Into the Wildewood (10 page)

Knot growled.

“Love you, too. Not.” She laughed at her lame pun. Knot didn’t seem to think it was funny, although who could tell with cats? And that’s when she saw the white cat curled up in the doorway that led to the back room.

Her father walked into the shop, trailing oak leaves. He leaned heavily against one of the posts of the open display floor and lifted a shoe to peel off a leaf that was stuck to the sole. “Keelie, glad you’re here. I need your help … ”

He stopped talking as he got a good look at her. His gaze trailed down from the top of her head to the tip of her gold curlicued toes. The edges of his mouth twitched. “I see you’ve got a new job, but where? I don’t recognize the, er, outfit.”

“At the Steak.” She pointed to her jersey-cow-printed vest. Then she moved her index finger to her vampire cape. “On a Stake.”

He snorted, but swallowed before the guffaw that was building escaped and, instead, coughed into his fist. “I’m very proud of you for working so hard to repay me for your boots, but I’m also going to need your help here. Until I hire a helper, you’ll have to fill in.”

“After work? No way.” Keelie protested out of principle. She’d suspected he’d need her, but she’d thought she’d have at least a few days to herself before she had to dive into the world of wood. She gritted her teeth. On the other hand, if she didn’t fight this, then maybe she’d have more time to herself when Laurie arrived.

“Okay, fine. You can tell me the details later.” Keelie shoved her leotard and yoga pants under the counter. “Do you mind if I leave these here? I’m late.”

“Sure.” Dad sounded tired. “Thanks for not making a fuss. And good luck with the job.”

“It’ll be a piece of—steak.” The job would be easy, if not for the humiliating costume. She waved goodbye and stepped onto the lane, immediately sinking ankle deep in oak leaves. Branches rustled above her and a few more leaves drifted down, as if the trees were laughing at her.

She tossed a stern look upwards, then headed to work, shuffling her feet to keep the acorns to the sides of her flimsy-bottomed shoes. It would be treacherous to walk normally around here. The hidden acorns were like marbles.

Knot sat at the shop door watching her dance through the acorns. Keelie frowned at him. “Laugh it up, fuzzy. And don’t even think of coming with me.”

He blinked up at her in kitty eye Morse code. She knew the cat. He meant, “Can, will, and you can’t stop me.”

She ignored him and hurried toward the food court area, walking as fast as she could while trying not to slip. He kept pace with her, and she noticed that people pointed at them. “That’s right,” she muttered. “No one’s ever seen a vampire cowgirl and her strange kitty bodyguard before. Stand in awe, tourists.”

The Steak-on-a-Stake booth was in the King’s Food Court, along with about twenty other colorful food vendors all squashed together. It was very much like the booths in the Enchanted Lane, except for the delicious smell of all kinds of different food.

Keelie’s stomach grumbled as she caught the tantalizing scent of roasting meat. Long lines of people overflowed into the clearing from the front of each booth. There would be no rest for the weary food servers, nor food for the hungry that didn’t have cash. She couldn’t pretend she’d missed the Steak-on-a-Stake booth: the sign that hung over the counter featured a fanged, dancing cow wearing a black cape.

Knot had vanished, thank goodness.

Between the Steak-on-a-Stake booth and the Death by Chocolate booth was a wooden fence with a narrow door marked “Peasants Only.” She pushed on the rickety wooden slats and found herself momentarily disoriented by the sight of modern-day delivery trucks parked at the rear of the shops. The illusion of the Middle Ages didn’t extend to back here, where big refrigerated metal lockers hummed.

A burly, unshaven man wearing an apron over soiled blue jeans yelled to her. “Hey you, Steak Girl, get up to the booth. You’re late. Peggy’s been waiting for you.”

Keelie knocked on the plain, metal-clad Steak-on-a-Stake door. It opened a crack and a woman with a pinned-up braid of gray hair poked her head out. “About time you decided to show up for work.” A strong, calloused hand grabbed Keelie by the wrist and pulled her into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry. I had trouble with my uniform.” Yeah, it made her nauseated.

Skinny girls in Steak-on-a-Stake T-shirts were grilling strips of meat. As fast as they could get the steak off the grill, a young man with carroty hair poking out of his hair-net grabbed the strips, sprinkled some herb-looking stuff on them from a transparent spice canister, and threw them into a two-foot-square metal serving pan that was then quickly shoved out through the serving window.

“They gave you the wrong costume, girlie. Take that cape off and grab a hairnet.”

“Hairnet?” But she gladly pulled off the cape and tossed it aside. It instantly flared up in flames.

Screams erupted as Keelie tried to stomp the flames out, then stopped, afraid her gold lamé booties would melt to her feet.

Peggy threw a pitcher of water on the flames and put them out, drenching Keelie in the process. Now she was a scorched, wet vampire cowgirl. Great.

Curious eyes peered at her from the pass-through window. The counter help were the ones who wore the vampire cape outfits with the cow-spot bodices. There must have been a bra size requirement, too, because all of the girls were bodaciously endowed.

“Get back to work,” Peggy barked, and the assembly line began once more.

A buxom blonde grabbed the tray of cooked and skewered meat that perched on the pass-through and turned to serve the customers. In the kitchen, all of the steak workers were hot and sweaty and moving as fast as they could.

Peggy ignored Keelie’s dripping outfit. “I need you to take Jimmy’s place and sprinkle the ‘rub,’ as we call it, onto the meat. Don’t touch the food, just hold it by the stick.”

Peggy shoved the canister of “rub” into Keelie’s hand and shouted to Jimmy, “I need you on the grill.” She turned to the others. “Come on people. Move it. Move it. Customers want their meat before the joust.”

Keelie sprinkled the spicy rub on the meat as fast as she could. She’d seen an identical clear plastic jar of spice at a warehouse club. In seconds she had become part of the meatmoving line, which reminded her of a cartoon factory. She had just gotten into the rhythm of it, or she thought she had, when Peggy yelled, “Come on rub girl, move it. Move it. Move it.”

Toss in a couple of swear words and she’d be convinced that Peggy and Finch were related.

Keelie shook the spice jar faster over the meat. A cloud of rub floated around her. A tickle started up in her nose. Don’t sneeze, she thought.
Don’t sneeze
. It was useless.

She turned her head to avoid the tray in front of her. Her sneeze blasted through the noise and sprayed the tray of finished meat about to go out the window.

Silence.

As if that wasn’t enough to stop the Steak-on-a-Stake production line again, a tiny meow filled the quiet. Keelie looked down. So did everyone else. Knot sat at her feet, green eyes wide and kitten-like. He placed his paw on her leg, gazed up at her, and purred.

Something was up. She could tell from the tone, because it wasn’t his usual sadistic purr, but a sweet soft purr, the kind that made you want to pet him if you didn’t know him.

Someone said “awww,” but was quickly shushed.

Peggy strode over to them, armed with a broom. “No cats. No filthy, mangy cats!” Knot’s tail twitched back and forth, narrowed eyes focused on the angry woman. His purr changed, becoming louder and more intense. Peggy lifted her arm, ready to whack.

Knot was a pain in the butt, but she couldn’t let this woman pound him with her broom. “I’m so sorry. I’ll get him out.”

Peggy lowered her broom and glowered at her. “This is your cat?”

Keelie nodded. No use denying it.

“I see.” Peggy’s face relaxed and she leaned on the broom. For a moment, Keelie was hopeful, but a second later the woman waved her hand dismissively. “Take your cat and yourself and get out of my booth.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” It wouldn’t take long to drop-kick Knot into the forest and scamper back.

“Don’t bother coming back.”

Her heart stopped. “But, but I just learned how to sprinkle the rub faster.” No fair.

“Out.” Peggy pointed at the back door. The other girls stared at her, looking about as smart as the costumed cow on the sign out front. “We have a three-strike rule. Setting a fire, sneezing on food, bringing your pet—you’re out of here, missy.”

Knot’s muscles gathered. He leaped into the serving window just as Jimmy passed the next heavy serving tray of grilled meat to the buxom blonde. The girl with the overflowing bodice shrieked as Knot appeared on the serving tray, cutting off her cry of, “We need more steak!”

Knot had landed squarely in the middle of the steak strips, tilting the tray sideways just as the blonde placed it on the serving counter. A customer wearing khaki shorts and a spotless white polo shirt jumped back, but steak grease still splattered his tube socks and white Nikes. It was raining grilled steak-on-a-stake.

Peggy’s eyes bulged. “I told you to get out of here!” she yelled.

Keelie ran, with Peggy right after her, broom in hand.

nine

Keelie was sure she’d feel Peggy’s broom on her head or her backside, but the woman had turned to run out the peasants’ exit. Keelie heard her apologizing profusely, probably to the spattered man.

She looked around wildly for Knot, then spotted him hightailing it toward the woods with a spear of steak chunks in his mouth. She ran after him, lifting her feet high to keep from slipping, then stared at the rub canister still in her hand. Now was not the time to return it.

Behind her, the crowd laughed and cheered as if the mayhem were part of the show. Keelie ran on, trying to keep Knot in sight. She slipped past the end of the shops, where delivery trucks lined a small gravel road leading to the employee parking lot.

On the other side of the parking lot, several picnic tables were grouped under a small stand of sycamores. A distant fanfare blasted the air and she heard cheering. The joust was starting. She plunked down on the wooden seat of one of the tables and dropped the rub on the grease-stained tabletop. No guests would see her here, and everyone else was too busy working. She’d be alone for a while.

Maybe Elia had cursed her. She’d been fired from two jobs in one day. But Elia wasn’t that smart. And with the dumb decisions Keelie had been making, she didn’t need a curse to make her life go bad.

She should head back to the Admin building to return the uniform, endure another fiery butt-blasting from Finch, and beg for a new job. She’d either get another post, or else Finch would outright fire her, and Keelie would have to go work at the shop with Dad for no money. She had to do that anyway.

Keelie needed a break. She’d been yelled at by just about every adult she knew, and she had to keep taking it in order to repay her father. It was all about the dollars.

Knot leaped lightly onto the picnic table and scraped his head up against the rub container, purring loudly. His mouth was shiny with rub-daubed grease. His little tongue licked out to taste it.

“Thanks to you, we’re going to be on the Most Wanted List at this Faire. Or worse—the Least Wanted.”

Knot hopped off the table and looked back at Keelie. It was as if he wanted her to follow him. “That’s great. Now you’re doing dog tricks like some kind of feline Lassie.”

He meowed and looked at the Faire buildings, then back at her.

“Okay. I’ll bite.” She had nothing else to do.

Knot led her toward the front of the Faire, stopping to let her catch up when the crowd got in the way. She thought she saw Elianard, but it was a man in a wizard costume, staring intently at a group of children. He was either a magician looking for an audience, or he was about to get his butt reported for extreme creepiness. He didn’t notice her as she passed by, but she saw that the trees above him swarmed with the
feithid daoine
. The bug fairies seemed to be having a little party up there.

Knot negotiated the crowd as if they weren’t even there. His bushy tail, its tip crooked over, was the flag that she watched for as she dodged strollers and slowpokes, her feet sore from the curlicue shoes that weren’t exactly made for sand and gravel.

They were headed in the direction of the Admin office. Keelie slowed down. She so didn’t want to go there yet. Knot stopped, swished his tail, and ran ahead on the path. The trees swayed, and Keelie thought she saw the
bhata
moving among the leaves of a low-lying branch of a nearby tall maple. She heard their excited buzzing. They were probably laughing at her outfit.

Finch had said she wanted fairies. Well, now she had them. She’d regret her words, if these were anything like the ones in Colorado.

The breeze shifted, and suddenly Keelie’s mind filled with a picture of the glowing white unicorn, tossing its head, mane flying, silvery horn gleaming in the moonlight. Again, she had a sudden compulsion to find him. The image had come out of nowhere, and with it an urgent desire to run through the woods. Suspicious, she looked around. No sign of magic—not that she knew what to look for, but at least nothing seemed out of place. Other than the stick people in the trees.

Knot seemed to be encouraging her, as if he knew where the unicorn was. Bet Dad—Zeke!—was going to love that, especially after warning her not to go near the “mythical” beast. Nevertheless, something was summoning her, and she knew it had to be him.

Knot meowed and started walking, looking over his shoulder at her.

Finally, curiosity and the insistent cat convinced Keelie she needed to find the unicorn. She stepped onto the path, hoping that Elianard wasn’t lurking around. She only had her Queen Aspen pendant with her, which wasn’t of any use against obnoxious elf lords.

In the woods, sound dimmed and the air was different, thick with the spicy earthiness of green living things. Knot walked ahead, his steps almost soundless despite the usual debris of the forest floor. She opened her senses to the trees, anticipating the flow of greenness that would wrap around her, enveloping her in its welcoming shelter.