Weathering Magic
CHAPTER 2
TUESDAY
John phoned first thing in the morning to say he could leave. We
went to the hospital to pick him up and drive him home. I phoned the bank and
told the woman who answered I’d be late because I had to pick up a friend from
the hospital. She was all kindness which Mr. Salt, the bank manager, wouldn’t
be when I got to work late, but oh well, I have heard his complaints often
enough to ignore them. He’d just have to dock me and he would.
Tarvik knows all about the severity and complications that can be
caused by concussions. Folks who watch sports on TV get to be experts on the
subject. He helped John Nardel get dressed and collect his belongings and get
checked out. When John said he needed to stop by the pawn shop to make sure it
was locked up properly, that’s what we did. Tarvik hadn’t counted on detours,
not that he minded. We both thought it would be a quick stop.
It wasn’t an all day thing but it did take more time than we
expected. John didn’t rush to look in the cash register drawer. He knew it
would be empty. While he was sinking to the floor with a cracked skull he had
heard the thieves open the drawer.
What he hadn’t heard or didn’t remember was the guys stepping over
him and opening the sliding door on the glass display case.
In his controlled voice, he said, “Most the watches and jewelry
are missing.”
“Are they insured?”
“Maybe for the amount the owners get from us but that’s not nearly
what they are worth. Oh damn.” He walked to the back room, pushed aside the
curtain and said a few more serious words than damn, still all in that flat
voice. “The guns are gone.”
Apparently cops take missing guns a tad more seriously than
missing jewelry. John phoned them and we waited until they arrived and then we
stood around while they asked John questions similar to the ones they had asked
me. Could he describe the thieves, did he recognize their voices, did they say
anything to each other, yada yada. Also they needed descriptions of the eight
hand guns that had been in a box in the back room.
He had no answers about the identity of the thieves other than
what he had told the other cops yesterday. Today’s pair kept asking him to
think carefully and by the time John finished with them and the inventory check
and then locked up, he’d gone white and his hands were shaking. Tarvik insisted
on taking him to the cafeteria in the Center and getting some food and coffee
in him.
It was time for Tarvik to start preparing lunches at the Center.
He works there full time as head cook for the noon meal plus doing a number of
other chores during the rest of the day. I work mornings at a bank downtown,
then afternoons at the Center.
As Tarvik couldn’t be gone during the noon hour and John needed to
go home and rest, I ended up driving John home, a very silent John but at least
his color was getting back to normal.
He lived south of the city, a half hour’s drive in light traffic
and gotta tell ya, it wasn’t light that day so by the time I dropped him off it
was past time for my morning shift at the bank. I didn’t bother phoning,
thereby avoiding getting yelled at if Salty answered, and instead pulled over
to the curb and texted that the patient had complications and I would explain
tomorrow.
That left me free to drive straight to the Neighborhood Center for
my afternoon job.
When I
walked into the office Madeline was saying, “There’s nothing we can do about
it. None of us have the wealth needed to build houses or apartment buildings.”
Madeline
is a retired school teacher who now manages the Center.
“It seems
so wrong,” Darling Memory moaned. She is as darling as her name, volunteers at
the Center daily and spends her time chatting with people waiting for the nurse
or any other reason that creates depression. Darling excels at cheering people
up, telling funny stories and asking about their grandchildren, that sort of
thing. It’s hard to look at Darling without smiling. Her short, bouncy hair is
a different color every time I see her and you wouldn’t think there are that
many colors available. Today it was pink with silvery streaks. As usual she
wore a dress of fluttering layers of material, today in blues and lavenders,
with a purple scarf floating around her neck.
Nicotiana
said, “There has to be something we can do that does not require money. Could I
give them all hives?”
I could
have kept my mouth shut and walked on by to the cafeteria. Instead I blurted,
“Who are you giving hives?”
The three
of them turned and looked at me and so it was too late to do anything other
than walk into the office.
“Hello,
dear,” Madeline said. “No one wants to do that. What we’ve been discussing is
this terrible situation for so many families who don’t own their homes. The
landlords have raised the rents.”
“Doubled
them,” Darling said, and Nicotiana added, “It is driving them out. Our
neighbors are being forced to move to Tacoma. For those who have jobs in
Seattle, it’s a very long commute.”
“We’re
losing our community. Not counting the ones who have rented the new apartments,
outsiders now make up half the neighborhood,” Madeline said. “We have never
been faced with this sort of problem before.”
“Why
aren’t you counting those strange young folks in the new apartment building?”
Darling asked.
Madeline
sighed. Years as a school teacher have given her the patience to now be the
director of the Center. “They are here for the jobs. You’ll see, those tech
companies sometimes shut down. More often, they decide they need a much larger
building or a complex of buildings and move to another city. When they do that
their employees will move with them.”
“They’ll
move faster if I give them all hives tomorrow,” Nicotiana hissed.
In her
job at the local mortuary Nicotiana speaks gently to grieving families as she
helps them plan funerals. She wears tailored suits and her brown hair is
smoothed into a knot at the back of her head. Today she was indeed wearing a
neat suit, navy blue, but her hair was springing out of the knot and flying
around her head in angry red wisps. I don’t know why it does that. I do know it
means this is a good time to not ask questions.
“I better
go get my lunch before the cafeteria runs out. Nice seeing you all,” I said.
And then I was the one who ran out.
The three
women in the office have inherited magic of different degrees and types and
think of themselves as witches. Witch is the name given females who have wizard
skills. Somehow the word witch also is used to mean evil and that’s wrong.
There is nothing evil about any of them.
Nicotiana admits she is a witch openly,
Darling vaguely, and Madeline secretly. What they have in common is a coven, or
more accurately an uncoven. None of them admits that a coven exists and that is
why most of us insiders don’t know how many witches there are in Mudflat. I’d
guess about a dozen. Right now it sounded to me like they were planning to call
the uncoven together and decide who could do what.
Madeline
would be extremely busy trying to keep their actions limited to minor
irritations rather than outright warfare.
I was in time for a late lunch with Tarvik in the cafeteria
kitchen. After he served me, he gently picked up my hands and turned them over
to inspect the palms.
“Driving John home was a bad idea. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.
Holding the wheel has irritated the scrapes on your hands.”
“They don’t hurt,” I lied.
“I should have had John wait here until I finished getting lunch
set up.”
“My hands are fine.”
He made a humph noise because he will never accuse me of lying and
once we were past that we both agreed a piece of apple pie aids healing.
After pie Tarvik returned
to supervising kitchen cleanup and I went to the office where I enjoyed my
afternoon job in a place where no one ever yells, possibly because the Center
includes a day nursery where there are always a few infants. No one wants to
wake them.
The Center is in a rundown old school building bought cheap years
ago and primarily funded by a few wealthy donors. It has a nurse, a large
cafeteria and a day nursery, all stuff badly needed in this area, and space for
folks to sit around playing cards. There are classrooms upstairs used by a
steady stream of volunteers who do numerous tasks. The cafeteria provides free
meals for anyone who needs them and gets donations from people who love the
food and can afford to pay extra.
The only problem with my job is that Madeline, the director, would
like to have me at the Center full time but she can’t spare the money to pay
more than minimum. That is why I do mornings at the bank.
Sure, we get thefts in Mudflat, most of them limited to cars left
on the street at night and swiped by teenagers for transportation and then
abandoned near wherever they were going. House break-ins and store robberies
are rare. It’s not like there’s a lot worth stealing in the neighborhood.
Or didn’t used to be.
Now we’ve got a couple of new apartment buildings and techies who
can easily afford the ultra high rents. They can also afford to buy stuff that
attracts thieves.
After I finished my lunch I went to the office to free Madeline to
do other jobs.
She had no more than gone out the door when one of the techies
came by the office, stood in the doorway looking up from the cell phone in his
hand, and asked, “Is this the office?”
The word OFFICE is painted in capital letters on the door.
I kept my tempting comebacks to myself and said, “Yes. Can I help
you?”
“I live in an apartment near here. New building. You’d think
everything would work. My television works. But I can’t get on the internet.”
Neither can anyone else, I didn’t say, because I know the reason.
The neighborhood includes a community of families who, like the women in the
uncoven, have inherited magic. The plumbing works, the power works, everything
else works. Except the internet. The magic causes the failure, all the Mudflat
insiders know that, but nobody knows why. Insiders are families with inherited
magic. Outsiders are everyone else.
To the techie I said, “I can’t either. I take my laptop to the
library and it works there. You can try that.”
Yeah, it would work for him because the library is far enough away
from our neighborhood to not be affected.
“Library? I haven’t time to waste at a library. I want WiFi at
home.”
“Don’t we all? You’re a computer expert, aren’t you? Maybe you can
figure out how to fix the internet reception.”
“Can I try your computer?”
I pointed to the computer on the
table in the corner of the office. It is
full of files I use to keep track of expenses, needed repairs, scheduled board
meetings, stuff that doesn’t need a WiFi connection.
“There is information in the
files I don’t want to lose. Don’t open
them, okay?”
“I won’t.”
He had his phone open on the
table where he could look at it, worked silently, and I forgot he was there
until three junior high age kids poked
their heads in the door and saw him. They cut school for a lot of reasons
connected with family problems and hang out at the Center where they get free
meals every day plus me coaching them through math lessons a few times a week.
“Hey, Teach, what’s that guy
doing?”
“Figuring out why I can’t get the
internet.”
“Nobody can around here.”
“He is a tech expert,” I said and
so of course they came into the office and stood behind the tech expert and
peered over his shoulder at the screen. I expected him to tell them to go away.
He didn’t. He didn’t even seem aware they were there until he scooted back the
chair to stand up and bumped into them.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, then turned
to me. “I re-set a number of settings with no results. I’ll try them out when I
get to work.”
“You’re gonna lug that computer
somewhere?” one of the boys asked.
The techie looked down at him,
shook his head and walked out.
“Hey, Teach, how can he check the
computer when it’s still here?”
“Put the information he wants to
check on his cell phone, maybe? Where are you guys headed?”
“Get something to eat,” they
said.
“You haven’t had lunch yet?”
“Sure, a long time ago. How come
those computer guys come in here?”
Right. Lunch was an hour ago.
As for computer guys, we didn’t
used to have any in the neighborhood to come into the Center. Here’s why they
show up now.
When a city expands rapidly the old one story buildings disappear
and then the two story and now Seattle is at the tear down stage of any
building under four stories high. They get demolished and replaced with taller
new buildings filled with very pricey apartments. Much of Seattle growth is the
result of large internet related businesses moving in and hiring hundreds and
then thousands of computer techies.
These newcomers come for the high salaries and can afford to pay
high rents. That’s nice for them but gotta tell ya, it’s hell for low income
families so of course the progress has hit Mudflat hard.
Like the ladies in the uncoven were discussing, this is mostly a
neighborhood of single family houses plus a few rundown apartment buildings.
Nobody in Mudflat gave real estate any thought until Avery Calus sold his old
apartment buildings to a developer who knocked them down and cleared the lots
and built a large new apartment building that is filled with those high priced
apartments only the techies can afford.
At the end of the day I stopped by the nail shop where Tarvik’s
cousins, Nance and Alakar, both work, saw that Nance was free, well, actually
so was Alakar and several others but I went directly to Nance and said loudly,
“Hi, Nance. Am I late for my appointment?”
It kept me from hurting the feelings of the ones I walked by, I
hoped.
Nance grinned and said I was right on time, though of course she
hadn’t known I would be coming in. Thing is, besides scraping skin off my palms
when I was knocked down and slid across the sidewalk yesterday, my palms ached
from clutching the steering wheel this morning. Unlike lots of people I cannot
steer with one finger. Not even to drive into my own driveway. Put me on a busy
highway and I clutch the wheel with both hands. Also, I had several ragged and
broken nails. Yesterday my palms were so sore I didn’t want anyone touching my
hands. Today they feel better but driving John Nardel home was a bit of a
setback. With Nance who is very careful, I knew I would be okay.
Or as I told her, “All day I’ve been catching my fingernails on
everything I touch from my sweater to the paper napkin on my lunch tray.”
She gave me a dimpled smile. “I’m glad you’re here now.”
“I would have come sooner but Madeline had to be out of the
office. Oh, shoot, I forgot to tell Tar. He’ll wonder where I am.”
Nance dipped my fingertips in the dish of water on her table and
then leaned over and pulled her phone out of the top of her ankle-high boot.
“As soon as I’m done telling Tar you’re here, I’ll bring you a cup
of coffee.”
Uh huh. That’s why I came directly to Nance.
She phoned Tarvik and then held her phone up to my ear so I could
continue soaking my nails while I talked to him.
“Hi, boyfriend, Nance is giving me a manicure.”
“The guys are meeting for a soccer practice but I can skip it and
come by the nail shop to walk home with you.”
“Don’t be crazy. You need practice. We all know how lousy you are
at soccer.”
He is amazing at soccer, of course, quick as a cat and as light on
his feet as a dancer. He laughed and promised he would be home in time to help
Nance with supper.
There was a roar outside that sounded like an airplane taking off
or thunder rolling across the sky or a half dozen motorcycles playing loop the
loop. My third guess was right.
As I stared out the glass doors of the nail shop a familiar crew
rushed by, their heads covered by helmets and their jeans and flannel shirts
partially hidden under well worn leather jackets. Definitely a varoom varoom
crowd.
Alakar sat down in the empty chair next to me. “So much noise! Why
don’t the police stop them?”
“Because they are all sweethearts.”
“They are what?”
“Middle aged wondermen,” I said. “Dock workers or maybe
construction dudes. I’m not sure.”
“You have very strange friends, Claire.”
I don’t know them well enough to think they consider me a friend.
All I know about them is they show up occasionally in the neighborhood and if
they see me they wave and call me by name. They don’t live in Mudflat and have
no magic that I know of. So they aren’t insiders. And they aren’t exactly
outsiders. Every so often a problem occurs that no one knows how to handle,
something no one wants to involve the police in or make public.
“They do jobs for Sergei Brown,” Nance said.
They do and I’ve never known why.
When I stopped in the grocery store to pick up aspirin on my way
home I saw someone I didn’t know, not that I know everyone who shops in the
local grocery store. What made me notice him was that as I walked up and down
aisles trying to figure out where they’d decided to move the pill section since
the last time I’d needed a pain killer, I caught sight of this guy staring at
me. There was nothing familiar about him. He was average height and build, had
dark hair, wore glasses with dark frames, wore a gray sport jacket and black
shoes and slacks, and I wouldn’t have paid any attention to him except that as
soon as I looked at him he walked away. I didn’t think anything of it the first
time, what with my mind concentrated on finding pills.
The second time I passed him was on my way to the checkout
counter. I thought a lot about him then because I made a sudden turn to look at
the magazine rack that’s on the checkout aisle and holds all those magazines
with headlines on the cover about which film stars are cheating on their
spouses and who is getting a multi-million divorce. And there was that man, a
few feet away from me and definitely staring at me. As soon as I looked at him
he turned and walked off.
What made me notice him and wonder about him were his glasses.
They were wide with thick frames that came down over his cheekbones and hid the
upper shape of his face. The lenses were tinted just enough to make it hard to
see his eyes clearly.
Yeah, I know, he is probably a guy with weak eyes and needs strong
glasses that include protection from bright light, plus he had lost his grocery
list and was trying to remember what his wife had told him to get at the store.
Of course he wasn’t looking at me. He was thinking.
And I had just been knocked down in a robbery and besides the
bruises I was maybe a little nervous. So I put him out of my mind and hurried
home to do my part in putting together supper. Yeah, I don’t cook, nobody would
want to eat my cooking, but I am very good at tossing salad. Nothing like a
brainless job like tossing salad to make me remember what I forgot.
Right. I had glanced at the magazine rack with the screaming
headline “Guess who is cheating on her billionaire” and meant to read the next
line and now I will never know because if I stop at the store tomorrow that
magazine will be gone and replaced by the next issue.
It will have a headline saying “Surprise! Twins on the way for
star!” and who cares about that.
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