The Snarled Circle Chronicles
13. March the Nine and Ten of Crows
With the "imp-festation" throwing the world into a panic, complications arise for humans and changelings alike.
I. When the World Grew Noisy
Roderich was not going to cower in the corner. He was not going to let this pass and endure the pain afterward. He was not going to sit idly as he normally did, waiting for the world to cater to him with creamy cakes and shiny shoes. This was an emergency. This was a matter of survival. This was the time for his dark passion to rise from the shifting sands and strike down the dastardly foe encroaching his territory.
He kicked the burly farmer in the back of the shin, then with a running start, threw himself on his back and brought the two of them crashing to the ground. Straddling the man between his scraped knees and snagged stockings, he arched his back and wriggled his right hand over the man's chest. He was hiding the prize in his breast pocket! There were bulges!
The man cursed and gripped one of Roderich's wrists. He pushed himself back onto his knees, but Roderich was clamped around him like a hissing madman. He swung his long legs around and locked them tightly around the farmer's middle. Then he jerked his free hand around the man's chest again and clawed at the breast pockets. He felt the ultimate prize just within. A rectangular shape — a bit rough on the edges where it was wrapped. His fingers explored the edge of the pocket, then darted within.
They hit the paper, soft and grainy, and another kind of paper. There were at least two of them. Stressing his elbow and fighting the man's grip on both of his arms, he shoved the hand fully inside the pocket and grasped them. Both emerged just as his opponent fully shook him free. Roderich fell backwards and crashed into the empty table, prizes flying from his fingers and landing with a beautiful slap-slap on the ground in front of him.
Two bars of soap. Honey-scented.
He flipped around and scuttled forward to scoop them back up, but the farmer stooped down and smacked his hands away with a discarded leather glove before taking both of them and walking off. The young master's wrists and cheeks were equally red. His fingers were grimy and slippery from reveling in so much soap over the past fifteen minutes. This had been the last table in the marketplace, and he'd barely made it in time.
He stood up, pulling his stockings up to his knees and raking his fingers through his hair. His coat weighed heavy on his shoulders, perhaps because every pocket was loaded with bars of soap, not including the bars concealed in his trouser pockets and the one he'd stuffed into his cravat. His toes were pinched from the bar he'd broken in half to stuff into his shoes. Huffing, he wiped his spectacles with a greasy cloth and placed them back on his nose.
"Have enough soap?" Eliza asked from six feet away. "You know we came here for salt."
"I need soap."
"You have soap at home."
"Not nice soap."
"You are the pettiest boy I've ever met. It's going to take you years to use that much soap. You know other people need it too."
"It's not like the supply will run out."
"Then why hoard it!?"
"Because times are uncertain, and if that means I'll be shut up at home for a while, I may as well be overprepared."
"Times are uncertain. Right. And how is soap going to save you from something that wouldn't care less if you'd scrubbed yourself raw?"
"A clean image brings clear confidence."
He repositioned the bars melting around his toes and set off again through the crowd of angry hoarders punching and tackling each other with even more raw fury than the graceful little ostrich boy strutting with his beak in the air. Eliza followed with Otto looking over her shoulder. She'd dressed him up all cute in his gown and socks for the afternoon out — even if it was just for this array of tents and tables offering emergency supplies — which even Roderich was abusing.
The main pavilion had been set up in Birngarten's park that morning, after it was announced the whole region would be going into quarantine within the next week or so. It was permissible for the head of the household to go out for whatever supplies were needed, but most businesses would be shut down until further notice, and no children were to be out and idle in the streets. The people were advised to be particularly cautious in rural areas, and especially around forests, where the imps could disguise themselves as animals and attack without warning.
Soap was not as rare a commodity as salt, but it was scarce here. The women had taken the pies and the pastries and cakes. New clothes and toys for children were readily dispatched to entertain the homebound little ones. And of course, there were the wards, effective or not. Eliza was sure half of those scissors were silver-hewn, which would shock the imps, but never scare them away. And the iron charms she did see were misshapen and coated with rust.
"Well, you're fussy today," she said, pinching Otto's nose. The little one scrunched up his face and struggled in the confines of her arms. His cheeks were all red and wrinkled from crying. He sneezed, and again, Eliza took out her handkerchief and dabbed his lips clean. "I'm so sorry you have to miss your nap. Your cousin is a stinker who thinks only of himself."
"Eliza!" Roderich called from several rows away. "Come tell me if these are real!"
"Hey, kid, have you been stealing other people's soap?"
Eliza pinched her brows together. She could easily silence this place with a flick of her wand, but that would cause even more hysteria to burgeon among the gathered. A little salt, a little offering of custard and cake — that's what her own witchy mother had taught her before she died. It was about respecting the creatures rather than aggravating them. No, changelings were not friends. But they weren't complete monsters, either. They had their own intelligence, even if it was a twisted one.
But she supposed one would sooner take a raucous, misbehaving child slathered with mud than an uptight little master who had inhaled a bar of soap.
Or was it the other way around?
Nonetheless, defense against the dark fae was usually limited to a taking a few important precautions, none of which included stuffing one's pockets full of cleaning supplies.
Roderich had just finished being so annoyingly prickish to the event's moderator that he backed off to break up another fight over milk. Eliza joined the petty boy at last, with Otto a bit more complacent now that she'd given him a small chocolate treat.
"Are these real?" Roderich asked, pointing to the array of charms and bracelets out on the table before them. "This man tells me they're iron."
"Did you try them with your ring?"
"What about my ring?"
"That ring is iron, isn't it? If these charms are iron, they should be attracted to it."
Roderich shrugged and waved his right hand over the charms. Not one of them moved.
"There you have it. They're not iron, and you don't need a charm when you already have that ring. As for you, sir," she said, addressing the vendor, "don't be peddling things like these. They give false assurance. And please be informed. Basil smells good to them. You want daisy leaves and St. John's wort. If you boil those and leave the mixture on your doorstep overnight—"
"What are you trying to tell me, lady? That you know more about imps than I do? I've axed three of them. Edelstein knows that. Don't you?"
"I've signed so many forms in the past few months I can't remember who is who in the kill count," Roderich slurred, fidgeting with his ring. "Come, Eliza, this place makes me uncomfortable. I'll make us some cake back at Edelweiss."
She stamped her foot, and Otto dropped his chocolate. "No! We came here for salt, and we're getting salt! Even just one can of it to sprinkle on that windowsill you keep moaning about! Do you want me to help protect you or not?"
The thick, dark eyebrows scrunched in their signature angle of disgust, but Roderich quit his fidgeting and squared his shoulders like a rooster puffing out his chest.
"Where are we going to find salt in this absolute travesty? It had to be the first thing everyone took this morning! Thanks to my aunt's absence and Otto's tantrums, we only just arrived!"
"I want to go home! Want go home! Hungry!"
Otto was bawling again. He squeezed around Eliza's neck and gripped with tiny fingers until it hurt. His little chest heaved on her shoulder with each grating cry. Between a cranky toddler and a cranky man-boy-child, even her steely nerves were unraveling. She petted Otto's hair and bounced him up and down, but it only made him spit up on the back of her dress. Roderich was glaring at his cousin's unruliness with the purple gleam of death. An invisible and intangible scythe of a tail was twitching and rising from the back of his soap-filled coat.
"Okay. I have an idea. Roddy, follow me."
She ignored the customary "It's Roderich" and bit her tongue so she wouldn't reveal how much that name sounded like he was gargling gravel. Loosening her grip on the shaking, coughing child, she turned on her heel and marched right toward the edge of the pavilion, dodging a few miscellaneous flying Hermanns and Karas in the process. Roderich's shoes made a squishing sound as he tromped beside her. His neck was half-coated in soap scum, and he was sneezing from the sheer amount of basil and mint and other useless aromatics floating through the air like confetti.
"Where are we going?" He asked when they had left the site entirely.
"We're going home like you two want."
"No salt?"
"Do you want salt?"
"Yes," he grunted.
"Then dump all that soap out and fill your pockets. Hurry. I think the patrol circles the place. They already filled the empty space from this morning."
They had reached the edge of the eerily quiet city of Birngarten, having passed by all six memorials left to the lost children. Each looked relatively the same — a rain-stained daguerreotype surrounded by fresh spring flowers and a washed-out epitaph drawn in chalk upon the concrete. They were accompanied by a memorial to an adult — Frau Seidel, who had been an ancient mother of seven and the city's kindest reading tutor. Her stunned body was found crammed in a closet after she appeared to have devoured an entire barrel of fish and preached with putrid breath to her students. She deemed the entire memorial unnecessary, as she had recovered and felt fine, but it was "symbolic," the city told her, and she grew to accept it.
She set Otto down and got on her knees. The little one instantly started flapping his hands and crooning in his fiendish toddler way. Eliza cupped handfuls of salt from the two-foot-thick line and stuffed it in her dress pockets, then folded her apron and began to fill it until it bulged.
"Help me," she barked at Roderich. "I knew we were going to end up doing this. That's why I wore an apron. We're not the only ones stealing it."
She watched Roderich stand there hesitant. He had deflated and now rocked on his heels with his hands splayed out like he had absolutely no idea what to do. Then, with a little grin, he consolidated his soap into fewer pockets and his armpits, then bent down and filled the remaining pockets with salt.
Something rough spiked him in the left cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eliza's pink smirk growing on her face. Furtively, he took a pinch of salt and flicked it back at her. She squealed when it got up her nose, then laughed at Roderich's hands, which were all sticky with soap and salt. His slippery feet had slid completely out of his shoes, which oozed yellow chunks of grimy goop. His cheeks turned rosy, but he wiggled his toes and found the strength to smile at his own silliness.
"Maybe too much soap," he admitted.
"So the mighty Rod-er-icccchhh finally understands!"
"Are you mocking me?"
"No, it's just that hard to say."
"When my accent is so much prettier than yours?"
"It may be the only pretty thing about you."
He raised his brows at this, but was distracted when a bar of soap slid out of his armpit and got its soggy paper soaked with salt. If only it were sunny today. Then maybe he'd see his new friend smiling in the heavenly golden beams again. He'd almost finished writing out the piece she'd inspired, only to stow it away in the piano bench when he was required to sign more paperwork.
Für Eliza
"Where's Otto?"
The two looked around wildly and nearly panicked before they saw the toddler at least a hundred yards in front of them on the road toward home. His little footprints were set cleanly in the space between the salt they'd carved out.
"You know, Roddy, I think tight rear ends run in your family."
"What? Why would you say something like that!?"
But she had already hoisted up her skirt and bounded after Otto with her apron full of salt, laughing and beckoning him along. Roderich was about to follow when he froze in place. A patrolman was standing right behind him. The shadow fell on his dreamy smile and crushed his stinging tail.
"Did you and your girlfriend just steal all that salt?"
"We're not the only ones doing it—"
"I should hope a notary would know better. Come with me."
"I'll balk for no one but the imp who torments me, thank you very much," he clucked snidely. Then he bolted off toward Eliza without shoes, the rest of the armpit soap coming free. His stockinged feet squelched in the mud, and with his weak heart, he was breathless within forty feet. The patrolman leapt after him. Roderich reached toward the others, but could no longer see them in the distance. That was funny… shouldn't they have been close? Otto on his short legs especially.
"Time for me to sweep you off your feet!" Came Eliza's voice from above him.
Roderich's stomach lurched. The feeling of a hundred tiny bubbles popping against his skin and pushing him off the ground manifested instantly. He squealed as he floated away from the mud and the grass only to plop down on Eliza's broomstick hovering thirty feet up. Otto was folded into her stomach with his tiny hands gripping the handle, and Roderich ended up gripping for dear life around the witch's chest.
She sighed before giving the straws a little heel kick and speeding off back toward Edelweiss.
"I suppose I told you not to look there."
II. When the World Grew Quiet
If Gilbert had feathers, he'd be puffier than a pigeon in the rain.
His mind was in a fog so thick that everything looked the same — gray, soupy, and constantly radiating. The very air seemed to vibrate, as if only a cool, hazy mirage of the reality were at hand. The world was one of airy lightness. If plucked, the fibers of existence themselves would float away and dissipate like clouds, leaving behind an uncertain void. Truth was laughable when the grand scheme of things could not be seen. And even moreso when it could be seen, and the anxious buzzing of mankind rendered it a beautiful disaster.
Every movement was automatic. Boots tromped through the puddles without weight, and fists swung through the prickly mist with invisible strength. Phantom ears twitched at the slightest noise, and phantom fingers grasped and clawed at the air. The world had gone quiet, but nothing could be louder than Gilbert's heart pounding in the center of his chest.
It pounded even louder when he saw Ludwig scraping salt off the sidewalk.
"No!"
Ludwig turned to give his brother a look. The grains of salt shifted through his fingers and spilled back to the concrete. The few who dared to be outside gave Gilbert, within Wilhelm, the same questioning look. He rushed over and scooped up the little boy in his arms, clutching him close and fighting to catch his breath after that little scare.
"Luddy, you can't do that here," he whispered into the boy's ear with the fakest of smiles suturing itself to his cheeks. "You can't part the salt for me when there are people around."
"Bwada, hungwy,"
"I know. I'm going to get you that sweet roll you wanted, okay?"
"Yay."
He held the child close against him for support while he navigated the ghostly streets. Hanging from every doorframe was a pair of scissors that shocked his nerves even from a great distance. On every idle wrist was a bracelet woven from dried herbs that to a changeling's senses stank up the whole street. Wind chimes clanged in the morning breeze with a frequency painful to the trained magical ear.
Shuddering and achy, he tried his best to hold his head up high and play pretend. This village was the smallest and remotest and closest to home, and still the mantra of "home safety" had infected every sentence uttered by its inhabitants. Good old slogan marketing — for the sake of human rights, which everyone everywhere supported wholeheartedly and unquestionably. Not one of them realized even a fraction of these wards would frustrate a changeling enough to keep it away.
Well, no, that was a moot point. One still held together like a drop of blood in the ocean.
"You sick?" Ludwig asked, his little eyebrows scrunched in worry.
"Allergies," Wilhelm smirked back.
"What dat?"
"It's when your body doesn't like something. Mine doesn't like… the mold in the grass."
A flicker of sunlight broke through the clouds and bounced off the blades of scissors being compared by a few men in front of the pub. Gilbert caught the glimmer and melted, his muscles losing all rigidity and his vision flashing for a second. Ludwig squealed when his brother squeezed him even tighter and fought to stand back up on quivering legs.
"This sidewalk is so slippery! Isn't it, Luddy!?"
"Want down. Want down."
"I'll let you down if you promise not to steal the salt."
"Why?"
He pushed his hand over Ludwig's mouth and grinned so wide his lips hurt. "Answers later, my chirpy chick." He then set him down to bound about through the fog.
Food and supplies. He needed food and supplies. Enough to last until this whole crisis was forgotten. It had been over a year already in the thick of it. Perhaps more and more changeling children were being born from the cursed shadows, and maybe they all needed homes where they could fill themselves with food and love. With society more aware of them than ever, maybe they were resorting to more than their mischievous nature allowed when it came to swapping into households.
But we don't hurt kids, Gilbert told himself right after he smelled a whole garden full of herbs and sneezed all over his jacket. Fritz totally murdered people at some point, but not kids. I could still be called a kid, and I owe my life twice to him. He saved me from humans, and he saved me from myself. He was the reason I'm only knee-deep in all this shit and not neck-deep like all the changeling kids without homes or families right now.
"Wilhelm, you shouldn't have that kid running around outside. We've been in quarantine for ten days."
Ten days!? Has it been that long since I came to get supplies!?
It was Thomas Senior, the printer. He patted Wilhelm's shoulder and scrunched his nose at Ludwig now racing freely around the empty town square. The boy's clothes were dirty, Gilbert thought. Yesterday he'd taken eagle form to hunt outside the salt rings surrounding all major settlements, and the reversion to fairy form had taken so much energy he had only the strength to make a meal and skip the chores.
"Is this a real quarantine, or are the young people just using that as a slang term?"
"We're in the middle of an international crisis, so yes, it is a real quarantine. We're supposed to keep children inside and refrain from traveling out of town. You're welcome to stay with us. My son Thomas is Ludwig's age, and Reina can make any old stockpiled potato delicious."
Wilhelm felt his stomach growl. Even this body was losing weight. He shivered and looked to Ludwig, who was now tugging on his pant legs and peering up with his blue eyes hot in annoyance.
"I'll think about it. Lud and I are hungry right now, so that's our priority. Is Adela's bakeshop open?" He had begun to walk even further into the town square. An enormous pot of herbs was positioned at the center — filled with creeping vines and delicate, moist spring flowers of purple, red, and pink. The noxious odor entered his lungs and burned until he was fighting not to claw at his chest. His fingertips flickered crimson, and he shoved both hands in his jacket pockets. All at once, his body felt warmer. The blood rushed into his head. A distinct prickling grew just behind his ears and in the gums of his teeth. Sweat pooled on his brow despite the cool mists of morning.
"I don't think you understand what's going on here. You can't take your little brother to the bakery for a treat. Adela's not even making treats. She's making essentials — loaves and rolls and not much else." Thomas said, catching up to him.
Wilhelm caught the sight of the iron charm dangling around his neck and jumped to his left, stumbling before catching himself. He sucked in a breath and broke into a coughing fit. The muscles in his chest seized up in pain. He pulled his left hand out and scrutinized it. The flesh looked pale and pinched. Everything was growing hot and tingly just beneath the skin. His vision swam a bit as he scrambled to find his footing. The air was poison, and the buildings were iron. One breath too deep, one touch too strong…
"She'll have a sweet roll for Ludwig. I promised him one."
"Are you okay?"
More had begun to eye the scene now. Mostly men — out to satisfy their restlessness or on a quest for supplies themselves. Wilhelm stared at the ground, then searched the area for Ludwig. Where was he? Where could he be? Oh, right, just below him. Holding his shaking hand and looking frightened.
"Don't be scared, Lud. I'm fine. Big brother is fine. It's just allergies."
"You need to lie down?" Asked Peter, the chicken farmer. He held a hand out, and Wilhelm got a whiff of his bracelet. He clamped his free hand over his mouth when he felt his empty stomach start churning.
He ignored the offers and jerked out of the arms of the men. Then he grabbed Ludwig and flew off down the intersecting avenue. Adela's bakery was at the very end of it. If he could just make it there before the burning in his chest grew too intense… Just ignore the fact that he was definitely being followed by some paranoid patrons of the village…
He lost his balance and slammed headfirst into an invisible barrier created by the line of salt on the ground. There was barely enough time to flip himself over and roll on the concrete with Ludwig still clamped tightly against his chest. The boy screamed. When Wilhelm came to a stop on his side, he wrestled his way out of his brother's arms and ran toward the door of the bakery, stooping only briefly to start scraping the salt out of its uniform streak.
Wilhelm coughed. "Lud, no, don't do that. You can't. Ludwig!"
The power of his anguished voice conjured a wind that whisked all the salt out across the empty street.
"Bwada! Up! Get up!"
Wilhelm cursed, then wrenched himself up and shuffled in an awkward dance to avoid all the mini-barriers up to the front step of the place. He knocked three times before pushing on the door and stumbling when Adela pulled it open from the inside.
"Wilhelm? What are you doing here? Why is Luddy upset?"
Wilhelm bristled in pure frustration. "Just, just, ach! I'm starving! And Ludwig wants a sweet roll!"
She stood idly a moment before her face lit up in horror. "Do you feel sick?"
"No, I'm not sick! I just have allergies — Are those muffins!?"
He snatched one right up from its pan and stuffed it into his mouth, shuddering in sudden pleasure. The warm, buttery, spongy texture was absolutely divine on his dry tongue. Oh, and there was another flavor, too! Very tart, but sweet enough for comfort. It exploded in his mouth, making his cheeks and palate tingle with delight.
And then tingle a little more… painfully… until his throat was burning…
Shit! The red currants!
Wilhelm seized his neck and coughed, spewing muffin everywhere. He gasped, but his throat was burning and swelling like it was on fire. Already a patchy, itchy rash was blooming on his paling skin. His legs felt weak. His head weighed a ton. His stomach flip-flopped, and his whole body was boiling.
Adela sprang into action, grabbing Wilhelm's shoulders and shoving him toward an open trap door behind the counter. "Get in the cellar, right down through that door," Adela growled. "Yes, you, Wilhelm, get down there. Do what you need to do. Ludwig, here, have a muffin. You look sick yourself, sweetheart."
He heard Ludwig crying out for him, but he could do nothing to assure his little one. In the cellar were sacks of flour and spices and the very devils that bewitched him — the red currants, which were poisonous to creatures of darkness. Gilbert flopped down on a flour sack and wrapped his arms around his middle. The fever was making his muscles twitch. The skin of his hands started bubbling and warping on its own. Pressures erupted in his bones.
No, I can't. I can't lose this shape. It's strong. It protects me. No changing! I can handle this!
But his body didn't respond to mere thoughts. It responded to his swollen throat and irritated sinuses. Bad air wasn't good for the body. No air was worse. The back of Gilbert's mind approved. He forfeited everything and willfully withered back to his original shape. With limited energy, each snapping bone and twisting joint was agony.
The swelling relented with his change in size. He sucked in a breath, though it was a shallow one. The rash burned all over his arms and stomach and legs, and his claws became sticky and purple when he scratched. Sniffling and aching, he lay in silence and struggled to stay awake.
He didn't know how long he'd been lying there when Adela cautiously opened the door and climbed down into the darkness with a candle in hand. All he knew was that a few bags of sugar had been emptied and something grainy was sticking to his lips.
"Don't look at me," he snarled.
"I'm not looking at you, and I don't want to know. All I want to know is why you're here."
"Because you made me—"
"No, why are you here?"
He lay in silence for a few moments, and finally it dawned on him that humans were not as stupid and ignorant as they looked. His voice was weak when he spoke, and twice as raspy as Wilhelm's strong baritone. "Because Lud doesn't like turnips, so I promised him I would get him a sweet roll."
"Do you have nothing to eat where you live?"
"I learned to cook venison. We have some berries and things stored up. But Lud doesn't like turnips. I wanted to get him something better than turnips. He would eat the bigger portions of meat I gave him, but he got full, and the rest of the meat went bad because I didn't like it. It wasn't worth trying to salt any of it. I can't digest that much salt."
"How long has it been like this?"
"Ever since they put the big salt rings everywhere. I taught Lud how to part them and fix them up for me, but he doesn't understand he can't do it in town. Where is he? Is he okay?"
He saw her eyeing the shadow of his skeletal body and enormous ears on the opposite wall.
"He's upset, but the girls are trying to play with him upstairs. My husband is making them lunch."
"What about all those men outside? I heard arguing. They saw me hit the barrier, didn't they."
"Yes."
"Are you going to take Ludwig away from me?"
The question was so small. So quiet. So hopeless and yet so full of hope. Tenderly and earnestly, Gilbert hid his face and fought back his unawesome tears.
"I will not take him away from you. I know that you have a good heart, and you want what's best for him—"
"But I want him to live with me!"
"I didn't say not living with you is what's best for him. I trust that your home is a very safe and loving place. But I'm concerned about his well-being, especially if he's not eating enough and he's seeing you sick every day. He's frightened of things he's too young to understand."
"I know. I don't want him to be frightened. That's why I came here today. I'm sick of things not being normal."
"Nothing is normal anymore."
Straining, Gilbert pushed himself up off the flour sack and bolstered himself upright with his feet on the floor. He placed his fingertips on his forehead and closed his eyes.
"You've probably figured this out already," he said, "but I have to fake my death."
~N~
I did it for posterity.
Roderich is my new favorite character to describe. He's just this schnozzy ball of pure "Os-treachery" who can be hilariously both petty and manly at the same time. Thanks historical AUs for giving me his angry side. Plus "Roderich" sounds absolutely disgusting in a real German accent, though I have yet to hear it in an Austrian one. Probably worse.
Next episode: A visit to the past in order to save the future
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net spring break day 21. Don't rEpOST and do get some fresh air!
