Bad Luck Girl

by Sarah Zettel

“Well, Jacob Hollander.” Her words were thick and hard. “You’ve come home, have you? And brought some friends.”

  “Looks that way, Mrs. Burnstein,” said Jack. He didn’t look back at her either, just started climbing the stairs and we all followed. Papa touched his hat to the woman. She slammed the door shut.

  Jack stopped at the second floor. There was another dark door, with a worn spot on the varnish that made the silhouette for the number seven. A radio on the other side blared hot jazz. There was a thing hanging on the threshold that looked like two little tubes tied together with blue thread. Jack looked at it and a muscle in his cheek jumped. He touched it, and my magic told me something sparked way down inside him. Then Jack shouldered the door open.

  The room on the other side was a match for the hallway: narrow, dim, and dingy. Somebody’d tried to make it respectable once. There were lace curtains on the windows, but they were as worn as the carpet on the floor. There was a sort of sitting room with a sagging sofa and a pair of threadbare chairs drawn up to the radiator like it was a fireplace. A dusty upright piano stood in one corner. The blasting radio sat on top of it. A Murphy bed had been unfolded from the wall and it was covered with a mess of tangled sheets and newspapers. There was a tiny, dirty kitchen with a sink and a cookstove. A table and six mismatched chairs created the dining room. Two of those chairs were occupied by hard-eyed men who twisted around as Jack led us inside. One man jumped to his feet, his hand digging into the pocket of his corduroy jacket. Jack froze in place, and the man stared, and then he smiled.

  “Well, well. Hello there, Jacob.” The man was tall like Jack was, with Jack’s kind of popped-out blue eyes and curly brown hair. But where Jack was skinny, this man was filled out thick with muscle and fat. He brought his empty hand out of his pocket and I saw how the knuckles were a mess of scars. He used that scarred hand to smack the other man on the arm and point at us. “Look, Simon! Jacob’s home.”

  “Well, well. Who’d’ve thought,” the second man said, without bothering to take the cigarette out of his wide mouth. He wore a blue work shirt and dungarees. The bridge of his nose had been mashed flat against his broad face and all in all, he looked like the world’s biggest, whitest frog. His hair was starting to thin on top, and he had at least a day’s worth of dark stubble on his soft, round chin. He had the Hollander blue eyes too, but his lids seemed to be half closed, making him look like he was sneaking a permanent peek out at the world.

  “Hello, Ben,” said Jack carefully to the thick-muscled man with the scarred hands. “Hello, Simon.” The frog-faced man grinned at him, squinting his eyes down even farther. “Where’s Ma?”

  Ben’s jacket rumpled as he shrugged his broad shoulders. “Dead.” The word dropped cold and hard from him. He cracked his scarred knuckles as if for emphasis. “Pop too.”

  Jack froze like he’d been cornered, except for his Adam’s apple, which kept bobbing up and down.

  “When?” he croaked finally.

  “Last year.” Simon puffed hard on his cigarette. It wobbled between his lips and sent a shower of ash sprinkling down on the tabletop. “Doc said it was the diphtheria.”

  I moved closer beside Jack. Nothing could have stopped me. Mama and Papa closed up behind us, not saying anything, just being a wall at our backs. I wanted to say sorry to Jack. Something. Jack was just finding out his parents were dead and he shouldn’t have to face it with nothing but silence. But I didn’t want to say anything soft in front of these two.

  “So.” Ben dropped himself back down in his chair, one leg kicked out in front of him and his blunt, hard fingers brushing the battered tabletop. “What’re you doing back here? And what’s all this?” His popped-out eyes looked us over as sharp as his brother’s half-closed eyes had.

  “Friends of mine,” answered Jack stonily. “We need a place to stay.”

  Simon finally took the cigarette out of his wide frog mouth. He fished a battered pack out of his shirt pocket with the other hand, shook a fresh cigarette out of it, lit the new one off the stub of the old one, and slotted that fresh cigarette into place between his lips. There was an old saucer on the table that did double duty as an ashtray, and he ground the other cigarette butt out thoroughly. It was only when he finished with that important business that he peeked up at us again. “Got any money?” he asked.

  Ben cuffed Simon’s arm again. “Now, Sy, is that any way to talk to your brother?”

  “Brother. Right,” wheezed Simon. His half-moon eyes narrowed down to slits. “He’s such a brother he don’t even bother to write his poor old mother to say where he’s got to. He runs out on his family, until he needs a place to stay.” He hawked and spat on the floor. Mama winced. “So, like I said, you got any money?”

  Ben rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “See what I gotta put up with? Better answer him, Jacob.”

  Jack’s eyes shifted sideways to me and Papa. I saw the anger and the shame, and I understood like I never had before why he’d run away. I’d thought it was the bootlegging, and how his sister died. But if these two were his brothers, what could his parents have been like?

  Papa stepped up. He fixed his gaze on Ben and Simon and the fairy light behind his eyes flashed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills in a gold money clip. He peeled off a fifty and laid it down on the scarred and greasy table.

  “Will that be enough, gentlemen?”

  By then I’d seen a lot of nasty things, but nothing quite as nasty as the way Simon looked my father slowly up and slowly down again. It was only when he nodded that Ben’s hairy, scarred hand closed over that fairy fifty-dollar bill and dragged it across the table to his pocket.

  “You can stay in the back room.” Ben jerked his chin toward a door at the rear of the flat. “No one is in residence there at this time.”

  “Thank you,” said Papa evenly. “I’m sure that will be just fine.”

  The back room wasn’t any better than the front. Its one bed had a rusty iron frame, a torn quilt, and a mattress that looked like it had been starved for stuffing since birth. The dresser had a broken leg. A crack ran straight across the middle of its speckled mirror and the bottom drawer was missing. There was an old, stained pot in the corner and a smell I really, truly did not want to think about.

  But none of that was as bad as seeing the way Jack’s face twisted up as he sat on the edge of that rusted bed. He pressed his elbows against his knees, and his face into his hands. I sat down next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. Jack shuddered, and he shuddered again. He wasn’t crying. He didn’t dare, I was sure of it. If he started, those two mooks out front who happened to be his brothers would hear. A sudden picture flashed in front of my eyes, of Jack sitting in this room, shuddering just like this, just after his sister died, just before he decided to hit the road. I stared up at my parents. They stood shoulder to shoulder, their fingers twined together, and in Mama’s blue human eyes and Papa’s bright fairy eyes I saw the same sympathy, the same wish to make things better. I saw they understood what Jack meant to me and I saw they were glad for it.

  I bit my lip hard, because if I didn’t, I would have bust out crying myself.

  Eventually, Jack stopped shuddering. Even though his eyes had stayed dry, he wiped his face hard against his sleeves. I pulled away and kept my mouth shut. As hard as that was, the grateful glance he gave me made it worth it. He knew I understood, and I knew he was thanking me, and we needed nothing else right then.

  “So.” Jack took one more deep breath and squared his shoulders toward Papa. “We’re home. Now how’re we gonna get ourselves out of here?”

  Papa pushed back the tattered curtain and eyed the clinker piles, the river, and the towering smokestacks like he was sizing them up for a fight. But when he faced us again, his manner was bright and brisk.

  “First things first. I’m sure you are all as hungry as I am.” He pulled out his money clip again. “Jack, if you’ll oblige us by finding a delicatessen or diner and getting
us something? You need to pay before full dark.”

  “Sure thing.” Jack slid a bill in his pocket. Could he feel Papa was holding something back? I could, and I didn’t like it. “I just need to go around the corner, and you don’t need to worry … I mean …” He fumbled and nodded toward the door.

  “We’ll be fine,” Mama said firmly, but I saw the “I hope” look on her face. Jack was in too much of a hurry to notice. He slammed out our door, and then the apartment’s front door. The sound of his running footsteps vibrated through the walls as he barreled down the stairs.

  “What was that about?” I asked Papa. “Why’d you want him out of the way?”

  “That was about needing to set the protection for us.” The light in Papa’s eyes sparked. “Jack does not need to see how that involves his brothers. Callie, will you please come with me?”

  Mama frowned at him. “Daniel, are you sure?”

  “Callie needs to begin to understand her magic, Margaret. It’s been left too long already.” He paused. “I think it would be better if you stayed in here.”

  Mama hesitated, then nodded, and a strange rush of disappointment passed through me. I wanted her to argue, but I had no idea why. I knew how my magic worked, but not well. I wanted to learn more, and if anybody could teach me, it would be Papa. Why would I want Mama to get up in the way of that?

  I glanced at Papa to see if he’d picked up on any of that stray thinking. In answer, he just flashed me a smile that was meant to be encouraging, but it didn’t quite do the job. We had to settle for me following him like a good daughter.

  Out in the other room, Ben and Simon were still sitting at the table. They’d gotten out a battered deck of cards and were playing two-handed pinochle across that greasy surface. As Papa and I stepped out of the back room, their expressions slid from startled to slimy.

  “Now, is there something we can do for you, folks? Wouldn’t want you to think you were receiving less than our finest hospitality for your fifty.” As nasty as the look Simon had given Papa had been, the one he gave me was worse. He looked like he was wondering how I’d taste between his dirty teeth, and if I’d run too fast to be worth the trouble of catching.

  Papa didn’t seem to see it. “I hope neither of you gentlemen would object to a little music?” He snapped off the radio.

  Ben didn’t like that. “Depends,” he said darkly, “on who’s playin’.”

  “Well, that would be myself.” Papa gave them a fine, shining smile and bowed, reminding me a whole lot of Lincoln Jones putting on his porter face. At the same time, though, I felt the magic swirling out of him, making its way across the room, easing into Jack’s big brothers.

  Simon shrugged. “The boy wants to play, let ’im play. Come on, Benny, your bet.”

  Papa didn’t say one word about being called boy. He just lifted the lid on the piano keys and beckoned me over to sit beside him on the bench. He touched the middle C and winced. Even I could tell that piano was really out of tune.

  “You’ll be taking the bass line,” he whispered. “Here, and here.” He showed me where to put my hands and set his fingers to the keys farther up the board.

  “I don’t know, Papa.” I knew I could play. The magic in me could turn out music without me even having to think about it. But the one time I’d actually sat at a piano, things had not gone so good, or any kind of good at all.

  “It’ll be all right,” he murmured. “Just follow my lead.”

  “But Jack …”

  “We don’t need his permission anymore,” said Papa, entirely missing the point he hadn’t given me a chance to make. “Those two accepted our payment and laid no conditions on our stay. We are already inside.” Papa nodded his head, marking time. “Five, six, seven, eight …”

  Papa began to play. His music was slow and lazy, light, gentle, and complicated all at once. His graceful hands drew a soft stream of song effortlessly from the old piano and somehow the bad tuning didn’t matter. It was still beautiful. It made you think of sunrise, of anticipation.

  I don’t think I could have kept my hands still if I wanted to. The magic in me caught up that anticipation, that ease, and spun it into music. I touched the deeper keys, and built up a foundation for the tune, a rich bass contrast to support the sweet melody line.

  Ben and Simon weren’t playing cards anymore. They’d shoved back their chairs to listen. I could feel their attention as clearly as I could feel the keys under my fingers.

  Now, daughter. Papa’s voice sounded in my head, and it wasn’t startling at all. He’d been there since we’d begun to play. It was so natural, I just hadn’t noticed. Here’s where we show them we mean business. Five, six, seven …

  I knew what I needed to do and I knew I could do it. I changed the rhythm I was keeping. Slowed it down, making the tune deeper and calmer. Papa’s hands and magic took that calm up into the brightness of the melody line, spreading it wide, turning the music into sunrise to fill the room, the whole dingy apartment, and Jack’s no-good brothers.

  You’re safe, that tune said. All safe. This place is ours. We belong here. As long as we are here, you are safe and sound. There can be no danger while we are here.

  Very good, daughter, came Papa’s voice. His magic worked on mine, showing me how to make the spell shaping easier, to make each note, each beat of my heart, each idea do what was needed, no more. He showed me how to stretch out and lay claim to what I needed, but quietly, carefully. Insidiously. We needed this place; we needed these two. We’d make them ours and this was how.

  These walls and roof will shelter us. We belong here. You will protect us.

  That spell sank into Ben and Simon. Ben’s scarred hands stopped their restless fiddling with the cards and instead started to drum in time with our lazy, persistent rhythm. Simon’s half-moon eyes crinkled around the edges, not like he was smiling, but like he might be thinking about it. I did smile as I played, enjoying the way my fingers added little flourishes to the tune. This was good. Those two greasy mooks had to do what we said now. Our spell wrapped itself around their hearts and tied a pretty bow. There’d be no more dirty looks, no more snide little insults. We owned this place now. It was ours.

  Now, the big finish, Papa told me.

  The tune changed again. It became slower yet brighter, stronger than it had been yet until we brought our hands down together in a final rich, ringing chord. As the music faded, the magic dissolved into the flat, becoming part of the boards, the bricks, the window glass, the warp and weft of the ragged carpet, and the blood and bone of the Hollander brothers.

  My father lifted his hands from the keys and turned himself around to face the Hollanders.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “I hope that did not offend anyone’s sensibilities.”

  “Uh, nah, nah.” Benny shook himself. “You play anytime you want, ol’ man. That’ll be fine by us.”

  “And I trust there will be no problem with us staying as long as we wish?”

  Simon pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and frowned at it, trying to figure out why it had gone dead. “Sure, sure, whatever you want.”

  “And you will say nothing to anyone about us,” Papa went on, his voice velvet soft, and just as dark. “Or any other matter we do not choose to have discussed.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just like you say.” Ben had already scooted his chair back around to face the table. “Come on, Sy, whose bet?”

  They went right back to the cards. I got the feeling I could have danced the tango on the piano bench and they wouldn’t have looked up, unless and until Papa told them to.

  Papa smiled. I had to look away. That smile made him look way too much like Shake. It didn’t sit well with the shine I felt in my own eyes, and a shiver skittered between my shoulder blades.

  The door downstairs opened and footsteps pounded up the stairs. A second later the knob rattled and Jack burst into the room, a half-dozen paper sacks clutched in his fists.

  “Ah, our hero yet again
.” Papa slapped his knees and got to his feet. “Thank you, Jack. I’m sure Callie’s about perishing, aren’t you, Callie?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Jack.”

  But Jack wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at his brothers. Simon puffed his cigarette. Ben tossed a card down. Neither of them so much as turned his head to see him standing there. It was like they had blinders on. But Jack didn’t have any kind of blinders. He saw plain as day, thanks to the wish I’d granted him, and Jack’s understanding that we’d enchanted his brothers slid knife-sharp across my skin. Then I felt something else. Jack was afraid. Jack Holland was really, truly, badly afraid of me.

  I hauled my magic senses shut before I had to feel that for one second longer. I followed Papa and Jack into the back room like nothing had happened. But it had, and I was never getting away from that look in Jack’s eyes again.

  10

  Man’s Got a Heart

  We didn’t sit down to dinner right away. First, Papa fixed up our room. As quick as being on the train had robbed him of his strength, being out in the open air had brought it back. Cinderella’s fairy godmother would have blushed to see the kinds of changes my father was able to work. By the time he’d finished walking round it, the grimy back room had turned into a tidy hotel room, with a plush carpet on the floor. There were three beds so spick-and-span they could have been just made up by Mr. Jones, the porter, plus a plump sofa long enough for even Jack to stretch out on. There were clean clothes in the closet and in the dresser. Four chairs clustered around a table with a vase of flowers and a lace doily. The window was not only cleaned, but dressed with fresh, ruffled curtains. Best of all, the old-cabbage smell was gone, replaced by the scent of wash soap and lavender.

  “It’s just for tonight, right?” Jack turned in place and stared at the now-comfortable room. He didn’t sound anywhere near as excited as he had when he first got his set of new clothes for traveling fairy class. “It’ll be gone in the morning?”

  “Not this time,” answered Papa cheerfully. “Now that we’ve laid the protection down, we belong fully in this place and what we do here can be permanent.”