by Tanya Huff
“Charlie!”
“Tony!”
Tony grinned a little too broadly. “This is Kristie!”
Charlie nodded at Kristie and glanced around the room. Taylor stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed. Jeff straddled a chair over by the television. They were both watching Tony. The redhead, Kristie, gave a little wave.
“You replaced Kristie, you know when you started, last um . . .” Tony’s voice trailed off, then his smile broadened back out again. “She had a baby! Uh, anyway, she was thinking of coming back and well, me and Jeff have known her since high school and . . .”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I know this is . . .”
Charlie raised a hand and cut him off again. “I’m talking to the universe, Tony. But thanks for playing.”
Allie twisted the end of her braid around her finger, perilously close to pouting. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I’ve left before,” Charlie reminded her, checking to make sure she’d put a couple pairs of underwear in the outside pocket of her gig bag.
“Sure, a week or two touring with the band . . .”
“Before that.”
“That was before this.” Her gestured somehow seemed to take in the entire city of Calgary. “This is the first time after this. And the first time since this when I don’t know when you’ll be back.”
It took Charlie a moment to parse that. Since Calgary, she’d toured on a schedule, out and back like an Emporium yoyo. This trip, no string. She wanted to say, I always come back to you, but the words got stuck, so she wrapped a hand around the back of Allie’s head, pulled her in close, and kissed her instead.
“Yeah.” Allie’s smile looked bittersweet as they pulled apart. “That’s what I thought. Are you going to talk to Gran?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m feeling manipulated enough.”
“It hardly counts as wild when the whole universe is telling you to hit the road,” Graham muttered. His arms were crossed and his brows drawn in, but odds were he was reacting to Allie’s mood not Charlie’s imminent departure.
“That’s what I’m saying.” Charlie moved in close, waited pointedly until he unfolded his arms, then kissed him, too, tracing a quick charm on the damp skin behind his ear for Allie to find later. “You’ll have to be the man of the house while I’m gone,” she said, as she stepped away. “Think you’re up to it?”
“At the moment, I can’t think why I let you hang around.”
Charlie grinned. “Takes a village to raise a dragon. And speaking of . . .”
“He won’t come out of his room.” Allie half turned toward Jack’s door.
“Then I’ll just have to go to him.”
“He slammed the door and a power grid went up.”
“Sorcery?”
“You think? He knows he’s not supposed to do sorcery in the apartment.”
“He was angry. He probably didn’t do it on purpose.”
“You’re always making excuses for him.” Allie tossed her braid behind her shoulder. “He won’t let you in.”
“He won’t let you in,” Charlie corrected, crossing the living room. So what if she occasionally made excuses for Jack; she knew what it was to be the odd Gale out.
The power grid flashed gold when she knocked. Charlie leaned in as close as she could without getting singed and said quietly, “Open the door, or I tell Allie about . . .”
The grid vanished, the door swung open, and a voice muttered out of the smoke, “I never thought you were a snitch.”
“Dude, empty threat. If it happened in Calgary, Allie knows about it.” She slipped in as the door closed again, waving a hand in front of her face. The temperature was in the high thirties, making the sulfur smell stronger than usual—could be dragon, could be teenage boy. Impossible to tell for certain. “What do you have against open windows?”
“Stupid neighbors keep calling the fire department.”
“All right, one last freebie before I go.” Right hand on the outside wall, Charlie came farther into the room, only tripping twice over the debris on the floor before she found the window. “Back in the day,” she grunted, forcing the casement up, “there was a time or two I didn’t want my parents to know what I had going on.” Pressing only enough to lightly etch the weave, she dragged the edge of her thumbnail over the exposed screen. “This will filter everything coming out of your room. No visible smoke. No . . . uh, nosable smell.”
“Nosable?”
“Shut up, I’m doing you a favor.”
“You’re leaving.”
The smoke had already started to clear. When Charlie turned, she could see Jack sprawled on his bed, wearing a pair of shorts and an award-winning sulky expression. “Yeah, I’m leaving. So?”
“So, nothing.” He scratched at the gold scales scattered over his chest and stomach. “Go ahead. Leave.”
“They have these things called phones in this world.” Jack wouldn’t get his family phone until fifteen, but even considering Canada’s crappy cell coverage, there were other options. “You want me, call me.”
“Why would I want you?”
She kicked a pair of enormous, glossy, red board shoes to one side and leaned against his dresser. “Maybe because you can’t stand how uncool it is around here without me.”
“You’re in a country band.” He balled up a dirty sock and threw it at the poster of Inner Surge taped to the back of his door. “That’s not cool. And cool’s not cool, it’s sick.”
“Okay, point one, not in a country band anymore; I’m in an alt Celtic band.”
“Wow. So much better.” Teenagers did sarcasm almost as well as the aunties.
“And two, what’s really up with you?”
Jack threw another sock. After a long moment he sighed, a gust of smoke wafting toward the open window. “I’m trying really hard to be what they want me to be.”
“Allie and Graham?”
“Them, too.” Another sock. “There’s too many stupid choices here. You’re the only one who gets that.”
“Thanks. I think. For what it’s worth, being fourteen is all about making stupid choices.”
“Not for me.”
“Are you lying on your dirty laundry?” Charlie asked as another sock hit the poster.
He turned to glare at her. “What if I am?”
“Then you’re doing better at being a fourteen-year-old boy than you think. Look . . .” She crossed the room, shoved his leg out of the way, and sat on the edge of the bed. “. . . Allie’s not going to send you back if you don’t want to go, no matter what you do.” The bed quivered as he stiffened. Bingo. “She fought the aunties for you. She sends you back, she’s lost the fight.”
Those were the kind of power dynamics Jack understood. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, showing a glimmer of gold.
“Don’t waste energy worrying about Allie, just concentrate on finding who you are here. And that advice was so tree-of-life tote bag, I think I’m going to hurl.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I didn’t want to say.”
“I promise I’ll keep trying to come up with something more interesting for you to do than working Graham’s skeezy newspaper.”
A pair of underwear hit the poster and slid to the floor. “Push pins melt.”
“Good to know. Remember, I’m only a call or text away because I’m so totally sick you’re going to miss me like crazy.” She closed her hand around his knee. The skin under her fingers was just on the edge of scorching. “Pretty much the way I’m going to miss you.”
He had enough white showing around the gold to make the eye roll obvious. “You won’t miss . . .”
“Call me a liar again, and I will use the charm of disgusting backney I created for my sisters.”
“Gross.”
“Exactly.” She shook his leg. “We good?”
“I guess,” he admitted reluctantly. He stood when she did, kicking a stack of old comics under the bed.
; “If those are Graham’s, I’d be a little more careful. He doesn’t carry them anymore, but he didn’t actually get rid of his weapons. Now, come’re.” Dragging Jack into a hug, she found his skin had cooled to as close to Human body temperature as it got. Always a good sign.
“If you just drew a charm on my back, I’m telling Auntie Gwen who ate that rhubarb pie,” he snarled, jerking away.
“You shared it.”
“You cut it. And I’m just a kid, remember? You led me astray.”
“That’s part of my job.” Reaching behind her for the doorknob, she sobered. “Be careful with the sorcery. I know it usually just happens,” she cut off his protest. “But that’s part of the problem. The aunties think you have no control.”
“Yeah, but they don’t want me to do it on purpose or practice.” Jack scratched at the old crescent scar on his cheek. It looked like a hockey scar but had probably been a near miss by one of his uncles. “They say practicing accumulates power. They can’t have it both ways.”
“How long have you been here?The aunties have it any way they want it.” She opened the door about two centimeters then closed it again. “Keep an eye on Allie for me, would you? Graham’s cool, but he’s not blood.”
Her reflection in the mirror was so close to how she actually looked—jeans, sneakers, tank, gray eyes, short blonde hair, three gold rings in her left ear, one in the right—that it took her a moment to find the changes. Change. Probably.
Just in case, she checked her gig bag. Guitar tucked safely away, mandolin case piggybacking, small pockets on both cases stuffed with the essentials—nothing matched the image in the mirror where something was struggling to get out.
“I hope you’re telling me to free the music,” she murmured patting the edge of the frame. “Because if my underwear were any freer, it’d be illegal.”
She had to put her knee to the door to get it open. Given that Auntie Gwen was in the window of the loft, glaring down into the courtyard, it was possible that the weight of her gaze had been holding it closed.
Charlie waved, then laughed delightedly, as Auntie Gwen flipped her off. If they’d wanted her to cross, if that’s what all the we have to talk eyebrow waggling had been about, it wasn’t going to happen now. She didn’t look up to see if Jack was standing by his window, he’d only be embarrassed to be caught. There was no reason to look for Allie and Graham because she knew damned well they were watching.
The shrubs leaned toward her, leaves quivering.
“Hang on, kids.” Freeing her guitar, she hung the gig bag on her back then settled the guitar strap over her shoulders and checked the tuning. A flat G had once resulted in a detour through a bed of decorative plantings at the Illinois State Fair and a fast dive for cover while she figured out what had gone wrong. Like many celebrities, the Budweiser Clydesdales were shorter up close. She’d had to throw out her shoes. And socks.
Tuned and ready, Charlie gave her assembled audience her best Ahn-old . . . “Ah’ll be back.” . . . started the melody line that would take her to Mark, and stepped into the shrubbery . . .
. . . and stepped out again in a fringe of trees about a hundred meters from a red-roofed building in the middle of an acre or so of mowed lawn. She could smell the ocean, but given that Cape Breton had more coastline than the interior geography could account for, that didn’t give her much of a clue. Recent rain had stopped, but the cloud cover was still too thick for her to even pick up a direction from the sun.
“Guess we’ll do it the easy way then.” Guitar stowed safely back in the bag, she crossed the wet grass to the sign.
“Celtic Music Interpretive Center. Wednesday Ceilidhs 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, five dollar admission. July 27th starts the Samhradh Ceol Feill.” Charlie traced a charm over the sign and the letters rearranged. “Ah, Summer Music Festival. Makes sense. And as today is July 27th, the only question remaining is, where’s . . .”
“Chuck! Where the hell did you arrive from? If you hitched over from the airport, I’m going to slap you silly. It’s not the summer of love, baby. Well, not officially anyhow.”
Charlie turned to watch Mark charge down the path toward her, wearing a CIJK-FM T-shirt over a black utility kilt barely held within the bounds of decency by his blue fake fur sporran. He had a set of drumsticks shoved through his hair just above the elastic that held his ponytail.
As soon as he was close enough, he pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, then pushed her back to arm’s length and said, “I don’t suppose you’ve learned to play the fiddle since we talked?”
“Another two waiting for you in the Sydney office? Good news. I haven’t seen much in the way of support from them yet, but this should certainly encourage more active participation in the process.” Leaning back against the butter-soft leather, Amelia glanced down at the papers spread out on the seat beside her. “I’ll be done at the studio by seven, but I expect there’ll be a bit of necessary socializing with the producer to keep his opinion sweet, so there’s no point in me leaving Halifax tonight. I’ll head out in the morning and meet you at the office at eleven. That’ll give you plenty of time to find off-site storage unconnected to the company in case they get desperate enough to try something. Better to be safe than sorry,” she continued before Paul could speak. “I leave the details in your hands.”
She switched her attention to her notes as she hit the disconnect. The moment Two Seventy-five N had taken them public, Paul had done his usual excellent job and put together an inarguable list of facts that supported their position as well as a number of anecdotes that sounded inarguable but had no factual support at all. All she had to do tonight was hit the emotional beats and start swaying the voting public onto their side. Sway the voting public, sway the politicians they voted for.
In a just world, the honorable minister would have gotten his shit together and issued the permits before the application for the well had been thrust into the public eye by a group of environmental extremists. Amelia, well aware the world was far from just, believed in contingency plans.
“Ms. Carlson.” Her driver flicked open the communication hatch. “We’re five minutes out.”
“Thank you, Val.”
The papers, edges parallel, went into her briefcase; she wouldn’t be referring to them again. Paul had provided a printout of the facts, not only clear, concise, and bulleted but available for the station to copy and give to their researchers.
Well, researcher, the CBC budget being what it was.
She slid her phone into her Italian leather bag. It was starting to look genteelly worn, but then she’d had it made to her specifications right after she’d gone to work for her father and it had rarely left her side since. The craftsman had included enough interior sections and outside pockets that she’d never be caught rummaging about like a north shore granny looking for a lozenge.
Yes, I have an assistant who could handle my minutiae, but I prefer not to waste his talents dealing with the sort of thing that every other woman in the world manages on her own.
The purse told the world that she wasn’t helpless. She was aware of her privilege. She was of the people.
It was a killer shtick.
The car slid into VIP parking under the studio.
Showtime.
Earbuds in, music loud enough to rattle the scales on his tail—if he had a tail right now which he didn’t because it wouldn’t fit in this stupid room and yeah, okay, it didn’t suck that he could let down his guard because he didn’t have to worry about his uncles sneaking up on him—Jack dragged another one of Graham’s old comics out from under the bed and propped it up against his knees. Earlier, he’d tried to make issue seven, Crisis on Infinite Earths hover in the air above his eyes and two hours later still wasn’t able to get it down off the ceiling. That was the stupid sort of thing that happened when he actually tried to do sorcery instead of just letting it happen. If Graham saw what had happened to one of his precious comics, he’d be grounded for a month. He wouldn’t
have even tried, but he wanted his hands free to deal with a bag of frozen cookies with his name on it.
After the first time he tried claiming food the way he would have back home, Allie’d put his name on everything he was allowed to eat.
And bought a new freezer.
Those things really stank when they melted.
“Find out who I am here,” he muttered, around a mouthful of gingersnap. “I don’t even know what that means.”
He was a dragon. But no one outside the family was supposed to know that. He was sorcerer, but even some people inside the family weren’t supposed to know that. He was a Gale and that was all about family who weren’t trying to eat him.
That was cool.
Maybe Charlie’d meant he should work on being more of a Gale.
Turned out that Mark’s fiddle player wasn’t missing, just very late, arriving as the band before them took their bows.
“Look, it was an emergency,” he snapped before Mark could actually articulate all the jumping around and hand waving he was doing. “Tanis, my girlfriend, couldn’t find a family heirloom and she’s a little hysterical. I left when her sisters showed up and I’m here, so calm down. Hey.” He waved the hand not holding his instrument. “You must be Charlie. Bomen Deol. You might as well call me Bo, I can’t get Mark to stop, and before you tell me I don’t look like a fiddle player, I’m ethnically Indian. The Romany came out of India, and some of the best fiddle players in the world are Roma, QED.”
Charlie grinned. “You get asked that a lot?”
“You’d be surprised.” He took a deep breath, shook out his shoulders on the exhale, and nodded toward the now empty stage. “Okay. I’m calm. Let’s do this.”
Tim Waters, the keyboard player and the underreaction to Mark’s overreaction since they’d met playing soccer in university, led the way out onto the polished maple half circle, accordion slung around broad shoulders. Shelly Simpson followed, wrestling her upright bass into position before the stage got any more crowded, muscles moving smoothly under the golden freckles covering her bare arms. “I use the electric a lot of the time,” she’d told Charlie earlier, “but this place seemed to cry out for the all-natural sound.” A few people in the audience cheered when Bo took his place—this was a crowd that appreciated fiddlers.