The Gentleman Thief

by Kate Gragg

  “You better put this on,” Lydia said, holding up the chest plate. “Somebody might see you, and besides, there are things in here that will make you glad you have it on, believe me.”

  Hank popped out through my collar just as I was tightening the last buckle, his hem fluttering with exertion.

  “If you make trouble, I’ll feed you to the first beast we encounter,” I said, tying him around my wrist.

  Lydia looked at us in alarm.

  “Whatever was in my lungs is now in this handkerchief, and it’s got a mind of its own,” I explained.

  “Ah,” Lydia said, thinking for a bit. “Keep it away from my horse.”

  We walked through the woods in companionable silence for a bit, Lydia leading her horse by its reins. The horse was better at clambering over the roots than I was, but that didn’t make me tempted to ride it. It was no Gladys.

  “Have you thought about what sort of wrong you’d like to right?” Lydia asked.

  “That’s all I’ve been thinking about,” I said. That wasn’t true. Lydia had piled her hair up on top of her head, but one tendril had escaped and was trailing down her back, drawing attention to the graceful lines of her neck and her lithe, capable shoulders, so I was mostly thinking about that.

  I was staring. I had to stop.

  “But I can’t really think of anything that’s wrong here,” I said. “The trees seem fine. No complaints from the squirrels. A flower got mad at me earlier, but I’m told that’s normal around here.”

  “Everything is wrong,” Lydia said. “Something terrible happened here last year, and nobody will admit it. I talked to those boys we freed, and they said something was off the whole time.”

  “No offense to those guys, but they got trapped in rocks. It’s hard to see how that could be foul play.”

  “Don’t you get it? They would have been freed in a couple hours if the bird–”

  “Gladys.”

  “If Gladys had been loose, but she was trapped too. How does that happen? I think somebody tied her up and left her under that waterfall knowing nobody could escape the crystals as long as she was out of the picture.”

  “That seems… elaborate,” I said.

  “We could investigate. If there was somebody sabotaging the games last year, they’re probably doing it this year too. If you stop them, that’s a pretty big wrong righted.”

  “It’s a pretty big if, too,” I said.

  “Come on, Joe, what better idea do you have?”

  “I don’t really go in for this hero stuff, Lydia. I’m just a penny-ante thief. I spent half of last night wondering if I should just shove some silverware down my pants and run out of there. I’m way out of my depth, and I don’t even swim.”

  “Somebody did something terrible last year,” Lydia said. “The island’s still reeling from it. I can feel it. Everything’s been off all year, and finally we have a chance of figuring out why. Aren’t you at all curious?”

  “Never.”

  “What’s more heroic than solving a mystery?”

  “Earning that knighthood, taking the money, and living long enough to spend it,” I said.

  We had stopped without realizing, at the edge of another one of those spectacular vistas. The forest gave way to a landscape of rolling green hills dotted with wildflowers in every color. I breathed easier just seeing it. There was even, bless my lucky stars, an actual road. Just a dirt path slicing through the tall grass, only a little wider than a wagon cart, but not a root in sight. My poor toes could have cried.

  “Is that an orchard over there?” I said, pointing to an orderly stand of trees a little way down the road. Lydia shaded her eyes with her and followed my gaze, then her demeanor changed.

  “We shouldn’t linger here, come on,” she said, leading her horse back toward the forest.

  “Why not, this seems way better than that deathtrap,” I said.

  “You really don’t get how things work around here, do you Joe?”

  “Of course I don’t,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time. Which is exactly why I vote for taking the nice clear road in the sunshine instead of hacking and slashing our way through that mess that somebody should have turned into firewood a long time ago.”

  “Oh please, will anyone help me?” a high-pitched voice sobbed from somewhere in the direction of the orchard. Lydia tensed up, and her horse snorted and started pawing the ground.

  “Oh ho, what’s that, sounds like a wrong that needs righting,” I said.

  “So now you do go in for hero stuff?”

  “When it’s easy, which this will be. You watch.”

  I strode down the road brandishing my sword and called out in my most heroic voice.

  “Wait right there, fair lady! I’m here to help you!”

  “Don’t make any promises!” Lydia shouted. I ignored her. I heard her curse and get up on her horse and ride away. I ignored that too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The orchard was a lot bigger than it looked at first. I followed the path as it wound past dozens of rows of trees, first ordinary things like apples and pears, and then fruits I wasn’t sure grew on trees, like grapes and strawberries, and then things I definitely knew didn’t, like eggs and little mechanical wooden clocks and ladies’ hand mirrors.

  “You may stop and pluck any fruit you like if you wish to refresh yourself, brave hero,” said the voice. No matter how far I walked it never seemed to sound any closer, but I could always hear it just fine.

  “Uh, no thanks,” I said, not sure what direction to face. “I’d rather just head straight to you. Am I uh, getting any closer?”

  “Oh, quite close indeed, brave hero.”

  Then I tripped and fell, which was infuriating. I’d been watching where I was going, just like in the forest. There may have been a nice path here, but I was still out in nature, and you can’t trust nature. I was learning the hell out of that.

  I picked myself up and looked around, but there was nothing. Like, truly nothing. The path looked as clear as it had all morning. Not even a twig.

  I started to walk again, and again, smack. Something invisible was blocking my way. I reached a hand-out in front of me and felt something hard and smooth, like…

  “Glass?” I said, dumbfounded.

  “Oh, it’s very slippery, I’m afraid,” the voice trilled. “You’ll have to be awfully careful climbing it.”

  “Climb it? Why the hell would I–”

  I looked up and gasped. I was standing at the base of a huge glass hill, and on top of the hill was a little golden castle. It couldn’t have been more than one room, though each corner was decorated with a tiny turret, each turret flying a tiny purple flag with a golden crown on it.

  “Do hurry,” the voice said, sounding stricken again. “I don’t think I can bear to wait much longer. A hoo hoo hoohoo.”

  “Uh, before I do, do you have a wrong that needs righting?”

  “Oh yes! A most wretched wrong, a hoohoo hoo.”

  “Okay, uh, coming right up.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair and looked around, trying to figure out a strategy. I didn’t see anything handy except the dirt road, so dirt it was. I grabbed a handful and rubbed it on the glass in front of me so I could see what I was working with.

  The glass actually wasn’t as smooth as it first seemed, so that was something. There were ridges and fractures here and there, invisible to the eye but big enough to dig my fingers into. If I closed my eyes it would be just like climbing an ordinary wall, I lied to myself.

  When you’re climbing something really dangerous, going faster is actually safer. You want to keep your momentum up so you’re trusting your muscle memory to find the next toehold, not your dumb and frightened brain. Plus, you get to the top quicker, which gives you less time to imagine what it would sound like to fall to your death while wearing armor. Like somebody dropping a slop bucket from the top of a clock tower, I figured, not climbing fast enough.
r />   The castle was even smaller than it had looked from the ground, only about as tall as the top of my head. I could see why, too. What I’d thought was just gold paint or something was actually solid gold bricks, the whole thing. Even the flags were flying from little gold spires. I stood in awe for a second, scraping the corner of a brick with my fingernail and marveling as a sliver of gold curled up underneath it. That’s how you could tell the pure stuff, Fritz had taught me.

  “Stop that! Ahem, I mean, a hoohoo hoo hoo, thank you ever so for coming to the aid of a poor wretch like me,” the voice said. A pair of golden shutters flew open and out leaned a jaw-droppingly beautiful princess, with strawberry blonde hair and milk-white skin dotted with a spray of delicate brown freckles sweeping across her face like stars in the night sky. She rubbed a lace-edged sleeve under her tearful blue eyes and sniffed dramatically.

  I stared at her. She went in for another round of tears, each heartrending cry making her pearl-trimmed bodice heave.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  “Aren’t you going to offer me a h-h-h-andkerchief?” she sobbed.

  “I uh, don’t have one,” I lied. I was pretty sure Hank would not appreciate being handed off to mop up some strange woman’s tears, even a princess.

  “What kind of knight goes questing without a handkerchief?”

  “I’m not a knight yet, technically.”

  “Not a knight?” she cried, burying her face in her sleeve.

  “Technically,” I said, “but I am here to help. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Only everything,” she wailed, draping herself over the windowsill. I patted her on the back awkwardly, which she seemed to like okay. She sat up again, at least.

  “I lost that which is most precious to me,” she said, sniffling. “That which I can never replace.”

  “Your, uh…?”

  “My pearl!” she said, clutching a brace of necklaces that cascaded down her chest. They were all strings of pearls.

  “Okay, I’m confused,” I said.

  “Not these, silly, my good pearl. The biggest one in all the la-ha-ha-haaand,” she said, sobbing again.

  “And you’d like me to find it for you?”

  “Oh, would you?” she said, suddenly clasping my hands and batting her impossibly blue eyes at me. “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”

  “Sure,” I said, “but you’re sure you don’t want me to do anything else? Like, help you get down from here?”

  “Leave my home?” she laughed. “Oh, you silly knight. Just the pearl will be fine.”

  She pointed one long, manicured finger at me and tapped my chest, throwing me off balance and sending me sliding down the hill. The glass felt a lot rougher on the trip down.

  The princess hadn’t given me much to go on as far as finding the pearl went. I decided to assume she dropped it and it rolled down the hill somewhere, so it couldn’t have gone far. I wished I knew exactly how big of a pearl we were talking about here. How big did pearls get? One time the fish market back home had a conch shell on display that was about the size of a pumpkin, but I don’t think conches grow pearls.

  I struck out in the opposite direction of the orchard, walking along a series of low green hills that were interspersed with marshy wetlands. After the eerie stillness of the orchard the wetlands seemed absolutely deafening, with flying bugs and small, non-magical (although now that my allergies seemed to be gone, it was hard to tell) birds darting around and buzzing in my ears before flitting off to more promising locales.

  The footpath had faded away and my shoes were getting wet. Plus, my armor was heavy. I resented myself for not asking the princess for a few more details, but I really didn’t want to climb back up there. I sat down on a log and tried to think.

  Weird hill, weird castle, weirder girl. Almost certainly a magical quest I was on, which meant I might be working with different rules. Was there something knightly I was supposed to be doing? I really hoped I wouldn’t have to fight a dragon.

  I thought back to Clifton Crome, who always seemed to know what he was doing. His bit about being polite to magical birds had worked out pretty well. Maybe that was a sort of general principle I could work off of.

  I stood up and cleared my throat.

  “Uh, to anyone, or thing, or being listening, I’d appreciate any information you may have regarding the whereabouts of a giant pearl. Thank you.”

  I sat back down, feeling foolish.

  “I know of a pearl like that,” said a small voice by my foot, “but I wouldn’t give it to the princess even if I had it.”

  I looked down and saw, to my astonishment, a little green frog in a three-piece suit. He hopped up onto my shoulder and bowed. Hank bowed back, which didn’t seem to surprise the frog in the slightest.

  “Uh, hi,” I said.

  The frog peered up at me, his tongue darting out to lick his eyes, which was a thing I had not known frogs could do.

  “You’re an adventurer?” he asked. “What is your quest?”

  “A bit vague, actually. Righting of wrongs.”

  “Excellent. Find the pearl and return it to me. This will right a great wrong.”

  “So, you don’t know where it is?” I said.

  “Obviously not,” the frog sniffed. Or seemed to. I don’t think frogs have noses. “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking for it, would I?”

  “Great.”

  I sat down on the log and scooped up a handful of water from the stream to cool myself down with, then realized that water didn’t have a great track record on this island.

  “Will this water crystallize me?” I asked the frog.

  The frog cocked his head to one side.

  “I don’t think so. It doesn’t crystallize me. But then, you and I are different beasts.”

  Hank jumped around on my shoulder, pointing at the water and miming something. I squinted at him.

  “What is it, boy?”

  Hank stopped and delivered a pretty impressive approximation of a rude gesture for somebody who didn’t have fingers.

  “Sorry.”

  Hank nodded, and started miming again, with exaggerated slowness. He pointed at the stream, then cupped one of his corners and brought it up to the patch of cloth he was using as a head, undulating in a gulping motion.

  “Drink it? Are you crazy? The last time I drank that water I got saddled with you.”

  Hank nodded.

  Oh.

  I apologized to Hank for not understanding him sooner and took a cautious sip of the water. The bitterness of the water knocked me back, but I forced myself to swallow.

  Things went all strange again.

  I, but not me, was splashing in the water. Some kind of fight. The frog was there, naked and shouting, but I couldn’t hear about what. His anger amused me.

  I plucked him up, taunting him, and flung him into the grass. Then I knelt down in the water, searching for something.

  The pearl.

  It was big, easily the size of a robin’s egg, and I was careful about touching it. There was something I wasn’t supposed to think. I ran off with it.

  Then I was in the well again, the formless dark. I saw the pearl floating before me. I willed it up, up, up to the light.

  “Astonishing,” the frog said. I was still sitting on the log, but now, in my cupped hand where the water had been, sat an enormous pearl. “You must be a very powerful sorcerer indeed.”

  Hank leapt for it, but I swatted him away.

  “Thanks to you both, I’ll be off now,” I said.

  “Wait! You mustn’t give that vile princess my pearl, you mustn’t!”

  “How is it yours? I found it in the water.”

  “I… don’t know,” said the frog. “I just know that it is.”

  “What’s so special about it then?”

  “I don’t know that either. But I know that I used to know!”

  “Sorry, but talking frogs with amnesia rank a bit lower than princesses in
golden castles on the adventurer’s scale, I’m afraid.” I stood up and brushed myself off.

  “No!”

  The frog leapt up astonishingly high, flinging himself at the pearl and smacking into it face first. Then some sort of explosion happened, and when I opened my eyes, a naked man of about my age crouched on the ground, clutching the tiny, tattered suit.

  “My clothes!” he said, “What have you done to me?”

  “Me? You did this to you!”

  “Oh no no no, this is all wrong,” he said, looking at his human body. “Give me the pearl again.”

  “Wait, are you a guy turned into a frog, or a frog turned into a guy?”

  The naked man sat back on his heels and stared at me with his wide-set eyes, a faint look of panic settling onto his features.

  “I’m not actually sure,” he said.

  “What’s your name?” I asked. I figured if his name was like “Hopkins” or “Mister Bullfrog” or “Ribbit” we’d have a clue.

  “I’m not sure about that either,” he said.

  “Well what are you sure about?”

  “I’m pretty sure I feel weird talking to you without any clothes on. Do you have anything I can use to preserve a little of my dignity?”

  I reached for my handkerchief. Hank took one look at the situation and began shaking its corners at me and flapping in silent outrage.

  “Come on, can’t you help a man in need?” I pleaded.

  The handkerchief spat a puff of lint at me.

  “That’s an odd familiar,” my new friend said. “What kind of sorcerer are you?”

  “No kind of sorcerer at all,” I said hurriedly. “And the handkerchief is more of a sidekick. But back to the topic at hand. You need a name.”

  “What are you even doing out here?” he said.

  “I’m being heroic. What about Barry? You could be a Barry.”

  “You’re not in league with that princess on the glass hill, are you?” Barry said.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m ‘in league with’ anybody. I’m here to right a wrong. She lost her pearl, you helped me find it, now we can return it and that’s one wrong righted. And then maybe we can find you some pants, and that’ll be two wrongs!”