The Stargazers (20 page)

She would give anything for their guidance right now. And some water.

Aster
stopped walking and gazed around at the arid farmland. In the distance, a giant rooster tail of dust rose up from the ground as someone operated a
motorized
plow, but that was the only sign of life. A little bit further along, she spied a small red fleck that after another ten minutes started to look like the canopy of a roadside stand. Perhaps selling strawberries or some other kind of fruit. Hopefully the owner would give her a kindness in the form of water.

When she finally arrived, she gave an enormous sigh
of relief and exhaustion
. The weak breeze flapped the canopy’s red overhang, and beneath it sat an old woman in a floppy hat with silk daisies on the brim. She wore a huge t-shirt with the words
Give Peace a Chance
emblazoned on the fron
t with a strange circular rune
behind it Aster had never seen before.  An old book lay in her lap with a giant magnifying glass on top.

She looked up at Aster and smiled, most of the teeth remaining in her gums leaning like old gravestones. Cataracts clouded her eyes, and Aster understood the need for the magnifying glass. Some kind of skin ailment had chewed away at the side of her nose, leaving her with only one nostril. It was a face almost any stranger might have found horrifying, but Aster had grown
up around women who looked much
like this, and as such she felt more connected to home than ever.

The woman was selling strawberries, as Aster had suspected, and their sweet aroma was intoxicating.  The little red jewels gleamed in their green baskets.  “Do you mind if I catch a bit of shade here?” Aster asked. “The heat sort of caught me by surprise.”

“Surely you may. It’s catchin’ a lotta folks, darlin’ girl. I always say we gotta be prepared for what’s comin’, but just in case, I always keep a little extra.” She opened a small cooler next to her chair and brought out a bottle of water made wet by the ice it had been sitting in.

Aster’s parched mouth sung with delight as the woman twisted it open and handed it to her.  She was still vulnerable from her crying session with Bryon earlier, so this simple act of charity was almost enough to send her into another weeping fit.  “I can’t thank you enough.” The frigid water was paradise
on her tongue
.

“It comes at a price,” said the woman, gazing out at the desolate acres before her.

Aster’s heart dropped.  “Oh. I don’t have any money. I’m sorry.”

The woman cackled. “I don’t mean you, dear girl. That water’s been paid for already and I ain’t lookin’ to make a profit off a thirsty child. What I mean is, the water in those plastic bottles, it comes at a price. This world’s dryin’ up fast. Thanks to the dark magic of capitalism and the free market economy. Creates the kinda greed that would make a man put Mother Earth’s water in a bottle and sell it for two dollars.”

Aster had no idea what the woman was talking about. She chalked it up to yet another woe in a world that seemed to be full of them. Four cars sped by without slowing down. “Do you get many customers out here?”

“Oh, yup. Usually come sundown and on the weekends ‘specially. They love Mama Iris’s strawberries.” She turned her cloudy eyes on Aster and tipped her a wink. “They say there’s somethin’
magical
about ‘em.”

Aster almost dropped her half-empty bottle. Some of it splashed out and wet her wrist. “Do… I know you?”

Mama Iris shook her head. “Nope, ya don’t.  Leastways not till now.  I can’t see more’n three feet past my own nose, but I been seein’ the pink dot that turned out to be your head comin’ down this way for a very long while. Y’know what they say about the color pink in
our
world?”

And by “our,” she clearly meant Ellemire. Aster might have answered her, but she was too befuddled to find her tongue. She shook her head.

“Two colors give us pink. Red and white. With red comes determination or potential. It’s a color of deep power, y’see. White brings fullness and purity. When ya put ‘em together, they balance one another out. It brings contentment, acceptance, and most importantly, love.  And that, my darlin’, is what’s gonna save this world someday.”

Aster had seen little evidence of that in her life, especially with the murder of her
future child waiting ahead
like some creeping ghoul. “I don’t see what love has to do with it.”

Mama Iris’s hearty cackle scared away a group of blackbirds that had settled nearby. “You and Tina Turner both, I guess. But trust me when I say you was born with a good omen sproutin’ outta that head of yours. It’s a sign of love and mercy comin’ our way. Everyone that’s seen you over there knows that.” She turned those haunted eyes on Aster again. “And I’m sure it scared a few of ‘em too. One in particular.”

Aster felt weak in the knees and finally gave into the urge to sit down hard on the ground. “Oleander.”

“Mmm-hmm. When that ground started rumblin’ yesterday, I just knew someone was tryin’ to come through uninvited.”

“Who
are
you, really?”

“Call me Mama Iris. That’s what everybody else calls me.”

“Are you… a Stargazer?” 

The old
woman’s clouded eyes gazed far and long
. “That’s a name I ain’t used in a long time. I been here too long, and I ain’t got much of a memory for things that happened b’fore that. That’s what happens when ya live over here. This world ain’t easy on most folks and time passes so much faster over here than it does there. But I do know somethin’ from my life of rebellion, and my sister Lily would probably tell you the same if she wasn’t so damn scared.” She leaned forward and Aster could see the little gray hairs sprouting from her chin. “There ain’t a damn job in this world that don’t got more than one way of doin’. You think you’re stuck, but a time’s gonna come when you realize, no matter how many people you got pullin’ at ya to do what they want, ya gotta go your
own
way.” 

Iris sat back in her chair and took in the new cool breeze that was rolling in. It lifted the brim of her hat back from her liver-spotted forehead.

Aster gaped at the woman who was her great-aunt. “Nanny Lily had a sister? I never knew. Why didn’t she ever tell us about you?”

Mama Iris didn’t look back, but her voice took on a sadder note. “I’m not much surprised she never mentioned me to you. We was close growing up. Even came over here together, but I was the only Stargazer that never came back. Never planned to go back. Anyway, she probably didn’t want to put any ideas in her girls’ heads about tryin’ to do the same thing. But Lily did used to come back for quick visits time to time, catch me up on the goins on in the family. Between that and Miss Ivy, I get
the Ellemire gossip I need
. The man who fathered her babies was the most heartbroken dog I ever laid eyes on. He was just a kid and didn’t have a dime to his name, but he was a good man.”

“What happened to him?” Aster was fascinated. Finally, she would learn of her grandfather.

“Why, he went back with her of course. After he begged her enough. Of course, he ain’t worth a much anymore from what I hear.”

Aster’s jaw fell open again. “Quercus? I
knew
it!”

“Most everybody does, I wager, but she’d never admit it out loud.
It’s why she struck him mute. Quercus ain’t his real name, though. You’d never find a name like that in these here parts. His born name’s Benjamin.
What Lily wants to do, she does. Ain’t never been another woman who was more of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ type.”

Aster wondered how Quercus must feel to know two of his daughters had turned out the way they had.
Did he miss his home? His name? His voice?

Ivy continued. “Anyway, I married his brother and we raised a family together too.”

“Did you go through the transformation when you had your babies?”

“Oh darlin’, no. That only happens when you give birth on that Givin’ Altar. What you see here is years of hard livin’ and the results of a bout of skin cancer. My little piece of the Old Magic stayed with me. Not that it ever amounted to much. Lily was the twin with all the power. I had me three babies, two of ‘em boys. They’re long grown, with grown kids of their own. I’ve lived a good,
long life here. But my dear Henr
y died two years ago. I miss him somethin’ awful.” 

“Do you ever miss Ellemire?”

The old woman shrugged. “Oh, here and there. The air’s cleaner and folks got a more innocent way about ‘em. But they only got one way of thinkin’ there, and it’s all about the magic. Strange thing is, with all that power at their fingertips, not a one of them really live.
They’re spoiled by how easy they’ve made things for themselves
.
A lot like this world’s turned into, I s’pose, but it’s a bigger world, and there are pockets of it that ain’t been lost yet. Like this one.
” 

Aster got up on her knees, almost in a posture of begging.
“
What am I even supposed to do here? I came with simple directions, but they’re impossible, and things have gotten more complicated than ever. Can you tell me what to do?
”

“No one can tell you that, darlin.’ There’s all sorts of folks tryin’ to tell ya what’s what, and I ain’t gonna be one of ‘em. But you oughta know one thing. You
got a gift that nobody else does
. Soon as you realize what it is, thing’ll start to get better for you. Maybe not easier, but better. Oleander’s also goin’ her own way
, I suspect
. But anything she does is for her benefit only. She’d let the whole damn world burn if it meant she was sittin’ on top of the ash pile. That’s the risk of independence, I guess.”

Aster drained her water and placed the bottle on the table. By the position of the sun, she knew if she hoped to meet Bryon on time, she’d need to get going soon. A large part of her regretted it, because she could have sat and talked with Mama Iris through the night. “Thank you for the water. And everything else.”

Mama Iris leaned forward, gesturing toward the flats of strawberries on her table. “I was wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind givin’ these berries a little pick-me-up before ya go. This heat’s been murder on the poor things, and I can’t do much for ‘em once they’re out of the ground.”

“I’m not sure I can either. I mean, I’ve never tried anything like that on picked fruit.”

The woman smiled. “I’ve got a good feelin’.”

Aster took a breath and looked down at the strawberries, which had indeed grown dull and mushy in the heat since she’d arrived. She didn’t know how she could fix them. Once separated from the mother root, fruits and vegetables began to die and were beyond her reach. It was the way of all things. She could no more resurrect drooping flowers in a vase or a dead body than she could rotting fruit. 

Still, the old woman’s intent stare was forcing her to at least try something, and it would have been rude to refuse her request. Reaching out her hand, she ran her fingers gently along the fruit, using the same incantations she did whenever she worked in the garden. She didn’t think it would work, but it was the only applicable spell she could think of. She’d invented it herself when she was just a child walking the garden’s rows with her mother.

As she expected, nothing happened. “I don’t think this is going to work,” Aster said.

Mama Iris didn’t take her eyes off the strawberries. “Be patient, darlin’. Watch.”

Aster continued the incantation, wondering how much longer she’d have to do it before the woman was satisfied. She was about to stop again when she noticed a glossier
red
popping out through the dull maroon of the parched fruit. The sheen was like that of berries picked at the peak of harvest time.

It wasn’t an instant effect, but the magic had worked. She just couldn’t believe what she had seen. No one had ever told her she could do such a thing, and she’d never thought to try. It would have been considered a waste of magic. “That’s… impossible.”

“No, darlin’. It
was
impossible. You’ve made it possible. You’re the Great Mother. You got more control over the Old Magic than anyone else. Why, I bet somebody’s gonna eat that piece of fruit and have a year of good luck.”

Aster shook her head. “I just don’t understand how…”  Then she felt a twinge in her hand and looked down. Just below her left index finger, she saw a mottled brown spot that hadn’t been there before. She rubbed at it, thinking it a speck of dirt, but it was in her skin. “Oh.”

Mama Iris used her magnifying glass to inspect the spot, which resembled the ones on her hands and those of the other women in their family. “Uh-huh.” She let the hand go. “Now you know what you can do, and the cost of doin’ it. Those are two things you didn’t know
five minutes
ago. All you gotta do now is figure out what you’re gonna do with that information.”

B
y healing the strawberries, her body had aged just a tiny bit. It wasn’t unlike what had happened to her mother or the other Stargazers who had given birth on the Giving Altar, only she’d just done it here. In another universe, and to a common strawberry.