The Curse of the Werepenguin

by Allan Woodrow

  The couple fled farther into the woods, but the beast followed them. Through the darkness, Bolt heard a commotion, and then a scream and then another scream. Moments later, the Baron-penguin returned with one of the boy’s shoes.

  * * *

  Bolt sat upright, back in his bed. It was morning, and a cold breeze blew in from the open window. The bedspread was soaking wet, and snow had blown onto the floor, melting into small puddles. Wet penguin prints led from the closed tower door.

  Bolt wore his nightshirt, but it was torn, shredded, and dripping with salt water. He exhaled, but despite the cold, no cloud formed from his breath. Oddly, he was not chilled.

  A dead fish lay on his bed. Bolt picked it up and rubbed his tongue down its side before tossing it down his throat. His arm smelled like fish, so he licked it, too. Both tasted salty, like the sea. He licked his own arm again, faster, rejoicing in the flavor until, appalled, he forced himself to stop, slobber dripping from his elbow.

  Bolt stood and stared at himself in the mirror. He trembled as he saw his snow-white face and the two tufts of hair standing hornlike on top. His eyebrows were bushier—there was no doubting their new fullness.

  No penguin wings sat on his sides; he had only human arms. No penguin beak protruded from his head. He was still himself, mostly.

  But Bolt knew it had happened. It had not just been a dream.

  Bolt had become a werepenguin.

  The Baron had said they would rule, side by side. Bolt didn’t want to rule. He just wanted to run, far away, and find his real family.

  Family.

  When he thought those words, Bolt’s mind drifted to his scattered memories of the night before. Amid the horror and the revulsion for the monster he had become, he’d also felt a sense of belonging. He had been part of a family, of sorts. Sure, it was a terrifying family of birds that wanted to rule, enslave people, and follow the Baron’s demented orders, but a family nonetheless.

  Bolt shook his head. Ridiculous. His addled mind was playing tricks on him. A group of penguins wasn’t a family.

  But what would Bolt’s real family, the ones likely waiting back at the orphanage right then, think about Bolt’s penguin transmutations? For Bolt knew, somehow, that he was doomed to transform again and again, every night, unless he did something. If he didn’t stop his nightly mutations, if he couldn’t, he would never be loved. He would never have a family.

  As Bolt continued shaking his head, nearly overwhelmed with despair, he thought back to the Fortune Teller. She had said she could save Bolt. She’d said something about how freeing himself would free them all.

  She might be his only chance.

  In between her chain-rattling chiming and her disturbing cackling and her viselike grip, the Fortune Teller had also said Bolt was the chosen one.

  She had never said what he was chosen for, but Bolt hoped he was chosen to escape his monstrous fate. He doubted he had been chosen to save anyone. That was the sort of thing brave and mighty people did, and Bolt wasn’t brave or mighty, just desperate.

  But Blazenda would help Bolt end his curse. She had to. He dreaded to think what might become of him if she didn’t.

  PART THREE

  The Curse

  22.

  Another Break in the Action

  Back at the St. Aves Zoo, the penguin caretaker paused. The zoo exhibit lights had been turned off and the full moon glowed above. The penguins in the exhibit were as silent as I was, watching our storyteller, hanging on his every word.

  I spit out a large thread from my coat. I had eaten an entire jacket sleeve, and had started gnawing on the other one. “Never liked sleeves much,” I mumbled, trying to deflect attention from my palpable fear.

  The penguin caretaker nodded, too polite to mention the small hill of saliva-drenched fabric chunks covering the ground around my feet. “Perhaps I should stop the story now?”

  “Are you at the end? You promised me free penguins at the end.”

  “No, I am not at the end,” he admitted. “And I did not forget our bargain. The penguins are yours after my story, if you still want them.”

  “Of course I still want them. A ridiculous penguin story won’t change my mind. Go on.”

  “I must warn you, we are getting into the scary part.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “I don’t think anyone can ever be ready for what happens next.” I stiffened, and the man looked away with a melancholy stare. “Let’s revisit the Brugarian Forest Bandits. Perhaps hearing about them will lighten the mood.”

  “Hearing about violent, throat-slitting bandits who capture and kidnap innocent babies will lighten the mood?”

  “Unfortunately for us, yes.”

  23.

  The Runaway

  After failing to kidnap Bolt or rob his carriage, Annika sat in her tent, stewing. It was a largish tent, big enough for a bed and a trunk with enough extra space to perform jumping jacks, if someone wanted to perform jumping jacks, which was not often. It stood at the outskirts of the bandit camp.

  The camp itself wasn’t much to look at—a cluster of large, foldable tents in a clearing in the middle of the Brugarian forest. In addition to a tent for each bandit, there was also a cooking pit, the kidnapping hut, and a crude bathroom that was little more than a hole in the ground. The smell from the hole-in-the-ground bathroom permeated the entire campsite despite 276 vanilla-scented air fresheners hanging on the trees, provided by an air freshener salesman in return for his kidnapped uncle. The salesman hadn’t had enough cash on hand to pay the ransom.

  But such was the life of a bandit—stinky smells, temporary housing in case you needed to pack up and move in the middle of the night, and questionable ransom-collection agreements.

  Annika sat on her bed. Her father stood before her, arms crossed. Outside, Annika could hear the thwick, thwick, thwick of metal penetrating wood—the sound of morning knife-throwing practice.

  “Let me join the men and practice knife throwing,” Annika begged.

  Vigi Lambda shook his head. “You know I don’t allow that. You are not old enough.”

  “You treat me like I’m still a baby.”

  “You exaggerate. Oh, and I got you a new rattle.” He tossed the toy on her bed. Annika glared at it.

  “It’s not fair,” sighed Annika, crossing her arms. “I’m almost thirteen. How old were you when you started kidnapping?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Well, everyone knows girls mature faster than boys.” Her father frowned. “I won the bandit lock-picking contest last year. Remember? No one else even came close. And I’m fast. I can outrace everyone.”

  “Picking a lock and running cannot help you rob a carriage and kidnap its riders.”

  “But it can help me escape if I’m caught. Please, Papa. Give me a chance. I can be a terrific bandit—the best ever. I’m as fast and clever as a penguin!” Vigi Lambda bristled. Annika frowned at his reaction. “Why are you so scared of those birds, anyway? We have an agreement with the Baron, right? He protects us.”

  “We do!” her father said, although a bit too loudly, his brow furrowing. “But like glass hammers, agreements can be easily shattered.”

  Annika nodded, remembering the set of glass tools her father had bought a few years before. It had not lasted long. “The penguins are getting meaner, aren’t they?” she asked. “More bold. More cunning. What if they attack us?”

  “Nonsense,” said her father. “That would never happen.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I will not discuss it with you!” He stomped his foot on the ground. “I will not discuss it with anyone. I am the leader of this bandit clan, and only me. I can even show you my stationery if you don’t believe me.”

  Annika buried her head in her hands. Her weeping was so loud and harsh, it made even the weeping willows
outside the tent jealous. “You won’t let me do anything. You won’t tell me anything. You’re not even my real father. I wish you had never kidnapped me at all!”

  “Don’t say that—”

  “I hate you!”

  Vigi Lambda opened his mouth to reply, but instead bit his lip. Without a word, he stomped out of the tent.

  Annika’s weeping gradually subsided, slowly trickling out of her like a squeezed and empty juice box. She knew fierce bandits didn’t cry, or at least seldom did; even the strongest bandit often cried before being hanged. No crying unless you are about to be hanged. That was written into the Code of the Bandit. Annika knew because she had read the entire code, all eight hundred pages of it, twice.

  She had no proper schooling, but Annika had taught herself how to read, just as she had taught herself how to pick locks and perform basic feats of banditry. She had been proud to win the lock-picking contest, but had not dared to reveal the rest of her self-taught skills. She feared her father would not react kindly if he discovered she had been training herself in secret.

  Her canvas tent door flapped open. Felipe wandered in, concern written on his face.

  “Why is the word concern written on your face?” Annika asked.

  Felipe rubbed the marker off his cheek. “Your weeping is bothering the weeping willows again.”

  “I don’t care about trees!” shouted Annika. “Papa doesn’t let me do anything.” She scowled. “Papa.” She repeated the word. It sat heavily on her tongue. “He’s not even that.”

  “Curb your tongue,” said Felipe. The squat bandit sat on the bed next to Annika. “He loves you, in his own way.”

  Annika didn’t allow herself to take comfort in those words. She folded her arms. “He thinks all I’m good for is doing chores, like fetch the ransom money or sharpen the knives so we can slice someone’s neck. He never lets me have fun.”

  Vigi Lambda’s right-hand man patted Annika’s hand, her right one, with his left. “It’s hard for him. He could have killed you as a baby, you know. But he didn’t, and there is nothing in the bandit code about raising a daughter. At least I don’t think so. It’s long and boring, so I’ve never actually read it.” He mumbled the last part, blushing while staring at his shoes.

  “I’ve read the entire thing. Twice,” Annika exclaimed, swiping her hand away from Felipe’s patting. “But not everything comes from a book, you know.” She clenched her hands into fists and slammed them on the bedspread. “I’ll show him. I’ll prove I can be a great bandit, with or without him. I’ll just have to . . .” Her voice trailed off with those last words, her mouth twisting into a frustrated grimace.

  “What do you plan to do?” Felipe asked, worry rising in his voice. “Don’t do anything rash, Annika.”

  “I’ll do nothing,” said Annika, lying down on the bed and rolling over, turning her back to Felipe. “What can I do? I’m just a worthless bandit girl who plays with rattles.” She lifted the toy her father had given her earlier and shook it. “See?”

  She continued to shake her rattle until Felipe left. As soon as her door flapped closed, Annika sat up straight. She had no intention of playing with baby toys or staying in the camp.

  As soon as dinner was announced that night, the men would gather to eat. That would be her chance. The men would be too busy dining on burnt chipmunk, or charcoaled mongoose, or blackened geckos, or whatever animal the bandits had caught that day for dinner and then overcooked, to notice Annika sneaking away.

  Once free, she would prove she could rob and kidnap as ruthlessly as anyone.

  She would need money for her journey. Before she left the forest, she would find a carriage to rob—any carriage would do, although a fancy one would be nice. Then, she would go far away, where she would rob and kidnap and prove she was the greatest bandit in the world. Then when she returned, her father, or more accurately the man who kidnapped her as an infant, would regret treating her like a child.

  Annika spent the rest of the day practicing her knife throwing. She threw them into her pillow to muffle the sound. She always did that, which was why her pillow was now just a sheet with knife holes all over it, and wasn’t very comfortable to sleep on. Fortunately for Annika, the men were too busy practicing their own knife throwing to notice the faint thwick, thwick coming from her tent.

  Annika removed a small lock from under her pillow and a couple of bobby pins from her blonde hair. She often kept her hair up in bobby pins—they came in handy for lock picking. It was how she had won the bandit lock-picking contest.

  She picked the lock, over and over again, while waiting for night to fall.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours because it was hours, Annika heard the dinner bell ring and the men gathering around the campfire to eat flaming snake tongue—it was hard to mistake its pungent odor. This was her chance. Clad in her bandit clothes—tattered and old and black-and-white to resemble a penguin—Annika grabbed a small bag she had packed and ducked out of her tent.

  She stayed close to the trees, running noiselessly as bandits are taught to do. After twenty minutes of dashing and scurrying, she slowed. But it took longer than that, with the sun gone and the moon aglow, for her heart to ease its own racing.

  The forest crickets creaked. The forest crows crowed. The forest bloodsucking iguanas sucked. Annika waited near the main road, the one that sliced through the forest, listening to the sounds, hoping to hear a carriage approach. She stood still, her knife gripped in her white-knuckled hand.

  No carriage neared, and the longer Annika listened, the more depressed she felt. She couldn’t run away without money and she couldn’t go back to the bandit camp until she was ready to show everyone she was a fearsome bandit.

  It was a shame that so few people drove carriages late at night anymore. After someone got robbed or kidnapped a few times, they tended to avoid riding a carriage through the forest, especially late at night.

  After standing along the main road for so long her legs not only fell asleep but were snoring, Annika heard something coming toward her. Unfortunately, it was not the sounds of horses and rolling wheels. No, it was much more horrifying: the sound of rampaging and barking penguins.

  Annika sprang up into the nearest tree and soon lay hidden amid its icy branches, peering down at the horde of penguins rushing along looking for trouble.

  A creature ran with them, something that was penguin-like, but not entirely. It had the face and body of a penguin, but was taller and seemed more powerful. Large bushy eyebrows sat over glowing red eyes; horns sprung from its head and twin fangs hung from its beak. Still, its face looked familiar.

  It was the boy from the carriage, the Baron’s boy, but now a penguin beast. Annika was certain of that. She opened her mouth to call out to him, but then clamped her jaw shut.

  He was one of them: a vicious, marauding, beastly bird. He was not human, or at least not mostly.

  Annika quivered on her branch. She was not scared of much, but this sight frightened her.

  When the penguins finally left, Annika fell into a well-earned sleep right there in the tree, her arms wrapped around a branch.

  In the morning, the sun, its glow pale through the branches, woke her. She yawned and jumped down to the ground.

  She had only just landed when a hand grabbed her shoulder. The hand was bony yet strong, squeezing her with a deep, painful grip.

  “This one will do,” said an old woman in a gray and floppy witch hat, cackling. Annika recognized her as Blazenda, the Fortune Teller of Volgelplatz.

  Annika spun and dug her hand into a leather pouch attached to her belt. She pulled out the weapon hidden in the bag, ready to fight.

  She held a rattle.

  “I must have grabbed this by mistake,” she moaned.

  Blazenda gripped one of Annika’s arms, and someone else pinned her other arm behind her back. Other vil
lagers emerged from the forest, one holding chains and another a large net.

  Annika had nowhere to run.

  24.

  A Chant and a Chance

  Alone in his room atop the ancient manor, Bolt slipped on a pair of clean tuxedo pants. The fresh, cottony smell of the clothes brought little comfort. He was still a prisoner in this tower and doomed for eternity, even if he was a remarkably well-dressed doomed prisoner.

  A sound at the door interrupted Bolt’s doom-filled thoughts. The knob turned and Frau Farfenugen entered. She held a platter of dead fish. They looked delicious, but Bolt pushed his appetite away. The housekeeper stared at Bolt. “Your pale face. Your hornlike hair. It has come to be. But then again, I’m just a lowly housekeeper, so what do I know?”

  “Then it’s true? I’ve turned into . . . I’ve become like the Baron?”

  Frau Farfenugen shrugged.

  “Tell me!” Bolt needed to hear the words. He grasped on to a last crumb of hope that maybe his nightmares had been merely dreams, as unlikely as it seemed.

  “So, now you want to listen to me? I wasn’t good enough to listen to the other night, was I, when I told you to stay in your room no matter what? But you turn into a penguin and I’m suddenly Miss Information.” She spat and growled. “Don’t you know? How can you not? At night the moon will turn you into a savage werepenguin. It is your curse. In many ways, worse than a werewolf!”

  “Name one way.”

  “Well, maybe not worse. Equally horrible, I suppose. A were-anything is bad news across the board.”

  Bolt’s stomach sank. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Leave? You cannot. The Baron will never let you go.”

  “But I must. The Baron’s a madman. Or a mad boy. Or a mad penguin. He’s mad, that’s the point. The only thing I know for sure is that I need to leave.” He would break the curse. If not, he would go far, far away, as far away from the Baron as possible.