Bad Luck Girl (15 page)

Papa’d showed me how to be careful. I was careful now. They weren’t giving me a whole lot of wishing to work with, but it was enough. I loosened the cotton-wool spell, thinned it down to gauze, leaving just the lightest veil behind, just enough to fool my father that the magic was still in place if he happened to glance at them.

This is for Jack
, I thought toward them.
This is for Jack
.

Ben grunted and tossed down another card. Simon swore and swigged more beer. I went into our room and closed the door behind me.

Mama did not take it well when I told her Papa said not to wait up. Not that she complained or anything. She just moved briskly around the room, unfolding the dressing screen so each of us would have some privacy for changing into the pajamas waiting in the dresser drawers, turning down the sheets, and determinedly not looking out the windows or listening at the door for my father’s step in the hall.

Papa didn’t come back for hours. I know because I couldn’t fall asleep. I was dog tired, but between everything that had happened with Touhy, and then with Papa, my thoughts wouldn’t settle down long enough to let me find any sleep. I just lay in my comfortable bed, stared at train lights flashing past outside, and counted Jack’s snores for what felt like hours. When I couldn’t take that anymore, I
turned onto my other side and stared at the mirror hanging over the dresser. It wasn’t cracked anymore. I watched its darkened surface, waiting to see my grandmother again. But nothing moved in there, and nothing moved in there, and the longer nothing moved in there, the tighter my insides knotted together, because there should have been something. And the more nothing there was, the more worried I got.

When I finally did hear Papa moving outside the door, I shut my eyes fast and tried to make my breathing all even. It was a pretty bad acting job, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just slipped across the room and helped himself to some pajamas. I heard him move behind the screen, and then the soft creak of the mattress as he climbed into bed beside Mama.

“Is everything all right, Daniel?” she whispered.

“As right as it can be, Margaret.”

“Which is to say, not very.”

He let out a long, slow sigh. “We’ll find our way.” There was a long pause, and then Mama whispered, “How?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Why couldn’t I be asleep? I didn’t want to hear this.

“I don’t know yet,” he answered. “I wish I did.”

“Me too.”

I heard the sound of a soft kiss, and a smile crept into my father’s voice. “Well, I’ll just have to make it come true, then, won’t I?”

They were silent after that, and I got tired of keeping my eyes squeezed so tight. Slowly, the dark in my head rose up.
I didn’t so much fall asleep as slide into a long, dim nightmare filled with voices, all trying to tell me something that would save my life. But I couldn’t understand any of them. It went on and on until I woke up sweating and ready to scream.

It took me a good hundred or so hard heartbeats to believe I really was still in the apartment, and that the sun was up. But there was Jack still snoring on his sofa, and there was Papa curled up under the counterpane on his half of the double bed.

Mama was nowhere to be seen, but I heard some soft clanking on the other side of the door. Then I smelled hot butter and heard something I hadn’t heard in months.

Mama was singing.

“Let the Midnight Special, shine a light on me
.

Let the Midnight Special, shine its ever-lovin’ light …”

I got up slowly so I wouldn’t creak the springs, carefully dressed in a white blouse and green skirt Papa’d magicked into being for me, and tiptoed out into the front room.

Mama had clearly been up for hours. She’d also been busy as a queen bee, working her own brand of magic. That greasy little kitchen was clean as a new day. Ben and Simon were sitting at the table, wolfing down huge stacks of griddle cakes with blackstrap molasses. And that wasn’t all. There was steak and eggs on their plates too. A bottle of fresh milk stood between them along with a battered coffeepot. More coffee percolated on the stove.

“Good morning, Callie,” said Mama brightly. She bent
down, humming, opened the oven door, and pulled out a cake tin. I suddenly lost the ability to swallow and Mama laughed.

“I suppose you thought I’d forgotten,” she said, setting the tin onto an overturned plate so the cake inside could cool. “Happy birthday, honey.” She kissed the top of my head. “I couldn’t let it go without at least a little something.”

“How … how …” I gestured helplessly at the table. The kitchen was full of so many good smells that my stomach was ready to sit up and beg.

Mama smiled. “That nice Mrs. Burnstein downstairs, she told me where the grocer’s is. I’ll send your father around later to settle the bill.”

“You got credit out of Old Man Grenke?” exclaimed Ben around a big bite of steak. “Lady, you’re a miracle worker.”

“And you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Mama answered, but she did slide another couple of griddle cakes onto Ben’s plate. Simon jabbed out with his fork, trying to grab one off the top, and Mama smacked the back of his hand with her spatula.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“None of that!” she snapped back. “You mind your manners, or no more for you.”

“Yes, Mrs. LeRoux,” mumbled Simon apologetically.

My jaw dropped open. Mama looked at me. I closed it before I could catch flies. Mama picked up another frying
pan and laid another gorgeous, shimmery sunny-side-up egg onto Simon’s plate, nudged the coffeepot toward him, and turned back to the stove.

“Sit down, Callie, I’ll get you some breakfast.”

I sat. The table had been fresh scrubbed and the smell of bleach mixed with the cooking smells. There was a lace place mat, and a clean napkin, and a white china plate. I had the wild idea Mama must have magicked the table somehow. Then she slid a couple of fried eggs and a fresh, crisp griddle cake onto my plate and I stopped caring where any of it came from, or who I was sitting with. I just grabbed up my knife, dug into the butter, poured on the molasses, and started eating.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama wink.

“Is that steak and eggs I smell?” Papa came out the bedroom door, looking fresh as any daisy. He kissed Mama on the cheek, and sat himself down with a nod at the Hollander brothers. He shook out his napkin and let Mama fill his plate. “Why, thank you, Mrs. LeRoux.”

Disbelief shivered through me. It tickled. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. With all the disasters past, present, and future looming just outside the door, I couldn’t actually be sitting here having breakfast with my parents. Mama was now taking one of the empty chairs, and helping herself to griddle cakes, and letting Papa pour her out a cup of coffee and add a drop of milk, like he knew just how she took it.

Jack came out of our room, rubbing his eyes. He looked
toward his brothers and froze. He saw, he understood, and he covered it up with a great imitation of one of his jaw-cracking yawns. I gave him a little nod, and he gave me one back and mouthed,
Thank you
.

Jack dropped into a chair and forked himself up a couple of griddle cakes and a piece of steak. “Did I hear right?” he asked innocently. “It’s Callie’s birthday?” His eyes kind of slid over Papa straight to Mama.

“It is,” said Mama. “She’s fifteen today.”

“Happy birthday!”

“To Callie!” Papa raised his coffee cup, and the Hollander brothers, made more mellow by Mama’s cooking than all the magic an Unseelie prince could muster, did the same.

I raised my glass of milk to them. Jack was grinning at me. I felt a blush beginning at the roots of my hair. But before it had a chance to work itself up into a full-fledged burn, the apartment door banged open to let in a stranger: a squat little man with a battered derby on his head and a big, black cigar clamped tight in his lantern jaw.

“Benny, Sy …” He saw us at the breakfast table and stopped dead. “What the hell’s all this?” Mama puckered her face up, and the man chewed angrily on his cigar a few times.

Ben swallowed his mouthful of flapjack. “Mornin’, Mr. Sweeny.”

Mr. Sweeny did not seem to hear. “I said, what the hell’s all this?” And he said it with his teeth clenched around his cigar. My breath hitched up. I couldn’t help it. Papa’d be
watching for how the Hollander brothers reacted. If they said too much, he’d know something was up.

“Ain’t nothin’,” Ben said quickly and I could breathe again. “Me an’ Sy, we’s ready to go, ain’t we, Sy?” Ben tossed down his napkin and smacked his brother’s arm. “Thanks for the breakfast, Mrs. LeRoux. Anybody cooks like you can come by anytime. Come on, Sy, Mr. Sweeny’s waiting.” The brothers grabbed their hats and hustled out. Mr. Sweeny glowered at the breakfast table, chewed his cigar at us one more time, and left with the brothers, letting the door slam shut behind him.

That was when I noticed all the blood had drained from Jack’s face.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“That was trouble,” said Jack to his breakfast plate. “Sweeny’s a … well, he kept the local bootleggers in line back during Prohibition. Hired muscle for whoever needed it …” He eyed the door, and I knew he was thinking about his two huge brothers and maybe especially Ben’s scarred hands. “Probably don’t want to know what line he’s in now.”

“Well, we’ll deal with that in its turn.” Mama drank some more coffee. “Oh, and Daniel, I’ll need some money for the grocer.”

Papa chuckled and shook his head. “Margaret, you are a wonder. The whole of the fae world is after us, and possibly a portion of the human world too, and you’re worried about the grocery bill.”

“Daniel, I will not have us leave town owing. Besides, if
I can’t produce a dinner for Benjamin and Simon, they may forget about being so polite about having us to stay.”

I waited for Papa to tell her what we’d done to them, but he just shrugged elaborately and gave a long sigh. “Well, what can I say to that?”

“You say ‘yes, dear,’ ” Mama replied promptly.

Papa kissed her cheek. “Yes, dear.”

I felt strange. I’d never had this before, a minute to sit at the table with my family, my whole family, and Jack. To sit and eat and talk, and just … just
be
. I wanted to sink into it and be happy. Last night didn’t mean so much after all. Neither did what had been done, and undone, with the Hollander brothers. Papa had to be careful, didn’t he? He was just trying to look out for me and Mama. That was what he was supposed to do. If he went a little overboard, that was okay. It was all fixed now. I wanted to believe that. I almost did believe it. Because right here was everything I’d wanted for so long. I glanced over at Jack. Almost everything, anyway.

Jack, on the other hand, had gone kind of quiet. He kept watching my parents like he was hoping no one would notice him watching. I knew this couldn’t be comfortable for him, having my folks sitting here smiling at each other when he’d found out only yesterday his folks were dead. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

“Now,” said Papa as he filled his coffee cup, yet again. Who knew fairy princes liked coffee so much? “We have a safe haven that should last us a few days. But we do need to
move on from here, and to do that, we need two things.” He blew on the coffee and sipped. “First, we need to find out what the situation is between the courts, so we know who’s on our tail and how close they are. We also need some ready money for when we get to New York.” Papa said this last directly to Mama. “There are people I want to talk to about the first, and as for the second …” He smiled. “Fortunately, Chicago is well situated to supply a musician with paying work. I should be able to find a club that will pay for a night’s playing. Both these things, though, mean I have to be out and about today.” He took another swallow of coffee and set the cup down on the saucer with a sharp click. “I had thought to ask you all to stay inside while I’m gone, but it occurs to me that would be a rather naive request.” I started blushing again, but for an entirely different set of reasons. “So, if any of you do go out, I ask you to take this with you.”

Papa reached in his pocket and brought out a handful of what looked like marbles and laid them on the table. It wasn’t until I picked one of the glass-and-gold spheres up that I saw it shone gently with the light of the fairy lands.

“What is it?” asked Jack, turning one marble over in his fingers. They were just a little warmer than they should have been, and just a little lighter than if they’d really been glass.

“Think of it as a bit of wish made solid.” Papa picked up the last one, laid it in Mama’s palm, and wrapped her fingers around it. “If you are in trouble, or if you believe I might be, break it. I will be drawn to you.”

My parents sat there for a long time like that, looking at
each other like they’d forgotten Jack and I were in the room. I could almost feel the promise flowing between them. I was sure Papa was really saying,
I won’t vanish this time. I won’t let them trap me away from you ever again
.

Jack, on the other hand, looked at his wishing marble like it had started going bad a few days ago. But he did slide it into his pocket. “Thanks.”

I thought about asking Papa whom he planned to talk to, but decided against it. I really didn’t want to hear him not answering one of my questions again. I wanted to keep the good feeling that surrounded us. I put my marble in my skirt pocket.

“Excellent.” Papa stood up. “I’ll be back in time for supper.” He gave Mama an extra-long kiss. When at last he could stand to break away, he winked at me and picked up his hat, settled it low over his forehead, and left us there.

“Well.” Mama got up from the table like she couldn’t stand sitting still anymore, which she probably couldn’t. I found myself wondering about the last time he’d left her, back before I was born, and what he’d said then and how she’d felt. “If you two will help me with these dishes, we’ll have this all cleared up in two shakes.”