The Broken Lands (13 page)

Sam tore his eyes away from the sky for just a moment to look around at the upturned faces of the audience. There was scattered applause and murmuring here and there, but for the most part folks just stared, wonderstruck, as the fireworks tinted their cheeks blue and green and violet and scarlet and gold.

In between outbursts above, things were happening on the platform: a spray of blue-violet rose in front of the castle, like an ornamental fountain; a line of rotating candles, red and yellow and blue and orange, came to life around the base of the walls one after the other, like a row of blossoms in a flowerbed; green shapes sprouted and grew into fir trees. Soon there was a garden there, spread out at the foot of the blazing palace.

“Well, if that isn't something,” Tom murmured. Sam could only nod. It was more than
something.
It was
astounding.

From another part of the waterfront, off to the left, a sudden inferno of red and orange erupted. On a second floating platform, another curtain dropped to reveal the conical shape of a volcano. The fireworks pouring from its mouth increased and shot higher. The crimson reflections crept across the water toward the castle.

A panic of rockets flew from the first platform like an exodus of fleeing fire creatures—only instead of skyward, these rockets shot away horizontally and skipped across the water, diving under and resurfacing and spitting color and sparks all the while.

And then the palace began to sink.

Thick jets of blue and white sparks erupted along its base like foamy water as it went under, first the beautiful garden with its trees and fountains, then the walls of the castle itself as the structure descended, leaving the platform undisturbed at its center.

With a final volley of rockets and fleeing water sprites, the castle was gone. The scarlet reflection of the erupting volcano covered everything. Then, it, too, ceased.

There was a moment of quiet, and a few scattered claps. It seemed nobody was quite sure if they wanted to applaud the sinking of the castle. It had been so beautiful, and now it was gone.

There was another spark from the now-empty platform, and the unmistakable figure of Jin appeared, holding a ball of violet flame cupped in her hands. She knelt at the edge of the platform and touched the flame to the surface of the water, with the air of someone releasing a captive creature back into the wild.

She leaned back, still on her knees. The flame floated for a moment. And then, unbelievably, it dove. From where Sam sat on the beach he could just follow its progress beneath the water.

It touched something that began to glow with the same violet light.

The glowing shape started to rise. It grew larger and brighter as it did, until it broke the surface.

“Will you look at that?” Tom murmured.

“How is that
possible?
” Ambrose leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I've seen plenty of fireworks, but
this
—”

Sam watched silently, enthralled. The castle, impossibly on fire
underwater,
was lifting itself up again.

Now the audience broke into
ooh
s and
aah
s, and a wave of clapping swept across the lawn. The castle kept rising until the entire skeletal framework, defined by deep violet sparks, had emerged. Jin was nowhere to be seen. Sam burst into applause right along with everyone else.

Then the whole thing blew up.

It fragmented with a world-shaking boom into a hundred separate rockets that sailed in all directions: arching overhead and shooting sideways and skittering over the water, spiraling and whistling and weaving ghostly and beautiful ribbons of vapor and smoke. Then the lot of them detonated, painting the sky and the sea below it with layers upon layers of glittering color.

And then, at last, the sky fell silent and only drifting smoke remained.

The platform was empty. Jin was gone. The whole thing had lasted just under an hour.

Sam gave his best, most earsplitting whistle and applauded until his hands hurt, hollering all the while.

Beaming, he got to his feet and dusted himself off. “I'm going to go say hi to Jin. I'll meet you in the hotel's lounge in a bit, Tom. Hopefully Mr. Mapp's there waiting for you.”

 

Jin could barely conceal her delight as Liao rowed her back to shore in one of the hotel's little dories. She was still brimming with joy as she jumped out to haul the boat up onto the sand, still babbling to her amused but visibly proud uncle as she began taking crates from it and piling them on the beach.

“Jin!”

She looked up and spotted Sam waving. Uncle Liao cleared his throat. “I see Mr. Burns over there,” he said, nodding toward one of the piers, where the owner of Fata Morgana was accepting the congratulations of some hotel official. “I'll be there with him.”

Jin nodded and turned back to the boy trotting toward her. Ordinarily she would have carefully controlled her face so as to look perfectly composed, but the triumph of the resurrected Atlantis was too fresh. “Sam!” she called delightedly. “Did you
see?
”

“I . . . it was . . .” Sam hesitated. Jin tried not to laugh while his mental calculations were displayed quite clearly across his face. “Brilliant.”

Jin blinked, then chuckled. “Good one, that.”

He went an amusing shade of pink, dark enough to see even in the dim light from the ferry pier. “I wasn't trying to be clever,” he admitted. “I meant it. How did you learn to do that?”

“Uncle Liao.” Still beaming, Jin tucked a coil of match cord into the crate. “He met Mr. Burns in Chicago. Mr. Burns had just inherited Fata Morgana and he knew nothing about fireworks, but the relative who'd left it to him also left a cookbook full of recipes which, not being a pyrotechnician, he couldn't make heads or tails of. So he hired Uncle Liao.”

“And that's how you wound up with the company, too?”

Jin's smile faltered. She could feel the delight draining off her face. “No, I came along later.”

Sam seemed to know he'd said something wrong. He grabbed Jin's bag from the boat as she reached for it, and slung it over his shoulder. “I got it. That, too,” he added as she shrugged and went for one of the crates. “Just tell me where to take it.”

Jin gave him a long, appraising look. Then she shrugged again. “The wagon's up near the stables. Let me just tell Uncle Liao where I'm going.” She turned toward the pier. “Uncle Liao,” she called.
“Wo jiang dao che.”
Then she struck off past Sam and up the beach.

They walked most of the way in silence, although she made a point of slowing her pace after a moment or two. What he had said wasn't his fault, she told herself. He didn't know how much she hated thinking about how she'd come to be part of Fata Morgana.

Beneath their feet, sand gave way to boardwalk, boardwalk to lawn, and lawn to gravel. Someone had to speak again. “It is not clear to me,” Jin said at last, forcing herself to say what was on her mind, “why you are here. This bothers me.”

“Here?” Sam glanced sideways. Jin kept her eyes carefully on the ground in front of her. “You mean here in Coney Island, or here at the Broken Land?” Sam shrugged and grinned. “I like fireworks. Also . . . hang on a tick . . . yes,
you
invited me, if you recall.”

“That was to get you to stop fussing over me,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. They reached the wagon and the three fluttering tents alongside it. She stopped walking and faced him, arms folded. “I mean
here,
Sam. Now. Carrying boxes for me. What are you doing?”

Sam set the box down and put his hands in his pockets. “If it's the box-carrying that's bothering you—”

“It's not.”

“I really and truly have no idea how to answer you. Are you angry about something?”

“Like what?” she shot back. She
was
angry now, but only at herself for starting this awful conversation.

He laughed shortly and rubbed his face. “I'm working on that problem myself, and I'm not coming up with anything that makes sense. If I was playing cards, this is where I'd call for you to just show your hand. Why is it,” he added thoughtfully, sounding like he was speaking more to himself than to her, “that people get so much more complex when they
aren't
trying to take my money?”

Jin unfolded her arms with a little sigh of impatience. “I'm going to open the wagon door, and you're going to offer to carry the box inside.” He frowned, clearly without a clue as to where this was going. Her face felt hot, but she forced herself to explain. “I want to know if you're going to mistake that for an invitation.”

“An . . . invitation?” Sam stared at her, uncomprehending. Then, right before her eyes, it dawned on him, and a flush swept over his face once more. “Wait a minute. No.
No
. Are you out of your—why would you . . . why would you think
that?
”

Now that he'd utterly lost his composure, Jin's miraculously returned. She shrugged. “It's not unheard of.”

“Did
I
do something to make you think that? I mean—well,
did
I?”

She held his shocked stare for a moment, then let her face soften just a little. “No. You didn't. But that would've made it particularly disappointing if . . .” She sighed, turned, climbed the stairs, and opened the wagon door, tossing the words “You didn't do anything, Sam,” over her shoulder.

Inside, she took a deep breath. Outside, he hadn't moved. Jin would've heard it if he had. He was waiting for her to decide whether or not to let him in.

She lit the lamp beside the door. “Bring the box up.”

“Jin.” Sam waited until she returned to the doorway. “When you said it's not unheard of . . . ?”

She said nothing, just stood there, afraid of what he was going to ask.

“Has that actually happened to you?”

Another long moment passed. “Not,” she said quietly, “in a long time.”

She waited uncomfortably while several questions and emotions flashed across his face. Then, after a moment, he picked up the box and carried it inside. Jin pointed to an empty space under a bench opposite the entrance. “The box can go there. I'll take my bag.”

Sam slid the box under the bench, handed over Jin's rucksack, and turned to go. “The display really was awfully good, Jin. Maybe I'll see you around the island.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Maybe so.”

Out on the gravel, Sam paused and looked back at the wagon. Jin stood in the entrance, her hand on the doorframe, and watched him.

“Are you finished for the night?” he asked. “With the fire­works, I mean. Are you finished?”

Jin nodded. “Why?”

“Because . . .” He hesitated. “There's a fellow here named Tom, and Walter Mapp, one of the folks you met today, he thinks Tom might know something about Jack.”

“Jack?” She stiffened. “The one in the . . . the writing?”

Sam nodded. “I'm supposed to meet them in the hotel right now. Do you want to come, or do you want to be done with it?”

Her hand tightened on the frame. “I want to come. Will they mind?”

“Well, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb, but Tom's a guest here. If you can stand a few stares . . .” He shrugged. “I figure you deserve to know, if that's what you want. If they kick you out, I'll make them kick me out, too.”

“I have to tell Uncle Liao where I'm going.” She shut the door and darted past him, toward the water. “Wait here.”

She sprinted to the beach, ignoring the ache in her feet that running always brought, and made excuses to Uncle Liao and Mr. Burns. Then she sprinted back. “This way,” she said to Sam, heading across the gravel lot between the stables and the back of the hotel. “It's dark, but it's a shorter walk around to the main entrance.”

Light from windows on the upper floors cast bright pools on the gravel to their left as Jin led Sam through the shadows and along a row of ornamental potted junipers. Eventually they came around to the wide circular drive with the glass bandstand at its center.

From here, the Broken Land, with all its lights blazing, was something straight out of a lithograph print. The odd angles and glass cupolas and mismatched puzzle-piece dormer windows of the strange, sprawling hotel somehow managed to come together under the moon.

“Wow,” Jin said, trying not to sound too impressed. It was the first time she'd seen it from the front at night. “Are they even going to let us in there?”

“We're invited,” Sam said. “Just try and look like you belong.”

Sam's confidence notwithstanding, the doorman gave them a dubious look as they came up the stairs to the main entrance. “Hotel guests and their guests only, young man.”

At his side, Jin flinched. “I knew it,” she mumbled.

“Wait a minute,” Sam said. “We're invited,” he told the doorman. “We're meeting friends.”

The doorman's doubtful expression didn't change. He looked from Sam to Jin and back. Jin tried not to fidget. Then she started feeling a vague anger stirring in her gut on Sam's behalf. They weren't trying to trespass. They
were
invited.

“There are folks waiting for us,” Sam continued. “And if
you're
not going to open the door for this young lady, at least get out of my way so
I
can open it for her.” Then, before the doorman could reply, Sam shouldered the heavy door open and stepped aside for Jin. “After you.”

“Er. Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Don't be embarrassed,” Sam said as the door swung shut behind them. “That guy was just being difficult.”

She nodded and tried not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. The doorman was behind them, but now everybody in the atrium was staring. This made the long walk across the huge atrium seem even longer.