by Erin Johnson
“You come straight to the front, you hear? And you get your own boat.”
I looked up as I stepped into the sloshing boat. I handed Maple in behind me and we plopped down on the hard wooden bench seats. I didn’t trust myself standing not to flip the whole boat over.
“Nonsense. It’s on me.” He brought the back of his hand to his mouth and leaned over. “I’ll give your boat a little extra boost of speed.”
Maple paled and gripped my hand tight as I whimpered, “That’s not necessary.”
Mick bellowed, “May your sails be full of wind!”
And, though the boat had no sails, we lurched forward. Maple and I screamed and clutched each other as the boat barreled forward, shot under a stone bridge, and swung right around a bend.
I screamed louder as the cliffside dropped off to our left and we spiraled around the outside of the mountain. The lights of the human town on the mainland flashed by in an instant, and suddenly we were winding through the streets of the city, flying under stone bridge after bridge, the voices of revelers calling down to us. The water all around us glowed with the passing underwater mermaid traffic.
We shot through a tunnel, the twists and turns even scarier in the dark. By the time the boat lurched to a halt at a second pier, off the main carnival boardwalk, my voice had gone hoarse. Maple and I sat in stunned silence, panting. My bangs had been blown back from my face and my bun now hung lopsided off to the right. I glanced at Maple. Her blond hair waved in a wispy mess around her face. We blinked at each other and at the same time broke into shaky, unstoppable laughter.
Another fair worker handed us out of the boat, and as we walked down the dock, screams made me turn. Another boat, this one brimming with people, slammed to a stop where ours had just been. I watched as they disembarked and the worker fixed a large hook onto a ring on the nose of the ship.
I craned my neck to follow the long rope attached to the hook, up and up to the cliffside high above us Maple and I turned to each other and spoke at the same time. “Want to ride it again?”
I grinned and bit my lip. “Mick did say we could cut to the front of the line….”
7
Sam
The next morning, Maple, Sam, and I bustled about the tent, getting it ready for the day. I scrubbed the butcher block workstation clean. Iggy gnawed on his favorite logs while lounging in the oven.
“You missed a spot,” he said around a mouthful of twigs.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Gee, thanks. Careful not to work too hard there, buddy. Don’t want to burn yourself out supervising.”
Iggy yawned. “I won’t.”
I shook my head and turned to hide my smile.
After I’d wiped the table and let it dry, Maple released the Frigus spell that had cooled my dough all night and I got to work making hand pies, while Maple mixed up some scones beside me and Sam perched on a stool making muffins on the other side. Seagulls called overhead, and a light breeze rustled the tent and the bunting strung across the opening. Goose bumps prickled my arms in the chill morning air. I took a deep breath and let it out, happy to be outside on this beautiful day. I floured the tabletop and rolled the dough out into six-inch circles with a rolling pin.
“That was nice of Annie and Yann to watch the booth for us last night.” I set a dough circle to the side and grabbed another chilled disk to roll out.
Maple nodded as she poured dried cranberries into a large bowl of flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients for the scones. Her whisk magically stirred around the bowl as she poured. “As much as I’d like a week-long break from Wiley, I was thinking it might be a good idea if we all rotated shifts in the tent. That way, we can all get to know each other.”
I smiled and grabbed another lump of dough to roll. “I think that is a marvelous idea.”
“I sssecond that.” Sam hovered his hands above a large mixing bowl like a conductor, a wooden spoon mixing flour, sugar, and salt together. An egg cracked itself above the bowl and dumped its yellow yolk in. He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, as if uncomfortable.
Maple smiled. “Good. I’ll work on coming up with a schedule.”
We worked on for a few minutes in companionable silence. “So… have you written to Wool yet?” I glanced at my friend out of the corner of my eye and caught her cheeks flush pink.
She cleared her throat as she spelled a fork to mix a sour cream mixture into the dry ingredients. “Actually… I have.”
I dropped the rolling pin. “Maple Bartholomew White! You wrote Wool and didn’t tell me?”
She flushed deeper and lifted her blond brows. “Well… I’m telling you now.” She frowned. “And that’s not my middle name.”
I ignored that last comment. I looked at Sam, who smiled and scratched at his upper arm, then back at my friend. “Well done. Tell me everything. What did you say?”
Maple shoved her hands into the bowl and began to squeeze and press and knead the dough against the side. She shrugged. “I asked him if he’d taken the job with the royal Fire Kingdom bakery.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. And?”
“And… I told him about our carnival booth.”
I rolled my finger. “Yeah….”
“And… I told him I’d really enjoyed the spicy qatayefs he’d made during the competition and asked if I could get the recipe.” She turned to me and bit her lip, frowning. “Was that too forward of me?”
I bit back a smile. “To ask for a recipe?”
“No… the spicy qatayefs part.”
I choked on a giggle.
She sighed and turned from me to Sam and back to me again. “You know… they’re kind of a… a sexy dessert—and I called them spicy. Was I being too obvious?”
Iggy burst into a fit of laughter from the oven. Maple turned beet red and went back to kneading her dough with more force than necessary.
I tried to stifle my smile and put a hand on her arm. “No. I think that’s perfect. It’s friendly and it’ll get the dialogue going.”
We worked on for another hour as other carnival workers filtered in and pulled up the tarps on their tents for the human tourists. I mixed up the cherry filling for the pies and spooned it onto my dough circles, then used an egg wash to fold the circles in half and seal them shut. I crimped the edges of the half circles and used scraps of dough to make decorative stars and moons that I glued to the tops with the egg. I slid a couple of baking sheets into the oven.
“Until golden brown, please.”
Iggy gave me a salute. “Aye aye, captain.”
Maple and Sam finished mixing up their recipes and set their sheets of scones and tins of muffins on some shelves in the pantry, which Maple enchanted to stay chilled until they could use the oven. In the meantime, Maple and I settled onto stools to lounge and chat. Sam stood in the middle of the tent, arms limp at his sides.
“Uh, Sam?” I looked at the guy with his gray hair, glasses, and nonexistent chin. I wanted to bundle him up into a hug and keep him safe. He was so sweet and timid—I felt like a protective mom who wanted to make sure the other kids at school didn’t bully him.
“Yesss?”
“Want some tips on human mannerisms? You do a remarkable job for someone who didn’t grow up human, but there are little subtleties, like how you hold yourself when resting, that might be helpful to learn?”
He let out a sigh. “That would be wonderful.”
I smiled at Maple and we stood to begin lessons.
“All right.” I leaned against one of the tent poles. “Humans are fidgety. We don’t usually stay utterly still, like you can. So when you’re not using your arms, maybe try folding them like this across your chest, or put your hands in your pockets.”
Sam nodded. He leaned against a tent pole and used it for a moment to scratch his back against. Then he looked from my arms to his. He crossed his wrists and held his arms up to collarbone height, his elbows sticking out wide and his hands dangling limp.
I bit my lip to keep from s
miling. Maple walked up to him and gently pulled his arms closer together so that his forearms crossed. “Bring them a little lower, across your ribs.” She smiled when he did so and gave him a little clap. “Perfect!”
Sam beamed. “Sssplendid.”
I nodded. “Same thing goes for your legs. You could cross your ankles.” I demonstrated with my back against the thick branch serving as a pole. “Or bounce your foot, or lean more onto one leg than the other.”
Sam crossed his ankles, standing perfectly upright like a ballerina.
I grinned. “Um… maybe try putting a little more weight on one leg than the other and slouching a little? Most of us have terrible posture.”
Sam leaned to the right—and kept leaning.
“Oh!” Maple jumped in, pushing up on his shoulder to keep him from tumbling all the way over. I dashed over and pulled him upright by his other arm.
“That’sss difficult.” Sam let out a little sigh. “Ssso much to learn.”
I patted his back. “And you’re doing amazing. Truly. I’m so impressed. If I had to learn to act like a snake, you’d be laughing yourself silly.”
Sam shook his head. “Snakes don’t laugh.”
I shook my head back at him. “Of course not.”
He chuckled and we ended our lessons as Iggy announced my hand pies were done. I slipped on my trusty red oven mitts and pulled the trays from the oven, setting them on a rack to cool. Sam moved to the pantry to get his muffins, and cried out.
“Sssome muffinsss are misssssing!”
Maple and I ran around the tarp that divided the pantry from the front of the tent. Sure enough, two of the spots that had held muffin batter were empty, or nearly so. Some drops of batter in the bottom of the cups and trailed across the grassy ground proved that batter had been there before.
“Something, or someone, stole them.” Maple rubbed her hands on her jeans. “Who would do that?”
I shrugged. It seemed odd. We all moved back to the front of the tent. Maple, in the lead, shrieked and spun, throwing herself into my arms. “Eeeek!”
“What? What is it?” My heart rate ramped up and pounded in my chest.
Maple buried her face in my shoulder and without looking, pointed behind her. I looked around the long baking table, and around the tent, then spotted it. A dead rat lay on the ground inside the tent.
“Oh. Ew.”
Sam stepped forward and crouched down, lifting the dead rodent by its tail and peering through his glasses to examine it.
“Oh, gosh, Sam. Should you be touching that?”
He blinked at me. “I’m sssorry. How rude of me. Would you like it?” He lifted his brows and smiled, holding it out to me.
I scrambled back with Maple still buried in my arms, glancing over her shoulder. I stifled a shudder. “Uh, no thanks.” I crinkled my nose.
“Aw, well. I’ll sssave it for later.” With a swoosh of his hands the rat disappeared. I hoped against hope he didn’t mean to save it for dinner, though, being a snake shifter, it sort of made sense that Sam would view the dead thing as food. I wasn’t about to ask though.
Maple had turned a shade of light green. “Sam.” She lurched as she gagged. “Uh, why don’t you take a break. Go, uh, wash your hands while you’re at it?”
“Sssuure.” He nodded and moved to the pantry and, I assumed, the exit that led out the back.
Maple and I resumed our spots on the stools in front of the long table covered in pastries for sale.
“Well, that was revolting,” Iggy drawled from the oven.
“Be nice.” But I didn’t disagree.
“Where did it come from?” Maple still looked green. She shuddered.
I frowned. “I don’t know. It’s strange. We’d all been standing there a minute ago. Who could’ve gotten in here so quietly?”
Maple’s blue eyes grew big and round. “You don’t think it’s… a sign from the BA, do you?”
I grinned. “The Badlands Army?” I shook my head. “I’m certainly not the expert, but their last ‘sign’ involved an elaborate fireworks display of their symbol and it scared the bejeezus out of everyone.” I tilted my head to the side. “A dead rat seems a little understated for them.” I sat on it for a moment. “Though… I do wonder if it’s some sort of threat. Iggy did you see anything?”
“Well, a big burly guy dressed all in black did sneak in here brandishing a wicked-looking knife. He set that dead rat down, cackled, and then snuck off again.”
Maple leaned toward the oven. “Seriously?”
“Oh sea snakes, you’re gullible.” Iggy chuckled.
Maple slumped back onto her stool and folded her arms.
“You’re hilarious,” I added drily. I sat up straighter. “Hey, little flame, shouldn’t you be working?”
“Not my job to bring in the pastries,” he answered.
“Oh right, my scones.” Maple stood and moved to the pantry. As soon as she rounded the divider she let out an ear-piercing scream and didn’t stop.
I leapt to my feet and rushed around the corner and immediately started screaming at the top of my lungs. Together, we screamed and stared at each other and screamed some more. There, on the ground, lay a hollowed-out Sam, nothing but semitranslucent skin left in a crumpled pile. In place of his eyes, only gaping holes remained, and his mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. Maple and I made up for the silent part by losing our shit at the top of our lungs.
“What issss it?”
The deep voice behind me sent me whirling, only to find Sam standing right behind me, fresh-faced and looking years younger. Maple and I scrambled back, nearly stepped on the crumpled pile of Sam on the ground, grabbed each other, and continued to scream. Sam looked at us, terror etched on his face, his milky blue eyes wide. He looked behind us and saw the crumpled version of himself on the ground and then exhaled, his shoulders relaxing.
“Oh. I sssee.” He held up his hands. “Pleassse calm down. I’m sssorry.”
“But you’re—” I looked from him to the other version of him, dead and emaciated on the ground.
“I sssshed my ssskin.” He grimaced, pulling his mouth wide and knitting his brows together. “Ssso sssorry to ssscare you.”
Well, that had to be the grossest thing I’d ever seen. I panted, trying to catch my breath. Maple and I leaned against each other, propping each other up. From the oven around the corner, Iggy howled with laughter.
8
A Dire Prediction
“Sorry.”
I glanced down at my foot where Maple had ever so slightly bumped it. I shook my head at her. “How dare you.”
She giggled and nudged my shoulder. We moved along in the tightly packed line, jostling against the other carnival goers outside the main tent. I looked back at the line that snaked on far behind us.
“This is a popular act, huh?”
Maple nodded and followed my gaze. “Madame Zerna’s famously picky about where she’ll perform, but she’s just as famous for being an authentic necromancer. People are packing in to get the chance to speak with their dead loved ones.”
We stepped closer to the entrance, and I squinted one eye. “Aren’t necromancers… you know… evil?”
“Sometimes.” Maple shrugged. “The way it was explained to me, a necromancer is someone who can speak with and conjure the dead. It’s like anything else, what you do with that power that makes you good or evil.”
“Yeah, I could see how the temptation to play with dead things could get out of hand. I had this kid in my middle school biology class, and when it came to frog dissection day… let’s just say he enjoyed it a little too much. He brought in these dolls’ clothes and— Whoa.”
Creepy Jeff Halligan floated right out of my mind as we stepped inside the enormous purple-and-black-striped tent. A round stage in the center lay cloaked in darkness, while chandeliers of candles hung from the tent poles, illuminating the rows of seating that circled the stage. Even with the chandeliers, the dim lighting
and mournful accordion music—not sure where it came from—created an eerie atmosphere.
While the din of the chatting crowd and carnival rides filtered in from outside, once inside, by some unspoken agreement, everyone lowered their voices and moved almost reverently down the aisles to find seats. Maple and I had arrived fairly early, and sat four rows back from the stage.
I plunked down on the wooden kitchen chair and let out a quiet sigh of relief. It felt nice to sit, after standing all day at the booth. The human daytime traffic had picked up and kept me on my feet. Maple sat a couple inches lower than me on a metal lawn chair. I glanced around and found that each chair was unique, like a garage sale in a tent. Fireflies and fairies darted among the poles and draping folds of the tall tent.
“This is incredible,” I breathed.
Maple nodded.
“I’m glad you made sure we had the night shift off.”
Maple nodded and leaned close. “I’ve always wanted to see Madame Zerna perform. Plus, I wanted to start having everyone work the booth and get to know each other.”
“I think that’s a great idea.”
Tonight, K’ree and Annie had relieved us.
“Who’s working tomorrow?” I clasped my hands together and held them up to my face. “Please keep me out of the palace.”
Maple rolled her eyes, then grinned. “Fine. You’ll work the day with Wiley.”
“With Wiley?” My cheeks burned as my outburst drew stares from the other people in the audience. “Wiley?” I repeated, quieter.
“You’re the one who said we should get to know each other better. Remember?”
“I remember.” I shrugged. “Well, you’re the one he seems most eager to annoy to death, so maybe it won’t be so bad.”
A long pause followed. “Maybe.”
I groaned, and Maple giggled.
“You will eventually have to work with him too, you know. And then we’ll see who’s giggling.”
Maple paled. “Don’t remind me.” She nodded to herself. “I’ll have to learn to reprimand him.”