A hand from nowhere grasped the back of his neck, and another flicker passed through his sight. At once, he understood—she’d stopped time again, kept him from falling. Then she’d rearranged him. Instead of hitting the wall he came to, safely on his backside.
Kneeling beside him, Kate dropped her head onto his shoulder and whispered, “Look what I did.”
He started to reply, but then he lifted his head. The world hung suspended in a moment. Not a little corner of it, the entire street.
Frozen automobiles stood in half-completed turns. Caught midstep, a couple of businessmen seemed to hover in the air. Steam rose from manhole covers but never dissipated. All the way down the angled street, life had stilled.
“Help me up,” Julian murmured.
Climbing to their feet, they moved through the perfect silence. Peeking around the corner, Kate whistled low. She’d caught a boy jumping from the streetcar, a woman snapping a rug from her third-story window.
Julian rubbed his knuckles against Kate’s arm. “Wonder how far it goes?”
“I wonder what happens when it all starts again at the edges.” She looked up at him. “I never had to turn it off before. I don’t know how.”
Like a gradual dawning, scarlet spots started to glow for Julian. Some beneath the streets, no doubt vermin. But the city was full of blood-red lights, full of the departed still close enough to call back. He didn’t know how there could be so many. His breath faltered to see they were surrounded.
“Do it backwards,” he suggested. “Whatever you do to stop the world in the first place.
Kate pulled off her hat and wrung it between her hands. Instead of exhaling a breath, she drew one in, as deep and as long as she could. Her lips moved as she whispered something to herself. Her eyes darted from side to side beneath her eyelids, and then suddenly, she opened them wide.
In the distance, something crashed. A man yelled. Handsome squawked and landed awkwardly on the sidewalk, only to take flight before he got kicked by a passerby. And Julian stared as silver streaked through the rest of Kate’s hair. Her black-and-white braids turned entirely white, and her face changed too. It was longer, her lips were fuller, and her jaw sharper.
“What?” Kate said, surprised at the timbre of her own voice. It was still unmistakably hers, just deeper.
Cool realization rushed over Julian as his mother’s words in the kitchen came back to him. They were clarion, impeccably clear. They reverberated in his bones, echoed in his blood.
Uneasy, Kate shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Julian, what?”
“You don’t stop time,” he said. “You trade it.”
Raising his crutch, he herded her toward a department store window. With the light cast on it, it made a perfect mirror. When Kate caught a glimpse of herself, she swayed against him.
“I look like my mother.”
Julian watched her eyes through the reflection. Smoothing a hand down the back of her neck, he watched as understanding swept through her.
She hadn’t lived through stopped time. The people on the streetcar, the woman with the rug, the businessmen who bounded past them now, completely oblivious. They went on with their lives, no older than they were before—because Kate traded against the time she had left in her life to stop them.
Pulling Kate in to comfort her, Julian whispered against the shocking white of her hair. “No more, all right? We can—you can get by without it.”
“It’s not really good for anything anyway,” Kate said.
Forcing a smile, she slipped out of Julian’s arms and gestured for Handsome. Instead of running, they walked, sometimes more slowly than they had to. When they reached Sixth and Spring Street, Julian pointed at the short house set between two towering apartments.
“Let me talk to Mrs. Bartow first,” he said. “You better put your hat back on.”
“She wouldn’t turn you out with a little brother to take care of,” Kate said. But even her fabulating sounded sober for the moment. She held the door open for Julian, then followed him inside.
“Boy, where have you been?” Mrs. Bartow demanded as he approached her desk. “All sorts came looking for you, and I had to send them away!”
A bit baffled, Julian said, “You did? I mean, who was it?”
Opening up drawers, one after the other, Mrs. Bartow produced a thin stack of letters. “A fancy couple, claiming to be friends of your mother’s. A little girl, well, not so little—she came twice. I hope you didn’t get her into trouble. I’ll throw you right out!”
Julian took the letters and swore. “No, ma’am, not ever. I had to fetch my, uh, baby brother.”
Slowly, Mrs. Bartow tipped to one side. She blanched when she saw the massive bird that came with the boy. “I might ignore the brother, but not that thing. Birds are filthy, carry lice and whatnot. I run a clean establishment.”
In general, Julian wasn’t given to fantasy. Kate probably could have come up with a better story, he thought, but they’d have to make do with his. Gesturing at Kate and Handsome, he said, “He’s not wild. My brother rescued him from a circus. Fire. From a circus fire. It was terrible. But he’s trained—the bird. My brother is too, but that goes without saying.”
Suspicious, Mrs. Bartow came around the desk. “What kind of training?”
Julian turned and prayed the bird would go along with the lies. “Handsome, come here.”
Hefting her arm, Kate urged Handsome into the air. Filling the foyer, Handsome swooped through the narrow space and dropped himself onto Julian’s shoulder. Whether out of habit or because he understood English, he nuzzled Julian’s cheek when he settled.
Secretly delighted, Julian reached up to stroke his feathers. “Say something for Mrs. Bartow.”
Ever accommodating, Handsome tipped his head to the side and croaked, “I can talk. Can you fly?”
Mrs. Bartow plastered a hand to her own cheek, looking from the bird to Julian then back again. Finally, she shook her head and retreated behind the desk again. “I won’t clean up after it. And you tell your brother the rules. One key only. What’s his name?”
“Kate,” Julian said automatically. Then, before Mrs. Bartow decided to study Kate any closer, Julian blustered, “My parents wanted a girl.”
Mrs. Bartow shooed him away. Sitting back behind the desk, she looked shocked, rather like a train had just missed hitting her.
As Julian led Kate down the hall to his room, he heard Mrs. Bartow repeating in wonder, “I can talk. Can you fly?”
***
The desk sergeant dumped a tin tray onto the desk and handed Caleb each item without fanfare.
All around them, the police station buzzed. Beat cops moved through like they were on fire; a whole row of chairs overflowed with people waiting to speak to an officer.
Typewriters snapped along at mad speed, each clack like a nail in Caleb’s temple. The welt over his brow had deepened to an impressive shade of purple, and his eye was well and truly black.
He stank of piss and of too many bodies crammed into lockup overnight. He’d spent another night in jail once, for the same damned reason. Amelia van den Broek was determined to ruin his life. All of it, even the miserable end of it.
“One box of matches. Seven inches white twine. Saint Nicholas medal. Tin snips. What in blazes is this thing?”
None too gently, Caleb snatched the silver tube from the sergeant’s hand. Its chain whispered when he unfurled it. Dropping it over his head, he took care to slip the tube into his shirt. It rested cool against his skin, slowly warming by touch. “It’s a locket.”
Dubious, the sergeant looked him over. But it was obvious he didn’t care enough to inquire further. He wouldn’t have been interested in the answer anyway—it really was a locket, with one of Sarah’s dark curls sealed inside.
“Wallet with two dollars,” the sergeant continued, “two dimes, a quarter, and a penny. There you are. Off you go.”
Caleb shoved his wallet into his pocket but frowne
d. “I had some bits of lead.”
Flipping open the log book, the sergeant ran his finger down the inventory. Then he laughed. “That’s right, three bullets. Sorry, pal, we’ll be keeping those.”
“The hell you will. That’s my personal property.”
The sergeant closed the inventory book and leveled a stern look at Caleb. The sergeant wasn’t a very tall man, but he was broad. He had shoulders like ham hocks and a jaw so solid, it practically dared someone to take a swing at it. “Look, now. You’re free to go. Nobody’s pressing charges. Go buy yourself a beer.”
“They’re fishing weights,” Caleb said. Acid swirled in his stomach, burning him from the inside. They both knew he was lying, but he didn’t care. Those bullets were his, the same as the change and the twine.
“So you know, there’s a ten-dollar fine for fishing without a license, Virgil.”
Cussing him to his face, Caleb slapped the desk and backed away. There was no point fighting it. He’d never gotten a fair shake before; he wouldn’t get one now, either. Pushing into the afternoon sunlight, he shielded his eyes as they started to water.
Starving, and head splitting, Caleb stopped at the corner. What little he owned was still holed up in the green room at Clune’s, and he needed to get it back. He could spend thirty cents on a lunch plate and walk back to the theatre. Or he could take a red car back to Olive Street and beg scraps from Delmonico’s kitchen.
A fire engine screamed by. The siren mixed badly with his headache, and Caleb broke out in a cold sweat of nausea. When he recovered, he darted into the road to catch the red car. Sleep first, then scraps.
Then a pint to drown Amelia van den Broek for good.
Seventeen
Curled on Julian’s bed, Kate watched him move through his room.
The crutches made a pleasing thump, then his foot whispered across the carpet when he put it down. The slide when he put the crutches away, the sure rip when he split the first envelope in the pile waiting for him. He was musical, entirely unintentionally.
Kate wondered what he’d look like on film. The combination of pale hair and dark eyes would be striking. Would film capture his subtle freckles? Burying her head in her arms, she sighed.
“Letter from my mother,” Julian said. Then he laughed quietly, thumbing through the pages. “With an invoice for the money I owe her.”
Peeping up, Kate stared. “Your mother bills you?”
“It’s a long story,” Julian said.
That he didn’t want to share, obviously. Kate dropped her head again, closing her eyes. The long night caught up with her, and she wavered halfway between sleep and waking. Trailing her fingers across the quilt, she said, “I need to pick up my pay. Will you go with me?”
“Yep.”
“Soon?”
He glanced at her, letters in hand. “Give me a minute.”
Kate rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Tender everywhere, she felt like one big bruise. When she’d stepped onto the train to Los Angeles, she’d had doubts, but she also had ambition. And hope. And, she was forced to admit, advantages. Plenty of money, an expensive camera, someone who knew how to find her way around the city.
That was all gone; this was starting over the very hard way. She’d learned to find a job and take the streetcar, so she wasn’t helpless. The art in her head still flowed in moving pictures; her yearning to bring them to life hadn’t changed. And she had a friend now—a true one.
“What are you sighing about?” Julian asked.
Kate rolled onto her stomach again and propped her head in her arms. “Nothing. What are you frowning about?”
“Nothing,” he replied. Tossing a letter onto the table, he leaned back and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Can’t believe I lost three weeks”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Didn’t say you did.”
Kate knotted herself around and came up sitting on the edge of the bed. It didn’t seem right that she could have visions of somebody her entire life but have things turn out like this. He should have been madly in love with her; she should have been equally mad for him. What about the stars? A secret wedding, a tangled destiny?
He was pretty to look at, his lips wonderfully warm. But mostly, she wanted to poke him in the ribs and count his teeth and find out if he had webs between his toes. He looked rather sleek, now that she considered it. Soulful eyes, golden everywhere else . . . It was entirely possible he was a selkie.
“Are you sure you can’t take your skin off?” Kate asked.
Turning to face her, Julian leaned forward in his chair. “With a sharp knife and some patience, I expect I could.”
He was so exasperated, and so serious, and so literal that Kate had to smile. Bouncing slightly on the bed, she got a very dirty look from Handsome. He flew to the windowsill and tapped the glass with his beak. Rolling to her feet, Kate walked over to let him out.
“Letter from a sweetheart?” Kate asked.
Furrowing his brow, Julian put a hand over the mail. “What makes you think that?”
“I can smell the perfume.”
With a vaguely sheepish look, Julian quit guarding his mail. Stretching his arms over his head, he popped his shoulders and said, “She’s not a sweetheart. She’s a girl I worked with at the laundry.”
A likely story, Kate thought. “A coworker who sends perfumed letters. That happens to me all the time.”
“We had a movie date, but I stood her up.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I was busy getting mauled at the beach by a crazy girl.”
Shoving her hands into her pockets, Kate shook her head at him. What a sad little man he was. “You’re not being mauled right now. Go find her.”
“It was almost a month ago,” Julian pointed out. “I didn’t know her very well. She thinks I stood her up and then ignored two notes she left for me.”
Kate pushed off the wall. Plucking her hat off the bed, she dropped it on his face. “That’s what flowers are for. Chocolates. Firecrackers, if she likes that sort of thing. Apologies—real ones; you do have to mean it—and presents can work wonders.”
“Sometimes things happen for a reason,” he said, and tossed the hat back to her.
Reclaiming the cap, she put it on and tried for careless. A bit whimsical, not desperate at all. Light, teasing, but not too forward, because she was mixed up inside. “I could be a reason. You should get to know me.”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked. Fishing his crutches from beneath the bed, he rose up on them and then pointed her toward the door. “Let’s go get your check while the sun’s shining.”
Maybe she was delirious from lack of sleep, but Kate couldn’t stop smiling.
***
As many times as he’d been to the State Fair back home, Julian was mesmerized by The Pike. Great wooden roller coasters stretched over the ocean seeming too spindly to be anything but decoration. He watched in wonder as the trains climbed the first hill together, then spun away on separate paths.
Delighted shrieks filled the air, accompanied by a distant calliope and ringing bells. The scent of frying sausages and cotton candy drifted around him, tempting him to taste a bit of everything.
Following Kate through the midway, he watched a beribboned little girl pluck a plastic duck from a tub. She bounced when she traded it to the barker for a goldfish in a bowl.
“My brother Charlie’s a whiz at those,” he said as they passed the milk-bottle game. Two boys wound up and pitched. They threw their baseballs as hard as they could and still only managed to knock the top bottle down.
Kate smiled up at Julian. “He must be clever, then. They’re all weighted at the bottom.”
Julian hadn’t realized that, but it made him laugh in retrospect. Sam never managed to knock them down, but Charlie did every time. It was one of the skills Charlie lorded over the younger brothers.
A woman in a turban step
ped in front of them. She waggled her fingers and spoke in sultry tones. “My mystic eye sees all. Let Lady Freya lift the veil on your future.”
“Maybe another time,” Kate said, darting around her.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Julian couldn’t maneuver quite as quickly as Kate through the crowd, but he managed. Pop guns went off in the distance, drowned out by the clatter of the coaster cars racing back to the station.
As they turned the corner, a bell rang. A strongman in a Tarzan suit swung a sledgehammer over his shoulder and pointed to Kate. “Step up, lad. Let’s test your muscle. Ring the bell, win a prize!”
“Let me,” Julian said. He produced a penny for the barker, holding it out for him. The barker hesitated. “It’s awful heavy, son.”
“He can handle it,” Kate said.
Her eyes sparkled, avidly following Julian’s every move. The barker finally took the penny, and Julian let Kate take his crutches. Rubbing his hands dry on his trousers, Julian took the sledgehammer and hefted it.
The sun beat down, impossibly hot, and the salted- sugared wind swirled around him. There was a trick to this one, too—letting the hammer fall before putting any weight behind it.
A grunt escaped him as he heaved the hammer over. Muscles tightened in his back, hands burning against unpainted wood. Moving with the hammer, he forced his strength into it at the last moment. The impact shook through him, and he was rewarded by the clang of the bell.
Hopping back a few steps, Julian threw his hands up with a grin. “And handle it I did.”
The barker forgot his façade for a moment and cursed under his breath in surprise. Quickly regaining his composure, he pulled a stuffed rabbit from the display and tossed it to Kate.
“That’s mine,” Julian told her, biting back a grin. “I’ll let you carry it.”
“I’ll let you wrestle me for it,” Kate replied.
After a few more distractions, she stopped in front of the offices. She ran inside, leaving Julian to ponder the relative merits of funnel cakes versus elephant ears. When Kate emerged, he greeted her with one of each.
The Elementals Page 17