my temple. Then I dug in my coat pocket for cash. I found a twenty.
“Thanks,” I said.
The cabbie glanced in the mirror again and tipped his hand palm up over his shoulder. I pressed the bill into his hand, holding eye contact until he looked away.
Yes, I was petty like that.
I opened the door and stepped out into a world of gray. Icy wind speared down my nose and throat, and I fumbled with my scarf to get it up over the bridge of my nose.
Hells, it was cold out. The temperature had dropped several degrees on the cab ride over here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rain turned into snow. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, hunched my shoulders, and headed toward the open iron gates of the cemetery, the wind pushing and tugging at me.
The graveyard was set on the east side of the Willamette River, on a hill with a good view of the mountain on fair weather days, not that the buried probably cared about what sort of view was available. It was obvious the graveyard was not off-grid since patented iron and glass glyph-worked conduits caged the mausoleum at the top of the hill and allowed access into the magic that pooled so deeply beneath the city. Still, as most graveyards did, it had the feeling of quiet distance from the rush of real life.
Violet had sent me the invitation to my dad’s funeral, even though I’d been in a coma at the time. On the back of the invitation was a map to his grave. I’d stared at that for days, and had the image of it burned in my brain. His grave was set to the far right of the cemetery, halfway up the hill and out of the way of foot traffic.
It was so unlike him to want to be tucked away out of sight, out of the attention of the masses. It made me wonder if there were things about my father that I would never really understand. Maybe his brutal business persona was not all the man he was. I hadn’t attended his funeral or burial. I hadn’t seen his ex-wives do the “grieving widow” show for the press. I hadn’t seen Violet, who might be the only woman at his grave who actually cared for him, cry. I hadn’t even had a chance to wonder why my own mother, overseas, had refused to attend the service.
I might not have loved my father, but for a long time, I wanted to.
My chest hurt. I swallowed against the tight feeling of tears and sniffed. I was not going to cry over this. Not out here in the cold and wet. There was no way I could change any of my father’s choices, and no reason to change mine now. We had lived our lives as well as we could in regard to each other, arguments, hatred, and all. I had to accept that. Dead is dead. And my dad was definitely dead.
The modern flat-faced gravestones punched rectangular indents into the ground in long, orderly rows to both sides of me. The sound of traffic was muted by distance. I trudged along between graves, toward the older part of the cemetery where headstones carved of marble, granite, and metal stood like bittersweet poems against the cold sky.
Somewhere in this world of carved sorrow was my father’s grave. I squinted against the horizon. The graves seemed to reach out for miles, though I knew that wasn’t true. Up a little farther rose a thin forest of trees beneath which headstones were planted like stone flowers, melancholy angels resting among them like earthbound birds.
Magic stirred in me, this time gently, stroking beneath my skin with soft, sensual pressure. It offered release, respite, anything I wanted. With little more than a strong thought, the right words, and a gesture or two, I could make magic do anything I desired.
My right arm itched, and I scratched at it-rubbed it really-with my stiff left hand. Magic here pooled deep beneath the ground, much deeper than the graves. Ever since I’d changed, ever since magic had decided to use me as a vessel, an open channel, I felt like the tables had turned.
I didn’t struggle to use magic. I struggled not to use it.
And it was possible it was affecting my mind too. Like seeing the watercolor people, the magic on the wall. And my dad’s ghost.
I tipped my face to the sky and took several calming, deep breaths as rain flicked wet against my exposed skin.
Magic was not as strong here, despite, or perhaps because of, the graves. But it felt slightly different, old with the scent of heavy minerals, like rich soil. Grave rich. I wondered if using magic left a residual in the flesh. If perhaps, even after we died, the scent of magic lingered within our bones or leaked out of spent flesh to flow back to the natural reservoirs deep in the earth.
I wiped rain off my cheeks and headed toward the trees.
I knew my father’s grave before I was near enough to read the headstone. For one thing, the headstone was the tallest and most elaborate thing on this side of the cemetery. But mostly I knew it was his because it resembled a spindly, rune-carved Beckstrom Storm Rod more than a proper monolith. In a way I was relieved. Even in death he had to show the world that he alone had mastered the way to pull magic from the earth and sky. Total ego case, my father. He would be appalled at a humble marker above his head.
However, he might also be disappointed that the Storm Rod headstone was positioned so it was hidden from the majority of the graveyard. Blocking it from the rest of the graveyard was an old bare-leafed oak, trunk black as an artery, roots sunk into the soil, venous limbs spread against the gray flesh of the winter sky.
I tromped around the tree and stood at the foot of my father’s grave.
I tried to get it into my head that my dad was dead. Gone. Buried. Murdered. And if it had been his ghost I had seen, his ghost should be here, graveside.
The sound of traffic bled away, the startled call of a crow smothered out beneath the rush of blood in my ears. My breath, my heartbeat were suddenly too loud.
My father was gone.
Really gone.
We hadn’t been close-he too distant in his pursuit of wealth and power, me too young and grieving the loss of my mother and absence of him. And with age, I traded grief for anger. Now that could never be different, could never change between us.
And I didn’t even know if I’d lost the small bits of him most people got to keep-memories, maybe memories of us together, maybe memories of the good moments. I searched my thoughts, tried to dredge up images of him smiling, of times we’d spent not angry at each other. But all that came to me was his stern disapproval. If we’d ever been happy or gentle with each other, it was lost to me. And now that he was gone, I’d never have a chance to get those times back or to make new ones.
How could I say good-bye when he never gave me the chance to say hello?
I sniffed even though I couldn’t feel my nose, and blinked hard until I could see the grave clearly again. Finally I stepped up next to his grave and knelt.
“Good-bye, Dad.” I pressed my palms against his grave, pushing through the scrubby grass to the wet soil.
Magic shifted in me, maybe responding to the connection between my hands and the ground, and I realized I could use it, use a small bit of magic to reach out to my dad one last time and feel the physical presence of his life in this world. I could connect with him before finally and totally letting go of him.
I whispered a mantra and spoke the words of a Disbursement. I’d have a bigger headache later today or tomorrow, but that was okay with me. I traced a glyph for Sight and for Touch. I put only the smallest hint of need behind my action. I still didn’t have the best control over all this magic, and I did not want to suddenly find myself feeling as though I were actually in the coffin with him.
A light touch was all I was looking for.
Magic responded with an almost sexual tingle, lifting into my senses, heightening my sight and sense of touch. Faded colors, like Christmas lights through fog, moved at the corners of my vision. I looked around me, looked at the graves. A watercolor haze lay over them like an aura. I expected watercolor people to pop up out of that haze, out of the graves, but nothing. And more important, no
Weird. I mean, if there was ever a place I expected to find a ghost, it would be here, in a cemetery. The hazy, faded colors shifted a little, as if an unseen wind stirred them. But that was all.
Good.
I directed the magic into my hands, into my tactile sense. I felt rather than saw magic wrap around my hands like liquid ribbons of warmth. I sent those ribbons down into the earth where my father’s body lay at rest.
