Belle Tower cackled. “They just may have changed the world, yes. Now you’re getting it! Heart and crown, childe—you’re far too powerful to do tricks and charms like a street conjurer in the capitol. The hat is meant to limit you, not make you stronger.”
“I almost raised an army of zombies by accident,” Sandy mused, nibbling on her lower lip.
The tree witch’s bell rang as she bobbed forward and back, chortling in amusement. “The queen of witches you are, yes. Magic comes so naturally to you, you have trouble not casting spells.”
Sandy tossed her head, her hair whipping over my face, then her hand brushing back through it and sliding against my cheek in the process. “I may have the big magic, but having small magic used against me is a pain. Can you do something to block Pincushion tracking me? You must be as powerful as her, but more experienced.”
“Any magic you do would crush hers like a fairy.” Belle Tower stomped one of her feet, producing a cracking noise and then a faint voice saying, “Squiiiiiiish.” The actual witch continued talking over her sound effects. “But yes, it’s hard for a giant to focus on something so small.”
I waved a hand again. It made faint tinkling sounds. Belle Tower leaked magic at least as much as Sandy did. “I’m still interested in the difference between Miss Sandy’s magic and Princess Charity’s magic. That sounds important and useful, and you seem to understand it.”
The tree witch’s bell rang again as she tilted her head to stare at me sidelong, scowling like she resented talking to a sidekick with a human right there. “A princess is a princess and a witch is a witch. Rich is rich and witch is witch and if you can’t snitch which witch is which that’s your own glitch, stitch.” She chortled, but sagged when she saw I was staring blankly at her, and worse, so was Sandy. “Charity can give orders Sandy can’t. They’ll come naturally to her. Orders like making Sandy an outlaw. Sandy can’t stop that, but she could curse Charity and Charity couldn’t stop that. Only Sandy would know how to do it.”
Sandy did the lip nibble. I smiled, despite myself. I was sitting on the shoulder of someone smart, powerful, beautiful, and adorable! After a few seconds of thought, she said slowly, “I think I could, yes. It might be as easy as starting a rumor. It would have to be just the right rumor.”
Her mood changed. She sighed, bouncing me with the accompanying shrug. Solemn, determined, and heroic again, she said, “But that’s moot. Charity and I will work it out, if I can get to her before Pincushion tracks me down. I’m not sure I can stop Pincushion’s magic without huge unintended side effects. I’ve already unleashed a dragon that may cause big problems Somewhere, someday.”
Belle Tower began tugging at her bark, fingers digging underneath as if the flakes were pockets. “Well, when I block that tracking spell—”
“Here,” interrupted Sandy, tone firm. The shed made of vines was one thing in this yard that hadn’t collapsed, and she reached out to touch a fingertip to one of its thorns. She winced as it cut in, and I flinched in sympathy. Seeing someone I love in pain hurt.
Sandy held out that hand toward Belle Tower, and from her finger hung a fat red drop. Humans were full of red goo! Wait, wait. There was a word for it. Blood! And the black stuff in the school must have been fake blood.
Belle Tower stared, the knothole of her mouth agape. She bowed forward as far as she could without knocking Sandy on the head, and her bell rang, over and over. “Stump and seed… I was right. You truly do understand witchcraft. Charity will not be able to think like that.”
Her left hand twisted, bulged, and spat up a wooden doll crudely shaped like Sandy. Sandy hovered her finger over the effigy until that drop of blood fell down to splatter over its belly. Nothing visible changed, but the tree witch tossed the doll into her vine mass, and those vines sucked it inside and down, perhaps into the ground itself.
The tree witch shuffled backward, her false skirts flaring. “Now you need an exit, to travel exactly where your enemies will not be looking. That I can provide easily. The Maze obeys me, and it has roots all over There… including one place neither Princess Charity nor Pincushion will ever expect.”
The gates at the end of the path snapped open. Fog blew through them, obscuring everything, and soft, wistful music began to play, accompanying a girlish singer.
Seek thou the path through the darkling of night
Stepping across the threshold
Seek thou the ways where the starshine takes flight
Here in my garden of fate untold
The voice wasn’t Belle Tower’s, and when the fog thinned, it revealed a deeply shadowed lane between wooden fences, not the Maze.
Sandy stared at the exit, her body half-turned, but she didn’t take a step. Instead she turned back to Belle Tower. “I don’t want to leave yet. You’ve been so helpful, you deserve something in return.”
The tree witch flapped a branch arm, waving Sandy away. “Bah. I helped you because you are the queen of witches, my Queen. There is nothing I want.”
Catching Belle Tower’s hand in both of hers, Sandy took a step closer. The witch’s trunk towered over her, but Sandy’s human height was enough to look down into Belle Tower’s face, frowning in concern. In a lowered voice, she murmured, “I keep hearing that all of you are what you are made to be. There is no way a performer like you was made to be a monster in a maze.”
Silence reigned, until I pointed out, “Your silence is already a confession. You might as well tell Miss Sandy the details.”
Belle Tower pulled her gnarled hand free of Sandy’s grip. She stepped away onto the path, seeming to drift in a swirl of skirts on her many feet. Darkness spread from her fingers, a cloud of blackness in which popped up brightly colored tents, and equally colorful stick figures wandering between them. “Then hark:
About the great palace of Everywhere
A party unending, a carny fair
One half in the day, one half ever night
Here, great balloons; There firework light
On both sides, the dancers, magicians, and clowns
And pilgrims who pause to see what can be found—”
I leaped to the obvious conclusion. “You want to be an entertainer.”
Belle glared at us and the illusion fwoomfed out of existence. “You could interrupt people less, you know.”
“You would be great at it!” enthused Sandy, fists clenched in excitement.
I nodded so fast my goggles flopped against the threads holding them in place. “After the shows you put on for us, I certainly agree.”
Lurching up to us, bell jangling a discord, Belle Tower hissed furiously, “Look at me, childe and clothling! I am a monster! A huge, warped creature of There, fit only to spread terrifying darkness! I am the creeping horror that keeps you awake, the nightmare that crushes your heart! I am not something people would ever want to see! I am not charming. I am not… fun.”
Belle Tower paused, for the first time looking merely sad.
Sandy put her hands on her hips, and while I needed one to hold onto her collar, I put my other hand on my hip in solidarity as my human replied, “That is insane. No one who actually met you would agree. I’m not going to argue, though.”
My heroine’s posture of disdain vanished. She pulled herself up again, eyes wide, face tight with furious, intense authority. Her arm raised, pointing out toward where I knew by instinct the capitol would be. “I banish you from this place, Belle Tower. The Maze has a new monster to haunt it, a terrifying dragon that wanders its halls and all who travel the mirror paths must creep cautiously to avoid. I cast you out, and bind you instead to the capitol of There, where you shall use your witchcraft to create wonders of light and music until such time as you break this curse by discovering your true purpose.”
With that, Sandy walked away, leaving Belle Tower to struggle with the power she’d already told us dwarfed her own. Sandy didn’t look back, so neither did I. Perhaps that confidence was part of the spell?
Figurin
g out witchcraft would surely be beyond me. Fortunately, when we were too far away to be heard, Sandy whispered, “I’m pretty sure performing is her true purpose. That’s an important lesson in magic, Heartfelt: Stack the deck.”
I made a mental note of it as we stepped through the gate into cold, damp fog. Refreshing, actually, although I could only see a few feet ahead of us on the path of dirt and the occasional flat, irregular stone. Fortunately, with the fence on either side, we couldn’t go wrong.
And we could always follow the song.
Follow thou children where will’o’wisps play
Gloaming and fog thy new friends
Follow thou children, thy pain I’ll allay
Here in my garden of silence
The flog cleared abruptly. It didn’t quite disappear, but we could see clearly the farm we stood at the entrance of. Vines crawled across a neatly plowed field, but these weren’t thorn vines. Thick and leafy, they grew fat orange fruit that lay erratically over the scenery, all of them round and some even perfectly circular. A scarecrow stood at the place the path split, leading one way to the field, and the other to a ramshackle wooden house.
Standing on stick legs she kept tightly together, the scarecrow wore a riot of puffy human clothing. The shirt and pants were constructed of patches, each with spots, checks, stripes, its own mad pattern that didn’t match any of the others. At the end of her arms, tied scarves held on one black and one white glove. More scarves were tied around her neck, and a huge straw hat concealed her whole head, at least from the back. Cobwebs covered everything, arching between every joint, coating her madly colorful outfit and concealing it almost as much as the dark of the night.
Turning, she revealed a pale face that I might have mistaken for human if the rest of her wasn’t so obviously made of sticks and clothing. With a sad, gentle smile, she held out both hands to Sandy. “Welcome, dear children, to my garden of night.”
I gasped. This could only be one person.
“It’s the Perky Pied Punkin Picker!”
Chapter Sixteen
The Punkin Picker smiled down at me, the webs clinging to her chin stretching as she leaned forward. “I’m sorry, little one. You missed the Perky Pied Punkin Picker by days. I am the Pensive Pied Punkin Picker.”
Sandy craned her head around, looking at the sunny meadows that surrounded the garden on all sides, then the starry sky up above us. “Are we Here or There? I thought the Punkin Patch was Here, but this looks like There.”
“We are There, sweet child. Mine is the duty of carving new dargons, and they must be surrounded by Here’s warmth to be as kind and friendly as can be. And yet—” She paused to swing a hand around to show off her field. “Punkins only grow in the dark of the night, so one path of There was extended far, far over Here. It is often the way, beloved child, that you need darkness to beget light.”
Well. That was an interesting theory. I wasn’t sure it made sense. Other than having only one or the other, there didn’t seem to be a direct attachment between dark and light. Actually, they existed in a whole range of light and dark giving way to each other, so if one made the other, you’d get a lot of wobbling.
As a metaphor, however, it might work. Certainly, the greatest thing that ever happened to me was because of the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Or perhaps this was philosophical? A statement meant to lead us to useful thoughts, rather than being true?
Or maybe it was just nonsense.
Sandy took a deep breath, her shoulder rolling underneath me. She let it out in a slow sigh, and seemed about to say something when the Punkin Picker held out a gloved finger and touched Sandy’s lips. Up close, I could smell the dust and cobwebs on the glove.
“You are tired, dear child. Tired in body and soul.”
Sandy’s hand closed around my middle, squeezing me as she held me to her chest and petted my cap. “It’s not that bad, but I’ve walked a lot already today, and I have no idea what time it is. I’m not used to day after day of excitement.”
“Rest, then. My garden will always be safe for you, just as under the Perky Pied Punkin Picker it would always be fun.” The Picker stepped back, an arm held out in invitation.
Sandy followed, wobbling me with her uneven steps. Oh, my. Those hadn’t been obvious before. Had she been hiding her pain, or did it appear suddenly when the walking stopped? She certainly didn’t sound pained, and instead chuckled. “I can tell by all the playground equipment.”
The what? Oops. I was going to blame my cracked eyes, severe distraction, and the darkness for not noticing. Among the punkins were scattered hunks of oddly shaped metal. One was round, and spun gradually, rather like Port Rait’s streets. Another looked like a cobweb, just a tangled mass of rods. A third was definitely a slide with a ladder leading up to it. All of them were darkened with tarnish and starting to pick up webs like their owner. Where were her spinners hiding? It’s not like spinners were small.
The Punkin Picker was, in fact, leading us to one of the pieces of equipment. Unlike the others, it wasn’t tarnished at all, but gleamed like silver in the starlight, a bench hanging with chains from a bar. It looked like a stretched-out swing.
I smacked my fist into my palm, producing the faintest floomf. “You said you took over recently. The garden is regrowing to match you, and a place to sit was top priority. Will the punkins you carve be less bright?”
Sandy squeezed the top of my head, and I tilted back to see her grin. The warmth of being appreciated lit up my heart so brightly, it lit the roughly hoed ground between us and the swing.
That distance was only a few steps, however, and Sandy turned sharply and sat down, with me in her lap. The swing rocked just a little, still enough for the Punkin Picker to also reach down and cup my cheeks in what might be the gentlest touch I’d ever felt. “You do not rest easily, do you, beloved?”
“The thoughts don’t stop coming, since Miss Sandy gave me—oh! Introductions!” Pushing all the hands away, I stood up, bowed (because curtseying would have occupied my arms) and waved at my heroine. “Pensive Pied Punkin Picker, this is Sorcerous Sandy, the great Witch. I am her sidekick Heartfelt. I don’t believe I upgrade to ‘familiar’ until she gets her hat back.”
Sandy giggled softly, and set the swing to rocking underneath us. Her hand cupped around my waist so the motion couldn’t knock me over. “Those titles are too big for us. I think we’d better stick with just Sandy and Heartfelt.”
Not just the laugh was soft. Sandy’s voice had been quite quiet. I peered up at her, adjusting my glasses for greater acuity. No one could use the word ‘acuity’ unless they were experiencing it. “You really are tired, Miss Sandy. This does not look comfortable for a nap, at least not without a pillow. I recommend me.”
She nudged the metal arm of the swing, with all its shiny scrollwork. “You’re too nice to me, Heartfelt. I know it doesn’t hurt you, but it can’t feel good.”
“I like being close to you,” I answered, shrugging off my book bag in preparation.
That ended all argument, and I spent an hour bent forward in a circle over the arm rest, pressed flat by Sandy’s heavy human head and shoulders. I wouldn’t have traded a minute of it, especially when Sandy started to snore. The Pensive Pied Punkin Picker wandered off into her dilapidated hovel and moved things out, like tools and boxes and barrels. Preparing a more comfortable bed in case she could convince Sandy to stay, I suspected.
I had to admit, it would be nice. The Punkin Patch was a silent, still place. Cool mist left my fabric beaded with the faintest cover of wetness where Sandy’s hair didn’t cover me. Occasionally a punkin bulged, but soundlessly, and all in shades of soothing grey.
Why, I could almost forget what Princess Charity had done to Pincushion.
Soon enough, and frankly I thought too soon, since she could use more sleep, Sandy yawned and sat up. One hand massaged a bare foot. She must have taken off her shoes while I couldn’t see. Wise. The shoe part, I mean.
It wouldn’t matter if I’d seen or not.
Her other hand picked me up, kneading my stuffing back into shape so I could move.
She yawned next, holding the hand not carrying me over her mouth, although I wouldn’t have minded. Then she touched her stomach, and said, “I am hungry.” She grimaced, her fingers tightening around my middle. “Oh, my. Heartfelt, we left the food box behind in the Maze!”
Picking her way over the punkin vines on wooden stilt feet, the Punkin Picker said, “Worry not, sweet child. My garden protects you. I was expecting a visit from Flops today, and you can stay as long as you like without worrying about food.”
Sandy shook her head. “No, I need to see Charity as soon as possible, but aren’t the flops those rabbits who ride carts? A cart ride to the capitol sounds like just the thing I need.”
I held up a mitten. “What she also needs is food, immediately. Humans have very few weaknesses, but extreme hunger is one of them. Is there anything left over?”
The Punkin Picker frowned, her mouth the only visible part of her face as she hung her head forward and her hat covered everything else. Several seconds later, she looked up again to tell us solemnly, “When I regrew, everything of the Perky Pied Punkin Picker’s rotted. The barrels are a mess, and surely poisonous. There may be something out back, if my poor, hurting child is healed enough to come try.”
Sandy assured her quickly, “I’m fine. Really. Just a little stiff.” She bent and extended her legs, stood up, and fitted her feet into her shoes. Yes, that all seemed in order!
Myself, my arms and legs were fine, but I still felt a bit flat in the middle. Sandy seemed in no hurry to let go of me, so whether I could walk was moot.
I drifted in Sandy’s hand through the cool, misty air as she and the Picker walked around the back of the little wooden house. All the crates and barrels the Picker carried out earlier did look green and crumbly, but behind the building two wooden boxes roughly my size sat side by side against the wall. In the night time shadows they looked grey, but fresh and sturdy.
A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There Page 23