The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen (13 page)

“The big deal,” Airboy snarled, “is that the Queen can’t run New York Harbor without the mirror. Ships run into each other. The Kraken sank a ferry Outside and ate some of the passengers. The Queen’s in a horrible mood. Nobody’s safe. When Flotsam reported you hadn’t drowned, the Queen turned her into shark bait.”

I hadn’t known Airboy could even say that many words in a row. “Gosh,” I said weakly. “I didn’t know.”

“I
liked
Flotsam.” Airboy’s voice wobbled. He took a breath and went on. “Then the Queen drowned Canoe, so Oxygen’s the Voice of the Mermaid Queen now, and he’s not really ready. She made him threaten to destroy the Park even though he told her it would just make the Green Lady mad.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Like you care,” he sneered. “Barbarian.”

Coming from a subject of a queen who fed her subjects to sharks, this was totally unfair. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Everyone knows how the Park Folk enchant Outside mortals to steal pets and leave them for the Wild Hunt, and how the Hunt kills any mortal changeling caught inside the wall after dark and pretends it was an accident, and how it’s not even safe for mortals to dance there at Solstice, and—”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “It’s not
like
that.”

“I knew you’d deny it,” he said simply.

I couldn’t hit him—that would just make him more sure he was right. I was on the edge of a total fairy fit. And then, suddenly, I wasn’t.

I’d had an idea.

There’s a story about a girl who was under a spell that made her speak flowers and jewels. My best ideas feel like that. And this was one of my best ideas.

“You don’t have to believe the Park’s not a total jungle,” I heard myself say. “Come visit, and I’ll show you.”

Airboy’s mouth opened and closed. “That’s against Rule Four,” he managed at last.

“Do you really care about rules? I don’t believe it. I think you’re scared.”

“Am not,” he said.

“Come to the Park, then. I dare you.”

He hesitated. “I don’t have to. I already know everything I need to know.”

“So do I.” The words poured glittering out of my mouth. “You’re a coward, Airboy, and the thing that scares you most is that you might be wrong and I might be right.”

“I’m not wrong. I’m
not
.” He looked like he was going to cry.

“I challenge you,” I said. “I challenge you to come to the Park with me.”

It worked like magic. Airboy’s face uncrumpled and his shoulders went back. “Very well. I accept.”

 

When my initial triumph wore off, I realized two things. One, I’d just broken about a million rules without even noticing. Two, getting Airboy into the Park was going to take some help.

It went without saying that I couldn’t ask the Pooka and Astris. And my friends would probably freak out about the rules. Which left me only one place to turn.

Instead of going home that evening, I took the Betweenway to the Metropolitan Museum.

I’d spent a lot of time at the Museum while I was growing up. I’d learned things from every exhibit and docent there, but the Old Market Woman and Bastet were special, like extra fairy godparents. But they’re not fairies of any kind. The Old Market Woman is a Greco-Roman marble sculpture. Bastet, who swears she’s a genuine Egyptian cat goddess, is a hollow bronze statue. And Van Loon’s rule against talking school business is about Folk, not art.

Why this should have seemed so important after my afternoon rule-breaking orgy, I don’t know. But it did.

I found Bastet and the Old Market Woman in a gallery, watching my mortal friend Fleet copying Hopper’s
Portrait of a Woman
.

Last summer, Fleet had been an Executive Assistant-in-Training to the Dragon of Wall Street, dreaming of being an artist and in immediate danger of being eaten for disorganization. In return for her getting me in to see the Dragon, I’d rescued her, and now she was the official changeling of the Metropolitan Museum, with thousands of paintings eager to teach her how to paint.

When I came up, the Woman was complaining that Fleet had her nose all wrong. Fleet looked harried. Bastet looked amused. The Old Market Woman looked furious, but that didn’t mean anything. It’s the way she’s carved.

“Hi, guys,” I said. “I’ve got a problem.”

“We missed you, too,” Bastet said.

“A problem? Wonderful.” Fleet put down her brush. “Let’s go to the Fountain Court and talk about it.”

I’d only meant to ask them about sneaking Airboy into the Park, but I ended up telling them everything: about school and the
Big Book of Rules
and Espresso talking Village and diplomacy and the goblin and
Swan Lake
. For different reasons, I didn’t mention the Lady or Tiffany.

When I was done, I listened to the bronze dolphins spouting water in the fountain and felt peaceful.

The Old Market Woman broke the silence. “The Museum’s practically in the Park,” she said. “If you bring the Harbor child here, we can sneak him out the back door.”

“Great idea!” I said sarcastically. “And how am I supposed to get him here?”

Bastet grinned. “Field trip.”

First she had to tell me what a field trip was, and then we had to figure out how to make it work. It took a while, and several dishes of chocolate ice cream from Fleet’s Briefcase (Satchel didn’t do ice cream), but eventually, we got a plan worked out. It was kind of complicated, and included a truly mind-boggling amount of lying, but we all thought it had a good chance of working.

 

Over the next couple of days, I set things up. I lied to Astris, to the Curator of the Metropolitan Museum, to the Mortal Historian, to the Schooljuffrouw and the Diplomat. I lied to my friends, which bothered me more even than lying to Astris. The only person I told the truth to was Airboy, whose only comment was, “Works for me.”

It worked for me, too. Three days later, every Van Loon’s changeling currently studying Mortal History gathered in the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum. Everybody (except Airboy) looked happy and excited. I was as nervous as a mouse at an owl convention, but it must have looked like excitement, because nobody noticed.

I’d proposed a field trip as a way of learning about the development of mortal customs through the ages. Each one of us would pick a custom, research it, and write a report. I’d picked burial systems. Bastet, my docent, was supposed to introduce me to some Egyptian mummies and Roman sarcophagi and Greek funeral steles. Airboy’s project was to find out how mortals who didn’t have magic bags got food. His docent was—surprise, surprise—the Old Market Woman. Airboy and I had already filled our notebooks with fun facts about funerals and food. All we had to do was get back from the Park in time to hand them in.

The Historian went over the rules and regulations one last time. “Don’t wander away from your docent and don’t talk to any of the exhibits without permission. Be polite. Don’t touch anything. No fairy food from the cafeteria. I’ll be in the Frank Lloyd Wright Room. We’ll meet in the Great Hall an hour before sunset.”

Everyone scattered. I followed Bastet through the Egyptian Department, down to the Costume Institute, and through some storage rooms to the back entrance. The Old Market Woman and Airboy joined us a minute later.

The kouros on guard duty opened the door.

It was a beautiful day, all crisp and blue and green and gold like a Fra Angelico landscape, perfumed with damp earth and fresh water. Airboy hung back in the shadows, so pale and stiff and blank-eyed he could have been an exhibit himself: Statue of a Frightened Boy. Bright autumn sunshine poured onto the marble floor like honey.

“Race you,” I said, and took off into the Park at a run.

I heard footsteps pounding behind me. Grinning, I turned onto the path that led to the Reservoir.

Airboy caught up to me by the Reservoir and we clambered up the steep embankment side by side. It felt so good I had to laugh. To my surprise, Airboy cracked a shy smile.

“Welcome to the Reservoir,” I said cheerfully. “You ready to meet some of
my
Water Folk?”

The smile disappeared. Airboy nodded once, stiffly.

I threw some pebbles in the water, breaking the smooth copper-green surface of the water into a million tiny ripples. Shadows moved in the depths. Then Algae the undine, the nixie Pondscum, and two naiads popped their heads out of the water.

“What’s up?” Algae asked.

Pondscum glared at Airboy. “Who’s that?”

There was a liquid chorus of exclamations and questions, all running into one another like drops of water: “Mortal or City Folk?” and “Is he your boyfriend?” and “Doesn’t he look delicious!”

Airboy had retreated into statue mode again. “Cool it, guys,” I said. “This is serious. I want you to meet Airboy of New York Harbor. He—”

The water women started yelling. “Traitor” was the nicest thing they said. The nastiest gave me an itch in a place I couldn’t scratch.

“What’s it going to hurt to hear what he has to say?” I asked. “You know you’re curious.”

They were, although it took a while to get them to admit it, and a little longer to get Algae to undo the itching spell.

“We’re listening, Salt Boy,” said Pondscum finally. “Talk.”

I bit my lip and waited.

Airboy opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking as much like a fish as a mortal boy can look. The water women laughed.

Airboy took a deep breath. “Salt Water Folk know very little about Fresh Water Folk. I want to learn more.”

“So you can poison us better,” said Pondscum, obviously unimpressed.

“So I can find a reason not to poison you.” His voice was steadier now.

Algae and Pondscum looked at each other and shrugged. “Seems fair to me,” Algae said. “What about you guys?”

The naiads murmured softly to each other. “What if he’s all salty, and poisons the water?” one of them asked nervously.

Airboy knelt down and held his hand over the water. “Taste,” he said.

I had to admit it: the kid had guts. The water women had pointy little teeth that showed when they talked, teeth that could have stripped his fingers to the bone. He had to know that they were tempted. But he offered them his hand just like he trusted them.

Pondscum gave his forefinger a little lick. “You can relax, ladies,” she said. “He’s no saltier than Neef here. Okay, young mortal. Show us how they swim in the Harbor.”

While I wondered how Pondscum knew what I tasted like, Airboy took off his outer clothes. Underneath he was wearing short, scaly-looking pants and a kind of chest harness with pouches on it. I watched him unbutton a pouch and pull out what looked like an oversized acorn cap, patterned with scales.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“My merrow cap.”

I added merrow caps to my mental list of Folk lore Astris had never taught me. “I’ve always wondered what they looked like,” I remarked.

Airboy’s mouth twitched a little, like Astris’s whiskers. “It lets me breathe underwater.”

“When I was in the Harbor, they put me in a magic air bubble.”

He dunked the cap in the Reservoir and pulled it over his close-cropped hair. “Air bubbles are for tourists,” he said. Then he stepped up to the edge of the Reservoir and disappeared into the water. He didn’t even make a ripple.

I stood for a while, watching for him to surface. When I got tired, I sat down, took off my sneakers, and dangled my feet in the water.

What if Pondscum changed her mind about Airboy and snatched the cap off his head? What if the other Water Folk hurt him or threatened him? What if someone told Astris? What if someone told the Lady?

A fury of bubbles roiled the water’s surface, followed by a swirl of sleek, wet bodies. I saw Airboy leap out of the water, twist, and dive back in, lithe as a fish. Was he playing or swimming for his life? He was too far out for me to see. I pulled a curl into my mouth and chewed it.

The roiling moved closer. Airboy dolphined again. This time I could see he was laughing.

Laughing. Airboy.

I spat out the curl. Airboy liked my friends. He’d be my ally in the court of the Mermaid Queen. Maybe he’d be help me find her stupid mirror.

The game moved to the middle of the Reservoir. The water surged and boiled like Astris’s tub on wash day. It looked like the whole Reservoir had joined in.

Algae’s head popped up by my feet. She looked amused. “Trouble. One of the naiads tattled to a vodyanoi. He and his friends are going for the mortal tooth and nail. Your boyfriend’s still in one piece, but the girls are starting to lose interest. Just thought you’d want to know.”

I panicked. Totally and entirely. On land, there were things I could do, words I could say. I was totally helpless dealing with Water Folk I couldn’t talk to. My fingers clumsy with fear, I fumbled in my pocket for the Pooka’s tail hair. I wasn’t supposed to use it except in case of extreme emergency, but if this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was.

The hair was long and black and coarse. I held it in my fingers, blew on it gently, and whispered:

At the third line, I heard the pounding of unshod hooves on the Reservoir path. By the last words, a wild black pony was prancing by my side.

“I’m here,” said the Pooka, blowing down his nose. “Where’s this danger I’m to save you from? Are you hurt, at all?”

“It’s Airboy—a friend of mine from school. He’s in the Reservoir, and the vodyanoi are after him. You’ve got to rescue him.”

The yellow eyes fixed on me, their expression far from godfatherly. “I do not so. Your friend is no concern of mine. Why does he not call on his own godparent, for all love?”