Dust girl

by Sarah Zettel

  I toted the heavy tray back into the parlor. All the Hoppers looked up and smiled as soon as I pushed through the door.

  “Now then!” Mr. Hopper clapped his meaty hands. “See what you can do with just a little motivation, Callie? Dig in, my own! Dig in!”

  I barely had time to get clear of the table before they were on it. All the Hoppers, all at once, crowded over the tray. I backed off until I bumped up against the door. Those rich people in their white clothes slurped and smacked and slobbered as they grabbed at the food. Mrs. Hopper snatched up the bowl of sardines, opened her mouth wide, and poured them all in. Her cheeks bulged like a squirrel’s, but only for a minute before she swallowed. She didn’t even chew. She tossed the bowl aside, swatted Clarinda’s hand back, and grabbed up a fistful of yellow peaches, squishing them between her fingers as she crammed them into her bright red mouth.

  Under all the slobber was a clicking, buzzing sound I felt sure I should recognize. But I was seeing those white bones on the mercantile floor again, and all I could think was, Got to get out, get out before they remember about me…

  I backed up, but too fast. My heel caught the footstool, and I toppled hard onto the carpet. A big cloud of dust puffed up around me. I shook my head and blinked.

  Through the rosy cloud of dust, I saw the Hoppers elbowing each other around my tray. Only they weren’t people anymore. I saw the horsey faces and huge eyes made up of a million shining facets, waving antennae, hard black skins, and delicate legs with saw-sharp ridges.

  The Hoppers were locusts. Black locusts the size of people.

  I screamed. The chomping and buzzing stopped, and all those bug heads tilted to look at me. The dust was settling, and they were the Hoppers again, except not quite. Because now I could see how their eyes behind those thick glasses stayed round and lidless. Bug eyes.

  “Why, whatever is the matter with Callie?” asked Mrs. Hopper.

  “Poor girl’s fallen down.” Mr. Hopper reached out his big, meaty hand to me. This close, I could see through him, like Mr. Hopper was a chantilly lace curtain draped over the insect underneath. I could see hooked feet and skinny legs and the way its curved mouth parts moved back and forth. “Let me help you.”

  “No thank you, sir.” I pushed myself up against the footstool. “I’m all right.”

  “That’s good.” He grinned, way too wide for his face. “Because I’m afraid my family has eaten all those excellent sandwiches.”

  It was true. The plates and bowls were empty. Hunter had peach juice and crumbs all over his face, and he grinned at me, exactly like his daddy.

  “They’re hungry, Callie.” Mr. Hopper’s voice buzzed and rattled. “A man can’t let his family go hungry, now can he?”

  “N-n-no, sir.”

  He clapped his hand on my shoulder. It was heavy. It was light. It had fingers. It had a hook. I could feel it both ways, just like I could see the man and the locust. “You’ll bring us something else, won’t you? Whatever you have on hand will do fine.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  I backed the rest of the way out of the parlor. I stood in the hallway, panting hard. I’d gone stone cold despite the fact that I was still sweating.

  Every nerve I used to have snapped in two, and I ran. “Jack!” I hollered as I slammed back into the kitchen. “We gotta get outta here!”

  “What?” He looked up, knife in one hand and half-peeled carrot in the other. “Why?”

  “They’re not people! They’re bugs! Giant bugs!”

  “What’re you, crazy?”

  “I swear! They’re locusts! That’s why they can eat like that! They…”

  “Callie! Is that any way to talk about paying guests?”

  It was Mrs. Hopper. Her hat had come off somewhere, and two black antennae stuck out of her yellow curls. They both pointed right at me. Jack must have seen them too, because he turned white and green, and backed away, just like I had.

  “What would your mother say?” Mrs. Hopper’s antennae curled and opened again, like fingers. But her words blew all the fear right out of me.

  “What do you know about my mama?”

  “More than you could begin to guess.” Mrs. Hopper stepped forward. Jack made a little noise in his throat and tried to back up again, but between one blink and the next, Mrs. Hopper was beside him with her hand, her hook, around his wrist.

  “I’ll just take this sweet boy here, so you don’t have any distractions while you’re getting our supper ready.”

  Whatever happened later, I will say this about Jack Holland-he had nerve. With that giant Hopper holding his wrist, he kept his head. “But I’ve got to get back to the store, ma’am,” he said, his voice tight as he tried to keep it from shaking. “There’s some stuff Callie needs.”

  “That’s right!” I yelped. If he gets out of here, he can go for help…

  “How thoughtful!” Mrs. Hopper patted his cheek. I thought Jack might faint. I sure wanted to. “But I know Callie can handle all of that sort of thing. You come along with me. I want to introduce you to my sons.”

  The helpless look Jack threw me over his shoulder as she dragged him out sank straight into my stomach. The door flapped back and forth behind them, and I couldn’t move. The Hoppers had him and they were still hungry.

  I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I saw red and gold inside my lids. I had to think. I had to see what I had and use it. I had to, because otherwise… otherwise…

  I couldn’t think about otherwise. I opened my eyes.

  The first thing I saw was the heap of vegetables Jack had cut up. Ridiculously I thought I’d better get the potatoes in the pan before they turned brown. Past the counter, I saw the housekeeper’s desk, and the hook board with the spare keys.

  The keys.

  They weren’t just room keys; they were all the downstairs keys too. Including the key to the ladies’ parlor.

  I’d seen how the Hoppers ate. They hadn’t paid attention to anything else while they were stuffing their faces. I’d make a pile of food. A whole great big mess of food. Then, while they were eating, Jack and I could sneak out and I’d lock them in and we’d run.

  I felt better with a plan. Not a lot, but better enough that I could start moving and keep ahead of the part of me that wouldn’t stop screaming.

  I sizzled up the salt pork in the old cast-iron Dutch oven, poured in the beans, and put that on the back burner to heat slowly. I made up the biscuits and got them in the oven. I cut bread into cubes, mixed in sugar and condensed milk, and put that in one of the other ovens. I cooked down the onions, carrots, and potatoes Jack had cut up in one of the big soup pots. I dumped in the clams and juice, got all that hot, and then poured in tomato soup and water. I lost track of time. Sweat ran in rivers down my face. I was close to worn out from heavy work and heat, but I didn’t dare stop. If I stopped, the fear would catch back up with me and I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all, even run. I sliced off thick ham steaks and put them in a pan and poured one of the nickel Cokes over them to make the glaze. I brewed coffee and used some of it for redeye gravy.

  I could have fed the entire population of Slow Run with all this. I just had to hope it would hold the Hoppers long enough for me and Jack to get away.

  “Oh, Callie!”

  I jumped. The spoon shot out of my hand and hit the ceiling, then the floor, spattering gravy everywhere.

  “I’m sorry, Callie, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mrs. Hopper’s antennae waved in two directions at once, tracking the slick brown splatters. “I just wanted to let you know we’ve moved over to the main dining room. So comfortable and charming.”

  The Moonlight Room. The Hoppers were in the Moonlight Room. My favorite place, the last place I’d seen Mama, and now it was full of Hoppers…

  “Is that a problem, Callie?” She tilted her head, waiting patiently. Waiting to see if I’d do something stupid.

  “No, ma’am.” Fear dug in, urging me to take a chance with my plan. “Could you… could
Jack come and help me, please? There’s going to be a lot to carry, and I don’t want the food to get cold.”

  “But sweet, sweet Jack’s looking so tired. I’ll send Letitia in to help, how’s that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. I didn’t see her go, she moved so fast. There was just the door flapping.

  It didn’t matter. My heart sank right through the floor. I’d ruined my whole plan. I’d have Letitia right behind me while I was serving. She wouldn’t be joining the others at the table if she was keeping an eye on me. What was I going to do now?

  “I hope you eat yourselves sick,” I muttered, clutching the spoon tight. “I hope you choke, you…”

  I stopped. Eat yourselves sick. The words repeated in my brain. Eat yourselves sick.

  I had to be fast. I ran out the back door, into the narrow side hall that led to the bathroom. In the bathroom was a medicine cabinet. Mama kept a stock of useful stuff in that cabinet for guests with emergencies. There were bandages and aspirin, but also bottles of milk of magnesia and Pepto-Bismol, in case you needed to hold something down, and syrup of ipecac, in case you needed to bring something back up.

  I stuffed the ipecac into my apron pocket and ran back to the kitchen.

  “There you are.” Letitia folded her arms. I didn’t think it was just the breeze from the door that made her sash ends wave. I didn’t look too hard. “I thought maybe you ran out on us and your little friend.”

  “Just had to use the water closet,” I muttered, going around the far side of the counter to get back to the stove.

  Letitia made a delicate face. Then she leaned over the stove and sniffed at my gravy. “This better be good. My parents are very particular, and I think Clarinda’s starting to take a liking to your friend.”

  The back of my brain tried to tell me what that meant. I told it to be quiet. “It’ll only be another minute.” I picked up the wooden spoon, stirred the chowder, and tasted. “You can go tell them.”

  She wrinkled up her borrowed nose. “Nice try, but I’m staying right here.” She stomped her foot. “My parents think you won’t light out on that skinny little boy, but I’m not so sure.”

  “Then can you get the tureen off the shelf?” I pointed. “This is ready.”

  She snorted, but she did it. As soon as her back was turned, I yanked the stopper out of the ipecac bottle and emptied the whole thing into the bubbling pot.

  “Anything else, Miss Callie?” Letitia banged the tureen on the counter.

  “Thank you.” I poured the chowder in, careful not to spill a single drop. “That should do fine.”

  8

  No Home in This World Anymore

  With Letitia Hopper marching behind me, I carried that tureen full of ipecac-laced chowder into the dim and dusty Moonlight Room.

  The Hoppers ringed a table in the exact center of the room. They’d stuffed Jack between Mr. Hopper and the oldest boy, Hunter. Hunter’s jaws moved like he was chewing a wad of gum, and he had one arm draped around Jack’s shoulders. Jack had turned a nasty shade of green, but he clenched his jaw and tried to swallow his panic as I set the tureen down. I shook my head just a little as I lifted the tureen lid, releasing the salt-and-tomato smell of my improvised chowder.

  “Excellent!” Mr. Hopper inhaled deeply. Hunter smacked his lips. William burped, and little Clarinda giggled.

  That was when I realized the dust cloths that had covered the tables and chairs were gone. All of them. Even the dust sheet we’d dropped beside Papa’s piano had vanished.

  Mrs. Hopper glared at her children as she shook out her napkin and smoothed it daintily over her lap. None of the others seemed to have saved theirs. “Is it going to be enough, Desmond?”

  “This is just for starters,” I made myself say. “There’s more food in the back.” I looked at Jack over the Hoppers’ heads. Don’t eat it, I tried to think toward him. Even if they offer, don’t eat it. But there was no way to tell if his attempt at a grim smile meant he understood.

  “Well, if there’s more, let’s have it,” said Mr. Hopper. “Letitia, help her.”

  This did not sit well with Miss Letitia. “Pa! I’m hungry too!”

  “Do as you’re told, Letitia.” Mrs. Hopper leaned over the tureen, a thin river of spit running down her chin.

  Letitia grimaced, and her mouth parts clacked under her false face. I walked away. Behind me, the buzzing and humming noise of the Hoppers settling down to their feast rose up, and I didn’t dare look back. But as I heard Letitia’s angry clacking, a new plan formed in my head.

  “It’s not fair they won’t let you sit down with them,” I said to Letitia once we were both in the kitchen. “You gotta be starved.”

  “We’re always starved.” Her voice sounded different when she said that, light and thin but more… real. “There’s never enough for all of us.”

  “Then what could you want out this way? There’s not much left to eat since the dusters started.” I took up a side towel and pulled the bread pudding from the oven. It had come out perfect, all golden brown and shimmery with the milk custard. The rich, sweet smell mixed with the scents of the ham, beans, and gravy still bubbling away on the stove top. It set my mouth watering, but Letitia… she looked at that bread pudding like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  “Now that we’ve found you, we’ll be fed.” She took two steps toward the pudding. “The Seelie King will reward us all.”

  I couldn’t have heard that right. “King? Who the heck is Seelie King?”

  “The Seelie King.” Letitia snickered and took a step closer to the pudding, like it pulled her on a string. “And he’s offered a reward to the first of us to bring you to him. You’re famous, Miss Callie. There’s a whole prophecy about you.”

  The words dropped like stones into the middle of my confusion, but I just adjusted the pudding on the counter a little. “Prophecy?”

  Letitia’s bug eyes misted over. I could see my pudding’s reflection in her spectacles. “See her now, daughter of three worlds. See her now, three roads to choose. Where she goes, where she stays, where she stands, there shall the gates be closed.”

  Those words went straight down into my blood and bones. They twisted around in there, looking for the way to my heart. She was telling me the truth, and I knew it. The problem was, I had no idea what the heck that truth meant.

  It didn’t matter. I could work it out later. Right now, I had to take care of Miss Letitia and the rest of the proud Hopper clan.

  “You know,” I said slowly. “It’s not fair that they’re all out there stuffing their faces and you’re in here doing the work. Why don’t you have this?” I slid the pan toward her.

  Letitia opened her mouth wide, but she didn’t move right away. She shifted her bug eyes sideways to me, and back to the pudding.

  I made myself smile. “It’d serve ’em right.”

  “Serve ’em right.” Letitia dug in with both hooks and stuffed a big, boiling-hot heap of pudding into her mouth. She bent down over the pan, chewing and buzzing, and not looking at me at all.

  So I whacked her a good one with Mama’s best silver tray.

  Letitia fell splat into the pudding, and I hit her again, hard enough to dent the tray. She slid to the floor, but she didn’t stay down.

  “You little brat!” Letitia bounced to her feet. Her spectacles hung crooked and custard-spattered from one ear, and her faceted bug eyes glittered hard and dry. I had one short second to get good and scared before Letitia leapt into the air. Her green sash unwound from her waist, turning into a pair of iridescent green-veined wings.

  Half-bug, half-human Letitia swooped down. I dove across the tiles like I was sliding into second base, and banged hard against the stove. Letitia laughed and circled tight, lining up for another run. I scrambled to my feet and-still thinking baseball-grabbed the cast-iron frying pan off the stove with both hands. Letitia dove, and I swung. Momentum carried me in a full circle. I felt the thud and heard the scream before I coul
d see straight.

  “What is all this commotion?”

  Mrs. Hopper came through the door in time to get hit by a gob of flying ham and to see her girl knocked smack against the wall.

  “Oh, dear.” Mrs. Hopper’s antennae waved toward her daughter, who was sprawled on the tiles and did not get up, but her eyes stayed fixed on me. “Callie, I am very much afraid we’re going to have to dock your pay for this.”

  “Come on, you big bug!” I hefted the frying pan, dripping sticky Coca-Cola glaze. “You wanna take a bite outta me? Come on and try it!”

  Which was a stupid thing to say, because Mrs. Hopper did come on. For a minute, I saw the locust plainly. Taller and heavier than I was, it scuttled on four of its legs, its hooked feet held out in front. Its mandibles snapped, looking for something all covered in sticky cola to chew.

  Fear blanked my mind. I backed up, clutching the frying pan in front of me.

  The bug shivered and became Mrs. Hopper again. She pressed a hand against her stomach.

  “What…” Mrs. Hopper covered her mouth, and her eyes rolled. With a groan, she reeled sideways. Vomit splattered all over the floor.

  It was disgusting.

  Seeing no point in waiting around for her to finish, I ran headlong for the swinging doors and slammed into Jack.

  We both staggered backward, clutching our noses and gawking at each other.

  “The Hoppers are all being sick!” He pointed behind him. Then he saw Mrs. Hopper retching, and Letitia still out cold against the wall. “God Almighty.”

  “Come on!” I bolted down the corridor toward the front doors, still holding tight to the frying pan. My plan was forgotten. All I could think about was getting away. I jumped off the porch and plowed straight into the dust drifts.

  “Wait!” Jack grabbed my wrist. “The car!” He waded toward the Duesenberg, which sat gleaming in the light that trickled from the Imperial’s glass-fronted doors.

  “We don’t have the key!”

  “Just get in!”

  I dove through the driver’s-side door, my pan banging the door frame behind me. All at once, the Duesy was gone. I sat in a rattletrap Model A truck with a cracked windshield and an open back.