Tricks for Free

by Seanan McGuire

  Some people like to say that Lowryland is nothing more than an expensive Disneyland knockoff, planned for Florida before Michael Lowry learned about Disney’s Florida Project, by which time it was too late to change the construction plans. Nowhere is that comparison more apt than in the Welcoming World. It was designed in conjunction with a couple of comic artists who’d done work for the sci-fi pulps back in the fifties, and it’s like what would happen if Main Street, USA, got rebuilt by Martians using nothing but a book of postcards. The overall effect is cartoonish and strange, like something out of a dream. Even the landscaping is designed to enhance the idea that everyone who goes there has somehow been transported to another planet, someplace where the ordinary rules of an ordinary world couldn’t quite apply.

  Kids love it, except for the occasional hyper-aware ones who look around themselves with wide, almost terrified eyes before bursting into betrayed tears, unable to resolve what they expect to see with what’s actually in front of them. Adults, who have a lot more years of inherent visual assumptions to claw through, mostly don’t notice the architectural oddities, or dismiss them as “quaint” and “old-fashioned,” dragging their sometimes weeping children through the last standing remnants of someone else’s idea of occupied Mars.

  Sam clutched my hand a little tighter as he gawked shamelessly, taking in every inch. We walked straight down the middle of the street toward the center hub, the Park rising around us like a mountain range. The Welcoming World ended, not at anything so gauche as a castle or a roller coaster, but with a huge central plaza contained inside a gigantic artificial geode. Crystals sparkled from the walls, lit from within by soft LED bulbs that gave everything a twinkling, glimmering effect. A tilted bronze map of Lowryland stood on a small dais, separated from everything around it and surrounded by tourists snapping photos, chattering all the while.

  “Fairyland is closed today, but that still leaves us with Chapter and Verse, Deep-Down, Candyland, and Metropolis,” I said, pointing to the relevant areas on the map. “If you want to watch the fireworks tonight, the best viewing area is lakeside in Deep-Down. I think we have an aquatic-themed area that isn’t a water park mostly because of the fireworks. It’s way harder to accidentally set things on fire when they’re wet.”

  “I want to see everything,” said Sam.

  I laughed. “That’s not going to happen in one day. The Park was designed to make it as close to impossible as they could, because they want people to come back over and over again. But we can see a lot.”

  Sam turned to give me a hopeful look. “And then we can come back?”

  “On my next day off, sure.” Megan and Fern had sign-in privileges, too, and as far as I knew, had never really used them. We could get Sam good and sick of Lowryland.

  The thought was oddly appealing. While he was here, I knew I had someone in a position to watch my back. Fern was a good friend, but she was currently in the Enchanted Grove over in Chapter and Verse, smiling for the camera. She wouldn’t be able to come if I called. Whereas Sam, for all that he was looking around himself like a kid in a candy store, seemed inclined to stick to my side for as long as I’d let him.

  I was starting to suspect that it would be a long, long time.

  Now he was looking at the “geode” wall. “I would love to climb that,” he said thoughtfully.

  “The Park used to allow it.”

  He shot me a startled glance. “Really?”

  “Yup. Twice a year, as part of a Park-wide field day thing. You could sign up for the half-marathon, for swimming laps in the Kraken’s Lagoon, or for free-climbing on the geode wall. They still do the half-marathon, although the rest of the activities have been discontinued for safety reasons. Which really sucks. I’d love to climb it, too.”

  “Did someone fall?”

  “No, but there was a concern that someone would.” I shrugged. “The people who climbed during the field day were volunteers who’d signed up and filled out forms promising not to sue the Park if they fell for any reason other than the wall collapsing. There were cushions and athletic gear and trained climbing instructors and you know how many people noticed those details when they looked at the pictures?”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘not many,’” said Sam.

  I nodded. “Incidents of people who hadn’t filled out any of that paperwork trying to sneakily climb the wall spiked after every field day. When parents started boosting their kids up to the wall so they could get a ‘cool rock-climbing picture,’ the Park shut the whole thing down.”

  “People are why we can’t have nice things.”

  “Pretty much.” I gestured to the map again. “Where do you want to start?”

  Lowryland is set up in a wheel-like shape, making it possible to walk from one zone to the next in a never-ending loop. All zones connect to the hub, which was going to be important today: with Fairyland closed off, the hub was the only way between Candyland and Deep-Down.

  Sam looked at the map for a moment before pointing to Chapter and Verse, which was the first zone to the left of the hub. “There.”

  “There it is,” I said. Taking his hand again, I started for the wall. He came without any resistance, letting me lead while he goggled in wide-eyed delight at everything around us.

  “Chapter and Verse is technically the literary-themed zone, but really it’s where they stick everything that doesn’t work somewhere else,” I said. “Aspen and Elm are usually there, and sometimes you can catch Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in the mornings, although they move around more. They spend a lot of time in the Welcoming World.” Because what a kid who was afraid of the angles of the architecture needed was an anthropomorphic Big Bad Wolf popping around the corner to say howdy.

  Sometimes I wonder how anyone loves these places at all. The roller coasters are nice, sure, but the atmospheric trappings that make the theme parks so successful also turn them into nightmare factories.

  Sam grinned at me. “We’re gonna see everything,” he said, and we plunged on, through the gateway to Chapter and Verse—stylized to look like it was made of frozen ink and flying manuscript pages—and into the true body of the Park.

  * * *

  My first “date” with Sam had been at his family’s carnival. That should have prepared me, at least a little, for the sheer degree of enthusiasm that he would bring to a theme park. What is a theme park, after all, if not a carnival that has grown up and put down roots? Even Disneyland had gained in popularity with the addition of several displays that had debuted at the World’s Fair. Michael Lowry hadn’t had that early boost, but by the time he’d broken ground in Florida, Disney had already provided the world with a handy roadmap of what not to do in putting an immersive environment together. Lowryland was a masterpiece of the carnival arts, and Sam knew how to appreciate them.

  Sam dragged me up one side of Chapter and Verse and down the other, exploring every nook and cranny, pulling me into line for every ride, even the ones most adult guests would sniff at and dismiss as designed for kids. As long as he could fit in the seats, he was riding the ride, and if he was riding the ride, I was riding the ride. We got our picture taken with Aspen and Elm (Fern giggling behind her hand and fighting not to break character the whole time). We bought corndogs from the Monty Mule’s Mealtime Melody cart near the exit from the Mooncake-themed River of Stars roller coaster.

  Sam grinned the whole time, only letting go of my hand when it was absolutely necessary. Even then, he kept an eye on me, like he was afraid I would melt into the crowd and disappear. It should have been annoying—I’ve never liked being hovered over, which is why it’s funny that I wound up being the kid who kept our phantom babysitter—but it was sweet, in a weird way. He didn’t want me to go away again. As long as he relaxed once he figured out that disappearing wasn’t my favorite trick, we’d be fine.

  Chapter and Verse is the most eclectic zo
ne, thanks to serving as a dumping ground for every property that doesn’t fit cleanly somewhere else, and it only took a few hours for us to exhaust its many wonders and move on to Candyland, where everything is pink and green and smells like sugar. Sam paused at the threshold, sniffing the air.

  “How . . . ?”

  “Scent dispersal units hidden in the bushes.” It helped that—with the exception of a few fruit trees—Candyland is the one zone without natural greenery. Almost everything there is crafted from plastic, steel, and glowing bulbs, creating an atmosphere that would have been called Wonka-esque, if that wouldn’t have been stepping on someone else’s copyright. “There’s a petition every year or two to take them out. Allergies.”

  “Huh.”

  “Ironically, it’s never the people with the allergies who want the scent dispersal shut down. It’s usually folks getting offended on their behalf.” Mostly parents at that. “We offer gluten-free gingerbread in this part of the Park, though, and that means there’s a powerful lobby to keep Candyland exactly as it is.”

  “There’s a lot more politics involved with running a theme park than there is with running a carnival,” said Sam ruefully.

  “Yeah, but we also have Hansel and Gretel and a house made out of gingerbread.” I leaned in impulsively, planting a kiss upon his cheek. “Come on. Let’s go see if the bakery is open.”

  The bakery was open, and selling all four of the standard flavors of gingerbread—original, chocolate, cinnamon-spice, and gluten-free original. We got a sampling platter and settled under the shade of a waffle cone-shaped umbrella to watch the people come and go, kids dragging their parents toward the confections, or toward the waiting meet-and-greet with the Candy Witch, who was in prime sugarcoated form. Sam scooted his chair a bit closer to mine, and we sat there, eating gingerbread, existing. Not running away from anything or anyone. Not in fear for our lives. Just being.

  It couldn’t last. Sam gave me a sidelong look and asked, “How are your hands?”

  “Cold.” I raised one of them, looking at it critically. “The more I learn, the less I can do.”

  “Does it scare you?”

  I lowered my hand, thinking about his question for a long moment before I said, “Yes. What if it never comes back? What if I trade being actually useful for knowing all the things I could do, if only I hadn’t put the fire away? But it makes me hopeful, too. I didn’t always set things on fire without meaning to. I used to be pretty much normal. I could probably adapt to being normal again. I’d spend less on burn cream, anyway.”

  Sam bumped my shoulder with his. “This is a bad time to start lying to me.”

  “Come again?”

  “I’ve met you. You’ve never been normal, Melody.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. He’d been given strict instructions to use my alias throughout the day, and he hadn’t slipped once—dating a cryptid meant dating someone who knew what it was to keep a secret or pay the price—but he kept saying my “name” like it was some sort of complicated joke he was hoping I’d understand. Sam grinned at me.

  “So this is what you do now?” he asked, changing the topic. “You wander around somebody else’s playground, keeping kids from trying to eat the décor?”

  “Most of the time, I’m in Fairyland, not Candyland,” I said. “But yes. I spend my days trying to keep kids from tearing the Park apart, and making sure all of these people will think of us before they think of anyone else when it’s time to plan their next family vacation.”

  “Do you like it?”

  I paused. Finally, I said, “That’s sort of a hard question for me. I’m pretty good at my job. I don’t mind the rules, management does their best to be fair, and I like being allowed to run around the Park when I’m not on duty. It gives me something to focus on. I appreciate that. There are a lot of moving pieces in Lowryland. I could work here for twenty years and not know everything.”

  Sam looked perplexed. “Do you want to work here for twenty years?”

  “Oh, hell, no.” I didn’t have to think about that answer. “I want to go home. I miss my family. I want to know what’s going on. Exile may be fun for a little while, but as a long-term plan? It’s terrible. I have no concept of where we stand with . . .” I dropped my voice. “You know.”

  Was I being paranoid, thinking that a member of the Covenant of St. George might have decided to bring their children for a pleasant vacation in Lowryland? Yes. But much like Fern hadn’t been able to reveal herself to the dragons without fear of causing trouble, I couldn’t run the risk of the Covenant hearing me.

  It was funny. We were in a cathedral built to honor and uplift fairy tales. Everything about this place was a story, carefully crafted and orchestrated to instill a sense of awe and wonder in the guests around us. I could have stood up and started explaining, loudly, how a ghost had been my primary babysitter since I was born, how she had sung me doo-wop songs in my cradle and organized my family’s colony of talking mice into backup choruses, and no one would have batted an eye. Lowryland was where you went to be a little left of the norm.

  That didn’t change the fact that if I used proper names, called Mary a crossroads ghost or called the mice an Aeslin colony, I’d be running the risk of attracting the wrong kind of attention. Stories are universal. Details, though . . . details can get you killed.

  “When do you think it’ll be safe to go home?”

  “I don’t know.” I sighed. “It’s not like I have an exit strategy here. I’m sort of hoping that once I know enough about my magic, I’ll be able to shield myself from anyone who comes looking. I could go home if I just knew I wouldn’t be followed.”

  “Can’t Mary—”

  “No.” The word came out sharper than I meant for it to. I stood, picking up our empty plates, and said, “There are some serious limits to what Mary can and can’t do for me. Actually teaching me is off the table. So is doing that sort of a favor. I’d need to make a bargain for that.”

  Sam pulled a face. Interesting. I had never asked whether the fūri had a tradition of crossroads bargains. Looked like they did.

  “No,” he said. “Let’s not do that.”

  “Agreed. Let’s not.” I started down the path, which had been stylized to look like it was made from frosting, flanked by springy gumdrops. Too much time in Candyland could make me feel like I needed to eat the entire world. “We can’t cut through Fairyland, so it’s back to the hub from here, and then on to the Deep-Down. I think you’ll like the mermaids, and the Drowned World coaster is supposed to be one of the better ones in Florida. It’s definitely the only one with actual sharks as part of the ride environment—”

  I chattered as I walked, trusting Sam to follow me. We were doing this for him, after all. I liked the Park, but with Fairyland off the menu, I would already have been in the Deep-Down, hanging out with the phantom pirates and eating endless buckets of chicken at Mother Carey’s Seaside Barbecue. Sam was the one who wanted to see absolutely everything that Lowryland had to offer, and I was merely his willing guide.

  I was so focused on telling him about our next steps that I didn’t hear the cracking until it turned into a splintering roar, followed by the sound of children screaming. I whipped around. The top of one of the taffy-flower trees—a plastic-and-steel rebar brainchild of Lowry’s engineering division—had snapped off, and was plummeting toward a pair of kids holding plates of gingerbread. They couldn’t have been more than seven, and they were watching the tree fall with the dull-eyed resignation of the walking dead. They knew this was how they ended.

  A brown blur slammed into them from the side, knocking them out of the way before the tree could crush them. Their screams turned into the open-throated sobs of frightened children everywhere. Sam—because it could only have been Sam; no one and nothing else moved that fast—didn’t stop or slow down. He kept moving, into the shadows of the artificial forest
.

  By the time he popped out again, I knew what he was about to do, and I was braced. Dropping our plates into the trash bin, I raised my arms, like I was preparing to be caught on the trapeze. He grabbed onto me with surprising delicacy, wrapping one arm around my torso and his tail around my waist, and I was borne up, away from the ground, into the distant spires of Lowry’s closed and smoke-singed Fairyland.

  Sixteen

  “One of these days, something is going to go right. But probably not today.”

  –Jane Harrington-Price

  Lowryland, about to have a very unpleasant afternoon

  SAM DIDN’T STOP RUNNING until we were well away from the crowds and standing under the awning of the Midsummer Night’s Scream waiting area. The small, bus stop-like structure was intended for use by families of riders, people whose health wasn’t good enough or height wasn’t great enough to endure the multiple drops and inversions.

  He let go of me, stepping away. “Cameras?” he asked, huffing and puffing all the while.

  “What?” I blinked at him for a moment before I realized—with horror and dawning dismay—that he hadn’t shifted back to his faux-human form. He was still simian, clearly fūri. “Sam, change back.”

  “Are there cameras here?” He leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees. It wasn’t nearly as pronounced a lean as it would have been for a human his height and build. Still struggling to get his breath back, he asked, “Is anyone recording this?”

  Something was wrong. I looked frantically around, comparing the angles of the roof to the known locations of the surrounding cameras, before I said, “No. We passed at least six getting here, but there aren’t any cameras focused on this spot.”

  “Good.” He straightened up, wheezing a little, and said, “Get me out of here.”

  “Can you—”