“You okay there?” came Feathering’s voice.
“Y-e-s-s,” said Willow, feeling vaguely frostbitten as they flew through cloud after cloud. She was realizing that flying on the back of a dragon was just as good as flying on a broomstick!
She lifted her arm to the sky, and a few seconds later her grandmother’s old, rather hideously lumpy green and brown quilt came hurtling through the sky. Willow wrapped it around herself gratefully. Though she knew later she’d have to “lose” it again, she was glad for its warmth.
“If you was back home, you’d be doing the washing now,” observed Oswin, his one eye peeking out of the top zipper and staring out into the distance with a scowl, his fur the color of pea soup. He swallowed, looking rather sickly.
She grinned widely. “I know.”
“I likes washday,” he grumbled. “You leaves me to sleep usually—and don’ put me in a smelly bag made o’ hair and go flyings with blooming great feathered beasts.” He groaned, then zipped himself back inside.
Feathering ignored Oswin’s grumblings. “Where to in Wisperia?” he asked in his deep, rumbling voice.
“I guess we could start by finding the tree.”
“In a forest?” It sounded like the dragon was laughing. There was a tinkling sound like a wind chime.
“I think it’ll be blue and really big.”
As she stared, she saw that there were trees of all different colors. “This is mad,” she said with a sigh, wondering how they’d find it with so many strange-colored trees around.
As they got closer to the forest, though, Feathering breathed, “Maybe not so mad. Look,” he said, tilting his head to the left.
Willow stared. An enormous tree dominated the entire forest. It was the color of blue sea glass and was about as wide as several farmhouses stuck together. It reached out to the very top of the sky and was shrouded in bright white swirling clouds. Perched at the very top of the tree was a small wooden house surrounded entirely by clouds. It looked as if it were floating on air, but she could just make out the stilts creaking softly as it swayed slightly in the wind. As they drew closer, Willow saw teapots strung below the windows filled with an array of plants, just like those they’d seen in Ditchwater.
“That must be the forgotten teller’s house!” she exclaimed, pointing.
Feathering nodded and flew toward the very top of the enormous tree. He landed on a branch the size of a large road, causing the tree to shudder and shake.
Willow slipped off Feathering’s back, her knees wobbling as she did and her hands firmly clutching her carpetbag.
Feathering inclined his massive blue head. “Who’s choosing a slightly extreme way to get out of having a bit of company. Look!”
While Willow did think calling a large dragon a bit of company seemed a stretch, she saw that he was right. A tall, spindly man wearing lots of lumpy clothing with odd bits of vegetation poking out of every pocket was currently fleeing the house with everything he could carry, including a tea set and a large brown dog with a tongue the length of a soup ladle squashed beneath his armpit. Only the man was running the wrong way, and he almost slammed straight into Willow before he looked up.
“Gadzooks!” he exclaimed, rocking backward on his heels and dropping the teapot, which slopped tea everywhere. He had enormous pale blue eyes and long wispy all-white hair, which made him look like an old man, even though he was probably quite a bit younger than her father. It was the boy from the portrait, she realized, the one with the plant that had all those blinking eyes. Except now he was grown-up.
“Um—sorry?” tried Willow, though it was hardly her fault that he had almost run into her. . . .
The man took an involuntarily step backward, as if she might bite. His mouth opened but didn’t close. Willow saw that he was wearing what looked like every bit of clothing he possessed, including a necktie shaped like a bird in flight. He also seemed to have more pockets than his skinny frame should allow—all of which were bulging, some overflowing with bits of vegetation and others that seemed to be regarding them with interest. Willow could have sworn that a leafy tendril waved at her.
Just then the man smacked his forehead, his eyes going from blue to white and back again in an instant, and Willow wondered if she’d imagined it when he started to laugh, his thin shoulders shaking. “My old room . . . the pictures . . . you figured it out,” he said with an admiring sort of laugh, and Willow wondered if he’d seen it as a vision or simply guessed. His smile faltered fast, though, when he looked past Willow and finally seemed to spot Feathering. His face went the color of ash, his eyes seemed to pop, and he silently mouthed the word “dragon” before he keeled over backward in a dead faint.
“Oh bother,” said Willow.
She took the StoryPass out of her pocket, which commiserated with “One Might Have Suspected as Such.”
“Happens all the time,” said Feathering, shrugging a colossal blue wing. “Humans always faint when they see us now—it’s like they think a cloud dragon would actually eat a human. Can you imagine?” he said in apparent disgust.
“Er,” said Willow, who was not about to admit that that had been precisely her first thought when she’d first encountered him.
“I din’t faint,” said a voice from within the hairy carpetbag.
Feathering looked at the bag and said, “I don’t think we’ve formally been introduced.”
The bag started to shake and there was a faint “oh no” sound.
“That’s Oswin,” she said. “He’s a little shy. . . .”
There was a low gasp. Then a furry tangerine head with pointed ears shot out of the bag, pumpkin-colored eyes blazing in fury. “I ain’t shy! I is a little scared of that great feathery beast,” he said, pointing with a long rusty claw. “’E don’ eat humans, so ’e says. ’E never said nuffink about not eating kobolds—but that don’ mean I is shy,” he huffed, crossing his paws. Then he shot back inside the bag fast.
Apparently there could be nothing worse than being a shy monster.
“My apologies,” said Feathering, who looked like he was struggling not to laugh.
A noise came from the floor. The forgotten teller’s eyes were open wide, yet they’d gone a strange, almost filmy white. Willow waved a hand in front of his face, but there was no response. A second later, she startled when a loud bark of laughter erupted from his motionless form, which was rather disconcerting, as his eyes were still white. A second later his eyes turned blue again and he said, “The Buzzle Wuzzle? On her head?”
He sat up, dislodging the dog, who was still tucked under his arm but who had managed to go to sleep.
Willow stared. Had he just seen her memories?
He suddenly stopped laughing, his gaze falling on Feathering, his large blue eyes growing very sad. “It just never hatched?”
Feathering nodded, his golden eyes downcast.
The figure’s eyes filled. “Well, that’s—I’m so sorry.” He blinked, his eyes went pale once more, and he was out for the count again.
“This can’t be good for him,” Willow observed.
“How ’as he not fallen off this tree?” asked Oswin.
Willow could just make out one now-green eye, observing the proceedings from the hole in the hairy carpetbag.
“Good question,” said Feathering.
“Tuesday? Gadzooks!” said the prone figure, his eyes still opaque.
“Do you think he’s unwell?” asked Willow.
“Crazy,” muttered Oswin.
A loud snore erupted from the prone figure, followed by a snort from the dog, who opened a bleary eye, then rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Then, suddenly, the man sat up again, carrying on the conversation as if he hadn’t just fainted several times in under five minutes.
“Tuesday has gone missing!?” he cried.
“How did you know?”
“I saw your memory. That’s what I do—I see the past.”
Willow nodded. Moreg had explained that.
But she never said anything about how hazardous it seemed for him. “Is that how come you fainted? We weren’t sure if you were unwell or not.”
He stood up, thoroughly affronted, and made an attempt to brush himself off, which left lots of vegetation everywhere, making him look even more disheveled. “I have never fainted a day in my life!”
Willow blinked. “Er—but—”
“You just did,” pointed out Feathering.
“Least free times,” confirmed Oswin. “Choo’d fink he’d live someplace else besides the top of a tree, if ’e was in the ’abit of fainting,” he observed.
“I do not faint.”
“O-kay,” said Willow, sharing an incredulous look with Feathering and Oswin’s shocked, now tangerine eye.
“I have visions . . . ,” said the forgotten teller, while he waved a hand in the air, only he’d picked up the teapot again, so cold tea went flying everywhere. “Oh,” he said, putting the teapot down. “The visions cause me to temporarily disconnect from the present. . . . I suppose it seems like fainting, but it’s entirely different. . . .”
“Oh ‘visions,’ so different, yes,” huffed Oswin.
“Oswin,” said the figure, “a kobold—that’s what you’re telling people?”
Oswin cleared his throat. “On me mother’s side. . . .”
“But your father—I mean, well—”
“I is NOT a cat!” harrumphed Oswin. Smoke started to curl out of the top of the bag. This was followed by some wild rambling. “Peoples having no respect for monsters nowadays. I is the monster from under the bed.” He sniffed.
The forgotten teller smiled. “I am Nolin Sometimes,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, Willow, Feathering, and Oswin.”
Willow’s mouth fell open. “You know our names—wow!”
He shrugged. “Part of telling the past. This is Harold,” he said, indicating the sleeping dog.
“He’s sweet,” said Willow, eyeing the fluffy creature.
From within the bag there was a harrumph sound. They all stared at the bag.
“Peoples always like dogs . . . never kobolds. . . .”
“Would you care to come inside?” asked Nolin Sometimes, indicating the large treehouse that he’d started to run away from a few minutes before. “There’s not really space for a dragon, alas”—he grinned at Feathering—“but there’s a branch outside that should accommodate you close to the window. I could put on a fresh pot of tea while we discuss what has happened to the missing day?”
They agreed, and while they walked to the house, Nolin Sometimes looked at Willow. His eyes went white, then blue, really fast. “She came to live with you when you were five?”
Willow blinked. “My grandmother?”
He nodded while Willow’s eyes widened. “Yes, when I was about five,” she said.
“She’s quite difficult to manage since the accident in the mountains, causing lots of arguments with your parents, is that right?”
“I’d prefer not to speak about that—thank you,” said Willow somewhat stiffly.
“Oh, yes, quite, sorry.”
A second later he started to laugh. “Oho—she’s going to be so angry when she finds out you took her favorite scarf!”
Clearly there were to be no secrets when you were around Nolin Sometimes.
“Did you run because you saw us?” asked Willow.
“Yes—I just run whenever I detect any humans approaching—saves time,” he admitted with a slightly embarrassed smile.
Willow wasn’t sure if this was the best strategy, to be honest, but then, considering what Moreg had said about forgotten tellers—mostly the bit about them winding up dead as a result of telling other people’s secrets—maybe not.
The sun was beginning to set, turning the sky pink and purple and gold, and lanterns hanging magically in midair lit up as they neared the stilt house. On almost all the tree’s branches were strange plants in pots, wind chimes, and dangling objects that glinted in the lamplight. The clouds swirled to reveal that what Willow had thought were steps leading to the house were, in fact, rocks of various sizes suspended in the air at different heights.
She stepped up on the rocks, trying her best not to look down. It was the strangest house she’d ever seen. Above the thin wooden stilts was a wide porch where odd-looking plants were hanging in pots, some of which seemed to have hair and others that seemed to be looking straight back at her.
She followed Nolin Sometimes through the front door into a room where the walls were covered in botanical drawings and sketches, not unlike his childhood room. Dominating the room was a long wooden desk, which was cluttered with used teacups, feathers, and strange devices that seemed to be humming. He touched a pink fluffy one now and it stopped, blinked, and looked at Sometimes reproachfully with small raisin-like eyes. “Furlarms,” he explained. “They detect the approach of humans and other intruders.”
Willow noticed that there were apple-pie blossoms in a jar, and she exclaimed in delight.
Nolin Sometimes looked pleased. “You know these? They’re quite rare; they sometimes grow on the tree—quite harmless, well, for Wisperia. Try one.” So she did, and they tasted just like warm apple pie.
In the corner of the room there was a small, cheery kitchen with yellow wooden shelves. These held a rather impressive collection of teapots—at least a hundred that Willow could see—along with countless stacks of cups and saucers in shades of sky, plum, and canary. She couldn’t help wondering why one person would need so many. Next to a wide window was a wooden bed covered with a very lumpy and patchy blue and yellow quilt, where Nolin Sometimes put Harold down.
“Welcome,” he said, opening the window so that Feathering could peer inside from the branch where he’d perched. “Pepper tea?” he asked the dragon.
“Ah yes, it’s been centuries—I’d love a cup, if you don’t mind?”
“It’s no bother,” said Sometimes, fetching a bucket for Feathering, taking down a sky-colored teapot, and turning to go into the kitchen. There was a loud crash as the teapot shattered on the floor, followed by a thump as Nolin Sometimes keeled over backward, his blue eyes suddenly white and cloudy.
“Not again!” cried Willow, rushing over to kneel beside him and trying to wake him up.
“What’s happened?” cried Feathering, trying to peer through the window, his large golden eyes filling up most of the frame.
“He’s fainted again!”
Harold roused himself off the bed, unsticking his tongue from the coverlet with some effort. He landed with a thud and proceeded to howl at the sight of Nolin Sometimes’s prone figure surrounded by shards of broken crockery—which at least explained why he had so many teapots.
“It’s all right, Harold,” said Willow, patting the dog.
“’Tis not all right!” harrumphed Oswin. “We’ll starve at this rate.”
It was a full minute before Sometimes stirred, then he shouted, “CAPTURED!” and sat up very fast to look at Willow, which was incredibly eerie as his eyes were still pure white. Suddenly his eyes changed back to blue and his hands started tearing at his wild white hair.
“Moreg Vaine was CAPTURED BY THE BROTHERS OF WOL? You don’t think you could have mentioned that FROM THE START?”
Willow’s mouth gaped open. “Oh. Um . . . yes,” she conceded. “I was just getting to that part. . . .”
Nolin Sometimes’s eyes were nearly popping their sockets. “Tuesday has gone missing. Stolen, most likely, which could make our world unravel bit by bit, and the most powerful witch in Starfell has been taken prisoner, which means . . .”
He looked at her, then at Feathering.
Willow nodded. “There’s just us to get it back and save the world, yes.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Sometimes fell away into a faint once again.
Willow sighed and started clearing up the debris. It’s what she did. She’d come from a home where everyone else had always been far too busy b
eing self-important for chores. Chores were her thing.
She took down a new teapot, yellow this time, feeling the need for a cheering sort of color, picked up the fallen bucket, and then filled it with pepper tea for Feathering. She spied some weren leaves and decided to pop them into the teapot for Sometimes—weren flowers were known for their calming properties.
She placed the bucket of tea on a branch for the dragon, who eyed it with pleasure. “Just the thing—I’ve had a terrible cold,” he said, taking a sip. A second later smoke started to curl out of his nostrils. “Much better.”
She took a sip of the weren tea and sat down in an armchair. From within the bag she could hear Oswin slurping the cup she’d passed him. Harold, it seemed, had decided to go back to bed.
Sometimes sat up and rubbed his head. “I can’t believe she’s been captured,” he lamented, carrying on his conversation as if a full ten minutes hadn’t just passed, coming to sit opposite Willow in one of the armchairs.
Willow blinked. “Ah—yes, unfortunately.”
“But how?” he cried.
“Well, we were entering the city of Bead—”
“Beady Hill, yes, and then the High Master arrived!”
She frowned. “Oh, you saw that? Well, they had these magical—”
He nodded impatiently. “Manacles, yes—but she could get out of those if she wanted!”
“Yes,” said Willow slowly with a frown. Obviously he could just see her memory of the event for himself.
He looked from her to Feathering. “What I mean is—how was Moreg Vaine captured? How could she have let it happen? Surely she could have fought them off?”
“Is she very powerful?” asked Feathering.
Willow nodded, thinking of how thunder and lightning had ripped the sky. “I don’t think that they could really have captured her without her consent. I don’t know why she allowed it. I really don’t. But what I do know is that this was her plan. She wanted me to come here and find you.” She looked at him now. “She thought that perhaps you could help.”
His eyes popped. “Me?”
She nodded. “She said that until we found out who took the day, I couldn’t try to summon it—not until we know what we’re dealing with first.”
Starfell: Willow Moss & the Lost Day Page 8