The Rambling Read online

  The stairs twisted and turned and spiraled, blind corner after blind corner, each one a perfect hiding spot for someone who wanted to murder me. The stairs led to a hallway with doors on each side, and I saw Tally dart through one of them. I was coming, slow, sure, but steady, I was coming for her, I was coming to get my daddy’s cards back, yes sir.

  I turned that corner and lunged through that doorway and there she stood, Tally the Pickpocket, in a tiny room stuffed high with books and glass vials and bundles of sticks and stones and jars of herbs and a bird or two flitting around their cages. The birds were lemon yellow and bright shining, like God had taken a sunbeam and shaped it right into an animal.

  A tall skinny old man with a fringe of bushy hair and big bug-eyed spectacles sat in a chair in front of me.

  “Buddy, this is my granddad,” said Tally. She held the Parsnit deck out to me like it was a present. I took it back, warily, like there was some kind of catch.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why’d you steal the cards if you were gonna just give them right back to me?”

  “How else was I supposed to get you to Granddad’s?” she said, shrugging. “I told you he’d know where your daddy was, if anybody did. Heck, if I’d have let you wander around the Skinny Yellow Dog asking after Boss Authority all night, you’d be hogtied in the back of some river bandit’s skiff, headed into the swamp right now.”

  Well, she had me there.

  “Besides,” said Tally, grinning, “when was the last time you had a good meal?”

  “Some old lady gave me some salt fish a couple of hours ago.”

  “Let me tell you, Buddy boy,” said Granddad, “my stew is a heck of a lot better than some cold old salt fish, and you can swear on it.” His voice was high and rickety, like an old warped board someone just stepped on. I kind of liked it, to be honest. I liked his stooped back and suspenders and well-darned slacks. He looked like a gentleman inventor, he did, like somebody always sussing out the secrets of the universe. Hard not to like a fella like that.

  Granddad reached his hand out to me, and I took it, because Pop always said you never refuse a hand when it’s offered out to shake.

  “Charmed,” said Granddad.

  His hand was long and thin, his fingers spidery and strong. He had a grip like a durn bear trap, and his eyes gleamed with a little silver light.

  “Told you you’d like my granddad,” said Tally, and she was right.

  Granddad set the table and ladled out the soup. When he stood to his full height, I realized just how tall Granddad was—near seven feet probably, and he was skinny as a pike pole. He put you in mind of a bug, like a praying mantis, or maybe one of those suckers that never move and just look like sticks. What do you call those? Stick bugs. Harmless things, stick bugs, and I always kind of liked them.

  We all sat down at the table together, in the warm comfortable kitchen, like a real family does. It was nice, I tell you. It was the most at-home I’d felt in ages.

  And the soup was good, too. Potatoes and okra and green beans, some catfish bits floating in there. A real muck of a stew, and spicy to boot. Granddad offered me a second bowl, and I was not too proud to take it. Hunting down your kidnapped daddy is an awful lot of work, it is.

  “Now Buddy,” said Granddad, after I’d finished eating and Tally cleared the table. He leaned in close to me, his breath tangy with fish and chili pepper. “Tally tells me you’re looking for your pop, is that right?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “David Josiah Pennington, you ever heard of him?”

  Granddad nodded his head. “I do believe I’ve heard the name.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me much,” I said. “Seems like everybody around here’s heard of my pop, and only about half of them like him much.”

  Granddad peered at me, his eyes wide and silvering under those glasses. “I haven’t heard anything about your father in quite a while, to be honest. But I have some associates in town, some eyes and ears around. I could ask them for you, if you’d like?”

  “Oh yes, sir,” I said. “I sure would appreciate it.”

  “Gonna have a pip on my pipe first,” he said, “if that’s all right with you.” He reached a long skinny arm up to the top of his bookshelf and pulled down a curved wooden pipe, along with a little leather pouch of tobacco. “Helps with digestion, you understand?”

  Frankly, that kind of annoyed me a bit. I wanted to find out about my daddy now, not after the old codger had a smoke. But he was doing me a favor, wasn’t he? It wouldn’t do to complain about a favor. Nope, I’d just have to be patient.

  “And that was your daddy’s Parsnit deck my granddaughter was holding?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “That’s how Tally got me up here. She stole it from me.”

  I winked at her, but she didn’t smile back.

  “That Tally,” he said, laughing. “She’s a pistol, ain’t she? A real spitfire, she is. Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “She’s pretty talented, that’s for sure,” I said. “Never saw a thief work like she does. No offense.”

  Tally just stared back at me all weird and quiet. I wondered what was ailing her.

  “None taken,” he said. “It’s hard out there these days, with Boss Authority ruling the swamps, always threatening to move upriver. Hard indeed to make an honest living. Now can I see those cards?”

  “Pop’s cards?”

  “Yes sir,” he said, puffing his pipe. “It sure would be something special to see old Davey Boy’s famous deck.”

  “Well, all right,” I said, looking over at Tally. She was just sitting there frowning at me.

  I spread the cards out on the kitchen table as best as I could. I’m normally real particular about showing Pop’s deck around—especially after the old lady on the pier’s warning—but Tally was awful nice and Granddad just fed me the best meal I’d had since I left Pop’s house and well, I was feeling pretty good about things at that moment. I mean, I’d just seen part of a real Parsnit duel, with real expert Parsnit players. I still felt a tingle in my throat from it, a spark in my fingers and toes, like if I touched a doorknob I’d shock myself. I guessed magic left a residue, especially the magic of Parsnit. I could see why folks played the game night and day. I could see why they always wanted a little more. It had grown dark in the room, and Granddad lit a lantern.

  Pop’s cards sparkled in the lantern light. I was beginning to see the stories in the cards, the way the pictures whispered their tales to me, they seemed to glisten with their own secret life. I wanted to stare at those cards for hours, to hold them and whisper to them and hear them whisper back, I wanted to know their stories and for them to know mine. I wanted to disappear inside of them, wander around for a while and see what I found. I wanted to walk the Staggerly Road, nothing but a jug and a mangy dog at my side. I wanted the company of the Dolly Witch, to let her scatter her bones and tell my stories and see what the starshine showed in her scrying crystal. I wanted to nap in the Bramble with a fox at my side, protected deep in the warm grass, surrounded by a tangle of thorny vines. I wanted to watch the Skeleton Dance, the skeletons all tucked away behind a tombstone as they mocked death and the end, how you could never tell if they were smiling or if that was just their faces. It was true that the skeletons in the Skeleton Dance were supposed to be exactly alike, but that wasn’t the case, not when I peered close. Some were taller and some shorter and some had bigger skulls and longer arms. We were all still different in death, I decided. Life never really ended.

  I shook myself awake then, wondered how long I’d been staring so deep into those cards. Across from me Granddad smiled, like he knew. His long fingernails scraped the surface of the cards, tracing all the mysteries hidden with them.

  “Quality deck of cards, yes sir,” said Granddad. “Made by the finest hand, sewn by deep magic.”

  “Magic?” I said.

  “Surely my boy you know how a Parnsit deck is made.”

  “Well, not exactly,�
�� I admitted. “I do know a witch has to make them, but I don’t know how.”

  “There ain’t any one way of course,” said Granddad. “Every witch has their own particular Parsnit brew, that’s a fact. Some use fungus and cat’s fur to conjure the pictures. Some mix sticks and twigs and a saint’s pinky finger and watch the images appear. Every witch puts a little of herself—a little of her soul—into a Parsnit deck. That’s why they’re so rare, and so valuable.”

  Tally sat slumped in the corner, a big old frown on her face. What was the matter with her?

  Granddad cracked his long knuckles, and it gave me shivers.

  “There is one thing, however, that all Parsnit decks do require. You know what that is, boy?”

  “No sir,” I said.

  Granddad’s pipe had gone out, and he laid it now on the kitchen table.

  I was feeling the creepers just about then, like something was sneaking up on me. I looked around the room. It was nothing but shadows and old junk. Tally’s sad little pallet on the floor, Granddad’s musty tangled bedsheets. What was I so worried about just now? A spider scuttled across the floor by my boot. It was a big sucker and I wanted to stomp it, but I found I couldn’t, not in a million years. My leg frankly did not want to lift.

  “Blood,” said Granddad.

  “Blood?” I said.

  “Not just any blood,” said Granddad. “Lucky blood. The blood of the luckiest fella one can find. No good higher priced than lucky blood, no sir. Some witches, they use a drop or two. Others find lucky blood is more potent by the gallon.”

  “Tally, what’s going on here?” I said, but she wouldn’t answer me. She turned around in her chair and faced the corner, like she was being punished, like it was too much for her to watch.

  Granddad lifted his sleeve and a spider crawled out, to the tip of his long bony finger. Then it spun a web, dangling down like a puppet string, spinning right before me, in front of my eyes.

  It was a dark brown skinny thing, its six eyes flashing their blackness at me, like the opposite of stars, a hole that could suck you clean in. It clicked its fangs and I was mesmerized. I could not avert my eyes, I could not lift my arms to protect myself. I was stuck stock-still. Not even my toes could wiggle.

  “Tally?” I said again, my lips barely moving.

  “I’m sorry, Buddy,” she said. “I really am.”

  “Your daddy is David Josiah Pennington, eh?” said Granddad. “I wasn’t sure till I saw the deck, but oh yes, it’s his all right. Davey Boy Pennington, the man with the luckiest blood in sixteen counties. A man infamous for crossing the right folks and befriending all the wrong ones. The man who won and lost more fortunes than could ever be counted. The biggest, luckiest scoundrel that ever crawled the river.”

  Granddad rose from his chair. His arms stretched out wide and long and skinny like tree limbs, they seemed to grow. He set his glasses on the table. His eyes seemed to change now, to become darker, black almost. He leered down in my face and smacked his lips. I said he looked like a stick bug, but no, that wasn’t right. Those long skinny arms, those well-black eyes. Naw, he was something closer to a long spindly spider, that’s what he was, same as the spider dangling from his finger.

  “You’re his son ain’t you?” he said. “Then you got his heart, you do. Scoundrel you are, through and through. And if you got his heart, then you got his blood.” He grinned at me, two fangs poking over his bottom lip. “Lucky blood.”

  Granddad lifted his left arm and more spiders poured out, dozens of them, clattering down his fingers and onto me, spinning their webs around me, cocooning me to the chair. Granddad leaned in close and I could see his fangs grow longer, his eyes separate into sixes, his body lengthen and expand. He clacked his teeth together and lowered his head to my wrist and took it in his hands and bit—just the tiniest little nip, but it hurt.

  And he drank my blood. I could feel him slurp it right out of my arm.

  I felt it leaving me, power or light or life, something important that ran through my heart and veins all day. I wondered if this was it, if this would be the end of me, if Pop would rot off in jail or wherever Boss Authority had him, if there was no hope for us left.

  But then Granddad clacked his fangs together twice and spat. My blood smudged the dust on the ground.

  “It’s tainted,” he said. “This boy’s been hexed.”

  “Hexed?” I said.

  Granddad whirled around and faced down Tally, who was cowering in her chair. “Cursed! Spoilt!” he screeched, waving his hairy arms around. “You brought me a boy with hexed blood!”

  “I didn’t know, Granddad,” she said. “He said he was Davey Boy’s son. He didn’t say nothing about being hexed.”

  Granddad coughed and spat again onto the floor. “Hexed blood, in my kitchen! Useless girl!”

  He leered over her, eyes upon eyes, his fangs brushing her face. Spiders swarmed off me and scuttled over to Tally, climbing up her legs where she sat, transfixed in that chair like she was terrified for her life.

  “This is the last time I let you fail me,” said Granddad. “I give you one task, bring me something I can use. Something valuable. Something I can sell. And all I get are a few coins nicked from a fisherman and some brat with spoiled blood. Hexed blood is poison, don’t you know that? You could have killed me! I could be a heap writhing on the floor right now, no thanks to you. I ought to give you exactly what you deserve.”

  “No, Granddad,” said Tally, big tears running down her cheeks. “Please don’t.”

  He lurched forward and sank his fangs into her neck. Tally screamed.

  I found I could move. It must have been those spider eyes, that gaze that held me to my chair. I gathered up Pop’s cards quick as I could, stuffed them in the knapsack. Tally kicked and punched at her granddad while he gouged at her with his fangs. I could have left right then. I could have sprinted out of that spider’s lair and never looked back.

  Maybe Tally deserved it, whatever was going to happen to her, for tricking me, for bringing me up here to have my blood sucked. But I saw how scared she looked, how terrified she was, and I started to imagine her life, right then and there. I wondered where her mom and pop were, what happened to them, how she got mixed up with this big magic spider fella. Maybe Tally’s life had been one long starving struggle, an awful spider-person knocking her around all day. Maybe my life was cake compared to poor Tally’s, even if she did just try to have me killed.

  I don’t know. It broke my heart.

  I grabbed the lantern off the table and flung it right at old Granddad. It burst onto his back and his shirt exploded in flames. He shrieked this horrible bug yowl and scuttled up the wall, flaming, through a hole in the ceiling.

  “Granddad!” screamed Tally. She turned to me. “What did you do to him?”

  I started to reply, but then I couldn’t. See, Tally’s face had changed. Her eyes grew black and separated, and now there were six of them. Her arms seemed skinny and shaggy with hair, and two little fangs jutted out from her lip. She was a spider-folk, just like her granddad.

  I bolted down the stairs and out into the street.

  I ducked past people hawking hot foods and cheap wares, I dodged women and men street dancing while a boy scraped out a rhythm on a washboard, I tripped over a tuba player, I hopped over a foot-long rat with black bright eyes. My arm was throbbing something awful, two deep puncture holes where Tally’s granddad took a nibble at me. I splashed through puddles and sprinted past old men tossing dice in an alley. I had to get back to that old lady’s shack, to that pier. I’d seen some old half-rotten boats lying around, dismal and forgotten. Maybe I could borrow me a nice one, Lord willing, and I’d be able to find my own way out of Gentlesburg.

  I was scared those spider-folk were after me, I was afraid they’d spin a web around me and finish the job, slurp out my blood till I was withered as jerky, all drained out and empty. I ran harder.

  I started feeling woozy, the world going bright an
d strange. Faces changed, twisting, everyone grinning at me with big cheeks and dark scowling brows, like they were a bunch of clowns, like the town was full of circus folk and scarecrows with knives for fingers, like every person had horned ears and a lizard’s tail, like their tongues were flicking in and out of their mouths like baby snakes. A man reared back and howled at the moon like he was a wolf, and a woman smiled at me with a mouth that was all teeth same as a skeleton would, like she was nothing but bones. I was running so fast I stepped on a cat’s tail and tripped, nearly tumbled down, and the cat looked up at me and began to cry, big fat wet human tears, and my arm was throbbing, my arm hurt so badly.

  I flopped over against a boarded-up doorway and took a deep breath, and then another, and then another. I saw the stars shining little blue eyes in the street puddles, a few feral dogs licking at the water, and I liked that, I hoped those little puppies lapped up whole galaxies while they were at it. One of the strays came up and licked my hands, and it felt crazy, like little ants crawling on my skin. A red line was streaking from my bite marks up my arm, and I wondered if now my hexed blood was poisoned with spider venom, if it would just swoll up all nasty and huge and explode on me, if I wasn’t a goner already.

  The stray looked up at me and panted.

  “Hey pup dog,” I said. “I think you might be my only friend.”

  He yipped happily, his eyes bright and black and knowing, the way a good dog’s eyes are. I realized he was hungry then, that he was asking me for food.

  “I’m sorry, pup dog,” I said. “I ain’t got any food for you. I ain’t got hardly a scrap.”