“So,” said Kaya, walking through the woods on a bright new morning, after suppressing a ginger-scented belch. “Tell me again about this,” she paused, as if preparing to pronounce a particularly difficult foreign word. “Ambulance?”

“I mean, it just came out of nowhere,” said Tristram, touching the indentations on his forehead. “I’m a cautious guy, all right? I look both ways. I make sure my shoes are tied at all times. I don’t swim until two hours have passed since I last ate. But that blasted vehicle just came screaming up the road, no siren, no horn, nothing. It hit me so hard they probably had to identify me by my dental remains.”

“Siren?” said Kaya. “So this happened near the sea?”

“No, I told you: it happened in front of my dad’s house.” Tristram tilted his head. “Sure, the Great Lakes are nearby, but they’re freshwater. You know, being lakes and all.”

“I have not known sirens to occupy lakes, no matter how ‘great’ they are,” said Kaya, furrowing her brow. She shook her head. “Anyway. What does any of this have to do with this… ‘ambulance’ creature?”

“I don’t know,” said Tristram. “You’re the one bringing up bodies of water.”

Kaya looked over at Tristram and Tristram looked back. They scrutinized one another like they were looking at an abstract work of art and trying to decide what kind of drug the artist must have been on to create something so befuddling.

“How’s your shoulder?” asked Kaya for a lack of anything better to say.

Tristram rolled his shoulder and winced. “I think my shoulder blade took the brunt of your knife.”

“That’s good,” said Kaya.

“Is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a barber.”

Tristram squinted at her. “You mean doctor?”

Kaya squinted back. “What’s a doctor?”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Who?”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Who?”

“Are you telling me a shave and a haircut passes for adequate medical treatment around here?”

“No, moron.” Kaya scowled over at Tristram. “I don’t know what backwater rat nest you grew up in, but here in Tazo, barbers do bloodletting, incense burning, humour adjustment, leech therapy, tick therapy, vampire bat therapy, and mosquito therapy.” After a pause, she added, “They also cut hair.”

Tristram walked in silence, ruminating, trying to decide which form of therapy would be best for a shoulder laceration. In the end, he decided medical help would be no help at all in this world. He thought back to an earlier conversation he had had with Kaya. They were back in the giant’s camp, each working through all that had happened that day in the privacy of their respective minds. The two of them sat near the massive cookfire and watched the tongues of flame lick the black cauldron, their backs to the fallen two-headed behemoth. Without prompting, Kaya threw a few words into the night as casually as if she were tossing chopped potatoes into a stew.

“Sorry I stabbed you.”

Tristram frowned, his face troubled.

Kaya tore her eyes away from the fire. “Did you hear me?”

“Oh, that wasn’t my imagination?”

Kaya half-smiled. “No.”

Tristram nodded. “It’s okay. It was an accident.”

Kaya twisted her face. “Accidentally on purpose, we’ll say.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Sure.” Tristram grimaced as he leaned back and braced his upper body with his arms. “Stab a lot of people?” he asked, his voice strained.

Reluctance congealed on Kaya’s face. “Just you.”

“Really? ‘Cause it seemed like you’d done this before.”

Kaya waved a hand. “I was faking it.”

A slimy smile slid across Tristram’s face. “So, you’re saying I’m your first?”

The hair stood up on the back of Kaya’s neck. Her lip curled in disgust. She stuck in her knife up to the hilt in the ground next to her. “And my last.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” said Tristram out of the side of his mouth.

“I’m not cut out for this.” Kaya drew in her knees, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her arms. “I don’t belong here.”

Tristram mimicked her posture. “You and me both.”

“My father is a duke. He lives in a castle.”

“My father is a carpenter. He lives in a cul-de-sac.”

“I don’t know what that is, but carpentry is a noble trade.” Kaya looked at Tristram without turning her head. “Did your father teach you anything of it?”

“He tried, I guess.” Tristram shrugged. “I’m not much of a hands-on person.”

“I can see that.”

“Did you used to live in a castle too?”

“I did.”

“What was that like?”

“Wonderful.”

“Why’d you leave?”

Kaya frowned. “I had to.” For a moment, her nose wrinkled as she snarled at the fire. “They call themselves ‘The Cult of the Blue Locks’. I don’t know who started it or where they all came from, but I’ve been seeing them for as long as I can remember. I can pick one out in a crowd of a thousand people.” She turned her face toward Tristram. “It’s the smile.” She smiled uncannily, showing off her teeth to the gums. “They worship me because my hair is blue. They think it’s a mark of their goddess.” She looked back to the fire. “Or maybe they think I am their goddess.”

“I mean, it’s just dye,” said Tristram. The smouldering silence that followed suggested he was off the mark. “Right?”

“Dye?” Kaya blinked. She raised her head and looked at Tristram with daggers in her eyes. “This is not dye,” she said, grabbing a clump of her hair and threatening Tristram with it. “This is a… a…” She let the strand of hair go and returned her gaze to the flames. “A curse.”

“Or a blessing.”

Kaya scoffed. “What’s a blessing to others is nothing but a curse to me. And it’s not just the Cult. I’ve been dodging scalpers’ knives since I was a girl. There are people who genuinely believe my hair is magic. In the right poultices, they say a strand of aquamarine hair can cure boils, can make you taller, can make you irresistible in the eyes of man and beast alike.”

Tristram studied his fingernails. “Can it?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask that.” Kaya sighed. “It’s just hair. There’s nothing magical about it.”

“But it’s blue,” whispered Tristram.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Kaya let her eyes rest on the dying fire, her features hard and carven. “I’ve got to try something else. Way-watching is not for me.”

“I’m still not clear on what way-watching is exactly,” said Tristram. He winced. “Other than that I’ve been victimized by it.”

“We’re in Winslow’s territory, right?”

Tristram blinked. “Sure.”

“Well, what does Winslow trade in?”

Tristram bit his lip and thought hard. He didn’t want to say something foolish. After an awkward amount of deliberation, he finally said, “Spices?”

Kaya, who had been watching the beads of sweat run down his face, feeling something between fascination and disgust, shook her head slowly. “No. Not even close.” She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

“I’ve been saying that non-stop ever since I met you.”

“I must not have been listening.”

“I thought as much.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘I tho—’”

Kaya waved him off. “Winslow’s the main player in the Salt trade.”

Tristram beetled his brows. If there was one thing he was learning about this world, it’s that it did not lend itself to easy understanding. “Salt? Like the stuff you sprinkle on food?”

“No. Like the stuff the low-born snort to feel something other than the pointlessness of their wretched lives.”

“Oh, so it’s a drug?”

Kaya tilted her head. “As I understand the term, a ‘drug’ is something sold by an apothecary for the benefit of one’s health. No apothecary would sell you Salt, and only a fool would imbibe it for its health benefits, of which there are none.”

“Have you ever taken it?”

Kaya answered him with a look.

“So you won’t touch the stuff yourself, and yet you have no problem making sure others can get their fix.” Tristram hummed to himself. “How curious.”

“How others choose to ruin their lives is no concern of mine,” said Kaya, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She fixed her eyes on the last fading ember of the giant’s fire. The coal pulsed weakly like the exposed heart of a dying animal. “They’ve already ruined mine.”

Tristram glanced at her but said nothing.

Without a word further, Kaya lay down on her side and soon enough fell asleep.

***

“I think you could use a barber more than me,” said Tristram the morning following as he trailed Kaya through the woods.

“How’s that?” asked Kaya. “I’m not wounded as far as I know.”

Tristram smirked. “You could use a haircut.”

Kaya gave him a dark look. “Don’t joke about my hair.”

“But—”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I—”

“Don’t even look at it.” Kaya flashed her knife and stuck the tip in Tristram’s left nostril. “Got it?”

Afraid to nod, Tristram blinked twice and hoped that was enough.

“Good.” Kaya slipped the knife back into her belt without drawing blood. “You’d do well to listen to me.” She shot him a look. “You’re not in ‘Ontario’ anymore.”

Tristram, fingering his nose, checking for damage, glanced over at her. “Then where am I?”

Kaya gave him a wink. “My world.”