The Kansas Incident. - Aspect 3.

[joegoda]

10370 / 50000 words. 21% done!


Kansas isn't as boring as everyone says it is. Granted, it may not be as mountainous as the Rocky Mountains, and it may not be a canyony as the Grand Canyon, but it has its good points.

Sedan isn't one of them.

When I crossed the border between Oklahoma and Kansas, driving up highway 99, I didn't notice much of a change in scenery. The hills were still the hills, and yes, there are hills in Kansas, regardless of the rumors of eternal flatness. The sky was still the sky, and it was still the same smoky blue with the same fluffy sheep-like clouds. The difference I did notice was that my ears rang a bit harder and my eyes lost a bit of focus.

There was something in Kansas. Something not friendly, and for some reason it stopped right at the border, or maybe that was my perception. Those lines on the map, someone once told me, were more suggestions than law.

Granted, the way I'd been going the last few weeks, there was something not friendly pretty much anywhere I went, so why should Kansas be any different?

Highway 99 ran right up through Chautauqua, Kansas, a sleepy little place of about a hundred sleep little folks. There wasn't much to defend it against time, and it was showing its age. The trip in and out took about 2 minutes, as 99 ran just about 1 mile in and out of the town.

From there it was a straight shot into Sedan. Highway 99 stopped in Sedan and turned into School Street. I found out by driving along School Street that the Sedan High School mascot is called the Blue Devils. That should have been a clue to me, then and there.

Instead, I wasn't thinking of any sort of impending evil. I was following a breadcrumb left by Bob Plumb, my mentor. He told me to find a windmill in a wheat field and to bring my ruby slippers.

I did some quick 'net searching and the major references to OZ were in Wamego, Kansas, Nortonville, Kansas, and the Yellow Brick Road in Sedan, Kansas. Since Sedan was the closest point to Tulsa, I figured to start there and go looking for windmills. Besides, the ruby slippers were what walked the Yellow Brick Road, right?

Intuition is a funny thing.

I wandered around Sedan for a bit, just getting a feel of the place. It was a Saturday, and a clear sunny day. It would seem natural for folks to be out and about and doing stuff. At least a pack of wild kids running around.

But there wasn't. Not a soul in sight. Oh, I heard a few happy sounding kiddies screams when I drove near the high school, and I saw a few, and very few, cars parked in driveways, but it seemed that most of the people were somewhere else. Maybe someplace where the lights were brighter and there was a happy little park nearby.

I drove around the town for a while, just to get the feel of it, you know? I found the hospital, found the aforementioned High School, and found Casey's General Store, a little quick stop of a place where you can fill up your car, get some tasty pizza, and go to the bathroom.

I did all three. And the pizza was good, too. I talked to the lady behind the counter a bit. Her nametag said she was Becky. I found out that it was short for Rebecca, and that her family had moved to Sedan about 3 years ago. She was a big boned girl, about twenty-three or so, with long blondish hair and dark brown eyes.

I asked her about the town and she told me that they rolled up the sidewalks about five pm on Friday and didn't open back up until about eight am on Monday. I mentioned the Yellow Brick road and she chuckled.

"Oh, it's there all right," she said. It's not a road though. It's a side walk, and for twenty five dollars, you can have your name put on it."

"Really?" I moved out of a way so an older gent could pay for his gas. "I was under the impression that this was a big deal here. I mean, you have the Emmett Kelly museum and all. Doesn't make sense to close on the weekends when folks are traveling."

"Yeah," Becky said. "It is kinda crazy." The older gent left and she leaned a bit closer, as if she was sharing a secret. "I plan to get out of here as soon as possible. This place gives me the creeps."

"Oh?" I bought another buck fifty slice of pepperoni. "How so?" I shrugged - no big deal. "It looks like a nice enough place. I mean, it's Kansas. How bad can it be?"

"Remember the book 'In Cold Blood'? That took place in Kansas, in Holcomb," her voice dropped a bit more. "It just seems the smaller the town, the weirder the crime." She shrugged and shivered a bit. "There's just something about this place that makes me want to leave. You know... you hear things."

A woman, old, gray, and dressed from the last century came in, dinging the electronic bell. Becky looked up at her. "Oh, hey, Christie." She nodded at me and winked. "This man's looking for a place to eat. What do you think of Thom McCann?"

Christie brushed a bit of her long hair from her forehead. "Thom's isn't a place I'd recommend to anyone just passin' through," she said, in a voice that would have been in better days musical and light, but was now a grumbling curse of a voice. I imagined she had lived a hard life, full of disappointments.

Christie turned to me and looked me over with rheumy eyes. "My advice, young man, is to turn your car back the direction you came from and find somewhere else. This town can be hard on strangers."

"Really?" I was taken aback by her bluntness. "I was really hoping to see the Museum."

"Then you should come back during the week," she said flatly. "The museum isn't open on the weekends. Not much there, anyway."

She picked out some beef jerky from a big plastic jar on the counter, slowly counted the bills out of her wallet and placed them on the counter. She looked at me again, hard and staring. I felt the tickle of something at the back of my mind, and I let my Sight pull in just a bit.

Christie may have been an old gray woman on the outside, but she was blazing white and pink on the inside. This wasn't some old farmwoman, living on the outside of civilization in a tossed away Kansas town. She was a focal point.

Focal points can be anything. Gems, houses, rocks and books. They're places where universal energy passes and collects, like pools of water at the foot of a mountain. When the focal point is a person, it's generally soul energy, the energy of the living beings around. The person may not even be aware of it, but they become a safe haven for folks and can even lend energy like a battery. Most times, these people become the wise ones of the village, the people that others come to for advice and guidance, for succor and wisdom.

Christie may not have been aware of what she was. I suspect she was fully aware. I reached out a bit with my Sight and flicked against her astral body.

"Now," she broke me out of my Sight with that one word, that one command. She was a witch, for sure and true. "There'll be none of that, youngster. Flirting with an old woman." She chuckled, which transformed her and stripped fifty years off her face. She was at one time, quite the looker.

"I'm sorry, Grandma," I said, letting her know I knew who and what she was. "I'm on a kind of a quest."

There was a small crowd of customers pilling up behind us. Becky cleared her throat politely. Christie took my elbow and steered me a bit away from every one else. Turning back to Becky, she waved, her hand a small dove briefly in the air. "We'll talk later, young lady."

Becky nodded, her blond hair bobbing on her forehead. "'K. Bye! That'll be twenty-four fifty for the gas."

Christie pulled me to the candy aisle. "All this stuff is stale," she muttered with minor contempt. "Still, it's fairly private." She looked around to make sure that there weren't any little pitchers with big ears near.

"I suggest you come to my house to eat," she said in a quiet voice, softer and must less harsh than before. "I don't have much, but I bet you can eat biscuits and gravy just fine. You got all your teeth?"

"Well Grandma," I said, "those I wasn't born with, I bought, so I reckon they're mine." I liked her right away, and I felt comfortable talking with her. Of course. That's part of what Focal points do.

"Follow me." She squeezed past me and walked up one aisle, turned left, turned left again and down another. I followed her as she went the length of the store, crossed against the back wall and then headed across the windowed storefront to the exit.

I recognized this serpentine pattern from my own protection sigils. She was moving widdershins; counter clockwise, through a foreign space. This should, and should being the operative word, confound most Seeker or listening spells. At least, that's what Bob wrote in his journal, and he should know. He was one super power of a wizard.

Outside, I followed her to her car, a tiny two door blue Subaru. I held the door as she got in. "Follow me, kiddo. What're you driving, in case you get lost?"

I pointed to the golden shape of my van and she chuckled. "Makes perfect sense for a wanderer." She looked at me with the pointed gaze again. "And you are a wanderer, make no mistake." She closed the door, started her engine and I had to run to the van so I didn't lose her.

Mysteries, mysteries. Why in the world would a power like Christine be here in this little town for any great length of time? She could have gone anywhere and people would break their backs trying to help her, just because that's the sort of affect that Focals have on others.

She turned right out of the parking lot and headed up Main Street. I followed as close as I could. I want to tell you that she made up for all the old people that drive ten miles under the speed limit, because Christine drove like a bat out of hell. She'd barely slow down at a red light, and then magically -ha ha- it would change green. The exact opposite of what most stoplights do to me. I must have been in her spiritual drag zone, because I hit every green light too, all though I did notice two out of the three turned red at the exact time I was under them.

Main Street, Sedan Kansas is less than a mile long. It's more like three quarters of a mile and so the trip from Casey's General Store to where Christine took a squealing left turn took just about two minutes. I took the same left turn and almost collided with Christine's car, because she had parked it about half a block from Main. She hopped out of her car and walked to the front door.

Her house was an old clapboard style house. It was whitewashed and the roof was that old red asphalt shingle type I grew up with in Indiana. It had one story, with a door in the middle of the wall, and there were windows to either side. The curtains were open, to let in what sunshine came along, and I could see walls inside the house that were covered with portraits and paintings.

Her front yard was an amazing mixture of colors and images. Everywhere she had planted flowers and pretty weeds of all deep purples and bright reds, happy yellows and vibrant oranges. She had concrete birdbaths in the shape of fauns holding a large sea shell placed in a warding pattern across the yard - one to the left, one to the right and a third directly at the beginning of the native stone path leading to the door.

It wouldn't have surprised me to see a full-blown circle of summoning in her backyard, along with mushroom houses for the Little Folk to live in when they came a-callin'. Water was in abundance here, deep underground and all around. The smell of her yard was sweet and clean, like honeysuckle on a spring day. It had the feeling of home. A weird home, maybe, but home nonetheless.

I moved around the minor blockage of the pathway birdbath and felt the tingle at the top of my head telling me that I had been scanned and allowed to enter. I don't know what would have happened if the ward found me to be unwanted. Maybe there was a Whistletoo somewhere that would have shipped my butt to the Neverwhere.

I followed Christie and squeezed past her as she held the door open. I smelled cookies. Fresh, warm, chocolate chip cookies. There was maybe a hint of apples and cinnamon in the air, too. This was the type of grandmother I wished I had.

The front room, to the left of the doorway, was dark, even with the curtains open. Light poured in from the outside and illuminated a hard oak room, with hardwood flooring and walls that seemed to have grown from the ground up. Maybe they did. There was sparse furniture. An old brocade sofa with a large doily throw over the back. In the far corner, beside the sofa, there was a bentwood rocking chair that was rocking without anyone in it, and beside that stood a tall console type Victrola, in immaculate condition. There were two oil lamps to the left and right of the sofa on tiny wooden book tables. A sofa table, made from driftwood, sat in front of the sofa on an oval throw rug, woven from yarns of a thousand colors. On the sofa table there was an open book, large and the pages it was open to had large colored pictures of something I was too far away to make out.

"Make yourself at home, Child. I don't have much, but what I have I share with family."

She latched the door, paused to wave her hand a bit to activate the door watcher, and went into the dinning room to the right. She lit a lamp sitting on a large Maple dining table, the sort that had leaves so that it would expand to accommodate a big family or a small one. She pulled a chair from where it hung on the wall and scooted it over to the table and sat down.

"Grab a chair from the wall for yourself and come and sit a spell," she said.

I crossed the threshold into the dinning room, which was the same dark wood as the living room, but appeared much brighter. The walls were broken up by three windows, one facing the front yard, and two others on the wall facing me. The curtains were a pretty sunshine yellow and hand made crochet affairs, which let in a lot more light than the ones in the front room. Maybe that accounted for the brightness in the room.

There were six chairs, and like I said, they were hanging on the walls, rather than sitting on the floor. I used to know why folks did this, but that memory is way back in a corner of my brain I can't always get to. I think it was so that people could clean under them, or maybe it was so that snakes couldn't climb them and bite family members or something like that. In this house, maybe it was so that the Little Folk could come and go without bumping against chair legs. It was a small house, after all.

The chairs didn't match. I mean, the backs of some of the chairs were rounded, and some were square. Two were cane back chairs, one was a hardback chair, which matched Christie's and two more had fancy upholstery on them. I pulled the remaining hard back from the wall and placed it at one head of the table, facing Christine. She nodded at me, appearing to give some sort of approval.

"You are family, you know," she said and gave me a brief smile. She placed her small brocade purse on the table and opened it. "I didn't know it when I saw you in Casey's, but when I felt you using the Sight, I did the same to you." She pulled a small locket from her purse and opened it. She passed it to me and I looked at the pictures that were held inside of the locket, one on either side.

The pictures were old and sepia tone. They looked like they had been taken back in the early 1900s, judging from the clothing worn. The woman was handsome, and quite obviously Christine. She wore a high-necked long sleeved dress and her hair was up in a bun. The other picture was of a man, who wore a starched collar and a rounded cap that sloped down to a pointed brim. It was a very familiar looking cap. In fact, the face of the man was familiar.

It was a picture of Bob Plumb. I should have been surprised, but I really wasn't. I gave not much more than a small grunt of surprise.

"He said you or someone like you would be coming some day, and when you did, I was to help you a little bit. Not that I have much to give you, but some information, and maybe a couple of helpers."

I looked up from the locket and raised an eyebrow at Christie. "I would imagine there's a windmill in the back yard?"

She smiled again and nodded. "Why yes, there is! Bobby made it ages ago, close to sixty years, I think. Back when Sedan was a much smaller place, a happier place. Would you like to see it?"

I nodded and handed the locket back to her. "I would, Grandma. Thank you." She took it back and after a brief and loving look at it, she placed it back in her little purse. I stood up and offered her a hand, which she took.

"Would you like some lemonade? I made some fresh this morning." She made her way through an arched doorway at the back of the dining room and led me into a small but very functional kitchen.

There was a very old Wedgwood cook stove, gleaming black and chrome and looking as if it were brand new. The clock at the center of the back ticked along merrily and showed the time as being just after two thirty. The four black burners sat on either side of the griddle on the cook top and were immaculate.

Next to the stove was a simple countertop. It was there the smell of chocolate chip cookies came from, because there was a long flat cooking sheet that had no less than a couple of dozen fresh cookies on it. Underneath the counter were the drawers that held the flatware and the other utensils one needs when cooking. Above and below the counter were cabinets, holding dishes and platters and such.

"We used to entertain here," Christie said, "many years ago. Bobby moved on in the '50s." She gave me a wan smile. "We both knew he needed to go. The world required him to go. He was too big for any one place." She sighed and her small shoulders heaved up and down under her simple sundress. "Still, I do miss him at times."

She opened a small refrigerator and pulled out a glass pitcher of lemonade. Opening a cabinet next to the refrigerator, she pulled out two glasses, sat them on the counter and poured them full. After placing the pitcher back into the cold box, she handed me one of the glasses.

It was tart, just sweet enough and it filled me with sunshine. "This is very, very good! Thank you," I said, smiling.

"You are very welcome, child." Christie smile broadly back at me. "Let's go onto the back porch and see that windmill."

Comments

[capi.livejournal.com]

Highway 99 ran right up through Chautauqua, Kansas, a sleepy little place of about a hundred sleep (( sleepy? )) little folks. There wasn't much to defend it against time, and it was showing its age. The trip in and out took about 2 minutes, as 99 ran just about 1 mile in and out of the town.
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I looked up from the locket and raised an eyebrow at Christie. "I would imagine there's a windmill in the back yard?"
YAY!!!!!!!!
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She opened a small refrigerator and pulled out a glass pitcher of lemonade. Opening a cabinet next to the refrigerator, she pulled out two glasses, sat (( in proper English, this should be "set" not "sat", but sometimes, you choose words like this on purpose, so i'll quietly point it out and leave you to your executive decision, as usual. *grin*)) them on the counter and poured them full. After placing the pitcher back into the cold box, she handed me one of the glasses.
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