Fallen Thief Page 9

  “Is that a snake carved onto it?” she said aloud in confusion.

  “The Grimmir,” Kay confirmed from behind her.

  “I thought so, too,” Peter said triumphantly.

  Mira shivered at the thought of such an enormous and terrifying beast being real. As they hovered near the window, a few more bits of the stone wall surrounding the opening crumbled down into the lake, as if the force of the winds caused by Eola’s wings were too strong for the ancient tower.

  “Let’s go,” Mira said, hugging Peter closer.

  They flew away from the tower, over the waterfall, and back towards Crispin. They were silent for most of the journey, which suited Mira just fine. She couldn’t get the image of the sorcerer’s portrait out of her mind. How evil must he have been to deserve to be cursed for all eternity as a coldblooded sea monster…?

  They arrived at the Mosswoods sooner than Mira expected, for Eola knew precisely where to go. They landed near the creek, and with a few grateful pats on the neck, Eola took off into the sky again.

  Don’t stray too far, Mira thought wistfully, missing the winged horse already.

  They hurried back into town, Mira clutching her bag close. Peter broke off from the group on his street.

  “Let’s see what we can do with the conch tomorrow at noon,” Peter said over his shoulder before he disappeared from view.

  Mira and Kay changed out of their grimy clothes as soon as they arrived home, and not a moment too soon. Mira heard the front door open and Appoline call to them from downstairs as she was pulling on her clean socks.

  “Mira, Kay! Come down, please!”

  Mira froze, recognizing the displeased tone in her mother’s voice. She bit her lip with worry as Kay raised an eyebrow.

  “Does she know?” he asked.

  “We’d better find out,” Mira whispered and hurried out of the room.

  They found Appoline sweeping the dirt off the floor in front of the door. Mira cringed. Had they tracked mud into the house without realizing it?

  “Hello, Mother,” she said quietly.

  Appoline straightened up and gave them an absent smile. “Hello, dears.” She set the broom aside and clasped her hands together. “I expect you’ve heard the latest buzz around town?”

  Mira gulped as Kay shrugged.

  “Several people noticed a white winged horse flying over Crispin this morning,” she continued. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Mira and Kay hesitated for a breathless moment before responding.

  “We missed her—”

  “We just wanted to go for a ride—”

  Appoline held up her hand, and they fell silent.

  “I understand that you missed her. But to bring her into town without telling me…and you even rode her!” Appoline paced past them to stand in front of the fireplace. She turned to them with piercing eyes and asked, “Where did you go?”

  Mira opened and closed her mouth, not knowing what to say.

  “We just wanted to explore,” Kay muttered.

  Appoline sighed. “I cannot stop you two from exploring, I know. You’ve already traveled half the kingdom on this winged horse, but that was out of my hands. You’re home now, under my care, and I will not let you go gallivanting about for the sake of adventure. I am sure Peter’s parents would agree. You are not to leave Crispin again.”

  “We didn’t leave Crispin—” Mira began.

  “You expect me to believe you didn’t leave Crispin when you went for a ride on the winged horse?” Appoline said, her voice getting dangerously quiet. “I don’t suppose you rode her into the town square to buy the turnips I’d asked for?”

  Mira’s eyes widened as she realized that she’d completely forgotten about the turnips she was supposed to buy that morning. Her eyes flitted to the stairs as her heart raced, wondering if Appoline would go looking for the bag that she’d put in her room—the bag that held the sorcerer’s conch shell.

  “I didn’t think so,” Appoline said. “If I catch you two being so reckless again…” she trailed off and pursed her lips. Finally, she shook her head, suddenly looking tired. “I don’t know what I’ll do. But I do know this: you two will not leave this house while you think about the carelessness of your actions.”

  Mira watched her mother warily, not wanting to say more for fear that she’d add another punishment. She bit her tongue and looked away as Appoline strode over to the kitchen without another word.

  She can’t stop us from seeing Peter, said Kay’s voice.

  Mira shook her head. No. She can’t keep us locked away in here. She’d been forbidden to leave the house before—that never stopped her from doing it, anyway. She listened to the sounds of Appoline taking things out of the cabinets in the kitchen with a vague sense of guilt, but she swallowed it down and led the way back up the stairs, eager to hide the conch shell in case her mother came looking for the bag.

  It quickly became clear that Appoline could keep them in the house by giving them enough things to do to stay busy all day.

  “You’ll be starting school again soon,” she said before leaving for work in the morning. “In fact, it will be your first time entering school, Kay. If you wish to be in the same class as Mira, you have some catching up to do. I’ve prepared some arithmetic problems for you to solve.”

  She handed Kay a stack of parchments with countless equations written on them. Mira stifled a giggle at the sight of Kay’s bewildered face.

  “Mira will help you, I am sure. When you reach a point that you don’t need her help, I have several notes I need copies for. That dreadful fire inspired me to keep backups of my latest astronomical charts. Mira, you will find those in my study.”

  Kay gave Mira a smug smile, to which she rolled her eyes.

  Once Mira started explaining arithmetic to Kay, she realized that this was the worst punishment she had gotten yet. All he did was complain and trick her into solving the problems for him.

  “Who needs to know how to do this stuff, really?” he grumbled as he stared gloomily at his piece of parchment, twirling his quill between his fingers.

  Appoline’s notes were stacked in the corner of the dining table. Mira tried to find a chance to copy them onto fresh sheets of parchment, but Kay kept interrupting her.

  “And why is she only punishing me with these extra lessons?”

  Mira leaned back against her chair and sighed. “It’s only because you’ve never been to school before,” she said. “You said it yourself: those travelers at the inn back in Rook only taught you how to read, but we learn lots more at school. There’s arithmetic and science and history and—”

  “Being back at the inn doesn’t sound too bad now,” Kay said darkly. He held out his quill. “Can’t you do the rest?”

  Mira crossed her arms. “I still have all the notes to copy. If we want a chance to get out of here, we have to finish everything.”

  Kay let out a loud groan and turned back to his parchment, mumbling, “How Peter actually likes doing this sort of thing every day is a mystery…”

  When Peter paid them a visit at midday, he found them hard at work.

  “Are you two giving homeschooling a shot?” he asked when he saw the piles of parchment around Kay.

  Mira sighed and closed the front door.

  “Appoline’s keeping us in here,” she grumbled. “She found out we took Eola off somewhere. She was livid.”

  “You’re grounded?” Peter asked, turning to her.

  Mira crossed her arms. “Didn’t you get a punishment?”

  Peter smiled sheepishly. “My parents never found out—I think.” Then his smile faded, and his face lost its color. “I hope Miss Byron doesn’t tell them.”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t already.”

  “Maybe she realized you two are the troublemakers and not me,” Peter said with a smirk. “Anyway, we’d better see what we can find out from that conch shell while we have th
e chance.”

  Kay pushed his chair back. “Let’s do it,” he said quickly. “Anything’s better than arithmetic. I’ll get the conch.”

  He ran upstairs and returned with the shell pressed to his ear.

  “Still nothing,” he said, shrugging. He held the conch up to his face and said, “Hello! Anything you want to tell us?” He considered it for a moment, then brought it back up to his mouth and yelled, “Grimmir!” When nothing happened, he turned to see the others staring at him. “What? I thought maybe it’d be like Tonttu’s trick with the well. Why is this thing being so difficult?” He began shaking it.

  “Stop that,” Mira snapped, hurrying over and grabbing the conch from him. “You’ll break it. It’s delicate.” She sat on one of the living room chairs and turned it over in her hands, running her finger along the spiked ridges around the spiral. “I can tell it’s important,” she murmured. “It feels the way that music box did the first time I held it, like there’s something inside. We just have to figure out a way to play it, like the music box.”

  She stopped. She traced the ridges down to the point on one end and noticed a small hole. The conch looked like a horn.

  “What are you thinking?” Peter said, sitting next to her.

  “We have to blow into it.”

  “What?” he said incredulously.

  Mira looked at the others, wondering if the sorcerer really did mean for them to play the conch shell like a horn. Kay shrugged. That was all the encouragement she needed. She inhaled deeply, raised the conch to her lips, and blew into the shell.

  A deep, somber note filled the room and seemed to make the floorboards tremble beneath their feet. Mira moved the shell away from her face with a gasp, for it had begun to vibrate.

  “What’s it doing?” she gasped, dropping it on the table in front of her.

  A steady stream of mist rose out of the mouth of the shell in dancing spirals. It reminded her of the silver mist, but it didn’t shimmer. Instead, it seemed the cloud that was forming in front of their very eyes was becoming thicker and thicker until it took the shape of a man’s head and torso.

  Mira blinked rapidly, not believing her eyes, but the figure was still there, hovering in the middle of the living room. The serious eyes of the sorcerer stared blankly ahead as the figure opened its mouth and spoke in a deep, echoing voice:

  “I, the Cursed Sorcerer of Nesston, leave this message in hopes that there exists a soul who would choose to set me free upon hearing it. I have been doomed to live out eternity as a vicious beast, hunted by those who want to steal that which I stole from the world. The curse has progressed too far, and I cannot stop it from taking hold of me. Once transformed, only the memory of my old self will return me to the life I once knew. It is locked away from all except those who wish to return it to me, concealed from all except those who have heard my plea. I only hope I will still remember myself at the moment of reunion.”

  The final word in the sorcerer’s message echoed through the room as the swirling cloud began to let go of its shape, the mist disappearing into the air around them. A moment later, Mira and the others were blinking open-mouthed at nothing.

  “He’s real,” Mira whispered. “He wants someone to find him.”

  “Wanted it centuries ago,” Kay said weakly. “He’s really been stuck as the Grimmir for centuries.”

  “He said he needs to be reunited with the memory of his old self,” Peter threw in. “You don’t think that’s the vial of blood one of the villagers stole from him?”

  “I didn’t find any vials of blood in his hideaway,” Mira said with a shudder. “There were lots of other things but no blood.”

  “But,” Kay said, “the message said it’s hidden from everyone except the people who’ve heard his voice. It must be some kind of spell that makes it so you can’t see the vial unless you’ve released the message from his conch shell!”

  “We have to go back and look for it,” Mira said breathlessly. “We can take it to the Grimmir.”

  Kay’s eyes sparkled with hope. “And trade it for his healing powers.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Crimson Vial

  W

  ith the first day of autumn looming ever nearer, it meant that Mira and Kay would soon be going to school. Their chances of going back to Nesston to search for the vial of the sorcerer’s blood were slowly shrinking, especially since Appoline was still giving them extra chores and tasks to keep them busy at home. They gave Peter the conch shell to keep at his house to make sure Appoline wouldn’t find it accidentally; Mira didn’t think she could handle any more punishments.

  It didn’t help that Lynette and Red came by their house a couple of days after they’d found the conch, wanting to play in the Mosswoods.

  “But why not?” Red asked at the front door when Mira explained that she and Kay couldn’t join them.

  “You know Appoline,” Mira said vaguely. “She’s very strict about the rules, and she said we can’t go. We’ve got lots of miserable things to do at home. Kay even has lessons before school starts to—”

  “Those sound a lot like Miss Byron’s punishments,” Lynette said. When Mira avoided her eyes, she continued, “Wouldn’t have anything to do with the winged horse, would it?”

  “Maybe. You saw what she was like the last time one was spotted near Crispin. I’ve got to go. There’s still a lot left to do.” She closed the door, cringing at her own words. It was clear that Lynette knew she was hiding something, and the worst part was that Mira truly did want to go and play with her friends in the Mosswoods. She didn’t know how much longer she could stay cooped up at home.

  But Appoline had a pleasant surprise for them when she arrived home one evening a week later. Pleased with the way they’d behaved, she prepared a little feast for them for dinner, complete with two different meat pies, mashed potatoes, and a chocolate cake for dessert.

  “I know school will be starting in a week, and I want you to enjoy the last few days of summer,” Appoline said after they’d eaten until their stomachs were full and their eyelids were heavy. She looked Mira and Kay in the eye and continued, “You may leave the house as you wish, as long as you’re home before dinner. I trust you’ll remember not to leave Crispin this time.”

  They didn’t waste a moment of their freedom. The next morning, they hurried to the puppet shop and called Peter down.

  “You escaped!” Peter said with raised eyebrows as he stepped out of the shop.

  “Wish I could’ve escaped days ago,” Kay said. “We were set free.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Mira said, but she smiled. “Appoline could’ve kept us at home all the way until school started.”

  Kay shuddered.

  “We have to try to get back to Nesston before Kay and I are stuck in school,” Mira continued seriously.

  “Shh,” Peter hissed with a look over his shoulder at the shop window as if he expected his parents to be glaring down at them from the other side. “Let’s talk about it where my parents won’t hear.”

  He led the way down the street, past a large fruit cart pushed by a man yelling, “Buy your fresh fruits here!” and down a narrow alley lined with empty crates. A stray cat poked its head around one of the crates at the sounds of their footsteps and approached them curiously. Mira kneeled down to pet it.

  “I hid the conch in the workshop,” Peter said. “It’s so cluttered that Papa leaves it to me to keep track of what we have on the shelves in there since I know where everything is. No one will find it in there. Not that it matters,” he added. “I tried blowing into the conch again after we released the message. It sounded like a horn, but no message came out of it.”

  “The message is gone?” Kay asked.

  “Yeah. It’s just a boring old shell, now.”

  “Good,” Kay said. “Don’t want Appoline locking us away again if anyone found out we got it from a sorcerer’s underwater hideaway.”

 
Mira nodded as the cat ran its body along the side of her leg. “That’s probably true. Besides, we don’t need it anymore. We just have to find a way back into Nesston soon.”

  “Yeah, Appoline’s already given me schoolwork to do at home,” Kay said bitterly. “With her breathing down my neck, there’s no way I’ll get a chance to go anywhere once school starts.”

  “I wouldn’t mind going to school,” Peter said, leaning against the brick wall. “Mama’s put our lessons on hold while Papa and I get ready for the Day of Dreams next month. We’ve got a puppet show to prepare, and the shop’s never been busier with customers who want to put on their own shows. If I went to regular school, they couldn’t keep me from going just because a festival is coming up.”

  “Told you he’s crazy,” Kay said to Mira with a shake of his head.

  “We’ll bring you our schoolwork to do for us if you insist.” Mira grinned.

  Peter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll work at the puppet shop all day and then stay up all night doing your schoolwork.”

  “But you’ll still come to Nesston with us, won’t you?” Mira asked, standing up.

  “I don’t think so,” he muttered. When Mira raised her eyebrows, he shrugged defensively and said, “How do you expect we’d get there, anyway? We can’t bring Eola back into town, or do you think Miss Byron’s changed her mind and cares to go for a little flight herself?”

  “We can’t just give up!” Mira insisted. “The Fabler’s story is turning out to be true in every way. Appoline—and everyone else in Crispin, apparently—has forgotten that the Shadowveils burned our house and almost killed her in the fire! We can’t just let that go and give up on our only chance of protecting the people we love. We’ve got to go back into Nesston and—hey!”

  Mira jumped out of the way as the tabby cat hissed and darted down the alley towards the street. They spun around to see a fox’s bushy tail disappear around the corner as the cat chased it out of sight.