Bad Luck Girl (31 page)

Happy birthday …

My head lifted up and my eyes opened. I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them.

“No,” whispered my father. “Not now. Not yet.”

Happy birthday to you …

Someone was singing. It wasn’t pretty, like the music the Unseelies made. It was jangly and offbeat. Even downright ugly. It wasn’t even all that new, but I hadn’t heard a sound like that since I came here, and I turned toward it.

 … dear Callie …

That’s right. I remembered. It was my birthday. It had been, anyway. Back in the world beyond the gate, where there was time and boundaries and endings. This was new. No one had sung my name since I’d come here. I wanted to see who was doing it now. I turned all the way around and walked out of the room, stumbling a little, because the marble floor had a new crack.

“Oh, you sly dog, Donchail,” breathed my uncle. I felt him reach his intention out to find the Seelie king. He meant to direct the king’s attention to the singing.

In answer, my father dove out of his chair and tackled him.

I whirled around. Surprise rattled the stones around me. This was definitely new. My uncle shouted, but my father planted his broad hands across his brother’s face and I felt
my father wish. He wished so hard the golden walls cracked open to let molten metal pour down like blood.

“Go on, Callie,” said my father. I heard his voice was calm, but with my eyes I saw him struggling with my uncle, bearing down against him with all his strength. My uncle raged, twisting the room around them. But he wasn’t strong enough.

A thunderclap echoed through the palace, and the mask split in two. My uncle screamed.

“Go see who’s singing,” my father ordered me.

I wanted to, but not as happily as I’d wanted other things since I’d been here. This wanting was colder but at the same time more familiar. I drifted confused through the shattered corridor, past the growing trees and spreading moss. I wondered if my uncle or the Seelie king would mind my going. He didn’t usually mind me walking alone, but he could get angry about strange things. I didn’t think the Seelie king was going to like it when he found out my father had broken that pretty mask. He didn’t like ugly things, and my uncle was very ugly underneath.

How old are you now?
The voices were singing now. It was harder to hear. The anger from my father and my uncle was so strong it almost drowned out that faint and shaky sound.
How old are you now?

How old was I? I had been fourteen. No, I’d been fifteen, just not for very long. That was important. There was a reason that was important. I’d know what the reason was in
a minute. When I got to the end of the Ebony Road. When I got back to the Bone Forest, and past the wall, to the gate I’d closed on the way home.

But I’d been right. The Seelie king was angry. The forest at my back trembled with his anger, and the trees groaned as the ground rippled around them. The guardian stones rolled this way and that in confusion. I wished for the border wall to let me out. They stared at me with their hungry gray eyes, but they weren’t strong enough to refuse.

On the other side of the wall, on the other side of the sealed-up gate, the singing kept on as if nothing was wrong at all.

How old are you now, dear Callie?

The king’s anger was reaching for me. It stretched out of the palace, down the road, and through the forest. It smelled like burning and it shriveled what it touched. My feet started to hurry almost without my wishing for it, and the realization trickled slowly through me that I was afraid. I would shrivel if the king’s anger caught up with me. It might turn me all funny-looking like my grandparents, or put me in one room like my father, or scar me up like my uncle. I didn’t want any of that. I was running now. I stretched out my power and found the seam where I’d sealed the gate shut. I slowed down long enough to touch its lock with my magic.

The gate opened smoothly in front of me, and with the Seelie king’s anger surging behind me, I ran through.

It felt strange to be on this side of the gate again. The world here wasn’t solid and alive like I’d gotten so used to.
This place was awkward, cold, and terribly fragile. I didn’t like it. Any of it. There was a light up ahead, but it was thin and wavering. I could barely see it, let alone touch it. Maybe if I got closer? I moved forward. The harsh edges of the world scraped against my feelings. Someone had burned this place down a long time ago, and it still remembered the flames. It carried the pain of them in its ashes and the resentment of them in its sluggish heart.

Then I saw her; the thin, frail woman I’d seen in the reflections of my silver chamber. She was Margaret LeRoux. She had another name too. I’d think of it in a minute. It was hard to think now that I didn’t have the Seelie king and my uncle to help me. I could see the woman had done something interesting, though. She set one of the rickety, ugly tables on its feet and laid something on top of it. It was small and round with a single glowing candle set in it. With the light shining, it was almost pretty. It sure smelled good; sweet and rich. That smell was almost as good as seeing Mama again.

I stopped. Mama. This was Mama in front of me. And it really was good to see her.

“Hello, honey,” said Mama.

“Hello,” I said.

“How have you been?” Her voice made a shell for her feelings, like this house made a shell for the gate underneath.

I frowned. I wasn’t sure whether I should answer the question, or the feelings underneath. They were so different from each other. “Home,” I told her. “I’ve been home. With Papa.”

“Yes, I know. I … They treated you all right? Your father said he was looking after you.”

“It’s home.” My words were thick and sluggish from being stuffed too full of confusion. How had my father said anything to her? He had been in his chamber, always.

“Of course. How silly of me.” Mama was trying to keep her voice light, but it was too thin. The emotion underneath would crack it open any second now. “Well. Now that we’re here, you can have your birthday cake.”

“My cake?” I looked at the candle, and the cake again. Mama had baked it. She’d borrowed the sugar, and gotten the flour on credit. I remembered that. She’d baked it in the lopsided oven in the tiny kitchen in Jack’s old apartment.

Anger flashed against my back. They were coming. For me. I could see them in my head. My father was chasing after the Seelie king, grabbing at the king with his magic, throwing out his power to topple the trees onto the path, anything he could do to slow the king down and block the king’s anger, which was swelling and burning so bright it was hard to see the little candle in front of me. My uncle was hanging back, watching them both. Why wasn’t my uncle moving to help his king? My thoughts swung back and forth and I shivered. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have stayed home, where I couldn’t be confused.

“Do you like the cake, Callie?” Mama asked. “Jack helped with the frosting.”

He did? I had no idea he could do something like that. But then, Jack could do pretty much anything he wanted. I
remembered that too. I looked around. Jack should be here to see this. Mama had never missed making me a birthday cake. Not once, even when we were back in Dust Bowl Kansas.

Dust Bowl
, someone was saying. My uncle, or maybe the Seelie king. It was hard to tell at this distance. They seemed to have gotten farther away, even though they were rushing toward the gate.
Dust. It’s the dust! That’s the name!

“Go on, Callie.” Mama smiled. “Make a wish and blow out the candle.”

The cake was the first pretty thing I’d seen since I crossed to the human world. Its sugar flowers all had that particular, flickering light that we didn’t have at home, but that seemed to be embedded in all the things humans took care with. It smelled sweet and sad. It was so beautiful, I didn’t want to let it go. I wanted this forever. But the king was almost here. Papa couldn’t hold him. Papa was sprawled in the Bone Forest and the forest was turning him over with its roots, pushing him down into the dirt. That was bad. I turned away from the cake. I should do something about Papa, to ease his fear. The king wanted him buried in the Bone Forest. How could that be bad if my king wanted it? But Papa didn’t want it. He hurt and I didn’t want him to hurt.

“What’s the matter, Callie?” Mama asked. “Don’t you want your cake?”

“No, I do. I just … I don’t know what to do.”

“You do, Callie. It’s your birthday. You blow out the candle, and you make a wish.”

That was right. That was what we did every year when she made me my cake. I’d wished and blown out the candles when I was so small I had to stand on a chair to reach them. I’d blown out the candles when Mama had had to argue for ten cents more worth of flour from the general store, and now, when she had to walk through the strange city streets to get the butter.

“I … I don’t know.”

“Calliope,” said Mama. “Go ahead. Make a wish. Blow the candle out.”

We’ve got you! You’re mine!
But those voices were even fainter now. The last of the Unseelie country was being pulled away from me, as if it were a quilt being dragged off my shoulders. My father was doing it. He was reaching out even while he was being shoved into the dirt to smother. Despite the distance, I could still feel the blistering heat of the king’s anger. I could feel it knotting around me. I had to get away. The king would hurt me because he’d know the last of my names in another heartbeat. That name. That last name, the one I didn’t know. It was the cause of all the trouble. That name was making the king mad. He’d hurt Mama and everybody else here. Because there were other people here. I could feel them now. I didn’t want to be pulled back into that anger. I didn’t want to be pulled down and smothered. I didn’t want to be trapped.

I wish
, I thought.
I wish I knew my name
.

I blew the candle out.

Dust. Red, brown, black, and gray. It roared around me, as if my breath had raised a storm big enough to fill the world. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even stand, because there was nothing to support me against the rush of wind.

Three shadows waited in the middle of that dust storm. One was an Indian man, maybe Apache, with a battered black hat and eyes full of stars. Not starlight, like the Unseelie carried, but the stars themselves. There was a wrinkled, earth-brown woman with her white cloak wrapped tight around her and a knowing, toothless grin. Next to her stood a deep black giant of a Negro man in the spotless jacket and shiny-billed cap worn by the Pullman porters.

Told you, Dust Girl
, said the Indian man.
That last wish was gonna be the hardest. But nobody listens to old Baya
.

Callie LeRoux, the Dust Girl
. The porter sighed and
shook his head.
Now, you know I got a schedule to keep. You be more careful where you leave your names next time
.

The old woman just shook her head and planted three of her knobby hands on her hips.
Well, Dust Girl? You done got your name back. Now what you gonna do wit it?

I was the Dust Girl. That was the last name, and maybe my first name as well. I’d grown up in the dust. I’d made my way through it as best I could. I’d breathed it in and almost died of it, but not quite. Neither the Seelies nor the Unseelies had been able to guess at that name, because that kind of fight and near-miss trouble had nothing to do with them. Dust Girl came from my own life, the one where I’d learned who I was and what I could do for myself. Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit. Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl, Dust Girl. I was all that, and just maybe a little bit more.

Well, Dust Girl? You done got your name back. Now what you gonna do wit it?

First thing I was gonna do was open my eyes. Then I was gonna get up off this floor.

I was covered in soot and had ashes in my mouth, and none of it mattered. Because Mama was there. She was grabbing hold of me and hugging me hard and we were both laughing about it. I remembered now. This had been the real plan. Papa and I had gone to the Unseelie country as a distraction. We’d been buying time so the Halfers could get ready to attack. Papa had known I wouldn’t be able to
keep the plan a secret once we got to the fairy lands, so he’d taken the real plan from my mind and left the other in its place. As soon as the attack was ready, Mama had come to get me out.

I knew all of this in a single heartbeat. In the next I knew something else.

“You are going to pay for this, Callie LeRoux deMinuit.” The Seelie king stood smack-dab in the middle of the gate I’d left open behind me. But Ivy’s skin that he wore wasn’t looking so good right now. Ivy was streaked with mud and she wasn’t standing up straight. Papa must have fought hard.

The king in Ivy’s broken body lurched forward. “You will get down on your knees, Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl,
Dust Girl
.”

The command hit hard enough to rock me back, but nothing worse. A sort of grin spread across my face, and this time I was the one who showed all my teeth.

“Get outta my way,” I said to him as I stepped in front of Mama. I had bigger things to worry about than the Seelie king slinging wishes around in front of my gate. Papa was still back in the other country, sinking fast and struggling for breath. I knew what it was like to be smothered alive. I was not leaving my papa to that. “Or I’ll
make
you get outta the way.”

The Seelie king made Ivy grin, but even that was lopsided. “Really, Callie? Now. What’s the saying I’m looking for?” He tapped Ivy’s chin with one crooked finger. “Oh, yes! You and what army?”

Mama gave a little tittering laugh, and slapped her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she murmured.

“You have something to add, Margaret?” said Ivy, short and sharp. “Because when you were my guest before, you were not nearly so cheerful, or so talkative.”

If he thought he was going to frighten my mother with that, he was badly mistaken. Mama just put two fingers to her mouth and whistled hard. I admit, I stared. When had she learned how to do that? And why was she doing it now?