by Paul Durham
Faye brought spiced plum cider for Rye and Lottie. Only after sitting and sipping the warm drink did Rye’s exhaustion creep up on her. Soon she heard Lottie snoring, her head buried on Abby’s shoulder. Rye curled up under Abby’s other arm and, despite her efforts to keep her eyes propped open, fell in and out of slumber.
Her dreams blended in with the adults’ conversation until she had trouble telling the two apart. It seemed to Rye that Abby, Harmless, and Folly’s parents talked over their glasses into the early morning. They were joined by Fitz and Flint, who drank ale from four tankards spread out in front of them. At one point Leatherleaf sat down beside them on the floor. The Bog Noblin hunkered over a steaming pot of stew. He poured it straight down his gullet and used his black tongue to lick the remains from his ropy orange beard. When he had finished, he cast a hungry look at Rye.
Rye forced her eyes open, her heart racing. Thankfully, Leatherleaf was just in her dreams this time.
“The poison,” Abby was saying to the Floods. “Do we know who Longchance sent to poison Gray?”
“Not for certain,” Fletcher said. “But we’ve narrowed it down and we’re keeping a close eye on them.”
Harmless glanced at the table where the men were playing cards. His jaw tightened. Through her fog of sleep, Rye thought she saw the man with the monkey glaring back at him.
“The Dead Fish is safe,” Fitz said.
“Once we find Longchance’s eyes and ears—” Flint said.
“—we’ll cut them out ourselves,” Fitz finished.
“Boys,” Faye chastised, “must you always be so crass?”
“Sorry, Mum,” they said together. Fitz sipped his ale sheepishly.
“Until then—” Flint said.
“—no new guests get in,” Fitz finished.
“As safe as the Dead Fish is, the village is running out of time,” Harmless said. “The Clugburrow are at our doorstep. At least three travel by night.”
“Longchance will see us all dragged into the bogs before he seeks help again,” Faye said with rising anger.
“He thought he’d buried the Bog Noblins and the Luck Uglies years ago,” Abby said. “If not for this wayward juvenile, maybe he’d have been right,” she added bitterly.
“Nothing stays buried forever,” Harmless said quietly, as if speaking only to her.
“He’s gone mad,” Fitz said. Rye noticed that the twins even sounded alike.
“This festival is madness.” Flint said. “Keeping a live Bog Noblin in the village—”
“—only invites catastrophe.” Fitz added.
“He’s drunk with ego,” Harmless said. “This is his opportunity. Once and for all, he intends to prove that Drowning doesn’t need the Luck Uglies. He may truly believe it himself.”
Harmless turned back to Abby. “You and the girls should be safe here with me gone. If I stay, everyone will be at risk.”
Abby pressed her goblet to her lips and said nothing.
“We can hold our own regardless of what Longchance throws our way,” Fletcher said.
“I know you can, my friend,” Harmless said, putting a hand on Fletcher’s arm. “I won’t be far. But there are other old acquaintances I must speak with before this mess is said and done.”
Fletcher sighed. “Well, then, if you must leave in the morning”—he raised a glass—“we drink now.”
They all raised mugs and clinked them together. The twins had enough to clink with everybody.
Rye pretended to be asleep but more dreams would not come easy. She had only just met her father and he was already leaving again. She reached up and gently placed her hand over his.
Rye woke to the sparkle of sunlight on colored glass. She was surrounded by hundreds of bottles in all shapes and sizes. Sitting up, she realized she was lying on thick blankets on the floor of Folly’s room. Someone must have carried her there during the night.
When she ventured downstairs she discovered it was already midday. People sat in small groups at tables eating, drinking, and blustering. There was always loud talk and whispering at the Dead Fish Inn, but not much in between. Nobody used their “reasonable” voices, just as Rye and Lottie didn’t at home, despite Abby’s urging. Rye looked for Folly or her mother. She heard a familiar unreasonable voice rise above the general noise of the inn.
“Mean sker-rell take my monster!” Lottie yelled. “You mean!”
Rye found her little sister on the floor by the bar. Lottie was engaged in a tug-of-war with the small black monkey Rye had seen before. The monkey clutched Mona Monster’s feet and Lottie grasped her by the arms. Eventually, Lottie won the battle and gave the monkey’s tail a pull for good measure. The monkey yelled and clambered up the wall, taking refuge in the enormous chandelier of candles three floors overhead. It screeched angrily at Lottie from its perch.
“Mean sker-rell,” Lottie said when she saw Rye. “Take Mona. Humph,” she added, and stomped off toward their mother by the fireplace.
“Your sister’s made herself right at home,” Jonah said to Rye with a broad smile. He was tidying up behind the bar. “Although she’s been fighting with that hairy nuisance all morning.”
“Oh. Hi, Jonah,” Rye said. “Where did that monkey come from anyway?”
“Name’s Shortstraw. At least that’s what he calls it,” Jonah said, pointing to the sinister-looking man in the corner. “It showed up with him. Three weeks ago.”
Rye could see now that the man had pale blue eyes the color of robins’ eggs. He picked a callus on his thumb with the point of a sharp knife.
“His name’s Bramble,” Jonah said. “Nobody knows where he came from or where he’s going. Between you and me, Rye, I’d avoid him if I were you. Both him and his monkey are card cheats, if not worse. I don’t trust him one bit.”
Bramble was watching someone intently. Rye followed his gaze and swallowed hard. His eyes were fixed upon her mother.
“Thanks, Jonah,” Rye said, and hurried off to the Mermaid’s Nook, where her mother was sitting.
Rye joined Abby at the table, glancing over her shoulder as she sat. Bramble conveniently turned his attention elsewhere.
“Hello, my sleeping dragon,” Abby said with a smile.
“Hi, Mama,” Rye said. Lottie was playing at their feet. Rye looked around for Harmless. “Is he gone?” she asked.
Abby nodded. “Yes, darling. For now.”
“Will he be back?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said.
“Oh,” Rye said, and looked down at the table. Abby reached out and took her hand.
“You have questions,” Abby said. “Maybe it’s time we talk.”
And, for the first time in a long while, they did.
“I told you your father was a soldier who had gone off to fight for the Earl Beyond the Shale because, in many ways, it was true,” Abby said. “Your grandfather, your father, and others had brokered a peace treaty with Ascot Longchance—Morningwig’s own father—years before. The Luck Uglies agreed to provide a most useful and honorable service: to rid the Shale of the Bog Noblins. They did this so their crimes would be pardoned, their bounties lifted, and—most importantly—so that one day their children might have a better life.
“I make no excuses for the horrors Grimshaw once brought upon this village,” she continued. “But I remain grateful for what he tried to do for his grandchildren—even though he never met you. It was not without its price, even among the Luck Uglies themselves. . . .”
Rye saw the look of sadness in her mother’s eyes. It was strange to hear of sacrifices made for her and Lottie long before they were even born.
“Your grandfather met his demise not long after signing the Treaty of Stormwell, but your father completed the work after he assumed the High Chieftain’s crest. Unfortunately, Ascot Longchance also died before the Luck Uglies’ task was finished, and his heir, Morningwig, proved to be most dishonorable—even by Longchance standards.”
Abby explained that the ne
w Earl had grown wary of the Luck Uglies’ success. The villains remained feared but were no longer reviled. Bards belted drinking songs in their honor. Maidens batted their eyelashes at them. Village children set out crumb cakes on the night of the Black Moon. Nobody made crumb cakes for Morningwig Longchance.
Rye had heard much of that before. Abby leaned forward, her voice now tart as she spoke.
“Official village history would tell us that despite their uneasy truce, the Luck Uglies were unable to change their nature, stealing away the Earl’s bride, the mother of his only child, during the night. Tragically, Lady Emma was never seen again.”
“They chained her to a stump . . . ,” Rye said abashedly, her eyes on the table as she recalled her discussion with Quinn.
“No,” Abby said. “Riley, look at me.”
Rye did.
“No,” Abby said firmly again. “The Luck Uglies did no such thing. Your father would never have allowed it. The Luck Uglies have never had many scruples, but they live by an unbreakable code. Their rules are secret, and even I do not know them all. But one pillar of their beliefs is that the women and children of their enemies must not be harmed.”
Rye felt a break in the dark cloud that had been shrouding her.
“Why would Longchance say such a thing to the village?” she asked.
“Because he cares for his own stature above all else,” Abby said, her voice rising. “If the Luck Uglies could protect the village where he had repeatedly failed, how long before the village would decide it had no need for the House of Longchance at all? It was without warning that Longchance doubled their bounties and declared the Luck Uglies to be outlaws once again, banishing them from the Shale.”
Abby paused and took a breath to compose herself. Her voice softened, but the fire in her eyes remained.
“Even your father doesn’t know what became of the unlucky Lady Longchance, but blaming her disappearance on the Luck Uglies was just what Morningwig needed to turn the village against them. If the Luck Uglies were so brazen as to steal his bride from the armed Keep, what hope did the villagers have in their own cottages?”
Abby leaned forward and took Rye’s hand. She held it tightly and looked her daughter in the eye.
“Morningwig Longchance lives by no code. He would have undoubtedly bargained with the throats of every last wife and child of a Luck Ugly if he knew who they were. He agreed that those families who were suspected would not be persecuted, so long as no Luck Ugly ever returned to Drowning.”
Abby explained that, to drive the point home, Longchance assembled an army the likes of which the village had never seen. He borrowed soldiers from his neighboring nobles, retained fierce mercenaries with promises of gold and pardons from the gallows. Under a full moon, they marched through Drowning, purging the village of all Luck Uglies who had not yet left. Some of the Luck Uglies, blind with rage, ravaged the streets and terrorized the villagers—innocent and otherwise.
Abby shook her head when she said, “This shortsighted act of vengeance only reinforced the lies that Longchance had fed the village.”
Abby was silent for a moment, and seemed to weigh her words carefully.
“Homeless and family-less,” she continued, “the remaining Luck Uglies disbanded, disappearing far and wide to make new lives doing the only things they knew how—which, unfortunately, were a lot like the troublesome things they’d tried to stop doing in the first place.”
Abby stared off into the shadows, and Rye knew that those lost years had taken their toll.
“However,” Abby went on, “after many years, your father did return—much to my surprise. The lure of a family left behind proved too strong for even his rakish heart. He began coming and going in secret, bringing me the exotic treasures he collected in his travels so that I might sell them at the Willow’s Wares.”
Abby shrugged her shoulders when she explained that Lottie was a product of one of those visits.
“I met your father when I was young,” Abby said. “He was a puzzle even then but he was, and still is, charming. I knew who and what he was, and for a long time, I was convinced I might change him.” Abby shook her head sadly. “When I first told you he had disappeared Beyond the Shale, I truly believed we would never see him again. It was never my intention to deceive you.”
“And what about after he returned?” Rye asked.
“It was too dangerous, Riley,” Abby said, looking her in the eye. “That type of secret is too much for any child. Keeping it from you was not the easy choice. I knew if you ever found out, you’d never forgive me for lying.”
“Then why did you?”
Abby put a hand on Rye’s cheek. “I’d rather have you hate me forever than put you in harm’s way for a single moment.”
“I don’t hate you.”
Rye picked a fingernail. Abby reached across the table and gently took Rye’s hands in her own again.
“And if he doesn’t return this time? What then?” Rye said. “We can’t stay here forever, can we?”
Abby shook her head. “No. But don’t trouble yourself with that part just yet. I’m making arrangements. There is another place we can go, far away from here. . . .” Her voice grew distant. “If we have no other option.”
Rye nodded. “Okay.”
“In the meantime, these secrets you have learned, Riley,” Abby said quietly, “the Spoke, the mysteries of the Bog Noblins your father has told you—you must keep them to yourself. They must not be repeated. These secrets put not only him, but all of us in terrible danger.”
“I understand, Mama,” Rye said. “I won’t tell.”
“Good,” Abby said, and kissed her head.
Rye hugged her mother, and it felt as if a great weight had been lifted.
Of course, when Rye found Folly, she dragged her right into Folly’s room and told her everything about Harmless, the Spoke, Leatherleaf and the Clugburrow, and the O’Chanters’ narrow escape from Mud Puddle Lane. Rye threatened to revoke her friendship if Folly told another soul, but she knew she had nothing to worry about.
“How could you not tell me?” Folly yelled.
“I just did,” Rye said.
“Let’s go in the Spoke!” Folly said.
“Absolutely not,” Rye said. “You can never go down there. You promised.”
“Oh, I hate promises,” Folly said, biting her lip.
The next morning the inn seemed alive with energy. That afternoon would bring the Long Moon Festival at Grim Green and most of the village was expected to attend. At first, Rye’s mother had flatly refused to let her go with Folly and her brothers. Rye argued that none of Longchance’s soldiers would know what she looked like. Even if they did, Grim Green would be so filled with villagers, there was little chance any of them would spot her in a crowd. Abby still said no.
As the day wore on and the younger Flood children’s excitement grew while Rye’s sulking worsened, Abby relented—much to Rye’s surprise. When Abby took her aside, Rye could tell something else was weighing on her mother’s mind.
“You may go, but there’s one thing you must do,” Abby said.
A hitch, Rye thought. She knew her mother wasn’t one to give in without good reason.
“You’ll see Quinn?” Abby said.
“I can’t imagine he’d miss it.”
“Tell him that if things get bad—with the soldiers or anything else—he and his father should come here. There’ll be a safe place for them at the inn.”
Rye nodded. That was a relief.
Abby made Rye promise to stick close to her friends at the festival.
“Always,” Rye said.
Abby told her to get out of there at the first sign of any trouble.
“Like the wind,” Rye said with a smile.
Abby just nodded with a look of exhaustion that made Rye wonder whether her mother believed her, or if she’d just resigned herself to some unspoken truth.
“You are more of your father’s daughter than I could ha
ve ever expected” was all Abby said.
Later that day, Rye and Folly took positions in the alley behind the Dead Fish. At one end was the scarecrow Folly’s brothers had built to practice knife throwing. Folly removed a corked bottle from the pack slung over her shoulder. It was tied with a string and a label.
“Are you ready?” Folly said, as she prepared to throw it.
“Ready,” said Baron Nutfield, who sipped wine and leaned against the scarecrow.
“What’s it supposed to do again?” Rye asked.
“It creates a deafening bang and a blinding flash of light,” Folly said with excitement. “I actually knocked myself down when I tried it last week.”
“Will it hurt him?” Rye asked.
“Not permanently, there’s no flame. The flash will just knock him stupid for a while.” Folly looked at Nutfield, who was trying to balance on one foot with his eyes closed. She raised an eyebrow at Rye. “I think he’ll be fine.”
“Commence the experiment,” Baron Nutfield bellowed, and raised his cup, spilling wine on his ample belly.
Rye looked skeptical. “All right, go ahead.”
Folly took aim and threw the bottle down the alley toward Baron Nutfield. The bottle hit the ground at his feet and shattered, sending a little puff of smoke into the air. There was no bang. No flash.
“That was extraordinary!” Baron Nutfield yelled, and raised his wine again. “Well done, Lady Flood!”
“Pigshanks,” Folly said. “I don’t know what happened. Let’s try another.” She rummaged through her bag.
“Are you girls ready?” Fifer Flood said, tramping into the alley with Fowler and Fallow, Folly’s youngest brothers. “We should go soon if we want a good spot on the Green.”
