When she had looked to see where to place her feet, she had not seen her feet. Stunned, she looked down and realized that she could see no part of herself. She was invisible. No wonder the police and the teenagers had not noticed her.
"Pomegranate?" Invisibility was not a likely side effect of pomegranate juice. She held out her hands; they did not even shimmer in the light. She felt the weight of the ring on her thumb. No, this can't be possible.
Her left invisible hand slipped the ring off her right invisible thumb and her body winked into place. She put the ring back on and vanished again. Had Penrose slipped this into her pocket as she left? Or had it lain forgotten in this coat pocket for decades? She rubbed the ring and thought about Tolkien. If this ring were anything like the One Ring, she really did not want to wear it, assuming, of course, that she could consider The Lord of the Rings to be a reliable source of information. On the other hand, the advantage of crossing the river unseen was undeniable.
The ring stayed on.
She stood up. At first she found it difficult to maintain her footing on the narrow top of the structure without visual feedback, but by the time she reached the far side and climbed down to the river, she had grown accustomed to it and could almost imagine that she saw her own feet on the concrete. Gripping the cold metal of the ladder, she swung out backwards over the drop and then climbed down to where a massive granite boulder spread out like an elephant's back from under her feet. She could see the boys jumping from rock to rock out in the river. She made her own way across the rocks, keeping well behind them and slightly upstream.
Although the moon was bright, the shadows were dark and confounded her depth perception. Potholes looked infinitely deep and the long ridges and seams in the stones could catch an unwary toe and send her headlong into the river. More than once she found herself sprawling across the stones with her head and shoulders protruding out above the rushing water. Judging the distance of each jump was difficult as well, and she was wet up to the knees after one such miscalculation. Her general misery was crowned by a slip on a slime-covered rock that had looked dry in the moonlight, and she ended up falling flat on her butt and sliding in the muck. Now she could add an algal stench to her collection of discomforts.
The south bank of the river was in shadow. Here the river cut deeply into the land and was bordered by a tall, heavily wooded bluff with a set of train tracks at its base. She clambered up onto a hard packed trail and walked to the foot of a long spiral staircase, climbing up several stories to a footbridge that spanned the train tracks far below and the trees which dug deeply into the almost vertical drop of the bluff. At the top of the staircase a man was urinating against the wall. He looked up when he heard her approaching footsteps, but when he saw no one, he returned his concentration to the task in hand. He smelled like a distillery.
"That is so disgusting. You should least use the woods," Elizabeth said in a sepulchral voice.
The man turned towards her and she had to skip back to avoid getting wet. No point in lingering, so she dashed across the footbridge and up through the parking lot to the road beyond.
A cluster of bright lights at an intersection a few blocks to the east indicated a commercial area and the likelihood of a pay phone. Elizabeth squelched along on the grass that bordered the road and picked at her wet jeans, which rubbed up raw spots on her skin.
She found a pay phone on a light pole outside a 7-Eleven and dug her wallet from her pocket. She picked up the receiver, dropped a quarter into the coin slot, and punched in the phone number. On the other end, the phone rang and rang.
"Pick up, pick up," she was saying aloud when Bob's sleepy voice came on the line.
"Hello?"
"Bob, it's Elizabeth. Can you come get me? I'm at the 7-Eleven near the south end of the Lee Bridge.
"You're not in jail?"
"No, but Alice and Miss Price are. The police didn't catch me in their roundup."
Bob was sounding more awake. "What happened to Dirk?"
"I don't know. I think he's probably hiding in the woods with one of the other witches."
She heard rummaging sounds and the jingle of keys. Bob said, "Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. You just sit tight. Wait in the store. That's a rough neighborhood, but you should be safe inside."
"Thanks."
"Anytime." He rang off.
She returned the handset to the cradle.
Some young men who had been hanging out on the corner were walking towards her, attracted by the sight of a handset floating in mid-air. She quickly moved away from the phone and as they began to mess with it, she hurried into the store and hoped they wouldn't notice the door opening on its own.
The minutes it took Bob to get across the river were among the longest of Elizabeth's life. Still invisible, she hung around in front of the long aisle of candy. She kept one eye on the front window and another on the bizarre candies that made her own childhood memories of foot-long caramel Marathon bars seem thoroughly mundane. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to eat candy molded to look like dog barf.
The 7-Eleven did a surprising amount of business in the middle of the night. No fewer than nine times did she have to dodge small knots of people buying beer and candy. Assured by now of her invisibility, Elizabeth became aware of its limits. The clerk stared down the aisle directly at the trail of muddy footprints that ended where she stood. The water still dripping from her jeans became visible as it dropped from the hems. She stepped behind a tall stack of beer cartons.
Two women walked into the store and Elizabeth ducked behind the end of the candy aisle when she recognized Marla and Becky. They were arguing in low voices. She tried to overhear what they were saying, but she was reluctant to edge closer. Even with the protection of the ring she was not feeling terribly invincible.
Becky made a beeline for the candy aisle and checked out the gum selection while Marla made an exasperated noise and went to the soda fountain where she mixed herself a suicide.
Both women were dressed in mud-stained black, trimmed with red lace in Becky's case. Marla was wearing black hip boots with platform soles. Elizabeth would have bet her ring of invisibility and Penrose's portrait that they had been out on Belle Isle too.
Scanning for her preferred black gum, Becky worked her way along the candy aisle. When she didn't find it, she grabbed a handful of the dog barf candy, much to Elizabeth's disgust, and met Marla at the cash register. Marla glanced back at the candy aisle. Her gaze passed directly through Elizabeth and chilled her to the core.
Bob's old Chevette finally pulled up to the store. Elizabeth ran outside, pulled open the passenger door and hopped in.
"What the hell?" Bob levitated in his seat, twisting in mid-air and plastering himself against the driver's side door.
"It's only me," Elizabeth said, pulling off the ring.
"Ack!" Bob's eyes started from their sockets.
"Calm down, it's just a magic ring." She held the ring out in the palm of her hand.
"There's no such thing as magic," Bob said.
Elizabeth assured him, "I didn't think so either until this week, but the house is chock full of it. I found the ring in this coat. Here, try it on."
"Is it like in Lord of the Rings? No thanks." Bob put his car into gear and backed away from the store. As he swung out into the street, he said, "And I still say there's no such thing."
Elizabeth popped the ring back on and vanished. "Are you sure?"
"Cut that out."
"Have it your way." She slipped off the ring and dropped it into her pocket. "So you refuse to believe what's right in front of your eyes? Or not, as the case may be," she added.
"It's just a trick." Bob set his mouth in a grim line.
Elizabeth watched the city's night shadows flicker across his face. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his entire body was taut as a rubber band about to snap. Elizabeth was not inclined to argue further.
They drove in silence the rest of the way home. When they walked in the door, the telephone was ringing. It was Alice using her legally guaranteed phone call.
"Get down here and get me out," she all but screamed. "And Miss Price too. You need to bring, like, five hundred dollars."
"I haven't got five hundred dollars," Elizabeth said.
"What is it?" asked Bob.
Elizabeth moved the handset away from her face. "It's Alice. She and Miss Price need bail money."
Bob relaxed and smiled a satisfied smile. Clearly he found the criminal justice system easier to deal with than magical powers. He tossed his keys out in the air and caught them smartly. "So now we go to the magistrate's office?"
"I guess. After we go to an ATM. I don't suppose you have five hundred dollars to spare?"
Alice's voice squeaked from the handset. Elizabeth put it back to her head again.
Her sister said, "Miss Price will pay him back. Just get here fast." She rang off.
"Let's go," said Elizabeth.
Instead of running for the door, Bob looked at her critically. Elizabeth was suddenly conscious of her wet feet and mud-stained clothes.
He said, "You'd better get cleaned up first, or I'll go by myself."
"Right. I'll only be a minute." Elizabeth kicked off the boots and ran upstairs to her room where she flung off her jeans and pulled on another pair. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "Oh no!" She ran her fingers through her hair and combed out the worst of the twigs and leaves, then brushed at the dirt that spotted her coat.
Penrose appeared behind her. "That will do. I get the feeling that the people downtown aren't terribly observant. They wouldn't notice anything less incriminating than a bloody knife."
Elizabeth pulled the ring out of the pocket and held it up. Her eyes met his. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked.
"I wondered where that had got to. Did you find it useful?"
"Elizabeth, let's get going. I had this weird idea about getting some sleep tonight," Bob called from downstairs.
"I'll tell you about it later," she promised Penrose and ran downstairs.
The bowels of the building housing the magistrate's office were an eye opener for Elizabeth, who had never gotten so much as a demerit in her entire high school career, and had been so well-behaved as to be downright boring all through college. Phones rang, police officers swaggered around with enough gear strapped on their belts to satisfy Batman. Handcuffed perpetrators were pushed and dragged down mud-colored hallways. The low-level rumble of shouting from behind closed doors echoed through the walls and a dirty non-smell, like the absence of disinfectant, hung in the air.
Bob knew exactly where to go. He led Elizabeth down a staircase and along an L-shaped hallway to a glass window with uniformed officers behind it.
"Hi, I'm here to bail out some friends of mine," said Bob.
One officer grunted and slid a form under the window after he got the names of the prisoners in question. Forms were signed, money changed hands, and they were directed to go to another part of the building to pick up Alice and Miss Price. Bob handled everything with practiced ease.
Elizabeth was impressed. "Have you done this before?"
"Only a couple times. The last group house I lived in had some criminal elements in it. I thought that when I found this house I would be getting away from all that, but I guess not." He turned down another hallway which ended in a set of heavy double doors. Flickering fluorescent lights gave everything a sickly greenish tinge. Hard plastic chairs lined the hallway and they sat down to wait with a few other associates of the arrested.
Bob explained, "They haven't been completely processed and taken to the jail, but they have to get de-processed. That doesn't take as long as getting them out of jail, but we still have to wait awhile."
An hour later, as Elizabeth was nodding off against Bob's shoulder, the doors swung open and a trickle of prisoners shuffled out to join their family members or friends, whoever had come to bail them out. Alice sprang through the door as if she had been shot out of a cannon and bounded over to her sister.
Miss Price exited more regally, giving a queenly little wave to one of the officers. "Stephen Halloran, isn't it? You were in my tenth grade American Literature class. You tried to write an essay on Ethan Frome without reading the book."
The officer boggled. "Uh, yes, Miss Price, ma'am."
"It's so nice to see you again," she went on. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here, but I am surprised to see you in a uniform." She swept away to join the others and they left the building with all haste.
"What happened to Dirk?" asked Miss Price.
"I think he got away," said Elizabeth.
"He was probably hiding in the bushes with Kevin," Alice snickered.
When they got to Bob's car, Elizabeth gave up the shotgun seat to Miss Price.
"May I take you to your car?" Bob asked Miss Price politely.
"I'm afraid that would be rather far for you. My car is at my home because I rode to the evening's events with a friend. And my keys are in her car, wherever that is at this point."
"You can stay over with us. It's so late now, you might as well. We can get your keys back in the morning," Alice offered.
Miss Price accepted with relief, her shoulders sagging from fatigue.
When they got home, Elizabeth helped Alice set up Miss Price in the one of the spare bedrooms with fresh linens and found her a frilly Victorian nightdress that was a foot too long.
Penrose appeared, doubtless with the object of annoying Elizabeth by putting her to the challenge of carrying on two mutually exclusive conversations at once, while she and Alice made up Miss Price's bed. She was not in the mood and ignored him as best she could. While he was talking to her, Miss Price returned from her bath and turned an ear toward the sound of his voice. He vanished.
"What is it?" asked Alice.
"Nothing, dear. I only thought I heard something." Miss Price pressed her index finger softly to her lips.
When Elizabeth returned to her own room, Penrose tried to talk with her again, but she was so exhausted that she could only mumble monosyllabic responses to his questions about the night's events. She dropped off to sleep before she could ask him anything about the ring of invisibility.