“We won’t stop, so don’t ask,” she warned him. “They don’t like it when we do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not everyone is as progressive as you, Mr. Baker,” she said, and he knew he was being mocked. “The people of Marsyas don’t appreciate our kind.”
That surprised him. “Sprites?”
She laughed again, but the bitterness was heavy. “All magical beings, Mr. Baker.”
It didn’t take long to see what she meant. As soon as they pulled onto the main thoroughfare, heading through the village, people on the streets and in the shops turned toward the sound of the car. Linus had been on the receiving end of many looks of disapproval in his life, but never ones filled with so much hostility. People in board shorts and bikinis and rubber flip-flops turned to glare at them openly as they drove through. He tried waving at a few of them, but it didn’t do any good. He even saw a man inside what looked to be a seafood shanty reach up and lock the door as they drove by.
“Well, I never,” Linus said with a sniff.
“You get used to it,” Ms. Chapelwhite said. “Surprisingly.”
“Why are they like this?”
“I don’t pretend to know the minds of men,” she said, hands tightening on the steering wheel as a woman on the sidewalk appeared to shield her chubby, squawking children away from the car. “They fear what they don’t understand. And that fear turns to hate for reasons I’m sure even they can’t begin to comprehend. And since they don’t understand the children, since they fear them, they hate them. This can’t be the first time you’ve heard of this. It happens everywhere.”
“I don’t hate anything,” Linus said.
“You lie.”
He shook his head. “No. Hate is a waste of time. I’m far too busy to hate anything. I prefer it that way.”
She glanced at him, her expression hidden behind her sunglasses. She opened her mouth—to say what, he didn’t know—but appeared to change her mind. Instead, she said, “We’re here. Stay in the car.”
She parked at the edge of a pier. She got out before Linus could say another word. There was a man standing next to a small ferry, tapping his foot impatiently. Behind him, Linus thought he could see the faint outline of an island. “It’s getting late,” the man snapped at Ms. Chapelwhite as she approached, voice drifting over to Linus. “You know I can’t be at the island after dark.”
“It’s fine, Merle. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“That’s not as comforting as you seem to think it is.” He spat over the edge of the pier into the water before looking over her shoulder at Linus. “That’s him, then?”
She glanced back at him. “That’s him.”
“Thought he’d be younger.”
“That’s what I said.”
“All right. Let’s get on with it. And you tell Parnassus my rates have doubled.”
She sighed. “I’ll let him know.”
Merle nodded, and with one last withering look at Linus he turned and jumped deftly onto the ferry. Ms. Chapelwhite turned back toward the car.
“I think we might have gotten into something bigger than we were led to believe,” Linus whispered to Calliope.
She purred in response.
“All right?” he asked as the sprite climbed back inside the car. He wasn’t sure it was; Merle seemed to be a troublesome fellow.
“All right,” she muttered. The car turned over again, and she pulled forward as Merle lowered the gate onto the ferry. There was a moment when Linus’s stomach dropped as the gate creaked and groaned under their weight, but it was over before he could react.
She put the car in park and pressed a button. Linus startled as the sounds of gears rumbled from the rear of the car. He looked back in time to see a vinyl roof rising up and over them. It locked into place with a terrible finality. She shut the car off before turning toward him. “Look, Mr. Baker. I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“You mean you’re not always such a joy to be around? Could have fooled me.”
She glared at him. “I’m a sprite, which means I’m very protective of what’s mine.”
“The island,” Linus said.
She nodded. “And all its inhabitants.”
He hesitated. Then, “Are you and this Mr. Parnassus…”
She arched an eyebrow.
He flushed as he coughed and looked away. “Never mind.”
She laughed at him, though not unkindly. “No. Trust me when I say that would never happen.”
“Oh. Well. Good to know.”
“I know you have a job to do,” she continued. “And you’re finding out it’s like nothing you’ve ever done before, but all I ask is that you give them a chance. They’re more than what’s in their files.”
“Are you telling me how to do my job?” he asked stiffly.
“I’m asking for an ounce of compassion.”
“I know compassion, Ms. Chapelwhite. It’s why I do what I do.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
He looked at her sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shook her head. “You don’t have a file on me because I’m not supposed to exist. Arthur—Mr. Parnassus—sent me as an act of good faith. To show you how serious he is. He knows the kind of person you can be. He hopes you can be that person here.”
Linus felt a trickle of dread at the base of his spine. “How does he know a single thing about me? He can’t know who was assigned. I didn’t even know until yesterday.”
She shrugged. “He has his ways. You should use the time you have left before arriving at the island to review the remaining files. It’s best if you know what you’re walking into before you do. It’ll be safer, I think.”
“For who?”
There was no answer.
He turned to find the driver’s seat empty, as if she’d never been there at all.
“Bugger,” he muttered.
* * *
He considered doing what she asked. Forewarned was forearmed and all that, but he couldn’t bring himself to peruse the files after what he’d discovered in Lucy’s, fearing that it would only get exponentially worse. Extremely Upper Management certainly hadn’t made things any easier, given their dire warnings about how the inhabitants of the island were unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Ms. Chapelwhite had only seemed to confirm that. He wondered briefly if he’d said too much to her, or if she’d managed to peek inside the files while he’d been lying on the platform. Both seemed likely, and he reminded himself to be on his guard from here on in.
Not trusting himself to maintain consciousness, he sat with the files on his lap, fingers twitching, the urge to know what he was walking into shrinking in the face of the desire to keep his sanity firmly in place. He thought of all manner of things, from terrible monsters with wickedly sharp teeth to fire and brimstone. They were children, he told himself, but even children could bite if provoked. And if they happened to be worse than what he was imagining, he would rather not know about it beforehand in case he found himself unable to leave the ferry.