Tricks for Free

by Seanan McGuire

  Running, together, and free.

  * * *

  SAM

  Everything about this day was conspiring to give Sam a headache. It was the kind of day that would normally have had him fleeing for the trapeze, where he could work some of the stress out through sheer physical activity. Not really an option when they were all crammed into tiny motel rooms. Jogging laps around the parking lot might work, only it would probably attract attention and maybe someone would call the police.

  In the end, he had resorted to the only thing that seemed even halfway sensible: the roof. Getting up there wasn’t hard. All he had to do was take the stairs to the third floor, climb the maintenance ladder to the locked hatch, reach around to the edge of the roof itself, and then pull himself up. No big deal. He tried not to do it, like, every day, since he could only get caught once before it was forbidden, but at least it was a big open space where he could be alone.

  (He had to stay human while he was up there, damn the luck, since several of the surrounding buildings were taller than the motel. But even humans could do yoga, and sit-ups, and since he was weaker in this shape, it was probably better to wear it while he was working out. The benefits of improving his human muscle tone were magnified when he transformed, rather than being reduced.)

  First he wandered around the rooftop for a little while, making sure he hadn’t been followed. Then he did a few sets of squats, trying to force himself to relax through endorphins alone. Finally, he sat down on the rooftop refrigeration unit, and said, “Sorry about the soap.”

  “It’s all right.” Mary walked out from behind a big metal rectangle he still didn’t know the purpose of. She was back in color, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, moving at an easy slouch. She looked utterly relaxed, like all of this was normal.

  “This isn’t normal,” Sam blurted. Mary raised an eyebrow. “Us. Me, you, Annie being missing, you and me worrying about her, it’s not normal. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”

  “Maybe and maybe not, but here we are,” said Mary. “Annie’s a brave girl. She’ll be all right until she isn’t, and once she isn’t, we’ll figure out how to help her.”

  “You know, it would be better if we could help her before she was in trouble.”

  “Probably,” Mary agreed. “But then she’d never believe us when we said that we’d only be trying to help. She’d say everything had been under control, and why did we feel like we needed to butt in.”

  “And then she’d be mad,” said Sam.

  “Then she’d be mad,” said Mary. “I try not to make my friends mad when I can help it.”

  “So what, you’re going to hang out haunting me until it’s time to ride to the rescue? Because if that’s the case, we’re going to need to talk about boundaries. Like when I’m in the shower, that’s a no-haunting zone. There are things you don’t need to see.”

  “I like how you assume I haven’t already seen them,” Mary drawled. Sam shot her a stunned, borderline offended look. She burst out laughing. “Chill, chill, Mister Monkey. I have not been spending my afterlife peeping in the showers of men much too young for me. And before you make some comment on my looks, I’ve been dead so long that I’m not even a cougar. I’d be a saber-toothed tiger at best. I meant more in the greater ‘spend seventy years or so dead, you’re going to see every possible kind of mammalian genitalia, and some kinds you weren’t sure were physically possible’ sense.”

  “Oh my God,” said Sam. “Annie’s dead aunt is a weirdo pervert.”

  “I prefer ‘bores easily,’ but whatever makes you happy.” Mary hoisted herself up onto a refrigeration unit and sat. “No, I’m not going to be haunting you full time. I’ve been checking in to make sure you were okay—Annie’s bound to ask about you, and I want to know what to tell her—but when I saw that you’d finally delivered the mice to the airport, I figured it was time to give you a little reassurance. As a reward.”

  “What do you mean, ‘finally’? I got them there as quick as I could.”

  “I know. Remember, this hasn’t been easy on any of us. You’re here, with no way of reaching her; she’s cut off from her entire support structure, her entire family; her family’s worried sick; and I’m the only one with any potential to move between all three of you, and there are so many rules governing what I can and can’t say that I could scream.”

  “Are you . . .” Sam hesitated. “You’re allowed to tell me that she’s okay, once you find her. Once you know for sure.”

  “Yes, as long as she words it right.”

  “I guess that means you’re allowed to tell her that I’m okay, too.”

  Mary smiled. “I am, in fact, allowed to carry that sort of small, observational update. And I intend to. This may surprise you, bon vivant that you are, but our Annie has never been one to make friends easily.”

  Sam snorted.

  “I know, it’s shocking, with the snarkiness and the cynicism and the random acts of violence, but there you have it. She holds herself back. She doesn’t connect. I blame her siblings, mostly. They bonded with each other so tightly that they didn’t leave much room for her. Three’s a hard number. You, on the other hand,” Mary leveled a finger at Sam’s chest, “she likes you. She cares about you. She wants you to be happy. She also wants you to be safe, but I’m pretty sure those two goals are going to be mutually exclusive at some point.”

  “What do you want?” asked Sam. He paused. “Uh. If that’s not the kind of question where answering it means something creepy shows up and tries to buy my soul. If it is, I take it back.”

  “Clever,” said Mary. She drummed her heels against the refrigeration unit. “What do I want? I want my family to embrace the merits of dying in their beds, peacefully, of extreme old age. I want them to learn about self-control and nonviolent solutions and being careful.” Something about the way she spat that last word made Sam think there was a story there, and more, that he didn’t want to hear it. “I’m not going to get what I want, and I’m okay with that, since people who live the lives I want for my family don’t tend to be the sort to encourage ghosts to hang around for no good reason. But I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure they’re happy, when I can.”

  “Huh,” said Sam. “I guess that makes sense.”

  Mary smiled a little. “Wait until she takes you to meet her parents.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Whoa, hold on. We’re not, like, serious or anything.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Mary. “I know. But you’ll still have to meet them eventually. So much about Annie will make sense once you meet the rest of the family.”

  “I dunno,” said Sam. “So much about her started making sense when I met you. I’m not sure what else is necessary.”

  “Just stay alive until I can find her and get her to give me permission to tell you where to find her, okay?” Mary smiled lopsidedly. “It shouldn’t be too difficult a job, even for you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re dating Annie. Clearly you have a Price-worthy sense of self-preservation.”

  “Hey,” protested Sam.

  Mary laughed, and disappeared. Sam scowled at the place where she had been.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s annoying.”

  * * *

  MINDY

  We emerged into the public concourse with caution, squeezing our bodies beneath the door and out onto the carpet. The numbers overhead told me that we had moved well in the correct direction; the gate from which our flight was intended to depart was nearby.

  “Come,” I murmured, and began to scamper, close to the wall, hopefully out of sight. Mork followed close behind me, the two of us forming a single unbroken line as we ran.

  The gate was filled with a scattering of humans. Humans, and—I paused, sniffing at the air, ears swiveling. Mork looked at me with some concern.
>
  “What is wrong?” he asked. “What do you smell?”

  “If we are blessed, salvation,” I said.

  The large vehicle approached. I signaled for Mork to accompany me, and together we ran across the open space, darting under the vehicle just behind the front wheels, and darting away from it just ahead of the rear wheels. No shout was raised. Our clever obfuscation had gone unnoticed. The urge to hail and rejoice rose in my breast. I forced it down. The Precise Priestess had chosen me above all others for this mission because I could hold my tongue, and I would not disgrace her now.

  My silence is a rare talent, practiced and honed since my youth, since the Precise Priestess came to us and spoke of the need for subtlety, for secrecy. All Aeslin know how to hide, how to conceal, but I am rare, for I can do those things even in the presence of family, even when the need to rejoice has taken root deep within my soul. Mork . . .

  Mork, too, is silent. Mork, too, can conceal himself even when most of our kind would bubble forth in religious ecstasy, unable to hold their tongues a moment longer. But his silence is not rare. All among the Lost Colony share it, for their fear of discovery is greater than any I have ever seen. Discovery not by the wide and terrifying world, which is so full of dangers for such as we: discovery by their gods. Discovery by the ones they believe in, who should keep them Safe, who should keep them Secret, who have kept them Sacred.

  It is a crime, what they have done to the Lost Colony, and I am beyond grateful for my own gracious, beloved Priestess, for were she any less, my own faith might have begun to waver.

  We ran into the shelter of a trash can and I sniffed again, ignoring the tempting scents of half-eaten food drifting from the garbage, focusing instead on what I had detected before. There were people everywhere, gazing out the windows or at their small electronic devices. They seemed resigned to their wait.

  And there, standing at a half-circle counter with the flight time displayed on the wall behind it, was a woman in a simple polyester uniform, wearing flat shoes and tapping on a keyboard. I inhaled again. The scent of her was unmistakable.

  Dragon.

  “Come,” I squeaked, and launched myself across the open space before Mork could ask why. When we reached her side, I did not hesitate, but flung myself onto her ankle and raced up her leg, gripping carefully at her stockings. She would not thank me if I required their replacement. Mork followed me.

  The dragon did not stop her typing as we ran along her leg, did not betray in any fashion that she was in distress. This, I had expected. Dragons survive by failing to attract attention beyond that which is necessary. This dragon might attempt to pop us into her mouth if given the opportunity, but she would neither scream nor slap us away unless someone else gave voice to our appearance.

  Once upon the counter, I darted behind her keyboard, where I would not be visible to any who might approach. Mork matched me more timidly, clearly confused by my actions. I sat back on my haunches and waved a paw. The dragon looked at us, raising an eyebrow, and said nothing.

  “Hail and well met,” I squeaked. “Hail to you, Dragon.”

  Her other eyebrow joined the first. “Hmm,” she said.

  “We require passage to Portland,” I informed her. “This plane is going to Portland. Can you please arrange for our placement on the plane?”

  The woman stopped typing and lifted the receiver of a black telephone. Anyone not looking would have been unable to tell that the forefinger of her other hand was occupied with depressing the button to keep the phone from knowing that it had been disturbed.

  “Today’s flight to Portland, Oregon is two-thirds full, and seats are available,” she said. “How would you like to pay?”

  “We have no money,” I said, showing her my empty paws. “We will not occupy a seat. We will hide, and hide well. My family has dealt often with dragons, and Aeslin mice do not forget. Tell us your name and you will be rewarded for your actions.”

  The dragon froze, more completely than anything mammalian could ever have done. She mimicked the human face and form with the perfection of the desperate, even down to quirks of anatomy that had no business appearing on anything that did not feed its young of its own body, but there were things that would always tell.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Please, you must move. Someone will see you and think you strange. You will be Found Out.”

  Her shoulders relaxed as the smile returned to her face, pretty actress falling back into a practiced role. “Yes, sir, I understand,” she said. “What you’re describing is a fairly unique circumstance.”

  She could not speak freely. I hesitated before asking, “You know who we belong to, yes?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “Our family can pay in favors, or in gold. We cannot set the price for them, but we can speak to them of your goodness and kindness, of the risk you took on our behalf. We can make you a miracle in their eyes.”

  Her expression hardened slightly. “Oh,” she said. “I think you can do a little better than that.”

  * * *

  SAM

  “Grandma?” Sam knocked again, a little harder this time. “Hey, it’s almost dinner time. I was thinking KFC. How do you feel about chicken?”

  There was no reply. He sighed and knocked again.

  “See, I know you’re in there, because the truck’s here and also I saw someone moving behind the curtains right before I started knocking. Pretending you’re not is only going to annoy me, and you know what I do when you annoy me? I annoy you. So unless you want me hammering on your door and singing the ‘Happy Banana’ song at the top of my lungs—”

  The door swung open. Emery looked at him wearily. “You hate that song.”

  “Yeah, but you hate it more,” he said, and stepped past her into the room. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the earworm of my grandmother is my weapon. Do you want chicken?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re not a very good liar, either.” Sam shrugged. “I’d say I was sorry about barging in, but Mary’s been doing it to me all day, and you know what? It works. Like, really well. Once somebody barges in, you sort of have to deal with them, whether you want to or not. So now you have to deal with me.”

  “Samuel, please.” Emery looked at him wearily. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Because I ran off to take Annie’s mice to the airport and then I refused to back down on that whole thing where I’m not human and you don’t get to pretend I am when you’re trying to decide what kind of happy ending would be best for me.”

  Emery glared. Sam shrugged again, transforming at the same time, so that he finished the gesture with his tail wrapped around his ankle and his toes gripping the carpet.

  “We both got pretty pissed at Annie for lying to us. Shouldn’t that mean we tell the truth?”

  “You’re too young to understand how dangerous this all is.”

  “Grandma, I’ve known how dangerous the world was since I was six years old and you fired that roustabout for talking about how much money you could get if you sold me to a freak show.”

  Emery went still.

  “I mean, I say ‘fired,’ but I’m pretty that if I went looking for him tomorrow, I’d find out he disappeared with no forwarding address a long time ago, wouldn’t I? On account of how he never came back to kidnap me and make his fortune. The world has never been a safe place, for anybody. Maybe you inherit a tail from your dad and maybe you get hired by a carnival that tempts you more than you can resist. Or maybe you’re born into a family of monster hunters and feel like your back is up against the wall. We don’t get safe. We just get to choose what kind of dangerous we go after.”

  “You already told me you were going to go after her, and I didn’t fight you,” said Emery. “What else do you want from me?”

  “I want you to say you understand, maybe, or that you li
ke Annie even though she’s a Price, and you’re okay with her being the reason I finally found something I wanted more than I wanted to take care of you,” said Sam. “I want you to say you’ll love me no matter what I do or where I go. I want you to mean it. Can you mean it? Please?”

  “Of course I’ll love you no matter what you do or where you go,” said Emery. She sighed, sitting on the corner of the bed. “You know, in my day, it was a given that the next generation would stay and run the carnival. Let our elders retire gracefully.”

  “The only way you’re going to retire gracefully is if the gravedigger hits you with the shovel until you stop trying to climb out,” said Sam.

  Emery laughed. “Maybe so. Maybe so. But I always thought you’d take over.”

  “Maybe I will.” Sam smiled. “I love the carnival. I don’t know if I could ever be happy living under a roof that never moved, waking up every day in the same place. And I’m not saying Annie and I are going to run off and live happily ever after. Maybe I’ll come back after getting it all out my system, and settle down and learn how our insurance works.”

  “Or maybe you’ll bring her back with you,” said Emery.

  “Also an option. I’m not leaving forever. I’m not even leaving right now.”

  “Not until Mary tells you it’s time to go.” Emery couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  Sam frowned. “Okay, I’m missing something. Why are you mad at her? She kept you from doing something that would have meant I never existed. I like existing. It’s one of my favorite things.”

  “She never came back,” said Emery. “Not even when the show passed through the town where she’d found me, not even when I called her name. She never came back and she never said hello, and now she’s in my grandson’s room like it hasn’t been thirty years since the last time I saw her? I’m allowed to be a little hurt.”