Street Fair (13 page)

He listened but never put down his spoon.

“Well done all around,” he said pleasantly. “I thank you very much for your work. You should go ahead and keep the shrouds, and I'll look forward to perusing all of the rest sometime when I'm not eating. Would hate to get sticky fingers on historic documents. I'll have them taken to my room, if you don't mind.”

“And what about the Butterfly Collector?” Ashling said.

“Let's hope he can be found relatively soon—although part of me would almost prefer that it wait until I've returned to the throne. Orlaith—or Inwar on her behalf—would probably do something unoriginal, like kill him. I'm thinking more of an oubliette.” He smiled at Ashling. “That would get him off your mind properly.”

“But Dad, there were wights!” Megan said. “And that Robin person!”

“Indeed. I can see the concern. I'm very glad that Cassia and the cats were there, and retaining a knight certainly seems to have been an excellent investment.”

"Yeah, we'd have been killed without them. And there might be more."

"Indeed there might be. Having only half a map opens up all sorts of intriguing possibilities."

"Intriguing? This is serious, Dad."

"Indeed it is. I'll send a couple of messages out, see if anyone has heard anything." Riocard scribbled idly on some more pieces of parchment, handed them off to messenger sprites, and returned to his ice cream.

Megan tried a different direction with her questions. “So, the Gray Lady, do you think she might be—”

“—No.” Her father actually interrupted her. “Whatever happened between us, she would never be interested in benefiting anyone who would interact with what's left of the Fomoire dregs. She might make many poor choices, particularly revolving around her grief, but she wouldn't abdicate her own nature by helping its source.”

Megan glanced at Ashling. The pixie's frown suggested she wasn't any more convinced than Megan was, but she dropped the subject for now. "All right, so now that we know the wights are out there, and the Collector is out there, and Robin is doing—something or other—what do we do now?"

"I just did it. I'll get word out, and we'll look into it."

Moments later, the ice cream arrived. Riocard seemed far more focused on Megan's opinion of it than on the urgent topics she'd brought to his attention.

Megan took a bite. She felt the frozen crystals brush across her tongue and, after a moment, answered her father's unspoken question with, “Yeah, it's good.” Annoyed and exhausted as she was, she had to admit it was true. “Refreshing. Of course, I'll have to check, the next time I'm walking through mist in the moonlight, to see if any sticks to the roof of my mouth like this.”

That got a rich, dark laugh out of the Unseelie King. “Please do, and let me know. And Lani, wouldn't the ice cream go well with one of your chef friend's shortcakes?”

Lani, never particularly eager to be called on by the king, simply nodded, and Riocard was satisfied.

“In all,” he said, “aside from the unpleasantness you've mentioned, the market seems to be going well so far.”

Finally, after a bit more small talk with her father, and a couple more attempts to get more urgency out of him regarding the wights, Megan thanked him for the ice cream, and the group stepped away from the picnic area, though Cassia kept glancing away from them, back towards the woman with the pinecones.

Finally, when she decided they were far enough away from Riocard and potential eavesdropping sprites, Lani let her grumbling get a bit more audible. "Aside from the unpleasantness, the market is going well—that's sort of like, 'So, aside from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" Then she sighed, and fully spoke up. "Okay, so that wasn't very helpful. What do we do now?"

Megan sighed. "We go home, clean up, and get ready for the concert tomorrow—tonight?” Megan started to get confused about days,

"Tomorrow,” Cassia said absently. “Everybody still gets to sleep. Because of string theory or whatever.”

“Yes, but...” Lani was staring at Megan. “So...Wait... he's got Balor's standard, there's a bunch of ancient military officers awakening, Robin Goodfellow is running around, and we only have half of the map, if that. And you want to do what?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Megan said.

"Than going back home? Maybe. We need to find him." Lani's comment was met with firm nods from Ashling.

"We will, I just need to think about this. I mean, what did we do last year when we almost had the year without an Autumn?" Megan said.

"Went back to my place and danced around to your mom's old songs," Lani admitted.

"Right, and it worked. Cassia, can you play 'Yet Another Song About Jumping' at the concert?"

"Done."

Chapter 18: Bass

Megan was dropped off in front of her house with weary goodbyes and a flustered wiping at her face once more. As she approached the house, she saw lights on in the front room, and motion from inside.

Even though she hadn't been gone nearly so long as it felt, Megan thought her mother might be pacing about, waiting for her to get home. She braced herself for questions and motherly concern as she opened the door. Instead, she was met by music, specifically, a familiar bassline, accompanied by her mother's voice. For a moment she thought maybe a CD was playing the opening to 'Why is it Monday?,' but there was her mother, on the couch, the orderly coffee table shoved out of the way to make room, plucking the cords on her old bass and singing.

While she sang quietly, her voice wavered more than in the lines Megan remembered, and the lyrics didn't match the liner notes of the original.

"
Head to my 9 to 5, / Though it's really 8 to 8. / The band has Van Halen M&Ms, / And traffic's jammedtoNorthgate...
"

The end words ran together as her mother tried to make the cadence of her current job difficulties match the pace of the original song. She was wrapped up enough in the composition that she didn't even seem to notice the door open and close, or Megan staring, wide-eyed.

She finally recovered from her surprise enough to interrupt the song, "Hi, Mom. I'm home."

"Hi, sweetheart." Sheila O'Reilly sounded as tired as ever, but ... well, Megan was hopeful.

"That's not how it—I mean,
is
that how that song goes? It sounded a bit off."

"Oh, yeah. I was just being silly. I haven't played this old thing in forever, but I think it still has a few songs left in it."

"You should keep working on it. I really like it." It was absolutely true. The lyrics might not match, the bass and the voice might waver from lack of practice, and the pacing might need work, but Megan loved seeing her mother like this.

"Thank you, honey. You want to show me what you've been learning in those voice lessons?"

Megan paused, a little unsure how to respond, since the voice lessons had been a bit of a sore topic at times, but she realized that, yes, even as tired as she was, singing to her mother's playing was precisely what she wanted. "Yeah, but you're going to need to play something I know."

Megan's mother nodded, putting her fingers back to the strings, before pausing, looking thoughtful, as if trying to figure out something she knew that Megan would as well. Finally, with a small nod as she settled on something, she looked to Megan. "I'm pretty sure this has been on the radio when we were both in the car,” she said, before starting to play.

Megan didn't need the rest of the guitars or the beat, quickly picking up on Better Than Ezra's most famous bassline. The lyrics weren't overly complicated, and while her mother was still imperfect in places, it was easily close enough. She launched into the song about better times, and living in those times with someone who was no longer there. Despite the subject, the song was catchy, and oddly hopeful, which, considering her mother playing, her fingers recalling old times, and her life back then, seemed somehow perfect.

As she hit the middle of the song, her mother had stopped wavering and missing notes, the playing, while quiet, in perfect time. Not having to divide her attention between singing and playing probably helped, but Megan liked to think a lot of it was simply coming back to her as she got into the song and just let herself play.

The song ended all too soon, and with it, some of the exhaustion that had been temporarily suspended as she got into the music hit Megan again, and she moved to lean against the back of a chair, catching her breath just a little, though she couldn't have stopped smiling had she wanted to.

"Megan, that was really, really good. I'm impressed."

Megan blinked in surprise, then blushed. "Thanks. It runs in the family, though. Cassia said you were really, really good, you know, back when you played. I think you still are."

"Cassia, Cassia... she's Lani's friend who busks down by the stadium, and plays some shows up in Fremont, right?"

"Yeah, in Fremont and at a bunch of other local clubs and stuff. They'll be playing at the Fair tomorrow. You should come see them with us." She quickly inhaled and held her breath, realizing what she'd said. Her mother might work in the industry still, for most of the bigger music venues, but she never actually went to shows.

Sheila O'Reilly paused, drumming her fingers on the bass. Megan could only imagine that much the same thoughts were occurring to her mother.

Finally, after what was probably several seconds, but seemed far longer to Megan, her mother responded. "Are you sure you want your mom along for that? You're sixteen, aren't you supposed to think I'll embarrass you?" She was smiling, but Megan could see hints of genuine worry in her mother's eyes, as if she was not at all sure about interacting with her daughter on this type of level.

"What? My mom the former rock-star? I wish I could be that cool."

Sheila laughed, one brief laugh, caught off guard. "My rock star days are behind me, honey. But if that's really okay with you, I'd love to come and see your friend play."

Megan sighed with relief, and moved to the couch to hug her mother, leaning across one side of the bass a little. "Thanks, Mom. I'd love to talk more, or try another song, but we, uhm, really walked a lot today. And, uhm, helped carry a lot of stuff around. I should probably get some sleep." Whatever adrenaline she'd had on walking in to see her mother playing had faded with the end of the song, and she was feeling the effects of the long day again.

"Oh, okay. Sure thing, honey. I'm going to try that song a couple more times. I think I can do better. Then I'll head for bed. I don't want to keep you up."

Megan smiled wider and shook her head. "Practice as long as you want. I'll sleep just fine. I guarantee it."

Megan managed to hit the bathroom to brush her teeth and clean up before bed—and was startled to see herself in the mirror. How had her mother not noticed? Her hair was a mess, her hands and arms bore scrapes and a couple shallow cuts, her clothes were muddy, and any kind of close inspection revealed a couple of bloodstains as well.

Hearing her mother's voice in her head, she did her best to pre-treat the worst stains with water and a bit of soap to try to salvage the outfit, and then managed her way through brushing her hair a little, then brushing her teeth, by rote. By the time she was done, she was staggering to her room. Though she'd had every intention when she left the bathroom of changing for bed, she ended up falling fast asleep within seconds of sitting down on the bed to take her shoes off.

Chapter 19: Rushed and Real

Megan woke with a start to her mother's voice. "Megan, get ready. Breakfast in fifteen minutes!" She started to get up, then dropped back to her pillow with a groan. Everything hurt, most especially her feet. A little more time was spent debating how long she could stay in bed and still get downstairs in time.

Then she thought of her reflection in the mirror, the mud, the bloodstains, the scrapes and the messy, tangled hair. She decided a hot shower might be the best option for aching muscles and making sure that her mother didn't ask too many awkward questions. Rediscovering the bass the previous night might have distracted her from thinking too much about Megan's appearance, but it couldn't last forever.

The water was almost scalding, but it did ease some of the sore muscles. She bandaged her scrapes as subtly as she could, then had to spend longer than she wanted trying to get her hair untangled and brushed out. Her mother was calling her down for breakfast, and then saying she was 5 minutes late and it was getting cold, by the time she finished pulling on a new shirt and jeans. She tried to dash towards the dining room to show she was hurrying, before it turned into a bit of a quick limp instead.

It was only when she saw the layout that she paused to consider the oddity of her mother cooking breakfast. The O'Reillys certainly recognized 'the most important meal of the day,' but it was usually a meal of boring cereals, milk, and fruit, served with vitamins. There were exceptions, but they usually didn't involve pancakes, scrambled eggs, ham, and makeshift hashbrowns.

"What's the occasion?" she asked as she sat down, wincing and wishing she'd been more careful with her words, as if this new take on her mother could break at any moment, and the woman she'd left before the fair could return if she said or did anything wrong.