Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince

by Megan Morrison

  Syrah snorted a ribbit.

  Harrow shrugged. “Then it’s mutual,” he said. “All right, if we’re doing this, what’s our next step?”

  Syrah croaked in pleased surprise, and his chin swelled as he puffed up. It had been so long since anyone had really listened to him — and now Harrow, of all people, was going to let him direct.

  PEASE LUFFA BURDOCK, he hopped. SUSPECTS

  “My pa’s not on that list?”

  SHOULD HE BE

  “Well no. I’m just surprised you don’t think so. You saw that letter to Ubiquitous.”

  Syrah hopped twice. Huck Steelcut had planted bad seeds, but he hadn’t done it on purpose. Syrah thought again of the way the man treated his son. Worrying over him, tending to him, speaking to him with respect and attentiveness, even when they argued. He tried to remember a single conversation with his own parents that had lasted more than a few seconds. A conversation where they had shared thoughts and questions, the way that Huck and Harrow did. He couldn’t think of one. The only question they ever asked him was “Are you paying attention to your tutors?” — and then they rarely waited for an answer. They were busy, and Syrah was the youngest. He wasn’t going to inherit the throne like Taurasi, or even stewardship of one of the islands, like his other older siblings. He was nobody important.

  Maybe they didn’t even miss him.

  “Why do you suspect those three?” Harrow asked. “Did you see something?”

  The answer to that question was long, and Syrah was suddenly very tired. He felt tacky all over instead of moist. He was getting dry.

  WATER, he hopped.

  “Huh? Oh, sure.” Harrow left the room and returned with a wooden bowl of it. He held it toward Syrah, then suddenly retracted it, looking a little anxious. “It’s from the basin in the washroom,” he said apologetically. “It’s still clean, but I guess if you’re planning to drink it, I can run out to the well —”

  But Syrah had long since learned not to be picky. He hopped down to the floor and tapped one front foot against the wooden board on which he sat. Put it here.

  Harrow set down the bowl, and Syrah got into it with a croak of relief. So nice. He closed his eyes and slouched down until the water covered him completely, but he could not quite relax. Thoughts of his family needled at his mind. His parents, who mostly ignored him. His siblings, who treated him like he was just a stupid annoyance.

  Well aren’t you?

  He had ruined Marsanne and Christophen’s wedding. He hadn’t even thought about how his revenge against Deli would affect them. He had mocked Marsala constantly, getting in her head whenever she tried to train for the ATC. Why had he done that? What kind of person did that?

  If only he could know that she was all right. If Marsala was healthy, and if Nana Cava was alive, then he could still make it up to them. He could make it up to his whole family. As long as none of them had died in the Purge, he could still fix things.

  And then it struck him there was someone he could ask.

  He leapt out of the water and sprang up onto the desk. He hesitated to hop onto the parchment only because he was soaked.

  “Something you want to tell me?” said Harrow, moving closer. He offered Syrah a rag to hop on so he could blot himself, and Syrah did so quickly. Then he made a frantic pattern on the parchment.

  SISTER MARSALA PURGE ATC

  “I don’t know what happened to her,” said Harrow. “Wish I did. I’ll check on her for you.”

  CHECK MY NANA TOO

  Harrow froze. It took him a moment before he looked at Syrah, and when he did, there was pity in his eyes. Terrible, eloquent pity.

  No. Syrah’s heart throbbed, frantic. No, never mind. I don’t want to know. As long as Harrow didn’t say it out loud, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t true. Don’t tell me, don’t tell me —

  “She died a year ago,” Harrow said quietly. “A few weeks after the wedding.”

  Syrah did not breathe or move. He suddenly remembered how once, as a very young boy, he had nearly drowned. A wave had gripped him and he had gone under, tumbling until he was breathless and disoriented. The sea had turned him over and over again, relentless, until he thought he would never come up.

  “I’m sorry,” Harrow said, from what seemed to be a great distance away.

  Syrah did not know what to do. His family was so large that he should probably have been used to death, but he wasn’t. The Huanuis were healthy, long-lived. He had attended the funeral of a distant cousin or two, but not like this.

  He could never tell his nana he was sorry.

  He jumped down to the floor with a heavy thud, crawled back into the water bowl, and submerged. He didn’t want to talk anymore.

  Harrow picked up the bowl. He set it aside between two potted trees, where it was dim and smelled familiar. Plumeria flowers. The kind he had used to put in his nana’s hair.

  “I’ll let you be,” Harrow said, and left the room.

  Syrah sat in the water bowl, wishing he could cry or run or scream, but he was trapped. Alone in the silence, with only the strength of his own mind to protect him, grief threatened to crush him. His nana was dead. The one person in his family who had seen him. Listened to him. The only one who had expected anything from him.

  He had let her down.

  He could still see the look in her eyes when she had sent him away from the Thatch. He could still hear her voice. I was wrong about you. I thought you were more than you pretend to be. But you are not pretending.

  He could never show her. There was no fixing this. She had died thinking he was a disgrace.

  When he could no longer stand the inside of his mind, he hopped out of the water bowl and went to Harrow’s open window to feel the air on his skin. There were a few bugs crawling near the windowsill, but for once he was not hungry. He was surprised by how glad he was to hear the door open.

  “How are you doing?” said Harrow.

  Syrah hopped to the parchment. He sat there a moment, not sure what he was going to say until he started moving.

  IM SORRY

  It felt good to say it and mean it.

  Harrow raised an eyebrow. “You owe that apology to Dee. Not me.”

  Syrah hopped once. He knew. But Harrow was the only one here, and he had to start somewhere.

  Harrow appraised him. “Is that what got you cursed?” he asked. “Publishing that letter?”

  Syrah thought about it. In truth, he wasn’t sure why the well had done it, but he knew that his actions toward Deli hadn’t helped him any. He hopped once.

  “That’s some penance,” said Harrow. “Living your whole life as a frog. I’m not sure I could stand it.”

  His whole life as a frog. Syrah had never allowed himself to think it. He had to become a man again someday — that was what he had promised himself; that was what he had kept hanging on for. But maybe Harrow was right. Maybe this was it.

  And maybe he deserved it.

  NOT SO BAD, he hopped, trying to keep despair at bay. ANTS ARE TASTY

  Harrow laughed. “Guess you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “Son!” shouted Huck Steelcut from downstairs. “They’re coming.”

  Harrow ran from the room, then ran straight back. “Come on,” he said, and, once Syrah was on his shoulder, he hurried down the stairs to stand with his father as a carriage approached their home. It bore the symbol of the Exalted Council: twelve angular shards arranged in a ring, each a different color, representing every nation in Tyme except Geguul.

  “Go,” said Huck. “Get out of here. I’ll handle them.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “I’m not asking,” said Huck. His weathered face was grim. “I’m telling. Get off the property. Find something to keep you busy. I don’t want you here for this.”

  Harrow touched his father’s shoulder. “All right,” he said. “But Pa — she’s alive.”

  Huck drew a sharp breath. “Your mother? She spoke to you?”

/>   “Just trust me,” said Harrow, with a glance at Syrah. “She’s sick, but she’s sleeping. Healing.”

  Huck seemed to gain strength from this information. He straightened up and squared his shoulders. “Go on now,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  HARROW cut out the back of the house and through the fields. Like the Vangarden, he traveled for a while along the stream that bordered the property, but he headed toward town instead of away from it.

  “Guess I should’ve brought the alphabet with me,” he said as he walked. “I don’t know what you want me to do first. If you want to spy on Luffa or Minister Pease, our best bet is to head over to the Thatch, but once we get there, I’m not sure how I’ll get in. Dee doesn’t want me around, thanks to you —” He cast a hard look at Syrah. “So I’d have to come up with another reason to be there. Or, if you want to spy on Nexus Burdock …”

  Syrah considered it. If he could poke around in the Nexus’s house, maybe he could figure out if Burdock had actually killed the Witch of the Woods, or whether he was hiding anything. If he was, it might have nothing to do with Calabaza.

  He hopped once.

  Harrow whistled. “Spying on an Exalted Nexus,” he said, with a shake of his head. “We have to be careful. I don’t want to make things worse for my pa. I guess I could make up some excuse to visit him, and you could just slip inside once the door’s open … but what business could I have bothering the Nexus? Maybe I could play like I’m checking in to see if Nexus Keene has had any luck with a cure.”

  Syrah hopped once in approval. That story would work perfectly.

  Harrow turned north where the stream met the river and he walked along the riverbank. “I can’t believe someone poisoned Governor Calabaza,” he murmured. “It’s sick. Luffa’s cruel, but I don’t know.”

  Cruel? Syrah wasn’t sure he would have used that word. He hopped a couple of times, curious.

  “You don’t think so?” Harrow’s tone was sharp. “You can’t get a better grandchild than Delicata Gourd, but Luffa treats her like she’s worse than useless. She has never given that girl one kind word, and after what you did with that letter, it got worse. She blames Dee for your nana’s death.”

  Syrah croaked in astonishment. How was that Deli’s fault?

  “Luffa said she was weak to write that letter, and she caused the scandal with her foolishness. She said the whole thing broke your nana’s heart and killed her.”

  But if anyone had done that, it was Syrah — and Nana Cava’s heart was much too strong to be broken by a scandal. Luffa of all people should have known that. Cava had died of ripe old age, the Criers hadn’t humiliated her to death — the idea was insulting.

  Harrow was silent for a time, walking along, but Syrah could feel the tension in him, and could see his jaw working.

  “You know what really gets me,” he finally said. “Dee wrote you that letter. I don’t think she’s ever spilled her guts like that to anybody, but she did for you, and you didn’t even —” He let out a long, angry breath. “She never wrote me anything like that,” he muttered. “Never said anything even close. You know what I’d give for — never mind. Just never mind. You’ve got to be the dumbest —” Harrow shut his mouth and made a muffled noise of fury.

  Syrah was surprised. Harrow was jealous of him.

  He wondered why that didn’t make him happier.

  For the next half hour, they trekked along in silence. “I wonder what they’re doing to my pa,” said Harrow quietly after a while. “Do you think they’ll arrest him?”

  Syrah hopped three times.

  “Me either.” He sighed. “I should’ve stayed with him.”

  Syrah hopped twice. It was better this way. They were free to explore and find things out — at least for a little while. Once the Exalted Council got their hands on Harrow, they’d want to keep him and question him. The idea made Syrah anxious; he had finally found someone he could communicate with, and he wasn’t in a hurry to lose him.

  They drew nearer to the center of Cornucopia, where the noise of a large crowd began to swell. They passed the big Ubiquitous store and Syrah thought of the last time he had been here, with Rapunzel and Jack. It seemed a lifetime ago. As they approached the park, a large yellow banner caught Syrah’s eye. It hung in the window of the same shop where, months ago, Rapunzel had bought her wagon.

  VOTE FOR BURDOCK

  VOTE FOR THE FUTURE

  There were lots of those banners around, Syrah realized, peering into other shop windows. Harrow took the bridge across the river, past the mills where the great wheels turned, and continued onto the main road into Market Park, which teemed with people. It was even more crowded than it had been during the jacks tournament last fall — or at least, he thought it was. His memory of that tournament was fuzzy. Along the green, Syrah counted a dozen or so food booths that also displayed Burdock banners. There were also lots of people wearing yellow fabric patches that read VOTE BURDOCK pinned to their shirts, and people wearing yellow sashes stood along the park’s main paths handing small chocolate candies to everyone who passed.

  “Progress is sweet,” said a woman in a yellow sash as Harrow approached. “Burdock for governor!” Harrow refused the candy she offered, and Syrah didn’t blame him. Last time Harrow had eaten something that someone had handed him in a crowd, he had ended up with the Purge.

  They walked through the park, toward the same dais where Rapunzel had won the jacks contest. Here, the crowd thickened around them, forcing Harrow to slow his pace. G. G. Floss stood near the dais, beside a tall table covered in chocolates. A ribbon proclaiming I STAND WITH BURDOCK was tied around her hat, a shining copper B was embroidered on her butter-yellow sash, and equally bright copper bracelets glinted from her wrists. When she saw Harrow, she beckoned to him with her purple fingertips.

  “You came!” she exclaimed. She sounded impressed. “I assumed you’d stay away, since — well. This can’t be easy for you or your father.”

  “Everyone knows it was our oats, huh?” asked Harrow, glancing around. He shifted uneasily. “Was there some kind of announcement?”

  “Big stories spread quickly.” Miss Floss smiled sympathetically. “I’m so glad you’re here for the debate in spite of everything that’s happening. It shows courage and strength of character.”

  “So, you’re for Burdock?”

  “Absolutely,” said Miss Floss. “No contest.” She held up a hand and wiggled her purple fingertips. “If there are going to be new laws about how magic and food work together, that’s going to affect my business directly,” she said. “Burdock understands magic. I can trust that he won’t undermine the Copper Door. I can’t say the same for his competitor.”

  “Who’s running against him now?”

  “Clementine Pease,” said Miss Floss.

  Harrow sucked a breath and glanced at Syrah, who thought he could guess what he was thinking. Now Harrow understood why Clementine was on Syrah’s list of suspects. He hadn’t had a chance to tell Harrow that she was running for governor, let alone that she had known all along about the Ubiquitous seeds.

  “Exactly my reaction,” said Miss Floss. “This is a woman who has been part of Calabaza’s cabinet for over twenty years! We deserve someone new — someone who can lead this nation into the future. The Exalted Nexus and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but this isn’t about personal feelings. It’s about what’s best for the country — and for business.” Miss Floss spotted someone else. “Mr. Arusha!” she called out, and raised both hands to wave him over. Her copper bracelets gleamed. “Thank you so much for your help with the banners. Move up to the front if you can, they’re going to start any second….”

  Harrow carried Syrah a little closer to the dais, but Syrah kept watching Miss Floss. What was she doing wearing bracelets? Just yesterday, Physic Feverfew had noticed infected burns on her wrists. Were they already healed?

  “Want to stay for the debate?” Harrow asked.

  Syrah hopped twice
. This was the perfect time to go to the Thatch and spy — everyone was here in the park. He could get into the governor’s office, or Luffa’s room. He might even be able to get into Burdock’s house.

  “Just a couple minutes,” said Harrow. “Come on, I’m curious.”

  Syrah hopped twice, irritated, but Harrow ignored him. He wove his way through the crowd till he was right up at the front of it — and now Syrah realized why he didn’t want to go anywhere. Deli was there, seated on a platform that was raised on one side of the dais. She was dressed in formal clothes, and her posture was rigidly perfect, but her expression was exhausted. The triplets looked tired too, and even Roma did not look quite as beautifully arranged as usual. She had been staying up and looking after Calabaza, and it showed.

  Two podiums waited on the dais, and Luffa stood between them. “People of Yellow Country,” she said, and her strong voice carried. The field went silent at once. “Huck Steelcut is no longer a participant in this race.”

  There were shrieks of delight at this, as well as shouts of dismay. A few people booed.

  “A new candidate has chosen to declare,” said Luffa. “That candidate is Minister of Agriculture and Provisional Governor Clementine Pease. We are here today so that Minister Pease and Exalted Nexus Burdock can debate their views. They will conduct a civil conversation about their beliefs, here in public, where you can hear them. Nexus Burdock will begin.”

  Luffa returned to the Gourd family’s platform as Burdock and Clementine approached their podiums. Clementine snapped open her stepladder and climbed onto it. Nexus Burdock shoved back his pale hair and looked out at the waiting crowd.

  “Your support means the world to me,” he began. “The banners you’ve sewn, the patches you’re wearing — I never expected this. Together, we will build the future of Yellow Country: a nation that no longer fears magic.”

  The crowd shouted passionately. Parents raised their small children victoriously into the air.

  “Never again will we run,” said Burdock. “Never again will we cower. We will confront any threat that arises. We will insist on the highest standards of safety. We will heed the lessons of the Purge and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.” He pointed to Clementine. “Clementine Pease has an enormous advantage,” he said. “She stands here today with the open support of Madam Governor Luffa Gourd, the savior of this nation and its former queen. She represents history. Tradition. She has served twenty years as our minister of agriculture — a vital role, and she has filled it well.” He paused and allowed the field to grow absolutely quiet before asking: “Or has she?”