Dust girl

by Sarah Zettel

  “Callie…,” said Jack behind me. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m sorry about Shimmy and about running out on you.”

  “You left.” I shrugged. “You got caught, and Shimmy saved us both. What else is there to talk about?”

  “It’s my fault Hannah’s dead.”

  That turned me around. Jack stood in the middle of all that fancy furniture, his shoes sinking into the thick carpet. He hunched his shoulders up and stuffed his hands in his pockets, like he was trying to make himself even skinnier than he was, maybe so skinny he’d disappear.

  “My family didn’t just run liquor during Prohibition; they made it. It was cheaper that way, and the syndicate bosses didn’t really care if you made a little on the side, as long as the good stuff from across the border got to the right warehouses.

  “When I wasn’t out helping with the deliveries, it was my job to stay home and watch Hannah, and the stills. Moonshine stills… you gotta watch them close. If the steam pressure gets too high, you’ll ruin the brew, and the still can explode.” He licked his lips and took a deep, shuddery breath.

  “I was supposed to keep Hannah out of the basement. I was supposed to keep an eye on the stills. But she was being a pain. She wanted me to play dolls, and I wanted to read, and I hated the cellar. There were rats and… I thought I’d locked the door. I always did, and it had always been all right before. But Hannah got down there and I guess she was playing with the knobs, or maybe there was a pressure buildup…

  “The explosion shook the whole house, and by the time I got through the cellar door, the fire was burning, and she was… she was…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. “That was when Dad started laying down the beatings, and Mom started drinking harder, and the government said they were gonna repeal Prohibition, and the bosses were saying they had other work for my brothers and me and… I couldn’t stand it. I ran out and hopped a freighter. I thought maybe I could just get away from everything. But you can’t get away from a thing that’s your own fault.”

  There were all kinds of things I should have said right then. Because way down inside I knew that what had happened wasn’t Jack’s fault. None of it. Not just with Morgan and Shimmy, but also with Hannah. Not really. I mean, what were his folks even thinking, leaving a kid alone with stills and a little sister? Mama might have kept me holed up in the Imperial, but she looked after me and did her best to keep me safe however she could. Jack’s parents were running ’shine and making their kids drive the car. It was plain crazy.

  But saying any of that would have meant I still cared about Jack, and I didn’t want to care. Not after the rabbit drive and Shimmy. Not after he’d up and left me.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Hannah followed me. I see her every night in my dreams. And when I met you and found out about the Seelie and saw that movie, I thought… maybe they do have her. Maybe that’s why I can’t get rid of the nightmares. I had to try to find out, don’t you see? That’s why I left. I told myself you had Shimmy, you’d do all right. Hannah only had me. I had to get to her. But Morgan caught me instead.”

  I couldn’t figure out where the anger was coming from, but it had a tight hold on me. It didn’t matter he’d been scared. It didn’t matter he thought the little sister he loved was being held prisoner. What mattered was he’d left me all on my own with a woman he didn’t trust. He’d barely even tried to get me to go with him, and if he had made it out to California, well, he wouldn’t have come back, would he? The only person who’d never run out on me, who’d stood up to everything that came after me, was Shimmy, and because of Jack Holland, Shimmy was dead and she hadn’t even gotten to take Bull Morgan down with her.

  Maybe if I’d thought about all that slow and straight, it wouldn’t have made much sense, but I was way past thinking straight.

  “It doesn’t matter.” The words came out even and hard. Three words to let him know that if he left, he was on his own. I wouldn’t be coming after him any more than he had come back for me. “You do what you gotta. I don’t care anymore.”

  “What’re you going to do?” he asked.

  “I’m going to eat dinner, and then I’m going to find my grandparents.”

  “How do you even know where to look?”

  I pulled out the paper I’d found in Shimmy’s purse and laid it on the table.

  Jack stared at it. “Oh, now that just can’t be right.”

  Because the flyer read:

  KANSAS CITY DANCE MARATHON!

  WHO WILL BE THE LAST ONES STANDING?

  FABULOUS PRIZES

  THRILLS, SUSPENSE, AIR-COOLING

  MUSIC BY KANSAS CITY’S OWN

  BILL “COUNT” BASIE AND HIS BAND

  Starting April 14, 8 o’clock

  AT

  FAIRYLAND

  KANSAS CITY’S PREMIER AMUSEMENT PARK!

  “It’s right,” I said. “And that’s where I’m going.”

  22

  Bound for Glory

  Jack tried to tell me that we-meaning I-needed to be careful. That we shouldn’t just go rushing off through the streets. After all, he said, Bull Morgan was still out there.

  As if I’d forgotten that for one minute. The truth was, I hoped Bull Morgan would find us. I really did. I hoped he’d come right up to me like I was still that frightened little girl he’d chased through the dust. I’d show him what was what. I told myself that the only reason I didn’t go out looking for him was that it was more important I find my grandparents. I was telling myself all kinds of things right then. Telling myself things was like the wishing magic. The more I did it, the easier it got.

  We ate our steak dinner. Well, I ate mine. Jack picked at his. You’d think he would’ve been grateful I let him stick around after he’d run out on me and Shimmy like that. I wasn’t sure why I did, really. Maybe I just wanted him to see how wrong he’d actually been.

  It took a while to get ready for going out. The fancy new clothes were pretty complicated to get into. There was the slip, petticoats, and frilly drawers to sort out. The green velvet dress I’d chosen had prickly starched lace cuffs and a collar that had to be attached separately, and there were about a million silver buttons up the back. Then came the white stockings and the patent-leather Mary Janes.

  My hair wasn’t cooperating either. The Savoy’s pretty gold-and-white vanity table was outfitted with brushes and combs and a big jar of pomade, in case some fine lady forgot hers. After a whole lot of wrestling, I managed to get my hair into one long braid and coil it up on my head like Mama did when we went to church at Christmastime. My hands shook as I worked the strands of the braid. I hadn’t really thought about Mama in days. I wondered where she was now, and what the Seelie were doing to her. I wondered if they were even keeping her and Papa in the same place.

  I told myself this was best, even if it took a little longer. Even with my new hold over my magic, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do on my own, was there? If I couldn’t even keep Shimmy alive, how was I going to pull my parents away from the same things that could bring Bull Morgan back from the dead?

  I fixed my braid with a mess of pins, then added a headband that sparkled with green glass gems. I had white gloves with pearl buttons, and a silver locket with a matching bracelet.

  I smiled at the girl in the mirror and she smiled back. But I didn’t know who she was. She was pretty, I guess. But I couldn’t connect that girl in her brand-spanking-new clothes with the small, mean person I felt living inside my skin.

  I snatched up Shimmy’s handbag and ran away from my reflection.

  Jack was already out in the sitting room. He wore what the man at the store had called evening dress: black jacket, black trousers, stiff white shirt, and white bow tie. He’d slicked his brown hair down hard. He didn’t look any more comfortable than I felt, but he for sure looked
fine in those new clothes. Any other time I would have told him so. Well, I think I would have. The truth was, he looked too grownup for me, and despite the fact that I was still mad as sin at him, my insides were starting to squirm around all over again just seeing him.

  For his part, Jack was looking at me funny. I wanted to know whether he saw the pretty girl from the mirror or the tiny, mean one. But there was no way to ask. So we just picked up our new coats and walked out to the elevator, and then across the lobby and out to the street, where the doorman hailed us a taxi.

  If Kansas City during the day was a marvel, at night it was pure magic. Electric lights shone from every window and turned the shadows into decorations, like curtains on a stage. Cars filled the street, honking and ducking between each other in a raucous dance, carrying people in fancy clothes who laughed and drank out of flasks and smiled at the world. I all but pressed my face up against the window. It was light and color wrapped in velvet black. It was like the biggest jewel box in the world.

  But the best part was the music. There was music everywhere. It poured out of the doorways and second-story windows into the smoky city air. Hot jazz and cool blues clashed with the clamor of the car horns. Through drawn shades, I could see the silhouettes of men at upright pianos. People leaned out of open windows and sang along to whatever tune was closest. They stood on the corners, laughing and singing as they swayed back and forth. A boy and girl jitterbugged on the street corner with a bunch of kids playing harmonica and ukulele. Men in sharp suits and broad-brimmed hats danced close and slow with women in spangled dresses with orchids in their hair. I rolled the taxi window down and breathed deep, like I could inhale that music and store it up in my bones, where my magic lived.

  At last, our taxi pulled onto a straight street with a broad white wall on the side. Steps led up to a wide-open gate. A neon sign shone orange and red over the archway:

  FAIRYLAND

  “They got to be havin’ us on,” said Jack as we climbed out. “They’re havin’ us on, aren’t they?”

  “No.” I paid the taxi driver and started up the steps.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  I paid our admission at the ticket booth, and we pushed through the turnstile. The bars clattered as they went round, and I felt the turning key inside and outside, but not all the way, not yet. This was a sort of in-between space, like Shimmy had talked about, a passage from the regular world to whatever world the fairies lived in, like the theater and the juke joint. The real gate to the real Fairyland was farther on inside.

  I’d never been in an amusement park, and it was plenty like another world for me right then. There was the Ferris wheel lit up red, white, and blue and turning slowly against the black sky. The roar and screams from the roller coaster washed over us to mix with the colored lights and tinny music from the carousel. The air smelled like popcorn and cotton candy and fireworks. This late there were no little kids, just teenagers and adults in their evening clothes, laughing with each other over candy apples, Cokes, bottles of beer, and glasses of gin.

  Jack was trying to put on his hard hobo look, but it wasn’t working. The excited kid kept shining through. We both rubbernecked like the tourists we were as we walked down the boards of the midway. Jack stared so hard that some of the colored light bled into his eyes.

  “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” called a barker from one of the wooden game booths. “Three chances to win the prize of the night! All ya gotta do is put the ball in the basket. You there, sir, whaddaya say? Win a gold ring for the little lady…”

  The barker wore a striped coat and a straw boater, and his skin was emerald green. I stared, and he grinned, but then that grin faded and he took his hat off.

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon, Highness! I didn’t recognize you. Please, with my compliments!” And he handed me that golden ring.

  I slipped the ring on my gloved hand and inclined my head toward him. It seemed like the right thing to do. The barker held his straw hat over his heart and bowed back.

  After that, I started seeing all kinds of things. A goblin squatted on the bell for the test-of-strength game, swatting the weight back down whenever a man hit the lever so that no one made the bell ring. The pretty lady in the bathing suit sitting on the platform above the dunk tank was a mermaid. A spotty-faced cook at the lunch counter dished up steaks and fries to a pair of wolves in straw boaters and white linen suits. A couple dressed for dancing was having an argument out front of the Tilt-A-Whirl and a whole crowd of knee-high imps in ball gowns gathered around them and cheered.

  This was the in-between place. Fairies and humans both walked here. Except while the fairies could see the humans, the humans couldn’t see the fairies.

  But I could. For a moment, I felt this couldn’t be right, but that feeling was gone in a heartbeat, and it all just seemed funny to me. It was funny and beautiful and just like it should be.

  Under all the other voices and commotion, I heard more music swinging. It was a big band playing hot and strong, just like on the radio. I wrapped my arm around Jack’s, and he looked startled for a second, but then he grinned and let me steer him toward the music.

  A white pavilion with three peaked glass roofs sprawled ahead of us, glittering in the neon and incandescent bulbs. The music flowed through its arched windows. On the boardwalk out front stood a big sandwich board sign:

  FAIRYLAND DANCE MARATHON!

  I knew about dance marathons, although I’d never actually seen one. They were contests for prize money, sometimes as much as ten thousand dollars. The idea was that folks would dance and keep on dancing. If they stopped, or fell down and didn’t get back up, they’d lose. People danced for days and days, even a whole month without stopping. They had to eat while they danced and try to sleep in each other’s arms while still moving around the floor. I guess they must have done something about letting folks use the lavatory, but I didn’t know how that worked, and I probably didn’t want to.

  When I was about nine, a bunch of men organized one in Slow Run. Mama wouldn’t let me go see, no matter how much I begged, not even when I said it was just to hear the music, because they had a swell band. All the other kids at school got to go. They said it was a great show. Evan Carter won some money betting who would be the first people to drop. I opened my windows at night, watching the folks coming and going from the lit-up Grange Hall, and listened to the music swinging in the summer air.

  But then, after twenty days of dancing, somebody died from exhaustion right on the dance floor, and the guys who ran the show took off with all the entrance fees. The city council outlawed marathons after that.

  So I wasn’t crazy about the idea of heading toward a dance marathon, but this was where Shimmy had been headed, so I was going too.

  The pavilion steps were covered in red carpet. A red velvet rope stretched in front of the open double doors. Behind that rope waited a man with skin and eyes like pure moonless midnight who wore white tie and tails and perfect white gloves. He carried an ebony cane with a silver tip and a handle made of a clear faceted jewel. Anywhere else, I would have thought it was glass. Here, though, I knew it was a real diamond.

  “Welcome, Your Highness!” The man bowed deeply to me with his hand over his heart. “Their Imperial Majesties have instructed me to bring you to the receiving hall as soon as you arrive. If you will be so good as to follow me?”

  Jack looked at me in a new way, with wonder and respect in his blue eyes. That felt just fine. I drew myself up, put my nose in the air, and waited for the man to unhook the velvet rope and usher us both inside.

  The man led us down a hallway, carpeted in red just like the stairs. I think we walked a long way, but I couldn’t be sure. The soaring feeling inside me made walking so easy it was hard to gauge the distance. I tried to notice details, but there weren’t many. The walls were painted white, and the carpet was pure, bright red over the polished floorboards. There seemed to be a whole lot of framed paintings on the w
alls, or maybe they were windows. I wasn’t sure, and I found I didn’t particularly care.

  Finally, the corridor opened onto a magnificent hall. The dance was in full swing. A crowd of couples, all dressed in bright gowns and tuxedos, circled the floor to the music of a big band that filled the main stage to overflowing. Men in neat gray jackets sat behind their music stands. They played clarinets and trombones and cornets. There was a double bass and a steel guitar. But up in front of them all was the shining baby grand piano. The man at the piano had a round face, medium-brown skin, a mustache, and a receding hairline, and he smiled and waved his right hand in the air, marking time for the others as the music soared up sweet and clear.

  At the far side of the hall stood a smaller, higher stage carpeted in black. At the top were two thrones carved of black wood or maybe black marble. In them sat a man and a woman.

  My grandparents.

  I knew who they were the second I saw them. But I was stunned by the notion that such swell people could be my flesh and blood. The woman was built full and strong. Her dress was black lace and jet beads, and the train spread out down the steps. Diamonds circled her neck and wrists, and more diamonds sparkled in the tiara that crowned her white hair. Half a dozen women in sparkling ball gowns lined the stage beside her, ladies-in-waiting.

  The man was dressed in white tie like all the rest, but his gloves were dove gray and a black cloak lined with gray silk fell from his shoulders. His salt-and-pepper beard was trimmed close to his chin, and he wore a tall golden crown studded with diamonds and emeralds. He had an attendant too, a tall, slim man dressed like him, with gray gloves and a long cape. But that man had a gray sash across his chest, with a golden star shining right in the middle.

  The man who’d led us in thumped his cane twice on the floor.