Irene Radford - Thistle Down

Thistle peeked in that direction, trying not to move her aching head.

A big, callused hand extended toward her. It was covered with sun-bleached blond hair on the back and knuckles.

She followed the line of the hand up a muscular arm to the hem of a dark blue, short-sleeved shirt with three gold stripes in an inverted chevron embroidered on it.

Gulp.

“You gonna get out on your own, or do I have to carry you?” the man asked.

Thistle placed her hand in his. He closed his fingers around it, hard, and yanked her forward.

She stumbled to her feet, unsure how to balance with all that extra weight up front.

She tried to compensate with a little lift.

Her missing wings failed her.

She almost sat back down again. The man pulled on her arm harder, keeping her upright.

“Okay, everybody back to business!” the man shouted. “Get those cars untangled and moving. Nothing to look at here. Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman before? Eight o’clock and it’s already hotter’n Hades. I’d like to dance naked in the fountain to cool off, too! Pioneer Days nonsense. It’s going to be a bad Festival this year.”

Thistle risked looking around.

Behind her, Florentine swoops and curls carved into a stone urn. Water spouted up and out from the top. All around the fountain, dozens of human automobiles sat at odd angles in the six-way intersection. They should be flowing in a smooth circle around the fountain.

Oftentimes, in her delightful Pixie size, she’d flitted from car hood to rooftop to trunk, diverting a driver’s attention and causing him to swerve oddly for several moments.

But she’d never done anything to cause this much chaos before. This looked like a masterwork of Pixie tricks.

Would she get the credit for it, or would Alder?

She smiled at the tall blond man in a police uniform. Not a man alive had resisted that smile, especially if she threw in a few Pixie sparkles. He towered over her, glowering.

Not a good sign, nor a bit of Pixie dust in the air.

“Will someone get the phone!” Dusty Carrick called up the basement stairs.

The shrill ring continued.

“Lazy, self-centered, know-nothings, can’t remember the date of the Oregon Provisional Government in 1843,” she muttered as she dashed up the steep and dusty risers to the kitchen of the historic-house-turnedmuseum. She had to hike her long calico skirts and apron above her knees to keep from tripping. A very modern, cream-colored wall phone blended into the sprigged wallpaper of the pantry at the top. Dusty had painted tiny sprigs of pink flowers on the Bakelite to make sure it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

She reached around the corner and grabbed the receiver on the seventh ring, just before it clicked over to the answering machine. Where was everybody? A half hour after opening on a summer Friday morning, there should be a full crew of tour guides and administrative staff around.

Hadn’t Joe Newberry said something about an appointment first thing this morning and that she was in charge until he got back? That notation should be on the wall calendar in the employee lounge that she hadn’t bothered checking when she came to work at six. If there had been something about the archaeological dig or reference documents, she’d have noticed.

She inhaled sharply, bracing herself to talk to someone she didn’t know about something other than history. Still, carrying on a stilted business conversation had to be better than listening to the slightly accusatory tone of a message on the machine. Or confronting the person face-to-face.

Her inhalation caught on a dust mote and pushed it deep inside her. She sneezed horrendously before she could say anything. Her wire-rimmed glasses slid to the end of her nose, teetered a moment, then settled without hitting the floor.

“That you, Dusty?” Police Sergeant Chase Norton asked from the other end of the line. She’d know that voice anywhere.

“Excuse me, Skene County Historical Society,” she said stuffily and sneezed again. This time she managed to stick a finger under her nose and keep the glasses from falling off.

“Your brother named you right,” Chase chuckled. “You been mucking about in the basement of that old mausoleum again? More dust than artifacts down there.”

“Benedict has a foul sense of humor,” Dusty said. Actually, he’d done her a favor in nearly eliminating her full name from people’s memories. She’d done the same for him. Most of the world, except their mother, knew him as only Dick Carrick, from his business cards to his phone listing.

Their mother, Juliet, was too enamored of Shakespearean character names. Thank God she hadn’t named her two children Shylock and Hero. Benedict and Desdemona were bad enough.

Dusty also thanked whatever deity might listen that her parents had gone to Stratford-upon-Avon, England for the first summer of their retirement to absorb even more Shakespeare.

They could have stayed home and spent their time finding blind dates for Dusty.

“Look, Dusty, as much as I’d love to chat, I’ve got a problem only you can solve.”

Her heart sped up. Did Chase want a date for the Historical Society Fund-raising Ball next week?

“What do you need, Chase?” She didn’t dare say she’d do anything for him. If only he’d made this call twelve years ago when he was a senior in high school and she a lowly, and lonely, homeschooler. Maybe if he’d asked her out then…

No sense in living in what ifs and maybes.

The past was past.

“I’ve got a young woman in custody who asked me to call you as her one phone call.”

“Who?” Dusty couldn’t think of anyone she knew well enough, other than her brother, who would call her for help.

“She says her name is Thistle Down.”

Dusty’s mind spun in puzzlement. “I don’t know anyone named…” No, it couldn’t be. Five years without a word or a glimpse…

Dusty hadn’t ventured into The Ten Acre Wood since… since she started working full time at the museum as assistant curator.

“Don’t tell me she’s four inches tall, has lavender skin and purple hair with green wings in the shape of thistle leaves,” Dusty said, half hoping. She held her breath.

“Nah, don’t be ridiculous. She’s got black hair and white skin and not a stitch on her when she landed in Memorial Fountain.”

“That will give local gossips something new to memorialize.”

“But her eyes are the most amazing shade of purple…” Chase drifted off almost dreamily.

Dusty’s heart caught, then beat again loudly in her ears.

Chase was falling in love again.

“If she puts on sunglasses, will you remember the color of her eyes?”

Then a new thought caught her in a sucker punch.

“Purple eyes?” Dusty asked.

The clatter of a big tour group gathering in the front lobby jangled along Dusty’s nerves.

“Look, Chase, I can’t get away from the museum right now. Isn’t there someone else you can call?”

“Nope. This is her one and only call. Don’t know why she chose you.”

Dusty had her suspicions.

“Well, I guess you could drop her by here… just to see if I know her.”

“If I turn her over to your custody, she stays with you. Otherwise it looks like I’ll have to charge her with drunk and disorderly…”

“I am not drunk!” a female voice chimed delicately in the background. “I haven’t had a drop of honey.”

The world came to a screeching halt around Dusty. “Bring her by in an hour, after I deal with the current tour group.” She hung up. Where were those girls who were supposed to do the tours?