This place had to be bursting at the seams with fairy tales, but still. “Hey Rat, why are we here?”
“Bringing the dead to life is hard, Miss Mary. Faking it is easy. To bring Scarecrow the rest of the way we’ll need strong magic and an expert.”
French accents, brightly colored wooden buildings, the river, lots of booze, lots of magic—it all fell together at once. “This is New Orleans, and we’re looking for a voodoo priest,” I said.
“A witch, if we can find one.” I reached a hand out and he jumped eagerly out of Scarecrow’s hands onto my palm, then climbed up my sleeve to cling to it where it cut off and left my shoulder bare.
“Can I have one of those lanterns?” Scarecrow asked.
“No,” I refused, “I’m pretty sure there’s some stupid curse attached.”
“Okay. How do we find a voodoo witch?” she said.
“First, we give me a minute.” I stepped out of the doorway and went down to the boardwalk. It was much like the one we’d left. Well, it was only like the one we’d left in that it was a boardwalk. These were all wooden planks, there were only a few piers and those were also wood, and had none of the machinery. I walked out to the edge, crossed my arms over the wooden railing and stared out at the sea.
Not the river, the sea. I’d never expected it to be a big deal. It was just a lot of water. Being this close, it wasn’t. Dark water rippled, and there was no end to it. The water went on and on, out of sight, until dark blue water became dark blue sky. The breeze rolled over me. This was that extra scent I’d caught on the other side of the club. Like standing in a fog.
Scarecrow folded her arms on the railing a few feet down, copying my position exactly. Whatever. I stared for another minute. The sky kept getting darker, and so did the sea, and I honestly couldn’t tell where the horizon was.
“Can we stay here? This place makes you happy,” Scarecrow asked.
Rat waved his hand in front of his muzzle trying to shut her up. I ought to smack him for it.
“No.” I looked around. This place should be swarming with seagulls, but I couldn’t see any. Instead, it had crows. Lots and lots of crows.
I walked up to one, and it stopped pecking at a blob of slime on the boards to eye me suspiciously. “You know where we need to go, right? Lead on,” I ordered it.
It kept giving me that look, and I couldn’t blame it. I’d have kicked me if I’d tried that on myself. Apparently, crows are better sports than me, because it took off, only to land at the intersection of a less gaudily lit street and hop around the corner. My vague worries that it was just avoiding me disappeared when other crows flew over to perch on buildings at that same corner, or fly around it and stare at me expectantly from the other street.
I followed. I didn’t even like to be led when I’d asked to be led, which showed what an idiot I could be. I swallowed the uncomfortable feeling and followed the crow as it did its dance, flying from light post to light post, and around a corner, before swooping into an alley to land in the back yard of a large house.
This was the place, alright. The crows filled the back yard, leaving me a path up to the back door. They even perched on the door’s lintel, fighting for room where every movement threatened to spill them off.
If this wasn’t the place, I was putting crows on the hate list right underneath fairies and above wolves.
There was no doorbell, or anything formal. I knocked on the back door loudly.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice called. In case I hadn’t gotten the message, door opened by itself.
Okay, final confirmation. Voodoo witch home. It looked like a gypsy fortuneteller’s parlor, just more sinister. You had the gaudy red paisley cloths over everything, painted white masks lined up on the walls, lots of mirrors, jars full of lumpy things arranged on a shelf, and best of all, a mannequin in an elaborate ruffly red gown slumped in a rocking chair with a huge hat and veil hanging down to cover its face. China and gold statues, bells, and other items that might be awesome magical artifacts or tacky nick-knacks crowded side tables and bookshelves. She had to be a real voodoo witch, because if a fake lived here a real one would soon come and kick her out and take it.
I wasn’t sure she looked the role, but I wasn’t sure I knew what the role should look like. A woman too old for college and too young for gray hairs eyed me, holding a handful of nails she’d just scooped out of a jar. I wasn’t sure if she was pretty, but I at least was sure she wasn’t ugly. Her skinny dress had its own selection of ruffles and might have competed with the one on the mannequin if not for the clashing purple and red theme. They didn’t go that well with dark brown hair and dark brown skin. I couldn’t tell if she was black, white, Indian, South American, or what. She was just dark.
The witch dropped the nails back into the jar and asked me, “A shell, a magic rat, and a little girl with the power of Red Riding Hood wrapped around her. Are you the reason the streets are full of trouble tonight?”
I didn’t know how I’d missed it even this long. One of those eyes that stared at me so hard might be black, but the other was a polished silver ball. Voodoo witch in spades. “Don’t ask me. If I had any control over this Red Riding Hood crap, I’d get rid of it.”
“I can’t help you, either. Orleans is a city full of wolves. I could raise every god, angel, and swamp spirit in Louisiana to try and separate you from the curse, and the war that would start would burn both sides of New Orleans to the ground. Now, be on your way,” she lectured. That was what it felt like. She had a crisp schoolteacher voice, and no accent I could spot.
I stepped inside and leaned back against the wall, folding my arms over my chest. “This is really New Orleans?”
She stared down at me like I was a giant pain in the rear, which continued to impress me with her intelligence. Her skirt showed it had a lot more give than I’d have believed as she walked over and sank into the big stuffed chair behind her fortuneteller table. “So, you’re from the daylight half, too. Yes, little girl, this is New Orleans. Parts of New Orleans disappear all the time. Places, and people. We end up here, where the swamp magic’s been waiting all along.”
I was getting sick of her calling me little girl already, but if she wasn’t going to offer her name, I wasn’t going to whine until she used mine. “I’m not here for you to help me. I’m here for you to help her.” I looked over at Scarecrow. For pity’s sake. She was trying to poke the crows on top of the door, but she couldn’t reach. They kept nipping at her fingers when she got close.
“What do you want? There’s no curse on her. She is what she is, a woken up doll. What you see is what you get,” the witch replied testily.
“She wants to live,” I replied, just as testily.
The witch raised an eyebrow. “She wants?”.
I guess it could be hard to believe Scarecrow had a brain in her head, even metaphorically.
Scarecrow could prove that herself “Yes, please. I know I’m not alive. I can’t look forwards and I can’t feel backwards. I want that. I want to be real. Flesh and blood would be cool, too.”
I was impressed and a little surprised, and apparently, so was the witch. She stared at Scarecrow hard. “Whoever made you, made you well, doll child. Do you have a name?”
“I’m Scarecrow!” she chirped, toddling up to the table.
“Is that even a name?” The witch could win championships for a suspicious stare and sarcastic tone of voice.
“Sure,” Scarecrow chirped. “It could be Mary or Hofbrincl or Stew Beef, and it wouldn’t matter, would it? It’s my name. I’m Scarecrow.”
That answer definitely ticked off the witch. No, I was supposed to think it ticked her off. That long, narrow-eyed stare was too good, right? So, I wasn’t surprised after all when the witch said, “You have a name, and understand what it means to have one. You want things. You have bits of soul stuck to you, and love. You’re right on the edge of life. Yes, I can push you over. I can make you alive, and even give you a living human
body if you want one. For a price.”
Here it came. There had to be a price. If there hadn’t been, she’d have been trying to cheat us. “What do you want?” was the question. Heck, I had a magic rat con artist. Whatever she wanted, he could get it.
“Magic. You trade magic for magic. There’s a lot of magic in that rat hanging from your sleeve. Useful magic. Clever magic. Give me one of his fingers, and I’ll make the shell into a real girl.”
“No way. Not even open for discussion,” I growled.
“Then you pay me something else. Magic or secrets. Money I can get from suckers,” she answered flatly.
“Don’t you have enough magic already? This thing blazes with magic. Is it alive?” Scarecrow asked, reaching for the tilted down hat on the overdressed mannequin.
The witch slapped her hand away. “You don’t touch My Lady, doll child. I’m just a woman. I’ve got no magic of my own, and no human has much anyway. When I needed a god to call on, My Lady answered. That’s how it works. I don’t have power, I have knowledge. I use it to collect other powers and use them instead. So, I’m telling you, if you want me to spend magic and secrets on you, you pay me in magic or secrets to make up the difference. Otherwise, nothing. You want free magic? You go find a fairy.”
I didn’t know how to say it. You know what? This was a voodoo witch. I spat on her carpet.
Instead of getting mad, she got the hint. “So you’ve met fairies,” she said with a smirk.
I glared at her. I didn’t have to say it. She obviously knew what nasty little magic vermin they were.
“Miss Mary,” Rat spoke up from my sleeve.
Oh, geez. Oh, geez, Rat. That hesitant voice. You’d really give your finger to give Scarecrow her happy ending. I didn’t deserve this kind of rat.
“NO,” I almost yelled down at him, giving him the angriest glare I could fake in the hopes he’d give up.
“You know fairies,” the witch said, “Catch one for me. I’ll take a fairy in payment, and you don’t care what I’ll do with it.”
That might be worth a try. Or, “If you want fairy magic, I’ve got a secret for you. Knowledge is power, right?”
“I’m listening.” The witch’s tone was guarded, her stare suspicious. To anybody watching, this must look like a duel.
Unless that person was Scarecrow. “Hey, what’s with your eye?” she asked abruptly.
We ignored her. It took a lot of effort. On my part, the effort was to not bust out laughing. “The fairy queen has this wooden puzzle box that’s her favorite toy. More than a toy, she’s obsessed with it. She won’t put it down, won’t pay attention to anything else. I think she’s had it for decades, and she can’t figure it out. She’s started marking doors with it, even,” I said.
The witch stared at me for a good and long time. That sour expression told me I’d won. She nodded to confirm it. “Yes,” she drawled for the first time as she thought about it, “That’s a good secret. I can use that. It’s payment enough for my services.”
“Is it enough to hear about your eye, too?” Scarecrow asked. I tried not to laugh again, but I bet the witch could tell.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you,” the witch replied testily. Pushing up from her chair, she began rooting through the boxes and piles of probably magic garbage piled up everywhere. It gave her time to explain, “You’re a shell. You see power, because without life that’s what’s obvious in the world. The eye does the same for me. It was a test, when I was still learning. I was offered replacements for the eye I’d lost. This one shone like silver, but I was smart enough to tell it was just a worthless ball of pewter disguised as a treasure. Then, I was smart enough to realize it was true power disguised as trash disguised as treasure. I took it, and I didn’t regret my choice. Let’s hope you don’t regret yours.”
With those ominous words, she pulled a small, vicious looking hacksaw out of a toolbox. All hacksaws look vicious. Nothing it could do would be good. The voodoo witch caught Scarecrow’s hand reaching for the bottle of nails and smacked it down on her tabletop.
“How much do you want to be real, Scarecrow?” the witch asked, staring right into Scarecrow’s wooden eyes.
“If I’m not alive, I’m dead,” Scarecrow answered. She almost sounded serious.
“There’s a piece of life inside you. Not enough. It’s surrounded by all this wood, and it makes your thoughts as meaningless as a lump of wood. I’ll have to cut away all the wood until I find the part of you that’s really alive. Only then can I give it flesh.” The voodoo witch told her all of this in an even, businesslike voice as she laid the hacksaw to Scarecrow’s wrist. “Are you ready to go through this to become a real girl?”
Scarecrow hesitated. The jagged notches of the saw had already dug tiny splinters out of her arm. I’d seen her shoulders twitch when they did, a reflex of pricking pain.
“Oh, no. Not happening!” I yelled. I stomped forward, grabbed the back of the saw, and yanked it away. I grabbed Scarecrow’s arm too, and threw down the saw as I pulled her away from the table.
I wanted to yell at the witch some more, but there was nothing to say. Scarecrow might be dumb enough to agree to this, but I wasn’t enough of a bitch to let her. Scarecrow stumbled along as I dragged her out the door, grabbed the handle, and slammed it closed. The boom when it hit sent crows flapping off into the night in every direction.
ell, that had been a giant waste of time.
Time had moved on, too. The sky had turned black. Only the full moon hanging low over the house across the yard showed me it wasn’t overcast. Just dark.
It hit me. “I’m tired. I’m exhausted. Come on, you two. I don’t know how much a gold coin is worth here, but I bet it’ll buy me a night in a real bed.”
They weren’t stupid enough to argue. We walked back up the alley onto the street, and I looked around. Hotels would be on streets with shops, right? Or inns, or something?
I headed for the lights. The occasional lamp post left this street peacefully dim, but I only had to look over the tops of the buildings to see which way the colors glowed. Anyway, I’d seen things in this town I wouldn’t want to meet on an abandoned back street. The bundled up figure sitting against a mailbox way down the road qualified. It might not have been moving towards me, but it was way too tall to be human. I went in the opposite direction, and took the first turn back into bright lights, and a second turn onto a street crowded with freaks and weirdos. Me, Scarecrow, and Rat fit in perfectly. More jazzy music came from up the street, so I went that way instead of down. A couple of blocks later, I hit an intersection like an open-air party.
These buildings were big. Mostly wide rather than tall, although they averaged about three stories. They should have been rich people’s houses, but they all seemed to be selling something instead. People—using the word generously—laughed, they drank, they walked hand in hand, they made out in corners or in the middle of the lanes, and they danced to musicians who’d set up at the side of the road.
I took Scarecrow’s wrist before she wandered off into that, and walked down the sidewalk, looking at the buildings. Quite a few of them rewarded the look, if only because they were heavy on huge bay windows, short towers, second and third floor balconies, and lots of wooden trim. We passed a bar—of course—and then a huge dance hall, and then a skinny clothing store. I hurried past a blacksmith’s shop, and slowed down to look at a display of music players and computer pads in the next window.
I’d rather a nice bed for the night. Barely. Anyway, I couldn’t charge it and I didn’t know where I’d get music for it. I’d been fantastically lucky that my old player had been second hand and had old songs from before I was born on it. It’d taken me months of hiding change to buy a used CD of Les Miserables and another week to sneak onto a school computer to copy it.
And now, I was getting mopey. Forget that. I dragged Scarecrow forward so hard she stumbled and nearly fell off her feet. She laughed and said, “My turn!” and bolted forward,
trying to drag me. She did a pretty good job of it. Being made of wood made her strong, but I knew how to dig in and I kept us to a completely undignified walking pace.
Rat climbed up higher onto my shoulder. Hard to miss rat claws on bare skin. “Miss Mary, I think Scarecrow’s following a will-o-the-wisp,” he whispered.
Huh. He was right. Several yards down, a pale white ball floated ahead of us over the heads of the crowd, and Scarecrow stared right at it.
I gave her a hard yank to pull us to a halt. “I think this is a hotel.” It looked like a restaurant and bar, with an open door and people eating and drinking inside, but two upper floors showed more lit windows. The sign over the door read ‘The Sergeant At Waterloo.’
Standing at the door got someone’s attention. A wiry middle aged guy with a red silk shirt missing buttons walked up to me and declared, “Such a fine young lady, and her servant and her pet, no doubt? What brings you to my humble, but honest establishment?”
“Not a thing,” I snapped, spun around fast, and walked across the street. I gave Scarecrow a good yank, too. I wanted to get out of sight and lost in the crowds fast enough that he forgot he saw me. He’d been so fake, I couldn’t believe anyone fell for it. I wouldn’t have slept in a room in his hotel if I could lock and barricade the door and had a gun.
Following that reasoning through, I pointed straight ahead. “I bet we can get a room for the night here.”
“Uh,” Rat mumbled. His dismay was cute.
I couldn’t possibly have missed that the converted mansion in front of us had been converted into a brothel. I hadn’t missed that at all. I pulled Scarecrow up the front steps and through the open double doors. It was a pretty nice place, for a not nice place. Lots of gold paint and red velvet furnishings, everything fancy, even pretty, and just a little too gaudy to be tasteful, but also worn. That also described the girls pretty well. A couple of them weren’t even wearing enough to be dressed immodestly, but whatever. That wasn’t my problem. Even the big blonde and the little blonde, who had no customers and stared right at me, didn’t look angry or unhappy. Their lives didn’t suck so badly that they were bitter and mean about it, and that told me what I personally needed to know.
Quite Contrary Page 20