Chapter 14 Spider-Woven Surprises
Spider-Woven Surprises
There’s a ring of townspeople around me, wearing clothing crafted completely from elements of nature. Aprons stitched from giant lily pads, mushrooms for buttons, leaves and flower petals spun into entire swaths of fabric.
I remember the symbol from the Archivist’s map. The leaf now makes sense.
A little girl in a dress made of daisy chains peers down at me in wonder.
“Um—” I say, wondering if I should be… afraid? Friendly?
“Keep it moving!” a voice says, and the crowd disperses, going back to their shopping. When they do, I see I’m in the middle of a cluster of stores. I must have landed in a market.
A short, older woman makes her way over to me, wearing an outfit crafted from what looks like—but certainly can’t be—spiderwebs strung over shimmering black silk.
“Are you all right?” she says, helping me up. She frowns. “You look like you’ve been through quite the ordeal.”
I peer down at myself, only to see that my sparkling dress from Anyland has settled back into my pink power suit, now covered in stains from every cloud I flew through.
“Are you hungry?”
I blink. You know what? Now that she mentions it…
I don’t have to say a word before she’s leading me away by the hand. “Come, come,” she says, cutting a path through the throngs of people, some still gazing at me in curiosity.
“Where am I?” I ask, stumbling along to keep up with her brisk pace. I look around, and the shops are whimsically beautiful, each like its own fairy tale.
Some look made of gingerbread. Others look like freshly frosted cakes, with thick shutters of various bright shades and trellises flush with flowers shaped like giant sprinkles.
“You’re in Everland,” she says, glancing at me over her shoulder and smiling. “And I’m Evalyn.”
“I’m Barbie,” I say, barely stepping out of the way of a child holding a cup of hot chocolate overflowing with marshmallows. He’s taking sips while simultaneously playing with a ball that looks like a giant peppermint.
A baker in a rippling white apron opens the door to his shop, which is actually the door to a giant oven, full of fresh-baked loaves with festive shapes carved into the crusts.
All at once, he starts grabbing the bread and tossing the loaves behind him without looking.
People catch them in baskets, like this is a normal occurrence.
The woman leading me along lifts her hand—
And catches one of her own. She tears a piece off and hands it to me.
I expect the crust to be burning, but it’s pleasantly warm, a wisp of steam curling from the center of the sourdough. I take a bite and nearly melt right into the cracks between the uneven cobblestone.
“Good, isn’t it? Those are cranberries and nuts inside. His specialty.”
I quickly finish the rest.
“Cookie?” Evalyn asks.
Before I can answer, she reaches over to the next house we’re passing—and plucks a gingerbread man right off its trim. She offers it to me. I just gape at it.
“Perfectly edible, darling,” she says. “The house is baked fresh every morning. It will be replaced tomorrow.”
In that case… the cookie snaps easily in my mouth, and then sugar and spices are dancing on my tongue.
“Cider?”
By now, I realize it isn’t really a question, but more of a statement. We pass a shop made completely of apple cores, and she knocks on the window. A hand reaches out, holding what looks like a completely carved-out apple, filled to the brim with shining bronze liquid.
Evalyn snatches it up. “They never sweeten it enough,” she says as she leads me toward a tree in the middle of the town square.
In a flash, she produces a spile from one of the many pockets of her skirt, stabs it into the bark—and holds the apple goblet beneath it.
Slowly, a drop of maple syrup falls in. Then another.
“There you go.” She hands me the cup, pockets her spout… and we keep walking.
“This place… it’s like a storybook…” I say, taking a sip of the sweet, warm cider.
It staves off the cold nestling into my bones.
It’s a lot cooler here than it was in Anyland.
Children are laughing, playing, tossing giant leaves that cartwheel through the air.
Every door that’s opened unveils a new, warm, mouthwatering scent.
“You’re lucky you landed here and not in the forests, is all I’ll say…” she tells me, her shoulders hiking with a chill.
At last, at the far edge of the market, Evalyn steps inside a house shaped like a gift box, painted onyx. The windows are glazed over. The door is a sheet of bark that looks like it was roughly peeled from a tree.
It creaks as she leads me through it, and I’m hit with the delicious warmth of a hearth. My vision fills with shades that are decidedly brighter than the shop’s exterior.
The store is full of bolts of fabric, all glistening like a massive color palette. There are spools of glittery ribbon, stored in baskets woven from twigs and branches. I spin around in wonder.
“You’re a dressmaker?” I ask.
“Oh, no,” she says. “I’m a spider whisperer.”
I just blink at her.
She smiles benevolently. “The spiders are the artists. But they can be… moody. Temperamental, at times.” She purses her lips. “They’re also venomous, which doesn’t help things.”
“Oh.”
Maybe her dress is made of cobwebs, then.
“Here, you look like you could use more to drink.” Only then do I notice I drained the cider from the cup.
In moments, Evalyn returns with a mug of strangely pitch-black tea—sweetened by a generous spoon of honey—and wraps a soft blanket around my shoulders. Was this made from the spiders?
I take a soothing sip of tea, readying myself for my outlandish explanation. This woman has shown me kindness, but she’s about to think I’ve lost my mind. “You’re never going to believe this, but—”
“You’re from another land and need my help,” she says simply.
I close my mouth. Open it again. Close it.
She shrugs a shoulder at my confusion. “You appeared in a stream of light, dear. I knew you weren’t from around here. And I knew you’d be ravenous! Interland travel is tough work.”
“Have you… done it before?” I ask.
“Oh, no.” She shakes her head. “I used to dream of it, but… well, times are different now.” Evalyn sounds just like the Archivist did when I asked her about travel.
Wishful. I remember what Posey said, about the roads that once existed but were since destroyed.
But before I can ask any more about it, she brightens.
“You’ve clearly come here for a reason. How can I help? ”
Right. I motion toward my necklaces, which now hold another charm—the winged bell. “I’m looking for a key so I can get to the next world, a place called Dreamland. It won’t look like a key… but it might be special in another way. It will glow pink when I’m near it.”
Evalyn smooths a hand down her cobweb skirts. And as they shift, I see that between the dark pleats of fabric are various bright colors; her outfit is just like her store. She presses her lips together, deep in thought. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that.”
My heart deflates.
“But anything particularly special or rare is kept in Ever Manor.”
“Ever Manor?”
She motions toward the dust-speckled window. There are more than a few cobwebs in the corner, as if some of these artists the woman spoke of are in residence.
I peer through, and off in the near distance, atop a towering hill, sits a sprawling structure made of bark and ivy. A high wall of trees sits around it.
I wonder if my necklaces can help me fly, as I did in Anyland, so I can soar over the treetops to the manor. I start clutching my charms, thinking of lifting weightless off the ground…
But, as though she can read my mind, the woman shakes her head.
“They’re impenetrable, those trees. Planted so close together, even a string of silk couldn’t get between them!
And a barrier of magic all around, where the trees don’t cover.
There’s a gate, but it’s always closed. Except…
” Her smile brightens her entire face. “Except for tomorrow. You’re in luck!
There’s a masquerade taking place. Anyone who dresses up is invited. ”
I lift a brow at her. “That seems awfully convenient.”
“Not really,” she says, waving my words away. “Lord Evernight loves masquerades. They happen every other day.”
“Oh.”
She looks me over pointedly. “You’ll never get past the guards wearing that, though.”
Easy. This I know my necklaces can do. “Not a problem,” I say. I reach up to touch the charms, and—
Nothing happens.
My brows come together. “Something is supposed to happen. Just wait.”
I press the charms together again. Really focus this time.
Still, nothing.
Evalyn doesn’t look too surprised. “Magic from other places doesn’t work here,” she explains. “Too many powerful creatures around… they control most of the magic.”
Her voice is casual, but the stutter in my chest certainly is not.
No… magic?
That’s fine. It’s just a dress. I’m in the middle of a fairy-tale village. There must be a way to get one before the masquerade.
“Could your artists make me one? Or lend me one?” I look around, searching for those silvery cobwebs. “Do they make them in a back room, or…?”
“Oh, no,” Evalyn says, shaking her head, snorting as though I’ve just told a joke. “Their workshop is deep in the forest.” She grimaces. “And their payment is a bit… unsettling.”
Well, the way she says it unsettles me.
But this is my final stop before Dreamland.
If a dress is what I need to get into this manor that might hold the final key… I’ll give anything I have. “What is it?”
“You should really just have them tell you,” Evalyn says. She notices my yawn. “When was the last time you slept, darling?”
I’m not sure. Time has moved differently in each land I’ve visited.
Now that I’m not in immediate danger, I’m starting to feel the tiredness like a weight upon me.
“You need rest, child,” she says. “Come.”