Chapter Twenty-One

Just after dawn, I found Sam sitting on the hood of Skinny Phil’s car. He was as beautiful as ever. The curve of his shoulders and the slight downturn of his usually smiling lips exuded sadness. He must have been there a while, because dew had settled all around him. He looked at me hopefully as I approached.

“I promised I wouldn’t do magic to anyone at the carnival,” Sam said. “You didn’t have to make charms for everyone.”

I just sipped my coffee, wishing Skinny Phil would get there, and we could get through this day.

“Please talk to me, Sister.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be spying on the Water Fae?” I asked.

“The war did not happen. Our father wants me to help you.”

“When did you see your father?”

“I found a way to the Outlands when we first came to Evansville. I saw our father, and he bade me to care for you. He wanted me to teach you the magic of the Air Fae.

“I don’t need your help. Magic has done nothing but kill the people I loved. Why don’t you go tell our dear old dad that I don’t need anything from him. I did fine without a father my whole life.” I kept my voice low and even. Anybody who knew me understood the tone meant I was massively angry.

“I can teach you the spells you asked me about.” Sam reached for my hand.

I stepped back out of his reach. “What spells?”

“The spells for making things warm and changing their size.”

Aunt Lila’s voice echoed in my head…fairy bigot. “Those spells would be useful,” I admitted. “I guess you could teach me how to warm things, but if you do anything to hurt the carnival or any of my friends, you’d better find a deep hole to hide in, because you won’t want to know what I’ll do to you—” I stopped because Skinny Phil was coming.

Thirty years ago, Phil was a skinny kid who ran away and joined the carnival. There were multiple Phils on the lot the year he came—Greasy Phil, Bad Phil, and Big Phil, so he became Skinny Phil. The other Phils were long gone, and our Phil was about fifty pounds past skinny, but once a nickname, always a nickname as far as Carnies were concerned.

Phil studiously ignored the tension between Sam and me. He climbed in the driver’s seat of his old blue Chevy. “You guys coming? I want to get finished before Christmas.”

Sam jumped in the passenger seat, and I climbed in the back. Janie was driving my rig north for me later today.

Phil tried the ignition a couple of times. All he got was a grinding noise. Phil leaned one arm over the back of the seat and gave me a significant look.

“Ooops. Sorry, Phil. I’ll get it.” I had a spray bottle with purified water that had a little belladonna in it. I sprayed a circle around myself in my seat and muttered my warding spell, to cut myself off from the car’s engine. “Sam, your magic will interfere with the car engine. You need to ward yourself away from the engine.”

“I already did, Airy.”

I raised an eyebrow, not believing him.

“When I saw what you were doing, I thought of a better way. The whole inside of the car is like a box. It takes less energy to activate a closed space, because it doesn’t have to stretch out forever.”

Phil turned the key, and the car started right up. By the bell and book, Sam was good. I could never figure out the dynamics of energizing a box, especially this early in the morning.

“I have no idea what the hell you two are talking about,” Phil said as we pulled out into the morning traffic. He spit out the window, “You want to stop at Waffle House for breakfast?”

At Sam’s puzzled look, I had a vision of what the name probably brought to his mind. A building made of Waffles. “A Waffle House is a restaurant. It’s a cheap way to get a meal.” I explained. “You have any money?” I was trying to get over my fairy bias, but I couldn’t afford to feed a dead beat. Most of the money I had earned the past couple days had been used up getting supplies and paying debts. I had about twenty bucks to get me through the next couple of days. I should be safe if I didn’t eat too much.

“Yes, I have money. Mister D paid me last night.” He pulled a wad of bills from his coat pocket and held them out to me. “Is this enough?”

I could see about fifty dollars. “You should have enough, if you’re careful.”

“So, are we stopping or what?” Phil interjected.

Sam preceded Phil and me in the restaurant. Phil looked at me with an unasked question. “They use different money where Sam comes from,” I said.

“Mmm…huh.”

Thank the universe Phil was a Carney. He would take the lame excuse and not pry. I couldn’t imagine trying to explain Sam’s naiveté to a regular person who would demand a logical explanation.

“Why didn’t we get waffles from Sheila,” Sam asked as we sat down. Sheila ran a Belgian waffle and funnel cake stand at the carnival.

“Sheila wasn’t up when we left. We didn’t want to bother her.” Phil sounded like he was talking to a slow child, not a being who could blast him to composite particles with a few short words. I hope no one at the Carney ever found out how dangerous Sam really was.

By three in the afternoon, Skinny Phil and Sam had most of the carnival lot laid out. Sam bounced around like a puppy. He and Phil had hammered in stakes, marking the locations for each of the carnival rides and attractions. The carnival lot was set up in an arc, which started and ended at the entry arch where people paid to get in. Most people entering travelled along the arc to the right, counterclockwise. Games and junk food stands were along the front right. The big rides would be scattered along the curve farthest from the entrance.

My tent would be nestled among the food stands near the end of the arc on the left side. It wasn’t the greatest spot, but it wasn’t the worst. Given my magic mojo, it wasn’t wise for me to be near the big rides. Occasionally, people do the arc clockwise, and I’m the first attraction. Unfortunately, the majority of the customers go the other way. By the time the marks got to my tent, they were tired. Sometimes they wanted to come and sit for a reading. Other times, they just wanted to go home and passed by my stand. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost—the carnival microcosm of life.

While Phil and Sam worked, I set up the wards around the carnival lot. A spell on a roll of thread formed the base for the ward. As I walked the perimeter, I cut snippets of thread and dropped them. Since the thread came from a single roll, the tiny pieces—in terms of the weak warding spell I used—acted as though they were a single barrier. It was like a weak electric fence—a warning, but not a real deterrent to any determined preternatural being. We had driven over a ley-line about a quarter mile from the carnival grounds, but there were no ley-lines on the lot. Wouldn’t you know it? The Chicago area had a huge number of ley-line intersections, but as luck had it, there were none in this area. If supernatural beings decided to come calling, there would be no extra energy to bolster the wards into an actual wall, like I’d done in Cleveland. If demons invaded again, we were screwed. Not that there was any reason for something to happen. Of course, nothing was going to happen. Nothing happened in Evansville. Right?