Free Bad Luck Girl by Sarah Zettel Page B

minutes.”
    “Thank you!” I grabbed Jack’s arm. “Let’s go.”
    Jack made a beeline through the crush toward the benches, with me all but pushing him from behind. I wanted to hurry. Heck, I wanted to break the record on the forty-yard dash, but a new train must have just got in or something,because all of a sudden that huge hall was overflowing with people. Our “excuse me’s” tumbled over each other as we tried to find a way between the men in their summer suits, the ladies in their skirts and hats, and all the little kids being dragged this way and that by impatient parents. Their voices filled my head and their feelings pulled at my concentration.
    A sharp bark cut through the crowd’s noise, and the backs and shoulders in front of me shifted and parted. A thin, old woman wearing a white suit and a diamond pin in her hat staggered forward, struggling to keep hold of the red leashes for six—maybe even eight—poodles, all white, all different sizes from a fluffy toy to one about as big as a woolly sheep. With my magic open, my gaze dragged itself toward them and warning bells sounded loud inside me. That lady with her poodles was the fairy kind, and those dogs were pulling her straight for my parents.
    I didn’t really think about what to do next. I let go of Jack and ducked straight into the path of that mess of curly-backed dogs. They pulled up short, yipping and barking. The biggest of them jumped up, straining against its rhinestone-studded collar with its heavy paws waving in the air. One claw caught on the corner of my sash and tore a long strip down the center.
    “Oh, Mimi, no!” The old woman threw up her hands in astonishment, and, incidentally, dropped all the leashes. All Mimi’s curly-backed kin decided she had the right idea. They surrounded me, jumping up, jostling, and pawing, and all barking at the top of their poodle lungs. They smelled likeold meat and every last one of them had yellow eyes with pupils shaped like black diamonds.
    “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” The old lady flapped her gloved hands. “You bad, bad dogs!”
    I grabbed the heavy, furry paws leaning against my chest and shoved them down. The world had gone strangely silent around me. The old lady was working her magic, hiding me and those filthy, stinking poodles from the regular people. But Jack could see us, and Papa. And so, it turned out, could Mama. Because the next thing I knew, Mama was wading in behind me. She didn’t have a saw this time, but she was right there just the same, beating on the backs of those mangy poodles with nothing but her handbag.
    “Get back! Get back! Get off!” Mama seized the nearest dog’s collar and hauled with all the strength in her country woman’s arms. The nearest dog turned and snapped at her hems, and Mama swatted it across the drooly muzzle with her purse. Amazement and a strange sense of pride swelled in me. The dog actually looked affronted, but not as affronted as the Seelie woman.
    “You dare!” The old woman lifted her face, and showed us all how her eyes were as yellow as her dogs’. “My king is coming for you! I’ve already sent him word. He will hollow out your soul, and leave your husk to feed to my darlings.”
    “Will he?” interrupted a low voice. Papa had moved to stand beside Mama. He was sweating with the effort it took to stay upright, but his voice was steady and hard as stone. “Will he indeed?”
    The old woman cringed like she was a dog herself as the force of Papa’s presence and magic rolled over her. Clearly, he’d gotten a lot of his strength back. But not quite enough.
    “Fetch!” the woman shouted. All the dogs howled. Their red leashes lashed out like whips to wrap around Papa’s arms. He shouted again and I felt his magic, but there wasn’t any focus to it. The old woman threw back her head and howled as her dogs dragged my father down. I screamed and tried to dodge forward, but Mimi, the lead poodle, got in my way. While I gaped at her,