The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [64]
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:
“The Bow’ry! the Bow’ry!
They say such things and they do
strange things
On the Bow’ry! the Bow’ry!
I’ll never go there any more.”
“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