The Magpie Traders
It’s been half an hour. I check my watch for what may be the tenth time in as many minutes, though seeing the hand run around the edge over and over will probably not make Ms. Dallyday appear any faster. Probably.
I sigh and lean back on the column I plunked myself against when I arrived. It’s a new building. Savannah’s been constructing more and more of them, but they must have only three sets of blueprints they let their architects work off of because this is yet another uninspired Greco-Roman copycat. They didn’t even spring for Corinthian columns at the very least. Cold, lifeless, and stiff. As tedious as my wait.
We knew what we were getting into when Ms. Dallyday came to us the day we touched down in Savannah, Georgia. We’ve known for years she can never be anywhere on time, but she’s one of those women-about-town. One of those fashionable, trend-ensconced people whom everyone from the richest busybodies to the poorest middle class worker seemed to know and adore, and whom the poor themselves seemed to trust well enough to tip her off on underground gatherings or deals occasionally.
So thank goodness we Magpies landed on her good side when she sashayed by our market booth years ago. And thank goodness we remain there.
“Oh, Captain J. Harper! Is that you at last?” she’d said yesterday as she walked herself aboard the ship, brass-tipped heels clicking against the walkway. Marcia, my pilot and greatest friend, and I were separating stock—booth, brick-and-mortar, deliveries—when she climbed on in one of her usual garish outfits. They’re apparently always the latest fashion, though I think if they were on anyone but Ms. Dallyday, they’d look out of place.
“Ms. Dallyday,” I said, shaking her hand. “It’s lovely to see you again.”
She gripped my hand and wrist and then drew me into a crushing hug. “Oh! Likewise, my dear Captain! I hate that you only come by once a year. You darlings are so delightful and very, very good at running your business. Marcia!”
“Hello, Ms. Dallyday!” Marcia grasped her hand before she could be swept up in a hug, too.
Ms. Dallyday obliged, and then immediately turned back to me, the usual mischievous gleam in her eye. The one that delights me with its promise of business and new connections while simultaneously making my heart drop because I have no idea what the cost of this association will be this time. I took a deep breath and awaited the proposition.
Which is how I’ve come to sit here in the shade of this disappointingly plain building—going on an hour, now—my backside growing sore from sitting on the crates of remolded candles and chalk for so long. Ms. Dallyday didn’t tell me exactly what they were for, and I don’t exactly want to imagine the possibilities. I am curious, though, where she could be. She’s not usually this late.
Although, her tardiness has given me the opportunity to watch the people milling about and entering the building. No set pattern to their looks, but they all seem… guilty for going inside. Everyone who disappears through the doors all do the same thing: they go up to the dark, plain doors with their heads slightly bowed, glance around with shifty expressions, and then they enter, drawing themselves up tightly.
Probably doesn’t help that I’m here, and that when they look around they see me watching. Most of them pause for a moment and wait for me to do something… anything, I suppose. I simply keep my face straight and serious and nod without dropping eye contact. This seems to satisfy them because then they walk inside. Very odd.
I stand up to stretch my legs and rub the soreness out of my back. Well, no sense sitting here any longer with nothing to do. I look out to the small square in front of the building. Not too many people around, but there are a few children weaving in and out of the crowd.
“Hey, you there!” I call to one of them. The young boy looks at me oddly, but I beckon him over, winking and holding up a coin. He looks around and then slowly approaches.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” he replies.
“I was wondering if you could do me a favor and pick up a magazine for me.”
He cocks his eyebrows. “Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m, uh, I’m a tad tied to this place right now. So, I’ll give you this—” I hold out the quarter. “—and I want you to run to the nearest store and pick up the most recent Burke’s Collected Stories. All right?”
“Ok,” he says. He grabs for the coin, but I hold it away to make sure he heard me correctly.
“You understand?”
“Yeah, yeah!” He hasn’t taken his eyes off the quarter. “What, um, which story are you getting it for? Echo and Cassandra?”
“Starship Captain Ying.”
The boy suddenly focuses on me, leans back a bit, and laughs.
“Wait, you read that?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, well… I never met someone who admitted to reading that one. Most people read Felida the Amazon or Echo and Cassandra and use the others to wipe.”
I roll my eyes and sigh. “I’m not most people. Now can I ask you to do it or not?”
“All right! All right, yeah I can get it for you.”
I give him one last look, which he returns wide-eyed and grinning as innocently as he can muster. Fine. I flip him the quarter. He snatches it out of the air, tips his cap a little, and jogs off towards the row of shops across the way. I suppose he’ll be gone a few minutes. Nothing to do but… wait again… Alone against the column.
I slump against the marble and let out a deep exhale. Soon, though. Soon, I’ll have my book, and I can get back to the adventures of the good starship Captain Ying Xiang, bold adventurer into the depths of the ether. Captain of the first mission beyond our knowing! The ethersails of her ship, the Farthest Horizon, shine gold in the light of the stars they pass! Captain Ying, who knows no fear and guides her crew through thick and thin with her cry of, “Pulse the hydrogenated helium, and stop for no fiend!”
I should have brought the previous book with me, but they’ve been stuck in the Jupiterian ice tunnels for the last two installments, and nothing has happened except an “alliance of necessity” with her bitter rival, Qwalgeg of the Martian fleet. Although, it makes no sense that they’d start working together under these conditions since the Martians united with the Ceres-Pallas Confederation, and the Confederation have been sending their own people to Jupiter in the hopes of creating settlements so they can more easily mine red gravidum! You’d think the writers would remember their own story or--
I take a deep breath to calm myself. It’s easy to get worked up over this, though I sincerely doubt it would take too much effort to--
Another, deeper breath. The longer I just sit here, the more agitated I’ll become. I look out to the square, hoping to see the young man running up with my book or anything to take my mind away from here—more guilty visitors to the building, anyone!—and away from the waiting, and the constant question of “Where is Dallyday?!” that’s shouting louder and louder as I sit here.
“Captain Harper? Were you out here the whole time?”
I turn so quickly towards the voice that I nearly dislodge myself from the crates and fall to the cement. I catch myself, snap back up, and focus on none other than Ms. Dallyday herself half leaning out the door. A tall peacock feather on her filigreed fascinator quivers as we stare at each other. After a moment passes, she tsks and comes outside.
“Well, I never!” she exclaims, smiling. “To think we were so close the whole time. Here I was beginning to think you’d developed a habit of lateness, or had completely forgotten about me!”
She continues chatting and talking about the silly mishap, and it takes all of my patience to stand there, polite look plastered on my face, and nod every few moments. I mean, I suppose it is funny, but as of now, I’m ready to finish what I came here to do, more than ready to get back to my ship and relax. Until Ms. Dallyday reaches for one of the crates and I realize that boy hasn’t returned with my book.
“Oh, uhm,” I start. Ms. Dallyday tries to lift the crate with the candles in it, but it’s too heavy for her, so she abandons it for the slightly lighter chalk.
“Hm?” She’s already stepping towards the doors. I strain for a delay.
“What… what exactly is all this for?”
“Oh. Oh no, no, no! I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m sworn to secrecy on that point” she says, waving her hand. She smiles and winks at me. “But, since you’re delivering these anyway, I think I can let you in on it.”
Without another word, she whisks around and takes three wide strides to the door, whips it open and holds it out for me to follow. I stifle a groan and lean down for the box of candles. Heaving it up I think, It’s… it’s all right. I’m just dropping off the delivery and then I can be on my way. Pick up the book on my way back to the Magpie. Should be no more than half an hour or so….
“Hey!”
I spin around to see the boy bounding up to me waving a rolled-up wad of paper over his head. Internally, I let out a relieved breath and shift the crate to one hand so I can reach out for it. Ms. Dallyday turns back, curious enough to stop her conversation. Some distance behind the boy, a group of what I assume are his friends cluster, trying to look nonchalant as they spy on the exchange.
He hands me the magazine and then hesitatingly hands me some change. One quick glance, and I can see it’s not all of it. The boy shifts his hand to his pocket surreptitiously and stares at me with the deadest, blankest expression I’ve seen in recent months. I consider asking if he even still has the coins or if he’s already blown it all, but I hear Ms. Dallyday coughing lightly and tapping her foot.
“Thanks very much,” I say, pocketing the rest of the change. A look of disappointment flickers across his face for a moment, but then he resumes his look of innocence. I grab the door from Ms. Dallyday, who clacks off through the foyer. I turn to go, but before I follow I say, “I hope whatever candies or junk you buy with my money is worth it. Choose carefully.”
This time, he can’t hide it when the smug grin slides off his face and morphs into one of embarrassment and horror. I tip my cap to him and let the door swing closed behind me.
Once inside, I catch up to Ms. Dallyday. She’s back to herself, a spring in her heels giving her an extra bounce in her step. As I slide up next to her, she resumes talking cryptically about the event she ordered these things for.
“—and the tables were donated by those in the society, although none of them match. But,” she says, smiling, “for our purposes, it just adds to the aesthetic we’re chasing. This way!”
She quickly changes directions, heading toward a lonesome door behind the staircase. I follow close behind, getting nervous once she opens the door and reveals a long staircase heading downward. I get even more anxious when I hear the echoing voices bouncing up brick by brick.
The stairs to the basement take wild twists and vary in height from one to another. I nearly trip several times and end up keeping my hand against the wall to keep myself steady, though they trail through something slimy and viscous all the way.
"I thought this building was new?" I say, quickly wiping my hand on my pants.
"Well, yes and no, Captain. The outer building is certainly sparkling new and gorgeous--"
I turn my laugh into a cough and end up choking a bit. Ms. Dallyday glances back to me for a moment. I wave her on.
"—but the entire foundation is much, much older, going back to the Colonial days. I think I heard from someone who’s sister or aunt read an old article that was found stashed in the back of a dilapidated residence that the original 'worthy poor' and other transported people who were sent here built it as a monument to the new colony.” She pauses, and then murmurs, “They were also the first to build with the primitive mechanical devices of that era."
I shudder involuntarily. I've read about the 18th century devices, the ones that now allow us to fly in airships from New England to California in a fraction of the time, to harvest fields of crops in one day, speak across oceans over radios, and connect with family and friends nigh-instantaneously. It's a glorious time full of glorious inventions, but the original innovations are always far from perfect. Not that everything runs flawlessly even now, but there are far less deaths and manglings nowadays.
Ms. Dallyday nods as I regain myself. "Naturally, not all of the builders survived, and it's been said over the years that many of their spirits made their new homes here. In fact," she adds as we come to a heavy, moldy door. She shifts the crate out of the way so that her arm is free to knock. "Part of the reason the new facade was built was because the city wanted to utilize the building, but no one would go near it for fear of ghosts."
“Ghosts?”
“The very ghosts of the kidnapped, tortured and killed who made the original foundation.”
"So why are you down here!? Are you mad?"
"Perhaps, but that makes it all the more exciting." She raps on the door five times, then drags her nails down it three times, and then… whistles like a whippoorwill? A few seconds later, there’s a loud clunk, and she reaches for the handle.
"We are down here—" She tosses open the door, revealing all those strange, suspicious people who'd hesitated at the entrance. "—to conduct a séance!"
I sigh and lean back on the column I plunked myself against when I arrived. It’s a new building. Savannah’s been constructing more and more of them, but they must have only three sets of blueprints they let their architects work off of because this is yet another uninspired Greco-Roman copycat. They didn’t even spring for Corinthian columns at the very least. Cold, lifeless, and stiff. As tedious as my wait.
We knew what we were getting into when Ms. Dallyday came to us the day we touched down in Savannah, Georgia. We’ve known for years she can never be anywhere on time, but she’s one of those women-about-town. One of those fashionable, trend-ensconced people whom everyone from the richest busybodies to the poorest middle class worker seemed to know and adore, and whom the poor themselves seemed to trust well enough to tip her off on underground gatherings or deals occasionally.
So thank goodness we Magpies landed on her good side when she sashayed by our market booth years ago. And thank goodness we remain there.
“Oh, Captain J. Harper! Is that you at last?” she’d said yesterday as she walked herself aboard the ship, brass-tipped heels clicking against the walkway. Marcia, my pilot and greatest friend, and I were separating stock—booth, brick-and-mortar, deliveries—when she climbed on in one of her usual garish outfits. They’re apparently always the latest fashion, though I think if they were on anyone but Ms. Dallyday, they’d look out of place.
“Ms. Dallyday,” I said, shaking her hand. “It’s lovely to see you again.”
She gripped my hand and wrist and then drew me into a crushing hug. “Oh! Likewise, my dear Captain! I hate that you only come by once a year. You darlings are so delightful and very, very good at running your business. Marcia!”
“Hello, Ms. Dallyday!” Marcia grasped her hand before she could be swept up in a hug, too.
Ms. Dallyday obliged, and then immediately turned back to me, the usual mischievous gleam in her eye. The one that delights me with its promise of business and new connections while simultaneously making my heart drop because I have no idea what the cost of this association will be this time. I took a deep breath and awaited the proposition.
Which is how I’ve come to sit here in the shade of this disappointingly plain building—going on an hour, now—my backside growing sore from sitting on the crates of remolded candles and chalk for so long. Ms. Dallyday didn’t tell me exactly what they were for, and I don’t exactly want to imagine the possibilities. I am curious, though, where she could be. She’s not usually this late.
Although, her tardiness has given me the opportunity to watch the people milling about and entering the building. No set pattern to their looks, but they all seem… guilty for going inside. Everyone who disappears through the doors all do the same thing: they go up to the dark, plain doors with their heads slightly bowed, glance around with shifty expressions, and then they enter, drawing themselves up tightly.
Probably doesn’t help that I’m here, and that when they look around they see me watching. Most of them pause for a moment and wait for me to do something… anything, I suppose. I simply keep my face straight and serious and nod without dropping eye contact. This seems to satisfy them because then they walk inside. Very odd.
I stand up to stretch my legs and rub the soreness out of my back. Well, no sense sitting here any longer with nothing to do. I look out to the small square in front of the building. Not too many people around, but there are a few children weaving in and out of the crowd.
“Hey, you there!” I call to one of them. The young boy looks at me oddly, but I beckon him over, winking and holding up a coin. He looks around and then slowly approaches.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” he replies.
“I was wondering if you could do me a favor and pick up a magazine for me.”
He cocks his eyebrows. “Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m, uh, I’m a tad tied to this place right now. So, I’ll give you this—” I hold out the quarter. “—and I want you to run to the nearest store and pick up the most recent Burke’s Collected Stories. All right?”
“Ok,” he says. He grabs for the coin, but I hold it away to make sure he heard me correctly.
“You understand?”
“Yeah, yeah!” He hasn’t taken his eyes off the quarter. “What, um, which story are you getting it for? Echo and Cassandra?”
“Starship Captain Ying.”
The boy suddenly focuses on me, leans back a bit, and laughs.
“Wait, you read that?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, well… I never met someone who admitted to reading that one. Most people read Felida the Amazon or Echo and Cassandra and use the others to wipe.”
I roll my eyes and sigh. “I’m not most people. Now can I ask you to do it or not?”
“All right! All right, yeah I can get it for you.”
I give him one last look, which he returns wide-eyed and grinning as innocently as he can muster. Fine. I flip him the quarter. He snatches it out of the air, tips his cap a little, and jogs off towards the row of shops across the way. I suppose he’ll be gone a few minutes. Nothing to do but… wait again… Alone against the column.
I slump against the marble and let out a deep exhale. Soon, though. Soon, I’ll have my book, and I can get back to the adventures of the good starship Captain Ying Xiang, bold adventurer into the depths of the ether. Captain of the first mission beyond our knowing! The ethersails of her ship, the Farthest Horizon, shine gold in the light of the stars they pass! Captain Ying, who knows no fear and guides her crew through thick and thin with her cry of, “Pulse the hydrogenated helium, and stop for no fiend!”
I should have brought the previous book with me, but they’ve been stuck in the Jupiterian ice tunnels for the last two installments, and nothing has happened except an “alliance of necessity” with her bitter rival, Qwalgeg of the Martian fleet. Although, it makes no sense that they’d start working together under these conditions since the Martians united with the Ceres-Pallas Confederation, and the Confederation have been sending their own people to Jupiter in the hopes of creating settlements so they can more easily mine red gravidum! You’d think the writers would remember their own story or--
I take a deep breath to calm myself. It’s easy to get worked up over this, though I sincerely doubt it would take too much effort to--
Another, deeper breath. The longer I just sit here, the more agitated I’ll become. I look out to the square, hoping to see the young man running up with my book or anything to take my mind away from here—more guilty visitors to the building, anyone!—and away from the waiting, and the constant question of “Where is Dallyday?!” that’s shouting louder and louder as I sit here.
“Captain Harper? Were you out here the whole time?”
I turn so quickly towards the voice that I nearly dislodge myself from the crates and fall to the cement. I catch myself, snap back up, and focus on none other than Ms. Dallyday herself half leaning out the door. A tall peacock feather on her filigreed fascinator quivers as we stare at each other. After a moment passes, she tsks and comes outside.
“Well, I never!” she exclaims, smiling. “To think we were so close the whole time. Here I was beginning to think you’d developed a habit of lateness, or had completely forgotten about me!”
She continues chatting and talking about the silly mishap, and it takes all of my patience to stand there, polite look plastered on my face, and nod every few moments. I mean, I suppose it is funny, but as of now, I’m ready to finish what I came here to do, more than ready to get back to my ship and relax. Until Ms. Dallyday reaches for one of the crates and I realize that boy hasn’t returned with my book.
“Oh, uhm,” I start. Ms. Dallyday tries to lift the crate with the candles in it, but it’s too heavy for her, so she abandons it for the slightly lighter chalk.
“Hm?” She’s already stepping towards the doors. I strain for a delay.
“What… what exactly is all this for?”
“Oh. Oh no, no, no! I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m sworn to secrecy on that point” she says, waving her hand. She smiles and winks at me. “But, since you’re delivering these anyway, I think I can let you in on it.”
Without another word, she whisks around and takes three wide strides to the door, whips it open and holds it out for me to follow. I stifle a groan and lean down for the box of candles. Heaving it up I think, It’s… it’s all right. I’m just dropping off the delivery and then I can be on my way. Pick up the book on my way back to the Magpie. Should be no more than half an hour or so….
“Hey!”
I spin around to see the boy bounding up to me waving a rolled-up wad of paper over his head. Internally, I let out a relieved breath and shift the crate to one hand so I can reach out for it. Ms. Dallyday turns back, curious enough to stop her conversation. Some distance behind the boy, a group of what I assume are his friends cluster, trying to look nonchalant as they spy on the exchange.
He hands me the magazine and then hesitatingly hands me some change. One quick glance, and I can see it’s not all of it. The boy shifts his hand to his pocket surreptitiously and stares at me with the deadest, blankest expression I’ve seen in recent months. I consider asking if he even still has the coins or if he’s already blown it all, but I hear Ms. Dallyday coughing lightly and tapping her foot.
“Thanks very much,” I say, pocketing the rest of the change. A look of disappointment flickers across his face for a moment, but then he resumes his look of innocence. I grab the door from Ms. Dallyday, who clacks off through the foyer. I turn to go, but before I follow I say, “I hope whatever candies or junk you buy with my money is worth it. Choose carefully.”
This time, he can’t hide it when the smug grin slides off his face and morphs into one of embarrassment and horror. I tip my cap to him and let the door swing closed behind me.
Once inside, I catch up to Ms. Dallyday. She’s back to herself, a spring in her heels giving her an extra bounce in her step. As I slide up next to her, she resumes talking cryptically about the event she ordered these things for.
“—and the tables were donated by those in the society, although none of them match. But,” she says, smiling, “for our purposes, it just adds to the aesthetic we’re chasing. This way!”
She quickly changes directions, heading toward a lonesome door behind the staircase. I follow close behind, getting nervous once she opens the door and reveals a long staircase heading downward. I get even more anxious when I hear the echoing voices bouncing up brick by brick.
The stairs to the basement take wild twists and vary in height from one to another. I nearly trip several times and end up keeping my hand against the wall to keep myself steady, though they trail through something slimy and viscous all the way.
"I thought this building was new?" I say, quickly wiping my hand on my pants.
"Well, yes and no, Captain. The outer building is certainly sparkling new and gorgeous--"
I turn my laugh into a cough and end up choking a bit. Ms. Dallyday glances back to me for a moment. I wave her on.
"—but the entire foundation is much, much older, going back to the Colonial days. I think I heard from someone who’s sister or aunt read an old article that was found stashed in the back of a dilapidated residence that the original 'worthy poor' and other transported people who were sent here built it as a monument to the new colony.” She pauses, and then murmurs, “They were also the first to build with the primitive mechanical devices of that era."
I shudder involuntarily. I've read about the 18th century devices, the ones that now allow us to fly in airships from New England to California in a fraction of the time, to harvest fields of crops in one day, speak across oceans over radios, and connect with family and friends nigh-instantaneously. It's a glorious time full of glorious inventions, but the original innovations are always far from perfect. Not that everything runs flawlessly even now, but there are far less deaths and manglings nowadays.
Ms. Dallyday nods as I regain myself. "Naturally, not all of the builders survived, and it's been said over the years that many of their spirits made their new homes here. In fact," she adds as we come to a heavy, moldy door. She shifts the crate out of the way so that her arm is free to knock. "Part of the reason the new facade was built was because the city wanted to utilize the building, but no one would go near it for fear of ghosts."
“Ghosts?”
“The very ghosts of the kidnapped, tortured and killed who made the original foundation.”
"So why are you down here!? Are you mad?"
"Perhaps, but that makes it all the more exciting." She raps on the door five times, then drags her nails down it three times, and then… whistles like a whippoorwill? A few seconds later, there’s a loud clunk, and she reaches for the handle.
"We are down here—" She tosses open the door, revealing all those strange, suspicious people who'd hesitated at the entrance. "—to conduct a séance!"