Wham!

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “No! They're going from second school to second school and taking every last one to some place where they're being sorted into groups for high risk menial tasks, different groups for drug and surgical experiments and the rest are terminated. And none are coming back.”

  Tess helped Mindy to the girl's toilet to wash her face, wondering how it might be that she was caring for anyone at all beyond her elite friends and social position. When at last they went outside, Tess saw that she had indeed missed the bus, but was relived to find that the air had cleared.

  “I really appreciate your being nice to me,” said Mindy as they walked to the curb. “I just don't know how I'm going to tell Mom and Dad. They'll probably already know. But Timmy was such a sweetheart and he'd never hurt anyone...” And with that she was sobbing again.

  “Timmy?” said Tess.

  “My little brother. He's a second.”

  After a time Tess left Mindy at the school and started down the buckled sidewalk in the heat of the late afternoon. Not a bird was singing. She could hear the sounds of traffic from other streets. Soon she could see someone approaching. She was wary at first, but then she could see that it must be Drake. “Tess!” he called.

  “Why are you out here?” she said.

  “I felt badly about not going back with you when Jasmine and Trent moved in,” he said as he waited for her to reach him. “And I wanted to find out how it went. And when the air cleared this afternoon, I knew you'd be walking home. But I thought I might've missed you. Has something happened?”

  “Not to me,” she said, pausing to use her old inhaler. “Children and Family came and got all the seconds. Gone for good.”

  “So it's already happened here, too. I found out an hour ago that they'd cleaned out all the seconds up at the high school in Fairy Valley Junction. They did that sometime today.”

  “Yeh. And they were keeping everyone's attention diverted by arranging for the barracks kids to get their own sublim boards. I stupidly checked a box before I knew what was going on and now I'm getting one too, unless I can get my grades below a C without flunking. Then I don't get one.”

  “You don't want one,” he said. “I can tell y' that.”

  “So why are they taking all the seconds?”

  “Hard to say. But their numbers do just keep increasing.”

  “The school says that there have always been seconds.”

  “Yeh? Well when Maud was in school, there were no seconds in the schools at all. At least there weren't enough of them to fill half the floors in the schools. The last I knew, there were as many seconds in the back as normal kids in the front at Gollsport High. She says it's spray that caused it. And I'll bet she's right. One thing she knows for sure is that the overwhelming number of seconds are autistic.”

  “Say. Drake? Would you mind keeping Mom and Dad's guns? It's a rifle, a shotgun and two pistols. Jasmine's home right now and she scares me. What if she found them?”

  “She'd wait until she wanted to get even and turn you in,” he said. “That's what.”

  Chapter 15

  “What's going on?” said Nia to the gentle shaking she was getting.

  “Actually, this is a bit early,” said Sam. “And I'm sorry it is. But I just found out I have to help a girl get ready for a particularly difficult client.”

  “Sure,” said Nia closing her eyes as she sat up. “Wouldn't it be easiest if I just slept until you got back?”

  “Not with everything we have to do,” said Sam as she pulled the cord of the Venetian blind. “The hospital...”

  “Whoa!” said Nia, flinging aside her covers. “What's happened to Jill?”

  “Nothing bad. We just have to hurry. And I want to find out how it went with the potentate. But to save time, do you mind if I pick out what you wear while you shower?”

  “You have better taste than anyone I've ever known.”

  “Pleasure that you think so. Part of my job. Now we need to...”

  Nia was already on her way to the shower. “Well 'nothing bad,'“ she thought as she turned the cocks. “But does all this mean something's happened to her?” Her hair was still in good shape, in spite of the swim, so she was done right away. She had scarcely toweled off when Sam was plying her with skintight jeans, tank top, a plaid shirt to tie at the waist and was pulling out tissue paper and threading in laces on yet another new pair of stiletto heeled knee boots which were a surprise to find that she had. They were in Sam's car in short order.

  “Take us to the visitors' parking lot at the hospital,” said Sam to the car as they settled themselves into its leather seats.

  “Has Jill...?” said Nia.

  “So tell me how it went last night,” said Sam as the car pulled away from the curb.

  “Well, I'm to address her as Pandora in private.”

  “Ah.”

  “And she actually told me she's never had a friend before...”

  “Really!”

  “And she said that there could be benefits from being hers. And the minute she did, I just couldn't believe it...”

  “What?”

  “Well, she took her skinny and ordered the execution of the two cops who beat up Jill. Would you believe? And then she told a Dr. Bloodsuck...”

  “Bloodstraw, I believe it is,” said Sam, nodding as if she were expecting to be hearing this.

  “She told him that he was not to allow Jill to die,” said Nia, studying her for a moment before quickly looking out the window. “Something's going on,” she thought. And she remained quiet the rest of the way up to Jill's floor.

  They found her sitting on the bed.

  “Jill!” cried Nia, rushing right in.

  “I'll be back as soon as I have my girl ready,” said Sam, stepping into the room with a wave and leaving at once.

  Nia gave Jill a sound hug. “Wow!” she said, holding her at arms length. “You'd think nothing was wrong with you. Your face was bruised beyond recognition, only yesterday. Where are your black eyes?”

  “I'm completely recovered,” said Jill.

  “How?”

  “That's everyone's question. And it's beginning to look as though we're not going to find out for certain. The nurses keep telling me that I was cured by a Dr. Bloodstraw, though they're at a complete loss to explain just how he managed to get me so completely well all of a sudden. And he's not even supposed to be anywhere in Atlantis. Nobody has any idea where he is.” She paused to smooth out a wrinkle in the sheet she was sitting on. “That's what they tell me,” she said, looking up. “But you know what I think? I swear it was this weird positively gorgeous woman who was sitting right here when I came to. She told me I needed a bath and left. No one has any idea who she was. They act like I dreamed her, except for one old nurse who gets all gruff when I mention her, as if I've the very nerve for frightening people with her. She was too real to be any damned dream. And she was almost too beautiful to be real. Long raven hair and a statue perfect figure.”

  A chill raced up Nia's spine. “Pandora!” she thought. “So...” she said, nodding at the skinweler. “Has anyone thought to ask the watcher in the ball?”

  “Ha!” said Jill, grabbing the skinweler at once. It was fast to the pipe it was mounted on, so after a shake she let go of it. “Well skinny man? How about it?”

  The ball flashed at once. “With your form of address,” said the man inside, “perhaps it's fitting that I can't possibly help you.”

  “Why's that?”

  “I wasn't the one on duty at the time.”

  “Well who was?” said Jill.

  “I've no idea. We do our shifts from wherever we are and most of us don't even know each other.”

  “Sharn-bree! That makes no sense at all. Somebody knows.”

  “Some of them in Orbis Terrae,” said the watcher. “Or maybe the potentate.”

  “Well who?”

  “You're on your own,” he said, and the ball winked out.

  “Ass!” said Jill. “Nia! You're the poten
tate's regular. Could you ask him? No, wait. I'm sorry. That's too much for me to ask...”

  “No it's not,” said Nia. “I'll find out what I can.”

  “You're the best friend...” said Jill, grabbing up Nia's hand with a squeeze in time to look up at Sam walking in, followed by a nurse with an empty wheelchair. “What's that for?” she said.

  “You're released,” said Sam. “But they won't let you out unless you go out in that thing. Hospital rules.”

  “Some house of healing, when y' can't leave unless you look crippled,” said Jill.

  * * *

  Tess was more relieved than usual to be getting out of school for the day. Each hour's sublim board had presented its particular subject's perspective on how the seconds were gloriously honored by their opportunity to serve the state. “Yep,” she thought as she shoved open the door at the staircase landing. “Valiant impaired for the Alliance. And how I'll be grilled by the skinny about the dreams I have tonight, when I wake up in the morning! And I'll have to be careful to give disappointing answers to keep my grades down without making the watcher suspicious enough to send Children and Family after me. It'll have to be the haziest possible grasp of the seconds' great honor without letting it slip that they're really going to the meat factory.” The air outside was bad, but at least she would not be forced to take the bus.

  “Good!” she said, seeing that her bicycle still had its basket. She put her bag and tutor ball in it and paused to use her inhaler. She unlocked her chain and wheeled her bike off the curb. She hopped astride and found her gear. She was relieved that there was going to be a kickball game to keep everyone at school, and with all the seconds gone as well, there would not be traffic enough to make it a problem for her, swerving about to miss all the holes and buckled pavement up and down All Goll Avenue. A rat scurrying along the curb dashed ahead of her and disappeared into a storm drain. She could hear tugboat hoots from beyond the quays in the hot afternoon air.

  “Hey Tess!” hollered Bart in her head. “Wait! Pull over.”

  “No!” she cried, wrenching side to side in a panic to see who was jumping her.

  “Up here!” cawed Bart in her head in time for her wheel to drop into a hole.

  She was immediately over the handlebars onto her hands and knees. “Bart!” she whimpered as she rolled over to rock back and forth and pick at the gravel ground into her bleeding knees. “And my jeans are torn!”

  “I'm sorry Tess!” he spoke in her head. “Your skinny ball's rolled away to the curb. Hadn't you better move your bicycle over there before somebody comes?”

  “You're back,” she said as she limped to the curb and parked her bicycle on its kickstand.

  Bart gave a two footed trot and followed. “I'm really, really sorry,” he spoke. “I should have landed ahead of you.”

  “I'm not upset with you,” she said as she spun her front wheel, picked at the tear her handlebar tape and dashed over to her skinny to chuck it into its bag before it could start pestering her.

  Bart gave a lunge and flapped up to her saddle. “Didn't mean for you to fall,” he spoke, running his beak down a flight feather. “It's just that Maud wants you to get to the cemetery as fast as you can...”

  “Wow!” cried Tess. “She's found Greenwood stones. Do I have time to run my tutor ball home and put on shorts first?”

  “If you hurry,” he spoke. “You don't have lights on your cycle. I'll let Maud know.” And with a leap, he pumped into the air and disappeared over the houses.

  Tess hopped onto her bike and cranked. She could see at once that she would never make it all the way out to Derwen with her torn breeches sawing across her badly scraped knees, but she could at least stand the pain long enough to get right home and change. She parked her bicycle and leaped up the steps with her skinny. The moment she touched the door latch, she heard Jasmine tramp from one end of the house to the other.

  “Damn her!” she thought as she stepped inside. “Well at least my door's still locked. But that was her and no mistake.” She made a quick check about and saw no signs that

  Jasmine had actually gotten in. She rushed to change into some tennis shoes and shorts and to fill a couple of water bottles and was pedaling for South Cross with everything she had in short order.

  It didn't take her long to go the seven miles to the cemetery at Fates Church, particularly with the nice tailwind, but her hurry made her forget to pace herself in the summer heat, so she leant her bicycle against the stone fence rather than walk it through the tall grass. “Where's Maud, I wonder?” she said, whirling about to peer here and there under her hand. “I don't see her bike.” She clambered up onto the fence. “Maud?” she hollered. “Maud!”

  She hurried out amidst the stones and hollered again, which of course made no difference. “Maybe the church,” she said, peering up at the trumpet vines covering its tower as she walked 'round to the front steps. The door had been standing open in the weather for some time. She climbed the gritty steps and looked inside. “Maud?”

  There was no reply from the pews, each one with a leafy relief carving of the green man on its end.

  “What beautiful windows,” she said, looking all about as she meandered down the isle, “even if they do have panes missing. I wonder what they did in here besides the singing Maud was talking about? This looks like some beanstalk giant's school bus.” She went to the piano and pressed a key, which sounded like something having to do with pans in the basement. The ones next to it made no sound at all and stayed down. She walked to the open door at the corner of the wall behind the pulpit. She trotted down the steps and out a good long way into the grass. “Maud?” she cried.

  Instead of an answer, she heard some sort of odd commotion in the air and wheeled about in time to see a green haired woman in tights and huge luna moth wings, fluttering right down to her from somewhere up in the sky.

  “Ghost!” she wailed, stumbling into a frantic sprint for her bicycle, only to have the moth woman land right in front of her.

  “Plese!” cried the moth woman as she held out her arms.

  Tess lost her footing and fell. “Aah!” she cried at the sight of a man in brilliant yellow and blue slashed sleeves and breeches leap the fence and come running.

  “Tess!” cried the man. “Tess Greenwood?”

  Tess was already running with everything she had.

  The moth woman shook her gnarled staff and Tess froze on one foot, utterly unable to move except for her chest, which heaved in panic as the moth woman calmly walked around in front of her to look her up and down with kindly eyes. “If thou art Tess Grenewode,” she said with her smile of shark teeth, “Thy grauntfadyr sente unc thee for to fynden.”

  Tess stayed perfectly balanced, her eyes bulging in terror as she breathed in huffs and gasps at the sight of her.

  “Plese!” she said with her razor teeth as she delicately touched Tess's wrist. “Wit wolde nevere thee to harme. If thou vowest nat to fleen, wit shal thee to tourne loos.”

  “We won't hurt you,” said the blue and yellow man.

  It took some time for Tess to calm her breathing, but when she had, the moth woman made a circular wave of her staff and Tess caught her balance and sat on the ground at once.

  “Artow in dede Tess Grenewode?” said the moth woman, squatting before her.

  “Where's Maud?” said Tess, looking all about as if she surely must have arrived. “Maud Baxter. What have you done with her? She was going to show me...”

  “Maistresse Baxter atte hoom abydeth...”

  “Bart?” hollered Tess. “Bart!”

  There was no answer.

  “She moste bethe Maistresse Grenewode, if hem bothe she yknoweth,” said the moth woman.

  “This is what I detest about ruses,” said the blue and yellow man. “And just like Meri said about Morrigan. So Bart insisted: 'It's simple. It'll work.' And now look 'ee how she's upset.”

  “I Teeuh ycleped,” said the moth woman, rising to curtsey.


  “And I am Daniel, at your service,” said the blue and yellow man, sweeping off his hat with a bow.

  “You look like you escaped from a deck of cards,” said Tess. “So all right, I'm Tess Greenwood.” She turned to Teeuh. “But you're scary to look at. Just what are you?”

  “Doughter of Longebarke, the gretteste of al oke treen. And Celeste, Alvita and Nacea arne my moodres derre.”

  “Are you from outer space? I don't know of anything with more than one mother on this planet. If that's what you said. And nobody's mom is a tree.”

  “Perchaunce witt arne,” said Teeuh. “And thyne grauntfadyr Meri Grenewode sente unc thee to fynt...”

  “From outer space? That's crazy! You have to be from another planet. But how could he be?”

  “Well the past is indeed in a very different place,” said Daniel with a cough, “as I can tell from this choking air.”

  “And thyne grauntfadyr wantes unc to bryng thee un-to hym,” said Teeuh with a beckoning look as she held out her hand.

  “Are you two abducting me?”

  “We can't possibly be if you're willingly a-coming,” said Daniel.

  “Well I could be in more trouble than I can handle if I'm not home for supper. I mean serious trouble with the skinny. How long will this take?”

  “Wit konne thee bakke atte the verray tyme wit leeft to haven,” said Teeuh.

  “What did she say?”

  “We can be back at the same moment we leave,” said Daniel with an encouraging nod.

  “I don't believe you.”

  “Then this must be an abduction,” said Daniel as he and Teeuh bowed, curtsied and took her hands as if to dance. And with that, they vanished from the waving grass of the Fates Church graveyard.

  Colors gave a nauseating whirl through Nia's head. “Where is this?” she said, opening her eyes to find that she was still holding hands with them.

  “The Jutwodes,” said Teeuh. “Stepe thee doun in-to the ryng, if thou woldest.”

  “What?” said Tess.

  “Yea,” said Daniel. “Across the mushrooms. It's a big step down.”

  “What could possibly be down about that flat carpet of moss?” she said, stepping right across the mushrooms. “Damn!” she screeched, stumbling into the moss waist deep and two steps down to be stopped by Teeuh and Daniel.