by Неизвестный
They traveled along the cobblestone road this time, passing people who waved or stared curiously. Eventually, the traffic thinned to nothing as they drew near the Drylands.
They rode past the shed where Opal and Peter had left their bicycles, and then through the desert, which was much smaller when traversed on the back of a unicorn. No snakes appeared, but Opal was so careful to not stare at or antagonize them, that she barely even looked anywhere near the ground.
Max and Edwin talked about the snakes, and how Council ought to consider installing a First Aid station near the area. Edwin explained that the anti-venom required refrigeration and would expire quickly in the hot sun, so the subject was dropped.
Nobody said anything about Peter, but Opal thought of him, and by the serious look on Edwin's face, he was also concerned about his cousin. Back at the sheriff's office, Max had sent a hand-written message to West Shore, about Peter, but they hadn't heard back yet. Opal silently cursed the island for being so backward, without phones or email.
They traveled on, stepping aside for a wind devil to sweep the sand from the road, and soon they were at the leafy border of the Wetlands.
After the dust of the desert, the gentle mists shimmering down from the trees were refreshing. For a bit. And then everyone grumbled about the rain. Opal wished she'd thought to grab her jacket before they'd set out. She was still in her gauzy sleeveless top and leggings.
The tiny green birds with the yellow chests appeared, as they had before, and flitted around the group, chirping and laughing, the laughter ranging from innocent schoolchildren on recess to nasty prank laughter. The zumi birds' quick movements distressed the Appaloosa horses, but not Gumdrop, who kept plodding along.
“Hear that?” Max said to Edwin. “Buzzing.”
Opal put her hand to her ear, listening for a new sound over the green birds cackling, the pattering of water on leaves and branches, plus the horses' hooves. She detected a buzz, like the sound from a faulty overhead power box. The buzz grew louder.
A swarm of insects emerged from the trees, and as she opened her mouth to ask what they were, one of the insects flew right in. Opal closed her mouth in horror, her teeth squishing the bug. It tasted like a blueberry.
She opened her mouth again to voice her displeasure, and another one flew in.
Edwin waved his hands around his face. “Agh! Does my mouth look like a honey-castle? Scram, bluebees, or I'll eat you all.”
He didn't have to follow through on his threat, though, because the tiny green birds swooped and dove, snapping the bluebees from the air. What few remained after the birds had their feast disappeared into the forest on the other side of the trail.
Opal tilted her face up to catch some water to wash the taste down—not that it was a bad taste, but she didn't want to be tasting bluebee all inside her mouth for hours and knowing what it was.
“That was odd,” Max said. “Bluebees don't usually travel through the Wetlands, not during the day when the zumi birds are out.”
“Strange days,” Edwin said.
Opal's neck got sore from trying to catch water while bobbing up and down on Gumdrop's back, so she gave up and accepted the flavor of bluebee in her mouth.
Max made a big production of ripping off her vest and wringing out the water before putting the vest back on, partially over her head, like a hood.
Edwin said, “Hey, Max, you're getting your annual shower, whether you need it or not!”
Max said, “If I'd wanted to get tinkled on, I'd pay for the full pixie treatment and at least get my hair done.”
Opal laughed, and for a moment, she felt like an islander and not a Newface.
Edwin said, “Opal, take a note. Don't come to the Wetlands when you're sleepy, because you might yawn and accidentally drown.”
Opal laughed some more, until she realized what he'd said wasn't that hilarious, but she couldn't stop herself. Edwin was handsome, like a freakishly young substitute teacher, and she got the giggles when he spoke to her. His eyes reminded her of Peter, though Peter had green-brown eyes and Edwin's eyes were blue.
Eyes.
She thought again of poor Peter, goodness knows where and possibly losing his sight, and she stopped laughing.
The hooves of their steeds clomped along on the cobblestone road.
“This thing you saw by the cave,” Edwin said. “What made you think it was a daemon?”
“I've never seen or heard one before, so how should I know? I was scared, though, whether you want to call it women's intuition or just plain common sense. A few minutes later, when Peter heard the noise, the horrible screeching sound, he's the one who said the word daemon.”
From her position in the lead, Max turned around and looked back at Opal briefly, but didn't say anything. She turned away with a grim look on her face.
“Did the noise scare you?” Edwin asked. “Did it make you wish you were dead?”
Gumdrop stumbled and shook his head, his big gray ears flopping and spraying off water.
“Not like that,” Opal said as she patted Gumdrop on the neck, as if to reassure the unicorn there was nothing to be frightened of. “When I saw the thing, it just looked like the forest was a photograph, and a person had been in the photo, but they were cut out with an Exacto knife. Does that make sense? You do have photographs here on the island, right?”
“A few,” Edwin said, twisting his mouth thoughtfully. He also patted his horse on the shoulder, calming her, though she didn't seem to need it. “But the noise and seeing the shadow person, those were separate, right? Maybe we're talking about two distinct incidents.” He called up ahead to the sheriff. “You get where I'm going with this, don't you, Max?”
She cocked her head back. “A-yup. Separate but related.” She turned again to look directly at Opal, her hand on her forehead to keep the misty rain from dripping into her eyes. “We getting near that cave you saw? How much further?”
Opal looked around at the blue-green trees dripping cool water and the orange trees dripping warm water. There was something familiar about this section of road, and she imagined two little goats disappearing into the brush on the right.
“This is the place,” she said. “The cave's off that way.”
Edwin said, “You sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Wait, no. That was a lie. This forest all looks exactly the same to me.”
Max slid down off her horse and peered into the brush. “Time for me to use my magic powers,” she said.
“Oh, good,” Edwin said.
Max twirled around three times, making a sound Opal would describe as yodeling. She held her hands high in the air, her arms jerking. Finally, she pointed with both hands in one direction and said, “You and Peter traveled through here.”
Opal slid down off Gumdrop. “How can you tell?”
“Ancient family magic,” Max said with a wry smile.
Edwin was grinning broadly. “Great trick, Max. The singing was a nice touch.”
Opal said, “Can you teach me how to do that?”
Edwin laughed and slid off his horse gracefully.
Opal followed Max into the bushes where she saw the secret to Max's ancient family magic: a trail of impressions perfectly pressed into the mud, two sets of shoes and two sets of cloven-hoof goat tracks.
* * *
As they pushed through the bushes, Opal wished she'd paid more attention to where the little goats had been leading them, but then again, she had been trying to keep from drowning in the onslaught of water, as she was now. At least they had the footprints.
The equines had been left back on the road, because they were too big to fit through the dense brush.
Max had pulled out some fluorescent pink ribbon, rolled up like a roll of tape, and marked some of the trees so that if heavier rain washed their new tracks out, they'd still be able to find their way back.
Opal said, “Hansel and Gretel used breadcrumbs.”
Max stopped in her tracks and looked suspi
ciously at Opal, one hand on her forehead to redirect the warm rain pouring down. “What do you know of those two serial killers?”
Edwin came to Opal's defense, saying, “It's a fairy tale over on the mainland. Calm down, Max, she doesn't know.”
“That's right, I'm an idiot Newface,” Opal said, somewhat surprised to be eagerly volunteering herself as one.
They continued to push on through the bushes, relying on the muddy footprints and Opal's dim recollections of broken stumps that looked like other things. At moments, there'd be a small break in the raining foliage overhead, and the sun would hit Opal, creating a shadow that seemed to be pointing the way.
Trying to sound casual, Opal said to Edwin, “Say, here on the island, do people's shadows ever, um, do stuff? Like, point out things?”
“Sounds like black magic to me,” Edwin said. “And no, people's shadows don't do that.”
Max caught up alongside Opal and said, “Don't tell me you've been doing magic.”
“Just a bubble spell,” Opal said. “A very simple one, using a blade of grass, and—”
“I said DON'T tell me!” Max shouted. “If an illegal immigrant were to be doing magic on the island, that would be a problem.”
“What do you mean? Fines? Jail time?”
“Deportation,” Edwin said as they walked beneath a blue-green tree that poured down icy water.
“I really don't like the sound of that,” Opal said, hunching her shoulders against the pain of the near-freezing water while looking around for a warmer-hued path.
The forest floor here was covered in fallen leaves and the footprints had all but disappeared. The three split apart to search more area.
Opal's shadow, though dim and mottled by the leaves overhead, seemed to point left, so she silently led the others in that direction, hoping the dark shape up ahead was the entrance to the cave.
As they neared the shape, her heart soared, despite the torrential downpour. She did not know Hansel and Gretel were known as serial killers on Broken Shell Island, but she was able to navigate through raining trees to a cave she'd been to only once before, and that wasn't nothing.
Edwin patted her on the shoulder. “Good job, kid.”
Opal showed them where she'd been when she'd seen the shadowy figure.
Max said, “Show me exactly where you were standing.”
Opal did, then Max asked exactly how she'd been standing, and what she'd been doing there.
“Can I whisper it in your ear?” Opal said to the sheriff while eying Edwin.
“Sure!” Max yelled. “Or why don't you tap it out in Morse code, so it'll take us even longer, because I sure do love getting rained on out here and not being back in my comfortable office with my mini-fridge!”
Opal squatted down. “Like this, okay? I was having a pee!”
“Great!” Max yelled. “So we're looking for a shadow person who likes to watch people make their business in the woods. Probably some local hermit pervert.”
Opal jumped up. “No! It was something strange and magic, I swear. And then I saw it, or him, or her, again inside the castle.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Edwin said with a bossy tone. “It couldn't have been a him. Only females are allowed in the castle. The place has defensive magic that prevents males from getting in unless invited, and they never get invited.”
Water poured down Opal's face and into her eyes as she sputtered and said, “Except for the time Peter dropped in, unannounced. I guess a male got in that time, but what do I know? I'm just a Newface.”
He said, “You say you're so innocent, and yet you happen to be wherever there's trouble.”
“I'm not causing the trouble!”
“No need to get defensive. Do you have a guilty conscience about something?”
“You know—” Opal took a deep breath to get her rage force up. “Back on the mainland when a young woman turns up dead the first suspect is always the husband, or the boyfriend. Not just on TV shows, but in real life!”
He recoiled. “What are you saying?”
Max walked between them. “Come on, may as well have this little chit-chat somewhere it's not raining, like inside this not-terrifying-at-all cave whose entrance looks like a giant mouth.”
Edwin rubbed some water off his face and blinked at the cave entrance, as did Opal.
Max said, “Neither of you are suspects. Do you think I'd bring you out here to the middle of nowhere if I thought of one you was a murderer?”
“I'm sorry for things said and things implied,” Edwin said to Opal.
“Me too.”
Opal reached out to offer a hug and Edwin shook her hand in response.
Max said, “Cave? Giant mouth? Anyone?”
Edwin gave the opening another look and said, “You're right, it does look like a mouth. Could this be a fossil of something?” He inspected the edges of the opening, touching some spikes coming down from the roof—spikes Opal had figured were stalactites when she'd been there the day before. He said, “If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a dragon that's been turned to stone.”
Max said, “Clearly, then, we should all go inside, don't you think?”
“Oh, of course,” he said. “After you, Ms. Opal Button. This place is your discovery, of course, so you'll get to name the cave on the maps. What do you think of that? Pick a good name.”
Opal was still annoyed at him for things said and things implied, but she accepted his gesture and stepped in, sweeping water off her face with one hand. “How about Dragon Cave? No? Too obvious, you're right. I'll think of something.”
Opal showed the sheriff and Edwin the straw where she and Peter had slept next to the goats, and the vent at the back of the cave with the warm air. The backpack was where she'd dropped it, next to the very faint outline of a door on the cave wall. Opal picked up one of the sharpened sticks Peter had been using as a walking stick and poked at the door. “I guess the door's a one-time use kinda thing,” she said.
“Nice cave,” Edwin said. “Shame about the location. Can't see anyone who isn't a fish on legs wanting to make the trek for a boring cave, lovely though it is with the geothermal heating.”
Opal asked, “Why isn't this cave on any maps?”
“We don't have many map-makers,” Edwin said. “The old-timers got frustrated by the way things move around.”
“Things move around?”
“Not so fast you'd fall over, but, yeah.”
Edwin wandered off to look at the jagged edges of the cave's opening again.
“No sign of any daemons,” Max said. “Guess I'll head back to town and write up the report. No shadow people or daemons found today.”
“That's it?” Opal said.
Max shrugged. “We could whistle and see if the daemon answers to that. Don't know what more the good people of Ystad would expect. I came, I looked around, I saw no daemons.” She peered around the cave and kicked at something on the ground. “Daemon poop!”
Opal and Edwin came running over.
“False alarm,” Max said. “Just goat poop. Hey, Opal, why don't you collect a sample and we'll take some back to town for analysis?”
“Very funny,” Opal said. “Do you want me to show you where Peter and I went through the chalk door to the castle?”
Max started backing her way out of the cave. “I wouldn't recommend that. An illegal immigrant can't be doing magic on the island, remember?”
Edwin said, “Come on, Max. It'll be a day's ride to get there from here, and I'm worried about my little cousin.”
Max reached up and stroked the giant tooth-shaped stalactite near the cave's entrance. “One thing I don't understand is how Peter was able to get in there, if the castle's rigged to not let males in.”
“I've been thinking about that,” Edwin said. “The outer perimeter probably has safeguards, but if this crazy chalk door thing Opal told us about actually works, maybe it's a mousehole in their system. As for where Peter is, I would expect the castl
e to have a secondary detection spell, a redundancy, that picks up on intruders and ejects them back out at a safe distance.”
“Like into the ocean,” Opal said.
“Or into a holding cell for questioning,” Max said. “At least that's what I'd do, because of my vocation.” She pointed to Edwin. “You, you'd probably tax them until they couldn't afford to buy day-old bread.” She laughed and slapped her knee.
“Slapping your knee?” Edwin said. “Really? That's a knee slapper?”
She straightened up. “I should be getting back to the horses.” She turned partially away. “If someone were to do some magic when the sheriff wasn't looking, there wouldn't be much the sheriff or anyone could say about it.”
Opal looked to Edwin for guidance, and asked him, “Does she mean… I should go?”
“Someone has to bail Peter out if he's in castle jail.”
Opal said, “But what about the daemon? I don't have a gun. Max has a gun. I have nothing. I don't think I'll survive getting dumped in the ocean a third time.”
“You'll be fine,” he said. “What did you use to make the door?”
“Chalk.” She patted her wet shirt, where it might have held chalk if it even had pockets.
Edwin picked up a short stick of chalk from the ground. “What if I go with you?”
“But guys aren't allowed in the castle.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So that should put me wherever Peter is. Let's go before I change my mind.”
Max turned back to face them. “I'm not looking at this,” she said, even though she was. “I'm outside the cave right now, for the record. I'm looking for the pink markings on our trail and I'm cursing myself for not thinking ahead and bringing my rain slicker.”
“Rain slickers would have been a nice touch,” Edwin said. “Really, even just a few hats would have provided immeasurable—”
He didn't finish the thought because Opal had drawn a fresh chalk line over the cave wall where she'd previously drawn the door. The short stick had just enough to finish the three lines. She anticipated the door working the same way as before, waiting and glowing at the edges until they willingly walked through.