In the end, it didn’t take them all day. They were lucky enough to hitch a ride in the back of a junk wagon, heading east. They sat, dangling their legs off the side, among the scrap metal and broken furniture in the cart, swapping gossip with the driver. He called himself Swill, and he was a crusty old Dryad, as squat and withered as a stump, with only a single leaf on his antlers. He squinted suspiciously at Maine as she climbed on board, but then shrugged and seemed to forget about her. He was all too eager to share stories of what he’d seen during his years driving around Old Coney, but what he was especially keen on was this morning’s activities. To hear him tell it, he’d been right in the thick of things during the protest, and had only barely escaped with his life.
“Aye, that damn metal bastard came right at us,” he swore, “spitting fire and tossing people left and right! He singled me out, you know? Looked dead at me with those el-eckt-tric eyes of his!” He snapped the reins, and his old nag whinnied in agreement, tossing her mane and shaking the small, broken stub of her horn. “I thought I was a goner!”
Maine cocked her head, looking skeptically at him. Albert might’ve been huge, sure, but she’d never known him to hurt a fly, and the only time he’d ever spit fire to her knowledge is when the Forge crews soaked his morning coal with kerosine as a prank. “How’d you get away?” she asked him.
“Don’t rightly know,” he admitted. He scratched at his chin, picking a twig off and tossing it away. “He was right in front of me, those huge mashers raised in the air. I had a brick in my hand, pulled back, but what good was that going to do, I thought. Then, all of a sudden, there was a hollerin’ and yellin’ from the big house, and he turns about and starting heading back.”
“What happened then?” Dandy asked.
“I threw the brick at him,” Swill laughed, flashing a gap-toothed grin. The cart bounced over a pothole, and he clicked his tongue, guiding the mare down the road. “Didn’t do much good, of course, just plonked off the back of his head,” he shrugged. “But still, gotta represent 33rd street, right?” he asked Dandy, who nodded in agreement
As both of them celebrated, Maine rolled her eyes. She held Ifri in her arms, stroking the kitten idly as she watched the scenery of Old Coney roll by. “You should be thanking the Firstborn,” she pointed out. “If they hadn’t taken over the house, you’d probably be still laying out on the pavement.”
Swill nodded glumly. “Aye. Old Watt told me about that. Said they held up the Maierson boy, made him give over all his gold and jewels for the lives of everyone in the house! Including his devil of a sister!” He shook his head, as if impressed.
Dandy had to hide his smile. “He overpaid then,” he laughed, and Maine shot him a look.
Swill cackled. “Probably!” His laughter was short-lived though, and he sighed. “This woulda never happened under the Hag,” he said at length.
“I miss her,” he admitted, as they continued. This far east, most of the shops and tenements had been replaced with warehouses and old supply yards, run down and abandoned. The road was getting rougher too, with cobblestones giving way to sand and gravel, with deep ruts cutting across the surface. Swill guided the cart around another pothole, his face downcast. “She was a Hag sure, but she was our Hag. People respected her, feared her, so they feared us too. That was protection, you understand?”
He suddenly beat his chest with pride. “We were her people! Her people! They knew what would happen if they preyed on us. Who’d come for them if they started trouble.” He slowly sunk back down into the driver’s seat, his sole leaf drooping low over his eyes. “Who’ll protect us now?”
Maine frowned. “The Maierson’s are still there,” she said carefully, not wanting to be too obvious. “They’ll still protect you- I mean, us.”
Swill didn’t seem to notice the slip. “You mean the boy?” He gave a snorting chuckle. “He can’t even protect his own house. How’s he going to stand up to the gangs coming over?”
She looked up sharply. “What gangs?”
Dandy’s head dropped lower, avoiding her eyes. Swill cracked the reins again and the wagon picked up speed. “I’ve seen ‘em,” he said darkly. “Gangs of Jack Adams crossing the bridge, headed for the Glade or Dreamland.”
“People have always been going to those places. What’s different now?”
“Sure, fancy types,” Swill corrected her. “I’m talkin’ about hard cases, head crackers! The kind that won’t think twice about stringing up a lone Elder if they’re in the mood.” He spit off the side of the wagon. “And they ain’t comin’ to visit, they’re lookin’ to stake territory. Aye, they’ve been dreaming of carving up Old Coney for years. I hear even ole’ Tillie’s being hard pressed to keep ‘em out of her streets.”
“Old Coney’ll fight back,” Dandy said suddenly. He was tightly gripping the slats of the cart, staring out with a fierce expression on his face. “That’s who you can put your faith in,” he told Swill. “The gangs, the people! We’ll drive ‘em all out!”
Swill gave a barking, cynical laugh. “Right, the gangs.” He shook his head.
“What?”
“Which gangs? The Elves? The Wispy Nettles or the Hard Rabbits? Tough gangs sure, but think they could stop fightin’ the Gobbers long enough to notice what’s going on? What about the Dryads- the Briarpatch Boys? Last I heard they were wrapped up in their own little war with the Sidewinders on Brightwater street. What about the Rockeaters? Damn Trolls are even worse, they’re fightin’ everyone at once!” He spit again, looking sourly ahead. “Damn fools are fightin’ the wrong fight, so convinced that they’ve got so much different with each other, that they can’t see the common enemy.” He grumbled more and then sighed. “Eh, what’s the use? Fools ‘ll be fools.”
He cracked the whip and the cart hurried on in silence. Dandy seemed like he wanted to say something, to protest, but his face fell. He rested his chin on the wooden slat and stared out in silence.
Maine stroked Ifri’s fur, lost in thought. Swill was right: Matthew wasn’t able to help, not in the way Gran had. He was too distracted with the business, too busy trying to run the Factory to see what was really needed. He needed someone to step up.
Ifri twitched in her arms. The kitten was asleep, purring gently. She could feel his warmth against her chest, spreading out and seeming to fill her up. She would be the one to step up, she swore to herself. She’d be the one that Old Coney looked up to
After a while, the scenery changed again. The supply yards and warehouses became more scattered, with rough shacks and empty lots lying between them. Maine had never been this far east before. She could almost hear the surf in the distance. Abruptly, Swill pulled on the reins and the cart slowed.
“All right,” he told them. “Count yerself lucky, this is farther than I usually go.”
Dandy swung himself down roughly, and started walking. He waved back over his shoulder, “Thanks for the ride!”
Maine tucked Ifri into her pocket and then climbed down, taking her time. Before she started after Dandy, she stopped and bowed to Swill, just as Miss Imi had taught her. “Thank you very much for the ride,” she said.
He looked pleased and tipped a non-existent hat to her. “Well, you’re very welcome, Miss Maierson,” he said. He grinned and winked at her surprised face. “You’re not as bad as I heard. But you be careful now,” he told her. “This isn’t a safe part of town for good girls.”
She returned his wink. “Who said I’m one of those?”
He cackled and cracked the reins, turning the cart. “Ha! You’ve got the makings of a first class Hag!” he called. “First class!”
She watched him drive off, still laughing, and then she turned to catch up with Dandy. He had hopped up onto a discarded barrel by the side of the road, and standing still, nose in the air. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he started to turn, moving his nose this way and that. “Do you smell that?” he asked.
Maine sniffed. There was a definite burn in the air, a scent that was very familiar. “Smells like the mixing stations in the Factory,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
He nodded. “It’s chemicals, I think.” He looked down the road, shading his eyes. “I think it’s coming from this way,” he said, pointing.
Maine took off running before him. “Beat you there!” He yelled and hopped down, scrambling after her.
They raced down the dirt road, laughing. The grass grew thick to either side of them, and they could hear the buzz of insects against the sound of the surf in the distance. Maine’s bag thumped and jostled against her back. Ifri popped his head out of her pocket, eyes open wide, and stood up against her shoulder, craning his head. Dandy passed her, making a face, and she stuck out her tongue. They both skidded to a halt by a ramshackle fenceline, trying to catch their breath.
“Beat-beat you,” Dandy laughed.
“Wha-what did you expect?” She pulled at the strap of her bag. “You’re taller than me and I’m carrying a bag!”
“Still won!”
She waved her hand dismissively as she turned around, looking over the fence. They were at the end of the road now, almost lost in the dunes. This was the only building left that seemed like it could still be habitable, not half-collapsed by wind and weather. It looked to be an old barrel-works, with stacks of uncured, split timber and rusting rings of metal strewn about the yard. Tools and other scrap lay scattered among the thick grass and weeds, but someone looked to have taken the trouble to clear the main path to the shop. The little building stood maybe fifty feet away. It was barely more than a shed, with just a hand-painted sign above the door that read ‘Potions and More’. Two windows lay on either side of the door, though one was shattered and broken.
Maine stared intently at the shop, watching for signs of life, with Dandy beside her. He shifted anxiously. “Are ya gonna go?”
“Of course.” She continued to stare however; she didn’t like how the shop seemed to be winking at them, all silent and mysterious-like. As she continued to stand there, Ifri hopped out of her pocket and jumped into the thick grass, his tail swishing back and forth. Dandy watched him go.
“He’s gonna start a brush fire,” he warned.
“It’s still pretty wet, he’s probably fine.” She frowned, hesitating, then made up her mind and started to climb over the fence. “C’mon,” she hissed at Dandy.
He looked worried as he followed her, then paused, still on the fence. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “I mean, have you thought about what you’re going to say to her?”
“What do you mean? I’m gonna ask her if she had anything to do with the Firstborn.”
He still didn’t move. “I mean, have you talked to her since the accident?”
Maine landed roughly in the tall grass and ducked down, frowning. “What? I- Of course I haven’t,” she stammered.
Dandy’s face was serious as he climbed down to join her. “You haven’t?”
“How could I? I was at school- By the time I got back, she’d be kicked out and-” She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Why did he have to make it all complicated all of a sudden? “Look it doesn’t matter, alright? I just need to ask her about this morning!”
That didn’t seem to reassure him. “Maine, she killed your Grandma.”
“Shut up!” she yelled, spinning around. Dandy flinched back from her, suddenly looking afraid and Maine realized she had her fist cocked, ready to fly.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She took a breath and let it out slowly. “It was- It was-” She couldn’t get the words out.
“It was an accident, right.” Dandy said it for her. He put his hands up slowly, climbing to his feet. “Sorry I brought it up, okay?”
She nodded fiercely and spun around, dashing at her eyes. She hated those familiar words. How many times had she heard them, over and over again from Miss Imi, from Albert, from Kelphin, even from her own brother? An accident. An accident? Accidents happened to other people, normal people. Not Madelyn Maierson! It was absurd; impossible! An accident couldn’t hurt her Grandmother; not a witch of her skill and power! An accident couldn’t leave a smoking wreck where Lab 01 had been! An accident couldn’t leave a body so burned that-
Her boot kicked against something hard lying hidden in the tall grass. It was the end of a wooden signpost, snapped off and broken. She tugged on the post, pulling the rest of the sign out of the weeds. It read ‘Healing Potions and Cures!’ with a hand-drawn bottle and cauldron brimming underneath it. Scrawled over the sign however, in bold red paint, were the words ‘LIAR’.
Dandy looked at it anxiously. “Things got bad for her after the accident. People were angry, they blamed her. Even her own family turned her out. She had to leave, come all the way out here.” He kicked lightly at the tufts of grass. “Guess it wasn’t far enough.”
Maine dropped the sign back into the weeds. “No, it wasn’t,” she agreed.
The main shop looked pretty much abandoned as they climbed up onto the porch. Dandy rattled the doorknob a few times as Maine stared through the broken glass. Inside, she could see bottles and potions on display, along with shelves of ingredients; the usual types - herbs, powders, bones, insects (both dried and still squirming in cages and bottles), but it didn’t look like the shop was open for business. An overturned stool lay poking out behind the counter, and a few of the ingredients had spilled onto the floor, either knocked over by the wind, or in an escape attempt was anyone’s guess.
Dandy made a triumphant noise as he finally shouldered the door open. “There we go,” he said proudly.
As his foot passed over the threshold, there was a sudden crack;e of magic. A sigil appeared on the floor, flashing into life with a burst of orange light. Dandy seized up, as if his entire body was suddenly frozen, mid-step. His eyes rolled around wildly as slowly toppled forwards, leg still extended, with all the grace of a statue.
Maine hurried over to the threshold and knelt, waving smoke and sand away from the wood to see the chalk outline of a rune, burning away quickly. She pulled a small leatherbound notebook, about the size of her hand, out from her bag and started to flip through it. The book was well worn and the spine cracked, riddled with bits of ribbon and scraps of paper as bookmarks. Each page was filled with rune diagrams and glyphs, along with notes and instructions, all laboriously copied down from her Grandmother’s books.
“Uh huh,” she said, nodding to herself as she found the right entry. “Paralyzing ward.” She smiled at the memory. Wards had been one of the first things that Henna had taught her. Very useful for keeping staff or a snooping older brother out of your room, she’d found.
She bent over Dandy, poking curiously at his face. “Can you move?”
He let out a strangled grunt, but his eyes were darting around quickly in any case. She patted him on the chest reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I think the ward’s pretty old, so you should be out of it soon.”
She stood up and shook herself, letting her hands hang loose at her sides. Then with a deep breath, she hopped over the threshold. The rune gave another crackle and a puff of orange smoke, but much weaker this time, and Maine felt a shiver race from her toes all the way up to the wild ends of her hair. She stumbled as she came down inside the shop, but at least she could still move. She hopped up and down gingerly for a moment, shaking off the effects, and stared around.
The shop looked even more abandoned on the inside. Her boots scraped against loose sand and broken glass on the floor, and she could hear the scurrying of little feet and the clink of bottles in the corners of the room. The heavy stink of chemicals and chlorophyll was thick in the air, even with the broken window to air it out. She gave the ingredients shelves a professional once-over, and turned up her nose. Each shelf was neatly labeled, with bottles and cages clearly defined, but both the quantity and quality was far below proper Maierson standards. There were a few runty mushrooms and herbs, roots with the dirt still clinging to them, barely more than a dusting of mineral powders and shavings, a far cry from the tubs and vats of ingredients back in the Factory. A few crickets warbled pathetically in hand-made traps while grubs twitched in the bottom of a mossy terrarium. Maine tossed her head, she’d seen better stock in a back market stall. Henna was definitely slipping.
Ifri meowed as he leapt over Dandy and came into the store, sniffing curiously. The rune gave one last burst of smoke at his passing and then boiled away completely. With a loud groan, Dandy collapsed, twitching slightly. “Thanks for the help,” he moaned.
“It was only a freezing ward,” she told him. “You’re fine.” She smiled as she wandered around the shop, lifting a few potions bottles and stirring up the dregs left in the bottoms. She could remember sitting with Henna and tracing out the runes, her little fingers clenched so tightly around the chalk, desperate to get it right. It had been one of her first attempts at magic, and in spite of everything, she found herself laughing softly. They’d set so many traps for Matthew that afternoon, he’d been too nervous to open a door for weeks after. Of course, Gran hadn’t been quite so amused, and that memory made the warm feeling inside her evaporate like smoke.
She sniffed abruptly, running a finger along the edge of the counter to draw a line in the dust. “It was probably days old anyway from the look of it. I don’t think she’s been here for a while”
Dandy crawled into the shop, still shaking off the effects of the spell. “I hope not,” he said suddenly, reaching under a display table for something. He held it up to Maine.
It was a brick, probably what had broken the window. Scrawled in bold red letters over it was the word ‘KILLER’.
Maine opened her mouth and then closed it, turning away quickly. “There’s no way to know,” she told him. She ducked behind the counter and started tugging open drawers. “C’mon! If she’s not here, let’s at least try and find out where she’s gone.”
“What? Like she left a note - ‘sorry you missed me, hiding out here now’?”
“Well, maybe,” Maine admitted. “Look, they always leave a note or a clue in the stories. It’s a rule!” One drawer in particular was being stubborn and she tugged at it fiercely, finally yanking it open. Papers spilled out of the opening and she cried out in triumph. “Ah ha! Look here!”
Dandy dropped the brick and wandered over, peering across the counter. “I don’t think that’s a clue.”
A stack of newspaper clippings and letters had jammed the drawer closed. She recognized a few of the publications, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, even a few clippings from Elder papers like The Old Coney Times and the Gnomish Fine Print (which exclusively came in 3 by 5 inch printings). But there were more; papers from all around the world, in French, Spanish, German, languages that even she couldn’t guess at. Even without being able to read them however, the headlines and pictures were more than familiar
Spilling out around her feet were dozens of copies of the same images: the blown out, smoking ruin of Testing Center 3, the black stone of the Pyramid behind it, heavy with graffiti. Her brother stepping off the train from Princeton, still in his school clothes, looking ashen and stunned. A funeral procession through Old Coney, with herself and Matthew following a black-draped hearse-
Maine slammed the drawer shut again, then turned around and walked back a few paces, breathing tightly through her nose. Dandy bent down, poking through the papers still on the floor.
“There must be more than a dozen different papers… Why would she keep all of these?” he asked, confused.
“Who knows,” Maine said shortly. “Maybe she just likes gloating…” She kicked fiercely at a nearby cabinet, making it shudder.
Dandy stood, looking towards the back of the shop. “Hmm, what’s this?” There was another closed door behind the counter. He rattled the handle and pushed it open, glancing through. “There’s more back here,” he called. He started to walk through, then froze, backing hurriedly up from the doorway. He recovered quickly and jumped to the side, holding the door open wide for her. “After you,” he offered. She snorted with laughter, but looked sharply at the doorway nonetheless.
While he was waiting for her, Ifri ran through, underneath his arms. The little kitten’s tail was held high, his nose twitching curiously as he hurried in to explore the back room. Maine smiled and strolled in after her cat. “Why thank you, kind sir.” Grumbling, Dandy trailed after her.
The back room looked to be a stockroom of sorts, repurposed into some kind of laboratory for Henna. There were a few larger jugs of ingredients propped up in the corner, along with small tables full of flasks and beakers scattered around the room. Each table had notes and scraps of paper covering the surface, with hurried writing full of scratched out sections and angry scribbles. They looked like a bunch of alchemical experiments to Maine’s eye, though none seemed like they’d been particularly successful. There was a frantic, almost desperate stink in the room, of sleepless, frustrated nights poring over thankless work, not made any sweeter by the fetid aroma of the chemicals hanging in the air.
Maine clamped her hand over her nose, trying to breath through her mouth. “Try and open the windows,” she coughed, pointing to the shutters along the back wall. Dandy nodded, hurrying over, while Maine looked around. There was a closed hatch in the ceiling and she grabbed a nearby wooden pole to push it open. Slowly, the air started to clear.
Dandy stood by the windows, waving his arms to try and speed up the process. “I guess she really hasn’t been here for a while.”
Maine pulled her shirt up over her nose and nodded in agreement. She let the pole drop on the floor and turned around, eying the rest of the room. The scattered notes on the tables were almost illegible, and whatever had been inside the flasks was nearly sludge at this point. Her eyes did perk up though as she noticed a green glass jar on one of the central tables, nearly hidden under an old alchemical textbook.
She held it up to the light, squinting at the label. “Oooh, Protom Jelly!!” she squealed. “That’s rare!”
“Oh?” Dandy asked. He was bending over a small cot in the corner of the room. Apparently, Henna had been sleeping out of the back room as well as working there. He lifted up the corner of a thin fabric draped over the side, but when he saw the lacy frills attached to the end of it, he realized what it was and dropped it like his fingers had been burned.
“Uh huh,” Maine said, struggling to unscrew the lid. “It goes for ten dollars an ounce at the market! I can’t even get any more from the Factory, Mrs Sekunda said she’d swallow me whole the last time I tried to borrow some from the Mixing Stations.” With a final wrench of her shoulders, the lid popped off and she peered inside. “Still good!” Rescrewing the lid, she pushed the jar deep into her own bag happily, then turned to look over the rest of the table.
Sadly, there didn’t look to be any more finds like the jelly left; most of the table was covered with nothing but junk, just the scribbled over paper, old alchemical books, and beakers full of sludge. Several candles had been melted down to the base, the wax pooling over the surface, and there were stacks of dishes on one corner, holding down the rolling edge of a large sheet of paper. She paused, frowning.
There was something familiar about this particular mess in front of her. She righted an overturned stool nearby and sat down at the table, trying to make sense of it. The mess had the feel of several night’s worth of hard work behind it, like a really intense planning session or round of scheming. She pushed her arm along the large sheet of paper, clearing the surface of scraps and crumbs, and stared down hard.
It was a charcoal sketch of a map, the outline of a building to be precise. It was very rough, with several smudged out areas and some sections crossed out and redone, but she could read it easily enough. Front hall, ballroom, library, office… Maine stared for a moment at the familiar details until she realized what she was looking at.
“Oh my God! Look at this!” she called to Dandy. “It’s a map to the mansion! Henna was working with Firstborn! I found proof!”
He rushed over. “Are you sure?”
“Yes! Look, she’s got the entire mansion marked out for them, the entrances, exits.” She stabbed her finger down. “Even the Vault, right here. This is probably how they planned the heist!”
He whistled, staring down at the map. “Wow, I guess she was working with them.”
Maine rolled up the map hurriedly. “Yeah, right? Let’s see Matthew try and claim his girlfriend is innocent now.” She stuffed the map into her bag and started to leave, when something else caught her eye.
The Maierson logo stood out boldly on a paper that had been hidden underneath the map. She pulled it clear of the mess and smoothed it out.
“What’s that?” Dandy asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said, reading. “It looks like a recipe sheet for the Glue Pots.”
“Huh?”
“A recipe sheet describes the steps to follow to create a specific alchemical compound,” she explained. “You know, what ingredients you need, when and how to add them together so you wind up with what you actually want to make; just like a recipe.” This sheet was heavily notated with Henna’s curling script, with some ingredients and steps circled or crossed out, and a great deal of additions written in the margins. “I don’t know how she got it out of the Factory; they’re usually kept under strict lock and key because they’re highly confidential and…” Her face went deathly white and her mouth dropped open.
“What?” Dandy asked, staring at her.
“Oh my God!”
“What! What’s wrong?”
“She was trying to steal from us!” Maine yelled loudly, making Ifri arc his back and hiss from the floor.
Dandy stared blankly at her. “Didn’t we just prove that already? And how is that any different from you swiping her ingredients?”
“This is different!” she cried furiously, holding up the recipe sheet in her trembling hands. “This is the worst kind of theft: intellectual theft! She’s trying to copy our proprietary formula! Look here, she’s trying to make changes so she can make Maierson Glue Pots without using our process!” She started to dash around the table, looking for more sheets. “Here’s another one! And another! Oh my God, how many did she manage to steal!”
Dandy was looking confused. “I don’t understand. What’s the harm in making changes to them?” He flinched as Maine turned to him quickly, throwing up his hands, but instead she kicked hard at the table, making the stacked plates shiver and fall to the floor, one after another.
She stood there trembling with rage, fists balled together. “Because Gran developed some of those formulas! Argh! It’s not enough that she has to get her killed, but now she’s got to steal her life’s work as well!”
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “After everything we did for her… And Matthew! I thought she…” She yelled again, throwing up her arms as she started to pace around the room. “Ugh, if she was here right now, I’d punch her lights out!” She grabbed hold of one of the tables and yanked it upwards, struggling to flip it, but it was too large. In frustration she let it drop and had to satisfy herself with marching over to the cot and upending that. She even kicked Henna’s pillow across the room for good measure, being sure to leave a solid boot print in the middle of the fabric.
Dandy watched her carefully. “Feeling better?” he finally asked.
Her shoulders slumped. “No,” she said in a glum voice.
“You want to go back home?”
“Yeah.”
Dandy nodded. “It was a long shot that we’d find out where she was hiding,” he said, sounding like he was trying to put the best face on it. “But at least you got proof she was working with them.” Maine nodded and touched the edge of the map protruding from her bag.
Ifri had been sniffing at the edge of the overturned cot, when he suddenly went taunt, his head snapping around to look towards the front of the shop. His mouth opened and he gave a sharp hiss, angry or frightened.
KhIIIIssss!