Prairie Poltergeist Read online

  She thought, then, on how privileged her upbringing had been. Hers was a noble Malvern family, their name familiar to those on the High Council and the upper levels of the Druwish bureaucracy. She and her sister, Cynthia, were sent to the best private schools in England, where they learned how to function in high society. Garden parties at the family estate and Mediterranean holidays were events she remembered most. Ember felt almost embarrassed to compare her family’s luxurious lifestyle to that which the Schmitt ancestors must have lived.

  She also could not help but envy them—at least a little. Through their shared struggles just to stay alive, the Schmitts and others like them forged bonds across the generations. Ember would never have that sort of relationship with her family.

  “Uncle Rik, why didn’t you want to be a coyote?” Maxim asked.

  “Being farm kids, we grew up thinking that coyotes are vermin,” Alarik explained. “It’s open season on them, you know. Completely legal to shoot coyotes on sight, wherever you are in the countryside. Coyotes kill baby calves, they lure dogs and cats and other pets to ambush them. They’re a nuisance to farming folk.”

  “But you don’t do any of those things,” Marta said with a frown. “You’d never hurt anyone.”

  It was subtle, his reaction: a hint of sadness, perhaps remorse. Alarik dismissed the expression and smiled down at his niece. “I’ve hurt people. Plenty of people. I’m not proud of it.”

  “Were they bad people?”

  “I think so, yeah.” Alarik’s umber eyes glanced at Ember before flicking back to his niece and nephew. “Sometimes in life, you have to do things you don’t want to, but you do it to protect the people you love.”

  “Coyotes are loyal to their pack,” Ember said, almost involuntarily. “They may not look as impressive as a wolf or a grizzly, but they’re just as clever and they’re more adaptable than both.” Realizing she offered her thoughts aloud, Ember flushed slightly and crossed her arms. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Alarik reassured her with a smile that made her neck redden further.

  The twins were oblivious to the exchange. Maxim said, “Uncle Boni’s a fox because he’s clever. Aunt Anna is a golden eagle, because she’s fierce. Mom’s a mink because…I guess she likes swimming?”

  “Minks are territorial, too,” Marta added. “That means they protect what’s theirs.”

  “Sure sounds like Mom,” Maxim agreed. “I think I’d like to be an eagle, like Auntie. It would be so much fun to fly!”

  “That’s possible,” Alarik said. “You’ll just need to keep experimenting with different animal subforms. When you find the one that’s meant for you, you’ll know it. And that day will be your Manifestation Day.”

  Maxim puffed out his chest. “I want to be an elephant!”

  “Possible, but unlikely,” Alarik said. “Usually, changelings shift into animals they’re more familiar with, or which made a big impression on them when they were young.”

  “So maybe I could be a turtle? I like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” The boy found a broom and held it out before him like a bow staff. “Turtle power!”

  “Only warm-blooded animals, Max,” Marta said, exasperated. “Mammals and birds. No reptiles or fishes.”

  “Oh. I forgot.” The boy deflated his chest and dropped the broom.

  “Relax,” Alarik said. “This is your time to experiment and explore. Shift into whatever form you can imagine. Have fun with it while you can; once you’ve found the right subform, you won’t be able to shift into any other.”

  Ember closed her eyes, studying the three Schmitts behind her eyelids. She was the only living mage who possessed the ability to see a changeling’s alternative form. While in human mode, she could see their animal subform. As animals, she plainly saw their human selves. It made for some disorienting experiences, such as when observing a changeling bird in flight.

  As she used this Transmutation Sight, she wondered if any mage—living or dead—ever had the privilege of witnessing what she observed now.

  A nimble sandstone-colored coyote stood in Alarik’s place. She recognized his coyote subform almost as well as she knew the human version of Rik. The hand-carved wooden pendant she wore around her neck was modeled after his coyote visage, after all. Nothing unfamiliar there.

  The twins, on the other hand…

  The auras around Maxim and Marta were vibrant and liquid. Confused, in a word. They had no single animal subform, but a panoply of different creatures, perhaps a half dozen at once overlaid upon one another. Ember recognized every animal conceivable, shifting and fading from one into another in unrelenting progression. Their subforms were a marvelous kaleidoscope of zoology.

  Marta looked up at the mage. “Aunt Ember, what do you think we’ll be?”

  Ember’s lids snapped open, her fire-blue eyes blinking into focus. “Oh, I couldn’t begin to guess—”

  “Maybe a coyote like Uncle Rik?” Maxim asked.

  “Or a dog like Lucky or Marmite?” Marta added.

  Ember slowly shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe you’ll both be monkeys.”

  “Monkeys?” The twins said in unison.

  “Right. I could see that, couldn’t you, Rik?”

  “Now that you mention it, there’s a resemblance,” Alarik said. “Fuzzy. Likes climbing trees. Enjoys eating bananas and throwing poo.”

  The twins protested. “Uncle Rik, we don’t throw poo!”

  “Don’t you? Maybe I’m confusing you with my other niece and nephew.”

  “You don’t have any other nieces and nephews.” Marta was standing now, her fists planted on her hips.

  Her brother wore a toothy grin. “But I do like bananas and climbing trees. Can monkeys ride bikes?”

  “Sure they do,” Ember said. “Didn’t you two just ride bikes over here?”

  “Speaking of which,” Alarik said as he glanced at the tarnished, welding spark-pitted Casio on his wrist. “We’re gonna be late to Sunday brunch if we don’t get going. If we’re late, we’ll really see the grizzly bear.”

  3

  Don’t Sass Your Elders

  “Are you sure they’re safe back there?” She asked.

  Alarik laughed. “For the tenth time: yes, they’re fine. We used to ride in the pickup box as kids all the time. I’m not driving very fast.”

  Ember glanced out the back window. The twins sat atop the arched wheel fenders, facing away from the adults in the pickup cab. Their bicycles were propped against the closed tailgate. Lucky and Marmite scuffled across the bed, changing places to stick their heads first over the passenger side, then the driver’s side.

  The view was more or less the same from all sides: endless rolling fields of stubble interspersed by shallow bodies of water referred to as “prairie potholes.” Usually drying up by fall, higher-than-average precipitation the past three seasons gave these ponds a semblance of permanence.

  Alarik’s Super Duty Ford cut across the same section line trail the kids had blazed with their bikes. Three bumpy, dusty miles later, the pickup turned onto a gravel road.

  “No progress on Arnie and Stephanie’s since last week,” Ember said as they drove past the adjoining lot with a mailbox and graded hilltop. “Unless someone figured out how to cast a house-sized Concealment Spell over their property.”

  “They’re having a hell of a time getting contractors lined up,” Alarik said. “They need someone to trench in the utilities and excavate the basement before they can get the foundation poured. The house itself is ready, but there’s no point moving it in until there’s someplace to put it. Else it’ll just be in the way.”

  “I hope they can get it done by winter.” Ember chewed her lower lip. “It’s because of the boom, yeah? That they are having such a time getting contractors?”

  “Yep. The floods didn’t help, either. Anyone willing to work has all the jobs they can handle waiting for them in Minot. A lot of guys don’t want to bother driving out to the countryside to work on a lone project. It’s more profitable to stay in city limits.”

  “Good thing your parents were able to get their house set up so quickly, yeah?”

  Alarik pointed his pickup down Ronald and Muriel Schmitt’s driveway. Outbuildings stood proudly along either side of the narrow gravel route, flanked by mature evergreen trees and caragana shrubs. A new modular house sat atop the original basement of its predecessor. The longtime family home had been transformed into charred rubble after an all-too-brief brawl with the Elementalist, Viceroy William Roth. Ember and Alarik barely survived the encounter with surging electricity-turned-lightning bolts. It had only been last fall, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

  The Viceroy was dead now, vaporized when his combat magic got reflected at him during a later encounter in his office at the Parker Building. Ember had intuitively reacted with an Aura Shield to protect herself and her friends. He became a charred stain on the wall. Even that had been removed. All that remained was a lingering memory of the bastard.

  Just a memory, unless one counted the ghost version of himself Ember retrieved from the Spirit World before accidentally releasing him into the badlands. That particular interrogation did not go to plan. Minor accident, that.

  She and Alarik helped the slightly-dust-coated twins from the pickup box, unloading their bikes as the two dogs leaped happily from the open tailgate. Marmite and Lucky went exploring while the humans arrived just in time for Sunday brunch.

  “No food left,” Boniface Schmitt announced as they entered the house. “We gave your plates to the dog.”

  “Nuh-uh, Uncle Boni,” Maxim said. “The dog was with us!”

  Marta, for her part, just stuck out a pink tongue at her great-uncle.

  “And don’t sass your elders,” Ste
phanie said, in the unarguable tone mothers intuitively own. “And wash up, you two. Your grandmother made pancakes for brunch like you asked.”

  To say Muriel Schmitt “made pancakes” was like saying Julia Child dabbled with butter. The long table was arrayed with platters stacked high with buttermilk and buckwheat varieties. Jars of homemade syrups—chokecherry, buffaloberry, juneberry, and strawberry-rhubarb—awaited in baskets. Homemade whipped cream, cinnamon sprinkles, and raw honey awaited the ladle. Small bowls of fruit served as garnishes, with options including strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

  “Jeez, Ma, are we carb-loading today?” Alarik asked the question even as his eyes fixated on a stack of steaming pancakes. His once-broken nose actually wiggled as he deeply inhaled the medley of sweet aromas. Ember was certain if she blinked at him, she would see his coyote subform salivating.

  Muriel pointed at her eldest son with a red silicone spoon. “You hush now, Rik. We’re celebrating the babies’ Manifestations. They wanted pancakes, so we’re eating pancakes.”

  Ember said her good mornings and took her seat. She had been attending the weekly brunch long enough now that the place between Alarik and Boniface, across from Anna, Arnie, and Stephanie, had become hers. Ronald and Muriel took up opposite ends of the long table with the twins seated on either corner beside their grandmother.

  Between mouthfuls of deliciousness and requests such as “pass me the butter” and “oh, you have to try this honey on the buckwheats,” the topic invariably transitioned into heavier themes.

  “Boni tells us that Tahira’s pushing for extending the free housing for refugees,” Ronald said.

  “For a year, yeah,” Ember muttered around a mouthful of strawberries.

  “We’re all for helping our fellow Druws, but can we afford that?”

  “We—the Druwish Free Nation, that is—own a couple apartment buildings. But that’s only enough to house maybe 200, 250 people.” Ember chewed thoughtfully. “Even if you asked them to double or triple up, that’s only scratching the surface.”

  “Been a lot of new arrivals,” Anna said from across the table. “More every day, it seems.”

  “Word’s getting out about what we’re building here,” Ember said. “Druws have a choice: to either stay where they are, lacking a ley line and the benefits that provides. Or, they can emigrate to either the Magic City or Malvern Hills.”

  “They’ve got the spa back online at Malvern, I’d heard,” Ronald said. “Did their ley line gain range like ours did?”

  Ember shook her head. “It doesn’t seem so, no. I think ours gaining power has less to do with the other ley lines collapsing and more with the Suppression Device getting damaged. It’s restricting mana less than before.”

  “Why not take it off all the way?” Ronald asked.

  “We will,” Ember said, “once we learn how. Ripping it out improperly could cause permanent damage to the ley line, so Barnaby says. I haven’t had much luck yet in learning of a solution.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Alarik muttered. “She’s got her nose in that Book O’ Magic all the time.”

  “The Assemblage of Forbidden Magic,” Ember pronounced. “It’s a fascinating, complicated thing to translate. Written in Old English, and in riddles no less. But I’m beginning to think that I’ll have to look elsewhere to solve the mystery of the Suppression Device.”

  “In the meantime,” Ronald said, “how does Tahira propose the DFN provide housing for hundreds of new arrivals?”

  Ember shook her head. “Her proposals don’t concern themselves with the funding—with the how. Just the why. We don’t exactly have the ability to tax anyone and charging a fee to access the ley line would be unethical.”

  “That woman has the support of an ever-growing population,” Boniface said. He chased a blueberry around his plate with a fork. “She makes grand emotional appeals, but conveniently dismisses the logistical problems.”

  “And she’s not wholly wrong,” Ember hastened to add. “She’s identified the problems of housing and social service shortages for a surge of people who often are arriving with shattered lives. She just falls short on the solutions, other than saying things like ‘free housing.’ It makes the rest of us look heartless when we point out reality.”

  Boniface snorted. “She seems to think you and Geoff as mages can just wave a magic wand and make it all happen.”

  “There are plenty of jobs,” Ronald said. “Heck, any of them willing to get dirty can find work with the boom going on.”

  Ember nodded, “And they do—or will, when they can gain work visas and such. It’s a thorny process, trying to navigate the NonDruws’ government when they aren’t legally refugees in that sense. They can work jobs under the table, but then they risk getting in trouble with the law if they are caught. Or getting taken advantage of by scammers, which has happened to a few of them already.”

  “And Marv’s got a proposal, too?” Ronald asked. “Something about changing the name of the Council?”

  “He wants to differentiate us from the High Council,” said Ember. “Committee. Board. Assembly. Something like that. Something to further reinforce that we’re not doing things like the old regime.”

  “Do we have to talk about this at brunch?” Muriel asked. “Can’t the politics wait for after?”

  Ember shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”

  “You’re alright, dear,” Muriel said. “How’re you settling in at Rik’s place?”

  The mage leaned her shoulder against Alarik’s and smiled. “It’s been lovely, truly. I’m actually sleeping now. So silent at night, and I can see the stars when I step outside. You probably take that for granted, but even in a smaller city like Minot, there’s so much light pollution. I wish I could sleep over every night.”

  “Don’t you?” Muriel asked.

  “Not when I’m working late,” Ember admitted. “Between Council duties and training new Investigators, I’m still making use of the old cot in my office a few nights each week. I get too exhausted to risk the 45-minute drive to Plaza.”

  “You could just bunk with me,” Anna offered. Her raptor gaze glided to the mage, her head turning to follow a moment later. “It’s your old apartment I’m living in now, after all. And Rodger’s got me working nights. He has us security officers doubling up on shifts 24/7 until this truce becomes permanent. It’s not like my bed is getting used at night.”

  “Hot-bunking it,” Alarik mused.

  Ember blinked at Anna. “That…that would be brilliant. Thank you. I’ll take you up on that. The corner apartment on Floor Number Three can’t get rid of me.”

  Alarik elbowed his girlfriend. “You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it! But your rhymes, they show it.”

  “Really, Rik?” Ember groaned exaggeratedly before turning back to Anna. “Have you met your next-door neighbor yet? The M. Anderle? All the time I lived there, I kept trying to catch him or her. Never been able to. It’s gone from neighborly curiosity to maddening mystery.”

  Anna frowned. “No, I don’t think so anyway. Though there was this one guy on the elevator—”

  A digital ringtone blared from beneath the table. When she realized it was coming from her pocket, Ember apologized again and gestured to silence the cell phone.

  “You’d better answer it,” Ronald said. “Might be the fate of the world rests with you. Wouldn’t surprise any of us.”

  “Or it’s a telemarketer,” Alarik said. “They probably want you to extend the warranty on Ruby.”

  Ember extracted her Motorola Droid and stepped away from the table as she swiped the green icon. She pressed the device to her ear. A flurry of syllables erupted from the pinhole speakers.

  “Oh Ember, I’m so sorry to bug you and you know I normally wouldn’t, but they told me to call you. I know you’re on your day off—so am I, really. I went in just to check on the lichen tea, since I think this latest batch is getting close to done. It’s gonna be the best one yet—I can’t wait for you to try it! I’m getting good at brewing, even though I still hate how it tastes. But I never got to the sub-basement, you see. I was hopping down the stairs—yeah, I know I shouldn’t hop, ‘cause I could slip and twist an ankle or something, but I like hopping. I just see stairs and I can’t help myself but to hop down them. Or up them. But in this case it was down. I was just there, hopping down the stairs when they told me I needed to call you.” The young woman sucked in air, providing the briefest window for a response.