“Good morning,” Deet says with a slight nod.
The others step down from the carriage and grab their gear.
“You folks have a good one,” Zach says and then tips his black cap.
“Thanks,” Deet says. He turns to Agna. “Which way?”
Agna points to the right. “Down Yakim Street, follow me.”
Deet slaps the side of his leg. “Rufus Sotonus. I can’t believe we ate with Rufus Sotonus and slept in his barn, holy crap.”
“So what?” Yaz says with a shrug.
“That was your Northern Brenton rep, idiot.”
“Oh yeah? Seems like a good guy to me; he’s got my vote.”
Deet snorts. “I imagine he does. A full stomach and a clean privy is all it takes to buy your vote.”
Preta nods in agreement. “Yup, he’s got mine for sure.”
Deet sneers and glances at his boots as he picks up his stride. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, both of you, anyway, how far to your daughter’s, Agna?”
“A few more minutes on this road, and then we make a left onto Makers Street. And I’m pretty sure he’s got my vote too.”
“Enough, you three, I got it already.”
Preta chuckles and takes in the scenery, not sure what she should look at first considering there is so much new to look at. She tries to take in everything coming and going at the same time, and she gets dizzy. The street is packed with a sea of people knocking her to the side. Preta grins and absorbs the abuse by rolling through the tidal wave of men and women washing over her.
“Sorry,” a pretty woman in a blue dress says, passing by Preta.
“Good day,” Preta says back to her.
They enter another city square ten times larger than the previous one. Children play in a gigantic fountain made of black stone and marble as playful and ghoulish cherubs pour and spit into the reflecting pool below. Mothers wave and yell at the children to not go in the cold water. The kids splash anyone getting too close to them. A mother extends a towel as she shakes her clinched fist at a soaked child. The child laughs and kicks water on her.
Pigeons hop on the ground waiting for the errant crumb to escape its owner’s hand. Fall leaves flutter along the cobblestones. Lovers dance to a fiddler playing on the opposite side of the square. The aroma of heaven fills the air from venders peddling something on a stick which makes Preta’s mouth water. Ten city guards dressed in black uniforms and wearing yellow armbands march in formation in a straight line through the center, from one side to the other, then turn and march back.
Men pontificate atop wooden crates and wave at the sky. With intense focus, listening to every word spoken, people congregate around some of the men, postulating and gyrating. While other less fortunate men speak only to themselves and the birds hopping at their feet.
“Preta, keep up,” Deet says, peeking behind him, searching for Preta.
Preta focuses on Deet’s feet and skips to catch up.
Deet waves his hand behind his back. “Stay close to me, if you get lost in the city we may never find you.”
“Sorry,” Preta says.
Agna leads them away from the square and through a side street lined with all manners of merchants. A display with various wares on them sits in front of each store: shoemakers, tobacco peddlers, bakers, soap makers, tailors, candlestick makers, and on and on and on.
A twig of a woman holds out a purple dress toward Preta. “Pretty girl, dress?”
Preta giggles and waves. “No thanks.”
A black-haired man with giant spectacles magnifying his eyes twice their normal size steps out into the street. “Shoes, girl, shoes?”
“Candles, wicks, scents?”
“Bread, fresh bread, get your bread.”
Preta eyes the angled display filled with warm bread and she takes a deep inhale. “Aw—mmm—looks good.”
With a gleam in his eye, the plump baker with a tidy grey mustache and red nose and red ears and wearing a white apron and cap leans forward with a full tray of steaming glazed rolls. “Bread?”
Deet tugs Preta’s arm. “Keep up, I said.”
Preta skips sideways and watches Yaz still eying the bread.
Yaz gazes up from the tray and turns to the side. He suddenly puffs out his chest and gawks at a pretty brunette girl in a lime green dress.
The girl gives him a slight smile, flips her long hair from one shoulder to the other, and turns away from Yaz, not stopping.
Yaz, stupid grin plastered on his face, spins toward Preta and runs to catch up. “I love this place.”
Ahead, Agna stops and eyes a sign hanging off the side of a two-story cottage wall. On it, a thread and thimble next to a candle, and underneath it reads: Mira’s Magnificent Fabrics. Agna nods and turns away from the sign.
“Is this it?” Deet says.
“Yes.” Agna swallows hard and knocks on the door.
The door opens. “Mother?” a rotund woman with a thick black eyebrow extending across her entire forehead says. She wears a green and blue polka dot dress, and her belly heaves in and out with each breath. She squints and her lip quivers. “What are you doing here?”
“Dear,” Agna says, “my friends and I are in town, and I thought we’d stop by and visit you.”
The woman’s face twists in surprise and revulsion, and a vein in the side of her neck bulges out and throbs. “You have friends? Since when?”
“Come now, Mira, no need for insults, of course I have friends.”
“So who are these friends of yours?”
“This is Deet, Preta, and Yaz, the Penters from the other side of the valley.”
“Yes, I knew of the Penters. I knew their mother in grade school. Still doesn’t explain why you’re here with them right now.”
Agna talks with her hands. “Like I said, we’re in town for a visit. They wanted to come to the city. Will you invite us in, or are we just going to stand out here all day?”
Mira snorts and flicks her head toward inside her shop. “Fine, come in, and this better be quick, I’m working.”
Inside the small shop, the walls are lined with shelf after shelf built into the wooden walls, all filled with different colored patterns of cloth. More garments and silk drape over wooden rods. In front of a back window, on a large rectangle table with a sewing machine at the end, numerous colors and sizes of thread spools and yarn, and an elaborate purple floral garment is neatly folded over a rocking chair. Next to the back door, stairs lead to the second floor.
“It’s nice to see you,” Agna says, and then she gives Mira a kind, motherly smile.
Mira’s face contorts in disgust. “It is? Since when’s it ever been nice for you to see me? Are you feeling all right? You’re not dying, are you?”
“What? Of course I’m not dying.”
Mira sighs and glances away toward the front window. “Too bad, I thought you had good news for me.”
“Mira—” Agna says, leaning forward.
“What do you want, Agna?” Mira turns away, picking up and folding an orange cloth.
“How’s the husband?”
“Same as he’s always been. What do you want?”
Agna tilts her head toward Preta. “We need a little coin to send these three to the mainland—some nasty people are after them.”
Mira curls her lip. Her nose twitches. “And there she is. There’s my mother—I knew it. Come to see me, humph, trouble with the law now? You’ve always been a loser, though I never thought you’d ever stoop to running with criminals.”
Yaz steps forward shaking his fist. “Hey now, we’re not criminals, and that’s no way to talk to your mother.”
Mira sternly points at Yaz, circling her sausage-like finger over his entire body. “Well, lookey here, you got a real live dumb one for a friend. And I’ll talk to her any way I damned well please in my own shop and house. If you don’t like it you can leave right now.”
Deet squeezes Yaz’s arm, trying to calm him down. He talks softly
to Mira. “We mean no disrespect. It’s just Preta has the same gifts as your mother, and men are trying to kill her because of them.”
Mira, dumbfounded, her eyes shift from Deet to Preta to Yaz, and then finally rest on Agna. “Agna, what the hell is he talking about? Is this one simple too?” Mira sternly shakes her finger at Deet. “Hey, smarty, the only gifts Agna ever had were for being a no good worthless mother.” With disdain in her eyes, she glares at Agna. “You bring this trio of idiot criminals into my house, wanting coin and talking nonsense.” Mira closes in on Agna and stops a few feet in front of her face. She cocks her head to the side and scans her mother. “Yup, uh-huh, so you finally lost it. Well, it’s about damned time. I’ve been waiting years for you to lose your mind. Now take your criminal friends and get the hell out of my shop before I fetch the constables.”
With wide eyes in shock, Preta looks at Deet and shrugs.
Deet sneers.
Agna sighs and turns away.
Oblivious, Yaz laughs and rocks his head side to side. He points at Mira, mocking her. “Wow, you’re one crazy bitch.”
Mira’s mouth twitches, and she raises her fist. “Me? Me a crazy bitch? How dare you call me a bitch in my shop.”
“Hey,” Yaz says, “I’ll call a crazy bitch a crazy bitch anywhere if she’s a crazy bitch. And you’re one crazy bitch.”
“How dare you! I don’t have to take this from you.” Mira pushes by Yaz and makes for the door. “To the guards with you, you criminals.”
Preta’s body snaps up straight and freezes. “Dozem-Mezod,” Agna says inside of Preta’s head. A bluish light reflects off the seamstress shop’s walls.
Mira spins back as her mother is connected to Preta with a glowing, fluttering string of aqua light. “What the hell? What are you doing? What are you?”
Deet places his hand over his mouth.
Arms crossed, proud, Yaz smirks and coolly eyes Preta. He winks at Mira then points at her chest, teasing her. Yaz says something though everything is silent to Preta.
Mira’s eyes bulge in fear, and her mouth quivers.
Yaz bounces up and down, laughing in convulsions with his hand on his stomach. He crouches down with half-bent knees and shakes his head side to side in fits. He twists up his face, and he roars at Mira.
Preta hears nothing except Agna’s voice. With palms inward and eyes shut, her arms rise to her chest. “Dozem-Mezod,” she says as her palms turn over and arms jerk forward toward Mira. A faint whitish-pink light bursts out of her hands and disappears.
The connection with Agna broken, Preta wobbles for a second until she regains control of her body.
Mira falls to the ground with a thud, snoring in a deep sleep.
Yaz jumps over top of Agna’s daughter. “Ha ha, take that, you crazy bitch.” He nods and points at Preta. “Nice one, Sis.”
Deet kneels next to Mira. “Will you ever grow up, Yaz?”
Yaz opens his arms wide, unsure of what he did wrong. “What? She’s a crazy bitch, right?”
Deet slowly stands. “Yeah, sorta.” He faces Agna. “Now what? Mira didn’t seem to happy to see us.”
“Poor girl’s always been a little off.” Agna nods as she stares at Mira’s unconscious body. “Which is why I never told her about my, ahem—gifts. So from now on, let me do the talking about gifts when it comes to Preta and me.”
A REAL CHARMER
“Now what should we do?” Preta says to Agna.
“Now Mira my generous daughter donates to the Penter passage fund.”
Yaz chuckles. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
“We’re going to rob your daughter?” Deet says, stroking his lips with his fingers, not appearing to be comfortable with the idea.
Yaz picks up the purple dress draped over the rocking chair and unfolds it in front of his body. He holds it at his neck and with a pirouette he does an awkward jig. “What do you guys think, is it my color?”
Deet snatches a red yarn ball and squeezes it tight. “Stop playing.”
“Lighten up, Brother, or you’ll explode.”
Agna gently touches Deet’s arm. “I wouldn’t call it robbing per se. More like paying her mother back for the years I paid for her.”
Yaz tosses the dress on top of Mira’s head as she lies snoring on the ground. “I don’t care, I’ll steal from this crazy bitch.” He glances at Agna. “Oh, umm—sorry, no offense.”
“No offense taken, Yaz. She does have anger issues.”
Yaz chuckles. “Obviously. And snoring issues too,” and he bends over and snorts like a snoring pig.
Preta giggles imagining a pig dreaming of its snout buried deep in a sloppy trough.
Deet whips the ball of yarn at Yaz. “Dammit, leave her alone, and get over here.”
Yaz opens his arms. “What’d I do?”
“How long do we have before she wakes up?” Deet says to Agna.
“Everyone’s different, but I guess at least a couple hours.”
Yaz snorts again at Mira. “And when she wakes up, she’ll fetch the constables on us.”
“Of course she will,” Deet says in a sarcastic tone. “She was already going to fetch the guards before Preta zapped her out cold. And now she’ll wake up robbed.”
Preta lifts the dress off Mira’s head. “Where do we go now?”
In deep thought, Deet glances down at the worn wooden floorboards. “We don’t have a choice, we inventory anything of value and sell it. Then we try to leave the city right away. By morning, the guards will be after us, along with Lomasie and his goons.”
Yaz twists his face and snorts at Mira again. “What about sleeping beauty’s husband?”
Agna opens a fancy varnished wooden chest filled with clear liquid bottles, and she immediately closes the top. “He shouldn’t be home until dinner time.”
Deet nods, coming to grips with the situation. “I guess there’s no reason to be shy. Yaz, bar the door, and pick up Mira, place her somewhere comfortable in the back, and tie her up.”
Yaz lifts Mira and drags her to the back room. “I’ll stick a gag in her mouth for safe measure.”
Deet shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder, Yaz. Let’s try not to tear apart the place too much.”
Preta searches the drawers and snatches everything holding any value.
After an hour of searching, everyone meets in the center of the room and they dump their loot in a pile.
Raising a finger, Deet eyes each of them one at a time. “We take only what we need and no more.”
Yaz pokes through the loot with the tip of his knife. “How do you know how much we’ll need? We should just take it all; she was gonna fetch the guards on us.”
While counting the coin, Deet nods. “One full gold equivalent, roughly sixteen full silver and eighty coppers, two silver bracelets and three rings, and fifty paper credits equivalent to a gold nib.”
Yaz swipes his hand along the floor brushing the pile together. “Dang, Mira here sure squirreled away some loot, so we take it all?”
Deet waves him off and his head snaps toward Yaz. “No! I said we take only what we need. We leave the jewelry and gold. We take all the silver and half the coppers.”
Yaz’s eyes bulge. “What? No way, why?”
“Because I said so, that’s why. Go check on Mira, and see if she’s all right, we’re leaving in a few minutes.”
Preta follows Yaz to the back room.
Mira squirms trying to get out of her bindings.
Preta steps in front of her.
Mira’s eyes widen, transitioning back and forth between fear and hate. She scoots away mumbling swear words.
Yaz bobs his head, mocking Mira. “Hey, will you lookey here, the snoring beauty is awake.” Yaz rips Mira’s gag out of her mouth.
Mira laughs in short bursts. “They’re going to hang you all, or better yet, cut off your heads. And I’ll be right there with a front row seat.”
“You’re a real charmer, Mira,” Yaz says.
“No wonder your mother doesn’t like you.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, you dung eating doofus! You’re a dead man, you and your entire family!”
Yaz leans in close to her. “Now, now, play nice, or I’ll let my sister do her little blue light thingy on you again. You remember what she did to you last time? Guess what? She was being kind. You should’ve seen what she did the other day to a ferocious hairy eight-foot-tall man-eating chef with the breath of a community crap-house. Now what do you think she’ll do to the likes of little old you? You know, now that I think about it, you kind of remind me of that leshy—pee-yew.” Yaz’s face twists in revulsion as he waves his hand in front of his nose, then he crouches down and snorts like a pig until something gets caught in his throat and he swallows funny.
Mira silently stares in awe at Yaz for a few seconds then nods as her thoughts form. “You’re crazy. You’re absolutely freakin’ crazy.”
“Well, that’s all a matter of opinion, Mira the sneera.” Yaz puckers his lips and pinches his chin. “You know, I have been known to be a genius in certain circles.”
“Yeah, right, genius of the town’s idiots, mules, and pig sties.”
“Says you!” Yaz says, lunging forward head first and fist raised.
Mira flinches and sucks in a scared breath.
Yaz laughs and backs away. He points at her with a shaky arm and finger as his body gyrates. “Gotcha.” Yaz turns toward Preta. “All right, Sis, zap the bitch again.” Yaz does a jump spin, lands right in front of Mira, crouches down, snaps his eyes open wide, and flaps his arms and body like a bird. “Braa-ha-ha-ha-ha-yeah-freakin-raa-you-yo-yo!”
Preta grabs Yaz’s arm and yanks him away. “Enough, Yaz, stop it! I’ll take care of her from here.”
Yaz’s body relaxes then goes still, and in deep thought, or in no thought, he stares at the wall for a second. He sighs and glances at Mira. “Bye bye, Mira, oink oink,” and he leaves the room.
“I brought you some water,” Preta says with all the kindness she can muster as she extends a cup toward Mira.
“I don’t want anything from you except your head on a spike.”
Wintermore (Aeon of Light Book 1) Page 24
