Page 46 of Wickedly Ever After
“I assure you, the feeling is completely mutual—but we may not get as far today as I’d like. It’s not wise to push a magical repair on the first day. We’ll have to camp somewhere tonight for the sake of the horse.”
“Camp?”
“You can sleep in the coach.” Hector’s eyes glinted. “I will sleep outside.”
“Then we’d best stop in a forest—there aren’t enough trees here for you to hang from, you old bat.”
“I think we’ll stop in the Mire-Imp Swamp. I’m pretty sure you have relatives there.”
Motion outside caught Ida’s attention. She moved closer to Hector to get a better look. “What is that?” she asked first, then gasped. “What are they?”
Gruesome apparitions danced through the fog. They looked something like giant dolls, with bodies made of fabric stuffed with straw that poked out around collars and cuffs. Stick arms and legs protruded at awkward angles, and last autumn’s rotting pumpkins served as heads. They galumphed happily in a ditch below a blackberry hedge where a farmer and his wife appeared to be herding them out of the damp.
Hector leaned back against the seat. “Scarecrows. The crows here are frightened more of magic than monsters, so I animated them to make them more effective.”
“Are they—are they alive?”
“Not in the strictest sense of the word,” Hector said. “Why do you ask?”
Ida’s mouth twisted. There was something about the creatures that seemed different from a typical golem: Maybe it was the light in their carved eyes, the way their mouths moved, or the way one of them cavorted closely with its companion, linking arms before crashing with it into the blackberry hedge, ripping off its plaid shirt. The farmer’s wife yelled and beat the scarecrows angrily with her broom while the farmer tried to pry them apart with a pitchfork.
“Uh—Hector?” Ida’s face burned, but she couldn’t turn away from the spectacle.
Hector’s jaw dropped.
“If they aren’t alive—then why are they—”
Hector coughed, blinking as he turned away from her, face as red as a ripe plum. “They are capable of reproducing; it saves time and magic.”
The coach slowed and after a minute, two other scarecrows appeared, naked, trailing hay, bouncing off into the mist.
Hector’s mouth firmed. “This definitely shouldn’t be happening. The pumpkins are just now flowering. They’ll have no proper heads for their children and have to settle for turnips.”
Ida sat back in her seat, a profound sense of doom settling in her midsection. “They don’t usually breed at this time of the year?”
“No, and not so…publicly. They prefer the fields.” He sat back in his seat too, face grim and concerned.
Ida didn’t look out the window again.
Like the rain, this was part of Happily-Ever-After breaking down—the reversion of carefully choreographed seasons back to their natural rhythm, and like the weather they would be erratic. Long ago, the world had been like this. She remembered all too clearly how the Northern winters could be long and the summers too short for enough food to be grown. There had been nights her belly growled itself to sleep. If Happily-Ever-After broke down altogether…but she wouldn’t let herself entertain that possibility. It wouldn’t. She’d fix it.
***
After miles and miles of farmland, Ida was glad when the country took on a wilder look. Wasteland took over; the farms disappeared altogether. When the landscape changed to purple-green bushes and gray grass, broken by glassy mirrors of standing water, the coach stopped.
“We’ll camp here,” Hector said, standing slowly with a series of musical pops and groans. He lurched to the door, reminding Ida horribly of the scarecrows.
The chill air carried a sulfurous taint of rotting cattails and reeds.
“Be careful,” Hector said as he stepped down. “Stick to the hummocks if you need to…relieve yourself. There’s mire about.”
Oh, joy.Just what she most loved about camping, the chance to get your bare butt bit whenever you needed to take a pee. She climbed down, hoping against hope there was a sweater in her luggage. Hari was usually so good to think of things like that, but he’d been so distressed. Dear Hari. Hopefully he was home by now.
“Smoke and fire!” Hector yelled.
Ida grabbed her wand and ran to the back of the coach.
A very dirty, very muddy, very tired gnome crawled in the roadway. Tinbit bent over him, touching him—
