by Неизвестный
Standing to the side of the cobblestone path was a bicycle, the exact one Opal had wanted for her birthday, yet hadn't gotten. A blue ribbon dangled from one of the handlebars.
Opal couldn't believe her eyes, so the girls had to repeatedly assure her that yes, her grandfather had sent over the bike, but it had only arrived earlier that day, and the postmaster had just missed her at the sheriff's office. The girls convinced the postmaster to give the bicycle to them so they could bring it right over and surprise her.
Zara dashed down the path a ways to some bushes and retrieved another bicycle, as did the other two girls. Their bikes were smart-looking, but not as new as Opal's. They all got on their bikes and waited for Opal to do the same.
Opal had to ask. “Why are you all wearing those blue tutus, with boots?”
Carly said, “We came from ballet class.”
Opal nodded. The explanation was good enough. “Where are we riding to?” she asked as she climbed on her new bicycle and checked the chain.
“The West Shore,” Zara said.
Delilah smacked Zara again.
“Just kidding. Clover's Chococafeteria,” Zara said.
Opal said, “Choco-cafe-what-now?”
Carly said, “Surely you have chocolatiers on the mainland.”
“Like an all-chocolate store? Sure, I've been to a few of those.”
Carly grinned. “You've never been to one like this before.”
* * *
Opal hadn't been on a bicycle in years, and she wobbled the first few pedals, weaving from side to side on the cobblestones. The surface wasn't as smooth or easy to glide over as she'd imagined it would be.
“Faster,” Zara called back from up the road. “Pedal faster and you'll straighten out.”
Carly was showing off, her hands on her hips and her blue tulle skirt blowing up from the movement.
Opal stopped for a moment and looked back at the gates, and at the fields she'd passed by on her way to her new house. The girls weren't heading back into town, but away, and while the idea of going to a chocolatier was tempting, the path away from town seemed to get narrower, disappearing up a hill and around a corner, out of sight.
The road less traveled, she thought, and the phrase seemed ominous.
Don't be chicken, she told herself, and set out after the girls.
As she rode, her muscles got warm. Her legs were strong from track and field, but cycling used different muscles, and in a novel way. Her calves eventually resigned themselves to their fate and went numb. She was embarrassed to be puffing and breathing heavily to keep up with the other girls. They were moving so easily, and she became suspicious they might be using magic to power-assist their pedaling.
After sneaking some thorough looks at the other girls' muscular legs, though, she concluded they were simply in far, far better shape than she was. Opal could run fast for a short distance, but she was a city girl. She'd never realized what that meant until now, far away from highways and highrises and elevators and escalators.
Looking out over the scenery, she said, “What's that?” for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Wheat fields,” Carly said. “Come on, you had to know that one. You have wheat where you're from, I know you do.”
Opal pedaled faster and switched gears to pull ahead of the group, so they wouldn't see her blushing. “I lived in the city, you guys. I don't know everything about the mainland. I don't understand how internal combustion engines work, but I ride in cars.”
“Cars sound fun,” Carly said. “Especially convertibles. If I ever go to the mainland, I'm buying a convertible.”
Opal said, “Do people visit there? Do you go by boat?”
Zara said to Carly, “Don't talk about the mainland. Nobody ever comes back, and if you keep talking about it, you might get your wish.”
Carly looked forlorn, so Opal said, “Convertibles aren't that great. The island is way cooler.”
Zara chimed in with, “The island is the best place, which is why we have to keep people out.” She glanced over at Opal. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Opal nodded.
They passed some new fields, with tall, lush plants Opal recognized as similar to the hybrid vegetable plants, though the flowers here weren't red and purple, but orange and yellow, and the sweet smell was almost gag-inducing.
Zara suddenly came to a stop with one bronze, muscled leg on the path. “Take cover!” she yelled.
The other girls jumped off their bicycles and dropped them on the cobblestones, tires still spinning. Opal blinked stupidly for a few seconds. The girls were running into the midst of the sweet-smelling vegetable plants, where unknown creatures guarded the crop.
A darkness came toward her on the road, but it had no form, it was just… she squinted… a shadow. She looked up as something passed overhead. Her first thought was dragon, which was logical enough, given the size of the thing.
Its wings flapped and the great creature changed direction, heading back her way. And diving. Straight at her.
Chapter Eight
Opal dropped her brand-new bike and launched herself into the plants, blindly tearing her way through them. Giant wings flapped behind her. She ducked low to the ground, as low as she could get, and held very still, heart pounding.
Through the thin spaces between the plants, she watched the thing land on leathery feet, and examine her new bicycle. The flying creature was a mottled brown, with a curved beak, and enormous eyes. As the giant bird peered around, feathers around its head ruffled out like a mane, or a headdress. The beast made a warbling sound that turned Opal's guts to water.
Something touched Opal's foot, and she recoiled in horror. Someone snickered. The touch was from Carly, who had a big grin on her face.
Whispering, Opal said, “Let me guess. I may be a city girl, but that would be an owl, right?”
Carly nodded. The other two girls snickered from their hiding spots in the plants.
“They're just a bit smaller on the mainland,” Opal said. “Say, about, ninety-nine percent smaller. Why are we hiding? Don't tell me they eat people. Oh, no. There are birds here that eat people, aren't there?”
“They don't eat people,” Carly said, speaking at regular volume. “They are, however, a little cranky, and they like to empty their chowderbuckets on people, especially witches. Their waste smells terrible, and while it's good for some of our potions and spells, nobody likes getting a face full of it.”
Opal held up her hands. “Wait, I'm just figuring something out. Birds only have one hole that all their waste comes out of. It's called a cloaca, right?”
Carly made a disgusted face.
“And you guys here call that particular body part… a chowderbucket?”
Zara said, “Not in polite company, though.”
“That is revolting,” Opal said. “I love it.”
The giant owl finished looking over Opal's new bike and flew off, stirring up dust and dry bits of leaves and plants.
Opal started to move, but Carly said, “Not yet.”
The bird circled back and dropped a payload near, but not on, the bicycles.
Carly wrinkled her nose. “Ick.” The scent of the bird's waste mixed with the heavy sweetness of the crop was not unlike a heavily-used bathroom doused with air freshener.
Opal said, “Just to be clear, the owls do not eat people, right? Are there any animals that do eat people?”
“If they're hungry enough, there are a few,” Carly said. “But I haven't seen a tiger in ages, so I wouldn't worry about it.”
Zara said, “And if you stay out of the swamps, the crocodiles won't be a problem. Snakes can be a problem, if you're not very smart.”
Delilah was already out of the field, picking up her bike from the road.
Opal's legs felt about as stable as tapioca pudding, and she wondered how much further they'd be riding. She didn't ask, because she didn't want to be a complainer. She liked the girls, and she wondered if she had to become a
witch to hang out with them, or if she even could become a witch.
If being a witch meant blowing magic bubbles and riding your bike in a blue tutu, witchcraft didn't seem dark or evil at all.
As she surveyed the smashed-watermelon-sized gooey splatter just off to the side of the bikes, she felt intensely grateful she hadn't been out in the open when the bird had circled back.
* * *
The chocolatier was not far up the road from where they'd stopped, but the terrain had changed from farm fields to dense forest. The girls parked their bikes at a rack built from logs. Opal looked around for the building. Was it, like her house, disguised as something else, perhaps the side of a hill, or part of a grove of trees?
The trees here were quite large, each one bigger than Opal could have wrapped her arms around. Carly and Zara led the way, up a ladder on the front of one big tree, and Delilah followed, the three of them in their blue tutus looking like they were performing some strange vertical ballet.
Up at the top of the ladder squatted a tree house, as round as a silo, and painted dappled green, blending with the foliage. Three tree trunks stuck out of the bottom like legs, legs that continued up through the building and sprouted out of the roof, branching out and thick with leaves. The swirly letters on the hand-painted sign over the door read: Clover's Chococafeteria. Abandon diets, all ye who enter here.
Inside, the place seemed bigger than it had looked from the outside. Opal admired the checkerboard floor and the Marilyn Monroe and Elvis pictures on the wall. Carly elbowed her and said, “It's authentic right? You have places like this on the mainland, don't you?”
The girls turned and eagerly awaited Opal's answer. For once, she was the expert.
Smiling, Opal said, “This is very nineteen-fifties kitsch. Yes, very kitsch indeed. Most diners aren't like this, of course, but a few retro places are.”
“Elvis is interesting, but I prefer James Dean,” Zara said.
“Me too,” said Delilah.
“You both prefer Edwin,” Carly said, teasing her friends.
All at once, the girls stopped talking and giggling, and Opal realized they were talking about the Edwin she'd encountered briefly. They hadn't been formally introduced, but she'd learned his name while being questioned by the sheriff. Edwin was the handsome young man who'd been awaiting his fiancee when Opal had burst out of the dressing room with pixies tangled in her hair.
She thought of the young woman meeting her end in the woods, and the screams echoed in her head. The tree house swayed and shifted under her feet, making her put her arms out for balance. They were rather high off the ground, and she wondered what building permits and safety inspections were like on the island.
“My favorite customers!” said a pleasant-looking man with green hair. “I have fresh ginger wands, but I suppose you already know that.”
Opal stared and stared at the green-haired man, continuing to stare even after she'd realized she was staring, and even though she knew staring was rude.
The man's green hair was odd, but not the only thing that struck her as unusual. She'd seen another fellow with blue hair back at the jail, but that fellow had appeared average enough.
This man's movements were theatrical, yet his proportions were unusual. It wasn't until she got closer and saw he was standing on a raised platform that ran along behind the counter, that she realized he was a little person. She'd seen plenty of people with dwarfism back on the mainland, even been friends with a girl at her high school who was under four feet tall. Even so, as he introduced himself as Clover, owner of Clover's Chococafeteria, the lilt in his voice made her wonder if he might be a magical type, like the pixies.
Clover ran down the day's chocolate specials, and she scarcely heard a word, so fixated was she on watching him for signs of magic. His eyebrows were green, and even his eyelashes, so there was no way that was a dye job, not from what she knew of hair dye.
After the other girls had ordered several things, including something called drinking chocolate, Clover asked Opal what she wanted.
“Nothing, I'm fine,” she said, even as her stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been many, many hours ago.
“You're new here,” Clover said, his voice ringing with a magical lilt, “so your first visit's my treat. Treats for the little sweet! You'll want some drinking chocolate, and something to cleanse the palate, and then more chocolate, of course.” He handed her a tiny cup and saucer filled with bubbling brown liquid, and a plate with a fluffy dinner roll, as well as six different chocolates, each a work of art with decorative swirls and adornments.
She thanked him for his generosity and joined the other girls at their table under a framed portrait of James Dean, where they were deep in conversation about pixies and hairstyles.
Zara patted her glossy black hair and said she'd been thinking about getting a perm, to try a curly look, and the pixies had laughed so hard one of them lost consciousness and fell into Zara's lap.
Opal giggled, imagining such a thing.
Carly said, “They're such bossy little monsters, but one must suffer a little for such beauty.” She patted her own golden blond locks and batted her eyelashes jokingly.
Opal said, “Do they pee on everyone's hair?”
“Just if your hair's curly,” Zara said. “I take it you've had the tinkle treatment?”
Opal ran her fingers through her soft, straight hair. “Yes, and wow, is my hair ever straight. I almost hate to wash it and bring the curls back, though I could probably use a shower.” She pretended to sniff her armpits, which the other girls found hilarious.
“Your curls are gone,” Zara said. “Maybe permanently. You won't know until your hair grows out whether you'll need more treatments. For some people, it only takes one session.”
“My hair is permanently straight? But I never agreed to that. How could they do that to me? My hair is curly. It's part of who I am.”
The other girls shrugged, not seeming to understand how this might be upsetting to Opal. She looked down at her plate of chocolates and wondered what else about her was going to change without her permission.
Carly reached over and pointed to the chocolate with the red swirls. “Try the lightning bug first.”
Opal obediently put the chocolate in her mouth. The bonbon tasted spicy and sour at once, and as she bit down, the chocolate seemed to spark and explode like a tiny firecracker. She froze, her eyes wide, unsure if she should spit or chew harder.
The other girls laughed, and Carly took the matching red-swirled chocolate from her plate and popped it in her mouth. She pursed her lips and blew out a cloud of sparkles that swirled above the table and then rained down as glitter that disappeared after a few seconds.
Opal let her lips part and blew out hesitantly. Sparkles shot forth from her mouth, along with a generous amount of spit, all of which sprayed her plate and a bit of the table. Inside her mouth, the chocolate was inert now, like regular chocolate, so she swallowed the rest.
Carly used a napkin to quickly tidy up the spots on the table. The other two seemed more amused than disgusted, to Opal's relief.
“Holy smokes,” Opal said, fanning her face.
Clover called over from behind the counter. “If you think that's fun, try the green one next!”
The other girls simultaneously pushed their chairs back from the table as Opal picked up the chocolate with the green swirls and a teeny-tiny functioning pinwheel.
“I'll save this for last,” Opal said, putting the chocolate back down.
The other girls moved their chairs in again.
Opal disassembled the chocolate with the miniature lemon on top and ate the lemon first. “Marzipan?”
Carly said, “A sweet paste from the redfruit nuts.”
The chocolate itself was filled with a lemon cream that seemed to quadruple in size inside her mouth, which was surprising, but in a good way.
The other chocolates were relatively normal, by comparison, filled with spice and nuts, cre
amed fruit, or caramel.
She picked up the green chocolate and laughed nervously. “Any instructions?”
Carly, Zara, and Delilah moved their chairs back and waited.
Opal touched the tip of her tongue to the chocolate. Nothing happened. She nibbled off a little corner. Still nothing.
She popped the entire thing in her mouth and bit down.
At first, the inside of her mouth seemed to be humming, and she thought the hum might be her, making a happy eating noise. She cracked open her mouth and the sound of a marching band came out, loud.
She stayed calm, and this time nothing flew out of her mouth but the sound. It changed melody as she altered the shape of her mouth and lips. The other girls ate their green chocolates as well, and all four of them coordinated their expressions and tried to match harmonies.
Eventually, the chocolates melted and the sound faded away, like an ice cream truck leaving the neighborhood. Opal chewed the rest of the candy, which seemed to have caramel on the inside, and let out a few final horn toots and cymbal crashes.
“Not bad, Newface,” Carly said, pulling her chair back up to the table. “You dribbled a little down your chin, but you didn't spray the table or anything.”
Zara said, “You may fit in here after all.”
“Do you think I could be a witch?” Opal asked.
The three of them looked at each other and made a variety of expressions. Finally, Delilah spoke, saying, “That's not for us to decide.”
The others nodded solemnly.
“I'm not saying I would, but I'm interested is all.” Opal grabbed the dinner roll from her plate and broke the bun in half, pretending to be more casual than she felt. “I have to do something around here before school starts up, besides nap. I've been thinking about a summer job. I've worked in a couple places already, back on the mainland. I could ask Clover here if he needs any help, though I'd probably spend all my checks on chocolate.”
At the mention of a job, the girls seemed even more alarmed than when she'd brought up the idea of becoming a witch.
Carly touched Opal's hand in a motherly way and said, “I've heard a few different stories, but how did you get here, exactly?”