by Sam Cheever
“Naida! Pull yourself together.”
I focused on the hand on my shoulder. It was really big. My gaze followed the arm to the shoulder, then to the face owned by the hand and I jumped, giving a squeal of alarm.
It was a giantnormous face. “Wow, you’re big.”
Theo narrowed his eyes at me. “Naida, you were talking to the air and screaming boob.”
I giggled again. “Boob had iridescent green and purple wings.”
Mrs. Foxladle stumbled up. She held Boob on her finger.
“You found Boob!” I exclaimed.
Mrs. Foxladle giggled. “I did. Such a nice butterfly.”
Theo shook his head. “Naida keeper, I wanted to tell you that Birte and I aren’t feeling well. We’re going home.”
I nodded, patting him clumsily on the shoulder. “Be careful. It’s snowing hard out there.”
Theo nodded. “Merry Christmas, Naida.”
“Happy Yule, Theo.”
I waved at Birte and almost fell over. Another wave of dizziness turned the world into a merry-go-round.
I wanted to get off.
“I don’t feel so good,” Mrs. Foxladle said. I wrapped an arm around her. “Let’s sit down,” I suggested, guiding her to a chair. “I’ll go get us some water.”
She nodded, rubbing circles on her temples with her fingertips.
I started toward the small refrigerator in the tea area. I didn’t get far.
The music of the Soul of Christmas box suddenly stopped. The silence was violent in its abruptness. I jolted to a stop.
All movement halted around me and conversation died.
We were like figures in a video when somebody hits the Pause button.
The lack of sound made the air feel spongy and the floor beneath my feet seemed to quiver, nearly tossing me to the ground in my dizzy state. I grabbed hold of Slimy’s tank, looking down into his fathomless black gaze.
“Ribbit?” His froggy question was startling in the pure, unwavering silence.
“I don’t know…” I managed to respond. My voice echoed through my mind and bled out my ears to fall to the ground.
All the lights went out. Even the street lamp outside was doused.
The room was completely, unrelentingly dark.
The floor shook again. The air compressed against me until I felt my bones start to crunch together. The sensation was brutal, violent, and wrung a pain-filled scream from my throat.
The floor dropped out from under me and I started to fall, clawing helplessly at the air as I plummeted into the deep, velvety blackness, helpless to do anything but wait for the end of the void.
Someone else screamed, the sound raw, broken, and feral.
I never hit bottom. But after a moment, I did stop. I moved my legs, trying to figure out where I was, and my foot splashed into water.
The water felt strange against my skin. Almost like I was insulated against it.
The lights suddenly flashed on and we all stood there, blinking.
A panel of smeared glass separated me from the rest of the room. Everybody looked funny…slightly skewed, like I was looking at them through a magnifying glass, and colors were off.
I blinked and something snapped beneath my gaze. I looked down and saw…
I saw…
Oh, my goddess, I saw squatty green legs and funny looking webbed feet.
Ribbit!
A long, sticky tongue snapped out of my mouth, snatching a forgotten cricket leg off a nearby rock.
My stomach roiled. Had I just eaten a bug?
Ribbit!
My yelp of disgust came out sounding like Mr. Slimy.
I screamed.
Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!
5
Squishy Green Heart Attack
A few beats later, I forced myself to stop ribbiting. My little green heart still beat hard in my squishy green chest, but I shoved terror down and looked around the room.
SB was doing barrel rolls across the Croakies airspace, his beak open in a constant shriek and feathers raining down on everyone.
A full-blown Gargoyle stood in the center of the room, staring down at his boulder-like hands in wonder. He had a bright red feather balanced on one rocky shoulder.
Mrs. Foxladle was looking at her hands like she’d never seen them before.
Mr. Peabody stood a few feet away from Slimy’s…my…tank, his faded gaze sliding to mine in question.
Air sifted past on the thrumming sound of massive wings, and my pulse picked up in remembered panic. My gaze jerked toward the ceiling, to the silver dragon perched atop the bookshelves, head hunched against its chest in the limited space. The dragon’s wings were tiny in relation to its long, sleek body, but they were still huge and crunched atop the bookshelves they were in danger of ripping the tiles down on my old-fashioned tin and plaster ceiling.
The dragon looked dazed, its beautiful eyes slightly unfocused. That was a calamity waiting to happen.
I looked around for Theo, hoping he could help Birte rein in her magical form and return safely to her human shape.
He was nowhere to be found.
Panic threatened to jumpstart my nervous little green heart again. I was looking at a full-blown disaster with the potential to become cataclysmic. Obviously, somebody had released some kind of spell into the party. If I didn’t do something fast, people were going to get hurt. And then there was the fact that my human friends were likely to drop dead of heart attacks when they fully comprehended that they were looking upon the creatures of mythology. Some of them no doubt terrifying to the unprepared mind.
I looked for Lea, finding her standing near the dividing door, her pretty turquoise gaze blank and blinking. She kept swallowing as if something was caught in her throat and, as I watched, her tongue shot out and swept the air in front of her.
Without warning, the Soul of Christmas music box started playing again. I glanced toward the tree, seeing the tiny box nestled in a fold of Lea’s thick scarf. At least that was still safe and working. Maybe the music would soothe everyone and keep the potential carnage to a minimum.
A door slammed, dragging my gaze back to Lea. A strand of her light brown hair blew away from her face, and I realized the door I’d heard slamming had been the dividing door.
What the…?
The dragon’s head jerked up and smashed into the ceiling, putting a nice dragonhead-sized dent in my pretty tiles.
“Ribbit!”
The dragon shook its head, roaring, and took a step, its enormous, clawed foot hitting only air as it stepped off the narrow bookshelf. The enormous creature teetered there for a beat and then dug its claws into the shelving, tearing huge chunks out of the highly polished wood.
“Ribbit!” I objected.
SB shot past the dragon, flying straight, if a little wobbly still, and the sleek, silver head shot up again in surprise, bashing another dent into my ceiling.
I sagged down into my fat, squishy body, depression making me limp. “Ribbit…” I sighed.
“Naida!”
I twitched at the sound of my name. My black gaze climbing upward. I jerked in surprise, hopping sideways and splashing into Slimy’s little pond as SB landed on the edge of my tank.
“Naida, is that you?”
I’d never realized how terrifying the parrot was before. What if it decided to attack? I had zero defenses.
Unless I whacked it with my tongue.
Bird blisters!
Then I realized who was speaking to me. I jumped in excitement. “Lea?”
Lea SB tossed her colorful head. “Yeah, it’s me. Thank the goddess I found you.”
“How’d you know it was me?” I asked my friend.
“I saw you hopping around croaking at the dragon when it dented your ceiling.” She laughed, but it came out as a squawk.
“What kind of spell is this?” I asked my friend.
“I’m not absolutely sure, but I think it’s a ‘You’re me but who a
m I?’ hex.” She danced around the edge of the tank, lifting her wings. “We need to find Sebille.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s typically a Fae spell.”
I had a horrible thought. “You don’t think that Hobs…?”
The parrot’s head cocked back and forth as if Lea SB was trying to shake it in the negative. “It’s unlikely. This goes well beyond mischief. There’s real potential for deadly results here, Naida.”
Gosling goobers!
As if the Universe was inspired by her suggestion, the dragon roared again and lifted its wings, taking another step and falling off the shelves. The enormous magical creature pounded its wings in a frantic tempo, but there wasn’t enough room or time for it to catch air and it became a giant, silver missile headed right for me, Lea, and three other guests who stood nearby.
“Ribbit!” I screamed in warning, catching the attention of the Gargoyle, who’d gone from examining his hands to knocking on his knees like a physician testing for reflex reactions.
The Gargoyle straightened in a jolt and, seeing the dragon heading toward Mrs. Foxladle, threw himself into the air and snagged the panicked creature around the middle, landing in a crouch. He held the big creature above the ground in his rock-like arms, grunting with the effort. The impact of their landing shook my glass tank and liquid trickled to the ground beneath me.
Oops! Did I do that?
Rhonda ran toward the Gargoyle, ducking the dragon’s flailing claws and wildly whipping wings. “Bring her in here!” the Banshee screamed, running toward the connecting door and wrenching it open.
“Buzzard belches!” I exclaimed in a voice only Lea SB could hear. “Can everybody open that door?”
The parrot hopped up and landed again in a spray of feathers. “Something hinky’s been done to that lock.”
“Ya think?” I croaked.
The Gargoyle took a step, groaning loudly with the effort of holding onto the writhing dragon, and barked out a yelp of pain as one of the creature’s claws raked along his side.
The sound startled the dragon into another roar. The terrorized creature belched a thick ribbon of fire into the air, directly at Mrs. Foxladle.
“Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!” I screamed in panic.
At the last second, the Gargoyle managed to wrench the dragon sideways, and the flames missed the elderly woman by mere inches, searing a trail down a row of magical texts instead.
“Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!”
I really needed to pull myself together.
A head shot up from the central area of the bookshelves. It was a massive head. The size of a small car, massive. Theo! Shoulders the width of the center aisle rolled under the huge head, and the giant started to move. The building shuddered under his thunderous footsteps. Glass rattled in the window frames. Books fell from shelves and hit the floor with ominous ripping sounds.
Smoke filled the open space at the front of the store. Theo pushed through like a terrible, mythical creature cutting through the fog on a Celtic battlefield. He lifted his head and his nostrils flared. It was clear he was in his most basic, most feral form and, depending on whether it was actually Theo at the wheel or one of the others who had no idea what it meant to be a giant in the human world, we were looking at possible total devastation.
Especially if the boyfriend part of Theo’s brain took exception to the current manhandling of his girlfriend, the dragon.
Theo’s eyes found the writhing dragon, who took that moment to release another thick ribbon of flame, barely missing the Gargoyle and threatening to roast a parrot for dinner, and he roared.
People screamed, running for cover as the threat of imminent crushing, maiming, and gastronomic disaster finally filtered through their magic-fogged brains.
I hopped into the air and landed with a splash.
Yeah, that was totally unsatisfying as a reaction. “Lea!” I screamed. “We have to do something fast.”
“I can’t spell without fingers, Naida,” she squawked out.
Mr. Peabody ran over to the tank, looking down on me with panicked eyes. “Naida? Is that you?”
“Ribbit.”
He glanced at the parrot. “Is this Naida?”
“Yes,” Lea squawked in SB’s voice. “And who might ye be, ye scallywag?”
Oh, no! Blackbeard’s magic was infusing SB. We’d soon need a pirate gibberish translator to understand Lea SB.
“I’m Grym.”
Grym! That was good. Or was it? In Mr. Peabody’s body, he wasn’t much use in corralling a giant or a dragon.
Near the dividing door, Rhonda was looking at her hands and scrunching her face as if she was trying to call magic but couldn’t. I was pretty sure the only magic Banshees had was in their scream. They could immobilize whole masses of people with a single, mind-numbing scream.
That’s it!
“Tell Rhonda to scream,” I told Lea.
The parrot bounced its head in a movement I interpreted as agreement and took off, flying directly toward Rhonda.
Theo’s hand shot out and fingers as long as one of my human arms grabbed for the parrot, probably intending to make itself some poached parrot for Christmas dinner. Fortunately, Lea SB was getting the hang of her wings and shot skyward, avoiding the clumsy grab.
The dragon shot fire at the parrot and Lea swung sideways…too fast…falling into a barrel-roll and smacking up against the top corner of a bookshelf.
I winced…well twitched…as I watched her slide to the ground and land in a heap.
Fortunately, Grym was a quick study. “Scream!” he yelled at the Banshee.
Rhonda stopped scrunching and straining, and her eyes lit up with understanding.
She stepped toward the dragon, tilted her head back, and opened her mouth.
And opened it.
And kept opening it.
Her jaw unhinged until her mouth was the size of a dinner plate, filled with razor-sharp teeth and an oversized, forked tongue.
Ew!
I’d read about Banshee screams. Their mouths were built to create a wide range of pitches, aided by a tongue which was shaped like a tuning fork, and several rows of teeth that focused the scream as it emerged.
But reading about their screams had done nothing to prepare me for one.
I suddenly realized that I needed to do something to keep from hearing the scream, or I’d be immobilized too.
“Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!” I screamed at Grym. He frowned and then seemed to understand. He grabbed a teacup from the counter behind him and dropped it over my head.
Blades of sound sliced through the room.
Each fat, overstretched note undulated with unique power, lifting, diving, slicing deep. The scream built inside my head until it pulsed against my brain, puncturing holes in it like a thousand tiny needles. There was no pain. Not really. Only an unrelenting pressure that filled my skull until it felt like it would explode.
Then the sound changed. It dulled to a thunderous throb, pounding, pounding, pounding until I was sure it had turned my brain to mush.
My eardrums shrank away from the sound. Fluid ran from my nose. I prayed it wasn’t blood.
In the blink of an eye, the throbbing eased into a low, rhythmic hum. My limbs softened. My mind-numbed. And it was suddenly all I could do to blink. I tried to move one of my bent, green legs and it was like moving through quicksand.
But my leg did move.
And, a moment later, my teacup lifted, and I was looking up into Rhonda’s angry face.
“Ribbit?” I asked.
Rhonda rolled her brown eyes. “Quit screwing around, Naida. Your party’s a mess. We need to get rid of this spell and find out who’s doing this and why.”
Hello, Sebille.
6
Use Your Words…
Nearly everyone in the place was locked into inactivity, their open eyes unblinking, and their limbs frozen into the positions they’d been in before the scream.
&nbs
p; I threw myself against the smeared glass a few times to let Sebille know I wanted out of the tank.
She rolled her eyes again. I hoped Rhonda’s eyelids were ready for the workout they were about to receive. “Use your words, Naida.”
“Get me out of here, you derk!”
“Tisk,” she said, grinning. “Language.”
“Buffalo boohind! I’ll language you, Sprite. This party was all your idea. Now, look what’s happened!”
“Calm down, Naida,” said a gentle voice. I turned to give Grym Peabody a glare. “You zippit, Gargoyle. Why couldn’t you have grabbed a body that could do magic?”
I knew I was flying completely off the chain, but I was at my wits end.
Lea SB landed heavily on the edge of the tank. I was surprised she’d been unaffected by the scream. “Avast ye maties. Arrr, what folly is this?” she asked.
I translated that to mean, “Why’s everybody playing statue?”
“Banshee scream,” Grym Peabody offered.
“Ah!” she said. “Genius.”
“Thanks,” Sebille Rhonda and I both said.
I gave my assistant a froggy glare for taking the credit.
“Why weren’t you trapped by it?” I asked Lea.
“I was adrift in Davy Jones locker.”
In other words, she’d knocked herself out when she hit the shelves. Good thing SB’s body was already dead. I looked at Grym and Sebille translated my question for him.
He shrugged. “I plugged my ears and hid in the closet.”
I turned my blank froggy gaze to Sebille. “I guess you don’t have any magic to call in that form?”
Sebille Rhonda grimaced. “You’ve seen the extent of it.”
We all looked at Lea SB.
Her feathers ruffled. “Arrr! What do ye propose I do with these?” She lifted a claw and almost toppled backward off the tank. Fluttering her wings, she managed to stay upright but she overcorrected and fell into the tank with me.
I really wished I could roll my eyes. I settled for whacking her on the beak with my tongue.
“Urgh! Reptilian blackguard! It’s the plank for thee!”