She looked over at Jerry, who was busy shovelling the contents of his box into his mouth.
Well, I have eaten worse, she thought. Wordlessly she began eating what was in front of her.
Jerry drank coffee with his meal. Moira, who had wanted to taste this beverage Wiz had talked about, took one sip and stuck with water.
The day was bright but overcast. Except for the odd stink in the air, it was very pleasant.
“It will take us about an hour and a half to get there,” Jerry said as he unlocked the door of his Toyota. “Depending on traffic, of course.”
He held the door open for Moira and then went around and slid behind the wheel. Once in he reached back behind himself and pulled a dark cloth strap diagonally across his body. Then he looked at her.
“Strap in.”
Moira looked at him, puzzled.
“Reach behind you and pull the belt out, bring it across and buckle it over beside the seat. No, you’ve got to pull it out smoothly or it won’t come all the way.”
With much tugging and contortions, Moira got the lap and shoulder belts fastened.
“It’s for your own good,” Jerry told the hedge witch. “It will protect you in case of a crash.”
“A crash?” Moira echoed faintly.
“Yeah, a wreck. Oh, but that almost never happens,” he said, catching sight of her face.
Moira barely had the belt fastened when Jerry started the car and pulled out in traffic. Moira found herself speeding along at an incredible clip bare inches from another car moving in the same direction. She looked up and saw other vehicles charging toward them, only to whiz by close enough to touch.
Moira gulped and turned white. Jerry, nonchalant and oblivious, kept his eyes on the road.
They came to an intersection and Jerry whipped the car through a right angle turn in the face of oncoming traffic. To Moira it appeared they had missed the truck bearing down on them by a hair’s breadth. She stared at the dashboard and tried to ignore the outside world.
There was a tremendous roar in her right ear. Moira jumped at the sound and looked up involuntarily. To her right, barely an arm’s length away sat a man who was going faster than they were. His arms were extended to the front and his beard and long hair were whipped into a wild tangle by the wind. The hedge witch caught a glimpse of the complicated black-and-silver contrivance he was sitting on before he flicked away around another car.
Jerry reached a place where the road narrowed, and climbed gently. Instead of slowing on the hill, he speeded up. Moira moaned softly and concentrated hard on her lap. Her hand grasped the door handle until the freckles stood out stark against the white knuckles.
Jerry glanced over at her. “Don’t pull on that!” he said sharply. “If the door comes open in traffic we could be in real trouble.” Moira jerked her hand off the handle as if it had turned into a snake. She reached forward with both hands to grab the dashboard tightly.
Jerry wasn’t a very good driver, but he had been driving the California freeways for almost twenty years. He speeded up smoothly and edged left to merge into the center lane of traffic.
Out the right window Moira saw trees and greenery whizzing by so fast they were a blur. She looked left just in time to see Jerry jerk the wheel and slip the car into a space barely longer than the automobile.
They were sandwiched between two semis—roaring, bellowing monsters that threatened to spread Moira and the car between them like butter on a sandwich. She moaned again and closed her eyes.
“It’s not bad today,” Jerry said conversationally. “You should see it when the traffic’s heavy.”
Moira mumbled something and kept her eyes on her lap.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said I hope I never do see that,” Moira said more loudly. But she didn’t lift her eyes.
Jerry looked at her sympathetically. He was a white knuckle flier himself. “Okay. If there’s anything you need, just let me know.”