Part 5 — Crestmeer
Crestmeer was close. The trees had thinned out, and I could even see lanterns flickering in the distance. My stomach started growling at the sight because I knew we’d be passing my favorite bakery just as they were starting to open, and that ended up pulling me into this minor rage because I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be allowed to stop there. There being The Crooked Crumble. Home of the best peach puff in Turningtree.
That apple from earlier was not tiding me over.
And we’d gotten pulled into this utterly ridiculous plan to steal that stupid cloth, which was going to cause all sorts of problems, and I couldn’t pull Ian aside yet to warn him, and I was livid about that.
So. I had all that going on in my head as the path turned to cobblestone, and I did something slightly impolite.
I threw up. On purpose. All over the street before me.
A couple of rebels jumped away as I retched. I grabbed my stomach and groaned. A wide circle formed around me as our party halted, and I held up a hand to stop a well-meaning onlooker from getting too close.
I threw up again, and the circle widened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian approach the edge, watching me with concern. Oh, Ian. So nice. So gullible.
You see, this is one of my special skills. Not a popular one or one I like to use, mind you.
Well . . . actually . . . that’s not entirely true.
Hey.
Hey. Stop that. I know what you’re thinking, and no, this is not one of those skills honed from some kind of body hating or control seeking or something like that. This is a childhood victory skill.
You see, I have seven brothers. Seven older brothers. Seven older brothers who spent most of our time as children trying everything they could to gross each other out. Like everything. I will not repeat the things I’ve seen. But I was not going to be the little sister who didn’t participate, I’ll tell you that. I tried a lot of things to win some of these contests, but it wasn’t until I realized I could make myself throw up with nothing but the power of my mind that I really started to earn some respect from my siblings. So I kept it up. Honed it. Managed to be the grossest of us all on many occasions by vomiting on many things from many different heights and locations. And frankly, when I get to dust this skill off on occasion, it brings me great joy—because in my head, I can still hear my brothers laughing and shrieking and applauding.
For the record, I imagine beans. Like cooked stew beans. It’s a texture thing. It was a popular food in my home growing up, so you can imagine I had plenty of fodder for my wins.
And that is what I thought of as I threw up on the streets of Crestmeer. To buy us time. And to attract attention to myself and our group so I could keep Luther and Greg from trying to pull us into some stupid stunt before we even got into town.
I took a few gasping breaths, wiped my mouth, and stood up. I let my arms shake a bit like I was feeling weak and allowed one of the rebels—a kind-looking woman with blue hair and a rainbow-sequined mask—to guide me around my mess and back along the path-turned-street.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Fine,” I grunted. “Tired. I’m nauseous when I’m tired.”
She gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Almost there.”
And then she began to walk with me, just as I’d hoped. I let out a breath. This would at least keep us out of trouble for the time being.
I spotted Ian walking off to the side, just behind us, and I gave him a reassuring nod. He looked lost. And I guess he was, given this was his first time in Crestmeer.
Man. I was really not doing him a service as a guide. But in all fairness, this was not part of my plan.
The sun was pretty much up now—enough to take the city in. It was a bit brisk. Most of the people we passed were bundled up in sweaters and jackets. I made a mental note: should probably acquire coats for us whenever possible. It was light enough now, but the lanterns were still lit.
I truly love Crestmeer’s lights.
Most cities have lanterns. That’s not anything special. But in Crestmeer, they fill the streets with all sorts of magic.
Glass lanterns with candles hanging from shops and street lamps.
green and purple gas lights that float above the rooftops, filling the sky with poofs of emerald and amethyst.
Bonfires crackling in enclosed stone wells every other block, the top flames just visible above the brick or marble.
They even have what look like bits of starlight sparkling low across each street, strung from opposite rooftops. No doubt an enchantment of some sort, but I’ve never had the slightest idea how they make them.
When Janet saw them the first time, she said they looked like sparklers or Christmas lights, but I’ve never seen those. Perhaps she’ll show them to me sometime.
The rest of the city is much more normal. Wood, brick, glass, and stone buildings, not much more than a few storeys for the most part, all arranged in neat rows that slope down towards the marshes in the East and up towards the West where Brigdale gets a bit hillier and rougher.
I’ve always loved looking down the slope on a cold day, seeing the smoke rising from chimneys and fires and watching the lights get dimmer and dimmer where the city thins out near the marshes. Down there, you mostly just see wet and fog. It makes you feel instantly warmer, knowing you’re here and not all the way out there.
We trudged forward, and at first, all I smelled was the smoke from the firepits and that crispness in the air, but then the smell of baking bread came wafting over, and I turned to see we’d made it to the Crooked Crumble. A line was already forming by the door. I let out a sigh.
Rainbow Sequins chuckled. “Appetite back?” And I gave her a death glare and turned to face the street. All around us, people and forest creatures were smiling and waving their greetings.
Rebels are popular in Crestmeer. We’ve got a stronghold here, more than any other city or township in the area. Probably because we started here, but also because The Bargain was made here. Though both of those things go hand in hand.
Crap. The Bargain.
I made another note to self: Must explain Bargain to Ian. Have told him nothing. This part really important re: his being here.
I really was the worst mentor.
So, The Bargain. I might as well practice now, since I’ll need to get this right for him later.
Long, long ago—like, well, at least several centuries ago—there was a king of Gert, King Gerald. Yeah. Gerald. And he was fine. Like, as kings go, pretty fair, pretty smart. All in all, very little need for an uprising. But then we got invaded.
Now, you might think that’s pretty normal. Historically, it seems like places get invaded all the time. Or, at the very least, there’s like some threat of invasion by someone at some point. That’s what Janet tells me about her world, which is the only other world I know. But not Turningtree. Because Turningtree, to our knowledge—at the time and to our knowledge now—is literally the only inhabited place in this world. Like, we’re one big connected land chunk, surrounded by endless seas, which on our maps circle around our world and contain nothing of note. Just a lot of water. And salt. And, you know, plant and sea life.
So, who invaded, you might ask? That’s the question. No one knows. Because good, kind, not particularly forward-thinking King Gerald made a bargain. With whoever invaded. Cities all over our lands were smoldering from some unknown kind of magic, we were in chaos, and King Gerald managed to use some kind of kingly super magic to contact the leaders of whatever it was to ask for a meeting. We think. Because honestly, we don’t really know. And when they met, here, in Crestmeer, they made a magical pact—The Bargain. A pact that allowed our invaders to leave Turningtree, taking all knowledge of their identities with them, in exchange for time stopping here and I guess our not being totally obliterated. All in all, not a particularly winning deal for us.
I’m going to pause here because I can tell that I’ve said something that needs more explanation.
Ah. Yeah. The time thing.
Yeah. That was vague before. So, we can’t age. Like, time goes, I guess. The days go by. I could track them if I like. But, I’ll ask you, does time really exist if you know you have eternity before you? Janet says time is a construct, and I guess that’s right, but Janet is an old woman now, and when we met, she was a girl. Woman. She was a young woman about the age I seemed to be, though at the time, I was hundreds of years older, so if we’re talking age difference, she seemed like a girl. But she also felt very much like a peer. Still does. It’s complicated.
So, I was once a child, and for a few decades, before The Bargain, I grew. And now, centuries later, I am the same. That’s my story. The very short version.
Maybe time doesn’t have to be linear. Maybe Janet’s got that right. But at the very least, there used to be change, and now there isn’t. Not really. Why was this part of The Bargain? What did our invaders have to gain from this? No one knows.
Now, let me clarify something. I say I have eternity before me, but that’s a bit wishful. We’re not immortal. I mean, King Gerald could tell you that but also he can’t because someone killed him pretty shortly after the whole handshake went down. Unfortunately, whoever killed him also wasn’t really thinking ahead because it seems they killed Gerald without attempting to glean anything useful that might have helped us.
Like, sure, from what we can tell, The Bargain seems to have magically erased knowledge of our attackers. It likely also made it impossible for Gerald to tell us anything about it. But might we have waited a bit to see if he could do something useful? Might we have asked him a bit more about the details of the deal he made so that we didn’t have to just kind of puzzle it together over time into something that we think is right?
Might we have considered that the rest of Gerald’s family are a bunch of incompetent fools who would take over his throne after his death and just run things into the ground continuously forever because there is no succession in this scenario because no one dies and because having to kill the entirety of Gert’s ruling class to remedy this situation just feels, well, at the very least rude if not morally bankrupt?
I say “we.” His killing wasn’t a part of the rebellion. We hadn’t formed yet. I mean “we” as a collective. For all I know, it was someone from his own court who dispensed with him.
But yeah. Anyway. We’re stuck. No one ages. No one is born. The land itself seems to stay the same. I mean . . . day turns to night. There are seasons. But from what I can tell the same leaves grow back on the trees each year. Our crop yields are exactly the same each harvest. Our creatures also don’t seem to age or die or create.
It’s all a loop. An endless loop.
And it started in Crestmeer.
“Blindfolds!” someone yelled from up ahead, and I groaned. We were probably close to the base. Before I could turn to ask, a dark cloth wrapped around my eyes.
“Just me, don’t worry. Safety precaution,” assured Rainbow Sequins from somewhere behind me, and I felt her pull the blindfold tight against my face. She grabbed my arm to lead me as we continued on.
“Augh!” A squawk sounded off to my left, and I heard a stumble and a series of choice curses. Luther’s voice. I grinned.
We kept walking, and for several minutes, there was just the sound of pounding feet and soft chatter until I felt Rainbow Sequins tugging up on my elbow. “Steps in front,” she warned, and she kept me steady as we walked up one, two, three, four, five . . . okay, many steps. They kept going and going, and it felt as if we were turning around—a spiral staircase perhaps—but we had yet to go indoors.
Finally, we hit a landing, and I heard a door open as she let me go and gave me a nudge inside. It was dark in here. Even through the blindfold, I could tell the lights were dim. No windows. No light save something flickering against my eyelids. The door slammed behind me, and I whirled.
A chuckle sounded from a corner of the room. I turned to face it.
“You can remove it if you like.”
I threw off the blindfold, and when my eyes adjusted, I saw I’d been ushered into some sort of small, upstairs pavilion. The room had windows. Many of them. But they were all closed and covered with shades or curtains.
The place was bare save a candlelit desk and a low table flanked by two armchairs off to one side near an unlit fireplace.
Well, not bare. Gideon sat lounging in one of the armchairs, legs propped up on the table. How he’d gotten there so fast, I’ll never know. He’d been leading the lot of us, sure, but enough time to get that comfortable? That annoyingly relaxed?
He grinned, removing his green mask.
“So. I hear you’re planning to steal my cloth.”
I sighed. He really did have ears everywhere.
“I—”
He held up a hand. “How much do they know?”
“Nothing.”
He smiled.
“Then, let’s make this fun, shall we?”
The Copper Cloth Heist Is Upon Us. Who Gets To Tell That Story?
Option 1: Fi
Option 2: Ian
Option 3: Greg
Option 4: Luther
Option 5: Someone entirely different—what would you like to see?