Part 20

“I’ll go,”  Freak Beans says, taking his hat off and bowing with a flourish of his hand.

“Thank you Benny,” Mary says, taking a step toward him.

I reach out and grab the map.  “I’ll hold that, but I’ll go, sounds like fun, and besides, some of the notes on this thing,” I wave the sheet of paper, “Are mine.  Rush, you coming?”

“No, I will stay and keep eye on Cyrus.”  He takes another swig from his flask and manages to avoid coughing this time. 

“Suit yourself,” I say and clap him on the shoulder with my free hand. 

“So where are we going?”  Mary asks.

“My best guess would be to try to find the Black Bazaar, Lampman always talked about the place like it was still around.”  I say.

“And where is it?”

I close my eyes, trying to recall what Lampman had told me so many years before.  “Through the Walking Rocks, past the end of the tracks.  Out beyond the Devil's Rib Cage you will find the Glass Shore, the waves grinding the brown and green bottles against each other until the shards are no larger than grains of sand.  Find the path into the water and walk the way, across the underground ocean.  Through the lightless tunnel you will find an island and upon that island the Black Bazaar.”  It comes back to me and I find myself smiling.  “Sounds like we have some walking to do.”

“Ok,” Benny says, “Let me go get a few things and I will meet you back here in two hours time.  I suggest you get some food together, this is going to be a long trip.”

Both Mary and myself cover our eyes as Freak Beans blinks out.

“I’d better be going too,” Rush says, adding “Good luck, tovarishch.”  He winks at me and nods at Mary before he too is gone.

“What’d he say?”  She asked.

“He once told me it means friend.  I sure hope so.”  I look away from her to hide the worry on my face.  “Do you have a stash of food or anything somewhere?”  I ask, still looking away.

“No… you do?”

I ignore her question for now.  “What about money, do you have any?”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls a wad of crumpled bills out.  “Will this do?”

I reach for it and think better.  “How much is it?”

She straightens the cash as best she can, “Seven dollars.”  She pats down her pockets.  “No, eight!” She produces another scrunched up single.

“It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.  Come on, we’re going shopping.”  I take hold of her empty hand and concentrate on my own sphere.

We appear in the alleyway behind a Fairway and make our way to the front.  Upon entering, I can feel the eyes upon us, but I ignore them and grab a basket.  First stop we walk to the small bakery.  “Do you have any day old?”  I ask the tattooed man that eyes me suspiciously.

Soundlessly, he points toward a bin on a nearby shelf.  I look over the loaves and throw one in the basket.  My next stop is the canned goods.  “Well?”

I pick a few cans of my own while I watch her struggle to decide between mushrooms and asparagus.  She finally decides on the mushrooms and hands the can to me.  I put it back on the shelf.  “Will you eat those cold?”

“But your sphere can start any-“

“Start, yes, but if we don’t have anything to burn, starting the fire will be the least of our concerns.”

“Oh,”  She grabs a can of baked beans and a few cans of cocktail weenies. 

I grab a can of Spam.  I count the items in my basket, mentally tallying the total.  “Do you have a water bottle?”

“No,”  She hangs her head. 

“Don’t worry,”  I say, leading her toward the kitchen gadgets aisle.  I find her a pink one, which she wrinkles her nose at.

She picks a purple one off the shelf and throws it in the basket.  “Anything else?”  She asks.

I pick through our basket, “No, I think we’ve got all we need for now.  Come on.”  We walk up to the check out lanes, followed by an older man whom I assume is the manager of the store.  Waiting behind a middle aged blonde woman, her child sitting in the seat of the cart, I grow bored and begin to make faces at the boy.  He sticks his tongue back out at me and his mother turns around.

“Can I help you?”  She growls.

“No,” I say and wink at the boy.  He giggles, and she turns on him, but he is fast and manages to maintain a straight face the entire time they are being checked out.  As they pull away from the counter, I wave at him and he waves back, earning me another glare from his mother.

“That will be fifteen thirty-two says the freckled brunette holding the scanner and smacking her gum rather loudly.  I reach into my pocket and pull out my own wad of cash, counting out three fives and a single, handing them to her.  Mary opens her mouth to protest but I ignore her as I receive my change and am handed the four bags of groceries.  We are watched by the hawk-eyed manager as we make our way out of the store.

“How rude!”  Mary exclaims as we the doors slide shut behind us.  “You should have blinked us out while we were still inside, gave them all something to think about.”

I smile. “Come on,”  I tear off the label and the price tag from the water bottle, using the water spigot on the side of the grocery store to fill it up, dumping the first full bottle on the ground.  I fill it a second time take a sip, spit it out and dump it again.  Repeat and the water tastes better.  I screw the lid on and place it back in the plastic bag with the rest of the canned goods.

“Now what?”  She asks.

In response, I hand her two of the grocery bags, freeing my left hand, which I use to fetch my sphere from it’s pocket.

“Now we find you a bag.”  And we appear in the stone room, deep beneath the streets above.  I set down the remaining two bags and tell her to wait here.  As I walk down the old corridor toward the room I call my own, I pull the chain from around my neck.  I unlock the door when I get to it, and sigh as my gaze falls upon the bed.  I can feel it calling to me but I ignore it, instead going to my cart, which I had pushed in after my visit to Old Jenny.  I dig through the clothes and find an old green-brown JanSport bag and check it over for holes.  There are a few but none that I am too worried about.  I keep looking and come across a second bag, a red and black plaid number with a brown stain along its bottom.  It is hole-less.  A little more digging and I find a thermos of my own.  I use the Sigil Sphere and I am back behind the Fairway.  I again use the faucet to clean out and fill my bottle before I blink back, surprising Mary in the process. 

“You couldn’t have walked back?”  She asks, rubbing her eyes. 

I hold my bottle up in response.  I hand her the plaid backpack.  “Fill this up.”  I say and begin to fill the green-brown one with the canned goods. 

“Are you going to take my money?”  She asks as she zips the bag shut around the loaf of bread sticking out its top. 

“Not now.”

“Then when?”

“Lets get through this and we’ll talk money then.”

A bright flash has me rubbing my own eyes.

“You guys ready?”  Benny asks, tapping a black lacquered cane upon the ground, the steel tip grating upon the old stone.

Part 19

I look to my right and am relieved that Mary appears to be in one complete piece.

Benny leans over and smiles at me, “Man, I’m glad you picked here.”  

I smile and shake my head.  Looking around, I realize I am weary of this room.  It is just as Mary and
I had left it a few days ago, cardboard boxes piled high against the walls.  I kick the metal box beside me and it hums to life, as do the Christmas lights it powers.

“So, she’s a witch?”  I ask, turning around and expecting to find the Russian behind me. 

He does not disappointed.  “With capital W.”

“And the snake?”  I shudder at the question, recalling the creature slithering from Catherine’s scarf.

“She’s a witch,”  Rush says, and spits on the ground beside himself for emphasis.

“But we’re safe now, right?”  Mary asks, looking each of us in the eyes.

I nod, as does Benny, but the Russian shrugs and snorts.  “She’s a witch…”  He looks to me and winks.

“So…”  Mary says.

“So,” Rush flashed his yellowing teeth in what could only be described as a sneer, “An Underground Princess?”

I am proud of her.  She stands her ground.  “I guess so.”

The sneer stays upon his face as he takes a step toward her.  “Princess Dairy Mary, I see it now.”

The sound of her slapping him echoes off the damp stone walls.  She inhales sharply and attempts to shake the sting from her hand.  Benny and I both step in front of her, forming a barrier between the two but it is not needed.

Rush is laughing, “That’s my girl.  Now you may call me Rush too.”

I sigh and step back to the side but Benny does not move.

“Benny, calm down,” I say, wanting to see how this plays out.  He looks at me, then at the Russian, and finally at Mary, who nods before he finally backs down.

“So, there are five missing Princes.  I know that Tibault was found dead by authorities and his family has Sphere now, but I know not where they are.”

“And Andreus’ Sphere is rumored to have shattered when he was pushed off that bridge.”  I add, trying to remember which bridge it was.

“That leaves Demetrius, Khaos…” Benny starts.

“No, Khaos’s sphere was taken by Christof.”  Rush interrupts.

“Ah, yes, sorry.  So Demetrius, Lampman, and…”

“The Bird Man,” I say, bringing our quintet to a close.  I scratch my chin, the stubble just long enough to itch.  “But which one will be the easiest to find?”

“Easiest? This not about easy.  If you want to find needle, you search haystack.”  Rush says, pulling a flask from his grey corduroy coat.  He unscrews the lid and takes a sip, coughing as the liquid burns his throat.  “Lampman!”

“What about him?”  Benny asks.

“I remember story he once told me.  He found the Glass Shore.”

“I’ve heard the story too,” I say, adding “And it wasn’t just the Glass Shore that he had found, but out in the underground ocean he found a passageway, and beyond that an island.”

“Wait, Glass Shore?  Underground ocean?  What are you guys talking about,” Mary asks.

Benny looks at me and it is my turn to shrug.  He begins, “Back during the rule of Samual, Cyrus’ ancestor that is,” he added, cutting off the question that had formed on Mary’s lips.  “It was rumored that he, he being Samual mind you, traded across an underground ocean that broke upon a shore of glass.  The tales suggest that there was some form of bazaar-“

“The Black Bazaar,” Rush says.

“Yes, the Black Bazaar,” Benny says and then continues, “across the ocean that Samual sent agents to to trade.”

“And you think The Lampman-“ Mary begins.

“Lampman, not ‘the,’ just Lampman,” I say.

“Ok, you think Lampman found this Glass Shore and the ocean, and the Black Bazaar.”

“It’s possible,” I admit.

“And you think that’s going to be the easiest Sphere to find?  What about Demetrius, or… or was it The Bird Man?”

“Last I spoke to Demetrius, he was talking about hopping a train to and heading west.  We could head west.”

“And The Bird Man?”

I look away and shake my head.  “No, he’s out of the question.”

“Why?” She asks.

“Leave it,” Benny says, but she does not.

“This is my future we’re talking about.”

“The Bird Man is in an asylum upstate.  He killed some man for killing his birds.”

“Oh, so he’s not dead?”

I shake my head again.  “No.”

“Ok, so Lampman it is.  Anyone know where the Glass Shore is by chance?”

I smile.  “No, last I heard Lampman talk, it was out passed the end of the line a ways.”

“I remember him talking about the constant thunderstorm that must rage overhead at the end of the line and how he could never find the storm when he went looking. And pipes!  He talked about pipes a lot.”  Freak Beans says.

“But the end of what line?”  Mary laments.

“I don’t know, but this might help,”  I say as I pull the envelope I picked up at the library from my within my heavy coat.  I unseal the clasp that holds the packet shut, reach in and pull out an ancient piece of paper, browning with age, and gently unfold it, setting it upon a carton for everyone to see.  

“Where’d you get that?”  Freak Beans asks.

“I found it,” I say without looking at him directly.  I use my fingertips to smooth out the paper, a map of the old subway system with numerous hand written notes scribbled all over it.

“Where?”

“Now’s not the time, Benny,” I say, looking it over.  “There!” I jab at the brittle map.  The others huddle around me.

“Where?” It is Mary’s turn to ask.

I move my finger, revealing a scrawl almost smudged away by time.  “I remember something Lampman said before he disappeared, something about the path to the Glass Shore led through the ‘Walking Rocks, and through the Devil’s Rib Cage.’”

Rush leans closer, “Yes, I think you’re right.  ‘Walking Rocks’ it says.”

“Ok, who’s with me?”  Mary says, picking up the map.