She shakes her head. “Do not worry. I take care of him.” She mimes swallowing a pill.
“You drugged the guard?” It’s hot that she’s so ruthless.
“Only one sleeping pill, crushed in his mashed turnips.” At my questioning look, she says, “Mashed turnips, zey are ze national dish of Aloria, very good for hiding. I once put a caterpillar in my governess’s when I was small. And ze pill, it is perfectly safe. I take zem myself, for it is hard to sleep since my bruzzer . . .” She looks down, sad. “But soon, you will find him, and I will sleep soundly once again. We shall sleep soundly togezzer.”
She smiles, and it’s like standing out on the beach, feeling the sun on my face.
The clouds roll in. I can’t help her.
I clear my throat. “Listen, I need to . . .”
“Wait!” She holds up her hand and starts across the floor. She opens the door to the toilet, then reaches behind it and takes out something like earbuds for an iPod. “Zis is ze magical earpiece I told you about, ze one which ze Alorian witch created. It will let you talk wiz ze animals—only ze animals zat once were human.”
“Are there many of those?” I ask in spite of myself. She’s so pretty that it’s easy to forget she’s crazy. I wouldn’t mind being part of her world, with talking animals and enchanted frogs. It sounds pretty there.
“More zan you would believe. Zey will help you find my bruzzer.”
Like Snow White!
“About that. I have to tell you—”
“When you reach ze Keys, you will find ze right animals.”
“How?” I shouldn’t ask. I’m not doing this. I’m not. I’m not.
“If I knew more, I would already have found him!” She crosses the room again, her shoulders a hard line, and I wonder if I’m supposed to follow her. But she goes behind the bar. I figure she wants a drink, but instead, she pulls out a piece of green cloth. She walks back and hands it to me.
“What’s this?” It’s velvet, so heavy I feel myself start to sink under its weight.
“A cloak.”
I’ve read enough books to know that a cloak is sort of a big cape, but needless to say, they’re not popular in Miami. “Why a cloak?”
“Zis is a special cloak zat will transport you anywhere you want. You must only wish it.”
“Wow.” She’s nuts, and she wants to marry me. What does that say about me?
She nods. “It is an heirloom which has been many years in my family. It belonged to my great-grandmuzzer, who was a witch. She bewitched my great-grandfazzer to marry her, and zat is how she became queen from a commoner. From zen on, she did not need ze cloak, for she had means to go where she wished. But as a girl, I played wiz it, so I know it works.”
I examine the cloth. It smells of outdoors, like a place you’ve been before but don’t remember. I wonder if Victoriana used it to get away.
It’s just a piece of cloth.
“Wherever you wish, it will go,” she says. “I only caution: Do not let others use it.”
“Why would I do that?”
She shrugs. “Smarter men zan you have been tricked.”
I decide to play along. “Okay, how does it work?”
“You wrap it around you, and zen—”
There’s a knock on the door. I jump about a foot and come down on the marble floor in a skid. I hear the dull clunk as my head rams into the Roman tub. “Ow!”
“Princess!”
“Merde!” Victoriana’s waving her arms at me, gesturing toward the tub, whispering, “He is awake! Hide!” She answers the guard sweetly in French, but the pounding continues.
“Princess!” A string of French words.
I climb inside the tub. It’s as deep as a pond, and I lie at the bottom, pulling the cloak around me as if that will keep me from being seen. Victoriana closes the shower curtain. “Un moment, s’il vous plaît.”
I lie there, hearing Victoriana’s breathing and my own. She flushes the toilet, and then I hear her footsteps toward the door. My heartbeat. I’m a dead man. The door opens.
Victoriana laughs and says something in French.
The guard replies and steps inside. I hear him, walking toward me.
I wish I was home. Oh God, I wish I was home.
And then, I am in darkness.
Chapter 12
Six swans came flying through the air.
—“The Six Swans”
Everything’s black. Cave black. I feel walls around me like I’m in a box. Or a coffin. Is that it? Am I dead? Did the guard kill me? No. Death would be drier. There’s something cold and clammy under my hip.
And there’s dripping, water dripping on my head. Drip, drip, drip. Am I in a tomb or a catacomb? It feels like something from an Indiana Jones movie. I listen. The voices, Victoriana’s and the guard’s, are gone.
I sneak my hand down to the cold, clammy thing. It’s not moss or some small, dead creature. It’s cloth. A washcloth. I feel hard porcelain beneath me, like a bathtub. But something’s different. It’s small, like a regular bathtub. I smell Irish Spring soap.
We use Irish Spring.
Am I home?
No. Not possible. I was at the hotel, seconds ago, listening to Victoriana with the guard, clutching the cloak around me, trying to hide, wishing I was home.
No.
I pull off the cloak, look up. It’s dark, but I see the outlines of familiar shapes. The indisputable truth of it hits me.
I wished to be home, and now I am.
I pull the cloak away and sit up, barely missing the leaky faucet, which pays me back by shooting water into my eye. I peek out from behind the shower curtain.
I’m home. The cloak worked.
The faucet’s dripping on my forehead. The washcloth’s soaking my jeans. The bathtub is tiny and hard. I wish I was out of this bathtub.
And then, I’m dumped onto the bathroom floor.
Cool!
I wish I was in the kitchen.
I am!
I wish I was back in the bedroom.
This is so bizarre.
But it’s happening. It’s magic. There’s magic here, magic in this cloak. Maybe there’s magic in all of it, in the world—the frog, the spell, the witches!
Maybe there’s magic enough, even for me, for me to find the frog and be with Victoriana, to live like a king instead of a shoe repair guy.
But that’s crazy. There’s no magic. I blacked out. The guard caught me and hit me in the face. I’m working too hard, not sleeping enough, stressed out. Maybe it’s all a dream.
I feel the cloak around me, soft and warm like nothing I own. I didn’t dream this. I touch my jeans pocket. The earpiece Victoriana gave me is there too. It’s real. I put it into my ear, but of course, there’s nothing to test it on.
Still, I hold the cloak tighter around me.
“I wish I was at the hotel.”
And then, I am. I blink. It’s blinding in the silent lobby. The night clerk is asleep at the desk, his hand still on the mouse, and the screen open to a site the management wouldn’t much like. The fountain is off, and the swans are in their house.
I sneak over to the parrot’s covered cage and remove the canvas covering. If the cloak works, then maybe . . .