by Неизвестный
“Books like to romanticize things. Gumdrop here is very strong, stronger even than my horse, Fella. We could even double on Gumdrop if we had to.” Max tossed one of the leather bridles at Opal. “Saddle up.”
“Where are the saddles?”
Max rolled her eyes. “It's just an expression. Put the bridle on the unicorn and let's ride.”
Opal muttered to herself, “Put the bridle on the unicorn. Sure, why not?” She held out the leather bridle and made some kissing sounds. “Here, Gumdrop. Put on your bridle.”
“City girl, like this.” Max poked one thick finger into the side of her horse's mouth, then slid a rod of metal between the teeth and looped the top of the leather apparatus over the horse's ears.
Opal tried to do the same, and to his credit, Gumdrop was very patient and did most of the work. Getting the bridle over the horn was tricky, and Opal let her hand linger on the horn, wondering about its potential magic properties. What did unicorns do in stories, besides represent purity? Unicorns healed wounds and granted wishes. Opal rubbed the horn and wished for Peter's eyesight to return.
Gumdrop made a charming whinnying sound and rotated his big, gray ears toward her attentively.
“Hi,” Opal said.
Gumdrop snorted, spraying the vicinity with unicorn spittle and snot.
“May I ride on your back?” she asked, because that was the polite thing to do.
Gumdrop closed one eye slowly, as though winking.
Opal took that as permission and stepped closer, on his left side. She'd ridden a pony before, at a friend's birthday party, but the pony had been much smaller, and arrived in the girl's backyard with a saddle.
She attempted to throw herself over Gumdrop's back, stomach first, but the unicorn was as round as his namesake, and she slid off his barrel-shaped back before she could get her leg over. By the fifth try, she was hot and sweaty, and even poor Gumdrop seemed frustrated by the ordeal.
She led him closer to the fence, then climbed up the fence and transferred herself to his broad, gray-dappled back.
“Good job,” Max said, clearly amused. “I was going to offer you a boost up, but you seem like a take-care-of-yourself kinda gal.” She grinned. “I approve.”
“Thanks,” Opal said, wiping a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead.
When Max smiled, she didn't seem so terrifying. They'd gotten off to a bad start the first time they'd met, but now the woman was taking Opal on a ride-along, which seemed awfully generous. Unless, of course, there was an ulterior motive.
“Sheriff Max,” Opal said.
“Just call me Max.”
“Max, do you really need me to come along as an eyewitness? You're not planning to use me as bait or something, are you?”
Max glanced up at the sky. “Bait, huh? Wish I'd thought of that.”
“I'm not qualified to do anything. I should go home.”
“Opal, everyone on the island does their part to serve the community. Now is the time for you to do your part.”
“Uh, can't I pick up garbage or paint signs or something? I appreciate getting to sit on a unicorn, but I have to get home to my great-aunt. She's probably worried sick, thinking that I'm at the bottom of the ocean.”
“First of all, dead bodies float for a few days before they sink. Secondly, she already knows where you are.” Max gestured with her chin.
Opal followed Max's gaze and saw Waleah coming out of the building, toward the pasture. She was accompanied by the tall, handsome blond guy, Edwin. The widower. Of course he hadn't actually gotten married, but Opal didn't know the word for someone who lost his fiancee, so she thought of him as a widower.
“Thank the pixies you're alive,” Waleah said to her great niece. “I'm afraid I've done a poor job as your guardian.”
“I didn't get the wax yet, but I will. I will get it, I promise,” Opal said.
Max gave Waleah a quick rundown of what had happened—a much more accurate rundown than Patty's ramblings—and how they were heading out to the Wetlands now to investigate some mysterious sightings. Opal was going along, Max said, to retrace her steps back to the cave where she'd seen and heard things.
Edwin said, “Am I to understand that you and Peter went through a magic chalk door and now he's at West Shore?”
“Yes,” Opal said. “The door let us out into this creepy old hallway, lit by glowing moss. There were a lot of bugs, too.”
“Sounds like the place,” Max said.
Waleah said, “The poor boy must be terrified. What a ghastly place.”
Edwin shook his head. “Typical Peter.”
Waleah swung open the gate on the pasture and came in to stand in front of Gumdrop. She put her forehead against the unicorn's forehead and stroked his big donkey ears. “This guy will take care of you,” she said, then she peered up at Opal with those blue eyes that were so similar to her brother's. “Don't worry about the wax,” she said. “It's not important, little light.”
Opal wanted to jump down and hug her great-aunt, and cry into her shoulder about all the things she'd seen, and all the scares she'd had. But she barely knew the woman, so she stayed where she was.
Edwin, who was talking to Max, climbed up on the fence and whistled. Another brown horse with a white-spotted rump came galloping over, and Opal remembered the name of that breed—Appaloosa. They were beautiful horses.
She patted Gumdrop's mane, because he was beautiful too, in his own unique way.
Max said to Edwin, “Don't know that I need a tax man for this, but you're welcome to come along as my deputy. Can't hurt to have an official Council member along, in case things get strange.”
“I could use the fresh air,” Edwin said, and he quickly put a bridle on the other horse. He was able to bounce up onto the mare's back from the ground and swing one leg easily over her back. Waleah unlatched the gate for them, and the three riders filed out.
Waleah waved to Opal, “Safe passage.”
“Oh, Aunt Waleah, I found my suitcase, near the shore. It's inside the sheriff's office.”
Max said to Waleah, “My assistant will let you take it.”
Waleah looked crossly at Opal. “Whyever would I want your suitcase?”
Max laughed at Waleah. “You're new at this parent thing, aren't you? She's a kid. You gotta take care of her. Look at how filthy she is. Take her suitcase back to the house and give everything a good soak.”
Hurriedly, Opal said, “You don't have to. I mean, I just wasn't thinking. You don't have a car or a bicycle or anything. Never mind. I'll bring it home, and I sure don't expect you to do my laundry. I know how to do laundry.”
Edwin's head went up at that. “You do laundry, do you? I may know of a housekeeping job, paid work for you.”
Waleah waved over her shoulder without looking back, on her way in a bit of a huff, without the suitcase, and headed in the direction of the pub.
Max nudged her horse ahead and stopped beside Opal and Gumdrop. “She'll come around,” Max said. “There's good reason that woman never wore the ring. Not suited to child-rearing, not at all.”
“Never wore what ring? She's married to Mitchell, isn't she?”
Edwin laughed. “You're like a little idiot!” He clucked at his horse and the three of them began moving again, through the square, past the delicious-smelling vending carts.
Opal glared at Edwin. “I don't know for sure what that word means around here, but back on the mainland, it's not a nice word, and just because I don't know all your weird magical rituals around here does NOT mean I'm an idiot!”
“Actually, that's the definition of idiot,” he said. “Someone who doesn't know social conventions.”
“I know them for my regular home, on the mainland.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? How old are you?”
“Old enough.”
Max, who was riding ahead, waved a hand to interrupt and said, “Edwin, meet Opal Button, fresh from the mainland. Opal, meet Edwin. I kn
ow you both know who the other is, but now you've been formally introduced, and now we're all friends.”
Edwin chuckled. “Friends.” He reached out and shook Opal's hand.
“Friends,” she said. “And I'm sorry for your loss.”
He looked down at some of the food vendors they were passing. “I don't think I had lunch.”
“Me neither,” Opal said, and she made a sad face in Max's direction.
“Right, food,” Max said. “I'll get this, guys. I'll put it on my expense account. Official sheriff business and all.”
Max dismounted and used a circular card from her back pocket to purchase a bag of food and drinks for the trip. To Opal's great relief, a portion of the food was for her, and Max handed her a pastry to eat immediately. She munched the long overdue meal hungrily and slurped down an entire bottle of redfruit juice before they started on their way again.
They reached the outskirts of town and the horses were able to move faster without all the people and bicycles in the way. The sugar from the food and drink made Opal feel like she could take on anything, even a daemon.
“I may be an idiot,” Opal said, kicking Gumdrop in the ribs to get him to catch up to the big Appaloosa horses, “but at least I'm riding a unicorn. I'd be the envy of all my friends back home if they could see me now.”
Gumdrop, who had flawless timing, lifted his bushy gray tail and let out a pile of unicorn droppings. The large turds, to Opal's surprise, had a slight rainbow hue, and sparkled.
Opal heard the hum of something, an electric scooter, by the sound, and she spotted a man with blue hair chasing after them, calling, “Max! Max!”
The sheriff stopped her horse and turned to face him. “What now?”
He skidded to a stop on the contraption, which was a motor-assisted bicycle, the same blue as his hair. “There's been a report of a hate crime up at Clover's.”
Edwin said, “Not Clover! He did such a nice job on the catering for the wedding.”
The blue-haired man waved his gangly arms. “I know! It's crazy!”
Max said, “Guess I'll swing by there first and see what's what.”
“Let's go,” he said, shifting on the bicycle.
Max's horse snorted and pranced.
“You should stay behind. Fella hates that contraption of yours. You could come, but you'd have to double on Gumdrop with young Opal here.”
The man seemed to consider this, then said, “Gross.”
Max excused herself from the others and moved a few horse-lengths away to discuss the details with the blue-haired man.
Opal said to Edwin, “A hate crime? Against a chocolatier? Who would do such a thing?”
“I can think of a few people,” Edwin said.
“Really?”
“Not everyone shares the exact same opinions here. Maybe it would be a good thing to have a daemon terrorizing the island. Nothing like a shared enemy to bring everyone closer together.”
“That's kinda dark.”
“But not untrue.”
Opal pondered this for a moment, then said, “But who would hurt a chocolatier? Does he have a competitor, like, say, a cheesecake place?”
Max came back and gave them both a stern look. “I'd thank you two to reserve your speculations for after we get a few facts.” She shook her head. “Of all the days for my other staff to be out, investigating a catapult threat.”
Opal looked back and forth between Max and Edwin. “Catapult threat?”
Max opened the bag of food and held out a sandwich to Opal. “I'll trade you this for silence the rest of the ride.”
Opal accepted the offer.
Chapter Eighteen
The trip to the chocolatier was quick, because they took a shortcut—not the magical kind, with a chalk door, but the I-think-we-may-be-lost kind, through dense woods.
At least Gumdrop, the corpulent unicorn, seemed confident of his direction, tirelessly running at a jarring trot and never once breaking into a smooth canter.
For the first time in her life, Opal wished she had a little more padding on her posterior.
They arrived at Clover's Chococafeteria, which hung forlornly between its three tall tree posts, the door yanked off its hinges and smashed on the ground. The silo-shaped building's dappled green exterior looked melancholy in the late afternoon light.
Edwin said, under his breath, “The Case of the Crazed Chocoholic. It was the middle of the night, and somebody had a craving that wouldn't be satisfied by any old glass of redfruit juice. No, see, they wanted some o' that chocolate. Yeah, the good stuff, not the watered-down brown paste they serve up at the grocery store…”
Max turned and gave Edwin a wry smile. They seemed to be pretty good pals, and Opal wondered if they were family, or had just been friends for a while. Max was a decade older, so they likely hadn't gone to school together.
Edwin continued, “So, our chocolate bandit, he gets himself a crowbar, and… wait, no it's a she. It's a woman and she's just put on the ring to get a baby, and her womanly energies are shooting off like fireworks inside of her, and she's just gotta have what only Clover can give her.”
“That's enough,” Max said. “The sheriff's office must hold itself to a certain standard.”
Everybody dismounted, some more gracefully than others, and they set the equines up in the shade, near some lush green grass. Edwin showed Opal a semi-hidden spigot in one of the trees, and she used it to fill bucket after bucket of water for Gumdrop, Fella, and the other Appaloosa, whose name she didn't know.
Not being an official employee of the City of Ystad, Opal lingered back with the animals and didn't climb up the stairs to the chocolatier for at least twenty minutes, once her curiosity took over her body.
The inside of the place was a sad mess, and the vandal or vandals had left nothing untouched, not even the posters of Elvis and Marilyn, whose faces stared up, terrified, from crumpled shreds on the floor.
Clover was standing on his platform and explaining to Sheriff Max, “It's because I'm a troll, obviously. People are perfectly fine with us being trolls, so long as we stay under the bridges and out of the way. But as soon as we want to come out and integrate, then suddenly we're shoving our trollishness in everyone's faces and they have to explain to their stupid kids why my arms and legs are shorter than average, and so on.”
Opal quickly looked away as soon as she realized she'd been staring at the man. So, he wasn't a person with dwarfism after all, but a real, honest-to-goodness not-quite-human person. Opal's brains nearly imploded with the political incorrectness of it all.
That small, sweet, green-haired man was a troll? She thought trolls were supposed to be huge and thuggish. Clover was about as intimidating as a chihuahua in a bowtie.
As the two of them continued talking, Clover led Max into the adjoining room, which could hardly be bigger than a storage closet, given the size of the tree house. Edwin came over to where Opal was surveying all the smashed glass from the framed posters.
“This sort of thing doesn't happen often,” Edwin said. “I hope you're not getting a bad impression of Ystad. It's really a wonderful place to live, like being in a fairy tale, or so the newcomers say.”
“That man,” Opal said. “I am sorry to be rude, but was he using a figure of speech, or is he actually a troll? And if he is, are they all small like that?”
Edwin grinned and kicked at some broken glass, then retrieved a broom and dustpan from behind the counter. “There are very few trolls on the mainland, if that's what you're wondering,” he said. “Everything here that looks like a person is a person, even the pixies, though they choose not to vote in our elections. We also have non-troll people who are the same size as trolls.”
“So, all trolls are about Clover's height, but not all little people are trolls?”
“This must seem needlessly complicated to you.”
Opal took the broom and dustpan from Edwin's hands and swept up some torn posters. “When we were riding today, throu
gh those scary woods, I started to feel sad a few times, because I miss my old home and my friends, but then I remembered I was riding on a unicorn. How cool is that? I guess not very cool to you, since you're on the horse, aren't you?”
“Gumdrop likes you,” he said, then he walked away, leaving her to wonder what he'd meant by that.
She swept some more, and then gathered up some bits of wood. There was so much wood, and all of it in splinters, as though it had been through a wood chipper. She used the broom to push all the wood into a pile.
Edwin came over and said, “What is all that? Why would vandals break in, eat all the chocolate, then leave behind a bunch of kindling?”
Opal put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Where are all the tables and chairs that were here the other day?”
They both looked at the pile of chipped wood.
Edwin said, “Who would do such a thing?”
Opal said, “Never mind who, but how? And with what? Was it magic?”
“Never blame magic for what can easily be explained by plain old human idiocy.”
“What about the other thing? The daemon?”
Edwin rubbed his chin and stared at the pile of wood. “What if someone's trying to make it look like there's a daemon around?”
“To what end?”
He shook his head. “I can't even imagine.”
“To bring everyone together, against a shared enemy,” she said. “Like what you were suggesting.”
He picked up some bits of wood and examined them. “Either way, I don't like where this is going. Someone's bound to get hurt.”
Max emerged from the other room, without Clover.
Opal whispered, “Is he okay? I could stay here and help him clean up.”
Max patted her on the shoulder. “That's kind of you, but he needs some alone time. Trolls are solitary folk.”
Edwin said, “I'm sure when he reopens, everything will be even better.”
“If he reopens,” Max said.
Edwin frowned. “This is not good at all.”
* * *
They climbed down out of the tree house in silence. The two horses and the unicorn seemed well rested and ready to go.
This time, Opal accepted a boost up onto the unicorn. Her inner thighs were already wobbly from all the riding, and bareback was more challenging than riding with a saddle, or so she assumed. Out of all the things the island imported or salvaged from the mainland, why no saddles?