Spelled

12: Friends of a Feather

"When invited over to a tea party, the only acceptable behavior is to eat every last crumb and drop. Then, even if it turns you big or small, don't forget to say thank you with a tip of the hat."

—Hatter's Mad Manners
12

Friends of a Feather

Everything got a whole lot louder as the three of us yelled at Nikko. Or roared in Kato's case. Nikko slowly backed away from the very real possibility that he might be eaten by the ever-growing beast.
"It's not by my choice, I assure you," Nikko said.
I positioned myself between ape and winged dragon mutt. Probably not the smartest place to be, but I was too pixed to care.
"Whose choice is it then? My palace, my rules. And I say we go home together."
"That's right," Rexi said while slowly scooting closer to the building of books and out of Kato-tail range. "Tell him who's boss."
Great. Now she recognizes my position.
Nikko turned his fez over in his hands. "My apologies, Princess, but it's not your palace we're going to. We're off to see the wizard at the Ivory Tower. It's not far, but my master was most insistent that I only bring you."
Normally I'd yell and scream until I got my way, but I had a feeling that wouldn't work here. Nikko was just following orders, and you do not disobey someone who has the power to turn you into slimy green things. Just ask Rexi.
So instead, I held my tongue and thought about what to do: Stick to Verte's more dangerous plan, or stay safely in a tower and wait to be rescued? Chasing rainbows hadn't worked out so well and the wizard might be able to just poof my parents back. But I couldn't leave Rexi and Kato behind on a might.
Well, I could, and it would serve Rexi right for attacking me. But then Kato would probably eat her, and then he'd get indigestion...
I sighed. "If you're positive that we all can't go, then you'll have to go to the Ivory Tower without me too."
"I knew you'd ditch us..." Rexi spat out, then paused mid-stomp. "Wait...really?"
"Yes, really."
"Oh. Hmph." Rexi suddenly became very interested in the scrolls along the closest shelf.
Kato sat on his haunches and growled at me. I had no clue what that meant.
Nikko smiled and patted my arm. "Loyalty is a noble quality, so I won't ask you again to betray it. Thank you for invoking the protection of Oz back at the trees." He looked off in the distance and shuddered. "Now to deliver the news to him." Nikko ran away, even faster now that he wasn't carrying me.
What was he talking about? I didn't do anything. "Hey, wait!" I called, but he was already gone. I took two steps and realized I'd lost my shoes after my last fall. One ruby heel was within reach, the other had—
"Ew, get away from that one-of-a-kind Hans Christian Louboutin shoe!" The bibliobug or whatever had its slimy green body wrapped around my right heel. I reached down to pry it off, but when I touched the worm, it puffed out a little cloud of green dust that smelled like moldy bread.
Now I had the overwhelming desire to sneeze. To my embarrassment, the sound that came out was nothing even remotely close to a ladylike achoo. It was more like howling hurricane-force gusts—including the spray.
"Nice one, Sneezy," Rexi chortled.
She should know better than to mess with me in the middle of a shoe crisis, so I replied with the well-recognized dwarf hand sign telling her to heigh-ho herself off a cliff.
"Fine, Princess. Walk barefoot for all I care, but let's get going before these trees snap out of their trance and shish kebab us. Besides, it'll be dark soon."
Finding a shelter, with four walls no less, made perfect sense. So why did I not want to budge? "I don't think they'll come any closer. Maybe we should stay. I have this feeling that we're supposed to be here."
Rexi threw her hands up in the air. "And I have this feeling you're delusional, probably delirious from shopping withdrawal and hunger."
A very loud grumble from Kato's stomach put him firmly in agreement. Even my traitorous tummy cramped and reminded me of its emptiness.
Rexi started walking "First food, then sleep. Tomorrow we can keep looking for that rainbow and your moldy green witch."
Without proof that the trees would stay petrified or a steak dinner would magically appear, I couldn't convince them to stay. And just like I didn't want to leave them behind, I didn't want to get left behind either.
When I didn't argue, Kato took that as a sign to get going. Or he got tired of listening and too hungry to care. He put his nose to the ground and padded off to the west faster than any of Dad's hunting hounds.
I took one last look at the piles of books and the bespectacled bug. He puffed another little cloud of dust and went back to munching the quill pictured on a leather tome. The image had been engraved in sparkly red ink. Guess the bugger really liked red.
Rexi whistled. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah," I said and hurriedly reclaimed my shoes while the bibliobug was busy with his snack.
Keeping her back to me, she started talking before I reached her. "So I'm sure that you just wanted someone to boss around, but that was kinda cool. You know, not ditching us and stuff. You might not be entirely worthless." Without waiting for a response, she ran to catch up with Kato.
It was not even remotely close to an apology but better than a punch in the face or a dagger in the back.
The moment Kato smelled something, his whole posture changed. First he went rigid; then he pranced circles around Rexi and I, trying to get us to move faster. A sweet smell wafted on the wind just as the three of us stumbled to the cusp of the meadow that housed the big black spike. The aged, spiraling metal came out of a greenhouse full of plants, flowers, and flutterbeaks. There was also a modest house in the midst of periwinkle blue wildflowers. It gave off a much better vibe than Hydra's little shack of horrors.
The perfection was marred by high-pitched trills. Someone was singing—badly. A short woman with a rather round middle sang while she hung laundry on a line. Black, feathery hair hung down her back. Everything else about her—scarf to ankle boots—was pink. Even her skin was rosy in its coloring.
"We are in the west. There's a spire. Do you think this is Black Crow? The name sounds ominous, but I'd say the whole bubblegum theme makes her look nice and cheery," I whispered to Rexi, since I knew it was pointless to ask Kato. His dripping saliva answered for him.
A pie wafted delicious-smelling steam from an open window. That clenched the decision for everyone. After over a day with no food, we had devolved into creatures ruled by our stomachs. Kato's rumbled extremely loudly as way of introduction.
"Who's there?" The woman turned around, startled enough that she dropped the hot-pink knickers she'd been hanging on the line.
Either we looked really scary, or we smelled really scary. Most likely we just looked like we'd been to spell and back. Kato, in particular, was starting to look less cuddly and more wild beast.
The woman gathered her hot-pink poodle skirt and ran toward us, getting within touching distance of Kato. She pulled her hand back at the last second. "May I?"
I thought she was addressing me, but her gaze was honed in on Kato. He, in turn, looked at me and shrugged his wings as if saying, Do you think she'll feed me if I let her?
"Um, he doesn't talk, but I think it's okay if you touch him," I said, trying to get the woman's attention.
She looked at me for the first time, her eyes large and magnified through Fairy Fizz Bottle glasses.
Her attention to me was brief, and then it was all about Kato again. Instead of petting him, she clinically pulled back his lips and examined his fangs, turned his head this way and that, and even looked up his nose. I'm surprised he didn't bite her. "Fascinating," she murmured. "A fine adolescent chimera such as yourself should be able to speak."
"A what?"
"Pardon?" the woman said distractedly.
Rexi stopped staring at the pie and looked at the woman. "You called him something. I've just been calling him fur ball, but is there really a name for what he is? As in, there's more than one of him out there?"
"Fur ball," the woman snorted in disdain, talking to me and ignoring Rexi entirely. I liked her already. "This noble creature is a chimera. Very rare and clannish. I've never heard of one this far from the mountains." She looked me up and down with renewed interest. "You must tell me how you enchanted him. Slavery spell? Potion? Or did you somehow manage to smuggle out his egg before he was hatched?"
I leaned in to talk to Black Crow, hoping to make her an offer she couldn't refuse, considering her obvious interest in Kato. "You are Black Crow, right? I'll make you a deal. If you share some of your food and drink with us, I'll tell you all about my friend here."
She squinted into her thick glasses. "Do I know you? Have you attended one of my Spider's Webinars or perhaps read my latest bog post on potions?"
"Actually, I heard about you from the Queen of the Bumpkins."
"Hemlock?" Black Crow said.
"Never caught her name." In my head, I'd just been calling her "icky bug creature" or "queen of the cockroaches."
Rexi butt in to close the deal. "So, about that food?"
Crow stepped back, and her eyes widened, getting even bigger, as if she was taking in the whole picture for the first time. "Oh. Oh, forgive me. I don't get a lot of visitors and I'm not really good with social situations. Come in, come in." Her hands flitted about, and she blinked rapidly. "You probably do need help. After all, you look terrible."
"Not good in social situations? You don't say," Rexi muttered.
Black Crow didn't act like she'd heard and waddled toward her home. I gave Rexi a look, warning her not to blow this. Kato did me one better and whacked her with his tail.
Crow ushered us inside her home, apologizing for the nonexistent mess.
We all took a seat at the little white dinette set—well, Kato sat under it, so big now that he lifted it up just a smidge—and I explained our chance encounter with the Bumpkins and how that led us to her door.
"How odd," she said, stirring a little honey into a gaudy pink-rose teacup before she handed it to me. "The rule of favor is broken, you say. I wonder how that happened."
The tea was sweet with just the slightest tang, like it had a little bite to it. At first my stomach protested the intrusion after being empty for so long. Then it was nice and happy, and it demanded more. It's like that bedtime story If You Give a Princess Some Tea, She'll Ask for a Cookie to Go with It.
"I don't suppose you have any chocolate wands, do you?" I asked when she refilled both mine and Rexi's mugs.
She blinked her big eyes behind her thick glasses. "Gracious, no. Why would I have a chocolate wand? They'd melt at the very first spell. Terrible thing to make a magical instrument out of. I do have a fine one made of wormwood if you've lost yours." Her nose scrunched, and she looked me over again. "I didn't take you for a practitioner."
"Foooood," Rexi croaked, looking groggy and very near to passing out.
Crow gave Rexi and me a piece of pie, then put the rest of the tin on the ground for Kato. I was fed, so it wasn't worth explaining what a chocolate wand was and extolling its magically delicious virtues. She looked at me expectantly though. Like it was my turn to give up the goods.
"I'm not a magic user. At least not on purpose." I settled in and told my story, starting with the odd, porcelainlike child, the gift, and the wish. Things popped out of my mouth that I had no intention of saying—like my initial hatred of Kato, though he was kind of okay now. At least for a pet. Then I went on about the issues with my parents and how much I was beginning to hate rainbows. Soon, I couldn't even remember what I was saying seconds after I said it.
In my mouth, my tongue grew thick and slow. Pink spots danced across my vision, twirling and spinning.
"'Scuze me. Can you point me to the little princess's room?" I slurred.
Crow gave me a friendly smile and patted my head. "Of course, dearie. It's just down the hall. Take your time. I was just going to spell a pot and make a call."
Her hand made my head feel heavy(er). "Oh, thaz nize." I got up and stepped over Rexi, who had slipped off her chair to the floor. That made me giggle.
I ambled off in the direction Crow had pointed, and Kato wobbled behind. I placed a hand on the counter. "Why do I feel zo weird?"
Kato whispered, "I dunno. I think we should go."
"Hey, tha rhymed. Thaz funny." I broke into a fit of giggles again. "Wait, you can talk?"
I stumbled back into the kitchen, wanting to share my new discovery with Black Crow since she seemed so interested in chimeras. I only made it a few steps before my feet fell off—or at least, I couldn't feel them anymore.
Ah well, the floor seemed like as good a place as any to take a nap—just ask Rexi.
Black Crow was still on her spellphone, so she didn't notice me. She probably wouldn't mind, I thought as I yawned and closed my eyes.
While I drifted off, my ears still worked. My brain couldn't make much sense of it though.
"You can have the girls. All I ask is to keep the chimera."
Thunder rumbled in the background, and a voice spoke that reminded me of broken glass.
"Done."