Echo City

by Layla Lawlor

  "You've made a friend for life, apparently," I said. Gwyn was bound to reclaim her sooner or later, but in the meantime, I kinda enjoyed having a dog. Even if I still harbored unpleasant suspicions about that dog's history.

  Geraldine smiled.

  "And, yes," I said. "About not living Fresca's life for her—I know that."

  "Would you like a hug?"

  "Yes, please," I said in a tiny voice, and she got up and hugged me. I sniffled on her shoulder for a bit, and then she refreshed our coffee, and added a little dollop to each cup from a small silver bottle that she produced from a pocket.

  "Brandy," she said. "Good for broken hearts."

  "I've never had brandy before." I sipped the coffee. The alcohol added a sharp note, tingling in my sinuses.

  "What are grandmothers for?"

  And I'd come out to her. Me. I'd done that. It had even gone really well. I sipped at my spiked coffee and experienced a strange internal seesaw between heartbreak and elation.

  ... come to think of it, I'd probably come out to Drew, too, without really meaning to. I looked around. There was no sign of him. I hoped he was upstairs or off doing whatever it was that he did when he wasn't visible.

  "How are you feeling?" Geraldine asked.

  "Okay," I said. If you averaged out all my current emotions, that was what it amounted to. "But, even leaving aside ... everything ... I'm not sure what to do next. A week ago, I had two roommates and a job. Now I have none of those things, just a big empty haunted house that I can't pay rent on."

  "A possibility occurs to me." She dropped her hand down to ruffle Creiddylad's ears. "There's something I haven't mentioned yet about my trip out here to see you. Your mother doesn't know this either, by the way, so you might think twice about mentioning it to her. I'll break the news eventually."

  I tried to look attentive.

  "I sold the condo in Colorado." She didn't look at me as she spoke, instead focusing on her cup of coffee. "Your mother thinks an eighty-year-old woman has no business traveling around by herself. I can't say she isn't right, but I'm the one who's lived with this body, this brain, for eighty years, and I can tell you, Kay, it would kill me to live like that, in a little box surrounded by other little boxes."

  "Mom ..." I said, and though I wouldn't have thought I could ever smile again, at least not for a long while, I felt the corners of my mouth turning up anyway. "Mom is going to flip her nut."

  Geraldine's grin flashed, and she peeked up at me from under half-lowered eyelids. She must have been a coquettish girl; in a way, she still was. "I expect she will."

  "What did you do with your stuff?"

  "Most of the furniture is already gone. I donated it to a women's shelter. Otherwise, the sale is still grinding through the paperwork, and I have a couple of weeks, at least, to remove those items I can't do without."

  "And then what?" I asked, a little coil of hope unwinding in my chest.

  "Then I'll have a certain amount of money, which I can use to pay your rent for a few months, in return for a crash pad."

  For a moment all I could do was boggle quietly at the feeling that a sack of no-strings-attached cash had just fallen into my lap. Then reality prevailed. "Grandma, you don't have to—I don't know, crash on the couch, or whatever. You can actually move in. We can put you on the lease—"

  "No," Geraldine said sharply. "Then I'll start to feel tied down, and the next thing you know, I'll be off to Madrid or such."

  Fresca's Aunt Lu, the owner of the house who was currently gallivanting around Europe with her Portuguese sculptor boyfriend, definitely needed to meet Geraldine. They would have so much in common.

  "All right, crashing it is," I said. "And honestly, I don't know what to say. You can't imagine what this means to me. I don't know where I'd go—I can't drop out of school and go home to Mom. You said living in a condo would kill you? Well, that would kill me."

  "Family gives each other a hand up," Geraldine said. She held out her hand, and I grasped it. Her fingers were knotted, thin and dry, with the fragile skin of age. Also, they were slightly greasy and dog-licked. But her grip was still iron-strong. "That's what family does for each other, Kay."

  I'd always envied Fresca her sprawling yet close-knit group of siblings and aunts and cousins, a wide-ranging network of family that reached to every quadrant of the country and beyond. Renting this house from Aunt Lu was merely the tip of the Serrano family iceberg. It seemed that every conversation with Fresca involving travel was bound to include a comment along the lines of "Oh, my aunt was married there," or "Chicago? We can crash on my second cousin Philip's couch!"

  My family, in contrast, was small and disparate, and mostly a source of distance-attenuated annoyance to me. The idea that I might be able to fall back on them, that they might actually help me if I asked, had never occurred to me.

  "Besides," Geraldine added, "I have a feeling that, compared to a condo in Colorado Springs, living here is going to be very interesting indeed."

  There was one more thing I did—one more thing I had to do. I went back to the house ruins on a clear, gorgeous day in July, with the key Grandma had given me, as if she'd known I would need it.

  I had wondered what the place would look like in the sunshine, and it was just as serene as I'd hoped. I sat on the ruined foundation for a while, soaking in the ambiance. Perhaps I should have been afraid, since twice I'd encountered Tigers here, but I didn't think that was going to be a problem anymore.

  When I'd had enough ambiance and girded myself for possible disappointment, I inserted the key. It went in, and the hatch opened, just as before.

  I left the door open behind me, sunlight streaming down into the dungeons of that place.

  The train car still worked; the station at the end was just as I'd first seen it, brightly lit with hissing gas lamps. I sang myself through the door to St. Clair's Harlem Renaissance with only a small attack of nerves.

  Things were different here. Not so over-lit, for one thing. And more purposeful. There was less revelry, and I passed groups of men and women with maps spread out, or engaged in serious talk over glasses of gin that they drank openly at sidewalk tables: no more Prohibition, no more speakeasies.

  These were people who knew who they were now: that they lived not in the real 1920s, but in a magical city outside of space and time. This was the heart of St. Clair's version of Shadow New York, as downtown Manhattan had been the epicenter of Tweed's. And now she was rebuilding it for her own purposes, as the queen of not only Harlem, but all of New York, just as she had once said to me.

  I hoped she'd do a better job than its last monarch.

  I didn't expect to be allowed to see her, at least not without a wait, but to my surprise her doorman ushered me straight in. St. Clair had her head together with someone else, a woman whose face was turned away so I couldn't see it, but I recognized her from the head of strawberry blonde curls with dark red stripes. I stopped in the doorway of St. Clair's salon. By the time they looked up, I had managed to hide how deeply the sight of her had cut me.

  At least I had the small satisfaction of knowing it was mutual. Millie blanched, then murmured her goodbyes to St. Clair. She paused as she passed me, as if there was something she wanted to say, then left hastily.

  "Madame," I said, giving her a small bow, but my stomach still churned. I had to say something. "She was one of his, you know. She fought against us in the war."

  St. Clair shrugged. "She's resourceful and intelligent. I never pass up the chance to make use of an asset. Many of the former Tigers are mine now."

  I very deliberately did not think of Millie taking over Lily-Bell's role in St. Clair's organization. That way lay madness. And fury. She had helped, after all; she'd probably saved both my life and Muirin's. According to Muirin, Millie was still attached to the Gatekeepers as a "liaison," whatever that meant. I didn't know how Irmingard was handling this; I hadn't been in touch with her since everything in Shadow New York had gone down, and
she, somewhat tellingly, hadn't been in touch with me either.

  "The neighborhood looks good," I said at last, opting for something neutral.

  "There is work yet to be done." St. Clair tipped her head back, looking down her nose at me. Though I was standing and she was sitting, I did not feel like the one in control. "I believe one might make the argument that I owe my current position to you?"

  "I believe anyone who makes that argument is a fool," I said carefully. "I did what I had to do. I didn't do it for you. And I don't want a reward."

  "Then we understand each other after all," she said, and laughed softly. "Still, walk safely in my world, Miss Darrow. If anyone bothers you here, anyone at all, tell me about it. They won't do it again."

  "Thank you, Madame," I said.

  St. Clair tipped her head to the side. "But you came here for something else. What?"

  I nerved myself to ask the question that had been plaguing me. "How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you make a shadow into a Tiger?"

  St. Clair's dragon smile coiled around her lips. "How? Like this, child."

  She seized my hand before I could flinch away, and light rushed into me. I was filled up with light, brimming with it, heat in my belly and a hot buzzing inside my head. I looked down at my hand, expecting to see light spilling from my pores, gleaming under my fingernails. Instead there were only my fingers, my skin.

  "What—" I said, and had to stop and start over. My voice sounded distant to my own ears. "What did you do to me?"

  "To you? Nothing. What is in you now is a little piece of what's in me. It's not yours to keep, only yours to pass along. Go out there and find someone in my city and give it to them. I think you probably have someone in mind. I think you came here for a reason."

  The heat in my chest was already turning to pain, a hot lump of heartburn. "Will it hurt me?" I asked.

  "Only if you hold it too long. And ..." She shrugged. "If you have to let it go before you find someone to receive it, just release it into the world."

  As I stumbled out of St. Clair's salon, my chest and throat on fire, I already knew where I was going.

  I thought it would take me time to find it, that other Harlem where I had been only once. But I forgot to allow for the elegant simplicity of the music-key doors. The song I sang was "Prove it on Me," and as I opened the door, I remembered Geraldine singing it on behalf of her mother. Her mother, who used to sing that defiantly transgressive song while engaged in housework, the epitome of a traditional female activity.

  Lily-Bell.

  And there she was, right down the street. I had seen her once already while I was recruiting for the resistance. She was not the one I'd known, of course. This ghost wore a flapper hat and a sheer gray dress with a pale pattern of roses curling over one shoulder.

  "Lily?" I said.

  She turned and smiled that wide, bright smile. "Yes?"

  She was looking at me and through me, her eyes not entirely focused. I could see through her, the brownstones ghostly through her shoulders, tinted lightly by her face and hat. If I left now, she would not remember that I had been here; she'd keep going through the motions of her patterned life, a snapshot of one moment in the life of a living woman.

  Instead I took her strong brown hand. "Here," I said, and let it go.

  The light went from me with a surge of pain and nausea, followed by tremendous relief. My knees wobbled and I let go as Lily-Bell staggered too, her eyes huge. "I ..." she began, then reached up and touched her face, her hair, set straight her hat where it had been knocked askew. Then she looked at me, really looked at me. I couldn't see through her face anymore. She was solid, real, as present in the world as I was.

  "Who are you?" she asked, cautiously friendly with a thread of wary distrust underneath. I could hear a painful echo of the woman I'd known, Lily-Bell the ninja in her headscarf, Lily-Bell fighting against a terrible enemy in a war she hadn't lived to see won.

  This Lily-Bell would never become that woman. She wouldn't become the woman who had fallen in love with my great-grandfather and given birth to Geraldine, either. She was them and not-them, and she would be, in the end, whoever she was going to be. But she would have a chance, and really, that's all anyone ever gets.

  "I'm Kay," I said. "It's nice to meet you."

  Kay’s story continues in

  Hollow Souls

  This Halloween, the dead will rise.

  Kay Darrow didn't want the magic life-draining sword that's decided to claim her, but sometimes it comes in handy.

  Like when the restless dead decide to get a little more restless than usual.

  Ghosts, cultists, and the Wild Hunt are about to make this a Halloween no one in Ithaca will ever forget.

  If they live to tell the tale ...

  Preorder now!

  September 29, 2020

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  Pronunciation Key

  This series, and this book in particular, includes a number of characters whose names are drawn from Welsh and Irish mythology. These are rough approximations only; please also see Welsh pronunciation guide on Wiktionary and Irish pronunciation guide.

  In the Welsh names, "th" is pronounced hard, as in "the," not soft, as in "thrush."

  Welsh characters, places, and mythological deities

  Gwyn ap Nudd = gwin ap neeth

  Creiddylad = CRAY-thuh-lad or CRY-thuh-lad

  Taliesin = TAHL-lee-ess-in

  Annwn = AN-noon

  Irish characters and mythological deities

  Fand = fahn

  Manannán mac Lir = mahnahnan mac leer

  Muirin = mwur-in

  (more commonly spelled Muireann)

  Historical Notes

  Echo City incorporates a number of real-world historical and mythological figures. Here are some background notes on important people, places, and mythological beings featured in this book.

  Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall

  William "Boss" Tweed was a major player in New York politics in the 1860s and 1870s. He effectively ran the New York City government in the late 1860s and early 1870s, through a combination of bribery, political pressure, and control of various public commissions, combined with philanthropy that gave him a strong following among the city's working class. Through graft and cronyism, Tweed enriched himself and his friends from the city's funds. He also rose to lead Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine that essentially controlled the careers of Democratic politicians in New York at the time.

  The tiger was a symbol associated with Tweed and subsequently Tammany Hall for most of his career. The "Tammany Tiger" was made famous by cartoonist Thomas Nast in a series of political cartoons mocking Tweed.

  Read more about Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall on Wikipedia.

  Stephanie "Queenie" St. Clair

  St. Clair was a Harlem gangster and activist in the 1920s, a self-made female crime boss who taught herself English after arriving in the U.S. from the West Indies by way of France. Ambitious and often ruthless, she became wealthy in the Harlem numbers racket, dated and/or was married to several Harlem gangsters, refused to submit to the Mafia and eventually, after quietly retiring from her criminal activities, she ended her life elderly, wealthy, and successful. She was also a community organizer who educated the Harlem public about their voting rights and protested police brutality.

  She was known as "Queenie" outside of Harlem (a diminutive nickname for Queen of Harlem), but disliked the nickname and was respectfully called Madame St. Clair in Harlem, which is why, in the book, only Tweed calls her Queenie. Read more about her on Wikipedia.

  Amelia Earhart

  The well-known female American aviator s
et several world records and disappeared in 1937 in the Pacific while attempting a circumnavigational flight around the world. Millie was one of her childhood nicknames, short for Amelia.

  Taliesin

  Historically, Taliesin was a bard who lived in 6th century Wales. Not much is known about the actual, historical person; he is mentioned in a few histories but is mainly known through larger-than-life legends about his life. He is thought to be part of the inspiration for the fictional Merlin (from the King Arthur mythos).

  Gwyn ap Nudd and Creiddylad

  In Welsh myth, Gwyn ap Nudd and his counterpart, a deity named Gwythyr, each rule the Welsh otherworld for half the year, with Gwyn in charge of the winter half and Gwythyr ruling in the summer. (This Winter King/Summer King power handover is a common motif in Celtic myth, explaining the changing of the seasons.) The battle is fought over the hand of the maiden Creiddylad, who cannot marry either until one emerges victorious—but neither of them will ever win, as the battle repeats itself every year.

  Gwyn ap Nudd leads the Welsh version of the Wild Hunt, hunting with a pack of supernatural hounds that were said to be white with red ears. He is also a psychopomp, a figure in myth who escorts the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

  Manannán mac Lir and Fand