The Winds of Astrodon, Page 2

  “Yes?”

  “I have a photograph I need to show you.”

  Melody gripped his arm, tightly. Jake could not feel his feet. He existed only in his head. There was no body attached to him anymore. He was essence. The essence of Jake waiting for his next line in the high school play only he’d forgotten all his lines and he was standing on stage and everyone was looking at him waiting for him to do something, say something.

  A Polaroid. A crime scene photograph. A girl’s face, wet hair, her forehead covered in blood. Almost unrecognizable. Almost.

  “Is this Cassie?” the man asked.

  6

  Jake’s grandmother was ninety-two when she died in her sleep. Cassie had been four then and it was the first time his daughter knew death. They brought Cassie with them to the funeral mass at St. Olaf’s but she got fidgety ten minutes into the service and so Jake took her outside and they sat on the sidewalk under an alder tree and he let her play tic-tac-toe on his iPhone. It was a rare hot full-sun summer day, the kind Northeast Ohio gets maybe five times a year and his daughter smelled like that pink stuff Melody put in her bubblebaths.

  “How long is Grandma Whitman dead for?” asked Cassie.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When will she come back?”

  “She won’t come back. But we can remember her. We can think about her. So she’s not completely gone.”

  “But what if a doctor fixed her?” she asked.

  “No doctor can fix her, sweetie.”

  “Yeah but what if a doctor and a policeman fixed her together?”

  “There’s no coming back, Cassie. But she lived a very long time and had a very good life.”

  Cassie nodded. He could tell she wasn’t accepting it, but he didn’t push.

  A couple minutes later, she said, “It’s a hundred years.”

  “What’s a hundred years?” he asked.

  “That’s how long you’re dead for. A hundred years. Then you get to come back.”

  “That’s not how it works, Cassie.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  “Then how would you know?”

  7

  Melody called her parents first. After that, she took the Ambien that Winnie had given her and crawled under the quilt and lay on the couch while he called his parents back in Franklin Mills. By the time he was done, she was snoring loudly and drooling into a pillow. Jake went in search of a drink. All they had in the cupboard was a bottle of Marshmallow vodka from last New Year’s Eve. He poured it onto some ice cubes and orange juice.

  His writing room was under the eastern eave of their Cape Cod, a squat square of a room with unvarnished wood slats and nothing on the walls. Melody had hired a decorator from Providence (one of her conditions for the move) and together they had decorated the entire home, save for this single room. This was Jake’s space. Against the wall beside the window was his desk, a thin blonde tabletop supported by chipped legs. His MacBook rested there and next to it was the beginning of his new manuscript, which he still printed out at the end of every day even though he needn’t worry about backing up anymore, not with the omniscient Google clouds. He liked watching the ms grow from a few sheets of paper into a stack of a book that demanded respect.

  Usually when he worked he kept the door closed. That was Cassie’s cue that Dad was writing and that she should not bother him. He left the door wide today.

  Jake fired up the computer and sipped on his fey fuzzy navel. A few reporters had sent requests for interview to his gmail. He deleted each. His Facebook page was full of condolences, mostly from people he didn’t know. Lots of pictures of angels. He paused at a post from an hour ago. A man named Doug Stallman had written a different kind of message on his public wall.

  Youre principal should have been armed, dummy.

  For a while, Jake just stared at it. He considered whether he was angry. He wanted to be angry. He knew he should be angry. But he didn’t feel anything. He supposed he was in shock.

  Doug Stallman was thirty-two. Red hair in a flat top. He worked for the local cable company in Charlestown, South Carolina. Had two daughters. A wife who looked like she ran every day.

  Stallman’s post had received 142 responses.

  Brad Tidwel, a guy Jake had gone to high school with but had not seen since graduation, wrote: Hey, man, why dont you wait 24 hours before you start in with your 2nd Amendment bullshit?

  Louie Henderson, his Fiction Appreciation instructor at U Akron said: Do you still kiss your sister with that stupid mouth?

  Trish Donaldson, a friend of a guy named Gabe Rullman, whom Jake had met at a book signing in Delaware wrote: Amen, brother. I’m heading out to Walmart later to buy another Bushmaster before Obama/Osama takes them away for ever.

  At some point, Jake stopped reading. The comments were coming in through Facebook faster than he could keep up. He didn’t understand why, but he was smiling. It was an ugly smile and he supposed it would have sent Melody screaming from the room to see it. But he was smiling and he could not stop.

  Newtown, he saw, was trending on Twitter.

  Drudge was linking to a story that identified his daughter’s killer as a twenty-year-old boy named Adam Lanza. The kid looked nothing like the despondent Iraqi war vet Jake had pictured. Lanza looked like some malnourished escapee of an Amish cult. He shoulda killed his barber instead of my daughter, Jake thought distantly.

  He hid Firefox and booted up Microsoft Word.

  For the next ninety minutes, Jake wrote, breaking only to refill his drink and finally stopping when George began knocking urgently on his front door.

  8

  Liam came to the town of Dunedaire at sunset. The village rested in the crook of a hill that marked the beginning of the Gilded Mountains. Tall spot towers made of granite guarded the Northern and Southern walls though no archers stood sentry anymore and the gates were rusted open. Once, Dunedaire had been a bustling center of trade owing to the scrim mines that dotted the foothills. People trekked for days to barter for Dunedaire scrim. Dunedaire scrim, they said, held more sparkle than any scrim in Astrodon and made the very best armor and broadswords. But Mandell had scraped the last scrim from the Gilded Mountain mines in the War of Ages and now Dunedaire was a sad, empty place inhabited by stubborn mushroom farmers and a clique of Mestie-Belles waiting for their white buffalo princess to return.

  Liam directed Gunner to the Southern Gate and then dismounted and walked his steed the rest of the way in, one hand on the butt of his six-biter. Gunner whinnied loudly as they passed the old stockyards, an empty lot full of rusted machines, outmoded instruments of death.

  They were almost to the marketplace when Liam spotted the first citizen of Dunedaire. He was a Mestie, a grander-da, maybe the key grander, and he wore the long red robes of their ilk. They were a silly race of people who believed Astrodon and all of Farthermore was nothing but a dream. Superstitious folk, their reclusiveness shaping legends over the centuries—Liam’s pamper nurse, Jenna, had told him the Mesties could see sound and hear colors but he’d never really believed that.

  “Ho’la,” the Mestie called, a friendly hand in the air.

  Liam bowed, ankles crossed. “Ho’la, grander-da,” he said.

  The Mestie stepped to him, red robes hiding his feet, making it look like he was floating over the distance. As he drew closer, Liam got a better look at the old man’s wrinkles. This fella was probably the oldest man Liam had ever seen. Sixty, at least.

  “You seek succor in Dunedaire this night?” the man asked.

  “You have stables still?”

  “A’yup.”

  “Then we will.” He tossed a silver nut to the man, who caught it spy from the air.

  The Mestie turned toward the marketplace, stuck a couple fingers in his mouth, and whistled, low. A creature in a black jerkin ambled out of a doorway and troddled toward them. At first, Liam thought it was a child but then he saw that it was a short m
an, a dwarf, in fact. He’d never seen a dwarf before, except in picture margins of very old books.

  “Take this man’s animal to the high stable. Oats, water and a rub.”

  The dwarf nodded and took the reigns from Liam without making eye contact. Then the little fella troddled back the way he’d come with the tired horse.

  “Vo komst du?” the Mestie asked of him.

  “I’m from Banner’s Crossing,” said Liam.

  “Long way from home, young man.”

  “Spent some time in Yarrow of late.”

  “Banished?” the Mestie said with a smile. “You were banished to the tower of Unc?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Strange days and odd tidings,” the man mumbled. “A knight from Banner’s Crossing passing through Dunedaire not a day since the lassie from UpWhere arrived.”

  Liam laughed. UpWhere. The Mesties’ word for the world that existed on top of their own, the place they believed the Gods lived and dreamed of Farthermore in their slumber. He remembered the sad song Jenna used to sing to him at night when he was scared of the dragons that lived in the mountain caves and the giants that fought each other when it rained.

  Don’t fear the night child

  There is no cause to scream

  The dreamers of UpWhere are dreaming of you

  And they foreswear it’s only the nicest dream.

  “A young girl wandered here?” asked Liam. “On her own?”

  “She come in through the Northern gate, yesterday. Dressed strangely. Talking a funny language. You can only understand half a what she says.”

  “Why do you believe she came from UpWhere? Did she say this?”

  “No, sire. But she brought a piece of it with her.”

  Liam’s heart started. “Magic?”

  “Yes.”

  Magic was forbidden in Astrodon. Mandell had used magic and its trickery to steal away the realm. Magic needed to be forgotten. What was a lonely girl doing with magic in Dunedaire?

  “Take me to her,” said Liam.

  The Mestie nodded and motioned for Liam to follow across the abandoned marketplace. On the far side they found a squat door. He could smell the sizzling meat – pukwudgy and gamey hares, probably, but he didn’t care – and his stomach gnawed at him, reminded of food and bread and beer. The grander-pa threw the door wide and they entered into a wide pub full a people. Most a them were Mesties in red robes but Liam counted another five men, mushroom farmers, no doubt. Two dwarves took turns serving everybody. They all turned to look at the stranger as he passed by.

  “In here,” the grander-da said, walking through an entryway beside a roaring fireplace were great pans were searing strips of black flesh.

  In the next room a cozy hearth gave warmth from a stack of red coals and in the sparse light Liam saw a pamper nurse, a craggy woman in a white veil. Sitting in her lap was a child, a girl with strange straight hair and a hide coat made from no animal he could think of. It held a fakey sheen, like it was some affect from a stagemaster’s play. Around the girl’s neck was an amulet with a blue stone that glowed of its own accord.

  “What magic is around her neck?” Liam whispered.

  “Do you not recognize it, sire? It is a dreamstone.”

  “A dreamstone?”

  “From UpWhere,” the Mestie explained. “The amulet holds a single dream from their realm.”

  Liam stepped to the young thing, bending to her.

  “What is thy name?” he asked formally.

  “Cassandra,” the girl whispered. “Cassandra Whitman. But everyone just calls me Cassie.”

  9

  Melody was slowly rousing herself when Jake came downstairs to answer the door. Her short hair was mangled from the couch, sweaty as if she’d had a fever dream. When she saw her husband, she slipped back into the cushions and put an arm over her forehead.

  It was George. Winnie was with him. The old woman touched Jake’s arm and then let herself in without a word, hunting for Melody.

  “Let’s get a drink,” said George.

  Without comment or complaint, Jake put on his leather jacket and followed George next door to a sporty red car. He’d always assumed George was a teetotaler, being a pharmacist and all. Couldn’t picture him downing a brewskie or sipping a tumbler of scotch.

  Not a word passed between them on the drive into town. It was a short trip anyway, just around the corner to My Place on Queen Street. Attached to the family restaurant was a bar called the Tap Room, an overly-bright place with few seats and a couple flatscreens for Bruins games. The place was alive. Standing room only. Jake kept his head down and stood in the corner while George fetched drinks.

  The juke was off. The room was full of angry conversations and the din from the two flat screens tuned to coverage of the Sandy Hook massacre; one was Fox News, the other CNN. Both showed the same grainy photograph of the malnourished young man with the terrible bowl cut.

  George returned with two pilsner glasses full of a dark-malt brew called Smuttynose Old Dog Brown.

  “He killed himself at the school when he was done,” George said.

  Jake just nodded and sipped his beer.

  “His name’s Adam Lanza. They said his mother was a teacher at Sandy Hook but that might not be right. Any case, she’s dead, too.”

  After half a glass of the Smuttynose, Jake’s senses began to creep quietly away into their dark caves.

  “You got family coming?”

  “My parents, her parents,” Jake said. “They’ll be in tomorrow morning. Her sister is already in the car, driving down 90 through Pennsylvania. But she probably won’t be here till midnight.”

  “Winnie wants to stay at the house till they get there. Couldn’t talk her out of it. Probably a good idea. I don’t know.”

  “Yeah.”

  George gave a small laugh but it was without humor. The old man squeezed Jake’s shoulder over the worn leather of his coat. “You’ll find a way through. I know you don’t believe that now. But you will. I seen people do it before. Kids lost to cancer. People not as strong as you and your wife.”

  A voice cut through the surrounding noise, the voice of a woman in a red parka, standing not far from them. “Round em up, melt em down,” she said to a young couple beside her. “Round em up, melt em down.”

  “What?” asked a thin man in a jean jacket, turning to the woman and her friends. Jake knew this man. He had a plow and Melody called him sometimes to scrape their drive in the Winter. Matt something. Or maybe it was Mike. No, he was pretty sure it was Tom.

  Don’t lady, he thought. Not right next to me.

  “I said round em up, melt em down. Take away the guns. And not just the assault weapons, either. All of them. All the guns. Just get rid of them.”

  Skinny Tom laughed, showing a double row of muddy yellow teeth. “Yeah, that’s the answer. Then only the criminals will have guns. Good thinking. Sheesh.” He started to turn back to the television but the woman wouldn’t let it die.

  “It would have stopped this one. If Adam Lanza’s nut doomsday-prepper mother couldn’t get a gun, then he wouldn’t have had one to kill the kids.”

  Tom shook his head. “Lady, no offense, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Enlighten me, please.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” George interjected.

  But Tom didn’t hear him or if he did he didn’t care. “Guy went on a rampage in China, today. Took a knife into a school, stabbed a bunch a kids. You gonna take away knives, too?”

  “Hey!” shouted another man who’d heard Tom’s argument from ten feet away. This guy was rather large and chewed a slice of meaty pizza. “Lanza killed twenty kids you dumb hick. How many died in the knife attack?”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “Well stop saying. Just shut your pie-hole, okay?”

  “Well, fuck, man. I’m just saying I’m not gonna
let some socialist nigger…”

  “Oh!” the woman said. It looked to Jake like she was laughing. Like she was enjoying this.

  “…take away my guns. I’ll be damned. I’ll be goddamned, man.”

  The fat man set down his pizza and, without losing eye contact with his quarry, moved through the crowd of people, grabbed the skinny man, who Jake was pretty sure was named Nick, by his right ear and pushed him out of the room and onto the street. It all happened in the space of four seconds and only half the bar noticed.

  “Sorry, Jake,” said George. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I just didn’t know where else to take you.”

  Jake leaned forward so that only George could hear him. “I haven’t bought Cassie’s Christmas presents, yet.”

  10

  Annalese arrived just after eleven. She was one of those naturally manic types whose hair was always out of sorts and all she can do is talk and talk and talk and look nervous. Tonight, she was a full Category 5 superstorm of emotion, sobbing on top of her usual spastic pantomime. She pulled Melody to the kitchen and made her sister hot tea and hugged her repeatedly and said “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” Jake listened to them but looked at the rerun of The Big Bang Theory on the living room television. He was thinking about the pot wrapped up in the plastic baggie in the box in the basement behind the damaged garden gnome.

  Their doorbell chimed. Razzle, their box terrier, shot out of the mudroom, skidded across the waxed foyer floor, lost his balance and smacked muzzle-first into the wall. Jake checked the wall clock. It was 11:42.

  “Who is it?” called Melody.

  “I’ll see,” he said and walked to the door. He had a pretty good idea about the sort of person who would be visiting his house so late at night. His hunch proved correct.

  A young woman waited on the other side. Long black hair. Thin face. Expensive wool coat. A New York coat. SoHo, probably.

  “Mr. Whitman. I’m Madeline Gersh with The…”

  He opened the door wide and nudged Razzle into the other room with a foot. “How long you been a reporter, Madeline?” he asked.

  She coughed nervously. Smiled. “Two years.”

  “You beat the others. So, congratulations.”

  She bounced on her feet.