Roadside Magic

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “At night?”

  “Fishing?”

  “It’s huge. Look at that.”

  “Weird. Maybe it has rabies?”

  “Thanks for that awesome thought, Timmo.”

  “It’s caught something.”

  “What?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Joey half-choked, spraying sandwich crumbs. “It’s a person!”

  They ran for the edge of the earth, and the dog—it was a real monster, probably a Great Dane—leapt into the silver surf again. The water was oddly warm for early spring, but none of them noticed, because the shape was a person, a dark human log rolling amid spume, salt, and sand. It was Acacia who plunged into the water and dragged it closer, the Greek hopping from foot to foot at the very edge of the bubbling brine. Marylou grabbed Acacia’s collar as the girl almost went under, her work-roughened hand scraping against soft nape under curling hair, and Guster grabbed Marylou to brace her. Getting closer, Rick got the woman’s feet—it was a woman, they could see that now, pale and with a mass of curling hair—and they staggered up onto the sand. The dog danced, making low grinding noises, but it didn’t bite or attack.

  They carried her to the fire; Joey who turned her onto her side and thumped her back. Acacia shoved him aside, bent and sealed her mouth over the woman’s blue lips. Exhaled, hard, fingers clamped on the woman’s nose, and Acacia straightened to take a breath.

  Amazingly, the woman retched. A jet of seawater burst out of nose and mouth, sinking into the sand. She curled up, coughing still more, and Guster grabbed his work coat. “Get her near the fire!”

  She wore black, heavy velvet like Matilda the fortune-teller. She produced an amazing quantity of water with each coughing spasm, and when they ended she drew in heaving, tortuous breaths. The fire snapped and crackled, and if it suddenly gave a much richer golden light, none of them noticed. The dog pressed close, nosing the woman’s face as she struggled to breathe. Her hand came up, dead white, and wound in its damp fur. It folded down and began licking her cheeks, almost frantically.

  “Is she townie?” Marylou, hugging herself and shivering. The picnic basket had been kicked almost-sideways; Acacia rescued it and stood near the fire, wringing out her long hair.

  “Dunno. She doesn’t look townie.” Guster, solid and phlegmatic as usual, tossed another hunk of driftwood on the fire.

  “Can you hear me?” Joey, awkwardly patting at the woman’s hand. “You’re safe now, you’re okay.”

  The rasping, choked sound might have been a laugh. She retched again and clung to the dog, who whined low in his chest.

  “We should take her uphill.” Marylou, ever practical. She glanced at the ocean, as if it might vomit up another castaway. “Leo will want to know.”

  “Should call the cops,” Rick piped up. “An ambulance, at least.”

  The woman shook her head, erupting into motion; the dog growled. Joey let out a surprised little cry and snatched his hand back.

  She had deep-blue eyes, and even under the sand, with kelp caught in her draggled hair and her lips livid with drowning cold, she was . . . pretty.

  More than pretty.

  She coughed, propping herself against the dog. “No . . . cops.” A husky, almost-ruined voice. “No ambulance. No.”

  “Easy there.” Guster squatted, making his bulk smaller. If he felt the chill, it didn’t show. “You almost drowned. Just take it easy.”

  “No ambulance.” She coughed again, and retched, a deep racking sound. “No. Hide. Hide me.”

  “Oh, shit.” Marylou sighed. “Not another one.”

  Acacia tensed, but she said nothing. Joey glanced from the woman to Acacia, and back.

  “You wanted for something?” Rick wrinkled his nose. “Huh?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Little tracers of steam rose from her cheeks, from the tattered velvet. Underneath, flashes of blue. She still had her shoes on, too—high-quality heels, black and covered with sand. “Not a . . . a criminal.” More coughing, and when she took her fist away from her mouth Marylou glimpsed bright red on her wrinkled-wet white fingers.

  Maybe it was that tinge of scarlet that made her decide. “Gus. You want to help me carry her up the hill? And you, ma’am, is your dog friendly?”

  “V-very. If you are.” She shivered, and the dog—funny, but its eyes looked a little like hers, though only Joey noticed—went back to licking at her with its incredibly long, incredibly pink tongue. “Ugh, stop it.”

  The dog wriggled. Its tail thumped the sand, flinging up a fan of tiny particles.

  “Okay then.” Marylou bent down to peer at the woman’s face. “Gus?”

  He rose, slowly, and sighed. “Leo ain’t gonna like this.”

  “She’s a mermaid,” Joey said, suddenly, with utter certainty.

  “I am not,” the woman retorted hotly, in that scraped voice. It was painful to hear the words rasp, and to hear the awful sounds she made when she coughed.

  “No siren would admit it, would she.” Timmo laughed, but sobered quickly when Marylou shot him a look. He picked up his guitar. “I’ll help.”

  “Me too.” Acacia finished wringing out her hair, picked up the picnic basket, and pushed it into Joey’s hands. “You carry this. Leo can’t be an asshole with everyone watching.”

  “You’re such an optimist.” Rick began pouring sand on the fire. “We didn’t even get to sing ‘Kumbayah.’ Shit.”

  The woman lapsed into silence and was only semiconscious when Marylou and Guster got her on her feet. The dog shook sand over all of them and pranced ahead, as if he knew the way up the hill and into the maze of carnival trailers.

  She was bird-thin, and too hot through the wet, steaming velvet. Marylou began muttering about pneumonia and getting some acetaminophen, Joey cadged another half sandwich from the basket and started trying to coax the dog to eat, Guster kept stolidly plodding—he would do anything Marylou asked, really—and Acacia ran ahead, fleet and sure even in the darkness. The fire began to gasp and struggle, but Rick kept at it until only coals remained and decided it was good enough. Their voices had receded, and he didn’t like being alone.

  Normally, he didn’t mind. But for some odd reason, he was almost certain he was being watched.

  A POKED ANTHILL

  51

  Summerhome was a poked anthill, roiling. Gallow stopped at the top of a rise, panting, his hand clapped against his armored side as if it hurt. It didn’t, not yet, and his strength was returning. The dwarven healer had done his work well.

  You shall find your maiden in a white tower. Well, there were towers and towers, through all the sideways realms. Who knew, or could guess, which one now held Robin? Puck had vanished, and was no doubt searching for her at this very moment. What would he do when he found her? What hold did the Fatherless have on the Ragged? He’d brought her to Summer, perhaps she felt a debt.

  That wasn’t the real question, though. The question was how Summer had gotten hold of her in the first fucking place. As soon as he thought about it, Jeremiah had the answer.

  Crenn. The bastard had probably tricked her, or dragged her, or . . .

  “Hist!” A low fierce whisper, a broad-shouldered shape. “Gallow, this way!”

  He peered into the gloaming. Night had fallen with a vengeance, and riders with torches were spreading from Summerhome. There was a twitch against Jeremiah’s throat—the locket on its gold chain, tugging sharply. In the distance, a silvery hunting-horn cried out. Not one of Unwinter’s, but dangerous all the same.

  “You.” The marks tingled, prickled fiercely. “What do you want?”

  Puck shook his head, droplets melting from his hair. “Does it matter?”

  “Did you find Robin?”

  A fraction of a heartbeat’s pause. “Not yet. The bird has flown.”

  Great. What the fuck did that mean? Had Robin escaped the tower, or did Puck realize there were many of them, and Summer had not given him enough to track her? “Wha
t do you expect me to do?” I’m kind of busy at the moment.

  Hoofbeats, and the stars of torches. They were getting closer. He had to find an exit.

  “Gallow-my-glass, I will find her, and you will help.” The sapling he stood near shivered, either because of the flatness of his tone—or maybe Puck Goodfellow was trembling. “Can you find her, by track or Sympathy?”

  Gallow regarded him, narrowly. “Why? What is your purpose where Robin’s concerned?”

  “Call me her godfather.” Puck’s giggle spiraled up into a gruesome chuckle. “Can you find her, or not?”

  I’m weak, even though the lightfoot hasn’t deserted me. I’m fast and I’m canny, but they’ll find me unless I get the hell out of Summer. “If I said I could?”

  “Then I’ll help you.”

  “And if not?”

  “I might leave you to make your own way.”

  Comforting. He took a single step toward the clump of bushes. “Whenever you start asking after Robin Ragged, Goodfellow, chaos follows. What is she, to you?”

  “A girl who should respect her elders, and a sidhe whose voice delights me. One last time, Glass-the-Gallow, hunted of both Courts, will you aid me in finding my wayward daughter?”

  Daughter? Jeremiah’s mouth closed with a snap. Puck had claimed her as kin before Unwinter, too. Maybe that hadn’t been a half-lie or a figure of speech.

  With the Fatherless, it was always difficult to tell. Oh, for God’s sake. What other choice did he have, though? “I will,” he said heavily. “I need a quiet place to think, Puck.”

  “Come along, and quickly.” The boy held out his slim brown hand, and Gallow took it. There was something else nagging him, and now that his head was clearer he realized what had been bothering him all along.

  Where’s his knife, and his pipes?

  Puck’s chin lifted, his irises firing in the gloom. He exhaled, softly, past his sharp white teeth. “Do you hear that?”

  Jeremiah shuddered. In the distance, the ultrasonic cry of silver huntwhistles lifted. Unwinter was not hunting in Summer, but since her borders were so frayed, the sound would rub through, like knives whispering across thick paper.

  I have four days. Maybe less, if the antidote stops working.

  Jeremiah Gallow took Puck Goodfellow’s hand. A sharp tug, a stumble as if he were stepping down into another room, and the hole in the Veil closed behind them just as Summer knights armored in silver, their elfhorses caparisoned in Summer’s green, crashed through the thicket, their torches casting a cold, glaring light.

  DID YOUR PART

  52

  There was some commotion, and they carried her to a rickety trailer. The owner of the troupe, a fat balding man with the stub of an unlit cigar stuffed in his mouth, filthy as a dwarf though not nearly as sweet smelling, waved his hands. “For God’s sake, we’re not a charitable concern! And that dog—”

  Said dog, his fine fringed tail lashing, gave a short yipping bark.

  Alastair Crenn, seawater in his leathers and slosh-weighting his mortal boots, narrowed his eyes. The sea, both mortal and Dreaming, filled his hair, too. Maybe the salt would kill the moss, maybe not. His throat burned from the gallons he’d swallowed, and his stomach was none too happy with him.

  Still, he had managed to find her. Mortal hands had pulled her from the water. He had been left to make his own rescue.

  “—Who’s going to fucking feed that dog?”

  “For God’s sake, Leo,” the taller woman, also wet clear through, spat. “I’ll feed him. If you don’t have any Tylenol, shut up.”

  The slighter, shorter girl, her long hair dripping, pushed at a youth with sun-colored hair. “Go get some Tylenol, Joey. Gus?”

  “Here.” The stolid, muscular man in flannel appeared with an armful of blankets. “I knocked on Geta’s door; he’s bringing soup.”

  “What about Marlon?” the girl wanted to know, subtracting the blankets from him with quick efficiency.

  Flannel-Man shrugged. “Dead drunk. He took a night off with a vengeance.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” The owner raised his hands to heaven. “I am not running an orphanage or a hospital ward!”

  “Leo, if you’d prefer us to call the cops—”

  “Don’t know why I ever hired you. Troublemaker! That’s what you are!” He shook a fat finger, and Crenn tensed, but the generously hipped matron seemed supremely unconcerned.

  “You hired me because I’ll feed your crew on biscuits and gravy even when there’s nothing but dust to eat, and because I put up with you. Go count your money; I’ll deal with this.”

  “Come on, old man.” A squat, dark-haired troubadour, carrying a guitar, took the owner’s arm. “We’ll drink. I have some ouzo and some cheese. I’ll play you ‘Moon River’ again.”

  “I hate that song,” the owner muttered. “All right, Marylou, fine. But she works, or she doesn’t stay! Just like her damn dog!”

  “Leave the dog alone!” she called after him. “And you, Rick, go sit with Marlon.”

  “Why is that always my job?” This man, keeping to the shadows in a way that made Crenn’s nose twitch, was already moving to obey.

  “Because he’s your husband,” the girl shot after him, and the matron shushed her, taking the blankets.

  “If you ever bite your tongue you’ll die of poison. Go get cleaned up.”

  “I got her first.” The girl tossed her hair and put her newly freed hands on her hips. There was a feral sharpness to her features that bespoke some manner of sidhe blood in her ancestry, but she smelled purely salt-iron. She hadn’t been taken over the border into any sideways realm, and might not ever be; she would most likely die a mortal death if she never manged to breach the Veil. “Come on, Joey. Let’s find some goddamn Tylenol.”

  The dog kept wagging its tail, ears perked. It shook itself, sending sand spraying everywhere, but nobody noticed. The man in flannel waited until the girl and the young lad had vanished, the girl’s sharp voice chivvying the boy along, before he looked up at the matron. For an instant, his sad mortal face was alight with a kind of hunger Crenn almost recognized.

  “I suppose I’m not coming in tonight,” the flannel-clad knight said.

  The woman looked down at him, pausing before she spoke. “Not unless you’re going to sit up with her.”

  “I will, and you can sleep.”

  “Who can sleep with you breathing on them?”

  “Come on, Marylou.” A softness in his growl of a voice, and her shoulders relaxed.

  “Sorry. It’s just . . . Leo. You know.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll sit up, you get some sleep. He’ll be a bear tomorrow, and who knows what she is?”

  “She doesn’t smell townie.”

  “You and your nose. What else does it tell you?” He put a boot on the lowest step into her frail trailer. The whole thing rocked alarmingly. Crenn stilled, his breath turning thief in his throat.

  The matron smiled at the flannel-clad man, her expression crossing the border into tenderness without even stopping to show its papers. “Trouble on the wind, Guster. You can come in, until they bring the Tylenol. No telling how she might act if a man’s here when she wakes up.”

  “If she does.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t, there’ll be a whole new set of problems for Leo to bitch about.” Marylou retreated into the trailer, tapping the door with a heel just before it slammed to keep it quiet.

  “No, boy,” Guster of the Red Flannel said to the dog. “You did your part. Wait out here. Maybe Marylou has a bone in her fridge. I’ll check.”

  Pepperbuckle, as if he understood, plopped down to sit next to the steps, his tongue lolling. The door closed again—softly, so as not to disturb the sleeper within.

  Crenn sagged on the roof.

  She was alive. They were rough people, but they had given her shelter. In the old days, they would be rewarded with gold or chantment, all he could scrape out of purse or glamour-strength. />
  Alive. It was up to him to provide the rest, whether she would thank him for it or not. His newly smooth, traitorous cheek twitched a little, and he closed his eyes for a moment. There, on the roof of another shoddy trailer, Alastair Crenn dropped into a doze.

  TWO PROBLEMS

  53

  Another mortal night, another dispirited drizzle of rain. Gallow stumbled, his side aching, and Puck Goodfellow whistled a little, a wandering, tuneless melody. “Just a little further,” he crooned, the words threading through the breathy scree of air.

  He was, after all, a very musical sidhe. It would make a mad sort of sense if he was Robin’s father. Daisy had been purely mortal; maybe Puck had left the mother and only thought to return later, when Robin was older?

  I was twelve when I was taken, she had told him. She’d never given any indication she viewed Puck as anything other than a question mark. Except . . . Jeremiah had left her sleeping in his own house, and when he’d seen her again Puck had been with her. Robin, as a sidhe of Summer, had given the invitation to Unwinter to step over the border and cause havoc.

  And Puck himself had called her daughter.

  Puck led him up a long, gentle slope, ducked through a tangle of broken chainlink fencing. A mortal city closed around them, its stink of exhaust and cold iron. Pavement that bruised the feet, concrete walls that closed around the soul. For all that, it was better than Summer, and Jeremiah’s shoulders relaxed slightly. It was a relief to tread in familiar surroundings again.

  I really do prefer mortals. Mostly. He shook his head, sweat slicking his forehead and his hand clamped to his side. Think, Jeremiah. Come on.

  Every single turn of goddamn events lately had Puck Goodfellow all over it. Even him leading Jeremiah to Robin at the Rolling Oak, neat as you please, and disappearing when the barrow-wights arrived. Probably leaving Robin in Gallow’s care, since she looked so much like Daisy, and . . .

  And of course, Puck had forced Robin into extending the invitation into Summer. How long had he been laying his plans? And if he’d planned the breaching of Summer’s borders, well, what else had he designed? Had he just seen an opportunity, with the plague running rife among both Summer and Unwinter?