Chrysler that Ian had purchased for several hundred dollars cash in Dallas. The last time, she had been in an old Model T, along with her Ma and Pa, all her brothers, and every single thing they owned that could fit inside or could be strapped down to the roof. It had been a long, hot, and dusty drive all the way to California, especially since they’d had to stop to steal food and gasoline along the way.
The land was still dead brown, maybe even browner and deader than she remembered, as if that was scarcely possible. Maybe it was because of the darkness of the sunglasses Whisper had given her. Her memories told her that this area had been green and pretty once, but that had been a long time ago. That had all changed one summer, and walls of dust, black as night, had blown up and covered the whole sky for days at a time. The crops had died. The pigs had died. Pa had gotten madder and meaner, and when he got like that he liked to blame her for having the devil in her, what with her scary grey eyes and her cursed magic. He used to yell a lot, always telling her that she had to be filled with all sorts of wickedness to end up with so much magic that you could see it right through her eyeballs.
Pa hadn’t understood magic very well, but then again, most regular folks didn’t.
The road was open and empty. Most of the houses they passed were abandoned and the fields were bare. The fences were falling down, but there weren’t any animals left for the fences to hold in anyways. It had been four years since she’d left. It wasn’t often that she thought about Oklahoma, because all her memories of living here were sad.
The others had debated and picked their route. It wasn’t the most direct way, but they were trying to keep a low profile. And nobody liked to travel through the Oklahoma wastes if they could help it. Lots of places had bad drought, but there was a swath right up the middle where nothing grew anymore. When she’d heard they were going to drive straight through Ada, she’d kept her mouth shut. It seemed like an unfortunate coincidence. She had to keep reminding herself that this place wasn’t her real home. She’d grown up here, but her real home would always be in El Nido, California, on the Vierra farm, where she’d been taken in and loved and treated nice, and even though the Vierra farm had been burned to the ground, it was still a million times better than here.
“Dreary,” Mr. Bolander said. Faye snapped out of her funk and looked over at him. They were sharing the back seat. Ian was driving and Whisper was in the passenger seat. If anyone asked, she was supposed to remember that Ian was a businessman from New Mexico, on his way to buy a property in Virginia. Whisper was supposed to be his wife, which worked well since Ian was wearing a wedding band anyway and Whisper seemed to have an unending selection of rings available from inside her gigantic purse. Faye was Ian’s young cousin along for the ride, and Mr. Bolander was Ian’s hired man, which was funny to her, since in reality Mr. Bolander was the senior and most experienced knight, but he’d insisted that appearances had to be kept in case they found themselves in a Sundown Town. She had no idea what that meant, but everybody else seemed to, and she hadn’t wanted to look ignorant.
“What?” It had been awhile since anyone had spoken. All that broken-down scenery made folks quiet.
“I meant the view. Dreary. Sad to see a place all shriveled up and dried out. They say that we’re in hard times, but seeing this sure makes that sink in.”
“It’s ugly,” Faye said quietly. It made her miss her green fields full of Holsteins.
“What was that?”
“I suppose I was just mumbling, Mr. Bolander.”
“Call me George, please.”
She turned to look at him. His eyes seemed a little sad as he studied the scene. “I’ve been told that this desert used to be fertile ground… until we ruined it.”
Whisper chimed in. “I’ve heard about this. They spoke of it at university. The bowl of dust, was it not?”
“Dust bowl,” Ian corrected. His need to constantly correct people annoyed Faye, but she bit her tongue.
“They were having a drought. Some bright boys in Washington recruited a mess of Weathermen to try and fix things. Biggest magical alteration of weather patterns in history, they said. Instead they made it a hundred times worse.” George was still talking to her. The nice man had no idea that Faye knew all too well about what had happened. Maybe not about the decisions or the magic used, but she knew all about the awful results. “They tried to use magic like a hammer and ended up wrecking the natural order of things. It’s barely rained here since and there’s a hot wind that sucks the life out of everything.”
“Magic’s always got a price,” Ian said. “Sooner people realize that and quit messing around with things over their heads, the better off we’ll all be.”
Faye turned away. “It’s ugly… ugly and mean.”
“Ugly maybe, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it mean.”
George was wrong. She knew the truth. The darkness of the dust storms that had ruined their skies were nothing compared to the darkness that lived in some men’s hearts. The winds had just exposed that meanness for the rest of the world to see.
Steam was pouring out from the open hood of the Chrysler. George and Ian had their heads inside and they were poking at the engine. Faye had no idea what they were doing in there. Grandpa had always managed to fix the tractor when it had broken down, but she had never been much help at that except for fetching different-sized wrenches from his toolbox.
They had passed through Ada less than half an hour before, and Faye had been extremely glad when they had only stopped briefly to pump some gas at a weathered little station owned by a stern Chickasaw man. Faye had kept her head down, her glasses and big straw hat on, but even then it was doubtful that anybody would recognize her. Whisper had asked if they could stop for lunch, but everyone else had been eager to keep going. There was still plenty of daylight left, and even then the Chrysler had good headlights. Besides, they needed to get out of the bad zone before the night winds came. Faye was happy that they would be well away from her old home before they stopped to sleep.
But that wasn’t looking too likely anymore.
“Doggone it.” George mopped his sweaty face with his handkerchief. “I’ve got no idea. Plenty of fluid. No leaks. Radiator appears to be in good shape.”
“None of you happen to be a Tinker?” Ian asked.
“Call them Fixers where I’m from. I’m a Crackler,” George answered. “You want me to charge the battery, I can. Other than that”-he shrugged-“sorry.”
“Traveler,” Faye said, but everybody already knew all about her.
“Infernal thing.” Ian stepped back and kicked the bumper. “Well, I sure as hell can’t Summon a mechanic.”
Whisper got out of the passenger side, scowled at the sun, then went back for her umbrella. She popped it open and walked over to examine the engine. “Is it broken?” Ian glared at her, as if the boiling steam cloud should have been explanation enough. Whisper, however, was either immune to his jerkiness or just plain didn’t care enough to notice. “Well?”
“It overheated and died on us. Is there anything you can do?”
“I do not know much about automobiles.” Whisper frowned at the engine. “I believe that touching it would soil my dress.”
Ian sighed. “I meant magically.”
“You would like for me to set it on fire?”
George laughed with genuine amusement. “Fine lot we are. Four powerful wizards and yet we’re easily defeated by the internal combustion engine.”
“Yeah, the Imperium best watch out for us…” Ian muttered. He glanced up and down the road. There wasn’t another car in sight. “I saw a garage back in that town. It looked to still be open.” Which was saying something since most everything else in Ada had been boarded up and abandoned.
“Everyone wore comfortable shoes, I hope,” George said. “It’s only a couple of miles.”
“Lock the car up,” Faye told Ian, and then to the others, “Anything you don’t want stolen, take it with you.”
“Is that necessary to-” Whisper began.
“Trust me.” Faye got her. 45 out of the car and stuck it into the special pocket in her traveling dress. The knife Lance had made for her went on the other side. Sure, her family had moved to California, but she knew how desperate folks around these parts could be. Other than Mr. Browning’s pistol and Lance’s knife, everything else was replaceable.
