Page 31 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Thirty-One

Turn off your lights when there is a meteor shower; some of them are cursed fairies, who are attracted to light and will aim to become part of whatever it is they fall into.

Legends and Superstitions, Expanded, Tempest Family Grimoire

I am woken by my own scream, and a piano on my leg.

“You shouldn’t have moved in your sleep,” Morgan says urgently, and if I weren’t pinned by this piano, I’d deck him. I can just make out his profile, dampened by the darkness of surrounding trees.

“How am I at fault here?”

“It isn’t Forte’s fault.” He manages to lift the piano off my leg, but it nearly falls onto my face and I scream again. Morgan makes a quick, slippery grab. From below, I fight against my sleeping bag to get unzipped. “He’s sensitive to touch,” Morgan insists. “A defenseless baby.”

I doubt Forte is all that young. By the patchwork of scars on his spiteful little face, I’d say he’s been picking fights for a decade at least.

“He’s going to kill us!”

“Unlikely. Forte hates faces and sleeps far away from them, so all your vital organs are safe. If anything, he’d mangle your feet.”

My voice is like a clatter of pots and pans. “Oh, is that all?”

“Grab my water,” Morgan orders. “Splash some on him.” He grits his teeth as he adjusts his hold on the piano. “Hurry!”

“I can’t see your water. It’s dark in here.”

“Feel around!”

I stand up, still loose-limbed from sleep, and grope in the darkness. Feel along the walls of the tent to gain my bearings. Some of the fabric’s rather lumpy—

“Well, hello,” Morgan rasps in a fluttering baritone. His voice is located directly above the bit of tent I was patting down.

I rear back. “Did I—? Is that—?”

He doesn’t say anything. I think possibly, he is unable to.

“Ohhh.” I brace myself for many nights ahead of staring at my ceiling, reliving this mortifying moment over and over. I will never come back from this. “I am so sorry. I thought— Your shorts, they’re that windbreaker material, they feel just like the tent…” My face burns.

“Here we are,” he goes on formally, sounding not at all like himself. “It is dark. We are in the middle of nowhere; just you, me, and this giant piano. All is going as smoothly as can be expected. You have touched my dick. Your mistaking it for a tent is becoming more accurate by the second.”

This is humiliating. “I’m so, so sorry.” But also: “ Why did you have to bring a gingersnappus along on this trip?”

“It isn’t Forte’s fault that you’re insatiable with desire.”

“EXCUSE—”

“Always trying to get me alone. Dragging me out here to this isolated location, with only one tent and one sleeping bag. And now you’re copping a feel.” His tone crisps up into a stern, soldierly march. “Zelda, I am a modern man with values and standards. If you want to sleep with me so badly, you will need to guest-star on my podcast first.”

“If you don’t shut up,” I growl, “I am going to…aha!” I’ve found the water. Definitely not any of Morgan’s valuable bits this time. I unscrew the cap, sloshing it with wild abandon. Morgan cries out.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to get it on you.”

I’m not sure if the hiss that follows is Morgan or Forte, who has stopped being a piano. I hit the lights, wincing at the brightness. Forte has transformed back into a small beast and is rolling happily in water.

“How did you know that would work?”

Morgan sounds winded. “He screams on the other side of the bathroom door when he knows I’m in there showering. Soon as I come out, he runs inside and lies in the wet tub. Loves it.”

I watch Forte rub his nose in a puddle. “What a weirdo. And the Black Bear Witch is a psychopath. Who looks at a cat and says, La-di-da, I know what I’ll do! I’ll turn this cat into a devil creature that shape-shifts into a piano whenever it gets mad! ”

“Mother of god.” Morgan points at my leg.

It only starts hurting when I see the gash. My leg kicks of its own volition, as if I can knock the gash right off me. “Agh! Agh! I can see my bone!”

“That’s not bone, it’s your skin.” He encircles my ankle with one hand and gently holds me still. I feel the touch everywhere. “You’re just ridiculously pale.”

“ You’re ridiculously pale. My leg hurts. Oh, it hurts. This is worse than the time I had an IUD improperly inserted and had to get it removed after the most excruciating week of my life.” I pound my fist in the pillow. “Damn you, Dr. Paul! You should’ve just tied my tubes like I asked. But no, he was all, ‘What if you change your mind?’ And I was all, ‘Look, man, I have never seen a baby and thought, I want one of those in my house .’ No offense, Aisling. You and I are cool now that you’re old enough to tell me what you want without shrieking.” I howl when Morgan dabs at my injury with a tissue.

“When I asked my doctor about scheduling a vasectomy,” he replies, “she was super helpful. There was hardly any wait time at all. And after the procedure was finished, a nurse gave me some candy.”

“I hate you,” I grit out through clenched teeth.

“Let’s not fight right now, darling. You might be on your last breaths. I want to remember you fondling. Fondly. I want to remember you fondly , is what you heard me say.”

I try to kick him, but he dodges.

“I’ve got a first-aid kit,” I grumble, tired and aggravated. “The suitcase over there, with my glasses sitting on top. Bottom pouch in the front compartment.”

Morgan heads toward the suitcase, then halts midstride. Stays frozen like that for several seconds.

“What are you doing?” I slap the ground with the flat of my hand. “I need gauze!”

He turns in the opposite direction and begins to root through his belongings instead.

“Did you bring—” My words fail when he lifts out a glass bottle filled with thick, sunny liquid. “Uhhh.” He twists off the cap. Dabs some onto my leg. It’s frigid and smells like tiramisu. “What. Are. You. Doing?”

“Testing a theory.” His gaze gleams like a mad scientist.

I spasm, swiping for him. “I can’t believe you put that into my open wound, you idiot!”

“Shhhh. It’ll take effect better if you speak to me nicely.”

I’m going to kill him. He’s a dead man.

My gash is healing. We both gawk at my skin as it seals, turning a shiny, puckering pink. Within seconds, even the scar is gone.

I’m going to kiss him.

“Morgan, you genius.”

He drips potion across his unblemished skin. “I knew it! Remember after we made this, I got some of it on my arm? It healed my scratch. I suspect it gave me a mood boost as well, because I felt amazing afterward. Must contain enzymes that speed up the recovery process! Extraordinary. We could sell it. We’ll call it Morgan’s Miracle Cure.”

I pinch him.

“Morgan and Zelda’s Miracle Cure, then. Actually no, that’s too wordy. We’ll call it Tempoulos . That’s what you get when you mix Tempest and Angelopoulos .”

“When you mix Tempest and Angelopoulos , you get disaster. You’ve just sprayed us with an untested, non-FDA-approved potion.”

Morgan slants me a haughty look. “There’s a first for everything. Somebody, somewhere, in the halls of history, fried a pig for the first time and discovered bacon.”

“It’s late. You’re unhinged. Let’s not speak again until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Morgan appraises his side of the tent with a pathetic air. I’ve doused his spot with water.

I sigh.

“I can’t make you lie in that. Here, I’ll scoot over. There’s enough room in my sleeping bag for both of us.”

“Ah.” His mouth curves. “I see we’ve reached the next phase of your seduction plan.”

“Never mind. Sleep in water.”

“It’s all right, I’m not complaining.” He snuggles in beside me, his voice dropping to a devilish, decadent pitch. He brings the pillow with him, and I steal three quarters of it as revenge. “I’m a willing participant.”

My whole body sharpens. “Watch it.”

“I’m watching as much as I can, trust me.”

I roll aggressively onto my other side, facing away from him. “I hate you. At first light—ugh, in the morning , you’re going home. I’ve had enough of your teasing and your stupid hair.”

“You like my hair? Is that what you’re trying to say?” His Cheshire grin is so corrupt, I can practically feel it through my clothes. “Every time you go quiet from now on, I’ll be wondering if you’re thinking about feeling me up.”

I squeeze my eyes closed. “Merghh.”

He raises his head off the pillow a fraction, murmuring in my ear: “ And how much you want me to get even, I bet. ”

The words sink into either side of my hips, warm and pressurized as a pair of hands. I’ve never wanted to be touched this badly before.

I banish these thoughts to the void, where a hologram of myself stands at a chalkboard and writes I will not sin two hundred times.

Inviting him to come along on this trip was an appalling mistake. I recall what Luna said: I know Morgan will be there, too, but he’s useless. Luna was right.

“All you do is flirt,” I say, my voice guttural. “You are just one big, flirty lie.”

“Flirt back,” he urges. “It’ll be fun.”

“Never. You can use your looks to get whatever you want from other people, but I’ll never give in.”

He laughs against my neck, or at least it feels that way. My toes curl. “You think my looks are that powerful? I’d be flattered if I weren’t so devastated right now by your low opinion of me.”

“My opinion of you isn’t low. But you’re teasing, and that’s unkind.”

“I’m not teasing. I swear.”

Nobody laughs when they’re devastated. He is unscrupulous. I must remain vigilant.

I shiver again, the magic inside me scintillating, magnifying my instincts, and I sense it in the atmosphere—

Luna has somehow heard my thoughts. She’s heard me think Luna was right and now her power is growing. My hands quiver.

The longer I lie here, the faster my heartbeat gallops. Luna is listening. Luna is outside the tent.

“Where are you going?” Morgan asks when I unzip myself.

“My sister’s here.”

He sits up. “Which one?”

I slip into the night, looking around. Luna isn’t staying put, jogging in circles. “Stop that,” I command. “There isn’t enough room for you in our tent. Why are you here?”

“Your dog missed you.” She lets go of a small animal, the size of a newborn puppy, with a smooth, featureless face. Its leash jingles against the dirt as it bounds toward me.

“Oh right. Thanks for bringing her.”

“Do you remember it yet?” she wants to know. I think her head is cocked, but I can’t see her well enough to be sure.

I extend my hands, gazing skyward. “The rain has gotten so dry.”

Morgan crawls on his hands and knees out of the tent. “Snake!”

“Luna, get out of here!” I scream. “The snake will take you!”

“Luna, come back,” Morgan cries. “You have to save us. Tell my dad. He’s seen snakes before. They haven’t been seen in years .”

How’d I forget? I sit down so that the snake can’t get me. “This is amazing. We can sell the snake for eleven thousand dollars.”

“Oh no, my legs don’t work.” He kicks them wildly. “Do you see? They’re not moving.” Morgan covers his face with his arms and mutters, “Peril, peril.”

I stare at him, and all I can think about is his skeleton. Just sitting there inside all that soup of blood and sinew. Wet bones. “Stop talking,” I beg. “I can see your mandible.”

He springs to his feet. “Stop looking at my mandible!”

“We have to take out your bones.”

“Start with my legs. They won’t move anymore.”

It’s burning hot outside. I wasted my summer, so it must have started over. We’re back in June again. Wonderful! I have so much time to work on my book now. “Let’s find our bone extractor,” I suggest, searching the tent. It’s a good thing I packed a well-loved copy of Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery by Richard Hollingham. Never go anywhere without Blood and Guts , that’s my motto.

Morgan’s pillow turns into a snail, so he has to put it outside.

“Calm down,” I encourage soothingly, tying Morgan down to the sleeping bag with clamps. “Shhh.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I want to keep my bones.”

“You don’t need them anymore. Trust me.” I locate the bone extractor, pressing it to his kneecap. Morgan howls.

“Your face has gone swirly,” he wheezes. Enormous pupils appear in his otherwise empty eye sockets, rolling all over the place untethered. “Stop it! Put your beautiful face back how it goes! I liked it the other way. So much.”

“Shhh.” I subdue him with graham cracker crumbs in his hair. “It’s June.” I sit astride him. “Do you smell that?”

“It’s music. I’m playing it just for you.” Morgan strokes my hair. “The mountain king song.”

“Luna!” I remember she’s standing outside with all her dogs. She should have asked me before she got all these dogs. I would have been so good at naming them. To come up with characters, I utilize BabyNames.com more than an expecting parent.

We run back out, Morgan stripping off his shirt. “The sun is looking at me!” he cries, streaking into the trees. “The sun is looking at me!”

We run and run, until we reach the right tree. “Oh, thank god it’s still here.” I pat the tree. “I thought it was gone.”

Morgan weeps. “This is the best day. What would we do if our tree was gone?”

“Morgan, look!” I drop to my knees, hugging his lower half. “Your legs work again.”

“It’s the tree,” he says breathlessly. “It fixed me.”

“We have to tell people about this tree.”

“No.” He shakes my shoulders. “They’re not ready.”

“Kiss my hand,” I demand. “It’s the only way off this planet.”

“Makes sense.” He charges. We take turns kissing each other’s hands, because it’s impossible for us both to do it at the same time: if we do, we won’t be able to breathe. I make sure we don’t make any eye contact, so that his dad doesn’t get upset.

“Into the cocoon!” Morgan declares, grabbing my wrist. “We must transform.”

The tent appears right behind us, and we dive in. “Good. I hope I become a sprite instead of a moth when I wake up.”