Magical Spice - Part Six
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
“My, it’s looking angry out there.” Will gazes out through the open rolltop door of the Ghost Office, watching rain clouds build above the river. “Ketterbridge has storms the likes of which I never saw anywhere else, in my previous life.”
“They are really intense here,” Kasey agrees, coming over to gaze up at the darkened clouds. “Maybe it’s the price we pay for the town being so peaceful otherwise.”
“Peaceful?” I call down weakly, from where I’m laying on the mattress in the loft. “What are you guys talking about? Did you even hear anything I just said?”
Kasey zips up into the loft in a streak of silver light, startling a curse out of Aiden when she appears right next to him.
“It’s a good thing we have the City Manager on our side, Jamie! Besides, what team doesn’t do better with Gabby backing them?”
“I’m not arguing with that, Kase-face, I agree completely with that, I’m just saying it was incredibly stressful!”
“Ay, but it’s all for the good.” Will materializes on the other side of me, pushing his soft blonde hair out of his eyes. “You already planned to take Miss Soto into your confidence, did you not? Oh - Kasey, in pity’s n-name…”
This last part was added in a hushed whisper and with a blushing face as Kasey teasingly started walking her fingers along his jawline, gazing at him with open admiration in her dark eyes.
“Love getting Will’s Antebellum-era sensibilities affronted,” Kasey giggles, catching my eye. “Isn’t he cute, all flustered? What would your logging crewmates say if they saw you, Will?”
“The lucky devil, that’s what they’d say,” Will laughs happily, although his cheeks are still burning. “Now please, I beg of you-”
“You guys should be seeing this as a positive.” Kasey snuggles back into Will’s arms, but uses her transparent foot to try to poke at Aiden. “You wanted to have this conversation with Gabby at some point or another. Now that’s one more from your list taken care of.”
“Nobody’s arguing with that,” Aiden rumbles, his blue eyes steadily fixed on the rafters of the ceiling above the mattress. “Just - she took us by surprise. You’re right, though. This is good. Thank god, actually. One more off the list.”
This is the first thing Aiden has said in a while, so we all look at him at once. I don’t know if it’s that deep, rumbling voice, or the steadiness of his quiet words, or what - but it’s reassuring to hear him say it. I sit up and look down at him, finally calming down after a full shift at the shop spent with a skittering heartbeat and a reeling sense of relief that made me feel weak on my feet. I know everyone is right - nothing bad happened, something very good happened - but it all happened so fast that my head was spinning.
As always, Aiden gave me back the feeling of solid ground beneath me. I slump forward onto him, grateful for it. He affectionately trails his fingertip over the back of my neck, tracing my tattoo from memory.
“So that’s Gabby, and eventually Kent taken care of,” I murmur, processing that slowly. “I guess… now we can start thinking about who from the list is next. We’ve still got Ripley, or - maybe Raj and Mel?”
Aiden nods in agreement, then lifts the ghost glasses so he can rub his eyes tiredly. “Prefer if we talk about that another day, though. One in a day is enough.”
“Yeah, definitely.” I sit up and stretch out my arms, taking a deep breath. “Okay. Then I guess we can move on to Ghost Office business. Will, you seem to be taking our discovery of a naiad-siren and a forest spirit pretty much in stride.”
Will’s blonde brows drop low and flat in confusion. “Every man with his wits about him knows you ought not stray into the woods at night lest you meet such creatures. I had feared you may meet the Headless Horseman, truth be told.”
“Ah, Jamie,” Kasey says gently, as I look at her in confusion. “Will lived in a time when if you needed to travel at night, you had to go on foot or on a horse, basically in the dark, through the woods. At the mercy of the elements, sometimes without a road. And if something weird or scary happened to you, there wasn’t really any way to find out what it was after, except for cross-referencing your story with other people’s stories.”
“Oh. Right.” I shiver in horror. “God, that sounds like a nightmare.”
“Never pleasant,” Will agrees. “Never knew what you might meet on the road. Some of the Irish boys on the logging crew used to carry a posy of wildflowers on ‘em when they had to travel, to throw over their shoulder for protection if there was trouble.”
For some reason this makes Aiden look at me, an adoring smile turning up his lips.
“Yeah?” he murmurs, his deep voice all warm. Talking to Will, but looking at me. “Used flowers for that, did they?”
“Oh, ay,” Will says solemnly. “Wouldn’t want to meet Crooker, as they’d say.”
Aiden and I look at Will in sudden alarm.
“Who’s Cr-?” Aiden begins.
“Okay, let’s stay on task,” Kasey interrupts gently, biting back a laugh at the expressions on our faces. “The good news is, our forest creatures aren’t malevolent.”
“One of them definitely is,” I remind her. “The Sorcerer.”
“True, but we’ve also got one helpful one. And one who needs help. It actually kind of sounds like they all need our help.”
“Of course they do.” Aiden sits up and settles his powerful arms over his chest. “That’s Guardian magic for you. I’m always gonna end up where someone needs my help.”
“Well, good. Imagine if Coral’s part of the old-growth forest dried up and died!” I let out a pained little noise at the thought. “We really need to find that hydria so we can tell her what’s going on.”
Aiden gets up to follow me downstairs, while Kasey and Will drop through the floor to meet us. I wipe off the words on the burned, blackened wall of the Ghost Office, then retrieve a piece of chalk so I can make a list of the illusions we’re after. The unidentified ones I leave as question marks.
“We’re at zero out of five, so far.” I set the chalk aside, and we all gaze up at our list. “But we have a place to start when Aiden and I can get back out there again. We’ll be looking out for that mystery spirit, too.”
“In the meantime, I’m gonna do some reading on nymphs and naiads and sirens.” Kasey glows at the thought of having to do that much research. “I’ve got some books I need you to lay out for me when we get back to your house, Jamie. I think The Orphic Hymns might help us.”
That sounds like a plan, so we grab our stuff, lock up the Ghost Office, and head home.
When we’re settled in at the house, I step out into the garden. The storm looks like it’ll hold off, so I set Kasey up with her book amidst some wildflowers, then take out my tools and get to work. Aiden opens the kitchen window to start cooking. Will trails after me into the garden, watching with interest as I start pulling up some new invasive arrivals, giving the flowers room to breathe.
The last of the sunshine winds down in golden splashes that dot the distant mountains. A few birds take off from the trees, fluttering up into the wind. The breeze is soft, scented richly with the summery smell of the peaches blossoming beyond the walls, the piney kiss of the evergreens. Luna has fallen asleep in the kitchen window.
Will leans back on his hands, watching me work, giving me a little nod whenever he notices Kasey reaching the end of the page so I can turn it. The fading sunshine spills through his translucent body, and he tilts his face up to it, as if he could feel it. He looks peaceful, one hand resting on Kasey’s foot.
“As I went down in the river to pray,” he sings softly to himself, closing his eyes, “Studying about that good old way… and who shall wear the starry crown…”
“Good Lord, show me the way,” I join in absent-mindedly, automatically.
Will stops, then opens his eyes and sits up sharply. I shrug my shoulders at him. That folk song that might be almost as old as he is, but it’s one I’ve heard many times, growing up in the household I did. But for some reason Will looks startled, and also absolutely delighted, like I just handed him an incredible present.
“O, brothers…” he begins, looking at me with hopeful leaf-green eyes.
“Let's go down…” I join in again.
Neither of us has much of a singing voice, but we both sing it roughly, together.
“Let's go down, come on down, come on, brothers, let's go down, down in the river to pray…”
Still singing, I go back to gardening. Will lays back in the flowers again, puts his arms up over his head, and smiles peacefully as he sings.
It takes me a long moment to notice that Kasey has stopped reading. Aiden has stopped cooking, too, and come over to stand in the kitchen window. The two of them have fallen still and silent, listening to our voices rise up softly over the garden.
Both of them instantly rush to get back to what they were doing when they see me watching them. Aiden hastily begins stirring something on the stove, and Kasey gets her eyes right back on her book.
I have to sing around a little laugh caught in my throat as I turn back to my gardening, adjusting my hori hori knife in my hand. Fortunately the lyrics and melody of this song are easy to remember, and I’m able to keep in time with Will all the winding way through to its end.
When it’s over, Will falls silent for a long moment, his glowing body half-obscured in the long grass and the wildflowers.
“It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to sing with my crew,” he murmurs, very softly. “I never knew how much I missed it.”
I stop what I’m doing and look over at Will, my heart doing an achy little stagger for him. He turns his head in the grass, meets my eyes, and smiles warmly at me.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“Anytime, man,” I answer, meaning it completely. “My voice is bad for this, but I might know some other songs you know, too. So long as they’re about praying, or God, or Jesus. You’ve met my mom, right?”
“You know well that I have,” Will laughs. “Although I confess I tend to haunt your father when we go to their house. His jokes are devilish amusing.”
“Oh, well - they’re - he’d be very happy to hear that someone thinks that, I’m sure.”
Aiden breathes out a snicker of fond laughter as he adds some spices to the saucepan. “Got a nice answer for everything, don’t you, Linden?”
Kasey is smiling down at her book. Not reading, I don’t think, but listening to us. Will notices, and playfully pokes her ribs.
“How goes the research, love? Learned anything that may tell us more about Thorn, or Coral?”
“Mhm, I was right. The Orphic Hymns has a lot to say on naiads.” Catching Will looking at her with inquiring eyes, she begins to read out loud. “Secret-coursing powers, fructiferous goddesses who nourish flowers, earthly, rejoicing, who in meadows dwell… holy, oblique, who swiftly soar through air, fountains, and dews, and winding streams your care, seen and unseen, who joy with wandering wide, and gentle course through flowery vales to glide…”
Now we’ve all stopped and fallen silent to listen to Kasey. She reads to the end of the hymn, then raises her eyes to us, a baffled expression on her face.
“Don’t you guys think it’s odd that Coral and Thorn apparently don’t get along at all? A lot of this text talks about the naiads nourishing and loving and rejoicing in the forests, the plants. Thorn - is the plants.”
“I think Thorn cares about Coral way more than he’s trying to let on,” I answer over my shoulder, using my wrist to get my hair out of my face. “I wish we could bring them to see each other. At least once, before we dispel them.”
“How, though?” Aiden reaches through the kitchen window to hand me a cool, minty drink. “Neither of them has enough power to leave their own territory, and the Sorcerer’s territory is between them.”
“I know,” I answer sadly, pulling off one of my gloves to accept the glass from him. “I just really wish there was some way. I know that there isn’t.”
Aiden pauses, his thoughtful blue eyes lingering on mine. I hastily turn away, before I can put any ideas in that head of his. I have to be careful with him. If he knows I want something enough, he’ll go to extreme lengths to make it happen.
“We’ll see,” he rumbles, and that’s the end of that.
~~~~
I could use some time to unwind after today’s earlier, nerve-wracking experience in Gabby’s office. Noah is always good for that. I’m glad our plans happened to be for tonight.
He told me to pick him up from a bar, and he’s standing by the heavily-stickered door when I pull my little blue car up to it. The show going on inside sounds like it’s winding down, but there’s still crashing, punky music reverberating through the walls, along with some faint cheering and shouting. Some of the crowd has wandered out onto the sidewalk for a smoke or some air. People are relaxing back against the walls of the bar in the moonlight, talking and laughing, handing around joints.
It takes me a second to spot Noah, and not only because there are a lot of tattoos, piercings, and combat boots to be found in this particular crowd. It’s because a bunch of people are clustered around him, looking at what he has in his hands.
Nikita is sitting up in his arms, holding a fistful of his torn-up charcoal shirt to balance herself, gazing around at her adoring crowd with wide eyes. If she’s intimidated at all by the sea of ink and piercings facing her, it doesn’t show. She giggles as a very scarred-up punk with five metal spikes through each ear, a white-blonde mohawk, and a shredded t-shirt that says Bassists Against Racists leans down to say hello to her.
Noah is wearing his usual torn jeans and heavy steel toes, along with a black denim jacket that has sharp white vertebrae painted up the back. The sleeves are pulled back to his elbows, revealing a lot of tattoos, and his hair is loose, a spill of darkness around his shoulders.
He makes Nikita look even more like an adorable little marshmallow by comparison, in her tiny coat, with a pair of huge, fuzzy earmuffs set amidst her dark curls. She probably can’t hear too much of what’s going on, but she makes a grab for one of the tattooed fingers reaching out for her, then lets out a curious little sound as she examines the guy’s black nail polish.
This draws a wave of laughter from the others gathered around. Nikita draws back in surprise, smiles bashfully, then shyly buries her face into Noah’s shirt. There’s an instant coo of delight from everyone present, except for Noah, who has his head turned away as he talks to someone over his shoulder.
Ripley, I realize, as I draw my car to a stop at the curb.
He pushes his green curls out of his face so he can give me a grin and a wave. Noah follows his eyes to me and gives me a dramatic salute with the hand not holding Nik.
Melanie slips outside of the bar as I roll down the window. She’s dressed for the occasion, but she manages to make her punky outfit adorable, somehow. She makes a beeline for Noah, then stops and presses her hands to her mouth when she sees how much attention Nikita is getting. Very obviously suppressing a burst of giggles, she crosses to Noah. She kisses his cheek as she takes Nik from him.
Noah says goodbye to Ripley, who gives both of us a wave before he turns and slips off around the corner. He drops his board and hops on before he melts into the shadows.
“That’s not the fastest way for him to get home,” I observe, as Noah stops by the window of my car. “He’s going through the alley?”
Noah glances over his shoulder at the place where Ripley just took off. “Seems he is.”
“He’s off to go tag something, isn’t he?” I reflect for a moment on the specific kind of mischievous grin I just saw steal over Ripley’s face. “Is he doing some on-the-way-home graffiti, casual-style?”
“You could torture me and I’d still say I had no idea what you’re talking about, dude,” Noah tells me through the window, in a very matter-of-fact voice.
I unplug my aux cable, then jokingly poke Noah with it like I’m going to zap him. I gasp as he immediately jolts and shudders with his whole body as if I actually electrocuted him. He collapses to the ground, disappearing from my sight.
“I’ll die… before I… talk…” comes his groaning voice, from somewhere down on the pavement.
“Noah!” I let out a burst of shocked laughter, then nearly fall all the way out of my car window leaning out to seize his jacket and pull him up. “Oh my god, you - you idiot!”
I catch a glimpse of Melanie dissolving into baffled giggles from the door of the bar, watching Noah. She catches my eye and spreads one hand in bewilderment, and I shake my head helplessly at her.
“That was way too convincing, Noah! Why are you so good at that?”
“I’m an electrician, dude.” Noah springs back upright, grinning widely. “I’ve shocked myself like a billion times.”
“Is that - the normal amount, for an electrician?” I ask weakly, getting out of the car to let him take the driver’s seat. “Hey, wait - isn’t this the bar where you fixed that speaker?”
“Yeah.” He drops into the car, then tosses his hair out of his face as I take the passenger’s seat beside him. “The other speaker blew out, so I fixed that one, too. The manager threw me two tickets for this show as a thank you.”
“Nice! So you brought Mel?”
“No, I brought Ripples. Mel was already gonna be here, she’s the event planner for this whole thing. Pretty sweet, right?” A proud smile quirks up Noah’s lips. “Raj didn’t need a ticket, either. He’s here helping Mel out. Filling in for a bartender who had to bail at the last minute.”
I glance over at the bar just in time to see Raj come outside, scanning the crowd for Melanie.
“Aw, she had the whole fam here to support her, huh?” I laugh affectionately, as Noah straps himself in. “Now everything makes sense. I was just about to say this isn’t really the kind of music you listen to. If anything it’s more Ripley’s style.”
“Yeah, that’s why I gave him my extra ticket. The manager said babies don’t need one, so Niki was already taken care of.”
“Are you sure this isn’t too much for her, though? I know you’ve got her ears covered up, but still. It’s kinda wild out there.”
Noah arches a pierced eyebrow, then turns his head to look at Mel and Nik. I lean around him to do the same, then burst out laughing. Nik has fallen soundly asleep against Melanie’s chest, apparently perfectly at home amidst all this chaos.
“Right,” I groan, falling back in my seat. “Don’t listen to me. I forgot whose baby I was talking about.”
I find myself smiling, watching Mel and Raj talking outside of the bar. Melanie looks so happy, with such a glowing smile on her face. She gently strokes Nikita’s curls, gazing warmly up into Raj’s eyes as he says something to her.
I gasp and seize the dashboard as Noah sends my car streaking away from the curb, smoothly shifting up through the gears as soon as he’s got some open road.
“Careful, Noah! It’s an old car!”
“It is? Really?” Noah breathes out a little laugh when he sees my indignant scowl. He lounges back into the driver’s seat, letting the summer breeze spill in through the windows and push his hair over his shoulders. “Relax, Jamie. I know it’s a vintage piece, I’m accounting for that. Blue has never been in safer hands.”
“Okay, except you’ve got one wrist on the wheel. No hands.”
“Regardless.”
“Oh, my god. Can’t wait for you to get that car you were talking about, so at least if we’re risking total destruction it’ll be your stuff and not mine.”
“Trust me, dude!” Noah smooths his fingers over the dash of my car, gives it a little pat. “Even the old ones still want to go fast, sometimes. They need the rush, it’s good for them.”
I would argue with that, but the truth is that I do trust Noah with my car pretty much completely. Sometimes it even seems to run a little better after he’s driven it, like it had a nice stretch. He seems to have an instinct for exactly how far it can be pushed without being pushed too far.
And I guess I just handed him the wheel for no reason, without even thinking about it, so.
“Melanie seems so happy these days, man.” I settle back into my seat, wondering when the hell I got so comfortable with driving this fast. “It’s like every time I see her she’s smiling.”
“Good,” Noah answers, gliding my car around a curve in the road at a speed that makes my grip tighten on the door. “If you ever notice that changing, you let me know immediately.”
I’m really not worried about that, so I just flash him a smile. “Yeah, dude. Okay. I will.”
He breathes out a laugh, glancing over to briefly meet my eyes. “Glad to hear you don’t anticipate that being a problem, Keane. Where’s Aiden?”
“Playing a game of football with Mohamed. You might remember him, he was here when the Greenrock Fire Department came to play KFD. Apparently the Greenrock team needed one more player for a game they’re having, so he got Aiden’s number from Roger.”
“What-?” Noah flashes me a betrayed look. “No fucking way, man! Aiden would never go over to Team Greenrock! He’s for Ketterbridge teams only, he knows that!”
“Yeah, that’s what he said, and then Mohamed was like ‘Arab solidarity, dude’, and he changed his mind.”
“That worked? But Aiden’s Persian!”
“Mhm, but, um - what did Aiden say? I get what he meant, Jamie. SWANA region solidarity. I gotta go help him out.”
“Oh, man,” Noah laughs. “I love it when people try to impersonate Aiden’s voice. They just try to go so deep, then realize they can’t do it.”
“Regretted it the instant I started,” I laugh helplessly. “Point is, it’s just us.”
Noah flashes me a grin. “Alright. Been a minute since we done one of these.”
I return his affectionate grin. “Games and ganj night?”
“Games and ganj night, yes.”
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