The Native Star Read online

  If she was going to be riding, she’d need something to go under her gray wool dress. She pulled on an old pair of Pap’s pants that she’d commandeered for wood chopping and other hard chores. She tied on her largest apron. Over everything, she pulled on her buffalo coat. It would be hot during the day, but it would keep rain off and could serve as a blanket at need. Then she twisted up her braids, plopped an old hat over them, and skewered the straw with her silver hair sticks.

  She didn’t need to glance in her mirror to know she looked like the biggest rube in all creation. But she was comfortable, and if she could horrify Dreadnought Stanton into the bargain, so much the better.

  Before she went down, she pulled out the silk pouch she always wore next to her skin. It still contained the calico spell bag with the Ashes of Amour in it. She considered leaving the spell bag behind—in fact, she longed to throw it out the damn window—but she decided against it. The little bag of ashes was a reminder of the wrong she’d done—and a reminder of her promise to undo it. She would keep it until Dag was free.

  There was something else she couldn’t leave behind either. Reaching into her morocco case, she retrieved two delicate earrings of gold and amethyst. Another precious inheritance from her mother, and she liked to keep them close. Emily had worn the gems only once or twice; they were far too delicate and beautiful to dangle from her usually dirty ears. She admired their glint and sparkle, then put them into the silk pouch and tucked it down her collar.

  Downstairs, Pap and Stanton were sitting by the fire. Stanton was apparently making an eleventh-hour attempt to convince Pap that urine was not the best medium for a tincture to cure baldness. That, in fact, urine was not a particularly good medium for any tincture.

  “I’m ready,” she interrupted curtly, hoisting the canvas bag over her shoulder.

  To her disappointment, Stanton didn’t seem to notice her outfit. At least if he did, he didn’t comment.

  “Where’s my money?” she asked, more churlishly than she might have if he’d given her the slight satisfaction of a raised eyebrow or a tugged collar. “A hundred in advance.”

  Stanton reached into his pocket and withdrew a small pouch that seemed to be black silk. It hardly seemed large enough to contain the ten gold eagles that Stanton withdrew from it.

  “Give the money to Pap,” Emily said. She squeezed the old man’s shoulder and put her head close to his. “I’m leaving the money with you. Mr. Stanton says he’s going to pay the expenses, and I intend to hold him to it.”

  Stanton was laying the money in Pap’s gnarled hand when Mrs. Lyman stormed in. She had obviously come ’cross lots in a great hurry, and her face glowed with purpose and indignation.

  “Ignatius Edwards!” she bellowed upon entering, “I want to know exactly what that girl of yours thinks she’s—”

  The woman stopped short, taking in the scene with astonished eyes.

  The gold being passed from hand to hand, traveling clothes and packed bags, the horses saddled outside …

  The Flight of the Guilty, the inscription under the tableau would read, were it an engraving.

  “And just what is going on here?” Mrs. Lyman bawled.

  “Em’s going down to San Francisco with Mr. Stanton,” Pap answered mildly, dropping the money into his pocket with a clink.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to San Francisco with Mr. Stanton,” Emily repeated matter-of-factly, pretending that Mrs. Lyman had simply failed to hear.

  Mrs. Lyman seized Emily’s arm, jerked her roughly to the back of the cabin, where—ostensibly—the men could not hear.

  “Emily Edwards, just what do you think you’re doing? Do you know what they’re saying in town? You’re not going to stop those rumors by … by riding off on a horse with a traveling Warlock! And certainly not to San Francisco! Sin Francisco, they should call it!”

  “I’m a grown woman, Mrs. Lyman. Everyone’s got it all wrong. I’m going with Mr. Stanton for business reasons.”

  Mrs. Lyman raised her eyebrows in alarm.

  “Magic business,” Emily felt compelled to clarify.

  “Listen, I’ve read enough Ladies’ Repository to know just what’s going on here. You’re a nice girl, an innocent girl. You don’t know the kind of … Well, the kind of troubles one can get into!”

  Emily stared at Mrs. Lyman. Her head was beginning to ache.

  “There’s no question of that,” she said.

  “There’s never any question of that until—boom!” Mrs. Lyman’s emphasis made the relinquishing of one’s virtue sound like the firing of a cannon. “You’re ruined, a drunkard, and working at a house of ill repute in Stockton.”

  “I’m not going to end up in a house of ill repute in Stockton!” Emily had never raised her voice to Mrs. Lyman before, and doing so now made the old woman stare at her with blank amazement. Emily took a deep breath and lowered her voice.

  “Dag needs my help. I can’t explain it right now, but if I go with Mr. Stanton, I can help Dag.”

  Mrs. Lyman looked at her for a long time. Then she let out a protracted sigh, her hand pressed to her cheek in anxious resignation.

  “Emily, listen. Your pap has sheltered you quite a bit.”

  “Not that much.”

  “No, no … not just about that. About Witches and Warlocks. What people think about them. In Lost Pine, we live and let live, because, Lord knows, we’re all sinners under the skin. But there are other places, other people—godly people.” She shook her head. “It’s a dangerous world, Emily. You don’t understand how dangerous.”

  “You’ve got to stop reading so many pulp novels,” Emily said. “The world isn’t all rampaging Aberrancies and evil blood sorcerers. In fact, I am certain that the world in general is much the same as it is in Lost Pine, except with more people and better amenities.”

  Mrs. Lyman stared at Emily sadly. Then, with a wail, she drew Emily into her arms, crushing her against her broad bosom. She sniffled in Emily’s ear, patted her back with a large hand, then pushed her back to arm’s length.

  “All right, listen. If he gives you anything to drink, for heaven’s sake, don’t drink it!” She wagged a finger in Emily’s face, her voice low and conspiratorial. “For that matter, don’t eat anything either. Don’t take your buffalo coat off for anything … and you make him pay for separate rooms!”

  After all, Emily was rather glad for Mrs. Lyman’s arrival on the scene, for it made a long, awkward good-bye out of the question. And while Emily wanted nothing more than to put a dozen miles between herself and the sounds of sobbing coming from within the cabin (Mrs. Lyman had settled herself in and was carrying on like a paid mourner at a Chinese funeral), she did pause on the doorstep outside the cabin to give Pap a long hug.

  “I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble,” she murmured in his ear. “I’ll make it better, honest I will.”

  “It’s too bad you have to start a trip on a Friday.” Pap stroked her arm as he used to when she was young and scared. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sprig of dried comfrey, which he tucked into the folds of her buffalo coat.

  “Nothing like comfrey to protect the traveler,” he said, and for a moment it seemed as if he would leave it at that. But instead of turning away, he shifted nervously on both feet. She knew that anxious little dance; it always presaged something important he didn’t want to say. She waited for him to speak. He scratched vaguely at the shiny web of scars on the side of his face.

  “Well, after all, Mrs. Lyman says I ought to mention it … I never wanted to bother you with such things. But she’s had a hand in raising you, too, so I reckon she’s got a right …” He fell silent for a moment, breathing in to help gather his scattered thoughts. When he spoke again, his words rang low and clear.

  “I never told you why I left my gramp’s place in Kentucky, back in the forties. Why I come to California.”

  “That was more than thirty years ago,” Emily said. “What does that—” />
  “I got run out, Emily.” Pap interrupted softly. “A group of godly folks, they despised me for being a Warlock. They burnt me almost to death. These scars … they weren’t from no barn fire.”

  Emily blinked at him.

  “There’s not time to tell the tale, and even if there was, I wouldn’t want to. I lived, and then I come to California, where I guessed a man could start out fresh.”

  “And you’ve been practicing magic all this time, all out in the open, without a breath of difficulty.” Emily was furious with Mrs. Lyman for digging up trials and troubles that belonged in the past. Oh, she would give the old busybody a nice piece of her mind when she got back from San Francisco! “Witches and Warlocks are all over the place now, even in the big cities. Why, Mr. Stanton comes from a whole institute of them!”

  Pap nodded. “I guess times is different now. And them books Mrs. Lyman reads me, the ones about Witches and Warlocks and all the grand adventures they have. They never have anything in them about when they put the wood around your feet, and the black smoke starts curling up …” Pap’s voice trailed off, and he stared at the ground, transfixed.

  “Miss Edwards.” Stanton’s voice was impatient.

  “Listen, never you mind what Mrs. Lyman says,” Emily said to Pap. “She just likes to think the world’s mixed up and complicated. It makes a better story. But these are modern times. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “It was a long time ago. But please, Em. If you run into anyone who despises you for being a Witch, well …” His voice became a low, harsh whisper and he clutched her arm hard, milky eyes shining. “You run. That’s all, Em. You just run.”

  “Miss Edwards!” Stanton repeated, louder.

  “Just a minute!” she yelled back at him, before putting her lips next to Pap’s ear. “I won’t even let them burn Mr. Stanton, though it might take him down a peg or two.”

  Pap nodded, as if finally satisfied.

  “He’s a good sort,” Pap said. “Mostly.”

  Then he turned away abruptly, vanishing into the cabin and closing the door behind himself. Pap never said good-byes.

  So it was that Emily was left to stare at the huge black horse in front of her.

  “His name is Romulus,” Stanton said, so formally that Emily expected the animal to lift a hoof and shake her hand. “He’s very valuable, so please handle him with care.”

  “Me handle him with care?” Emily muttered, as Stanton gave her a leg up. “How exactly you reckon I’m going to damage your horse?”

  Stanton did not favor her with a precise answer. And over the next several hours, it became clear that such precision would have been impossible, in that he felt there was a veritable galaxy of ways she could damage his horse. He spent the better part of the morning defending the poor tender lamb against her abominable ignorance.

  “Look, you may have never ridden anything but a burro, but even a burro would plot homicide if you kept jerking his reins like that. Don’t touch the reins at all. Just sit there like a good girl. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Emily let the reins fall slack. The horse tossed its huge head gaily and gave a little caper that made Emily hunch forward in terror. The ground seemed to be a million miles away, and the black beast kept dancing from side to side most unaccountably. With her good hand, she clutched the pommel for dear life. She found that doing so made her feel better. The pommel really was quite a handy thing.

  “Why is this creature so all-fired lively?” she asked, aware of a quaver in her voice.

  “Romulus and Remus are a carriage-matched pair of Morgans,” Stanton said. “I’d be most concerned if they weren’t quick and lively.”

  “I can’t think why you brought horses like this out to California. Aren’t many carriages in Lost Pine.”

  “No, as I discovered, Sunday turns around the park aren’t quite the thing,” Stanton said. “Now, see that steep place in the trail up ahead? Lean forward in the saddle; don’t just slump like a sack of flour.”

  Once the steep place had been successfully negotiated, Emily sat back in the saddle and looked at Stanton thoughtfully.

  “How did you end up in Lost Pine, anyhow?” Emily asked. “I mean, it couldn’t have been by choice.”

  To his credit, Stanton bit back his immediate response, which Emily supposed was something along the lines of “Good Lord, no!” Instead, he said something that sounded like a memorized recitation:

  “As the holder of a Jefferson Chair, it was my duty to accept a placement wherever the Institute deemed fit.”

  “A Jefferson Chair? What’s that?”

  “It’s a system of regional positions endowed by a gentleman named Harmon Jefferson. There are more than two dozen chair holders throughout the United States and Europe.”

  Emily hmmed thoughtfully. “So where’s yours?”

  “My what?”

  “Your chair. Where do you keep it? You don’t have to drag it around, do you? Sounds awful inconvenient.”

  The thought of this amused Stanton vastly, or at least she supposed it did; he gave a small, dry chuckle.

  “No, the chair itself is pure abstraction.” He held up a hand. On his finger there was a gold ring with a crest on it. “This is the only physical representation of the office.”

  “And you fellows do what, exactly? Annoy small-town charm makers who just want to be left alone?”

  “We research local magical customs and anomalies and bring modern practices to the rural and unenlightened.”

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Emily said. “And in Lost Pine, the rural and unenlightened were me and Pap. What a waste of all your talent! Why would your institute send you someplace so small?”

  “I have no doubt Professor Mirabilis sent me where he thought my talents would be best utilized,” Stanton said.

  “Professor Mirabilis. Of the Mirabilis Institute?”

  “The same,” Stanton said. And then, as if to protect the idea of the professor from disrespect, he added seriously, “A very fine man.”

  Emily would have said something more, but at that moment Romulus stumbled and her heart lodged behind her windpipe and pounded there for some moments.

  “Are we really going to ride all the way to San Francisco? You said your institute had plenty of money—why don’t we take the train from Dutch Flat? It would be quicker and a whole lot more comfortable.”

  Stanton waved a hand as if the idea didn’t even bear considering. “Where I go, my horses go. They’re the most valuable things I own.”

  “Seems like they own you, more like,” Emily grumbled. “Look, there are at least a dozen stables in Dutch Flat that would take good care of your horses. We could be to San Francisco and back in a few days instead of a couple of weeks. And your horses would be spared the trip.”

  “All excellent points. But they don’t take into account one fact. I don’t want to have to come back to get my horses because I don’t intend to return.”

  The curt proclamation caught Emily off guard, but of course, it made perfect sense—Stanton would never be welcome again in Lost Pine, even if Emily was successful in returning to remove the love spell from Dag. And, she thought with a sinking heart, even if she could remove the sorcellement, what promise was there that she would ever be welcome again either? She shook the thoughts from her head.

  “Won’t your institute be upset with you for getting run out of town?”

  “It was hardly my fault that I was run out of town,” Stanton reminded her. “And anyway, Lost Pine does not need a Jefferson Chair. You and Pap don’t need or want any help. The Institute must find me a placement that is more suitable, or else …”

  He fell silent. Emily waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “Or else?” she prompted.

  “Or else I quit. I’ll put my horses on a steamer at San Francisco and go home to New York.”

  Emily was taken aback by the vehemence of feeling behind the Warlock’s words. She raised an eyebrow.
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  “You can’t just give up,” Emily said.

  “Ah, the spirit of the great American pioneer,” he said, in a tone that suggested said spirit was vastly overrated. “Well, it is similarly my right as an American to give up whenever I please.”

  “You’d give up being a Warlock?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve invested far too much in the development of my talents. But there are always opportunities for trained Warlocks. Situations where the sacrifices a man has made for his craft are appropriately valued.”

  “Maybe the necromantic factory in Chicago is hiring,” Emily said.

  Stanton frowned, but did not comment.

  “Well, perhaps your institute will see things differently when they see this.” Emily held up her hand. The blue stone glittered in the warming light of afternoon.

  “I hope so,” Stanton said. Then a note of distance returned to his voice as if he’d suddenly remembered to whom he was speaking. His next words were condescendingly smooth. “I imagine the idea of seeing San Francisco must be quite a thrilling prospect for someone like you. You’ve never been, of course?”

  Annoyance surged in Emily’s chest. Reaching down for the reins, she pulled on them hard. Romulus danced backward, chin to chest.

  “Let’s get one thing straight.” Emily glared at Stanton. “I’m not going to San Francisco because I want to gawp at the gaslights and the tall buildings. And I’m not going because I want to be the toast—however briefly—of the magical community of San Francisco. I’m going because I made an awful mistake, and I have to fix it, and I can’t fix it with this … thing in my hand. I am going because Dag needs my help. That clear, Mr. Stanton?”

  Stanton stared at her with distaste, as if her outburst came with an unpleasant smell attached.

  “As window glass, Miss Edwards,” he said. Then he tapped his heels against Remus’ side. “We’d better hurry if we want to reach Dutch Flat by nightfall.”

  The main street of Dutch Flat ran up a steep hill from a desolate white field of mine tailings; long purple shadows of dusk stretched across dessicated mounds of white granite gravel like stripes on an exotic sleeping tiger. The road from Lost Pine to Dutch Flat had been frequently pockmarked with such abrasions—places where entire hillsides had been blasted away by diamond-hard jets of water.