by Alex Flinn
Sharp nails pierce my arm. I look, and the fox is baring its teeth at me.
“Please,” I say, “I just need—”
“And I need that bird. I may be a once-human, but I am currently a fox, and right now, I’m feeling a bit rabid. Go, and don’t come back without that bird.”
I make a final reach for the cloak, but the fox lunges at me, and I’m forced to stumble out of the Dumpster, empty-handed.
I hear noises near the hotel entrance. I stumble around the other side, toward the street. If I can just cross it, I can escape.
Then, in the moonlight, I see a gleam of golden feathers.
“Looking for this?” Norina’s voice says.
Chapter 22
“What? No, um . . . I wasn’t looking for anything. I was just . . .”
“Pawin’ through mah Dumpster for fun?”
“No, I was . . .” Talking to a fox? “I guess, actually, I was looking for something. My retainer. That’s it. My retainer. I left it on the plate before, when you brought me dinner.”
Good. That’s good. Glad her uncle wasn’t the one who found me. I notice the bird and cage are both completely quiet now. Stupid bird. Still, I smile. “Guess I’ll look in the morning. I’m tired.” I yawn and start to walk past her. I know I won’t be here in the morning.
“You’re lyin’.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You weren’t wearing any retainer when I brought up your food. I’d of noticed. Besides, your teeth are crooked.”
She’s got me there. “It’s an expander.” I quicken my steps. Please don’t follow me.
She laughs. “What I think is, you came down to steal this here bird, and then, when you heard me coming, you used that magic cloak of yours to get outta there.”
I’m almost inside, but at the words “magic cloak,” I stop dead. How could she know? How did she find out?
She points at my startled face, and laughs. “Gotcha, huh?”
I rearrange my expression and manage a laugh that sounds more like a cough. “Oh yeah, you’re pretty funny.”
“I didn’t mean funny. I mean, I figured you out. See, when I saw you the first time—when you came in the bar two days ago—I thought I was imagining things. I mean, how often do you see someone in a magic cloak?”
“Never. Magic cloaks don’t exist.” But I know I’m caught.
“See, I wasn’t drunk like the rest of the folks there, so I saw you. But when you left, I figured that was that. Then, yesterday, you came back. I thought maybe it’s fate. And just now, when I saw you pop into the garbage, I was sure.”
Why did I have to go to the Dumpster? The cloak could have taken me back to Miami. To Key West. To the South of France. I need to start planning this stuff out better. But considering I’m going to end up in jail or dead, I guess it’s too late now.
“Look, I’m sorry. But you’ve got your uncle’s bird back, so can you let me go?”
“I don’t want the bird. I want something else.”
“What else?” But I know what she wants. She wants the cloak, and if I have to, I’ll give it to her to get free. But first, I’ll talk her into giving me the bird too, in exchange.
“I want you to take me someplace with that cloak. If I’m gonna let you get away with bird-napping, I guess I won’t have a job here much longer. So I want you to take me home to South Carolina.”
“Take you?” She doesn’t even want the cloak. She’ll give me the bird, and she doesn’t want the cloak back? What luck.
Strange, though, that she doesn’t seem to think a magic cloak is unusual at all, or want it for herself.
I push the thought back. She’s a country girl. She’s nice and trusting. She just wants to go home. I can take her and be back in a few minutes to give the bird to the fox.
Victoriana warned me against letting anyone else use the cloak. But what choice do I have? I’m nabbed. Nailed. I have to go along, or I’m done for anyway. “Okay.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes, but I have to get the cloak. That’s what’s at the bottom of the Dumpster. And I do need the bird.”
“Ah, what the heck? Uncle Sam’s been giving me less than minimum wage anyway.”
“And I need some privacy,” I say, because I can’t very well have a conversation with a fox in front of her.
“Privacy?” Her blue eyes narrow. “How do I know you’re not gonna ditch me?”
I think a second, then hand her my backpack. It’s got everything in it except the clothes on my back, the money, and Meg’s ring, which I keep in my pocket. “Hold on to this. It’s got my I.D. in it. You could find me.”
She looks down, thinking. “All right. But I’m gonna be back in five.” She hands me the golden cage with the sleeping bird inside.
“Five minutes.”
I have to work fast. Once Norina disappears around the corner, I run to the Dumpster, planning to bang on it to rouse the fox. But he’s already out, dragging my cloak in his teeth.
“I’ll take that,” I say.
“And I”—he gestures his paw toward the bird—“will take that.”
I glare at the bird. It’s sleeping now, as before. Stupid bird. I’m glad to be rid of it. But I say, “I need some information first, and quick. She’s coming back.”
“Right. The frog left Key Largo. He knew he was being pursued, so he got in a trailer that said the ‘McDougal Family.’”
“How am I supposed to find that? They could be anywhere.”
“It also had ‘Big Pine Key National Key Deer Refuge or Bust’ written in shoe polish on the windows.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Wish I was. Anyway, that was several days ago, so they should be there by now. The ranger at that park is named Wendell. He might be able to give you some information.”
“You’re sure? It sounds too easy.”
“I don’t know how easy it will be to find one frog in a huge nature preserve, but that’s the information you needed. Now, give me my bird.”
There’s nothing to do but put it in front of him. I wonder what he wants with it. To eat it, maybe. But he only opens the cage door with his paw and plucks a single feather from the bird’s tail. He closes the door back up. “You can take it back now.”
“That’s it?” It’s hard not to scream. “You needed a feather? Why couldn’t I have gotten the feather instead of spending two nights in this place and getting caught stealing?”
The fox shrugs his furry red shoulders. “It’s a test of worthiness, for you and for me. If you want a princess, you have to prove yourself. However, there is one final thing you may do to show your gratitude.”
“What’s that?” I’m not feeling very grateful.
“You could kill me.”
I hear a whoosh of a car on U.S. 1, but it passes and there’s silence.
“What?” I must have heard him wrong.
But he repeats, “Kill me. I left a knife in the Dumpster. If you cut my throat, it would answer my fondest desires. I’ve done my best to help you. Now grant my wish to die.”
“But why?” My hand’s shaking, banging against the birdcage.
“I’m a man, living as a fox. Do you need another reason?”
“But maybe you’ll get changed back.” It doesn’t make sense. Why did he need the bird’s feather if he wanted to die? None of it makes sense.
“It’s been a long time. I have no hope.”
I can’t picture myself killing a fox. I don’t hunt. No one hunts in South Beach. And even when we had to dissect a virtual cat in biology class, I felt sick to my stomach. This isn’t just any fox either. This is a fox who’s really a man, so killing him would be like murder. I can’t do it. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” The fox turns his back on me.
“I’m sure things will work out.”
“You have what you want. Now leave.”
“But I didn’t want to—”
“Go!”
So I do. I don’t even take the bird with me. Sam will find it himself. I take my cloak and leave.
When I get around the building’s side, Norina’s waiting there, close enough that she could have heard. But, of course, she couldn’t understand the fox. She didn’t have the magical earpiece.
“Ready?” I say too cheerfully.
“Am I ever!” She grins and looks at the cloak. “How’s this thing work, exactly?”
I remember not to be stupid. “Well, first, you give me my backpack.”
She does. I look through it. Everything’s there. “Okay, then.” I pull the cloak around my shoulders, then hers. As I wrap it around both of us, I say, “What you have to do is wish where you want to go. But you need to be really specific because otherwise—”
And before I can finish my sentence, we’re someplace else.
Chapter 23
Whilst he was sleeping she took the cloak from his shoulders, hung it on her own, and wished herself home again.
—“The Salad”
I’ve never been to South Carolina before. Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble visualizing it. But I kind of thought there’d be light.
There’s none. No light, and hardly any air. It feels like the time when I was eight and got locked in the storage closet. Except, that time, there were at least the shoe parts, pieces of leather, something familiar. I feel around me. Nothing to my left. To my right, I feel someone. Norina. She’s moved away from me.
“Norina, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry. It’s really dark here. Anyway, you didn’t let me finish. I was going to tell you that you need to be really specific about where you want to go. Like, you can’t just say you want to go to South Carolina or even just the town. That’s how you end up underwater or in the middle of the street or wherever we are now. You have to wish exactly where you want to go.”
“I understand.” Norina’s voice sounds different. Older, maybe. But things always sound different in the dark. I wonder where we are. A cave, maybe? My eyes aren’t getting used to this darkness. It’s darker than dark here.
“Anyway.” Try to stay calm. “If you come over here, we can use the cloak again, and go exactly where you want to go. Your parents’ house or something.”
“That von’t be necessary.”
Von’t? An icy chill prickles across my arms. I gather the cloak closer. That’s when I realize I don’t have it anymore. Norina must have grabbed it. “Norina, I think you have my . . .”
But I stop. I know there’s no Norina, never was. I remember Victoriana’s words: Smarter men than you have been tricked. And her description of the witch who dressed up as a village girl to cast a spell on Prince Philippe. I hear a match strike, and I know I’m in the presence of that very same witch. The darkness is because I’m underground.
A circle of light grows around her, revealing the hooked nose and humped back of a crone. Sieglinde. She’s real.
“We’re not in South Carolina, are we?”
“Of course not,” the crone says. “Ve are in Zalkenbourg. But it is no matter. As soon as Siegfried comes, you vill be novere at all.”
“Siegfried?”
“My son, Siegfried. You have seen him, I believe. He rides a motorcycle.”
Yeah. I’ve seen him.
“Of course, I could kill you myself, but Siegfried vishes to do the honors. He vas in grave trouble ven he failed to kill you in Miami, so I promised that I vould vait for him.”
Oh. Well, as long as that’s what he wants.
“Thank you for the tip about being specific, by the vay.” She pulls the cloak around her. “I vish to be aboveground, in the house, in the kitchen.”
She takes the candle with her when she goes, so I’m in darkness again.
Chapter 24
I’m in Zalkenbourg, underground, waiting for some scary dude named Siegfried, with no cloak. I’m a dead man, and I’m not even a man yet. I’m just a kid. I think of every regret I have in the world, not saying good-bye to my mother, lying to Meg, going on this dangerous quest at all.
I hear noises, scratching. Is it Sieglinde or Siegfried? No. It’s just rats. And not the helpful, talking kind either. The kind with rabies.
I’m. So. Dead.
The place smells like dirt and rot. I feel the air being sucked from my lungs, and with the air I have left, I start praying, praying for my mother to be okay, for her to survive without me.
If I die here, no one will ever know what happened to me. I’ll be like the used-to-bes, people who vanished without a trace.
I step on something small. Probably a bug. But maybe, just maybe it’s the matchbook Sieglinde had.
I fall to my knees, looking for it. Light would be good. I don’t find a match, though. I feel in my pocket on the impossible chance I have anything that will help me, but all I find is a ring. Meg’s ring. Regret surges through my veins. I’ll never give Meg’s ring back.
That time I got locked in the storage closet, I panicked. I heard the door click locked behind me, and immediately, I felt my lungs collapsing, like now. I couldn’t even scream, so I passed out in sheer terror. My mother found me an hour later. Meg had told her that sometimes, when we played hide-and-seek, I hid in that closet. She’d saved my life.
I’ll never see Meg again.
I slide the ring onto my finger, remembering her giving it to me, for luck. I could use some luck now. I continue feeling around the room. Maybe there’s a trapdoor I’m not seeing. Or maybe I’m not really underground, and there are windows. Maybe.
“Hey, where am I?”
I freeze at the voice. She’s back. The witch.
“I don’t know where you are.” I try to keep my voice even. Maybe Siegfried’s not with her. “But if you give me back my cloak, I’ll—”
“Johnny?”
“Of course it’s Johnny. You know it’s—”
“Johnny, where are we? How’d we get here?”
The voice in the darkness doesn’t sound like Sieglinde’s anymore. Instead, it sounds exactly like the voice I want to hear more than any other. It sounds like Meg.
Which means it’s all a lie. Maybe I’ve passed out again, and my airless brain is playing tricks on me. Or maybe the witch is trying a new voice.
Or maybe I’m dead.
“Johnny?” Meg’s voice says.
“Stop it. You can’t make me believe it’s Meg.”
“But it is Meg.” The voice in the darkness comes closer. I shove at her, push her away. “Ow! Who else would it be?”
I flail my arms in the air, but she knows not to come close again.
“Johnny?” she says in the distance. “Who do you think it is?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe some ugly old crone who’s getting her son, Siegfried, to come kill me?”
“What?” She laughs, and it sounds just like Meg’s laugh. But Sieglinde has fooled me before. “How’d you get into this mess, Johnny? I knew when I gave you the ring, you’d probably need it. I didn’t think it would be so soon.”
“What? What ring? How’d you know about the ring?”
“I’m the one who gave it to you, dummy. Oh, I said it was for luck. But really, I knew you’d get in a jam sometime, looking for that frog prince. And then, you’d need my help.”
The room, which felt cold before, is hot now, closing in on me in all directions.
“Ha! That proves you’re not Meg. Meg didn’t know about the frog prince. I told her I was looking for my father.”
“Who won the Alabama lottery?”
“Yes, who . . .” I stop. “How’d you know about that?”
“Because I’m Meg. That’s what you told me. And I knew you were lying because there’s no lottery in Alabama. My aunt lives there, and they vote on it every few years, but it never passes. Some people drive to Florida to buy a ticket, but you said he didn’t do that. You said he won the Alabama lottery.”
They’ve been watching me, I realize. Watching me wi
th Meg, watching me talk to my mother. Maybe even with Victoriana. That explains the frog at the bed-and-breakfast. The witch was there too. She created the frog, or the illusion of him.
“Why did you lie?” she says, still using Meg’s voice.
And it’s Meg’s voice that makes me respond, makes me have to respond. “I had to lie. I couldn’t tell Meg I was looking for the frog so I could—”
“Flirt with the princess? Why couldn’t you tell Meg that, Johnny?”
“Because it . . . I don’t need to explain this to you.”
“Because it would have hurt her feelings, right? Because she’s so ugly you know no one will ever look at her the way you look at Victoriana?”
“No! That’s not it. You’re pretty. I mean, Meg is. I mean . . .” I don’t know what I mean. I’m confused from the tightness, the lack of oxygen to my brain, the walls closing in. “Can you please just leave me? Isn’t it enough that you’ve lured me here, that you’re waiting for some guy named Siegfried to come smash my head in, without having to pretend you’re Meg, my best friend in the world?”
“I am Meg.”
“Fine. Prove it. Tell me something only Meg would know.”
“Okay.” The voice is small in the darkness.
“And it can’t be something from the past few weeks, since Victoriana checked in.”
“All right.” A pause. She’s thinking, and for a moment, I let myself hope. What if it is Meg? What if she’s here? If she could help me get out? Meg always knows what to do.
“I thought of something,” Meg’s voice says.
“What?”
“Imelda Marcos was quoted as saying, ‘I don’t have three thousand pairs of shoes. I had one thousand sixty.’”
Imelda Marcos. She was the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of the Philippines, long before I was born. The reason I know about her was she owned more than a thousand pairs of shoes.
Meg found that quote when we first started collecting them. She got it off a website. No one else I know would have a clue who Imelda Marcos is.
“Meg!”
“Yeah, dummy. It’s me.”
“But how’d you get here?” Even as I say it, relief washes over me.