The Wrong Side of Magic (13 page)

“Speaking of underwear,” the penguin went on, “some of yours is pretty raggedy.”

Hudson made shushing motions with his hands and checked over his shoulder to see if Charlotte had heard any of this. Her back was to him, her hair barely visible over the top of her sleeping bag.

“We're not speaking about my underwear,” Hudson hissed. “That subject is definitely off limits.” He regarded the penguin again, looking him over. “So what can you do to help with our quest?”

Pokey shrugged. “I swim and catch fish. If there's ice around, I can also slide.”

“Great. That's…”
Completely useless.
Only Hudson didn't say the words out loud. He didn't want to hurt the penguin's feelings. Hudson gestured in the direction the wolf had gone. “Why don't you help the other animals stand guard until morning?”

“All right.” Pokey took slow, waddling steps in that direction—steps that crackled every time his webbed feet crunched across the dead leaves on the ground. Which was probably why no one ever used the phrase. “As stealthy as a penguin.”

Hudson settled into his sleeping bag, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. He wished he'd brought a polar bear with him. Or a cot.

Strange sounds echoed in the forest. Something whirred. Something else chimed. The faint notes of a song drifted through the night.

“Charlotte,” he whispered, “where's that music coming from?”

“That's tree sprites singing lullabies to the forest. The trees sleep better that way.”

Tree sprites? They sounded harmless enough. Hudson shut his eyes again and thought about his father so he wouldn't wonder what else roamed around in the dark. When Hudson's dad was younger, he wanted to travel to new and different places. Couldn't get enough of it. That's why he joined the Marines—so he could see the world.

What would his dad make of this place?

“Hudson?” Charlotte whispered.

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking about right now?”

“Nothing. I'm just missing my family.”

“Me, too,” she said.

*   *   *

When Hudson awoke the next morning, his head lay on the ground, and Pokey was sleeping in the middle of his pillow. “Hey,” Hudson said, nudging the penguin awake. “You were supposed to guard the camp.”

Pokey clacked his beak open in a yawn. “The wolf wouldn't let me. He said I kept getting in the way.”

Charlotte was already up, sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag. She still looked like the girl from the magazine with curly brown hair, hazel eyes, and purple lips. Hudson wondered how long it would take him to get used to seeing her like that.

The tiger sat behind Charlotte and ran her paw over Charlotte's hair, using her claws as a comb. The squirrel was perched on Charlotte's shoulder, rubbing blue protective lotion onto her neck with his tail.

Hudson pulled himself out of his sleeping bag and stretched. A caw cut through the morning air, and the falcon glided down from the sky holding an apple in his talons. He dropped it into Charlotte's lap and flew off to an overhead branch. Using his teeth, the wolf pulled a tin plate out of Charlotte's backpack, trotted over, and placed it on the ground in front of her. A few moments later, the eagle swooped down holding a large muffin. He dropped it onto her plate.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“The inn will never miss it,” the eagle replied, landing on the ground in front of her. “Do you need anything else?”

She pulled the lid off her water bottle. “Can you find some fresh water and fill this up?”

The eagle bobbed his head, clutched the water bottle in his talons, and took to the air. As he flew away, his large wings flapped in graceful arcs.

Hudson looked over at the penguin. “So are you going to get me some breakfast?”

Pokey bit at a loose feather on his chest. “I can waddle to the river and catch some fish. Of course, it will take me a few hours to get there.”

“Never mind,” Hudson said. “I don't like fish that much.” He remembered the fruit he had picked from the garden last night, and he rifled through his jacket for it. “Hey, Charlotte,” he said, showing her the fruit that smelled like manicotti. “It's okay to eat fruit from the compliment trees now, isn't it?”

She took a bite of her muffin. “You can eat it, but it's not very filling. Bolt can get you something after he comes back with my water.”

Hudson bit into the fruit. As he ate, he heard a small, friendly voice that came from the vicinity of the fruit. “You have a great sense of humor.”

Cool. The fruit complimented you while you ate it. And it tasted pretty good, too, like spicy melted cheese. Hudson took another bite.

“You could easily be a straight-A student,” the voice murmured.

His mother had said the same thing, although not as nicely. Another bite.

“You're the best baseball player in your grade.”

Well, when your family didn't have cable or a lot of electronic games, you played sports.

“Charlotte,” he called, “is what the compliment fruit says true, or is it just flattery?”

“Tell me what it's saying,” she said, “and I'll let you know.”

He took another bite.

“She digs you,” the fruit said. “All girls do.”

“Never mind,” Hudson called to her.

“It's true,” the fruit insisted. “You're a hottie.”

Hudson ate several more pieces of fruit, enjoying it so much that he turned down Charlotte's offer to have her eagle get more food for him. Her animals helped pack up—Pokey wasn't much assistance in that regard—and then Charlotte used her compactulator to minimize things so they fit in their backpacks again. When she minimized Pokey, he got all huffy, insisting that Hudson's backpack smelled like moldy school lunches. Even after Charlotte shrank him back into a stuffed animal, he had a sort of angry look on his face.

Charlotte left her birds full size. While Hudson and she set out through the forest, the eagle flew overhead, scanning for signs of danger. The falcon headed back to Grammaria to—as he put it—procure something for them to eat at lunchtime. Hudson didn't know what the word
procure
meant, but he hoped dessert would be involved.

The sun lit up the forest, making the trees shine, their glossy leaves fluttering in the wind. Brightly colored birds hopped around the branches like gems shaken loose from a royal treasury. They called to each other with flutelike chirps and sprang away from Charlotte and Hudson's path.

Flowers grew in patches here and there across the forest floor. Every once in a while one glowed neon. When Hudson asked Charlotte why they kept doing that, she said, “Oh, they're just happy. You know how flowers are.”

Apparently not. He'd never considered flower moods before.

After a few minutes of walking, Cecil and Nigel appeared through the trees and trotted over to them. Cecil tossed his silver mane so it glistened like Christmas-tree tinsel. “Greetings, Charlotte and Son of Hud. We've come to see how you fare.”

Charlotte curtsied, managing to look regal and proper, even though she still had a blue film of lotion covering her face. “We're traveling to the Sea of Life.”

Hudson gave a short bow, too. “Um, actually, my name is Hudson.”

“We shall carry you on your quest, fair lady,” Cecil said, then both unicorns eyed Hudson.

Nigel let out a resigned huff. “I suppose if we must, we'll also carry Son of Hud.”

Charlotte stroked Nigel's velvety nose. “You're most gracious.”

Hudson could think of some other adjectives that described the unicorns, too. He didn't say them.

Charlotte mounted Cecil, and Hudson got on Nigel—this time, the unicorn didn't fling him quite so hard—and the group set out at a gallop through the forest. Charlotte sang as she had yesterday, doing multiple renditions of the unicorn song. Cecil and Nigel never got tired of that one.

Hudson's stomach felt empty, so he ate more compliment fruit. It put him in a better mood. “You're strong and brave,” the fruit murmured. “You'll be a hero. The unicorns are completely wrong about you.”

He hoped so.

During one of Charlotte's refrains, Nigel glanced back at him. “What did you bring from the Land of Banishment to help you accomplish your quest?”

Clothes and food, mostly. Only that seemed lame. “Um, I brought a magic penguin.” Pokey, after all, could talk.

Nigel let out an unimpressed whinny. “Haven't you any useful skills? What did you do with your time in the Land of Banishment?”

“I went to school and played baseball.”

“Baseball?” Nigel asked. “What sort of thing is that?”

Hudson spent several minutes explaining the sport. After he finished, Nigel said, “So you're good at hitting a ball with a skinny stick?”

“Yep,” Hudson said. “I'm really good at it.”

“Are there a lot of rogue balls in the Land of Banishment that need this treatment?”

“It's a game,” Hudson said.

“Skilled at games.” Nigel flicked his tail. “What you need is skill at living.”

Hudson wasn't quite sure what the unicorn meant. How did you get skilled at living? So far, his life hadn't needed that much skill.

Overhead, Charlotte's falcon let out a caw and swooped down from the sky, gliding toward her with outstretched wings. He didn't carry any food in his talons.

Charlotte stopped singing and held her arm out to him. “Is something wrong?”

The falcon landed on her wrist in a flurry of feathers. “Maybe it's wrong or maybe it's right.” The falcon folded his wings and adjusted his grip on her arm. “At Grammaria, a crowd was gathered around the princess's tree. I flew into the branches so I could hear them.

“The tree bloomed last night—yellow flowers everywhere. The townsfolk said it hasn't happened since King Vaygran hid the princess away.” The bird ruffled his wings. “King Vaygran came out on his balcony to see what the commotion was. Several people pointed to me and said a falcon in the tree was a sign Princess Nomira would return, because she had a pet falcon.”

Charlotte tilted her head, perplexed. “Did she? I don't remember that.”

“King Vaygran must have remembered. He told one of his advisers to catch me.” The bird momentarily spread his wings, as though to emphasize that they were free. “I flew to a perch on the castle and waited to see what the king would do next. He told the people the yellow flowers meant nothing. But not much later, a dozen of his soldiers prepared horses for a trip.”

Nigel had increased his pace as the falcon told his story so that he trotted side by side with Cecil.

Soldiers. That couldn't be good news. “What do you think is happening?” Hudson asked Charlotte.

Her brows furrowed as she thought. “Yellow is the color of hope.”

Cecil nickered. “It's also the color of warning.”

Hudson had been talking about the soldiers, not the flowers. He hadn't realized hope and warning had their own colors. “Weren't the blossoms on the tree always yellow?” he asked.

“They were usually purple or pink,” Charlotte said, “for generosity and happiness. The tree stopped flowering and the leaves turned deep blue when her father died.” She didn't add why. He supposed that must be the color of sorrow.

“What about the soldiers?” Hudson asked. “If they're going to check on Princess Nomira, we should have your falcon follow them.”

Charlotte considered this. “King Vaygran wouldn't send soldiers to check on her, not when he's keeping her location a secret. Still, it wouldn't hurt to watch and see where they go.” She lifted her hand, a motion indicating she was sending the bird off again. “Striker, follow the soldiers. When they get to their destination, come back and tell us where it is.”

The falcon bobbed his head, then took flight, quickly disappearing back the way he'd come.

The group moved on, but Charlotte didn't start singing again. “Yellow,” she said, tasting the word.

It was then that Hudson remembered he had spoken to the tree. “Charlotte, could the princess have heard me if I said something to her tree?”

Nigel and Cecil both erupted into braying laughs at the question. Hudson supposed that meant no.

Charlotte answered more gently. “In Logos, people can't hear through trees. Logos is sort of like your land that way.”

“I only asked,” Hudson said, feeling defensive, “because last night I stopped at Princess Nomira's tree and told it we were coming for her.”

Charlotte's eyebrows drew together. “That's curious.”

Cecil neighed. “That's foolish—to go announcing your plans where anyone might hear them.”

Instead of growing worried, Charlotte brightened at the thought. “Perhaps one of Princess Nomira's servants was hidden in the tree—some moth or sparrow. Perhaps it flew to her and told her what you said.”

“That could be it,” Nigel conceded. “But if it is, were the yellow flowers a sign of hope or a sign of warning?”

No one had an answer to that.

 

8

AFTER SEVERAL HOURS
of riding, the group reached the outskirts of Scriptoria, a town near the Sea of Life. By then Hudson had eaten all his fruit and felt hungrier than ever. Charlotte was right about the compliment fruit. It tasted great, but it wasn't filling.

Charlotte and Hudson dismounted from the unicorns, gave them their thanks, and headed toward the town. As they walked, Charlotte took Hudson's backpack from his shoulders and sifted through his things. “I need the disguise paste so I can change my appearance and hide this blue lotion. I'm too conspicuous with it showing.” She pulled out the tube from a pocket. “And you'll need to alter yourself, too, so you blend in better.”

Hudson held up his hand. “The last time you changed me, I was turned into a bird.”