Chapter Twenty-Four
NEW YORK
They got Tina to the apartment without incident. Fortunately, few were out on the lightless streets. She drifted between them as though air had become water, as though the gravity and atmosphere she inhabited were of an alien world.
Her tears subsided, Tina drew back from Cal, from, it seemed, his touch, and did not speak all the long way home. Stung, Cal ached to hold her but did not press the issue.
Once safely inside, Cal let Doc examine her. He changed his clothes, cleaned the congealed offense of Stern’s blood off him as best he could, then joined Colleen and Goldie by the open window of the living room. Peering silently out at the night, they were drinking coffee made on the camp stove. Cal braced his shoulder against the side of the frame and let the cool air waft over him, grateful for the quiet. His mind felt washed out, his body leaden.
In the room behind, he became aware of a growing darkness. The shine about Tina that had cast the space in shifting pastels had softened. He glanced to where she sat curled on the sofa, or rather floated just above it, her face to the wall. Doc rose from her side and approached him.
Even in the gloom, Cal could see his face was disturbingly pale, drawn. He motioned Cal off a bit from the others.
“Is she suffering?” Cal asked. “I mean, is she in pain?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not physically.” He looked to Tina, and Cal saw that Goldie had joined her, crouching by the sofa, his lips moving softly.
Doc turned back to Cal. “The plan you had before, it was a good plan. Smart people are leaving; they sense what’s in the wind. High time for you to leave, too.”
“And what about you?”
Doc looked toward Tina; pain flashed in his eyes. “Calvin, if my bag of tricks could help her-” He trailed off, shook his head. “Roosevelt General might have use of me. I don’t think they’ll be too picky about credentials.”
Cal thought of the dreadful corridors crowded to bursting with the stunned, frantic ones. “You sure you want that?”
Doc nodded, then fell silent. Cal sensed a tension in him, as if he were deciding whether to speak further. Finally, he said, “There were those in Ukraine-Chernobyl-like a light had gone out in them. They could summon no hope, you understand? And they would want. . an end.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Calvin, your sister, she asked if there was something in my bag that could-she wanted me to-”
The air in the room suddenly felt cold. Cal shivered. Doc’s fingers brushed his arm. “I’m sorry, my friend, but I thought you should know.”
As he drew near the sofa, Cal saw that Tina had fallen asleep. The glow about her was gone and, cradled by gravity, she lay on the deep cushions, her hair like spun glass across the pillow.
Goldie squatted nearby, singing softly to her, a sweet, mournful hymn. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole/ There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. . ”
Seeing Cal, Goldie cut his song off and rose.
“Thanks for finding her,” Cal murmured.
“Hey, Mr. Keene, Finder of Lost. .” Goldie’s voice faltered; he grew serious. “Sorry, man.”
Cal nodded. Goldie left them alone. Cal settled in the tatty burgundy recliner. Tina looked younger than her years and troubled even in repose, as ever. But she was terribly changed.
She wanted to die. Anguish flooded him. A vicious wind was battering her, trying to tumble her away, to sever them.
Whatever caused all this. . it’s calling us, Stern, that psychotic monstrosity, had said. Could it be true? If so, what in God’s name did it want them for?
Cal felt a brightness on his face and jolted awake, realized he had dozed. Tina’s eyes were on him, mosaic tiles, turquoise, unfathomable. Her aurora shimmered outward, and her hair drifted off the cushions as in a current.
“Tina.”
She turned from him, toward the wall. An impotent rage rose in him at her despair. He fought it down, spoke softly. “I couldn’t stop what happened to Ma, I couldn’t keep us safe-but we’re still here.”
“Am I, Cal?” Her eyes found his, and her voice was a whisper. “Am I, really?”
“Yes.” He reached a hand to touch her, but she flinched, gaze averting, and he let it drop. Then, for a reason he could not have given name to, he added, “To the west and the south, there’s a power.”
Startled, she again faced him. “Yes.” There was music in her voice, subtle tones accompanying. Her glance diffused inward, on memory. “In bed when I was little, I’d hear Mama’s records through the wall. It was like the melodies were reaching inside, you know, like they were pulling me.”
“And that’s what this is like?”
She nodded. “Only. . not beautiful. It’s jangly. Scared and angry and sad. Sometimes. . I dunno. Crazy. I hear it all the time, getting louder. Telling me there’s something I have to do.”
“What?”
She shrugged, not knowing. “But if I stopped fighting it, if I let go. .” She looked at her bloodless hands, the nimbus casting shifting colors on her like stormclouds coming. “Near the end, when Nijinsky was in St. Moritz, he went for a walk in the snow at night. He heard a voice; he thought it was God. It told him to jump off a cliff into the darkness, that he wouldn’t fall. . ”
“Did he jump?” Cal asked.
Tina nodded. “A tree caught him; he hadn’t even seen it. He climbed back up, went home. But it was the moment his whole life changed. He went from being what he had been to. . what he became.” Cal thought of the glorious, singular moment that had been Nijinsky at the height of his brilliance and prowess, and the forty years in the asylum that had followed. Tina’s face twisted. “I don’t want to go into that darkness, Cal. I’d rather-rather-”
“I know.” He reached to stroke her starlight hair, and this time she allowed it. The pastel luminescence around her eddied about his fingers, sparkling off them. At the far side of the room, Goldie had settled near Doc and Colleen, strumming his guitar softly, the music drifting with no particular tune.
Within the corona of light, Tina’s eyes had closed again, not sleeping but meditative. She’s hearing it even now, Cal thought, this pitiless force with its grasp on her. Perhaps on all of us.
He wanted to run, take his sister and hide. Some dark hole, some mountain fastness. But where?
Where wouldn’t it find them?
Then suddenly, her words registered. “Tina?”
Her eyes opened.
“It’s getting louder. . stronger?”
She nodded.
“When you say it’s to the west and the south, is that one location, or two?”
She considered, cocking her head, seeming to listen to a sound he could not hear. “Two. The one in the south’s weaker, kind of confused, like it’s-” She intertwined her fingers, pulled at them as if battling.
“In turmoil?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else? I mean, can you tell what it looks like, what it is?”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know, but can you?”
Again, that concentration. “No. Only-there’s these words I keep hearing in my head. Wish. . Heart.”
“Sounds like part of a prayer. What do you think it means?”
“I dunno. Maybe. . it’s a place?”
“A town?”
She took in the thought, searching, but over what unsettled landscape Cal could not guess. At last, she whispered, “South.”
“South,” he repeated. “Tina, is this a place you can find?”
Her face flashed alarm.
“You feel it’s growing stronger. Like something forming, but maybe not formed yet. Supposing-”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. The aura about her flared up bright, and Cal felt an unseen force shove against his chest, press him and his chair several inches away.