from her chest, trying to force it back in.
“I believe, I believe,” she muttered through clenched teeth. But just like Uncle Dobbin’s assistant in Christy’s story, she could feel that swelling ache of loss rise up in her. She turned despairing eyes to Reece.
She didn’t need a light to see the horror in his eyes—horror at the booger’s approach, at the crow’s head sticking out of her chest. But he didn’t draw away from her. Instead, he reached out and caught hold of her shoulders.
“Stop fighting it!” he cried.
“But—”
He shot a glance shoreward. They were bracing themselves against the waves, but a large swell had just caught the booger and sent it howling back to shore in a tumble of limbs.
“It was your needing proof,” he said. “Your needing to see the booger, to know that it’s real—that’s what’s making you lose it. Stop trying so hard.”
But she knew he was right. She pulled free of him and looked towards the shore where the booger was struggling to its feet. The creature made rattling sounds deep in its throat as it started out for them again. It was hard, hard to do, but she let her hands fall free. The pain in her chest was a fire, the aching loss building to a crescendo. But she closed herself to it, closed her eyes, willed herself to stand relaxed.
Instead of fighting, she remembered. Balloon Men spinning down the beach. Christy’s gnome, riding his pig along the pier. Bramley Dapple’s advice. Goon pinching Jilly Coppercorn’s leg. The thing that fed on eggs and eyeballs and, yes, Reece’s booger too. Uncle Dobbin and his parrots and Non Wert watching her magic fly free. And always the Balloon Men, tumbling endover-end, across the beach, or down the alleyway behind her house ....
And the pain eased. The ache loosened, faded.
“Jesus,” she heard Reece say softly.
She opened her eyes and looked to where he was looking. The booger had turned from the sea and was fleeing as a crowd of Balloon Men came bouncing down the shore, great round rolypoly shapes, turning endover- end, laughing and giggling, a chorus of small deep voices. There was salt in her eyes and it wasn’t from the ocean’s brine. Her tears ran down her cheeks and she felt herself grinning like a fool.
The Balloon Men chased Reece’s booger up one end of the beach and then back the other way until the creature finally made a stand.
Howling, it waited for them to come, but before the first bouncing round shape reached it, the booger began to fade away.
Ellen turned to Reece and knew he had tears in his own eyes, but the good feeling was too strong for him to do anything but grin right back at her. The booger had died with the last of his anger. She reached out a hand to him and he took it in one of his own. Joined so, they made their way to the shore where they were surrounded by riotous Balloon Men until the bouncing shapes finally faded and then there were just the two of them standing there.
Ellen’s heart beat fast. When Reece let go her hand, she touched her chest and felt a stir of dark wings inside her, only they were settling in now, no longer striving to fly free. The wind came in from the ocean still, but it wasn’t the same wind that the Balloon Men rode.
“I guess it’s not all bullshit,” Reece said softly.
Ellen glanced at him.
He smiled as he explained. “Helping each other—getting along instead of fighting. Feels kind of good, you know?”
Ellen nodded. Her hand fell from her chest as the dark wings finally stilled.
“Your friend’s story didn’t say anything about crows,” Reece said.
“Maybe we’ve all got different birds inside—different magics.” She looked out across the waves to where the oil rigs lit the horizon.
“There’s a flock of wild parrots up around Santa Ana,” Reece said.
“I’ve heard there’s one up around San Pedro, too.”
“Do you think ... ?” Reece began, but he let his words trail off. The waves came in and wet their feet.
“I don’t know,” Ellen said. She looked over at her shredded clothes. “Come on. Let’s get back to my place and warm up.”
Reece laid his jacket over her shoulders. He put on his Tshirt and jeans, then helped her gather up what was left of her belongings.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said, bundling up the torn blouse and skirt. He looked up to where she was standing over him. “But I couldn’t control the booger.”
“Maybe we’re not supposed to.”
“But something like the booger ...”
She gave his Mohawk a friendly ruffle. “I think it just means that we’ve got to be careful about what kind of vibes we put out.”
Reece grimaced at her use of the word, but he nodded.
“It’s either that,” Ellen added, “or we let the magic fly free.”
The same feathery stirring of wings that she felt moved in Reece. They both knew that that was something neither of them was likely to give up.
In Uncle Dobbin’s Parrot Fair, Nori Wert turned away from the pair of cages that she’d been making ready.
“I guess we won’t be needing these,” she said.
Uncle Dobbin looked up from a slim collection of Victorian poetry and nodded. “You’re learning fast,” he said. He stuck the stem of his pipe in his mouth and fished about in his pocket for a match.
“Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
Nori felt her own magic stir inside her, back where it should be, but she didn’t say anything to him in case she had to go away, now that the lesson was learned. She was too happy here. Next to catching some rays, there wasn’t anywhere she’d rather be.
The Stone Drum
There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?
It was Jilly Coppercorn who found the stone drum, late one afternoon.
She brought it around to Professor Dapple’s rambling Tudorstyled house in the old quarter of Lower Crowsea that same evening, wrapped up in folds of brown paper and tied with twine. She rapped sharply on the Professor’s door with the little brass lion’s head knocker that always seemed to stare too intently at her, then stepped back as Olaf Goonasekara, Dapple’s odd little housekeeper, flung the door open and glowered out at where she stood on the rickety porch.
“You,” he grumbled.
“Me,” she agreed, amicably. “Is Bramley in?”
“I’ll see,” he replied and shut the door.
Jilly sighed and sat down on one of the two worn rattan chairs that stood to the left of the door, her package bundled on her knee. A black and orange cat regarded her incuriously from the seat of the other chair, then turned to watch the progress of a woman walking her dachshund down the street.
Professor Dapple still taught a few classes at Butler U., but he wasn’t nearly as involved with the curriculum as he had been when Jilly attended the university. There’d been some kind of a scandal—something about a Bishop, some old coins and the daughter of a Tarot reader—but Jilly had never quite got the story straight. The Professor was a jolly fellow—wizened like an old apple, but more active than many who were only half his apparent sixty
