“Cornelius?” Al asked, surprised. “I thought he left the Woodbine and went to the Higher Places.”
“No, he just prefers to remain hidden. In fact, he’s an old friend of mine,” Spines replied. “Or at least he was, before I fell. He was the greatest smith in the Seven Worlds. He was well-known in the Higher Places for his skills at making Guardian rings.”
“Are you serious? Nobody’s heard from him in years,” Tabitha interrupted. She looked condescendingly down at Spines. “Besides that, nobody but the highest ranking Guardians has ever seenone of his rings. Stories about what his amazing rings were capable of are just that, stories.” She sniffed imperiously.
Tabitha glanced at Edward and smirked. “And as far as training Edward goes, I doubt it would work.” Mr. Spines started to object, but she raised her hand to cut him off. “Unless he’s a full-fledged Guardian there is no way he’d stand a chance at the Jackal’s Lair. It’s swarming with Groundlings as bad as Whiplash Scruggs or worse. I’ve been studying to be a full Guardian for fifteen years and I’m just now graduating to Guardian Third Class. At least I was, until I was ordered to go with you.”
Edward noticed she delivered the last part of her statement with bitterness. Tabitha’s pearly wings twitched in irritation. “There’s no way a half mortalthat can’t even fly can learn what is necessary to know. He can barely speak!” She flashed Edward a haughty look and continued. “And you want me to teach him how to sing? Impossible!”
She’s acting like I’m stupid! That was it! Edward was sick of Tabitha and her superior attitude. What Tabitha had said was partially true. He was untrained. And he understood the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to use his wings or do any of the things that Guardians could do. But he didn’t care how dangerous or impossible the mission was. He was determined to find his mom and all he wanted was a chance to learn. With the blood pounding angrily in his ears, Edward stood up, trying his best to control his stutter.
“F-fine. If y-you don’t want to train me, then I’ll fuh-figure it out myself. I-I’m going to find her wuh-with or without your help. And i-if he . . .” Edward indicated Mr. Spines, “. . . s-says there’s a chance if we f-find this Cornelius person then I suh-say we try it.”
Edward’s tall frame towered over the young Guardian and, with his ebony wings stretched out on either side of him, he looked even bigger. He was tired of people underestimating him all the time. Too much was at stake. He needed to get to his mom as soon as possible.
Emboldened by his action, Edward decided to say what he’d been feeling ever since he’d met Tabitha. And surprisingly, it came out without the slightest trace of a stutter. “I may not know much about how Guardians are supposed to behave, but you’ve been nothing but an arrogant snob since I’ve met you. In fact, come to think of it, I think you’d make a much better Groundling. All they care about are the same things you do. Themselves.”
The color drained from Tabitha’s face. The young Guardian was speechless for a full minute before she finally rose and strode out of the boatman’s house, slamming the door behind her as she went.
Mr. Spines was shocked. For anyone to infer that a Guardian was acting like a Groundling was the highest of insults. But Edward had been absolutely right about Tabitha’s pride. After all, nobody could recognize the symptoms better than he. Arrogance was a sticky web and the favorite of the Jackal’s tools.
Had Spines been tall enough, he would have liked to pat his son on the back for his courage, but as it was, he barely came up to Edward’s waist. So, on an impulse, he decided to reach out his hand toward Edward’s arm, thinking to give it an encouraging squeeze.
But he wasn’t prepared for Edward’s reaction. To his surprise, his son turned around at the touch, slapping his father’s hand away.
“D-don’t ever t-touch me,” Edward said, looking furious. Mr. Spines backed away slightly, hurt.
Edward gazed down at his father with distaste. “I-I’ll put up with you if it m-means finding my mom. B-but after th-that I nuh-never want to see you again.”
Then Edward marched into the back bedroom of the tiny shack and slammed the door.
Once inside the tiny room, Edward flopped down on the cot. All of his triumphant feelings over his exchange with Tabitha had faded away. Now, all that was left was a shaky, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but Tabitha’s words had stung him deeply.
He knew it was because he’d let his guard down, mistakenly entertaining the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he’d found a place here in the Woodbine where he could finally fit in. And fit in as a Guardian, a hero.
Edward knew he had been right to defend himself, to tell Tabitha that he was going to search for his mother. But he knew he shouldn’t have called her a Groundling. He had crossed a line, trying to hurt her as much as she had hurt him, and that wasn’t acting like much of a Guardian, either. Maybe he was no better than her, and would have made a better Groundling himself.
He let out a deep sigh.
What did it matter anyway? Who was he kidding? He wasn’t a Guardian.
As he sat at the edge of his bed, he stared out of the tiny window. The clouds had come back again, obscuring the moon from view. Right about now would have been a perfect time to calm his nerves by building a card house. But his cards were lost forever, washed away in the river of forgetfulness.
He lay back on the bed and buried his face in the pillow.
Whoever said being in the Afterlife meant it was a better life? he thought sadly.
Chapter Ten
SHAPE-SHIFTER
Edward didn’t remember falling asleep. But the next thing he knew, Bridgette was gently shaking his shoulder to wake him.
“Huh?” he asked groggily. When he saw it was Bridgette he quickly sat up, embarrassed. Although, luckily, she didn’t seem to notice that he’d been drooling. He quickly wiped the side of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Tabitha didn’t come back last night,” Bridgette said. “Your fath . . . I mean Mr. Spines said that we’ll have to go on without her.”
Edward yawned. “It f-figures she didn’t come back,” he said matter-of-factly. “She was so f-full of herself anyway. Not a big loss if you ask me.”
“Actually, it is a big loss,” Bridgette fired back, irritated. “We really needed her. Without Tabitha we don’t have any protection at all. Your father can’t sing or use his ring without the Corruption setting in again. And you’re untrained and can hurt yourself if you keep randomly trying to access your powers.”
She sighed. “There’s only one idea I can come up with that might keep us from getting hurt while we travel to Cornelius.” She took a deep breath and said, “You’re going to have to learn to shape-shift.”
Edward stared at her, confused. “What?”
“Shape-shift. Remake your appearance to look like what you look like on the inside. Almost all of the mortals who come to the Woodbine take on a new appearance. You’re half mortal. So it’s worth trying to see if you can do it.”
“But wh-what if I can’t?” Edward said. “I thought Guardians c-can’t change the way they look?”
“Theycan’t, but youmight be different,” Bridgette said encouragingly. “I think we’ll just have to see what happens. You’re half human. If you can change your appearance even a little bit, just enough to disguise you from Whiplash Scruggs, we might be able to travel to Cornelius without attracting attention from the Groundlings.”
“B-but what about Mr. Spines? S-Scruggs could spot his porcupine quills a mile away,” Edward said. “There’s no possible way he wouldn’t recognize him.”
“Al has an old wagon he said we could use. It’s pretty small, but big enough for Mr. Spines to hide in the back under a tarpaulin.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, and it sounded like the best plan they could manage at this point.
“I’ll try it. But I d-don’t get one thing,” Edward said.
“Get wha
t?” she asked.
The hurt feelings Edward had been wrestling with since the exchange with Tabitha came bubbling to the surface. Edward ran his hand through his messy hair and his wings twitched.
“W-why do y-you keep wanting to help me?” he said quietly. “Everybody else I kn-know treats m-me like I’m an idiot.”
Bridgette was quiet for a moment before replying.
“I believe what my uncle said about you, Edward. If he says that you’re the Bridge Builder then he must be right. Besides,” she glanced self-consciously out the window, “I don’t think you’re an idiot. Just because it’s a little hard for you to talk sometimes doesn’t mean you’re not smart. I like the things you say. And I like being around you.”
It was Edward’s turn to feel awkward. He flushed bright crimson, flattered. Nobody that looked like Bridgette had ever liked spending time with him before.
He considered what she’d said about shape-shifting. Edward glanced down at his pale, skinny hands and his long, spindly legs. He had to admit, the prospect might be rather exciting. For as long as he could remember he’d been a little self-conscious about the way he looked. What would it be like to look like someone or something else?
Bridgette showed Edward a small book, relieving the awkward silence. “I carried this with me when we left the cottage.”
Beezlenut’s Guide to the Afterlifewas embossed on the book’s cover.
Bridgette leafed through a couple chapters, “This book is really wonderful. It lists everything a person could ever want to know about getting around in the Woodbine. It has maps, guides to great restaurants . . . all kinds of useful information. I think the Dancing Faun is even mentioned in here somewhere. It’s handed out at the docks when people first come here.” She glanced up at Edward, “You would have received one but you didn’t arrive here in the traditional way.”
Then Bridgette found the chapter she was looking for. Edward looked over her shoulder as she read.
“The Soul Made Flesh”was the title.
She scanned the page until she came to the passage she was looking for. “Aha, here it is,” she said. “I did this so long ago, I forgot the words.”
Edward wondered what Bridgette looked like before she’d arrived in the Woodbine. He couldn’t imagine her looking any different than she did now, with her curling, auburn hair and beautiful, dark eyes.
“All right. The first thing you have to do is to concentrate on whatever it is that you think you really look like,” Bridgette said. She gave him an encouraging look. “For most people there can be an assortment of choices, but on some basic level, anything you choose has to be an aspect of who you are. For example I,” she indicated herself with a gesture, “tried being a giant pigeon and a walking tree before I settled on this body,” she said smiling. “I could see myself as any of those things, but this body was the one that felt the most comfortable. And well . . . it’s pretty different than I looked when I left Earth . . .”
Edward noticed the hesitation in her voice. “I bet you were always beautiful,” he said, trying to reassure her. He was glad the words had come out without a stutter.
“Does that really matter?” Bridgette snapped. She looked really angry. Her reaction caught him completely off guard.
“Uh, n-n-nuh-no,” he stammered, his face getting red. “I j-juh-juh-juh-juh . . .”
“. . . Just thought that I had an easy life because I was so pretty back on Earth. Well, you have no idea what it was like for me back there.”
Edward couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. He’d just been trying to be nice.
He quickly tried to salvage the situation. Bridgette was the closest thing he’d had to a friend as long as he could remember. “L-listen, I’m sorry okay? I d-didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” he said, cursing his stutter. “P-puh-please forgive me, all right? I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Edward waited nervously for her to respond. After a moment, Bridgette glanced up at him with a softened expression. “Oh, let’s just forget it,” she said. “It’s not worth getting into . . . let’s get back to your appearance.”
She skimmed the instructions.
“All you have to do is concentrate on who you think you really are deep inside and then say the words written here.”
She handed him the book. Edward looked at the page and read the words, Metageitnios tarantinarcheo.
It was a mouthful. And for him to try to say anything that elaborate without stuttering was a daunting task.
But Edward had to at least try. He concentrated, trying to imagine what his inner self should look like. He closed his eyes, his mind racing to figure out what it might be. Different images flashed through his head. He would like to be big and strong, with thick arms and a handsome face. He’d seen a picture once of a circus strongman. But somehow he knew that wasn’t right. Even though he’d like to look like that, something inside of him knew it wasn’t really who he was.
He thought some more and, just when he thought he might not be able to come up with anything, a picture flashed in his mind. It was of an illustration from a book of fairy tales his mother had read him when he was very young.
A huge grin spread across his face as he thought about that.
“Sooplemex,” he said, not realizing he was speaking aloud.
“What?” Bridgette asked.
“Oh, i-it’s a cuh-character in a fairy tale my m-mom used to tell me about. H-he was a winged leopard,” Edward said, looking embarrassed.
Bridgette giggled. Then she noticed Edward’s stricken expression and quickly added, “Oh, I’m not laughing at you. I think it’s a great idea! I’m only laughing because I think it’s the first time I’ve seen you look really happy.” She glanced at him shyly and added, “It’s really nice to see your smile, Edward.”
Edward smiled again and studied the magic words more closely. He had to sound them out verbally in his head a few times before he felt ready to say them. After a moment, he pictured the image of a flying leopard clearly in his mind. Then, after taking a deep breath, he recited the words in the book.
“Metageitnios tarantinarcheo.”
To his surprise, he said the words without a single stutter.
Seconds later, a strange, fluttering sensation began in the pit of his stomach. It started like a soft tickle and then grew into a powerful, burning feeling. The hair on his arms began to thicken into golden fur. He watched, stunned, as his fingers shrunk, becoming powerful paws. His whole body gave a shudder and his bones creaked, feeling like they were being compressed inside of a gigantic vise.
Then, just seconds after it had begun, the transformation was complete.
“Did it work?” he asked expectantly. But he could immediately tell by Bridgette’s expression that something had gone wrong. She was staring at him with a mix of compassion and something else. Was it disgust?
“H-how d-duh-do I look?” he stuttered.
“Well,” she said awkwardly, “I don’t know if it’s exactly what you were picturing. Maybe I better get a mirror so you can see for yourself.”
Edward waited while Bridgette ran into the other room. She returned a moment later with a small hand mirror. He raised it up to his face nervously.
The face that stared back at him was definitely not Sooplemex’s. In fact, it was something else entirely.
“At least it kind of worked,” Bridgette said. She tried to sound optimistic.
Edward just stared at the face looking back at him in the glass and groaned. In all the years of feeling self-conscious about his appearance, never in a million years would he have ever thought he could have found a way to look worse.
Chapter Eleven
LEAVING THE BOATMAN
Edward followed Bridgette back into the main room, dreading everyone’s reaction to his new appearance.
“What’s that thing?” Al said, jumping back a pace.
“It’s Edward,” Bridgette replied soothingly.
“He’s just chan
ged a little bit.”
“You call that a little?” the boatman said. He whistled through his teeth. “Son, you better be careful walking around town looking like that. Folks might mistake you for a Groundling.”
Edward scowled. It was the same thing he’d thought when he’d first caught sight of himself in the mirror. Instead of a majestic leopard with large, golden wings, he looked like a freakish mix of an animal and a human. He had something resembling a leopard’s broad, flat nose, except it was covered with pinkish skin. Horrible black spots stretched from his forehead to his chin and his eyes were irregular, one looked like a cat’s and one like his own brown one. His teeth were pointed, just like a cat’s, only smaller, giving him that characteristic Groundling smile that he’d come to hate so much.
All in all, he looked like a terrific mess.
He couldn’t help glancing at Mr. Spines, who looked hurriedly away. But what Edward spotted in that brief exchange was an understanding expression. His father knew all about what it was like to live in a body that was tragically malformed.
“C-can I just change b-back?” Edward said. His tongue moved in his mouth awkwardly, unused to its new, animal palette. His voice was almost a growl. But unfortunately, he still had his stutter.
“The book says that you’ll have to wait six hours before you can transform again,” Bridgette said, examining the text. “But the good news is that by then we’ll have traveled out of the nearby towns and should be able to stick to the country. Your disguise, as er . . . odd . . . as it might be, will at least help us get to the open roads.”
Mr. Spines cleared his throat. Then he said, “The girl’s right. And we have no time to waste. After we’re far enough away and you can transform back, I’ll begin your training myself. You’ll have to learn the mastery of the ring, your wings, and the Songs. I’ll teach you all that I’m able to on our way to Cornelius’s Valley. It would have been nice to have Tabitha to help with your flight instruction, but I can teach you the basic principles.” Spines hesitated for a moment, and then added, “That is, if you want me to.”
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