Carousel Sun

by Sharon Lee

  There was a sailboat hugging the rough edges of Strand Island, playing with the wind and probably aggravating the seals, and a motorboat coming out of the blur of Camp Ellis, skipping across the waves like a stone across a river.

  I closed my eyes. At the edge of my attention, the land was quietly quivering with anticipation. The land liked Borgan. A lot. How much that influenced my own feelings, I had no idea. But . . . I did have feelings—confused feelings, granted, like most of my feelings—and I very much wanted to sit down over a cup of coffee: that same cup of coffee I’d never let him buy me . . .

  The breeze gusted from landside, blowing my hair over my shoulders and around my face. The low-tide waves continued to plash gently against the shore.

  Nothing else happened.

  At all.

  The midway was hopping.

  I stopped outside The Last Mango and just stared. People were trying their luck at the ring toss in the center of the walk, while directly across, a lanky teenager was testing his marksmanship. Straight down the road, I could see an Italian ice concession, a duck-pick, and a ring toss, all with customers waiting. Perky popular girl hits were playing on the PA, fortunately almost completely drowned out by the yells of barkers, shots from the firing range, laughter, voices, and—

  “Hey, Kate!”

  Peggy the Fixer came out of the manager’s cave, Vente in one hand. She was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt showing Jack Skellington holding hands with Sally.

  “It’s looking good,” I told her. “You’re a miracle worker.”

  “Couldn’t’ve done it without you,” she said, shaking her pink head. “I keep pinching myself, but going by the bruises, I’m awake. So, anyhow, since you’re such a big gun in the miracle business, I’m gonna ask for another one.”

  I eyed her.

  “Shoot.”

  “You know anybody renting an apartment in town? I’m in a motel up on Route One, which I thought’d be close enough, y’know? Three-mile commute—people die for that where I’m from. Except I’m thinking, High Season, traffic, little country road, closing up at midnight three nights and close enough to midnight, the rest of ’em . . . the strip isn’t going to be close enough.” She gave me an eager, bright-purple glance. “Is it?”

  “Probably not.” I frowned at her. “I might know a place,” I said, slowly. “Don’t know what kind of shape it’s in . . . Let me check and I’ll give you a call, ’kay?”

  “You are my go-to woman for everything in this town! I will await your call, Ms. Archer.”

  “Should be this afternoon. And—no promises, right? I’ve gotta check. If what I have in mind won’t do, what do you need, baseline?”

  “Baseline? A place to sleep, shower; a place to keep some food and a six-pack cold. A microwave would be swell. Washer and dryer nearby, because—schedule.” She paused, added, “No wildlife,” and nodded once, firmly.

  Well, as baselines went, it was basic enough. I chewed my lip, debating with myself . . .

  “Okay,” I said, slowly. “Lemme see what I’ve got. Right now what I’ve got, though . . .”

  “Is to get the merry-go-round open for business. ’Way ahead of you. I don’t know why they haven’t rolled back the gates over there already. The paying customers were climbing the fence when I got here, at ten.”

  “Marilyn has a certain fondness for order,” I told her. “But, yeah, she’s gonna snap soon. All that money flowing into other pockets . . .” I gave her a nod and started down the avenue. “I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she promised.

  I was sipping coffee and chatting with Anna as she got the counter set up for the day when Vassily arrived, admirably punctual at eleven o’clock.

  The hood was down, letting the breeze run wanton fingers through his reddish brown hair.

  Boy really ought to have a hat, I thought. Skin that pale will crisp fast, even under the relatively mild Maine summer sun.

  “Good morning, Kate Archer,” he said, formally. “Good morning, Anna.”

  “Good morning, Vassily.” Anna smiled at him.

  Did I say that mundane folk don’t wield magic? All you have to do is see Anna Lee smile and know that I’m leading you a dance.

  Vassily, like hundreds before him, had obviously fallen irrevocably under her spell. Those stern, thin lips softened, just a little.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea? Pepsi?”

  “Thank you, I do not think any—”

  “It’s part of your meal program,” she interrupted him, softly. “Like Kate’s coffee.”

  Vassily took a breath, looked at me. I nodded, and raised the cup slightly.

  “If that is the case, then . . . coffee? With . . . if there should be . . . sugar?”

  “Coffee coming right up. Sugar’s on your left. Show him where, Kate.”

  “Sure.”

  I used my chin to point at the condiment rack in the left corner of the counter: packs of soy and duck sauce, sugar, salt and pepper, paper napkins, and plastic utensils.

  Vassily picked up four packets of sugar and came downcounter to take the Styrofoam coffee cup from Anna’s hand with a tiny bow.

  “Thanking you.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she told him, and vanished into the back again.

  He tore open the packets, and white granules snowed into the blackness of his coffee. Enough sugar to make my teeth ache, and I’d seen this before, I realized. Gaby, who was usually on the outer edge of hungry, sugared her coffee to the saturation point, too. Kept the stomach grumbles down.

  I cleared my throat, and he looked at me, face shut down again, eyes wary.

  “Since you’ll be opening up every day for me,” I said conversationally, “I’m going to leave the key here with Anna and Tony. You come in, get your coffee, pick up the key. Bring it back to Anna when you go off-shift. That work for you?”

  He sipped his coffee, and breathed in the steam.

  “This works for me, yes. It works for Anna and Tony?”

  “I asked them, and they’re fine with it. Gives ’em a chance to see more of you.”

  His eyes widened slightly at that, and color kissed his sharp, pale cheeks.

  “I will be . . . happy . . . to see more of Anna and Tony.”

  “Sounds like a win for everybody, then.” I straightened up out of my lean and reached into my pocket.

  The key was attached to a ring with a brass carousel horse charm.

  Vassily hesitated, his eye on the charm.

  “That is . . . ?”

  “Just a charm, so Anna can tell which key belongs to the carousel.”

  “Ah.”

  He slipped the ring from my fingers, careful, so it seemed, not to touch me.

  “Thanking you. I will open, and work. I will work until you come at . . . four o’clock. If you are late, I will work until you come. If you are very late, I will call Manager Michaud, who is in my phone.”

  “I’m gonna do my level best not to be late. Otherwise, you’re with the program. End of shift, you come over here, get your supper and give the key to Anna. If you need a break, or if you get in a bind, you just give me a call on the cell phone, all right? I’ll be at home, and can be here in a couple minutes. What’s the first thing to do if something goes wrong with the carousel itself?”

  “I say to the riders, please to dismount and exit. I will arrange a return of the fee. Then I will close the storm door, lock it, and call you on the cell phone.”

  “Ace.” I gave him a grin. “You’re gonna do fine.”

  His lips bent, too quick and too hard to really be a smile, but the boy was trying.

  “So,” I told him, “you better get opened up. If I know Marilyn, she’s going to hit that horn in under five minutes.”

  “Yes!” He spared the key and the brass charm another hard stare, and hurried across Baxter Avenue.

  I slumped back in my corner and finished up what was left in my cup, watching him open the gate
, turn on the lights, and start the music playing.

  Good, I thought. Kid’s doing good.

  Still, it was . . . remarkably difficult to straighten out of my lean when my coffee was gone, and turn toward home.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sunday, June 11

  Low Tide 5:18 P.M.

  Moonrise 9:01 P.M. EDT, Full Moon

  What with one thing and another, I got back to the carousel at the stroke of 4:00. I’d intended to arrive earlier, but, well . . . things had gotten complicated.

  As it happened, though, my timing wasn’t too bad. I walked in just as the bell sounded to end the ride. I slipped under the rail and stepped up to the operator’s board.

  “On your right,” I murmured.

  “Yes,” Vassily murmured, a trifle more indistinctly than I was used to hearing from him. I waited until the riders had gotten themselves dismounted and out into Baxter Avenue before I asked.

  “You okay?”

  He turned, and I could see that his face was even paler than normal, and it looked—damn if it didn’t look like he’d been crying.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He sniffled, and nodded.

  “It is to be forgiven. I was watching this, the wheel go around and the animals, and to be here . . . always. It . . . I thought of my country—my country, which is so very beautiful and yet terrible things happen. There is injustice, and of love, there is too little.”

  Well, I’d grown up in two countries and all I could say was that they were both beautiful, in their particular and unique ways, and that terrible injustices occurred in each.

  And that, of love, there is, according to my own observations, an ongoing general shortage.

  “There’s plenty of injustice here, too,” I said.

  He bowed his head. “Even the blessed angels in Heaven have sorrows to bear.”

  Well, for all I knew, that was true. I’d never had much truck with angels, myself. On the other hand, it wouldn’t do to have my greenie fall any further into despondency. It was the angels that gave me my cue.

  “The best we can do is try to make it better, one day, one person, one kind action at a time,” I offered, broadly paraphrasing a sermon I’d heard, ’way back, about how to make Heaven on earth.

  Vassily looked down at me, his face softening. He looked younger, and somehow less vulnerable.

  “You love this place,” he said. “This carousel; the—the creatures.”

  I nodded.

  “I was born in another country, where there had been a war,” I said, oversimplifying wildly. “When I came here, to live with my grandmother, I was . . . apprehensive at first, but then I came to love it. Even with the injustices. We make our own lives; we do what’s right.” This was getting a little heavier than I wanted, so I gave him a grin.

  “It’s your life, no matter where you are. It’s up to you to make it the best life—for you and for those you love—that you can.”

  He gave me a long, startled stare, then he ducked his head.

  “Yes,” he said. And again. “Yes.”

  “Right,” I said, and jerked my head toward Baxter Avenue. “Your shift’s over and Anna has your supper waiting. No work until Friday, right? And then every day until September fifth.”

  “I will come, on Friday,” he said. “Before noon. I will get the key from Anna, and—and coffee. I will open up. At four my shift will be over. I will take the key to Anna, and have my supper.”

  “You got it,” I told him. “On Friday, you’ll meet Nancy; she’ll be covering some of the night shifts. But for now—you better go get your supper.”

  “Yes,” he said again, and added, as he always did, “Thanking you.”

  Then he was gone, leaping lightly over the safety rail, and jogging past the three teenage girls in pink sweatshirts emblazoned with Archers Beach Maine, who were coming up to the ticket box.

  “Afternoon, ladies,” I said cheerfully. “Care to take a ride on the carousel?”

  It wasn’t a bad crowd, given that it was Sunday, and school was still in session. Company started to thin out around 8:30 and by 9:15 I was pretty much on my own. I wandered out into Baxter Avenue and spent fifteen minutes slaying various bovines with Brand Carver, owner-operator of Summer’s Wheel.

  “You comin’ to the meetin’ tomorrow morning?” he asked me.

  “I told Jess I’d stop by for a cup of coffee,” I admitted. “Sounds like she’s got the whole park out.”

  “Lot of us, yeah.” Brand pushed his cap back off his forehead. “Bunch of the folks up in town, too. Super Early Season showed we can do it. An’ if we can do it once, why not every year?”

  “This year might’ve been novelty?”

  “Coulda been,” Brand said, looking judicious. “But, maybe not. One of those things that we won’t know ’til we try it. Thing is, nobody’s been willing to try it. Super Early Season—that shook up some energy.”

  Well, it had done that, obviously.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  He grinned. “I’ll have a big mug of coffee waiting for you.”

  I wandered back to the carousel, but the park was dead, now. A couple doors down, past Tony Lee’s, the gypsy fortune-teller, Sylvia Laliberte, had turned off her neon tarot cards and was pulling down the door.

  Across from her, the greenie minding the lobster toss started to rack up the lobsters and roll down the sides of the booth.

  As I watched, the lights went out over the dart game, and the bald guy who ran the T-shirt shop came out to nudge the rose quartz doorstop inside, and pull the door to. A second later, his lights went out, too.

  “I guess the weekend’s over,” I called across to Tony, who leaned out over the counter, to look up and down the empty avenue.

  Straightening, he reached inside the booth. I heard the snap of a switch being thrown, and the big overhead sign that advertised Lee’s Great Chinese Food went dark. Tony walked to the end of the counter and pulled in the condiment tray.

  “See you Friday, Kate,” he called.

  “Take care.”

  He reached up, grabbed the storm shutter and pulled it down with a bang.

  My cue, plain as the nose on your face.

  I walked back under the carousel’s roof, flicked the switch that turned off the illuminated CAROUSEL sign on the roof, ducked under the rail, and a moment later jumped up onto the decking, and down into the pit.

  The orchestrion was first. I rewound the paper, and shut the machine down, then slipped through the utility door and turned off the running lights.

  Back on the decking, I walked, as lately Kyle and Vassily had walked—among the animals, my hands trailing along their wooden sides.

  The kid was right, I thought. I did love this place, these animals, this carousel. Loved it despite its secrets. It was home in a way that House Aeronymous in the Land of the Flowers had never been home, even though I’d had family around me. When I was a kid, it had never occurred to me to wonder why I’d had family around me. Kids don’t wonder about the central facts of the universe. Since growing up, though . . .

  Since then, I had wondered, and often, why Aeronymous had not only allowed Nathan to live, but named him his heir. Prince Nathan was seen as weak—half-breed that he was. Aeronymous had other children—full-blooded children, at least two of whom were pretty damn’ fine Ozali. He had to have known the danger a half-bred heir posed to him, his position, and the people under his protection. And I couldn’t for a moment suppose that an enduring love for Lydia Archer, the woman he had snatched at whim from her duty here in the Changing Land, was the answer to the puzzle.

  I stopped and leaned my hands on the unicorn’s saddle.

  Half-bred Nathan would have had a soul; voysin. Not having souls—or at least not having souls of the same configuration, the folk of the Land of the Flowers found our voysin . . . alluring.

  Seductive.

  I shook my head. No, that might have been enough reason
to keep Lydia around until she died, but the child?

  Unless . . .

  Unless Aeronymous had made Nathan his heir to protect his other children?

  That was a little convoluted, even for Aeronymous. On the other hand, that was pretty much politics as played in the Land of the Flowers. The sheer number of Ozali, and the constant quest for more and more power meant that, in order to stay alive, a person had to be so insignificant they fell below the radar of the powerful . . .

  . . . or so powerful that no one dared challenge them.

  Most tried the powerful route. After all, most people have possessions and property, even if they don’t have loved ones to protect. You might be okay with your own eventual assimilation, but watching your wife, your children, your cat be destroyed for the jikinap they held?

  So, Aeronymous kept Nathan close, his heir, the wife of his heir, and their child.

  Decoys, all.

  Not that it mattered in the end.

  Grandfather couldn’t have predicted Ramendysis. Maybe. In retrospect . . . he must have assumed he’d be able to best any Ozali who challenged him—he had been old, and powerful, and accomplished. He must’ve felt pretty confident in his dominion.

  But Ramendysis had been wily, and he had planned well, picking off lesser Ozali and banking his power until he could pick off the more powerful. Aeronymous had been near the top of the list, if not the last major Ozali Ramendysis had defeated.

  Defeated. Broken like straws, and sucked dry. I remembered. I hadn’t seen Aeronymous die, but I was there, standing next to Ramendysis, held there by his will, imprisoned and immobile, forced to watch my father fight for his life, while Ramendysis toyed with him, and finally, bored, made an end, snatching my father’s power from him so suddenly he screamed, and fell—and misted away into nothing before he struck the floor.

  Ramendysis wouldn’t let me cry. Though he did allow me to survive—myself, and my mother.