The Unready Queen Page 3

  “Mm. Worldly advice, thank you,” said Annie.

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’m operating out of the town inn for the time being,” said Hill. “Always room for a few steady hands. You boys mind your mother, now. Pleasure meeting you all.” He gave them a nod and turned to go.

  “Hi, Mr. Hill,” called a girl’s voice coming from the other direction.

  Tinn stiffened. Evie Warner and her father were making their way toward the schoolhouse. His mouth went dry. Tinn’s words always got tangled up when he tried to talk to Evie Warner. She never seemed to mind, which only made it worse, somehow. He felt suddenly that he should be doing something with his hands, but could not for the life of him think what.

  “Good morning, young lady,” Hill answered, with a tip of his boater. “Ah, Oliver. I’m glad I ran into you.”

  Evie’s father greeted Hill with a handshake.

  Evie waved to Annie and the boys. “Hi, Mrs. Burton,” she said. “Hi, guys.”

  “Hey, Evie,” said Cole.

  “Hello, hi, howdy, hi,” said Tinn, and then immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. His tongue felt enormous.

  “Lots to do today, Oliver,” Hill was saying behind them. “Lots to do! All hands on deck. We’ll be rolling up our sleeves to get that field clear. Might even recruit your little Evie by the end of the week.”

  Evie giggled. “Pretty sure I wouldn’t be much help clearing a field.” She looked down at herself as if presenting evidence. Evie was small—smaller than all the other kids in her class and most of the ones several grades younger. She had been to a doctor in New Fiddleham who said she wasn’t ever going to get much taller.

  “Hey, now.” Hill gave her a wink. “I’ve never been the biggest or the strongest either, kid. But I’ve always been a people person. That’s what my old man taught me. People are stronger together, he used to say. So make friends. Turn their strengths into your strength. That’s the secret. It means I get to recruit fine folks like your daddy and we both come out better for it in the end. Isn’t that right, Oliver?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Hill.” Oliver nodded.

  “Speaking of making friends,” Annie said, “all of you should be getting inside with the other kids now.”

  “Ah, right,” said Oliver Warner. “Have a good day at school, Evie. Remember that Uncle Jim is going to be picking you up today. Your mama won’t be back from her sister’s for a few weeks yet, and I’ll be working late with Mr. Hill.”

  “I remember. Love you, Daddy.”

  Children were filing into the schoolhouse, and Mrs. Silva had stepped outside to greet the class and shepherd the stragglers indoors.

  “Off you go, boys,” said Annie. “Have a good day, Evie.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Burton,” said Evie. “You, too!”

  The bell clanged as the kids slipped inside the classroom.

  “Your uncle’s Jim Warner?” Cole said, sidling up to Evie.

  “My great uncle.” Evie nodded. “Yup.”

  “Wait, as in Old Jim?” said Tinn.

  “The one with the apple orchard out by the edge of town?” added Cole.

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “I didn’t know Old Jim was your uncle!” said Cole. “How weird is that!”

  Evie shrugged. “He’s pretty fun.”

  “Fun?” said Tinn. “Old Jim is fun?”

  “Sure. He’s got all kindsa stories about the Wild Wood. There’s tons of creepy stuff out there. You guys have no idea.”

  Tinn and Cole shared a knowing glance.

  “My parents usually make him stop right when he’s getting to the best parts about body parts, or gushing blood, or monsters melting people with their spit,” Evie continued, “but Mom’s been away for a few weeks and Dad’s been busy, so I’ve been spending more time at Uncle Jim’s lately, and he’s been telling all his stories extra gross, just for me. It’s been fantastic.”

  “Whoa,” said Tinn.

  “Nice,” said Cole.

  “If you want, I’ll tell you some of the best ones during recess.”

  Tinn grinned broadly as they walked up the aisle to their seats.

  For the first time in a long time, Tinn felt happy. Ever since he was a baby, the story had hung over his head. Goblins tried to steal the Burton boy and replace him with a changeling, people said, but the goblins failed. The human and the monster got left together, except nobody could tell which was which—so poor Annie Burton had raised them both as brothers. One of the boys was a wicked thing. One of them was a parasite. One of them did not belong. Tinn had spent his whole life secretly worrying that he was the one. And then the answer had come.

  It had been more than a month since their adventure in the Wild Wood, since Tinn had almost drowned in the murky Oddmire and nearly died in the Deep Dark. It had been more than a month since he had learned the terrible truth: that he was a goblin changeling and not a real boy at all. His whole world had been pulled out from under him—except his family had been there to catch him as he fell. His brother and mother had come back for him. They had stayed for him. Fought for him. And just like that, the nightmare had been over.

  Now he was following Evie Warner up a row of beautifully boring wooden desks like none of it had ever happened. Tinn had come so close to losing everything and everybody he had known his whole life—he couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy now that everything was back to normal. Better than normal.

  A year ago, he could barely speak to Evie, but now—okay, he still had trouble stringing together more than a few words without stumbling all over them. But she was saying more to him lately, and Tinn could not have been happier about that.

  He slid into the desk between Evie and Cole, right at the front of the room. He and his brother usually sat toward the back, out of sight, as unnoticed as possible until the bell rang and they hurried outside. Last week, however, Evie had invited them to sit near her. She always sat at the very front because she had trouble seeing the blackboard over the other students. Evie didn’t hide herself away at the back of the room. This year, Tinn had decided to stop hiding, too.

  Tinn had spent his whole life worrying that he was a freak. Somehow, finding out that it was true had made him more comfortable in his own skin than he had been when he didn’t know. He could do this. He could be a regular kid.

  The inkwell at the head of his desk had been slightly overfilled, and it sloshed as Tinn clambered into his seat. A drop of rich black india ink dripped down the side of the well.

  “Whoops.” Tinn wiped at the ink absently with his fingers before it could spread.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Silva called, walking up the center aisle.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Silva,” the class replied as one.

  “Take your seat, please, Hana. Thank you. Hat off, Oscar. Quiet, everyone. Quiet down. Okay. We will be starting with vocabulary all this week, so please have your workbooks out.”

  As the class shuffled into their places, Tinn glanced down at his fingers. The ink had made a jet-black stain about the size of a half-dollar. He blew on it to dry it.

  “Page seven, please, everyone,” announced Mrs. Silva. “Are we all there? Good. Eunice, would you read the instructions at the top of the page, please?”

  Tinn flipped to page seven—but then froze, staring at his hand again. The mark on his fingers had spread halfway down his palm. Ugh. How? It had been only the smallest drop of ink. As he stared, the blackness crept farther, and with it grew a cold lump in Tinn’s chest. That wasn’t ink—his skin was changing.

  No, no, no, he thought. Not here. Not now.

  “Very good. Thank you, Eunice,” Mrs. Silva said. “The first word is abate. Oscar, will you please read the definition of abate out loud for the class?”

  Please stop. Please stop. Please stop, Tinn urged the sta
in, but the darkness continued expanding, wrapping around Tinn’s fingers like an inky glove. He could feel the magic prickling across the back of his hand. This can’t be happening. He stuffed his arm under his desk. His heart was pounding. Evie glanced over at him and Tinn felt sick. Had she seen? Had anybody seen? Why had he sat at the front of the class? This was a terrible idea. He needed to get out.

  “Thank you, Oscar. Very good. The next word is aberration. Let’s see. Tinn?”

  “Huh? What?” Tinn’s face felt clammy. Was it changing? Was his skin transforming right in front of his teacher, turning into shadowy obsidian like it had on that horrible night in the forest? It was, wasn’t it? She was staring right at him.

  “Aberration, Mr. Burton. If you don’t mind.” Mrs. Silva tapped his workbook. “Page seven.”

  “I—” The classroom was too hot and the walls were starting to spin. “I—” Everyone was definitely staring now. “I need to—bathroom. Please. I need to go to the bathroom. Now.” He stumbled out of his desk, stuffing the treacherous hand under his armpit as he raced out of the room.

  Three

  Tinn took deep breaths as he slid into the gap between the old supply shed and the back wall of the schoolhouse. He slumped down with his back against the cold bricks. The air was cool and earthy, and tall tufts of grass and wild daisies had grown up enough on either side to provide a natural blind in case any passersby should glance in his direction. He could still hear the quiet murmur of class in session on the other side of the wall, but it sounded far away, like it was somebody else’s world and not his. Tinn put his head on his knees and tried not to cry.

  Why was this happening now? For weeks after he had learned he was a changeling, Tinn had tried to do magic. He had fantasized about what it might be like to control it. He had stared at his face in the mirror and concentrated with all his might. In the beginning, nothing had happened. Now and then he had managed a glimmer of a tint to his hair or a hint of color in his cheeks—nothing like the wild, uncontrollable changes that had taken over his whole body in the Deep Dark. He might have quit trying entirely except that Cole told him that when he was sleeping, sometimes his ears went pointy or his toes blended in with the bedsheets. This news had made Tinn equal parts excited and nervous.

  His mother had allowed him to visit the goblins a handful of times during the summer, and with Kull’s help, Tinn had twice managed to make his face go all green, but it had been like flexing a weak muscle. The moment he stopped concentrating, he went back to looking like himself.

  The upside had been that, in the absence of any noticeable magic, his life had been able to remain more or less the same. He had been able to walk down the street with his family and start school in the fall like nothing had changed.

  Except that it had changed.

  Something inside him had shifted, and he couldn’t put it back. After thirteen years of neighbors whispering about a monster hiding among them, Tinn’s secret was about to become everybody’s news. His breath came in shallow gulps. Evie was going to find out. He would give anything not to let Evie find out.

  He lifted his head. The prickling feeling had stopped. Maybe it was over. Tinn glanced down at his hands. The left was its usual pale pink, but the right was now so dark it didn’t even look real. It looked like a hand-shaped hole in the universe. He felt ill.

  The back door of the schoolhouse opened, and Tinn stuffed both hands into his lap and tried to make himself as small as possible. Footsteps neared the shed. They paused.

  Please be Cole. Please be Cole.

  “Tinn?” It was Evie Warner.

  Tinn’s stomach attempted to fold itself gracelessly into a paper butterfly.

  “Oh.” Tinn’s mouth was bone-dry. “Hi.”

  Evie pushed past the tall grass and squeezed in behind the shed.

  “Don’t come over. I’m . . . I’m sick. You’ll catch it.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Evie.

  Tinn swallowed. “I might be.” With the way his stomach was churning, it was only half a lie. He put his head between his knees.

  “It’s okay,” said Evie.

  “It’s really not,” said Tinn. “You don’t understand.”

  “That’s true.” Evie was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you remember last year, when I was new? Do you remember the first time we talked back here?”

  Tinn took a deep breath. “Egg toss,” he said.

  “Egg toss,” agreed Evie.

  “We lost,” said Tinn.

  “We played,” she said. “You played. With me.”

  “You didn’t want to play at all.”

  “I know.” Evie kicked a dirt clod. “Rosalie Richmond kept calling me gnome and everybody was laughing. It was just like my old school all over again. So I was hiding.” She scooted closer along the bricks. “But then you came to talk to me—even though I told you not to. Because you didn’t understand.”

  “Rosalie’s a jerk to everyone.”

  “That’s what you said then, too. She made me feel like nobody. But you made me feel like . . . somebody again.”

  Tinn raised his chin. “Everybody’s somebody.”

  “And you also told me I was lucky. I’ve been called a lot of things, but I think you’re the first person to call me lucky. You said that when people call me names, at least I know it isn’t true. You said at least I know who I really am.”

  Tinn nodded. He remembered stumbling over his words a lot more than that when he said it, but he was glad it had gotten through.

  “And then you told me about . . . the stories.”

  Tinn cringed. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut. You were the only kid who didn’t call me and Cole goblin.”

  “I’m glad you told me,” she said. “Sometimes you gotta toss the egg and trust the other person is gonna do their best to catch it.”

  “We lost at egg toss,” Tinn reminded her.

  “No,” said Evie, “we didn’t.”

  They stared at their own feet for several moments.

  “I saw it,” Evie said at last. “Your hand.”

  Tinn felt all sweaty in spite of the cold bricks on his back.

  “Is it . . . magic?” she asked.

  “I guess?” Tinn closed his eyes and let the back of his head clunk against the wall. “Yeah. It is.”

  “So, it’s you, then? You’re the one who . . . you’re the . . . the G word?”

  Tinn nodded wretchedly.

  “Can I see it?”

  Tinn opened his eyes a crack to peek at Evie. She had gotten even closer. She didn’t look particularly horrified or disgusted.

  Slowly, he raised his hands.

  “That’s so neat,” she said, leaning in closer. Then she caught herself. “I mean, not neat. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s weird,” said Tinn.

  Evie held his ink-black hand in hers. “Yeah,” she said. “It is weird.” Her fingers laced between his.

  The paper butterfly in Tinn’s stomach burst into flames.

  They sat behind the school, hand in hand, staring at the back of the dusty storage shed and saying nothing for a long time. Evie finally broke the silence. “My dad got a new job.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s working for Mr. Hill. They keep going out really early and taking samples.”

  “Samples of what?”

  “I dunno. Dirt and rocks and stuff. It all seems pretty dumb. It’s nice to see Dad excited, though. He’s been all mopey and grumpy since he got fired. He and Mom keep fighting, too. She said she needed to go help my aunt in Glanville for a little while, but it’s obvious she just wanted to get away.”

  Tinn nodded. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Things are getting better, at least. And hanging out with Uncle Jim has been fun. He doesn’t baby me as much as everyb
ody else does.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re related to Old Jim. Is the inside of his house full of creepy traps and animal heads and things?”

  “Yes. It’s amazing.”

  “I knew it.”

  Tinn’s heart had gradually ceased pounding against his chest, and his head wasn’t spinning anymore.

  “Hey,” said Evie. “Your hand.”

  Tinn looked down. “Huh.” The usual color had returned to his skin, with the exception of a small, smeary ink stain across two fingers. He rubbed his palm and flexed his fingers experimentally. They felt normal.

  “Can you change like that on purpose?” Evie asked.

  “No. Well, sometimes. Not very well. I’m learning. It’s all really new. I guess I just got a little anxious in there.”

  “Think you can make it to the end of class without freaking out again? If you want, I can tell everybody that you just barfed all over yourself and it was completely disgusting and embarrassing and you ran home mortified.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” said Tinn. “I think I’ll be okay, though. I just need to stay calm.”

  “TINN!”

  Evie and Tinn both jumped as a third face inserted itself into the gap between the buildings. The owner of the face wore an expansive smile, a smudge of dirt on her chin, and a mess of dark curls atop her head.

  “Fable?” Tinn said. “How? What are you—”

  “Oh my gosh, Tinn!” Fable said, bobbing up and down on her heels in her excitement. “Human places are a-MAZ-ing. There’s a house up the road for horses, and I saw a door with a fancy, stripy pole that turned out to be a whole room for cutting hair. Isn’t that funny? There’s even a tiny little building just for pooping! Wanna see?”

  “Um.”

  “Ooh! Is this your friend?” Fable directed her wide eyes to Evie. “You’re pretty! My name’s Fable. I’m Tinn’s friend, too. Best friends. Forever. What’s your name? Hey—we’re both wearing dresses! That’s fun! Tinn’s mom sewed mine. Does your dress have the buttons in the back? Annie says they’re kept back there because it looks nicer, but I wish they were in front because I like to look at the buttons. Mine’s also got a bow on it that isn’t even tied to anything. See? It just sits there.” She turned and shuffled herself backward between the buildings to show off her bow.