Chapter Nine

The Day of Dreams

 

 

“I

still can’t believe you all made it out in one piece,” Red said once Mira and Kay had told their friends everything about their misadventures in the Mosswoods the following school day during lunch. “I thought you’d walk into class with fang-wounds all over your skin.”

“Collin hasn’t said a word about it all day,” Lynette said triumphantly as they ate their food, sitting in a circle in the grass behind the library. “Serves him right for yelling at you when you were only trying to help.”

“Makes winning first pick of the Mosswoods even sweeter,” Kay said, happily biting into his apple.

But when school ended for the day and they scattered out into the town square, it seemed Collin wasn’t entirely through with them yet. Garth stepped in front of Mira and Kay at the bottom of the library steps, cutting them off. Collin and Wilbur paced around from behind the large boy.

“You two don’t think you’ve won, do you?” Collin spat, crossing his arms.

Lynette and Red stopped walking when they realized their friends weren’t by their sides. They turned, frowning at the scene.

“We don’t think,” Kay replied coolly. “We know. We made it all the way to the creek while you ran off.”

“You cheated,” Garth said.

“How?”

“You used your merrow tricks to scare us,” Collin said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “You scared the bats, too. That’s why they attacked.”

“Those bats attacked you because you were blundering about like blind elephants,” Mira retorted. “I summoned water to help—”

“Us, need your water tricks for help?” Collin cut in with a mean snort of laughter.

“Water’s a pretty scary thing to you, isn’t it, Collin?” Mira said, trying to keep her voice level. “I wonder what you do when it rains.”

Collin pursed his lips. “You merrows had better watch it,” he said through gritted teeth. “Keep your weirdness to yourselves, or I’ll—”

“Oh, go on and cry about it to your daddy,” Lynette snapped from behind him, making him spin around.

Instead of another retort, Collin turned back to Mira and Kay, his face breaking into a sly smile. “I suppose he’d like to hear about it now.” He turned to look at something in the distance behind Lynette and Red.

The others followed his gaze to see a pair of councilors approaching them from the Town Hall. One of them was Mr. Streck. He pressed his lips together in what could have been a small smile but looked more like a grimace to Mira. They stopped a few feet away by the library steps. The other man looked familiar as he leaned over to say something to Mr. Streck. Mira realized he was the thin-faced councilor from Aindel who had spoken about the abandoned antique shop at the meeting she’d eavesdropped.

“Come for a moment, children,” Mr. Streck called, stiffly waving a hand at them. When Lynette and Red moved to walk with Mira and Kay, he shook his head. “We wish to speak with our two adventurers if you please.”

Lynette and Red both looked offended, but only until Collin was also turned away with a strict tilt of his father’s head. Biting their lips to keep from smiling, they waved goodbye to Mira and Kay and walked off through the town square.

Mira’s shoulders tensed. Could Collin have told his father about their midnight competition?

“It seems you two have created more of a stir than you realize,” Mr. Streck said once Mira and Kay had stopped in front of him. “Merrows in the Old Towns, Shadowveils hiding in plain sight…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

Mira supposed he didn’t know what they had done the night before, but she cringed under his disapproving stare all the same.

Mr. Streck continued, “Mr. Hill has only just returned from Rook, where there have been numerous meetings about your…situation.”

“Situation?” Kay frowned. “What’s our situation got to do with Rook or any other town?”

“Now, Mr. Streck,” said the councilor named Mr. Hill, pushing his glasses up the long, narrow bridge of this nose, “our meetings are hardly focused on these children. There are far bigger things being discussed.”

“Like the Empress of the Sea?” Mira said. The sound of the name hung heavily in the air as the councilors blinked in surprise.

“Among other issues, yes,” Mr. Hill said after a moment’s pause.

“Found out who she is, yet?” Kay asked.

Mr. Streck’s eyes narrowed at Kay. “We know that she is a danger to us all, boy. We called you over here to ask you questions, not to be questioned by a pair of insolent children.”

“What he means is that we’re concerned for your safety,” Mr. Hill said more softly. Mira and Kay threw each other skeptical looks while Mr. Hill continued, “Have you had any signs of the merrows—or rather, the Shadowveils’ whereabouts lately? Any of those dreams they used to give you?”

“No.”

“None at all.”

They stared up at the councilors defiantly until Mr. Hill sighed and nodded.

“Well, that’s good, I suppose. You’ll tell someone if you do notice anything strange, won’t you? Your mother, at least?” He watched them carefully through his glasses, his eyes sharp as he stared from Mira to Kay.

“Yes,” Mira said coolly, though her heart was beating fast. Did they know something that they weren’t telling Mira and Kay? About Nesston, perhaps?

“Very good,” Mr. Hill said with a small smile. He turned to Mr. Streck. “The mayor will be happy to hear of this, back in Aindel. I must be off before it gets too late. I’ve much to tell him.”

“I will walk you to the stables,” Mr. Streck said before turning away without another word to them.

Mr. Hill nodded goodbye to Mira and Kay, who stood still long enough for the councilors to go around the corner and out of sight.

Do you think they know what we’ve been up to? Mira thought. With the conch and the vial?

Not a chance. They don’t believe Amara’s the empress. They’d never even dream we were trying to track down the Grimmir.

And the Shadowveil in Nesston?

If we told them about that, they wouldn’t leave us alone until we gave up what we were doing there in the first place.

Mira fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of her shirt, her gaze still fixed on the spot where the councilors disappeared around the corner.

“Well, at least we weren’t lying about not having any dreams,” she said.

“Yeah, I don’t miss those.”

 

By the time the weather grew chilly enough for them to wear cloaks on their way to school, the jewel bats had cleared the Mosswoods and went on with their migration, and the Day of Dreams was upon them.

The afternoon before the festival, Mira and Kay visited the puppet shop to see Peter. Most of the merchants around them had packed up early for the day to make way for decorations for the Day of Dreams. The puppet shop, itself, was locked, and Mira had to knock on the display window to get Peter to notice them waiting outside.

“We closed the shop at noon today so we could make a proper stage,” Peter said immediately when he opened the door.

“I thought you had stages you’ve used before,” Mira said.

They stepped into the shop to see that the large display table in the center had been moved to the side to make way for a large puppet theater, already set up with a red curtain and an elaborately decorated frame.

“Papa’s getting the backdrops ready in the workshop,” Peter said, resting his elbow on the edge of the theater and patting it proudly. “It’s the first time we’re putting on ‘The Prince and the Stag’ as a marionette show, so we decided to make a brand new theater, too.” He wiped his forehead, smudging some paint across his hairline. Mira held back a smile.

“Where are you performing it?” Kay asked.

“Right outside the shop. But you wouldn’t miss it even if you didn’t know where it was. We’ve got a huge sign we’re going to put up, too.”

“Since when do you make such a big deal out of the Day of Dreams?” Mira said in surprise.

“Well, it’s not really the Day of Dreams that’s a big deal…There was no puppet show for the last festival, and so my parents wanted to make this one special.”

Mira bit her lip as she realized that he meant the Starlight Festival, which of course was when Peter was missing from home. It didn’t occur to her that Mr. and Mrs. Waylor surely wouldn’t have put on their usual puppet show when they were so worried for their son’s safety.

“It’ll be special, all right,” Mira said, nodding at the grand stage. “I can’t wait to see it.”

Peter smiled and raised his eyebrows. “It’ll be one the town won’t forget.”

 

The following morning, Mira stepped into the cool autumn air, proudly showing off her costume as the clockmaker’s apprentice: she had a stopwatch as a necklace, her sleeves rolled up the way a true gearspinner would look, with charcoal “oil stains” smudged on her arms. Her face and neck were powdered white, as her character had made the fatal mistake of turning back time so far that she began to disappear from the world.

Mira was rather pleased with herself. She had put together her costume all by herself, as Appoline was still at the observatory after spending the entire night at the telescope. Mira couldn’t wait to show her mother her clever look when she joined them later in the day and hoped that she would wear her own costume.

Kay emerged from the townhouse as the old clockmaker, wearing overalls and brandishing a cane, his hair turned gray with powder.

“If Peter gets to be a prince and a hunter, this cane’s going to have to double as my sword,” he said, jabbing the cane in the air.

Mira ducked before it hit her in the head. “That’s not how an old clockmaker would behave.”

“And you’re supposed to be disappearing from history, so we shouldn’t be able to hear you,” Kay retorted, leaning on the cane and giving her a crooked smile.

Mira rolled her eyes and led the way down the bustling street. The changing colors of the leaves mixed with the flamboyant costumes of the townsfolk made Crispin look positively magical. They passed by a family dressed as bears, a man with green-painted skin handing out chocolate coins as the Frog Prince, and a man and his son wearing large, feathered wings attached to their arms.

As they passed underneath a tightrope walker balancing between two buildings, they noticed an arm waving from behind a group of gawking spectators. Peter, Lynette, and Red stood together, each wearing a costume that made Mira beam with delight. Peter was dressed as the prince who hunted a magical stag, equipped with his bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and a crown made of painted paper resting on his blond hair. Lynette was the mythical warrior-queen Idona who could defeat any opponent using her fighting staff. Red was a legendary dragon-rider and even had his dog, Oberon, dressed as the fearsome dragon.

Mira laughed as Oberon stood on his hind legs and licked her face when she and Kay reached their friends. Lynette attempted in vain to fix the smeared powder on Mira’s cheeks before they all went off to enjoy the celebrations.

They played a round of horseshoe-throwing at the stables, where Collin and Cassandra and their friends came to watch and jeer. It came as no surprise that Peter won, considering his impeccable aim, but Cassandra spoke over their cheers.

“How about your winner plays against ours?” she said in a falsely sweet voice. “I already won by five throws this morning. Let’s see if our little puppet can handle that.”

Peter hesitated, but Red pushed him forward.

“Why not let me have a crack at him?” Collin smirked and rolled up his sleeves. He and his sister were wearing flowing robes in the style of ancient royalty, with patterns of the moon embroidered into them. Mira recognized at once that they were dressed as the mythical prince and princess who defended the kingdom against invaders using the power of the moon.

Collin’s expression turned sour as soon as his sister let out a mean laugh.

“You’ve already come in second against me,” Cassandra said, waving him away as she stepped in front of him. “I wouldn’t take the risk of losing again if I were you.”

Collin’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t say anything. Mira and Kay glanced at each other behind their backs and raised their eyebrows. Even Peter looked back at his friends and shrugged before he swung his bow and quiver off his shoulder and rested it against the barn. Mira had never heard Cassandra snap at her brother like that, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the least as she took her place next to Peter and grabbed a horseshoe.

Cassandra’s arrogant smile lasted only until Peter made his third throw, when it was clear that he had perfect aim. The look on her reddened face when Peter won made Mira laugh until Mr. Streck’s drawling voice reached her ears.

“What are you two doing back here?” Mira’s muscles tensed as she spun around but found the tall man glowering down at Collin and Cassandra. He wasn’t wearing a costume. “Come away at once before you embarrass me in front of the other councilors with your mediocre skills.”

Collin and Cassandra kept their eyes lowered as they moved stiffly under their father’s stern glare. Mr. Streck gave the others a disdainful glance before turning away and following his children towards the town square.

“He’s even nastier than they are,” Peter muttered once they were out of earshot.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” grunted the old stableman as he picked up the horseshoes.

Mira supposed he was right. For the first time, she actually pitied Collin and Cassandra. Still, there were enough distractions around them that they soon forgot the tense moment in the middle of all the festivities.

In the town square, acrobats and troubadours were putting on performances. Mira found Appoline watching one of the troubadours sing a ballad and was thrilled to see her mother dressed as the Tree of Time, with colorful leaves formed in a wreath in her hair and dangling on strings over her skirt. They greeted her for only a moment before the sight of a fire-eater on the other side of the square made them clamber through the crowds of people to get a closer look.

Beyond the man extinguishing flaming batons in his mouth, Mira saw a familiar figure. The Fabler was sitting on the library steps with a small group of little children sitting in a circle on the ground in front of her. She was dressed in her usual colorful clothes as she made wide gestures with her arms and drew them all in for her enticing story.

When Lynette and Red were called away by their parents to get their lunches, Mira, Peter, and Kay walked about the square with chicken drumsticks Appoline had gotten for them. They made it past the tailor dressed as a fortune-teller who was reading palms before Appoline got called over by a pair of astronomers.

At that moment, Mira locked eyes with the Fabler by the library, now sitting on her own. The Fabler smiled and waved for them to come to her.

Mira, Peter, and Kay approached her, clumsily wiping their greasy hands on their pants.

“Ah, if it isn’t the Heroes of Crispin,” the Fabler said from her seat on the stairs. “What news have you gathered for me from Nesston? Oh, to live the tale must be so much sweeter than to tell it.”

Mira glanced at the others in silence, unsure of what to say. The hairs on her arms stood on end. How did the Fabler know they had gone to Nesston?

Kay spoke up after a moment.

“Our parents won’t let us go.”

“Oh, well, that’s too bad,” the Fabler said, though she didn’t look disappointed at all. In fact, a spark of mischief lit up her round eyes. “Though, I trust you didn’t expect them to give you their blessings to travel to an abandoned Old Town, did you?”

“No,” Mira said slowly, checking over her shoulder for signs of Appoline. She spotted her mother with the scholars at the fruit stand, but she still didn’t like the Fabler’s prying questions.

“Smart girl,” the Fabler said with a wink. She sighed and rested her arms on her cane in front of her. “I knew from the moment you turned up at my door that you three were destined for great things. You don’t need to tell me what you’ve found for me to know you’re on the path to solving a centuries-old mystery.”

“I—I’d better go,” Peter said finally, inching away. “Papa and I are doing the puppet show soon, and I need to help him set up the theater.”

“I will see you there, Master Puppeteer,” the Fabler called after him. “I’ll need a bit of help, though. Come, give me a hand,” she said to Kay. “We’d better get a head-start—I’m a slow walker. It doesn’t help that I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in days. The stables aren’t far from my house, and the horses have been restless lately.”

Mira and Kay walked awkwardly on either side of the Fabler, each with a hand on her arm. Appoline gave Mira a quizzical look when she noticed the procession but smiled approvingly as she watched her children help the town’s old storyteller to the puppet shop.

Just as Peter had promised, the grand theater was right outside the puppet shop, in the shade of the overhang from the upper floor. A large sign was hanging from the beam in front of it, tethered to the ground with a thick rope. On it was a painting of golden antlers with words woven through it: The Waylor Theater of Whimsy.

There was a pair of little girls sitting on a stool beside the theater. One stern look from the Fabler sent them scrambling to get up and let their elder take their spot, right underneath the large sign. Once they had helped the Fabler to her seat, Kay nudged Mira in the ribs and pointed to the back of the small crowd, where Red and Lynette were watching them. Mira turned to the Fabler.

“Would—would you mind if we…?” Mira timidly pointed to her friends.

“Go on, go on to your friends.” The Fabler waved her hand. “I’m perfectly fine here.”

“What were you doing with the Fabler?” Lynette asked as soon as Mira and Kay reached them.

“She needed help walking over here.” Mira shrugged.

“Strange that she asked you,” Lynette said.

Mira avoided her friend’s eyes as she patted a slobbering Oberon’s head by Red’s side. “She’s strange, all right,” she muttered.

More and more children took their seats on the ground, and the rest of the crowd stood in a semicircle around them. Mira saw Mrs. Waylor smiling proudly beside the theater on the other side of the crowd, with Appoline at her side. A moment later, drumrolls coming from behind the stage signified the start of the show, and parents hushed their children, who poked at each other in excitement.

“Gather round, every girl and every boy,” Peter’s voice carried across the street, “for here is a tale for everyone to enjoy.” The curtains in front of the stage opened in a flash to reveal the backdrop of a forest.

“There once was and at once wasn’t,” came the soothing voice of Mr. Waylor, “in a land of kings, queens, and peasants, a lonesome prince who wished to win the heart of a beautiful princess.”

The wooden prince came clacking onto the stage, moving as easily as if it were alive. From the other end, the princess entered. Peter did all the voices as his father narrated the story. Mira couldn’t help giggling into her hand as he performed the princess’s part so flawlessly.

It was a marvelous show, and all too soon, they reached the final scene with a sweeping change in the backdrop. As soon as the painting dropped into place, there was a loud meow followed by the gasps of a few of the spectators as a startled cat ran through the crowd and around one of the buildings. The children laughed at the commotion as Mr. Waylor resumed his storytelling.

In the midst of the little stir caused by the alley cat, Oberon began barking, pulling Red in the direction of the cat.

“Oberon,” Red hissed, pulling on his leash. Oberon kept pulling, earning disapproving mutters from the spectators who were trying to watch the end of the show. “Be right back,” Red grunted over his shoulder to his friends and hurried out of the crowd, practically being dragged by his dog.

Mira chuckled and turned back to the play just as someone bumped into her legs from behind.

The world around her swam into a cloudy vision of a rope––a thin fiber holding two pieces together, rapidly fraying as it tore apart.

“It is done,” said a deep voice.

Mira gasped, spinning around to see who had bumped into her. She only found the smiling faces of the audience looking over her head to watch the end of the show. Was this another one of the Shadowveils’ dreams? she thought frantically. She looked at her brother, who seemed to be oblivious to her distress.

No, this wasn’t one of their dreams. It wasn’t nearly long enough, and something told her the man’s voice wasn’t meant for her to hear.

But what was the meaning of the rope?

She looked around, breathing fast, trying to find any sign of a rope that had been cut. As the audience clapped at the witch’s demise in the puppet show, her gaze fell on the thick rope that held up the new sign Peter and his father had made. Mira peered between two people in front of her and traced the rope with her eyes: up over a wooden beam of the house and down to a hook on the ground. Right near the hook, even from a distance, Mira could see the threads that had been torn apart.

The Fabler was sitting directly under the sign, and a group of small children was only a few paces away.

“Watch out!” Mira yelled, but the Fabler didn’t hear her, for the audience had burst into a chorus of laughter and applause.

“What’s wrong—” Kay began, but Mira pushed past him and fought her way to the front of the audience.

“The sign is falling!” she called out, but only a few adults around her seemed to notice her.

Peter! she screamed silently, not knowing what else to do. Peter’s head appeared around the side of the stage, scanning the crowd for a sign of Mira. He saw her pointing up above the theater. Grab the rope!

Just then, the last fiber broke loose.

Peter jumped forward, but the rope snapped out of his reach.

In a breathless moment, Mira watched the Fabler fall back from her stool in surprise as Peter lunged at the falling sign. The audience screamed and the children scattered back just in time to avoid getting crushed.

Peter wasn’t as lucky.