The Silver Glove by Suzy McKee Charnas Read Free Book Online Page B

folks’ home, addled and paranoid, and that I was a troubled teen.
    He stepped past the pumpkins lined up on the pavement next to the jellies and the potted plants. He came toward us down the aisle between the tables, his hands in the pockets of his beautiful cashmere coat. I could see his toothy smile.
    Granny Gran snatched me by the hand and dragged me onto the middle of the largest of the carpets, which still lay unrolled on the cement as flooring for the rest of the display.
    Brightner burst into a run.
    Gran pointed her finger at the center design in the carpet and muttered something that sounded like “Twelve o’clock high!” The carpet gave a lurch and shot straight into the sky, with me and Gran aboard.

 
    6
Kite Fight
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    I SHRIEKED A SHRIEK they must have heard in Poughkeepsie. It was a short shriek, because the carpet went up like an express elevator in a skyscraper, the kind of elevator that leaves your stomach staggering around at ground level.
    Past the edge of the carpet, which I was clutching with both hands, I saw the upturned face of Dr. Brightner. He stood with his legs braced apart and his hands on his hips, just looking up. Everybody else, including the rug vendor, danced around screaming and pointing up at us.
    A cold wind from the west wafted us toward Central Park. The park looked like a carpet itself from that height, green and brown and full of random-looking sweeps of silver, gray, and black—cement walks and roadways—and blue plates of water at the reservoir and the lakes and the sailboat pond.
    Gran sat in the middle of the rug with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap, a little skinny genie in tweed and beads and those crazy cowboy boots. She looked awfully small and awfully old to be piloting a large flying carpet.
    The thing must have been a full ten feet by twelve, all faded reds, black, and tawny gold. A thick beige fringe fluttered wildly at each of the narrow ends. I stayed hunched down low. After all, there were no guardrails.
    â€œHow are you keeping this thing up?” I said, running my palm over the rich surface of the carpet.
    â€œI’ve woken the gift worked into the pattern.”
    â€œCan Brightner follow us?”
    Gran chuckled. “This was the only carpet with the right design. I’ve had my eye on it all morning.”
    I said, “Let’s go back and dive-bomb him! Can this thing shoot somehow, like a fighter plane?”
    Gran said sharply, “Don’t even think it! Power turned to destruction becomes a curse.”
    â€œThat’s not fair,” I shouted into the wind. “Brightner gets to throw any old magical crap he likes at us, but we can’t hit back? What good is power that you can’t use to defend yourself?”
    â€œIf you want to counterattack,” Gran said, “you must find a way to turn his aggression against him, which I’m afraid is beyond me at the moment, lovie. I’m half frozen and I can scarcely think and still steer this thing decently.”
    â€œI’m cold too,” I admitted. “When can we go down?”
    â€œI’m looking for a flat place to land,” Gran said. “These are a bit tricky to handle if you’re out of practice.”
    I didn’t much like the idea of zooming around on a flying carpet with somebody who was out of practice.
    We were right over Central Park now, and even colder: the sun had gone behind some clouds. At least we had company. In the sky were three kites, two above us and a smaller one below.
    I had once spent some Saturdays in the Sheep Meadow with Mom, who had thought she might meet some interesting guy among the kite-flying enthusiasts who hung out there. I remembered getting an earache from running in the wind all day (I was pretty little then) and a crick in my neck from looking up.
    I wondered if we looked like a giant kite from below. More like a manta ray, probably. The carpet was very