“I bet I’ve seen it on the Utah map.”
“We’re only going as far as Las Vegas,” Alicia informed their rider.
“I understand. I will travel with you as far as you will take me and go the rest of the way on my own. I am used to traveling on my own.”
“Then the least we can do is take you all the way into Vegas.” Frank gave Alicia a the-matter-is-settled look.
As her father concentrated on his driving, Wendy moved closer to their guest, lowering her voice to an anxious whisper. “C’mon, now, where’d you get all that great stuff?” She tentatively ran fingers over the material again. “I bet this is imported. Indian?”
“Not Indian.” Mouse ran an index finger down the front of her dress. “My clothing is woven from the fabric of existence, which is very fine and light and quite stable.” Her hand rose. Delicate dark fingers touched the single strand of purple beads that hung from her neck. “This is the blood of past transgressions. The past is always bleeding, I fear. At long intervals I have to add a new bead, so that my emotions keep pace with what has gone before. I remember when this necklace was but a bracelet.” She extended a leg, revealing ankle and slipper.
“My shoes are very strong and very soft, so that my passing disturbs the earth as little as possible. I am careful not to touch it any more often than is necessary. Floating is easier than walking anyway.” She smiled at the girl next to her. “Have you ever tried floating?”
“Not me, but some of my friends have. You know, you’re really weird. But I like you.”
“I like you, too, Wendy.” She surveyed her surroundings. “I like all of you.”
“Except for my little brother,” Wendy added distastefully. “Nobody can like him.”
Mouse laughed; fingertips teasing the keys of an electric piano. “I suppose it is not the nature of elder sisters to like younger brothers. Nevertheless, you should be nice to him. What elder sisters fail to realize is that little brothers have a tendency to become very big brothers as they mature. Big brothers of any age can be very nice to have around.”
“Yeah, that’s what Mom keeps telling me.” Wendy studied the radiant material of her new friend’s dress. “‘Fabric of existence,’ huh? There’s so many brand names around these days, you can’t keep up. Not Indian, okay, but I still bet it’s imported.”
Mouse nodded slightly. Her every movement was barely more than a suggestion, yet in no ways uncertain. “You could say that, after a fashion.”
“After a fashion—hey, a joke, right? You like punk?”
“I like anything that makes people smile or feel better about themselves.”
Alicia was trying to make small talk with Frank and listen in on her daughter’s conversation at the same time. Though she had excellent hearing, she was unable to make out more than an occasional word or phrase. Wendy seemed to have lowered her own voice to match that of their guest. Whatever the hitchhiker was saying it appeared to enrapture the teenager.
She would have felt better about the situation if she could have heard more. No telling what sort of nonsense this half-wild young woman they’d picked up in the middle of the desert might be pouring into Wendy’s ear. There was no point in trying to forbid the conversation. Wendy would ignore any directive so blatant and the motor home was too small to isolate someone anyhow. Alicia decided she was being silly. Strange their guest might be, but she’d been nothing if not friendly and polite, not to mention effusively grateful for the lift. She had a strange but captivating personality, like some exotic fish washed up on a public beach amid the empty beer cans and plastic bags. Certainly she’d captivated Frank and the kids.
If only she could be sure their guest wasn’t into drugs. Wendy was at an impressionable age.
If I can’t forbid conversation, she thought, at least I can participate in it.
“You said you help others but that you’re not a psychologist. That doesn’t leave a whole lot. Are you some kind of traveling social worker?”
“Something like that.” Mouse was unable or unwilling to answer any personal inquiries directly. “I just help others feel better.”
“I know. You’ve already said that.” This time Alicia was determined not to be put off. “But just how do you go about doing that? I mean, exactly what kind of therapy do you employ?”
“Musical. I am a singer.”
“A singer, wow!” said Wendy.
“A singer.” Steven sounded disappointed. He’d been hoping their beautiful visitor was something much more mysterious. A spy, like, or a lady commando. Although spies and commandos usually didn’t help people to feel better.
If Alicia had been hoping that pinning a specific profession on the hitchhiker would dilute her daughter’s interest, she found Mouse’s admission had just the opposite effect.
“I’ve never met anyone who sang professionally before,” Wendy was saying rapidly. “I mean, I’ve got friends who want to and a couple of the kids at school have parents who are pretty big in show business, but they’re not singers. What do you sing? I know! The way you dress and the kind of voice you’ve got, I bet you’re a lot like Stevie Nicks.”
“Who is Stevie Nicks?” asked Mouse politely.
“You don’t know who Stevie Nicks is?” Wendy hesitated, then grinned broadly. “You’re putting me on, right? Sure you are. Hey, could you sing something for us?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s right to ask something like that.” Alicia was beginning to wonder if she mightn’t have pressed her inquiry too far.
“Your mother’s right.” Frank had been listening while driving. “We don’t want to embarrass our guest.”
“Besides,” said Steven snidely, “she doesn’t have a band. Every singer’s gotta have a band.”
That’s my boy, Frank thought admiringly. An overweight junk food junkie he is, but he’s got brains. He listens to stuff between the commercials.
“I do not use a band,” said Mouse. For a moment her expression turned dreamy. “It helps, but it is very rare I find musicians who know how to play just the right music. I usually have to sing a cappella.”
“A cappella? What’s that?” Steven wondered.
“Without accompaniment.” Mouse stared down at him, then back at Wendy. “I would be happy to sing you a little tune. It is what I do.”
Alicia’s bluff had been called, but once Mouse began to sing she no longer minded. She was as enthralled by the music as the rest of her family.
It was a wordless song Mouse sang. Alicia’s formal musical education extended to a single music appreciation class taken in the tenth grade. Despite that, she knew the hitchhiker’s range was extraordinary. The soprano that flowed from Mouse’s throat was pure as spring ice, and just as clear. In actuality Mouse’s voice was effortlessly spanning six octaves. This was quite impossible, but no one in the motor home knew enough about music to realize it. They knew only that the sweet sounds that filled the motor home were achingly lovely.
Mouse sang without visible effort. Beneath the folds of silk her chest did not seem to rise and fall with each breath. Sometimes her song imitated the sounds of waves lapping at a beach. The slower sections reminded Frank of pictures he’d seen of South Pacific lagoons, pristine sheets of water, flat as mirrors, disturbed only by the fleeting musical ping of a fish breaking the surface.
Individual notes rippled and flashed through the underlying melody, like brightly colored tropical fish darting among a coral reef. Bells and chimes echoed in the air, lingered in the ear. Certain notes were like pebbles tossed in a pond, each initial sound framed by spreading, decreasing vibrations.
As the last of the song faded to silence, an exquisite yet disturbing chill ran through his spine.
Mouse closed her eyes. She’d kept them open while singing. Now she gathered herself as she relaxed. Throughout it all her body had hardly moved. Steven and Wendy sat as if gently frozen. Even television couldn’t hold Steven like that. No one spoke until the last echo of the final note had finally died, dissipating itself against the metal walls. Frank cleared his throat, was surprised how dry it was. It was almost as if he’d forgotten to breathe or swallow for the duration of the song.
“That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said slowly. “Maybe the most beautiful thing. I mean, I’m no music expert or anything like that, but I know what I like. And I liked that.”
“I am pleased you did.” Mouse sipped her lemonade. “I like to sing. To sing for pleasure, as now, is fun. When I do my work it can be something of a strain. The notes you cannot hear are difficult to sing.”
Frank chuckled good-naturedly. “Now how can you sing notes nobody can hear? If we can’t hear them, that means you can’t either, and if you can’t hear them, then how do you know they’re being sung?”
“Vibrations. Those are the most beautiful notes of all. You must feel what you cannot hear.”
“I don’t know about that, but I know I heard what I felt. How about it, kids? Not heavy metal, but…”
“It was amazing.” Wendy was gazing at their guest out of worshipful eyes.
“Yeah, pretty,” said Steven, equally overwhelmed if not as descriptive.
Wendy’s expression turned sly. “I just figured it out. You are going to Las Vegas.”
