Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (14 page)

It was a tavern of sorts, although the room was smaller,
darker and much smellier than the inn where Marta and I had stayed on our way
to Cloudcatcher. Lit candlesticks above the fireplace and in sconces on the
wall threw long, black shadows, and the fire was roaring.

There was such a crowd I truly could not have pushed my way
to the wall. Men stood or sat on benches, eating from bread trenchers, their
mugs of ale gripped protectively in their hands, a few drunk, but everyone
seemed to be enjoying themselves, the conversation lively and loud. I chose the
only way open to me—I dove under the nearest table.

I got a snoot full of hay, wood chips and old food, grateful
none of it had been in someone’s stomach. The stench of sour ale, moldy bread
and very dead fowl made me sneeze. The hay around me lifted slightly, as if
stirred by a breeze—I’d pulled the tiny whirling wind into the tavern!

Too late now. I tightened my grip, narrowing the focus of
the swirling breeze.
Don’t go anywhere
without me,
I told it.

Lord and lady, I was talking to the wind.

Crawling as fast as I could, I slid like a snake among the
legs. I got nudged and kicked a few times, but the men weren’t mean, just surprised.
A couple of fellows started laughing and trying to push themselves enough elbow
room to toss some bread at me.

“
That
fellow jumped ship!” cried a familiar, if breathless, voice, and I knew the
sailor was in the tavern. “Stop him!”

I heard scuffling, thuds against the wall, and then someone
yelled: “Mind yur hands, limey!”

That was the only warning.

Crash! Then the sound of blows against flesh and wood.
Everyone at the table jumped up. Peeking out, I saw one man throw himself onto
the solid row of men with their backs to us.

I had to get out of there. Reaching the end, I pushed my way
through a leg forest beneath the next table.

Push a man’s leg hard in any direction other than forward,
and he’ll move for you; I guarantee it.

Good thing I was moving fast; abruptly there was more light.
Men yelled as they upended the empty table and flung it toward the entrance.
Goddess bless, show me a way out!
More
patrons leaped up and threw themselves into battle, their drinks raining upon us.
Ducking past heaving, struggling bodies I bolted under the next table.

I brushed against fur.

I recoiled—I didn’t want to rile a strange dog!

The curled pile of fur stirred. It was not my breeze. I
could make out the flash of golden eyes as the creature stretched, flexing its
toes at me.

A cat. It was a huge, dirty cat, large enough to block my
path. Unperturbed by humans pushing the table above us every which way, the
animal finished unwinding itself and stood. It was much larger than I
previously thought, like a small bobcat. The cat started walking away from me, tracing
the length of the trestle above us, its long, feathery tail swaying gently
above its back. Then it paused, looking back over its shoulder.

I crawled after it as fast as I could.

We reached the end of the row of tables, finding a
passageway along the inward wall of the tavern into another area for eating and
drinking. It was full and noisy, but the fight hadn’t spread. The cat made a
beeline for that arch, walking between two sets of legs as if they were no more
than the doorframe. I got halfway to my feet and slid between the men,
stumbling as I followed the cat through the crowd.

A merchant or two in churchgoing clothes pulled their coats
away from me, but no one tried to toss me out of the place. My breeze pushed
against my back but I didn’t stumble. The cat vanished out the double doors. I
straightened and slowed my feet, if not my heartbeat, into the brisk walk of
someone with a place to go.

The breeze came right along with me and pulled the tavern
doors shut behind it.

I might as well have been invisible. No one commented on my
appearance or asked my destination. Once out on the stone sidewalk, I looked
either way. From the sounds behind me, I was pretty sure the fight was trying
to move into the front room.

Keep moving, Allie.
I glanced up at the wall next to me, and was told that this Broad Way
establishment had existed since 1790. I was where I wanted to be. I set off
quickly to the right.

The cat had not gone far; I caught a brief sighting of the
animal’s fluffy tail. For whatever reason, the cat was still with me.

The light now had that strange intensity winter sometimes
gives us, where you’re not positive where the sun is, but it’s definitely out
there somewhere. Colors of clothing muted, not fading to gray. The sky was an
interesting mix of shades—lamb’s wool grey, old denim blue and white clouds. It
was like pouring milk into tea; the clouds spread along the horizon, making new
layers in various concentrations, from dove pale to almost flint.

The brightest color visible anywhere was the tail of the
cat—despite the dirt, I could see occasional flickers of gold and autumn
russet.

My breeze had popped back up into the sky, like a huge,
softly twirling parasol.

Adjusting my sweater and brushing the straw and wood chips
from myself, I discovered I still had the ring of red wool I had torn from the
sailor’s uniform. Somehow I’d looped it on my wrist. Watching the sidewalk
dance of two merchants, an elderly woman with a basket and a happy-looking
drunk sailor avoiding each other, I pushed the ring down to circle my fingers,
and then folded it over to ball it inside my fist.

The woman disappeared, literally
disappeared
between one step and the next.

I stopped so fast the boy behind me bumped me and then
cursed as I made my way to the wall of the nearest building. After a moment I
relaxed my hand, sliding the frayed cuff back over my wrist so that it touched
my skin.

There she was, carefully making her way along, avoiding the
cluster of men walking her way, her basket wide and awkward. She could have been
the wife of any tradesman of the city, her clothing muted but not ragged. From
her posture and walk, I guessed she was older than my mother but not too old to
walk safely upon snow and ice. Why they weren’t trying to fill the space she
occupied, I didn’t know, since they didn’t seem to notice her, but there it was . . .
the loop of cloth had some sort of spell attached to it.

Was this coincidence? Did those men follow me because they
could see my aura, and knew me as a practitioner?

I pulled the cuff off, looking for any writing upon it.
There was nothing visible, at least to my eyes. Damaged shirt, damaged
cuff . . . damaged spell? I slid the loop back up to my wrist.

I would wear it until I found the buildings far behind me. I
sensed that the damaged spell gave me a small advantage over those sailors . . .
if they
were
sailors.

“
Chirrrrp?”

I looked down. The cat sat at my feet. “Was that you?” I
asked him.

The next sound could only be described as a trill. The
animal stood up and rubbed against my legs. His ears brushed my knees.

“
So
I belong to you, do I?” I knew cats rubbed their faces on things in their
territory. Could this animal speak with birds, or call birds? “Let’s go,” I
told him, stepping toward the road. Now that I knew that someone very alert
might be able to find me just because they could see people moving around an
open space, I thought walking between road and sidewalk might mean fewer people
to avoid.

Could magic users see my whirling wind?

I started walking, looking ahead for landmarks and trying to
avoid carts or men carrying large burdens. I needed to find that “green space”
the sailor had told me about. It was probably brown or snow-covered right now.
And I also needed to find someone who looked like they might know the way to
Windward. This brush with magic made me wonder if it was smarter to stay away
from power, to avoid even simply mentally yelling for help. If I could find the
house by myself, I thought it would be better.

The sharp smell in the air promised more snow coming. I sure
hoped I could make it back to Windward before darkness. There were worse things
than that portal by the stables disappearing before I could tell Cousin Esme
about it.

If the people who created that portal did not know I had
passed through it, it might continue to be there, waiting to give someone else
passage. Someone the household knew nothing about. Even if students had created
the doorway . . . could an accomplished magic user use it to intrude onto the grounds
of Windward?

Someone who was not merely curious . . . someone
who was dangerous?

The talk of war had me uneasy.

But then people tell me I think too much.

o0o

In the end, asking the way to Windward was even more remarkable
than getting out of town had been. I passed the Park Row gardens, and a huge
swath of land without a building upon it. There really was a triangle of open
land arrowing back toward New York, and roads going northeast and northwest
along the two sides that came to a point. I paused there, looking down first
Broad Way and then off to my right, where a path called Division went east for
a bit and then seemed to swing up north once more. The cat was still with me,
although it had discovered a patch of fresh, unmarked snow. This was cause for
a cat celebration; he was bouncing around like a rabbit, occasionally posing
for me with tail up and whiskers wide.

So what next? Maybe I needed to return to the last tavern
and ask for directions. I heard scuffing snow, and looked over my shoulder.

The person approaching me was dressed in dark, loose trousers
and a long-sleeved tunic, bowed under a wide hat woven of straw. I grabbed my
right wrist and moved the torn red cuff away from my skin.

Still there.

The cat bouncing across the path caught the strange one’s
eye. As the face turned up, I saw a fleeting smile at the cat—and then I was
spotted. All expression left his face. He—I thought a he—continued toward me,
his pace only a hair slower than before. Finally, he stopped.

We were maybe twelve healthy strides apart; I could clearly
see that he had ivory colored skin and delicate eyebrows. His eyes and brows
were a bit like those of the American natives, but he was much shorter, and he
was fair compared to the men I’d seen in my dream.

I’d seen a hat like this . . . .
 
I felt myself straighten. This person
was from China, or some such land!

The cat bounded up to me, trilling. The stranger kept his
gaze between the cat and me. Finally, the person bent from the waist toward me,
low enough for me to see the top of the hat, but not the brim in the back. I
also bowed from the waist.

The Chinese person studied me for a while. His gaze flicked
above my head. Then I felt something like the brush of my hair in a light wind swirling
around me.

Magic.

So, are you supposed
to be here
?
It was a moment
like something out of Marco Polo’s tales!

His aura was a reassuring mix of blues, greens, purple and
white, void of black or even brown. The cat was a bundle of glittering brown,
with bursts of white.

I focused again. He didn’t look like someone who would take
offense at a question.

“
Good
afternoon,” I said aloud. “Do you know the way to the Livingston estate called
Windward?”

“
Doktor
Livingston?” The voice was a deep tenor, almost definitely male.

An arm snaked out of the flapping material, pointing to the
right-hand road. “Windward.”

I bowed again, trying for the same height as before. “Thank
you.” I had to either let the man go on, or turn my back on him and hope it was
a good decision. A tendril of myself swirled toward the cat, testing if I could
see out of its eyes. The cat promptly raised a paw at me, as if batting at a
long piece of grass. Then it went over to the man and rubbed against his legs.
A hint of a smile appeared, and he spoke to it, the rise and fall of his speech
nothing like any words I had ever heard.

The cat bounded to me, rubbing past my legs. “So, you want
me to take him on your say-so?” I murmured to the cat.

The cat trilled at me, and then leapt in the direction the
man had pointed.

Trying to hide a sigh, I started off on the right-hand path.
I had my whirling wind. A whirling wind was an argument, if I needed an
argument.

I knew he was back there, like a shadow in my mind, but he
made no attempt to catch up. Since he probably did not know I was female
(although his magic might include something that could get past my protection)
I figured this fellow made a habit of keeping to himself. When you considered
how most colonists treated the different Indian tribes, this foreign fellow’s
caution was understandable. I didn’t think I was in danger, but every time I
looked to see what the cat was up to, I gauged whether the distance between the
man and me had shrunk.

It had increased.

I figured all was well.

Then I heard the squeak and rattle of a carriage or wagon. Two
glossy bay horses pulled a small, elegant carriage, slung in a manner I’d never
seen before. I wondered if that made the jostling and bouncing from ruts
beneath the snow bearable. Marta told me once that some roads were impassable
for a wagon—and more than once, a coach carrying people between places like New
York and Philadelphia arrived with broken bones among the passengers.

The carriage slowed as it neared the man. A window slid down,
and someone in the carriage called out to him. I could see a genuine smile on
the slight man’s face as he bowed. After a rapid fluttering of sentences
exchanged, the man waved, gesturing for me to come closer.

My momma raised no fools.