Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 23

by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

  The furry, pointy-eared bag wasn't moving. She pulled on the edges of the zipper and peeked inside. Her expedition supplies were still there. She poked through them with the capped tip of a magic marker, just in case there was also something else in there. The notebook lay open to the seventh graffiti-covered page. She tried to nudge it aside, but the tip of the marker went through the colored surface. She dropped the pen. It passed through the graffiti and vanished. The page rippled like a pond.

  She took another magic marker and used it to close the notebook cover. Then she looked out in the hallway to see if Rico's bedroom light was on. It was. She took the notebook, tiptoed by her parents’ room, and sped up to pass the stairway. The air felt different at the top of the stairs. It felt like the stairway was holding its breath. It felt like the open space might breathe her in and down and swallow her.

  She knocked on Rico's door. No answer. She knocked again, because she knew it would be locked from the inside so there wasn't any point in trying to open it herself. He still didn't answer. She tried the doorknob and it turned.

  He wasn't there. She tread carefully on the few clear and visible parts of the floor, and took a better look around from the middle of the room. He wasn't standing behind his dresser or lurking behind the armrest of the ratty old couch. He wasn't hiding in his closet, because it was filled with too much junk already and nothing more would fit. She looked under the bed and he wasn't there either. She looked at the empty bed and found a rolled up piece of parchment. You play tomorrow night, musician, it said. Be ready.

  The parchment crumbled into several brown leaves and drifted to the floor, settling among the socks and books and torn pieces of sheet music.

  "He must be rehearsing,” she said to herself. “I'll try to find him tomorrow."

  She went back to her room, and hung the backpack up on the knob handle of one of her dresser drawers to keep it from wandering, and went to bed. She left the light on. She didn't see anything move for the rest of the night, including her backpack. She heard things move instead.

  * * * *

  Rico wasn't at breakfast. This wasn't unusual, because he almost always slept until lunchtime, so their parents didn't seem worried as they bustled and joked and made coffee and went away to work after kissing Ana on each cheek. Ana went back upstairs as soon as they were gone. Rico wasn't in his room. Bits of brown leaves crunched and crumbled in the carpet under her feet.

  Ana got dressed and took her backpack down from the knob she'd hung it on.

  "Don't go walking anywhere without me,” she said. She took more granola bars from the kitchen and refilled her little square canteen, then locked up the house.

  It started to rain when she reached the first highway billboard, and Ana's clothes and backpack were soggy by the time she got to the gym. The bag's sopping ears lay flat against the zipper.

  She stood in front of the graffiti, took a deep breath and wondered if she was supposed to say something out loud. Maybe she was supposed to say whatever the graffiti said, and she still couldn't read it.

  Something snarled in the trees behind her. Ana turned around, took a step backwards and tried to press herself against the wall. It didn't work. She pressed and passed through it.

  "Hello,” said a voice that scraped against the insides of her ears.

  Ana faced another painted wall, stone instead of brick. She took a breath. The air was still and it smelled like thick layers of dust. She turned around. An old man, thin and spindly, sat on a stool and polished a carved flute. He had a wispy beard. He tested two notes on the flute and set to polishing again. Behind him were several shelves of similar instruments. Some were plain and a pale yellow-grey. Some were carved with delicate patterns, and others inlaid with metals and lacquered over.

  "Hello,” Ana said.

  "The Grey Lady brings deliveries every second Tuesday, and today is neither thing. Are you delivered here? Has she changed schedules?"

  "I don't know any grey ladies,” Ana said. “Except math teachers. Do you mean Mrs. Huddle?"

  "No huddling things,” the old man said. He set down the flute on a carved wooden stand, picked up a bone from his workbench and took a rasp to the knobby joints. “Tell me your purposes then, if no Lady brought you. Are you here to buy a flute?"

  "No,” Ana said. “I'm looking for my brother."

  "Unfortunate that you should look for him here. How old?"

  "He's sixteen."

  "So old? Good, good. I won't have pieces of him, then."

  Ana looked around for pieces of people. There was a straw cot in the corner beside a green metal stove. There were baskets and tin lanterns hanging by chains from a high ceiling. There were no windows. A staircase against one wall led up to the only doorway. There was a workbench, and shelves full of flutes, and a mural of moonlight and trees where she had stepped through the wall.

  "He's a musician,” Ana said. “A singer. He's in a band, I think. Last week they were The Paraplegic Weasels, but I don't know if that's still their name. It keeps changing."

  "Very prudent,” said the old man, rasping bone.

  "He's supposed to play for someone tonight. I don't know who."

  "Tonight there are many festivities, or so I've heard rumor.” He swapped the rasp for a finer file, and began to scrape the bone more delicately.

  Ana took a step closer. “The invitation turned into leaves after I read it."

  "Then he'll likely play his music in the Glen,” the old man said. “You should be on the forest paths, and not here in the City."

  "City?"

  "Oh yes. Underneath it, a few layers down.” He wiped away loose bone-dust, and set both bone and file down on the workbench. “The stone floor you're standing on used to be a road, but the City is always growing up over itself."

  "Oh,” Ana said. She looked down at the floor. The old man reached down, scooped her up by the armpits and set her on the edge of the workbench. She swallowed an almost-scream when he pinched each leg, squeezing down to the thighbones, and then she kicked him in the stomach.

  Ana jumped down, ran to the mural and smacked the surface of it with the palms of both hands. The surface held. Behind her the old man wheezed and coughed and laughed a little.

  "No matter,” he said. “Both bones broken, and all the music leaked out from the fractures. Can't make any kind of flute from either leg. How did you break them both?"

  Ana turned around to watch him. He sat back on his stool, wheezing, and he seemed to want to stay there. “I jumped off the roof."

  "And what flying thing were you fleeing from?” he asked.

  "Nothing. Rico dared me to jump, so I did. I didn't tell on him, either. He still owes me for that."

  "Well,” the old man said, “I hope you can collect what he owes when you find him. Such a shame that your bones were broken. There are a great many children, and there isn't enough music. There isn't nearly enough."

  "So how do I get out?” She hated admitting that she didn't already know.

  The old man smiled, and widened up his eyes. “Boo,” he said, puffing out his thin beard.

  Ana took a step backwards, and passed through the stone.

  Her face was inches away from her brother's graffiti. It was dark, and she could barely see the colors by moonlight. She looked around. She was alone. Her backpack was gone.

  "I told it not to wander off,” she said.

  * * * *

  There was only one forest path she could find. Ana took a walking stick from a pile of broken branches near the edge of the woods, took a deep breath, and set out. She wished she had her flashlight. She wished she had her backpack. In her head she promised to give it a scratch behind the ears if it would come back, and to never again hang it up on a dresser drawer knob. It had looked uncomfortable there.

  The air smelled like wet leaves, heavy and rich. She followed the path uphill and downhill and around sudden corners cut into the sides of hills. She passed trees that looked like tall, twisted peop
le until she looked at them directly. Ana hoped she was following the right trail. She saw a wispy orange light between the tree trunks and decided to follow that instead.

  The orange light brightened as Garth inhaled cigarette smoke. He was leaning on a boulder. He looked up and blew smoke at the moon.

  Half of his face was swollen.

  "Hey,” said Ana. “What are you doing?"

  "Nothing,” he said. “Waiting for little girls, maybe."

  "Your infection's worse."

  "True,” he said. “But this bit of silver is keeping me from gnawing on your bones."

  "Oh,” said Ana. “Good. Everybody should stay away from my bones."

  He took another drag, brightening up the wispy orange light, and tugged his hat down to cover more of the swollen half of his face. Ana held on to her stick.

  "Do you know where Rico is?” she asked.

  "Maybe. He plays tonight."

  "Can you take me to him?"

  "Maybe.” Garth dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, crushing the little orange flame. He walked off, away from the path. Ana waited for some signal from him that she should follow. She didn't get one. She followed.

  Garth took long strides, and his boots hit the ground like he was trying to punish it for something. Ana tried to keep up, and she tried to keep a little bit behind him at the same time. She didn't want to be too close. He hunched, staring at the ground, and she thought he was moping more than usual until he dove, snarling. He came up holding a lanky thing covered in short, spiky fur.

  "Where does the Guard keep watch tonight?” he asked.

  The lanky thing shrugged and grinned many teeth.

  "Where does the Guard watch the Glen?” He shook the thing in his hand.

  It snickered.

  "Please?” Ana asked, very sweetly.

  The lanky thing blew her a kiss. “Tonight there is no waking Guard,” it said. “Tonight he is sleeping and dreaming that he guards, and he crosses no one unless they cross into his dreaming while he sleeps at his post, which is easy to do and see to it that you don't. Everything within a pebble's toss of him in all directions is only the substance of his dream, and inside it the Guard is a much better guard than he ever was awake. He guards the Western Arch."

  "How many arches are there?” Garth asked.

  "Tonight there is only the Western Arch. All others are overgrown. It rained today."

  "Thank you,” Ana said.

  The lanky thing bowed, which was difficult to do while Garth held it up by the scruff of its neck. Then it bit him hard on the wrist and dropped to the ground. Garth howled. The lanky thing snickered from somewhere nearby.

  "Let me see your wrist,” Ana said. She had band-aids in her backpack. Then she remembered that she didn't have her backpack.

  Garth looked at her. Garth never made eye contact, but he did so now, and he held it, and he also made a little rumbling noise in the back of his throat.

  "No,” he said.

  "Okay,” she said.

  "You should know that I'm not interested in dying for your brother. He's all right. I like him. But I'm not interested in death on his behalf. I'm not interested in any of the things so close to death that the distinction makes no difference. This is something you should know before we go any further."

  "Okay,” she said again.

  He walked away. She followed. She wondered where her backpack was.

  * * * *

  They found an enormous figure in full plate armor, asleep. The Guard was dreaming a desert the size of a pebble's throw. All around it was sunlight and sand and nowhere to hide.

  "That's the Western Gate,” Garth said.

  "Where?” Ana whispered.

  "Behind the desert. Cut into the wall of thorns, there.” He pointed. Ana stood at the very edge of the desert and squinted. She could only see sand and sun in front of them.

  Garth dropped another finished cigarette, driving it further into the dirt than he really needed to. “Good luck,” he said.

  "Wait,” Ana told him. “Don't go yet. I'm going to try something."

  She picked up a pebble, took aim, and threw it at the precise moment that she stepped forward into desert sand. For just a instant she knew what it was like to be an unimportant part of someone else's dream. Then the pebble struck the Guard's gold helmet, clanging loudly and waking it up.

  The desert vanished. Ana ducked behind a tree that hadn't been there before and leaned against the trunk. She could hear the metal movements of plate armor on the other side. She didn't know where Garth was.

  "I am a pirate king,” Ana whispered to herself. “It's a glorious thing to be a pirate king."

  She ran, and switched directions twice, and tried to circle back towards the Western Gate. She almost stumbled in the dark, but she didn't. The Guard almost caught her anyway. She felt gauntleted fingers snatch at her shoulder. Then she heard it clang and crash against the ground. She stopped, panting, and turned around to look.

  Garth stood over the Guard, who was much shorter and less impressive than it had dreamed itself earlier. Garth looked at Ana, snarled and jerked his chin towards the Gate. Then he spit on the Guard's golden armor.

  Ana backed further away. She watched the Guard pull itself up off the ground. It plucked out Garth's silver piercing with a little spray of blood.

  Garth howled, and his face began to change.

  Ana turned away and slipped inside.

  * * * *

  The Glen was at least as big as a cornfield, and covered over with a dome of branches high overhead. Inside the branches were orange wisps of light, glowing and fading again.

  It was full of dancers. Ana looked at them, and closed her eyes, and looked again. She could hear Rico singing over the noise of the crowd.

  "I'm still a pirate king,” she whispered to herself, weaving her way in between dancers and trying to find the stage. She dodged the dancing things, bumped into some, and passed through the shimmering substance of others. She saw colors and antlers and sharp teeth in strange places.

  She found the stage. She found her brother. He sang, and the language sounded a little bit like Spanish but not very much. Nick played a red guitar, acoustic and covered in gold ivy. Julia played a yellow-gray flute. Both of them were even taller than they usually were.

  Rico saw her, and Ana saw a lot of white around the edges of his eyes when he did. He nudged Julia, and she started a flute solo, and he got down off the stage and pulled Ana behind it. She opened her mouth and he shushed her.

  "Okay, don't eat or drink. Whatever else you do, don't eat anything and don't drink anything. Now tell me what you think you're doing."

  "Looking for you,” Ana said.

  "I'm impressed,” he said, biting on his lower lip. “I really am. But this is very, very bad and I'm not sure how to fix it."

  "What's the problem?” Ana asked, folding her arms and looking at him as though she were the older one.

  "Okay,” Rico said, taking deep breaths. “Do you see those guys over there? The ones with the tattoos?"

  "They're the gang?” Ana asked.

  "Yeah. Sure. Kind of. And this is supposed to be my last task for them, and then after the concert I'll learn how to sing up every chrome piece of a motorcycle and ride it from town to town, stopping only to hum the fuel tank full again. I'll learn how to sing hurricanes and how to send them away. I'll learn how to sing something people can dance to for a full year and never notice the time passing."

  "Sounds like fun,” Ana said.

  "Sure. The catch is that this crowd has to be happy and dancing until the dawn light comes. If they stop before then, I fail and I have to serve the guys with the tattoos for at least a hundred years. So you should either go, right now, however you came here, or else hide somewhere and don't eat or drink or talk to anyone until dawn. And don't do anything distracting, because the crowd might stop dancing and that would be very bad. They like children, here, but they care about music a lot more than they care
about kids."

  Ana looked up at Julia and her yellow-gray flute.

  "I have to go back onstage now,” Rico said.

  "Okay,” Ana said.

  "Hide,” he said.

  "Okay."

  He went back onstage. Julia finished her solo, and Rico sang. He was good.

  Ana thought she saw her backpack scamper between someone's hooves. She followed. Then she saw Garth, or at least she assumed it was Garth. He had started to eat people near the Western Arch.

  "Crap,” Ana said. He was distracting the crowd. Some of them weren't dancing anymore.

  She ran back to the arch and slipped through. She looked everywhere, kicking up leaves. She found her walking stick and used it to poke through the leaves that were dark and wet and sticky. Then she found one golden gauntlet. Blood pooled underneath it. A small, silver tusk sat in its palm.

  She picked up the silver. It was very sharp. She ran back through the arch and followed the screaming.

  Garth was gnawing on a severed antler with his long wolf-muzzle. Some things in the crowd were shouting, and more were laughing, and most were still dancing but not all of them were.

  "Hey, perro muerto,” Ana said. She threw her walking stick at him. It got his attention. He dropped the antler, bounded forward and knocked her to the ground, slavering.

  Ana grabbed one of his furry ears with her left hand and shoved the tusk through it with her right. The skin of his ear resisted, stretching a little before the silver broke through.

  Garth rolled over and howled. Ana got to her feet and looked around her. The crowd danced. Even those who were bleeding from the fight with Garth were dancing again. She took a deep breath, and she didn't get a chance to let it out all the way before someone's hand took her by the elbow and pulled her towards the stage.

  She looked up at the arm attached to the hand. It had green and red letters tattooed all up and down its length.

  Rico, Julia and Nick bowed to the sound of applause and unearthly cries. The sky began to lighten above the branches, grey and rose-colored and pale.

  The owner of the green and red arm pushed Ana forward in front of Rico. “What's this?” Rico asked.

  "Your last initiation,” said a very deep voice behind Ana. She didn't want to turn around. She looked straight ahead at her brother. “Sing her to sleep. Let her sleep for a thousand years, or at least until another glacier passes this way."