Dust girl

11

The floor tipped. My lungs closed up tighter than they ever had when they were full of dust. I was sliding sideways. I had to put my hand out to stop from falling against the wall.

“Easy now, honey.” The woman-Shimmy-beamed at me, like she’d just brought home the canary for the cat.

“I’m sorry to break it to you so sudden, Callie,” said the man-my papa? Really? “But seeing you there, I couldn’t hold off.”

“You… you’re my papa?” I whispered.

He smiled, showing his teeth, which were straight and even and bright, bright white. He wore neat gray trousers with red suspenders over a crisp white shirt. A gold and pearl pin held his red tie in place, and a big gold ring glittered on his pinkie finger. I couldn’t see his eyes. The room was too dim for that.

“I’m awful glad to finally meet you, Callie.”

He held out his arms, ready for me to run right in. He was so handsome, and he sat at an upright piano that might have been the twin of the one in the Moonlight Room. But more than that, his voice was familiar. I was sure I’d heard that voice before, somewhere else, a long way away. With memory kicking my shins, I was tired, frightened, and starved enough that if this had been maybe two days ago, I just could have believed him.

But it wasn’t two days ago, and my brain was going full steam ahead.

“You told Mama you’d come back for her.” I didn’t run forward. I walked a couple of steps, keeping my eyes wide, just like Jack had done when he was lying up a storm to Shimmy. “She said you told her, ‘Always remember I’m coming back for you, Josie.’ ”

“I was on my way too, but I got held up in this duster. I couldn’t believe it when Shimmy said she saw you on the street right here in town. But we’re together now, and that’s all that matters.” He lifted his arms an inch.

I took another step. His eyes twinkled in the dim light. At first glance, they were a warm brown like Shimmy’s, but now I was close enough to see they were gold and silver and black too, all mixed up together in a way that wasn’t quite human. Close, but not quite. But even with his strange eyes, he looked so happy. It would be so easy to sink into belief, just because this man wanted me to.

“Mama said you’d know me right away when you saw me.” I could feel this word game was dangerous. I was playing with something I didn’t understand all the way.

“I couldn’t miss you, Callie,” he said. “You look just like my Josie.”

That did it. I grabbed his hand and shoved it down. “My mother’s name is Margaret. I don’t look a thing like her, and whoever you are, you ain’t my papa.”

That bright smile fell off his face so far I could have kicked it across the floor.

Shimmy threw back her head and laughed. “Well, sir, if she ain’t the clever one after all.” Still chuckling, she pulled a compact, the kind with a mirror inside, out of her purse. She studied what she saw there and dabbed at the corner of her mouth for a second before she snapped it shut and tucked it away. “Don’t you mind Shake, Callie LeRoux. He’s just mad ’cause you’re smarter than he looks. Sit down here with me.” She sauntered off the stage and slipped behind one of the tables.

Truth to tell, I didn’t want to get any closer to her. But I wanted her to talk to me, so I pulled out a chair and sat, trying to keep to the far edge without looking like I was. That just made her laugh again.

“You hungry, Callie?” She spread her hands out. There wasn’t anything on the table in front of us. Then there was.

A huge roast turkey with corn-bread stuffing spilling out of it sat in the middle of a sea of food: three kinds of congealed salad lined up alongside green beans, sliced bread, macaroni and cheese, and a bowl of creamy white mashed potatoes. There was a bowl of soft butter, and another of rich brown gravy.

A fresh wave of dizziness made me really glad I was sitting down. I wished I could wipe my mouth with my sleeve like Jack did. “No thank you, ma’am,” I whispered. “I ain’t hungry.”

Shimmy rolled her big, coffee-colored eyes. “You been listening to stories, ain’t you? Well, the rules ain’t the same for family.”

That finally got my eyes off all the magic food. “We ain’t family.”

“You so sure about that, Callie?” said Shake.

I took a long sideways look over at the lean man where he sat glowering by the piano.

“Oh, let go of that.” Shimmy waved the man’s entire existence away, just like that.

“But we are kin, Callie.” Shake stood up and walked slowly down the steps off the stage. “And if you stop a minute, you’ll feel it in your bones.”

That food smelled so good. It was like an itch begging to be scratched. Every part of me wanted to reach over and grab up just one piece of bread and take a huge bite. Despite that, I knew the last thing I could trust around these folks was a feeling in my bones.

“You say we’re related? You prove it.”

“Yeah, go on, Shimmy. You’re so smart, you prove it to the gal.” Shake leaned back and folded his arms. “This oughta be good,” he added to me.

“Just my luck,” Shimmy muttered. “I find the girl everybody’s looking for, and she turns out to be stump-stubborn.” She brought her hands together, and all the food vanished. Not a sight or smell remained. My heart broke into about five hundred pieces. “You want to see how close kin we are, you go ahead and make us dinner.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” But I was already looking at Shake’s upright piano. He jumped back up onto the stage, pulled out a red silk handkerchief, and made a big show of dusting off the stool.

I took a U-turn back to my own good sense. “Uh-uh. No. Bad stuff happens when I make music.”

“That’s because you ain’t had none of your own kind around to teach you.” Shake smiled. “It’s all about concentration. You’ve got to keep your mind on what you want, and only what you want. The more practice you get, the better you’ll be able to put it over.”

Just then, a beam of light sliced through the room. I turned in my seat. Jack had thrown open the shutters on the far side of the house and was peering in the window, hands framing his face. I waved, to try to show him I was okay. But he just frowned and went around to the next window. The shutters opened, and he pressed his face right up against the glass.

“What’s the matter with him?” I waved again, but Jack just rattled the frame. After a minute, he pulled out a pocketknife and worked it into the sash, trying to jimmy the lock.

“He can’t see you,” said Shimmy. “He ain’t got the eyes.”

I felt bad. He must have followed me after all, and was waiting for me to come out. Now he was worried, and still hungry because I didn’t know how to bum. Plus, it was really starting to look like he’d been right about me all along.

An idea swam to the surface. “If I… if I made the food, could my friend eat it without it hurting him any?”

Shimmy held up her hands, asking for patience from the ceiling. “You make the food, you make the rules, Callie.”

Outside, Jack’s mouth was moving, making me think he was cussing as he tried to work his knife deeper under the sash. I tried to think about the things he’d told me while we were walking, about the kinds of tricks fairies liked to play. About how they’d kidnap human babies and put a fake in their place. A whaddayacallit… a changeling.

“If I let him in here, you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t try to keep him or anything?”

“I swear on my breath and bones, if he comes into my house freely, he will leave just as free,” said Shimmy.

That was a lot of words to say something simple like “yes.” I was starting not to like the way these people talked.

I got up and walked to the door, kind of sideways because I didn’t want to take my eyes off Shimmy and Shake. They both looked smug and smiled little satisfied smiles. I put my hand on the knob. These two knew something I didn’t, and I was about to let Jack into the middle of it. I thought about all those words Shimmy had used to make her promise. My hand slid back down to my side.

“Is this your house?” I asked. “You said if Jack came into your house freely, he’d be able to leave freely, but you didn’t say if this place was your house.”

Now it was Shake’s turn to laugh, and he did, long and loud. He laughed so hard he stumbled backward and bumped into the wall, and he kept right on laughing.

“Oh, she’s good, she’s good!” He wiped his eyes with his hankie. “She got you on that one, Shimmy!”

“Hmph!” Shimmy glowered at me, and I swear I saw sparks in her brown eyes. “All right, all right, Miss Smarty, you bring the boy in, you take him out. Makes no difference to me.”

“Okay.” I pulled the door open. The turning key and shifting lock feeling shivered through me. “Jack!” I shouted.

“Callie!” He came running around the corner, his pocketknife out, like he thought he was going to need to stab somebody. “Are you okay?”

“Just fine.” I stepped back so he could walk inside. “This is Shimmy, and this is Shake. They… they say they’re kin to me.”

Jack froze for a split second, and then whipped his cap off. “How do you do, Miss Shimmy? Mr. Shake?”

“Hmm.” Shimmy gave him that straight-down-the-nose look and deliberately turned to me. “Well, now that your little friend’s here, are you going to get supper set, or what?”

“Supper?” repeated Jack numbly. “Callie…”

“It’s okay. If I make the food, it’s all right.”

You could tell Jack was torn between what he’d heard about the rules of fairy dinners and not having eaten anything decent for almost a week. I wasn’t torn. I was flat-out scared and more than ready to run. But run where? To do what? We had to eat, and Bull Morgan might still be out there with his club and his gun, waiting for us to try bumming on the street again.

“So, how does this work?” I asked Shimmy.

“You wish.”

“Sorry?”

“You take up the nearest source of power, and you wish.” She sighed. “But you have to be very clear about what it is you’re wishing for. Leave out any details and, well… let’s just say things ain’t gonna come out how you might think.”

“And this nearest source of power, what would that be?”

She shrugged. “It depends. Music is always good, but anything that creates a strong feeling will do. A crowd of mortals can be a good source. Your own feelings will work, but that can make it more difficult to concentrate on shaping the wish. It can also wear you out fast. Shake.” She sauntered back to the stage. “Play something for our girl here, won’t you?”

“I’ll do it,” Jack said.

Now we were all staring at him. He ignored us and plopped down at the piano. He curled his fingers over the keys and started a halting piece of ragtime. I wondered where he’d learned, and then thought how if he’d been helping bootleggers, he would’ve had to hang around the honky-tonks, and maybe he learned a few tunes. It didn’t matter. Jack’s halting music was already winding its way around the hunger and the mystery inside me and setting it all to simmer.

“What do you want, Callie?” whispered Shake. “What do you wish for?”

What did I wish for? I squeezed my eyes shut as a thousand things flashed through my mind. What I wished for right now was dinner. A real dinner, a proper dinner that was safe for me and for Jack. A dinner that would make up for all the meals we’d missed on the road and would take the taste of hunger and dust right out of our mouths…

I felt that wish form inside me. I felt it twirl Jack’s music around itself, and I felt it… leave, like a sudden push from behind. I staggered, and my eyes opened.

Food filled the table nearest the stage. But this wasn’t some turkey dinner out of Ladies’ Home Journal. This was barbeque. White platters held beef ribs with shimmering red sauce and piles of corn bread. There was a basket of biscuits with a jar of honey, a crock of baked beans, and another of potato salad. A huge sweet potato pie waited to one side.

“God Almighty,” whispered Jack as he lifted his hands off the piano keys. I knew exactly how he felt.

“There, you see?” Shake smiled. “That’s how our kind do things.”

“But you gotta be careful, Callie LeRoux,” Shimmy said seriously. “Now that you know the wishing ways, you’ll feel the wishes around you. They’ll make you itchy, ’cause you know you can do something about them, but that ain’t always the best idea.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening. All my attention was taken up by that magic dinner I’d made. Together, Jack and I walked down to the table with its steaming, delicious burden. Jack looked at me. He was asking if it was all right. He was trusting me. It was all right. I could just tell, as if I had discovered an extra sense, somewhere between scent and sight. This was the same sense that could feel the turning key and shifting lock of the world. It told me this might have come from the same place as Shimmy’s dinner, but it was mine and I’d made it all right. So I nodded.

We attacked that dinner before our rear ends touched the chairs. I’ll tell you what, I’m plenty good as a wishing cook.

Hungry as we were, though, Jack and I eventually had to slow down. Even with Shimmy and Shake digging in alongside us, we couldn’t polish off half of what was on the table. I looked at all that leftover food and thought about all the people we’d seen on the road and felt guilty.

Shimmy must have seen my look, because she waved her hands and the remaining food vanished. All that was left were the crumbs on our cheeks and the stains on our napkins. Now that my belly was full, I felt ready to take on anything. Starting with Miss Shimmy.

“So how come you knew my name?” I asked. Jack nodded, to let me know he agreed this was a good place to start. “Were you looking for me?”

“All of us are looking for you, Callie,” Shimmy said. “Especially now that you’re finally outta that moldy-oldie hotel.”

“Who’s us?” asked Jack.

“Us,” Shake said. “The Midnight People, the deep ground people, the secret people.” He looked me right in the eye, and I saw those golden sparks shine. “Your papa’s people.”

“Don’t start up with that again,” I told him. “You don’t know nothing about my papa.”

That just made Shake smile. “I know he fell in love with your mama even though she was just a common human woman and he was a prince of his people. I know he stood up in front of the council and said he was leaving, and they could all fight it out who would be the next king, because he was through.” Shake changed as he said those words. He became more solid, like he was rooted tight to the ground. I felt the blood drain out of my face, and I remembered what Baya had told me. He stands up in the council tent and he says he won’t stay with his tribe anymore.

“We were both there.” Shake took a drag on his cigarette and puffed out a long white smoke plume toward Shimmy. “I must say, for a man doing something so stupid as turning down a kingdom, he did it up right. Broke his sword across his knee, kicked his crown across the floor.”

“Swore three times he’d never sit on your granddaddy’s throne.” Shimmy shook her head. “Then he walked out, leavin’ all of us with our jaws flappin’ right down to our knees.”

It took a while for these new words to settle in and make their manners with all the other impossible ideas that had set up housekeeping inside me over the past few days. But once they did, I knew they were staying for good.

“My papa’s a prince?”

Shake examined the burning end of his cigarette. “That he is. Now ask the next question, Callie.” My heart was knocking against my ribs. Jack touched my wrist, to back me up or to warn me away, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. I had to ask.

“What does that make me?”

Shimmy looked to Shake, and Shake nodded. Shimmy smiled broad and slow, and she got to her feet.

“Never thought I’d be the first to say it.” She put one foot behind the other and bent her knees, sinking low. It took a second to realize she was making a curtsy to me. “Welcome home, Your Highness.”