Dust girl

25

We fell through a blaze of color. We tumbled and pinged and slammed back and forth. Jack screamed. I screamed. I wanted to pull out my powers and stop the storm. But if I did, we’d stop flying. We’d be stuck in whatever world this was. Their world.

I let us fall.

We hit the boardwalk hard. I screamed some more, and Jack cussed and groaned. I couldn’t see straight. The crazy colors we fell through had blinded me. But then I smelled the smoke and cotton candy. I heard the other screams, and something in my brain beyond all the magic jerked itself upright and took me with it. The world cleared, and we were in the amusement park again.

The white pavilion was burning down. People streamed out of the building, adding their screams to the roar of the fire. There were sirens and bells clanging, and everybody who wasn’t running away from the fire was running toward it to watch the show and cheer it on. A fire engine thundered up the boardwalk, and men in heavy coats and red helmets swarmed out and started shouting orders.

“We made it,” gasped Jack. He was doubled over, his hand pressed against his belly. “We made it.”

But I looked up and saw the green-skinned carnival barker who’d given me my ring. The goblin from the test-of-strength tower sat on the counter at his right hand, and they both had their beady fairy eyes trained on me.

“Not yet, we haven’t,” I said, more to myself than to Jack. We were back in the tunnel, the passage between. I grabbed Jack’s arm. “Come on, we got to get to the outside gate.”

But Jack staggered forward two steps and sank to his knees.

“I can’t…,” he gasped. “I can’t…”

He had to. I looked around us and spied an abandoned cart advertising soda pop, five cents a bottle. I reached into its cooler, grabbed a bottle of root beer, and used the opener. I felt no magic or glamour around it, and I ran back to Jack.

He turned the bottle up and drank that root beer like he meant to down it in a single gulp. The screams had lessened, but the smoke was filling the air around us and firelight flickered on the boards. White sparks flew overhead, and the artificial lights all winked. There was just the fire now.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I murmured, hoping Jack wouldn’t hear me over all the other noise.

But that was a mistake. Because that was me making a wish.

Thhhheeeerrrre shhhheeee issss… It was the voice again, the soft, beautiful, deep voice that had followed me from that first awful day when I’d wished so hard to get out of Slow Run.

No. Oh, no, no, no, not here! “Get up, Jack! They’re coming!”

Jack surged to his feet. He followed me as I ran through the heat and the flickering firelight. The stupid Mary Janes pinched my toes, and the slick leather soles skidded against the boards, making me stumble.

“Calliope!” a woman’s voice called. “Calliope, where are you going, child? Come home!”

Hearing the sound of my name was like slamming up against a brick wall. I couldn’t go forward. It hurt. My feet turned, skidding and sloppy under me.

“Come home!” called Grandmother. “Calliope deMinuit! Come home!”

“Callie, no!” Jack grabbed for my hand.

But Jack wasn’t strong enough. I was slogging forward, as helpless against the pull of my own name as he had been against the pull of the dance music.

The touch of Jack’s hand slipped away. He was gone, run off. Again. He’d left me alone to stumble through the stinking smoke and hot ash toward the fire. The little imps in evening dress circled around my knees, cheering. I looked up and saw my grandparents silhouetted against the flames, their arms out in welcome. A deep hole filled with the swirling colors of madness opened behind them.

WHAM!

I was sprawled on my belly. Jack rolled off me before I knew what had hit me, and he stuffed something in my hands. I stared.

It was a frying pan. A big black cast-iron frying pan. Over his shoulder I saw the lunch counter with its stove top, and the human fry cook hollering and leaping over the counter.

“Calliope deMinuit!” called Grandmother again.

But this time, the drag was gone. Jack looked down at me and grinned.

“Let’s go!” he said.

I was on my feet and we ran, fast and crazy, away from the fry cook and my grandparents and everything. We were going toward the gate. I didn’t need my magic to tell me. Jack always knew the right way to go.

The shot exploded past my ear without warning.

I screamed, Jack screamed, and we both faltered and skidded sideways around the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Bull Morgan walked out of the smoke. And he wasn’t alone. A slim male silhouette walked beside him.

Where issss shhhheeee? The voice rode the wind and swirled together with the smoke.

“There!” said Bull Morgan, who despite everything was a human being and couldn’t be fooled by iron or steel. He pointed at us with his revolver.

“Thou good and faithful servant!” laughed the man at his side. No. Not a man. I knew the voice now. I’d heard it calling to Bull Morgan, raising him up and driving him back down into the dust. But I’d also heard it singing “St. James Infirmary Blues” in a deserted honky-tonk, and trying to talk me into believing lies about who my father was.

It hadn’t been the Seelie who had sent Morgan after us. It had been my uncle, my father’s younger brother, the one who would have been the heir to the Midnight Throne if it wasn’t for me being born. The one who told me straight-out that I was the heir, as long as I drew breath.

“You’re slow, Callie deMinuit.” Uncle Lorcan smiled his big white smile down at me. “But then, so was your papa.” He turned calmly to Bull Morgan. “Shoot them. We’ll toss them into the fire afterward.”

“You planned this. You wanted me to start the fire so you could kill me and make it look like an accident.”

He bowed. “Their Majesties would be most upset if I spilled family blood, even bastard blood. But a tragic accident, precipitated by your unwise passion for this little mortal boy… ah, well. Shoot them,” he said again to Morgan.

“You left Shimmy to die,” I croaked. “You never told her she was helping to get me killed.”

“Poor Shimmy.” He shook his head, but his smile never once wavered. “She was so anxious to curry the favor of the court. As if any half-and-half who wasn’t the prophecy girl could ever find welcome here. Yes, I used her, and she was glad to be used.”

“She never let me down.”

“Never, pathetic creature.”

“She’s behind you!”

He jerked around. I whacked him hard with my frying pan in the small of the back. Jack tackled Bull Morgan, and they rolled over and over on the boardwalk. The ground shook underneath us. The boardwalk was made of wood, and it was still burning. There was a shot. The frying pan in my hands shuddered, and something smacked against my head so hard I staggered. Something went squelch. Now I couldn’t see straight. Salt stung my eyes, and all the strength left my hands, so I had to drop the frying pan.

“Callie!” Jack grabbed my hand and dragged me after him. “You gotta wish us outta here, Callie!”

But I couldn’t see. There was something dark getting into my eyes. My ears rang louder than the fire alarms. My head was burning, and I wondered if I’d caught fire.

“Stop!” bawled Morgan. “Stop in the name of the law!”

“ ‘The Midnight Special,’ Callie!” cried Jack. “Sing it!”

I wanted to get away. I wanted to get Jack away. I felt my name being called, and I had no iron to get in the way of that summons. I opened my mouth, but I could only whisper:

“Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me…”

My head was spinning. I couldn’t hold my thoughts together. All the other train songs rattled around in my frightened skull: “Rock Island Line,” “This Train,” “Little Black Train.” All the words all mixed up in the wishes and commands and fire.

“If you wanna ride it, gotta ride it like you find it… this train she’s bound for glory… don’t carry no gamblers… let the Midnight Special shine a light, shine a light, shine an ever-lovin’ light… this train she’s bound for glory… gotta ride it, gotta ride it like you find it… this train…”

And I didn’t care. I didn’t care which train, which gate or door we could find. I had to get out of there. I had to get Jack out of there. I had to. There was no one else, not with the smoke and the fire and my treacherous family all behind us.

This train, this train, this train…

“I got yer mammy!” said Morgan.

I skidded to a stop and turned my head. Too slow, too late. Morgan didn’t have hold of Shimmy, but my hesitation was just enough, and his big, soft, cold hands clamped around my waist, lifting me high. Jack hollered and swore, and Morgan kicked him aside. He started to squeeze hard, squeeze all the air out of me.

“Die! Die, you stupid pickaninny brat! Gonna kill you dead like you killed me!”

“No!” cried Jack. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t see.

Mama! My heart wailed to the black sky. Help me! Mama!

This train, whispered the wind that blew down from that sky. This train…

A new note cut across the roar of fire and fear. Louder than any alarm bell, longer than any note from any horn. New light fell across us, blinding white and strong enough to cut through any smoke. Morgan hollered, and his killing grip around my middle let loose. I dropped to the boards, and Jack was on his knees next to me, pulling me up and wrapping his arms around me.

A clanging and a chugging filled the world, followed by the squeal of brakes and the hiss of steam. I tried to look up, but the new light was so strong, I could only squint.

There on the edge of the boardwalk stood a railroad engine. It was shining black iron, bigger than anything else in the whole world. Clouds of steam wreathed around it, and the brass ringing of its bell drowned out all the other noises.

I stared. Jack stared. Morgan hollered and fell back. The gun in his hand went off, and the bullet pinged off the side of that big black engine and did no harm whatsoever.

The engine pulled a string of passenger cars, just as black, with the shades pulled down so no light came from the windows. The door on the first car swung open smoothly, and a man in a white porter’s jacket and a shiny billed cap walked down the stairs. He was treetop-tall and had skin as black as the Midnight Throne. He saw me and Jack huddled on the ground gawping up at him, and folded his arms. But it wasn’t us he was frowning at.

“I been waitin’ on you, Samuel Morgan.” His big black hand clamped around Morgan’s shoulder and lifted him up off the ground. “You just about done throwed off my whole schedule.”