Aix was curious, of course, but he knew Mike had probably gotten a lot of stupid comments and was tired of questions about her name. So, he didn’t say anything after the doors closed, just looked around.
…And realised the bus was designed to be comfortable to large people like Mike—she was taller than him, and fatter too; and that was saying something, because Aix was big enough that, even before gaining weight from his anti-depressant, he’d had to buy the largest thin size of the clothing marked for women, the one many high fashion labels still treated like it was a plus size—so, it was a novelty to be somewhere he didn’t feel was hostile to people his size… but this somewhere was the right size for him, was welcome, in the same silent way that hostile architecture wasn’t.
Was there such a thing as welcoming architecture? This bus was that, for certain.
Everything was lit with the sort of soft amber lights that weren’t LED, underneath the counters and shaded to point down beneath the windows. One side of the bus—the driver side—was where all the things like counters, appliances, and beds were, with the other side left clear and blank, a strap system for securing a wheelchair on the clear side, likely salvaged from a city bus, from the look of it, with a shining brass rail at the right height to steady yourself with; and there was low-pile automotive carpet, in a tacky vintage multicolour blue-navy-olive, that wouldn’t foul in wheels, but obviously had padding beneath, and was soft to walk on. Victoria must ride with Mike often…. Or, maybe, she didn’t; maybe Mike just wanted to make sure she felt welcome here, in Mike’s home, just the same as Mike’s other friends were welcome.
Aix was starting to like Mike quite a lot.
Michaela kept her eyes on the road; but she listened as Aix moved further into her bus, and glanced in the rear-view fish-eye mirror at him at stoplights, or when the highway was empty—it was eight at night by the time it was fully dark, so the highways were fairly empty. He moved like someone who was used to walking in moving vehicles, and showed very good balance, as well as caution, keeping one hand firmly holding one of the brass grab-bars at all times.
She turned the CD player on, playing her favourite road trip mix. It started off with John Denver, of course.
He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year…
To her surprise, she heard Aix take up the song—and he had pipes. He was somewhere near the back, and he obviously knew how to use the acoustics. When Michaela joined in, he showed he knew how to sing harmony, too.
Rocky mountain high (high Colorado)…
They didn’t speak to one another, but Aix felt there was something deep and intimate about harmonising or duetting with someone, and it was a form of interacting with people where Aix was very confident and comfortable—far more than when he was speaking.
The music fit with the way the Moonbus looked, the way its owner talked: warm walnut wood and conifer greens, all the windows tinted, and Aix realised the glass wasn’t just covered in tinted film—the glass was actually textured, which marked it as also being salvage. The bus smelled like wood, peppermint, and the unique smell that most people didn’t realise was just the smell of the person who lived there.
It was a nice smell, Aix thought; and, along with the colour of the carpet, and the walnut-stained wood, and curvy rainbow stripes painted along the blank side of the bus wall, he felt like he was in the era when road trips were the most common a part of life. He could, also, tell the Moonbus’ carpet was salvage from that same late-midcentury era, just like the cabinet hardware and the windows. Aix loved the human personality of all of it, just as much as he hated present-day interior design’s sterile impersonality, with its washed out sterile grey or intense white-skintone-foundation beige.
Pippin was dancing to the music, the movement of the bus not bothering her at all—of course, it wouldn’t; she had a tail longer than she was. Aix wasn’t sure how old she was; but, despite her smallness and her downy plumage, she had adult stripes on the upper part of her limbs, so, Aix and his best friend’s going theory was that she had some kind of dwarfism. In any case, if she was an adult, she was likely old enough to have been in at least one travelling show. They were fewer these days—most clowns being kept by theme parks or other stationary versions of what had once been a travelling kind of show—but they still existed, Aix knew that from some of his friends in areas like Texas, where theme parks were much thinner on the ground.
The bunk beds in the bus, just forward of the bathroom and main back bedroom, were regular twin size; so, Mike and the others had just moved Mike’s little foam mattress up to stack on the top bunk, and moved Aix’s mattress into the bottom one for him, sheets and all. He went back to it now, burying himself in the blankets and reflecting that it was nice to be able to enjoy all the newness of travelling while still having the security of knowing he’d be able to lay down comfortably.
Inside the bus, the noise of the road wasn’t so bad. As night fell, and they got on the road properly, Aix was lulled to sleep the way he always was in cars, waking when he felt Pippin crawl in with him, pushing herself against him, insistent as a cat, to snuggle, and purring. Somehow, despite Aix’s newfound sensitivity to vibration, the purrs still lulled him back to a more peaceful sleep, for which he was grateful.
When Aix woke up, they were parked somewhere, and he heard enough insects and night-time sounds to know that a) the windows were open and 2) they were not in a parking lot, because it was properly dark—except for a single light, somewhere near the front of the bus. Aix was grateful for it being a dim, red light, and it didn’t flicker like an LED either, which was a relief. Thinking of sensory novelties made Aix realise he’d fallen asleep perfectly well without earplugs, too, and slept better for it. From the same direction as the light came soft picking on a stringed instrument that sounded familiar, but wasn’t a guitar or anything Aix could put a name to by sound only. Struggling through his usual morning agony into a sit and then up to his feet, Aix made his way toward the music.
‘Hey, stranger,’ Mike said in a friendly lilt, as Aix came into the kitchen part just behind the driver’s seat. A sofa had been folded out, next to the kitchen counter, and she sitting on it, picking softly on a dulcimer on her lap; it was beautiful and old, and Aix suddenly knew why he’d felt so happy, hearing it. The only time he’d heard instruments like that had been in the SCA, and those were good memories. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘Only in the best way,’ Aix said, sitting down, ‘last time I heard a dulcimer like that, someone was singing Matty Groves on it.’
‘I know that song,’ Mike commented. ‘But I know singers cain’t sing when they first wake up, so I’ll put the kettle on. You hungry?’ she asked, as she put the dulcimer back in its case. ‘I already fed joey some peanut butter ‘n fruit. She looks skinny.’
‘She is skinny,’ Aix said, as Pippin climbed back onto his lap, ‘so thank you. Um,’ he said, feeling the familiar terror of having to breach the subject of how he couldn’t eat a long list of things. ‘My guts don’t work properly, so I can’t… there’s a lot of things I can’t have.’ He tried to remain optimistic—Mike had disabled friends that she accommodated, so already she had to be less ableist than people who didn’t.
‘Well, we got your things up in there,’ she said, coming back to sit down again, ‘we can head on down to a grocery store if you cain’t find nothin’ you want, though.’
Michaela didn’t obviously watch, but she was watching as Aix carefully looked through her cabinets, and she hadn’t missed how Aix had gotten specific dishes and utensils from the kitchen, as well as foods that were now in her cabinets, ready for him to use. There weren’t enough of his foods to make a meal—it was mostly a bag of coffee, some jars of tea leaves, two packets of black boba pearls, and the syrups and sodas and garnishes for the coffee—but there had been half a packet of hot dogs and some condiments for those. Michaela was very fond of hot dogs, and so she had buns and all for making some. She hadn’t told him—she wanted to see what he’d do, because that would tell her a lot, and she was still trying to figure him out.
‘I could have a hot dog,’ Aix said, relieved to find the packet of them, and his special allium-free ketchup and mustard, in her fridge—which was one of the big, older kind you found in old Sparta trailers sometimes (Aix haunted vintage camper listings, he liked looking at them the way he liked looking at old cars or old houses). He noticed his cream and milk in there too, next to hers.
‘You know how to work a propane stove?’ she asked.
‘Show me? I’ve only used a regular gas stove before.’
‘It ain’t too different.’ Michaela got up, coming over, and Aix stood to one side. She explained what she was doing, as she did it, which made it easy to learn. She had Aix do it a few times to make sure he knew how to do it safely.
Aix figured water was at a premium—he always did, having grown up in the desert with parents who had grown up with water rationing—and so he just cooked the hot dog in a bare pan.
‘You can use water if you want,’ Mike said. Aix shrugged from where he was standing over the stove.
‘I didn’t learn to cook them with water, it seems weird and wasteful now,’ he said, opening a bun and sticking it flat sides up into the pan to toast while the hot dog cooked. Pippin hopped up on the counter beside the stove. ‘Hey!’ Aix barked, automatically, and she hopped back down. ‘Don’t laugh,’ Aix said, seeing Mike smile. ‘That enforces it’s okay to do. They’re like birds. She’s testing boundaries now that we’re in a new place, to see if the rules are different.’
Michaela didn’t mention she had interacted with clowns and animals before; that would have just embarrassed Aix and caused tension, for no real gain to Michaela. Instead, she started playing a little reel on her dulcimer, to distract Pippin. Pippin happily started dancing, like she had been while Aix was asleep. Once the kettle boiled, Aix put teabags in a couple of red enamelware mugs automatically, barely thinking twice about it—making tea was an automatic comfort ritual.
After tea, Aix fixed the rest of his meal and sat down, proud of himself for not offering to make Michaela one, because he really shouldn’t be standing any longer. As he ate, he watched Pippin, and listened to the music. He expected Pippin to come over at some point, and she did, eventually, coming up to sit between Michaela and Aix on the sofa.
‘You want one?’ Aix said, offering her one of the little crispy veggie straws. She’d never had one before, from how she carefully took it from him with one of her little inky-black hands, and watched him eat a few with a very focussed attention, her two little Ears raising up a bit, head tilting slowly one way, then the other.
‘Yeah?’ Aix said, in a baby voice he always used to talk to small animals. ‘Whatchu sink, huh?’
She mouthed the end for a bit, then bit, chewing with a very serious sort of expression—Pierrots always tended toward a serious expression, but it was especially cute in Pippin, as she was so small, her face as smooth as a fooly’s, which made her little wrinkly brow so much more adorable. Aix chuckled.
‘Is crispy tato, huh?’ he said. She’d had regular potato chips before, and tortilla chips too. He’d even let her try some avocado, which she’d liked very much, so he knew she’d like these.
‘Ye,’ she said, the only word they’d ever heard her say—and Aix’s housemates had identified it as a whole word, since it was Yiddish and they were a Jewish couple. Pippin ate the rest of it with her usual little ‘nimnimnimnim’ kittenish sounds, and Aix couldn’t help giggling, handing her another one when she was done with the first.
‘Where are we?’ he asked Mike, as Pippin started on a third one.
‘Little outside a state forest, just northeast of the state border,’ Mike said.
‘Where are we headed? NYC?’
‘Sleepy Hollow, first,’ Mike said. ‘Victoria’s visitin’ her folks. They’re rich, but not the selfish kind. Big old Victorian house, been there since the first settlers.’
‘Then why is it a Victorian? Wouldn’t it be a saltbox or something?’
Mike chuckled. ‘You’re an architect, aren’t you?’
Aix shrugged. ‘I like architecture; but I don’t survive well enough in a classroom to have a degree in anything; I barely graduated high school.’
‘Ah, same boat as me then; I barely managed, myself—and school was a lot easier to manage if you weren’t the academic type, in the seventies. I managed trade school okay.’
‘Yeah, I never got told about trade school until my body was already broken down and useless for it. I have a body for academia and a brain for trades—worst of both parents,’ Aix said, with gloom that was trying in vain to find the humour in it. Mike reached over and patted his shoulder gently. Pippin tried to crawl into his lap, and he set his plate down on the counter beside the sofa, letting her comfort him, skritching her fluffy neck-ruff until she purred.
‘You’re in a different community now, boyo,’ Mike said, with the exact sort of bearish affection Aix loved, ‘and we don’t leave anybody to flounder. If you’re interested, I can introduce you to some knockerfolk—and they have the time to learn Montessori teachin’ up into university level shit. They love that woman.’
‘Oh same,’ Aix said, brightening. ‘I can’t learn anything any other way. I would love to learn stuff about designing and restoring houses. But what happened to Victoria’s family’s original house? Fire?’
‘Yep,’ Mike said, ‘They’ve always been strange folks, y’see. Goth before that was a subculture—counterculture before that was really a word. The town tried to burn their house down with them in it, but it didn’t take. They rebuilt it afterward, bigger and fancier, just to spite ‘em all.’
‘Oh,’ Aix said, and was quiet for a while. Mike set the dulcimer aside in its red case and got up to go to the fridge for a drink.
‘Were they burned for being witches?’ came the question, and Michaela heard something in it, something that wasn’t plain curiosity—something asking to feel out whether it was safe to say… well, she would think very carefully on how to answer that small, brittle voice.
‘Well,’ Mike said, pulling a tall can of sweet tea from the fridge and bumping the door closed with her hip as she popped the can open, ‘the townfolk called ‘em that.’ She leaned on the fridge and took a long drink. ‘Some of ‘em are, but Victoria’s side of the family is Jewish. Victoria’s both.’
Aix thought about answering, but the memories overwhelmed him—he’d never sunk so fully into a bad memory he could feel the rocks hitting him again.
Devil-worshipper! Satanist!!—
‘Do you drive?’
Aix opened his eyes, startled to find them burning, and his nose running. He looked around and found Mike holding out a tissue box. He took one.
‘What?’ he asked, leaping at the question like someone snatching at a rope while drowning.
‘Do you know how to drive?’ Mike repeated, slowly and yet not loudly, not talking down to him like he was stupid. Just… moseying along every syllable like she wanted to savour them.
‘I know how and probably can, but I never got a chance to get a licence. Dad just taught me when I was five how to use a stick shift, and my mom always said if you can use a sewing machine then you can drive.’
‘She’s not wrong, but I was ‘bout to say: if you can drive, we can probably get to Sleepy Hollow tonight. If not, well, give me a couple-few hours to nap, and then we can be back on the road.’
‘You should probably stay driving this rig,’ Aix said. ‘I’ll be okay waiting; I’ve got my laptop and I don’t need internet.’ He wondered if she understood what had happened; he certainly hadn’t. That wasn’t how flashbacks worked, you didn’t just black out and lose time like in a movie….
He never had, before.
‘You okay? I lost you for a minute there.’
‘I—I don’t know. Um, trauma stuff.’
‘What did I say?’
Aix resisted the urge to apologise. ‘I—I got rocks thrown at me once, and called a Satanist and devil-worshipper. I didn’t even know what those words meant. I was just… wearing my mom’s sweatshirt. Which had Chernobog on it. Like from Fantasia. They didn’t know I was really pagan, but….’
‘Doesn’t matter if they knew they was correct or not, sugar,’ Mike said, horrified, putting a big strong, soft arm around him and pulling him close.
Aix burst into tears without meaning to; he’d never cried about this, that he could remember—he’d never even told anyone. He didn’t know if Mike would argue about Not All Christians or something, so he didn’t say words, but he cried, and it was easier than he could ever remember crying being. He’d been taught not to cry at all about anything ever, because crying was “hysterics” and required being hit….
Pippin stayed with him, leaning hard against him and patting him with her little hand. Small as she was, she couldn’t reach his shoulder from where she sat on his lap, so she just patted his belly with the same intent.
‘I ain’t Christian,’ Michaela decided to say, and felt Aix relax in her arms. She didn’t blame him—it was likely that hadn’t been the only violence he’d suffered. ‘I wasn’t raised it neither—I can fake it pretty good, my daddies taught me that ‘cause we lived in Appalachia—but Paw left when Church told ‘im bein’ how he was made was sinful an’ Devilish, an’ Daddy was always Muslim,’ she added.
‘I tried being Muslim for a bit,’ Aix said, taking more tissues and drying his tears.
‘Yeah?’
‘I like the veils and the built-in breaks, but I didn’t like the lack of humour or holidays. That sounds shallow, but like…’ Aix thought. ‘It’s very serious,’ he said. ‘I haven’t really been able to ask all the questions I have, though,’ he added. ‘And, anyway, the most important thing is that I can’t stop worshipping my gods—the attraction I had with Islam was that it had practises, and my religion… well, it doesn’t. I don’t know what they are, or would be, because I was all alone. The person that I was talking to about it turned out to be… well, they put me in a lot of danger and I had to cut off contact when I found out, put it that way,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter so much, except… I really like the veil.’
‘You can wear it if you want, nobody’s gonna stop you,’ Mike said. ‘Islam’s an open religion.’
‘Yeah. I just—Idunno, because my religion’s closed, I feel weird about it. Or maybe I feel weird just because my ex trained me to think deviating from the norm or standing out at all is bad—which is weird of him, because he’s a goth. But God forbid I cross-dress! That’s insulting to his masculinity as a gay man or whatever.’
‘He sounds like a charmer,’ Mike said, and Aix laughed, gently pushing Pippin off his lap and onto the sofa so he could get up and go to the sink, splashing his face with cold water to help with the swelling and rinse away the extra salt, while Mike drained the rest of the can of sweet tea and got up, crushing it, tucking it away in a plastic shopping bag hanging near the driver’s seat, while Aix dried his face and sat back down on the sofa, slipping off his clogs and tucking his bare feet up.
‘You okay by yourself for a few hours, hon?’
‘I… well, I have Pip, and I can journal. I don’t need internet—in fact, it’s probably better that I don’t have it, right now.’
‘Right, well, you’re welcome to anything in the fridge or pantry while I’m sleepin’, and if you need the heat, there’s an electric blanket in the drawer under your bunk, and the outlet is by the head. Lemme just get past ya to close—no, no, no, baby, you’re fine’ she said when he started to lean.
He stopped, frozen, as she leaned over him, her cleavage sort of right in his face, all the freckly wonderfulness of it, and he tried not to look down her shirt, or move, or even breathe as she slid the window behind him shut.
Michaela felt the kid tense up and practically stop breathing, and made note that, apparently, he wasn’t as gay as he seemed; she was always more than flattered when she had that effect on men, but she didn’t want to say anything about noticing until she was surer of him.
She left him after securing the bus to her satisfaction, going past the bunks and through the bathroom, sliding open the door to the very back of the bus, where her bedroom was, and opening the windows there so she could hear anything approaching. She never slept but lightly in the bus, unless she was parked somewhere she knew others were keeping watch or ward.
She was avoiding people, taking a twisting path of backroads toward Sleepy Hollow; Michaela’s Appalachian blood had always preferred backroads. Less cops, and even if she did meet a cop, she’d be able to lose it easily. Besides which, no hunter used anything like a GPS, nor a cell phone without a removable battery—it wasn’t safe to have anything that might be cheerfully broadcasting your location. She had a compass, she had paper maps for every state if she got really lost. She drove like someone steering a ship—she had a starting point, and a heading, and a compass, and a clock, and the sky. With how long she’d driven all over the country, she knew roughly where the national parks were, and where the back entrances to RV camps were. Most Park Rangers were inside the Mummery, and knew her bus, and left her alone if they saw her hooked up somewhere. And if the Ranger that found her wasn’t in the Mummery, they’d radio someone and that person would be, and would learn them.
Right now, they were in a nice little campground. It was the off season, not many were here, and Michaela was fairly sure the worst they’d get was a passing bear sniffing around as she fell asleep.
When she woke up, the grey light of dawn was softly lighting through her windows, and she heard footsteps outside. She pulled on the Baja jacket she’d gotten years ago at a friend’s powwow, a clean pair of cargo shorts, and her bucket hat, slipped on the sandals by the door, and went out the door in her bedroom, so as not to disturb Aix if he was sleeping, and found a ranger that looked fresh out of college.
‘Howdy,’ the ranger said. ‘This campground isn’t open yet.’
‘Lisa Riley let me in, I’m a colleague,’ Michaela said.
‘You don’t mind if I check that, do you?’
‘G’wan ahead; only keep it down, I got somebody sleepin’ inside.’ Michaela said, leaning on the bus and tucking her hands in her pocket. Pippin quietly came over to sit where Michaela could see her, but the ranger couldn’t; Michaela figured she was used to being smuggled, then. While the ranger was looking away, she put her finger to her lips, and mimed that Pippin should wait there. Pippin nodded.
Michaela watched the ranger; they were obviously very unsure of themselves, and that was why Michaela was just waiting quietly, hands folded in front of her, leaning back on the bus, leaving the back door open; all subtle signs to show she wasn’t hiding anything or inclined to reach for weapons. New rangers were jumpy, but not the way cops were—they were usually a certain personality type, one that was inclined to rear back like a startled horse when confronted with social situations, and shy like a horse too, wanting to flee rather than fight.
The ranger was talking on their walkie talkie for a bit, far enough away that Michaela couldn’t hear them, but in sightline, and presently was on their way back, looking relieved.
‘Lisa says you’re just passing through, tracking some wolves? I didn’t know we had wolves around here.’
‘You should know better than to trust what the government says about wolves, kiddo,’ Michaela said with a grin—‘tracking wolves’ was the occupation all the rangers gave Michaela, since years of misinformation and outright lies made it unclear just how many wolves were in any given state. She got a laugh, and knew this ranger was on her side.
‘True,’ they said. ‘Anyway, I’m Kit, they-them.’
‘Call me Mike, and don’t give yer right name to strangers, even if Lisa knows ‘em,’ Michaela said. ‘Specially out in the woods. It alright if I let my clown out for a bit to stretch her legs?’
‘Oh!’ Kit said, ‘yes, I like clowns a lot—oh, you’re so smol,’ they said in a hushed voice, as Pippin climbed down the steps. ‘Gosh, I’ve never seen such a little guy before. Hey, you want a sticker?’ they said, getting one out of one of the many pockets on their vest and crouching down, holding it out to her with a flat hand.
‘Whatcha think, Pip?’ Michaela said, when Pippin looked up at her, hesitant, tail lashing the air. She sniffed at the air a bit, closing her eyes, her two little Ears raising up. She looked up at them and beeped softly, her Mask going into a surprised expression. She mimed a bit, and Michaela didn’t catch all of it, other than surprise; but Kit seemed to understand.
‘Yeah, we’re in a forest,’ they said, miming as they went. ‘The City is far away.’
Michaela felt the bus shift, and knew that meant Aix was awake. ‘We’re outside, darlin!’ she called, as Pippin beeped cheerfully, tail high and Flash lighting up, quickly turning green as she scampered over and up the steps, making the soft babble of a pierrot.
‘Yeah, it’s a Wood!’ they heard Aix said from inside, his voice low and rough from sleep. ‘Bupup, no, this is poison, no touching Auntie until he washes hands.’
Pippin kept babbling, and they heard a clown’s eerily perfect imitations of various birds, frogs, and animals, while the water was running, interspersed with Aix’s ‘zat so?’ and ‘gosh!’ and other exclamations, before Aix was coming out, hair covered with a black under-scarf, wearing a black pyjama set that consisted of a black tank top and lace-trimmed shorts.
‘I love your clown,’ Kit said immediately.
‘I love your loc-beads,’ Aix said, sitting on the steps after Pippin jumped down them again. She ran and he called out, ‘Don’t go far! There’s bears!’
Pippin stopped, her tail swishing back and forth. She beeped, and came a little closer, but still ran around and jumped up on the picnic tables and did cartwheels and all sorts of acrobatics.
Kit chatted with them a little while longer, before Kit had to answer a radio call, and left them. Aix got back up, standing and stretching.
‘I slept so well,’ he said, after a bit. ‘I’ve been sleeping in such loud places the past couple years, ever since I left the desert, really.’
‘I was wondering why you seemed so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this mornin’.’
Aix giggled, and Michaela reflected that was a very sweet giggle. ‘I’m a morning person, when night-time isn’t full of industrial noises. For a place that isn’t on a faultline, this entire part of the country—top to bottom—has a pretty loud ground.’
So, he could hear infrasound—useful, considering the people in the Mummery that weren’t human were used to humans not being able to. ‘But the bus doesn’t bother you?’
‘That’s the exception—being in a moving car makes me go to sleep. I think it’s from when I had colic as a baby and my mom drove me around until I fell asleep. …I grew up riding in cars and falling asleep a lot, actually…’ he realised, slowly. ‘Anyway!’ he said, brightly, ‘I’m ready to go when you are. Pippin!’ he called, and Pippin looked up. ‘Come on!’ he motioned.
‘Awwww,’ Pippin made a descending, slightly whining sound known to every small child everywhere as a response to being told it was time to go home, and folded her little arms, stomping her foot.
‘Come ooooon, babygirl, don’t you wanna go to the haunted mansion?’ Aix lilted, as he went up the steps, and Pippin beeped, tail going straight up like an exclamation point, and was over like a shot. Michaela laughed as she bounced up the stairs after him. Michaela followed, shutting the door and locking it, before starting on the windows. She noticed Aix got out of her room as quickly as possible, through the bathroom.
‘Can I shower before we get going?’ he asked.
‘You surely can; we’re hooked up, so don’tcha worry about how much water you’re usin’. How about you do that and I’ll get the little one some breakfast.’