Page 24 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Twenty-Four

Tell your troubles to a starling and it will fly away with them.

Local Legends and Superstitions, Tempest Family Grimoire

I don’t see Morgan for three days.

After a peaceful seventy-two hours in which I have plenty of time to get lots of book planning done with no distractions of the terrible-violin-playing or random-hypothetical-question-asking variety, I do some online shoe shopping instead, and then, in a fit of impatience, saunter across the street to Wafting Crescent.

With September around the corner, Zaid’s setting up an autumnal display, carefully assembling a lumpy tower out of cream puffs and toothpicks with a straw hat on top. “What’s this?” I ask.

Zaid’s tongue pokes out the side of his mouth as he stabs a toothpick through another cream puff. “Scarecroquembouche.”

“Come again?”

“A scarecrow croquembouche. Scarecroquembouche.”

Bushra grabs two vatrushki with her tongs and drops them into a paper bag before I approach the counter. “He’s the Michelangelo of pastry.”

After Bushra rings up my order, I ask if she’s seen Morgan lately.

“I’ve heard him lately.” She knocks her chin toward the ceiling, one hand on her hip. “Sounds like he’s rearranging furniture up there.” As she speaks, I hear a crashing thud , a “Damn it! Not again!” and rapid footsteps.

Zaid doesn’t remove his eyes from his masterpiece. “He’s driving me nuts. Go tell him to shut up, would you?”

“And bring him this.” Bushra hands me a donut. “He’ll die if we don’t feed him.”

It’s been ages since I’ve visited the second floor of this building. Back when it was all used as one big house, my cousin Nitya and her parents lived here, and I used to be so jealous that she had a bathroom connected to her bedroom. It was a preteen’s dream—spacious, well-decorated, with a mini fridge and a blow-up plastic couch. She and Luna liked to pretend it was their apartment, and that Romina and I “lived” across the hall in an alcove where Nitya’s mom, Aunt Sylvie (technically, I think Sylvie is my cousin, but we’ve always called her Aunt Sylvie) kept the litter box.

There’s now a wall blocking off what had been a wide cased opening, and a new green door with a mail slot and letter stamps. They’ve been applied crookedly, a smidge too far to the right, so that his whole name can’t fit on one line.

M. ANGELOPO

ULOS

I knock four times.

There are some mutterings in the apartment, and footsteps. I sense a body on the other side of the door, checking the peephole. There’s a gentle thump as he…well, it sounds like Morgan’s turned and flattened his back against the door. A moment later, three deadbolts unlock and it swings inward a crack, a narrow strip of Morgan staring back. “Hi,” he greets me, somewhat breathless.

I try to peer past him. “Haven’t seen you lately. What’s up?”

“It’s, uh…” His gaze darts off to the side. “Not a good time right now.”

“You want to go adventuring? I’m itching to explore.” Crash! “Whoa, that was loud. What’s going on in there?”

Morgan swears. Tries to close the door, but I stick my foot in. “I’m sick,” he insists, coughing into his arm.

“You don’t look sick.”

He perks up at this. Lets go of the doorknob so that he can smooth back his hair, preening. “Does that mean I look good?”

“Undone by your own vanity.” I successfully elbow my way in.

Nitya’s hot-pink wallpaper and inflatable plastic couch are gone. Her posters of Ashanti posing in bikinis have been replaced with framed, and often signed, posters of Tears for Fears, Mike + the Mechanics, Devo, The Cars, and Modern English. Morgan’s surrounded himself with a shock of colors: neon palm trees on the walls, Back to the Future memorabilia, lava lamps. A wall of bookshelves so stuffed with books that he’s got vertical stacks on top of horizontal ones. A poster that looks like an illustrated 1980s pulp horror novel cover, with the figure of a woman running in front of a full moon drawn low over a hill, surrounded by zombies climbing out of the earth. Through an open door are clothes strewn all over a bedroom floor.

I rotate slowly, taking it in. “It looks…”

“Yeah?” he prompts nervously when I don’t finish my sentence, nibbling on the donut.

“This is the most landlines I’ve ever seen.”

He’s got a collection of novelty phones: one that looks like the Batmobile, one shaped like Garfield, the cartoon cat. A banana, a gas pump, Pac-Man, big red lips. They’re all exhibited on a shelf that runs the perimeter of the room, close to the ceiling.

“That one’s my favorite.” He shows me a phone that doubles as a working Dubble Bubble gumball machine. I am simultaneously speechless and yet not surprised at all.

His desk is pushed against the window, facing The Magick Happens. Across the street, the ghosts of two curtains flutter in my own attic window, framing my desk, and I can see the little lights in my terrariums. I think about what Morgan might see when he sits here, and what he thinks about that view.

I take great delight in inspecting his shelves, lingering over each title. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical I can never guess which moves he’ll make, and that wild instability leaves me seasick on solid ground. Does he want anything from me besides my help? He has said he wanted me , and he has also said he didn’t mean it. Yes and no. The no came second, which cancels out the yes.

“Meow.”

I turn. “You have a cat?”

“Oh. Uh.” Morgan shifts on his feet. “No, not exactly.”

If there is a cat in the vicinity, then it is necessary that I introduce myself and give it behind-the-ear scratches. As I move toward the room producing the meow, he flies up behind me, protesting.

“You can’t go in there! A man is entitled to his secrets, you know!” Morgan holds up his hands in a pleading gesture. “Don’t be mad. I got carried away, and I was meaning to tell you—I only wanted to study them by myself for a day or two, so that I could try on what it feels like to be surrounded by magical animals. You already know what that feels like now that Snapdragon’s been enchanted, so we’re even. Anyway, let’s go adventuring!”

I give him a once-over. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am. How could I not be? You’re so lovely, with all that hair, it’s the color of the Great Red Spot—you know, the giant storm on Jupiter. And your eyes! The most bewitching I’ve ever seen, like the flames of a gas stove. Are those earrings new?”

I’ve been incorporating a dark witch vibe more heavily in my look lately—lots of moons and black jewels, glittery black lipstick and shawls. Deep purple nails. My earrings are silver scissors.

“You lying tart. What are you hiding?”

“I’m being genuine! I know I wasn’t before—and I know that I’ve said I wasn’t before, and then said that I was, when I wasn’t.” He blinks as if he’s confused himself, mussing up his hair with his fingers. “But now, I genuinely am.”

I pat him on the back dismissively, not even trying to decipher that. “You’re absurd.” Then, at last, I see what Morgan’s been up to these past few days.

I don’t care about the untidiness—the jacket tossed over his headboard, some drawers of his dresser open and some not, clothes falling out. I am, however, mildly concerned about the number of ginger cats populating his bedroom.

A mangy old cat on the bed shoves its face against my hip and yowls. A second one is napping, nose twitching as it dreams. A third is scarfing down a plate of cold pepperonis. There are several others littering the floor; one is marking its territory on a sweater in the corner while maintaining aggressive eye contact with me.

I release a small sigh. “Of course.”

Morgan straightens, fingertips grazing his chest in Who, me? body language. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not surprised you’ve been up to something. All right, then. Tell me why you’ve got so many cats in your room.”

“Cats? Regular cats? You’re sure they aren’t gingersnappuses?”

I shrug. “Sorry to disappoint. Did you take these from the animal shelter?”

“No. The parking lot behind Moonville Market’s loaded with strays, and—” He points to the cat destroying pepperonis. “Not even that one? Are you sure?”

I pet the mangy one, smiling as it purrs. “Nope. Normal cat.”

“But he smells so strange —okay, that isn’t the point.” He grasps my shoulders firmly and peers into my eyes, his features so solemn that it’s a challenge not to burst out laughing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him this serious-looking before, but even a Morgan at his most serious is impossible to take seriously. “I’m offended that you thought I was up to something.”

I can’t hold it in. My laugh hits him full in the face. “You were up to something.”

“Yes, but you should be surprised about it. And at least a little angry?”

What a puzzling development. “Why do you want me to be angry? I can hardly be disappointed in somebody I have no expectations of.”

He looks wounded. “Hey!”

“What are you upset about?”

Crash!

“What was that?” I peer around the corner, to a closed door, and Morgan sidesteps in front of it.

“Guess what?” he says. “I read somewhere that blue giant stars actually smell like Caesar salad dressing.”

He will not throw me off the scent, even though I am interested in both blue giant stars and Caesar salad dressing. I try to turn the handle, but he blocks me again.

“I’m worried you’ll end up getting hurt if you go in there,” he says anxiously. “This one is high-energy, good at hiding, scared of everything, and any time I spook him, he blows up. I can’t even describe to you, Zelda, what it was like to wake up with that thing on top of me.”

“With what on top of you?”

My imagination invokes a smoky snapshot of Morgan in bed, a woman’s figure on top of him. My blood heats.

Before I can think, I burst through the door.

My eyes connect with a pair of round golden ones, a few feet above. An animal with yellowish-orange-colored fur, a scarred face, and a split in its curly tail is tightroping across the curved shower rod. This gingersnappus is much larger than Snapdragon, as well as the newspaper cat. He’s gotten into his fair share of scraps.

“I call this one Forte,” Morgan reports weakly, “because he’s the exact same color as my cousin’s Kia Forte. And he’s the worst roommate I’ve ever had.”

I take another step toward it, and the king-size gingersnappus balloons into a massive orange shape that falls to the floor with a painfully loud racket.

“It’s a…”

Grand piano, lodged sideways in the tiny bathroom, wider than the doorframe. It’s chipped his pedestal sink.

I test the piano’s weight. “How do you move him? Why do you keep him in the bathroom?”

“Remember what I just said about him crushing me in bed?”

“Morgan, you’ve got to get this thing out of your house.”

He pretends not to have heard me. “Forte is…not right. He only eats salt. He really hates songs by Men Without Hats—the band, not just regular men in hats. I don’t yet know his feelings on regular men in regular hats. He’s destroyed my shower curtains. I love him with my whole heart, and as you can see, he really is a gingersnappus. Which means that, in the name of scientific discovery, you cannot be mad at me.”

“Who said I was mad?” I whip out a notebook and fish a pen from my hair. “Fascinating! What sort of noises does he make when he’s in cat form? Only salt, you say? Snapdragon won’t stop eating butter cookies, so I’d like to get one of those blue Royal Dansk tins over here and check if that’s a trait of gingersnappuses or if Snapdragon is merely a pig.” When Morgan doesn’t respond, I glance up at him. His mouth is turned down at the corners. “What?”

“My feelings are hurt, that’s what.”

Oh no. What have I unknowingly done to offend this time? “What did I do?”

He folds his arms over his chest. Sniffs, looking resolutely away from me. “If you’re not going to be upset with me, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“You make no sense at all, Morgan.” I stow my notes back in my pocket, annoyed. There’s still so much I want to learn about Forte! But I can’t very well pick up a piano and haul it across the street. “I’m going, then. Call me once you’ve stopped being like this.”

He mashes his face into his forearm, making “aghughh” noises. “I meant what I said, you know,” he says at length, muffled.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’m leaving.”

And here comes the seasickness. Every time I think I’ve found my footing with him, he pitches the ship and there I go, flying. Why am I wasting my time with a person who makes me feel this way? I should be keeping my eyes peeled for a man who exudes Steady and Reliable. Someone whose footsteps are visible to me before he even takes them, who will behave as I anticipate and not tell me to leave his apartment for bewildering reasons.

“By the way,” I add, knowing this will kick him where it counts, “your socks don’t match.”

The last I see of Morgan, he’s staring down at his feet, murmuring, “Oh dear .”