The Rambling Read online

  Pop would chuckle at that. “Fine, have it your way. Water and love. Nothing’s stronger than water and love.”

  The river was black and the stars shone in it like open mouths. Fog hung low on the water like the river’s own breath, and I saw the dinghy, the two men rowing, not too far ahead. I could hear their cackles like goblin laughs, like two little hunched-over demons poking at their prey.

  I rowed harder. I let the current yank me, I felt the pull of the river like a strong man reached out to hug me. I saw animals on the riverbank, two deer with black eyes bowing their heads, solemn as angels, and an owl swooped low over us. That could be a good sign, an owl over open water, or a bad one, depending on who it was scrying the omens. Pop always said life isn’t so much what happens as who tells the better story about it later.

  One way or the other, this would be a heck of a story to tell. Now it was up to me to make sure it had a happy ending, a boy and his pop back together, all the low-down scoundrels vanquished, nothing but glad tidings to sing and happy times to tell about.

  Well, here’s to all that, I thought, and downriver I rowed.

  4

  IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE THEY caught wind of me, Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo. They must have sniffed me out. One after the other their heads popped up to stare at me, and I swear in the moonlight I saw Pop writhing on the floor of the skiff.

  I rowed hard as I could, my hands blistered from the oars and my hair damp with sweat. In the moonglow pale spiders scuttled by my feet, stowaways on the skiff’s floor. I was gaining on the other boat, somehow I was catching up. I didn’t know what I would do when I got there. Something. I had Pop’s knife after all, and maybe there was something special in his knapsack I had slung over my shoulder. I sure hoped so. I glanced behind me. I was close enough now I could see the snarl on Cecily Bob’s face, his bent and crooked nose. Mr. Hugo’s too. He was a squat man shaped not unlike a mole, with a top hat and bug eyes and a little mouth set in an O. I could hear them cursing and swearing at me, I could see the tattoos snaking up Cecily Bob’s arms, I remembered the gleaming knife he’d pulled on Pop, chipped and rusty from the blood of all the throats he’d probably sliced and the bellies he’d most likely spilled open.

  I realized maybe I hadn’t planned any of this too well.

  I saw Mr. Hugo fish in his pockets for a minute and pull out a small metal box. I heard him cuss and laugh a little, and I looked back over my shoulder in time to see something spark, and then spark again. He was fiddling with a tinderbox, that’s what Mr. Hugo was doing. Only what was he going to light with it?

  I saw another sparkle, then the bright white burn of a fuse catching. More cackling, and then the burning thing plopped in the water right next to my boat.

  It boomed. Water flew up in the air.

  The men on the boat roared with laughter. I bet you could have heard them laughing for miles.

  It had nearly got me. Something smelled burnt and I realized the blast had singed my hair. Black powder bombs. Another one fell just in front of the boat. I heard it clunk underwater before exploding just as I passed it. Water splashed me in the face.

  They were letting me catch up. They wanted me close as possible so they wouldn’t miss. They were going to blow up my skiff.

  I tried to slow myself down, but the current was too strong, I was being drug straight for them. I saw Pop kick and struggle in the boat and Cecily Bob whack him with an oar. Mr. Hugo lit another black powder bomb then, held it close to his chest, the fuse burning low. In the starlight I saw his gap-toothed grin.

  He was close enough I could hear him giggle.

  Then he reared back and hurled the black powder bomb right at my head.

  I ducked. It flew just over my noggin, clanking on the floor of the skiff.

  The black powder bomb was in the boat with me, fuse burning down to a bare smidgen.

  I had two choices.

  I could snatch it up and chuck it into the water, pray I was quick enough to keep it from blowing up in my hands.

  Or I could abandon ship, fling myself into the river, and hope it would hold me, hope it would carry me on to somewhere safe.

  Of course, the bomb blew up before I could make a decision.

  The blast flung me into the corner of the skiff, nearly out of it. I bonked my head something awful, and I looked down and my pant cuff was on fire. I kicked the flames out quick enough, but the worst of all was the hole blown in the floor of the boat. It was about the size of my head I reckon, and black water gushed up through it.

  Wasn’t any point in bailing the water out. This sucker was sinking, and fast. I gripped tight to Pop’s knapsack, still slung over my shoulder, and got ready to say my prayers. That’s when I heard Cecily Bob’s horrible cackle, and a lit black powder bomb went sailing over my head, the burning fuse streaking across the sky like a dismal shooting star.

  It landed with a plop in the waterlogged skiff.

  This time it blew me out of the boat. Cinders and wood fell around me like burning rain. I hit the water hard, sinking down, down, my body heavy as a cannonball. Deep beneath the water the river turned and twisted, its undercurrents like a wild mass of tangled hair. Debris snatched at my clothes, twigs and driftwood, sunken boats and storm-thrown trees and old forgotten things. My leg was caught, my pants hooked on something gnarled and twisted. I kicked and I kicked but I couldn’t break free. I peered up at the moonlight glimmering on the surface of the water over my head, I imagined the billion stars glittering like all the world’s jewels, that perfect beautiful night sky I never was going to see again, there was no chance. I was sure I was going to drown.

  I saw what looked like one big eye peer at me and blink, then dash away. I realized the river was a living thing, full of life and rushing and wild as blood.

  Then my foot was free. I don’t know how it happened, in that moment I could not tell you. But I kicked and swam hard as I could and my face broke the surface of the water and I gasped in all the air my lungs could handle. I’d never noticed the air before, not really, never thought about what a pure cool breath actually tasted like. Let me tell you, I would never take air for granted again.

  A bit of blown-apart boat floated by and I grabbed it, hugged it close to me. It was a huge chunk of the bottom of the boat, big enough for me to crawl my belly up on, so only my feet and arms dangled in the water. With my body on it, the boat scrap stayed afloat, it didn’t sink. I could keep my head up, the current dragging me onward, Cecily Bob’s dinghy disappearing swift down the starlit river, the two lowlifes who thieved my daddy cackling off into the night.

  I worried about gators floating under me long as boats. I worried about their jaws that could crack a man’s bones in two. I’d seen them float up before in a body of water so slick and smooth it could have been a footpath, it seemed like the calmest most boring water on earth. And right underneath the surface the whole time is that. It’s the sort of thing that will make you sit back and take stock of the world and your place in it. It’s the kind of thing that makes you scared to set your foot out of doors, if you think about it too hard.

  So what I did was try not to think about it at all. I didn’t think about gators or snapping turtles or alligator gars, which are like gators on top but with fishtails on their bottoms, sort of like a maniac’s idea of a mermaid. I tried not to think of the Creepy either, or fanged fish, which were both supposed to be rumors. I tried not to think of river spirits or dryads or the Dolly Witch or any of the other creatures I’d heard about from my daddy when I was just a kid wandering the Swamplands.

  What I did focus on was holding tight to the boat scraps, to keeping the course as long as I could. What if I managed to kick myself all the way over to the bank, against the current, mind you, then what? Hitchhike after the men who stole Pop? They’d be long gone before I could get half a mile. River travel was the only way, and I was now without a boat. It’d take me a miracle, but I was sitting in this river until I wore out or caught them.

/>   At least I had Pop’s knapsack. It was soaked on through, probably everything in it all sopping and ruined, but at least I hadn’t lost it. There was still that.

  I let the river carry me on. There wasn’t any other choice in the matter, and that was a fact. I squinted my eyes and set my face firm toward the horizon.

  I’m coming, Pop, I whispered to the night. I said it like a prayer, like a promise. I’m coming to save you.

  5

  I FIGURE NOW IS AS good a time as any to try and explain Parsnit to you, since nothing much is happening in this story right now except I’m floating downriver on a blown-up heap of boat all night. I can’t promise I’ll do a great job or anything, because Parsnit’s not an easy game to explain. You have to see it, really, to know what it’s all about. You have to be there, to watch the sitting witch pull the magic of the card, to hear the duelers Orating, to feel your hair stand on end when you go along with a story, when you start to believe it yourself.

  See, I’m already getting ahead of myself. Here’s the basics, as Pop would have me tell it.

  Parsnit is a game of chance, sure, but mostly it’s a game of storytelling, and of magic. To have a true Parsnit duel, you need two players, each with their own deck, and a witch, who presides over the duel. First, each player shuffles his opponent’s deck. All kinds of shenanigans would be possible during this shuffling part of things if there weren’t a witch sitting in judgment over the whole affair. If a Parsnit player tampers with another person’s cards, well, that witch might just well burn his eyes right out of his skull. Not to mention that Parsnit is a game of honor, and there ain’t much more dishonorable than cheating right off the bat.

  Next, each player flips over the top card of his own deck until they land on a Person card, like the Fish Boy, or the Rambling Duke or the Dolly Witch. Any Parsnit player worth his salt will flip a Person card—not just any Person card, but the right one for this game, for how he’s feeling today, for what his soul feels like—in the first flip. If not, it means his deck don’t like him anymore. Parsnit decks are finicky, built by magic. They got a mind of their own, is all I’m saying. It won’t do to play with an ornery Parsnit deck. They’re like a good horse, you know? Won’t let a coward so much as sit on them, much less ride. But if the player’s worth a durn, and he’s got his cards working for him, then he flips his Person card right off.

  The player who drew the Person card begins Orating. It’s basically storytelling, but it ain’t just making things up. It’s communicating with the card, it’s talking back and forth, saying what you see painted right there in front of you, but also drawing a picture in the minds of everybody listening, so’s they can see what you’re seeing. You Orate the story well enough and it might as well be real, it might as well be happening right there in that room. This is where the witch comes in. Witches have a way of making the stories pop and sparkle, making them come true as the very air you’re breathing. Parsnit ain’t Parsnit without a witch in the room. As the Orating goes along, the cards gain their power, they nearly flash and burn with it.

  Next each player draws three cards off the top. Again, if they’re worth a lick, one of them is gonna be a Home card. Home cards will be where the character’s from, or else where the story starts: the Far Yonder Mountains or the Cold Dark City or the Long Lonely Prairie. A setting helps round the character out, it does. You have a person and you have a home, then you got the beginnings of a story.

  After the Home cards is when things get trickier. Each Parsnit player draws seven cards, one at a time. These are called the Journey cards, and they’re cast one at a time on the other player’s character. A Journey card can be anything, really: a place like the Bramble or the Craggly Hills, a different Person card, something trickier too, like Didn’t It Rain? or Lilyswamps Bloom or When Your Way Grows Dark. Of course, once a player lays down a Journey card, the other player has to Orate around it. Change the story, adapt, be quick in his mind, make something good. Because you can tell real quick when the Orating goes bad. You get bored, for one. Or worse, the sitting witch gets bored. You’ll start sweating, you’ll get a burning feeling in your feet. I’ve heard tell about men gone running straight out the room to dunk their heads in a bucket of water, they were feeling so sick from a round of bad Orating. No bigger shame is there for a Parsnit player.

  Once the Journey cards come into play, a Parsnit duel is hard to describe, because there isn’t any standard Parsnit duel. Depending on the players and how good they are, a duel could go a million different ways. It could last twenty minutes or two days—who knows? The only rule is you can’t take a break, and you can’t go to sleep. If the witch can stay awake (and witches have been known to stay awake for weeks if they so desire) then the match carries on, players laying down cards against one another, adapting around them, changing the story. Eventually the two Person cards have to meet. More cards will be drawn, places named, conflicts brought in. Side characters, supporting cards. Heaven help you if a duelist plays a Red Bride against you. Near impossible to beat a Red Bride. She walks right in the room and lays waste to near everything. And if you’re not careful, she’ll steal the story right from you, and you’ll lose. Red Bride’s the hardest card to draw, even for an experienced Parsnit player. She bides her own time, only showing up when she best feels like it. As I was saying, Parsnit cards tend to have a mind of their own.

  Fine and good, but how do you know when there’s a winner?

  The answer to that is obvious. How do you know when a story’s finished, when it’s any good? You just know, is the answer. That, or the player stops Orating and just says, “The end.” If he did it right, the whole room will burst into applause. Grown men weeping, women dancing around, clapping their hands like they were in a tent chapel. I’ve heard of witches themselves shed a bloodred tear for a Parsnit duel well played. If you win, you win, and everyone knows it. Even the cards know it. A losing Parsnit card will sometimes bear a mark, if the shame is too great. Losing in Parsnit is obvious, and the cards themselves feel it too.

  Now what exactly is at stake when folks play Parsnit? Well, that depends on the folks playing. Some Parsnit duelists don’t play for anything but honor—no wager required, just the thrill of spinning a tale out of skill and chance and magic. Some like to make a little profit here and there, folks like Pop and his old crew, who I knew made most of their living off Parsnit duels. Still others take Parsnit to a more serious level. These folks will wager something permanent, something they can never take back, and seal it with a witch’s bond, a sort of burn scar around the ring finger of both duelists. Witch’s bonds are forever, unless the witch undoes them, and they can be passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, blood to blood. Many lives have been won and lost in Parsnit, money changed hands, decisions made and decisions forfeited. It’s a risky game, that’s for sure. And why would anyone risk so much on a card game, on a game of wit and chance and storytelling? What brings folks round time and time again, to talk and jabber, to flip cards and tell their story, to hold real magic in their hands, to watch it flicker and spark across the air and land hot and popping on their tongues? When folks play Parsnit, folks play their dreams.

  And that means everything’s possible in Parsnit. Everything at all.

  6

  LATE THAT MORNING I WASHED up in a town that I figured was Gentlesburg. I don’t know why it’s called that, there ain’t anything “gentle” about it. Matter of fact, if what I’d heard about the place was true, I was as likely to get myself beat up or killed or worse as I was to get a handshake. But I was flat out of food and tired to boot, and besides, if Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo had stopped anywhere along the river before rowing down to the Swamplands, this would be it. Wasn’t any other town after it, not on this river, not before it became the swamp. Gentlesburg was right at the border, the meanest, cruddiest place I knew of. Folks were scared to come here, the boring nice folks from where my mom lived. They said it was too rough-and-tumble for respectable folks.<
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  Good thing I’m not in the least bit respectable.

  I floated past all the big riverboats with all their sails and cargo, early risers loading and unloading boxes and crates and sacks, everything stinking of fish and rotten vegetables and grubby old men, down to a dumpy, rotted pier half-sunk in the water. The only person there was an old woman slumped over in a chair on the dock, snoring. She looked to be about six hundred years old, if you want to know the truth about it.

  By then my arms were near numb from holding on to that little plank, and I figured it wouldn’t take me another fifty yards, so I hollered up to that sleeping lady.

  “Howdy, ma’am!” I yelled. “Little help down here!”

  Her eye popped open and she took a gander at me, floating down in the water by the pier.

  “You can’t dock here, son,” she snarled.

  “I ain’t got any raft,” I said. “Just this here plank, and I’m about worn-out from holding on to it.”

  “How far did you come on that hunk of driftwood?” she said.

  “A good night’s worth of travel,” I said.

  “Good gracious,” she said, hobbling up out of her chair. “What kind of world is it where children come floating down the river like so much flotsam and jetsam. Durn shame it is, this world. Hateful all around.”

  The woman leaned herself over the pier and I caught hold of her hand. She pulled me up all on her own, she did. This woman was awful strong.

  “Need a place to sleep?”

  I was so tired I nearly keeled over right then, but then I righted myself and shook my head.

  “No ma’am,” I said.

  “I know a rogue when I see one,” she said. “Snuck away from my daddy once too, when I was just a kid. He wasn’t too nice, not to me or my mom, if you know what I mean. Looking at you, I figure you do.”

  I was about to correct her but then my stomach growled so big the old lady grimaced.