It shrank in on itself and screamed.
The solange-eyed one slammed his hands to his ears.
The boy fell backward and landed on the cement. He covered his ears, and then, looking at the citrus and pearl dust scented woman, he gave a wild, joyful, welcome-to-the-fun grin.
When the woman saw the blood from his cracked skull soaked over his face and the gore covering his skin, her pure note faltered.
She took a step toward the boy.
At the faltering of her song, the horror reared up and struck.
88
The trickster sprinted into the splash of milky street light, skidding to a halt before the old metal plaque. He was soaked from racing through the East River. Water ran over him in rivulets and kicked out the scent of minerals, muck, and boat diesel. Mud and waterweed clung to his wet clothing, and his black hair fell over his eyes.
He rubbed a hand over his wet face and shook himself off. His chest heaved with the effort of the run. In his pocket, the cricket stayed dry in a tiny, conjured bubble. The trickster gently pulled her free and popped the cage. She hopped onto his shoulder and sang a quick, high note.
“‘They saw their homes struck down without warning . . . it was not their walls but their valor that kept them free,’” the trickster said, reading the plaque again.
The lucky one whistled a quick note. The trickster nodded.
“I know it’s insane. But didn’t you always say you fell in love with me because I’m unexpected?” He laughed when the lucky one chirruped. “Oh. You meant falling in love with me was unexpected. Same thing, right?”
The wind was thin. So thin. It was smaller than the drops of water running down the trickster’s hot skin. It was even smaller than the fragments of the drops that splashed when they hit the concrete. It was smaller even than mist.
The dark clouds gathered around the trickster, pressing against him and his lucky one. It was as if they sensed his wild hope and the luck behind it. If the wind could, it would blow them away. It would gust and gust until the dark clouds fled. But the wind was not strong here. It was thin. It was only a watching thing when it was everywhere.
Still, the wind sensed the attention of the rubble, the bricks, the stones. It smelled the bombing raid, the red-mist inferno, and the melting city. It could even hear the particular cadence of the western English shore.
The wind knew what the trickster was doing. It was a wild, mad trickster thing.
When the giant ships had filled their hulls with ballast, they’d brought over from England the bombed and ruined remains of centuries of churches, hospitals, schools, and homes. New York had built a neighborhood from the ruin; the trickster wanted to build a defense.
When the ships had brought rubble, they’d also brought valor. One couldn’t live—even as a stone—in proximity to such a strong emotion without taking on its character.
The Clarks had loosed a hateful, hungry, malevolent thing. The trickster wanted to free a stalwart, courageous, light-filled thing.
The lucky one chirruped. The sound was like the ringing of a penny that had been flipped high in the air.
The trickster smiled, and his skin glowed with the lucky one’s honeyed gift.
He closed his eyes. Concentrated. A line formed between his dark brows.
The black clouds shoved against him.
He gritted his teeth and twisted his hands.
The wind stilled. Waited.
The lucky one was silent.
The trickster opened his eyes.
“Nothing’s happening,” he said. He looked around at the darkened street, the oil-slick gleam of the river, the abandoned footbridge, and the darkness pressing against the streetlight. “Nothing . . .”
He spun around and held up his hand. The lucky one trilled.
Then the trickster’s chin tilted as he looked up. His smile grew and grew, and then he began to laugh. Out of the East River, from beneath streets and the bridges, the cars and the buildings, rose a gleaming, hulking, stone and rubble thing.
