Dust girl

by Sarah Zettel

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “But if you’re a Jacob Hollander, shouldn’t we be callin’ you Jake?”

  “Sometimes it’s not so good for people to find out what you really are.” Jack crumpled the sandwich wrappers together and stuffed them into one of the sacks. “Like, for instance, are you really a Negro?” he asked without looking at me.

  I’d known that was coming. But my answer didn’t have such a straight road to travel. “I think my papa had brown skin, but he was a fairy too, so I don’t rightly know what I am.”

  Jack was quiet for a minute. “Well, from what I seen so far, being a Callie LeRoux is plenty good enough. Maybe you should just stick to that.”

  I found myself liking Jack a whole lot right then, no matter what name he chose. I’d never really looked at a boy before. The ones I knew in Slow Run all seemed small and mean, nothing you’d ever want to stop and pay attention to. But as frustrating as he could be, I truly did want to pay attention to Jack. Maybe it was because he was older and had been places and seen all kinds of things I never had. And, of course, with those other boys, if I looked at them too close, they might look back at me and see something I couldn’t afford to show.

  But Jack already knew.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “You had a plan. You were going to Los Angeles, get a newspaper job…” The corner of my apron had three threads hanging off it. I pulled at the longest one. “And then I got you all caught up in… this. I’m just sorry, that’s all.”

  “It’s okay, Callie. Just think of the story I’m going to have when we get there!” Jack grinned, and his whole face lit up. “You know, it’d make a great Sunday serial, maybe for a magazine.”

  “Sure would.” I made myself smile back. I was faking, but I started to feel a little better all the same.

  Jack stuffed the trash into a can beside the table and settled the lid down tight. “So, what are you gonna do?”

  “Do?”

  “Yeah, after this is over?”

  My brain went blank, like a blackboard when the eraser swipes across it. I’d never thought about doing anything. My life had been the Imperial and taking care of Mama. I kind of knew other kids had plans about what they were gonna do and where they were gonna go when they grew up. There’d just never seemed to be any world outside Slow Run for me.

  But I was out of Slow Run now, and there was a world. In fact, there was more than one world. But I still couldn’t see past what was happening right this minute. I wasn’t used to looking ahead. Not like Jack. Maybe that was why he had that ready grin. I could see through the dust, but he could see through time, and he didn’t even need magic to do it.

  Before I could answer, Shimmy came marching around the corner of the shack, her face set in hard lines like she wanted to level some kind of curse on the outhouse.

  It would have deserved it.

  18

  Gone and Left Me

  By the time Shimmy parked the car in the dusty yard for Thompson’s Motor Lodge, night had come back round for another visit.

  “Now, we don’t know what kind of place this is,” said Shimmy as we all climbed out. The air had gone still and settled heavy over a line of little white cabins and dead live oak trees, one per cabin. Crickets chirped in the dark, each letting the other bugs know they hadn’t starved out yet. “You two just let me do the talking.”

  To my surprise, Shimmy unlocked the Packard’s trunk and pulled out two big suitcases. Jack moved to take one, but Shimmy brushed him off and made us both walk ahead of her to the little office, humming as she did. She smartly rang the bell on the desk. While we waited, Shimmy tugged on her white gloves and smoothed her blue-flower dress.

  A squared-off white man with gray stubble on his hard jaw and no hair left on his speckled head came up to the desk.

  “What can I do for you folks?” His eyes slid straight over Shimmy, to Jack and me. My throat tightened up until I caught a glimpse of us in the window glass. In the reflection, we were all clean and well kept. Jack’s clothes were mended and dust-free; even his shoes and stockings were whole. My hair hung in neat braids down the back of a tidy yellow dress. More important, though, my skin was nearly as white as Jack’s. Shimmy’s, on the other hand, had darkened up by several shades.

  “These kids with you?” the motel man asked Shimmy slowly. It was a stupid question since we obviously were, except that wasn’t what he was really asking. He was really asking if she was with us.

  “Yes, suh,” drawled Shimmy. Like the shade of her skin, her voice had changed, becoming deeper and slower, with the edge and shine all dulled. “Takin’ ’em out to Kansas City to stay with they gran’ma. Mrs. Holland’s laid up something awful after the last baby, and Mr. Holland out on the road so much… well, I’ll be seein’ ’em safe to ol’ Mrs. Holland an’ gettin’ back just as soon as I can.” She blinked rapidly and smiled way too big.

  Jack fell right in with the act, slipping into the role of man of the party like he’d been there all his life. “We’d like two cabins for the night, if you please.”

  But the motel man was taking his sweet time deciding whether the story he heard matched what he saw in front of him. I tried to stand tall and trust in Shimmy’s magic, but the disguise she’d thrown over us felt paper-thin. I hadn’t liked Slow Run a whole lot, and Slow Run hadn’t liked me. But I was a piece that fit in the puzzle of that town. This man didn’t know us. I was nothing to him. All he had to go on was what he saw, like the fry cook back at Flora’s. Like everybody we’d meet from now on.

  “You can have six and seven,” the man said finally, turning the registration book toward Jack and handing him a fountain pen. “Seven dollars, cash, in advance. No pets. No cooking in the cabins. No noise after ten o’clock. Shower house is round back. Soap and towels, ten cents extra.”

  Jack put his hand in his pocket but shifted his eyes toward Shimmy, who gave out her short, sharp sigh.

  “I tol’ you you shouldn’ta bought all them magazines, Mr. Jack.” She handed Jack a ten-dollar bill from her purse, and Jack put it on the counter for the man, who gave him the change and two brass keys, along with a pile of towels and two cakes of soap from under the counter.

  “If you kids want breakfast, it’s in the dining room, eight sharp,” he said as Jack gathered up the towels and Shimmy picked up the cases. What he meant was we could eat in the dining room but Shimmy couldn’t. I couldn’t have either, of course, if he’d gotten a proper look at me.

  “Thank you, suh,” said Shimmy with a big smile. “I’m sure it’ll be right good too. Come along, chillun.”

  I tried not to scurry out of there.

  Cabin six was one little dingy room. The cabins had been electrified, but that maybe wasn’t such a good idea, because when Shimmy snapped the light on we were able to get a good look at the place. The gingham curtains needed a wash, bad. The sheets on the two narrow, sagging beds would have given Mama a lemon-juice face for a month. I reached out to pull down the shade over my bed and to look at cabin seven. There was Jack, doing the same. He waved and gave me a thumbs-up.

  There was a mirror over the dresser. It showed that my skin was back to its own color in here. So was Shimmy’s. Shimmy pulled off her hat and set it on the dresser. Her hair was pulled into a tidy bun, except for the line of curls that lay flat against her forehead. She ran her hand carefully over her hair. I knew that gesture. I’d done it plenty. She was making sure it was still straight enough.

  “How do you do that?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Do what?” She snapped the case open and shook out a fresh dress, this one with green flowers. She hung it from the clothes bar.

  “How’d you do the magic?” How’d you make me pass for white to that man? “Is it safe? Every time I’ve tried… they find me.”

  “That’s because you use too much. Not your fault, you ain’t had no training. But you have to use as li
ttle power as possible when you’re making wishes come true. It’s like pepper in the soup-you want just enough to do the job, and no more.” Shimmy lifted another dress out of the suitcase. This one was bright green with white cuffs and collar and looked too small for her. In fact, it looked about my size.

  “But… they’re still looking for me… us… aren’t they?”

  “See for yourself, why don’t you?” She nodded toward her handbag.

  It felt a little strange digging into Shimmy’s bag. The silver compact was round, with an engraving of leaves and flowers on the top. This time, when I pressed the catch, awareness of a change rippled over my fingers. It wasn’t exactly the turning-key feeling, but it was something close. For a minute, I saw my own eyes and sunburned cheeks in the clear mirror beneath the lid. This time the glass turned black, like the fade-out between movie scenes. When the next scene brightened up, I saw Bull Morgan. He had both hands planted on the counter of a general store. Damp stains spread under his coat sleeves and around his shirt collar, and sweat-or something-dripped down his puffy face. He leaned in close to a skinny little man with a bushy beard and one eye drooped almost shut.

  “She’ll be travelin’ with a darkie woman and a Jew boy,” Morgan said in his soft, husky voice. “They got themselves a big silver Packard. Probably stolen.”

  The little man tried to back away, but he bumped up against his own shelves. He coughed, and coughed again. I thought how Morgan must be smelling pretty bad by now. “I ain’t seen nobody through here like that,” the little man wheezed. “But maybe you wanna check over ta Burden. They been sayin’ the road’s clear thatta way.”

  Morgan nodded at the man, hooked his badge back on his belt, and stumped out to the truck. Two men with shotguns and slouch hats were waiting. Both looked awful fidgety.

  “Sam…,” began the one wearing the brown canvas jacket and the scraggly beard.

  “What?” Bull Morgan climbed heavily into the driver’s seat.

  “Me and Eddie was thinkin’…”

  “Well, you can cut that out and get in the truck.” Morgan jerked his thumb at the open back.

  “We’re hungry, Sam,” said the second man. He was flagpole skinny, and kept his blue jeans tied at the waist with a piece of old clothesline. “We gotta slow down.”

  “If you’d even just let us go in there and get something to eat…” Brown Jacket pointed to the store.

  “Shut yer yaps, both of ya, and get in the truck!”

  The man with the rope belt pushed his hat back on his head. “It’s just a couple of kids, Sam. They ain’t even in our town anymore!”

  Morgan heaved himself out of the truck. The mirror didn’t show me his face really clear and I was glad. What I could see was his puffed-up hands curled into fists. Despite the fact that they were both carrying guns, the other two men backed up. “I said shut yer…” But Morgan stopped. Not paused, stopped dead. He cocked his head to one side, looking carefully. No, listening carefully. Except no one was talking.

  “All right,” said Morgan, but he wasn’t talking to the two in front of him, just like he wasn’t listening to anything they could hear. Slowly he shifted his eyes back toward the other vigilantes. “You go on and ask the guy where there’s a good diner.”

  “Okay, then.” The vigilante settled his hat back into place and started for the store. Sam Morgan shoved the other guy away from the truck and jumped in faster than somebody so big should have been able to move. He’d barely slammed the door when the truck shot forward in a cloud of dust, with the two vigilantes running behind, waving their arms and shouting.

  Then I saw my own reflection again.

  Shimmy came over to my side and looked down at me with sympathy shining in her eyes. She took her compact out of my hand and checked the mirror.

  I wished it wasn’t her here. I wished it was Jack. I needed to talk to somebody I could trust. I couldn’t trust Shimmy, but I couldn’t not trust her either. Jack was my friend, but it was Shimmy who knew what was really going on.

  “Shimmy?” My voice sounded awfully small, even to me.

  “Mmm-hmm?” She stowed the compact back in her handbag and snapped the catch shut.

  “When you said we were kin… you meant you’re… you’re half…”

  “I’m a daughter of the Midnight People, but my daddy was a mortal man.” She returned to her unpacking, pulling pajamas and underthings out of the suitcase and laying them in the dresser drawers. “Now, I’m none so high up and powerful as you, of course, but I do have me a foot in both worlds.”

  “And the… the… Midnight People… they wanted you there?”

  She turned and looked right at me. Her eyes were big and brown, and as human as mine. “More than anybody ever did here.” She nodded in the direction of the office. “You know what we are to that sort. You know the names they’ll call us because we’re a strange color in a strange town.”

  I folded my arms and tucked my hands into the pits.

  Shimmy’s eyes narrowed. “She tried to hide you, didn’t she? Your own mama tried to hide you.” I nodded, ashamed, and she shook her head. “It’s all right, Callie. We both know what’s what. But you have to understand this. The Midnight People don’t care that”-she snapped her fingers hard-“for your skin color or whether you’ve got good hair or good eyes. Why wouldn’t I go live with folk like that?”

  “But you’re not there now. You’re here.”

  “I was on watch. Now that my shift’s over, I’ll go back.”

  “What’s it like where they live?”

  “It’s everything you want it to be.” Shimmy plunked herself on the other bed and clasped her hands together, her face suddenly all distant and dreamy. “It’s beautiful as Heaven and sweet as Christmas morning. Everything’s easy and free. No hunger, no hard times, never. Just music and dancing. Pretty boys too, though maybe you’re a bit young for that.”

  “But… but… what do people do all day?”

  “Whatever they like to do best.”

  I had to admit it sounded peachy keen. Tired, filthy, and frightened like I was, the idea of someplace where I could do whatever I wanted, or not do anything at all, seemed pretty wonderful. Then I remembered the Trixies, and Bull Morgan rearing up in the dark.

  “That ain’t what it’s been like so far.”

  She laughed. “Oh, you ain’t been on the other side yet. You’ve only been inside the tunnels from the twilight hills. Once we get to Kansas City, we’ll go through one of the main gates, right into the other lands.”

  “You think it would be like… like you said for me?”

  She laid a hand on my head, smoothing my wild hair down. “For you, sugar, it’ll be even better. You’re the princess, don’t forget.”

  That was a peachy keen idea too, although I was having a hard time picturing myself done up in a long dress with a crown and all. Still, it might be fun to try.

  But I wouldn’t be trying. I wasn’t going to be anybody’s princess. I was going to California with Jack, to find Mama and Papa.

  I looked at my brown hands again and tried not to see my skin.

  The shower house was dark, but there was a kerosene lantern by the door and the water was hot. The towels were a lot cleaner than the sheets, and wherever Shimmy got the clothes from, she’d remembered to get a soft pink bathrobe and a white-and-green-sprigged nightgown in my size.

  I lay down under the sheet and tried not to squirm. Shimmy put the light out, and before too long I heard faint snores. I stared into the dark, waiting and thinking.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I sat up and peeked under the shade. Jack, fully dressed, was on the other side of the window, tapping on the pane with the tip of one finger.

  I tiptoed across the floor, freezing when the boards creaked. Shimmy kept right on snoring. I eased the door open and stepped out onto the cabin’s tiny stoop.

  Shimmy had clearly packed Jack’s suitcase like she’d packed hers… ours. He had on a pair of long p
ants now, a clean shirt, and new work boots. Even though he’d kept his newsboy cap, he looked older. It was funny how clothes could do that.

  Jack looked hard at my nightgown, like he couldn’t believe I changed out of my traveling clothes. I don’t know what he thought I was going to do, go to bed fully dressed with Shimmy right there?

  “Let’s go,” he whispered.

  “Jack… maybe we shouldn’t.” I didn’t ask him to look at my skin or my hair. I couldn’t find a way to explain that I couldn’t travel like this. I didn’t know how to put on an act like Shimmy did to get past the hard, suspicious eyes. I’d never learned. Instead, I told him about what I’d seen in Shimmy’s mirror.

  Jack swallowed hard and glanced toward the Packard, hunkered down low in the dark.

  “Not much we can do about Morgan,” he said. “We’ll just have to be careful. I tell you what: we can take the car into the next town and sell it there. Use the money to buy a couple of train tickets west and…”

  “And what? When we get there, what’ll we do?”

  “We’ll find this house of St. Simon that Baya told you about.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know. But we will. With your magic…”

  “My magic I can’t use,” I reminded him.

  “So what? You’re saying we should go with Shimmy to Kansas City? What’re we gonna do there?”

  “Find my family.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud. It felt warm and right. I had family, and they were waiting for me.

  But Jack didn’t see things that way. “You can’t mean it.”

  “Why not?” I asked, the anger creeping out from where I’d shoved it back before. Why’d he want us to do this the hard way? “They can help us.”

  “If they could help your papa, don’t you think they would have by now? He’s their son! And they didn’t exactly come running to help your mama while you were growing up, did they?”

  Which was true, but I didn’t want to think about it too hard. “Well, maybe if we tell them what Baya said, they’ll know what to do, or where to look. They can…”