Tyger Tyger (22 page)

"Is that..."

"Her toe," Finn said.

"You bit
off her toe?
" Aiden's voice was hoarse.

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time," Finn replied. "I couldn't think of any other way to make her let go of you. I didn't mean to swallow it, though. It just went down with a mouthful of water."

The toe was long and thin and had too many joints.

"It looks more like a finger." Teagan poked at it.

"Acts like one, too," Finn said. "She was holding on to Aiden with her hands and clinging onto the roots with ten of those. She'll make do with nine now."

The toe twitched and rolled over. It started to pull itself inchworm-like toward the pool. Aiden moved his feet to let it pass, but Teagan snatched it up.

"What are you doing?" Finn asked. "Let the nasty thing go."

"No," Teagan said. "I'm keeping it."

"Why?"

"In case we need it." That was the way it worked in fairy tales. You never knew what strange thing you would need. She tore off a piece of her T-shirt, wrapped the wriggling toe up tightly, and put it in her pocket.

Finn pulled Aiden to his feet. Lucy landed on his head, keening about the state of her wet nest.

"All the pools are connected?" Aiden moved closer to Finn. "That goblin lady could be in any of them?"

"That was no lady," Finn said. "It's not a word I'd use for goblinkind."

Tea found Aiden's shoe and helped him put it on. The frog people were back, croaking solemnly among themselves and pointing at Aiden.

"We'll just stay away from ponds. Can you sing, Aiden?"

"No." He rubbed his throat. "I think that water scratched me up."

"We can find our way out of this bog." Finn picked up his kit. "Come on."

Teagan held Aiden's hand, being careful to stay as far as possible from the water. The frog folk hadn't abandoned Aiden, even though he couldn't sing. They hopped along at his feet.

Avoiding the ponds grew more difficult as the path led deeper into the swampy area, where the trees looked like mangroves and the water was the color of strong tea, stained by the leaves that had fallen into it. Some of the pools were completely covered with leaves, making them impossible to distinguish from the flat, damp ground. Dark shadows, long and lithe as sea eels, moved in the depths.

At times they walked ankle deep in water when the path disappeared. Then the frog folk took the lead, splashing single file ahead of Finn, their big eyes goggling at the trees as well as the pools.

Teagan was sure that something in this swamp hunted frogs, and she had a feeling she knew what it was. They were on a relatively dry patch between two flat, leaf-covered patches when the frog folk started croaking an alarm again.

"She's back." Teagan pulled Aiden close just as Ginny Greenteeth's head rose from the leaves beside them. Aiden clung to Teagan, the frog folk huddled at their feet.

"Sing her away," Finn said. Aiden tried, but his voice was just a hoarse whisper.

Ginny Greenteeth laughed. "Your words can't touch me. I'm
Sídhe,
ain't I? Stormrider, a nightmare crawler, born to reign and rule. Your puny tune can't hurt me."

Teagan could smell the goblin woman's breath. If Ginny Greenteeth was a female
Sídhe,
it was no wonder Kyle went clubbing in Chicago.

"And born to lie," Finn said. "I expect the boyo's tune would work just fine if he could sing it out." Ginny bared her square teeth.

"It's all right." Finn took Aiden's other hand. "I won't let her get you. She'd be like a salamander outside the water. You're not afraid of salamanders, are you?"

"Maybe," Aiden said.

"Shut your mouth, toe eater," Ginny Greenteeth hissed. "I'll hunt you forever. I'll find you."

"Come get it, salamander. I'll deal with more than your nasty little toe."

"What have you done with it?" Ginny squinted at him. "It was burning, burning ... but now it's not. I called, but it didn't come back to me. What have you done?"

Teagan took the wrapped-up toe out of her pocket. It was twitching frantically.

"Is this what you're looking for?"

"Give it to me!" Ginny blurted. "I ache for it!" The toe in Teagan's hand writhed, as if it longed for its owner as much as she ached for it. Ginny's eyes fixed on Teagan.

"When I call the Dark Man, he will make you give it back. We're supposed to tell him if anyone strange comes in. He will make you suffer. He will send the pack, and they will hunt you through the woods."

Aiden trembled. Teagan couldn't shut the goblin up, not by force. But there were other ways.

"No," Teagan said. She held up the toe. "You are going to
promise
not to call the Dark Man, or tell him anything about us."

"Why would I do something so stupid?" the goblin asked.

"Because if you don't, I will swallow your toe."

"That's disturbing," Finn said.

Teagan ignored him. "Do you remember the burning? That was the gastric acid in Finn's stomach, dissolving your flesh. I'll swallow your toe and stay away from your pools and ponds until it's digested, flesh, bone, and nail."

"They'll catch you," Ginny said. "They'll rip it from your belly. They always catch the ones they hunt. There's no way out of Mag Mell for you."

"Really?" Teagan said. "I knew someone who got away. A girl."

"That girl?" She had the goblin's attention now. "What do you know about her?"

"I know how she got out." That was true. "I know how I am going to get out, too, with your toe inside me ... unless you promise not to tell the Dark Man we're here."

"You have to promise, too," Ginny said slyly. "Promise to give me back my toe."

"Careful, Tea," Finn said. "Promises always work in favor of the
Sídhe.
"

Teagan took a deep breath. Ginny Greenteeth was from one of her mom's books. Characters in those books used promises like magic. It was like a chess game, each word a piece with certain possibilities, certain risks. You had to win by thinking, by strategy.

"I promise," Teagan said carefully, "to give your toe back
if
you promise not to tell anyone we are here"—the goblin woman would think of a way around that, Teagan was certain—"
and
with your flesh and with your bones, to keep us safe, whatever comes." That last bit sounded like a promise her mom would have written into a fairy tale. Teagan was quite pleased with it.

"Two promises? No!"

Ginny started to sink into the water, and Teagan was afraid she had lost her. She pulled the cloth off of the squirming goblin toe and held it over her open mouth.

"Don't!" Ginny bobbed back up, thrashing like a fish fighting a line. "Don't." She slapped the leaves on the water, then went still.

"I promise," Ginny said, "I will not tell anyone you are here, and with my flesh and with my bones, I'll keep you safe whatever comes—except from the Dark Man himself. No one can stand against
him.
Now give me my toe."

Teagan bit her lip. Had her words been tight enough? Could the goblin find a way around them? Promises always had loopholes. It would be best to keep the toe a little longer.

Ginny started sobbing as Teagan wrapped it back up. "Please,
please
give me my toe. I didn't mean to hurt your brother. I only wanted to look at him."

"For Pete's sake, don't cry," Teagan said. "I'll give it back before we leave Mag Mell."

"Stupid girl!" the goblin said. "You're the Dark Man's meat!"

"Toss her the nasty toe," Finn said, "and be done with the game. You have her promise."

"Yes!" Ginny said. "Toss it to me!"

What would her mom have done?

"No," Teagan said slowly. "This isn't a game. It's about finding Dad and getting him out of here. I have her promise and she has mine. But I'll keep the toe until I'm sure it isn't useful anymore."

YOU treat my promise that way?" The goblin woman spat water at them. "If you don't keep yours, I'll take your brother. Fear will let me have him. I never wanted to look at him. I wanted to pull him down and squeeze him until all his bubbles came out!"

The goblin disappeared beneath the leafy surface of the water. Teagan turned to find Aiden and Lucy staring at her in horror.

"Come on," Finn said. "Let's get out of here."

"But what about what that goblin said?" Aiden asked. "Tea did promise."

"We'll deal with it when the time comes," Finn said. "That pond woman is lowborn. Reality will twist to a Highborn's advantage if they've tricked a promise out of you. But I don't think the salamander has it in her. She was spawned in mud and slime. That was disgusting, by the way."

"What?" Teagan flushed. "Threatening to swallow her toe? You swallowed it the first time."

"I barfed it up again, didn't I?"

"Teagan ate bugs once," Aiden said. "In science class."

"Worms are not bugs. And they were fried."

Both Finn and Aiden grimaced.

"For Pete's sake. I had to buy time somehow. If I hadn't made her promise, she'd have called Fear Doirich by now, and the pack would be after us."

"True enough." Finn took the lead again.

Teagan was relieved to find the ground growing firmer as they walked. They left the frog folk behind as the land rose into a sycamore wood, but without Aiden's song, they had no clear path.

Aiden tried to sing, but his voice was so hoarse that it hurt Tea to listen to it. He stopped and put his hand to his throat, his eyes tearing up. "What if bad guys come and I can't sing?"

Lucy fluttered around his head, her eyes flashing red, then took off into the trees.

"Save that voice, my man." Finn picked up a fallen branch the length and thickness of his arm. "I'll take care of the bad guys a little while."

"All right." Aiden wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Lucy appeared again, fighting her way through the air, struggling to control a beetle almost as big as her head. It was buzzing madly, trying to get away. She flew right at Aiden's face and tried to push it into his mouth. Aiden clapped his hand over his lips.

"No," he shouted through his fingers. "I don't eat gross things! Give it to Teagan!"

Lucy let the beetle go, and it buzzed away like a heavy cargo plane, dropping down low over the mossy ground. The sprite studied Aiden, her arms folded, her eyes spinning, then zipped away again.

"What's she doing?" Aiden asked.

"I think she's trying to cheer you up," Teagan said.

Lucy was back very quickly this time. She was carrying a fat, knobby berry.

"Looks like a blackberry," Teagan said. "Don't eat it, though, we don't know—" The sprite had already popped the berry into Aiden's mouth.

"Tastes like a blackberry, too," he said, smacking his lips. "Thank you, bug." Lucy did a somersault and zoomed away again.

"Let's be moving." Finn swung his club. "The farther from that swamp, the better."

Teagan took Aiden's hand. "I'm sorry I made you sing the princess song. That was wrong. It's not nice to trick people into doing things you want them to do."

"I'm sorry I..." Aiden glanced at Finn. "You know." Teagan squeezed his fingers.

Lucy came back with another berry. Aiden opened his mouth, and she popped it in, then zoomed away again.

"You could bring the rest of us some of those," Finn said when she appeared with yet another. The sprite hissed at him and went back to feeding Aiden, a tiny mother bird trying to fill up her impossibly large chick.

Eventually they left the berry bushes behind, and Lucy gave up and settled in to re-weave her nest.

"You're not going to leave me with the Dark Man, are you?" Aiden asked when the swamp was well behind them.

"Of course not," Teagan said. "Why would you even ask such a thing?"

"I heard his song while I was under the water. He said he was keeping me forever."

"Don't be silly. He doesn't even know we're here."

Aiden shivered. "His song said I was going to be ... dead here."

Finn stopped and turned around. "That's not going to happen. I won't let him keep you, boyo. We'll leave this place together."

Aiden studied him. "You promise?"

"I promise," Finn said without hesitating.

Aiden nodded.

"Besides, how would he keep someone like you? I thought you said you were awesome."

Aiden's lips curved up. "I am," he said. "Just a little."

Lucy had apparently finished weaving to her satisfaction. She took a short flight and pulled a flower off a branch, brought it back, and set it triumphantly on Aiden's head. Aiden reached up and grabbed the sprite in one hand and the flower in the other.

"No flowers." He threw the blossom away. "I'm a boy. I don't want flowers in my hair." Lucy's eyes turned dark blue.

"You're okay." Aiden set her back on top of his head. "Just no bugs and no flowers." The sprite chirped happily and spun her kaleidoscope eyes.

The landscape had changed again. Giant ferns grew beside the path.

Finn touched Teagan's arm and pointed. The trees ahead of them were different from any they had seen in Mag Mell. They twisted and twined together into the form of a ... cathedral.

Aerial prop roots, like those of ancient cypress trees, anchored each thick, woody trunk to the forest floor, twisting into fantastic flying buttresses before they plunged into the ground. The trunks that formed the walls stood so close together that if they hadn't separated twenty feet above the ground, bending and intertwining to form an arched roof, Teagan might have thought it was a single massive tree.

There was a doorway, and a well-used path leading up to it.

"You think Fear Doirich lives here?" Finn whispered.

"I don't know," Teagan said.

Up close, the trees looked even more like a solid, moss-covered wall.

"Mom painted this," Aiden said.

He was right. Their mom had painted sprites and Ginny Greenteeth, too, but this was different. This had been her favorite painting, a scene she loved.

"Fear Doirich doesn't live here." Teagan was certain of it. "But I really need to know who does. Come on." Her stomach knotted as she walked up to the open doorway.