I woke up hours later, something hard striking my shoulder.
“Get up, lady, you can’t sleep in the park.”
I sat up, blinking into the dawn. Papers fluttered off me like wings.
The man standing over me was dressed all in dark blue. He had a round face with a nose as flat as a squashed peach, and the same color.
I was not in my bed at the Number 13 house nor—even with the trees I could see around me—was I in my nest in the Greenwood. “Where am I?”
“Riverside Park,” he grumbled.
River side. Then I remembered the sluggish river. And something else.
“Music,” I said.
“Not a sound,” he answered. “Did you lose your iPod?”
It was as if we were speaking two different tongues. Perhaps I had been transported to yet another world even as I slept.
“Is it still the New York?” I asked.
“It’s not the New Jersey,” he said.
Suddenly, I recalled the red cap belonging to the piper, though I could not bring up either his face or his name. He had returned me my money. I touched my skirt and could hear the coins rattle.
“Lady, if you have money, what the hell are you doing sleeping out here in the park?” he asked. “Of course your iPod got stolen.”
“What is an iPod?” I looked around for the creature and saw nothing.
“What you been smoking, lady?”
“I do not smoke.”
“Well, you’re sure high on something. You still flying?”
I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “I have not been able to fly since the Greenwood.” And then I remembered the brownies and how their magic had made me laugh and cry simultaneously. Sticking out my tongue, I tried to taste them again, as if their magic still lingered in my mouth. But it was only a sour morning breath.
“Oh—just get out of here, before the kids come and I won’t take you in.” He pulled me to my feet. “Oh yeah, and no littering. Stow those papers in the can.”
I figured out he meant me to deposit the large flapping papers in a nearby bin. Then I walked in the opposite direction the blue man had taken. Nothing was familiar. Suddenly, I feared where I was, and when I was. Had I slept away the afternoon and the night? Or had the magic lost me more time than that? A year? A generation? All the tales of faerie time ran through me like a river. But the trees were still in their late summer sheen. I had to believe not too much time had passed.
Either I have lost a day or found one, I thought, but three things were certain. First, humans have magic here in their village of New York. Second, I was suddenly and overwhelmingly hungry. And third, I was lost.
My heart beat as loudly as black Chim’s drum. Now the sour taste in my mouth was fear. I thought then to pray to the gods of the Greenwood, yet I doubted they could hear me here, even with the trees and flowers of the Riverside Park.
As I stood dithering on the walkway, turning this way and that, a stranger put a hand on my arm and said, “Are you lost, old dear?”
Old dear? The woman was surely twice as old as I, her face a mask of wrinkles with two dark eyes peering out like currants in a doughy bun.
“Thank you, good dame,” I said to her, “but I am looking for the Number 13 and the Man of Flowers whose store is filled with fruta. Do you know them? Or perhaps the place where the made-woman lies with her face near the water.” If I could get back there, I thought, I might be able to find my way to my rooms.
“Goodness, where do you come from?” she asked. “Czechoslovakia or summat?”
Because she said goodness, I knew her for someone on the Seelie side, and answered back with the same good grace. “Summat.” It seemed a safe response.
She laughed. “Summit, New Jersey?”
Does everyone here know of this New Jersey? And is it important? I was mulling this over when she pointed to the corner, crooking her finger to indicate the direction. “I bet you mean that large statue called Memory; if memory serves, it’s that way. Hah!” She laughed at herself. “Sure, I can take you there. But I can’t do more than that. I’m on my way to see my grandchildren.”
The touch of her hand on mine led me to turn her hand over and touch the palm. There was a knot under the lifeline. “There will be one more grandchild,” I said. “At last, a girl.” She would not live to see it. But at least I could give her this.
“How do you . . . know . . .” her voice trailed off.
“I accept your help,” I said. Now that I would not be beholden to her for it. Though I would not have been beholden for long. The hand never lies, though the mouth can.
“Oh, I hope you’re right. After five grandsons, a girl would be . . .” Her wrinkles all seemed to turn up at the thought.
“I am always right,” I said.
* * *
WE WALKED THE REST OF the way in silence along the winding walkways until at last I realized where I was. “This is it!” I said aloud. We were right across from the made-woman, and I stood still for a moment contemplating her. There was something infinitely sad about her that I had not recognized before. Perhaps the children bouncing on her side had distracted me. Perhaps the sound of the music.
I saluted the grandmother, who walked swiftly away from me, and then I retraced my steps from the day—or days—before. I remembered the way, going steadily along the walk where the young people on wheels had run by me, up the stone waterfall, over the road.
As I hurried along, I nodded at other walkers on the street as if I knew them, and a few of them nodded back. Small magicks, I thought. A smile elicits a smile.
At the spindly tree not far from Number 13, nestling near one of the stinking bags, something caught my eye. I bent down, knowing that if one does not look, one can never find. It was a stone I had not seen before, blue and green. A cleansing stone. I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket. After all, one must never ignore a gift.
Then I headed toward the stairs up to my home. Home! I wondered that I could call it so, after only a day or two away, but home it had become.