us is attacking all of us,” Bill said.
Ah Toy knew it was true. She hesitated, trying her hardest to avoid the final moment when a decision could no longer be put off. Let them go or fire at them, killing them and Olivia too. In those moments, Olivia was prostrated by the force of the men but her mind was unbridled and it rode through the past, seeing those people who were dearest to her and measuring those moments that had brought her the greatest joy. Then she thought of how it had come to be that she was robbed of that joy, and all of that condensed rage made something strange happen once again. The girls in the parlor stared, wide-eyed, as bottle after bottle in the bar burst open, the contents floating above the counter and coalescing into a giant bubble of liquor and beer and wine, its shape constantly shifting in midair.
There was something primordial about the bubble. Its liquid body was held together by an unseen force, forming a transparent skin, like some kind of eye. Its gaze fixed on Bill and Elton. And it crashed down on them with enough force to knock both of them, and Olivia, to the ground. Their weapons were tossed away, wet and useless. And when they opened their eyes, Bill and Elton found the barrel of Ah Toy’s shotgun flashing orange and red.
Ah Toy helped Olivia up and sat her on one of the chairs and brought her some water to drink. The girls huddled around her. Molly spoke first.
“Did you do that? With the liquor?”
“I think so,” Olivia said.
A few of the girls dragged the bodies off to the side. Others cleaned the blood and the liquor off the floor of the parlor. Olivia insisted on helping. Then the girls put the bodies in big burlap bags and wheeled them to the yard at the back of the house. They spent the last few hours before morning digging a pair of graves and burying the dead.
Chapter Thirteen
Once the graves had been filled up, the girls retired and slept but their slumber was interrupted by a great roar in the distance that made the house tremble and shake. Then came another impact and another, like falling meteors, and for a moment Olivia and Molly sat up from their beds frozen, not knowing what to do.
“Let’s go,” Molly said.
Outside they found a city burning and at war. The shells had penetrated several buildings to the south and columns of black smoke rose from them snakelike towards the sun. Members of the city’s militia marched past the girls, white lone stars emblazoned upon their chest, holding rifles and bayonets. And they started to run west, towards the sea, before Olivia stopped.
“Wait,” Olivia said. “What about Ah Toy? The other girls?”
“Are you mad? We need to get away from the shelling.”
“No, we must go back.”
They did go back. Ah Toy’s parlor still stood unblemished, but the girls were all outside in various states of undress, looking up at the sky as if waiting for their doom. There was no time for talk. Molly and Olivia found Ah Toy at the head of the pack and together they herded all of the girls forward towards the sea, hoping their salvation awaited them there.
While they ran another round of artillery fell from the sky, this time closer than before. One of the shells hit a building just ahead of them, and it came alight instantly and the fire grew, its unquenchable hunger consuming the wood, collapsing the columns, and in a matter of seconds the whole structure lay in rubble. A man emerged from one of the crumbling buildings carrying another person, the face a red and enflamed jumble of flesh.
The girls marshaled on. They were close to the sea when they heard the sound of gunfire to the south. Molly told the girls to hide against a wall and she looked toward the sound and saw a party of Union soldiers standing over the corpses of city militiamen. They’d had no chance. One of the soldiers caught sight of Molly while he scavenged the dead. Molly noticed and retreated but it was too late. The whole party pursued her.
The rest of the girls saw Molly running and the soldiers coming up behind her and they needed no further encouragement or explanation. They marched past bewildered families, abandoned saloons, barking dogs, and even some more men of the city militia. The soldiers followed and when they came upon these pockets of resistance their rifles flashed at them, dropping the Good Man’s men with little difficulty. Their pursuit of the girls continued, their teeth bared while they ran, their rifles held up to their chest, a ravenous sharpness to their eyes.
The girls ran all the way to the wharf at the western end of the city, where military steamships idled over the waters. The ocean was the end of the line and the girls huddled up close together. But they knew they would not be able to resist for long. In a matter of seconds the soldiers were upon them like a pack of hunters, their bayonets raised and pointed forward. One of the soldiers promised that they would allow the girls to live if they submitted. But before anyone could answer him, a series of explosions blasted all around the city, buildings
bursting into flame. This distracted some of them but a few could not be driven away from the girls.
Just as the conflict reached its peak, something caused the soldiers to pause. Olivia was standing in the back of the group, pure dread coming over her, such that she didn’t even notice that her hands were raised as if she were lifting some invisible object. Behind her the tide swelled and the previously calm sea now crashed against the rocks, some of the waves reaching as high as the very edge of the wharf. But these minor turbulences were a mere portent for what the soldiers saw and what caused them to pause their attack. A wave as tall as a house roared mere seconds from them and with each passing yard it grew larger until some of the men lost their nerve, turning around and running as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Then the wave’s rate of speed increased and its approach finally unsettled the last stragglers, and the soldiers fled the area, fearing for their lives.
The enormous wave cleared the wharf easily and the force of its crash toppled horse and rider and cart and any other structure that stood in its way, including a grocer and a tannery. More sturdy, stone constructions withstood the force but could not stop the water from invading their interiors, and wherever the water found an entrance its invasion was total, filling in every empty crack and crevice, overwhelming what flames it encountered. Some of the girls were dragged into these buildings and pushed against walls and floating tables. Olivia, too, was at the mercy of her own power. She hit her head somewhere and her unconscious body presented no challenge as the tide carried it deeper into the city. But with the wave came more than water. Black fins broke the skin of the sea. Great orcas. One of them found Olivia and with its powerful tail sped up until it could take hold of her with its mouth. Other orcas did the same with Molly and Ah Toy and a few of the other girls. But most of them were lost forever.
When Olivia opened her eyes she found herself beached on an island a few miles off the coast of San Francisco. She expected all of the other girls to be dead. Instead, she saw a few of them still conscious, lying on the beach drenched and scattered, seaweed still clinging to their legs and arms. Then Olivia rose and walked to the edge of the beach. From her vantage she could see the silhouette of San Francisco in the distance. Or what remained of it. Great tendrils of smoke hung above the crumbling buildings like black fingers. A little to the south, she could see the bright flashes of artillery fire. But what of the mystery of their rescue? Olivia had blacked out as soon as the water had hit her and remembered nothing. She turned her back to the shore, hoping one of the waking girls could help explain. But as she did so another sound summoned her attention. It was the sound of something enormous swimming rapidly up out of the depth of the sea and breaching the water. The beast that appeared looked to Olivia, even as someone who had never seen a whale, beyond the possible. The orca’s face alone was as wide and tall as a steamship’s bow, its green eyes larger than a man’s head. And once its body lurched onto the sand, the monster opened its mouth and spoke in words Olivia could understand.
“You control incredible power, little one.”
The weight of the beast made a huge dent in the sand and Olivia stood speechless, staring at its monumental ivory teeth, each one big as a crate. And in its cavernous and moist mouth a tongue like a dragon lay resting.
“Do not fear me,” it said. “I’ve come to help.”
Olivia had many questions for the speaking whale. Yet the mammoth beast shrugged them off and told her to rest, that she was safe on that island. Then it descended back into the waters.
It returned some hours later. By now the surviving women had lit a fire and were huddled close to it for warmth. The whale encroached upon them, letting its black body slide smoothly over the sand. When it opened its mouth, the women found hundreds of fish, some still living and moving. The women collected these fish with bare hands and stuck sticks through them and cooked them over the fire, eating the flesh nearly raw, such was their ravenous hunger. But Olivia disdained the food and instead remained close to the beast, still curious about many things, and the beast finally acquiesced, telling her that the next time he returned he would reveal as much as he could.
The smell of charred fish and burning wood comforted Olivia while she waited. She burrowed her feet in the fine sand and looked up at the stars, thinking for the first time that looking up at the sky was not that much different than looking down at the sea. And she imagined the stars and the planets as great vessels circumnavigating the cosmos, their movement governed not by wind or steam or combustion but by sound and mind and imagination. For all vessels require pilots, even those as wide as the Earth.
While Olivia lost herself in thought, two of the surviving girls brought her a fish, well cooked, even a bit charred at the tips.
“Thank you,” Olivia said, accepting the food.
“We thank you. Your great power saved our lives.”
Olivia did not know what to say, so she said nothing. Until the girls turned their back. Then something occurred to Olivia and she spoke it.
“I killed more than I saved. It’s no godly gift I’ve been given, but some sick curse.”
The girls who had brought Olivia the fish stopped, hearing the words, but then they went on as if nothing had been said at all.
“There is a saying in China,” Ah Toy said, coming up and sitting next to Olivia. “The imagined hero is more powerful than the real hero, for the latter can die yet the former cannot.”
“I do not wish to be venerated,” Olivia said.
“Of course not. But if some wish to venerate you, then there is little you can do to stop them.”
“How many survived?”
“We are nine in total.”
“That means over fifteen died at my hands. And were it not for the whales—”
“Nonsense. We were all condemned for the death of Bill Barnwell. Were it not for your action none would have survived.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“Of course I am right. And if we are to continue to survive, then we need you. You must embrace your abilities. The girls look to you for guidance now. Some of them think you the daughter of a god or the incarnation of some elemental spirit.”
“I am none of those.”
“It matters only that they think it so.”
“Yes, yes. Very well. I will do my best. But I have no answers.”
“Rest and tomorrow perhaps the answers will come to you.”
“You go ahead. I am not sleepy.”
Forgoing sleep, Olivia wandered the little island, walking along the coast, the faint light of the moon her only guide. She walked along the coast, on the sand, until the beach ended. Then she walked over pebbles and detritus, the clacking of the rocks beneath her soles like the crunching of bones. The gnashing of teeth. Looking back, she found the fire still burning but faint. Then she stared down the trees in front of her and, gathering her courage, ventured into the grove. What little light the moon emitted diminished further, blocked by the leaves and branches. So Olivia stopped and sat on the ground. She could feel the humidity of the soil in her nostrils. A smell like the beginning of life, the hearty womb of nascent trees. Then a rustle in the leaves. Startled, Olivia scanned the dark, afraid of what hid invisibly near her. Then a mass of foliage swayed and turned, tall as two men with arms and legs and a great round face with eyes and a nose and a mouth.
The apparition drove Olivia up off her feet and she was ready to run, but the creature extended its arm, grabbing on to Olivia.
“Wait. It is I. The same who saved you from the waters.”
“What?”
“I can take many forms. See.”
The creature let go of Olivia’s arm and its form shivered and many of its verdant leaves fell away and it became shorter and thinner until it looked like a man in simple clothing, with only a few branches still sticking out here and there.
“See. Now I am like you.”
“What are you?”
“What am I? I am a
live much as you are. And I have a name.”
“I’m sorry, but all of this is strange to me. What is your name?”
“Adler.”
“How can you do that? Change forms?”
“The same way you can command water.”
“You speak in riddles. Tell me clearly what is happening or I will begin to believe your intentions are not as pure as you claim.”
“It is not an easy thing you ask of me. There is only so much I am permitted to say.
“Why did you save us?”
“Because I require your help.”
“Help with what?”
“You’ve been touched by the devilish one. The usurper. He gave you your power and he will seek to use it for his own purpose. But you must not let him.”
“Who is this usurper?”
“Think. Did you come across a strange man in your travels?”
“No…wait. Lynch? The man in the woods?”
“I was not told his name. It may be that. I believe your brother, too, has been touched.”
“And this man is evil?”
“He is no man. He entered this plane unbidden and he has caused many things to change, for he carries with him a reckless desire to meld and branch and bring forth, and the force of his will alone is enough to render the very air around him volatile and unknowable. Now rest and tomorrow we will go on.”
Olivia listened closely to Adler then watched as he walked into the ocean until the water reached up to his chest and his form expanded amorphously and blackened, finally taking the rounded shape of a great orca. He swam away.
That night, Olivia lay down next to Molly in the makeshift bed that had been made for her and remained awake for another few hours, unable to sleep, her heart pounding at the wonders she had seen, her mind struggling to account for these new facts. A few times she dozed off, but woke again with a crackling of the fire, and for a brief moment she did not remember all that had happened to her and she was still. Then she remembered all of it at once and she felt a kind of euphoric fear, as if she stood over some bottomless precipice, a fall into which she was certain would lead to another world. A better world.
How the Stars did Fall Page 14
