Sarah Zettel: Dust girl

“But… I don’t understand,” I said finally. “Spirit man? How can my papa be a spirit?”

Baya shrugged. “There are all kinds of spirits, Dust Girl.”

“But if my papa’s a spirit… what does that make me?”

“Different.”

“Thanks a lot.”

He shrugged again. “Hey, even old Baya only knows so much at once.”

My eyes burned. Tears leaked out the corners. Baya tucked his rough hand under my chin and lifted my face so I had to look into his eyes. Those eyes were old and young; there was dawn light in them and starlight. I hadn’t seen the stars since the dust came, years ago now, and I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I missed them.

“I wish I knew who I am,” I whispered to the stars in Baya’s eyes.

Slowly, Baya shook his head. “Oh, Dust Girl, that’s the hardest wish of all. Not even Baya can give you that one. That one you earn.”

“Then I wish I could find out.”

Baya put a hand on my head and he started to talk. I couldn’t understand the words, but his voice rose and fell like the song of the wind. Not the hot dust-storm wind, but the gentle summer wind that piled up the clouds overhead and smelled like rain. I forgot to be afraid. I forgot to be careful. I looked deep into his eyes, because I wanted to stay with the stars. Then I was falling into pure, empty darkness.

When I woke up, Baya was gone. It wasn’t just that he’d left the room; he was gone away a whole lot farther than that. I could feel it, like I’d felt someone watching me through the kitchen window before.

This made me feel about as easy as smelling smoke and not knowing where the fire was.

I sucked in a deep breath. That was when I knew something else was gone. The pain-the burning and the weight like stones on my ribs-was all gone. I took another breath, in and out. I didn’t cough. I laughed, pressing my hands against my chest, and gulped air, and it went down smooth and clean. I had so much air I got dizzy. I tore open the parlor door and ran straight out the Imperial’s double front doors.

“Thank you!” I shouted to Baya, wherever he’d gone. “Thank you!”

No one answered. The hot wind whipped at my dress, and the grit scraped across my skin. Slowly, it sank in that the dust storm hadn’t let up yet. Dust still rolled in black clouds across the sky. The strange, silent green lightning that we’d been told came from static electricity in the blow dirt flickered overhead. Tumbleweeds rode the roaring, dusty wind like the biggest-ever crows and piled themselves up against the walls of houses and churches. The streets were already gone beneath the drifts of sepia dirt. All that was left were some houses sticking out of piles of blowing sand. Out beyond the passenger depot, windmills marked where fields used to be. Their spindly towers swayed back and forth. The static electricity had gotten into them too, and they lit up with the same spooky green color as they swayed back and forth.

Maybe I should have just been happy. I could breathe. I’d spent a year wishing I could breathe again. I wasn’t going to die now. I could feel it in my bones, and in the way I’d run out the front door without coughing. But being able to see through all the dust… that was something else. It was like the music that had poured through my hands when I’d touched Papa’s piano. A thought got into my head that if I could see through the dust, maybe other things in this dust could see me.

I went back inside and shut the door. That didn’t help any, because as I stood in the big, empty lobby, the quiet filled my head, reminding me that I was all alone. I sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase and hugged my knees.

What do I do? What do I do?

The clock on the registration desk said quarter after six. I didn’t even know if it was six in the morning or six at night.

Mama, what do I do?

I pressed my forehead against my knees. I had to find her. I knew that much. But how? Where would I even start? Baya-whoever or whatever he was-had talked about the golden mountains of the west. That could only mean California. Never mind that it was impossible for Mama to be in California when she’d been here in Slow Run, Kansas, just a few hours ago. Everything about this day had become impossible, me included.

So, California. How was I supposed to get to California? The only money I had was the seven dollars from the coffee can. Maybe I could hop a freight. Plenty of people did, kids included. I saw them every time a train went past, riding on the tops of the coal cars, or sitting in the open-sided boxcars. Sometimes they came to the Imperial’s doors, and Mama would trade them food and a night in one of the empty rooms if they would spend a few hours helping her clean.

But even supposing I could get out to California by going on the bum, how would I find the “valley of smoke”? Or the “house of St. Simon”? Somehow I didn’t think those would show up on one of Rand McNally’s maps.

Then I thought, what if while I was wandering around trying to find Mama, Mama came back here? Or sent word? If she was in California, she might send a telegram or a letter, and I wouldn’t be here to get it.

Which was almost funny, because that must have been exactly how Mama thought about Papa all that time.

One thing was certain: I wasn’t going to get any answers just sitting here. I got to my feet. First things first. I’d go back to our part of the house and take stock of just what I had that might be useful, and then…

A car horn cut through the sound of the wind outside. I froze.

Can’t be , I thought. Nobody could drive in this .

But it sounded again, a double beat, high and sharp and demanding.

I pulled the front doors open again. Dust whirled all around me. In the patch of rippling sand where the front drive used to be sat a car, but not just any car. It was huge, heavy, and shiny, with a burgundy and cream paint job, chrome bumpers, huge headlights, and a hood ornament big enough for the prow of an old-fashioned sailing ship. It was a Duesy-a Duesenberg-the kind of car the boys sighed over in the auto magazines.

While I stood there with my jaw hanging loose, the driver’s-side door opened and a man climbed out. He was a match for the car-big, solid, and expensive, with white skin turning red from the heat, a cream-colored suit, and two-tone wingtip shoes that sank into the dust. He wore a pair of round spectacles thick enough to make his dark eyes look blurred and bulgy.

“Is this the Imperial?” the man bawled, clapping one big hand down on his straw boater hat to keep it from blowing away.

I swallowed. “Yes, sir!”

“Very good. I’ll be requiring rooms for the night!”

“I…”

“Come, come, girl, what’s the difficulty?” The diamond on his pinkie ring flashed as he waved the beefy hand that wasn’t holding his hat. “This infernal dust has blocked the roads, and my family needs a place to wait out the storm. This is a hotel, is it not?”

“Yes, sir, but…”

“But what?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, sir. We’re not open for business.”

The window on the Duesy rolled down and a woman stuck her head out. Like the man, she wore thick spectacles, but hers were round and tinted blue for the sun. Which meant she must have been about blind right then, because there was no sun. Her perfectly curled gold hair waved in the dusty wind under the drooping brim of her white hat, which was pinned with a brooch set with stones the exact color of the scarlet lipstick on her perfectly shaped mouth.

“What’s happening, Desmond? Is there a problem?”

“The girl says they’re not open for business, Irma.”