Oceans & Potions Page 10

  Three violent sneezes racked my body, and when I sat back down in the chair to recover, Pierre heaved himself up and lumbered over to me with great effort. He plopped back down at my feet while I tried without success to gently nudge him away.

  Frank immediately bristled. “I don’t make mistakes,” he snarled, jabbing his wand in my direction. “I performed the aura reading, didn’t I? I interpreted the signs, didn’t I? The answer was clear as day—you and Pierre belong together. Are you really going to hurt his feelings by trying to pretend otherwise?”

  “No,” I said, glancing down at the still-slobbering dog with a guilty expression. I pressed my nostrils together with my thumb and forefinger to ward off another sneeze, then reached down and gave him a tentative pat on his head—it was much lumpier than I’d been expecting, and I quickly pulled my hand away.

  Frank continued watching me with narrowed eyes, looking highly affronted, until I reluctantly slid down to the ground to sit next to my familiar. Pierre immediately dug his wet nose into the pocket of my pants and began snuffling around in it with gusto, then howled with wild abandon as Frank tossed a hunk of bacon his way. While he noisily lapped it up, and I tried to avoid the flecks of slobber flying through the air, Frank informed us that we’d be starting formal training with our familiars in two weeks’ time. In the meantime, we were to take them home and get acquainted with them.

  “And try not to lose them,” he said in exasperation as the nightswallow took off with an unexpected burst of speed, flapping his leathery wings and dashing out of the room while Garnet tried in vain to catch up. I glanced down at Pierre, who had bits of bacon stuck to his muzzle, and let out a long sigh. With any luck, that would be exactly what happened.

  Chapter 10

  Merry and I trudged up the winding path that ran along the yetis’ mountainside community, breathing hard and shivering from the bitter cold. “H-how is there s-such a drastic t-temperature change up here?” I asked, my teeth chattering so hard I was afraid I’d bite right through my tongue. I wrapped my bare arms tighter around myself and sidestepped a towering pile of snow that had been shoveled to the side of the path.

  “It’s spelled to mimic their natural habitat,” Merry said, his voice muffled from behind his woolen balaclava. He was fully encased in a puffy snowsuit that made him look like a particularly grumpy marshmallow, and Sweetpea, always hanging from his shoulder, was wrapped tenderly in several cozy-looking scarves. I eyed them jealously, but knew better than to ask Merry to let me borrow one—Sweetpea’s comfort was, of course, top priority.

  We were on our way to Emeril’s reckoning, which was being held at the yeti shaman’s house at the very top of the mountain. Although we’d been walking for the better part of an hour, we were still miles away… or so it seemed. An enormous bronze bell in the shape of a yeti was tolling at the very peak of the mountain, and a steady stream of community members were trudging up the path alongside us, holding white candles and keeping their heads bent against the wind.

  As we walked, I admired the colorful tiered homes built into the mountainside; they must have been held up by some kind of magic, I decided, or else they were structural marvels that defied gravity. Each of the homes boasted a balcony that overlooked the entire island and provided sweeping views of the turquoise sea, and we passed many outdoor firepits where I presumed the yetis did most of their cooking—some still had the charred remains of rabbits, squirrels, and possums roasting on spits. A deep, throaty cawing sound drew my attention toward a bright pink house to my left, and I looked over to see a fat penguin tied to a leash flapping around in the snow while a young yeti girl tossed raw shrimp in the air for him to catch.

  “I feel a little out of place,” I muttered to Merry as the crowd of yetis surrounding us grew thicker. “Are you sure we’re going to be welcome at this reckoning?”

  “We’re not going to be welcome at all,” Merry whispered back, narrowly avoiding getting squashed by an entire yeti family joining the queue traveling up the mountain. He brushed snow off Sweetpea’s scarves and glared up at them, but since the top of his head only reached their hairy ankles, they didn’t seem to notice. “The yetis are a private bunch, but, as I told you before, the reckonings are public by law and so they have no choice but to admit us.”

  He lowered his voice even further, and I crouched low to hear him. “But you better not let on that you’re a reporter, or one of them might take the opportunity to ‘accidentally’ sit on you.” He raised his bushy eyebrows at me while I tried not to imagine how unpleasant it would feel to be squashed to death under a yeti bottom.

  When we finally reached the top of the mountain, we joined the line of yetis waiting to take their seats, and as I blew into my hands to try and keep them from getting frostbitten, I saw a microphone and podium stationed outside the shaman’s back door and realized with horror that the reckoning was going to take place outside, in the frigid faux-winter air. As we rounded the corner into the sprawling outdoor space that was slowly filling up with yetis, I saw that, in place of chairs, high mounds of snow had been packed together in neat rows, each one topped off with a smooth piece of ice.

  “I think I’ll stand,” I said to Merry, who was trying to heave himself up one of the snow mounds. When he slid down it for the fifth time, landing with a thud that made me wince, he rubbed his backside, muttering mutinously under his breath, and joined me off to the side.

  As he tenderly unwrapped Sweetpea’s scarves and unscrewed her lens cover, I covertly scanned the crowd, looking for any signs of a larger-than-usual yeti woman who could be Amelia, Emeril’s sister. From where I was standing, though, the yetis all looked equally enormous, so I could only hope that I would hear someone call out her name.

  There were only a handful of non-yetis present, and most looked to be reporters—though, as Merry suggested, I could see that they were keeping their notebooks and recording devices carefully tucked away while they glanced around with nervous eyes.

  Just as the yeti shaman, dressed in flowing gray rabbit furs that spilled onto the snow behind him, took his place at the podium and tapped on the microphone to make sure it was working, I saw Isla, Emeril’s assistant, slip onto a snow mound at the very back of the seating area. Though she kept her shoulders slouched and her head bent, her vivid violet hair stuck out like a sore thumb amid the sea of furry white faces.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the shaman began, clearing his throat and shuffling through a stack of papers on the podium, “it is with deepest sorrow that I welcome you here today at the reckoning of our brother, Emeril Mabel III. He was a shining presence in our community, a beacon of hope in dark times, and a good and true friend to all—”

  “Yeah, right,” a male yeti seated near me snorted to his companion. “More gold than he knew what to do with, but did you ever see him using it to help anyone? What about that youth center he promised to build? Didn’t I tell you at the time not to hold your breath? Publicity stunt, that’s all it was.” His companion nodded vigorously, and I glanced around the crowd to see a number of other skeptical faces turned toward the shaman. Perhaps, I noted, Emeril wasn’t quite as beloved as he appeared to be.

  The shaman droned on for a time, lavishing heavy praise on Emeril while the crowd shifted uneasily on their snow mounds and my mind began to wander. I found myself watching Isla carefully out of the corner of my eye; though she was clutching a tissue in her hand and every so often dabbing at her cheek with it, the tune she had been whistling in Emeril’s dressing room the day after his death kept playing on a continuous loop in my head.

  But she wasn’t the only one making a grand show of crying—in the very front row, a yeti woman was rocking back and forth on her snow mound, her shoulders shaking with heaving sobs that were completely silent. I nudged Merry’s head—it was the only part of him I could reach without drawing unnecessary attention to myself—and indicated the crying yeti. “Is that Amelia?”

  Merry squinted toward her, then raised Swee
tpea to eye level so he could zoom in on the yeti’s face. “I can’t be sure,” he muttered, scratching his bushy beard, which was dotted with the fat snowflakes now drifting lazily from the sky. “They all look the same to me.”

  He had a point, I thought as I considered the sea of nearly identical faces; by now, most of the yetis’ eyes had glazed over with boredom, but when the shaman’s speech praising everything from Emeril’s superior fashion sense to the awe-inspiring way he cut his toenails drew to a close, a rustle of anticipation ran through the crowd. The excitement reached a crescendo as the shaman held up the stack of papers reverently, his arms stretched toward the sky, and began making a series of low hooting sounds that the crowd solemnly echoed back to him.

  “Here we have the last will and testament of our friend, our brother, our hero, Emeril Mabel III,” he chanted in a low voice that carried over the wind that had suddenly picked up, sending squalls of snow spiraling toward the frozen ground. I made a sudden grab for one of Sweetpea’s discarded scarves and, ignoring Merry’s yelp of outrage, wrapped it around my hands, which were losing more and more feeling by the second.

  As the crowd of yeti men and women quivered with anticipation, the shaman lowered the papers, donned a pair of spectacles, and began reading, with great relish, “I, Emeril Mabel III, the greatest model the yeti community has ever birthed, do hereby leave my estate, in its entirety, to my assistant, Isla Thorne. In the event that her death precedes mine, the estate, including all moneys, properties, and investments, should be split evenly amongst the yeti community, with the single exception of my sister, Miss Amelia Mae Mabel, who shall receive nothing.”

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd as the yeti woman in the front row let out a scream of rage and jumped to her feet, waving her arms like a madwoman. She stormed toward the podium, the ground shaking beneath us with each step she took, and grabbed the shaman by the throat before tossing him aside like a rag doll.

  In the midst of the commotion, I glanced back toward Isla, whose face was pink with pleasure. As I watched, she balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her mouth, trying to stifle the laughter I could tell was threatening to burst out of her. The tissue she’d been clutching during the shaman’s speech now lay crumpled at her feet, entirely forgotten.

  Merry was dancing around on the spot, snapping photo after photo as the yeti woman I could now assume was Amelia ripped Emeril’s will from the shaman’s hands and tore through it, her eyes wild and dangerous. After she finished reading it for herself, she threw it to the ground, stomped on it until it was buried beneath the snow, and started toward the back of the seating area, her massive fists clenched at her sides. She was heading right toward a terrified Isla, who was now looking whiter than the snow mound she was sitting on.

  “You shall not harm her,” a voice called over the chaos.

  I looked over to see that the shaman had returned to his place behind the podium, though his furs were now hanging askew and he was sporting a nasty cut on his lip that was dripping a steady stream of blood onto the ground, turning the snow around his feet pink.

  As one, the yetis rose from their snow mounds and blocked Amelia’s path, forming a barrier in front of Isla, who looked as though she was ready to pass out. She clutched at her chest and tried to steady her breathing as Amelia tipped back her head and let out a roar that caused a nearby flock of birds to take flight, flapping their wings as fast as they could to put distance between themselves and the deranged yeti.

  Amelia tried without success to claw her way through the barrier, but the yetis held firm, allowing Isla time to slip away unharmed. I turned to watch as she barreled down the mountain path without looking back, though I swore I could see a certain spring in her step as she navigated the piles of snow and ice.

  By now, Amelia had given up, and was slumped over a snow mound, her hands dragging on the ground, her face screwed up in agony. Merry tiptoed forward to try and snap one last photo, but when she heard his approaching footsteps she raised her head just enough for him to catch a glimpse of her long, snaggled teeth bared in a growl that caused my hair to stand on end. Merry backpedaled faster than I’d ever seen him move, shoving Sweetpea behind his back and out of harm’s way.

  None of the other yetis made a move to comfort the still-howling Amelia. I glanced down the mountain again, where Isla’s form was now a distant speck, and wondered what would possess him to leave his entire estate—which, given his popularity in the fashion world, had to be worth millions in gold—to his assistant. Could it be that their relationship had turned romantic? I needed to find out. But first, I had to get to the bottom of Amelia’s strained relationship with her brother.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, I approached the yeti, who was staring at the snow-covered ground with dull eyes that were glazed over with shock. I reached out a tentative hand and tapped her on the shoulder, then backed away quickly in case she decided to attack. She turned her head toward me slowly and bared her teeth in a half-hearted way, then gave up and buried her face in the snow mound once more.

  “Amelia?” I stepped forward again, ignoring Merry’s frantic motions for me to move away, and crouched down next to the snow mound. A stab of sympathy shot through me at the sight of this pitiful creature; up close, I could see that her eyes were bloodshot and the fur on her face was clumpy with dried tears. I placed a comforting hand on her back and heard her rumble low in her throat as she melted into my touch and a fresh wave of tears rolled down her ashen face.

  I cleared my throat nervously and decided to try again. “I’m Wren,” I said, keeping my voice as gentle as possible. “I was one of the last people to speak with Emeril before he died, and I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now. Would… would you like to talk about it sometime? Maybe we can grab a watermelon whiplash or something…”

  I trailed off as her face hardened, and I could see a noticeable tick going at the base of her eye. “Are you just another one of my brother’s fangirls?” she sneered, looking at me properly for the first time. I felt my knees trembling under the weight of her gaze, and I suddenly felt more conscious than ever that she could probably knock me out cold with the lightest sweep of her powerful hand.

  “Well, as you can see, I have nothing to give you,” she added, heaving herself to a sitting position. “I don’t even have any of my brother’s signed autographs… I’m sure you know how much he loved looking at himself. It was his favorite pastime.”

  “I’m not a fangirl,” I said, deciding to try a different tactic. Pulling out my trusty notebook, I showed it to her. “I’m actually a reporter for The Islander Gazette, and I’d like to help you get to the bottom of this whole mess. Maybe we can have a nice chat… you could tell me about your relationship with him, anything you know about Isla…”

  Amelia jumped to her feet quite suddenly, and the ground below me shook as though we were in an earthquake. “Don’t talk to me about her!” she roared, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the shaman hurrying into his house and locking the door firmly behind him. “That shameless little hussy poisoned my brother against me.” She lowered her voice dangerously. “I’m going to make her pay for this if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “I don’t think we need another murder,” I said quickly, though, in fairness, I couldn’t blame Amelia for her reaction. “But let me help you, okay? Can I meet you on the island for lunch tomorrow?”

  “What, so everyone in town can stare at poor Amelia and talk about me behind my back? I don’t think so.” She fingered the whiskers on her chin, considering me. “But I like you. I think you have a nice face. So I’m going to let you help me, on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” I asked nervously.

  “We’ll have lunch, but it’ll be on my turf.” She pointed to a small purple house a few hundred feet down the mountain. “And come hungry. I make the best possum upside down cake this side of Magic Island. By the time you’re finished with it,
you’ll be begging for the recipe.”

  I dragged myself back to my dorm later that afternoon, utterly exhausted from my trek up and down the mountain, my mind whirling a hundred miles a minute as I tried to process the scene I’d just witnessed at the reckoning. Stopping outside the room to dig my key out of my bag, I frowned as I heard a commotion going on inside. I shoved open the door as fast as I could to find Monty shouting at Pierre, who had recently taken up residence with me… to my displeasure. And, apparently, to Monty’s as well.

  “Get this horrid beast out of here!” Monty demanded as I rubbed at my eyes, which had immediately begun watering in the dog’s presence.

  Squinting, I looked down at the ground to find Pierre in the process of throwing up great chunks of my favorite gold sandals, a welcome-to-the-island present from Glenn that I wore almost every day. Rather than look the slightest bit guilty, Pierre lumbered to his feet when he saw me, his belly swaying only millimeters above the ground, and planted himself beneath me, great strings of slobber dangling from his lolling tongue. I gave him a tentative pat on the head while Monty rolled around angrily on his chain.

  “I demand that you find this slobbering mongrel a new residence immediately,” he spat out, baring his teeth at Pierre, who seemed to be too busy hacking up the last vestiges of my sandals to notice.

  With an almighty belch, the dog turned his head from side to side, his jowls sticking to the ground as he looked for his next meal; when his eyes landed on the expensive goblin-made purse Garnet carried with her everywhere, I hauled him to his stumpy legs—which was no mean feat, mind you—and glared at Monty.

  “He’s here to stay, whether you like it or not, so you might as well get used to it.”

  I glanced down at Pierre, who was yawning impressively, and clipped a leash to his collar. It was another gorgeous day, and after the frigid mountain air, I could use a little sunshine and sea breeze… and it certainly wouldn’t kill Pierre to get a little exercise, work off some of those thigh rolls.