Thistle Down

Twenty-one

PHELMA JO NELSON READ THE NOTE that Haywood placed in her hands, not on her desk.

“Free clinic closing January 1 or before.”

Interesting. Haywood had been back and forth between the office and City Hall half a dozen times today. This was the first tidbit of news to intrigue her. Especially since the receptionist from the free clinic sat in front of her.

She schooled her face to make it look like she listened intently while her mind wandered to daydreams of the look on Dusty Carrick’s face when her precious fund-raising Ball was ruined.

“As you can see, we need donations from the entire community.” Janet Boland finally finished her shpiel.

“Donations look good on a resume,” Haywood whispered to Phelma Jo, finally settling behind her left shoulder. “The elderly in this town represent a strong voting contingent come November,” he added so quietly Phelma Jo had to strain to hear him.

She glanced at the note again and read the second line of handwritten text. A bigger idea popped into Phelma Jo’s head.

“You need more than just a few donations now, Ms. Boland. You need a nonprofit corporation with a continuing stream of donations.”

“You are right, Phelma Jo,” Ms. Boland said. “The problem of seniors needing a little extra help will continue and get severe again with the first cold snap and snowstorm. But this is a new project. We only have the resources to start small and temporary. It all came about because of Mrs. Spencer’s collapse-you do remember Mrs. Spencer from fourth grade, don’t you?-and that new girl, Thistle Down. She needs a job and this is something she can do. Actually it’s something she’s good at. She saved Mrs. Spencer’s life. Her intervention might very well save several other valuable voters.” So she had heard Haywood’s comment.

Beside her, Phelma Jo felt Haywood stiffen. Hastily, he wrote a note and passed it to her, keeping his hands below the desk level. “Remind this lady that the clinic is closing, and she’d make a better employee than Thistle.”

Phelma Jo already had that in hand.

“Ms. Boland, I have the staff and resources to set this up. Leave it in my hands.” Phelma Jo smiled her dismissal.

“We need donations now, not six months from now when the paperwork for incorporation clears,” Janet insisted.

“So you do.” Phelma Jo retrieved her personal checkbook in its oxblood leather cover from the desk drawer and scrawled numbers and a signature.

Haywood fidgeted nervously. What was with the man today? One of the reasons she’d hired him was his calm reassurance.

As she put the final flourish on her signature, Phelma Jo’s field of vision seemed to narrow. Darkness encroached from the sides.

She raised her head a moment in alarm. Sparkles replaced the darkness, pretty sparkles in wonderful autumnal colors of gold and green and russet.

“Since the clinic will be closing soon, I suggest we set this corporation up so that you will take the job of checking on the seniors, Ms. Boland. You are much more qualified than Thistle Down. Much easier to obtain a bond on your honesty and integrity. Especially since she has a criminal record under another name. Something to do with gang violence and vandalism.”

“The clinic is closing?” Janet seemed to wilt. Her mouth gaped in stunned astonishment. She might not have heard the second statement after the shock of the first. “They can’t do that to the community. Why weren’t the employees told first?”

“Not my decision. I just heard about it. But if I were you, I’d start checking my options. In this town there aren’t many.” Phelma Jo ripped the check off the pad and handed it to the woman with great satisfaction. “There, that should get things rolling.”

Janet Boland took the paper without even looking at it as she stumbled out of the office.

“Haywood, get on that nonprofit setup.”

“Certainly, Phelma Jo. I’ll make sure you are listed as primary trustee and registered agent. You can list this charity at the top of your good works in the mayoral campaign literature. It will look as if the whole thing was your idea.”

“And put Ms. Boland’s name as the sole employee.”

“Already done. The Carricks will get no credit for this, and Thistle Down will be unemployed, homeless, and probably in jail by nightfall.”

“When did you learn to read, Thistle?” Dick asked when they left the City Council meeting together.

Dusty and Chase wandered off together in animated conversation.

Several things today were hanging at in Dick’s mind. He addressed the first of them to the woman walking beside him.

“I’ve always been able to read some. Just not well,” she said, looking away with a blush.

“The Pixie I knew as a child couldn’t read, had no need to.” Was that disappointment, suspicion, or anger rising up to nearly choke him?

“It’s something we all have to learn eventually,” she said, still not looking directly at him. “Dusty taught me a lot more than street signs could. She had nothing better to do with her time while she was sick. And she was so lonely being homeschooled that teaching me basic reading and numbers helped her pass the time. Kept her mind active when she was too tired to do her own schoolwork.”

“Oh… I thought… I don’t know what to think.”

“I truly am a Pixie in exile. I am, Dick. You were the first to believe me. Why don’t you now?” Then she turned those fabulous purple eyes up to him. Moisture made bright drops on her lashes that caught the overhead lights and turned to sparkling crystals.

He stumbled on the smooth marble floor. He wanted to fall deeply into those eyes, allow his soul to merge with hers. He wanted all the hopes and promises she held out to him.

“You told me that Pixies can’t read.”

“I was young then. I hadn’t ventured much beyond The Ten Acre Wood. But later, when I did, Alder showed me street signs and how to puzzle out the symbols so they meant something. I knew all the streets and the stop signs, and even when to cross on a green light.” She nibbled on her lip. “Then Dusty taught me more. I know that her museum is the Skene County Historical Museum, and that I landed in Memorial Fountain-named because it’s dedicated to the men from Skene Falls who died during World War I. I know this because I read the signs and I understand them. Just as I read the paper you gave me last night. What did you think when you wrote out my statement? That Dusty would make me memorize it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I thought you’d bring it to me and I’d help. But then the explosion happened, and I didn’t think anymore.” Hope blossomed inside Dick, soothing a bit of the irritation.

“Dusty found the paper on the computer desk when we got home. It had my name on it, so she gave it to me. I read it over and over and over until I knew it and could speak it without hesitation because you needed me to be strong and confident when I said it. Dusty helped me with some of the bigger words, but I read most of it by myself, because I needed to help you, be your friend.”

“I… um…” How did he express his doubts?

“You can’t sign that contract! You’ll ruin this town if you do,” a strange voice hissed around them; distant but still clear and precise. Obviously spoken loudly, with vehemence, muted by distance and mazes of walls and vents between them and the voice.

“I’ll be saving this town if I do.”

“Who said that?” Dick asked.

“Where did he say that?” Thistle added to his question.

They both looked around. The big room was empty, all the exit doors closed to keep the natural air-conditioning inside.

“If you were still a Pixie, how would you find the speakers?” Dick asked quietly, so that his words wouldn’t carry as clearly as the other man’s.

Thistle pointed to a small grate up near the ten-foothigh ceiling.

“Chase said this place was full of redundant ventilation shafts and whispering corners,” Dick mused.

“I think I can follow the sounds,” Thistle said.

“How? You’re too big to fit inside.”

“Because I’ve done it before. I know the path of that shaft. Come on.” She grabbed his hand and led him to the exit right under the grating.

The strength of her grip tingled all the way to his shoulder. A sense of well-being and purpose filled him. The muted light seemed to sparkle with life and energy.

Enthusiastically, he matched her running pace as they headed up a nearly forgotten staircase full of spiderwebs and dust that made him sneeze. His footsteps creaked on the aging wooden risers. He kept his left hand tight on the banister in case something gave way. Thistle still claimed possession of his right hand.

She bounced lightly up each step hardly making a sound or raising a puff of dust.

Thistle paused at the first landing. She looked up, pressing her ear against the wall. Then, on a giggle, she pointed to the next grating. Dick guessed that it was placed directly above the one in the ground-floor meeting room.

“Onward and upward,” he said, and sneezed.

“Shush.” She placed a finger on her lips, then touched his own with the same finger.

He kissed the finger. Instinct or impulse?

She smiled, then set forth again, moving up the next set of steps. She kept her gaze on the internal wall. But she kept flicking pleased glances toward him.

He couldn’t watch anything but her, the way her hips swayed beneath the draped skirt of her green-and-white outfit, the way her slender feet barely caressed each step, the luster of her hair, even in this dim and forgotten back stairwell. She seemed to float. Or fly.

The close air made him a bit dizzy. He thought he saw double leaf-shaped wings across her back. And had her skin turned faintly lavender?

He closed his eyes and shook his head briefly. If her capillaries were very close to the skin and suffused with blood, her naturally pale face would take on more color, he told himself. When he looked again, all seemed normal. Just a trick of the light and the windowless stairwell on a hot and humid day.

God, he wished it would rain.

“Here,” Thistle whispered. She stood with her ear pressed close to a steel fire door.

Dick noticed that she kept a few careful inches between herself and the metal. Her hand reached for the door lever, but she jerked it back as if burned.

“Is that a not-so-subtle way of saying a gentleman should always open a door for a lady?” He tried the latch. It refused to budge. He jiggled it a bit. It still resisted pressure.

“We’re locked out. And that’s a major violation of fire codes,” he muttered, standing back a bit and surveying the door from all angles, as if that would give him some clues for getting through it.

“Let me try something,” Thistle said quietly. She swallowed deeply and pressed her finger close to the tiny key slit in the handle.

Suddenly the entire stairwell filled with sparkling lights, dancing and arcing in magnificent whorls and spirals.

Dick’s mouth opened. “Is that Pixie dust?”

“I… I… help,” Thistle moaned. Her arm flexed again and again as she tried to remove her finger from the lock.

“What?” Dick hung back, uncertain what he needed to do.

“Help me. The iron…” Thistle slumped, her finger still stuck to the metal. The bright starbursts moved faster, more frantic and erratic in their patterns as they faded.

“Huh?” Dick caught her around the waist, then gently grabbed her wrist and pulled. Her hand came away with a popping sound.

The whirling, colored pinpoints of light vanished. Thistle collapsed against him, head lolling on his shoulder.

He held her tightly, too worried about her paler than usual face and rapid but shallow breathing to relish the close contact.

After a moment she stirred, eyelashes fluttering as if awakening from a deep sleep. “Thank you.”

“What do you need?”

“Water.” Her voice sound weak and scratchy.

“Down we go, then. I know where the water fountain is on the ground floor. Can you walk?”

“I… I think so.” She broke away from him and took one step. Her knees buckled.

He caught her as she slid toward the edge of the steps. “Um, maybe you should sit. I’ll go find you a bottle of water.” He guided her onto the first step and sat beside her.

“Don’t leave me alone.” She clung to his suit jacket lapels with new intensity.

“Never.” He looked into her deep purple eyes, losing his concentration in their luminosity. “Thistle,” he breathed.

“Dick.” She looked up at him, mouth slightly parted.

A new awareness wrapped them in an isolation bubble. Nothing existed but the flowery scent of her skin, the warmth of her body pressed against him, and the tingles of excitement bubbling in his veins.

As if drawn together by magnets, he lowered his mouth to hers as she reached up to him. The first touch invited more. He deepened the kiss. They melted together. As she opened her mouth to accept him, he forgot where he ended and she began. The lines of self dissolved.

Gradually they withdrew, lingering here, renewing there. Until finally he remembered to breathe. Still she clung to him.

He wasn’t sure he could stand on his own.

“If you’d just hold me up a while. That little bit of magic drained me terribly.” She rested her forehead on his chest.

“Magic, huh? That kiss was magic.” He lifted her chin with his finger and coaxed her into another softer, more tender kiss.

She withdrew before he did and looked at the door, puzzled.

“Pixie dust should open any lock. I’ve never met resistance like that, no matter how much iron was in the lock.”

“What would do that?” He brought them both up to their feet again, pinning her to his side with an arm around her waist.

“Another Pixie locked it.”

“Another Pixie?” Dick needed to sit again. The world spun crazily for a moment. Logic and preconceived notions crashed against her words like matter and antimatter in a supercollider.

“Another Pixie is working against us.”

“Who?” He looked around the stairwell half expecting to see a tiny being flitting about, laughing at their antics. He blushed that their kiss might have been observed.

“If I knew who, I’d know how to counter it. If I was still a Pixie.” She studied her fingers.

“I think you’re still a Pixie, just a little disoriented. That sparkling dust wasn’t normal.”

“It’s just a trick. Not real magic. Not like enticing clouds our way and tickling them until they spill rain like laughter.”

“You can do that?”

“Silly, not anymore. I’m human now. I have limits. But that other Pixie doesn’t. He’s got more power than a Pixie should have.” She paled again. “The magic tasted… hot like fire. Like Faery magic, not Pixie tricks.”

“Well we aren’t going to find out anything trapped in this stairwell. We need to get you outside and find you something to drink.” He dropped a kiss on her nose and gently led her downstairs and back into reality.