Welcome to Witchlandia Page 2

  “Nicely done,” came a voice in the shadows.

  I twitched but didn’t move more than that. “Are you stalking me, Arnie?”

  Arnie laughed and came out into the light. “I suppose now you’re going to tell my wife.”

  Arnie is built like a sideways brick wall. He’s a security guard at the library and my jiu-jitsu teacher. He’s about the nicest person on the planet you don’t want to piss off. As far as I was concerned, he and his wife Mattie walk on water.

  I pulled a towel out of the storage compartment under the seat and wiped down.

  “Looks like you had a good workout.”

  “Slow flight is like a brisk walk. Fast is like a good run. Aerobatics hits you like wind sprints. Hovering, though. That’s like doing isometrics. It’s not really aerobic.”

  He looked down into the book compartment. “Forensics? Are you going to be a policeman, now?”

  “Changed my major last year.”

  “You do keep your secrets, don’t you? Just like your father. How is the Honorable?”

  “Fine,” I said shortly. “Legislature’s in session and he’s in Jeff City so life is good.” I put the towel back and closed the compartment.

  “I used to be a cop back in the day,” Arnie said idly.

  “I know.”

  “I’m still a volunteer EMT, you know. That’s an honorable profession.”

  “I know.”

  “Tell me you’re not studying to be a cop on my account.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “How come, then?”

  “I met these pilots when I was up in New Hampshire at Sam’s advanced clinic a year ago.” I spoke reluctantly—I hadn’t told anybody I’d changed majors. That was between me and my advisor. Dad didn’t care as long as my grades were good and I didn’t get in trouble. He didn’t want the political liability. My older brothers didn’t take much of an interest in me. Patrick was busy trying to shape his state rep’s office into a run for the governor, and if it didn’t shriek money or land trust, Matthew wouldn’t notice it.

  “Yes?”

  “They’re a team,” I said quickly. “Left seat handles direction and forward velocity and right seat handles lift and altitude. But sometimes, they split off—they have this stick that can break apart into two solo units so they can come at a target from two different directions.”

  “Witchflyers, then.”

  “Oh, yeah. For the Philadelphia Police Department. Between the buildings, over the roofs at ninety knots and as silent as owls. I saw them practicing in the MOA over the White Mountains. They do surveillance and pursuit—it is the hardest, most challenging flying I’ve ever seen! I decided that’s what I want to do.”

  “But you have to get a degree in enforcement.”

  “Right.”

  “Much is explained, then. You’re here almost every Friday night.” Arnie leaned against one of the cornices at the edge of the library roof.

  “Forensics is pretty hard.”

  Arnie shrugged. “Even so, you’re here every night you’re not working at home in the dorm. You ought to get out some.”

  “You have been stalking me.”

  “Just observant. Not so many witches flying around in bicycle slicks that I can’t pick you out. Since I met you I look up at the sky lot more. I heard there’s a party on the ball field tonight.”

  When somebody sticks their nose into my business I’m usually right there to cheerfully tear it out by the roots. But I’d been in Arnie’s class since I was a freshman. I knew his wife. I knew his daughter. I even knew he was just trying to look out for me.

  “Arnie—” I tried—I really tried—to keep the growl out of my voice. I started, but he waved it away.

  “Come on. Anita’s downstairs. Mattie doesn’t get off until ten and I don’t get off until midnight.” He shrugged. “You know Anita. She’s going to sneak over there one way or the other. If she goes with you she won’t get into trouble.”

  I hesitated. I’m not a complete stick in the mud. Even I like to dance once in a while. And Anita was fun as only a fifteen-year-old girl can be with someone who could still remember what it was like to be such a girl. Besides, I knew these parties. The drinking was sporadic until the proctors left at eleven. After that it got serious. Anita would be home and safe by then.

  “Mulholland Smog is playing.” Arnie grinned at me.

  I liked Mulholland Smog. Sure, all of them were older than God and they played a mix of rock and blues older than they were. But they were really good at it. Last time they played this rocked-up version of “Crossroads” that could have brought the dead to life, dancing. “She’ll want a pizza.”

  Arnie ponied up thirty dollars without a word.

  I took the money. “Arnie, you have bought your daughter a good time.”

  Chapter 1.4: David

  Misty would have known where the party was even if I hadn’t. But she had her own route to follow. We went past Stewart Hall where she took me up to see the rattlesnakes. Misty wanted me to open the cases but I declined. I don’t know when I heard about Stewart Hall’s little zoo, but I must have heard about it at some point since Misty seemed to know all about it.

  Then, we wandered over behind the biology building. Nobody was there so I just walked in and wandered through the greenhouses. It was safe enough, I suppose. All of the dangerous areas were marked with biohazard signs. In the horticulture section, one class had been making miniature ivy bonsais complete with tiny clay people. Misty got two of them in a fight but I straightened them out.

  Out of the greenhouses, past the physics building to the experimental corn plots. I stood there and watched and, for once, Misty shut up. There is something strange and spooky about a cornfield. The way the stalks stand there, the tops fluttering over in the wind, the stalks straight up and ramrod stiff and the leaves rattling against one another like mechanical hands.

  Behind the veterinary school and along the creek in the dark. I smelled the bonfire before I saw it licking the sky over the trees. I stumbled out of the woods into the ball field.

  “Could we have wandered in the woods some more?” I muttered. “I didn’t get enough poison ivy on me.”

  “Crybaby,” Misty said. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Carl’s band had already set up but no one was on the stage. I saw Carl talking with some students in the crowd. I just stood in the shadow of the trees for a bit while I brushed the leaves from my coat.

  “I don’t like this coat on you,” she said, opening the front. The three black buttons frowned at me. “It makes you look too self-contained.”

  “Never mind my wardrobe.” I went out into the crowd to shut her up.

  Carl and the rest of the band were getting on the stage. They started out with “Traveling Roadside Blues” so I knew the direction they were going tonight.

  I crept up through the crowd so I could watch them.

  Tony on piano and trumpet, Carl on bass, Emilio on guitar and sax, Narunha on drums. The wonderful secret about blues—rock, too, I suppose—is that you can do anything if it sounds good and keeps the beat. You’ve got a fair amount of leeway when you’re playing Bach or Beethoven to lengthen the time to be more expressive or shorten it for emphasis. Every conductor does it. But in blues, that beat is coming in 4, 3, 2, 1, now. And if you’re not on it to the millisecond, everybody in the world is going to know. Blues is musically simple. There’s nowhere to hide.

  I watched Carl and I envied him. Is this how you do it? Carl was rocking slow now, with “Little Queen of Spades,” Emilio’s gravelly voice dragging over the notes. Absolutely trivial compared with Carl playing the Kirchner cello concerto last year with the Saint Louis Symphony. I don’t think I was the first to leap to my feet after he was done but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t much past the tenth. He knew where the well was. He knew how to breathe.

  Is it variety that does it? I’ve been playing the classical canons for years. I started competing when I was
ten. Maybe I was burnt out. Middle-age fatigue coming early.

  After “Queen,” Emilio ripped into “Crossroads” and I realized they were going to do the Robert Johnson songbook. Carl and I had played Johnson together when he was still back in Gloucester. I looked at him and he was watching me. He motioned me to come up. Tony grinned and slid over and picked up another guitar.

  I sat in front of the piano, frozen for a moment.

  Misty winked the console at me. “Show them what you can do.”

  I slipped into the rhythm, backing up Emilio as he sailed away on the chorus, felt my way into the chords. I looked out into the crowd, misstepped, caught myself. Wondered what the hell I was doing here.

  I saw this boy, say fifteen years old, dancing with a young girl. Could be fourteen. Just bouncing with the beat. What had I been doing when I was fifteen? I was living with Carl and studying with Meister Eisenhart. Carl didn’t leave until I went to Paris. I didn’t remember ever going out and just dancing.

  So, I watched them, bounced on the keyboard right along with them. Carl and Emilio came in together with some sweet harmony. They stopped playing so I picked up Carl’s part. Tony started clapping which left a hole where the rhythm guitar used to be. I picked up some of it. Narunha picked up the rest. That boy and his date were going nuts.

  Then, came the chorus and Emilio nodded to me so I took it and it was just me and Narunha. I kept up the bass and rhythm with my left hand and let my right hand do what it wanted. The audience picked up Tony’s clapping and we kept that going through two choruses. Then, first Carl took the bass back and Tony the rhythm. I took the chorus way, way up the keys and then brought it down to the bottom just in time for Emilio and Carl to pick up the vocal line. That’s the way we took it home.

  I leaned back, my fingers tingling. The crowd roared back. Carl grinned at me. I thought the boy and his date were going to make their hands bleed.

  I’d found the well again.

  Carl gave me a questioning look.

  “How about ‘Hellhound on My Trail’?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  He and I started the boogie together. I remembered like it was yesterday, like I was ten again:

  And the days keeps on worryin’ me

  There’s a hellhound on my trail

  Hellhound on my trail

  Hellhound on my trail

  I looked over to the boy and his date but they had moved over to the coolers and were talking to this amazing blonde woman. Sister? Friend? I had no idea. She looked up and gave me this wicked smile. She left the boy and his date and sauntered over towards the stage. I almost lost my fingering. She had eyes you could drown in and if her face hadn’t already been enough to launch a thousand ships the rest of her would have made up the difference.

  We finished “Hellhound” and Emilio began “Kind Hearted Woman Blues.” And just as quick as it came, the breath went away. I could keep the time and the notes but it felt no better than shoveling dirt. I motioned to Tony and slid back over so Tony could pick it up.

  I slipped off the stage and she was waiting for me. “Hi,” I said over the music. “I’m—”

  “I know who you are,” she said and gave me a slow glance over the rim of her cup. “You’re David Sabado.”

  I nodded, stammering. “And you are?”

  “Sandy Kohl,” she said in a low voice. Dancing slowly, she drew me away from the stage.

  Chapter 1.5: Katelin

  Mattie got off shift at ten. Arnie didn’t get off until midnight. The plan was for me to take Anita to the party, then walk over to the hospital to meet Mattie when she got off work.

  I changed out of my slicks and put on a sweatshirt. We had pizza at Shakespeare’s where she told me about this cute boy, Shawn, she was interested in at school, whether or not she was too old for rubber wrist bands and if she should get her tongue pierced. My matronly job was to feed her and take her dancing while keeping her out of trouble. I didn’t expect any trouble since, unlike some girls her age, Anita actually looked fifteen. Nobody in their right or unperverted mind would be interested in her. I was there to account for anybody left over.

  We walked up Ninth Street College Avenue and past the old gym to get to the ball field. The band was just finishing setting up the instruments when we got there so we just milled around. Anita looked for people she knew but didn’t see any. This was an older crowd. Sometimes, I think the reason Anita likes me is I don’t look that much older than she does.

  The band went up on stage. I felt a little nervous. All the way over I’d been talking about Mulholland Smog. But the Smog can be heaven or hell. One night, they can shake the stage with some terrific blues or rip up the floor with rock and roll. Other nights, they’ll play these ancient songbooks for bands known only to historians of trivia. One time they spent an entire fall afternoon playing the complete repertoire of Earth Opera and Giant Crab. They had to do both; the combined repertoire was too small for one set.

  Tonight I could tell from the first chord we were in good hands.

  Then, they brought up this big guy in a long black coat. He must have been six two. He had big shoulders and a block and tackle head. He had the biggest hands I’d ever seen. He sat at the piano like he didn’t know what it was. The light fell on his face and his dark eyes seemed to glow.

  Anita was dancing by this time so I joined in. The big guy started playing and it was like the whole band picked it up a notch just on account of him. Anita and I really threw ourselves into it. I looked up and he was watching me. He’s playing right to me. And the band cranked it up again. Anita’s glowing. I’m sweating like a pig. And he’s still watching me.

  So I danced back right at him. I have to say he looked pretty good. I don’t normally think much about men but I realized I was thinking about him. I could get used to him.

  The song ended and the band rolled right into another one but I was thirsty. Anita wanted an ice cream so we went over to the coolers. Sandy was there.

  “Do you know who that is?”

  “No,” said Anita from my elbow.

  “That handsome man is David Sabado. He’s from Boston. I heard him play for the Washington University Chorale last Christmas. He’s really, really good.”

  She grinned past me up to the stage. I looked back and he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was handing off the piano back.

  “He’s ferocious.” Anita was still breathing hard from dancing.

  “I hope so,” said Sandy and glided away from us.

  Like a barracuda sliding noiselessly over the reef, Sandy slipped around people she didn’t know and gracefully avoided entanglements with those she did. Sandy could charm the fangs off a rattlesnake if she wanted to. I admired her the same way I would admire a tiger stalking a gazelle. Sandy drew David off into the darkness as I watched, standing with Anita.

  I felt a little bereft for a moment. Then, I shook my head. Anita was right here. David wasn’t much more than a pretty face with magic musical fingers. I’d never see him again.

  Anita and I stayed for another hour. By then it was close to ten. We walked back across campus and I delivered her to Mattie.

  After that I felt at loose ends. I rode my stick back to the library roof to brood. Brooding is good for a twenty-year-old girl. Cleans out the soul.

  But Arnie was waiting for me. Seems Mattie didn’t like the way I looked and decided Arnie should look after me.

  Which is how I ended up over at Terry’s little apartment on Paquin Street about one in the morning.

  Arnie ran the jiu-jitsu class, but Terry had started it years ago and given up control of it to Arnie since Arnie was a second dan black belt and Terry only had a brown. But then Joe came to the university from Okinawa with a third and outranked the both of them. This is how a little self-defense class with barely nine students can have three teachers. Go figure.

  Now, the four of us were sitting in the little terrace behind Terry’s apartment. The terrace was surrounded on th
ree sides by this ornamental brick wall. It was still cold but we were stubborn. If it took sitting in the cold to bring on summer, we were willing to make the sacrifice. They were drinking beers. I stayed with Coca-Cola. The FAA takes a dim view of drunken pilots. It’s one of the few things that can cost you your license.

  After about three beers, Joe said, “A new bartender at the Boone Tavern asked me if I could break boards.”

  “Yeah,” said Arnie. “I get that, too.”

  Terry nodded. “I used to break two-by-fours.”

  “I can do that,” agreed Arnie.

  “Ever do bricks?” Joe looked around the terrace.

  “Sometimes.” Terry finished his beer and popped another one.

  Arnie reached down and brought up a loose brick. He stared at it a moment. “I bet I can break this brick.”

  “Okay,” said Terry. “I’ll bet you a beer.”

  Arnie took the brick and put it on the top of the terrace wall. Everyone fell into a respectful hush. Arnie concentrated on the brick for perhaps a minute, then, with a sudden yell, brought his hand down on it. Arnie held up his hand and stared at it.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, looking at the brick and then back at his hand. The brick was unscathed.

  “Let me try,” Terry said.

  About ten minutes later, all three of them stood next to the table with their right hands in the same bucket of ice, each muttering to the other. Arnie’s hand was only dislocated but Joe’s was broken. Terry said he wasn’t sure but thought he’d be able to tell better when the swelling stopped.

  “What the hell’s that thing made of?” Joe shook his head.

  I picked up the brick and threw it against the wall with all my strength. The brick was unscathed.

  “I don’t know. Think any of you could break that brick with your head?” I felt disgusted with the three of them.

  “I believe I can drive,” Terry said a low voice. “It might be a good thing for the three of us to go over to the ER.”

  Arnie nodded. “It’s a good thing Mattie’s off now.”

  I left them working out the logistics. I was angry at all of them. I was angry at David Sabado for going off with Sandy and angry at Sandy for pursuing him. I was angry at myself for being angry. Jesus, things sucked right then.