Join the Dance

xiii. The Chain

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of The Ancient Mariner

Sebastian Grenville was having a famously terrible day.

"First I was forced to pay double to that old coot on 14th street," he told his friend. "The price of bread! Pony-up or I'll knock your fancy teeth in; he terrified me! Told me I was a dead man walking!"

His friend, who was smoking while glancing at overpriced kitchenware, said, "Mm-hm."

"Andre, if you had to live in a tenement on your own, you wouldn't enjoy it much either."

"Aw, wouldn't I?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I know so."

Andre blew out a smoke-ring.

"Anyway," sighed Sebastian, sounding more depressed than he looked, if such a thing was possible. "Andre, Andre! My umbrella got stolen by some plug-ugly on East Houston, then I couldn't find a Christmas present for Mother, and then a Chinaman told me there won't be any grindylows by next Monday! Which is why you don't leave your Mother to live in bloody New York with the bloody magic people."

They paused at a stall selling blue crockery. Andre sucked on his pipe then blew out a long grey wisp. "Whaddabout china?" he wheezed.

Sebastian turned over a cup. "Fired in Staffordshire England. Doubt I can pay for this, now my money's all gone to Mr. P. Becker on 14th street - bread wasn't even baked, the bastard. And did I tell you," - he lowered his voice to the most desolate decibel he had yet - "I got stung by a bee?"

"Aw, I'm tuckered out," said Andre, rolling his eyes back and leaning on the edge of a table. A lacquered mirror nearly tipped over. "Hurry up, won't ya, then we'll get noodles at that little place."

"What place?"

"Aw, shut up, you know it."

Sebastian pouted, ran a cold hand through his mousy hair and asked how much the sugar bowl was worth. Then he stuffed his hand in his pocket, feeling for his wallet (which was more of a purse, really, and had been his mother's) and did not find it.

He did not find it!

"No, no, no, no, no."

He slapped his pocket, and the opposite one. He checked and double-checked the insides of his coat, the belt of his suspenders. He clenched his toes as if it may be hiding between them. He had no hat, but he glanced suspiciously at Andre's - Andre, who was reclined against the tent-pole, humming Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy!

"It's gone!" Sebastian snapped. "Andre! It's gone!"

"Yer money? Lost it?"

"Yes!"

"How?"

He threw up his hands. "I don't know, do I? Probably a guttersnipe, probably a guttersnipe; dirty magic thieves and orphans in every damned gutter in this bloody freezing town! Would you stop with Tchaikovsky and help me find it!"

Quietly, Andre nodded and stepped forward to stop his friend from having a literal spasm.

He tugged him by the elbow, away from giggling ladies and bemused vendors, towards the alley where the noodle shop was. Better to be full of soup, he thought, than full of whatever Sebastian was muttering, though it was mainly word soup.