Page 123 of Mud

Taking in a deep breath, I stepped into the bar, happy to see that I was the only one there.

There was no piano here, but the music was coming from an old-looking radio standing atop a table shaped into a giant skull, with rubies in the middle of its sockets thatlooked too much like eyes—but that wasn’t the only thing that gave me the creeps.

Dead stuffed birds, small ones the size of my fist, hung on white threads from the ceiling. The left wall with a single round mirror on it was painted a red that I could have sworn was blood. The windows across from the entrance were all different shapes, put all over the wall without rhyme or reason. The bar, too, was made out of a skeleton—of a really gigantic snake, if I had to guess. The wooden countertop was balanced on the skeleton’s ribs, and the head was missing, but the tail was long and thin, going all the way to the other end of the wall.

Throw in the low lights of the lamps that didn’t look so warm and inviting anymore, and the melody that did not sound soothing now that I was here—morea hauntingrather than a tune—and I felt like running away.

So…eerie,this whole place.

“That used to be my husband.”

I jumped, spun around toward the elf behind the bar, whom I could have sworn wasn’t there when I entered.

She was there now, cleaning something—these long wires that could have been anything, and she’d gathered a bunch of them over the shiny countertop. They were each about twenty inches long, less than the width of my finger, and they didn’t look like anything at all, yet she cleaned them thoroughly with a pink rag like it was the most important thing she’d ever do.

“Oh,” I breathed, looking back to where she was looking—the skull table atop which was the radio. “The…the pianist?”

The elf burst out laughing.

I’d seen elves before—plenty. Out of all other species,they were regarded with the most respect by Iridians. They could be considered royalty compared to the Mud.

But I still felt weird as hell to be looking at this elf woman now as she laughed for a good minute, dropping those wires and the rag, holding onto the countertop like she was afraid she might fall if she didn’t. Her hair, an ashy blonde a bit lighter than mine, fell on her face, covering her grey eyes. The tips of her ears peeked through the thin hair until she threw her head back again.

“Oh, my! I haven’t laughed like that since he died!”

“Well, then I’m glad you found it funny.” I had definitely not meant it as a joke.

“No—bless your heart, child. My Werry didn’t have an artistic bone in his body, I’m afraid. He didn’t have rhythm, not for anythin’,” she said, pronouncing theR’shard enough to make me want to flinch.

I didn’t, of course. “Oh. Then what did you mean?—”

“That,” she cut me off, pointing a chubby finger at the table. At the skull with the ruby eyes. “That’s Mr. Werry for ya.”

My mouth opened and closed and opened and closed…

“He seems like a, uhm…like a big fella,” was the best I could come up with.

And again, the elf laughed.

Her hair barely reached her shoulders, and it was thin and light, and it moved with her in perfect sync. She then pushed herself off whatever she had been standing on—a stool, apparently, that I hadn’t noticed at all. She’d been about a head shorter than me then, but now she was less than five feet tall, and she moved all around the giant snake skeleton to come to the other side.

Her pink dress matched the rag she’d been cleaningwith, and the sound of her laughter was contagious—I almost laughed, too.

“Quite the comedian we have here!” she said when she stopped in front of me. “Look at you—so tall! And pretty; you’re very pretty, child. Bless your heart for making this old woman laugh.”

Old?She barely looked forty. “You look very young to me.”

Her cheeks took on a pink blush instantly. “Bless your heart, bless your heart!” She waved me off, then turned to the skull. “My Werry was not a big fella at all, a wee bit of a man, ‘bout yay high.” She touched her shoulder. “But it was his wish to be as big as he could be, and since he couldn’t grow in life, I commissioned an Iridian to enlarge his skull so that he may be big, at least, in death.”

Fuck me, I found that oddly romantic. “That’s actually very…nice of you.”Nice,for lack of a better word.

She brought her hands to her chest. “You’re different,” she told me. “So soft.” She smiled, showing me tiny, crooked teeth. “I’ve worked in the Roe for the past ten years, and players are always so mean. Always in a hurry. Always trying to win at all costs.”

Ah, fuck.That was exactly what I was supposed to be doing, too.

“Actually, I came in here to?—”

“Ask me how to find the key, yes,” she cut me off.

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