Phoenix RisingThree: Inside StraightGoing hiking with my grandpa was always an adventure, especially the times when we just grabbed blankets and supplies and fishing tackle and headed out for a few days. Harry had some favourite places he liked to go, but sometimes he’d just spread out a map, pick a spot and say, “That looks good, Bud. Whaddya say we go check it out?”
When you know where you’re trying to get to, but you don’t know how to get there – you don’t know the route, there’s no marked trails and you can’t see it from where you’re starting – sometimes you find yourself heading off in funny directions.“Jason, are you sure this is really necessary?”
MacGyver looked longingly at the flannel shirt he’d discarded. He didn’t dare look in the mirror.
“Trust me on this one,” Jason answered. “You show up looking like the Brawny paper towel guy, and they’ll take one look at you and think ‘lumberjack’. That is
not a good image with this group. Besides,” Jason’s grin was pure mischief, “isn’t the whole idea of going undercover trying to blend in?”
“
Blend in? In
this?”
“Mac, I told you, you just have to trust me.”
Mac finally snuck a glance at the mirror. It wasn’t just that the colours in the tie-dyed T-shirt were bright – well, they were, but he had to admit they were kind of cheerful. After the last six years of intelligence work, he sometimes got tired of dull colours and nondescript clothing; his memories of Eastern Europe tended to blur into one continuous haze of grey and dull brown. But the largest shirt in Jason’s collection was still a size or two too small for him, and the fabric was stretched almost skin-tight across Mac’s chest. He felt slightly squashed and very conspicuous.
On the other hand, Jason’s T-shirt was even brighter – the orange and yellow swirls made Mac want to reach for his sunglasses.
“Just tell me I don’t have to add sandals and love beads.”
Jason looked over from the kitchen counter – his apartment, like most San Francisco lofts, was incredibly tiny, and the kitchen was little more than a niche carved out of the living area – and cocked his head thoughtfully. “Well, now that you mention it –
do you own a pair of sandals?”
“No.”
“Then the sneakers will have to do. Have they been washed any time in the last year?”
Mac picked his flannel shirt up off the floor, wadded it up and threw it at Jason, who caught it laughing. “Hey, careful there! We don’t want lint in the casserole. Good job on that, by the way. I can’t even boil water without burning it. What’s in it?”
“You said vegetarian would go over well. It’s tofu.”
“No kidding? Just promise me it tastes better than it looks, okay?”
MacGyver turned away from the mirror, hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and studied Jason thoughtfully. It was six weeks since they had hiked out of Czechoslovakia, and Mac could hardly credit how quickly the young man seemed to have recovered from his ordeal. It wasn’t just that he’d regained enough weight that his clothes no longer hung on him like empty sacks –
at least we aren’t gonna show up looking like a tie-dyed Laurel and Hardy – he seemed genuinely relaxed and at ease, with only faint echoes of the battalion of nervous tics and twitches that he’d shown after his rescue. Shortly after Mac’s arrival, a car had backfired in the street outside, and Jason hadn’t even seemed to notice it. But now he was looking uneasy; he had taken off his thick glasses and was polishing them distractedly on Mac’s shirt.
“Mac, I . . . I’m afraid you’re going to think some of the people in this group are – well – a little weird. Okay, actually,
most of them are a little weird, and some of them are – ”
“A lot weird?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Jason, I’ve been living in California for a lotta years. I’ve seen plenty of weird by now.”
Jason replaced his glasses and looked at Mac sharply. “Sure, but have you ever let it get close to you?”
Mac shrugged and waved desultory fingers in the air. “It depends. Weird how?”
“Um . . . “ Jason studied the casserole intently. “The kind of things they believe in . . . the way they talk, and dress, and . . . you’ve got to understand. Karen can’t stand them.”
“Well, I don’t see Karen any more, so that doesn’t have to count for anything.”
“Yeah, what happened there? When we were on our way back from Czechoslovakia, I thought you two were an item.”
MacGyver shrugged. “After the DXS cut her loose, she said it would be too painful to go on seeing me.”
“So she kicked you to the curb?”
“Yup.”
Jason looked around awkwardly, as if he thought his kitchen might offer him a way out of the discussion. “Well . . . for what it’s worth, I’m still grateful to her for everything, but – well, I’m not a kid any more. We don’t agree on a lot of things. She doesn’t even like Gina.”
“Gina – is she the unofficial call that you didn’t have me make when the State Department sequestered you for debriefing?”
“Yeah.” Jason tapped the lid of the casserole dish. “That’s the one. I never had a chance to thank you for that, you know – ”
“Hey, forget it.”
“I
can’t. Look, MacGyver. You called me up and said you wanted an introduction to Irina Dmitrovna Dementieva . . . “ Mac felt a moment of pure envy, hearing the liquid syllables pouring out with such effortless ease. “You promised me that you didn’t mean her any harm, and I’m trusting you on that. But you need to understand just how much trust is involved. Baba Irina isn’t an easy person to get close to – her granddaughter’s very protective of her, for one. So’s almost everyone else who knows her.”
“Including you?”
“Well, yes. And this really is the best and quickest way. All you have to do is make a good impression from the beginning, and I’m trying to help you do that. I haven’t even asked you why you want to meet her . . . although – you did say this
isn’t for the DXS?”
“That’s right. I’m doin’ some work for the Phoenix Foundation – you’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”
“Who hasn’t? The thing is . . . well, I’m not too fond of the DXS right now. And not just because of how they treated Karen.”
“I know they put you on leave of absence – ”
“It’s not that. I
like the embassy work here; it’s a little dull, but ‘dull’ is pretty much what suits me right now. It’s just . . . I heard about Bill and Emily.” Jason was looking off into a blank empty distance, unconsciously twisting MacGyver’s shirt in his hands. “Mac, when they took me out of my cell at Valdice and loaded me into that truck, I thought they were going to cart me off into the woods and shoot me. I lost track of how many times they pulled that kind of stunt . . . we were hours on the road from Prague to Cheb. If it hadn’t been for Bill and Emily, I think I’d have died of fright on the drive.”
Mac had walked over and leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter, listening with focused attention until Jason was done. “So what were you tellin’ me about your friends up in Marin County?”
“Just this – they’re good people. They’re open-hearted, accepting, caring . . . I was kind of messed up when I got back from Czechoslovakia. And Gina had just about gone crazy with worry – she couldn’t get anyone to tell her what had happened to me, of course. I never thought anyone could be that totally loyal and patient.” Jason was polishing his glasses again. “She’s been great, and the others – they really helped me get my head on straight. And they did it without asking too many questions. It was enough for them that I needed help, and healing, and, well, love.”
“Sounds good enough to me.” MacGyver picked up the casserole dish. “So am I finally gonna meet Gina?”
Jason’s smile slid from broad relief to sheepish pride. “You bet. She’ll be there already – yikes, we’d better go – we’re running late. At this rate we won’t get there till sunset.”
“So what is this event anyway?”
“Aw, c’mon, Mac. I thought you were an astronomy buff.”
“What’s that got to do with . . . oh. The summer solstice?”
Jason nodded. “It’s
Ivan Kupalo. Midsummer.”
φAs the Jeep crossed the Golden Gate and headed north past Sausalito, MacGyver felt himself taking deeper breaths. He liked San Francisco, but the heart of the city in particular always felt cramped, almost claustrophobic; the farther they went into Marin County, the more he felt his elbows unlock from his sides.
As the traffic grew lighter, Mac drove with half an eye on his rear-view mirror – once or twice he’d seen what looked like the same car behind them. He thought he was being discreet, but Jason spoke up.
“Mac, are you just being twitchy, or is there really someone following us?”
“Probably just my guilty conscience. Unless it’s the fashion police. Is tie-dye a misdemeanor or a felony?”
“In Marin County? It’s practically a requirement.” Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Seriously, is there someone there?”
“I’m not really sure – and there’s no reason anyone could have to follow us just now.”
“Well, our turn’s coming up – and anyone who’s following us after that is going to be awfully conspicuous.”
There was very little traffic and no sign of a tail as they left the main highway behind and followed a side road as it wound up into the hills – although the twists and turns of the winding route might have concealed a very careful following car.
Except for an occasional house, all signs of recent development had faded away; the hills were striped with bands of alder, maple and pine woods between open meadows where coyote brush and redbud alternated with broad patches of long-stemmed grasses and wildflowers. They were driving with the top down, and Mac could smell the fresh, damp air from the patches of woodland and hear birds beginning to make their twilight calls in the long, lingering sunset.
“Nice area,” he said at last.
“The land belongs to Moon Bear’s parents. We’re lucky to be able to use it – they bought it as an investment, and they never come out here themselves.”
“‘Moon Bear’?” MacGyver couldn’t keep the dubious tone out of his voice. “Is he Native or something?”
“Oh, he’s one-sixty-fourth Cherokee, and he’ll tell you as much if you give him half a chance. But he’s harmless.”
Mac winced. “Lemme guess – his great-great-great-great-grandmother was an Indian princess.”
“Probably.”
“And I bet Moon Bear isn’t his real name, is it?”
“No, of course not. He calls himself that. His parents are mostly native to the tennis court and country club circuit. Um, speaking of names . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Most of the people in the Tribe go by names they’ve chosen for themselves. And if you don’t choose one, someone’s likely to choose it for you. That can be kind of embarrassing.”
“Did that happen to you?”
“Sort of. I’m called Bluejay – Gina named me at the first gathering I attended.”
“How come?”
“I was wearing a blue shirt. Oh, stop laughing! Take the next turn to the right, just past that clump of trees.”
At their destination, the parking area was little more than an open field between thickets of bay laurel and manzanita, recently mowed to leave room for some twenty cars, mostly older models sporting bumper stickers that ranged from peace symbols to environmental slogans. MacGyver pulled his Jeep in between a self-styled ‘Tree-Hugging Dirt Worshipper’ and a very muddy VW bus festooned with hand-painted flowers and a banner reading ‘War Is Not Healthy For Children and Other Living Things’.
Beyond a screen of trees, a larger field seemed to be the centre of activity. Mac could see a clump of tents at one end, surrounded by the familiar piles of camping gear; several large open pavilions were scattered around the main field, and someone was lighting tiki torches in anticipation of the gathering dusk. In the middle of the field, a cluster of gesticulating people seemed to be having a lively debate, but nothing could be heard beyond the rise and fall of agitated voices.
Mac glanced at Jason as they climbed out of the Jeep. “Um . . . bwana, I hear drums.”
“Get used to it. They start at sunset and they’ll be at it all night.” Jason pointed towards the larger tents. “The drumming circle usually sets up there, and the pot-luck tent is over at that end – there’s a picnic table, but don’t expect to find chairs. The biggest tent in the camping area is open to anyone who wants to crash for a few hours.”
“Bluejay!” A heavyset woman in a flowing tie-dyed dress was climbing out of the VW bus. On the far side of the car, an eight-year-old girl hit the ground running and whooping, followed by three more girls in their late teens and early twenties.
“Hey, Raven! Good to see you again. Raven, this is – ” Jason glanced at MacGyver with a moment’s blank expression, and then grinned. “Raven, this is Phoenix. He’s a good friend of mine.”
Mac looked daggers at Jason, but Raven didn’t seem to notice.
“Phoenix, huh? Cool.” She turned to the oldest of the girls. “Sunrise, would you go tell Isis that Bluejay’s finally decided to show up?”
Sunrise was eyeing MacGyver appreciatively. “Can’t you tell her yourself?”
“
Sunrise – ”
“Oh, all right, all right, I’m going. Geez.”
“And keep an eye on Willow! Don’t let her go into orbit without a parachute.”
Raven shook her head as she shut her car door, then hurried up to Jason and enveloped him in a bear hug. “Great to see you –
and your friend – ” MacGyver suddenly found himself being enthusiastically hugged in turn. The woman continued talking to Jason and didn’t seem to notice Mac’s confusion. “Bluejay, guess who’s here? Rainbow’s home early! Rainbow, get over here, Jay’s brought a friend!”
Mac held out a hand with a friendly smile as he studied Rainbow, who had emerged more slowly from the front passenger seat of the VW bus. Her looks belied her name: with limp pale hair, sallow skin and dark-circled eyes, she looked more like a recent refugee than Jason did.
Raven looked at Mac’s proffered hand and started laughing. “Jay, where’d you find this one? Emily Post’s Finishing School for the Terminally Uptight?”
“Give him a break. He’s from the Midwest.”
Rainbow glared at them. “Would you two knock it off? Geez, you’d think it was a crime to have any personal space at all.” She seized Mac’s hand and shook it briskly. “Great to meet you, and just ignore these jokers.”
“Hey, it’s fine. I can deal with the local customs – as long as
someone remembers to
tell me about them – ” Mac tried to catch Jason’s eye, but the younger man had been engulfed by a dark-skinned vision in flowing white draperies who had apparently materialised out of nowhere at a full run. “Whoa.”
That’s gotta be Gina.Raven rolled her eyes again, gathered a double armful of blankets and pillows from her van, and walked away towards the main field. Rainbow snorted. “They won’t come up for air for a good five minutes. I think they’re still making up for lost time – Bluejay was gone for, like,
months. In fact – ” her voice dropped to a confidential murmur – “I heard nobody even knew where he was, like it was some kind of secret.”
“Yeah, um – ” MacGyver cast about for a change of topic. “So you only just got back from a trip yourself?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I’m fresh home from a Peace Corps stint.”
“No kidding? Where?”
“Bhopal.” Her voice had gone flat, and the spark went out of her eyes. “And before you say
anything else,
no, I do
not want to talk about it. I just want to forget it.”
“Hey, that’s fine. I can understand that.”
“Can you? Funny how nobody else can. Half of them think I’m some kind of hero, and the other half think I’m a quitter.”
“What do
you think?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter?”
Mac leaned back against the trunk of a car emblazoned ‘Speak Your Mind, Even If Your Voice Shakes’. “It oughtta matter more’n anything else.”
“Okay. I think the world’s going to Hell and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I think if there’s anything I
can do, I’m going to do it here at home where I won’t be so damned alone. And I think if I don’t get my ass over to the firepit soon, Raven’s going to come looking for me again and ask more damned thoughtful, nosy questions that I don’t feel like answering.” She turned her back on him and stalked off towards the meadow.
“O-kay,” Mac murmured under his breath as he watched her go. If he’d had any thought of following, he gave it up at the sound of Jason’s voice.
“Uh, sorry about that, Ma – uh, Phoenix – there’s someone here you need to meet – ”
The vision was still firmly entwined around Jason, but she spared a gleaming smile for MacGyver. “I’ll say, baby! Who’s your handsome friend?”
“
Isis – ”
“Sorry, baby. I know I shouldn’t tease you like that. But you make it so easy.” She wrapped herself a bit more tightly around Jason and whispered into his ear, loudly enough that Mac could hear her easily, “So what language you gonna make love to me in tonight, mmm?”
“
Gina!” Even in the fading light, Jason was visibly scarlet.
Gina – ‘Isis’ – was cover-girl beautiful, with rich dark hair and a flawless dark-chocolate complexion. She was wearing copious amounts of vaguely Egyptian jewelry and a very sheer white cotton dress; MacGyver was careful to look her full in the eyes as Jason introduced her.
“‘Phoenix’, huh?” Her eyes looked shrewdly from Mac to Jason. “Just a guess, but maybe you the man who dumped Jay here into that river?”
Mac glanced at Jason in some confusion. “Well, yeah. It seemed like the best option at the time.”
“Good for you. Air, water, earth – all we need is fire and you’ll have gone round the wheel together.” Gina turned back to Jason as Mac tried to make some kind of sense out of what she’d said. “Speaking of fire, baby, we got a problem.” She waved expressively towards the open meadow.
Jason glanced over. “Isis, I don’t see the bonfire. They should have had it lit before this.”
“That’s just it, honey. Come on and I’ll show you.”
In the centre of the meadow, where the arguing people were still gathered, there was a large stack of wood and a wide clear space for a firepit. The reason for the rancor became clear: instead of a fire, there was a haphazard pile of logs, some smouldering, most not, and a reek in the air. Mac grimaced as the smell hit him, and guessed what had happened.
“It was that stupid-ass idiot Moon Bear is what,” Gina was saying. “Jay, Hawk put him in charge of the fire. I didn’t think even Hawk could be that much of a dumbass!”
“Hey, whoa, slow down. What went wrong?”
“It rained the last two days, remember? And Moon Bear was in charge of getting the fire ready.”
“You mean he didn’t bother to get his butt out here and cover the firewood when it started to rain?”
“That’s right, baby. I think he was probably off communing with the Great Fire Spirit instead.” She rolled her eyes. “So when it comes time to light the bonfire, he don’t have nothin’ but soggy wood and a big-ass bottle of lighter fluid.”
MacGyver had been studying the sullen embers of the fire as he followed the conversation. “You mean he just piled up a bunch of wet logs, poured lighter fluid on them, and thought that would work?”
“That’s right, handsome. He got a great big blaze at first and a couple of these yahoos cheered, but then it died down like you see.”
“Well, of course it didn’t work.” Mac picked up a long heavy branch and scattered the sooty logs, shoving them to one side of the firepit. “Butane’s volatile. All you’re doing is burning the fumes. And it’s toxic, too.” He walked over to the woodpile and squatted next to it, running a hand over the ends of the lower tiers of logs. “It doesn’t even generate much heat, and what heat there is goes upwards, not down. If you want a fire to catch, the wood itself has to get hot enough to reach flashpoint. If it’s wet, you gotta dry it out.” Mac stood up and dusted his hands off. “I left my flashlight back at my Jeep. Anyone got one handy?”
Raven had turned away from the arguing group when Mac started speaking. Now she handed him a light. “Can you do anything?”
“I think so, but you gotta help too. The top three or four layers of that woodpile are soaked, but if you can pull out some pieces from farther down, you’ll have wood that’s only wet at the ends. We’ll need three or four pieces from that for starters, and more in a bit. And Gina – I mean Isis – can I borrow one of your scarves?”
MacGyver took the light and hurried off into the nearest patch of woods. When he returned several minutes later, he had a confident spring in his step and a large bundle wrapped in Gina’s scarf; there had been no shortage of dry tinder and twigs for kindling under the thicker bushes.
Jason and Gina stood back arm in arm, watching MacGyver with matching grins. Mac was oblivious, caught up as always in the immediacy of the problem at hand – for once, an easy problem that he’d solved dozens of times before. By the time the fire was going well, with half a dozen logs solidly burning and a second circle of pieces of slightly damp wood arranged around the growing blaze, steaming themselves dry, a dozen more people had gathered around and were laughing and joking as Raven directed them in restacking the woodpile. Sunrise was hanging by Mac’s elbow, looking at him adoringly. Moon Bear had stalked off to sulk.
Mac was still lying prone by the fire, blowing one last log into bright flame, when Jason nudged him with his foot. “C’mon, ‘Phoenix’. You can turn the job over to the fire-tenders now. Tasha’s lit the lamps in Baba Irina’s tent – you can come meet her now.”
The largest and gaudiest of the pavilions stood with one wall open to the meadow and light spilling out across the field. As they crossed towards it, Mac craned his head upwards, mentally picturing the pattern that the outline of the hills had made as the sunset had thrown them into relief, and trying to get a good look at the stars; but the full moon had already risen and the constellations were washed out. “Darn it, I wish I’d kept closer track of how that road wound around coming up here. Jay, are we anywhere close to Brookhearst Chemical?”
“You mean the big research lab?” Jason looked around aimlessly. “Hell, I’m the last person you should be asking that – I can never keep from getting turned around. Isis?”
“Not very near. They’re in Mill Valley and we’re pretty close to Muir Woods here. They’d be over thataway.” Gina pointed. “How come?”
“Just wonderin’. Gina – sorry, Isis – you live near here, right? You know anyone who works there?”
Gina shook her head. Jason replied instead. “She lives in Sausalito. What’s the deal with Brookhearst? Is that who you’re investigating?” He had lowered his voice, but when MacGyver looked sharply from him to Gina, he shrugged. “Gina’s cool. Don’t worry.”
Mac nodded. “The Phoenix Foundation’s got some questions – they asked me to try to get them some answers.”
“So what’s Baba got to do with it?”
“Tell ya later.”
They had reached the open front of the pavilion; a woven mat held the shoes of the people inside, and warm golden lamplight was streaming out along with the unmistakable sound of adolescent wheedling.
“Baba,
pleeeease. It’s Midsummer. You told Jade that the Gypsy magic is always stronger at Midsummer.”
The answering voice was deep and rich; despite a pronounced Russian accent, the words were clear and distinct. “I never said such a thing, surely!”
“You
did. You
totally did.”
“
Bozhe moi! When did I tell you that?”
“Midwinter!”
The tent was lined with assorted rugs, throws, and pillows of all sizes, with several small tables holding lamps and a large and magnificent tea urn on tripod legs. A young, dark-haired woman in jeans and a peasant blouse was tending the urn and laying out plates of food on one of the small tables. Jason gestured towards her.
“That’s Tasha – she’s Baba’s granddaughter.”
Irina Dmitrovna – ‘Baba’ – was seated in a nest of velvet cushions and fringed rugs, somehow giving the pile of mismatched, threadbare finery the air of a throne room. A small table beside her held a fine china teacup and saucer and a plate of sliced fruit and cheese, and two young girls were sprawled around her.
Baba’s face was deeply seamed, bronzed and weathered; Mac guessed she was in her seventies, possibly older, and thought she would have been tall if she had not been so stooped with age. Her clothing was a rich polychromatic riot that made even Jason’s tie-dyed shirt look tame, with myriad scarves and shawls and a welter of silver jewelry that chimed and rang when she moved. Beneath fine white brows, her eyes were as dark and bright as a bird’s.
“Yes, Amber, and now it is Midsummer, and that is a holiday! Tonight I am enjoying my holiday. You want me to work tonight? To perform tricks for you like a trained monkey? Oh, very well. Bring me my cards, Jade. Amber, you will get me more tea.”
As the girls scattered giggling to different sections of the enclosure, Baba lifted her head in its multihued scarves, turned towards the open front of the tent and looked MacGyver directly in the eyes.
Years before, Mac had been on a recon mission in Afghanistan, watching a village where a Soviet patrol was temporarily based. He’d been observing the comings and goings around one hut through his binoculars when one of the villagers had suddenly turned in his direction and somehow, impossibly, looked right back at him, meeting his eyes across an unbridgeable distance. Despite an absolute certainty that nobody could have spotted him without binoculars, MacGyver had never felt more desperately visible in his life. He’d run then, and only ten minutes later an airstrike had hit the hillside where he’d been concealed.
Baba’s eyes were neither welcoming nor hostile; merely sharp and penetrating. But Mac hadn’t felt so utterly noticed since that day in Afghanistan.
The old woman smiled, deep ravines creasing her face, and turned away and began to shuffle and lay out the Tarot cards Jade had brought her. “Hmm, ha. There is a stranger in our midst . . . a man of rare talents, an old soul.” The girls gasped with delight, and Tasha looked up from her work in time to see MacGyver roll his eyes and look away with a derisive expression. Tasha scowled and glared at Jason, who shrugged apologetically.
“A great traveler,” Baba continued, “yet for all his knowledge he is no closer to wisdom than when he first set foot upon his long road.” There was a smirk deep in her shrewd eyes when Mac looked at her again.
Jade looked at MacGyver and began to giggle, but Amber was pouting. “Baba, that’s not what we meant! We want to hear
our fortunes!”
“Oh, so now you are telling the old Gypsy what the cards should be saying? You know the cards better than old Baba, you say?”
“Nooo!” Jade punched Amber in the arm. “Shut
up or you’ll totally ruin it.”
“Enough! Run away and dance, my children.
Ivan Kupalo is a night for the drums and the dancing. Let the future wait for another night. You have plenty enough future to spare.” She flapped her hands at the girls and they scrambled away.
When Baba turned back towards the group at the tent opening, the indulgent grandmother of a moment before had disappeared, replaced by a tribal matriarch. She beckoned to them to enter.
Gina led the way, kneeling gracefully in front of Baba to exchange warm greetings and kisses on both cheeks. Jason knelt in turn, far more awkwardly; but there was nothing awkward in the flow of fluent Russian as he saluted the old woman in terms of profound respect and began to introduce MacGyver. Mac just barely managed to follow him well enough to nod and smile at the right moment. Baba glanced over at Tasha and gestured imperiously towards the tea urn.
Jason switched back to English. “Phoenix, I’d like to present you to Baba Irina.”
Mac inclined his head. “
Ochen priatna.”
“‘Phoenix’, is it? You’ve enough ash on you for it.” The old woman turned back towards MacGyver and studied him as if they had not been sparring silently for the last few minutes. “So.
Have you been reborn?”
Mac glanced down at his hands, still grimy from the fire, and wiped them on his jeans, trying not to feel self-conscious. “Actually, I think my Mom got it right the first time.”
Tasha, in the middle of bringing tea over for Jason and Gina, glared at him and seemed about to speak, but Baba laughed with unrestrained delight. “Very good! No, I suppose you are in no hurry to go through all that again just yet. Perhaps you are wiser than you know. Come, sit by me.” She patted the cushions beside her. “Keep an old woman company. It is many years since I last passed a fine evening with a handsome man beside me.
And you have not forgotten how to blush; that is good, very good.”
MacGyver glanced over at Jason and Gina as he settled himself into the cushions, but they had joined Tasha at the other end of the tent and were sitting and talking quietly, clearly leaving Baba to conduct her audience in privacy.
“So, young man! Here we are in
your own country, and in spite of that you find yourself in a foreign land. They used to warn young men who sought out the Roma.” The Tarot cards were still scattered on the rug beside her; she began to gather them up with crooked hands. “But we have you to thank for our bonfire tonight. It would not be Midsummer without the bonfire.”
“Glad I could help.”
“You have come a long way just to meet an old woman. I should be flattered, except your reasons for seeking me out are not flattering.”
“Um . . . “ Mac tried to gather his wits; Baba seemed to be intent on keeping him unsettled.
She chuckled. “You do not lie when you do not need to. A man who so dislikes telling lies? You are in the wrong profession,
molodoi chelovek.”
“Now hold on just a minute. You can’t possibly know what my profession is.”
“Of course not! How could I have made such a lucky guess, then?” Baba wrapped the Tarot cards in a long silk scarf and set them aside. “Ah. I must have seen you roll your eyes when he said your name was Phoenix.”
“You couldn’t have seen it. You weren’t even looking at me – you were watching Tasha pouring the tea.” Mac had also noticed that he hadn’t been offered any, and wondered how serious that was. This wasn’t going well.
“There. You see? You hate the lies. Even when they might help you.” She produced a well-worn pack of ordinary playing cards from a fold of her voluminous skirts. “You see lies when you look at me.”
“Hey, no I don’t – ”
“Now is no time to start lying! And you do not believe that the cards have any truth to them. They have a sense of humour, you know. It is best to accept that. Let’s see . . . ”
Her fingers shed their stiffness as she riffled the deck, shuffled and cut, and flipped a string of cards face-up onto the gaudy throw rug, one after another: seven of hearts, eight of diamonds, three of diamonds.
“Ha. You think I am a charlatan! . . . and you are right.” As Mac started to protest, she cut him off. “And you are also wrong. Me, I think you are not what you seem, and I am right.” She turned over the two of diamonds and waggled it at him before she set it down. “And I am also wrong.”
The five of clubs followed the seven of spades. “Neither of us is telling the truth, and neither of us is lying.”
Mac had been watching her hands intently. He was impressed in spite of himself: he hadn’t yet spotted a single manipulation. Baba reached forward and produced another card from behind his ear, and he had to admire the professional smoothness of the move.
“And it is time we both said, ‘Oh, the Devil take it all,’ and cut the crap.” Baba cackled at his expression and turned the card so he could see it: the joker. A twitch of her fingers, and the jack of spades materialised behind it. “But this is not the time or the place, because we are about to be interrupted.”
Loud voices were suddenly heard outside.
She must have real sharp ears – I didn’t hear anyone coming. Baba was studying Mac’s face, smirking as if she could hear his thoughts; he met her eyes defiantly. She laughed and patted his hand.
“You are too young to be patronising; the most you can achieve is insolence. But the skepticism is good. Do not let go of it – it is one of your strengths.”
Gina had gone to the front of the tent to greet the newcomer, a tall blonde man in long white robes, with a Nordic chin and a carrying voice. For a moment, Mac wondered if Moon Bear had come by to complain about the fire, or whether he had even managed somehow to put it out; but the man was a stranger.
“Isis – you’re looking terrific, as always. Remember, the new study group starts meeting next week at the Temple of the Sun. Can we look forward to seeing your lovely face with us again? And hey there, Tasha! How are you doing? Happy Midsummer! I just wanted to come pay my respects to Baba.”
Tasha had followed Gina more slowly, and was standing with folded arms. “That’s Baba
Irina to you, Bryce. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Hey, Tasha, mellow out! No harm meant, no harm done, right? And Bluejay – great to see you, guy. You’re looking a lot better these days. Not so skinny, huh?” Bryce had stooped to enter the tent; now he stood up to his full height. He was taller than Jason, and had kept an arm around Gina after returning her welcoming hug. Jason had been slow to stand up when Bryce arrived, and he was now adjusting his glasses and looking uncomfortable.
“‘Scuse me.” MacGyver had risen to his feet and walked up behind the group without anyone noticing. Bryce turned around and took a step back; with his broad shoulders and arms akimbo, Mac was nonchalantly taking up what seemed like a great deal of space in the tent. Even in his socks, he topped Bryce by at least three inches.
Mac nodded down at Bryce’s feet. “I think you forgot to take those boots off before you came in.”
Bryce’s glossy smile became brittle at the edges as he tugged off his cowboy boots. “You must be Phoenix – I hear you covered Moon Bear’s butt when he screwed up the bonfire. I guess the spirits named you well.”
“Actually, Bluejay here gave me that name. I don’t remember any spirits being involved.” Out of the corner of his eye, Mac saw Tasha apparently torn between annoyance at his flippancy and delight at Bryce’s discomposure.
Baba spoke suddenly, her voice carrying clearly across the tent. “Bluejay. You will bring your friend to my home for coffee. The day after tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
Jason looked astonished, but it was Tasha who responded, in colloquial Russian. “
Babushka! You’ve got to be kidding. Him? Why?”
MacGyver could see that Bryce didn’t understand the Russian, but it was enough that he understood the snub. He gave Mac a long look, then turned as Rainbow and Raven came across the moon-drenched meadow, along with the eight-year-old Willow, now yawning and visibly drooping. Raven returned Bryce’s profuse greetings perfunctorily as she shed her shoes, but Rainbow brushed past him as she wiped her already bare feet on the mat and entered the tent.
Baba beckoned the young woman over, then turned to MacGyver and gave him a nod of dismissal. “I will see you day after tomorrow,
Zarptika.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Mac glanced back inside the tent as he located his sneakers. Bryce was by the tea urn, still attempting conversation with an uncooperative Tasha; Raven had settled herself on the cushions with Willow curled up in her lap. Across the tent, Baba was talking earnestly to Rainbow. The cards were nowhere in sight; Baba was holding both of Rainbow’s hands, speaking rapidly and intently in a low voice. The young woman was sitting with hunched shoulders, looking sullen, her thin lips pressed firmly together.
Looks like the chip on her shoulder isn’t budging even with Baba leaning on it.Jason and Gina were waiting in front of the tent. “I just don’t like the way he looks at you,” Jason was saying.
Gina laughed deep in her throat and nuzzled him. “Honey, you don’t got nothin’ to be jealous about.”
“I’m
not . . . well . . . anyway, speaking of jealous – ” Jason looked at MacGyver. “Have you got any idea what an honour it is to be invited to Baba’s for coffee? Half the Tribe would give their eyeteeth for an invitation like that. Bryce would probably kill you for the chance to swap places.”
Mac grinned. “Yeah, I got that impression. I guess we better not disappoint her.”
Gina glanced at him with a puzzled look. “What was that Baba called you just now?”
“
Zarptika.” Mac tried to get the word out without stumbling on it. “It’s the Russian word for ‘Firebird’.”
) 
