Thieves of Weirdwood

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  Arthur sighed and pointed.

  CANAL STREET

  They walked across the black and white cobbles, footsteps lost in the bustle of shoppers. Huamei crouched low, eyes searching the drains and underneath the carts.

  “What are we looking for?” Wally asked.

  “A doll,” Huamei said.

  Wally arched an eyebrow. “A doll?”

  “This particular doll is not to be trifled with,” Huamei said. “One touch of its lips will turn your skin to porcelain.”

  CARNAL STREET

  They walked across the white and black cobbles, footsteps echoing against the shop fronts. Sekhmet searched the rooftops and the windows.

  “What are we looking for?” Arthur whispered.

  “A Rift,” Sekhmet said. “Like a tear in fabric, only in the air.”

  Arthur snorted. “A hole?”

  “It isn’t the hole you should fear,” Sekhmet said. “But whoever created it. And whatever crawled through it.”

  FIR STREET

  A scream tore through the streets. It was coming from Market Square.

  “That’s bad, right?” Wally said.

  “No,” Huamei said, heading toward the scream. “That’s good.”

  FEAR STREET

  A shriek tore through the darkness. It was coming from Maggot Square.

  “That’s bad, isn’t it?” Arthur said.

  “Yeah,” Sekhmet said, heading in the opposite direction. “That’s bad.”

  10

  THE PORCELAIN DOLL

  Wally and Huamei ran through the streets of the Wretched Quarter, tracking the scream they’d heard. Huamei tried turning down Paradise Lane, but Wally caught him by the silken sleeve.

  “Trust me,” Wally said. “You don’t want to go down there unless you want those fancy robes stolen off your back.”

  Huamei stared at Wally’s hand. “Where I come from, we use our words to guide each other.”

  Wally released his sleeve. Funny that people were so polite in a place where they drown thieves, he thought.

  They continued the long way around.

  It was true that Paradise Lane was no place for a person who wanted to keep their fancy belongings. But Wally was also trying to avoid running into the Black Feathers. He was so behind on his tribute, the Rook would probably make a whole necklace out of his fingers.

  Wally led Huamei up Center Street. Now that Wally was free of the Manor, his internal compass was fully operational again. The moment someone had screamed, he knew it had come from Market Square.

  “How do you catch a doll you can’t even touch?” he asked as they crossed crowded First Avenue.

  “By an act of creativity,” Huamei said, as if speaking to a child. “The doll is Fae-born. That means—”

  “That someone in this city dreamt it up, right?” Wally said, remembering what Breeth had told him back in the Manor.

  He slipped his hand in his pocket to make sure mousey Breeth was secure. Her fuzzy ears and pinprick breath tickled his fingertips.

  “That’s correct,” Huamei said, clearly wondering how a mere thief could know about the Fae-born. “I’ll use magic to add to its story, changing its nature and making it easier to contain. Then I’ll open a portal, and we’ll scare it back into the Fae.”

  “How do you add to its story?” Wally asked.

  Huamei drew out his calligraphy brush. “For this particular Fae-born, I believe I’ll use strings.”

  “Strings?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They arrived at the port, and Wally considered making a break up the cliffs to Greyridge to check on his brother. But there was no use returning to the hospital without money for the hospital bill.

  Another scream rang out and Wally and Huamei ran faster, finally arriving in Market Square. It was early Wednesday morning, so the Square was packed with eager customers trying to buy the freshest fish. On the far side of the Square, panic spread like wildfire—more and more screams blooming to life every moment. The crowd cleared around a small form.

  The doll.

  “How’s it walking?” someone shouted.

  “How is it smooching?”

  “It must be possessed!”

  “Get it away from me!”

  The doll looked just like the ones Wally had seen in shop windows—pink dress, blond curls, white buckled shoes—only instead of holding still and looking pretty for the customers, it toddled across the stones, arms outstretched, giving the market shoppers sweet porcelain kisses. Everywhere it toddled, another porcelain body fell. The crowd stared, not sure whether to laugh or scream, and too fascinated to run away.

  “I’ll weave the strings,” Huamei said. “You calm these humans down.”

  Wally’s heart skipped a beat. “Me? I thought I was just a guide.”

  “You’ve been promoted. Sekhmet is usually crowd control, and I have to focus on my calligraphy.”

  “But, but—How do I calm them down?”

  Huamei sneered at the people. “Humans are gullible creatures. I will paint strings that appear to be connected to the doll, making the crowd think it’s a mere puppet. You will convince them this is all a performance. And quickly. If these humans keep screaming, the Fae-born will grow more confident in its current story, and it won’t adopt the new story I weave for it.”

  Wally suddenly felt exposed. He never did anything that drew attention to himself. It was against his every instinct as a thief.

  Another of the doll’s victims fell to the cobbles.

  “The sooner you act,” Huamei said, “the more humans you’ll save.”

  Before Wally could second-guess himself, he leapt on top of a crate. “Um, excuse me? Everyone?”

  No one looked. They stared at the doll.

  Wally cleared his throat and yelled, “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!”

  A few people glanced his way, terrified expressions on their faces. Wally’s words evaporated under their gazes. But then Huamei swept his brush overhead, and strings shimmered to life above the market.

  “Uh, don’t be scared,” he told the crowd. He thrust his hands in the air and wriggled his fingers as if they were connected to the strings. “I’m the one controlling that doll!”

  The people looked from his fingers to the strings to the doll, walking by itself.

  “See?” Wally called. “Just a puppet show!”

  “What about them?” someone asked, pointing to the porcelain shoppers.

  “They…” Wally said, sweat pouring down his face, “are actors! Yeah, actors. They’re part of my troupe. And wearing the best makeup you’ve ever seen.”

  A few people chuckled. Others broke into applause. The doll continued to reach out to the crowd, making kissy faces. Sweat trickled down Huamei’s brow as he continued to paint spells.

  “That’s right, folks!” Wally said, feeling a bit more confident. He continued to wiggle his fingers in the air. “All part of the show! Now if you’d give my puppet some space—”

  “Hey!” a man said next to a poor porcelain woman. “My wife’s never acted in her life!”

  “Uh…” Wally said. “Your wife’s secretly been taking acting classes, sir!”

  “No, she hasn’t! She hates the theater!”

  “It’s okay,” Huamei whispered, still painting. “You don’t have to get everyone to believe. There’s always a skeptic.”

  One person chuckled. Then another. And another. And laughter blossomed through the crowd, extinguishing the screams. The people clapped and cheered and tossed coins at Wally’s feet. He bowed and scooped up the coins, pouring them into the pocket opposite Breeth.

  “Good work, thief,” Huamei said.

  Wally blushed. The word thief hadn’t sounded as degrading this time.

  “So what happens now?” he asked.

  “Any moment, the strings I painted should become solid and slow the doll down,” Huamei said. “The more the crowd treats it like a puppet, the more harmless its kisses will become. The
people’s active imaginations will outweigh that of whoever created it. Once we can safely approach the doll, I’ll open a portal, and we’ll drag it back to the Mirror.”

  Wally smiled. The few coins he’d collected wouldn’t pay a fraction of Graham’s hospital bill, but at least he helped save his city from another Pox-like disaster.

  Clink! Clank!

  The warmth left Wally’s cheeks the moment he heard the distinct sound of porcelain bodies falling to the ground.

  “Hold on a minute!” someone cried. “How many actors you got in your troupe?”

  More and more people collapsed like dominoes. Now that the crowd saw the doll as harmless entertainment, they had drawn closer, giving it a chance to plant kisses on their ankles.

  The puppet strings Huamei had painted unraveled into the sky. The doll toddled free.

  Huamei leapt onto the crate, his royal air melting into shock. “It didn’t work. Those strings and the crowd’s imagination should have turned it into a puppet.”

  Wally’s stomach kept tumbling. Magic was bad enough. But magic that even a magician didn’t understand?

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  Huamei shook his head. “I would be able stop it in a heartbeat if I weren’t bound.”

  “Bound?”

  “There are rules that prevent me from taking on my true form,” Huamei said, flexing his hand. “Human minds are fragile and could splinter if they saw it.”

  Wally didn’t have to ask what that true form was. He’d seen Huamei’s shadow in the clock hallway, the blood smeared on his lips.

  “This is no ordinary Fae-born,” Huamei said. “We’ll have to bring the doll back to the Manor. See what Lady Weirdwood thinks.”

  “Catch it?” Wally said, heart racing even faster. “With our hands?”

  One slip and porcelain would spread across his skin faster than the Pox.

  “Do you want to get paid, thief?” Huamei asked.

  Wally bit his lip, then dropped from the crate and pulled one of its boards loose, hoping to smash the doll. He pushed through the panicking crowd, but it was like trying to swim upriver.

  From the other side of the Square came a gruff voice. “Quit yer panicking! Help is here!”

  Wally watched as two Oakers forced their way through the crowd with their nightsticks. One of the Oakers, a hefty man who’d clearly had his nose broken a few times, patted his nightstick into his open palm.

  “Fear not, folks!” he said, squinting at the doll. “That thing’s made of nothin' but fragility!”

  He tromped after the doll, hefted his nightstick, and brought it swooping down, cracking the doll on the side of its pretty blond head. The doll went flying, curls over shoes, doing several cartwheels through the screaming crowd until it fell, facedown, in a puddle.

  There was a breath of silence, and then the crowd broke into applause. The Oaker doffed his cap and gave a deep bow. “Happy to be of service! All in a day’s work, it is!”

  Relief flooded through Wally.

  “This isn’t over,” Huamei said, keeping a wary eye on the doll.

  “But the doll’s dead,” Wally said. “The Oaker crushed it.”

  A woman screamed, and the Oaker jerked up from his bow. The doll pushed itself up and out of the puddle, sticking its lace-covered bum in the air and then working its pudgy porcelain hands back until it was upright on its buckled shoes. Its head rotated around its mud-spattered shoulders until it was staring over its own back. The club had shattered half the doll’s face, leaving it with one eye and half a smile. It fixed its remaining blue eye on the Oaker.

  “Hoo boy,” the Oaker said, color draining from his cheeks.

  The doll went after him, quick as a spider. The man was so startled he stumbled backward, swinging his club erratically. The other Oaker, who had stepped forward to help, was struck in the forehead and collapsed across the cobbles.

  The first Oaker stumbled over his unconscious partner and sprawled flat on his back. The doll crawled up his leg and over the swell of his belly. The Oaker blubbered as the doll bent at the waist and gently planted a kiss on his big broken nose. His blubbers died away as the spreading porcelain forced his lips into a grin.

  The crowd screamed and made a break for the alleys, shoving and clawing to the edges of the Square. Huamei tried pushing through the crowd, but they swept him back. Only Wally was small enough to weave his way through. He dropped the board with a clatter—it wouldn’t do him any good—and removed his jacket to grab the doll.

  He was about to take mousey Breeth out of his pocket when a man knocked Wally over, tearing the jacket from his hands. “NO!” Wally screamed, hitting the cobbles. “Breeth!”

  He watched in horror as the fleeing crowd trampled his jacket.

  Once the people were clear, he snatched it up and checked the pocket, fearing he’d find nothing but fur and guts inside. But the pocket was empty. He searched the Square for a tiny fuzzy shape. Breeth was nowhere to be seen.

  The crowd poured down the alleys, back to their homes, where they slammed their doors. Once the last person had fled, Huamei painted a symbol that made the abandoned carts roll to the Square’s exits where they tipped over, blocking him and Wally in with the doll.

  Everything was quiet.

  Until the doll spotted them.

  “Ma-ma!”

  Wally stepped beside Huamei, keeping an eye on the doll’s movements. Its head spun like a top around its shoulders as it playfully marched toward them. With a pained look on his face, Huamei painted symbol after symbol, wrenching up stones around the doll’s feet and trying to catch it with loose ropes. But the doll eluded the spells with ease, dodging left and right at an unnatural speed, as it continued to march toward them, its one blue eye gleaming.

  Huamei let his brush hang by his side.

  “We should split up,” Wally said, as if they were about to pickpocket a mark. “One of us will keep it distracted. The other will grab it from behind.”

  Huamei nodded.

  Wally prepped his jacket while Huamei snagged a loose potato sack. Huamei broke right while Wally ran left. Relief flooded through Wally when the doll chased after Huamei. The magician had dealt with this kind of stuff, after all.

  Wally pivoted and was about to sneak up behind the doll when it plucked its head from its neck with a small pop! and threw it at Huamei. The blond ringlets sailed through the air, and the Novitiate barely had time to turn before the doll’s severed head planted a kiss right on his forehead. Huamei’s mouth stretched into a smile, and he fell over flat.

  Wally skidded to a stop. The doll collected its head, popped it back on its shoulders, and then flashed him its broken smile. Wally’s skin ran cold.

  “Ma-ma!” the doll’s voice echoed through the empty Square.

  “I’m not your mama,” Wally whispered.

  The doll came at him like a blond bolt of lightning. Every inch of Wally wanted to flee and never look back. Instead, he took a deep breath and ran toward the doll. In the center of the Square, he threw his jacket … and missed.

  He leapt over the doll as it reached up for him, its porcelain fingers brushing the bottoms of his shoes. Wally tumbled in a somersault on the other side, landing on his stomach. He felt the doll scramble up his pants and along his back. Wally rolled, trying to throw the doll off, but its tiny shoes ran around his torso like a spinning log, then continued to march up his stomach.

  This was it. Wally would spend the rest of his days made of porcelain. Maybe the Oakers would stick his frozen body in Graham’s cell.

  The doll had reached his chest when a fuzzy form leapt in front of its face.

  “Ma-ma?” the doll said, head rotating toward the mouse.

  Breeth.

  The doll seemed as curious about adorable animals as her youthful looks implied. It hopped off Wally’s chest and chased after the mouse. The doll was fast, but on four paws, Breeth was faster.

  Wally leapt to his feet. “This way, Breeth!”r />
  The mouse bounded back toward Wally, and the doll followed. Wally crouched low, preparing to throw his jacket more accurately this time. But before Breeth could reach him, the doll popped off one of its arms and hurled it into her path. The tiny arm clinked and clattered across the stones and then came to a stop, creating a barrier before the mouse. Breeth tried to leap over it, but the porcelain hand closed its pudgy fingers around her tail.

  “No!” Wally screamed, running toward them.

  Breeth’s paws scrambled to escape, but the porcelain fist held tight. The one-armed doll caught up to the mouse and crouched over it just as Wally tossed his jacket over them both. He scooped his jacket up as the doll struggled inside. “Ma-ma, Ma-ma, Ma-ma!”

  Wally crouched and gently turned the bundle around, hoping Breeth had escaped from the doll’s grip before getting kissed. After a couple of turns, several fuzzy shards tumbled out of the jacket’s sleeve, clinking across the cobblestones.

  The mouse had turned to porcelain. And it had shattered.

  “Oh no,” he said. “Breeth.”

  He heard a shudder behind him. One of the overturned apple carts was crying.

  Wally ran to the cart. “Breeth? Is that you?”

  “Wally! It was awful! My ears grew stiff. And then my neck and my body and my tail! And I was inside its thoughts when it … when it—”

  Wally leaned against the cart’s handle, relieved to hear Breeth’s voice again.

  “I never want to do that again,” she whispered, her cart shivering.

  “You won’t have to, Breeth,” he said. “Never again.”

  Wally stared in shock around the Square—at the unconscious Oakers, at the porcelain shoppers, at Huamei grinning his frozen grin—all while trying to keep the doll from escaping his jacket and patting Breeth’s wooden side as she sniffled.

  Now what was he supposed to do?

  11

  MIRROR KINGSPORT