Street Fair (2 page)

"Thought that might catch your attention. Paintings that move, ancient statues, books from the Library of Alexandria, working golems, you name it. Artist's row stretches for miles."

"I've had enough golems, but the rest sounds interesting."

"Okay, so no iron golems. That wouldn't go over well. But, think of it like a carnival, bazaar, and magical strip mall rolled into one, covering about five miles in all directions, and operating in a sort of timelessness, so that as far as the mortal world goes, you step into and out of the path without going anywhere. You can go in and out like that for a few of our days, and then they pack up and take their temporal anomaly with them.”

"Seriously? It just vanishes?"

"That's how the Goblin Market works, yes. No one knows where they go between events. But while it's there, you can find anything."

"Except iron golems." Megan noted, with a grin.

"Yes, smartass, fine. Everything except iron golems. "

"All right, so they have everything, and we can check out artist's row. It sounds like fun."

"Okay, but we need to take Justin with us..." Lani exchanged nods with Justin as he looked up very briefly from perusing the menu. "And Ashling. And we need to be really careful."

"Well, of course Justin is coming with us," Megan said. She grinned, just a little sheepishly, at the quiet boy, who as usual was stalwartly sitting between Megan and passersby. "And it's Faerie stuff. We always need to be careful."

"Okay, like, extra careful. The Market has no-violence restrictions and stuff, so we're safe that way, even from all the things showing up that aren't locals. But just the Market itself is..."

"Really big and confusing, sure."

"Not just that. Yes, you need to stick with me, and especially by Ashling. Since people who are still lost in the Market when it disappears..."

Megan paled a little. "Wait, so 'poof'? No 'we'll let you wait for your ride'?"

Lani shook her head, "Poof, gone. And anyone still inside when they do are lost ‘til at least the next time it shows up. Sometimes they're never found at all."

Justin looked up from his menu at that, but seemed to think his feelings on being lost in a temporal anomaly went without saying.

"Okay,” Megan said. “So no getting lost. Thankfully, we have a pixie."

"Right. And then buying things..."

"Like I have enough money for even one moving painting. And where would I put it?"

"I'm serious, Megan. They don't really take money anyway. It's like weird barter. Some of the vendors will take almost anything. And they really do sell everything. But the price isn't always obvious."

"So, like, 'trade one or two of my paintings for something' kind of barter?" Megan looked more interested, and not at all prone to caution.

"Maybe, but also, well, like the old stories of bargains with Faeries. Some of them will take stuff like earliest memories, or the color of your eyes. And they really will take them. You need to be super careful what you bargain with."

That got Megan's attention, and a short silence followed while Megan mentally bounced back and forth between taking in Lani's intended caution and trying to figure out not only what someone with the color of their eyes taken would look like, but how one would extract that. Deciding a change of subject was needed, finally, Megan broke the silence. "So, Justin. How've the first few days of GED studying gone?"

"Well enough. Better than school did." Justin and the Kahales had come to the unanimous decision that attempting one semester as a 'foreign exchange student' had been enough of an effort. So of course, as soon as the school year had ended, he'd gotten right to work on what he was told had to happen to replace school.

"All that trying to explain math and science," Megan reflected. "And English turned out to be the worst trouble." Granted, they were lucky he could speak modern English at all, but that had been what the magical crash course was for. "It's funny—not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar—that I've kind of found Shakespeare a bit easier since all the Faerie stuff started happening."

"I apologize again for my poor handling of information."

"Hey, I totally believe you about Henry IV being a jerkface, but no one at school can know you knew the guy personally."

"Hardly personally. I was just familiar with the sort of things he did, politically. It was part of the reason I was sent on my original quest: rallying the populace against people like him. And it turns out he won. He ended up king. Plays were written about heroes fighting
for
his injustices. It's ... uncomfortable."

"So... are you sorry you're not back then, sorting stuff out?"

"I doubt I would have been able to, and I can't be sorry for what was out of my control. I'm proud to wear your favor.” Justin touched the Seahawks hat Megan had given him at court the previous fall. He wore it constantly most places, but set it beside them when at the table. “We are here, and it is now ..." He stared at the menu. "We are here, it is now, and cheese is an appetizer."

"They didn't have cheese in the 14th Century?"

“Of course, but you ate it last. Fruit first. Cheese last. Basic health guideline."

"The night we met, I saw you have a hunk of cheese
with
an apple."

"We were working."

"It's only unhealthy if you're not working?"

"The golems were going to be more unhealthy. It's better to have a full stomach as quickly as possible when lives are at stake."

As usual, Megan found it hard to debate Justin's sensibility, and didn't have much time, anyway. Their number was called, and Justin helpfully slid out of the booth to go fetch the tray.

When he had gone for the food, Lani leaned in closer to Megan. "You really ought to ask him out, you know."

Megan blushed. "We've been over this. It's... not a good idea."

"Megan, seriously, just ask him to be your date at the fair, or something. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

"It is a big deal. He's still figuring out a lot of things about this time. And I don't want to take advantage of him or something.”

"You've seen the way he looks at you, right? And the way he calls you 'my lady,' when he can get away with it?”

“That's professional, to him, the princess and her knight thing. I don't want him saying yes out of just... uhm, an obligation thing."

“Admirable sentiment, but I think you're wrong. Ask him."

"Why don't you ask him out, if he's so perfect?"

Lani rolled her eyes. "He's like my brother. Okay, so he's nothing like my actual brother—Justin totally doesn't get LEGOs, doesn't get all excited about everything, and still doesn't see why Mack insisted on the name
Space Ship!
for a car. But you know what I mean. We're like the Wonder Twins of practical solutions."

Megan snorted. "Okay, now that's true. Your powers combine, and the problems line up in neat little rows."

Lani grinned. "Sorted by severity and time-crunch. Besides, Megan, aside from the whole school thing, he's doing fine. He works in the garden. He fixed Mom's pottery wheel. He's teamed up with Mack and promised my parents he'd help take care of any puppy Mack might receive... and my parents actually believe him. Seriously, just ask."

Megan shook her head. "I can't. I'm going to have enough trouble just convincing my Mom to let me go to the Fremont Fair with you. No way could I explain asking a boy out. You know how she gets."

As Lani was about to respond, Justin returned with their lunch. Megan shifted the topic, and the half-menehune, the 14th-Century knight, and the Princess of the Unseelie Court talked over food, even managing to touch on subjects of a completely non-magical, non-historic, but non-dating nature. Justin refused to touch the mozzarella sticks until he'd cleared his plate.

Once everyone was done eating, they filed out, Justin getting the door with his usual way of looking around like they might be attacked at any moment. After all they'd been through in the Fall semester, Megan couldn't completely blame him. Then he took the back seat of
Space Ship!
after politely helping Megan into the front. The car, ostensibly a '92 Chevy but a little something special after being a father-daughter project for a menehune family, took off smoother than outsiders might expect, and soon they dropped Megan off back home at the plain, off-white house in West Seattle.

Chapter 3: Green Pills

Megan came home to find her mother staring at a piece of paper: a report card.

“It's in?” Megan said. “Awesome.”

Sheila O'Reilly blinked at her arrival. “Maybe we should get you tutoring?” her mother said, staring somehow distantly at the paper.

It was Megan's turn to blink. “Mom, it's Summer. And I already have tutoring. It's called Lani.”

“Is everything okay with your medication?”

“Yes. I've been taking it just right.” Of course, the right amount of ADHD medication was, admittedly, different than the amount her mother had convinced herself Megan should be taking, which had left Megan's life in a haze until Lani had forced a secret readjustment. Yet another thing in her life her mother didn't know.

Her mother gestured with the report card. “B in Math, B- in Chemistry.”

“All right!” Megan had almost been worried for a minute there, by her mother's concerned, blinking reaction. “B in this case stands for 'Bow before me, O synthetic division.'”

“I thought you were doing well.”

“I did do well. I finally managed to get synthetic division to work at all. And look, GPA's the best I've ever had.” Megan pointed as she stepped beside her mother. This was an accomplishment. This was great. And despite knowing better, Megan couldn't help looking at her mother, waiting for the realization that she could be happy. It never came.

“Yes.” Sheila O'Reilly sighed. “If one factors in...” her mother almost had to take a breath to say it. “Music Appreciation and Art.”

“Yep. I got my plus back in Art.” Having briefly lost it during her overmedicated phase had been embarrassing.

“And if you were just planning on art school, there'd be nothing to worry about.”

Art school was, indeed, one of the things Megan was planning. But every time she tried to mention it, there was this strange, brittle look in her mother's eyes, somewhere between confusion, concern, and pain.

“Still, not bad, right?”

“...No,” her mother said. “Not bad. I'm sure there's something we can do, though. You know I want to help.”

“I know.” Megan certainly knew. Aside from professional concerns, helping was the only thing her mother managed any interest in doing. “Work okay?”

“Work is fine.”

Megan managed to deflect some more questions regarding her grades, scholarships, and Summer tutors, partly by helping noisily with dinner preparations. She was proud of her report card after the struggles she'd had, and especially with trying to learn magic from Ashling on the side all the while. Her mother stopped fretting enough to get food served and to take out the bottle of green pills to take with the meal. Megan wondered, as she had many times these past months, how well those worked for people whose conditions had nothing to do with being 'fae-touched.' Better, probably.

They ate quietly for a little bit, before Megan's thoughts wandered back to the Fair—and to Cassia's band. The satyress had cheerfully announced that Sax & Violins would be playing her neighborhood's Event of the Season. That took Megan to considering some of the CDs in her mother's box of keepsakes in her closet.

“Hey, Mom, when I was a baby or before I was born...” Megan tried to keep her deeper breath unnoticeable. “...did you ever play the Fremont Solstice Fair?”

And there it was: that bright, brittle look in her mother's eyes at having to wrap her mind around acknowledging the fact of her former music career.

“Yeah,” Sheila O'Reilly said quietly. “I did stuff like that then.” And the edge of fear in the look got a little stronger. “You said those voice lessons were just so you could join the school choir.”

“Yeah, they were,” Megan said quickly. “I was just curious, Mom. I promise.”

Her mother breathed. “Why were you curious?”

“Was thinking of going to the fair with the Kahales. Just to watch and eat the food and hang with Lani. The whole family's going. Well, except Mr. K. He's out of town again for work.” Out of this facet of reality, technically, but as far as Megan's mother knew, Lani's father was human. Of course, as far as Megan's mother knew, Megan's father had been human.

“If Mrs. Kahale takes you, that's reasonable,” Sheila O'Reilly agreed as she looked at her watch and picked up the computer bag by her chair to take out her laptop.

“It's 7:30,” she said simply, and Megan needed no other explanation. Wednesday evenings at 7:30, her mother took an hour to clear out her spam folder—after carefully checking any work-based e-mails. Plenty of the live music events that Sheila helped administrate, but never attended, had near-last-minute changes or questions, making Wednesdays and Thursdays busy days.