by Kevin Hearne
But Grinda, being the sort of person who wasn’t easily cowed, put her chin up and kept walking. One foot in front of the other, she strode forward. Soon Fia and Argabella were in real danger of collision, and they both began stepping backward, neither giving way or backing down.
“Why did you do this to me?” Argabella asked, half begging. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing,” Grinda said, wiping a hand through the air as if erasing blame. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were the catalyst of someone else’s destiny. Trust me on this, darling: never give a rose to a pretty princess.”
“She was a lady.”
“Whatever.”
Gustave was watching Argabella as that line was delivered, Grinda’s tone dripping with dismissiveness. The rabbit girl fluffed up as if struck by lightning and screamed, well, like a rabbit, and a terrible sort of noise it was. Grinda reared back in confusion before shoving Argabella aside with one hand and barging past her along the trail, calling back, “Be as dramatic as you like; it won’t change the cost of caviar.”
But that was the wrong thing to say, and Gustave knew it immediately even if the spoiled witch did not. Argabella howled in anger this time and launched herself after Grinda, who took up running as soon as she heard fluffy feet pounding the trail behind her. They were all running now, even Toby, who was panting and holding his potbelly with one hand. For a woman past her prime, Grinda could sprint like a kid after an ice-cream wagon, and if Argabella hadn’t been half rabbit and Fia hadn’t been in spectacular shape, the witch might’ve escaped. Instead, the rabbit girl tackled the witch to the ground, and they skidded painfully in the dirt with Fia right behind them. Gustave pulled up short, followed by Toby and Poltro, who was actually quite swift when not encumbered by chickens or waylaid by stealthy pebbles.
Argabella straddled the sand witch, one furry hand in the older woman’s coiffure, grinding Grinda’s face into the dirt.
“You like that, Sand Witch? That taste good?” Argabella growled.
“She’s going for her wand,” Gustave hinted, as he’d noted the witch sliding a hand inside her vest. “Which is what I would call a bad thing.”
“Can’t have that,” Toby said, edging in from the side. “Just hold her wrists.”
Fia dutifully grabbed the witch’s wrists, wrenching them behind her back.
“You’re going to regret this,” Grinda growled.
“Yeah, well, I regret a lot of things,” Argabella said. “For one, BEING HALF RABBIT.”
“Ah! There we go.” Toby slid the crystal wand from the witch’s vest. “I’ll just keep this safe for you, shall I? Yes? Good.” He stood, cradling the wand as if he’d finally found his sweetheart. Waving it experimentally, he said, “Brigan skokhaz!”
He must’ve said something vaguely incorrectly, as the thing that appeared on the ground wasn’t quite a shoe, but it was big and leathery and close enough for Gustave’s needs. The goat immediately set to nibbling just in case the faulty magic should waver.
“Now,” Argabella said, holding a small, dull dagger to Grinda’s throat, “tell me why I’m a monster.”
Gustave backed off the shoe. “Whoa, now,” he said, edging closer. “Is this really the way you want this to go? Whatever she did to you, you’re basically saying you’re willing to let her make you into a killer. But that’s not who you are. You’re a bard. You love roses and lettuce and cheese. You don’t need to go killing uppity witches just to hear excuses for why they did selfish things that messed you up. Wouldn’t you rather be a great person who’s half rabbit and has some unanswered questions than a human being with blood on her hands?”
Argabella’s mouth dropped open as the knife fell from her hand.
“Er, wow. Gustave. That’s…gosh, you’re right. I don’t want—”
Argabella didn’t get to finish her sentence, as Grinda flung her off and leapt to her feet, shouting, “Ah ha! You fool! You will never know true power until—”
Grinda didn’t get to finish her sentence either, which Gustave considered fair. She’d started backing up, and she tripped over something and fell on her kettle with a witchy shriek. In one fell swoop, Gustave found himself yanked into the air, upside down and with his face shoved into Toby’s butt. His trotters kept connecting with something soft that was apparently Argabella’s stomach.
They were caught in a net.
The entire party had been swept up in it and now dangled, all tangled together, from a giant bag woven of vines that perfectly matched the forest floor. Even Grinda hadn’t escaped the indignity of capture and had one leg flopping out of the net, her expensive hiking boot having fallen to the ground, revealing orthopedic socks and an ankle with so many varicose veins that it could’ve been its own map.
“Some rogue you are,” Gustave grunted at Poltro, who was poking him from underneath. “How could you miss a trap like that? Isn’t it kind of your entire job to check for that sort of thing?”
“I don’t think I’m a very good rogue,” Poltro said. “Cutter only gave me my Sneaking Certificate because Lord Toby paid him extra.”
“I’m stuck, and my armor really is uncomfortable, and Argabella smells, like, really good,” Fia said, followed by a more confused, “Wait, what?”
“I don’t really mind this, as I still have the wand and Poltro has a stunningly cushy posterior,” Toby said before stopping suddenly.
“Keep touching it like that, my lord, and I’m going to blackmail you when I get home, as I don’t think my brother will approve of your handsiness,” Poltro said. “Cor, maybe I’ll finally be rich! Then I won’t need to be a rogue at all!”
“Er, I think this net is somehow ensorcelled to reveal hidden truths,” Argabella said. “Which is fine by me, as I was already saying exactly what I wanted to say, which is that you owe me answers, Grinda. And now that we’re stuck together, you’re going to start talking, by Borix.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything…except actually I do,” Grinda said, all snappy. She tried to close her lips, Gustave noticed, but they wouldn’t stay shut. “The thing is, I needed someone to guard the castle, keep out any troublemakers who might wake up the sleeping lady. The curse was supposed to attract someone who would fall deeply in love with Lady Harkovrita and give her a rose despite Staph’s edict. It was supposed to be a rather strapping lordling—I had a nice one picked out from Retchedde, more brawn than brains, really, and I’d sent him on his way to court. But you got there first, and I suppose you gave her the rose, which meant that instead of a lordling turning into an overprotective, angry half-lion beast, I got a lovesick bard who became half rabbit. So there. Like I said—just bad luck.”
As they were all crushed together, it was impossible not to feel Argabella quivering with unhappiness like a live mouse fallen into a gelatin salad.
“Then change me back!” Argabella moaned. “You did this, you can undo it!”
“It’s not that simple,” Grinda said quietly. “And you know that’s not a lie. Curses are complicated, tangled things. I can magic the hair off your face or turn you into a half newt instead, but I can’t pull the curse out of your blood. You won’t be back to normal until I personally destroy the heart rose, and even then, the damage is done. You can never go back to being what you were. Circumstance changes people. Nothing is ever the same. If I sent you back to the castle now, you’d never be happy with what you had before because you’ve seen too much of the world beyond. Beast or no, better or worse, you are changed.”
“I like you as you are,” Fia said, “and I don’t think you need to change.”
“That makes me really happy, and I don’t mind being tangled up here as long as I’m tangled up with you.” Argabella cleared her throat. “All of you. I like all of you. I’ve been pretty lonely for the last five years, and it’s nice to have friends again.”
“I’ve never had friends before in my life, and I don’t think I’m very good at it,” Toby added.
“You’re not, m’lord,” said Poltro.
A profound silence descended, and Fia broke it by casually mentioning that lots of people she knew died in freak accidents, and so they were all probably going to die, too, and she hoped they’d all been sensible about their mortality and made some end-of-life decisions. Gustave found his mouth opening of its own volition.
“I would eat almost every one of you, given the chance,” he said. “Over fifty percent of you are really annoying, and I don’t even think you see me as a person.”
Another profound silence began but was interrupted by Poltro. “Couldn’t agree more. You’re just meat on feet. Goat curry is pretty easy to make, provided you can cook the meat over a low flame for a long time, preferably in a large pot with some sort of acid and some sort of fat and quite a bit of spices to get rid of that unpleasant goaty flavor.”
“Let’s be quiet now,” Gustave whispered. “If you’re really quiet, you’ll be able to hear me peeing on your backpack, Poltro. Also, I have some friends who are chickens, and they really are plotting against you. You’re basically a national joke to them.”
“Enough!”
Argabella’s yell was so loud that all the birds in the forest went quiet.
“This has been terribly useful from a standpoint of personal growth, but I’m kind of ready to get down now. Can anyone with a knife pull it out and hack at the net without hurting anyone else?”
“Hmm.” The net shifted and creaked where it touched Fia’s huge shoulders. “I would only stab Toby a little, and I think he can take it.”
“I can’t! I’m an excessive bleeder!” Toby yelped.
“Gustave, can you gnaw it?” Fia asked.
“The only thing I can currently gnaw is, I think, Lord Toby’s sweaty haunches. Let me see. Mrrph.”
“Ouch!”
“Yeah. I’m facing the wrong direction. Sorry.”
“Well, then. Here we go. What’s the point in having rabbit teeth if you can’t use ’em, am I right?”
“You might be good at opening bottles,” Poltro said. “Or, say, gnawing carrots into interesting sorts of shapes. Oh! Or sharpening pencils.”
He couldn’t see anything but butt, but Gustave could hear Argabella gnawing on the thick vines that formed the net. And it was a good thing, too, as he could smell something heading toward them, something with a trollish odor, something that was probably hungry. It was far off still, but prey animals with a fondness for stink could smell such things, and Gustave, for one, didn’t like it.
“Faster would be better,” he whispered. “And quieter would be better than louder, seeing as how loud would attract the wrong sort of attention.”
“But then someone could get us down!” Poltro said altogether too loudly for Gustave’s taste.
Just like a predator who had forgotten how to predate. Being all loud and stupid.
“That someone will get us down, prod us a bit with spears, and put us in a stew pot,” he whispered. “So shut up.”
“You’d be good in a stew pot,” Poltro noted. “Bit of spear prodding will help with the tenderizing, and goat can be a bit chewy, especially if it’s overcooked. Nobody likes that.”
“Nobody likes you,” the goat grumbled.
“Almost got it,” Argabella said, and then she must’ve gotten an important bit chewed through, as the whole net lurched sideways and Poltro, who was under Gustave and rather damp now, started to fall out.
“Keep chewing!” Gustave ordered. “If Poltro falls first and we all fall on her, no loss.”
The sound of gnawing doubled down, and soon the vines snapped again. The solid body beneath him disappeared, and Gustave barely had the time to mutter, “Hope I don’t land horns down” before he, too, was experiencing the unique and unpleasant sensation of tumbling through space. He did indeed land on Poltro, but feet down, which probably wasn’t better from her point of view.
“Oof,” Poltro grunted, and shouldered the goat off her before standing up. “Think I took a hoof in the giblets or possibly the kidney. Whatever it was, I do believe it’s time to go pee behind a tree, and if there’s blood, I’m going to be very upset and also a little concerned.”
“Don’t worry,” Gustave said, standing on shaking knees. “That’s just tenderizer.”
Another creak overhead was his only warning before the rest of the party tumbled down like very awkward hail. The goat darted off the trail right before they landed in an ungainly heap. Argabella, he was glad to note, landed on top, which was the least of the good turns she deserved.
Everyone stood in various ways, all of them dizzy and inspecting themselves for damage. They seemed whole to Gustave, who didn’t have a fantastic grasp of human anatomy and considered them awkward, gawky things at best. Poltro already had disappeared into the trees, and it was a good thing, as Gustave felt very much like kicking something.
“Well, now that we’ve all revealed our darkest secrets, we’d best get on the road,” Grinda said, sounding older and sicker of life than she generally tried to pretend she was. “Gustave, get back in your harness.”
“Oops. It’s all broken,” he said as innocently as possible now that nothing and no one could force him to tell the truth about anything that wasn’t in his best interest.
Sure enough, the travois of tent poles had gotten bashed about in the fall from the net as well as by his stamping around on it and gnawing through some of the less noticeable bits, because it was bad enough being a beast of distinct edibleness without also being a beast of burden.
“I can fix that easily,” Grinda said, doing her best to look elegant in her hiking gear, which was all mussed from falling out of a tree. “Toby, the wand?”
“Er,” Toby said, holding out a handful of crystaline shards. “I fell on it.”
“Drat and blast!” Grinda shouted, stomping a foot. “This is the most incompetent band of fools I’ve ever traveled with, and that includes the Fellowship of the String.”
“You saw the famous elven ring?” Toby asked, his heart dark with jealousy.
“No, the string. It wasn’t very remarkable. And I was more of a groupie than an actual member of the fellowship. But be that as it may, we must get on the road and out of this cursed wood.”
“It’s cursed?” Argabella asked, looking up at the silvery towering pines.
“Considering the net, I think that’s obvious. Can we move now?”
Gustave poked at the tent poles with his nose in a way that suggested he was incapable of feeling regret, and she sighed.
“Fine. We’ll sleep on the ground like, I don’t know. Who sleeps on the ground? Chipmunks? Lost princesses being chased by their stepmothers? We’ll rough it. But I’d really rather not argue with whoever set that net. Deal?”
“Deal,” everyone said at the same time, for footsteps could now be heard, along with branches breaking in their path.
They took off at a fast clip with only their rucksacks, and Gustave felt deliciously unencumbered at first before he realized he was the only member of the party without his own sack. He had no belongings, which wasn’t much of a bother, except that he really did prefer a nice strip of leather to grass, and he also felt a bit left out. Maybe a goat would like a rucksack. A rugged brown thing made of leather and filled with old tin cans full of yet more leather. Was he not the equal of anyone here in valor and brains? Maybe not in meat yield if they were put on a scale, but he was definitely the one most in danger of becoming dinner. For the first time in his life, Gustave felt like he might not be as much of a person as those around him, and it brought him much consternation. Just in case things went south, he stayed close to Fia, as their earliest discussion had hinged on her sympathy toward the plight of creatures who tasted
good with sauce.
As Fia had begun of late to travel rather close to Argabella, Gustave was able to watch the women as they stole glances at each other and smiled secret smiles. They were a cute couple, he thought, even if it was taking them quite a while to figure that out themselves. They stayed right behind Grinda as if expecting her to suddenly betray them. Which, Gustave thought, was the kind of thing that was likely to happen.
“Your teeth saved us back there,” Fia said softly at one point.
“Er,” Argabella said, looking down. “I guess it’s nice to have a use.”
“You have lots of uses. Your songs have saved us before. Hey, that’s it! You could sing a song about how very swift and silent we are and how we get out of these woods unscathed.”
Argabella considered it, then pulled out her lute. They were walking so fast that she could barely strum it once without falling behind Grinda’s fast pace, so she strung it over her back and hummed a few bars.
“Well she’s a real tough witch with a long history
Of turning people into beasts just like me
But she can lead quite a march when she gets down to it
Left, right, left, there’s nothing to it
“Hurry to the next spot
Come on let’s hurry to the next spot
Hurry to the next spot
Let’s all run away.”
It took Gustave a few moments to realize that the forest was flying by far faster than a forest had any right to. His trotters barely touched the path as he wound around aged pines and zipped past slightly confused stags. The pines gave way to maples, and the forest went from greens to yellows, golds, and fire-bright orange. With each repetition of her song, Argabella magically propelled them miles. When she stopped singing, it was like suddenly being mired in sand, and Gustave nearly fell over.