The Good Luck Girls

by Charlotte Nicole Davis

  “She’d be glad to see what we’re doing for Violet. But I don’t mind telling you, Aster, I don’t like hurting folks. It’s helping folks that I always wanted to do. So if this comes down to a fight…”

  “It won’t,” Aster promised, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt. “If it looks bad, we’ll just run, all right?” She wanted to help Violet, too, but she wasn’t about to die for her.

  A moment later they reached the edge of the Bone Road, winding its way down to the valley where Killbank slept behind its stone deadwall. Iron wardants stood every fifty feet on the sides of the road, worked into the shapes of sad-eyed children holding lamps that lit the way. Aster’s hackles raised at their unblinking stare. She wet her lips and turned to back to Tansy.

  “You ready?” she asked. The moment they stepped out onto the road, into the open, they risked discovery.

  Tansy sucked in a breath. “If I have to be.”

  Aster nodded and pulled the black fabric of her dustkerchief over the bottom half of her face, covering up the cursed ink that would give them away as Good Luck Girls.

  You’re the one in control now, she reminded herself, trying to still the panic stirring in her belly.

  They are afraid of us.

  “I’ve never made it longer than twenty minutes, Aster,” Tansy warned as she covered her own face.

  Aster lowered the brim of her hat. Twenty minutes—that was pretty standard. Every Good Luck Girl, when they were little, tried to see how long she could stand to keep her favor covered up before the pain became unbearable. Aster’s record was twenty-four minutes. The Green Creek record, legend had it, was thirty-three.

  An uncomfortable prickle had already started up under Aster’s skin. “We’ll be done in fifteen,” she promised.

  They rode into town.

  Killbank reminded Aster a good deal of Green Creek—a vibrant oasis for the well-heeled Arkettans living in or traveling through the Scab. She searched for the apothecary among the tidy shops that stood shoulder to shoulder with raucous saloons. The street was filled with men in patterned waistcoats and cocked derby hats, shouting at one another over bottles of beer. There would be precious few dustbloods here, outside the Good Luck Girls in the welcome house, and there would be plenty of lawmen with guns at their belts to keep it that way. Aster held her breath as they passed two officers standing guard outside the bank, watching them from beneath flat-brimmed hats. Had word of the girls’ escape spread beyond Green Creek already?

  One of the lawmen narrowed his eyes, reached for his sidearm. Aster tensed, gripping the reins, preparing to bolt.

  Crack! Aster’s heart leapt to her throat. The lawman had drawn his gun, fired. But not at them—at a rat scuttling in front of their horse’s hooves. The horse took off skittishly. Aster’s vision swam as she struggled to fight back the terror that had seized her.

  “Bastard,” she muttered. “Are you okay, Tanz?”

  “I think so,” Tansy whispered, but she was shaking.

  Main Street grew quieter as they neared the end of the road, which was left to smaller businesses that had closed by sundown. Aster scratched at her favor. If Killbank didn’t have an apothecary …

  But then, finally, they came upon the drugstore’s darkened storefront. LISTON’S APOTHECARY, giant red-and-gold letters proclaimed from the front window. Aster slid down from the saddle and hurried to tie the horse up, looking around them to make sure no one was nearby. A few folks milled around outside a nearby inn, but otherwise they were alone.

  Aster’s favor had begun to burn now, fire ants under her skin.

  “In and out,” Aster promised Tansy, whose eyes were wide and shining. “You just point out what we need, and I’ll grab it. And remember, our priority is the Sweet Thistle.”

  Tansy nodded, sliding down after her. Aster tried the front door, but, unsurprisingly, it was locked. The window was much too big to break without causing a commotion. She swore under her breath. They had to come up with something else.

  After stealing another glance to make sure no one had wandered down this way, Aster picked up a stone, bashed the doorknob until it broke, and kicked the door open.

  And came face-to-face with an old man pointing a rifle at them.

  “That’s far enough!” he said hoarsely. “Get back or I’ll shoot, I swear I will!”

  Shock hit Aster like a punch to the gut. She took stock of the man in the space of half a second—gray hair wisping out from underneath a wilting nightcap; threadbare nightclothes hanging loose from a bony frame; small, round spectacles flashing in the light of a candle on the table behind him. Liston himself? The sound of their break-in must have brought him running from his bedroom.

  “I said get—”

  Aster didn’t give herself time to think. She lunged forward, shoving the barrel of the rifle upwards with her left forearm. She struck Liston in the chest with the heel of her right hand, knocking the wind out of him before he could call for help.

  The old man staggered backwards, gasping. Lost his footing and fell to the ground. Aster yanked the gun out of his loosened grasp and turned it on him. She had no idea how to work it, but Liston didn’t know that.

  He coughed and spat, looking up at her balefully. His eyes narrowed as he realized they had no shadows at their feet.

  “Damned dustbloods. What do you want from me?”

  “Not another word,” Aster warned, her voice low. She pressed the muzzle of the gun to the hollow of his bobbing throat, chilled by the fear that lit up in his eyes. First Violet, now this old man. Who was she becoming?

  Whoever I have to be to keep us alive, she thought, steeling her resolve.

  “Sweet Thistle,” she ordered. “And whatever else my friend here wants.”

  She handed Tansy a riding satchel they’d stolen from the stables. Tansy took it, her face flushed under a sheen of sweat—though whether that was from fear or the mounting pain of her favor, Aster couldn’t be sure.

  Almost done, Aster said with her eyes. She turned back to Liston and jerked her head towards the counter in front of the medicine shelves. “Go on,” she said, lowering the gun. “Make it quick.”

  Liston hesitated. Aster didn’t like the look of recognition in the shopkeeper’s expression.

  “Sweet Thistle?” he repeated.

  “Now,” Aster snarled.

  He climbed back to his feet slowly, still trembling, then hurried over to the shelves. Tansy followed, satchel held open.

  “Burdock … laudanum … calamine … ghostweed,” she muttered, her voice soft with apology. Aster watched warily, scratching at the side of her neck. The pain was beginning to make her sweat, too, and soon her favor would be glowing brightly enough for Liston to see. She gripped the barrel of the gun tighter, turning to make sure no one else was approaching the shop. So far, nothing. But as her eyes swept the room, they caught on several signs posted on the wall, each one bearing the same message in blocky black letters.

  WANTED

  Aster swallowed, dread crawling down her neck. She stepped closer, praying to the dead she wouldn’t recognize the faces on the posters.

  But Aster would have recognized her sister’s face anywhere.

  There were five posters in a row, one for each of them, their faces sketched out by an expert hand. Their favors in particular had been rendered in stunning detail, identical to the ones burning so brightly now that Aster could barely bring herself to focus on the words in front of her.

   … Good Luck Girls from Green Creek …

   … the vicious murder of Baxter McClennon …

   … stolen property … theomite ring … three horses …

   … Reward of 50,000 eagles …

   … WANTED ALIVE …

  Baxter McClennon.

  Clementine had killed Baxter McClennon.

  Heir to the McClennon mining empire. Son of the most powerful landmaster in the Scab. The realizations hit Aster one after another. His
family would tear down the mountains to find them. They would set every ravener in Arketta on their trail.

  Aster felt her gorge rise.

  “Not a bad likeness,” Liston said suddenly.

  Aster couldn’t help a desperate sob as she whirled around, gun raised. But the shopkeeper held up his hands in surrender. Tansy stood behind him, busily buckling the satchel shut. Her hands slowed as she looked past Aster and read the signs for herself.

  “If the Sweet Thistle didn’t give you away, the way you’re looking at those posters surely does,” Liston went on, a sneer curling his lip.

  Aster flicked her eyes at Tansy. They had no choice. She rammed the muzzle of the gun into his chest, forcing him backwards until his tailbone hit the counter with a rattle of glass. Her finger closed over the trigger.

  “Go get the rope from outside to tie him up with,” Aster told Tansy. “Now,” she added when Tansy hesitated.

  Tansy dashed off. Fresh pain spiked through Aster’s favor. She tried to hold the rifle steady in her slick grip. Pinned Liston with a warning glare, praying to the dead he wouldn’t call her bluff. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t dare speak.

  Tansy returned with rope in hand.

  “Tie him up,” Aster ordered without dropping her gaze.

  No hesitation this time. Tansy bound Liston’s wrists and ankles in a hogtie, her favor beginning to glow beneath her dustkerchief as she worked. The moment she was done, Aster lowered the gun, relieved that she hadn’t had to use it.

  “Come on,” Aster said. They ran over to the wall and ripped the wanted posters down, then hurried back towards the door.

  “Dirty Luckers!” Liston shouted after them, finally free of the gun’s muzzle. “You don’t know how good you had it in that house! I can’t wait to see what the McClennons do to you—”

  Rage surging through her, Aster turned back around. She rushed over and gagged him with his nightcap, her blistering anger urging her to do worse.

  “Aster, hurry, please,” Tansy begged. Her favor burned red-orange now, minutes away from white heat.

  Aster swallowed and nodded. “We’re done here,” she said. “Let’s go.” She made her way towards the door and Tansy followed. Outside, they mounted their horse, the shopkeeper’s words still ringing in Aster’s ears as they left the apothecary behind.

  * * *

  By the time Aster and Tansy returned to the mine, Violet had passed out. Tansy quickly dismounted and went to her side. Aster followed more slowly, still shaken by what they’d discovered. Clementine ran forward and wrapped her in a hug.

  “You made it,” Mallow said, her whole frame relaxing with relief. “Thank the dead.”

  “Ran into some trouble,” Aster admitted. An understatement. The pain of her favor was only just now beginning to subside. “Did you have any problems here?”

  Clementine released her and shook her head. “You can hear the vengeants started up. It’s a good thing we had the ring.”

  The ring.

  Baxter McClennon’s ring.

  Tansy squeezed a drop of Sweet Thistle under Violet’s tongue and stood, exhaling. “Good news—Violet ought to come back around in a few hours’ time.” She looked at Aster levelly. “You want to tell them the bad news?”

  It wasn’t as if waiting would make it any better. Aster wet her lips, turned back to Clementine.

  “We saw wanted posters in Killbank. One for each of us. The brag you killed … it was Baxter McClennon.”

  For a moment, Clementine said nothing, her expression working its way from surprise to fear. “McClennon?” she repeated in a whisper. “Are you sure?”

  “See for yourself,” Aster said grimly, pulling out the posters from her pocket.

  “Wait, wait, somebody tell me what I’m looking at,” Mallow interrupted as Clementine slowly unfolded the posters. “Who’s Baxter McClennon, and why should I give a damn that he’s dead?”

  “McClennon—you know, like Mount McClennon?” Tansy replied. “His father Henry owns half the Scab, and his uncle Jerrod is running for governor. I grew up in one of their family’s mining camps.”

  “Oh.” Mallow eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “Exactly,” Aster said. “I thought it was just the welcome house raveners we had to worry about. But the McClennons will be able to hire enough of them to chase us off the edge of the map.”

  “And the law will be in their pocket, too,” Tansy warned. “Every badge in Arketta is going to be after us now, if they weren’t already.”

  “So let’s keep riding,” Clementine said, finally finding her voice again. “There’s no time to lose. One of us can hold Violet on our horse. Once we find Lady Ghost—”

  “We don’t have any idea where Lady Ghost is,” Aster reminded her. “We can’t go anywhere until Violet wakes up and tells us which way to go.”

  She didn’t add what she was truly thinking—that Lady Ghost probably wasn’t even real, and if they couldn’t get rid of their favors, they were as good as dead. Any other criminal could change their appearance, run away, lie low, and hope to disappear into a new life. But with these favors marking them not just as escaped Good Luck Girls, but as Baxter McClennon’s murderers …

  “For all we know, Lady Ghost could be somewhere right around here,” Tansy said hopefully, glancing at Violet. “We might not need to run anywhere.”

  Aster could see Clementine didn’t like staying put, but they had no choice.

  “Just go on and get some rest for now,” Aster told her, more quietly. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

  Tansy and Mallow agreed to take the first watch together. Aster lay down on the hard strip of ground beside the rusted red mine cart tracks, wrapping her hair for the night with the dustkerchief. The blanket she’d folded herself into did a poor job of protecting her from the chill leaching out from the stones. Clementine settled down next to her, and without a word, they curled into each other for warmth, just as they’d done when they were little. Before Green Creek. Before all of this.

  For a moment they just lay there, listening to the longing cries of the vengeants that echoed up from the dark. It was never words in any living language, just raw vowels that bled into each other, endlessly, helplessly. And yet Aster always felt as if she were on the cusp of understanding the vengeants—as if she could answer them, if she chose to. And this was somehow the most frightening thing about them.

  Clementine seemed to crackle with tension, as if she, too, were holding in a scream.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Aster whispered at length. “Don’t be.”

  “Don’t be what?”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “You’re all going to die because of me. At least in the welcome house we were safe. But the McClennons—”

  “We weren’t safe. We were never safe there.”

  “Violet almost got ripped apart by those vengeants. And you and Tansy almost got caught in Killbank. And that ravener by the creek—”

  “And none of it was your fault. Listen to me: if the McClennons kill us, then the McClennons are to blame. It’s as simple as that. Back at Green Creek, we didn’t have a fighting chance against the people who wanted to hurt us. Now we do. You gave that to us. You have nothing to apologize for.”

  Clementine was silent.

  “Promise me you understand, Grace.”

  Clementine’s true name—the name she had answered to before the welcome house, the name she’d been forced to forget. It was easier that way, even, some girls found. Easier to pretend it was some stranger suffering, and not the real you.

  But maybe they wouldn’t have to be those people anymore.

  “I promise,” Clementine said at last.

  And then, finally, Aster allowed herself to fall asleep.

  * * *

  Violet was the last to wake in the morning. While Aster and the others started tacking up their horses, Violet remained curled underneath her blanket, hands pillowed delicately be
neath her head. The sickly pallor that had stolen over her yesterday was gone now, and her breathing once again sounded slow and even. Her hair was still damp from her fever sweat, and her face was still grubby with dirt, but even so, she looked as peaceful as Aster had ever seen her.

  Mallow poked her in the ribs with a stick.

  “Mal,” Tansy scolded.

  “What? She needs to get up.”

  “She needs to rest. She’s been through a lot.”

  “So have we all. She looks fine to me.”

  “Let her have another fifteen minutes,” Aster said, biting into a half-rotted carrot—the last of the food they’d stolen from the stables. She shared Mallow’s impatience, and she didn’t want to let a minute of the day go to waste. But there was no point in leaving if Violet was just going to collapse again. Fortunately, though, Violet woke up on her own a moment later. Perhaps her ears had been burning.

  Aster guessed from the look on Violet’s face that she’d forgotten she wasn’t back at the welcome house. If so, she was in for a surprise.

  “What the hell is going on?” Violet asked. She sat up and looked around with a wary eye. Then it seemed to come back to her. “Oh, rip me.”

  “Welcome to Killbank,” Aster said dryly. “Or at least, welcome to this cursed mine a couple miles outside Killbank. We stopped to get you the Sweet Thistle—do you remember?”

  “Well enough,” Violet muttered. She swore again as she tried to stand and fell back to the ground.

  “Easy,” Clementine warned.

  “I’m all right,” she insisted. “I just need some water.”

  “And I’ll go get you some,” said Aster. “But first, I’ve got something to tell you, and something to ask.”

  Violet flashed her a haughty look. It was as good a sign as any that she really was starting to feel like herself again.

  “Get on with it, then.”

  You’re going to want to sit for this anyway, Aster thought. And then she told Violet about the wanted posters they’d discovered last night. Violet’s face remained carefully set as she listened.

  “You don’t seem all that worried about the McClennons,” Clementine observed.