by Jon Etter
“That’s terrible,” Shade said. She felt sorry for Glatis, but something stirred deep in her heart. It was a desire to . . . to . . . chase the Questing Beast! Perhaps this creature should be captured after all, she thought. “But Sir Justinian said that you’ve been slaughtering sheep. Maybe worse.”
“I’ve never harmed fairy or human or any thinking creature,” Glatis said, placing a paw on her chest as if deeply wounded by the suggestion. “As for sheep . . . well, I do like a nice spot of rare—and by rare I mean still bleeting—mutton, but then who doesn’t?”
As Glatis explained this, Shade broke out in a sweat. Her hands started to open and close involuntarily, as if preparing to grab something.
The fox creature yelped and jumped into the Professor’s arms. “You’re going to chase me! I can see it in your eyes. Oh please don’t! I’m so, so tired!” The Professor covered her with part of his coat and nodded for Shade to go away.
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry!” Shade was shocked and appalled by her overwhelming instincts. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“You want something desperately, but you aren’t certain enough about what it is or how to get it,” Glatis moaned, peeking out from the Professor’s coat, “so you’re going to start chasing me!”
“No, I . . . I . . . I don’t want to,” Shade stammered, the need to chase Glatis building and building. “How do I stop this?”
“I already told you,” Glatis sobbed, “there are only three things, and I’m too tired to—”
The Professor started whistling sharply and pointing at the briefcase. Tweet! Tweet! Point. Point. Tweet! Tweet! Point!
“He wants-a you back in-a the bag!”
“Yes!” Shade said. “Nobody—Sir Justinian, Lady Perchta, me—wanted to chase you when you were in Chauncey’s vacation!”
“Could I?” Glatis wiped a tear away with a soft, snowy paw. “That would be wonderful! If I could just have a day or two—maybe a week—in there without anyone—”
“Go! Just go!” Shade cried. The Professor gave Glatis a little kiss on the head, dropped her into the bag, and waved energetically.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I’ll never forget this!” Glatis called out. As soon as she snapped shut the case, Shade slumped, relieved of her need to chase the Questing Beast.
For the rest of the day and for most of the next, the three walked the King’s Highway as it ran west, camping along its edge under dark, sinister trees during the long night and keeping a diligent watch in case Lady Perchta returned, which seemed even more likely now that Shade knew her mother was responsible for the elf’s hideously scarred face. As they traveled, Ginch told jokes and stories of his and the Professor’s gambling and trickery, and the Professor played his tin whistle as well as a mandolin, small harp, and set of bagpipes that he improbably pulled from various pockets in his baggy clothes. The two could be enjoyable company, Shade decided, but still she spent most of her time brooding.
Why didn’t Mom ever tell me she was a war hero? And why didn’t Dad ever tell me anything? Are there other secrets they hid from me? And now I have an enemy—probably an archenemy—because of Mom! Oh sweet St. Figgymigg, is Lady Perchta going to hunt me to the ends of the earth like Captain Ishmael in Sir Melville de Acuchnet’s Captain Ishmael’s Ill-Advised and Ill-Fated Pursuit of the Albino Whale that Bit Off His Pinky-Toe, Featuring Extensive Passages on Whaling Lore? (Great book, but it really needs a shorter title, like maybe just the name of the whale.) And what about that thing with poor little (and sometimes immense) Glatis? It was starting to feel like I would have chased her like I was Captain Ishmael. All because I want to be surrounded by books again.
Shade said nothing of this. Instead she listened to Ginch’s songs and stories and laughed at his and the Professor’s jokes and played card games (which she always lost because the two cheated outrageously). This cheered her spirits somewhat and at times took her mind mostly off her troubles, which is sometimes the most that any of us can ask for.
In which there are rants, rats, and
rescues . . .
Late the next day as the sun began to set, the road turned south and the three were faced with a dilemma: Play it safe and stay on the road or follow Baba Ingas’s instructions and continue west into the trees and risk attack by the Wild Hunt. A slight disagreement ensued.
“Fatcha-coota-matchca, sproot! You wanna get us all killed!”
“Listen you crooked, cardsharping con artist—Baba Ingas said the library is to the west, so we head west!”
The Professor took out a slide whistle. Twee—ooo Ooo-weet!
“No! We go the safe route! I no wanna have to save-a you no more!”
“Save me? When have you—”
Twee-ooo!
“’Ey, we figure how to keep-a you from a-running around after the little big fox-snake-leopardy thing until you drop!”
“I would have worked that out on my own,” Shade huffed, crossing her arms. “If anything, I’m the one who keeps saving you! If it weren’t for me, Lady Perchta and her goons would be wearing the two of you as necklaces!”
Twee-ooo! Ooo—
“Shut up!” Shade roared at the Professor as Ginch grabbed the whistle and snapped it over his knee. The Professor’s jaw dropped in outrage, and he shoved Ginch. Ginch shoved him back. The Professor lifted his hands up to fight. Ginch did the same. Then the Professor pulled back one hand as if to strike but instead kicked out with his foot, hitting the brownie in the seat of the pants.
“You go downstairs, eh? Well, I’m-a go upstairs!” Ginch tackled the Professor, and the two wrestled around on the ground.
“Okay, nitwits—try not to kill each other. Or do. I don’t really give a saucer of snake spit one way or the other!” Shade grabbed the backpack straps resting on her shoulders and stomped off into the trees. “You’d probably just have slowed me down!”
“No, wait! That’s-a no good!” She heard Ginch yell behind her. “Sprootshade, come-a back—Oof! Get offa me, you—Ow! ’Ey Sprootshade, we wait-a right here and when you come-a to you senses—Ouch! Fatcha-coota-matchca, pixie!”
Shade trudged for a long time as the already dark forest grew darker and darker as the sun went down. As the light faded, so did her anger and her resolve. The indignant thought Why couldn’t those stubborn thistlepricks have come with me! finally gave way to the uneasy, somewhat guilty question How could I have left those thistlepricks behind? Shade had spent most of her life without friends and had always thought that was completely fine—even preferable to the hassles of dealing with other folks. But just then, alone there in the Grim Forest, she realized that she had grown fond of the silly, crooked, but good-natured duo. Maybe I was too hard on them. And maybe they were right—leaving the road was a terrible idea.
With the last glowing embers of dusk providing the most meager of light, Shade headed back, hoping she would be able to find her way back to Ginch and the Professor but dreading having to apologize for losing her temper.
After only a few steps, however, she froze in her tracks. She heard a loud rustling, as if hundreds of dried leaves were being trampled, and odd, unnerving sounds of panting and low growls. As she wondered what could be making such noises, she heard a sharp cry, followed by shrill whistles, and finally “Hey, get-a you paws off-a me, filthy ratti!”
Shade tiptoed as fast as she could and spied Ginch and the Professor in a small clearing, surrounded and pinned to the ground by huge rats almost as big as they were. The pixie and brownie struggled to free themselves, but strong clawed paws gripped cloth and flesh, making escape impossible. The rats gnashed their teeth and hissed, “Eat! Eat! Bite! Rip! Tear! Eat!”
“No, brothers and sisters! No!” a chorus of five voices called in unison. On the far edge of the clearing, Shade saw five rats atop a stump, standing on their hind legs with their forepaws all in the air. Hanging over the edge of the stump was a complex tangle of hairless, scaly tails. “Reme
mber the rewards promised us!”
“Meat! Meat!” the rats hissed.
“Yes! More meat than this if we give them to the Lady of the Hunt!”
Perchta! Shade thought. She can’t do anything to us yet, so she’s siccing rats and who knows what else on us!
“But we are missing one,” the rat chorus said. “Where is the moth girl? Tell us, and we may be merciful.”
“The moth girl?” Ginch asked.
“Yes. Above all, we were told to capture the fairy with the owl-faced wings.”
“About my height? Black hair? Brown skin? Same color butterfly wings?”
“Yes!”
Shade held her breath. After how mean I was to him, I don’t blame him if he—
“I no know any moth girl. ’Ey, paisan! You know-a the moth girl?”
The Professor shook his head.
“Sorry, Braidy, but we no know any moth girl.”
“Braidy?” the joined rats all hissed.
“Yeah. You got-a the tails all a-braided together, so I call-a you—”
“You will call us by our true name and royal title: Rí Francach.”
“So, you’re-a the king of the rats, and you no like-a the name ‘Braidy’?”
“Yes!”
“Too bad, because you’re-a Braidy, the Rat King! Braidy, the Rat King!”
“Silence!” they hissed.
“Braidy, the Rat King!” Ginch chanted as the Professor began to whistle along. “He’s-a Braidy, the Rat King! Braidy, the Rat King!”
“Silence them, my subjects!” the Rí Francach shouted. Rats near Ginch and the Professor sank their teeth into their arms. The Professor grimaced, and Ginch shrieked in pain.
Shade racked her brains but couldn’t think of anything she had ever read that would help her just then. She wasn’t capable of feats of strength like Queequeg or nimble combat like Sir Percy Dovetonsils, and none of the chivalric adventures in Le Warte d’Arty involved hordes of giant, semi-intelligent rats. For the first time in her life, she felt as though all her reading had utterly failed her.
“Now,” the rat king’s five voices hissed. “Tell us where the moth girl is!”
“I . . . I tell-a you . . .” Ginch murmured. The Rí Francach fell down upon all fours (all five sets of them) and craned its heads forward. “I tell-a you . . . I tell-a you that . . . you’re-a Braidy, the Rat King! Braidy, the Rat King!”
The rats bit and clawed at them. Ginch shrieked in agony. Shade panicked. Why couldn’t I be a warrior like my mother? I don’t even own a sword, much less know how to use one! If only I were the Great Owl and—wait! That’s it! I’m not the Great Owl, but I can become . . .
Shade braced herself, prayed to Saint Eeyore (patron saint of lost causes) that her lifelong lack of practice wouldn’t doom her, then flapped high into the trees above and began making her best owl hoots. From her perch high up in an immense ash tree, she saw the rats start and look about nervously. “Owl? Owl? Snatchy, rippy, killy owl? Where? Where? Where?” they gibbered.
She took a deep breath and let out the loudest, fiercest hoots she could and flexed her wings to their full span, the black, brown, gray pattern with its twin rings of yellow on her back looking a great deal like the face of an immense owl glaring down at the rats.
Shade heard hisses and shrieks of “Beakses and talonses! Beakses and talonses! Run, run, run!” She peaked over her shoulder to see the rats racing out into the forest.
“Stop our subjects! Stop!” The rat king cried. “We, the Rí Francach, command—Aaagh!”
The five bodies of the rat king fell from the stump to crash in five different places on the ground. In the center of the stump now stood the Professor, grinning his silly grin, a meat cleaver from Grouse’s food preparation set in one hand and five severed rat tails braided together held high in the other.
“Our . . . my . . . tails . . . separate . . . not knot . . . I, we, us, me can’t . . . not francach, just francaigh . . . I, we, us, me, you can’t . . . can’t . . .” the five rats that were formerly one all babbled as they wandered, dazed, into the dark night.
Seeing that the last of the rats was gone, Shade glided down from her tree. She had hoped to make a graceful and dramatic landing right in front of Ginch and the Professor but, as is often the case when we are doing our absolute best to be graceful and dramatic, failed miserably and instead crashed into them. All three fell in a tangled heap on the ground.
“Little Sprootshade!” Ginch cried. “You’re alive! And-a you save us! That was-a the great, great trick! Right, Professor?”
The Professor nodded. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of parchment tied with a red ribbon and placed it in Shade’s left hand while he shook her right. Shade arched an eyebrow and unrolled the paper. It read, Certification of Extreme Cleverness. University of Streüseldorff. “Thanks, I guess . . .” she said.
“C’mon!” Ginch said. “Let’s-a run for it! We got-a the rats and-a the hunts and-a who knows what else in-a the woods! We gotta scram!”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Shade agreed as the three grabbed each other’s hands and dashed deeper into the woods.
In which a friendship is put to the
test . . .
For hours they ran, hand-in-hand-in-hand, through the darkness, their way lit only by stray rays of moonlight peeking through the canopy of leaves and the occasional flashings of fireflies. Whenever their energy would flag, the chirps and screeches and howls of the forest filled them with fresh terror to speed them along. More than once, Ginch urged Shade to fly ahead, but she would have none of it. While feeling more confident about her flying abilities thanks to their run-in with the rats, Shade wasn’t sure fast flight in the dark was such a good idea. Besides, now that she had reunited with her friends, she didn’t believe that she would ever want to leave their side again.
Eventually, they had to stop for breath and to clutch the stitches in their sides. Between pants, Shade heard something: a faint, rhythmic roaring. “Do you hear that?”
“What? My heart? Yeah, it go ‘a-boom, a-boom, a-boom, a—’”
“No. Listen.”
Ginch listened. His eyes lit up. “C’mon!” he said, grabbing his fatigued companions and dragging them toward the sound.
In short order they could see light and open sky ahead. They quickened their pace and stumbled out of the forest. Bathed in the moonlight, they saw a vast, shimmering expanse of water. White-capped waves rolled in and crashed against rocks, sending frothy spume flying into the air. Shade, who had only ever read about the ocean in books, was overcome by the beauty of water stretching all the way to the horizon. The Professor dropped to his knees and kissed the ground before sticking his tongue out and making a rude gesture at the trees.
As much as the three wanted to collapse right where they stood, they forced themselves on and found a spot further down the shoreline where large rocks blocked the cold ocean breezes and provided cover from any eyes that might lurk in the night.
“I’ll get wood for a fire,” Shade offered. “Then we can eat a little and get some sleep. Boy, do we need it . . .”
“Sounds-a good,” Ginch agreed, sitting and stretching.
As Shade left, she could just hear Ginch saying, “I know we got-a . . . Whatta you mean tonight? That’s-a no good. We wait until . . .”
Shade wanted to creep closer and eavesdrop, but she was cold and wanted a fire more. Besides, she thought, we’re friends. They wouldn’t keep anything important a secret from me, would they?
Once the three had a nice fire warming them, while Shade devoured an almond torte that Chauncey had packed for her (now rather stale but still quite delicious).
The Professor nudged Ginch and nodded toward Shade. “Yeah, I know,” Ginch muttered. “Uh, listen, little Sprootshade, we got-a the something to tell-a to you.”
“Yeah?” Shade said, picking up a waterskin.
“Well, you see . . . The ocean! Boy, she’s-a pretty!”
“Mmm-hmm,” Shade agreed as she drank.
After a sharp elbow from the Professor, Ginch continued, “And, uh, you see, we kinda . . . sorta . . . maybe . . . a little bit . . . burn-a you house down.”
Shade choked and sprayed water all over the brownie and pixie. “What?!?”
The Professor pulled out a pair of handkerchiefs and handed one to Ginch, who started to wipe himself. “Well, it’s-a like this. We were in-a Bilgewater, and we find-a the bunch of fireworks that somebody lose—”
The Professor shook his head and waggled his finger at the brownie. “’Ey, the owner lose it after we take it, so that’s-a no the lie. Anyways, for personal reasons, we leave-a Bilgewater quick and go through the Murray Forest—”
“That’s ‘Merry’ Forest,” Shade said through gritted teeth. She could feel a deep, deep rage growing inside, burning hotter and hotter like a blacksmith’s forge stoked by the bellows.
“That’s-a what I say. So we go through the Murray Forest and we meet-a these sproots, and we make-a the trade and skeedeedle, but we warn-a them that they’re-a dangerous and—”
The Professor shook his head.
“Whatta you mean we no warn them? We tell-a them—”
“You told them that they were ‘perfectly safe.’” Shade’s teeth began to grind. “That’s what Chieftainess Flutterglide said.”
“I no think I—” Ginch stopped as the Professor nodded vigorously and pointed at Shade. “Okay, maybe I say that, but what kind of the doof no know that fireworks—”
“The kind of dingle-dangle doof that I grew up with, that’s who!” Shade shouted. “You gave a bunch of dangerous pyrotechnics—”
“We no give-a nobody pirate-a nothing!”
“Pyrotechnics! Fireworks! You gave dangerous fireworks to a bunch of dingle-dangle-donkled dimwits, and they burned my house down with them!”
“And we’re-a sorry. We feel-a like . . . like . . .” The Professor pulled out his horse picture and pointed to its bottom. “Yeah, we feel-a like those.”
