Carousel Tides

by Sharon Lee

  We were at the point of putting our right arms in, and I was hoping with all I had in me that we were only fated to do one round, when the circle we were in staggered—and came to a complete stop.

  The woman in the red hat was standing soft and tentative, like a dreamer, blinking at something halfway between Tom Thumb and forever. On her far side, a man wearing a brown pullover was looking vaguely around, as if he knew he’d lost something, but wasn’t exactly sure what. The rest of us were staring at them, apprehension on quite a few faces, and—in my case, at least—with a creepy little twitter along nerves I’d almost forgotten I had.

  Slowly, I turned around—and looked up.

  Perched midway up the Galaxi’s blue-and-pink girders, raining sullen orange sparks like a Roman candle gone very, very bad, was a willie wisp.

  “Kate?” Borgan was beside me. I pointed and he followed my line of sight.

  “Damn it,” he said conversationally.

  “Won’t do a bit of good.” I looked around, just in time to see another one of our dance partners go kind of soft-faced and puzzled.

  “Ah, shit,” I muttered, around a sinking feeling in my stomach. I turned back to stare at the willie.

  In the Land of the Flowers, willie wisps scavenge elemental fragments, and they’re extremely shy of people, the least powerful of whom can shred them with a Word.

  In the Changing Land, willie wisps feed on memories, and they’re positively brazen. And this particular willie wisp had happened on the mother lode.

  “What’s that?” a woman asked somewhere behind me, and I swallowed another curse. All the situation had needed was somebody with half-Sight picking out the willie. And once one saw it, in the way of things, they all—

  “Light show,” a man said, sounding calm and factual. “Guess we’re about to have us some entertainment.”

  Right. I took a breath, feeling a Word building at the back of my tongue. The willie sputtered, expanded, and threw out a wet handful of puke-green sparks. Sort of the willie wisp version of a raspberry.

  The Word was filling my mouth, crowding my tongue, making it hard to breathe—and there was only one thing to do about that. I raised my hand, pointed straight at the willie, and Spoke.

  The instant it left my mouth, I knew it was far, far too wide and deep a Word for conditions. For one scary moment, the Galaxi’s steel gridwork shimmered, waves of heat rising from the girders, molten metal trembling on the edge of dripping onto the watching crowd. Then—it solidified and returned to normal. Well, except for the willie wisp which, unharmed, bounced around like a demented and deeply wrong Super Ball, phasing from orange to yellow to red-purple-blue-green. A couple of the watchers clapped half-heartedly.

  “Need a bigger gun?” Borgan asked quietly. I shook my head.

  “That Word was almost too much. If I go that road again, we’ll end up with a smoking crater where the Galaxi used to be,” I said. And the willie wisp probably wouldn’t be discommoded in the least. I bit my lip, not liking my options, but hating the consequences if I didn’t get rid of that nasty critter—and fast.

  “I’ve gotta get closer,” I told Borgan. “Throw me.”

  He looked down into my face. “Throw you?”

  “C’mon, I don’t weigh that much! A big guy like you shouldn’t have any trouble at all hoisting me up to that girder.”

  “Kate—”

  I held up a hand. “You’ve got a better idea?”

  He frowned, glanced around—six folks now looking a bit gone at the edges—and back to me, mouth hard. “No.”

  “Right. Throw me.”

  He gave a stiff nod, and walked forward, a tough-guy roll to his hips.

  I hauled the work gloves out of the hoodie’s kangaroo pocket and pulled them on.

  Two feet out from the Galaxi’s base, Borgan turned and dropped to one knee with heart-stopping grace, his hands linked low before him.

  I glanced up to make sure the willie was still there, swallowed, and before I could overthink it, threw myself into a run.

  My right foot went into the cup of Borgan’s hands, there was a moment of lift, and I was hurtling through the air, the land wailing inside my head, straight for the woven metal frame. Live, as they say, without a net.

  Heart in mouth, I grabbed with gloved hands, held on, and did one revolution around the girder of my choice before swinging a leg over and sitting it astride. Below me, I heard whoops, yells, and applause, but I didn’t dare look down. Instead, I held on to the girder with both hands, took three deep breaths—and looked up.

  Two levels above and one over, the willie wisp spat a line of nasty puce sparks.

  “Don’t give me attitude,” I muttered. The land darted back and forth inside my head like a worried hound, then was gone, leaving behind an impression remarkably like a feather bed. Nice to know I’d have something soft to land on when I fell.

  Carefully, not rushing it, I got one foot braced on my girder, pushed, and rose shakily, snatching at a strut the instant it came within reach, and rested, swaying a little, the wind off the ocean blowing my hair into my eyes. I was pleased to find that the old work gloves were nice and grippy; the leather-soled boots, though—not so much.

  Well, a warrior doesn’t always find a level field for battle, as my fencing teacher used to say, usually right before she whipped my sorry ass from one side of the orchard to the other in the naive belief that I was learning something from the exercise.

  Wobbling a little on my chancy footing, I tried to empty my mind of everything except the willie wisp—not easy, under present circumstances. The willie, possibly believing that it was about to witness a new and exciting form of suicide, dropped down one level and spun closer.

  I breathed in, forcing the air down to the very bottom of my lungs, and focused grimly on the willie. The temptation was just to blast the damn thing out of existence, but my two recent experiences with elevated levels of jikinap made me more cautious. I couldn’t afford to blitz the roller coaster, or risk hurting any of the innocents below. What I needed was a pin-laser, not an H-bomb.

  Slowly, shaking with the effort to control it, I allowed the jikinap to rise in my blood. Slowly, a Word took shape inside my mouth; a small Word, and a hard Word, tasting of smoke and—

  The willie wisp drew in on itself, becoming a dense green-and-orange ball, my lips parted—and the willie spat, sparks striking my face, burning . . .

  Low on my horse’s neck, I followed Zephyr as we tore breakneck through unmapped woodland. She’d said it was madness to go by the road; but surely this route was no saner. Branches whipped overhead, leaves clashed and broke, showering me with dusted crystal. My horse—bold Sinbar—wove between the trees under his own judgment, reins loose on his neck. My care was to stay seated, and to pray that he stumbled on no unseen object, slowing us, or—Elements avert!—breaking a leg.

  I was breathing hard, my heart pounding louder than Sinbar’s hoof beats. Ahead, the trail curved, dark between the trees.

  Zephyr’s wind stallion flowed ’round the curve and was gone. Before we could follow, a rider came out from the trees, enclosed in a nimbus of power, and stopped in the center of the path.

  Sinbar skidded and reared, almost unseating me. The figure before us flicked her fingers, and he dropped to four feet, held motionless against his will. I was under no such compulsion, but I sat just as frozen.

  My mother raised her hand, slowly—painfully slowly. I blinked, and looked to her face, saw the tears and knew that she was compelled by the one who held her soul. Compelled . . .

  Power swirled, the slim brown hand continued to rise, and I saw my doom boiling at her fingertips.

  I screamed—and screamed again as the memory shattered about me, and I was once again precariously balanced on the slick steel girder, a hint of butterscotch on my tongue and the echo of a Word in the wind.

  Above me, the willie wisp swelled, shrank—and exploded—orange and green and red and violet streamers escaping in
all directions.

  A streamer whipped across my cheek, burning. I jerked sideways, twisting after balance, but there was no stopping my feet in their slick-soled boots from sliding off the steel.

  From below came a shout, a scream, and a scattering of applause. Above me, the last glowering sparks of what had been a willie wisp sparkled, turned, and faded into the dusky air.

  I bit my lip, laboriously pulling myself back up onto the girder. Arms trembling, I turned, exquisitely careful, to look out—and down.

  “You didn’t think this through, Kate,” I muttered, wondering how soft a landing zone might be waiting for me, after all, and if the land could do anything with tarmac.

  “Kate!” a big voice called. I looked down again, and there he was, arms extended, looking as solid, reliable, and welcome as Cape Elizabeth Light in a storm.

  I jumped.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Sunday, April 23

  “What happened up there?” Borgan asked some time later, after we’d taken our bows before an appreciative audience and exited far more coolly than I at least felt, stage right.

  “It looked like you had it all wrapped up, and the next thing I see, you’re sliding off the beam and about to put the land to some trouble.”

  I sighed and leaned against the back side of the Whale’s Tail, while I pulled off the work gloves and stowed them.

  “Willie grabbed out a bad memory and threw it in my face,” I said, shivering. All the bad memories I carried and it had to have been that one. But, of course, willie wisps have a feel for such things.

  “My own damn’ fault,” I continued, trying for calm. “I was too careful with the jikinap.”

  Scared of your own power, I thought. Not a plan for long-term survival, Kate.

  “About which . . .” Borgan said after a moment. “Rumor was you didn’t have enough wattage to light a match.” He squatted down on his heels in the sand and looked up at me. “That changed, did it?”

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. That changed. You know Mr. Ignat’?”

  “Sweetest man in the world. Not a breath of sense in him, but don’t let that bother you.”

  “I never have,” I said. “Mr. Ignat’ had almost as much to do with raising me as Gran did. He introduced me to grilled blueberry muffins, and fiddleheads; watched Saturday morning cartoons with me, and just—” loved me, without question or censure, “made me feel safe.” I sent Borgan a sharp look, daring him to laugh, but he only nodded.

  “Also, he’s not . . . always . . . simple. Sometimes, he’s downright complex. Last night—this morning—being a case in point. He showed up just when the Black Dogs had a two-to-one lead, sent them packing, then offered me his flask.” I paused, but Borgan didn’t have anything to say. I shrugged.

  “So, I had me a good slug of the smoothest liquor I’ve tasted in . . . a really long time. He said that Gran and him had brewed it together. Between the two of us, we drank what should’ve been the whole flask, only the damn’ thing never did get empty, and I was too jazzed on adrenaline to care.” I sighed.

  “The upshot being that I now have more than enough jikinap to light a match. If I’m not careful, I get the sense that I could burn down the whole town.”

  “Blame that on the whiskey, do you?” Borgan asked after a while.

  “Yup. Also? I can’t find Mr. Ignat’. I’ve been by the Knot twice to see if he’s okay and to tell him where I think Gran’s gone. I can see he’s been working on it, but he himself I haven’t seen since early morning—and not for lack of looking.”

  Borgan nodded, glanced down at his hands, then back to me. “What did happen to your gran? You were thinking she sang herself across, when we talked this morning, and were on your way to a second opinion.”

  “Right.” I sighed. “I got the second opinion, and everything jibes. Listen . . .”

  I told the tale as quick as I could without leaving anything vital out. At the end of it, Borgan sighed and came to his feet. “You still got that leaf?”

  “Yeah.” I pulled the folded letter out of my back pocket and handed it over. “See what you make of it, will you?”

  He nodded, unfolded the paper carefully, slipped the leaf into his palm—and gasped, face tight with pain.

  “Damn,” he whispered, and folded the leaf reverently into Gran’s letter before passing it to me. I slipped it away into my back pocket.

  “So,” I said. “It’s the real thing?”

  Borgan sighed. “It’s a real thing. Whether it’s your mother or not . . .” He shook his head.

  “Yeah. But Gran would’ve known.”

  “Or she went on hope,” he said. “But I think you’re right that she went. She couldn’t have done anything else, not the Bonny Pepperidge I know.”

  “Not the one I know, either,” I admitted.

  “Well,” Borgan said after a moment or two of dead air. “You’ve had some kind of a day. What about dinner?”

  Reminded, my stomach informed me, loudly, that it had been some hours since my breakfast egg roll, and while the land would nourish me, it just wasn’t the same as—

  “Oh, hell!” I said, pushing away from the wall.

  Borgan’s eyebrows went up. “Is that a no?”

  “Actually, it’s an Ana-is-expecting-me-for-dinner-sometime-this-century-and-I-totally-forgot-until-right-now.” I took a breath. “And Tony said if I didn’t make it, she’d be mad as fire at me.”

  “This, I’ve got to see.”

  “C’mon, then,” I said, and headed up the beach at a trot.

  * * *

  Baxter Avenue still being impassable due to street-partyers, we went ’round to the back of Tony Lee’s and knocked on the service door. It popped open in a shorter time than I would’ve predicted, and Anna grabbed my arm, pulling me inside. Borgan followed on his own.

  “Kate, you must be starving, come in here and—Andre! What a surprise!”

  It was, to judge by her smile, a surprise of the pleasant variety. For his part, Borgan gave her a respectful nod, and a sideways glance out of mischievous black eyes.

  “Now, Anna, you know I can’t go for long without seeing you. Too bad you’re married to such a nice guy, or I’d carry you off for sure.”

  Anna laughed and closed the door, snapping the lock shut.

  “Kate’s already threatened to steal Tony,” she said, sidling between the Number Two stove and the prep table.

  “That so?” Borgan said, and gave me a grin. “Might be less trouble for everybody, then, if Kate and me just called it a match.”

  I gave him a glare, but he was watching Anna.

  “I think that would work out just fine,” she said composedly. “Sit down, both of you! Andre, you’re having dumplings?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We got ourselves situated on the out of the way side of the prep table. No sooner had we pulled out the stools than the promised dumplings arrived on paper plates, plastic utensils on the side.

  “Coffee’s coming,” Anna said. “Kate, Nancy asked me to tell you that she’s got to leave for home at eight. She’ll close the storm walls before she goes, but she doesn’t have a key to lock up.”

  “Right,” I said, digging in. “I’ll get Nancy a key—tomorrow, I guess. And I’ve gotta get some clothes . . .”

  “Dynamite opened today,” Anna said, bringing two Styrofoam cups of coffee to the table, and heading back to the stove. “Mr. Kristanos said they were going to stay open ’til ten.”

  “Anna!” Tony called from the front. “We need more egg rolls!”

  Borgan rose, moved over to the warming counter and picked up a tray. “I’ve got ’em,” he told Anna. She flashed him a smile over her shoulder.

  “Thanks, Andre.”

  “No problem,” he assured her, and went up to the front. I heard the rumble of his voice, and Tony’s laughter; and sipped my coffee, thinking. Borgan was obviously welcome here—not only welcome, but at home. Before I could decide if that bothered me or pleased
me, he was back and picking up his fork.

  “Who could have thought it would be so busy?” Anna said from the stove-side counter. She sounded delighted, and not tired in the least. “I bet the Chamber’s pleased.”

  “Ought to be,” I said, finishing up the last of the meal and putting my fork down with a sigh of pure contentment. “Anna, those dumplings have got to be illegal. Thank you.”

  “There’s more if you want them,” she said, and rushed on. “Marilyn says if we win the competition, then we’ll have a Super Early Season next year, too.”

  I looked at her, but her attention was on her work. “Same group?”

  “I’m not sure—Marilyn would know, I guess.”

  “I guess.” I drank coffee. Beside me, Borgan finished his dinner, picked up his plate and mine and went over to put them in the trash can. That done, he stepped to Anna’s side.

  “Anything you need done on the town? Errands run?”

  She flashed him a smile. “We’re fine, Andre. As soon as we heard there were going to be fireworks, Tony called in a second order.”

  I slid off my stool, and deposited my empty cup in the trash. “You’re staying open for the fireworks?”

  “Until after the fireworks,” she corrected, and threw me a grin. “Make egg rolls while the sun shines.”

  I laughed.

  “I’m sorry I was late for dinner. We—got caught up in some things.”

  “It’s no problem at all, Kate. We’re opening tomorrow at eleven. We’ll send lunch over around two.” She gave me what she probably thought was a fierce frown. “Do you understand me, young lady?”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “Yes, ma’am. I do.”

  “Good. Now, you’d better go lock up. Andre?”

  “Pretty Anna?”

  “You help Kate carry her packages home from Dynamite, all right? And see she gets in safe. Somebody hurt her right here in the park a couple days ago—the cut’s healed now, but—”