Crazier still were the residents.
“I don’t understand,” Jason said. “They’re people. Normal, regular-sized people.”
“Living in the footwear of giants,” Chance said.
“Jack never said humans lived up here.” Jason pivoted toward me. “Did you know about this?”
“Why would I know about this?”
“You’re the fairytale history expert.”
“Jason, your brother is the only person in Book to have ever made it to The Giants’ Keep and returned alive. Everything our people know about this world comes from him and his accounts. If you didn’t know there were humans living up here, no one else would.”
“Well, this can only be good for us, right?” Girtha said. “Maybe we won’t have to do the whole fee-fi-fo-fum bit and can actually get our flame easily.”
I hoped she was right. Our green trail of light continued straight, so we did the same. The civilians didn’t pay us any mind as we gaped at the enormous footwear buildings. They didn’t even seem to care about the green light trail passing through their village. Maybe they were used to weird things. They did live in shoes.
“Hey, look there,” Chance said. He gestured at a small kiosk with a noticeboard labeled “Town Updates.” It displayed village activity fliers, advertisements, and a large calendar. Jason pointed out a bright yellow flier with a bold font and read aloud.
“New village coming soon by Yakamata River. Homes, condos, and apartments on sale now. See your local FootWhere real estate office for information and updated realm maps with the latest giant zoning updates.”
“I don’t understand half of that,” Chance commented. “But an updated realm map could come in handy and that loafer over there has a sign that says ‘FootWhere’.” He directed our attention to a shoe building down the street. “What do you say, quick detour?”
The group agreed and headed that way. We entered the massive loafer to find the inside had been repurposed to serve as a busy office. People sat at desks, hung out by water coolers, and filed paperwork—everyone just doing their thing.
“Hello,” said a brunette woman at the front desk when we walked in. “Welcome to FootWhere, Dashi Valley branch office. How may I help you?”
Above her desk was a big FootWhere™ sign with the slogan Try This on for Size.
The woman had a pleasant face and a hairdo so high and fluffy it may have defied the laws of physics. She seemed to genuinely want to assist, so I smiled and turned on the charm.
“We were wondering if we could get an updated realm map, please.”
“Of course.” The woman reached behind her desk and pulled out a piece of parchment. “What zipcode are you from?” she asked as she started to hand me the document.
“We’re not from this realm actually,” Girtha replied.
The woman’s grip on the map tensed so I had to yank it from her. She stood up. I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. I also didn’t know why the four of us had backed up when she rose, given how many monsters and villains we’d faced. Maybe the fact that this woman gave off an angry librarian, bitter schoolteacher vibe activated our kid default settings. Then she said it. Well, shouted it.
“SECURITY!”
Several big men burst through a back door of the office and started striding toward us. We turned on our heels and rushed back onto the village streets.
“Hide?” Chance said as we ran.
“Better idea,” I replied.
The security team sprinted out of the loafer. I spun and clenched my fists. A rush of thick fog spread from me and filled the space between us and the guards. The people around began screaming and running away. I didn’t blame them. Seeing a girl with glowing green eyes and fog discharging from her body was not a common sight anywhere.
With our cover thick enough, I turned and my team and I bolted into the thick woods bordering the village. We only slowed our pace when we felt sure we weren’t being followed. Lucky for us, the green light trail persisted through the trees ahead. Finally we stopped to catch our breath.
I smacked Girtha on the arm. “Good going, bigmouth.”
“How was I supposed to know they would go ballistic that we weren’t from this realm?”
“You weren’t, but considering we never know how people are going to react to our mixed bag of realm-traveling weirdness, it’s better not to tell strangers our whole story twenty seconds after meeting them. It’s called tact. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Hey,” Chance said. “It was an honest mistake.”
“And that makes it okay.” I huffed and rolled my eyes then uncrumpled the map that had been compressed in my fist. “Looks like this realm is sectioned off into Human-Only Zones, Giant-Only Zones, and something called Service Exchange Zones. We’re in a Human-Only Zone right now, though the nearest Service Exchange Zone is only about a mile away.” I looked up, eyeing our magic trail. “Hopefully that thing ends somewhere nearby.”
I folded the map and stuffed it in my pocket. The others looked at me with varied expressions—frustration from Chance, sadness from Girtha, and disappointment from Jason. Whatever. I was not sorry for what I’d said. I was never sorry for telling it how it was. Someone had to. It wasn’t my fault that two out of our four teammates often screwed things up.
I forged on through the forest. The others followed. No one said anything to me for a long time, and I was glad.
“A witch lives here,” Girtha said firmly.
As the sky grew grayer, the woods parted again to reveal a clearing, a dwelling, and the end of our light trail. The magic aura we’d been chasing came to a stop over a scuffed black oxford shoe turned cottage. The thick copper roof resting on top of the shoe caused the whole dwelling to sag. Vines of dark ivy grew around it and choked the windows cut into the side of the oxford. A chimney stuck out of its side at an odd angle.
“What makes you assume that?” Jason asked.
Girtha started pointing out things as she spoke. “Dust on the windows, dead grass around the perimeter, big chimney for cauldron smoke, and listen . . .”
We paused.
“I don’t hear anything,” Chance remarked.
“Exactly,” Girtha said. “We’ve been hearing the natural sounds of the forest all day—birds chirping, the occasional rustling of a deer or rabbit. Here, nothing. Because nothing wants to come near here. After my older siblings had their whole Hansel & Gretel adventure, they taught me the signs of witches. Cottages don’t have to be made of candy to trigger a red flag.”
“Well, we already dealt with a Sea Witch today,” Chance mused. “A land-based one can’t be much harder. Maybe this one’s nice.”
“And maybe those ogres in Alderon wanted to ask us for directions,” I said sarcastically. “Let’s go knock on the door and get this over with.”
We strode up to the cottage and Girtha rapped the door with her knuckles. A few moments later, it swung inward to reveal a semi-hunched old woman in a bright red dress with yellow buttons and a black apron tied to her waist. Her white hair was braided down to her hips and a ruffled bonnet covered her head and ears. The woman’s nose was long and sharp like a toucan and she had a wart on her left nostril.
“Oh, children! I love children.” She reached off to the side. When her hand came into view again, she held up a crystal candy dish. “Would you like a sweet?”
“Nope. We’re not doing this,” Girtha said. She pushed past the old woman and barged into the house. We joined her. A large cauldron hung by a chain over a roaring wood fire. A thickly bristled broom leaned against a door that connected to an adjacent hallway. The back wall was lined with shelves of dusty bottles and dying plants, like an out-of-business apothecary. I didn’t know for a fact if those factors meant this woman was a witch, but had I been in the mood to offer Girtha a compliment, I would have noted it seemed like she could be right.
Six cute, unusual creatures perked up from their basket in the corner as we entered. They were the general size and shape of wie
ner dogs. However, their manes were dark red, their ears curled up and formed horn shapes, and they had ridged dragon tails coming out of their rear ends. The demon dogs got out of their basket and scampered over to say hi, the bells on their collars tinkling as they came. Two nuzzled my legs and begged to be petted; I obliged.
“We’re sorry to barge in,” Chance said to the old woman, trying to make up for Girtha’s abrupt entrance. “But we’re here on a deadline. The green light trail over your property, it should’ve formed a flame that we’re after. Do you have it?”
“I do!” said the old woman giddily. She reached into the pocket of her apron and yup, there it was. The green flame floated over her hand.
“I don’t suppose you could give it to us?” Chance ventured.
“Oh no, not now,” the old woman said just as giddily. She put the flame back in her pocket and gestured to her round wooden table. “Sit. Sit. Let’s chat.”
We hesitantly sat in the old chairs. The little demon dogs followed and continued sniffing around our legs and wagging their dragon tails.
I put my arms on the table and it teetered unevenly. Dust stuck to my hand, which I wiped on my pantleg.
How far we’ve fallen from the Round Table in Camelot.
“I love Midnight Law quests,” the old woman said enthusiastically. “I have a book about them here.” She scuttled to a bookshelf by the door and brought back a worn, mustard yellow text. She plopped it on the table with a thwack that startled the demon dogs, then started to flip through the pages.
The demon dogs resumed sucking up to us. One had chosen Girtha as the focus of his attention, another two cuddled up to Chance, and three doted on me. I picked up a particularly cute demon dog and put him on my lap. His collar read Jeff and I stroked the back of his head as the elderly woman talked.
“You would be surprised how many Midnight Law flames have landed on my doorstep over the years. I suppose the universe likes to challenge its heroes, and it knows I have high standards. It has been a while since the last flame, though. That one brought me a lovely young man whose princess had been put to sleep by a cursed spindle or something, and he couldn’t seem to find where her body had been hidden.”
I raised my eyebrows and exchanged a look with my teammates.
Mauvrey’s dad.
“I have always hated the giants,” the old woman continued. “When the Giant King was a child, he wandered into my village and accidentally stepped on my house, killing my family. He was not punished because he was heir to the throne. So when heroes knock on my door seeking a Midnight Law flame, I have them take a special trinket from the Giant King’s vast collection of magical wonders and I sell it for great profit on the black market. That is my payment in exchange for the flame. The chap with the sleeping princess was successful in getting what I asked for, but there are heroes who have not been so lucky. Like this lad here.”
The old woman stopped at a page in the middle of her book, which looked like a collection of journal entries. “I enjoy chronicling the heroes I have encountered,” she explained. “It keeps the memory keen and I think this text could get me a book deal one day. What do you think?”
She looked at us so excitedly. I gave her the thumbs up out of pity, and to dissolve the awkwardness. “Um, sure. Why not? But, um you were saying about the hero?”
“Yes, yes, Prince Lakrim of Wonderland. I was the final flame on his mission, but he failed to retrieve it and therefore failed his Midnight Law quest.”
“He ran out of time?” Chance asked.
“No. I asked him to fetch me a golden goose from the Giant King in exchange for the flame that landed here, but the giant caught him and ate him for breakfast.”
Jason grimaced. “So the ‘ground his bones into bread’ warning is true.”
The old woman shrugged. “I believe the prince’s bones were ground into seasoning for the Giant King’s everything bagel—he loves a good nosh—but the prince was eaten either way, so I don’t suppose it matters. Except to him, of course. And the poor girl he failed to save. And the Giant King, who was outraged that someone would try to steal from his palace. He despises thieves. No one blames Prince Lakrim or the few others I’ve sent who’ve been caught stealing for what happened to our realm though. So I don’t have any guilt about it. Jack was the one who changed things, and he was not a hero running a mission for me. What he did, he did for his own purposes.”
Jason perked up. “Jack?”
“Jack Sharp,” the old woman clarified. “You don’t know? Oh, silly me, you’re from another realm. Let me explain. For generations, the giants and humans of this realm have lived in harmony. Our species have separate communities to prevent anyone from getting squashed, and we leave each other alone mostly—it was a part of a treaty signed long ago. However, we do have a great trade and barter program for certain things. We humans perform work for the giants that they are too big to do themselves. In exchange, the giants give us their old shoes to build our villages, and they also step in—no pun intended—if any human village needs serious help. Why, last spring, when one of the villages suffered a drought on their crops, the giants fed the entire village for a month with one loaf of bread, an ear of corn, and three pieces of bacon.”
“And how does Jack fit into this story?” Jason urged.
“Most heroes I send to steal from the Giant King never get caught,” the old woman replied as she put her book back on the shelf. “He has so many treasures after all, so one going missing once in a while is not noticeable. And the few heroes who have been caught get punished right away, eaten as it were. Jack Sharp found his way to this realm thanks to some magic beans that grew into a beanstalk, which punctured a hole between his realm and ours. He journeyed to the Giant King’s palace and robbed him not once, but many times. The greedy boy kept coming back and taking more things—gold coins, a magic quill that could write by dictation, a hen that laid gold eggs, a goose that laid gold eggs, and a magical harp that could play on its own, to name a few treasures. When Jack was finally discovered, the Giant King’s brother pursued him down the beanstalk. Jack reached the ground first and cut down the stalk. The fall killed the Giant Prince, cementing the giants’ hatred of outsiders.”
That explained the FootWhere receptionist’s reaction.
“Since Jack, our realm has a strict No BelowWorlders Policy,” the old woman continued. “If anybody from another realm turns up, we are supposed to hand them over to the Giant King for execution and consumption. Our people take the matter deadly serious considering the Giant King destroyed four villages after Jack killed the prince.”
Jason’s gaze fell to the table. His expression was a portrait of distress. The guy already hated his brother. Learning that Jack had not only ruined this realm’s relationship with outsiders, but that his actions got four villages worth of people obliterated, was a tough pill to swallow.
With the conversation having turned morose, I no longer felt like petting the demon dog. I placed him back on the ground, but he continued cuddling my leg alongside the other two hounds showering me with attention. Girtha and Chance’s dogs remained similarly devoted.
“So what do you want from us?” Chance asked. “We know the drill now—you’re not going to give us the Midnight Law flame until we get you something of the Giant King’s. What is it? A harp? A hen? Just tell us and we’ll get on with it.”
The old woman smiled widely. Her creepy grin revealed one blue-ish tooth and a gap where two teeth were missing. “The Giant King has a magic flute that can hypnotize people. It used to be a part of a set, but decades ago, some dreadful monster from a place called Alderon found his way here and stole one.”
“The Pied Piper?” I asked.
“Yes, I believe that’s what he was called. Dreadful creature. Have you crossed paths?”
“Not exactly. Our friends killed him I think.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” the old woman said, as merrily as if I told her I’d baked her cookies. “Since
the remaining flute in the Giant King’s possession is a part of this rare set, it will fetch a high price on the black market. Bring me that, and the flame is yours.”
The demon dogs started whining because I wasn’t paying them attention. Jason reached down to pet one rubbing against my leg, but the dog scampered away from his hand.
“If you need some place to regroup and make your plans, I have a recommendation,” the old woman said. “At the edge of Dashi Valley there is a quaint bed and breakfast inside a brown combat boot.”
“Yeah, we don’t have time for board games and complimentary scones at a country inn,” I said. “We’re on a deadline. Also, we were in Dashi Valley earlier. They chased us out.”
“The inn is at the edge of town,” the old woman said. “And the owner Hildegard is indefinitely indebted to me. I helped her rescue her husband when giants captured him for skipping on his taxes. In our land, felons of all kinds—no matter the crime—get eaten. You don’t pay your taxes—baked into bread. Get caught taking bribes—folded into focaccia. Skip out on rent—pressed into a Panini.”
“That’s terrible,” Jason said.
The old woman shrugged. “It keeps the crime rate low. Anyway, I also helped Hildegard fake her husband’s death so the giants won’t come looking for him. Tell her Magdalin sent you and she’ll put you up for the time being.”
So that was our hostess’s name—Magdalin. She hadn’t had the chance to properly introduce herself. We hadn’t either. We’d simply barged in. Wherever she was, SJ could probably detect a disturbance in the universe’s politeness ratio.
“Speaking of time,” Chance said, “you wouldn’t happen to know what the time zone conversion is between here and other realms? Our various watch devices aren’t working.”
“I shouldn’t expect them to, honey. Magic devices that are not native to our realm have a hard time functioning here. I imagine it has something to do with the location. Our realm is located between the clouds and the sky.”
“Isn’t that just, you know, another part of the sky?” Jason asked.
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