“How’s your
shoulder?” Henry Wong spoke easily, considering that he was climbing straight
up am icy scree-and-bunchgrass slope just this side of vertical.
Chris pulled
at a fencepost to his left, testing his newly healed shoulder and the fence
line at the same time. The post was solid. “As good as new. I never knew you
could do that with qi.”
Henry
sounded skeptical. “You were studying Eight Spirit Kung Fu and you never heard
of Chinese traditional healing?”
Now Chris
felt stupid. The truth was that he had tuned Master Lee out when he talked
about that sort of stuff. Or, no, he felt more than stupid. He felt angry.
“It’s stupid mumbo jumbo! My teacher went to Emergency when my Dad broke his
leg, not some Chin-- some doofus. You can’t cure cancer with needles!”
The two of
them continued climbing, carefully testing their footing each step, looking for
animal sign on the ground and checking three fence posts more before Henry
finally answered. “No, you can’t. Qi manipulation
works with life, not against it, and cancer is life, just of a selfish kind.
There was nothing you could do for your mother, Chris.”
“I wasn’t
talking about my Mom!” But Chris knew that he was lying. Henry must have known,
too, because he didn’t reply for a long moment, while Chris gulped the cold,
dry air and searched for calm.
“And even if
you could, no-one is asking it of a sixteen-year-old. I only learned these
things . . . last year.”
The long
pause reminded Chris that he was talking with a time traveller (another time traveller, crazy as the
idea still seemed to him), and another question. “Rose is trying to change her
past, isn’t she?”
“And erase
herself from existence. That’s a pretty hard trade to make, even for the sake
of the entire future. I’m not sure that it’s worth it, and it certainly
wouldn’t be for anything less.”
“Why do you
keep bringing my Mom up?”
“I didn’t,
Chris. You did. Now focus for a minute. What just happened to us?”
Chris was
only too glad to think about anything other than his Mom dying. “The Empress of
a Billion Dimensions or timelines or parallel universes or whatever sent special forces to steal a biology experiment out of a
UPS truck.”
“Coming
from?”
“Osoyoos.”
“Implying?”
“That it was
made there.”
“At?”
“The Osoyoos
Experimental Station.”
“Or
somewhere else. There’s a community college in town, for example. But I agree
that the Experimental Station is the way to bet. What do you think the “biology
experiment” is?”
“The
Apocalypse Plague.”
“Probably took a year longer to synthesise here than in Rose’s timeline.
Too bad there’s so many mad scientists working out of the Station, or we’d be
able to march right down there and close this case before we have to head back
to the Bay."
“You mean
that you’re not going to close the case?” Chris’ stomach lurched. The grownups
were leaving it in his lap again, just like when –but he avoided that thought.
Henry
sounded a little sad. “No, the Slug is up to something in San Francisco, and we
need all hands on deck there. It’s just the way things are. There are more threats
out there as there are people to take them on. At least this one seems
straightforward. Find the scientist working on a war plague at the Station, and
shut that lab down. Maybe there’ll even turn out to be a cure.”
By now the
slope had levelled out and they were walking through a pine forest. As Henry
finished, they stepped down on the road that connected the Benches to McKinney
Ranch. The gate was closed, and the padlock on it was new and shiny. The
cowboys were taking good care, Chris could see.
“Now we’ll go down the west
fenceline,” Henry said. Chris was a little disappointed. He still wanted to see
the graveyard at the Second Bench, but only a little. He still wasn’t sure what
he wanted to find there. From comments people had dropped, he knew that his
father was now an undead lich, but that didn’t tell Chris when or how Dad had
died, and who even knew whether that information would be on his headstone in
the graveyard? If he even had a gravestone. And even if it did, and it was
there, it would probably be in Chinese, and Chris’s Chinese was terrible. He
reached into his pocket, to the pencil and etching paper that Charlotte had
given him after giving up on teaching him how to use a camera phone. It looked
like he wouldn’t need it today.
It took
almost another hour to descend to the gate and then climb back up to the First
Bench. Not surprisingly, everyone was waiting for them. It was cold, and their
phone batteries were running out, and even the couples were getting a little
less lovey-dovey. Not that Chris didn’t think that it served them right for
being so disgustingly into each other. Stupid kids. Why couldn’t he have a girlfriend? Chris reached into
his pocket and touched the sprig of mountain ash that he’d picked on the way
up, with the three winter-withered berries that the birds hadn’t touched still
on it. One berry picked, two berries picked; he was looking forward to the
third.
“So warm," Charlotte said, as she settled into the Land Rover’s heated seats. They were
first in, settling on the left hand side, so that they could get out quickly at
Cherry Grove. “Did you get it?”
“Get what?”
Rose innocently asked, as she slid in next to Charlotte. Charlotte turned to
her friend, doing whatever it was that girls did when they wanted privacy from
their friends.
“No,” Chris
said. “We went up and down the fencelines. You know that.”
“Oh.”
Charlotte was disappointed. “So what are you wearing to the Cricket Social,
Rose?” Charlotte asked. Chris tuned the rest of the conversation out, staring
out the window as the Land Rover lurched down the hillside and out onto the
gravelled National Forest Road beyond. Say that he did take some kind of future
medicine back to his Mom with a time machine. What would happen then?
Three miles
down the Forest Road, the Land Rover took the turnoff to Cherry Grove, cutting
down the slope into the wide meadow that sloped to Genesee Creek, with the wild
chokecherry grove at the bottom, and the rambling old brown-and-white Victorian
house in the middle. It was, of course, completely changed in all the
expectedly unexpected ways, right down to the satellite dishes on the high,
gabelled roof. That didn’t make Chris’ stomach feel any easier, as it turned
again. A battered old pickup in Forestry Service surplus green and a white city
car, a Cadillac, but with the lack of personal character that screamed “rental,”
were the only vehicles in the drive. The first, Chris knew, would be his
uncle’s beater. The other was equally familiar in pattern, if not detail. A
lawyer was here.
Henry turned
in the driver’s seat as Chris and Charlotte got out. “Are we going to see you
guys at lunch?”
Chris
shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on my aunt and uncle.”
“Well, we’ll
keep you some seats.”
Chris
stepped up on the porch and unlatched and opened the screen door so that
Charlotte could knock on the polished wood. One, two, three: “Shave and a
haircut –two bits!” Uncle Jason used to love that.
The door
opened immediately, as it always did. Uncle Jason or Aunt Sandra, or sometimes
Grandpa Henry or even Uncle Jason’s parents, Springett and Evelyn, would be
waiting for them by the time they reached the door. It had always made Jason
feel welcome. Back when they were allowed to come to Cherry Grove.
Uncle Jason
smiled and reached wide around Jason’s broad shoulders to wrap them up in a
hug, just like he always had. “It’s good to have you two back at Cherry Grove!
Sandra, it’s lunchtime!”
“Oh, but
we’re expected at the Golden Dynasty,” Charlotte said.
“Nonsense!
Your cousins have had you for weeks. We haven’t seen you in years!” Uncle Jason
led them through the kitchen and into the dining room, where there were fresh
scones piled on a table, and plates of sliced cheese and pickles. There would
be soup in a minute, Jason remembered, thick and savoury. He was a little
surprised, but grateful, that there was no sign of the lawyer. Uncle Jason’s
lawyers were always smart and nice and funny. But aside from always making
Jason feel guilty about laughing at lawyer jokes, that was irrelevant right
now. He was just far gladder than he had ever thought he would be to see his
aunt and his uncle again.
After the
last scone had scooped up the last bit of homemade strawberry jam, and a bowl
of Oroville Dairy Cooperative ice cream with chokecherry syrup, after the tea
and the fresh donuts, it was finally time for business. Apparently, the reason
that the lawyer had come this time was to talk to Chris and Charlotte.
Uncle
Jason led them up to his office in the north tower of the house, on the spiral
staircase right below Grandpa Henry’s apartment, with its private staircase. On
the landing, the painting of their Aunt Elizabeth in her wedding dress was
still hanging. Jason remembered how sad it had made his grandfather to see it,
and how he’d always been sharp and angry when people had suggested that it be
taken down. “Let the ghosts walk!” He had shouted.
Chris and
Charlotte walked into the office. It had changed, too, of course. The piles of
books were still there, and the long table, piled high with maps, and the
folding corkboard with its equally old photographs, but the manual typewriter
at its desk was replaced by a computer on a rather larger desk, now arranged
around a server and a printer rather than file drawers. But that wasn’t what
was so overwhelmingly shocking. Nor was it the slim, middle-aged Black man with
the expensive new haircut, wearing fashionably oblong glasses and a tweed
jacket over a sweater vest who sat at the one corner of the table not take up
by maps, his laptop in front of him and two cushioned chairs drawn up for them.
No, it was the mannequin at the north end of the room, where it caught the full
light of the winter sun through the south window, dressed in a white gown.
Chris stared at it, trying to understand the emotions it raised in him.
The Black
man spoke first. “Chris, Charlotte. So odd that we had to come all this way
from Philadelphia to finally meet. I’m Ben Washington.”
“Tyrell’s
dad?” Chris asked. And now that he thought about it, the similarities were
obvious.
“Who better
to deal with the wills and estates of superheroes and time travellers than a
time traveller’s nephew?” Mr. Washington asked. At Mr. Washington’s side, an
older Blackberry blared the Benny Hill saxophone theme. “Just a second. I’m
afraid that I have to take this. After all, it’s your business.” Ben Washington punched
something on his phone, and a speaker on their uncle’s desk snapped into life
with an electronic click and began to spit words in an overly forceful,
energetic way that somehow made Chris’ short hairs crawl, like there was
something wrong down there.
Fortunately, Chris had been in the Twenty-First
Century long enough to know that he was listening to a crackhead, not some
eldritch horror masked as human.
“Ben! Did
you get the fax I sent you?”
“Yes, I did.
Councillor, can this wait? I’m with some very old clients right now.”
“You’re just
going to ignore this?”
“It’s a
routine report from the Land Registry Office, Councillor. They’ll be closed
until the New Year, even if there were anything urgent about it.”
“Nothing
urgent! Look at it!”
“At what?”
“The three
parcels that are being held up!”
“That’s
certainly a problem for the Town of Osoyoos, Councillor, but not an
unanticipated one. Those are 99 year leases that we’re trying to sell for
redevelopment. After a hundred years, you should be glad that there’s only
issues with a quarter of them.”
“A quarter?
A quarter? It’s half the acreage!”
“Because
most of it is a big orchard. Surrounding a community college campus and a
research station, I might add. I told you that between having the Crown as a
leaseholder and the Agricultural Land Reserve Act, we were unlikely to be able
to redevelop that land as a mall.”
“What about
the other two? I mean, come on! An Indian graveyard and an ecological reserve?”
“My
information is that there’s no Indian graveyard on the Keremeos land. That’s
the Band trying to stop your developer friends, who turn out to be planning to
build a casino right next to their resort. Not very neighbourly of Mu Holdings, I must say. As for paving a unique pre-glacial ecosystem to build another
duty free store, again, I can only say that we warned you.”
“Pre-whatchamacallit?
Chinese Bar is just a Goddamn slough!”
“A slough in
a hollow that at least two glaciations missed. There’s species in there that
you can’t find anywhere else north of California, Councillor. That’s the kind
of thing that the Ecological Reserve system was set up to protect.”
“Species of
what? Frogs?”
“They’re all
God’s creatures, Councillor. Can’t we just be happy that 9 of the twelve
projects are proceeding? This is very good news for the town of Osoyoos.”
“And your
clients.”
“And my
clients.”
“This isn’t
finished, Washington!” The speaker clicked.
“Chris,
Charlotte. Do you watch much TV?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. A
focus on more constructive past-times is definitely one of the virtues of your
generation. It does, however, make it hard for me to wave my hand in the
direction of lawyer shows on TV and warn you that lawyering is not nearly as
glamorous as people like David Kelly make it look. You might get to fly off on
a private jet, but it just means meeting with some idiotic politician when you
could be spending Christmas Eve with your family.”
“What was
all that about, sir?”
“There was
quite the little fruit boom north of the border after 1910, and your
great-grandfather signed some 99 year leases with speculators. Then the war
came, and it all collapsed, and the leases have been pretty quiet.”
Mr Washington shook his head regretfully. “Now,
however, we have to act on the very firm instructions of your grandfather.
Chris, Charlotte, you’re going to be able to go to any college you want.
Unfortunately, Henry failed to foresee how quickly tuition would rise, or how
low interest rates would fall. So instead of rolling over the leases, we’ve
been selling land to build up your trust fund. And, unfortunately, the City of
Osoyoos has put this idiot in charge of getting it rezoned for development.
I’ll spare you the tedious details, except to say that the developers that he’s
fronting appear to be rather ruthless fellows, and, strangely enough, the
problem deals are falling apart. It’s enough to make the Councillor think that
someone is plotting against him.”
Mr.
Washington smiled slightly. “So we’re selling some land. As I’m sure that you
know, the Dawsons and the Wongs are descended from two sisters, and your
parents reunited the families, so all of this is pretty important to your
future as part-heirs to both estates. I’m very sorry to be
selling off the leases, but they represent less than a fifth of the original
Hudson’s Bay land grant, and a third of local Wong/Dawson land holdings. Although, frankly, I think that this a good time to be taking a breather from the
Canadian real estate market, I understand that there are sentimental issues
in play.”
Charlotte
said, concerned. “You’re not selling off the Benches or Cherry Grove, are you?”
“No, it is
nothing like that. Well, that is not strictly accurate. The Benches go to Jenny
Wong as an inalienable trusteeship, per Mohawk law, so there's change there. However, you two are inheriting Cherry
Grove as joint property. the Kharagtiday didn't leave any weird codicils on this land, and sale always makes probate easier. Hopefully,
though, we have years yet before that happens, and my son will be handling the
account. Most especially, I hope that we can put it off until the housing
market has recovered.”
“Wait,”
Chris said. “We’re inheriting Cherry Grove? What about Springett?”
“Springett
is happy with the beach house. It’s far more valuable real estate, it’s closer
to town, and he’s raised a family there.”
Again, Chris
felt his short hairs crawl. Springett Dawson had been five the last time Chris had seen him, in 1969. What kind of
47-year old loser hadn’t raised a
family? Chris didn’t even want to think about someone so pathetic.
“So why are
we here, Mr. Washington?” Charlotte sounded positively businesslike.
“Well, to
sign various papers, for one thing. But mainly because of this,” Mr Washington
said, reaching under the table to lift a long, narrow parcel up onto its
surface, “And this,” he said as he put the parcel down, gesturing at the
mannequin on the north end of the room. “You recognise the dress?”
“No,” Chris
said.
“It’s Aunt
Elizabeth’s wedding dress from the painting, isn’t it?” Charlotte said.
“I believe
so.”
“Can I touch it?”
“Go ahead.
Chris, you may unwrap this.”
Chris began
to unwrap the parcel. The outer layer was thick, greaseproof butcher’s paper;
but, within, it was oiled rags. Chris was beginning to suspect what it was as
he came to some ancient twine and began puzzling out a strange, many-looped
knot. Charlotte, he was distantly aware, had jumped up and run to the
mannequin.
“The
embroidery is incredible. It’s all silk, isn’t it? Oh! Except the bonnet, of
course. The veil detaches, doesn’t it? Are those real pearls on the bosom and
the sleeves?” Chris heard Charlotte distantly, far more distantly than the
length of the room, because he had finally opened the parcel to see the ancient
sword within, with its carefully-worked, rippling white metal blade and the
characters etched on the blade in some elaborate version of Old Chinese.
“Where?
What? Is this a family heirloom?”
“To a point.
The sword is made in the Warring Kingdoms style out of a metal not seen on the
surface of the Earth since Atlantis sank, and your family doesn’t go that far
back, to put it mildly. Charlotte, the pearls are real. Everything about that
gown is real. And it’s yours.”
“Mine? What
about my cousins?”
“I am only
repeating what is in your grandfather’s will. “The gown goes to Charlotte, and
the Blue Sword goes to Chris.”
“The sword
is white, though,” Chris pointed out.
“It has blue
highlights in the metal,” Mr. Washington pointed out.
“I guess…”
Chris said, dubiously.
“But why are
you giving these to us now, Mr. Washington?”
“It has been
foretold that they have to go to Philadelphia now.” Mr. Washington sounded
uncomfortable about that.
“Foretold?
Are you for reals?” Charlotte snorted.
“Please. I’m
not allowed to say any more. Now we’d better get a move on if we are going to
pack up that gown and get you down to Genesee before your cousins are done.”
Charlotte
laughed. “Okay, now I know you’re fibbing, Mr. Washington. Those guys won’t
leave the Golden Dynasty ‘till Miss Bryce chases them out.”
“Fair
enough. The truth is that I want to be with my family to open presents, and
unlike some people, I have to fly home.”
“The sword
and the gown?” Chris asked.
“Go with
you. I’m not kidding about events being foretold. You’ll need that sword before
the sun sets in Philadelphia.”
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