40. Pippi
Dawn came too quickly.
I hated when time did that.
I’d stared at my phone calendar before we’d left home and had wanted to weep at how far away the end of this trip had seemed. But now it was here, and I wept at how frustratingly short that final night had been.
I’d started crying when Alistair mumbled, reluctantly, that he’d have to take me back through the inlet.
“The waters…the tide will lower. Soon. It’s time, Pippi.”
The tears only worsened as he swam slowly through the rocks. And by the time he dropped me off at our usual spot, I was fully in the throes of big, snot-faucet central sobs.
“Oh, dear,” Alistair said as I stepped off his head and clambered up the rocks. I slipped once. Twice. Both times he made sounds of distress. So I gulped a breath down, squeegeed the tears away, and got my feet back under me.
“You’ll be alright, Pippi,” he murmured as I popped my feet back in my shoes. “C-c-c-chin up…that’s the saying. Yes?”
“Yes.” I sighed and stared at the sloshing water beneath the rocks. “It feels wrong to say goodbye when I can’t see you.”
“Hmmm, it’s for the best. I turn into a beast. With the sun. Didn’t you know?”
I huffed.
“A huh-horrible, ugly beast. With big, ugly feet.”
“I hate to break it to ya, but your feet were ugly under moonlight too.”
He extruded a mock gasp. “ Oh no . And I thought I’d…c-cast a spell. To make me seem dash-dashing to your eyes. Didn’t it work?”
Gosh, what a goofball.
“It worked,” I said, “a little too well.” I paused, chewing on my next words, hoping they wouldn’t hurt him too badly. “I think I love you, Alistair.”
Euphoria seeped into every core of my body, making my limbs feel light and springy, as though I could leap off the cliffs and soar to the sky. But sorrow followed, grinding into my bones, reminding them they belonged planted on the earth.
“I think I love you as well,” Alistair whispered.
“Then why…? I should stay.”
“No.”
“I can head to the lobby and ask for a job application. I?—”
“Go home, Pippi. Please. This…here… staying here…it’s not a life for you. I want you to live . Please.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“I’ll be okay. I promise.”
But he felt so sad.
All I wanted to do was hug him. Hold him. Protect him. Burrow myself into him and never come back out.
“They torture you here, Alistair,” I croaked.
“I’ll be okay, Pippi,” he repeated adamantly. “Please. Go. Live. For me.”
And there were so many other things I wanted to say.
I wanted to promise I’d see him again, even though I knew I’d never have the money to venture back out to the isle.
I wanted to say I’d find a way to free him from the magic binding him here, even though that was a complete and utter pipe dream.
Even if I understood how the magic worked, it wouldn’t do me a lick of good since I was a plain ole Standie.
I should have done more . Dug into the mechanics of the isle. Verified if the other creatures suffered the same as him. Drilled the tourists to see if they knew how the main attractions were treated and raised the flag of awareness if they didn’t.
I should’ve helped him.
And I wanted to tell him all of that—to apologize for all the things I hadn’t done.
But he uttered a mournful, “Goodbye, Pippi.” And then his emotions left me.
He was gone, returned to the sea.
And I had no choice but to return to the land.
The cottage door shouted an overdramatic eeeeeeeep into the quiet foyer when I pushed it open.
I froze.
But no movement came from the bedroom, where Jackson still slept. So I tiptoed the rest of the way in, trying to ignore the zesty-flavored guilt fish wriggling around the base of my throat, and squinted around the dark cottage.
Jackson’s packed bags were still stacked where he’d left them in the living room yesterday.
My stuff was strewn everywhere. Because I’d started to pack but had been distracted by Jackson’s unusual silence as he’d gathered his own stuff, and the bitterness that’d filled our cottage like a noxious chemical cloud.
And I’d been focused on Alistair, counting down the hours until I could see him, feeling wretched for thinking that way in Jackson’s presence.
So my packing was not finished. I’d have to do a full speedrun once Jackson woke up.
But for now, I needed a shower. Desperately. The brine rising off my skin made my nose itch.
I crossed the room, untying the band I’d looped around my hair.
Something glittered on my right side. I turned. And jumped about a foot into the air when a luminous pair of jade green eyes blinked at me from atop Jackson’s suitcase.
In the bedroom, Jackson grunted. Snorted. And carried on snoring.
Thank the stars he slept like the dead.
Because when Marvin the cat said, “Hello, Pippi.”
I screamed.
Marvin flattened his ears. “You may not be aware of this, but cats have substantially better hearing than humans. Screaming hurts.”
“I’m sorry. I?—”
Jackson still snored away, but I clapped my hands over my mouth anyway.
Marvin sat up, yawned, and stretched, dragging his nails into the top of the suitcase.
“H-how…” I stared around the cottage—at the closed windows and the door I’d shut behind me. “How did you get in here?”
Marvin popped his bum down, waving his long tail idly behind him. His bottle-green eyes narrowed, as though he found me to be the dumbest creature who’d ever walked the earth. “I can get into any building on this isle.”
“That’s…I can’t imagine that’s okay. For you to squat in people’s homes.” I peeped through the half-open door to the bedroom, watching Jackson’s sleeping form. “And my boyfriend’s allergic to cats?—"
“He’s not.”
“Pardon?
“He’s not allergic to cats.” Marvin apathetically licked his left paw and swiped it over his face.
“He is?—”
“No. He’s not. I’ve spent most nights in this cottage over the past week, and he never so much as sneezed.”
“You… what ? You could’ve made him sick! Because he is allergic. To all animals.”
“He lies.” Marvin rubbed at his cheeks. “If he had truly been allergic, I would’ve waited outside. But I saw little point in making myself uncomfortable for no reason.”
“You…Wait…Hold on. You’ve been in our cottage every night ?” That last part had taken a bit to register.
“Most of them.” Marvin smeared his spit-coated paw between his ears.
“That’s…You…There has to be rules against that.”
“Sure, but there are no runes against it. So here I’ve been.
Listening to the liar snore and waiting to see if Alistair would tell you anything.
As much as he could, anyway, which I was sure wouldn’t be much.
He’s not quite as restricted as we are, since he can’t talk, but he’s been stuck in the sea for so long, his memory’s…
And…well, he’s not heard the things we have. ”
I blinked.
Marvin did a snobbish, slow blink back.
“You know Alistair?” I asked.
“The big, green Loch Ness Monster, who’s the star attraction of the isle I live on ?” Marvin slow-blinked again. “Never heard of him.” He drooled sarcasm as he slathered up his foot and went back in for another round of face cleaning.
“There’s no need to be rude,” I chided. “You knew what I meant. Can you…can you hear him?”
“No. None of us can. That’s by design, of course.”
“What?”
“But you can.” He dropped his paws and tucked his tail around them, as though trying to keep them warm. “Are you aware you’re a Sensitive?”
“A what?”
“A Sensitive,” he repeated slowly. “You can hear Alistair, and I’d wager you can also feel the energies of others, yes? Their emotions and such.”
My heart stuttered. Almost stopped.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Marvin’s ear twitched.
“I-I mean…I’m sensitive, sure. But I’m not?—”
“It’s rare, what you are,” he continued. “A Sorcerer without the ability to wield magic?—”
“I am not a Sorcerer.”
“Not fully. No. But someone in your family was. A grandparent, perhaps great grandparent. Gave you enough good blood to sense magic, but not enough to wield it. Alistair would’ve known this too…
should have known it, if he remembered. I’m not sure how many patches he has in his memory now, since I haven’t been able to talk to him. ”
I stared, thoroughly bamboozled.
“So he doesn’t remember,” Marvin sighed. “Or he didn’t want to burden you with it. But I’m surprised he didn’t…because I know he hasn’t forgotten?—”
Marvin’s ear flicked and he bit himself off with a hiss. Frustration poured off him.
“I’m limited as to what I can say,” he spat.
“I…You…Ugh!” I angled my head to the bedroom.
“He’s still sleeping,” Marvin told me.
“Maybe we should take this outside?”
“It’s damp.” He kneaded his claws into the suitcase.
“Isn’t it always damp here?”
“Yesssss,” he hissed. “It’s a—being stuck here…I can’t explain much. That’s the rub. But you’ve heard the history we tell? About the Scottish island and the curse?”
“I…Yeah.”
“It’s hogwash. A story we spin for tourists.”
Ice tumbled into my belly. “You’re not reincarnations of people from 500 years ago?”
“Nope.”
“Then—”
“If I say anymore, I’ll activate the rune that compels me not to say more. And that is a pain to rival the worst migraine a human has ever gotten. So I would rather not say more . You’ll need to fill in the gaps.”
“These aren’t gaps, they’re craters. If you’re not…If that story’s not true?—”
“Parts of it are true.”
“Which ones?”
“What happened to the people?”
I exhaled. “But you just said?—”
“What. Happened. To. The. People?” His whiskers fluttered.
“I…They were cursed. They died?—”
“Scratch that second part?—”
“—and became beasts.”
“Take out the past tense.”
“They become beasts? I…That…” But then it clicked.
The long-limbed man I kept seeing—the one I knew was Alistair.
The way the creatures here were so tightly controlled. Branded with runes that dictated what they could and couldn’t do. What they could and couldn’t say.
The way this isle scrambled my emotions. Because the creatures living here were in turmoil.
Alistair. Always fighting so hard for his words.
And the phrase that had tickled my brain on the night I first slept atop his head.
“I am human.”
“You’re cursed.” Shock hit my belly the way a slushy did, when I sucked it down too quickly on a sweltering day. “You’re people. From now? This time period? Living people , who are cursed.”
“I knew you’d get there.” Marvin’s tail twitched. “Took you long enough, though.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly wondering if I was going to upend my stomach over my feet. “But curses like that are illegal. They’ve been outlawed for centuries.”
“People can break laws and get away with it, if they’re crafty enough.”
A foul, lemony taste flooded my tongue.
Alistair was human .
He hadn’t just been the man I kept seeing in some once upon a distant time. He was that man. Now. In the present. A man stuck in another body—imprisoned there by a curse.
All of them were.
Marvin.
The alicorns.
The kelpies.
All of them.
They were people .
This was…
It was sick .
It was torture , what was done to them. I’d thought so before, when I’d believed them to be centuries dead. But now…
It was malicious , to round up a band of living, breathing humans. People with lives, families, and friends. And curse them—force them into different bodies. Strap them to this shitty island to entertain a bunch of tourists.
I staggered back. Hit the wall. Sank down it until my butt plopped onto the ground and buried my head in my hands.
Marvin watched me.
“I have to do something,” I sputtered. “I can’t…I can’t leave him…or any of you. I’m…Oh stars . There’s…Is there a way to reverse this? Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” Marvin breathed. “Yes, I think you can—” But he cut off with a yowl, rubbing frantically at his head.
Beneath his fur, a squiggly rune lit up in neon orange, burning him.
Marvin howled —the sort of wailing screech cats made when they fought.
I rushed toward him when he tilted sideways and plopped off the suitcase.
And Jackson finally woke up.