Radiotrophic

The trunk was even warmer than the outside, and full of dust, too! I couldn’t believe I’d actually waited around for this guy on the side of the road, and let him tie my arms up and tape my mouth shut and everything, and I still didn’t get the backseat. And I kept banging my head!

Well, okay, it didn’t hurt when I banged my head, it mostly made me sleepy - it would have to be a magic trunk to really hurt, and who’s ever heard of those? But I still would’ve liked the ups and downs more if I’d sat in the backseat. They remind me more of the waves when I’m not laying down. My waves, I mean. I grew up when these two upstart princesses got ahold of the moon, and they knew how to make some waves. The tempo’s all wonky here.

The car was cool, though. I don’t want to seem like a total downer, cus then I’d feel all old. A couple people have asked, but I don’t know how old I am. The people who kept track of what year it is changed their minds a few times since we got here. Plus sometimes we take a break from walking around places and sleep in the ocean for a while, and when we wake up it’s always different. I know I’m way older than cars, though. And sandwiches. And a bunch of other stuff too.

Everything’s so alive on the land, I still feel like a stranger sometimes. There’s Cajun barbecue, and ski resorts, and there are sounds whenever anybody moves, and sometimes people even go hungry! Makes me miss the Dreamer.

When the guy who kidnapped me - I never got his name, I’m pretty sure Aria knew it - stopped and opened the trunk, he looked super grim and hairy, and he pointed a gun at me. He rumbled like a bear when he talked, but he was dark purple instead of brown. His aura was like one of those spotted dogs, covered in big patches of evil.

“Stand up.” he said.

“Mmhm!” I said back through the gag, pretending to be scared. He backed up enough for me to wriggle in the right direction, and I swung my legs out one at a time.

It was a nice neighborhood, same as anywhere except for the gate and the spaces between the houses - everyone had a mondo yard, and there were some thick woods behind them all. There were a couple porches with lights on, but mostly the stars were out. What I noticed first, though, was that the air didn’t smell like salt, and that annoyed me more than the whole ride, cus I knew now I’d get to the others too late to have any fun. Plus it’s way easier for dealing with the body. I had to leave this one there, and I’m cool with honest mistakes, but that’s just sloppy. I hope Juniper never found out.

But anyway, he pointed the gun at me again and said, “Run and I shoot. If you do everything I tell you to, you can still go home tonight. No tricks, no funny business.”

The gun was dirty. I don’t think he knew how to clean it. My hands were still zip-tied behind me, and the gag was still on, so he could’ve shot me with it, but then he’d freak out that it didn’t do anything and it’d get way too tricky to deal with him, I guess unless he had magic bullets or something. So I nodded, and he spun me around and pushed me toward his house.

His grass was tall and scratchy with big clumps of dirt piling up everywhere, and when I came too close to the front door he grumbled “Around the side.” He was right behind me, but I couldn’t feel the gun even though I could smell his breath. (Boiled eggs.) I wondered what it was like, getting shot, and then he pushed me again so I’d hurry up.

The side door swung open the second I touched it, and the hinge made a nasty sound where a lock was supposed to be. The screen for keeping bugs out had a ton of holes chewed in it, and inside was a kitchen, another room past it with a couch and a TV, and a turn into a hallway. Anyone could’ve broken in, but I guess that was the point for him.

Once I’d gotten inside he stepped in, shut the door and flipped on the lights. He was more relaxed once he’d pushed me onto the couch, and his finger wasn’t on the trigger anymore. “Now, I’m gonna put you somewhere you can’t make any trouble for me, and then we’re gonna talk about what you have to do to leave here tonight. No sudden moves, no screaming. No one can hear you, and no one’s coming. Just take this one step at a time and you’ll still go home tonight.”

I nodded, he did too, and then he did the darnedest thing and ripped the gag off! I swear, I almost started a giggle fit right there over how easy it all turned out. I tried to get the tape taste off my lips instead.

“Bleh.” I said.

“You’re going into the basement now. It’s at the end of that hallway,” he pointed with the gun, “And there’s a lock. You’re going to unlock it very slowly and then walk down the stairs until you reach the bottom. Go.”

“Okay!” I said. “But one thing, though.”

“What?”

And then I was like “Juniper sends her regards!” And I jumped on him.

If I still had all my magic, it would only take a little singing. He was only one guy. But since the accident a few months back, we’d all had to do it the hard way, and that meant holding them down. My hands were behind my back, but I practiced snapping them over my head for, like, a year, so I brought them down on his head while I landed on him. It was way awesomer than it sounds.

I put a knee on his gun arm, but he started shooting anyway, and when it didn’t do anything he kept it up until he ran out of bullets. I punched him in the neck until he stopped, and then I sang until all the negative energy started coughing itself out of him. There was so much evil in him the rest clung to it, and the second his eyes went grey his whole soul popped out of his mouth. It tasted like the white stuff on rotten berries, but I didn’t try to keep it down long.

No, after a half-minute in my second stomach, I spat it back up as a tiny red glass sliver. Negativity, clarified like butter. It was only a teensy bit of a full amulet, though, nothing like the kind of power we could’ve taken from a whole school of kids covered in leaking magic - that kind of power could’ve brought people back from the dead. This was just putting stuff back together, not that hard in comparison, but still annoying. I had to take down a warlord the last time mine got broke, and Adagio had worked with some mafia or other to earn hers back once. ...I never thought about it before, but I don’t think Aria’s ever lost hers.

Once I’d put his evil in my pocket, I figured I didn’t have much time until the police showed up for the gunshots, so I dragged the body into the first bedroom in the hallway, took his keys and shut the door. Then I went down the hall door by door until I found the one with a deadbolt, and I went downstairs.

It was a pretty nasty basement, but it was dark enough that I could see everything without my eyes always adjusting. Concrete walls, that fuzzy crackly yellow cloud stuff they stick in the walls, heaters, laundry stuff. Rosemary looked almost exactly like her picture, teal with wide eyes, and she was handcuffed to a metal beam with food and water laid out in front of her. She was staring, and shaking, but her aura was resilient. Kids usually have a little bit of magic in them.

“Rosemary?” I asked from a little way away.

She didn’t talk for a moment. “Is he coming back?”

“No. I’ve sent him away forever and ever, and I’m going to save you. Your mama sent me to-”

“M-mama?”

I put on a super big smile. “Uh-huh! You wanna go see her?”

She started nodding and struggling, and she was crying really loud. I could’ve left her the police, they could’ve brought her home after a while, but no kid needs that. I guess it’s because I know what it feels like, to be in a scary wrong place without my mama.

“Shh, shhhh.” I said, and I hummed while I worked through the keychain. By the time I’d opened it, she was asleep, and I carried her up the stairs.

* * *

“Is she safe?” Juniper asked. I could hear she hadn’t been sleeping.

“You betcha! We’re at the gas station, corner of Crescent and Windfree.” I said, and then covered the receiver while the police cars whooshed by. When they pulled the security footage they’d see me climbing the gate holding something, but that’d take some time and I’d be gone before tomorrow.

“I’ll be right there, don’t move.” she said, and hung up.

Rose woke up in a chair next to me while I was making a burrito in the station’s microwave and thinking about becoming a trucker. She looked lost, but I sang a little to her on the way and eased off some of the negativity before it scabbed.

“I dreamed of you.” she said. “I dreamed we could fly. He’s… he’s gone?”

“Forever and ever and ever.” I said, and the microwave beeped.

She paused while I fiddled with the door, and then asked “Did it hurt?”

I smiled at her, crouched a little and handed her the spicy treasure. “Like hell.” She smiled back and dug in, and I knew she’d be just fine.

When Juniper showed up, she was crying and she nearly smacked me in the face with her payment envelope. As soon as it was out of her hand, she scooped up Rose and the two started hugging it out.

“Thank you, thank you so so mu--” she choked up, and then she couldn’t open her eyes for a while.

“Aw, shucks, it was nothing.” I said. I was blushing a little.

They gave me a ride to the boardwalk, and I got to enjoy the waviness the right way. When I got out of the car I high-fived Rose, and just like that - wham, bam, thank you ma’am - it was another job finished.

* * *

Of course, as soon as I got down the boardwalk and to the spot they’d picked, they were almost ready to leave.

Both of them were in beach chairs. Aria was pretending to be asleep, and Adagio was reading a book with her glasses on. I used to know how to do that, but after a while I gave up on it, and now that anyone can make a record of themselves talking and send that to anybody they know, there’s no excuse for writing little squiggly lines to say things. Talking in other languages is way more fun, anyway, and singing’s best of all, which is why we could all speak twenty-eight languages and sing most of the rest.

“Did it work out?” Adagio asked, while the tide flowed around her.

I was starting to pick up the buzz. “Uh-huh. The kid’s fine, but we shouldn’t stick around too long, they’ll get footage of me leaving probably.”

Aria groaned, her eyes shut so hard she looked angry.

“Good thing you showed up just now, then,” Adagio said. “Because we’re just about to head out on our way. Didn’t want to leave you behind.”

“Aw!” I protested. “I need some R&R too! And I just did all the work!”

“Don’t worry,” Aria grumbled, “We’ll make Adagio do the next one.”

“Me? Have you ever done one?”

“I do intelligence. Without me we wouldn’t have any jobs in the first place.”

“Yeah, right.” Adagio snorted, and that was it. Normally they’d get into it for a while, but it just… fizzled. Hard for us to stay mad after a turkey dinner.

I should say beaches here are different than the ones in Equestria. Back home, we’d have to swim around to feed even if we didn’t have fins, cus all of the juiciest negativity’s being thrown off by the Dreamer. The further down anybody goes, the thicker it gets, until no one can get through, but it’s totally like cotton candy except no one ever gets tired of it. My whole herd ate it from the day we hatched, and the stuff we didn’t eat crystallized into krakens and sea-snakes and megalodons and ate some of us back. Not perfect, but what home-turf is?

But here? No Dreamer. All the energy’s baked into the sand, broken glass and litter and nasty infections and dead stuff. It’s spread out so far that making an amulet of it would take years and years, but gosh it felt good to let it into my pores.

At least, for a moment, while they were packing up. Then, with dawn coming soon, we all had to get back in the car, and head out of town on another of Aria’s tips.