Blow Me Down by Katie MacAlister Page A

unreal became real?
    “Aye, dearie, now ye understand,” Renata said, watching me from the mouth of the alley. I slumped dazedly against the wall, my knees threatening to give out under me. “Welcome to Turtle’s Back. I hope ye’ll be happy with us, since ye’ll be spendin’ the rest of yer life here.”
    A black maelstrom swept up out of nowhere and claimed me, sucking me down into its inky depths, but before it wholly consumed me, my mind managed one last coherent thought.
    I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Chapter 4
    A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
    —Ibid, Act II
    I have always maintained that tears serve little purpose. They are a waste of energy, they are purposeless, they seldom serve to make you feel better as you might think they would, and they can leave you with red eyes and blotchy skin. Many has been the time I’ve counseled my emotional daughter that it would be better to channel the energy expended upon emotional outbursts into more proactive, positive actions.
    The thought came to me, as I sat sobbing my eyes out in Renata’s house of ill repute, that there were times when I was extremely full of it.
    “Ye feelin’ better now, dearie?” Renata asked as the sobs trickled to heavy sniffling, nose blowing, and the odd hiccup or two thrown in just to make things interesting.
    “Yes, thank you; I think I’m past the worst of it. I’m mostly worried about my daughter. How is she going to cope with a vegetable for a mother?”
    “Ye’re not still thinkin’ of throwin’ yerself off the dock?” the concerned woman asked.
    I shook my head and made another swipe at my nose with the handkerchief she had provided. “No, I’m not suicidal anymore, although I think there’s merit in the idea of a near-death experience to bring my mind back. Because, you know, either I’ve gone insane, or the world has, and somehow I just think I could handle the insanity better if I knew it was something that psychotherapy and a really big dose of Prozac could fix. Finding myself a prisoner in something that doesn’t exist is—”
    “There she goes again,” said the dark-haired Suky, hoisting the baby she had been nursing a bit higher on her hip. “Ye’ve set her off again, Reggie. Now we’ll have her waterin’ the rug afore all our Jacks.”
    “She’s a blight, she is,” Mags, another of Renata’s women, complained as she primped before a tarnished bit of mirror set on the sideboard. “Can’t ye do somethin’ with her, then? Sittin’ there blubberin’ like a scalded cat like that, she’ll run off all our business.”
    “Hush, ye heartless tart. Can’t ye see the poor thing is upset?” Sly Jez patted my shoulder sympathetically. I sniffled appreciatively at her. “She’s had a bad bit of news, she has. What is it, Amy—is yer trouble that yer man’s run off with another lass?”
    “No, it’s not that,” I said, giving in to the few more tears of self-pity that welled up.
    “Maybe she’s lost her mum, like Suky did last week?” Red Beth suggested. The ladies were all lounging around the main room in the house in various states of undress, waiting, so Renata had told me after I had regained consciousness and she had helped me back to the house, for the brisk evening trade.
    Suky tossed her head. “ ’Twas a blessing, that was. Sour old cow.”
    “No, it’s not my mother,” I answered, still trying to come to grips with the horrible twist my life had suddenly taken.
    “I know!” Mags piped up, doing a little twirl that spun her sheer petticoat out. “The stiffenin’s gone out of her man’s mizzenmast. That’d make anyone bawl their eyes out.”
    “That’s not what’s troubling me. I don’t have a man—”
    The ladies, as a group, gasped in horror.
    “Ye don’t have a man?” Mags asked, one hand surreptitiously making the sign of the cross.
    “No. I’m entanglement-free at the moment.”
    “None?” Sly Jez prodded. “Not even a Jack Tar what