Golden Girl (16 page)

The mustached man raised his glass and clinked a fork against it. “My friends! My friends!” he called. The conversation and laughter faded away as the crowd turned to face him. “As you know, I’ve brought tonight’s entertainment here to the Enchanted Castle at considerable personal expense and not a little bit of trouble. And I know you’ve come to look forward to their special performances as much as I have. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the royalty of the minstrel shows, Rags and Patches!”

Two servants threw the doors open, and there, wearing a baggy black-and-yellow checkered suit, stood my father.

I knew it was him. I would have known even if I’d been awake seeing him with daytime eyes. I knew it now, despite the fact that they’d made him up. He was a tall, lean brown man. It was hard to tell the exact shade of his skin, because somebody’d smeared black gunk all over his face and given his mouth a bright red clown outline. But they couldn’t disguise his eyes. My father’s eyes were the gray and black of moonlight and midnight, and swirled with the fairy light. They were my eyes when the magic shone out from me.

My father, the prince of the Unseelies, shook his boater hat like a tambourine, while he rolled those eyes and grinned a big, wide, stupid grin.

All the beautiful, famous people laughed and applauded
or raised their champagne glasses. Papa bugged his eyes out, like he couldn’t believe he was seeing all these people waiting for him. The mustached man waved toward the musicians, and they struck up a jangly tune, all banjo and honky-tonk piano.

At the sound of the music, Papa gave an openmouthed grin and began to dance. He kicked up high and came down lightly. He high-kicked his way into the hall, leaning back so far he should have fallen over.

“I’s gwine ta go down sout’ for ta see mah Sal,”
Papa gurgled, shaking his yellow-gloved hands and hat as he strutted down the hall. The people laughed and they clapped.

All at once, his feet shot out from under him. He flailed his arms but toppled over anyway and landed hard on his backside, blinking and staring.

The laughter redoubled. “Careful there, Sambo!” someone shouted.

“He’s not going to get anywhere like that!” cried somebody else.

Now do you see?
Shake was at my shoulder, whispering into my thoughts.
This is what they can do to one of us. He is of royal stock, and they’ve made him into their clown and slave. What do you think they will do to you, with your ignorance and your human weakness?

Get out of my head!

Then let me go. Oh, but you can’t, can you? You don’t know what I’ll do next
. He grinned over me.
We’re stuck here together, you and I
.

Papa had jumped to his feet and was looking all around him like a cat chasing its tail. “Who done dat? Who throwed dat banana peel down dere?”

But there was nothing to find, just more sharp, cruel laughter. It was still rolling through the hall when a woman’s voice called from the doorway. “Yoo-hoo!”

The voice was too high and way too sugary, but I still recognized it immediately. I should. I’d heard it all my life. Papa knew it too. He jerked around, his grin growing wider and his eyes rolling huge and white. “Oh, it’s
you
, mah sweetheart!”

They’d put Mama in a costume too. She was a ballet dancer, but her tattered tutu and white stockings had been patched with brightly colored calico. Her face was made up like a china doll’s, all white with pink circles and a pink mouth. Her hair had been teased out and ratted so it stood in a ragged cloud around her face. She didn’t dance in on pointe like a real ballerina, though. She clumped flat-footed, kicking up and stomping down, with her arms bent so her hands framed her face like she was shocked or afraid.

“Oh, mah sweetheart!” Papa went down on one knee and held his arms out. “Come give me yo’ kiss!”

Mama’s head jerked around and down. She stomped over to him, her torn toe shoes flapping on the stone floor. Her arm lashed out, and she delivered a ringing slap across
Papa’s cheek. He staggered back, put his hand to the place where she’d hit him, and sighed happily.

The crowd howled with laughter.

How can they be doing this?
Shake didn’t answer me. I couldn’t even feel him anymore. What I could feel was the whole tortured web of magic winding around my parents. Strings of enchantment tied them tightly—their wrists and ankles, the corners of their mouths, their eyelids, their tongues. The strings forced them to move like marionettes. They forced Mama to clomp clumsily about the stage, a dreadful parody of a dancing doll, tripping Papa, kicking him in the pants, dumping a drink over his head.

He just stood there, blinking and bowing and smiling, the champagne running down his face, cutting tracks through the blackface and making his clown makeup run as though his mouth was bleeding. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. Because as bad as being dragged around that stage was for Mama, for Papa it was worse.

Fairies want human love and imagination. They feel it and it works on them like alcohol on a drunk. I had to struggle every day to keep myself closed down so I wouldn’t feel too much. Papa, though, was being held open. They’d gotten those strings around the magic that lived inside him and they’d wrenched it open. He could feel all the derision and contempt that filled the room. Every bit of it poured down his throat along with the laughter and the applause. He couldn’t get away from these feelings. He couldn’t stand against them.

It was killing him. I could feel that too. I could feel him. He couldn’t shut out the music or the derisive emotions and it was bowing him down, wearing him away, leaving nothing but the broken, bug-eyed clown. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be even that much left.

And they were using Mama to do it. My mama, who’d faced all the bad that life in the Dust Bowl could throw at her but who had held on, was being made to hurt the man she loved more than life and watch him as he weakened day by day. I reached down to my magic and pulled it out, groping for some way to shape it and send it out to them. I’d blow the place apart if I had to, but I’d wipe the smiles off all those people laughing at my parents. I’d start with the big man grinning in the corner.

But I couldn’t. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t anywhere near them. I was only dreaming.

Dear Callie
.

My thoughts jerked to a halt. Someone had said my name, right in the middle of this nightmare. Except it wasn’t Lorcan.

Out in the hall, Papa’d gotten hold of Mama and thrown her across his knee. “I has you now, mah sweetheart! I will show you how much I loves you!”

Dear Callie
.

Two soft words, a soft, strong, urgent whisper under the laughter and the jeering.

Dear Callie. I am glad to hear you are well and have found a good rooming house
.

It’s not happening. It’s part of the dream
. I stopped right there. Of course it was part of the dream, but this dream was real. I was hearing my mama.

I don’t think I can tell you how much it’s meant to get your letters. I think your plans for the Midnight Club sound just wonderful
.

Tears spilled into my thoughts. All those imaginary letters had been wishes too. I’d wished Mama could hear me. And she had. She was tangled and chained in the Seelie magic, but we were still mother and daughter. There wasn’t magic enough in the world to keep her from knowing I loved her. Now she was writing a letter in her own head, deep down under that enchantment. If the Seelies heard it at all, they probably thought this poor human woman was finally going crazy.

Mama had Papa’s face in her hands and was looking straight into his eyes.
I hope you’re staying wrapped up warm and taking care of your cough while you travel
.

“I loves you!” Papa burbled. “I loves you, mah sweetheart!” And he did. His love was searing and strong, and for that moment it swamped the anguish.

Then the enchanted strings jerked them together hard, so that they bumped foreheads, and again so that they bumped noses. The third time, they allowed their mouths to come together. A split second later, Papa jumped up, dumping Mama on the floor. He began dancing around in pain holding his mouth.

“Mah lip! Mah lip! She bited me!”

He staggered, pretending to be limp with pain. Mama clomped back out of the way, and Papa stumbled right into one of the guests, a woman who screamed; the man next to her shoved Papa back. He staggered again, reeling through the crowd. Suddenly they didn’t find the act so funny anymore. The guests shrieked and scattered, spilling drinks on each other and sending genuine anger curdling through the room.

Somebody tumbled against the mustached party host, and he went down on his broad backside. I felt something slip, just a split second of concentration lost, and a split second more when he was covered over by everybody’s attention and everybody’s expectation that he would
do
something about this outrage.

Everybody’s except Papa’s.

“They keep me playing by the pool during the day,” Papa breathed from where he sprawled flat on the floor. “I can’t find where they keep—”

“You bastard!” roared the mustached man. He lashed out and kicked Papa in the ribs. Bright pain flared through Papa, and he rolled himself into a ball, still blinking and trying frantically to smile.

“Now, boss, now, boss, de darkie’s sorry, he don’ mean it, please, boss!”

But he did mean it. He’d created this scene on purpose so the magic would slip, just a little, just enough to get a message to me. I saw the starlight and midnight in his eyes as he scrabbled backward and the guests tried to pull the
mustached man away. They handed their host a drink; they asked him what he’d expected from some darkie clown. Papa scrambled to his feet and grabbed up Mama’s hand. They bowed and smiled.

They knew I was watching them. They knew I’d heard.

Pitiful, isn’t it?
Shake was back. I’d been so wrapped up in watching my parents, I’d all but forgotten about him.
And you’re planning on coming in here and making it a trio
.

The great hall with its celebration faded to black. I wanted to dive after it, just to be near my parents again, but I didn’t. As much as I could in that directionless dark, I faced my uncle.

You knew where they were. You’ve known this whole time
.

He didn’t answer.

And you weren’t ever going to tell me, were you?

Still no answer.

Were you?

His smile was sharp as broken glass.
And I’m still not
.

I screamed. I lunged for him, but I had no body. I was thought and dream and darkness, and he was nothing but the light in his eyes and the gleam of his shattered teeth. I had no weapon but my anger, and Shake just laughed.

Oh, how sad, how tragic for my little niece! She thinks she can storm castles, but she can’t even touch her old uncle when she’s got him helpless. Whatever will she do?

“Wake up!” A new voice cut the darkness. Someone was shaking me. Jack. “It’s a nightmare, Callie. Wake up!”

Yes, wake up, Callie
, sneered my uncle.
It’s only a dream, after all
.

“Callie! Calliope LeRoux!”

I could feel my body again, and find my eyes and snap them open. I could sit up too, and I could remember every single thing I’d been shown. Worst of all, I could feel Lorcan in the back of my mind, buried under my enchanted sleep and waiting for me to come back.

Jack let go of my shoulders. His face was worried. “Callie, what happened?”

“I saw my parents.” I grabbed his hand and pulled myself up. “And we are out of time.”

The sun was just coming up over the hills when Jack and I snuck down to the bungalow’s second floor. I’d wanted to leave immediately, but Jack insisted we tell Ivy what was going on, because we might not be coming back. As much as I might have wanted to, I couldn’t argue with that.

The hallway had six closed doors leading off it, but it was easy to tell which belonged to Ivy. A photo of her with her head cocked sideways, giving her biggest little-girl grin, hung on the door at the far end. Jack called the picture a “head shot” and said all actors had them.

He was also hanging back.

“What’s the matter?” I whispered as I put my hand on the knob.

“It’s her bedroom,” he said. “I can’t just walk in there.”

“You just walked into my bedroom.”

“That was different.”

I rolled my eyes, but there wasn’t time to argue this either. We needed to tell Ivy what she had to know, and then get out of there before the Seelies or my grandparents found us. And we had to do it all before I got so tired I couldn’t stay awake and fell back to where my uncle was waiting.

I turned the doorknob as quietly as I could and tiptoed inside.

Walking into Ivy Bright’s bedroom was like walking into a birthday cake. Everything—from the covers and the canopy on the bed to the curtains on the windows and the patterned rug on the floor—was as white and pink and ruffled as if it had been made out of sugar icing. Even the armchairs and vanity table had ruffly skirts and quilted seats. The fireplace had a pink-veined white marble mantel with a frilly lace runner that was covered with framed photos and gold and silver trophies.

Ivy sprawled in her bed, her hair all done up in white rags to keep the curl in. I’d have bet that nobody at
Movie Fan
magazine knew about that one.

I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Ivy? Ivy, wake up.”

Ivy squeaked and grabbed hold of me. She had an amazingly strong grip and almost yanked me over as she sat up.

“What? What!” She blinked hard and knuckled her eyes.
“Callie?”

“Shhhh!” I hissed urgently. “I don’t want to wake up Tully.”

Ivy frowned. “Tully sleeps with earplugs. You could bring an elephant through and she wouldn’t hear. What time is it?” She peered at the pink clock on her dresser.