by Sarah Zettel
I didn’t bother with magic. I just stood up between her and Jack. “Get out of here,” I said, making sure each word was clean and clear. “Get out of here, or I will kill you.”
Ivy stopped and backed away. Her face was blank and smooth as her sparkling blue eyes looked into mine. I felt her pushing at me, looking for a soft spot, but I had none left. So she bunched her fists, scrunched up her face, and screamed.
It was better than magic. All at once people were shouting and running toward us. Hands pulled me away from Ivy, and from Jack, and I was shouting something and Jack still wasn’t moving. Somebody was saying something about an ambulance. A bunch of men had crowded around Jack and were hoisting him off the ground. A woman was running up with a blanket, but they were all carrying Jack farther away from me.
“Jack! No!” I tried to lunge forward, but somebody held me.
“Calm down, Callie. Calm down,” said a deep, rumbling voice.
It was Mr. Robeson.
18
Jacob’s Ladder
“Mr. Robeson!” I grabbed his big hand. “It was them! Jack’s hurt. I’ve got to get to him!”
As soon as my words sank in, Mr. Robeson started elbowing his way through the milling people. Ivy was crying in the middle of a crowd, everybody around her babbling and issuing nine kinds of orders. She had the nerve to meet my eyes, and I hoped she had her magic open so she could feel the hate and the promise I pushed at her. She’d pay for getting Jack hurt and for whatever was happening to my father right now back in San Simeon. She’d pay with everything she had plus interest, and she was really lucky I had to stay with Jack or the payback would have started then and there.
A whole crew’s worth of people surrounded Jack. Mr. Robeson plowed straight through them. The ambulance pulled up, lights flashing. Two white-coated white men leapt out, while a third passed a stretcher out to them.
Jack didn’t even twitch as they laid him down on the stretcher, covered him with a blanket, and strapped him in.
“Wait!” I ran past Mr. Robeson.
“Sorry.” The nearest attendant, a beefy white guy with tired eyes, pushed me back. “Nobody allowed in but family.”
“But he’s my friend, he—”
“Rules are rules, sister.”
I gaped at him. Mr. Robeson came up behind me, anger smoldering slowly. I took hold of that anger and his hand at the same time and looked the ambulance man right in the eye.
“I’m his sister, and this is his father. You’re glad we’re here because he’s hurt bad.”
The attendant’s eyes blurred, and he nodded. “Get in—we have to hurry.”
“Callie,” said Mr. Robeson, and the warning was plain. He had an idea what I’d just done, and he did not like it.
“Please, please, don’t,” I begged before he could get any further. “I’ve got to concentrate.”
Because it wasn’t just the one attendant. I had to keep the wish up for every new person who saw us. So I had to wish at all the ambulance attendants, at the driver, and then at the nurses and orderlies who met us with a gurney at the hospital’s emergency entrance. They wheeled Jack into a stark white examination room. I had to wish at the doctor there, who asked us all kinds of questions about Jack: his age, his weight, and whether he’d always had that red ring around his mouth. I was worn out by the time the doctor told us in no uncertain terms that it didn’t matter who we were, we had to wait in the hallway.
Mr. Robeson took my hand. His was warm and strong and real. He was sorry. Not angry or suspicious or planning. Just sorry. We sat like that for a long time. He didn’t try to talk. He just let me get on with whatever was happening inside me, and I was grateful. Hospitals are full of wishes. People wanted to live. They wanted to die. They wanted to be born. They wanted to be better. Most of all, they wanted to be somewhere else. All those wishes buffeted my head and bruised what little concentration I had left. I felt the tears trickling down my face from trying so hard and being so afraid. I couldn’t stop seeing Jack’s face all paper white. I couldn’t remember if I’d seen him breathe since I’d pulled him away from that other place.
I lost track of time. It might have been minutes or hours until the doctor came out of Jack’s room.
“Mr. Holland?”
“Yes?” Mr. Robeson stood up. “What can you tell us, Doctor? How’s the boy?”
“I’m afraid he’s in serious condition. His pulse is very irregular, and we’ve had to use oxygen.”
“I’d like to see him.”
“I can only give you a few minutes. He must not be disturbed.”
Mr. Robeson nodded, and the doctor opened the door. Kids weren’t allowed in hospital rooms. Nobody really wanted to see me going through that door, so I made sure they didn’t.
They’d taken Jack’s shirt off and put him in one of those hospital gowns. He was white as the sheets they had pulled over him. His eyes were shut. I couldn’t see the red ring around his mouth now because of the black rubber oxygen mask.
I walked over to the bed like I was wading in molasses. Mr. Robeson stayed by the door, in case someone tried to open it. I lifted up Jack’s hand. It was stone cold. I reached with my magic, the same way I’d reached for the gate. I tried to feel Jack. But Jack wasn’t there. There was a body. It was alive, kind of. But there was nobody inside. They’d bled him away.
“Jack.” I stopped, then started again. This time, I whispered his real name. “Jacob. Come back. You said you wouldn’t leave me alone. You promised.”
Nothing happened. I couldn’t even feel a stirring of Jack. Fear rose in me, one huge, horrible lump. I swung around to Mr. Robeson.
“You’ve got to help me.” I choked the words out. “Mr. Robeson, you’ve got to.”
“What do you need?”
I thought fast, trying to squeeze all I knew about magic and this man into some kind of idea. I needed to drag Jack back from wherever he’d been taken. I needed all the power I could muster, but I was so hollowed out from everything that had happened that I was sure to fall over any second now. But I couldn’t, because if I did, Jack would die. I needed wishes; I needed feeling, human feeling that I could take in and turn around.
“Sing,” I begged. “I can … I can use the music to pull him back.”
I could tell he didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. Mr. Robeson drew himself up ramrod straight and soldier proud. He looked down at the pair of us, weighing something in his own mind. Then he gave one solemn nod, took a long breath, and began to sing.
“We are climbing Jacob’s ladder …”
His voice was deeper than any I’d ever heard. I could have sworn it made the floor and the walls vibrate. The music of the spiritual poured straight into me. It pried the lid off my magic and let it all come rushing out. I barely had time to catch it up and shape it into a wish. I laid both my hands on Jack’s arm and closed my eyes. I stepped sideways, turned in place, rounded a corner, and stepped down.
“Every round goes higher and higher …”
I couldn’t see anything here. All I knew was the feeling of being pulled, drowned, swallowed. It was like when the ghost horse had turned on me, but worse this time. Stronger. Deeper. Pure ice cold slid into my veins and wound around my magic. It tried to pull me under, freeze me solid, but I held on to Mr. Robeson’s singing for dear life. For both our dear lives.
“Brothers, brothers, we are climbing …”
Blind, I groped farther into the cold. I was cold as death. Frozen to death. I strained to open my senses, but the cold was too thick. I was crying, I was terrified. I grabbed hold of that music, wrapped it around all my memories of Jack, and pushed it out in front of me.
Jack! I’m here! I’m here!
I stretched, I strained. I waited. There was no time, and there was all the time in the world, and I was dying from stretching out and having to wait.
Then I heard it. The faintest breath of a whisper.
Callie?
I threw myself fo
rward, paying Mr. Robeson’s music out behind me like a lifeline—and I slammed straight into a wall. I screamed and reeled. Somebody snickered.
Well, well, drawled my uncle’s voice. Well, little niece, what’s this?
For a moment I couldn’t understand what was happening. It seeped in slowly. Oh, no. Oh, no, not now, not now.
Of course my uncle Lorcan had heard me. He was in my head, and I was in my head hollering for all I was worth because I wanted Jack to be able to find me, and that was how these things worked. You opened yourself up so one person could get a good look at you, and everybody and his uncle could get a good look at you. Or everybody and your uncle.
Get out of the way! I screamed.
I can’t, he answered. Believe me, I’d like to, but I just can’t. Poor boy. It’s real cold back there.
I knew exactly what he was doing, and I hated him in that moment as hard as I hated Ivy Bright. But he blocked the path solidly. I couldn’t even feel the edge of him, let alone Jack behind him.
What do you want?
Pull back your sleep, niece. Let me go. I won’t interfere any further with you rescuing Mr. Holland.
He knew I’d do it too. He knew I’d do anything he asked, because he was between me and Jack and I didn’t have the strength left to shift him. I moved to shape one more word, to ask him to promise.…
Promise. My uncle had already made a promise about Jack. Relief rushed through me. No, I said to Uncle Lorcan. You have to get out of my way! You’re hurting Jack. You promised no action of yours would hurt him. You can’t break that promise.
I charged forward, straight at him. My uncle’s presence tore like paper and I heard him scream, but I was through and on the other side.
Nicely played, niece of mine. He’d pull himself together back there and wait for his next chance, but I couldn’t worry about that now.
Jack! I called. Jack!
“Sisters, sisters, we are climbing …,” sang Mr. Robeson, way back in the human world.
I felt it again, the faint whisper brushing against the edge of my mind.
I’m cold, Callie.
I plunged forward, calling his name. I didn’t care who heard. I’d fight the whole Seelie court if I had to. They were not taking Jack away from me.
I can’t see, Callie, Jack was saying. He was closer now. He was battered and frozen and he was scared like I’d never known him to be before, but it was Jack all the same.
I know. I tried to keep my thoughts calm and strong. But we’re getting out of here.
How?
Take my hand.
I reached. I reached with everything I had. It was as easy as wishing, as hard as believing. But I had held Jack’s hand before, and he’d held mine. I knew what it felt like to have him standing beside me, and he knew me. We both wished we were in the same place, and so we were. I took hold of him in that darkness and that cold, and I pulled.
Jack was heavy. He was so skinny; how could he be so heavy? But he was. I only had one hand for him, because I had to hang on to Paul’s song with the other.
“We are climbing Jacob’s ladder …”
Rung by rung, we were climbing, groping our way up out of the cold, back to the real world, back to the land of the living. Me and Jack both.
And then, all at once, we were there. Jack slipped back into his own skin, easy as breathing, and opened his eyes for one sweet second, smiling at me from under his oxygen mask. I wilted and would have fallen if Mr. Robeson hadn’t caught me.
“Will the boy be all right now?” he asked.
I nodded. My tongue felt thick and cottony. I wanted to lie down and sleep for a year.
“We’d better get out of here now, Callie. That doctor might take an exception to our appearance when he comes in.”
I nodded and let him lead me out of there. I had just enough strength to glance back to see how Jack’s chest rose and fell under the bedsheet.
19
The Trouble I’ve Seen
I really don’t remember much after that. I think there was a cab ride, and I do remember some hot soup. I was shivering. The world kept fading in and out. I wanted to sleep, but I was afraid, because Shake was in there somewhere, waiting for me.
But in the end, my mind just sort of slipped away, and it stayed good and gone for a long time.
When I woke up again, I was in a plain bed in a plain room. Hotel, my mind said. Dunbar, it went on. I sat up. Jack.
I threw back the covers. I was in a clean nightdress and clean socks. I didn’t stop to think about it. I ran to the door. On the other side was a tidy sitting room all done in shades of beige, brown, and gold. A slim, light brown lady I didn’t know sat on the sofa.
“Who’re you? What’s going on? Where’s my clothes?”
“Ada Freeman,” she answered calmly. “Mr. Robeson thought it would be better if you had someone to sit with you, and your clothes are being washed. I’ll go tell Mr. Robeson you’re awake.”
She left me there with my thoughts spinning and my heart hammering, and came back in a minute with Paul Robeson right behind her.
“Thank you, Ada.” He touched her arm and gave her a big smile. “Maybe you could see if her clothes are ready?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Robeson.”
She left us alone, and I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling strange about being there in a nightdress. He sat down in one of the chairs. “Ada’s friends with one of the hospital orderlies,” he told me. “He says Jack is sleeping peacefully and was awake enough this morning to drink some water and eat some Jell-O.”
“He’d hate that,” I breathed. My relief was so big I didn’t have words for it. I had to talk about little things instead. “He hates Jell-O.”
“That just proves he’s got taste,” Mr. Robeson said. “Now, as soon as Ada comes back with your clothes, you come meet me down in the dining room and we’ll talk, all right?”
I agreed, and he left. I realized he was being careful about appearances, for his sake and mine. That felt strange too. I mean, I had been careful about my appearance my whole life, but this was different. A whole other world of different, in fact.
I was glad not to have too much time to think about that, because it was a lot more than I was ready to deal with, especially now. Ada came back with my clothes all cleaned and pressed. I really didn’t want to wear anything I’d borrowed from Ivy. I knew now why she’d distracted me with playing dress-up and girlfriends. She’d been fooling me, the same way she fooled everybody else. But it was take the clothes or go naked, so I dressed. Somebody’d put the penny loafers under the radiator to dry, and they were stiff as boards when I shoved my feet into them. Somehow knowing that I’d gone and ruined her shoes made me feel better. It didn’t make sense, but there it was.
Ada walked me down to the Dunbar’s restaurant. Mr. Robeson was sitting at a table in the corner, and he stood when we approached. A waiter hurried up to pull out my chair and pour me some water. I ordered a stack of pancakes with syrup, whipped cream, and butter. I could have eaten a horse if they’d had it on the menu. Especially white horse.
“Now, Callie.” Mr. Robeson leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “How about you tell me what’s been happening since the last time I found you by that bridge?”
I glanced around. The room was maybe half full of people, eating and talking and paying absolutely no attention to us. So, softly, one slow word at a time, I told him. I had to stop when the waiter brought my pancakes and Mr. Robeson’s fried eggs, ham, toast, and coffee. We ate, and I kept talking until I ran out of words. Mr. Robeson didn’t interrupt me or question me until I got around to repeating the prophecy.
“Interesting,” he said, pouring himself more coffee from the pot the waiter had left on the table. “What’s the third world?”
“Huh?” I mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.
“ ‘She,’ meaning you, is described as being the daughter of three worlds.” Mr. Robeson tore his toast in two and soaked ha
lf in egg yolk. “Two are obvious—the fairy world and the human world. But what’s the third?”
I opened my mouth. I closed it again.
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t even thought about it. “I don’t know,” I said again.
“Well, we’ll look at that later. Go on.”
I went on. I told him about leaving Kansas and coming to Los Angeles, sneaking into MGM, finding myself in San Simeon and almost not getting out. That was when he interrupted again.
“You’re sure it was your father? It was Daniel LeRoux?”
I nodded. “But … but it didn’t make any sense,” I whispered to my plate. “Why would they leave him, I don’t know, unguarded, able to help like that? They controlled him so tight that other time … why leave him free at all?”
Paul considered this for a moment. “It’s no fun to lord it over someone who can’t feel your power,” he said at last. “Perhaps they let him out on occasion so he will feel the times of close confinement more cruelly.”
Now, that sounded just like the Seelies. “Besides,” I added slowly, “who’d be dumb enough to sneak right into the castle to try to rescue him, right? They’d only get themselves caught, so there wasn’t any danger.”
“Exactly.” Paul took another sip of coffee, and then gestured with his cup for me to keep going.
When I finally finished, my head felt clear. The food helped, but having somebody who knew the whole long horrible story was even better. I felt like I could breathe again.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked. “How come … how come you believe all this?”
Mr. Robeson sighed and set his coffee cup down. It clicked against the thick china saucer.
“It was some fifteen years ago now, I guess,” he said. “I was living in New York City, up in Harlem. That was a great time. The town was full of music, poetry, and artists. Everything was wide open. We were trying to create a new world with words and music, new thoughts, new chances. Some of us were doing it for the race; some of us were doing it because we were young and wild and it was the biggest party in New York City, and that made it the biggest party in the world.”