Bad Luck Girl

by Sarah Zettel

  Jack looked away, and then he looked over my shoulder. Probably he could still see the Halfers waiting on the other side of the shield, even if I couldn’t. “Can we go someplace? Where we can get some privacy?”

  I thought about saying no, or that nobody on the other side of the shield could hear us. But I really didn’t want anybody even watching this, whatever this was going to turn out to be. So I started walking in the direction of the wind.

  Jack fell into step beside me, tugging the brim of his cap down. We’d walked side by side like this for miles across the country, through the Dust Bowl, and into California and Los Angeles and Culver City, and back out again. I fought against how comfortable it was. I had to get used to missing this.

  “You know your ma’s tearing her hair out,” said Jack finally. “Your pa lit out from that gig he found. Didn’t even take his tips. He’s been out hunting you all night.”

  We came to the top of a small hill, and I got my first look at Lake Michigan. I’d never seen so much water in my life. It stretched all the way out to the horizon and shone silver blue in the morning light. Sparks like the ones I saw in my father’s fairy eyes danced across the rippling waves. The wind blew my tangled hair into my eyes. Pebbles and gravel covered the beach on the far side and twisted underfoot. The gulls screamed at each other and at me as they rose up from the stones.

  “What did you tell my folks about where you were going?” I asked him.

  “Nothing. Just said I’d be looking for you, same as them.” Jack took hold of my shoulder and turned me to face him. “Why’d you run out on me, Callie? What happened?”

  There was only one way I could think of to explain. I reached out with my magic and undid that little twist Papa had put in him, the one that kept him from getting too angry about what had happened to his brothers. Jack felt it go, and he knew what had been done, by Papa, and just now by me. He flushed white, then red. He stared at me, and this time I didn’t flinch away.

  “I couldn’t stop him, Jack, and I didn’t know what he was gonna do next.”

  “So you left me alone with him?”

  “I thought he’d go away. Him and Mama both. I thought … I thought they’d leave you be.”

  “And what kinda good was that supposed to do me? Were you gonna come back afterward?”

  Those words stopped every thought I had dead in its tracks. “What?”

  “I’ve been going crazy looking for you, Callie! I thought Dan Ryan’d got you, or your uncle! You didn’t even leave a note or anything. I thought … I thought you might already be dead!”

  His voice cracked high and thin on the last word. His worry whipped around my head too hard for me to shut out, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. The way he hunched up, thin and scared, and for a change looking younger than he was, it went straight to my heart and stuck there. “I just didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  Jack aimed a kick at the ground, sending up a shower of dirt and pebbles. “Well, you did.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was. I really, truly was.

  “You said that already. Come on, Callie. Let’s go home.” He started trudging back the way we came. I stayed where I was. It took him a long minute to turn around. He was too used to me following wherever he led, I guess. So was I.

  “I can’t go with you,” I said.

  “What? Why not?”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. Why did he have to pick now to get so stupid? “Why not? What about what I did to your brothers? What about what Papa did to you?”

  “Yeah, well, if he’s gonna stay, he’s gonna have to make a few of those famous fairy promises. And he’s gonna find a way to fix Ben and Simon.” Jack paused. “You think maybe the Halfers could help?”

  My jaw was flapping loose. I could taste the cool, damp wind at the back of my throat. “How can you possibly stand there talking like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like being around me isn’t going to get you killed! Or worse!”

  Jack let out a long sigh and had the nerve to look exasperated. “You saw my family, Callie. You saw how they live now, and believe me it used to be worse. You know what happened to Hannah. Maybe getting killed has been something I’ve walked with since I was born. At least with you, it’s for something good. Something I choose.”

  He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t. This was just Jack being Jack and trying out all his charm on me. Except I couldn’t feel the charm. I couldn’t feel anything but honesty. Honesty, and a little worry. Jack was worried I might not believe him.

  I stepped back. Pebbles ground under my shoes, making me unsteady. Or maybe it was watching the worry flicker in Jack’s eyes that was doing that.

  “How can you even …”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I shoved my hair back from my face. The wind blew it right back, and I shoved it down again.

  “No. It’s not nothing.” Jack was right behind me. I could feel him there, warm and steady and much too close. “You started this, Callie LeRoux—you finish it.”

  It wasn’t fair. He knew what names did to magic people. Except it wasn’t my name that was making me want to talk. It was just Jack. I had to explain things to him now, before I lost my nerve. He had to understand so he would finally go away.

  “How can you even know you feel anything real for me? What if it’s just something my magic’s doing to you?”

  There. I’d said it. This was the fear that kept me up at night. This fear turned the twisty, wonderful feelings that bubbled up when Jack smiled into nothing but ash and worry. Because every time he looked at me, I knew I might be messing with his heart and head. I knew Jack might only care because I wanted him to. Because I wished him to.

  “I wish it was,” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “If what I feel about you is just something your magic’s doing, then I wish it was real. Because it feels real, Callie, and it feels fine and I never want to lose it.”

  No. No. He wasn’t saying this. He sure wasn’t taking one step closer so he could lift up my hand, which was so cold from the lake wind and from being afraid. He most definitely and truly wasn’t still talking, saying things I’d barely had the nerve to dream I’d ever hear from him.

  “Besides,” he said with a sweet, small smile, “fairies need human feeling. You’ve said so. How do you know it’s not me doing this to you?” His smile turned just the tiniest bit sly, and all the strength in me seemed to head for the hills. Oh, he was doing something to me all right, but it had nothing to do with wanting or wishing. Not the magic kind, anyway. But that sly, joking smile was already gone. What he said now, he meant. “Callie, you’re the smartest, bravest, prettiest girl I’ve ever met, and if I haven’t said so, it’s because …”

  A very uncomfortable idea crawled out of my tangled thoughts. “If you say it’s because I’m a princess, Jack Holland, I will bust you in the mush.”

  Jack stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “It’s because I was afraid you’d run out on me!”

  Oh. A blush burned hard across my cheeks. It seemed to be catching, because Jack was blushing too. I’d never seen him look like that. And I’d sure never heard him stammering like he was now. Bits of sentences scattered like the stones when he kicked the ground. And he still hadn’t let go of my hand.

  “I wasn’t sure … I didn’t … I thought maybe it wouldn’t be … you know … right. I mean, fourteen, and … I knew you’d never … never had a boyfriend or stepped out, or … I wanted to say something, or … spending so much time alone with you and wondering if maybe … if you might be thinking about me like that … you’ve got no idea how hard it was.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” I muttered.

  Jack’s eyes flipped open wide. “Really? You mean it?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was finding out all about what tongue-tied really meant and I didn’t like it. A ghost of a smile flickered behind Jac
k’s eyes. It faded fast, but only because something much stronger was taking its place—stronger and truer than any of his easy smiles or quick words.

  “If I didn’t say anything, it wasn’t because I didn’t feel anything, Callie. It was never that.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I had to do something. I lifted my hand and let my fingertips brush across Jack’s cheek. It was raspy. I never thought he might need to shave. I’d never seen him do it. I touched one of the freckles on his cheek. His skin was warm. His Adam’s apple bobbed hard when he swallowed. I wondered if he wanted to kiss me. I wondered if I wanted to kiss him. At first I thought I didn’t. Then I thought I did. Then I thought I couldn’t. Then I thought maybe I could.

  Jack smiled, soft and sweet, like he understood all that. Probably he did. He always understood me better than I figured on. He took my hand away from his face and squeezed my fingers gently.

  “It doesn’t matter where it comes from, Callie,” he said softly. “What matters is what we do with it. Come back with me. We’ll figure it out.”

  Right then I would have gone with him anywhere, and I couldn’t think of a single reason not to. I followed him back toward the slope that separated the park from the beach, staring at his face like I’d been struck stone-blind. I was stumbling like it too, which just made him grin. Which got me annoyed, and wiped some of the haze away from my memory and pulled me up short.

  “I can’t.”

  Jack’s sigh was pure impatience. “Now what?”

  “The Halfers need my help.”

  “Talk sense, Callie. You can’t be thinking of helping them after everything they’ve done to you.”

  “You heard Touhy the other night, Jack. And there’s more to it.” I told him about what I’d seen and heard, about Touhy and Dan Ryan and all the rest. I told him about the major domo and Aunt Nancy, and felt his anger flicker hot and hard that I hadn’t told him before, but he sat on it fast.

  “All right, all right,” he muttered. “If you’re gonna insist, we’ll go talk to them. But we’ve got to let your parents know you’re okay.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, because I didn’t want to start another whole argument. So much for my grand plans for running away and not putting anybody else in danger. Darn you anyway, Jack Holland, I thought grumpily. I kept my eyes pointed straight forward as we started walking again, just in case he took it into his head to smile at me again. But despite working my way down into a comfortable grumble, I couldn’t help noticing the wind at our backs had shifted. Instead of fresh water and green grass, it filled with the smell of smog and slaughterhouse. I thought we’d left that all behind in Jack’s old neighborhood.

  Jack noticed it too, and glanced around. “What the … Do you see that?” He squinted up at the hazy blue.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s like … maybe an airplane? But it’s too low. Just there.” He pointed. “Can’t be a plane.” He squinted hard. “There’s a bunch of them.…”

  I followed his finger and saw the clear blue sky hanging low over the lake. Jack shook his head. “I’m seeing things.”

  I went cold inside. “Yeah, you just might be.” I put my hand on his arm. “You better wish I could see it too.”

  Jack did. I wrapped my magic around that wish and made it true. And all at once, I could see all he saw, and a little bit more.

  It wasn’t an airplane. It was a crow, stark black and gliding through the morning blue. And like Jack said, there were a lot of them. They wheeled and dove over one particular section of park. And I knew just which one.

  “It’s the Halfers,” I said. “They’re being attacked.”

  21

  A Great Notion to Jump

  We had no iron, or anything else to use for weapons. We had nothing but ourselves. We ran in anyway, ducking under tree branches and dodging around flower beds. Well, I dodged. Jack, with his long legs, vaulted right over them.

  The crows gathered thick as flies overhead, darkening the sky. They were big—two or three times as big as ordinary birds, and ten times as black. They wheeled and dipped and when they got below a certain point, they’d vanish like they’d never existed. That was behind the barrier for the Halferville. They’d torn open the top somehow and were diving inside. It was impossibly silent. The spell I’d laid over Jack let him see, but neither one of us could hear. We were paying so much attention to the crows, we both slammed straight into the shield and bounced back. It wasn’t hot anymore. It had gone cold, or been turned cold, but it was just as solid as ever.

  “Can we get in?” bawled Jack.

  I held my hands up in the air, clenched my teeth, and opened my magic. My hands and mind cringed as I pushed against the shield, which was now cold as ice in February. It was smooth as ice too, mostly. There were cracks. They were tiny, but they were real. I could slide my magic in and lean my strength behind it. I shook. Sweat prickled my scalp. This wasn’t the right kind of gate for me to open. I had no natural gift for this, just brute force and cussedness. Just the fact that the people on the other side were being attacked like I’d been attacked, and they didn’t have anybody else to help them.

  The shield cracked open. Not much, just a little hole. We both lost some skin and raised some blisters squeezing through, but we made it, and we ran.

  Halferville was in chaos. Dozens of voices screamed and shouted and the crows cawed in answer. Halfers ran for the shelter of the trees and shacks with the giant crows sailing in behind them. One of those birds lit onto the grass and it started to grow, like Mimi and the dog pack had grown, but it didn’t stay bird shaped. It turned human shaped, with crow eyes in a gray face and trailing black robes. While I watched, a tin-can boy snatched a baby that looked like it was made of bread crumbs off the grass and took off running. One of the crow men stretched out curving, clawed hands to grab up the tin-can boy and the crumb baby and slide them into those robes like popping them into sacks.

  Sacks. Where was Dan Ryan and his sack? I couldn’t see him anywhere. Where were Touhy and the councilors?

  Not everybody was running away. Halfers charged out of their houses with hatchets and hoes and whatever else had come to hand, hollering at the tops of their lungs. The crows didn’t have the air to themselves either. Ashland stood on a shack roof, her arms raised as she cried out in a voice almost too high to hear at all. Sparrows wheeled in the sky, laughably small next to the dark carrion birds, but there were a whole lot of them, and they pecked and screamed their tiny, righteous rage.

  There were rats too. Hordes of them, filthy and squealing, and worrying at the ankles of the robed man shapes. The crow men kicked them aside, but sometimes not fast enough, and if any crow man fell, he was covered over by a living flood of black and brown.

  One robed man cawed sharp and high. He tossed the tarry Halfer I’d seen the night before high into the air for a crow to grab in its talons. The Halfer screamed, and Ashland screamed, sending her sparrows after him, but the crow was too fast, and it was lost in the smoggy blue. The crow man laughed and the crows overhead cawed.

  Jack wasn’t standing around. Somebody’d dropped a long-handled hoe. He scooped it up, running into the middle of a cluster of crow men who’d surrounded a couple of brick Halfers. Jack clobbered the nearest crow across the head, and reeled around to face the others.

  An arrow whizzed past, trailing fire to sink deep in the heart of a crow as it swooped down. A gunshot exploded from one of the shacks, and then another. A crow man hollered and fell and a Halfer shouted in triumph, and there was another shot. A crow dropped out of the air and flopped onto the ground. Jack swore and ducked.

  I heard Touhy shouting. She was leaning out her window and waving and pointing at me. I understood and yanked my notebook out of my pocket and shook it hard. Words and live pages scattered onto the wind.

  Go, go! I told them. Help Touhy!

  They swirled up into the sky, in time to meet Touhy as she spread herself on the breeze, gliding and screaming
toward the nearest crow. She wrapped her body around its wings and held on tight, driving it to the ground where another Halfer could grab hold of it.

  I turned in place. It was too much, too crazy. I didn’t know what to do or how to do anything at all. I couldn’t think what to grab or where to run next.

  Then I saw Dan Ryan. He was stretched out on the ground by the sheep pen, and he wasn’t moving. A crow man bent over him, ready to scoop him up. Everything suddenly became very clear and I took off running toward him. There was so much fear and anger swirling around, I almost didn’t need to reach for it. I just grabbed and twisted one hard wish around it and swung out. I knocked that crow man back a good ten feet without breaking stride.

  An idea hit me as hard as I’d hit the crow. When I’d ridden in that sack there’d been metal rattling around with me. Maybe here was something I could use. I yanked the sack off of Dan Ryan’s rope belt. He stirred weakly. Blood trickled down his long face.

  “Sorry.” I jerked the mouth of his sack open and upended it.

  A whole new flock of crows burst out of the sack, screaming at the top of their lungs and knocking me tail over teacup. I cussed hard as I sat up again and the crows cheered to see their friends.

  But it wasn’t just crows. Pigeons flew out of that sack and rats ran to join the others attacking the crow men. There was bread and cans and—oh, thank heaven—scrap iron. Half a junkyard’s worth of scrap iron, nails, broken bars, and old pans poured out of that magic sack.

  Jack appeared at my side. He didn’t need any telling. He just grabbed up a rusty bolt, took aim, and hurled it at the nearest crow. The bird screamed and toppled toward the ground. It never hit. The sparrows swirled around it, and got it first.

  Jack wasn’t the only one who saw what was happening. A bunch of the Halfers grabbed up the busted, rusted iron, and ran hollering at the crows. Glowing Man snatched up a frying pan, and it went red hot in his hands. He was screaming orders to the archers in the trees, screaming at the wooden ones and the paper ones to fall back while fiery arrows rained down. The crow men didn’t break. They flew at the Halfers, they grabbed them up, vanished them away.