Sarah Zettel: Dust girl

I all but dragged Jack to the edge of the dance floor, as far from the music as I could get. It filled my mind like fog, like dust. I couldn’t see past it. It made me one of them, the Unseelie. I only cared that the music went on, never mind what it did to the people. But I didn’t want to be like that. I strained, searching for a wish, a need, anything I could get my senses into and wrap my wishing power around.

“You’ll never get out that way.”

It was Uncle Lorcan. All smiles and charm, he had slipped up beside us, and now he stood there, looking out over the crowd, tapping his toe in time to the music.

“Oh, I’m not trying to get out-”

“Of course not.” He cut me off, laughing softly. “And he’s not your young man dying in your arms. Their Majesties are stronger than you can ever imagine, Callie. You’ll never get out of here using magic.”

“Help me,” I whispered.

Lorcan glanced around, with a huge smile but hard eyes. “There is no help from your father’s people. They have you exactly where they want you. You must accept, or you may just burn.”

With that, my uncle strolled away.

Jack sagged further. “I need water,” he whispered. “Please, Callie. I can’t…”

I was crying, and even as the sorrow trickled out of me, I felt the music coming in. No one wanted me sad. They wanted me happy. Jack was happy, just a little thirsty. If I relaxed, if I just listened like he did, I’d be happy and it would be all right. I looked to the stage, to Mr. Basie and his band. Mr. Basie was grinning and marking time with the cigarette he pinched in the fingers of his right hand, while his left kept a steady beat on the piano.

There is no help from your father’s people .

But it wasn’t only my father’s people here.

You must accept, or you may just burn .

Mr. Basie put his cigarette back between his lips and returned his full attention to the keyboard. I thought about my uncle when he was still Shake, back in Shimmy’s juke joint. I looked at the sheet music on the piano, looked at the curtains, looked at all the cigarettes in all the ashtrays around the musicians and smelled all that tobacco smoke. I remembered how I called down the rain over the rabbit drive and felt it wash away the fairy spell in the folks chasing after us.

If water could wash away magic, what could fire do?

Jack groaned, and his forehead thumped against my shoulder. A plan formed in my head. A crazy, dangerous plan. But I had to try. If we were going to get out of this place, I had to break those doors open with something stronger than the happy magic.

I steered Jack back to the bandstand. I waved and beamed at my grandparents and felt their satisfaction swell over me. You know how you feel when you want to make someone happy? And how it is when you know they’re truly proud of you? This was that feeling in tens and twenties.

Holding tight to Jack’s hand, I climbed up the bandstand steps to Mr. Basie’s piano.

“Well now.” Mr. Basie smiled, but his voice was hoarse from smoke and thirst. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to say how much I’ve been enjoying your music,” I said. Then I whispered, “How long have you been here, Mr. Basie?”

Count Basie blinked, then coughed. “You ain’t like them,” he whispered back. “You gotta get outta here.”

“We’re all gettin’ outta here,” I told him. I couldn’t leave these other people any more than I could leave Jack. It wouldn’t be right.

Mr. Basie was looking toward the throne. “I took this gig and I thought, I thought I’d be gettin’ me some good luck with it.” He shook his head. “Ain’t been like that so much.”

“Can you play ‘Midnight Special’?” I asked.

“That ain’t a dance tune. They”-he nodded toward my relatives-“might not like it.”

“Then you turn it into a dance tune. Make it swing. You can do it. Please, Mr. Basie.”

The piano player looked at me a long time. He had seen the fairy in me; now I had to pray he saw the human.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Freddie!” He jerked his chin to the guitar player. They conferred for a moment, shuffling around sheets of music. The rest of the band kept on playing. The trumpet and the saxophone wailed to each other, carrying on the dance.

Grandmother glanced at me. I smiled big and broad at her and swayed a little, moving my fingers like I was snapping them. Jack swayed where he stood, but he stared at the buffet tables heaped with food like he couldn’t see anything else.

Freddie was back with the band, giving them their instructions. Somewhere a long ways away, a siren sounded.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Basie with a smile that was as bright as any Shake had ever used against me, “me and the boys would like to do our version of ‘The Midnight Special.’ And as an extra treat, we have Fairyland’s very own Callie LeRoux to sing for us. Miss Callie?”

Applause rose up all around me. I had to let go of Jack’s hand. He dropped into a chair beside the piano. My grandparents’ approval poured over me as I stepped up to the microphone. I was adding to the current of music and magic. They were happy about that. They wanted me to sweep all these people away and be swept away myself.

The microphone was big and square and shining black and silver in the fairy lights. I thought about Mama’s humming as she moved around the Imperial, singing a song about wishing for freedom. I thought about the hobo families in the train yard. I thought about Jack’s hand in mine as we ran from Bull Morgan, and how Jack always seemed to know which way to go.

I opened my mouth, and I sang.

“Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me…”

The current of magic around me doubled. I wasn’t just in it now, I was truly a part of it. I could feel the people dance. I could feel their love and their happiness to have all their wishes fulfilled, and how that good feeling meant more than anything in the world. More than life itself.

“Ain’t nothin’ on the table, ain’t nothin’ in the pan…”

Mr. Basie played. It was the tune I knew, but it leapt and danced all on its own, the meaning of the words hidden down deep behind the syncopation. The music had power, but not from the fairy magic. Mr. Basie was right; this wasn’t their song. This wasn’t a happy dance tune. This was a song of the dust and the trains and everybody trapped on the work gangs, wishing they would lose their chains. This was the song my mama sang to me, wishing for my papa to come home.

“Yonder come Miss Lucy. How in the world do you know?”

I swayed and I turned, dancing there all on my own. On the floor, someone faltered, and someone fell. I turned again, not fighting the current, letting it carry me around. Like the words, the power of this song was hidden deep down, but I could feel it. It was an entirely different spark from the fairy power. It burned, burned as bright as the matches and the cigarettes the musicians brought in with them.

“She come to see the governor. She gonna free her man…”

I grabbed the cigarette burning in the tray, and I stabbed that nasty thing hard against Mr. Basie’s sheet music. The sharp smell of smoke hit me a second before the yellow flame jumped up.

Mr. Basie jumped up too.

“Fire!” he yelled. “Fire!”

I snatched the paper. Heat bit my fingertips. But I didn’t wave the flame out; I ran for the curtains rippling behind the bandstand and dropped the burning paper on the floor. The heavy velveteen caught, and the flames started licking their way up the dark fabric.

The musicians took up Mr. Basie’s shout. “Fire! Fire!” They grabbed their instruments and ran for the doors.