Sharon Shinn - Gateway

It felt like it was 120 degrees inside the black Lexus, and even the high-powered air-conditioning wasn’t going to have an impact anytime soon. “Do you want me to take you back home?” Isabel asked as she pulled out of the parking lot. “Or do you want to come help out at the voter registration booth with me? But that’s strictly volunteer work.”

Daiyu laughed. “I don’t want to work, but I do want to go to the fair, so if that’s where you’re going-”

“I have a guaranteed parking spot at the Mansion House,” Isabel said with satisfaction.

They parked five levels down in the dungeonlike lower recesses of the Mansion House, then climbed up the spiral ramps to the exit and welcome freshair. As they were crossing Memorial Drive toward the fairgrounds, Isabel lifted her eyes to gaze up at the top curve of the Arch, glistening silver even in the waning light of the summer evening.

“Gateway to the West,” Isabel said. “Prettiest landmark in the whole country, I always think. And I love the view you can get of the city when you ride up to the top.”

“I never go up in the Arch,” Daiyu said. “I’m a little afraid of heights.”

Isabel handed Daiyu a twenty and two fives, then strode off confidently toward the north end of the fairgrounds. Daiyu moved more aimlessly. Today there were thousands of people milling around among the tents and booths, eating cotton candy, sipping beer, sweating in the heat, talking, laughing, quarreling, strolling. It would get even more unbearably crowded near true dark, right before the spectacular fireworks displays over the Mississippi that ended the fair every night. Daiyu loved the great constellations of color that reflected in the silver of the Archand painted moving patterns on the broad and restless river.

She was trying to decide if she was hungry enough to buy herself dinner when a soft voice from the shadows asked, “Got a dollar to spare, miss?”

Daiyu turned to see an old man standing a few feet away, clearly not wanting to get close enough to alarm her. He was white skinned but smudged with dirt, bald but bearded, wearing way too many clothes on such a hot day. She could catch the odor of urine even though he kept his distance.

“I do,” she said. Her father encouraged her to give away five dollars to some charitable cause or homeless person every week, and she usually kept one-dollar bills in her pockets, ready to hand out. But she’d dispensed her last single Friday morning, so she handed him one of Isabel’s fives. “There’s a lot of good food at the fair, isn’t there?”

A smile magically transformed his face. “There is,” he agreed. “I want one of those hot dogs.”

She laughed. “That sounds pretty good. Maybe I’ll get one too.”

“Thank you, miss. God bless you.”

As soon as he left, she checked her wallet and realized with dismay that she didn’t have any money except the bills Isabel had given her. Fair food could be pricey-she might easily spend ten dollars on a burger and a soda-and would the old woman really sell her the black jade ring for fifteen dollars? Maybe she should buy the ring before making any other purchases.

She tried to tell herself that she didn’t want the ring, and if someone else had already bought it, she didn’t care. She tried to make herself stop to buy a hamburger before looking for the old woman’s booth, but the line was long and she couldn’t keep her feet still. Before she knew it, she was drifting through the fair again, trying to be courteous as she pushed her way past strangers, stepped around baby carriages, and hurried past all the other booths that lined the fairgrounds.

There. Sandwiched between a lemonade stand and a funnel-cake vendor. There was the jewelry booth, hardly more than a battered table and a tattered yellow awning. The tiny old woman stood motionless behind the counter, dressed all in black even on this hot evening. She was staring at Daiyu as if she had not taken her eyes off her since Daiyu left the grounds the previous afternoon.

For a moment, Daiyu felt peculiar again. For a moment, she had the sense that this wrinkled old lady was more dangerous to her than the polite beggar would ever have been. Her hands curled into fists. She remembered the cool, silky weight of the ring against her finger. She stepped over to the booth.

“You came back,” the old lady greeted her.

“I guess I did,” Daiyu said. “Do you still have the ring?”

“Fifteen dollars,” the vendor said.

The red silk box was already in the woman’s hand.

As if she had been standing there since the fair opened this morning, waiting for Daiyu to return.

Wordlessly, Daiyu handed over the twenty-dollar bill that Isabel had given her. She waited until the old woman had given back her change before she slipped the ring on her finger. As she remembered, it was a perfect fit, heavy on her hand, but in a pleasing fashion, calling her attention to it, making her pause to admire it. She twisted it slowly in one complete circle to study the detail of the carving, the dragon’s precisely rendered head, its sleek scales, its stylized feet.

“I do love this,” she said under her breath. “I don’t know why.”

“It was meant for you,” the old woman said.

Daiyu laughed softly. “That’s what it feels like. Well. Thank you. Now I’m going to get myself something to eat and then go home before it gets any more crowded here.”

“You could do me a favor,” the old woman said suddenly.

Daiyu blinked at her. How odd. “What?” she asked warily.

The woman pointed to a tent about twenty yards away if Daiyu walked straight under the great silver wicket of the Arch. “A woman in that booth was interested in one of my necklaces. I told her she could wear it tonight and see if she wanted it. I don’t like to leave my table. Just take it to her-that’s all you have to do.”

“I suppose I could do that,” Daiyu said.

“I’d be very grateful,” the old woman said.

She held up a long silver chain hung with a pendant that looked as fiery as an opal but with a pinker cast. “That’s pretty,” Daiyu said, cupping her hand to take hold of the stone. Oh, what was wrong with her? The instant it rested against her skin, she wanted this piece, too. It felt lighter than the black jade, as if it was porous or constructed of molecules of some lower specific density, and as if those molecules were dancing in her palm. “What kind of stone is this?” she asked.

The old woman waggled her head from side to side. “Some funny name. I don’t remember.”

“How much is it?”

The old woman smiled. “It might not be for sale,” she said. “Ask me again if my friend decides not to buy it.”

“Maybe I will,” Daiyu said, though she couldn’t imagine that this bauble would go for the ten dollars she had left. But Isabel would probably give her a loan, if Daiyu helped her register voters for a couple of hours. She started to add, MaybeI’ll see you later, but just then there was a shrill whizzing sound and then a loud boom that reverberated off the downtown skyscrapers. Daiyu shaded her face with her hands.

“Fireworks already? It’s not even seven o’clock.”

The old woman shrugged. “Practice rounds. You go see my friend. Give her the necklace.”

Daiyu waved in lieu of farewell. She had taken three steps away when she heard the woman add, “You be careful, now.” Daiyu turned back in surprise, but the old vendor was crouched under the table, digging through boxes of merchandise. Either Daiyu had imagined the voice, or she’d heard someone else speaking. She shrugged and, holding the pink stone covetously in her hand, she passed under the Arch.

The world fell apart.