Child of a Rainless Year (44 page)
Read Child of a Rainless Year Online
Authors: Jane Lindskold
“I remember that one. Mikey, he called himself. Fat kid. Shy with the girls. I told him a few things. Tell him to come visit some time.”
“I will,” I said. “I’d better get back before they miss me.”
“Oh, they miss you,” Paula said. “One more than the other, I think.”
She laughed again, mocking, wicked, innocent, and faded away wherever ghosts go when they’re not where you can see them.
Thursday, Mikey suggested that I practice with the Jupiter kaleidoscope. I was hesitant.
“Success seems like a strange thing to augur for,” I protested. “Abstract. At best I keep imagining one of those Magic Eight Ball toys: ‘Answer cloudy, try back later.’”
“Well,” Mikey said. “That would be useful, wouldn’t it? I doubt you’ll get anything so clear.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m not sure that I’m up to it. Something more concrete would be easier.”
“Like your true love’s face?” Mikey asked mischievously, fingering the copper case of the Venus kaleidoscope. I’d polished it since my initial discovery, and now it glowed as warm and welcoming as a lover’s kiss.
I made inarticulate sounds of protest and Mikey laughed.
“Relax, Mira. I was only teasing. Honestly, love is probably the first thing anyone ever augurs for. Did you ever think about how many little rituals there are for it—from pulling petals from a daisy to those intricate games that involve counting the letters in your name and rearranging them to find the initials of your future sweetheart’s name? I bet the first question you ever asked one of those Magic Eight Balls was whether some fellow liked you.”
“I think it was about whether I’d passed an exam,” I fibbed. “Still, we weren’t talking about auguring for love, but for success. How would I scry for something so tenuous?”
“If it were me,” Mikey said, “I’d find some very precise way of phrasing the question in my mind, then I’d look into the kaleidoscope with the intention of seeing the answer as a visual image.”
“You do it then,” I said, childishly stubborn.
Mikey laughed and shook his head reprovingly. “I told you, Mira, you are more likely to learn something than I am.”
I drummed my knuckles lightly on my forehead as I considered this. What, after all, did I have to lose?
Certainty that you will find out what happened to Colette,
came the answer, drifting from the depths of my subconscious.
If you don’t get an answer, you will fear that success is beyond you. If you do … well, then you’re committed.
came the answer, drifting from the depths of my subconscious.
If you don’t get an answer, you will fear that success is beyond you. If you do … well, then you’re committed.
I turned the kaleidoscope in question over and over in my hands. The outer case was pierced tin through which gold shone softly. I recalled that the colors within were dominated by azure and blue, that little figures of lightning bolts were mixed in with the more usual gems and irregularly shaped pieces of glass. It hadn’t hurt me to look through it then. Certainly, it couldn’t now.
“Okay,” I said. “I apologize for being difficult. I’ll give it a try.”
“Thank you, Mira,” Mikey said seriously. “Actually, I prefer your reluctance. Usually, when I tutor someone in these arts my problem is the reverse—too much eagerness, too little thought.”
Tutored others?
I thought.
Of course he has. Didn’t he say that these talents are inherent in almost everyone, but that they can run stronger in families? He’s a descendent of Aldo Pincas, too, so obviously he has gifts that he could pass on to his own children and grandchildren.
I thought.
Of course he has. Didn’t he say that these talents are inherent in almost everyone, but that they can run stronger in families? He’s a descendent of Aldo Pincas, too, so obviously he has gifts that he could pass on to his own children and grandchildren.
I raised the kaleidoscope almost to my eye, then lowered it again as I thought of a question.
“Mikey, would I have managed to learn these things if I’d never come to Las Vegas?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Much would have had to do with your frame of mind. Frankly, as long as you were blocking yourself artistically, I think you would have blocked yourself in other ways, too. If you had ever let go and expanded your potential, I suspect you would have found yourself taking a lot more unexpected shortcuts or having insights into things. Whether you would have realized you were employing liminal space to do this or not …”
He shrugged.
“I might have just ended up one of those ‘wise’ people,” I said, “or maybe lucky in my finances and relationships, except it wouldn’t have been luck at all.”
“And you might not have always had true visions,” Mikey said. “There are all sorts of edges out there, and not all of them are the edges between what might happen and what will, some are simply between mights.”
“You’re making my head ache,” I said with a laugh.
“So look through the kaleidoscope and see what you see,” Mikey said. “Give yourself a rest from questions.”
I lifted the kaleidoscope, and this time I did as Mikey had commanded. I relaxed, studying the shifting images, looking as I had learned to do for the unique element amid the shifting multiplicities. As I did so I repeated over and over in my mind: “I want to find out what happened to Colette. Will I succeed?”
Amid the drifting lightning bolts I found one that wasn’t like the others. I focused in on it, watching as it grew within my line of sight. The others had been represented like jagged lines, longer top to bottom as lightning bolts rain from the skies. As I focused on this one, it drifted onto its horizontal axis, the jagged length transforming into a road that jolted violently across a dark landscape.
Then, even as in my dream of a few nights before, the roads multiplied: two becoming four, four eight, eight sixteen, sixteen thirty-two, thirty-two sixty-four. Each road was the violent blue-white of a lightning strike in a summer storm, each seared my retina with a vivid black afterimage, so that the jagged roads multiplied even more.
I struggled to focus in on one road, the road I thought was the original, watched as it stretched on to the horizon. I realized that this road and its multiplicity of fellows were curving slightly downward, each jagging back and forth, back and forth, but bending slowly and almost imperceptibly down. Before it happened, I knew what they would do.
The roads joined again at a hub an infinity of distance below their point of origin, the whole pattern forming an enormous globe, fit together puzzle-piece tight, puzzle-piece perfect, fusing into one eye-achingly blue-white ball and its dark afterimage. The roads went nowhere but to themselves, to their source.
The image held for a long moment, then either I lost my concentration or the show was done, for the twin globes vanished and I was again watching the shifting patterns of gentler blue and white mingled into pretty mandalas ornamented with stylized lightning bolts.
“So what did it mean?” I asked Mikey after I’d taken two aspirin, and told him as precisely as I could what I’d seen. “Yes or No?”
“I’m not certain,” he said somberly. “Iconography is very personal, but usually there are enough common symbols that I can interpret visions. This one started out clearly enough. You saw a road, but that multiplying … you say you saw something similar in a dream?”
“I did. Colette and her gig going down a bunch of identical roads.”
“Did they end up in a globe in that dream?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember clearly. Something about a hub and a void. That’s it.”
“And we probably shouldn’t make too much of it, either,” Mikey said. “After all, the last time anyone saw your mother she was driving her gig down a road. It makes sense you’d dream of her.”
“And this vision, the one in the kaleidoscope,” I asked.
“I’d guess that it means that there are still too many options left undecided for a clear vision of success or failure. You could try scrying to refine the options … .”
“Not now,” I said. “Maybe later. My head hurts and my eyes feel like I really did stare into a lightning storm. Mikey, can you bear with me if I just go take a nap?”
“Certainly,” he said.
“Mikey?” I asked, my voice sounding like that of a very little girl.
“Yes.”
“When do you have to go back to Minnesota?”
“Not until after Saturday at least,” he assured me. “After that, we’ll talk.”
Friday morning I woke early, probably because Thursday’s afternoon nap had extended into the evening. I’d crawled out of some very vivid dreams into that cloudy, foggy state that’s so annoying because you’re neither awake nor really asleep. I’d managed to awaken enough to thud down the hall to the bathroom.
When I staggered back into my room, I had found a tray at my bedside containing an array of perfect invalid food, including English muffins and thick strawberry jam. I smeared half of one muffin with butter and jam, and as I was chewing my first mouthful I had noticed two neatly folded notes on the tray next to the teapot.
One was from Mikey, telling me he’d gone back to his hotel, and that I could phone him if I woke up and wanted company, but that I should sleep as much as I wished, that he could easily entertain himself. The second note was from Domingo, offering to run any errands I might need taken care of, and urging me to take it easy.
Half an English muffin had been almost more than I could handle, and after rinsing away the worst of the stickiness with a conveniently placed glass of water, I apologized to my teeth—I simply couldn’t make the trek back to the bathroom again—and crashed back to sleep.
So it was that Friday morning I awoke after something more than twelve hours of sleep feeling bright-eyed and energetic, though with a mouth that tasted awful. The tray had been removed, but the tumbler of water had been refilled. This I drained in a couple of large gulps. The inside of my mouth still tasted like the death of all strawberry factories.
I rose and headed for the bathroom, marvelling that the same trek had been nearly impossible to manage the night before. I sang as I showered, dressed in a bright patchwork skirt and green blouse, and headed downstairs to make coffee. Domingo wouldn’t be by for breakfast for hours yet—if at all.
Over bacon and eggs—cooked by me, though I thanked the silent women for their service the night before—I caught up on my e-mail, rapid-firing messages off to various friend, including Hannah in Albuquerque. I’d mentioned earlier that I was planning to go to the State Fair with Domingo, and she’d suggested we pick a day and meet up. It sounded good to me, almost as good as her casual assumption that Domingo might be more than a handyman playing local guide.
After I’d sent off the messages, I found myself thinking about Domingo. My thoughts had a copper tinge, and I knew why. Today was Friday, and the reigning kaleidoscope was the copper-mirrored one dedicated to Venus and matters of love.
I walked upstairs with steady purposefulness. I knew how to use the kaleidoscopes now, and I even had a suspicion that asking a question about my love life wouldn’t drain me as had inquiring after Colette. This was simple and straightforward, surely. There would be one of two answers: Yes or No. I supposed that if Domingo himself wasn’t sure about his feelings there could be a “Maybe,” but even that wouldn’t be too bad.
The kaleidoscopes weren’t in the upper parlor where Mikey and I had been looking at them the day before. I found them back in their secret compartments, neatly locked away. I wondered if Mikey had done it, or the silent women. Somehow I thought Mikey had. For all that he knew so much more than I did, he was very polite, even respectful, as if the mere fact that I had inherited Phineas House was a matter to respect.
I slid open the right hand drawer and looked down at the kaleidoscopes. All were there, each in its correct place. My hand drifted toward the copper casing, moving slowly, so I could see my fingers reflected in the shining metal.
I stopped a few inches short of picking it up and stood there in that attitude long enough that I became aware of the wood creaking as the House warmed with the rising sun. Then I straightened, leaving the kaleidoscope in its place.
Using it to inquire after Domingo’s feelings wouldn’t be right. It would be too much like spying on him, worse really. If I peeked in his window, all I could see were details of his exterior life. Using the kaleidoscope would be like peering into his heart.
I went down the kitchen and set up a fresh pot of coffee. Then I wandered out into the garden. The early morning chill was giving way as the sun rose higher, but all the plants continued in their early morning freshness. Without volition, my fingers found something daisylike growing among one of the borders. I plucked away the petals one by one: He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not.
The last petal was torn in two or perhaps it had partially been eaten by some bug. I stared down at it feeling dismay all out of proportion to what I was seeing. I was still looking at the partial flower petal when I heard the gate open and Blanco’s yap of greeting.
I crushed the flower into my palm and moved quickly—though whether to greet Domingo or to hide what I had been doing, I don’t know.
“Good morning,” I said brightly. “Let me run inside and turn on the coffee.”
However, researchers discovered that not only did synesthesia take different forms within the same family, but that even when it took the same form—colored letters, for example—the colors perceived varied greatly from one family member to another.
—Patricia Lynne Duffy,
Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens
Mikey called while Domingo and I were on our second cup.
“How are you feeling, Mira?” he asked.
“Much better. Sorry about pooping out on you yesterday.”
“Don’t worry about it. I had a pleasant afternoon. In fact, I learned a few things. Would you mind if I came over and shared them with you?”
“Not at all. If you’d like, we can have lunch.”
“That would be wonderful. Tell me. Is Domingo available to join us?”
“He’ll be out with the painters,” I said. “It is a work day.”
“If Domingo can take a break,” Mikey said, “I really would like to speak with him.”
“I’m sure he’ll leave off if you want to ask him something.”
“Good. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
We rung off and I went back out into the garden. Domingo was busy pulling grass from between the border stones of the garden. His fingers remained busy as he listened to my question.
“I’ll be here all day,” he said. “I will tell the crew that the trustee for your estate wants to review my custodian work. They will pity me, and maybe even work harder so that I’ll look good.”
I chuckled. “You’re probably right. Come on in as soon as you can take a break after Mikey gets here.”
Mikey arrived slightly more than fifteen minutes later, but the reason for his delay was explained along with the heavy grocery sack he carried into the house.
“I thought I really have been imposing on you,” he said, “so I went and picked up a few things to add to lunch.”
I peeked in and saw neatly wrapped packages of deli cold cuts, some chips, and a small bag of apples.
“You’re not imposing,” I said truthfully. “I feel that I’m imposing on you—especially making you stay in a hotel.”
“I’ve been drawing my fee as your trustee for a good number of years now,” Mikey said, “and this is the first time since you were settled with the Fenns that I have had to do more than review a little paperwork. And I assure you, staying in the hotel is no burden. Large as this house is, I think that right now you need your space.”
“There has been a lot for me to adjust to,” I admitted, leading the way into the kitchen. “Tell me, Mikey, will using the kaleidoscopes always hit me so hard? I mean, I feel like a kid riding a bike that’s too big for her. It takes more effort than I have to give.”
Mikey looked grave. “In order to use power, you must give something back. That’s one of the oldest principles of magic, found in every tradition there is. It’s the true meaning behind the tale of Adam naming the animals. In doing this, he asserted his sovereignty over them, but he also gave them names—individual identities. In many magical traditions, knowing the true name of something is knowing how to control it. That’s why true names are kept secret.”
I wrinkled my nose, feeling doubt. “But Adam named the animals. Doesn’t that mean he knew their names and so still kept power over them?”
Mikey chuckled. “Adam also named Eve, and how much control did he have over her?”
I shared his laugh, but didn’t let myself be distracted from how this applied to me specifically. “Leaving out Adam, Mikey, should using this ability stay so hard for me?”
“I don’t think so, but I honestly don’t know. Mira, I sense a great deal of ability, power, whatever you want to call it, inherent in you, but I will admit, I have been puzzled by the effort it takes you to use it. It’s almost as if something is blocking you.”
“Phineas House, you think?” I asked, finding myself glancing up at the ceiling as I had noticed Mikey doing a couple of time.
“No. I don’t think so,” Mikey replied. “I’m something of an expert on Phineas House—at least as much as anyone who is not keyed to it can be—and my feeling is that it is pleased with you. Certainly the behavior of the silent women would seem to bear witness to this.”
“They took care of me last night again,” I said. “Brought me a tray and your note. But if it isn’t the House, what then?”
“I’ve been wondering if it’s something that Colette put in place,” Mikey said. “Her behavior toward you was always strange—protective and antagonistic at the same time. Her father viewed her as a rival. I wonder if she feared that Phineas House would pass her over in favor of you once you had developed some skills. Maybe she did something to prevent you from coming into your potential.”
I thought about this as I put the extra groceries away.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe. In any case, we don’t need to worry about it until we can use Saturday’s kaleidoscope.”
Mikey didn’t press me to try using Friday’s to garner hints about my anonymous father. I think how hard I’d been hit by our sessions had made him cautious.
Domingo knocked on the kitchen door about fifteen minutes after Mikey’s arrival. He’d clearly taken time to go back to the carriage house and clean up from painting. He was wearing slightly faded blue jeans and a collarless button-down shirt. His hair was slightly damp, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower, and I found myself thinking of that indecisive daisy petal.
The men exchanged their greetings and some small talk about the work on the exterior of Phineas House. We made elaborate sandwiches, and continued our small talk through an early lunch. Afterward, Mikey turned to me.
“Mira, would it be possible for us to adjourn to your library? I have some papers to show you, and the desk would be convenient.”
I nodded. “Refill your drink and come along. There are three chairs there. I’ll let you have the one at the desk.”
When we were settled in, Mikey began without preamble. “I knew that we had found a reliable caretaker for Phineas House, but it wasn’t until I met Domingo that I realized what an extraordinary person he was.”
Domingo shuffled his feet in the carpet, obviously uncomfortable with this effusive praise—and perhaps suspicious of it as well.
Mikey went on. “Domingo, Mira has told me that she has confided to you a great deal about the—oddness—both of her own history and that of Phineas House.”
“That’s right,” Domingo replied a trace defensively.
I didn’t blame him. I was feeling defensive, too. Mikey was leading up to something, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like whatever it was, but Mikey was still smiling and still being his affable self. I made myself listen without saying anything.
“As we’ve discussed your work on Phineas House,” Mikey said, “one thing has become clear to me. This extraordinary paint job was not Mira’s idea, was it?”
Domingo shook his head. “I have never said so, nor has she. It was the House’s idea. Mira was kind enough to think it was a good idea, and encouraged me to complete it.”
“Tell me,” Mikey said, addressing us both. “Neither of you thought it the least odd that Domingo should be so in tune with Phineas House’s wishes?”
Domingo let me answer first.
“Not at all,” I said. “At first, I didn’t know Phineas House could have wishes. I took Domingo’s statements as figurative. If you’d been around as many artists as I have, hearing that an ornate house—one whose current paint scheme was clearly at odds with the demands of the structure, let me remind you—anyhow, hearing that that ornate house ‘wanted’ a more suitable paint job seemed pretty normal, like hearing a sculptor talking about there being a fox or a child or a naked woman in a chunk of marble.”
“And, later,” Mikey asked, “when you realized that Domingo wasn’t speaking figuratively? It didn’t strike you as odd then?”
I shrugged. “How I realized Domingo wasn’t speaking figuratively was when I started experiencing the same prompting. You’ve got to understand, Mikey, it’s not like Phineas House says ‘Paint those dragons crimson, would you?’ It’s just that if you look at the house long enough and let your imagination drift, pretty soon you get a strong feeling for what combination of colors is, well, right. After that, anything else seems wrong.”
“And you, Domingo?” Mikey asked. “Was it like that for you?”
Domingo shook his head. “No, not quite like that. Choosing the right colors is not so easy for me. I have to concentrate a lot, even try samples. I have a computer program for this, but sometimes I have come out and tried a splash against the wood and looked at it. I have a cousin who works at a paint store, and he’s okay about giving me samples because he knows that when the time comes I’ll be buying a lot of paint.”
“I don’t just mean,” Mikey said, “how you select the paint colors, I mean how you communicate with the House.”
“Like Mira says,” Domingo replied, “it’s not like talking. It’s just a feeling. I’ve always had it, from when I was small and coming here with my father to tend the gardens. I could feel how the gardens should be, and that those fences in between shouldn’t be there. Later, I could tell that the House felt sad because she was colored so dully. Even later, when Colette vanished and Phineas House was shut up, I felt the House becoming more and more quiet. I would come here sometimes to trim the lawns and make sure nothing had broken in, and it felt like the gardens surrounded a great sleeping creature.”
Domingo looked at Mikey, then at me. “I’m not crazy. I know some people think I am, or even that maybe I am a little slow, a little thick, but I am not. When the real estate company offered me the job of caretaker rather than just groundkeeper, I was very pleased. I took jobs in renovation so I would know what an old structure needed. When in the early 1980s the Montezuma Castle grounds were taken over by the United World College, I was offered work there, and I took it because then I could better serve Phineas House’s needs.”
“When was this?” Mikey asked.
“Early 1980s,” Domingo repeated. “That’s when the college bought the land, but they didn’t use the Castle right away. It was in too bad shape. They used other buildings. The big renovation was more recent—I think it started in 1997 or maybe 1998. The rededication of the Castle was just a few years ago. It was a huge event with celebrities from all over the world coming. I met a queen, even, Queen Nur of Jordan.”
“Bingo …” Mikey said very softly, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he returned his genial attention to both of us. “Well, despite the capacity of the two of you to take the extraordinary as if it were quite usual, it is not usual for people—even the ‘liminally talented’—to get messages from Phineas House. Yet I do not doubt for one moment that this is what Domingo has done.”
“And me?” I asked.
“Of course you,” Mikey said. “You’re the heir to the House. In a very real sense, you’re the one person I’d expect Phineas House to talk to. That’s why Domingo’s ability, which I could sense for myself, struck me as unusual. So, when Mira didn’t need me, I took advantage of my free time to do some research. Would either of you be very surprised to learn that Domingo is also a descendent of Aldo Pincas?”
We were, but neither of us said anything. We just stared at Mikey, waiting for him to clarify.
“Aldo Pincas, the builder of Phineas House, and his wife, Rosamaria, had three children. The first was Amerigo, who inherited the House. The other two were Carita and Fernando. I’ve done some checking through old records here and elsewhere—the Net is really wonderful—and confirmed to my satisfaction that Domingo is a descendant of Fernando Pincas.”
“Really?” I asked. Domingo was too astonished to say anything.
“Really,” Mikey confirmed with a crisp nod. He started unfolding papers, spreading them on the cleared portions of the desk. “When he was a young man, Fernando went to seek his fortune away from Las Vegas. He never returned, but years later his daughter, Florencita, returned with her new husband. As far as I can tell, Florencita did not associate very much with the residents of Phineas House. They were cousins, true, but they had been raised apart and had little in common. I do not even know if Florencita had any talent beyond the normal for sensing liminal space. In any case, some of Florencita’s descendants have remained in Las Vegas, but where Amerigo’s children married Anglos, Florencita’s alliance was to the Spanish town. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the next generation, the two families had so little in common they did not even associate.”
“Another duality,” I said, my voice hardly louder than a whisper. “Two branches of the same family living side by side in the same small town, gradually forgetting they were related. It’s weird …”
“Weird,” Mikey agreed, “but interesting. What do you think, Domingo?”
“I’d like to see your records,” Domingo said, rising to bend over the spread papers, “but I am inclined to believe you. The name Florencita remains a family name for us. My mother’s sister is Florencita, though mostly she goes by Florie.”
“Look as much as you want,” Mikey said. “Copiers are wonderful, too, especially when,” he twinkled mischievously, “you can slip in after hours and copy things not usually available to the public.”
I didn’t bother to ask about how Mikey had managed that. For all his friendly affability, Michael Hart was a sorcerer or something very like, and a locked door or two probably wouldn’t stop him from going where he would.
We all poured over the papers for a long while, tracing lines and deciding that Mikey’s leaps of faith—which he had been forced to make from time to time as the old record keepers seemed to have been rather cavalier on matters of spelling—weren’t large enough to make it seem that the connections had been forced.
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