“What did you give him?”
“Fresh Devon clotted cream. I thought he deserved something nice, too. ” The man rubbed at the back of his head, scratching his scalp through the floppy cap. Looking on idly while the girls squabbled for samples of Rose’s everyberry ice cream, Simwan did his best to make conversation. “Your stuff is good. I mean, really, really good. On a sunny day you must get a lot of customers.”
The man shrugged. “Some days are good, some are slow. Location is everything in this business. Baghdad in the time of the caliphs, now that was truly good for the coffee business. And outside the grand mosque in the days of Suleiman the Magnificent I hardly had time to chat, so busy was I brewing. Or for the Soongs—that was a proper dynasty, I tell you. As for the Mak-ah, of all the rulers of Chichen-Itza, they were the ones who were serious about their hot chocolate.” He winked conspiratorially.
“In the same way, I could tell as soon as your first sister asked for her tea that you five were not your usual stroll-in-the-park family.” He glanced meaningfully upward. “Young travelers such as yourselves must have a very important reason for being out on a gloomy, wet day like this.”
Though instantly on guard, Simwan had the feeling he could trust this omniscient vendor of snacks. “We’re looking for someone who took something that belongs to our family and was being looked after by a friend.”
“I see. Well, don’t tell me about it. If you don’t tell me, then I can’t tell anyone else, no matter how they put the question to me.” He gestured at Simwan’s cup. “Want a refill? Half price.”
No fool even at his age, and realizing that if he lived to be two hundred he might never taste coffee this good again, Simwan immediately agreed.
“What do I owe you?” he finally remembered to ask, as Rose’s shrinking scoop of ice cream was reduced to its final four flavors.
“Hmm.” The proprietor considered. “Three drinks, one coffee refill, one ice cream, single scoop.” He smiled down at Pithfwid. The cat was sitting back on its haunches and using a paw to clean its face and whiskers. Glancing up at the man, he put the paw over his mouth, burped a delicate compliment, and methodically resumed his grooming.
“That’s a dollar each. Four dollars, please. The cream for the kitty was a gift because I like cats. They have gourmet taste buds, don’t you know, and many’ve been the time I’ve asked a cat to check an ingredient of mine to see if it had gone bad.
Simwan looked stunned. “That’s all? Four dollars?” He indicated his sisters, who were dumping their empty cups into the plastic trash bag that was clipped to one end of the cart. “For—everything?”
The man smiled as he took the five-dollar bill from Simwan and made change. “I get more joy out of seeing special customers like yourselves enjoy something than I do from the selling of it. You can put a price on someone else’s food, but not on their pleasure.” Leaning over the center of the cart between the pretzel and churro warmers, he lowered his voice. “Keep heading north, beware the Reservoir, and you should find the one you’re looking for.”
“What?” Startled, Simwan started to reply—only to find himself staring into the trees and bushes. The snack cart, with its wondrous cornucopia of smells and lights, was gone. As was its smiling, all-knowing, mysterious operator. Around Simwan and his sisters all was quiet again except for the feathery fairy patter of falling rain. Even the air seemed thick and muffled.
“Good ice cream,” a cheery Rose finally proclaimed into the silence.
“Best tea I ever had,” confessed N/Ice. Turning away from the place where the cart had been, she started northward into the middle reaches of the park. Her sisters flanking her on either side, their rapid-fire conversation turned back to the plot of a certain TV show and the possible paths its central storyline might take in the coming weeks.
Simwan happened to look down. Four black streaks on the path’s pavement indicated where the snack cart’s tires had rested only moments earlier. Even in the rain, the streak marks looked as if they had been made by flame and not rubber. As he stared at them they began to fade, washed away by something considerably less prosaic or obvious than running water. Each time a bit of blackness disappeared, it was in a flash of splintered light, like a cheap Fourth-of-July sparkler flaring out.
He felt a pull on his end of the leash he was holding. Pithfwid was looking up at him and tugging with some urgency. Turning away from the dissipating wheel marks, he followed coubet and cat into the mist. His thoughts should have been on the way ahead, but they were not. After all, he was only sixteen. So instead of concentrating on what threats and dangers might yet lie before him, all he could think of was the phenomenal coffee he had imbibed, Amber’s remarkable hot chocolate, N/Ice’s narcotizingly marvelous tea, Rose’s everyberry ice cream, and the special gift the cart’s operator had affectionately placed before Pithfwid. All that, and one last, lingering regret.
I should have bought a pretzel, he told himself. No telling what that might have tasted like.
XVI
As the Deavys approached the middle portion of the park called Cedar Hill, they saw nothing out of the ordinary. The intermittent rain and drizzle had given way to a cloying fog that seemed more appropriate to San Francisco than Central Park. Though no other afternoon visitors were visible, any number could have been present just out of sight, swallowed up by and hidden within the hovering mist. It dampened not only vision but sound, rendering the ceaseless hum and honk of traffic on Fifth Avenue barely audible. That was one of the great virtues of the park: It provided a refuge from the sounds as well as the sights of the great city.
A certain number of those sights were not visible to the vast swarm of Ords who called Manhattan home. The proper perceiving of these concealed places of interest was the province of those who had been trained to look a little more carefully at things, to probe a little deeper than their ordinary friends and neighbors. Though still young, every one of the Deavy brood had acquired that ability. So it was that they all saw the Bruise at the same time.
It occupied the west-facing side of a hill that was topped by red cedars. In place of wet green grass, a wide swath of dull brown and sepia showed where a broad swatch of growth had been severely damaged. To a passing Ord, everything would have looked normal. Only Simwan and his sisters saw the hurt underneath as they drew near. The vegetation here had been wounded, though by what unnatural force they were unable to tell.
Halting at the edge of the injury, Rose gently extended one leg and lowered her foot down onto what to an Ord would have appeared to be grass no different from that growing anywhere else in the park. A feeble, faint moan rose from the ground and from the brown, half-dead grass blades that immediately recoiled from her foot, in obvious pain. She quickly stepped back.
“Something bad happened here.” Peering warily into the smothering fog, Amber saw nothing that could be construed as threatening. Whatever had damaged this hillside was no longer present.
Kneeling, N/Ice ran her fingers gingerly through the nearest strands of scruffy turf. Even the weeds that poked hopeful heads up above the grass showed signs of injury. “Whatever did this has moved on.” Still crouching, she tried to take in the full extent of the damage. “I don’t see any indication that this lawn is going to recover properly any time soon.” Straightening, she wiped moisture from her fingers. “At least, not without help.”
“Well, it’s not our business,” Simwan murmured halfheartedly as he started to look for a way around the damaged hillside. “We can wonder about it, but we can’t linger.” He glanced skyward. Though the fog blocked out all but a suggestion of sunshine, he knew from his watch that the day had already sunk well into afternoon. They still had a long way to go to reach the area where the Crub might be found.
His sisters eyed one another. As usual, their communal compassion exceeded their collective common sense. “We can’t just leave it like this,” Rose implo
red him. “The ebb and flow of life here has been hit hard.”
Amber nodded. “Mom always told us to help living things whenever we could, ’cause that’s a good that always comes back to you.”
“She told you the same thing,” N/Ice finished as she stared meaningfully at her brother.
Rolling his eyes, Simwan looked down at Pithfwid for support. “What do you think?”
The cat considered the feebly moaning hillside. “Personally, I’m just as happy in dirt as on grass. But you can’t eat dirt. And if we lend assistance—assuming we can actually do anything for this dreadfully bruised bit of earth—those we help might in turn be able to narrow our course.”
Simwan made a face as he gestured at the hillside. “This is grass. You can’t talk to grass.”
Eyes that were the color of cut amethyst stared up at him. “Speak for yourself. All living things have ways of communicating.” Lowering his gaze, Pithfwid looked past him. “If you girls want to give it a try, I see no harm in making the effort. But be quick about it.”
That was enough for the coubet. While Simwan simmered, reduced to watching his watch and bemoaning the loss of ever-diminishing daylight, the girls debated how best to proceed. Healing spells were discussed, revivifying enchantments gone over, rejuvenation magicks analyzed. In the end, it was an impatient Pithfwid who finally suggested a possible course of action.
“A couple of dump-truck loads of good-quality fertilizer would seem the best answer, but only to Ords.” Waving a paw, he indicated the fog-swept hillside with its stand of red cedars brooding helplessly on the heights. “What’s needed here most of all is the kind of cleansing innocence that will wash away the foulness that has so badly bruised this piece of earth.” The cat regarded his trio of female humans. “I know it will require a great effort on your part, but do you three think you can muster up a few moments of innocence?”
Taken aback, the girls eyed one another uncertainly.
N/Ice looked toward the patch of tormented turf. “I’m not innocent. But I remember what it is. I swear that I do.” She eyed her sisters, each in turn. “If we can remember it, we can bring it back—if only for a little while.” She smiled softly, hopefully. “We can at least try.” She held out her hands.
Rose took one, Amber the other. This time forming a line instead of a circle, the three sisters advanced as gingerly as they could, stepping out onto the anguished vegetation. As their feet contacted the injured growth, the moaning from below grew louder. But it was restrained, as if the grass and flowers and weeds were aware of what was intended, and were doing their best to stifle back their pain.
Forming a circle on the wounded hillside, the girls sat down as carefully as they could and crossed their legs. Still holding hands, they lowered their heads toward one another until they were nearly touching. The sisters exchanged a single long, lingering glance. Though no words were spoken, the concurrent communication was complete. Simultaneously, they closed their eyes and began to murmur softly in unison.
Standing on the healthy grass that bordered the Bruise, Simwan looked on with a mix of admiration and affection. Sure, he and his sisters fought all the time. And sure, as the only guy, when it came to arguments or discussions he was always outnumbered. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love them, and even occasionally think highly of them. As visiting aunts and uncles and elderly cousins were fond of pointing out, even among the small and tightly knit population of non-Ords, the Deavy coubet was something special.
They were exhibiting that uniqueness now.
Often brash and bratty, irksome and chatty, the coubet underwent a gradual, subtle transformation as profound as it was inclusive. Touches of gaudy, trendy makeup faded away, to reveal underneath complexions as pure as polar snow. Rose’s blond hair turned to pure gold, Amber’s became auburn, N/Ice’s metamorphosed to silver. Not gray, as an Ord onlooker would assume, but true silver, chased and chaste, as untarnished as that to be found in any royal crown. Their contemporary attire vanished, replaced by floating capes of white laced with gold: capes that fluttered and soared like the wings of the wandering albatross—and this in the complete absence of wind.
A torus of bright radiance appeared above their heads, its nexus hovering at the exact midpoint between them. Pure white at first, it changed with the slow, solemn chanting of the sisters to a pale, then to a darker green: a lambent emerald hue as profound and mysterious as the color of the deepest rain forest. When it had achieved the intensity of green fire, the three Deavy siblings raised their heads, opened their eyes, and gazed at it fixedly. Rose’s eyes had assumed the blueness of a New Orleans funeral march played in January rain, Amber’s had turned as dark red-brown as the heart of cocobolo, and N/Ice’s … N/Ice’s eyes were like the overhanging brow of an Antarctic glacier where it gazes out onto the Southern Ocean.
Amber murmured something. Rose added to it. N/Ice swirled it all together into a single cohesive command. The green torus flashed, expanding outward in all directions at once, forcing both Simwan and Pithfwid to look away momentarily. Shattering into a million billion miniscule particles, the turbulent, roiling greenness sifted to the ground where it was gratefully absorbed by dead and dying grasses and other desperate vegetation.
Capes vanished, to be replaced once more by jackets and jeans. Blond curls and familiar eyes were once more the order of the day. The girls rose and started back down the slope to rejoin Pithfwid and their brother. All around them, comforted by the mist and reassured by the coubet’s magic, the hill was rapidly regenerating. Healthy green grass replaced dead brown stalks. Weeds reasserted their grip on the soil and fought their way upward. Bunches of flowers erupted like rainbow popcorn. The sisters had done a good thing. Nearly overdone it, Simwan decided.
It was going to be a puzzled landscape worker indeed who sometime in the course of the following week stumbled across a clump of Peruvian ground orchids sprouting amid a patch of dandelions.
“Much better.” Rose hiked the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder. Her flaxen hair had regained its previous chic, garish tinting.
As they made their way away from Cedar Hill and toward the eastern edge of Turtle Pond, they were illuminated by a few moments of sunlight. Forcing its way through the October cloud cover, the sudden glow warmed them as well as their surroundings.
They continued walking while, overhead, the clouds had once more quietly come together, shutting out any view of the canyonlike skyscrapers that walled in the park. Along with the rethickening of the atmosphere came the threat of renewed rain. Mimicking Pithfwid’s actions, if not his actuality, Simwan checked the very real timepiece on his right wrist.
“It’s getting late, and we haven’t even made it halfway through the park. I don’t want to go back to Uncle Herkimer’s and have to start all over again tomorrow morning.”
Somehow Simwan knew that this might be their only chance to find the Truth. And save their mother.
And they went on.
XVII
The undergrowth in the vicinity of Turtle Pond was much thicker than anything the Deavys had previously encountered in the park. With its weeds and reeds, its dense bush rows, and the many trees that overhung the narrow winding path that was leading them northward, it was a haunting reminder of the beloved woods behind their house back home in Clearsight.
Though the familiar look and smell of the place made them all momentarily homesick, it served as a useful reminder of why they had come to New York: to recover and bring back the Truth so that the ordinary citizens of their hometown would no longer be blinded by the unctuous lies and flashy multimedia presentations of the would-be developers, and would realize anew why they needed to get out and vote against the proposed mall and its related urban expansion. Without the Truth, the Deavy’s town, their home, and their mother might not survive.
On the map of the park that Simwan carried, Turtle Pond was not a particularly
daunting patch of water. But the map was an Ord map, and they were advancing through a landscape that was a swirling, mist-shrouded jumble of Ord and non-Ord reality.
So they were surprised but not shocked to find that Turtle Pond now extended all the way across the park from west to east. Or maybe it was just that the recent rain had raised the pond to such a level that it had overflowed. However, it was not the water that held up their advance. It was the Pond’s namesakes.
Now, it was not unreasonable to anticipate encountering turtles in a place called Turtle Pond. One might even expect to find them if looking beyond the boundaries of the Pond itself. A wandering turtle here, a couple of feeding turtles there. What brought the Deavys to a halt were not a turtle here and a couple there, however, but dozens of them. Hundreds, even. Some were not moving while others rushed about at frantic velocities that approached two miles per hour. Simwan could have hopped around the fastest of them on one leg. Backward.
Except that he could not get around them because they were stacked on top of one another, in some places as high as a hill. In others, only a couple of turtles blocked the Deavys’ path. But those couple might consist of Galápagos or Aldabra tortoises: enormous animals weighing hundreds of pounds. Calling on her studies in Mrs. Coulter’s Biology class, Rose reminded her siblings that all turtles and tortoises could bite. Some, like the Mississippi alligator snapping turtle, had jaws that could snap a broomstick in half. Or a misplaced arm.
Though they searched to left and right, they could find no opening of any kind in the solid wall of turtles, tortoises, and terrapins. As usual, it was left to Pithfwid to point out the obvious.
“Let’s talk to them,” the cat suggested, retreating a few cautious steps as one mud-coated muck mauler threatened to snap in their direction.