Dust girl

had the chance before, and neither has Jack.”

“Oh, poor thing, he’s tired, isn’t he?” Grandmother cupped Jack’s cheek with her hand. “Well, we’re just about to have dinner. You’ll both feel so much better after a good meal.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” I forced a smile.

“I know it’s all very confusing, Calliope,” said my grandmother. “But you just finish your dance. When tomorrow gets here, you’ll understand. For now… well, we’re celebrating, aren’t we?”

Of course we were. That was exactly what we were doing. How could I forget?

Except those thoughts weren’t coming up from inside me. I could feel it now. Those thoughts were from outside, like the music. They pushed their way past my own thoughts and memories. Grandmother was trying to put ideas in my head, and I had the very scary feeling she hadn’t even tried her hardest yet.

“Yes, we’re celebrating. Of course.” I said it because I knew it was what she wanted. It was the direction the current of music and magic moved, and it would be so much easier to just go along with it. If I tried to cut across it, I’d stumble and fall, just like I had during the rabbit drive, when Shimmy died.

But that wasn’t important, said those outside ideas to me. That was all long ago and far away. What was important was that Jack and I would finish the dance, and then there’d be a banquet, bigger and grander than anything either of us had seen yet.

Jack would eat too, because he was so hungry. I could feel that as well. This time, he wouldn’t be able to hold out. Even though he was the one who told me that if a regular person ate or drank in Fairyland, they’d be trapped.

“Come on, Jack.” I shook the hand I held. “We haven’t finished our dance.”

“Gotta keep moving,” murmured Jack.

Grandmother smiled as hard and bright as the diamonds in her crown, and stepped back so I could steer Jack deeper among the dancers.

The band was swinging again, fast and hot. All around us on the dance floor, people hopped and swung, fast and frantic and happy. Desperately, crazily happy, their eyes as wild as their movements. I dragged Jack over to the bandstand, and as we swayed back and forth, I looked hard at the musicians. They were desperate too. But they weren’t happy. They were scared, almost scared to death.

How much time had passed for the regular people? Jack was turning gray. He was going to be sick. I saw waiters laying out platters of food on long tables. Jack’s head turned that way, and he groaned like he was starving. And he might have been.

Shimmy wasn’t up at the microphone anymore. I turned us around, searching for her. I finally spotted her standing in one of the alcoves with Uncle Lorcan. He cupped a hand around her cheek. She was laughing with him, all loving. All forgiven.

I felt I was being watched. Sure enough, Grandmother was by the door and Grandfather was on his throne, both with their glittering eyes trained right on us. I moved away from the bandstand again. This time, I tried to keep to the edges of the dance. I had to do something and I had to do it soon, or neither one of us was getting out of here. Not that I wanted to. I mean, I had just come home. But Jack couldn’t stay.

I bit my lip and tried to think. These are regular people dancing around us. There must be wishes here. I reached with my extra sense gently, like I was trying to move through the dark without being heard. But there was not one single wish in that whole hall to catch hold of. All the wishes here were fulfilled. Taken. Grandmother and Grandfather, this place, it had made all their wishes come true, or at least it made them think they had. For them those wishes were so true they noticed nothing else. Not even that they were dancing themselves to death.

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.