Carly eyed the change with distaste while her mom began to fidget and started excusing herself for long bathroom breaks. What would tonight’s excuse be?
Suzanne’s eyes were already too-shiny when she looked away and said, “My friend Janice is sick and I need to bring her dinner. Can you watch the booth until closing?”
Carly’s hands moved easily through the routine of turning on the lights she and her mom had strung around the top of the booth to add to the path lighting and draw customers’ eyes. “Can someone else do it?” Sometimes it worked to ask.
“I . . . I want to see if she’s okay.” Suzanne reached for her purse.
Carly stopped and held Suzanne’s eyes with her own. “Can you come back soon? As soon as she eats? I . . . I think it might be busy. It’s Saturday night.”
A flash of conflict and guilt clouded Suzanne’s eyes, then she looked away. “It’s not very crowded yet. I don’t think it will get worse, and it should be quiet.” She licked her lips. “Marla said she’d watch out for you. It’s important to take care of my friends.”
Carly swallowed. “Best not leave your friend waiting.” After Suzanne had walked away, Carly whispered under her breath, “It’s important to take care of your daughter.” She blinked, trying to keep the edges of the jars and pots and vases clear in her vision, balling her fists. There was nothing to hit, nothing to do but be ready to smile for the customers, and no way to go to the High Hills and get away, not when she had to try and sell enough pottery to help pay for their winter.
She thrust her hands in her pockets and pulled out the little black horse. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She squeezed it tight, so the little wooden hooves and pointed ears dug furrows in her palm. She heard a muffled crack, and opened her palm to find the tail broken off, with nothing more than a stub left. Her chest hurt, like when Suzanne hit her on a late, bad, night. She sank down onto the booth’s sawdust floor and just stared at her open hand, at the little black horse and the broken tail.
A woman picked up a tall blue-glazed candlestick, but when she looked at Carly she set it back down and left. She must look a sight, sitting on the bare sawdust, almost crying. Familiar footsteps came up behind her.
“Are you okay?” Marla’s voice sounded worried, but there was a tinge of wonder in it.
Carly looked up to the tall woman bending down near her. “Yes.” She closed her fist, loosely this time, and started to struggle up. The little bit of tail slipped through her fingers and lay still and accusing in the bright sawdust.
Marla reached down and picked it up, holding it reverently. “I thought,” she whispered, “I thought maybe you were the girl Gisele told me about.”
Carly glanced up, surprised. “You know Gisele?”
Marla smiled, her expression wistful. “I still go a few times a year. I went more when I was a girl.” She held her hand out, palm open, and Carly released the horse’s hard little broken body into Marla’s open hand.
“I’m sorry,” Carly said. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to break it.”
“I know.” Marla wore the worried look again, her brow furrowed, her eyes a little clouded. She held Carly’s eyes with hers. “Can you stay here? I need to go get Jack.”
Jack? Carly didn’t want to ask. “Like I have someplace to go? Sure, I’ll stay here.” She held the box out for the horse. “But, please, I need to keep the horse with me.”
“Jack is from the High Hills. Didn’t you guess?” Marla set the horse and tail down carefully in the box, and walked quickly away. Carly watched her slender back until a young woman asked about an incense burner, stealing Carly’s attention.
Three sales later, the booth emptied again. Carly busied herself rearranging cups and bowls on shelves, unable to stand or sit still, trying to see every direction at once, looking for Jack or Marla or her mom. Even so, Jack and Marla managed to sneak up on her while she was wrapping up a set of wine goblets for a young couple in matching designer jeans and denim shirts with matching black glasses. Just as Carly wished the pair a good night, Jack cleared his throat from right behind her. She jumped and turned. “H . . . hello.”
Jack stood and looked at her for a bit, his deep blue eyes dancing with questions. “I hear you broke something important.” He grinned. “If you’ll let Marla watch the booth, I can help. If you want.” He was short and wide, just a bit taller than Carly, and all muscle. Curly dark blond hair contrasted with dark-brown skin.
He looked so—so helpful—that Carly just nodded and pulled the box out of her pocket and held it out to him.
Jack shook his head. “You keep it. I’m going to help you fix it, not fix it for you.”
Carly looked over at Marla. Marla had watched the booth three days ago when Suzanne had been too sick to drag herself in and wanted Carly home. So maybe it would be okay. “You don’t mind?”
Marla shook her head. “I’d like to help.”
Carly swallowed, torn between obeying her mom and fixing the little horse. “Tell mom I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She turned and started toward the waterfall.
Just four steps in, Jack said, “Where are you going?”
“To the High Hills.”
“No need. Follow me.” Jack started toward his little workroom at the back of the festival. Puzzled, Carly followed, fingering the box, dodging small knots of people. She nearly bumped into him as he picked through his keys to unlock the heavy door. The room had three wood walls and one stone wall, a part of the cliff that rose up above the festival. Was the cliff a doorway to the High Hills, too?
But Jack led her to a bench that lined one wall, and pulled a little wooden table up close to the bench. “Now, take it out and let me see what you’ve done.”
She set the box on the table and opened the lid, grateful to see the horse hadn’t moved or changed position. She’d hurt it! “But . . . but how can I make it whole again?”
He reached into a steel toolbox and brought out a shred of sandpaper and a tube of liquid glue, setting them on the table. “How did it get made in the first place?” Jack asked mildly, sitting down beside her on the bench and staring at the broken tail.
“Gisele made it. Do you know her?”
He smiled. “I came from there. Sometimes I still winter in the High Hills.”
“But you’re not her lost son?”
Jack shook his head. “No. That’s a sorry tale, best left. Some people come here and lose their magic, and they can’t find their way back. Some are like me, and can move back and forth pretty easy. And some are like you and find a doorway and cross when they need to. Maybe you can keep that ability, maybe not.” She shrugged, looking directly at Carly. “That’ll be up to you.” He stood up and retrieved a sign for the bathroom that someone had written graffiti on and another piece of sandpaper. He started smoothing the edges. “Gisele carved it, but how did it come alive? I can see it woke up, even though, thankfully, it’s not got a spark o’ life right now. Did you breathe it alive?”
Carly frowned. “I just . . . I think about the animal I’m painting, and I can feel what colors go where. And at the end, when the last bit goes on, the animal wakes up.”
“Start out erasing the rough edges—see here, where it splintered a little when it broke? He’ll have a little smaller tail when you’re done, but it’ll grow.”
“But the glue—it won’t hurt?”
“Have you ever broken an arm or anything? Know how it takes some time to heal? Well, this is like that. If you’re good at fixing what you broke, and you mean it to get well, really mean it, well then you can fix it right up.”
Carly picked up the sandpaper and the tail, and held them up to the light, looking carefully at the rough broken edge. Then she picked up the horse, and looked at where the tail had broken, and frowned. Jack was quiet as she looked a second time, and he stayed quiet as she sanded carefully. After the first few tentative swipes, it started to feel like when the paint went on, like the paper knew what little bits to s
and off and what to leave untouched. She held the two pieces together; they fit exactly right. He handed her the glue, and she dabbed it on as if it were paint. She made a vise with her hands, holding the long part of the tail tightly onto the broken stub, looking over at Jack. “How many people know about the High Hills?”
He laughed. “Just a few. Every year some young people find the door and get through it, and some years older folk, but not usually.”
“So how come I found it?”
Jack pursed his lips and brushed the fresh wood dust from the sign, holding it up and turning it over. “Every one over there has magic. I figure everyone here does too, but this version of the world teaches it out of them. I notice it’s mostly kids that find the door and get through, and mostly kids who are hurt, at that.”
Carly frowned. He meant hurt like her. Tears stung the edges of her eyes but she swallowed hard and didn’t let them fall. “I didn’t think it was a real place.”
Jack laughed and stood up to get a paint can and brush. “It’s as real as you believe it is.” They were both silent for a few long minutes while Jack applied a coat of paint to the front of the sign and set it down on two rocks to dry. “Why don’t you look at your little horse?”
Carly carefully lifted the black horse and squinted at the tail. The line of glue was completely invisible. “Will it wake up?”
Jack smiled. “Over there it will. But the tail might hurt a bit—you’ll have to tell Gisele you broke it.”
Carly held the horse loosely in her right hand, not wanting to let go. “Why can I fix a little magic horse and not my life?”
Jack grunted. “Who says you can’t? The thing is, you can only fix what you break. I can fix stuff other people break—” Jack waved a hand around the workroom, “—but I can’t fix people. They can only fix themselves.
And the same goes for you. You’ve got to fix things in yourself that need help.” He paused. “Though sometimes the first step to helping yourself is asking for help. Maybe you were doing that when you found the gate.”
Carly sat the horse down and pulled the other box out of her pocket, making sure the little raw wooden mare looked all right. “Jack? I asked Gisele if I could paint this horse over here, and she said yes, but that I might not like what I found. Do you know what she meant?”
“Why don’t you try it?” He fetched her a brush and a paint palette. “Here—I use these for fine work. You might try them. I’m going to make a quick round of the festival. Paint your horse while I’m gone. I’ll stop and check on Marla.”
Carly nodded and held the little mare to her chest while Jack walked out the door. Maybe some of the magic from the High Hills lived here, in Jack’s place. It smelled like Gisele’s hut: wood and paint, with soft hints of oils and grease. She looked at the little jars of color, but none of them called to her. But sometimes she didn’t know with her mind, even when she sat in Gisele’s workshop. Black? It was family to the other horse. Her hand reached past the black all by itself and settled on a light tan. She began to paint.
The colors went on like they did before, filling in, looking brighter on the horse than on her brush, drying quickly. She painted a soft yellow mane, almost white, and a strip of the same color down the mare’s nose. Carly dabbed the nostrils and inner ears with light pink and mixed the eye-black with a prayer for life and energy like Gisele had taught her, applied it carefully to the tiny round eyes.
Nothing happened.
The horse looked as alive as its partner, and stayed as still and dead. She blew into its face gently, hoping to send it life, like she had to sometimes with the slow animals, like the turtles.
Nothing.
The door opened and Jack came in. “Everything’s all right. Your mom’s not back yet, though.” He stepped nearer and looked at the little tan horse. “That looks good.”
Carly sighed. “It’s not alive.”
Jack squinted at it. “But it looks good enough to come alive. That’s the best you can do over here. You’ll have to take it back to Gisele’s to see if it wakes up.”
“What good is that? In a few weeks, I won’t even be able to go to the High Hills. I can’t get to the door once the festival closes.”
He nodded as if agreeing. “But you can make something magical now. Your mom, she does the same. She makes some of the best pottery in this show. And that little horse, it looks more alive than anything they sell around here.”
Carly frowned. There were two booths that sold toys, and Jack was right, none of them looked nearly this good.
“If you remember your magic, you can get back there next year.” He smiled. “And you still have two weeks.”
She looked at the little horses again, already feeling the empty winter looming behind the summer sun. “Maybe. I’d like to go there between festivals. We live close by.”
“Well, that’s a tough one. Part of what opens the gate is all the creative people here at Festival. But you’ll have your memories, and your imagination, and there’s magic there.” He squatted down and looked into Carly’s eyes. “Magic to help you get through the tough times.”
Carly looked away from him. “I’d like to have magic to help my mom. This doesn’t do any good at all, not really.” She made a silent apology to the horses.
“Well, maybe your work on them will help you understand your mom better. And you’re old enough to help her with her work.” He stood up. “Come on, we should get you back. You’ve only got an hour left until closing.”
Carly followed him out, clutching both horses to her. Maybe if her mom didn’t come back by closing, she would go to the shelter with Marla. Maybe it was time to start taking care of herself. Letting someone else help her didn’t mean she couldn’t still help her mom. Somehow she thought Gisele would agree, and the idea made her smile. Maybe Gisele would let her keep a family of horses all winter, just so she’d remember the magic.
AN END TO ALL THINGS
Karina Sumner-Smith
Karina Sumner-Smith is a twenty-something recluse, short fiction author and novelist-in-the-making. A graduate of Clarion 2001, Karina has had her work appear in the anthology Summoned to Destiny and magazines including Strange Horizons and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Though constantly in a state of flux, her day job(s) usually involve research, educational technology, blogging evangelism and a fair sprinkling of administrative busywork. She currently lives in Toronto.
SITTING IN THE RAISED concrete alcove of what had once been a doorway, her feet pulled beneath her to keep them from the wet, Xhea watched a middle-aged man awkwardly pretend to fumble with the catch of a newspaper vending machine. Magic sparkled above him in a shape like an upturned tulip, deflecting the heavy rain and letting it pour to the ground around him, tracing a circle in the puddles at his feet. He was, of course, watching her.
It was not his attention that had caught her notice, nor the way he was slowly but surely making his way down the street towards her, but rather the ghost of a teenaged girl tethered to him with a line of energy more felt than seen. She could not be much older than Xhea herself—fourteen, she supposed, perhaps fifteen—and she floated an arm’s span above the man at the end of her tether like a girl-shaped helium balloon.
As Xhea waited, she tied a coin to the end of a thin braid of her hair with a bit of discarded ribbon. The coin was an old and dirtied thing, found in the concrete labyrinth of tunnels beneath the City. Once it would have bought her bread, cigarettes, a warm place to sleep. Now it was nothing but a bit of shiny metal, a decoration that watched with the pressed eyes of a dead Queen, no magic in its essence other than a sense of the past that hung about it like the faint scent of something sweet.
What was it, Xhea wondered, that made the ghost-afflicted wait until the darkest, rainiest days to seek her out? She snorted softly, a sound without care or pity. They didn’t want to be seen with her, that was the truth of it, as if her very presence could leave a shadow that wouldn’t burn away. In a city built upon the brigh
t, sparkling magic of life, who would admit to needing the help of the thin and sickly talents of a girl who could see ghosts?
Xhea had started braiding another section of her dark hair before the man at last made up his mind to approach. He shuffled forward. He glanced about. He walked right past as if intending to keep going, then stopped and turned. Xhea watched as he came to stand before her and her narrow shelter, the heavy rain falling between them like a beaded curtain.
Xhea held his eyes as she slowly pulled a cigarette from one of her oversized jacket’s many pockets and placed it against her lips. He blinked. From another pocket she drew forth a single match, thankfully dry, which she struck with a practiced flick of a chip-painted nail. Cigarette lit, she leaned back against the concrete alcove and exhaled.
“Well?” he said impatiently. He stood looking down at her, back straight as if to get every last intimidating inch out of his average-sized frame. She knew his kind.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to help me?” he said. “I have a ghost.”
“I can see that,” Xhea replied, returning the cigarette to her lips.
“I was told,” the man said slowly, as if she were younger than her fourteen years and dreadfully slow, “that you can help people with ghosts.”
Xhea raised an eyebrow and watched him until he began to squirm, hearing his words and finding them foolish.
“Forget this!” he muttered and turned angrily away. Xhea let him leave without watching him go. He remained blithely unaware that his ghost had remained right where she was, floating before Xhea’s shelter with her tether stretching like a long elastic band, a clear indication that the man would return.
Xhea smoked slowly, watching the ghost. She floated serenely, eyes closed and her legs folded beneath her like a dreaming Buddha. The ghost’s hair was pale—blonde, Xhea supposed—her skin even paler, each appearing in Xhea’s black-and-white vision as a faintly luminescent gray. The ghost girl’s dress was more vivid, hanging in loose folds that appeared almost to shimmer as they moved in an unfelt breeze, the fabric untouched by rain.
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