The Seam Sorceress

Peter's Second Wife, part 1.

"You're kidding me, right?" Tilly leaned forward, skinny elbows on skinnier knees. The long silence was all the answer she needed. "What happened to it?"

Sprout looked down at her hands. "I was looking for you, and there was this fella on the midway, he stopped me and asked if I was the type to make investments, and I said no, not especially, but he told me I could make my money back real quick if I played this game, and I thought since I broke the wagon, I could win the game and then things would be fine, but—"

"—It was rigged," Tilly said with a sigh. "You know all them games are fixed."

"Yeah, but he showed me how to do it. Took the hammer and swung it easy, rung the bell on the first time, and he's just a beanpole." Sprout squirmed with guilt. "Well, not an actual beanpole 'cause I think I woulda liked him a lot better if he had been, but real skinny—"

"—I knew what you meant." Tilly closed her eyes and sank back in her seat only to rocket upright again with a realization. "There was a hammer?"

"Mmhm. One of them test-your-strength games."

"Take me to him." Tilly grinned. "We'll get your prize."

"Really?" Sprout's eyebrows flexed above her smoked goggles. "You mean it?"

There was a jangle of metal as Tilly reached past Booger in her front pocket to produce the few remaining coins Mama had given her the night before. "This here's your lunch money. You can either use it to get something at the concessions or we can go teach that carny a lesson about cheating the Lafayettes."

It wasn't a hard decision. A slow smile stretched across Sprout's face, matching her sister's. "Revenge tastes a whole lot sweeter than cotton candy, don't you think?"

"Thatta girl," Tilly said. They stalked back towards the midway with purpose, the visual cacophony of the fair with its screaming riders and twirling, tilting rides becoming nothing more than background noise. "So what kinda prize was it?"

"He starts you out small," Sprout explained. "I got the teddy bear easy. The same with the goldfish, and the princess dolly. But on the top shelf, there's a genuine, bonafide magic mirror."

The words stopped Tilly in her tracks. "No."

"I swear to it!" Sprout clapped a hand over her heart. "He got it down and showed it to me. There's a mark of dwarven make on the back and everything."

"If it's anything like the old ones," Tilly said, breath shallow, "it could tell us where to get that white apple."

"If it's anything like the old ones, we can sell it and have enough money to plant a whole acre of them white apples, once we find them," Sprout added, before sprinting ahead.

The test-your-strength game was the last installation on the midway, just after the dunk tank but before the aluminum walls of the Haint House. Colored lights chased each other up and down the meter, connecting a small, worn pressure plate on the ground to a tarnished brass bell at the top. On either side, tall shelves boasted prizes; mostly cheap stuffed toys, but the last two levels held items of real significance, like a tiara Tilly couldn't imagine wearing anywhere, and a fine set of men's cufflinks. True to Sprout's word, the dwarven mirror was on the topmost shelf, its silver surface catching in the hot midday sun.

"Back for more, missy?" The carny operating the game ran a thumb down the length of his right suspender before it snapped back into place. He was so thin that Tilly thought she could snap him in half and store him on one of his own prize shelves. As they approached, he tipped back his straw boater to assess the older Lafayette sibling. "And you brought in the cavalry, I see."