“Are you going to knock?” Martin asked her.
She rapped the door so softly she doubted her knuckles had made contact.
“For crying out loud.” Martin slammed the knocker three times against its bronze plate. A door shut somewhere inside and Teresa took a step back.
“It’s going to be fine.” He took her by the arm.
She said, “Maybe this was stupid. We could go begging for change—”
The door opened.
Teresa couldn’t deny this woman was her mother. This woman was an older Teresa with flowing gunmetal hair, eyes set sharper and owl-like, no possibility for humor. Had her mother been born to this world, her features may have been described as Hispanic, but no, the soft nose and subtle cheekbones were in an exotic class of their own.
“Here to serve the papers?” Her voice was in need of oiling though.
“Are you Mrs. Abigail Celeste?” Teresa asked.
The door closed an inch. “Should be.”
Teresa tried a smile. “I’m your daughter, Teresa.”
“My daughter was kidnapped when she was a teenager.”
“There’s no reason to put on an act. You knew where I was going that day, mom. We were all together when I left. Why not let us in for a minute, so we can talk?”
Teresa waited a moment but the old woman looked frozen. “Abigail,” said Teresa, “I’d like to come in a while. We had nowhere else to turn. There are a few things we need to discuss before we get back on the road.”
Abigail’s resolve drained from her face. “You weren’t supposed to come back.
Ever
.”
“Things have changed, you see—”
“So I see. You’re sheet white. You look bad, not just older.” The woman appraised her with eyes that could blanch the skin off an apple. Then she turned on Martin. “And who is this? He’s not the black one you left with before.”
“David passed away about eighteen years back,” she said softly.
Abigail’s cruel eyes boiled but Teresa bulldozed her way inside. The old lady shuffled away, astonished, as Martin followed with an apologetic grin.
“I should call the cops,” Abigail pointed out, slamming the door.
“You won’t call anyone,” answered Teresa. She changed the subject. “I see the Caddy still gets waxed every week.”
“I have an immigrant kid do that.”
“Dad’s not—?”
She sniggered. “He’s not dead. Just gone.”
“Is he coming back soon?”
“To hell with him. Just tell me what you need so you can be on your way.”
Teresa brought up two hard coughs into her fist and swallowed down the pain. “He’s my father—this was my only chance to see him again.”
“Oh fine and dandy, you just want me to open up my business to a complete stranger, is that it?”
“I’m
not
a stranger,” Teresa shot back. Martin steadied at her side.
“Do you want to know how he left me? It’s a good story. I tell everybody. It just amazes the hell out of me for some reason.” An angry light flickered behind her eyes. Abigail took two steps closer to them and they both went rigid. “I was at the table with a mouthful of pancakes. I couldn’t even answer the son of a bitch. Like he planned it that way! Serves me right, I guess, my blood sugar and all. I hadn’t even finished swallowing before the front door shut. Talk about a quick getaway.”
“Why did he go?”
Abigail didn’t have any interest in the question. “The wetback kid also takes a Polaroid of the car to send to your father. I write threats at the bottom about rubbing bird shit into the paint with some
Brillo
Pads, but it doesn’t faze him like it might once have. Maybe one of these days I’ll get the nerve to just set the thing on fire. That’ll be a nice shot. I think I’ll do it landscape.” She crossed her arms over her sheep pajamas. Something hit Teresa then. “You didn’t recognize me. You thought we were here serving divorce papers?”
“Yeah,” her mother replied blithely. “Bastard’s in Texas, went to some red-headed whore who could stomach his bullshit, not to mention his retirement check and real estate.”
“Dad’s into real estate?”
“Interested are you? Did you come here to learn about him? Why don’t I send you to the source? I can give you his address. Then you can leave me to my crossword puzzles.”
“We’re actually here for money,” Martin cut in. “I’d like to say we’d pay you back, but it would be a lie.”
“Oh, the truth! How wonderful it is to hear,” the old woman sang.
Teresa shook her head. “Aren’t you happy to see me? It’s nice to see you.”
Martin smirked but said nothing.
Abigail hitched over to a small kitchen area and sat at a round table where a bottle of butterscotch syrup and a half-eaten breakfast rested. The bacon looked cold and deformed. Teresa and Martin grabbed a pair of uncomfortable wrought iron stools at the bar. Abigail lifted a coffee mug with a smiling duck painted on the side.
“Martin likes coffee,” Teresa hinted.
“That so?”
Martin shrugged.
“Well, there’s a Starbucks down the street. Have at it.”
Teresa’s eyes narrowed. “What are you mad at? That dad left? Or that I did? I came here to tell you that I’m sick. I don’t have much time left—this might be our last chance for words.”
“I thought you were here for money.”
“We are,” Martin assured. “We don’t have a penny. We haven’t eaten, and there are important matters headed our way.”
Teresa’s throat went dry. “I just wanted to say that over these years I thought about you and dad all the time. I missed you. I’ve been here a few times before, but I was too afraid to come inside. I wondered—I sometimes wondered what my life would have been if the Messenger hadn’t chosen me.”
“Well I never wanted to remember you, Teresa.” The woman winced, obviously not prepared to say something so acerbic. “What would be the reason? The letter told me I would never see you again. The Messenger doesn’t lie. And here you are, after all this time, back to beg for dollars.”
“The letter said you
shouldn’t
ever see me again. Do you remember that you told me to come back if I needed help?”
“Did I say that? Well if I did, I was wrong. It’s best not to finagle different meanings from the Messenger’s letters. His word’s usually plain.”
“You think the Messenger’s a man?” asked Martin. He was always interested in this subject.
“Of course he is,” Abigail replied, “he’s obviously got a heart the size of a cherry pit. I don’t need any other proof.”
Tears waded in Abigail’s bloodshot eyes while the old woman sipped some more coffee. Teresa looked away. Her voice sounded dry, but her words felt stronger than intended. “What does life mean without family?”
Abigail raised her thin eyebrows. “Family?
Family
did you say? Families go away. Our situation is not as unique as you want to believe. When you were a little girl I never told you anything about my life because I didn’t want to scare you. See, I lived in the Old Domain until I was seventeen, with six brothers and eight sisters, a mother and father. I would have
died
to protect every last one of them. Now I can barely remember their names, but I remember feeling my loyalty.
“So the Messenger sent word about temporary gateways, kept secret from the Church. The letter arrived a day after my womanhood trials. I was to be a concubine to the Church of Morning if I didn’t leave as soon as possible. My oldest brother had to invoke the gateway and I believe it twisted his body in such a way that he probably died shortly after I came here.
“But something had to be done. Hearts were dying every year. The harvests were sickeningly effective back then. Hell, back then the Nomads were born earthbound without your power. The Nomads of my time had only their wits to survive on and it wasn’t enough to avoid Chaplain Cloth and his children. My destiny and those of many others were sealed. Do you think it was easy? Hardly. But I said goodbye to my family at almost the same age you did. Because I had to, Teresa.”
Abigail picked up a remote control and a flipped on a small TV on the kitchen counter to a game show. She tapped the volume down a little before dropping the remote next to her plate.
“Your father had already lived in Arizona for eleven years when I crossed over. He remembers less of our birthplace, which has caused him to be foolishly idealistic. He remembers only good things about that place, none of which were actually
good
but he recalls them that way. I realize I escaped something terrible. I’m happy here, and yet, here I’m indentured to seclusion.”
“Would you ever go back?” asked Martin, not hiding his curiosity.
“I’ve tasted
nightfire
and one taste is enough. This world has its own insanities, but you can avoid them more easily.” Her gray gaze wandered. “I miss certain things though. The quiet of the Onyx wilderness, the splendor of the Castle of Trees, the
Olathu
Ocean stretching off into the night. Every day of my youth it seemed I peered into the silver wells to pick
jellyroot
from the sides, sometimes until my fingers bled. I won’t see such things ever again... although I will dream. And then one day it won’t matter; I’ll lay face-first in a pancake, or trip over a brick in my rose garden—I’ll die doing the same things I’ve done for the past fifty years.”
“You have an interesting way of—”
“Putting things?” Abigail finished and nodded. “Of course I do. What else do I have, other than levity? Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my puzzles and there’s a show on.”
Teresa slowly stood from her stool. Martin rose to join her. “We won’t bother you any further,” she said, and meant every word.
Abigail slid a wallet off the counter and with two fingers forked a collection of twenties from inside, then a yellow business card. Her withered hand held out the offering. Teresa didn’t budge, but Martin cheerfully took what they’d come for and nodded his thanks.
“Look your father up when you get the chance. I’m sure he would enjoy seeing you.”
Teresa glanced away and concentrated on keeping her eyes bone dry. “I would… but this was my last chance to say goodbye.”
“That’s what you think.” Abigail huffed. “I thought we already had our last goodbye.”
“I didn’t have cancer then.”
Martin stiffened at the word, but Abigail’s frostiness did not thaw. “Try to see him. I think your father will do a sight better at showing how much he’s missed you. I’m fairly sure of that.”
Teresa had once imagined a long-awaited embrace, but she only said, “Maybe we’ll meet again on the other side of here and there.”
“I wonder what that would be like?” Abigail turned her face down for a deep sip of coffee.
They were gone when she came back up.
Everything was stone to Cole. With Paul Quintana softly snoring in the back of the limousine and Melissa driving in her early morning fugue state, Cole had time to meditate on the liquor stores whipping past, followed by the check cashing convenience stores, the
carniceria
meat markets, the dollar stores. There were only abandoned buildings where they were going. Abandoned buildings with abandoned people and abandoned pride—abandoned spirit. Cole knew his job would be to find a core and blow life into it, make it grow. The new
Church
of
Midnight
would make this world vital again. He was worthy of this challenge. It was his vision. In the end, foremost, he would have Melissa at his side.
He looked over at her. She drove with two fingers on the wheel and her elbow poised on the driver’s door. In the morning Cole avoided trying to get a word out of her until eleven o’clock and even then she could be bitter as all hell if she wasn’t caffeinated. Cole had only been with acolytes before her, all of them begging to be given their suits and secured in the Inner Circle. He’d always planned to cut those women loose eventually. There hadn’t been anything there. Melissa was different, but he still wondered what her intentions were. If she didn’t love him, if she was like the others, she was the best actress of the lot. Melissa claimed to be a virgin, and made love like a virgin their first time. It wasn’t impossible. But there’d been rumors about her and Paul Quintana.
Cole ripped that thought out of his head. He glanced over his shoulder to the man in the back seat who slept with his mouth wide open. Cole could sympathize with him a little. He’d rather stomp a baby to death than endure another series of marrow seed hallucinations—from ten years ago Cole still remembered his own trial too clearly, and although he’d since trained his mind, the nightmares rang true from time to time.
Paul recovered quicker than Cole had and he immediately learned the mental exercises. The exertion had put Paul to sleep and there were lessons yet to be administered, but for Cole, things were looking up. Quintana would perform the Heralding. The children already called to him—he was a sure thing. Justin Margrave couldn’t do half as much after months of practicing. Still, the Heralding could kill Paul. Live or die, both outcomes would accomplish what Cole had to get done. With Paul’s fortitude, it would
work
. This morning he had to prove himself, of course.