by Sharon Lee
I carefully nodded, keeping my eyes on his.
“We get older,” he said, sounding defiant. “We . . . change.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling that resonate deep in my chest. “We change.”
We change . . .
I rounded the edge of the storm gate, the aroma of egg rolls making my mouth water, and swung out into Baxter Avenue, meaning to cross over to Tony Lee’s, get myself a plate of early lunch, and have a chat with Anna, Tony’s wife, who knows everything going on in the park, though she hardly ever leaves the booth.
Intent as I was on this goal, I didn’t see him bearing down from my right until it was almost too late—and truth to tell, I didn’t see him so much as register something too big and too close. I’d been trained in the arts of war—House Aeronymous core princess curriculum—and training will out.
. . . usually at the worst possible moment.
I ducked, kicked, and connected.
“Hey!” was the first shout, quickly followed by, “Ow! Hey! Ms. Archer!”
I’d ridden the kick into a spin, now I straightened, staring up into a wholesome face that was at the moment wearing an expression more pained than pleasant.
Despite which, I recognized him.
“Kyle,” I said. “Sorry about that. You startled me.”
“Guess I did,” he said ruefully, bending down to rub his knee. I felt a pang, remembering the solid connection I’d made.
“You okay? Let’s go over to Tony Lee’s and get you some ice.”
“Nah, hey, it’s fine,” he said, sending a quick glance down, then back up to my face. He grinned, sort of.
“Good thing you weren’t wearing boots, though.”
That was the truth. I’d’ve crushed his kneecap if I’d been wearing proper footwear instead of sneakers. Still . . .
“Ice’ll keep it from swelling. Doesn’t hurt to be proactive.”
“I’ll ice it and elevate it and do everything good when I get home, promise.” He was looking more pleasant and less peeved now. “I’ve studied martial arts, off and on. You’ve got good technique.”
I laughed. “Good technique includes being certain of your target. I didn’t even get a look at you.”
“I was too close, and you were spooked.” A shadow passed over his face. “Sometimes, the past does our thinking for us.”
I felt the truth of that echo along my link with the land. It saddened me to think that even wholesome apple-cheeked boys learned that lesson, and I gave him a small bow, in acknowledgment of a truth said well.
“I take it you’re headed home, now?” I asked, deliberately breaking the seriousness of the moment.
“Roundabout,” he answered. “Ms. Anderson doesn’t have any work for me today, so I thought I’d come by and see the carousel, like we talked about.” He held up his hands.
Which was why the lad had been lurking by the front door. True, I’d asked him to give me some notice for a private tour, but it wasn’t unreasonable to think I might be at the carousel half an hour early on an open day, and be grateful for a little company.
“Be glad to give you the quick tour,” I said, and firmly closed my lips before if you think you’re up to it got loose. A man is the best judge of his own injuries, my grandfather’s arms master used to say, and add, after a wink and a beat, until he swoons.
Fishing the key out of my pocket, I turned, unlocked the padlock, and opened the door.
“Go on in,” I told him, putting my hands on the gate’s edge. “I’ll just push the walls out of the way.”
It didn’t really surprise me to see him set his shoulder against the opposite side, and push.
The storm walls moved, clattering and groaning as they went back on the track, meeting the stops at the sides of the maintenance shed with a clash of steel against steel.
I jumped up on the carousel, crossed the platform and dropped down into the pit, pulling open the panel, and flipping various switches. One switch snapped the lights on along the sweeps, and the outer ring. Another lit the fancy facade that hid the center of the machine from view. A third illuminated the orchestrion. I opened the door and ducked inside to kick the motor on.
By the time I was out, door latched behind me, Kyle was on the platform, both hands resting on the charger’s gilded saddle, looking around, as wide-eyed as any kid. I waited at the center, loath to jump onto the platform and shatter his moment of wonder.
Slowly, as if he stood by a living animal, he raised one hand, and ran his fingertips down the proudly arched neck, armored in ebon and red. He watched his fingers move, then looked up and about again. His steps soundless on the platform, he walked down the wheel, caressing the creatures as he went.
I stepped quietly onto the platform as he vanished around the curve, walking like a man in a dream, as silent as a dream, himself.
My attention was on the ticket box when he came back into sight, walking a little brisker now, eyes still rounder than most adults allow themselves, his hands gentle on carved necks and noses.
I slapped the box back together, adjusted the stool that I hardly ever sat on, and turned to face Kyle as he slipped through the gap in the safety rail. He turned and conscientiously pushed it flush with the other sections, before facing me.
“That rooster,” he said. “It doesn’t belong.”
“In the sense that it’s where it is because I put it there, it does belong. On the other hand, I know exactly how you feel. Problem is that I lost a horse just at the end of April. Takes time to carve a new one—and money—and I probably don’t have to tell you, they want the moon and a couple stars for one of the old animals, restored.”
“Well . . .” He took a step forward, and put his hands on the ticket box. “I’m a finish carpenter. I can make you a horse.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Ms. Anderson doesn’t keep you busy enough?”
“There’s only another week until that job’s done. I could go back to Amesbury and hustle work—it’s summer, after all, but . . .” He paused, his cheeks flushing a delicate, pale pink. “See, I took the Wishes job because it was at the ocean. I thought, after it was done, I’d pick up more work here, and kind of have a . . . working vacation.” He sighed. “I grew up on Hatteras Island—that’s North Carolina. Miss it, sometimes. But, look, when I was learning—I ’prenticed with a guy up—well, down—in Glen Echo, Maryland. He made custom carousel horses, and I worked with him for almost a year. He’d gotten backed up and needed another pair of hands. I can give you his number, if you want to check.”
I shook my head. “I’m guessing that I can’t afford you,” I said, giving it to him straight. “There’s a lot of time in a horse, not to mention materials.”
“Around four hundred hours;” he grinned, “about a million of ’em sanding. And there’s downtime, for glue to dry. But, see, I was talking to Mrs. Ellenbach the other day—you know Mrs. Ellenbach?”
I shook my head. “Townie or summer person?”
He gave the question serious consideration, brows drawn.
“Summer person,” he said eventually. “She lives in the condos, marsh-side—Black Duck Manor—and she needs bookshelves built in.”
The light dawned. “So you’ve already got some work lined up, and the more work you do, the more references you’ll have in-town . . .”
“. . . and the more work I’ll get, and the longer I can stay here.” He finished, grinning at me like I had done something particularly clever—it reminded me, unsettlingly, of Mr. Ignat’.
“There’s still the question of price,” I said, getting back to brass tacks. “How much?”
He pushed the Home Depot hat back off his forehead, and frowned down at the ticket box.
“What’s the wood?” he asked abruptly. “Bass?”
I shook my head. “Tupelo.”
“Tupelo?”
“The original animals were carved by a great-great-etcetera-uncle, and the family woodlot had tupelo.”
He nodded, but the frown was more pronounced.
“If I can get you the wood,” I asked, “will that help?”
He looked doubtful. “It’ll be . . . a hundred fifty board feet, near enough.”
I nodded. “If I can get it at all, I can get all you need.”
“Well, then.” He tipped his head to one side. “Twenty-five hundred.”
“The sea air’s gone to your head, son. That hardly covers your time.”
“It’s my time,” he said, “so I get to say what it’s worth. I hardly ever get a chance to make a carousel horse, Ms. Archer. I’ve got the skill, and it’s going to waste. Besides,” he grinned, “I want to do it.”
“Hard to argue with that,” I said, and stepped Sideways.
It’s rude to look at people in Side-Sight, like talking about someone in their presence, in a foreign language. Still, if he was an ordinary citizen of the Changing Land, he’d never know.
And if he was an avenging Ozali from another of the Worlds . . . I brought one of my premade defense spells to the tips of my metaphorical fingers, even as I looked at Kyle.
No jikinap, no glamor, no glow of geas or spell; nothing but the faintest silvery shine of luck about him.
I let the defense spell go, and stepped fully back into the here and now.
“You’re provisionally hired,” I said, “pending my ability to provide the wood. Give me a cell number—yours, and that reference from down Away. I’ll call you tomorrow with a yes or no.”
“Great!” Forget palpable, his delight damn’ near knocked me down. “I’ve got a—”
But whatever it was he had was drowned out by a blare, as rude as it was unmistakeable, followed by another just like it.
Marilyn had hit the air horn.
Fun Country was open for business.
CHAPTER EIGHT
High Tide 10:14 P.M.
Sunset 8:21 P.M. EDT
Early Season Fridays are usually slow days, and this Friday wasn’t any exception. With an hour ’til closing, the ticket box wasn’t quite half full. Not going to Vegas on that. Hell, not going to the grocery store on that.
At least I’d had time to savor the cashew chicken sent over from Tony Lee’s at suppertime. The Lee Delivery Service guy on the day had been Jason, a strapping high schooler, who had given it as his opinion that tomorrow the park would be hopping.
“But there’s a school rally tonight,” he said, “and most of the kids are there.”
“You’d think the school would check the park schedule before deciding when to hold a rally,” I said, not really serious about it.
He looked doubtful. “I don’t think our principal really approves of the park—at least, not the arcade. Might be just as well if we’re off his radar.”
“I take your meaning,” I said, slipping the plastic fork out of its protective napkin. “So, why aren’t you at the rally?”
“I have to work.”
It was said matter-of-factly, without a trace of self-pity or irritation. The Lee ethic bred true.
“Well, if you gotta work, don’t let me keep you! Tell Anna, please, that supper looks absolutely delicious. Thank you for bringing it over.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, nice and polite, and took himself off, leaving me a little too alone with my meal.
I’d been so thin of company that I couldn’t get a reading on how the rooster was doing on the popularity scales. When there’s only one or two customers per ride, they’ve got the whole menagerie to choose from, and tend to mount the flashier critters. The unicorn got good play, and the hippocampus; the dolphin, the bronc, and the Indian pony. The poor, flea-bitten bear didn’t get much love; neither did the subtly misshapen bobcat. The lion caught attention, off and on, and the giraffe was a clear favorite with certain of the very young set, as was the ostrich, but the rabbit might as well have been invisible.
Well. No accounting for taste.
So, anyway, at 9:10 on the last Friday night of the Early Season, I stepped into Baxter Avenue, and looked around me. Summer’s Wheel, next door, was turning slowly, advertising its existence to any who cared to look, I guessed, since I didn’t see anybody in the gondolas. Across the way at Tony Lee’s, Anna was braced, palms flat on the counter, leaning out and looking down the avenue. I raised an arm and waved. She caught the motion, straightened and waved back.
I considered the aspect before me. A gaggle of middle-agers came ’round the corner from Fountain Circle, which was my cue to call out—
“Carousel’s open, ladies—gents! Two tickets a ride!”
Talking among themselves, they didn’t even turn their heads. I sighed, and shook mine.
People flock to carousels, even in this day and age, which is the reason I don’t hire a barker. Some of the rides need them—the Terminator looks so damned scary, the barker’s job is basically to dare the customers on to it. Carousels—even my carousel—look friendly; they call up memories more glad than sad; they don’t demand any particular courage or bravado, just . . . choose a mount to your liking and relax while the music plays, and the wheel goes ’round and ’round.
Problem was, even a barker can’t produce riders from an empty midway. Which was pretty much what I had. A couple was coming up the empty avenue from Dodge City: A skinny old man bent over a stick gamely followed a stout woman of about his age. She kept a uniform two steps ahead, like she was breaking trail. I sang out an invite—she didn’t look, but he turned his head and smiled.
“Evenin’, dear,” he called, his voice high and sweet, and kept on with the task of walking.
“Evenin’,” I murmured, and fell back a step, watching them round the corner into Fountain Circle. My sight flickered, and for a moment I saw a slender, bookish young man on the arm of a sturdy young woman, heads together, yellow hair and brown, matching steps, and matching smiles . . .
I shook my head; the image faded, and here was another potential customer, coming up from Dodge City. He was wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled up, head bent, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. His sneakers were eye-piercingly white, and his shoulders were hunched up into his ears. He might have been alone on the midway—alone on the planet, for all of that.
Kind of a tough sell for a ride on the merry-go-round.
Still, I stepped up to the plate, filling my lungs for a good yell. If I couldn’t get him to fork over two tickets and climb on the back of a critter, at least I might be able to wake him up.
Except that, just a few feet away, he lifted his head, stared around like he’d just woke up, focused on the carousel, then on me, and walked toward us both, taking his hands out of his pockets, to reach up and yank the hood back and down.
“Your pardon,” he said, in strongly accented English. “I look for Kate of the carousel.”
His voice was low, but smooth; face an inverted triangle—high, broad forehead half-hidden under a fringe of reddish brown hair. Pointed chin; long, decided nose; definite cheekbones; thin lips. Brown eyes set deep under high-arching eyebrows. Pale skin. Freckles.
“I’m Kate Archer,” I told him, and cocked a thumb over my shoulder. “That’s the carousel. And you are?”
He looked at the carousel, then back to my face, ducking his head slightly, maybe in embarrassment.
“I am Vassily Abramovich Davydenko. Manager Marilyn sends me to you. For work.”
I blinked, then nodded. He wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but thinking about it, I couldn’t exactly say what I’d been expecting.
“Have you ever operated a carousel?” I asked him.
“No,” he said flatly, and, as if he realized that sounded just a thought short, added quickly, “I am very fast to learn. The hours—Manager Marilyn said every day, four hours, contract rate, and lunch.”
Okay, so now I knew what was at the top of his mind. Fair enough. Hours and a meal every day weren’t luxuries everybody had.
“I’ll show you the details. Right now, if you’ve got time. Then you can
decide if it looks like something you’d care to take on. All right?”
A faint crease showed between those high-arched brows.
“Four hours,” he repeated. “Every day. And lunch. I learn, so very fast.”
“You bet,” I agreed, a little taken aback by quite so much desperation. “Let’s go inside.”
He wanted me to call him Vassily; he was from Ukraine; and he really did learn fast. By the time the five-minute warning sounded he had mastered the operator’s board, the emergency stop, and could thread the Violano paper through the orchestrion faster than I could, myself, so deft that I had no fear for the fragile paper.
He helped me close the storm gates; then, at my invitation, he mounted the machine and walked among the animals, studying each one with the somber seriousness that seemed characteristic of him.
“These are good,” he said. “I will like working with these.”
He walked deliberately, footsteps quiet and respectful against the old wooden decking. His fingertips trailed along the sides of each critter he passed, as if he were memorizing their tactile signature.
Unlike everybody else, he neither stared, nor checked, when he came to the rooster, he merely moved gently by, fingers tracing neck, saddle, and harum-scarum tail-feathers.
When he had finished the circle, he came to the edge by the chariot, his hand resting on the curved neck of the money-side swan.
“I will like this. I will work hard. Four hours a day. Every day. All Season. Will you have me?”
I considered him. He was weird, but who wasn’t? Clearly, he needed the work, and—to the point for both Nancy and me—he could do the work.
“Sure, I’ll have you. We still need to finish up training, though. Can you work for a couple hours tomorrow? I’d like you to have some real-time operating under your belt before we turn you loose by yourself.”
There was a longish pause, as if he had to work through the idiom, then he nodded. “I will come—at noon?”
“At eleven, if it fits with your other hours,” I said, thinking what the hell; might as well train him up proper. “You can learn how to open up, too.”