The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen (22 page)

“Nope.” Airboy stood up. “What now?”

I refolded the map. “We walk to the Bowery.”

The
alte-zachin hendler
tsked. “Such a long way, you’ll walk your feet to the bones. Better you should take a cab.”

A cab? “What’s that?”

“Some city girl, doesn’t even know what a cab is! Never mind, I’ll tell you. Any carriage or coach or cart you see yellow like a canary, that’s a cab. Stick your hand out and it’ll stop, take you where you need to go. For a price, but nothing comes for free. You understand?”

I thanked the
alte-zachin hendler
, then herded a reluctant Airboy to the street to look for a cab. I didn’t see anything yellow—anything with wheels, anyway—but I stuck my hand out just in case.

A scarlet kirin with neat golden hooves and a stormy golden mane stopped in front of us. It was pulling a two-wheeled sulky, painted bright yellow.

“Where to?” it asked as we climbed onto the bench.

“Bowery,” I said.

The kirin tossed its horn. “Bums in the Bowery. No pay, no ride. One mackerel. Fresh.”

Airboy produced the mackerel from his Harness and the kirin trotted off—slowly, because of the crowds. Everywhere I looked, unfamiliar Folk argued and bargained and leaned out the windows of the low brick tenement buildings. In the Canal, fat little tugs chugged companionably beside triangle-sailed junks. Then I saw a fox girl in a padded silk coat, bright as a flower among the Lower East Siders’ gray and brown, and suddenly we were in Chinatown, where the buildings were roofed in green tile and the Canal was lined with flat-bottomed barges manned by shinseën with wispy beards selling knobby fruit and bright silk and strange spices.

The kirin stopped. “Bowery,” it said. “Another mackerel, maybe?”

I looked up a wide street lined with tumbledown buildings. It looked cold and dark and unfriendly. “Can’t you take us inside?”

The kirin shivered head to tail. “Bad place.
Bums
.”

“No more mackerel, then,” I said. “Come on, Airboy. Let’s go find some bums.”

We climbed down from the sulky and entered the Bowery. A nasty wind crept up the sleeves of my jacket and attacked my nose with the stink of smoke and garbage and beer. The buildings, the street, even the air, were smeared with soot. I groped for my jade frog. I knew it wasn’t very powerful, but holding it made me feel better.

“What now?” Airboy asked.

“We find somebody who looks helpful and ask if they know a mortal changeling girl with a scratched face.”

“What if they don’t?”

“How many blonde, scratched-up former debutantes could there be in the Bowery?”

Airboy shrugged. “I don’t know. But there sure are a lot of bums.”

Once Airboy pointed them out, I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them right away. In rags or fine clothes, in cloth caps or heavy jackets, in filthy parkas or stocking caps or their own mangy fur, bums of every sort, shape, and size wandered down the street or propped up sooty walls, picking their teeth, coughing, muttering to themselves. They didn’t look very helpful. Or friendly.

A door opened down the block and a short, stocky figure staggered into the street, singing unmusically:

“You could ask him,” Airboy said.

“Did you see his beard?” It was hard to miss—so thick and wiry he looked like he was eating a porcupine. “That’s a duerg. I’m not messing with him.”

“Don’t you know the Words of Protection in Norwegian?”

I clutched my frog nervously. “Of course I do. It’s just I’ve got a feeling the Words of Protection aren’t going to protect us here.”

The door opened again, and one of the Bowery Boy dandies Espresso had told us about swaggered out, a swart-alfr in a red shirt, a long black coat, and a tall shiny hat tilted tipsily to one side.

He pointed a long, white finger at me. “Will you look at that, Thekk. What’s the world coming to, I ask you, when infants like these here is found loitering outside a dive like Sifrit’s Saloon? Ain’tcha kids kinda young to be on the skids?”

There was nowhere to run to. The bums were crowding around us like pigeons looking for crumbs. I eyed the Bowery Boy. “I’m not on the skids. I’m under the protection of the Genius of Central Park.”

The swart-alfr laughed. “That and two bits’ll buy you a beer, girlie.”

I swallowed.
Show no fear
. “Listen, we’re looking for a changeling girl, blonde. Her face is probably kind of scratched up. Have you seen her?”

The Bowery Boy laughed so hard he had to steady himself on the duerg’s head. “All the goils here is scratched up. If they ain’t that way when they gets here, somebody generally takes care of it right away.”

I ignored this. “Have you seen her?”

The Bowery Boy’s laughter stopped short. “Mortals brings down the tone of the Neighborhood. They’s like bedbugs, see? When you see ’em, you gotta stick ’em.” He slid his hand into the pocket of his coat, drew out a gleaming silver knife. “Hold ’em, Thekk!”

And then we did run, dodging Thekk’s clumsy grab and ducking under the Bowery Boy’s arm, straight into the crowd of bums.

They were all ghosts.

I’m used to ghosts. I
live
with ghosts. But the Castle ghosts are shy and float out of the way when I try to touch them. The Bowery ghosts clung to my face and arms, wrapping me in a thick, chill, damp cloud of misery. I struggled with them for a long, heart-pounding moment and then burst through, freezing cold and scared half out of my mind. Behind us, the Bowery Boy was giggling madly, and the duerg was staggering around in circles, shouting, “Where’d they go? Where’d they go?”

I spied what looked like an empty doorway and darted into it, pulling Airboy with me.

“Well!” Airboy said shakily. “I think that went pretty well, considering.”

We both started giggling like maniacs.

“Youse shut up youse faces,” a raspy voice complained from the shadows. “Some of us is trying to pass out.”

We left the doorway like we’d been shot from a bow. At some point I realized that I was holding Airboy’s hand, but I didn’t let go. We ran until I got a stitch in my side and stumbled to a halt, gasping.

“You kids lost?”

I froze with terror.

“It’s just a dog,” Airboy said. “A big dog.”

I couldn’t believe there was such thing in the Bowery as “just as dog.” It had to be something horrible: a black dog, a kelpie, even a Gabriel hound. I was cold and I was scared and I was tired of being a hero. I wanted my godfather.

I slipped my hand into my pocket, grabbed the Pooka’s tail hair, and turned around slowly.

A shaggy brown-and-white dog the size of a small bear examined me with sad amber eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” it said. “I’m a Saint Bernard, from the Bowery Mission. It’s my job to rescue anyone who gets lost here. Are you lost?”

I hesitated, then let the tail hair go. “Yes,” I said.

The Saint Bernard bent his head and snuffled at me. “Lower East Side. I don’t suppose you happen to have a half-sour pickle on you?”

“We’re not from the Lower East Side,” I said. “And we’re not
lost
, exactly. We’re looking for somebody.”

“That’s not really part of my job description.”

“
She’s
lost,” Airboy said helpfully.

The Saint Bernard scratched itself thoughtfully. “Oh. Well. In that case, maybe—”

“That’s great,” I said before it could change its mind. “She’s a mortal changeling—a girl, bigger than us, blonde, scratched-up face. She hasn’t been here long.”

“That’s not a lot to go on,” the Saint Bernard said. “Not for someone who looks with his nose. Where’d she come from?”

“The Upper East Side,” Airboy said.

“Fifth Avenue? Park? Madison? Third? Is she Chanel No. 5 or Calvin, designer jeans or pinstripes?”

Airboy and I looked at each other blankly. “I’m not sure,” I said.

The Saint Bernard stood up. “I’ll just have to use my head, then. Grab hold of my collar. We’re going for a run.” And he raced off down the street, baying:
“Excelsior! Excelsior!”

The baying, while embarrassing, cleared the bums and Bowery Boys out of our way. It didn’t stop them from yelling insults after us and laughing like storm drains when one of us stumbled or stepped in something nasty. Soon I was out of breath and my stitch was back. “Can we slow down?” I panted.

The Saint Bernard skidded to a halt. “Take a sip of this.” He lifted his chin, displaying a small wooden barrel and a little tin cup tied to his neck with a thick leather strap. “It will give you the strength to go on.”

I unhooked the cup and turned a wooden tap. A dark liquid poured out, fizzing. I took a cautious sip. Bubbles tickled my nose and filled my mouth with a bittersweet explosion. “What’s
that
?”

“Cola,” said the Saint Bernard. “In the old days, I carried brandy for the lost explorers and mountain climbers—because of the cold and snow, you know, to warm them up. It wouldn’t be smart to carry brandy in the Bowery, though. Do you want some, changeling boy?”

“I want to find Tiffany,” Airboy said.

The Saint Bernard shrugged. “Suit yourself. Over there, across the street, is the Wannabe. Mortal changelings only, no Folk allowed. Without knowing her scent, it’s the best I can do. Good luck, changelings.” And he lolloped off, baying.

The building housing the Wannabe had been fancy once, with big glass windows—now boarded over—and rusty iron pillars crowned with iron leaves. As we walked up, a man in a filthy raincoat pushed away from the wall and flicked out a long, wicked-looking blade.

“Mortals only,” he growled.

“We are mortal,” I said. “I’m Neef of Central Park, under the protection of the Green Lady. And this is Airboy, under the protection of the Mermaid Queen.”

The knife disappeared back into the man’s pocket. “Slumming, eh? Well, come in if you want.”

“Excelsior,”
Airboy said, and we went inside.

The Wannabe was a gloomy cavern, uncertainly lit with candles and smoky lanterns. At the far end, a band of scrawny changelings in black leather and big boots were rocking and rolling over two guitars, a keyboard, and drums. As my eyes got used to the gloom, I saw the room was about half full of mortals of all sizes, some in Village black with berets, some in ragged coats, ratty hats, and layers of scarves.

Nobody looked like they’d even heard of the Court of the Dowager of Park Avenue.

“I don’t think she’s here,” I said.

“You could ask that guy at the counter,” Airboy said.

“Why do I have to do all the asking? You have a mouth, don’t you?”

He smiled. “It doesn’t work as well as yours.”

The guy at the counter was actually a woman in a shapeless tweed coat, polishing a glass with a dirty towel. She glared down at me. “You think I’m going to pull you a beer, Short Stuff, you’ve got another think coming.”

“I’m looking for a girl. Mortal, blonde. Her face is all scratched up. She hasn’t been here long.”

The woman jerked her chin toward the band. “Woolworth’s down by the stage, last table on the left,” she said. “Ugly girl, and I ain’t talking about the bandage. You sure you want to find her?”

Woolworth?

We made our way forward. The guitars dropped out and the drummer started banging on the drums like he was trying to break them to pieces. Airboy tugged at my sleeve and pointed.

At first I didn’t recognize her. Big dark coat, fingerless gloves, a dirty turban wound over long, lank hair. But the profile was familiar.

I sat down. “Hi, Tiffany.”

Tiffany turned to me and I winced. The whole left side of her face was wrapped with layers of cloth, like a mummy. The tail of a red, scabby scratch crawled down her neck and into the collar of her coat. She bared her still perfect teeth in a sarcastic grin, turned away, and went back to banging her fist rhythmically on the table.

I tapped her arm. She answered with a gesture I’d never seen before. I guessed it meant “no.”

The singer started to screech like a banshee. The music thudded angrily in my skull. My heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to tear through my chest. I grabbed my jade frog.

It was breathing.

Startled, I pulled it out and squinted at it. The candle caught its ruby eye, and for the second time, it winked at me.

I knew what I was supposed to do next, of course. I just didn’t want to. The frog was
my
frog—my present from Fleet, the only thing I got on last summer’s quest that I could keep. I wouldn’t even give it to Espresso or Fortran, let alone my enemy, that wicked-witch-in-training, Tiffany of Park Avenue.

Which was just exactly why I had to.

I clung to it, ignoring my throbbing ears and Airboy’s puzzled black eyes. Then I lifted the black silk cord over my head, caught Tiffany’s pounding hand, and laid the frog into it.

Tiffany brought the frog up to her good eye and examined it. She looked at me, the still beautiful half of her face expressionless. Then she hung the frog around her neck, got up, and marched up to the bar, with Airboy and me scrambling after.

“Back room empty, Rummy?” she asked the massive woman.

“Sure thing. Just clean up after yourself, and remember—blood attracts vampires.”

I didn’t think this was funny, but Tiffany did. She was still chuckling as she led us down a dirty corridor to a tiny, dark room furnished with a lamp, a sofa, and a desk.

She flung herself down on the sofa, one booted foot on the cushion. “Congratulations,” she said. “You found me. What can I do to make you go away?”

Getting half killed and booted out of her Neighborhood had not made Tiffany any nicer. “You can tell us what happened to the Mermaid Queen’s mirror.”