Sarah Zettel - Dust girl

“We can’t! The stories all say if you eat anything in Fairyland, you can never leave.”

That was all I could stand and a little bit more. “We’re not in Fairyland! We’re in Kansas! Whoever she is, she knows something about my papa and she’s got food and I am going after her!”

I pelted around the corner of the store, afraid the woman would have gotten out of sight. But no, there she was, marching down the dusty hardpan street between the backs of the shops and the fronts of the first low houses. As I ran to catch up, she disappeared into a shuttered clapboard building, not much more than a shack, really. It wasn’t until I got to the porch that I saw the hand-painted cardboard sign tacked to the door that read SHIMMY’S.

Piano music trickled out around the door, a soft, wandering blues tune. I shifted my weight, and the porch boards creaked under my shoes. I knew what this was. It was a juke joint-a place where people could come and hear music and dance and drink. We’d had a place like it on the edge of Slow Run called the Turn Out. It was a big dare with the kids to sneak down there at night and try to see in the windows, or maybe watch the dice games out back.

But it was the music that made me hesitate. There’d been a lot of music in my life lately, and following it had not been getting me anyplace good. If I followed this music now and something went wrong, I didn’t have anything or anybody to help me. Not even Jack.

I put my hand on the knob. I didn’t bother to knock; I just pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold. As I did, I got that twisting key-in-the-lock feeling again, like I’d had when I opened that window or gate or whatever it was to the living prairie and the railroad men working. I knew I wasn’t just walking into an ordinary room; I was walking into Someplace Else.

This time, though, Someplace Else didn’t look like all that much. The room on the other side of that doorway was dim and hot. The smells of tobacco, dust, and beer rose up from scarred floorboards. Crooked chairs stood around bare wooden tables. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a small stage in the far corner. The woman we’d met in the street rested her elbows on the top of an upright piano and smiled big and bright down at the player. He was a lean black man with a pencil-thin mustache and his black hair slicked down tight against his scalp. A cigarette burned in the stand ashtray at his elbow. His long hands moved slow and easy across the keys, coaxing out the tune.

“Let him go, let him go, God bless him…,” crooned the woman, and the player smiled into her eyes. “He can roam this wide world over, and never find a sweet gal like me…”

I took a step. The dusty floor creaked underfoot, and the man and woman stopped.

“Well, it’s about time.” The man swiveled his stool toward me. “Shimmy said you’d be coming along. Hello, Callie girl.”

“Who’re you?”

“Well,” said the woman, “I guess I’d better perform the introductions. Callie LeRoux, meet your papa, Daniel.”

The floor tipped. My lungs closed up tighter than they ever had when they were full of dust. I was sliding sideways. I had to put my hand out to stop from falling against the wall.

“Easy now, honey.” The woman-Shimmy-beamed at me, like she’d just brought home the canary for the cat.

“I’m sorry to break it to you so sudden, Callie,” said the man-my papa? Really? “But seeing you there, I couldn’t hold off.”

“You… you’re my papa?” I whispered.

He smiled, showing his teeth, which were straight and even and bright, bright white. He wore neat gray trousers with red suspenders over a crisp white shirt. A gold and pearl pin held his red tie in place, and a big gold ring glittered on his pinkie finger. I couldn’t see his eyes. The room was too dim for that.

“I’m awful glad to finally meet you, Callie.”

He held out his arms, ready for me to run right in. He was so handsome, and he sat at an upright piano that might have been the twin of the one in the Moonlight Room. But more than that, his voice was familiar. I was sure I’d heard that voice before, somewhere else, a long way away. With memory kicking my shins, I was tired, frightened, and starved enough that if this had been maybe two days ago, I just could have believed him.

But it wasn’t two days ago, and my brain was going full steam ahead.

“You told Mama you’d come back for her.” I didn’t run forward. I walked a couple of steps, keeping my eyes wide, just like Jack had done when he was lying up a storm to Shimmy. “She said you told her, ‘Always remember I’m coming back for you, Josie.’ ”

“I was on my way too, but I got held up in this duster. I couldn’t believe it when Shimmy said she saw you on the street right here in town. But we’re together now, and that’s all that matters.” He lifted his arms an inch.

I took another step. His eyes twinkled in the dim light. At first glance, they were a warm brown like Shimmy’s, but now I was close enough to see they were gold and silver and black too, all mixed up together in a way that wasn’t quite human. Close, but not quite. But even with his strange eyes, he looked so happy. It would be so easy to sink into belief, just because this man wanted me to.

“Mama said you’d know me right away when you saw me.” I could feel this word game was dangerous. I was playing with something I didn’t understand all the way.

“I couldn’t miss you, Callie,” he said. “You look just like my Josie.”

That did it. I grabbed his hand and shoved it down. “My mother’s name is Margaret. I don’t look a thing like her, and whoever you are, you ain’t my papa.”

That bright smile fell off his face so far I could have kicked it across the floor.

Shimmy threw back her head and laughed. “Well, sir, if she ain’t the clever one after all.” Still chuckling, she pulled a compact, the kind with a mirror inside, out of her purse. She studied what she saw there and dabbed at the corner of her mouth for a second before she snapped it shut and tucked it away. “Don’t you mind Shake, Callie LeRoux. He’s just mad ’cause you’re smarter than he looks. Sit down here with me.” She sauntered off the stage and slipped behind one of the tables.

Truth to tell, I didn’t want to get any closer to her. But I wanted her to talk to me, so I pulled out a chair and sat, trying to keep to the far edge without looking like I was. That just made her laugh again.

“You hungry, Callie?” She spread her hands out. There wasn’t anything on the table in front of us. Then there was.

A huge roast turkey with corn-bread stuffing spilling out of it sat in the middle of a sea of food: three kinds of congealed salad lined up alongside green beans, sliced bread, macaroni and cheese, and a bowl of creamy white mashed potatoes. There was a bowl of soft butter, and another of rich brown gravy.

A fresh wave of dizziness made me really glad I was sitting down. I wished I could wipe my mouth with my sleeve like Jack did. “No thank you, ma’am,” I whispered. “I ain’t hungry.”

Shimmy rolled her big, coffee-colored eyes. “You been listening to stories, ain’t you? Well, the rules ain’t the same for family.”

That finally got my eyes off all the magic food. “We ain’t family.”

“You so sure about that, Callie?” said Shake.

I took a long sideways look over at the lean man where he sat glowering by the piano.

“Oh, let go of that.” Shimmy waved the man’s entire existence away, just like that.

“But we are kin, Callie.” Shake stood up and walked slowly down the steps off the stage. “And if you stop a minute, you’ll feel it in your bones.”