Marc Zicree - Magic Time

“You not goin’ there, are you?” Dread and awe mixed in Freddy’s voice. “Don’t do it, man.”

Cal asked, “Why?”

This seemed to catch the boy up short. After a moment, he merely gestured, uneasy, vague. Then, watchful of his captors, he rose shakily to his feet. “Can I. . go?” He eyed them, looking shamed. “Didn’t mean to steal your stuff. Been better, me in that ravine.”

Cal hesitated, weighing the thought before asking, “Would you like to come with us?”

The boy met this with a sharp, fearful intake of air. He shook his head.

Doc asked, “Is there anything we can do to help?”

A kind of desolation passed over Freddy’s face. Again, he shook his head, then turned to leave.

Something made him pause as he passed Tina. He glanced back, her aura dancing in his great white eyes.

“Do you know,” he asked her, “what’s going on? Do you know if we’re gonna be okay?”

His manner was intent, almost pleading. Tina searched in vain for words of comfort. She averted her eyes.

In silence, he disappeared into shadow.

In the morning, Goldie caught a white perch off Gunpowder Falls, which provided them breakfast. But it was clear, with the loss of the pack, that they needed more food. Still, Colleen cautioned against going near cities and the more populous towns.

Under flocks of red-winged blackbirds migrating south, they wound their way across the coastal plain, passing fields of tobacco and corn, along the asphalt tributaries of the 702, the 150, the 97, to the 3, just north of Bowie, near the banks of the Patuxent.

Afternoon found them on a rolling green bluff, peering through stands of sugar maple and white oak at a tiny village of one main street with three blocks of shops and a defunct traffic light. A rusty sign on its periphery, pockmarked by BBs, proclaimed, “Stansbury, pop. 72.” It was so small, they would have passed it by if Goldie hadn’t stopped them.

“No,” he said, squinting fixedly at it. “Here.”

Cal unstrapped his sword, stashed it in the pedicab. And then, with Colleen, Doc and Tina hanging back in the dappled shadows, he and Goldie strolled into town.

The only resident on the main street was a heavy-set woman in a billowy flower-print dress, her long black hair streaked with white, settled in a pine rocker before an empty coffee shop. Its sun-parched, peeling sign read, “The Buttery-Real Home Cooking.”

“That open for business?” Cal asked.

“It is now,” she said, rising with a smile like sunshine emerging from clouds.

There was no meat, but the corn chowder was astounding, and the vegetable stew a marvel.

“Raise ’em myself, in my garden,” the woman-whose name was Lola Johnson-explained as she dished out apple pie. Cal noted that her wrists were twice as big around as his own, yet she seemed robust rather than flabby. “I’ve always had a knack with growing things.”

“And a talent for understatement,” Al Tingly chimed in. Over the course of their meal, other denizens of the town had appeared: Tingly, a lean, stoop-shouldered man who introduced himself as a “hardware merchant”; Laureen Du Costa, who ran the antiques shop three doors down; a scattering of others, none younger than fifty. Goldie eagerly sopped up remnants of stewed tomato with his corn bread. Doc had joined them, too, while Colleen remained secreted with Tina-no need to alarm the townsfolk with visitations, angelic or otherwise.

Stansbury, it emerged, had dwindled since its posted population, its younger citizens having long since fled to brighter horizons, the remnant content to look back on live-lier days and be thankful for present calm.

“Used to get more fresh faces before the interstate bypassed us for New Carrollton,” Laureen said. “But since all this hullabaloo, we’ve been grateful for a little anonymity.”

“You haven’t been eager for authorities to arrive, get everything running again?” asked Doc.

Tingly snorted. “Electricity always was a finicky cuss. We got used to lamps and candles. As for water, our system’s gravity fed, so there’s no squawk there. And if you’re asking us if we’d like a lot of government stooges stompin’ in here and-”

“Don’t get Al started,” Lola cut in, laughing, “or he’ll bend your ear about what a prime SOB Harry Truman was.”

After they had eaten their fill and more, Cal voiced their need to stock up on supplies, and Doc offered to trade medical services. But surprisingly, no one in town had any physical complaints to speak of, nor had anyone fallen afoul of any mysterious new ailments. In fact, since “the Big Nothing,” as Al Tingly called it, even his psoriasis had cleared up.

“ Remarkable ,” Doc murmured. “To what do you ascribe-”

“Go on, Lola.” Tingly smiled. “Take ’em over and show ’em your potato patch.”

“I could get used to this,” Doc said, as the three of them rocked on the pine glider on Lola Johnson’s porch and the breeze blew through rust and gold maple leaves. The bang of a screen door heralded Lola’s emergence from the house, bearing a tray with pitcher and glasses.

The lemonade, like the rest, was perfection.

Lola settled into a wicker chair opposite them, her expansive frame overflowing it. “Well?” she beamed, throwing her big arms wide to take in the surging tangle of asparagus fern and morning glory that spread across the porch, along the roof line, down the steps. Beyond, in her front yard, flowers the size of hats rivaled in their lushness the corn that stood tall and ready for harvest, the potatoes, yams and carrots bursting from the soil, the trees sagging under the weight of apples, plums and pears. “Not bad for a little Maryland girl with just a spade and hoe.”

“It’s incredible,” Cal said.

“I mean, I was always good , but this -most of it’s been in just the last two weeks. Can you believe that?”

“Oh, yes,” chimed Goldie. “Were any of your neighbors equally fortunate?” asked Doc.

“Well, not at first. But then I’d pop round, putter a little here and there, and. . ”

“The same results.”

“Let’s just say, I don’t think we’ll be hearing our stomachs growling any time soon.” Her summer-radiant grin appeared and Cal was again struck by the joyfulness of this woman, and her power. Enthroned amid bounty, she seemed like the ghost of Christmas present atop the cornucopia in the Dickens tale, like some primeval spirit of nature.

Which would be cause for celebration in the general run of things, if not for the bodies they had encountered on the road, the predators that roamed free. . and what awaited them to the south.

Cal rose from the glider, set his empty glass on the tray. “From what I’ve seen, ma’am, I wouldn’t be counting on assistance coming any time soon. Things are getting pretty hairy out there. You might consider being concerned about folks coming ’round who might covet what you’ve got.”

She waved it away with an airy laugh. “Oh, we’re such a little flyspeck, I suspect most folks’ll just sail on by, won’t even know we’re here. . ’cept nice ones, like you.” Her eyes came to rest on his, full of easy certainty, and somehow, despite all his fears and knowledge, Cal felt reassured.

As the afternoon sun waned, Cal attempted to settle up with Lola Johnson for the foodstuffs, but she insisted they stay the night. Ed Spadaro had been off in Omaha when “the conniption” had happened, prior to which he had entrusted her with keeping an eye on his bed and breakfast.

“It’s moving into the off-season,” Lola noted. “Not that we get much of an on-season, really. We’re quiet folks, and our charms, what little they might be, are subtle.” She added that her perquisites included fixing the rates, which, if she chose, could just damn well be gratis.