Magic for Nothing

by Seanan McGuire

  I wasn’t the first person to hear the siren song of the carnival. I won’t be the last. I followed Sam into the big tent, where Emery Spenser stood with her hands on her hips, watching critically as two trapeze artists with half Sam’s skill flew through the air. She turned as we approached, seeming to intuit our presence, and smiled thinly at the sight of me.

  “You look better after a few hours of sleep; less ‘resurrected corpse,’ which is always a good thing. The rubes don’t pay out for a sickly girl, remember that. Now. We don’t have time to change the performance schedule for tonight, and I’m not going to ask anyone to give up their slot for you. Understand?”

  Well. That was getting right to the point. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Whatever you need me to do.”

  “I can’t trust you as a pitch man, and I’m not going to use you as a lure until I know whether I want you somewhere else. So for tonight you’re in here, on popcorn and candy duty. We’ve got a costume that should be about your size, and I’m sure your hair knows what a brush is; reintroduce the two and be here for curtain at six.”

  I resisted the urge to stare at her. “I’m going to be a candy girl?”

  “For tonight, yes. Here.” She produced a stack of throwing knives from inside her jacket and offered them to me. “Impress me.”

  Impress her. Right. I took the knives, weighing them in my hands, trying to get a feel for them. This was the second time in a relatively short period that I’d been handed knives by a virtual stranger, and I was starting to miss my own knives, weighted for my personal use, more and more. Really, I missed all my weapons. I’d never been unarmed for this long, not since I was big enough to hold a fork.

  “Am I allowed to throw knives at your grandson?”

  Maybe not the most politic of questions. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. So did Sam’s. For a moment, the family resemblance between them was so visible it hurt. Then, looking amused, she smiled.

  “Yes, you can throw knives at my grandson, but you’re not going to hit him,” she said. “He’s faster than you think.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “Is there a plank somewhere that I can use?”

  “Sam, get the lady a plank.”

  Sam, who did not look happy about this plan, frowned before heading off across the tent. I began stretching out my shoulders while Emery watched.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little out of practice.”

  “And yet you want to throw knives at my grandson?”

  “Well, like you said, he’s fast. It’ll be okay.” That, and this was a trick I’d done before. The knives were decently weighted; they must have belonged to a professional knife-thrower. That was good. Sam was returning with a two-by-four. That was also good. “Okay, I’m going to say I’ve got fifty feet accuracy on these, forty if I’m throwing straight up. Sam? I’m going to close my eyes. Go somewhere—anywhere—within fifty feet of me, and call my name.”

  “And then you’re going to throw a knife at me.”

  “Yes. And then I’m going to throw a knife at you. Hold the plank at chest-level, if you would.”

  “You meet the best people at the carnival,” he grumbled, and turned to walk away. I closed my eyes. I didn’t see him go.

  “You’re sure about this?” asked Emery. “You only get one chance to impress me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Hey, rube!” Sam shouted from behind me.

  I whipped around, peeling a knife from the stack and flinging it in the direction of his voice. He was tall, but his voice was taller; he’d climbed the bleachers. That adjusted the angle of my throw, and I twisted my wrist to accommodate it. There was a thunk a second after I threw the knife, followed by Sam swearing.

  “Keep moving!” I said. The next knife was already in my hand, ready to go.

  The next “hey, rube” came from the side, at floor-level; the one after that came from about ten feet up, as he’d partially climbed one of the poles. Each time, the shout was followed by the sound of my knife hitting its target. Each time I heard a knife hit home, my shoulders unkinked a bit more. I was starting to enjoy this. The Incredible Cristopher had insisted we all learn blind fighting alongside the more standard, open-eyed knife-throwing tricks, since they’re much more impressive for the average crowd. It’s always nice to have the wisdom of my teachers confirmed.

  “All right,” I called. “Sam, can you get up on the edge of the net and then jump down?”

  “Uh, no?” he replied. “You’re going to skewer me and say it was an accident.”

  “Please. If you’re as fast as you say, I couldn’t skewer you if I wanted to.”

  “Do as the lady says, Samuel,” said Emery.

  He swore again. Then: “Do you want me to tell you when I’m jumping?”

  “Please.”

  “I’m jumping!”

  It wasn’t much warning, but it was about what I’d been expecting. I threw the first knife as I was already dropping to my knees, threw the second knife before I hit the ground, and threw the third knife from a kneeling position. All three audibly struck home. I spread my arms and opened my eyes. “Ta-da!” I announced.

  “Indeed,” said Emery, looking thoughtfully at the board in Sam’s hands. Seven knives bristled from its surface. Not all of them were well-seated—they’d fall out at the slightest pressure—but they’d gone into the wood and they’d stuck, which was more than enough for show purposes. “What else can you do?”

  “I used to do a thing with roller skates and balloons and throwing knives at the balloons while I skated; I can throw knives from a trampoline without stabbing myself, much, and I’m good at moving targets. I’m better with my eyes open, but I figured that for a quick and dirty demo, this was the way to go.”

  “You certainly got my attention,” said Emery. She took the plank from Sam. “You can do this reliably?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I climbed back to my feet. “Twice a night, three times on the weekends.”

  “We’ll see about finding a slot for you—after tonight. Tonight, you’re a candy girl.”

  “Whatever you need from me, ma’am.” I meant it, too. If she was putting me to work, she was trusting me—and more, she was making it possible for the rest of the show to trust me. It would be substantially easier to find out what had happened to those missing kids if I actually belonged here.

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah, yeah, get the girl who just tried to skewer me a costume.” Sam shook his head. “I’m going to run away and become an accountant.”

  “Of course you are, dear.” Emery patted his shoulder encouragingly. “Now chin up and get ready for tonight, both of you. It’s going to be a marvelous show.”

  It was, in fact, a marvelous show. There were clowns, hula-hoop dancers, a few stilt walkers, and of course, the darlings of the flying trapeze. The two who’d been going through their paces while I was throwing knives at Sam were siblings from the Ukraine. They didn’t speak any English—or they didn’t admit to speaking any English—but they flung themselves into the air with the giddy abandon of people who were sure that, in the unlikely event of an accident, their bodies would burst into birds and fly away before they could hit the ground.

  Sam’s solo act was good. Not the best I’d ever seen, thanks to that odd tension he carried in his shoulders; he was fast and clean, but he wasn’t fluid. He never relaxed into the motion the way he should have. But he caught every swing the Ukrainian twins threw at him, and he moved between them with the speed and dexterity of a man who’d been born never to set foot on the ground.

  “Candy girl.”

  The voice was unfamiliar. I turned, and found myself looking into the eyes of a strikingly beautiful Japanese-American woman with bright red streaks in her feathered black hair. Her face was made up like a firebird, all bright reds and yellows, blending into the sequin
s and feathers of her costume. I put on my best dealing-with-the public smile. “Yes?”

  “You’re in my old room, candy girl. What hole did they dig you out of?”

  “Oh! You must be Umeko. It’s a very nice room. Thank you for letting me use it.” Technically, she hadn’t had anything to do with my being put in there—that was all Emery—but it’s always better to play nice when possible. “You look amazing. What do you do?”

  “You’ll see in a second, candy girl.” She pushed past me, her shoulder knocking against mine. Three more women in similar, if more subdued, costumes followed her, each carrying a bucket and a set of sticks with padded Q-tip ends. The audience quieted. Apparently, they’d seen this act before. That made sense: the carnival had been in town for at least a week, and they must have had a few things more impressive than a standard trapeze to still be drawing this sort of crowd.

  The music stopped. The women put down their buckets, forming a loose circle. Umeko took up a position at the center, spreading her arms and bending backward, becoming a tightly drawn bow of a woman, ready to fire. One of the women dipped the ends of the giant Q-tip into the nearest bucket. Her left hand moved subtly as she did it, lighting an unseen match. To the audience, it must have looked like the Q-tip burst into flame with no mechanical assistance.

  She threw the burning Q-tip to Umeko, who snatched it out of the air and began to spin it, a baton-twirler working in flame and sequins instead of the football field. The other girls lit their own Q-tips, and suddenly there were four women dancing in flame, the only music the crackling of the fire and the chiming of the tiny bells they had braided in their hair.

  My left hand caught fire.

  It didn’t hurt; for a moment, I didn’t even notice. When I did—largely because I’d just ignited a bag of M&Ms—I swore and ducked beneath the bleachers, beating the flames against my leg. They were a lovely shade of blue, which would have been a lot more aesthetically pleasing if I hadn’t been in public and on fire, neither of which was a good thing at the moment.

  The M&Ms burned with a much more standard orange flame. I stomped them out and slumped against the nearest support beam, trying to get my breath back.

  “Shit.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say under the circumstances, so I said it again: “Shit.” I needed to go home. I needed Aunt Mary and Grandpa Thomas’ diaries and time to deal with this where I wasn’t going to get spotted by a Covenant operative and burned at the stake for the crime of . . . setting myself on fire. This was all complicated, and I didn’t have the time for complicated anymore. Complicated was just too much for me.

  I heard a thump. I turned. Sam was behind me, the frown on his face visible even through the gloom beneath the bleachers. “What are you doing under here?” he asked.

  “Um,” I said. Then: “One of my bags of M&Ms caught fire. I came under here to stomp it out.” I pointed at the singed, crushed bag as evidence.

  Sam blinked. “How did you get a bag of M&Ms to catch fire?”

  Well, Sam, it turns out some kinds of magic run in families, even human families, and I’m becoming a walking Stephen King novel. No. Saying that would not get me anywhere good. It might get me thrown out of the carnival, which was the last thing I wanted right now. I forced a smile, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know. It was about the same time as Umeko and her dancers went on, so maybe there was a stray spark? Or . . . something. It burned, I fixed it, I’m sorry.”

  “You are so weird,” he said, and walked away, leaving me alone with the smell of burnt chocolate and the hammering of my heart.

  Umeko and the fire-dancers were still in the ring when I emerged. That was good: I hadn’t screwed anything up. They really knew what they were doing, too. They were wearing so many feathers that it was a miracle none of them went up like a candle, but they respected the fire and the fire seemed to respect them in turn. They dipped, wove, and pirouetted through the flames, and Verity couldn’t have done better, not with all her years of training.

  Someone signaled for me to come over. I hurried to oblige. Selling candy isn’t the most useful thing in the world, but it was a distraction, and I needed a distraction. If I watched the fire for too long, I was afraid my traitorous fingertips would go up again. Becoming the Human Torch had never been on my extended list of things to do.

  The fire dance finished. The clowns went on again. I kept selling candy, and minute by minute, we chipped away at the evening, until the tent show was over, and the audience began filing out. The performers had already vanished, to discourage loitering; it was just me, the other two candy girls, and the people with brooms who’d appeared to start resetting the ring almost the second it was empty.

  “Timpani!” The voice was Emery’s. I turned. She was striding toward me, streaks of greasepaint on her cheeks. The carnival didn’t have a ringmaster as such—that was more the purview of the circus, which depended more on spectacle, and less on things like candy sales—but it had been clear from the start of the evening that if anyone was in charge here, it was her. She was wearing tight white spandex pants, and a black bustier which, combined with her makeup, made her look twenty years younger, and probably made Sam uncomfortable. It would have made me uncomfortable if she’d been my grandmother. Not fair, but there it was.

  (Yes, my grandmother looks about the same age as my older sister. There’s “my grandmother looks younger than she is,” and there’s “my grandmother is encouraging people to look at her breasts.” One is normal. The other is disturbing.)

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Sam told me about your little accident. Apart from that, how was your evening?”

  “Good, ma’am. Sold a lot of candy, didn’t trip over my own feet, or accidentally stab a townie. I think I did okay.”

  “Excellent.” She patted my cheek. “Drop what you have left back with the supplies for tomorrow night, and get out of that costume. Supper’s on at the mess, and you don’t want to miss out on that. You did very well. I think this is going to work out just fine.”

  I beamed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Don’t thank me. We’re going to work you harder than you’ve ever been worked before, because you don’t have the luxury of being family here. But we’ll take care of you.”

  I nodded, swallowing the impulse to thank her again. “Can I check out the rides after I eat?”

  “If you have the stomach for it, yes. Just tell the jocks you’re Emery’s new girl, and they’ll let you ride.” Her gaze darted to the side, as if she’d sensed some disturbance in the Force. “Hey! Be careful with that!” Then she was off, leaving me to my own devices.

  It was almost nine-thirty. The Covenant expected me to check in at ten-seventeen. I ducked out the back of the tent, pausing at the supply closet to drop off my candy and earnings with the bored teenager doing inventory. She didn’t even glance at me as she took the tray out of my hands. Either candy girls were interchangeable to her, or she was in a real hurry to get back to her game of Words with Friends. Or both. Whatever the reason for her ignoring me, I answered it with a wave and a smile, and took off for the bone yard.

  Before, I’d been a stranger in street clothes, wandering where I had no business being. Now, I was still a stranger to most of the people I passed, but I was a stranger in sequins and fringe, and I clearly belonged. I was greeted with curious stares or friendly nods. No one glared. No one loomed. They just let me go by.

  My temporary home was exactly as I’d left it, except for the mouse lean-to on the counter, which had doubled in size. There were walls now, made of scraps of wood. I eyed it. “Are you being careful when you scavenge? You know there are giant snakes in the other half of this RV, right?”

  “Yes, Priestess,” said Mindy. “We have avoided the Realm of Unreasonably Large Pythons.”

  “Good.” I began stripping off my sequined leotard. The sequins scratched my skin. “Anythin
g unusual happen while I was out?”

  “A human woman with red in her hair came and looked inside; we hid,” said Mork.

  “That’s Umeko. This was her place before Emery put me in it.” I was going to have to look into locking my door. Aeslin mice are rare, which makes them valuable. We’ve had people try to steal portions of our traveling colonies before. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Mindy and Mork.

  (Paranoid? Sure. Not everyone is a bad guy. But since I was infiltrating the carnival on behalf of the people I was infiltrating on behalf of my family, it was reasonable for me to be a little twitchy. It’s hard to know who you can trust when you can’t even figure out whether you’re allowed to trust yourself.)

  “Should we let her see us, Priestess?” asked Mindy.

  “Better not,” I said. “For right now, try not to show yourselves to anyone unless I’m here with you, and even if I am here, don’t come out unless I say it’s okay, or it’s Emery. She’s the boss. We’re going to play nicely with her.”

  “Yes, Priestess,” chorused both mice.

  “Excellent.” I changed back into more normal attire: jeans, a Helsinki Roller Girls tank top, and a hooded sweatshirt. As long as I didn’t wear any derby attire pointing to the Portland area, I was okay, and it would explain my roller skate skills. It’s always best to hide things in plain sight when possible.

  And just to hide them, when plain sight wasn’t an option. I looked ruefully at my hands. The more stress I was under, the more fires I was going to start, at least until I got it under control. It couldn’t even be useful fires. That sort of thing takes years of practice, and according to Grandpa Thomas’ diaries, the most he’d ever managed was a sort of small fireball that landed two feet away from him and set half the lawn aflame. Not really combat-efficient, especially not when I had knives. Sure, I could take out a field or something, but since I wasn’t planning to go up against the Children of the Corn any time soon, I wasn’t in the market for a field to fight.