Sarah Zettel - Dust girl

“How do you even know where to look?”

I pulled out the paper I’d found in Shimmy’s purse and laid it on the table.

Jack stared at it. “Oh, now that just can’t be right.”

Because the flyer read:

KANSAS CITY DANCE MARATHON!

WHO WILL BE THE LAST ONES STANDING?

FABULOUS PRIZES

THRILLS, SUSPENSE, AIR-COOLING

MUSIC BY KANSAS CITY’S OWN

BILL “COUNT” BASIE AND HIS BAND

Starting April 14, 8 o’clock

AT

FAIRYLAND

KANSAS CITY’S PREMIER AMUSEMENT PARK!

“It’s right,” I said. “And that’s where I’m going.”

Jack tried to tell me that we-meaning I-needed to be careful. That we shouldn’t just go rushing off through the streets. After all, he said, Bull Morgan was still out there.

As if I’d forgotten that for one minute. The truth was, I hoped Bull Morgan would find us. I really did. I hoped he’d come right up to me like I was still that frightened little girl he’d chased through the dust. I’d show him what was what. I told myself that the only reason I didn’t go out looking for him was that it was more important I find my grandparents. I was telling myself all kinds of things right then. Telling myself things was like the wishing magic. The more I did it, the easier it got.

We ate our steak dinner. Well, I ate mine. Jack picked at his. You’d think he would’ve been grateful I let him stick around after he’d run out on me and Shimmy like that. I wasn’t sure why I did, really. Maybe I just wanted him to see how wrong he’d actually been.

It took a while to get ready for going out. The fancy new clothes were pretty complicated to get into. There was the slip, petticoats, and frilly drawers to sort out. The green velvet dress I’d chosen had prickly starched lace cuffs and a collar that had to be attached separately, and there were about a million silver buttons up the back. Then came the white stockings and the patent-leather Mary Janes.

My hair wasn’t cooperating either. The Savoy’s pretty gold-and-white vanity table was outfitted with brushes and combs and a big jar of pomade, in case some fine lady forgot hers. After a whole lot of wrestling, I managed to get my hair into one long braid and coil it up on my head like Mama did when we went to church at Christmastime. My hands shook as I worked the strands of the braid. I hadn’t really thought about Mama in days. I wondered where she was now, and what the Seelie were doing to her. I wondered if they were even keeping her and Papa in the same place.

I told myself this was best, even if it took a little longer. Even with my new hold over my magic, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do on my own, was there? If I couldn’t even keep Shimmy alive, how was I going to pull my parents away from the same things that could bring Bull Morgan back from the dead?

I fixed my braid with a mess of pins, then added a headband that sparkled with green glass gems. I had white gloves with pearl buttons, and a silver locket with a matching bracelet.

I smiled at the girl in the mirror and she smiled back. But I didn’t know who she was. She was pretty, I guess. But I couldn’t connect that girl in her brand-spanking-new clothes with the small, mean person I felt living inside my skin.

I snatched up Shimmy’s handbag and ran away from my reflection.

Jack was already out in the sitting room. He wore what the man at the store had called evening dress: black jacket, black trousers, stiff white shirt, and white bow tie. He’d slicked his brown hair down hard. He didn’t look any more comfortable than I felt, but he for sure looked fine in those new clothes. Any other time I would have told him so. Well, I think I would have. The truth was, he looked too grownup for me, and despite the fact that I was still mad as sin at him, my insides were starting to squirm around all over again just seeing him.

For his part, Jack was looking at me funny. I wanted to know whether he saw the pretty girl from the mirror or the tiny, mean one. But there was no way to ask. So we just picked up our new coats and walked out to the elevator, and then across the lobby and out to the street, where the doorman hailed us a taxi.

If Kansas City during the day was a marvel, at night it was pure magic. Electric lights shone from every window and turned the shadows into decorations, like curtains on a stage. Cars filled the street, honking and ducking between each other in a raucous dance, carrying people in fancy clothes who laughed and drank out of flasks and smiled at the world. I all but pressed my face up against the window. It was light and color wrapped in velvet black. It was like the biggest jewel box in the world.

But the best part was the music. There was music everywhere. It poured out of the doorways and second-story windows into the smoky city air. Hot jazz and cool blues clashed with the clamor of the car horns. Through drawn shades, I could see the silhouettes of men at upright pianos. People leaned out of open windows and sang along to whatever tune was closest. They stood on the corners, laughing and singing as they swayed back and forth. A boy and girl jitterbugged on the street corner with a bunch of kids playing harmonica and ukulele. Men in sharp suits and broad-brimmed hats danced close and slow with women in spangled dresses with orchids in their hair. I rolled the taxi window down and breathed deep, like I could inhale that music and store it up in my bones, where my magic lived.

At last, our taxi pulled onto a straight street with a broad white wall on the side. Steps led up to a wide-open gate. A neon sign shone orange and red over the archway:

FAIRYLAND

“They got to be havin’ us on,” said Jack as we climbed out. “They’re havin’ us on, aren’t they?”

“No.” I paid the taxi driver and started up the steps.

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

I paid our admission at the ticket booth, and we pushed through the turnstile. The bars clattered as they went round, and I felt the turning key inside and outside, but not all the way, not yet. This was a sort of in-between space, like Shimmy had talked about, a passage from the regular world to whatever world the fairies lived in, like the theater and the juke joint. The real gate to the real Fairyland was farther on inside.

I’d never been in an amusement park, and it was plenty like another world for me right then. There was the Ferris wheel lit up red, white, and blue and turning slowly against the black sky. The roar and screams from the roller coaster washed over us to mix with the colored lights and tinny music from the carousel. The air smelled like popcorn and cotton candy and fireworks. This late there were no little kids, just teenagers and adults in their evening clothes, laughing with each other over candy apples, Cokes, bottles of beer, and glasses of gin.

Jack was trying to put on his hard hobo look, but it wasn’t working. The excited kid kept shining through. We both rubbernecked like the tourists we were as we walked down the boards of the midway. Jack stared so hard that some of the colored light bled into his eyes.

“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” called a barker from one of the wooden game booths. “Three chances to win the prize of the night! All ya gotta do is put the ball in the basket. You there, sir, whaddaya say? Win a gold ring for the little lady…”

The barker wore a striped coat and a straw boater, and his skin was emerald green. I stared, and he grinned, but then that grin faded and he took his hat off.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Highness! I didn’t recognize you. Please, with my compliments!” And he handed me that golden ring.

I slipped the ring on my gloved hand and inclined my head toward him. It seemed like the right thing to do. The barker held his straw hat over his heart and bowed back.