am pretty good with languages—I’ve been taught all my life. But even I’m not perfect.”
Despite Viola’s oh-so-humble proficiency, Barclay still felt silly for not noticing. Even when they’d passed such a diverse array of people on Sycomore’s streets, he hadn’t considered why he’d never overheard any words he couldn’t understand.
Finished with the treats, Viola began rifling through a bowl of gold pins.
“How could you possibly need more pins?” Barclay demanded. Her coat was already covered in them.
“Mitzi likes them. They keep her from nipping at my ears.”
The shop owner rushed over and, to Barclay’s surprise, gave the two of them a deep bow. Barclay had only ever seen someone bow when they asked a partner to dance. Given that the shop owner was very old and bald, except for a few white hairs that sprouted from behind his ears like onion weeds, Barclay hoped he wasn’t asking Viola to dance. For her sake.
“M-miss Dumont!” he sputtered. “I didn’t know you’d be paying a visit. Anything! Anything you could want! No charge!”
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Buchholz,” she answered calmly while Barclay gaped. “I couldn’t.”
“But of course you can! Tell your father that I absolutely insisted, and—”
Viola pulled a coin purse from her bag and thrust a gold piece into the man’s hands. “I’d rather tell him that I insisted.”
After finishing with her, the man turned to Barclay. Except instead of saying anything, he crinkled his nose and hurried back to his counter.
“What was that about?” asked Barclay.
“That? Oh… He’s just very polite,” Viola answered.
“To you, maybe,” he muttered.
That was how it went in nearly every shop. Viola purchased new treats for Mitzi. (“The Buzzerbeetle juice and apricot flavors are her favorite,” she told him.) And the owners tried to gift her bundles of additional items she didn’t need. She also bought herself a new scarf because she claimed her old one still smelled like worm belly, but she walked out with a free pair of mittens as well. Meanwhile, all Barclay got was a few disgusted looks and an uneasy half smile.
Next she and Barclay roamed the shelves of a cramped bookshop.
“It’s not just politeness. Why does everyone treat you like you’re a princess or something?” Barclay asked. “And why do they treat me like I have mold growing on my teeth?”
“They treat you like that because you smell bad.” When Barclay huffed with offense, Viola added, “It’s that charm you carry around. It reeks like skunks.”
Barclay didn’t realize it smelled even when it was in his pocket. He must be used to it. After all, Dullshire had such charms everywhere. The whole town must smell like a herd of skunks, and he’d never realized it.
“And I’m not a princess,” Viola continued. “My father is just… important.” As the bookshop owner passed, she ducked down behind him to avoid notice. “It’s a bit annoying, actually. I don’t want my father to hear I… never mind.”
She went back to perusing the book titles, each written in the Lore script. Though Barclay still didn’t want anything to do with Lore Keepers, he couldn’t help but look through the stacks too. Reading was his favorite pastime, after all, and he was curious what sort of collection a Lore Keeper might keep. There was a yellowed, weathered copy of An Almost Complete Cartography Collection: Six Half-Done Maps of the Wilderlands. A glossy paperback of Ghostly Beasts That Go Bump in the Night. And a leather-bound edition of A Traveler’s Log of Dangerous Beasts.
Viola pulled out the last one and flipped through its pages. The writing wasn’t printed—it was scribbled and messy, like the notes of a madman.
“I’ve been wanting to read this! The author, Conley Murdock, is famous. He traveled all across the world studying deadly Beasts. I heard he was writing a sequel, but I guess we’ll never read it now.…”
“Why? What happened to him?” asked Barclay.
“There was some kind of accident. He was eaten by the Legendary Beast of the Sea. It was front-page news in the Keeper’s Khronicle. I heard his partner barely made it out—”
“The Sea?” he echoed.
Viola laughed. “The world is a lot bigger than just the Woods. There are six major regions to find Beasts, which we call the Wilderlands. There’s the Woods, the Desert, the Sea, the Jungle, the Tundra, and the Mountains. Six Wilderlands, six Legendary Beasts.”
Truthfully, Barclay had only heard rumors about such places in books. They must have been very far away indeed. The Woods had always seemed endless to him—an entire world to its