Horns & Wrinkles (19 page)

"Bodacious Deepthink doesn't take no for an answer," the old man said. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

"The only thing we can," the old lady answered. "Go get the feather."

We headed back to Trolls & Things to rest until nightfall, when we would tackle Bo. The old man and Pumpkin dropped us off at the rowboat, which, minus Jim Dandy and Biz, wasn't anywhere near as crowded. The extra room didn't make Stump any happier, though. He missed his partners, he still had to hide out under a flowery hat, and his conscience flared up. Most of the cruise back he badmouthed himself for not having told me where their stone feather had been.

"I was afraid you'd get yourself turned to stone," he explained.

"Forget it," I repeated for the umpteenth time.

"Do you really mean it?"

"Mostly."

That quieted Stump for a hundred yards or so, when he started peppering his cricket with questions. The cricket, whose name was Reliable St. John, burrowed into Stump's leafy hair, refusing to answer.

"What kind of lucky cricket are you?" Stump demanded to know. "My partners are stone."

"A very sensible one," the old lady answered for the lucky cricket. "One who's not too eager to see Bodacious Deepthink again."

"Why not?" Stump said.

"Because she's so nice," Reliable St. John piped up.

That lie silenced Stump for fifty yards, after which he asked in a small, small voice, "Do you really know where my father is?"

"Of course not," Reliable said. "None of the other fathers either."

Satisfied that at least Reliable St. John could lead him to his father, Stump shut up.

By noon we were entering the old lady's store through a back door that led down a hallway crowded with crates and boxes stamped with labels like
PRODUCT OF TIBET
or
KEEP FROZEN 1000 TEARS
or
MIDNIGHT GLASSWARE.
Stepping through another door, we found ourselves in a small kitchen, where the old lady served me peaches and cream, twice, and gave Stump the okay to dip into the tub holding willow cats. Reliable St. John was given a small leaf of lettuce to dine on.

Then naps. After promising to keep his mouth shut, Stump was allowed to conk out in a bathtub filled with minnows. Reliable St. John was tucked away in a bamboo cage that was hung from a rafter. In case the cricket had any tricks in mind, the old lady asked her raccoon friend, Princess Trudy, to stand guard below the cage. My guest room was a dry bathtub filled with blankets and heart-shaped pillows.

"I don't even known your name," I said, wanting to say something grateful as the old lady tucked me in.

"I don't either," she said with a sad smile. "It's gone."

"Gone?" I sat up. "Gone where?"

The old lady smoothed my hair with a soft, comforting touch of her hand. "It seems like just yesterday that your grandfather asked me that question too."

"So what'd you tell him?"

"That I didn't think he could be trusted to keep a secret."

"He hasn't been known to keep many," I agreed, trying with all my might not to worry about him or Aunt Phyllis, Uncle Norm, Duff, and even—a little—Jim Dandy and Biz.

Tapping a finger on my chest to show how serious this was, she said, "You must promise never to tell anyone."

"I'll do my best."

"From what I've seen," she said, lifting her hand away, "I couldn't ask for more."

A look far away as the moon settled over her eyes then. Whatever she was remembering widened her smile but deepened her sadness.

"My name's gone into a spell," she said at last. "A spell that lets magic work along this stretch of river. If it wasn't for the spell, the magic folk around here would have all been drowned a century ago by these modern times."

"How can you be drowned by time?" I frowned.

"Very easily," she sighed, turning away from me to gaze out a window at the river. "A long while ago, magic worked anywhere in this world. Magic folk lived where they wanted, practiced magic as they liked. Not at all like these days, when magic sputters and fizzes at best. Just try walking through a brick wall. You'll see what I mean. Today there's only a few enchanted pockets left here and there, protected by spells that shield them from the passing of time. We dare not stick a toe outside the spell protecting us or we freeze up worse than ice."

"Even in the summer?"

"Especially in the summer. I'm talking of a different kind of cold than you're thinking of, my dear. Cold caused by time is a cold that you feel on the inside. More like loneliness than ice. And when any of us feels it, we can't help but burn ourselves up trying to keep warm. Usually we magic folk stay warm by migrating, like birds in the fall, but those of us along the river here have been left behind, stranded."

"How'd that happen?"

"Miscalculations," she said with a grim look that discouraged follow-up questions.

"But where do you migrate to?" I asked.

"Other worlds, where the time for magic is now."

I nodded slowly, thinking of those other worlds until a thought occurred to me.

"If you're like the birds, does that mean you come back in the spring?"

"Oh, yes," the old lady said, brightening. "That's what we're waiting for. Our spring, when magic will work all over this world again. It's coming, but for now we're so cooped up along the river that you can hardly turn around without bumping into a hex, a curse, or general witchery of some kind. In the olden days, when we had more elbow room, magic folk weren't so quick to anger, but packed in tight as we are now, well, it's gotten out of hand lately. And Bodacious Deepthink's the worst of all. That's one of the reasons I need to pay her a visit, to bring her down a peg or two. Maybe then she'll behave a little better. So there you have it. That's what happened to my name, and the name of every other blue-wing along this stretch of river."

"But can't you take another name?"

"That would only weaken the spell," she said, patting me on the head as if it was kind of me to want to help. "And now you better try to get some rest."

"Will I need it?"

"I'm afraid you will," she answered, lifting some sparkly dust from her apron pocket and sprinkling it on my eyes. Once again I felt as though I were slowly falling, just like at the wagon wheel bridge, but this time I was falling asleep.

The next thing I knew, the old lady was blowing gently across my face, her breath sweet as fresh cider. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the store windows, so only a few hours had passed, but a week of sleep couldn't have refreshed me more. I popped right up.

"Is there anything that dust can't do?" I asked.

"Quite a bit, actually, but for small kinds of magic that involve falling of one kind or another—even falling asleep—it's quite handy. Put enough on and it's good for raising things too, 'cause of course that's just falling done backwards. But now we have to get moving. It's getting late, if we're going to get that stone feather before Bo forgets where she put it. First off, we need to have a word about trolls."

I nodded to show that she had my attention.

"I may not be able to save you if we get caught," the old lady continued. "Bodacious Deepthink's not called the Great Rock Troll for nothing."

"Are you trying to scare me?"

"I'm doing my best," she said with a chuckle that was more friendly than mean. "Before we get started, I need to be certain that you want to go through with this."

"It doesn't matter if I'm scared or not," I told her. "My grandpa and the others need that feather, and Duke may be a pill, but I don't think he belongs down there."

All of what I'd said was true enough, but there was one last thing I'd left unsaid—maybe even to myself—that was even more true. Where else was I ever going to get a chance to stand up to Bodacious Deepthink? The old lady had said that was the only way to undo the Great Rock Troll's curse, which meant that it was the only way to find out if I was once a river troll.

The answers to some questions can change your whole life, and this answer seemed scary enough to be one of them. I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to know the answer, but my once being a river troll would sure explain some things. Big things, like how I measured up so different from my sisters or felt so good around turtles and toads and such. And little things too, like hating vegetables and almost feeling sort of comfortable around Stump.

"Very well," the old lady answered with a satisfied nod that said she'd judged me right. "Then we'd better gather ourselves and our supplies, starting with our guide." With that, she collected the cage holding Reliable St. John. "There's tunnels all over where we're headed, and this cricket's been through them before."

"I haven't, I haven't, I haven't," Reliable St. John sang from his cage.

"Now where did I put that rope?" the old lady said, ignoring Reliable's chorus.

"We need rope?" I asked.

"For tripping." She hunted up a white rope, which she wrapped around and around her waist until it looked like a wide belt. "Rock trolls take a long time to get back up. You've still got a good riddle handy, right?"

"I guess so."

"Let's hear it." The old lady made an out-with-it motion.

So I recited the riddle that Two-cents Eel-tongue had made up. To my surprise, the old lady kissed her fingertips the way a chef does when a dish tastes just right.

"Perfect," she said. "Pure river troll, which is exactly what you need to flummox a rock troll." She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. "All right, except for a couple of bags of gravel, I'd say we're about ready. Have you ever used a slingshot?"

"Once. Before my cousin took it away."

"You'll need some practice, then."

She and I spent an hour knocking empty pop cans off a counter with a slingshot. By then Stump had joined us, but he shied away from an offered slingshot, refusing to trust anything made by a human hand. The old lady was a deadeye, but I broke a few things. After an hour or so, she declared I was ready as I'd ever be.

"What exactly are we going to be shooting at?" I asked.

"Lanterns."

"Glad to hear it," I said. "I didn't think these would be much good against Bodacious Deepthink."

"My dear," the old lady confided, "there's not a thing in my store would hurt Bo. That's why it's best if she never even knows we've been there until we're gone."

"What are the chances of that?" I asked, kind of quavery-like.

She answered my question by saying, "Maybe I better have a look into your eyes again."

Without thinking, I snapped my eyes shut, afraid. What if she saw a river troll that bore a striking resemblance to me? But then Stump stepped close to whisper in my ear.

"You shouldn't ever pass up a chance to look in a fairy's eyes."

"Why not?" I whispered back.

"They say you can see the answer to whatever's troubling you."

"Is that true?" I said, raising my voice to the old lady. My eyes were still shut.

"It's been known to happen," she answered modestly.

Taking a deep breath, I popped open my eyes, and the old lady leaned forward until we were nose to nose.

"What do you see?" I was ready to flinch.

"Still crickets," she said, amused by my brave face. "Maybe what you see is more important."

So I looked.

"It's that young lady again," I said, relieved. "The one in the sunbonnet. Who is she, anyway?"

"Does she look familiar?"

"Sort of."

"That's because you two look a good deal alike. She's your Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Nettie."

Gazing closer, I could see it was true. The girl in the sunbonnet did look remarkably like me, though several years older.

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"Oh, I knew Nettie as a girl. We came upriver on the same steamer—the
Rose Melinda.
I'm not at all surprised she's come back to help you. Family always mattered a good deal to her. What's she doing right now?"

"Standing on the bank of a sandbar," I said, looking more closely. "Writing something in the wet sand with a stick."