The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [29]
Mukuti stepped back. “Sorry.”
Everybody gathered around me. “You think we’re not hep to your jive?” Espresso asked. “You’re way off-beat, man. We want to know why. Say we’re curious. Say we’re your friends. They’re both true.”
I looked around at the circle of faces. Even Fortran looked serious for once. “I can’t tell you much,” I said apologetically. “There’s a kind of geas involved.”
Stonewall shrugged. “So tell us what you can. We won’t ask questions.”
I wanted to believe him. I did believe him. I licked my lips. “Okay. Here it is. I have to find the Mermaid Queen’s Magnifying Mirror before the Winter Solstice.”
Fortran gave me a grin I could have read by. “Is that all? That’s easy. It’s in Riverside Park.”
I liked Fortran. He was smart, and he put his whole heart into everything he did. But he lied. And this was just the kind of thing he could practically be relied on to lie about.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You’ve never been inside a Park in your life.”
The grin dimmed. “I have so,” Fortran protested. “I’ve been there lots of times. I won an acorn off an oak dryad once. Wanna see?” He unzipped one of Backpack’s pockets and produced an acorn. It was battered and worm-eaten. “Wicked, huh?”
Stonewall picked it up, examined it, put it back in Fortran’s hand. “So not impressed.”
“Okay, I picked it up on Riverside Drive,” Fortran admitted. “But I do know where the mirror is. This goblin’s been howling. Everybody’s heard it that lives on Riverside Drive.” He shot me a look. “You can ask anybody. Howl, howl, howl all night, every night. Nobody’s got any sleep since before the Equinox.”
“What’s that got to do with the Mermaid’s mirror?” Mukuti asked reasonably.
“Well, a bunch of the guys got fed up and snuck into Riverside Park to shut it up. They heard what the goblin was muttering about between howls.”
“’I’ve got the Mermaid Queen’s Magic Mirror, and now I know everything?’” I asked sarcastically.
“No-o. It was something about glass beads and a nymph.” He paused. “And a magic mirror.”
We looked at each other. “That’s it?” Danskin said. “That’s your big scoop?”
“There couldn’t be that many mirrors in the Park,” Fortran explained patiently. “What else could the goblin be talking about?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Stonewall said.
“I do,” Espresso said unexpectedly. “Bigger ones go down in fairy tales all the time.”
The whole thing sounded like a long shot to me, but it was a place to start. “All right,” I said. “I’ll check it out tonight.”
“Wizard!” said Fortran. “I wish I could help.”
As we were leaving the courtyard, Stonewall went to walk by Fortran. “By the way, what happened to the guys? Did they get the goblin to shut up?”
Fortran grinned. “They woke up a kelpie, and it chased them all the way back to the Riverside wall. The goblin’s still howling.”
Even though she’d never taken me to Riverside Park, Astris had made me learn a lot of facts about it. I knew that it covered 266.791 acres (Central Park covered 840.01) in a kind of long, reedy ruffle along the western shore of Manhattan Island. Nature spirits live there, and most of the Swamp Folk—Jenny Greenteeth, kelpies, Viz-Leany, enchanted frogs. And marsh goblins, of course.
I took the Betweenway from Yorkville to Riverside. As I stepped out of the Riverside station, I was hit by a gust of wind off the river that made my eyes water. I wiped my eyes and searched for a path that looked like it might go to the river. There were several. On the theory that middle ways tend to be lucky, I picked the middle path. It led me through a tangle of rocks and swamp myrtle, then left me at the edge of a swamp. Nearby was a faint trail of matted-down marsh grass. It didn’t look inviting, but it was the only path around. I followed it.
I knew if I turned around, I’d see the buildings of Columbia University behind me, but it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. The wind whistled, the reeds clacked, and the wet grass squelched under my feet, releasing a scent of hay and rot. The path skirted a still, black pond