by Paula Guran
Go away,” she said. “I’m all out of stories, okay? I’m storied out.”
Socks sighed and wondered what to say next. She knew Perdita was lying—telling stories never put out her flame, but fanned it hotter and brighter. She didn’t look out of stories; she looked out of temper and bored.
“It’s a pretty night,” said Socks coaxingly. “Lots of people out. Pet said she overheard a Trueblood talking about you, about how you were a real Storyteller like her mother told her about in Elfland, and how she wanted to hear you again.”
“You only hear perfection once,” said Perdita, then abruptly unrolled herself and stretched languidly. “My public,” she drawled. “My vampire public. I suppose I must feed them.” She giggled, disentangled herself from her woolly cocoon, snatched a rainbow-colored scarf from Christie’s drying rack, and twisted it around her neck. “Let’s go, kid. Time’s a-wasting.”
She was good that night, but mean. Her stories skated the thin edge of insult, turning like snakes to bite her listeners. The audiences laughed, but uneasily, and the rain of coins and four-leaf clovers was not so heavy as it might have been.
“What’s wrong with you?” Socks asked on the long walk home. They’d gone all the way to Dragon’s Claw Bridge; the mat was a leaden weight on her shoulders and each step like broken ice.
“You,” said Perdita. “You couldn’t catch a cue if it had a sticking-spell laid on it. And you were yowling like a horny cat. What happened to your sweet voice, Singer? Your foot rot go to your throat or something?”
Socks bent her head silently, any response she could think to make locked tight in her throat. She spent what was left of the night curled up beside the stove in the kitchen, breathing very gently and trying not to think of what Perdita had said, or the hard, bright, clipped voice in which she’d said it, or the way her eyes had glittered, beady and animal in her pointed face.
In the morning, Socks got up early and joined Baby at the wash-tub.
She felt absurdly pleased when Baby laughed and butted her head against her shoulder, and absurdly grateful that Christie couldn’t ask her why she was back washing and drying. In fact, by the end of the day it was clear to her that the whole squat knew that Perdita had ditched her lame Singer, and none too gently, either. She noticed their small kindnesses—the red paper crane Hand left under her pillow, the scrap of rusty silk Christie tied around her neck, the way Queen B. called her “honey.” Their friendliness made her misery a little more bearable.
Perdita spent less and less time at the squat. She showed up once every day or so to give Queen B. the take from her storytelling and to sleep, rolled head to toe in her afghan, muttering and tossing in uneasy dreams. When she was awake, all her words were toothed and edged like knives. She told no one where she’d when she stayed out all night or what she’d be doing. Map, out late scavenging, saw her with a new Singer, dressed, as Socks had been, in earthy rags and a dark veil. The height had suggested an elf, Art said. The voice could easily have been a man’s or a woman’s. They’d been walking arm and arm, very cozy.
“I don’t expect she’ll be back for a while,” he said smugly. “Whoever it is, I hope they’ve had their shots.”
Two mornings later, Perdita was back. Socks met her coming into the kitchen, yawning and stretching her arms up over her head. Socks shrank back by the stove and stared at her. She looked pale, hollow-checked, and bruised around the eyes. Horrified, Socks watched a sluggish drop of blood paint crimson down her arm. Between the bracelets, her wrists were red and black and swollen. There was a cut over one eye, too, and a shadowy bruise along her jaw.
Perdita put down her arms and glared at “her. “What’re you gaping at?”
Socks took a deep breath. “I know you don’t like questions,” she said miserably.
Perdita fingered her woven bracelets, winced as the cotton rubbed her abraded wrists, clasped her hands behind her back.
“I’m not selling my ass, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “I promised. A friend got a little rough—that’s all.”
“A friend,” said Socks, horrified out of her shyness. “A friend cut you up and hit you? You don’t need friends like that.”
“What do you know about what I need or don’t need? You’re just a kid with stinky feet. You can’t find your ass with both hands and a road map. Saving my life doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to live it.”
Socks stared into Perdita’s angry face, watching it shift and distort into a fox’s snarling mask. She felt cold, which wasn’t surprising, since it was snowing heavily, muting the fox’s crimson presence under soft, white veils. For a moment she rested, suspended like a leaf in a block of ice, then a spurt of flame melted the white world, and the common room burst upon her in an overwhelming kaleidoscope of shapes and colors, centering on Perdita’s bruised face. Socks closed her eyes. She was sitting on the floor, slid down beside the stove with her Baggied feet tucked painfully under her.
Fingers like a cat’s sandpapery pads touched her cheeks.
“Look,” said Perdita, very close and low. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Honest. You’re just a kid—you don’t know any better. And you’re my friend.” The fingers moved to her forehead. “Socks? Nightingale? You can’t go away. I owe you.”
“You’re mad at me,” whispered Socks.
“I’m over it. I won’t yell again. I didn’t know you’d go away like that.”
Socks opened her eyes. “You called me back,” she said. It came out like an accusation. “How’d you do that?”
Perdita shrugged, sat back on her heels. “I can do a lot of shit like that.”
“Elf magic?”
Perdita hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I just do it. My mother did, too, mostly to keep people from noticing that she was from the Realm. She did other stuff, too, useful stuff, like healing my arm the time boiling stuff got . . . spilled on it. Like that.”
“She healed you?” said Socks. “Can you heal?”
“Sure. I’ve done it lots of times.” Perdita chewed her lower lip. “Well, I could if I wanted to.”
Suddenly Socks felt hot. She’d never felt hot before, only cold.
Hot made her want to hit, to hurt, to see her own pain reflected on Perdita’s face. “Never mind,” said Socks loudly. “Just never mind. Forget I said anything, okay?” She turned and limped with dignity towards the bathroom.
“Wait,” said Perdita. Her voice had lost its jagged edge, and sounded to Socks like the voice of the girl who had told her that she sang more sweetly than the crimson martlets of Elfland. Socks stopped, but she didn’t turn around.
“You’ve always been straight with me,” said Perdita. “You’ve believed me and stood up for me. I’m . . . grateful for that.”
“I don’t want you to be grateful. I don’t want a payback for liking you.” Socks’ throat closed against the rising heat. “Fuck gratitude,” she said.
“I’ll heal you.”
Hot tears boiled in her eyes. “Fuck you.”
“Because I like you. Because I have to.”
The heat fell away from her and Socks turned around, shivering with reaction. Perdita’s eyes were blurred, her mouth pursed around tears.
“If you want to,” said Socks. “I don’t care,”
“I’ll need the others,” said Perdita. “They like you, too.”
“No, they don’t. I’m the Baggie girl. They think I’m stupid because my feet stink.”
“I’m right and you’re wrong,” said Perdita. “You’ll see.”
Setting up the healing was like the old recipe for a rabbit stew: the hardest part was catching the rabbits. Perdita didn’t help matters by refusing to tell Queen B. and Bossman about it, nor to explain to the others exactly what she had in mind. “It’s a kid thing,” was all she’d say. “For Socks. You have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Eye brought one scornful eye to bear on her. “Not as far as I could see you.”
“I’m with Eye,” said Science. “You’ve been nothing but a nuisance since you got here. You’ve got some angle with this healing business. We just got to figure out what it is. If you were straight about this, you’d let us tell Bossman.”
“I can’t,” said Perdita. “Because of the rings.”
“Now I don’t like it even more,” said Art. “Who are you planning on hurting, you need to get away from Bossman’s rings?”
“Nobody. I’m not planning on hurting nobody. They just cramp my style a little: it’s too complicated to explain. You have to trust me on this.”
Pet snorted. “I vote no. And so does Christie.” As she spoke, she put an arm around Christie’s shoulders.
Christie shrugged it off again and shook her head until the rose-red mop flew. “N-n-no harm,” she stammered. Her voice was thick and painful to listen to. “For S-s-s-ocks. T-t-try.”
All the children looked at her, Pet wide-eyed with astonishment. “Shit,” she said. “In public, too. You feel that strong about it?”
Christie nodded. “Okay. You know these things. I don’t. We’ll do it. Perdita’s way. But I still don’t like it.”
The boys took longer to persuade, but eventually they followed Christie’s lead, although Art expressed one final reservation.
“You’re wrong, Christie. It could do harm, if it doesn’t work.”
Socks spoke for the first time. “They’re my feet. And they hurt.”
They couldn’t have the healing in the squat—they all knew that without being told. But there were plenty of other apartments in the building, some of them occupied, some of them empty except for rats and spiders. Perdita led her reluctant healers to one of these, two flights up at the back of the building.
The children hesitated in the door. The windows were shrouded by long rags of curtains and dust lay like snow. Perdita, carrying a candle stuck upright on a plate, stepped softly through the dust, which eddied around her bare feet and clung to the legs of her jeans. She set the dish down in the middle of the floor and lit the candle with a kitchen match. One by one, she took the children by the hand and led them into their places in a circle: Art, Christie, Hand, Socks, Baby, Science, Pet, Eye, Map. The flame folded and flared, touching the young faces with gold at cheek and brow. Pet wrinkled her nose at Christie across the circle, encountered such a solemn look that she ducked her head, subdued. Socks felt Perdita pass behind her, a shadow pressure at her back.
“Sit.”
Perdita’s voice, at once light and resonant, seemed to come from inside the circle, as though the candle flame had spoken.
They all sat in the dust, careful not to stir it up, pulling their knees up in front of them. Socks blushed at the break her plastic-bagged feet made in the circle of boots and sneakers. Under the bags, her skin pricked and throbbed. She closed her eyes. The after-image of the candle flame danced black against her lids, shrinking and swelling. Socks had a sudden vision of Perdita smiling, toothy and feral, gasped, opened her eyes to catch the gleam of her glance across the circle.
“Untie your laces.”
Again, her voice spoke in the flame. Again everyone obeyed, fumbling at knots and lopsided bows in the tricksy light. Science helped Baby, who usually wore sandals, but who today was sporting a pair of brown lace-up old-lady shoes from Christie’s stock.
“Tie the laces together.”
A shadow at Socks’ back told her that Perdita was pacing the bounds of the circle. To her right and her left, Baby and Hand painstakingly tied a lace to one of Christie’s and Science’s, then sat uncertainly holding the other lace in their hands and nothing to tie it to.
“Around her ankles.”
The low words came just as Hand’s delicate fingers looped his leather bootlace around her right ankle, on the bare skin above the Baggie. She felt it lying there, soft and snug, and a moment later, Baby’s round, waxed lace around the other.
Perdita’s voice, the flame’s voice, murmured intimately in her ear and bones. “This little piggy was beaten. This little piggy left home. This little piggy forgot herself. This little piggy got none. This little piggy sang roundelays all the way home.”
Socks’ feet began to itch as if a thousand fire ants were nibbling and stinging her between her toes, under her nails, across her arches, along the length of her soles. She whimpered and gritted her teeth.
“Wicked,” said the flame. “Bad girl. Bad.”
Socks cringed and covered her face with her hands. Bad. Wicked. That’s what she was. She deserved to suffer, deserved to feel each step as ice and knives, for all those evil things, those evil things she must have done, or why was she being punished?
“Not you.”
“Yes,” whispered Socks. “Yes. Me.”
“Not you. Never you. Never, ever. I’m nobody, who are you? Don’t tell me you’re nobody, too. Hush, don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t. Tell.”
“Never,” said Socks. “I promise.”
“Promise,” echoed the voice. “Tell.”
Behind her closed lids, Socks saw a man to her left, a woman to her right, much bigger than she was, giants. The man was all black hair and red lips, with hard, bright eyes and dark hair on the back of his wide hands. The woman was brown hair and pink skin except for the places where the man’s blackness had rubbed off on her arms and cheeks. They were holding the leaves of a giant magazine full of pictures. Its spine was propped against her own outstretched legs.
“Fox,” said the woman’s voice. “See the fox, Precious?”
“I don’t know why you bother, Louise. She’s too little to understand. It’s just noises to her.”
“That’s not true, Peter. She understands everything, don’t you, Precious? See the pretty fox, all red and black? Mr. Fox in the woods.”
The crackle of stiff paper, a quick glimpse of a pink tongue lolling over jagged white teeth, of a white paw crushed between jagged black teeth, of a red brighter than the fox’s rusty coat staining the snow. Then the magazine was dragged from her knees and thrown on the floor.
“How could they!” said the woman. “And they call this a family magazine!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Louise,” said the man. “It’s just a damn fox in a trap. You’re not going to get all pious about it, are you? Because if you are, you can just forget about your precious family time.” Socks started to whimper, hardly knowing what had frightened her. “What’s the matter with her?” he said.
“The picture,” the woman said hesitantly. “It’s upset her.”
“You’ve upset her, if she’s really upset.” He gave Socks a shake. “You,” he snapped. “You shut up. There’s nothing wrong with you—you’re just trying to get attention.”
Socks looked up at his red, moist face and his red mouth spitting out loud words and wailed.
The man stood up. “You want attention? He shouted. “Then I’ll give you attention. But you won’t like it.”
“Peter,” said the woman, pleading. “She’s only a baby, Peter; she doesn’t understand.”
“She’ll understand this.”
Socks felt a blow raking across her face, a blow that shocked her momentarily into silence.
“See?” he said. “Nothing to it.” Then he plucked the magazine from the floor and left.
“Baby?” said the woman, thick-voiced. “Precious?” Socks shivered, waiting for the white world to come and take away the burning in her cheek, the itch of healing scratches on her back and arms, the helpless pain in the woman’s voice. Recently, she’d discovered that all she had to do was sit very still and quiet, and everything would all go away.
But this time everything didn’t go away. She could feel warm light against her eyelids, painting the world the color of fresh blood. A slow pulse throbbed in each ankle, one a little faster than the other. A shadow touched her back, passed on.
“Little Tina Tucker sang for her supper. What did she eat? A brass belt buckle.”
“Shut up,” whispered So
cks.
“Two-for-one night,” said the flame. “Your feet and your memory.”
Socks opened her eyes. She was alone, surrounded by flickers of gold and scarlet and blue, like being at the center of a flame.
She blinked. The flame softened, resolved into a fox with orange-gold fur and amused dark eyes.
“All I asked for was my feet,” Socks complained to the eyes.
“You asked to be healed. You have to be careful, making bargains with me.”
“A bargain? What bargain? You said you wanted to do it. You said you liked me.”
“I did. I do. But it’s a bargain anyway. That’s the way it works.”
“You mean I have to pay you back?”
“Yes.”
Socks hunched into herself. “What do you want?”
“Out of here,” said the fox. “There are too many strings on me here, too many rules and too many eyes. Queen B.’s tongue galls me and Bossman’s rings bind me. I’m leaving.”
“And you want me to help?”
“Relax, kid. Releasing me’s not your job—I can do it myself. Besides, you’re not strong enough yet to do me any good.”
“What are you going to ask of me? How do I know I can do it?”
The fox cocked her head. “That’s the question, isn’t it? You have a year and a day to find an answer to it.”
“Huh?”
“A year and a day.” The fox sounded impatient. “It’s when I’ll come back for you. It’s traditional. My mother told me.” The fox rose, her fur ruffling with the movement, her tail flowing as she turned to go.
“Wait,” said Socks. “I need to know what you want me to do.”
“Sing, for starters,” said the fox, and was gone in a burst of red-gold flame like a dragon’s sigh.
“You okay?” Hand’s voice in her ear, high and panicky. “You were, like, burning up. We were scared.”
“Scared,” said Baby, sounding it. “Fire.”
