driver, “
IV
A dazed Noelle sat cross-legged on the hotel bed, watching Elga dig through the oversized canvas carpetbag. The old woman had been bustling about the room for over an hour, muttering phrases to herself and barely acknowledging the girl. From the bottom of the bag the old woman hauled out a large bundle wrapped in an old sheet. Inside was an exquisite-looking clock, which she set on the table; then she went back to searching the carpetbag. After a minute of rummaging, she pulled out a pistol.
“Look around carefully and weigh all things, weigh them right, like a butcher weighs meat,” the old woman said, giving Noelle a raised eyebrow as she waved the pistol in the air. “Especially dumb toys like this. People think guns are important—ah, so much fear and lust over this chunk of steel, right? But like so much else, they are very wrong, guns are not important; they are stupid. But…” She held up her finger to make a point, then suddenly went back into her carpetbag, searching and digging until she came up with a box. “Bullets yes, bullets are important.”
“What do you have a gun for? What do you shoot?” asked Noelle.
“Oh, I’ve shot lots of things. Mostly food, animals, some troublemakers,” said Elga. “The other day, I had to shoot a stupid pig to shut up his big pig mouth. I was careful, though, I only used one bullet, see?” She pulled at the loading gate on the gun, unslid the rod, and the chamber popped out. Noelle could see it was full of bullets except for one empty casing. Elga popped the empty casing out, took a bullet from the box, and refilled the chamber. “First, I walked into the man’s store and put the gun right up to his head and pulled the trigger. No chance of missing there. Then, to be sure the idiot stayed quiet, I cut out his tongue.”
“Ew, what did you do with it?”
“Mmmn, well, um, tongues are tender,” said Elga. “They taste good in a nice meat stew.” She chuckled, set the gun down on the bedside table, and went digging into the bag again.
Noelle knew she should be frightened or shocked, but instead she was numb to all these new surprises. She simply took them in. She had been sleeping for much of the last day, still exhausted from her baptism in the hotel bath. Each time she had awoken, the old woman had been sitting by her side, stroking her hair and rambling on with strange lessons. “Listen now, where other people see trees, you should see fire, and if they look up to the mountaintops, you watch their feet.” And then: “Men are like lakes, broad, big, and easy to navigate; women are rivers, small, narrow, with deep, twisting currents.” And then: “Reading is important, but all kinds. When we learned how to read words, we forgot how to read dirt.” Sometime in the middle of the night, Noelle had awoken briefly to hear her still talking: “Remember, the earth is angry, it bristles with weapons. So don’t be slow, seize them, rip them up from the soil, and shove them right into your enemy’s throat.” Noelle had fallen back to sleep and dreamt of being a ballerina standing at the barre again, practicing her demi- and grand-plies until her blistered feet were soaked in blood. When she awoke it was still dark and the old woman was looking out the window muttering at the night sky. “They think by reaching the moon they will discover some big truth. Idiots. They go so far for what? For handfuls of dust. If you want the moon’s secrets, ask a fish.”
Noelle noticed that the rat came and went, disappearing for hours at a time through a small crack in the baseboard. Every time Max returned, Elga fed him some breadcrumbs. The final lesson she had said that day was: “You will find each time you use your power, it hurts. Like a giant fighter with big fists punching you. The pain is good, though, it feels like”—the old woman paused to search for the right word—“… I do not know.”
It was the next evening that Noelle learned her first spell. It was after room service had arrived and Elga had washed down a dozen escargots with a bottle of Riesling. After a long burp, she walked across the room and put the empty wineglass on the mantel. “There, see that?”
The girl nodded.
“Make it vanish.”
Noelle looked at her, bewildered. “How?”
The old woman took a vial of pink-colored sand out of the pocket of her dress. “You clap some of this, and when you do, you tell it to go away.”
“The glass can hear me?”
“How am I supposed to know what a glass hears?” Elga scoffed. “I’m not a glass, stupid. Just try.”
The girl held open her hand and Elga poured the sand into her palm. Then Noelle stared at the wineglass for a moment, trying to concentrate on it. It seemed odd and impossible, but the old woman was insistent. Giving the glass as evil a glare as she could muster, Noelle clapped the dust together in her hands and shouted, “
It vanished. The mantel was bare. Noelle did not have time to be amazed before the nausea came up fast and she retched onto the rug. Elga sat down beside her and patted her leg. “Good, good. Don’t worry about that,” she said, nodding toward the vomit on the floor. “The maid will get it.” Then Elga took the Riesling bottle again and went back over to the mantel. As she poured the wine, the glass reappeared.
Noelle looked confused. “So it was only a trick?”
“Did it feel like a trick to you?” said Elga, returning to the couch.
“No,” said Noelle, rubbing her sore stomach.
“Then it wasn’t a trick.” Elga went over to the closet. “Tricks are for Gypsies. You know what one of the charlatan Gypsies’ favorites is? They sneak a worm under their tongue, then they find someone sick and tell them, ‘I can suck the illness out.’ When they suck at the sick person’s flesh—shoulder or arm, it doesn’t matter—they pull that worm out of their mouth, show it to the sick person, and tell them that was the illness. The charlatan gets paid and the sick person dies.”
She pulled out the rest of their bags. Her luggage looked ancient: the carpetbag’s canvas was faded and restitched; her other bag’s leather was stained with mud and cracked wax streaks. Both were covered in a hundred scars and scuffs as though they had been kicked across the entire continent. Beside them, Noelle’s unsullied new suitcase gleamed as white as an egg.
“I am so sleepy. I don’t understand anything you’re saying,” said Noelle, crawling up onto the bed and curling herself around a pillow.
“I’m telling you, don’t trust the Gypsies, don’t trust anyone. That’s what I’m saying. Bah. It doesn’t matter, sleep if you want,” said the old woman. “But Max will be here soon and then we have to go.”
“Go where?” asked Noelle, sitting up. “Are we leaving?”
“No,” said Elga. “But we’ll pack the camp up in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
“Where are we going?”
Elga gave the girl an impatient glance, clearly tired of her questions. “Well, first we have to find you a damn chicken,” Elga said, emptying the bureau of clothes.
“Are we eating chicken?”
Elga stopped and gave her a frustrated look. “What are you, some comedian? No, we won’t be eating the chicken.”
Noelle pointed to the gun on the bedside table. “Are we going to kill it?”
“Oh no; well, yes, eh, we are going to do a little killing.” Elga looked at the pistol for a moment, thinking it over. “But I don’t think I need that stupid gun.”
V
She lay in Will’s bed for a long time, contemplating staying there all day, not ready to rise and go through the motions again. Her muscles and bones were tired and sore from their passionate exertions, and she was not sure if she was strong enough for all the spells. Also, she was tempted to see if she could do it without tricks, perhaps this time the simple bond of affection could work? The thought was hardly new, she had often been tempted, and even tried it from time to time before the doubts struck and she found herself once again lacing her
