Sieur Wraathmyr answered, “I wish we could, madama. Your hospitality has been very gracious. But we must go on.”
“Such a pity”
I agreed with her. The thought of leaving the snug little lodge and trudging through the cold wetness was not a happy one. My umbrella and my gum boots were still onboard the Pato, and so was Flynn’s raincoat. He was liable to catch a chill, which would not be helpful at all. There’s nothing more pathetic than a dog with a cold.
By the time we were done eating, the shimmery rain had turned into a fearsome drubbing, and the stream, barely visible through the silvery sheeting, was already over its banks. Sieur Wraathmyr went to investigate. When he returned a few minutes later, wet despite the umbrella Madama Valdosta had given him, he reported that the footbridge was already submerged. Until the rain stopped and the water went down, we were staying at the Valdosta Lodge.
I returned to my deliciously soft comfy bed and had another long lie-down, and after that, another wonderful soak. Then it was time for lunch: hot beef sandwies with cheese sauce, hashed herbed potatoes, and cherry trifle. Afterward, Madama Valdosta showed me to the library which was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, with books. There I found the entire run of Red-top Rev, Vigilante Prince, the beedle dime novel series based loosely (very loosely) on Poppy I settled blissfully into a vast leather armchair, a stack of yellowbacks at one hand and a pot of tea at the other.
After weeks of late nights, paperwork, and orders, and before that, months of marching, drilling, studying, and crappy food, just lying around was blissful. No one harassed me about missing mail or ordered me to change a nasty diaper or wondered why I hadn’t finished my copying yet. I could do what I liked when I liked it, and if that meant eating only donuts for breakfast or spending three hours soaking in the tub, well, so what?
Sieur Wraathmyr, however, could not relax. He kept going to the window and looking outside, and once, he suggested we leave anyway, giving me a very scornful look when I told him I wasn’t interested in getting drenched.
But slowly the charm of the Valdosta Lodge worked its magick on Sieur Wraathmyr and he began to unwind. He took long naps. He combed his hair. He ate Madama Valdosta’s delicious chow with gusto. And once, when I asked him to pass the salt, he did so with a smile. That smile cracked his arrogance and made him seem almost handsome. Maybe I had been wrong about him. Maybe he’d just been tired and stressed and needed a break, too. The next time he smiled at me, I smiled back.
Only Flynn was unhappy; homesick, I guessed. He scratched on the door of whatever room we were in, but kept refusing to go out. He’d just stand in the doorway, looking anxious. He poked at me over and over with his shiv nose until I petted him, but as soon as I stopped, he’d start shiving again. He wouldn’t go out into the rain to do his business unless I went with him, and then he’d run into the bushes and hide and I would have to drag him inside again. He skulked under my feet, tangling me up, and after I almost broke my neck, I left him in my bathroom, where he howled for a good hour before shutting up.
AFTER DINNER ON the third or fourth day—I’d lost track—Sieur Wraathmyr fired up his delicious-smelling pipe and asked me if I wanted to play backgammon. As we played, he became downright chatty Eventually we abandoned the game and just talked, mostly about his travels. As a salesman for Madama Twanky’s, Sieur Wraathmyr had been almost everywhere.
He told me about Bexar, where the men wear high-heeled boots, love their horses as their children, and will not walk even five feet if they can ride. He told me about Varanger, where in the winter the sun never rises, and in the summer, never sets, where the forests stretch for miles, full of moose, wolves, elk—and bears. There are no cities in Varanger; the people live in longhouses scattered among the forest, each house self-sustaining.
He had been to Arivaipa, where even the flowers have thorns and it rains only a few times a year. He had been to the Longhouse Nations and seen the sachems with their feathered headdresses and black-painted faces. He had crossed the Great Plains, where not a single tree grows for a thousand miles, and traveled up the Great River, which is so wide that at times you can’t see its opposite bank.
He had even been to Porkopolis, which sits on the edge of a lake as big as a small ocean. The buildings in Porkopolis are fifteen stories high, the horsecars run on an invisible galvanic current, and airships drift out over the lake.
Udo acted like the Lord of Creation but he’d never really been anywhere or seen anything. And I’d like to see him in Arivaipa or the Longhouse Nations, worrying about the dust or if someone was going to scalp him.
“You are very lucky” I said. “I wish I had your job. You can go anywhere and do anything. You get to travel the world and be your own boss.”
“Hardly Madama Twanky is my boss. I have to go where she sends me. And sometimes the job is no fun at all. I have to travel through rain and snow. Customers can be a real pain in the ass. And sometimes I get attacked by pirates.” We both laughed.
“Ayah, but you can quit if you want to,” I pointed out. “What else would I do? Where would I go? I have no family no home.”
“What happened to your family?”
I was lying on the sofa; he was sitting on the fire rug, legs crossed. Now he turned away from me and stared into the fire.
“I am only Varanger on my mother’s side,” he aswered. “My father was a Kulani. My mother was a trader; a storm blew her ship up on a reef near my father’s home island. He helped rescue her and the other survivors. They fell in love, married. When I was six, my mother died of an infection, and my father drowned in a surfing accident not too long after. They said it was an accident, but I wonder. He was a famous waterman, and very skilled with the board. I think he just didn’t want to live without her. He still had me, but I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t her.”
“That’s awful,” I said. He was still looking into the fire. I reached down and touched his shoulder gently.
“It is what happened. I grew up in my uncle’s house, but he took me out of duty, not love. I wasn’t a true Kulani, as my blood was tainted by my mother’s.”
“But your father was a Kulani!” I protested. “Doesn’t that make you a Kulani?”
“Only half of one. And to the Kulanis, that’s not enough. I never really fit in, and then...” He trailed away and was silent so long, I thought perhaps he wouldn’t start talking again, but he did eventually. “My mother died without telling me about the bear strain that ran through her family. I didn’t know until I changed for the first time, when I was fourteen.” He paused, and I patted his shoulder encouragingly. He reached up and took my hand, squeezed it hard.
He went on. “I can control the change now, but I couldn’t then. It would just happen—when I was angry when I was hungry—when, well, at other times. They said I was dangerous, and I probably was. And there are no bears on the Kulani Islands, so this was just more proof I wasn’t a real Kulani, that my Varanger blood was stronger than my Kulani blood. That I didn’t belong there. I couldn’t stay”
“They kicked you out?” I asked, incredulous.
“They are very pragmatic people, the Kulanis,” Sieur Wraathmyr said dryly. “My uncle had fed and sheltered me for eight years. Such things are given freely to members of the family, but I was not really one of them. I owed my uncle compensation, but I had no way to repay him. So he sold me to an Imperial galley” He turned, pushed up his sleeve, and showed the galley brand on his forearm. I touched it gently; the scar was rough beneath my fingertips.
“Fike them!” I said hotly “How could they do such a thing?”
“Apparently very easily. The first time I turned, my captain was delighted. He’d thought he just bought a scrawny kid, good for a few months at the oar and then into the drink. But a bear has a lot of stamina and can provide entertainment as well. I think he would have been happy if I remained a bear all the time.”
“Could that happen? Could you change and not change back?”
“
I don’t know. I have always changed back. Anyway I was on the galley for a little over a year, and then the captain was killed in a drunken brawl. We got a new captain, and this one liked me enough to pull me off the oars and into his cabin staff. He was good to me, in his own way, but then he got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Mostly the ship moved freight, but sometimes we took passengers. We picked up a Birdie priest, a nahual—you know what they are?”
“They are skinwalker priests.”
“Ayah, and they think they are holy and special, that their god has chosen them. They don’t take kindly to other skinwalkers. They call us abominations. This nahual found out what I was; there’s no secret like that on a galley, and he offered to buy me from the captain. I guess he thought he could kill two birds with one stone: rid the world of a skinwalker by sacrificing it to his bloody god. My captain was fond of me, it’s true, but he was more fond of money He sold me to the Birdie.”
This was so horrible, I didn’t know what to say I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hugged him. He did not flinch from my embrace.
He laughed hollowly. “Well, it worked out, in the end. I was tired of being on that ship but hadn’t found a way to get off it. Now I had my chance. Before we could get back to Anahautl City, the nahual had an accident.”
“I hope it was a fatal one.”
“Oh yes. It was extremely fatal. Then I bummed around, doing this and that, and eventually met Oddvar Wraathmyr. He took me in, helped me get a job with Madama Twanky and so I have been a salesman ever since.”
He turned, and then pulled me down next to him on the hearth rug. He slipped an arm around me and I leaned against him, comforted by his warmth and the sweet smell of apple pipeweed.
We were in the same boat, Sieur Wraathmyr and I. We both had to hide who we really were, both faced rejection by our families, both risked death if our true natures were discovered. I had totally misjudged him. He wasn’t sullen or closed because he was mean but because he was afraid, like me, afraid he would be found out, caught. Never before had I met anyone who understood exactly what I was going through, who shared my fear so exactly.
I asked, “Do you ever think of paying them back, the Kulanis that sold you, I mean?”
“I did, once. But revenge is a dish that will sour your stomach. It will eat you alive if you let it. I escaped the prison they made for my body; I will not live in a prison of the mind, Nini. But I do envy you. You have parents who care about you, and a home—”
“I wish that were true, but it’s not!” I answered. “My whole life is a lie!”
And then, like a flood, it all came out. I was babbling, the whole horrible story of my miserable life pouring out of me in one long, wretched spiel. I told him everything: my dreams of being a ranger and how those dreams had been quashed, and the long-gone namesake sister whose wonderfulness I could never live up to. I told him how the woman I had thought was my mother had lied to me all my life, and that my real mother had been condemned by the Birdies, who would condemn me as well if they discovered me. Like him, I had to hide in the shadows. I told him about Buck, and Poppy, and how Axacaya had almost killed him. I told him things I had never told anyone, not even Flynn.
When I finally fell silent, exhausted with relief, I leaned against him and closed my eyes, listening to the pump of his heart. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe.
“It’s awful to hide all the time,” he said eventually. “Sometimes I feel as though I am alone in the world.”
“I feel that way, too. But you aren’t alone. I’m here.”
“You are.” He twined his fingers in my hair. “I’m glad.”
We lapsed into silence, staring at the coals glowing in the grate. The room had become chilly, but Sieur Wraathmyr’s embrace was warm and snuggy, and I wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere. So I lay against him, feeling wrung out and sleepy, and hoped I never had to move again.
“Do you want the last ginger drop, Nini?” Sieur Wraathmyr asked finally Now that he mentioned it, I did want the last ginger drop, but I wanted something else more. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him.
FIFTEEN
Snapperdog. Eavesdropping. A Transformation.
LATER, I WENT UPSTAIRS half-hoping Sieur Wraathmyr would follow me. I was not exactly sure what I would do if he did, but my imagination was full of possibilities. When I opened my bedroom door, Flynn jumped on me. I’d left him locked in the bathroom during dinner, but somehow he had escaped. In the flickering lamplight, the room looked cozy and romantic. But the bed was a mess: covered in dog hair, the bedclothes muddled into a doggy nest.
I pushed Flynn down, swearing. “Back to the bathroom, Snapperdog.”
Flynn twisted as I dragged him to the bathroom, tossed him inside, and slammed the door. A rapid-fire yapping began. Hopefully he would stop before Sieur Wraathmyr came up. I brushed the dog hair off the bed as well as I could, straightened the bedclothes, and tidied my wet towels away Yawning, I lay on the bed to wait and drifted away on delicious thoughts of Sieur Wraathmyr’s expert lips, his broad chest, the steady thump of his heart beneath my head—A yipping thud jerked me out of my happy fantasy.
All right. It was thumping time. Let’s see if that would improve Snapperdog’s mood.
When I opened the bathroom door, Yippy charged out, bouncing like a rubber ball. I reached out to grab him, and, snarling, he turned on me, teeth snapping. I snatched my hand back from a sharp bright pain. Snapperdog had bitten me!
Pissed, I whacked him across the head, and with a yelp, he ran behind the armchair. I stared in stunned amazement at my throbbing hand, now dripping blood. What the fike? Flynn had never even snapped at anyone before.
I bent down to look behind the armchair. Flynn was crouched low, looking chagrined.
“You are a bad, bad dog!” I scolded. He wagged his tail once, nervously.
“Get out from behind there. Now!” Flynn wormed into the carpet, his tail whisking back and forth, but he didn’t come out.
“Get over here now, or I swear to the Goddess, I will thump you into the middle of next week, Flynn!” I didn’t dare try hauling him out and risk another bite. I stood up and looked around for something long enough to poke him with. My head was whirling, the room wavering and wobbling, my vision blurring. For a second, all I saw was a swirl of gray sparkles. Then the sparkles faded.
Everything was different.
The charming little bedroom had turned sour. The wooden floors were splintery, the carpet torn and ragged, the walls green with mold. A peaty fire smoldered in the grate, and the glass in the windows was cracked, letting in tendrils of cold, wet air. The wonderful soft bed was revealed to be a sprung-out horsehair mattress, piled high with moldering wool blankets. I felt grubby, that horrible sticky feeling you get when you haven’t changed your clothes in several days and have been sweating like a pig in damp air.
“What the fike?” I said, and Flynn whimpered nervously in response.
A very nasty smell drifted out of the bathroom, now a fetid dark hole. Green liquid bubbled in the bath and the potty—well, my dinner exited in a gush. I coughed and puked till my stomach was empty and a thin sour taste coated the inside of my mouth. Flynn had crawled out from behind the chair, and now he pressed against my legs apologetically, licking my throbbing hand.
What the fike was going on? The answer hit me like a hundred-pound weight. Madama Valdosta was not a genial host; she was an enchanter who preyed on travelers unlucky enough to fall into her grasp. Sieur Wraathmyr and I had been lulled into a sleepy security, fattened up for slaughter.
And I had let down my guard, given into spoonyness. I had blabbed all my secrets—my family’s secrets, Tiny Doom’s secrets. I had told Sieur Wraathmyr things that could get me arrested, get Poppy arrested, get Buck arrested. Things that could get us all killed. I had told him things I had never told another living soul, not even Udo. Not even Flynn. And then I had kissed him. I buried my face deeper into Flynn’s coat, feeling sick.
>
Flynn licked my hand again, an aura of I told you so hanging around him. If he hadn’t bitten me and broken the enchantment, I’d probably be ensorcelled still. After that, dead—or worse. I had rewarded his loyalty with a boot in the ribs.
“I’m sorry, Flynnie, oh, I’m so sorry” I kissed his ears, and he, blessed boy, licked my face, holding no grudge. In that he was very un-Fyrdraaca-like. “You are a good boy, a very good boy. I promise you I’ll get you your very own pound of bacon, but first we have to get the fike out of here.”
Flynn squirmed from my grip and ran to the door eagerly. My buckskin jacket and boots were still in the wardrobe, but my dispatch case and my gun belt were gone. I dressed quickly, and then, after steeling myself, went back into the bathroom. The chamber pot was empty. Octohands was gone, too.
I tore the room apart, which didn’t take long, and revealed several other things—one desiccated, the other slimy—that I wished had stayed hidden, but I didn’t find Octohands anywhere. Well, he might be an octopus, but he was also a magician and a soldier. Surely he could take care of himself.
I peeked out into the hallway All clear. I scuttled into Sieur Wraathmyr’s room, which was a nasty mirror image of mine. His satchel was gone, but his furry jacket lay on the moldering bed; I rifled its pockets quickly and found a match safe, a penknife, a memo book filled with spidery lettering too hard to read quickly, a leather bag of apple pipeweed, a small ivory pipe with its stem well chewed, and a little wooden carving of a monkey hanging on a gold chain. No map.
Fike. I crept down the rickety stairs, Flynn pressed tightly against my legs, the carpet squelching. The downstairs hall was dark with shadows. As I approached the kitchen, I heard the murmur of voices inside. Motioning for Flynn to stay quiet, I put my ear to the door.
Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo Page 13
