Free Minders by Michele Jaffe

heard a low thump and realized the entire episode had taken place in the space of one of Ford’s heartbeats.
    Amazing . Syncopy was exhilarating. Both space and time seemed rubbery, capable of stretching into new dimensions, unconstrained by normal boundaries, and she felt similarly unconstrained. Similarly capable of stretching to anything.
    “I don’t have her number or anything,” Kansas went on, “but ask the guys, they all know her.”
    Sadie caught a whiff of something that smelled like bleach and thought she must have underestimated the level of staff at the Castle since clearly they did have a cleaning crew.
    Willy rejoined them then, trailed by a small clutch of Chapsters. “Papa Bear has to go to work,” he told Kansas. “You understand, don’t you, kitten?”
    “Of course,” Kansas said. “I’ll wait for you at the car.”
    “She’s great,” Ford told Willy as they both watched her bottom slalom out the door.
    “One in a billion,” Willy said. He turned to Ford, and his eyes were sparkling. “Tell you a secret?”
    “Sure.”
    “I’m gonna propose.” He slapped himself on the leg. “Me, Willy. To a girl like that. What do you think?”
    “I think you’ll be really happy,” Ford told him.
    “Thanks, man,” Willy said. His expression softened. “James was the one who got me to ask her out, you know that? Did it as a bet. Never would have had the guts to do it otherwise. Great guy, your brother.”
    Sadie felt Ford stiffen. “Yep.”
    Willy put his hands on Ford’s shoulders. “And so are you.”
    Ford laughed. “Thanks.”
    “You’ve been a stranger at the Castle for too long. Guy could get his feelings hurt, his friends stop coming around. I was starting to think you’d pulled a Bucky and left without saying goodbye.”
    Ford’s mind exploded with a fireworks display of images: a boy of about eleven with dark hair, huge intelligent eyes, and a tool belt slung around his skinny hips, staring earnestly at a hand-drawn map; the same boy a bit taller, wearing a helmet covered in aluminum foil and standing in front of a scraggly bush; taller still, now a gawky teenager, in the middle of a derelict factory building, grinning and holding up an old-fashioned beat box; finally, not taller but older, probably eighteen, with a beard and a backpack and a bandana tied around his head, his big eyes now wild and angry, jumping on a Greyhound bus just before its doors closed.
    Ford said, “Bucky disappeared years ago. I’ve only been out of circulation four months.”
    “Lot happens in four months around here,” Willy told him. “Practically a lifetime.”
    Another burst of sound in Ford’s head. “Yeah, seems that way.” Big daubs of blue, black, and white swept together into a blurry image of Linc leaving the room earlier, and Sadie had the sense that Ford wanted to say more, but Willy cut him off.
    “We all miss James, same as you,” he said, draping his massive arm over Ford’s shoulders. “But we’ve got to come together when bad things happen, right? It’s what we do. We’re family”—Willy brought his grin close to Ford—“the kind you pick yourself, so it really counts.”
    A warm sensation washed through Ford, and he laughed. “Thanks, Willy.”
    Willy pulled him into a bear hug. “Course. Only don’t stay away anymore, okay? You know I’m not the sharpest, and I don’t want to forget that ugly mug of yours.”
    They separated, and Willy was about to go when Ford blurted, “Does Plum ever come by?”
    Willy paused, meeting Ford’s eyes with a frank, unblinking glance. “Who?”
    “Plum. One of James’s girlfriends?”
    Willy shook his head back and forth slowly, eyes not leaving Ford’s. “Name’s not familiar. Course, as we were saying, your brother.” He elbowed Ford. “Quite a Casanova.”
    Looking into Willy’s wide, smiling face, Ford’s vision dimmed and kept going, the darkness encroaching from around the edges and moving toward the center