by Неизвестный
Even stranger, the sky was dark. They weren't inside a mountain tunnel anymore, but they were somewhere it was night, which was strange, because it had been late afternoon just a moment earlier. Opal was tired, but she hadn't nodded off during the short ride through the tunnel, not standing and clinging to the pole as she was.
The train car carried on merrily along its track, to the edge of a village, where it stopped at another wooden platform. The goats tramped off and disappeared into the crowds of people gathered in the streets—people drinking mugs of frothy drinks and staring up at the pulsating sky, admiring the fireworks.
A round woman in a long, blue dress, grabbed Opal by the hand. “There you are! We've been looking all over for you.”
Opal stammered for a moment, then said, “Nobody came to meet me, and the suitcase was all out of gas, and I didn't know what way, and the tide was coming in!”
“Excuses, excuses,” the woman said, rolling her eyes.
More fireworks crackled overhead, teal and deep purple together, twisting around and chasing each other. The crowd gasped in amazement.
“I'm Patty, and I'll be getting you dressed,” the woman said as she led Opal into the crowd. Patty had red hair, plaited back in a thick braid, and she looked the same age as Opal's best friend Katy's stepmother, which would make her thirty-nine-and-holding.
“Dressed? Okay. Are you taking me to my new house?”
The woman turned and gave Opal a double eyebrow-raise. “Not until tonight.” Patty tugged young Opal through the crowd, hissing at the little kids with enormous lollypops and clouds of cotton candy to get out of the way.
* * *
They arrived at a house that looked, to Opal, like a recreation of a log cabin in a pioneer village she and her grandfather visited on vacation the previous summer. The inside of the cabin, though, was not a museum set, but an anachronistic jumble of things from different decades. Most of the furniture appeared to be hand-carved and made from branches, but the open plan layout revealed a bright blue 1950s style refrigerator in the kitchen. Electric light bulbs overhead provided cheery lighting.
Patty shut the thick wooden door behind them, and the sounds of fireworks in the village square all but disappeared.
Something on the sofa moved, something furry, and Opal screamed, surprising herself that after all the frights of the day she could still be startled by something like… a boy, wearing a brown, furry-looking jacket.
“Chowder, is that her?” he said, his eyes wide.
Patty cuffed him across the top of the head. “Language, Peter.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked Opal over from head to toe. “Ma, she looks my age. This can't be right.”
Opal found her voice and said, “How old are you, Peter?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “None of your business. Fifteen and a half. Shut up!” He ran off, disappearing up a set of stairs Opal hadn't noticed until now. A door slammed.
Opal looked around for Patty and said, “Did I say something wrong?”
Patty was already in the kitchen, throwing something sizzling onto an old-fashioned, wood-burning type of stove. “Don't worry about Peter. His nose is out of joint with all the attention his cousin is getting. He'll come around.”
“He seems nice,” Opal offered.
Patty turned and gave Opal an astonished look. “Your English is impeccable! We don't have many accents here, but I must say, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you almost speak like a local.”
“Thanks,” Opal said, smiling at the compliment.
“Why don't you go get yourself washed off and I'll send in your pretty dress, then we'll take you over to your new family.”
“Okay,” Opal said, looking around for a wash basin or whatever she was supposed to use.
The woman pressed a steaming bowl of fragrant stew into her hands. “Eat this up while you're in the bath. You're probably famished from your journey from the mainland.”
“I am,” Opal said, spotting the door that led to a normal-looking bathroom and heading that way. “What is this stew?” she called back.
“It's not goat,” the woman said.
“Then what is it?”
“Not goat.”
“Um. Thank you,” she said as she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
The stew, which was not goat, smelled delicious, so she took a bite using the rustic wooden spoon. Her appetite sprang up with a vengeance, and moments later, she was licking the inside of the bowl, not caring that gravy was dribbling on her nearly-ruined dress.
Someone inside the room sneezed, and it wasn't her. A circular porthole next to the mirror over the sink closed. She gripped the latch and whipped the porthole open again, finding herself eye to eye with Peter.
She said, “Don't spy on people in the bathroom, freak.”
“You're the freak,” he said. “How old are you?”
“None of your business.”
“Okay. What was the last movie that you saw? Wait, no. What… no. Music. Tell me what's popular over there.”
“Over there? You mean in America?”
“We don't call it that. There's here, and then there's everywhere else. And everywhere else is called the mainland.”
“You don't call places by their country names? It's all mainland to you folks?”
“Yeah, it's all the same thing. So, tell me everything, and sing some of the songs.”
“Dude! Tell me you guys have cable out here on this island.”
Peter shook his head, no.
“But you have internet, right? Maybe not broadband, but, um, what's the old-fashioned kind… dial-up?”
He shook his head again.
“Stop messing with me,” she said. “This is so not even funny. My cell phone got lost in the ocean, and if I don't email Katy, she's going to die worrying about me.”
“Your old life is over,” he said.
“Dude, don't play me like that.”
His face crinkled up with the first hint of a smile she'd seen on him. “You talk so funny. Your accent is good, but dude? Nobody says that. You're odd.”
“Right. You're peeping at a girl in the bathroom and I'm the odd one.”
“Bath's ready,” he said, and he shut the portal window from his side.
To prevent peeping potential, Opal reached for a hand towel to cover the porthole, but then she found the latch to lock it shut from her side.
She turned around to find the tub full of hot, rose-scented water. She could have sworn it was empty when she came into the room.
Best of all, there was a toilet! After spending the entire day in the great outdoors, she'd never been so happy to see civilized porcelain, and toilet paper too. Nice, soft toilet paper.
* * *
After bathing and combing the tangles out of her curly hair, Opal slipped on her filthy dress and stepped out of the bathroom. “Hello? Patty?”
Peter stomped down the stairs, carrying something white over his arm. “My mother's already gone to help with preparations. Put this on, and I'll walk you over. There's stuff for your face in the bathroom, and you can pick out some of my mom's shoes if you don't want to wear yours, though they might be too big for you. How old did you say you were?”
“Old enough,” she said, taking the dress from him and returning to the washroom.
When she emerged again, with her hair up in a twist and makeup on, she hoped he would stop asking how old she was. He didn't.
“That's a nice suit,” she said, deflecting his question. “Much more appealing than that hairy thing you had on earlier.”
“What do you mean, appealing?”
“It's like… the suit makes you look cuter. It brings out your handsomeness, I guess.” She felt her cheeks turning red as she tried to explain. “Like, you have a nice face, and the suit makes you look more like a man, you know, for someone your age and…” He was grinning impishly. “What?”
“I know what appealing means,” he sai
d. “We may not have high-speed internet here, but I didn't fall out of the turnip tree yesterday.”
Opal laughed to disguise her nervousness. “Turnip truck,” she said. “You didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”
“What's a truck?”
“It's like a car, but… wait, you're messing with me again.”
He looked at a clock on the wall. “Chowder. It's five already, we have to go.”
“Five? But it's been dark for ages.”
He shook his head. “They had to move up night so we could see the fireworks.”
“Of course,” she said, trying not to show her confusion. “This dress is awfully fancy and white. I feel overdressed for whatever we're going to. Wait. You're in a suit. Are we going to prom? Is it prom night here?”
He laughed and led her to the door. “You are funny,” he said, grinning.
“Well, you're odd.”
“Your hair looks better now.”
She patted the twist. “Better? Yes, a girl always looks better without bits of kelp, sand, and fruit all over her, I'd imagine.”
He pulled open the door to a cacophony of sound. The fireworks were still wallpapering the inky sky, and the scent of cotton candy and fermented drink hung in the air.
As they walked outside, she asked Peter, “Tell me, do the goats around here talk?”
“Did a goat say something to you?”
“I think so,” she said. “But I didn't have my eyes open, because I was climbing a staircase that wasn't there.”
He frowned as he led her through the crowd of people enjoying large, foamy mugs of a liquid that looked like beer but smelled sweeter. “We don't talk about those sorts of things. Goats don't talk, and you shouldn't even joke about such a thing. Nobody likes to think about it, not even the witches of West Shore.”
“Witches?”
Peter stopped and wrapped one arm around her and one hand over her mouth. “Hush,” he said, looking around wildly.
“Mm.”
“Edwin should have told you all the things you aren't supposed to talk about here. The witches don't like to be discussed unless one is present. Don't be such a Newface or you'll be dead before next sunset.”
He slowly removed his hand. The two of them were almost the exact same height, and her eyes were inches away from his, which were either green or brown. He had freckles on his nose, but unlike his mother, who had red hair, Peter's hair was sandy brown, shaggy and long, almost touching his shoulders. Opal didn't usually like long hair on boys, but it suited Peter, who had a wildness to him.
Opal scanned her surroundings, and all the people who looked like they were coming from or going to a costume party. Some wore the types of clothes she'd see at her high school: jeans, sweatshirts, or cute dresses. Others wore furry jackets and feathery things, while a few were dressed like Peter's mother Patty had been, in medieval-looking dresses with corsets and laces.
She asked Peter, “Am I not wanted here?”
He said, “Sorry.”
“That's not fair. I wasn't given any choice.”
“Keep out of trouble and you'll be fine. Probably.”
At Peter's mention of trouble, the merriment on the faces of strangers surrounding them turned to looks of malevolence. Every cloak or jacket could be concealing a weapon, and worst of all, her grandfather might never know what happened to her.
“Peter, I need to get to a pay phone and make a collect call. My grandfather doesn't even know I made my way here, unless one of you called him.”
“We don't use phones,” he said.
“You're joking. Don't pretend you haven't heard of phones.”
His face serious, he said, “I know what phones are. I do read about the outside world, but we don't have phones here.”
“Peter, where exactly am I? What is the name of this place? Are we on Broken Shell Island?”
He stared at her blankly. “Don't say that name. Promise you'll never say it.”
Chapter Four
Edwin
Edwin fidgeted with his tie, annoyed about being kept waiting. This whole endeavor was a mess. He didn't want to even think about the size of the fireworks bill, on top of the invoice for the Nightshading, and then the bribes to Underground Council to make sure the Nightshading permits went through.
His mother was right about one thing: nineteen was too young to be getting married. In the mirror, he looked like a kid playing at being a grownup in his father's suit. He'd made his choices, though, and getting Svetlana over and Bonded would have been tricky without a marriage contract.
Word from the street was she'd arrived, looking a little bedraggled from the journey, and Patty had gotten her tidied up and on her way to the little chapel. Peter would be bringing her over, which was probably unnecessary. Even though Svetlana had never been to the town of Ystad, one could not possibly miss a chapel in the shape of a giant boot.
To calm his nerves about the upcoming wedding ceremony, and seeing his fiancee in person for the first time, he sipped mead and ate the day's fresh finger bananas and redfruits.
Svetlana likely hadn't yet tried the island's fruit, and Edwin smiled, thinking about how much she was going to love her new life. Tomorrow, when the sun chased the moon away, they would be husband and wife.
* * *
Back in the village square, Peter grew annoyed at having to retrieve Opal from the crowd of drunk townspeople. She kept getting distracted by things, like asking people what they were drinking, which was mead. He told her to stop being silly and she told him to stop pressuring her.
She said, “What's the big rush? Can't we stop and enjoy the fireworks?”
“No.” He grabbed her by the hand to keep her close and drag her faster.
They were approaching a building, and if she wasn't mistaken, the structure was a giant boot, with laces.
“That's quite the footwear!” she said. “Does it belong to a giant?”
Peter turned back and said, “Some of our architects get a little too creative, if you ask me. They read about fancy museums on the mainland and try to outdo them, in our own way. The City Council building was going to look like some egg-shaped building in your London, but the Mayor threw a fit and had the plans changed at the last minute.”
“To a giant boot?”
“No. That's the chapel. Come on, we're already so late.”
They entered through a wooden door near the heel of the boot. The interior was quite bright and spacious, with soaring ceilings and stained glass windows she hadn't noticed from the outside. The place was, indeed, a chapel, but the pews were all empty.
“Am I meeting my great-aunt here?” she asked Peter. “I don't want to be any trouble, and I appreciate all that you've done for me, but I'd like to see my grandfather's sister.”
His eyes bulged with surprise. “You have relatives here?”
“That's why I came.”
His face contorted in anger at some unseen foes. “There really are two sets of rules, aren't there. This is total buckets. Excuse my language.”
The doors behind them opened. With one final-sounding, extra-loud blast of fireworks, the crowd from the street began to pour in.
Peter grabbed Opal around the waist and guided her through a nearby doorway, into a pretty room that smelled of flowers and licorice. “Good luck!” he said. “Don't let the pixies bite.”
Opal turned and faced a small army of glowing tiny people, hovering in the air.
The door behind her closed, and she assumed the worst—that it was locked. Her options seemed limited: fight, or faint. The glowing people turned as red as stop lights and buzzed with frustration. Opal tried so hard to faint, but fainting wouldn't happen, so she put her fists up in the air to fight. “I'm from the mainland,” she said bravely. “The mean streets of the mainland. I totally know how to defend myself.”
Now the pixies turned blue and purple, tittering happily amongst themselves in a language that sounded like wind chimes. They motioned for her
to come sit at the dressing table. She cautiously sat in the chair and glanced at herself in the big mirror, surrounded by light bulbs.
“Do you talk?” she asked. “When do I meet my family?”
They answered not with words, but with an ethereal song that seemed to come not from their mouths, but from their wings, or perhaps both. The song was wordless, but Opal's mind understood and translated the chiming sounds to words: Let us fix that bad hair of yours.
“My hair is not bad. It's just curly.”
The pixies tittered and turned warmer shades, then sang: Bad, bad, bad, curls are bad.
Although Opal was the type of girl who believed all people were perfect how they were, and everything that makes one different should be celebrated, all things being equal, she did prefer her hair straight.
She pulled out the clip and shook out her dark, curly hair. The interior of the twist was still damp from her bath at Patty and Peter's house.
The pixies swirled around her head, some yellow and orange now, forming a rainbow mass that seemed to be on the verge of smashing into itself, yet the individual pixies artfully dodged and wove under and over each other.
They moved quickly, but if she had to estimate, Opal would say there were a dozen and a half of them, some boys and some girls, which was quite obvious because they were naked. Completely naked.
With the tiny, glowing, naked, winged pixies grabbing handfuls of her hair, Opal relaxed into her seat. She did love a trip to the hairdresser, though she didn't go that often, because her long hair didn't need a lot of regular maintenance. For years, her grandfather had trimmed her hair himself to save money, but after she turned twelve, he'd started sending her to the hairdresser every few months for a trim. He said it was because the arthritis in his hands made holding scissors uncomfortable, but Opal suspected he wanted her to be around more adult females, to make up for the lack of a mother.
She did have older women in her life. Flora Fritz and her sister Farrah took Opal out for high tea every few months, and sometimes they talked about the Broken Shell Island books.