Crimson "Dizzy" Holloway's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

By morning Dizzy's heart still ran too fast. She sat in Jessie's shop with empty pockets. The powder man scratched his arm and shook his head. She had nothing left to trade. Her mother's ring was gone. Finals were tonight, and one dose sat behind Jessie's hand, waiting for a price she couldn't pay. "Then take it," Jessie said. He nodded toward the window, out past the pink walls. "The old herb woman. She's got beads, silver, junk all over that place. Slip in, grab something, bring it here." He laughed his dry laugh. "She won't even notice, honey. She's half asleep herself." Dizzy walked to the herb woman's place to case it. She meant to rob it. But the compound stopped her at the gate. It was a leaning stack of weathered wood, bright banners hung from every rail, plants spilling from a hundred pots. An old woman knelt in a garden of soft green herbs, humming, pinching leaves into a basket. She had wild gray hair and round glasses. She looked up and smiled like she'd been expecting a friend. "You've got a rabbit's heart, honey," the old woman said. She pressed two fingers to Dizzy's wrist before Dizzy could pull away. "Feel that. Somebody sold you the county's poison." Her face went flat and hard. "That pep powder. They don't care if it kills you. Sit down." Dizzy sat. Annie Wilkens pushed a cup into her hands and made her drink. Bitter tea. The racing in her chest began to ease. Dizzy's throat tightened. She had come to steal from this woman. "I need to stay awake," Dizzy said. "I've got a crown to win tonight. If I sleep in the middle, I lose it." Annie laughed, soft and delighted. "Awake. No, honey. You've got that backwards." She snipped a bundle of gray-green leaves and rolled them tight. "You smoke this, you fall asleep fast. Deep." She tapped her own temple. "But I'll teach you to walk inside the dream. Steer it. Whatever you do sleeping, your body remembers waking." Dizzy didn't understand. Annie made her lie in the garden and breathe the smoke. It smelled of lavender and earth. Dizzy's eyes shut. And then she was standing in the tunnels under the funhouse, the whole Gathering roaring around her, and she chose every word. She spat a verse that rhymed clean. She juggled without a shake. She heard herself and she was good. No burning tongue. No skipping heart. Just her, awake inside sleep, running the routine again and again. She woke in the garden at dusk. Her hands were steady. Her heart beat slow and even. She hadn't stolen a thing. "Now you own it," Annie said. "No county poison. Go take your crown." Dizzy stood. For the first time she didn't need Jessie, or the powder, or anything to trade. She had the routine burned into her body. Finals were hours away, and she was ready.