The Storyteller (3 page)

Rondrigal certainly did. So drunk, in fact, that he passed out in his chair and Po was able to drag him out of the tavern and put him under a blanket on Rondrigal's horse-drawn cart. Po had the king's blessing, of course, but even if he didn't, he feared no punishment for kidnapping this horrid man whom everyone in the kingdom despised.

“You'd be wise to toss him off a cliff,” the tavern keeper called out as Po pulled away. The tavern erupted with laughter.

The Dorgon was brisk with his business. As soon as the cart pulled up to the bog, the creature emerged and croaked, “You'll be wanting a potion?”

“I will,” Po said. “A potion of forgetting. A girl is too careless with her kindness. She does not need such a burden.”

“It is understood,” the Dorgon said as it pulled Rondrigal from the cart and down into the bog. It was only a few moments later that the Dorgon surfaced with a flask of colorless liquid, tossing it at Po. “She will not forget what she already knows, but this will steal her ability to make new memories,” the Dorgon said. “She'll need to drink a drop every day.”

“I will make sure that she does,” Po said.

The Dorgon burped and replied, “Next time, bring me one who doesn't taste so sour.”

Back in the onyx tower, Po put a drop of the potion into Princess Sigrid's evening stew. It must have been flavorless, because she didn't notice it. She simply bid Po a good night and went to bed.

The next day, when Po arrived, Sigrid was out on her swing, looking over the land. In the center of the market below, a woman sat on a stump crying.

“Please see what ails that poor soul,” Sigrid said, her voice as full of empathy as ever. “And make sure her life is set right.”

Surprised, because the Dorgon's potions were legendary for their effectiveness, Po asked, “What was that, my lady?”

Sigrid turned from her swing, shook her head for a moment, as if it were full of dust, and replied, “I seem to have forgotten.”

Po smiled. “Come inside then and rest a bit. No need to look out onto the world all morning.”

“I suppose you're right,” Sigrid said in a resigned tone. She came inside for the remainder of the day.

Every day went like this. Po would arrive in the morning and Sigrid would be on her swing, asking about the unfortunate people below. Po would reply, “What was that, my lady?” She would turn, instantly forget her worries, and go back to her room. In the evening, she'd have a bowl of her stew, which always contained a drop of the potion, because Po gave it to the cook with explicit orders.

“This is medicine for Princess Sigrid. If it does not flavor her stew, then she will become very ill and you will be to blame. Understood?”

“Understood,” the cook said, and the cook was always true to his word.

The king and queen were thrilled that the plan had worked, but Po found himself disturbed. Because every morning, before Sigrid's forgetfulness set in, she fixed her eyes on the same place: the stump at the center of the market. And every morning, that same old woman was there, crying. Sigrid would always forget about the woman moments after taking her eyes off of her, but every morning she'd witness that pain anew.

Guilt started to pile up on Po. In the past, Sigrid would have used her power to ease this woman's suffering, but now her forgetfulness made that impossible. The woman suffered on, and Sigrid was compelled to watch every morning. It wouldn't have bothered Po if Sigrid watched a different person every morning. It was the infinite nature of this one woman's suffering that bothered him.

Po had a bit of gold saved and figured he could fix the problem on his own. So one morning, he lingered in the market until the old woman arrived and sat on the stump. She was a fragile person, with rosy cheeks and thin lips. Her eyes were so tiny that a single teardrop could cover one of them, and when she cried it was almost like a stream of eyeballs pelting the ground.

“What ails you?” Po asked her as he approached. “And how may I help?”

Wiping her face, the woman looked up at him and said, “Find my son. He's been missing quite a while.”

“Who is your son?” Po asked.

“Tom Rondrigal,” the woman said.

Po paused. He considered his options. “I think I can help you,” he finally said.

“You can?” she asked. “Because I love him so much. I know he can be boorish, but I am—”

“Not to worry,” Po said. “I will help you. I know where he is. I'd like to take you there.” Then he led her to Rondrigal's horse-drawn cart that he had kept for himself since Rondrigal's death. He asked that she climb aboard.

She recognized the cart as her son's, and was duly suspicious, but she had little to lose. She was quite old and didn't have much time left in the world. Po guided the horse through the forest and directly to the bog where the Dorgon lived. The Dorgon emerged, but it did not frighten the woman. She had lived in the kingdom her entire life. She knew of its dark corners.

“So,” the woman said with a sigh, “the Dorgon took my son?”

“He did,” Po admitted.

“And now you intend to feed me to the Dorgon as well?”

Po didn't answer. He simply climbed down from the cart and looked the Dorgon in the eye. “You made me a fine potion,” Po said. “I'd like you to make more of the same.”

“The one you brought me isn't too sour?” the Dorgon asked.

“I don't think so,” Po said. “But see for yourself.”

Po threw himself upon the Dorgon, and the Dorgon pulled Po into the bog.

When the Dorgon emerged minutes later with the potion, the old woman was still there. “What is it?” she asked as she took it from the creature.

“You are to drink it every day, when sadness visits you,” the Dorgon said with a burp. “But it's best that you not know exactly what it does.”

The old woman nodded, climbed onto the cart and, as she guided the horse through the forest, she sipped the potion. She kept her eyes fixed on the shiny onyx tower poking up through the trees.

 

F
RIDAY
, 11/24/1989

MORNING

There's an early memory I have of Alistair. He was a tiny kid, nothing but a rib cage and a noggin. Probably four years old. We were in the backyard, playing TV tag or freeze tag or some other version of tag. The sun was getting low and Mom and Dad were inside making dinner when I heard yelping out in the swamp.

“What was that?” Alistair asked.

I'd heard it before with Dad and he told me what it was, but I wasn't sure if I should tell Alistair. He was a real fraidycat. Even the most harmless things could inspire his nightmares back then. I'm only a year and a half older than him, but when you're little that's a huge difference. Huge.

“Nothing,” I said to him.

“Sounds like sad kittens,” Alistair replied. Not that we ever had sad kittens. Not that we ever had kittens at all.

“It's nothing,” I said.

“They sound hurt,” Alistair said, moving toward the swamp.

I grabbed him by the shirt. “They're fine. It's dinnertime. Let's go inside.”

“We should bring the kitties inside. They probably need milk.”

“They're fine.” I pulled him to the door, but he broke away and started running toward the swamp.

“Kitties, kitties, kitties,” he cooed as he went.

I was forced to tackle him.

“What are you doing?” he cried as he squirmed in my arms.

“Coyotes,” I whispered.

He froze. “What?”

“They're coyotes. Pups. But they have parents. Or a momma at least. Something that feeds them.”

“What do they eat?”

“Deer. Squirrels. Whatever their momma can catch.”

Without taking a breath, Alistair whispered a question through his teeth. “Kids?”

My arms wrapped around my brother, I looked into the dark swamp. At the edge was a big rock shaped like a frog. “Frog Rock,” I said. “It protects us from them. But don't go past it. You promise?”

Teeth still clenched, Alistair nodded.

For at least a few years, Alistair kept that promise. He climbed that rock, played around it, but never went past it. Fiona used to come over when she was little and she'd go past it, but she was always braver than my brother.

Years later—come to think of it, only a few months ago, actually—I saw her bury something out by that rock. Which was weird. Alistair dug it up. At least I assume he did, because a few weeks ago, after I told him about what I saw, I noticed a mound of dirt out there, like a fresh grave. With all the rain and snow we've been having, it's flattened out now. When Fiona learned that I told Alistair, she said that it was a love letter to him that she buried. Could be, but I suspect it was more than that.

EVENING

Love letters. I don't get those.

Okay, that's a lie. I got one. Once. Last year. Seventh grade. Valentine's Day. A secret admirer. No joke. It was signed
Your Secret Admirer
.

Someone slipped it into my locker. I don't remember the exact words, but I think it said my eyes were “an azure sky” and my hair was “amber waves of grain.”
Azure
is blue, I think. My eyes are brown, for the record. And amber waves of grain? That's in … well, not “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but one of those patriotic songs. So it appeared that Uncle Sam had a crush on me. Don't get me wrong, I love a top hat, but …

Anyway, the letter ended with a plea to meet the guy behind the maintenance shed after school, which is more than a little creepy. I suppose he didn't think it was creepy. Probably thought it was a private place where we could talk and no one would bother us. I didn't go, of course, but I'm actually pretty sure I know who sent it. The Looney Tunes stationery gave it away.

Glen Maple. He's harmless, I guess. No top hat either, as far as I know. And not really the sort of guy who murders you behind maintenance sheds. At least I don't think he is. But then, it's always the ones you least suspect, right?

Actually, no. Not Glen. He's fine.

But he's annoying. Like,
man, I hope he loses his voice
annoying, because he's always doing these terrible impressions of cartoon characters and he answers every question every teacher asks and is wrong more often than he's right and there's a point when he's wrong so much that he doesn't seem to care about being wrong. I know that's mean to say, but it's the truth.

Anyway, I saw Glen today, when Mom and I went to the grocery store. He was with his dad at the bakery counter, and they were ordering a cake. I overheard him saying, “Mom likes angel food,” and I snorted a chuckle because that's funny when heard out of context, and he looked at me, but it wasn't with that
oh my god, I want to kiss you all over the face
look that I'm used to from him.

It was an
I feel sorry for you
look.

I didn't say anything to him. I walked over to Mom, grabbed her elbow, led her to the cereal aisle, and told her, “I'm buying Lucky Charms and you're not gonna say a darn thing about it.”

It made her laugh.

 

S
ATURDAY
, 11/25/1989

MORNING

You're at breakfast, okay? Your mom is cutting the grapefruit with one of those weird bent and jagged knives, right? It's squirting all over the place, including your dad's shirt, and he's saying, “Hey now, watch the fine poly blend.” And you're looking at the paper, and of course there are stories with the names Loomis and Dwyer all over the thing, and you push it away before you give in to the temptation to see if any of them have the name Cleary in them, and you take a sip of pineapple juice and a bite of your Lucky Charms, which you're almost never allowed to have, and you announce, “I've been writing a few stories in my diary and I'm going to write one today about a girl made out of candy canes, but someday I'm going to write one about a wombat with glowing fur,” and your brother, who hasn't said a thing in close to a week, looks up from his bowl of Life—what can I say, the kid loves Life—and he says, “You're writing about what?”

 

THE CANDY CANE GIRL

Some people can't have babies. It's sad but it's true. Their bodies aren't built for it. Some of those people also can't adopt babies. Just as sad, maybe sadder, and just as true. Their lifestyles aren't built for it. But most people want families. Most people need families.

Everyone can have candy canes. If they want them, at least. Even diabetics, because there's insulin for that, right? Around Christmastime, there are candy canes everywhere, available for free. In glass jars at banks, hanging from pine branches, tossed by Santa from fire trucks. If you took every single candy cane you saw, you'd have about a hundred pounds of them in a few days.

You wouldn't take every single one you saw though, would you? That's because you aren't Hazel and Howard Clumpet. The Clumpets liked candy canes. A lot. Every December they filled their bathtub with them. And while they did eat a fair amount of their loot, they always had more than they needed.

Maybe that was the problem. They weren't healthy people, the Clumpets, and it's a good bet that a diet consisting mainly of peppermint and sugar isn't the best for making babies. In any case, they couldn't have babies, and the adoption agencies rejected the Clumpets as soon as they visited their home and found the furniture buried in candy wrappers.

“We'll always have each other,” Hazel told Howard after they were rejected by every adoption agency they could find.

“Each other isn't good enough, is it?” Howard exclaimed. “This family won't be complete without a daughter! Don't you understand that?”

Hazel did understand that. The man told her that every stinking day. “Well, why don't you build us a daughter out of candy canes, then?” she hollered at him.