The Crooked Castle

by Sarah Jean Horwitz

  Carmer drove for a few moments in silence before he realized that he was probably supposed to express curiosity over what Bell’s future plans actually were.

  “I hope not” was what eventually came out of Carmer’s mouth. “Because the odds of setting yourself on fire the way you perform now are pretty high.”

  Fortunately, Bell didn’t seem to hear him, but instead stared out through the Moto-Manse’s front window at the city before them with such intense longing that it almost felt rude to watch.

  “I’m going to be a pilot someday, Carmer,” said Bell after a moment. “You can bet on it.”

  “You mean a captain?” Carmer suggested. He didn’t know much about airships, but he was fairly certain they shared similar terminology with sailing.

  “Nope,” said Bell, his dark eyes twinkling. “I mean a pilot. Airships won’t be the only machines in the sky forever, Carmer. You can bet on that, too.”

  4.

  THE ROVING WONDER SHOW

  Carmer, Grit, and Bell found themselves staring down the belly of a whale.

  They were actually staring up, and the whale in question was not an actual whale, but Carmer found he suddenly empathized much more with the heroes in the stories Grit insisted he read, who were so often being swallowed by some giant creature or another.

  “Welcome,” said a deep voice from somewhere within the bowels of the airship in front of them, “to the Whale of Tales. Your journey is about to begin . . .”

  Carmer and Bell had been the first to approach the ship, painted in such detail to look like a giant blue whale that some of the other passengers had actually screamed when it came into view. It even had full-scale fins attached to either side that bobbed gently in the cold afternoon breeze.

  The criers’ song drifted out from the Whale of Tales’ “mouth”—the hatchway where the lucky golden ticket–holders were being urged to board. The pearly gangplank under Carmer’s feet felt like standing on a set of monstrous teeth, ready to gobble him up at any second—which, he supposed, was the intended effect. The Amazifier would have liked it.

  As Carmer moved farther into the whale’s mouth, he noticed the song’s words were different from before.

  One who seeks

  A hint of mystique

  Must also be willing to pay

  The sum of a story

  The tax of a tall tale

  If they wish to be on their way.

  “What the devil does that mean?” asked a mustached man in line behind Carmer. “Haven’t we already paid a fortune to get on this thing?”

  The gentleman standing in front of the complainer, a giant of a man with a thick black beard, rolled his eyes and smiled at Carmer conspiratorially.

  The truth was, they probably had paid a fortune. Carmer and Bell stood out like mismatched sore thumbs on the roof of the Topside Hotel—Carmer in his magician’s top hat and patchwork coat, and Bell in his dusty khakis and old, crusty leather jacket. The Topside Hotel was the grandest in the city, so imposing that the entire wealthy neighborhood where it was located was called “Topside” by association. A single meal there, Carmer was sure, cost more than he made in half a year.

  The “upper lobby,” as it was called, was really the semi-enclosed roof of the hotel, where luxury passenger airships docked temporarily to drop off the rich and famous directly at the hotel—presumably so they didn’t have to mingle with the unwashed masses of the city below. Unlike Carmer and Bell, the finely dressed hotel guests’ tickets obviously hadn’t been free.

  “Shall I give one of them a good poke with my sword?” whispered Grit. She was perched on the small balcony built on the inside of Carmer’s top hat, with a small peephole to look out of. “Come on, just a little one.” She brandished her hatpin sword so forcefully it almost got caught in Carmer’s hair.

  “Only if you never want to find out what’s going on with the Wonder Show,” Carmer warned under his breath. This was their best shot at getting close to the flying circus; they couldn’t afford to get kicked off the ship now. A ticket on the Whale of Tales meant they got to fly with the fleet as it paraded into town and landed in the airfield. Most spectators watched from the fairgrounds, or made do with the roofs of the tallest buildings they could find.

  A woman in a long black evening gown and a thin lace shawl sniffed her nose at Carmer and turned away to complain to her neighbor about the cold. It was late December, but most of the hotel guests were curiously inappropriately dressed for spending hours hundreds of feet in the air on a winter afternoon.

  “They think I’m talking to myself now, too,” said Carmer glumly.

  “No, you’re not,” said Bell, linking his arm with Carmer’s. “You’re talking to me!”

  Carmer felt his cheeks grow warm and ducked out from under Bell’s grip.

  “Let’s get on with it, shall we?” muttered Carmer, and took the first step into the belly of the whale.

  There wasn’t much to see. A shimmering curtain, made of glittering white-and-silver thread, blocked the way up a set of stairs ahead. As soon as Bell stepped next to Carmer, a silver door promptly slid shut behind them. Bell scooted backward, his heels bumping into the door, but Carmer stood frozen on the spot. His breath quickened. They’d been trapped.

  “Hey, what’s the big idea?” complained Grit, racing to her peephole in Carmer’s hat.

  Vaguely, Carmer could hear the concerned noises of the rest of the crowd outside. Again, the song sounded:

  One who seeks

  A hint of mystique

  Must also be willing to pay

  The sum of a story

  The tax of a tall tale

  If they wish to be on their way.

  “The Whale of Tales,” Grit whispered excitedly. “Of course! It feeds on stories!”

  “Feeds?” asked Carmer.

  “You know what I mean.” Grit nudged him with her toe. “You’ve got to tell it a story to get in.”

  Though Carmer hadn’t paid for his ticket, he was starting to understand the point of the man behind him who’d complained.

  “Oh, I’ve got loads!” said Bell cheerfully. “But which terrifying tale of adventure to regale this great beast with—”

  “Once upon a time, I made a friend and we saved an entire population from destruction by an evil mastermind, and now he’s dead and we’re not,” said Carmer tersely. “The end.”

  “That works, too,” said Bell with a shrug, but he looked at Carmer appraisingly.

  The silver curtains at the top of the stairs parted, revealing the corridor beyond, and the door behind them began to slide open to admit the next guest.

  He wondered what kind of story they would tell, and who was listening.

  CARMER HAD NEVER been on an airship before, but he guessed that the Whale’s design was fairly standard once one got past the giant mouth. Instead of the red, squirming insides he half expected to find, the hallway was just a hallway, albeit a beautiful one. The theme of the Wonder Show’s performance was “Myths from Around the Globe,” and the hall leading to the observation deck was painted with sweeping murals so vivid that the gods and goddesses, nymphs, monsters, and ghosts they depicted looked ready to pop out of the walls.

  On second glance, Carmer saw that they were popping out of the walls. Many of the figures were made of a thin layer of painted wood sculpted on top of the wall itself, and as Carmer walked down the hall, they ever so subtly moved. The naiad Daphne, her arms already transforming into the branches of a laurel tree, leapt just a bit farther, Apollo in hot pursuit. Zigzags of lightning escaped from a brightly colored thunderbird’s eyes while its wings flapped up and down. A handsome prince waved a blade at a menacing nine-tailed fox.

  Carmer would have liked to stay in that hall of stories longer, but Bell dragged him along impatiently; others had already passed them by on the way to the observation deck ahead, and Bell wanted to snag the perfect spot to view the rest of the show.

  The deck was simple but elegant, with f
loor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. Carmer didn’t get too close, though Bell ran right up to the edge, nearly jumping onto the guardrail that kept the passengers from pressing up against the glass itself. Those rails were probably made expressly for the Bell Daisimers of the world.

  “I wonder if we’ll meet Mr. Tinka himself,” said Bell. “He’s a genius! Done more for aeronautics in the last five years than anyone else has managed in forty. We’d all still be drifting around in balloons if it weren’t for him.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, but Carmer didn’t want to dampen Bell’s obvious excitement. He remembered how it felt to want to meet the role model you idolized; he just hoped Bell’s hero didn’t end up being a faerie-enslaving villain, too.

  “I bet he doesn’t think airplanes are a bunch of hooey,” continued Bell. He was convinced that so-called airplanes—heavier-than-air aircraft—were the future of flight. Carmer had heard of a few successful attempts, but no one really thought it would catch on. Airships, filled with hydrogen or helium that made them lighter than air, were the tried-and-true method of aerial transportation.

  Then again, most people didn’t think magic was real, either. Carmer reserved his judgment for the moment.

  More people began to file onto the observation deck, oohing and aahing over the view of the city below and the other ships passing by. The show probably opened the windows in warmer weather. As it was, Carmer felt curiously warm for being up so high in the middle of winter, and the wealthy spectators’ lack of winter wear was starting to make sense: the ship was heated.

  “Do you see that?” Carmer asked Bell excitedly, inching toward the windows. Carmer tried his best to remain focused on the heating and ventilation, as opposed to the several-hundred-foot drop onto concrete below. He pointed to some of the pipes running along the frame in the ceiling. “They use the steam from the boiler for heating and running the engines. You can pump in hot air that way. A perk for the passengers and a way to keep ice from freezing on the envelope. No wonder they still tour in the winter, when everyone else has closed down for the season!”

  Bell was looking at Carmer like he had two heads.

  “First of all,” said Bell. He lowered his voice, but the other passengers were so busy mingling and pointing out the sights that no one noticed. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say more than two sentences at a time to anyone but that faerie of yours.”

  “I am not his,” Grit corrected him from inside Carmer’s hat. “But don’t feel bad. He just likes me more than you.”

  Carmer wanted to look down at his feet, but since that was dangerously close to looking down at the ground so far below them, he shrugged instead.

  “Second,” Bell continued, “we’re hundreds of feet up in the air, with a first-class ticket on a first-class airship, about to see the best flying circus in the world, and you’re excited about the heating system.”

  “It’s really very sophisticated,” muttered Carmer.

  A handful of stewards entered, carrying drink trays among the guests.

  “You think this is great,” said Bell, grabbing a fizzy-looking drink from a passing tray, “just wait until we get to the fairgrounds! Of course, the greatest part about being on the Whale is getting to be in the parade—did you know they had to close down air and street traffic on Main Street just for the show?—but—”

  “Look!” Grit whispered to Carmer, her eyes keener than the humans’, even through her peephole. “What is that?”

  A glowing shape was coming into focus in the distance—a very large glowing shape. A few of the other passengers took notice, including the big bearded man from the line.

  “Is that . . . a giant?” Carmer asked.

  So many of the guests rushed to the guardrail that Carmer was surprised the ship didn’t tilt.

  He peeked between the heads in front of him to see several human-shaped figures, taller than most of the buildings on either side of them, walking down the street. They were faceless, glowing gold from head to toe, but for all of their size, they made no sound as they trod on the earth below.

  “They’re floating lanterns,” said Bell. He reached out a hand toward the glass as if to touch them.

  He was right. Each giant was made of hundreds—if not thousands—of clusters of paper lanterns controlled by Wonder Show workers from tethered points below.

  One of the giants came so close to the Whale of Tales that everyone backed away from the windows when it waved a mighty hand—and then burst apart from the inside, scattering hundreds of lanterns to ride on the wind. Carmer risked a brief look down to see the onlookers outside reach out to catch them or to tap them upward and onward to continue their journey down the parade route.

  The menagerie came next. The Whale of Tales suddenly fit right in as balloons and airships modeled after creatures of every shape and size floated through the air. There were snail shells with perfectly proportioned spirals. There were sea horses and honeybees; gliders that Carmer had only ever read about, designed to look like delicate dragonflies but actually bigger than he was; a turtle that retracted its head in and out of its shell; even a fierce dragon airship that roared as it approached.

  The Whale of Tales joined in the procession, and the crowd inside shifted, either to wave to the spectators outside or to watch the rear of the parade, where the human element of the Wonder Show had finally been introduced. Half a dozen brightly painted gliders, along with three ornithopter pilots expertly flapping their immense artificial wings, followed just behind them. Trapeze artists swung suspended from the criers’ black, white, and gold balloons, completing death-defying somersaults with apparent ease.

  Before Carmer knew it, they had reached the end of the parade. The Whale of Tales was tethered in a circle with the rest of the floating animals, leaving the broad expanse of the fairgrounds open for the rest of the air show. In the middle of the field, a white spiral staircase reached so high it seemed to touch the clouds, ready and waiting for the first act to begin. The show’s theme song began playing through the megaphones mounted in the corners of the Whale’s ceiling.

  Come fly so high

  You’ll touch the sky . . .

  Carmer swayed on his feet, the memory of faerie song bringing him crashing back down to reality.

  “You all right there, Carmer?” asked Bell, looking concerned.

  Carmer waved him off. “I’m fine.”

  “And I’m a water horse,” Grit muttered. “Let’s find out what makes this show so wonderful, shall we?”

  WHILE BELL AND Carmer watched the swooping airships, daring barnstormers, and jumping gymnasts of the Roving Wonder Show, Grit watched the ceiling. Specifically, she watched the heating vents that Carmer had pointed out, waiting for another glimpse of the movement she’d spotted there shortly after they boarded. She occasionally snuck a glance at the spectacle outside—a red-haired girl was currently walking a wire suspended between two balloons—but she knew her best chance at investigating the show would come from the inside, not out.

  She was just about to give up, her eyes watering, when she saw it—a flash of tiny running feet across the vent, so fast a human would never have seen them. She concentrated on keeping herself invisible and slowly, ever so slowly, opened the secret door that led out onto the brim of Carmer’s top hat. She needn’t have worried about the humans—all their eyes were glued to the show outside—but she couldn’t be sure what sorts of faeries were watching.

  She had a mind to find out.

  Grit knew Carmer wouldn’t think much of her going exploring on her own, but really, what was the use in being the faerie in the operation if you couldn’t use your size to your advantage?

  I’ll be back before he notices I’m gone, thought Grit, and launched herself toward the ceiling.

  5.

  THE WORLD’S SMALLEST COWBOY

  Grit followed the faerie through the bowels of the ship, away from the other passengers. She ran along the metal framework as quietly
as she could. It really did feel like running inside the skeleton of a very large beast—one that was still alive and ready to devour her at any minute.

  There were so many crisscrossing bars and other obstacles that it was actually easier to run than fly. Having spent most of her life relying on her legs instead of her wings, Grit was a swift runner, but the other faerie—faeries?—knew the territory. Grit would catch just a glimpse of running feet turning a corner or the shadow of a small silhouette, or would hear the ghost of a teasing chuckle before the air turned utterly still again.

  Grit paused to get her bearings. She was high above a small corridor. A skinny girl with a mane of messy dark hair hurried along below, her footfalls so quiet even Grit barely heard her—one of the acrobats, perhaps. Grit waited for her to pass before calling out.

  “I know you’re here,” she said, trying her best to keep her tone light and friendly. “And you know I’m here. So we might as well introduce ourselves, don’t you think?”

  A soft titter was barely audible above the roar of the engines—they were much louder in this part of the ship—and a pair of bright wings fluttered into view farther down the walkway before darting out of sight again. They were either playfully shy or toying with her. Grit was certain now there was more than one other faerie on board.

  The question was why. What were a bunch of faeries doing on a human airship, blatantly (at least to the right audience) using their magic, and hiding from one of their own?

  She walked toward the direction she’d seen the wings, more casually this time.

  “This is an impressive ship,” she said. “You probably know loads about it. How the engines work . . .”

  She jumped lightly from her perch by the wall toward the center of the ceiling.

  “The propellers . . .” Another jump, to another level of the framework. “They’re called propellers, right?”

  The air was very, very still. Only soft echoes of the show’s musical score drifted into this part of the ship.