* * *
Mira wasn’t enjoying herself. Part of her attention was focused on avoiding Mrs. Claret and her three fat, rowdy boys and Mrs. Tatkins and her tall, quiet, pimply son. The other part was struggling to keep an eye on Jair, who had never been to New Athens, much less a Brindlestar Festival. It was too much for him and he raced from table to cart to booth, looking at everything, wanting to touch everything, and threatening to get in serious trouble with the shopkeepers there.
Mira reached out and grabbed Jair by the collar just as he started to chase after a cart full of apples. He turned and stared at her, surprised.
“There will be plenty of free food,” Mira said. “But first they have to make the Ascension announcement.”
Jair slumped his shoulders and hung his head, but stopped pulling away, resigning himself to standing beside and slightly behind Mira in the crowd. As they stood there, trumpets began to sound, and everyone turned toward the platform standing in front of the city hall.
“Hear ye, hear ye, his honor, Mayor Landcraft will now speak.” A man in blue satin pants and red coat and hat spoke loudly from the front. Then a portly middle-aged man dressed in short pants and short waistcoat stepped forward to the front.
The mayor spent the next ten minutes talking about what had happened since the last Festival, information that Mira tuned out. Finally he got down to the important news.
“It is my duty and privilege to declare the Ascension of Paris,” said the mayor finally.
The crowd sighed as one. Three years of hard snow and cold weather would be followed by three more years. No one looked forward to more of the same.
“Did you hear that, Jair?” Mira said, turning toward him. Jair wasn’t there. Mira looked around her in the crowd, but didn’t see him anywhere. Becoming more and more panicked, she continued to scan the crowd, then the shops and displays, then the alleys and streets surrounding them. Just as her father had taught her, she turned out the sound and sights of the crowd surrounding her, and tuned in for her brother’s voice and anything that didn’t seem to belong. A moment later, she turned when she heard a garbage can fall over in an alleyway behind them. She saw the can rolling across the alley. What surprised her was there was no one anywhere near it.
She sprinted to the alley and looked down it in the gloom.
“Jair?” she shouted. She heard a fumbling sound and thought she heard the squeak of his voice for just an instant, and she followed it down the alley. She caught a flash of something in front of her, something that looked like a form running fast and carrying something. She arrived at the end of the alley just in time to see a door close. She pushed on the door, but it was locked. She pounded on it and began to scream.
Her noise brought the attention of the city police. Others began to gather. “Hey there,” they said. “You can’t go banging on people’s doors unless you know them.”
“My brother’s been taken,” Mira gasped, the tears beginning to come to her eyes.
“Taken?” the policeman said. “Taken by whom?”
“Something,” she said. “A dark form. Something invisible.”
“A specter,” said an old woman standing nearby. “They always come at Brindlestar. They take them to the city under the mountain.”
“Hogwash,” the policeman said. “Old ghost stories told to frighten children.”
“Hogwash nothing,” the woman said. “They took my niece three Festivals ago.”
“What’s you name, young lady?” the policeman asked.
“Mira,” she said. “And my brother’s name is Jair.”
“Well, Mira, I am sure that Jair is around her somewhere, getting into mischief or filling his face with dillberry pie. Festival will be done tomorrow morning. And when it is done, I am sure he will turn up. Until then, there’s not a lot we can do.”
Mira wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t argue with the policeman. As the crowd filtered away, she stood close to the old woman who had spoken up. Finally, when they were alone, the woman looked at her sharply.
“You’re going after him, aren’t you?” the woman said.
Mira nodded silently.
“When I was your age, I would have too,” she said. “Instead I stayed here, got married, had kids and got old.”
“I love my brother,” Mira said. “If I don’t do something, I will never see him again.”
This time the old woman nodded. They stared at each other for a long moment, before Mira spoke again.
“Tell me about the city under the mountain,” Mira said. (back to ToC)