Carousel Sun-eARC

by Sharon Lee

  “She,” I said, giving him a half-grin. “Just a little grey, dainty as you like her, head up and neck proud. Black mane and white socks.”

  Kyle was making notes on his pad, nodding. “Lot of that will be with the painter,” he said, “but I’ll just note it down…”

  “Sure,” I said, and waited until his pencil stilled before adding, “she had batwings, black to match the mane, kind of half-furled along her sides. Also, fangs.”

  He looked up.

  “The fangs aren’t important,” I told him. “In fact, it’d probably be a good idea to lose the fangs. She was a hard sell sometimes, that horse, even to the kids who loved the idea that she could fly.”

  He nodded and went back to his pad.

  “Stander, prancer or jumper?”

  “Prancer.”

  Another nod, then a quick look up.

  “If you don’t mind…I can sketch you out something in a couple minutes, make any adjustments right here.”

  “Sure; take your time. It’s not like we’re real busy at the moment.”

  Another nod, this one considerably more abstracted as he stared at the rooster—or maybe at the space the rooster occupied.

  I left him to it, and returned to the operator’s station and my book.

  I hadn’t read more than a chapter when I became aware of a certain lack in the background. I raised my head and looked outside.

  The rain had stopped.

  I checked the phone’s face: eight o’clock. Early enough that we might get some action out of the night, yet. I slipped the phone into my pocket and went outside to survey the situation.

  It was coolish, with the breeze off the ocean, and things were pretty drippy, but I could see streaks of pink and orange through a wide break in the cloud cover—sunset, coming right up.

  “Think anybody’ll come out, after all that?” Brand called over from Summer’s Wheel.

  “Not impossible,” I called back. “It’s been raining a good while. Adults locked in motel rooms with antsy kids have been known to do strange things.”

  “True,” he said, and reached over to his operator’s station, flipping the running lights on to their brightest setting, and nudging the Wheel into a stately spin.

  “Let’s see what happens,” he said.

  Beyond him, the Samurai warrior drew his swords and invited those who were honorable and worthy to accept the challenge of the Oriental Funhouse. As counterpoint, I heard the cars at Dodge City start to rumble and snap. The kid at the lobster toss stubbed out his latest cigarette, straightened, and began rolling the sides of the booth back up.

  “I guess it’s unanimous.” I gave Brand a wave, and went back under roof.

  Kyle was waiting at the operator’s station, pad in hand.

  “Right with you,” I said, reaching over to start the carousel spinning again, before jogging over to crank the orchestrion up as far as it would go.

  “Okay,” I said, coming back to the station and putting my hands on the safety rail. “What’ve you got?”

  He had several sketches. I flipped pages, looking at them.

  “Her head was a little longer,” I said slowly. “Think delicate, but strong. And the wings were broader—you looked at her and you really did think she could fly.”

  Kyle nodded, took the book back, and made some adjustments on the sketch I had settled on as the best. “Like this, here? And then the wings…”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

  “Great!” He looked up with a grin. “I’m glad I came down here. You’re right—that’s a unique design. Do you have any idea who stole the original?”

  “No,” I said untruthfully.

  “You filed a report with the local police?”

  I hadn’t, since I knew full well what had happened to that “horse.” For half-a-second I thought about lying, but the question had been, to my ear, just a little too casual, so I told him a version of the truth.

  “No, I never did file a police report. Carousel’s not insured, and the cops don’t tend to take the problems of “carny folk” too serious. Whoever took that horse wanted her, I’m sure. I have to believe they’ll take good care of her.”

  He gave me a long, expressionless look. I stared right back, eyes wide. He blinked first, glanced down, and flipped the pad shut with a snap.

  “All right, then. I’ll get on back to the shop, and start work.” He turned—turned back.

  “Another question, if I might.”

  I raised my eyebrows and waited.

  “Joe Nemeier wants some cabinets built. I saw you talking with him at the reception. Give me a reference?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m not friends with the man—we’ve got a property line dispute going, which never makes friends. I never heard that he didn’t pay his debts.” I hesitated, then added, carefully, “Rumor is he’s a dangerous man to cross.”

  Kyle gave me a grin.

  “Then I won’t cross him,” he said, and turned to go just as the first group of five—four kids and one harassed-looking woman with several ticket books in her hand—walked under the carousel’s cheery roof.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tuesday, June 20

  High Tide 6:57 a.m.

  Sunrise 5:00 a.m. EDT

  It was seven-thirty-ish on my day off, but I was already in the kitchen, priming the coffeepot and singing along with Marc Cohen, really putting my all into…the middle of a pouring rain…

  The doors to the summer parlor were wide open, the front door was on the latch, and, unlike the Memphis of my duet, the sun was out, up, and very much on the job. A warm breeze explored the living room, rustling the map spread on the floor, and riffling the pages of the guide book I’d left open on the coffee table. Outside, I heard seagulls screaming insults at each other, and the occasional crash of a wave, as the ocean danced away from the land.

  To my observation, it was a perfect early summer day—which the weather-guy on WBLM confirmed as I opened the refrigerator: Sunny, bright, breezy, zero chance of precip, highs in the mid-seventies. The theme continued tonight: clear and temps in the mid-fifties; with more of the same on tap for tomorrow.

  I pulled out eggs, milk, cheese, closed the refrigerator door with my hip and headed over to the stove, asserting my love of rock ’n’ roll in sync with Joan Jett.

  “Somebody’s in a good mood,” Peggy said, closing the front door behind her. It had gotten to be a habit, already, that we had a cup of coffee together on the summer parlor in the morning. Mostly, we talked about nothing much—her parents in Hoboken; the kid sister taking Library Science at Rutgers…

  “My God, Archer, are you making breakfast?”

  Peggy, I knew by now, didn’t indulge in breakfast. She apparently ran on caffeine, and the occasional hot dog or slice of pizza.

  “Scrambled eggs,” I said, looking over my shoulder at her. “Just as easy to make two helpings as one. Want some?”

  “You a good cook?”

  “No, I’m a lousy cook. But even I can make scrambled eggs. Which I’ll just be doing, whether you want any or not.”

  “Sure, what the hell,” she said. “You want I should make toast?”

  “Think you can handle it?”

  “You’re lookin’ at a pro, Archer. Where’s the bread?”

  “Fridge.”

  I started the frying pan warming, cracked eggs into a bowl, added milk, shredded cheese, pepper, whipped it all up with a fork and got down to business.

  * * *

  We carried our plates and mugs out to the summer parlor, sitting cross-legged on the deck rather than bothering to unfold the chairs, and had breakfast, bathed in sunshine.

  Peggy sighed, put her plate aside, picked up her mug and leaned against the railing.

  “So, what’s the occasion?”

  “For making breakfast? I was hungry.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve heard you sing before. Pretty good voice, but you could use be
tter music.”

  I eyed her. Today’s t-shirt was black, with a bat picked out in black sequins on the chest.

  “What do you suggest, musically?”

  “Rasputina. The Creatures. Abney Park. Vernal Equity. Poe…You never heard of any of these bands, have you, Archer?”

  “I’m a classic rock kinda girl,” I confessed.

  “Sometime when I’m not working my butt off, I’ll get you down to my place and play you some real music. With beer. And a pizza. I know what’s due a guest.” She sipped her coffee, staring at me over the rim.

  I picked up my own mug, and glanced out over the beach. A perfect day.

  “I hear there’s a big party tonight,” Peggy said. “The crew were talking about it. You going?”

  Still looking out over the beach, I blinked, feeling like an idiot.

  So, about that good mood, Kate, I said to myself, kindly. That wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that today is the day before the summer solstice, would it?

  Midsummer Eve. The day that Borgan’d said he’d see me again.

  The day that all of the trenvay and those townies who did gathered on the beach at the base of Heath Hill at full dark, and threw themselves a helluva party.

  I hadn’t been to a Midsummer Eve in years, naturally, but I had vividly memories of it. Tarva had been my escort, under strict orders from Nerazi and Gran, I now suspected, to be on his very best behavior.

  “Did I spoil a surprise?” Peggy asked.

  I shook myself and looked back to her.

  “Sorry; got caught up in a memory,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “It’s the Midsummer Eve party—kind of a townie tradition. Sure, I’ll be there. You?”

  “I don’t wanna crash a private gig,” Peggy said, sounding careful; “being as I’m from Away…”

  Oh. So she’d found out what Away meant, in the context of a Mainer’s conversation; and it sounded like she’d found out from one of the folks who use it as a pejorative, instead of a geographical distinction.

  “Well, you’re in an interesting position,” I said, employing what I liked to think of as tact. “You’re from Away, sure. But you’re working with Jens’ crew. If they didn’t want you to know about the party, they wouldn’t’ve let you overhear them talking about it. So, I’m guessing you’ve got a sideways invitation.”

  “Sideways invitation?”

  “Nobody’s invited to Midsummer Eve. People just show up. If somebody invited you, then they’d be treating you like a stranger.”

  “But they made sure I heard them, so now I can show up, too? Just like a regular?”

  “If you want to,” I said, because this was important, too. “No pressure. If you think it’s going to be outside your comfort zone, you’re not required to come.”

  Peggy chewed her lip, eyes half-squinted.

  “So, I can compromise? Come by, show the flag, and duck out, if it’s too wild for a Jersey girl?”

  “That, too,” I agreed. “It’s up to you.”

  I finished off the last of my coffee, and nodded at Peggy’s mug.

  “Refill?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nah. I better get down to the Mango.”

  “Awful early.”

  “Got paperwork.”

  “Keep this up, you’re going to be a crispy critter a lot sooner than later.”

  “I’m tough,” she said and rolled to her feet.

  I did the same; we gathered up the plates and silverware and carried them back to the kitchen.

  “Thanks for breakfast; it was great,” Peggy said. She opened the front door.

  “See you tonight.”

  “Good deal,” I said, but she’d already closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  If you turn your back on the ocean and walk up Walnut Street, over the train tracks, past the old condos, and on up the hill past the new condos, too; about three-quarters of the way to Portland Avenue you’ll come to a place where a blacktop driveway intersects the sidewalk between two pretty white houses.

  Nothing unusual there. But, if you follow this particular driveway back between the houses, and keep on walking straight into the trees at the place where the drive elbows to the right, you’ll strike the remains of an old road.

  Follow that to the edge of the marsh, and you’ll come to the place where the Kite Track used to be.

  Back in 1892 or so, the Kite Track had been a big deal—a mile-long trotting track made out of hard clay, said to be the fastest track in the world. When light harness went out of style as a sport, in the mid-1920s, the track closed. It reopened in 1936 as a pari-mutual track, a stop on the Grand Circuit; closed again in the 1950s, and opened for one last, halcyon fling as a motorcycle track in the late 60s.

  After that final closing, the marsh took back its own. Nobody remembers the old track, anymore, or would much care, if you told them.

  I knew about it because when I was a kid I’d listened to the stories my gran told me. And, as Guardian, it was my business to know.

  The reason I was walking out to the remains of the Kite Track on this particular and perfect Midsummer Eve morning was because I’d caught my second positive ID on a quiet zone last night, and I’d come to see what there was to see.

  The sense I got from the land was one of informed curiosity, something like having a seasoned young hound at my heels; alert, but relaxed. The marsh was pleasantly bustling as birds, insects, mice, and other small creatures got on with their lives, and the growing things drank down the sunshine in quiet satisfaction. Underfoot, the ground was slightly spongy.

  Behind me, I heard the full-throttle roar of a speeding motorcycle. I spun, jikinap tingling at my fingertips, ready to blast the fool coming down here on a cycle, along the broken road, at that speed…

  But there was no motorcycle racing toward me over the marshland. At my heel, the land stood calm. According to my eyes, I stood among the brush and bramble of the marsh. My hair was warm under the sun’s persistent caress, and I smelled salt and mud and grass on the moving breeze. I heard the sweet, piercing song of a hermit thrush, stitching through the cycle’s roar like gold thread.

  I closed my eyes. Carefully, trusting the land to keep me from a misstep, I walked forward, the sounds of the marsh enclosing me, including the constant noise of a racing motorcycle.

  The land barked a warning.

  I stopped and opened my eyes. Just three steps ahead was a pool of black water.

  Mindful of the ground, which had gone from spongy to soggy, I approached the pool, squatted down on my heels, and sent out a small feeler.

  I received various impressions: cold, brackish, mud, an insistent tug that must, I thought, be the tide, going out. Nothing else. Marsh water, that was all. No sign of trenvay care or consciousness.

  I retracted the feeler and straightened slowly. I could still hear the cycle, roaring along a track years ago returned to marsh.

  Now, I’ve never met a ghost. I won’t say that there aren’t any; a woman in my position has to keep an open mind. But, as far as I understood the literature, if the cycle was a ghost, it ought to keep running the track that wasn’t here, ’round and ’round; ’round and ’round. The noise I heard was constant; unmoving; one sound among all the myriad sounds of the marsh. Almost as if the marsh had gotten the sound of a racing motorcycle engine stuck in its collective consciousness, like I’d had “Walking in Memphis” stuck in my head since breakfast.

  I frowned, turning that last thought around so I could get a good, hard look at it.

  Well, why not? The Kite Track had been on the land here for almost eighty years—not a long time, as the land measures time, but certainly long enough to be noticed. There was also a certain intensity of emotion attached to racing—from the spectators and the participants, human and equine.

  What if the marsh remembered the track? If that was the case, and its memory was motorcycles—a sound already starting to fade—then it might be that
when it faded completely, the marsh would grow less…contemplative, and return its voice more fully to the united song of the land.

  …it was a theory, anyway.

  And, if true, it meant that there had to be, somewhere within the confines of the old track, a trenvay—the spirit and the heart of this place.

  Eyes open, I walked the outline of the old track, the land coursing ahead of me now, questing. The motorcycle stuck with me, snarling against the everyday sounds of the marsh.

  I saw two white-tailed deer, startled a fox, and got cussed out by a blue jay, but otherwise managed to return to my starting point without encountering a trenvay of any description.

  Well, then.

  I turned and strode off, striking for the track’s center, the land running ahead—

  The land barked; the impression I had was one of tentative welcome. In the next instant, I saw her; and teetered on the edge of revising my opinion about ghosts.

  She was tall and naked; and she was so very thin that it seemed the strong sunlight shone through her. She glowed like an emaciated moon, twig-like fingers twisted together before her.

  Then she spoke, and laid the notion of ghost to rest.

  “Guardian?” Her voice was sweet, weirdly evoking the song of the hermit thrush. “Do I hear Guardian?”

  “You do,” I said, coming close, until I heard the land whine softly. “I’m Kate Archer.”

  “Why are you here? Nobody comes here. Not anymore. I’m all alone.”

  “Not alone,” I said, taking one step closer, ignoring the land’s worry. “In fact, I was coming to see why it was so quiet hereabouts, and to remind you…” I let that trail off, temptingly. I hoped.

  She shook long, verdant hair back from her face. Her eyes were as black as marsh water.

  “Remind me? All I have are memories.”

  “You have more—or less, according to your own choice. As Guardian, I’ve missed your voice in the land-song, without ever having heard it. You sequester yourself with your memories and impoverish us all.” I bowed my head. “Which is, as I said, your choice. I only came to remind you that—today is Midsummer Eve.”