Serendipity Market (4 page)

“I dropped my forehead down into my hands. ‘I know. Damn it.'

“Michael lived next door to Clarisse. He was as tall as Vachel was long. He swam and surfed (although I never, not even once, suspected him of being a Mer rider) and had a body that matched—strong arms and a broad chest. Now that I thought about it, he had a Mer's body, without the fins.

“Clarisse was back in less time than I expected, Michael a looming dark shape behind her. The strange moonlight seemed to be trying to hide us, and everyone looked like shadows on shadows, etched with tarnished silver.

“Michael didn't say a word. He just nodded at me and opened the door of the Beast. In the low light I could see Vachel open his eyes. Even in the dimness, the panicky look on his face made me want to weep.

“Michael, after sizing up the situation, said only, ‘Renata, get on the other side and slide him out while we pull.' He looked at the Mer. ‘Vachel, right?' Vachel nodded warily. Michael said, ‘Michael Townsend. It's going to hurt, I think.'

“‘Yes,' Vachel whispered. His adrenaline, or whatever Mer have, must have been pumping like crazy. The sea smell of him was very strong.

“‘Okay, Renata,' Michael said. ‘Push him toward us.'

“My adrenaline was pumping, too. I wondered briefly what I smelled like to the Mer. Then I began the horrible job of pushing his gritty shoulders across the seat. Vachel screamed only once, low in his throat, and bit the sound back almost immediately.

“Michael and Clarisse were having a terrible time finding something solid to latch onto near his fins. Vachel's body twisted and almost slipped as he tried to help. This time I was the one who cried out. Finally Michael was holding the long body in his arms, breathing heavily. Clarisse was standing close to Vachel's head, speaking softly and, from what I could hear, saying nothing that made any sense at all.

“Michael's arms were shaking by the time we made it to Clarisse's door. He missed stepping on the lucky crab drawn on the hall floor, skidding his foot onto the doorsill instead. A sure sign of bad times to come. I saw him realize what he'd done and turn slightly pale, but he didn't try to go back, only kept walking, heading for
the couch. Clarisse insisted he keep going, though—into the bathroom. She started running water over Vachel as soon as he was propped in her tiny tub. His eyes were screwed shut and the gash on his chest looked worse, but color started to come back into his skin once he was wet. When the tub was half full, Clarisse left, then came back with a round pink box of salt. She dumped the whole thing in the water. Vachel managed a weak smile.

“I was more thankful than I could possibly say when I found out that Michael had taken a first-aid class. He'd even once put emergency stitches in a friend's arm. ‘Reginald,' he said as he threaded his needle, ‘surfed right into the rocks that edge those thick waves at Strather's Beach.' I shuddered. I knew those rocks. They were by a sea so violent that no one ever dared try to surf a Mer there. Michael saw my reaction and grinned. ‘Reginald always was an idiot.'

“Then he turned his attention to Vachel, and I boiled things and found peroxide. Once Michael had
everything he needed, I didn't even pretend to watch. Instead, I sat on the broken-tiled floor of the bathroom, making pictures out of the cracks in the wall above the shower nozzle until Michael was finished.

“When I couldn't find any more pictures in the cracks, I watched Clarisse, on her knees, squeezing Vachel's hand. I was hurting more for her than for him, for reasons I didn't want to name. Vachel made it through two full stitches before he passed out. Even then, she didn't stop talking to him. I don't know what she said. She barely knew him, and yet I was sure that I was watching the most intimate thing I'd ever seen in my life.

“Once Michael had finished his medical treatment, we didn't know what to do with him, or for him. But Mer must have some astounding powers of recovery. Within two days Vachel was up and moving, or moving as much as a Mer can on land. I stayed at Clarisse's, willing to do anything I could to
help. Whenever we needed a bathroom, we went over to Michael's. He finally just left his front door unlocked, day and night.

“We all took care of Vachel, but it was Clarisse Vachel wanted to see, no matter how polite he was to all of us. And vice versa.

“I told Michael the story of the man living under the sea one afternoon when the sun came through the dusty windows in golden bars and warmed the faded rug in Clarisse's living room. ‘But it's got to be a fairy tale, right?' I looked toward the bathroom. ‘She wouldn't go with him—she couldn't. Could she?'

“I wanted him to say no. Unequivocally no. Instead, he gazed past me and said, ‘Water's a wonderful and amazing thing. It carries your mind and it carries your body. It can caress you and it can kill you. One's as easy as the other.'

“I glanced up, confused. He stood in the newly-churned-butter light in front of the couch, looking
down at me. ‘I guess what I'm saying is I don't know. Renata, I just—don't know.'

“I remembered Michael's foot missing the lucky crab. I think I'd been waiting for the bad times ever since we'd brought Vachel home. It looked like they were on the way. I watched Michael in that yellow light, and I started to cry.

“I guess fairy tales can come true after all. Vachel and Clarisse slipped into the sea when the moon was the egg shape it gets just before it turns full. The same face I'd seen the night we found Vachel was back. This time, the woman was smiling, and the light coming down was the color of new pearls.

“Gossamer webs of moonlight swept over the waves. Michael and I stood in the sand, and I swear, just before Clarisse disappeared, I saw her legs mold into a fin. But who knows? That strange moonlight might have played tricks on my eyes.”

 

“I've moved into Clarisse's rooms. They're so much nicer than mine. Michael comes over a lot. Noodles with hot green sauce; beer; and word games. Tomato flatbread, rice wine, and dice. We're building our own story, just like I imagine Clarisse and Vachel are doing. Ours is, of course, land-bound. But then, everyone's story is different.

“We spend a lot of our nights on the beach. I get excited every time bottles or fishing balls wash up onto the sand. I grab them and hold them up to the moon, looking for the note I expect to find inside. Someday I'll get a message from Clarisse.”

 

Renata unfolds herself from the cushion. Her audience is murmuring, this time in approval. She leaves the teller's area, feeling parched from talking for so long, and comes face-to-face with Roberto, who offers her a cup of lemon tea. Renata takes the tea and smiles.

Mama Inez smiles, too. She says, “Nicely told.” Renata thanks her, her eyes held by the flashes of the moon mirrors on Mama Inez's scarf.

Renata knows that moon. She starts to speak, but before she can, Mama Inez says, “You live near a beautiful sea.”

Renata says, “I thought you might have seen it.” She gives Mama Inez one more shell, a gold one flecked with blue. “Now you can hear it, too,” she says.

Pleased with the mood of the night, her shell cupped in her hand, Mama Inez turns around, and John is right there.

“I am the next victim, right?” he asks. There's a snap in his eyes, enough to let her know this is a joke.

“You are,” she answers, a laugh rumbling in her voice.

John reaches into his pocket, takes out a gold
coin that matches his talisman, spins it with a practiced hand, and then, with a twist of his wrist, twirls it. The coin flips through the air, flashing colors of pink and yellow. Mama Inez sets her shell on the ground and holds out her hand. As if it's a homing pigeon, the coin lands in the exact center of her palm. Like returning to like.

“I thought I recognized you,” John says, and he walks out to his waiting audience. Mama Inez nods. She remembers just how it felt to be a coin tossed from the cloud shape Toby had become. She can feel the flat spin, can see the sun flashing red and gold, and can remember exactly how it felt to land smack in the center of John's palm, with the warmth of his hand curled around wavy edges. “Magic on top of magic,” she says.

Once in front of the crowd, John tries to adjust his thinking. Giving something away is hard for him. It goes against his merchant sen
sibility. Giving something personal away is even harder. He looks at the waiting crowd. They appear to be ready for a good story. He sees Franz and Roberto sitting together, discussing their rings sotto voce. They glance his way, then set aside a tapered piece made of silver and gold. Mama Inez stands by the entrance to the teller's area, John's coin flashing in her hand. Toby sits on his haunches, expectant. Everything John sees lets him know just how much they want what he has to give. He breathes three times, nods to Toby as he would to a prince, and begins to spin his story into the web of the evening.

“W
HEN
J
ACK
,
THE LAZIEST
fellow around, first tried to sell me the beans and told me to plant them, my assumption was that he was trying to get out of work. Again. You see, I knew Jack, and I knew that even the little amount of work it would take to dig three small holes, drop in the three warm, shiny beans, cover them up, and give them a little water now and again was three times as much work as that boy was likely to do. Getting a few coins for them would be so much simpler.

“And when he whispered ‘Magic beans' to me, I laughed right in his face. ‘Magic beans' my ass. Of course, I was more cynical then than I am now.

“I've always been a traveling merchant. I followed in my father's footsteps. But I differed from him, too. My father could never stay in one place for longer than
one or two days. When I was only a boy, my mother despaired of ever taming him and took me, and herself, to Enlay to set up what she called ‘a real life.'

“I tried to take the best of both of them. I traveled, but I always came home. Which is why I knew all about Jack.

“‘You could sell these beans yourself, John, after they grow,' he said to me, but he must have seen the doubt in my eyes, because he kept talking. ‘You don't believe me, and why should you? I know what the people in Enlay think of me. And I know it's not much.'

“He stopped, as if waiting for me to contradict him, but I just kept rolling my cigarette, there in the sun. I was hoping he'd just go away.

“‘You could sell them,' Jack repeated, ‘for more than you could dream. Magic, John. Things you can't even imagine.' He picked up the beans from where I'd put them, on the shady side of my bench. He held them
out to me, shook them in his palm. Colors flashed off their smooth black skins, flashed off and pulled at the eye. It was as if the greens and reds, the blues and violets—oh, the shades of violet, from a pale, newborn tint to a purple the color of the best red wines—were growing inside the beans and being born in the sunlight.

“Jack saw me watching, saw my eyes following the lights, and he played what he obviously considered his winning card. ‘Your mother's a nice lady. Doesn't she deserve better?'

“He waved his arm, and that wave encompassed our house and outbuildings. The house had a decided tilt, everything needed paint, there were boards on the stable with holes chewed through them, and the outhouse didn't bear mention.

“‘Rich,' Jack whispered. ‘Magic, I swear. All yours. Only seven pieces of gold.'

“‘If these beans are so wonderful, why don't you
plant them yourself? Even a lazy lad like you should be willing to do a bit of work to get such wonders.'

“Jack waved his hand through the air, ending the movement with an almost regal flick of his wrist. ‘No need, John. None at all. I've become rich enough for ten men.'

“I doubted this. I wasn't ready, though, to pursue Jack's idea of the riches of ten. Instead, I asked, ‘Then why the seven pieces of gold?'

“Jack laughed. ‘Value for value, John. Something for something.'

“Well, happens that I had seven pieces of gold. And a bit more. My last trip had been a profitable one.

“I know what you're thinking. Why not take that gold and do what needed to be done? Fix everything up and probably still have a bit left over on the other side. You're also probably aware that I did nothing of the sort. Instead, I watched those lights flash. I reached out and took those beans. I dipped into my pouch and gave over
seven gold coins. And the beans snuggled into my palm like little piggies snuggling into their mother.

“‘Just plant them,' Jack said as he pocketed his money, ‘and you'll have more to sell than you'll be able to carry, plus magic besides.' And, clearly pleased with himself, Jack went whistling off down the road.

“It was hard to plant those beans. My hand didn't want to give them up. I sat and held them and watched them for the longest time, thrilled by the colors, loving the feeling of them against my skin. Finally I sighed, got up, and dug three small holes in the sunniest spot of my mother's herb garden. I dropped one bean into each hole, although letting go of them was like prying gold from a dead man's fingers, and I added a bit of water from the rain barrel.

“The next morning, on my way to the necessary, something in the garden caught my eye. In the spot where I'd dropped the beans, there were now plants. Three-inch-high plants, strong and healthy, with the
barest touch of shimmering black on the stems. I stood looking at them for so long, I almost forgot why I was outside in the first place.

“By that afternoon, those plants were three feet tall. The leaves were glossy and flowers were popping out everywhere. Purple flowers, with mouths like snapdragons. I touched one and felt its warmth; squeezed its sides. It looked like a tiny lion yawning.

“My mother had noticed by now. How could she not? There were aliens in her garden.

“‘John? Where did these come from?' She'd spoken from behind me, and I must have jumped a good six inches.

“When my heart returned to normal, I mumbled, ‘Lazy Jack.'

“Mumbling didn't work. She heard me.

“‘Lazy Jack?' she cried. ‘Oh, John, I hope you didn't pay him good money for them. They're sure to be exactly the opposite of whatever he promised.'

“I didn't answer, which was a good enough answer for her. ‘Oh, John,' she sighed.

“Since there didn't seem to be anything more to say, we stood shoulder to head (my mother is a tiny thing) and simply looked at the plants. In seven minutes I saw them grow another inch and a half.

“‘John?' said my mother. Her voice sounded the way it did when she used to ask me about the girls I'd been seeing, back before she decided she didn't want the details. ‘Did those plants just get bigger?'

“‘They're supposed to be magic,' I said, which was a rather feeble explanation.

“‘Son, don't be ridiculous. You—Oh!' This as the bean plants jumped once again.

“I stepped back a few paces, moving briskly, and said, ‘Let's leave them for now. They're probably just fast starters.' I didn't sound convincing, not even to myself.

“But my mother agreed, and together we went back to the house.

“That evening, in the light of a waxing moon, those plants seemed to climb forever. They didn't need stakes, either. They were thick and strong and straight, and I couldn't see the tops no matter how hard I tried.

“By the next morning the little lion blossoms were gone, replaced by the most beautiful rich-purple pods. They glowed with an inner light that we could see just by looking out the windows.

“My mother followed me out of the house, close enough that I could feel her toes against my heels. Christobel, our cat, who had stayed carefully removed from the plant situation until now, walked on my right-hand side. We were all moving slowly, as if we could sneak up on the pods from their blind spots.

“When we were each close enough to touch a plant, I reached out my hand, palm up, and moved it gingerly toward one of the pods. Christobel yowled and bashed her head against my leg. My mother said, ‘John, do you think you should?'

“But by now my fingers were touching the pod. Heat radiated off it, heat that I would have sworn I could feel running through my arm all the way up to the elbow. It was the same heat that had come off the beans themselves when Jack had put them in my hand just two days before. I jiggled the pod and watched the color flashes glint in the sun. The reds and blues, the greens, and oh! those violets. I reached for the stem. ‘Should I?' I asked.

“Christobel hissed. My mother said, ‘Oh, John, I don't know if that's wise.' And the pod fell, snuggling and rolling against my palm like a drowsy little mouse.

“‘Well,' I said, but I don't remember what I planned to say after that, because suddenly pods from all three plants began to fall. The three of us—my mother, Christobel, and I—were caught in a rain of pods. By the time the stalks were empty, the herb garden was covered with piles of pods and beans that reached to my knees.

“The falling pods had made a noise like hundreds of fingertips tapping on cloth-covered tables. When they were all off the plants, the silence seemed to echo.

“‘Gracious,' my mother finally said. She sounded breathless. ‘Goodness gracious.'

“Christobel meowed.

“More silence, until my mother said, ‘I'll just go and get a nice basket,' which made me laugh out loud.

“‘That's like cleaning up after the flood last spring with a teaspoon.'

“‘And what do you suggest?' My mother used her huffy voice.

“I laughed again, and shrugged at the same time. ‘I don't really know.'

“‘We have to do something. We can't just let them rot.'

“Christobel yowled in agreement.

“‘I suppose,' I finally said, ‘we could ask the miller
for some of his grain baskets. Just so we could move them into the old barn.'

“‘An excellent idea.'

“I hooked up our pony cart, drove toward town, and borrowed baskets from the miller. We worked like dray horses, even Christobel, although her idea of help was to slap both beans and pods out of the baskets after we'd put them in. We eventually filled our whole barn and half of our stable before we were able to take those baskets back.

“We were in the middle of this work when Lazy Jack came back. His eyes widened when he saw our harvest. I stopped shoveling beans long enough to grab him by the arm. ‘Jack,' I said, and I smiled my most unpleasant smile. ‘Where did these beans come from?'

“‘I said they were magic,' Jack said, pulling against me and edging toward the road.

“‘You did,' I agreed, following along. ‘But you never
said from where.' My mother, who is quite fierce when she chooses to be, was at this moment hidden behind a pile of beans. But Christobel and I were a match for Jack even without her. I gripped his arm tighter and glared down at him. Christobel tried to bite through his shoe. I said, ‘Where, Jack?'

“‘The—the giant,' Jack stuttered.

“‘What giant?' I shook his arm, not gently.

“‘The one up there.' Jack pointed straight to the billowy summer clouds, straight to the one that was shaped like a very large dog.

“‘A giant in the clouds? That's who gave them to you?'

“Remember that until after I planted Jack's beans, I was unconvinced of magic. While my opinion had changed, I still wasn't sure that I could make the leap required to believe in giants.

“Jack squirmed.

“‘Jack?' I asked, squeezing his arm now.

“‘Of course. The giant gave them to me. Absolutely. Certainly. He said—'

“There was a roar from over our heads. My grip on Jack's arm slipped, he tried to run, Christobel tangled through his feet, and he skidded into a pile of beans.

“‘He STOLE!' roared the voice above our heads. ‘Snuck into my house and STOLE, he did.'

“Jack cowered in his pile of beans. ‘I never did.' But his voice was a whisper, and he shivered in the hot sun.

“Fine. I believed in giants. And I believed this particular giant much more than I believed Jack. I didn't think I could do anything about Jack's transgressions, but I asked anyway. ‘Do you still have what you took?'

“‘You believe him?'

“I looked at Jack with contempt. ‘Yes, Jack. Of course I do. How else could you have come to have his beans? But you must have taken something else. I
doubt even a giant would be this upset about beans.'

“My mother, having joined us, said, ‘Oh, Jack. Your poor, poor mother. To have raised a thief for a son.'

“I raised my voice. ‘What did he take, Giant?'

“‘He took my golden goose, my Jezebel. If I could only get my Jezebel home, I'd forgive and forget.'

“‘Jack?'

“But he was gone.

“My legs are long and I move quickly. I had Jack down on the ground before he'd gone a quarter of a league down the road.

“‘Jezebel?' I asked.

“Jack was as surly as a bad child when he said, ‘At my house.'

“‘Not for long,' I said.

“We were back soon enough, standing at the base of the tallest stalk. It was already beginning to shrivel.

“‘Giant,' I called, ‘your Jezebel is here.' And as I
looked at the goose and the dying beanstalks, I said, ‘But I have no idea of how to return her.' I turned to Jack and said, ‘How did you get this goose in the first place?'

“‘Climbed.' And Jack sneered at me.

“‘When you gave me these beans, you didn't think I'd climb up myself? Find the giant and take what was his, like you did?'

“Jack snorted a laugh. ‘You? Never. You're too honest.'

“‘Honest is as honest does,' my mother said. Jack shrugged and yawned.

“I shook my head in disgust, then looked up the shriveling stalk in front of me. I still couldn't see the top. But I could see that the leaf stems, if followed properly, would form steps, almost like a ladder.

“I turned back to Jack, scanned him from head to toe. I blinked several times to make sure he was really what I was seeing. It was still Lazy Jack, and I was
impressed in spite of myself. ‘You climbed something like
that
?' I asked.

“Jack straightened his shoulders, and now he grinned, looking quite cocky. ‘Of course I did. Where do you think I got the beans in the first place?' He gave a little shrug, still grinning. ‘Nothing to it.'

“I stared at the stalk again, pictured climbing up one-handed, and swallowed hard. ‘Should I?' I asked. I have never liked high places. I even got scared in the loft of our barn.

“My mother didn't hesitate. ‘Of course you should, John. You must. Poor things. They need to be together.' And she gave Jezebel a little pat.