Black and Orange (23 page)

 
Oh-oh-oh, Hearts, you can never, ever, never fret!

“I don’t think I can stay here anymore,” said Teresa with a wild animal look in her eyes.

Martin hated her for even suggesting such a thing. “You want to leave?”

“I can’t stay in
here
, knowing they’re so close.” Her knees popped as she sprung up and rounded the couch.

“Wait!” The world went flat and tipped. Martin’s shoulder crunched against the corner of two walls. He laughed as the bone relocated into its socket. Why he laughed was beyond him, like everything else.

In the kitchen Teresa grappled the stove. Enrique filled two glasses of water from a pitcher. The ice water and lemon wedges cast silver and gold shadows across the mauve tile countertops. Enrique nervously giggled softly for a moment—or had it been loud, had it been a lot? “Couldn’t wait, huh?” he said. “Okay, but you will need a longer break than that I fear, if you both do not want to pass out on the floor.”

Martin stumbled to the adjoining dining room and sat at a card table with peeling avocado vinyl. Teresa joined him. On his tiptoes Enrique rummaged through a cupboard. Martin wanted to help him, for the first time feeling taller than someone else, but he was glued to the avocado table. To the left of Enrique the refrigerator sang an angry song with its compressor:

Hummmmmm
,
Hummmmmm
—My waiting’s so atrocious!

Hummmmmm
,
Hummmmmm
—Precocious but so hating!

Hummmmmm
,
Hummmmmm
—To be cold without your love!

Hummmmmm
,
Hummmmmm
—My waiting’s so atrocious!

“Do you hear the song?” Martin whispered.

Teresa leaned to his ear. “You mean the whales mating?”

Enrique set down the glasses and pulled a box of Saltine crackers out from under his arm. “This is the best food that I have to offer. I cannot go out much, as you might have guessed. I am about sick to death of cheese pizza.”

Teresa took a long drink of her water and then her head moved side to side like a junkie. “How can you live like this?” Then, what seemed like an eon later. “Mr. Gonzalez.”

Enrique’s smile shone like a pearl boomerang. Martin was afraid it would come after him. “In about an hour you will both feel normal again. That is why the Messenger wanted you to meet them before the Hunt. It is just something our kind goes through from this kind of exposure.”

“Our kind,” Martin mused. “Tied in blood to the Old Domain.”

Teresa’s voice boomed over the appliance caroling. “This is so much different than the Hearts of the past. I have a question.” The last sounded really boisterous, so obnoxious that Martin wanted to run screaming from the room, but he shook his head violently to regain control. “The Bishops are tied to the Old Domain, aren’t they? This is more intense than anything... anything... we’ve ever seen. What if the Bishops can sense this?”

“As you know, the Bishops are not tied through blood. They’re corrupted earthborn. We’re safe from them, at least for now.”

“Cloth?”

“He belongs to neither world, but you know not to underestimate him.”

“Yes, we do know that much.”

Martin writhed against the need again and had to thrash a little. The sensation had stacked up. He needed to be free of it. “Can I ask something?”

“You don’t need permission,” said Enrique.

“Aren’t we fooling ourselves going through all of this? One way or another, the gateway will open. The churches will unite.”

“If we fail, you mean.”

“
If
is damned generous. If the churches are this close then it’s only a matter of time. Maybe not this year, but what about next year, or the year after? It’ll happen. It almost happened last year. We’ve lucked out that the Bishops haven’t posed a problem, but we know they’ve made major trouble for Nomads in the past—the Church in this world only grows stronger. We’re only two. Why won’t the messenger get the hint that we need more help?”

“He asks the Bearers this every year,” Teresa said, abjectly.

Enrique’s eyes warmed like simmering peanut oil. Martin suddenly wished he hadn’t embarked on this subject. “We trust in the Messenger.”

“That’s
all
? And what does that mean? Plain craziness, if you ask me.”

The Heart Bearer leaned toward him. “Every day is crazy. What can you do about it? Nothing. The Hearts must not be sacrificed because we get down on our lot.”

Martin couldn’t tell if he disliked Enrique now, or just had no room in his heart for anything else. Absently he toyed with his
puka
shell necklace in an attempt to forget the Hearts. The cool ridges of the shells calmed him sometimes. Not now. They were rough. They were wrong. He suddenly stood from his chair, thinking it would help. The world didn’t agree. He couldn’t pretend any longer. He needed the Hearts.

“Oh, sit down,” said Teresa.

Martin dampened the urge to wail and pull his eyes out. The kitchen and dining room were still alive, the refrigerator still singing, but he was learning how to live with the racket.

“I know you are tired.” Enrique looked him up and down. Martin pictured him as a little boy, not because of his shortness, but of the clean clarity in his eyes. Innocence lived there. “But I cannot protect them the way you two can.”

Martin laughed silently for a moment and they stared at him. Finally, he straightened. “You can’t protect them, so what good are you people anyway?”

Teresa shot him a nasty look.

Enrique entwined his hair-cuffed hands. A few moments passed. Nobody human said anything but the refrigerator wanted to embark on an adventure.

At last Enrique said, “You will be more at ease when we go down to meet them.”

“Down?” asked Martin.

“The basement. They’re waiting for us.”

“I don’t hear them.”

Enrique’s smile looked like that of the mackerels on his boxer shorts. “The Hearts are resting.”

Teresa wobbled as she got to her feet. Martin thought about helping her but decided he was still angry at her reprimand.

They followed Enrique down a bare hallway to a sepia door. He flipped a light switch. The stairwell flickered several times. Underfoot, the wooden stairs belted out an ode. With every step the words became more incomprehensible. Martin’s hands moistened as he gripped the rotting banister. Teresa descended behind him and her footsteps added a chorus section.

How long?

Soon.

Where?

You should know.

I don’t. Where?

Where? Ha! Where and where and there and here; love lives, love dies, who knows, can we, into the where, there and here, there to hear fear; dying to die, living to lie, now we’re inside, wiggles in, wiggles sin, to fear and mirror and tear and here.

Andwhere
? Waiting.
Andthere
? So atrocious.
Andlovelives
? Never.
Anddieloves
?

Ever.
Livesdies
? Fret.
Wholivesdies
? They? No.
Onelivesdies
?
Theyareone
.

Fourareone
. They-are-the-way-way-the-are-they. LOVE LIVES.
Thehearts
.

Thehearts
.
Thearts
. Who?

Love lives within.

Not long. So soon.

~ * ~

Enrique swung a newspaper back and forth. The image was a little disturbing at first and Teresa flinched. The Bearer only smiled and tossed the paper away. “I had a feeling you both needed more... decompression time.”

Martin was at her side, his arm pillowing his head against the bottom of the stairs. Out cold.

“It’s a good thing you guys did not faint at the top. I do not think I could have guided you to the ground the same way.” Enrique shook his head.

Teresa poked Martin in the ribs. His eyes flew open wide, hand going for his handgun. She grabbed his hand and didn’t let go until relief poured over him. He looked around suspiciously. “The stairs were talking.”

Teresa snorted. “Really?” she said, “and what did they say?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Yes we are,” Enrique slapped his thigh. When Martin glared at him, he said, “Please come this way. The
Jordons
are waiting to meet you.”

The basement buzzed with fluorescent light. The room itself was a shallow brick box. They were all weary bricks down here; the grout had struggled for years to hold an illusion of support and now there was no illusion left to give. Cracks, spider holes, running fissure tangents leaking from corroded pipes. The light painted contours in the gray stones.

Teresa wondered what would happen when the Hearts left this place—would the bricks give in and collapse? She could feel the stinging heat from the light fixtures above and yet she was drowning in icy shock. She had seen many Hearts on the road, and in many shapes; the Hearts came in all varieties: moms, dads, grandfathers and mothers. Some were lovely, other lunatics, and some were teenagers. As Nomads they had no say. They just had to protect them no matter what. She and Martin loved them every year, without a choice in the matter, and at least for the short time they knew them, through and through.

So why’s this so hard to accept?
she thought.

Martin stretched his neck at the twisting pink forms in their basinets, his jaw hanging. “What in the hell?”

“Wait a minute,” Teresa reproached.

“You feel them, do you not? They’re stronger than the others.” A proud smile spread on Enrique’s face. “The blood fruit grows within all four.”

Martin pointed at the babies, apparently too in the moment to voice any concern.

“I don’t understand,” stammered Teresa. “They can’t all have it?”

“They are quadruplets. As potent as Tony Nguyen was, last year’s fruit was only a glimmer on the sun. They are enough to blow the gateway wide open many times over.”

Martin stepped toward the basinets, overcautious.

“Babies? We don’t know how to take care of them,” said Teresa.

“Never changed one diaper, not one,” Martin said to himself, sounding slightly crazed.

“They are marvelous babies. You will easily learn.”

They studied the
Jordons
for a moment. The four didn’t look vastly different from one another. All had that soft, reddened look of new life. All had thin downy pates, too frail for full color. They indeed looked to be healthy babies. Teresa tried not to make eye contact; it would be difficult to concentrate on anything but them if she did. Martin averted his eyes as well. He would probably act out against it, try and cheat the obvious—that was Martin, the silent revolutionary.

“As you might have guessed, I have not been a Bearer for long. You might say that I have had an intense cultivation period, very short, but challenging. This is an uncommon situation, without doubt. Nguyen’s Bearer worked with him all the way into his college years—I’ve only had four months with the
Jordons
.”

Martin grasped the back of his head to keep from pitching backward. Here came that acting out part. “Wait, wait. Nah, I’ve got issues with this. What happens on the Day of Opening? Carry a baby in each arm like grocery bags? With the whole church coming down on our heads? This is fucked, really, Enrique. Who made this shit up? We’ve never had babies before. There’s too many. We’re only two people.”

“Knock it off,” Teresa told him. “A Heart is a Heart.”

“Oh please,” replied Martin. “At this age these kids have the brains of a jellyfish.”

“You could only be so lucky—”

“I have papooses for twins,” Enrique interjected. “They are quite comfortable and secure for running. I’ll be bringing them along when I drop the Hearts off.”

The Nomads turned together like mirror images. “We’re not taking them right now?” asked Teresa, “Why wouldn’t we? We can be out of California before nightfall.”

“Things are different now. You are being watched. The Messenger has sheltered you from the Church, but only here. And he cannot keep the entire city of Colton covered forever. Away from the motel, the sky coverage will fluctuate.”

“Outrunning the Church is smarter than hanging around.”

“They will go after you. Cloth knows the importance of the Hearts this year. He’ll make sure his mortals follow you. There can be no adjustments,” said Enrique. “The Messenger was unambiguous in the directions. I will deliver the children around six o’clock PM the night prior to the Day of Opening. Take enough supplies up and stay in your room until I arrive. I put a duffel bag in the Wrangler out front. I’ll contact you at the motel if the plan changes.”

“We can’t keep the babies with us?” asked Martin.

“They’re watching
you
, not me. Do you understand?”

One of the babies whimpered and cocked its head to the right. Teresa examined the miraculous foursome. So wrinkled, so easily in distress, so terribly young. Her affection forced itself inside and warmed her blood.