“Crazy unpredictable troublesome wonderful old fool,” Verte said in a mouthful. “You’ve been meddling again.” She fought to keep hold of her squirmy prisoner, but her grip loosened as the creature in her hand changed shape.
First I thought that the Mimicman had returned, but aside from his chimera form, Hydra said he could only mimic people that existed. That would exclude the mustached bibliobug that grew into a large butterpillar and dropped onto the ground. The change didn’t stop there. Instead, it went faster, switching through wild and impossible creations in a blink of an eye—things I’d never seen before and a few that were familiar. A horned mouse. Slimy letters of the alphabet. A polka-dotted furry giant. And finally, a short old man with ink-stained hands: the Storymaker I’d seen in Blanc’s story.
“Lovely to see you again. Frank, Maker of Oz, at your service.” He coughed and beat his chest, getting out a few puffs of green dust. “Now, my dearest Verte, I promised you I wouldn’t meddle. Nudging on the other hand…”
“So what do you call this?” Verte shook my broken shoe at the man’s nose.
“Well clearly, they’re transdimensional particle-accelerating devices.”
“They’re what?” I asked.
Verte turned around and sighed. She had that look on her face, like she was trying to instruct ants on how to ride a bicycle. “It channels your will into magic for protection, and clicking the heels on the who-magig connecting to the whatchamacallit allows the shoes to move people from one spot to the next. Or across worlds. But it’s controlled by your thoughts to make the magic work.” She turned her ire back to the Storymaker and tossed the shoe in disgust. “And you newt-well know that’s not what I asked. Giving those to an untrained girl is a clear violation of our agreement.”
I picked up the broken heel, again awed by the almighty power that is designer shoes. They’d protected me on my journey and must have moved Kato inside Hydra’s house. Maybe that’s how we’d all been able to go up to the cloud storage with it. And if that was true, maybe getting my parents back wasn’t going to be impossible after all. I slipped the shoes on, thought of my parents and stamped my heel to make it go.
Verte clucked her tongue at the Storymaker. “See, that’s what I was talking about.” She waddled over and yanked the shoe back off my foot while I was still standing. “I thought you’d learned the lesson to stop messing with magic you don’t understand! You broke the wangeroo inside the pointy part. Even if you figured out what you were glammed well doing and got it to work, best it would do is move half of you.”
That would be extremely unpleasant. But I still had hope.
Verte yelled at the Storymaker while he tuned her out and stroked the engraved quill on the cover of his book.
“Excuse me.” I used the most reverent tone I could, as was appropriate for a Storymaker. He didn’t budge so I tugged on his worn-out coat to get his attention. “Would you please fix the shoe so I can bring my parents home? Oh, and put back the rules the way they should be.”
“No,” he said and slammed the book close. “But…”
Verte’s lips wiggled and her wart twitched. The little hairs on her chin stood to attention. “Whatever you’re thinking…stop.”
He blew a puff of dust up Verte’s nose and smiled while she fought a sneezing attack.
“Now, where were we?” he said. “Ah, yes. The rules of story are always changing. They will balance themselves out with time. But I’m afraid even if I fixed the shoes, you wouldn’t be able to harness enough of the power in your blood to reach the other side.”
I was about to beg again when he handed me the book with a wink and said, “Not unless I teach you, that is. Destruction is only one half of the so-called curse, the flipside is creation. We’ll start tomorrow.”
Verte cursed a green streak, chasing the man around the room. He headed for the cave entrance, shouting over his shoulder. “Teaching is not meddling, just training a Maker’s apprentice. What could go wrong?”
They were both out of sight, but I could hear Verte holler back, “The last time you said that, I turned green!”
With a smile, I cradled the book that had shown my parents and brushed off the Griz goo that marred one corner. Crazy seemed to be the new normal, but maybe that wasn’t so bad.
As far as happy endings go, this wasn’t “ticker tape parade ride the carriage off into the triple sunset” material. Magic was working again—somewhat. Kato was human again—sometimes. My parents were alive—somewhere. The bad guys were dealt with—unless you counted the wizard/Mimicman/Beast King. And I had managed to survive the Emerald curse without turning evil—for now. Still, the good guys won, and for today, that was enough. And for tomorrow…it will be whatever I make it.
Epilogue: ep - uh - lawg n. The point at the end of a fairy tale where everything wraps up to a satisfactory conclusion.