Pickwick had never seen such a place before. He wondered why Charmwill hadn’t talked about it earlier, and why he decided to visit it today. Was it because he wanted to meet The Boy Who is a Shadow?
“The Missing Mile is a bit vacant now,” Charmwill educated Pickwick. “It’s because the fairy tale characters are still asleep. The few of them who are awake, are either lost or dealing with their own problems. You have no idea, Pickwick, how important this place is. It only comes alive for a small period of time every one hundred years.”
Pickwick saw a train emerging out of the fog behind them. It seemed like it was coming from the Ordinary World. It was a huge train that ran on rails that floated on the water, passing through the Missing Mile without stopping, until it reached an island in the distance.
Pickwick saw that the island rested on the back of a huge whale that seemed forever asleep. The train disappeared into the island, and Pickwick saw turrets rising high out of a castle in the middle of it. The island itself was exactly in the middle of the Missing Mile, surrounded by water.
“Ah,” Charmwill announced. “I see you’re looking at the Island of Sorrow. Don’t worry, the whale it rests on rarely wakes up.”
Pickwick waited for Charmwill to tell him more about the island but it was clear that he wasn’t going to, because he was there only for the boy.
The parrot watched the magical world with his eyes almost bulging out. He was looking for the characters Charmwill always mentioned in his stories, but he’d found none; so he assumed they were still asleep like Charmwill had explained.
Then Pickwick saw the mermaids in the Missing Mile. They were so beautiful they almost took his breath away; swimming gracefully between the ships, giggling, whispering, and splashing water at Charmwill. They jumped out of the water like dolphins, welcoming the old man and his parrot to the Missing Mile. Wishing he could play with them, Pickwick squawked instead. The mermaids giggled again, covering their mouths with their wet hands as if they weren’t supposed to be in the presence of old man Charmwill.
“It would be better if you don’t stare at the mermaids too long,” Charmwill warned Pickwick. “I know they’re beautiful, but they can read your mind if you let them stare into your eyes. They’re curious about the secret stories you keep inside you, and eyes are windows to the soul.”
Pickwick fluttered his wings with obedience and closed his eyes, straightened his back, and pulled his chin high, away from the mermaids.
“Good parrot,” Charmwill said then wet his forefinger with his mouth and held it out to test the wind. “It’s a beautiful day in the Fairyworld.”
Charmwill continued rowing toward a Dragonship surrounded with floating glass coffins, which were half-filled with water. He stopped near a specific coffin and looked at a black, wavy shadow of a boy inside. The shadow had been chained as if it was capable of escaping, and the coffin was guarded by two mermaids. Pickwick shrugged. He had never seen such a thing before. The shadow seemed in pain, trying to free itself.
“The Boy Who is a Shadow,” Charmwill muttered as he climbed the zigzagged dragon’s tale up the ship’s deck—which was the dragon’s back. Sometimes, in the middle of sailing, dragons needed to take a nap, and that was when they came to a stop in the water. Pickwick wondered if they breathed fire when they snored.
Following Charmwill, Pickwick saw an old woman sitting on the deck. Her skin was tanned and her hair was a mesh of black-and-white. She had a weary look on her face, and it looked like she hadn’t been properly introduced to a comb before. Pickwick thought Charmwill should lend her his golden comb, but couldn’t tell him. It struck him that this might have been why Charmwill had turned him into a mute; maybe Pickwick talked too much.
The woman on the deck was blindfolded, sitting in front of a scale that carried apples on one pan and snakes on the other. Although the apples outnumbered the thin snakes, the snakes were still heavier, pulling the scale down to their side.
“Charmwill, my dear,” the woman welcomed them as a playful mermaid splashed more water, somersaulting from one side of the ship to the other. The woman shushed it away. “Those annoying, giggly Mermaids, all play, no work,” she muttered.
“Godmother Justina,” Charmwill bowed his head, paying his respects.
“Who’s your friend?” Justina asked, adding an apple to the scale, which still leaned toward the snakes. “Never saw you with a parrot before.”
“That’s because it’s been a hundred years since we last met. I found him and enchanted him years ago,” Charmwill chuckled. “I call him Pickwick.”
“I am Pickwick,” the parrot squawked. “And I am mute!”
The mermaids in the sea laughed again.
“Interesting,” Justina said. “A parrot that is mute, but actually isn’t. Is that one of the riddles you amuse the children with, Charmwill?”
“It’s the only phrase it can say,” Charmwill explained. “Other than that, it is mute.”