The Piper's Price

by Audrey Greathouse

  As Gwen ate her fried eggs and white bread toast, Tiger Lily finally explained exactly what was going to happen that morning.

  “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” she announced, glancing at the stopped clock. “We have a book club. We take turns hosting. It’ll only be a few women, but they have a… similar background, in a sense. It’s hard to explain, and I don’t want to gossip about them right before you meet them.”

  Her mouth full of food, Gwen covered it as she spoke. “But that’s what gives them the resources to help us find the Piper?”

  “Yes, the resources,” Tiger Lily answered, “the willingness… I’m not sure about. They might need some convincing.”

  “Is that something I can help with?”

  “Hopefully, but I’ll have to warm them up to the idea first.” Tiger Lily began taking the dishes out of her drying rack and towel drying them. “They can’t see you when they get here. I can’t have their guard going up as soon as they walk in.”

  “Okay.” She tried not to take it personally, although she did wonder what about her made her so dangerously repulsive. “What’s the plan then?”

  “I’m going to try to feel them out and figure out if they’ll help us. That’s a best-case scenario. If not though… I’m not going to broach the problem if I don’t think they’d be willing to assist. I’m just going to try to get as much information out of them as I can without letting on that I need something from them.” Tiger Lily put her spatula and frying pan away, and Gwen suspected she was anxious beneath her calm surface. “In that event, you should be privy to our conversation. I can hide you in the coat closet. It’s not ideal, but I think you could definitely sit in there and eavesdrop for two or three hours while they’re here. You could just go out or stay in your room if you preferred, but I think it would be better for you to hear exactly what they say.”

  “Yeah, totally,” Gwen agreed, mopping up her egg yolk with the last of her toast. “I want to hear them. I’ll be fine in the closet.”

  “And, hopefully, you won’t even have to be there the whole time. Between the four of them, certainly one of them will be in a position to help.”

  Tiger Lily cleared Gwen’s spot at the table while the girl moved the vacuum cleaner and all the shoes from the closet to the guest room. Once there was room for her to sit, Gwen situated herself and closed the slatted wooden door. She pushed all the coats aside and made herself comfortable so that she would not have to rustle anything while hiding inside. She was excited to eavesdrop. She’d never done it in good conscience before, but Tiger Lily was explicitly instructing her to listen in on this conversation. Through the slats in the door, Gwen had a perfect view of the couch and the chairs Tiger Lily was moving into the carpeted segment of the room. Her view of the door wasn’t quite as complete, but it would work.

  She had only been in position for a few minutes before she heard a sharp knock at the door. Gwen refrained from checking the time on her phone, on the off chance that the glow would be obvious from the other side of the door.

  Tiger Lily answered the knock, and Gwen heard more than she saw as the women came in.

  “Lily,” a shrill voice cried, “it’s so good to see you.”

  “How have you been? How are you?” another asked, her voice breathy.

  “I’m doing well. It’s good to see you both.”

  Gwen saw the women take turns drawing Tiger Lily into hugs. The angle of the slats made it impossible to see their faces or figure out which voice belonged to which body. They both clutched identical books, but one woman was deathly thin and had a tiny, boxy purse while the other carried a massive black shoulder bag and extra weight.

  “Irene’s parking now; she’ll be here in a minute. Are we the first ones here?”

  “Yep, right on time,” Tiger Lily told the shrill woman.

  “Oh, I’m sorry we’re early.”

  “No, I think it’s ten o’clock to the minute. You’re perfect.”

  The shrill woman laughed, “Oh, I try. I try.”

  “Come on in, make yourselves comfortable. Elisa can’t make it today.”

  “She can’t?” The breathy woman sounded devastated. “I thought she was bringing the wine.”

  “I think Bella is bringing the wine.” The shrill woman came into full view as she sat down on the couch directly across from the closet. Her dirty-blonde hair was pulled tight in a bun on the back of her head; it reminded Gwen of the pincushion Foxglove had spent the night sleeping on. Her naturally sharp chin was an unfortunate companion to her bony frame. She looked like one of the poster girls for anorexia that Gwen had seen in health class… but she was so old in contrast to the troubled teens pictured in those warnings. Her mouth was wide, and her teeth were bared in a smile that was unnaturally white.

  “But she’s not here either!”

  “She’s probably just running late,” Tiger Lily announced. “Does anyone want tea?”

  A new voice emerged at the door. Irene, Gwen assumed. “Tea? At this hour of the morning? I think I’ll stick to the wine.” The women all laughed at this.

  “No, no, we should have tea, in the spirit of the book.” The breathy woman sat down on the couch beside her slender friend. Her chubby body was packed tightly into her modish black-and-white dress. Her hair was long, but looked frazzled from hard bleaching and hot iron curling. The summery southern California look was fighting for a chance to shine through the reality that her body was slipping into the autumn of her life.

  “What do you mean?” the skinny one asked.

  “The hero, he was English, remember? Christ, Cindy, did you read the book?”

  “Of course I did!” Cindy defended. “I just forgot he was from England.”

  “Wales,” Irene corrected. “Percival wasn’t English, he was Welsh.”

  “Oh, whatever,” the bleached hair replied.

  “I don’t get why authors write foreign men. The whole attraction of a British lover is the accent, and you don’t hear the accent in a book,” Cindy announced.

  “You didn’t like Tryst on the Thames?” Irene asked, taking a seat on a chair where Gwen could see her profile. Her short, full hair and long nose were both distinctive. It was hard to tell whether her hair was dyed. The gingery red was bright, but could have been her real hair color. Gwen was more distracted by the thick and colorful layer of makeup on her face.

  “I liked it. I just wish it could have been a movie so I could hear the sexy accent.”

  “Why, Cindy, you have to use your imagination.”

  They all laughed again, as if there was some remarkably funny joke in that statement. Gwen noticed that whenever the women laughed, Tiger Lily’s voice was absent from the chorus.

  The final guest arrived, her high heels making a racket as they clicked into the house. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was beastly.”

  Tiger Lily started to tell her it was fine, but the breathy blonde woman was louder and quicker. “You would know.”

  “It didn’t help that the kids threw a fit and made us late to school.”

  “Little monsters,” Irene remarked.

  “Kids are wonderful,” Cindy shrilly objected. “You’ll get it, one of these days, when you and Curt finally have some of your own.”

  “I’ve got nothing against kids,” Irene remarked, crossing her thick legs. “It’s Bella’s kids that scare me.”

  “They take after Harry’s side of the family.” Bella sighed.

  “Clearly,” Irene agreed.

  “Where’s Elisa?”

  “Not coming,” Cindy told her. “She’s in charge of the country club’s big Christmas party this year. I haven’t heard a word from her since she started the project. Between that and her knitting, I doubt she had time to read the book.”

  “Oh, but what a book,” Irene announced. “Didn’t you just love the romance between Sarah Lynne and Percival?”

  “Did you bring the wine?” the heavy blonde asked.

  “Yeah—Lily, do y
ou have a corkscrew?”

  “Let me grab it.”

  “Don’t start drinking already,” Cindy warned. “You know it only ever makes you sleepy, Dawn.”

  Bella came into view with the wine, sitting in the chair opposite Irene, on the other side of the couch. Tiger Lily had strategically arranged the available seating so that Gwen would be able to see everyone’s faces. She dragged the last kitchen chair over to complete the circle and sat with her back to the spy in the closet. She handed the corkscrew off to Bella, a short woman in an ostentatious black-and-yellow suit dress. Her face seemed disproportionately fat compared to the rest of her body.

  “I’ll get some glasses,” Tiger Lily offered.

  “Did anybody else read the book in one night? I couldn’t put it down,” Dawn announced.

  “That,” Bella replied, struggling to get the bottle open, “is because… you don’t have… children.” The cork popped and startled Cindy. “I read the whole thing in ten-minute bursts over the course of a month.”

  “That also explains the condition of your poor book.”

  “Reginald spilled grape juice on it…”

  “Those children of yours, Bella,” Irene remarked.

  “That’s nothing.” Cindy was empathic, but it was hard to take her seriously when she was using the same high and excited tone she’d used for the entire conversation. “Priscilla found my copy and started reading it.”

  “She didn’t!” Dawn gasped.

  “She did!”

  “That’s not appropriate for her age at all.”

  “I know!” Cindy agreed. “You think once you get past the preschool years, you’re in the clear, but you’ve only got four or five years of reasonable childhood before they turn into precocious little preteens. I swear, I have to watch Priscilla and Angelica closer now than when they were still sticking crayons up their noses.”

  “And then Harry has the gall to come home and ask me what I’ve been up to all day,” Bella groaned.

  “As if herding children isn’t a full-time job.”

  Dawn chimed in, “I think men are under the impression that our houses clean themselves.”

  “Oh,” Irene exclaimed, “bless his heart—you wouldn’t believe Curt. The other day, I mentioned that I needed to clean the oven and he told me I didn’t have to… it was self-cleaning!”

  They all laughed and poured rich, red wine into the glasses Tiger Lily handed out. They tossed their books on the coffee table and ignored them from that point forward.

  “Makes you miss the old days, doesn’t it?” Tiger Lily added, her voice even and calm, especially compared to her guests’ expressive tones.

  “Oh heavens, don’t remind me about how good we had it,” Bella sighed.

  “I wouldn’t mind it, if only Curt understood.” Irene swirled her wine and shook her red hair. “He’s got that blue-collar background… he thinks living in Birch Haven means we’ve made it somehow.”

  “We’re comfortable,” Cindy announced, “and the girls are happy. Considering everything, we all ended up in nice places.” No one responded, and she admitted, “Albeit, the magic isn’t really there anymore.”

  “That’s putting it charitably,” Irene scoffed.

  “The magic hasn’t been there since the honeymoon.” Dawn groaned. “Everything else… that’s just collateral damage.”

  “Are they still watching you?” Cindy asked.

  Bella laughed and her neck jiggled with the motion. “They’re watching all of us. They’re just subtle about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Dawn remarked. “They check in, I’m sure… but they know we’re not going to do anything.”

  “If you hadn’t put up such a fuss, you’d probably be in the same boat, Lily,” Irene added.

  Tiger Lily addressed Dawn, “You’re really not doing anything?”

  The woman seemed taken aback. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on,” Cindy goaded. “Do you mean to tell me that red velvet cake you made last meeting was baked with only Betty Crocker’s help?”

  “I learned to bake! Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Don’t be so defensive. Nobody’s going to blame you for it.”

  “So I suppose your pumpkin pies are just squash and sugar?”

  “You’re cute, but I don’t eat pie.” With her figure, Gwen could believe it. Cindy continued, “But when it comes to the girls’ dresses… there’s only so much a sewing machine can do, and they shouldn’t suffer just because I never learned to sew as well as my godmother.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Bella announced. “There isn’t a speck of magic in our house—Harry wouldn’t have it. Our kids are growing up without magic.”

  “No wonder they’re such a mess,” Irene muttered, sipping her wine so quickly after that it almost seemed that she hadn’t said anything at all.

  “Well, no one expected us to go cold turkey,” Dawn admitted. “They’re not going to fuss over a little household help. I gave them all my spinning supplies, and they never asked questions after that.”

  “You were smart,” Bella told her.

  Irene nodded. “The only reason they’re still keeping tabs on you, Lily, is you haven’t given them any help or reason to trust you.”

  “It’s not the same,” Tiger Lily told them. “I can’t just hand over a pumpkin or spinning wheel. They want Neverland.”

  “With all the grief Peter’s giving them, you can’t blame them,” Bella replied, reclining in the kitchen chair and trying to make herself comfortable… an impossible task, from the looks of her tight suit dress.

  “You lost the fight, Lily,” Irene announced. “We all did. If you can’t beat them, join them.”

  “At the expense of the entire island? Don’t tell me you would have them wipe Neverland off the map.”

  “It’s not on a map,” Bella grumbled.

  “Cindy, Bella,” Tiger Lily pleaded. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve never told your kids about Neverland?”

  “Of course, I did,” Cindy answered, “but they were going to hear about it somewhere. Better from me than Disney.”

  Bella and Dawn shuddered.

  “I made damn sure they knew it was imaginary before they ever got a hold of the story,” Bella insisted. “It doesn’t matter if Neverland exists or not—legends work fine either way.”

  “Dawn?” Tiger Lily asked.

  “What?”

  “What do you think? Do you really think there’s no good in Neverland existing?”

  “I can’t imagine it matters what I think.”

  “It doesn’t matter what any of us think,” Cindy added. “There’s nothing we could do either way.”

  Irene’s eyes narrowed. “What’s all this about, Lily? Why did you need to have us meet all the way out here today? What’s really going on here?”

  Tiger Lily looked over her shoulder to the closet. The women’s eyes all followed. Gwen swallowed a nervous lump in her throat and stepped out.

  “Who…” Bella began, her pudgy face slack-jawed. “No. Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  No one was happy to see her, and Gwen felt the cold and vicious disapproval of the adults weighing on her. It seemed unfair. They didn’t even know her, and already they didn’t like her. Irene eyed her skeptically, and Dawn gave a dramatic sigh as she put her hand to her face. Cindy was in pure shock, an expression that fit her tiny facial features in an odd, cartoonish way.

  “Lily,” Irene began with cautious contempt, “what are you trying to do here?”

  “It’s just a girl,” Bella announced. “We don’t even know her name.”

  “I’m Gwen.”

  “I don’t even know her name,” Bella insisted, louder. “I think I left the stove on. So sorry I can’t stay longer.”

  “Oh, pull yourself together,” Dawn snapped.

  “I don’t have to deal with this.” Bella picked up her bag and backed away from the group. “Harry would throw a fit if I got involved
in something like this.”

  “You can’t live your whole life in fear of him, you know,” Tiger Lily told her.

  “You don’t even know what Lily’s getting at here,” Dawn added.

  “And I’m not going to find out. I’ve got kids to worry about. I’m not going to start pulling magic back into my life and into their reality. They’re going to grow up and live normally ever after.”

  “So… unhappy?” Tiger Lily asked.

  “You should get out of here too, Cindy.” Bella was already at the door. “I’ll drive you home.”

  All eyes refocused on the slender woman fidgeting on the sunken couch. “I… I think I want to know what is going on. This isn’t a lost boy, Bella. It’s a young woman. I’ve no reason to think Lily would expose us to anything that would jeopardize us.”

  “Think of Priscilla and Angelica!” Bella exclaimed. The other women gave her fish-eyed apathy. As frustrated as they were with the unexpected appearance of a teenage eavesdropper, they were too intrigued to walk away. Bella appeared more shocked by her peers’ reactions than Gwen’s presence. “Well, I’m leaving, and I don’t want to hear another word about any of this magic nonsense.”

  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Tiger Lily asked, but she seemed confident she already knew the answer.

  “And risk having them investigate me?” Bella cried. “No, I’m going to go home and make sure the stove is off. Have fun with this young lady… who is perfectly ordinary and not at all magical as far as I know.”

  Almost as mad as she was unnerved, she shut the door hard behind her as she left.

  “At least she left the wine,” Dawn joked, no hint of a smile on her face.

  Everyone looked at Gwen again.

  “Well, come here. Let’s have a look at you,” Irene demanded, waving her over. “Your name’s Gwen?”

  “Yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  She didn’t blink. “I sincerely wish I could say the same, young lady.” She reminded Gwen of a teacher, with her strict tone and matronly expression. Irene surveyed the others’ faces and then decided, “I guess the rest of us are staying. Long enough to hear what this is about, anyway.”