by Sharon Lee
My temper was rising, which is what she intended. Doris wanted a fight; a real knock-’em-down brawl. Well, I told myself firmly, I didn’t have to accommodate her. I reached to the land, and accepted calmness into myself.
“As it happens, I feel lousy about the park closing down, but you’re out, if you think the letter did it. Management’s apparently had this in mind for a while. The midway was sold to a condo developer before the Season even started. Guess Maine isn’t a profit center anymore.” I shrugged. “No reason for you to care, is there? You’re not a townie.”
That last, those were fightin’ words, so maybe I wasn’t quite as calm as I should’ve been, even if I was calmer than Doris.
“No, I ain’t a townie—you’ll know that ’cause I’m not an inbred retard! I’m still gonna hafta move the flume to another park, if I can find one, and that’s expense I don’t need! You, though—you’re gonna make out fine. There’s a big market for used and ugly wood carvings, ain’t there? Organ’s prolly worth something, too. Sure, you’ll make out fine—s’long’s nobody comes by and burns the whole damn’ thing down for you.”
I took a deep breath. Calm, Kate. Just be calm.
“Doris, you can either leave now, or I’m calling the cops and telling them you threatened violence.”
“I’ll give you violence, you—”
I saw her shift her weight, saw her cock back for the punch; shifted my own balance, and pulled my hands out of my pockets—
“Let me go!”
I looked up.
Vassily had Doris by the wrist, his face as austere as an angel’s.
“There is no fighting in the park,” he said, his voice dead even. “You will go now, and you will not come back here.”
“I’m not about to be sassed by any damn’ greenie—” Doris snarled. She yanked against Vassily’s grip, but she didn’t manage to free herself. Had to hurt, too, him holding her arm in that position.
“I think the best thing is for me to call Marilyn, get her up here to take the complaint and set Doris a fine,” I told Vassily.
“That is procedure,” he agreed.
Doris took a hard, noisy breath.
“All right, Greenie, let me go; I’m leaving.”
He looked at me over her head. I nodded and he let her go, dropping back and swinging around, so that he stood facing her, half blocking me from a renewed attack, if any.
“Tough guy, are you?” Doris snarled. “I said I’m leaving.”
And she did, turning around and stomping out the way she came in. I tried again to send her a little calm—and got another bounce for my trouble. You really had to admire that kind of dedication.
“This place, this park—it is being…sold?”
Vassily sounded worried; looked worried too.
“Park Management—that’s down in New Jersey—has decided to sell the land,” I said. “Doris is right; the rides will all have to be shut down and either sold, or moved to another place.”
He swallowed, looked over his shoulder, then met my eyes. His were shining with what might have been tears.
“The carousel…this beautiful thing…where will it—you—go?”
I took a breath and resisted the urge to pat him on the shoulder and say, “There, there.”
“We’re working on that,” I said instead. “We only just got the news yesterday. Well. I guess Doris might’ve got it today.”
Vassily had turned to look at the carousel, shoulders stiff. I felt a twist of guilt for the destruction of his hard-won peace.
“This…this will mean that I will never come here again to work among these beautiful things. This is now a…special place to me. And you—” He turned suddenly, one hand out, like he was going to touch me—and thought better of it.
“You,” he repeated, bowing his head. “You have been special to me, Kate Archer. Thanking you.” He swallowed. “Thanking you.”
“You’ve still got the rest of the Season here,” I said, ignoring the internal voice that added, Why, that’s eight whole weeks! “We’re not going anywhere before then. Hell,” I added, more for his distress than because I necessarily believed it, “we might not go at all. Keep the faith, Vassily.”
His face lit.
“Yes! I will pray to my angel about this place and about you, Kate Archer; and Anna, and Nancy, and—”
“Whoa, whoa! You’re still in touch with your angel?” That was disturbing, if true. On the other hand, he could well believe that he was—
Vassily looked at me reproachfully.
“Once a man has an angel, he does not unhave an angel, ever again. You know this. An angel’s touch changes the heart, and the soul, forever.”
Well, that was either terrifying or depressing. Possibly both. I forced a smile.
“I’m not going to turn down well-wishes, prayers or miracles. However! It is now past time for you to get out of here and have your supper. Thanks for taking care of Doris—that was done well.”
“It was not a problem, and you are welcome.” He hesitated. “You should pray, too, Kate Archer,” he said diffidently. “You were touched by an angel, also, I know.”
Oh, did he? That was just special.
“I’m not much of a hand at praying, but I’ll give it a whirl tonight. Now, git! Your supper’s waiting on you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Good night, Kate Archer. Thanking you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Friday, July 7
High Tide 8:48 P.M. EDT
Sunset 8:25 P.M.
It never did stop raining.
In fact, around seven o’clock, the downpour actually increased, the sound of the drops striking the carousel enclosure’s tin roof like the clatter of artillery.
At eight o’clock, Marilyn closed the park, the air horn blasts barely audible over the din of the rain.
I called Borgan, got his voice mail, explained the situation, and asked him to come right around to the house whenever he had a mind to. Then, I locked up and headed over to the midway, protected from drowning by my handy jikinap weather shield.
The midway was dark and deserted, so apparently Peggy had reached the same conclusion Marilyn had, though maybe a little sooner. Still, in the interests of thoroughness, I walked back to the Mango. Peggy sometimes stayed late, to do paperwork, though that might change, if Ethrane worked out.
The lights were out at the Mango, except for a thin vertical strip leaking out of the crack between the office door and the frame. Working late, then. Woman was going to kill herself.
I slipped into the booth, saw a shadow leaning in the far inside corner, felt the weight on the land and nodded.
“Felsic,” I said, letting my weather shield evaporate as I leaned into the unoccupied corner.
“Kate,” Felsic returned, easily. “Peggy’s finishing up.”
“You mind if I walk up as far as Dube Street with you?” I asked.
“S’where we’re going. Peggy says this is a pizza and beer night. Way I understand it, she got a pizza in the freezer and a suitcase o’beer in the fridge.”
“That’s what I called prepared,” I agreed, leaning closer into my corner. Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets. Every now and then, a single drop would catch a random bit of light, and glow bright and sharp, like a diamond.
I asked the land for better vision, and Felsic came into focus, tucked into the opposite corner, a stocky, androgynous figure in T-shirt and jeans; broad chinless face, flat nose, wide, thin-lipped mouth, dark eyes gleaming from beneath the bill of the gimme hat. She had an umbrella cocked over one shoulder, and was holding it by the point.
“I met Ethrane,” I said, by way of making conversation.
Felsic sent me a sharp look.
“Not going to fatch, are you, Kate? She’s a bit rugged, but her control’s good. There’ll be no lapses from that quarter.”
Well, that was a mite sharp. If I was paranoid, I might think Felsic was a teensy bit defensive. I wondered if I wanted to
know why—and admitted that I probably did, if just for my own information. Felsic certainly wouldn’t put Peggy at risk.
I was pretty sure of that, anyway.
“Good to know she’s competent,” I told Felsic. “I can’t judge her glamor.”
“You see us all as we are?”
“To the best of my knowledge, I do. It’d be nice to get the full effect, now and then, but my eyes don’t seem to focus that way.”
“Might be we don’t put ourselves out enough for you,” Felsic said seriously. “Glamorin’ most is easy enough, and no need to waste wattage, if you see m’point. Still, I’m thinkin’ there’s value for the Guardian to know how we look to others who might maybe come to her with a description. For an instance…”
I felt a tiny alteration through the land, as if Felsic’s center of balance had shifted.
Across from me was a solid-built woman in jeans and a T-shirt, umbrella over one shoulder. Her face was round, with a retroussé nose, generous mouth, and a sturdy chin. Eyes the color of seventy-percent dark chocolate considered me with a suggestion of mischief from beneath the gimme hat’s bill.
“I’ll ask Ethrane to show you next time you’re by,” she said.
“Thank you; that’s very kind.”
“Not a glamor-user, yourself?” Felsic inquired.
“What you see is what you get,” I answered, just as the light snapped out in the back room and Peggy stepped out to join us.
“Flirting with my girlfriend, Archer?” she demanded, in mock outrage.
Felsic came out of her lean with a grin.
“Just discussin’ how Kate could glamor up a bit. Nothin’ hurt by keeping Cap’n Borgan on his toes.” She looked briefly pensive. “In fact, there’s some say he wants a little shakin’ around.”
Peggy laughed.
“I’d love to dress Kate up!” she said, and looked at me. “You get any urges in that direction, give me a call.”
“Deal,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “time to go, I guess. God, how can it have been raining like this all day? We’re going to drown.”
“Nothin’ like it,” Felsic said, holding up the umbrella. “Got us covered.”
“Optimist.”
She looked back at me suddenly.
“What about you? You will drown, Kate! Don’t you even have a—”
“I’ve got an umbrella,” I interrupted, taking my cue from Felsic. “I leaned it in the corner and it fell down, stupid…” I bent into the dark corner, as if groping for my fallen bumpershoot. Concentrating, I gave the jikinap I’d used for my weather shield a shape, said, “Here it is!” and stood up straight, brandishing a red umbrella with a wooden hook.
“All right then,” Peggy said. “Aqualungs—on! Let’s go.”
And she led the way out into the storm.
* * *
We reached the top of Dube Street in good order, jeans soaked to the knee, but basically undrowned, which was, as Peggy said, more than we could reasonably have hoped for.
At the house, she and Felsic went right, toward the door to the studio, and I continued up the stairs to the porch, where the light was fighting a losing battle against the rain-swept shadows.
I fished my key out of my pocket, approached the door—and yelped as my ankle was pierced by a number of sharp needles.
“Hey!”
I leaned back, snapped a brighter light onto my fingertips, and glared down into a pair of glittering amber eyes. The eyes belonged to a bedraggled white cat, which was, yes, currently wrapped around my ankle.
“This is not,” I said sternly, “a good way to start a working relationship. I presume Old Mister sent you? I was told you had manners.”
The amber eyes blinked, consideringly.
“Kate?” Peggy called from her sheltered patio below. “You okay?”
“Just having an exchange of views with a neighbor,” I called back, as claws slowly retracted from my tender skin.
The cat rolled free, which gave me a better look at her. Bedraggled wasn’t the word.
“My God, you poor thing; you’re soaked!”
“Kate?”
Rapid footsteps on the stair behind me. I flicked the light off my fingertips and turned to face Peggy as she gained the porch.
“What neigh—” she began, and looked down, her eye possibly drawn by the brightness of the cat’s fur.
“Oh, for—you’re so cute!” She bent down and offered a finger. The cat turned her head aside and yawned.
“Cute and soaked right through to the bone,” I said. “I’m going to take her in and get her dried off, if she’ll let me.”
“Good idea.” Peggy straightened, not noticeably cast down by her rejection. “You got cat things?”
I blinked.
“Litter box? Food? Comfy pillow?”
Right—cat things. I’d put them on the shopping list. Unfortunately…
“I hadn’t been expecting her so soon,” I explained.
Peggy nodded.
“Okay, then! Here’s how we’ll handle it—Kate will dry the kitty so she doesn’t catch a cold. Felsic?”
“Here,” came the answer from the bottom of the stairs.
“You want to start heating the oven for the pizza? I’m running down to Ahz’s Market. Back in a flash.”
“Peggy, look, I don’t want to interrupt your date—”
“I’m on the pizza,” Felsic called. “Peggy, you drive careful in this.”
“I will,” she said, looking over her shoulder with a smile. “It rains in New Jersey, too, you know.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it,” Felsic said, turning toward the studio’s protected patio.
Peggy looked back to me.
“See? Date’s still on. I’m just going to grab the basics for her—anything else you need while I’m at Ahz’s?”
“Peggy—”
“Was that a no?” she asked brightly, and smiled. “All righty, then! Back soon.”
And she was gone, leaving me alone with a soaked and justifiably annoyed cat.
I sighed.
“Would you care to come inside? I’ve got a nice fluffy towel, and if you’ll let me, I’ll use it to dry you off.”
There was a pause. The cat blinked her eyes.
“Okay, then. Right this way.”
And I turned to unlock the door.
* * *
As it happened, she wasn’t a sleek white cat, after all.
Gentle hand-drying with a towel warmed by jikinap eventually revealed a moderately fluffy, mostly white cat, with an orange patch over her right eye, a brown patch over the left ear, a black spot halfway down her spine, and an extravagant black-and-orange tail.
“No wonder they couldn’t leave you at the Camp,” I said. “You sure do stand out in a crowd.”
The cat blinked again. She was being remarkably patient with the process of being dried off, and if she wasn’t exactly purring, she hadn’t tried to kill me either.
Peggy had delivered the “cat basics” to the kitchen table, stopped for a moment in the living room to admire the progress with the towel, and departed, locking the door firmly behind her.
“Okay,” I said, when the cat was no more than slightly damp. “Let’s get you fed.”
A survey of the kitchen floorspace suggested that beneath the wall-mounted kitchen phone would be the best place, since it was space I rarely strayed into. I had already placed the water bowl, and was bending down to put the food bowl beside it when I simultaneously heard the front door open, and the land sigh in contentment.
“Here you go,” I said, putting the bowl of kibble down. “Peggy splurged on the sirloin, just so you know you’re being properly appreciated.”
I backed away, and turned, unsurprised to find Borgan leaning against the wall by the fridge.
“Good evening,” I said.
“Evenin’,” he answered. “Got yourself a cat, I see.”
“Old Mister sent her along, wit
h a recommendation. We’re going to see how—or if—it works out. We’ve had an awkward start. I don’t know exactly when she arrived, but she was soaked to the bone, and a teensy bit irritable, by the time I got home.”
“She’s a fetchin’ little thing,” Borgan said, adding, “Old Mister don’t give his approval easy.”
“So I gather.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The cat was eating with a kind of dainty intensity that was peculiarly satisfying.
“Sorry I didn’t get your voice mail ’til late,” Borgan said. “One of the guys was needing a hand on a bilge pump, so I offered mine. Took a little longer than either of us hoped, an’ by the time it was all said and done, I figured you’d appreciate it if I had a shower.”
I grinned at him.
“Thanks for thinking of me. Get you a glass of wine? Or a beer?”
“Maybe after we take care of you going through what you got from your Varothi?” He grinned. “Might appreciate it more, after.”
“He’s not my Varothi,” I said, just to be contrary. “But I take your point.”
I squared my shoulders, and nodded at the couch.
“Best get started, then.”
“Not so fast,” Borgan said, and came away from the wall, opening his arms. I stepped forward—and stopped, startled by a sound like a furious teakettle.
The cat was hissing at Borgan. Her tail was so voluptuous, it was hard to tell, but I thought it might be, maybe, and just a little, fatter than normal.
“Hold on,” I said, and bent down to tap her lightly on the top of her head. She stopped hissing, and blinked up at me.
“I appreciate your concern, and I apologize for not having made the situation clear. This—” I put my hand against his chest, “is Borgan. He’s welcome here. The woman who brought you the food and the litter box, and who thinks you’re cute, is Peggy. She’s welcome here, too, but only when I’m here.” I considered that, and added. “Though there’s no need to get snooty about it, if she really needs to get in and I’m not here.”