The Luck Uglies

by Paul Durham

  Rye’s ears burned. She knew that was a lie. She picked her fingernails as she listened.

  “Gold grommets?” Mrs. O’Chanter said. “Who would have known the poet was doing so well? I can’t say I’ve actually ever seen anyone go in that store.”

  Mrs. O’Chanter placed a hand on Rye’s shoulder. Rye stopped picking her nails.

  “Yes, well, nevertheless,” the Constable said, eyeing Rye, “Earl Longchance takes the upbringing of the village’s youth very seriously. Wayward children must be molded early. Tamed. The Earl’s sweat farm has been known to do wonders for the strong-willed child.”

  Mrs. O’Chanter just stared at the Constable without blinking.

  “This child,” the Constable continued. “Where has it been today?”

  Rye began picking her fingernails again behind her back.

  “She has been with me since first light this morning. Working here in the store.”

  Rye held her breath.

  “All day, you say?”

  “Indeed.”

  “I see,” Constable Boil said, tapping his bony chin. “Well, do keep your eyes open, Mrs. O’Chanter. Roving bands of child thugs are a pox on us all. I shall certainly keep my eyes out for you.”

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”

  “No bother. It will be my pleasure,” he added with a leer.

  The Constable turned to leave. Rye started to sigh in relief, but she caught her breath when the Constable stopped and pivoted on his heel.

  “Oh, yes,” he added, “since I’m here—it occurs to me that although Assessment does not officially commence until next week, I might as well have a look around now—to save a trip. You don’t object, Mrs. O’Chanter.”

  It couldn’t possibly have been mistaken for a question.

  “No, of course not,” Mrs. O’Chanter said.

  “Splendid.”

  The Constable strolled around, hands behind his back as if shopping. He paused in the doorway and faced the street.

  “As you know, it’s illegal to feed pigs on Market Street. That’s a fine of ten bronze bits.”

  “That’s a bird feeder,” Rye whispered to Mrs. O’Chanter.

  Mrs. O’Chanter nudged her to stay quiet.

  Constable Boil leaned outside and cast his watery eyes up over the door. Of all the weathered, gray shops that lined Market Street, each adorned with drab and unremarkable signs, the Willow’s Wares was the only one that flew a colorful flag. Colors had once been used as signals by certain unscrupulous characters, and the Earl now frowned on their overuse by anyone other than his tailors. That day, the Willow’s Wares’ flag was a rich forest green, adorned with the white silhouette of a dragonfly.

  “That flag is too bright,” the Constable said, pointing to the green flag over the Willow’s Wares’ door. “Fifty bits.”

  Fifty bits! Rye’s ears burned again.

  Constable Boil shambled back inside. He approached Mrs. O’Chanter and studied her closely, squinting under his dust-ball eyebrows.

  “No woman may wear any article of blue without the express permission of the Honorable Earl Longchance.”

  Rye looked at the ribbon in Mrs. O’Chanter’s hair.

  “Two shims,” the Constable said, his tone severe. Then he smiled, revealing a mouth of nubby yellow teeth. “And you shall remove it.”

  “He’s making that up,” Rye whispered to Mrs. O’Chanter too loudly.

  “Riley,” Mrs. O’Chanter scolded under her breath.

  Rye fumed. “This is—”

  “Riley,” Mrs. O’Chanter interrupted, “why don’t you go clean up in back until I finish.”

  “But—”

  “Riley, now.”

  Rye heard the finality in Mrs. O’Chanter’s voice, so she turned and marched toward the storeroom. She gave Boil and the soldiers a glare as she passed through the curtain in the doorway. As soon as she had made it through, she quickly turned and peeled back a corner.

  Normally, Mrs. O’Chanter only sent Rye to the storeroom when she was about to do something she thought Rye shouldn’t see. Maybe she would loudly chastise the Constable and soldiers, letting everyone on Market Street know what they were up to. Rye hoped she would chase them out of the store. Even though it was against the Laws of Longchance, Rye knew that Mrs. O’Chanter kept a sharp boot knife strapped to her thigh under her dress. She called it Fair Warning. Rye had watched her chase away a gang of thieves once—one of them had almost lost a thumb. That was a lot of fun.

  Instead, she heard Mrs. O’Chanter say, “Of course, Constable Boil.”

  Rye frowned as Mrs. O’Chanter untied the blue ribbon and handed it to the Constable. She removed the pins, too, and her dark hair fell past her shoulders as Boil pressed the ribbon into his pocket. Mrs. O’Chanter unlocked a small chest and emptied a pouch of bronze bits into his hand.

  Rye pulled away from the curtain and slumped down in a corner. She crossed her arms and her ears went scarlet with anger.

  Even after all these years, it seemed her mother could still surprise her.

  3

  The O’Chanters of Mud Puddle Lane

  The O’Chanters’ cottage was the largest on Mud Puddle Lane, which is not to say that it was big or fancy, just that it had three rooms instead of two, and an attic Rye wasn’t allowed in anymore, ever since the time she fell through the ceiling and nearly crushed her sister. It also had a secret workshop Rye wasn’t supposed to know about, but did.

  Mud Puddle Lane was on the northernmost side of town, which made for a long walk to Market Street and the Willow’s Wares. It had a view of the salt bogs and, from the roof where Rye kept her pigeon coop, you could see the edge of Beyond the Shale, where towering centuries-old pine trees swayed in the winds. Mud Puddle Lane was the one village street outside of the town’s protective walls. An accident had destroyed its section of wall many years before and, for one reason or another, it was never rebuilt. Rye’s mother wasn’t a fan of walls anyway.

  Many people wouldn’t appreciate a view of the bogs, and most would prefer to live as far away from the forest’s edge as possible. Mud Puddle Lane was known to be the first stop for any hungry beast that might crawl, slither, or lurch from the trees, Bog Noblins being the most vile and malicious of the lot. Their jagged teeth and claws dripped with disease, making their bites poisonous. Three heads taller than a full-grown man, with bulging, runny eyes and lice-infested, red-orange hair in all the wrong places, they could bury themselves deep in the bogs and mudflats during the coldest days of winter and go months without eating. Unfortunately for Drowning, with spring came the hungry season.

  Rye was too young to remember the last time a Bog Noblin had run loose in the village, but she’d heard the tales. It had begun with the disappearance of a few reclusive woodsmen and stray travelers—easily written off as a hungry bear or pack of wolves on the prowl. The livestock on remote farms went next, followed by the farmers themselves. Then the village children began to disappear. In some parts of town—all of them. None were ever seen again.

  Luckily, that was all long ago. Nevertheless, once, after some implausible stories from her best friend, Folly Flood, Rye couldn’t help but ask, “Mama, what about Beyond the Shale? Shouldn’t we worry about monsters?”

  To which Abby O’Chanter had replied, “Riley, have you ever seen a monster come out of the forest?”

  “Well, no.”

  “There you go,” Abby had said. Then she’d added with a wink, “Besides, if one did, wouldn’t you rather be the first to see it coming?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Rye had said. And that had been the end of those worries.

  Still, that night at supper, Rye wasn’t feeling particularly thrilled about where they lived, or anything else for that matter. She sat with her mother and her little sister, Lottie, at the big table by the fireplace, picking at the fleshy white meat in the cracked shells on her plate. Her place setting was remarkably tidy. Typically, when Rye was hungry, t
he table and floor looked like a pantry raided by squirrels.

  “Sea bugs again?” Rye said. “I wish we could have something else.”

  Sea bugs washed ashore in piles each morning. They were brown and gray until you threw them into a boiling pot, then they screamed, turned red, and fought with each other to escape. Rye felt no gratitude toward the deranged person who first strolled along the sand and ate one.

  “Cackle fruit!” exclaimed Lottie, banging her spoon on the table. Rye wondered if Lottie would outgrow the banging—and the yelling and fussing—when she turned three. That was coming soon, but not soon enough.

  “Eggs are for morning,” Abby said. “Besides, something’s been troubling the hens. They haven’t laid any eggs all week.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Lottie, bending her head over the big claw on her plate. As she pecked at it, her nest of red hair bounced, and coarse strands flew out in all directions like a barn fire. Her hair was nothing like Rye’s, which was brown and chopped short above her shoulders, or their mother’s, which fell long, thick, and black down her back.

  “As for you,” Abby said, pointing a spoon at Rye, “be thankful we have sea bugs and bread. You know we can’t afford to eat beef or chicken every night.”

  “Well, we could . . . ,” Rye mumbled.

  “And what do you mean by that?”

  Rye bit her lip. “Nothing.”

  Abby always seemed to know when something was weighing on Rye’s mind. Rather than cuff her, or warn her not to talk back, Abby usually tried to help. It wasn’t easy being Rye. Abby seemed to know that.

  “What is it, Riley? You’ve been upset all day.”

  “It’s just . . . the Constable. He lied to us today. You knew he was making up laws and you didn’t say anything.”

  Her mother nodded.

  “Why not?” Rye said. “You let him treat us like we’re stupid.”

  “Me no stupid, me Lottie,” Lottie said. She made an angry face and pounded her fist on the table.

  “Of course, Lottie,” Abby said, and patted her red tuft.

  Abby looked back at Rye. “The Laws of Longchance, Riley. You know that we—women, girls—we’re not supposed to know those things. We’re not supposed to know how to read or write.”

  Unless you are a Daughter of Longchance, Rye thought, in which case none of those laws applied. Her mother had told her that there were other places where girls and women could do anything they wanted. Abby grew up in one of those places. When Rye asked why they couldn’t move there, Abby told her it was complicated. When she’d asked again, Abby said there were worse things than not being allowed to read or write. The third time she’d asked, Abby sent her down to catch the basement wirry under the Willow’s Wares.

  “Those are stupid laws,” Rye grumbled now, her ears turning pink.

  “They are stupid, old-fashioned, terrible laws that need to be changed,” Abby agreed. “And, as you know, I refuse to follow them—”

  “L-O-T . . . ,” Lottie began, spelling her name. Abby pointed to her as if to say, See?

  “But,” Abby said, “that does not mean we should flaunt it. No good can come of letting the Constable or anyone else like him know what we do and do not know.”

  “But they took our coins.”

  “It’s for Assessment, Riley. The fines are pooled for the good of the village,” Abby said, without conviction.

  It seemed to Rye that the “good of the village” seldom spilled over onto Mud Puddle Lane. They couldn’t even get streetlamps after dark like every other part of town.

  “It’s just a few silver shims, Riley. It could be much worse. Remember why the Constable came to the shop in the first place.”

  Rye crossed her arms. Her mother had a point.

  “Now, enough of this talk in front of your sister,” Abby said.

  “Fine. But if I eat another bite of this sea bug I’m going to grow claws.”

  Rye frowned at the ugly, beady-eyed head staring at her from her plate.

  “So be it,” Abby said. “Give it to Shady.”

  Nightshade Fur Bottom O’Chanter was the thick ball of black fur curled up by the fireplace. Everyone called him Shady for short. He slept so close to the fire that Rye worried an ember would jump from the flame and set his bushy tail alight. Rolled up like that, you might easily mistake him for a bear cub, but Shady was in fact a cat, the largest and furriest anyone had ever seen. His fur was such a thick, luxurious black that he shone like velvet, and he was as warm as a wool blanket when he curled up on the girls’ laps on a winter night. Shady didn’t know his own strength and sometimes, when he got too excited, had a tendency to play a little rough. All the O’Chanters had the scars to prove it.

  “Shady go outside?” Lottie asked.

  Shady opened a big yellow eye at the sound of that, peeking out from his fur as if he understood what the littlest O’Chanter had said.

  “No, no, Lottie,” Abby said, wagging a finger. “House Rule Number Two. Shady must never go outside.”

  “Why? Cats go play,” Lottie said.

  Which was true. Most cats roamed the streets and alleys of the village, skulking through the night, hunting all sorts of vermin.

  “Too dangerous,” Abby said. “No, no.”

  “No, no, no,” Lottie said, wagging a finger at Shady, who, foiled again, stretched and slunk off into the shadows.

  “That’s right, girls. Now, what’s the rule? Say it with me,” Abby said. And they did.

  HOUSE RULE NUMBER 2: He may run and he may hide, but Shady must never go outside.

  “Good,” Abby said. “Shady, get your whiskers out of there.” She pushed his fluffy face away from her glass.

  They all raised their drinks for the nightly toast.

  “Welcome what tomorrow brings us,” Abby said.

  Abby drank cranberry wine from her favorite goblet. Rye and Lottie drank from smaller matching ones, leaving big goat milk mustaches over their lips.

  Getting Lottie O’Chanter to bed each night was no easy task. It took a lot of screaming and temper tantrums, and that was just from their mother. Finally, Lottie pulled on her nightdress and clambered into the bed she shared with Rye in their small room at the back of the house. She would never agree to sleep if she knew Rye was staying up, so Rye had to change into her own nightdress, climb into bed, and pretend she was going to sleep too.

  Abby leaned over and kissed each of her girls goodnight.

  “Mona, Mona,” Lottie said, thrusting forward the worn doll she slept with every night. Mona Monster was a little pink hobgoblin with red polka dots. Abby had stitched it herself and stuffed it with straw right after Lottie was born. Mona and Lottie had been inseparable ever since.

  Abby kissed Mona on her toothy pink lips. “Bedtime, Lottie.”

  Lottie made Rye kiss Mona, too.

  “Now get some sleep,” Abby said. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

  Lottie chomped her teeth and clutched the thin leather choker around her neck. A silver dragonfly charm and some runestones were strung on the black leather strand.

  Lottie touched her finger to an identical choker around her mother’s neck. Abby smiled.

  “Yes, I have one too,” Abby said.

  Rye also wore a matching choker. They were usually well hidden under the clothes the O’Chanter girls wore during the day. Even Shady had a similar collar. The chokers were the subject of yet another House Rule.

  HOUSE RULE NUMBER 4: Worn under sun and under moon, never remove the O’Chanters’ rune.

  “Cherish it with your heart,” Abby had told Rye many times. “It carries the luck of the O’Chanters and our ancestors. It will keep you safe when times are darkest.”

  “Time for sleep,” Abby whispered now, gently folding Lottie’s arms around Mona Monster.

  Abby leaned over and whispered in Riley’s ear. “I need to tend to some things outside. You listen for Lottie.”

  “Okay, Mama,” Rye said, and Abby blew out the beeswax cand
les. The room glowed from the light of the fireplace.

  It took quite a bit of tossing and turning, a little foot in Rye’s belly and a round bottom in her face before Lottie finally fell asleep. Rye slipped from under the covers and went into the main room of the cottage, where she sat by the hearth on the sweet-smelling herbs and grasses that her mother spread over the floorboards to keep the bugs away.

  Shady settled into her lap and Rye rubbed his big ears, covered with tufts of fur inside and out. These quiet times—sitting alone when Lottie was sleeping and Abby was off catching up on one task or another—were the hardest for her. Abby had been taking care of the girls by herself for as long as Rye could remember. Rye had no memories of her father. Abby said he was a soldier for the Earl. Ten years ago, he had marched off with the army into Beyond the Shale. For a few months there’d been messages and letters, and then, one day, they stopped. Abby never said more about it, but Rye was old enough to know what that meant.

  Lottie was a different story. Nobody seemed to know who her father was. Nobody except their mother, that is—and she wasn’t telling.

  The girls and the shop were a lot for anyone to handle alone, and Rye worried about her mother. Abby had been spending a lot of time out of the house at night. Maybe the night air helped clear her head. Rye knew Abby didn’t like her venturing outdoors after dark, but Rye thought her mother might appreciate the company. She kissed Shady and placed him on the floor.

  “You smell like wine,” she said, wiping his whiskers. “Stay here.”

  She put on her worn cloak and pulled the hood over her head. She creaked the door open and peeked outside. In a neighborhood of drab, gray houses, their shiny purple door always stood out. It was etched with a carving of a dragonfly that changed color as the sun hit it at different times of the day. The dragonfly was black now, the street dark except for light from the thinnest sliver of moon.

  “Stay here, Shady,” she said again, and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare wake up Lottie.”

  Rye carefully closed the door and slipped behind her house. Their goat and hens were asleep in their pens. In the distance, the bogs came to life as vapor rose off the water like ghosts. Her mother wasn’t back there, though.