Blue Hills by Steve Shilstone Page B

began, and to my surprise, the snaves cheered and applauded, slapping tentacles on the benches.
    They knew what I meant. They knew. I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so such three times. My brain sent words to convey the message of our quest to find the lavender witch, the Babba Ja Harick. Weeds and eyebrows may have sounded from my lips, but understanding slithered in the writhings of the snaves.
    â€œSocks can’t be trusted in avalanche weather,” I continued. “Never mix hutter blankets with buckletar before noon. Drink tea only while standing in the river. Jars are cleanest at sunsink. Lemony doorknobs … And so on … And so forth … And so fifth.”
    I spewed the nonsense, and the snaves cheered and cheered. I told ‘em about the frozen stiff silence and the waterwizards and the beeketbird hanging motionless in the air above my hut’s roof and about all the other bendo dreen frozen and the Chalky Grays and about Kar’s silly bird shape with its ridiculous blue plume and about the silent motionless Falls of Horn and the loss of magic and how I was there to try and bring it back. I ended my speech of gibberish with a question.
    â€œStriped pantaloons?” I asked simply.
    The snaves fell silent. Kar hisspered at me from her Dragon mouth, “What was that? What was that? What did you ask ‘em?”
    â€œStriped Pantaloons?” I whispered. “Can you guide us to the witch?”
    The snaves slithered a strange parade, each tier of ‘em moving in opposition to the tiers below and above. In the brightness of the silver blue light, it was dizzying to watch ‘em, hoops of red circling this way, that way, this way, that way, up, up, up.
    â€œSettle!” roared Kar, shooting yellow flames from her nostrils. “Snaves! We need guidance! Where is the Babba Ja Harick?”
    The snaves stopped circling and began laughing. They roared and roared with laughter, swaying bulbous heads, slapping tentacles on benches. And as their laughter soared, the floor of the stage beneath me and Kar sagged, melted, disappeared. I fell laughing. Kar fell laughing. Whump. We landed on a slick slide, and down we went, helpless with laughter, flailing wild with speeding glee.

Chapter Twenty-Three
    What Happened?
    I blinked and looked down at my sopping wet clothes. My hands rested on a carpet of pale blue grass. I raised my head and stared out over the lake to the heights of the Charborr Forest. The low sun of morning stretched my shadow on the Blue Hill. Same Blue Hill? What? Where? Kar? Where was Kar? I whipped my head around, casting a flight of droplets from the soaked tendrils of my coppery hair. Kar crouched halfway up the slope, hugging her knees, staring at me. A red Dragon no more, she was bendo dreen Kar.
    â€œKar? Am I … saying what I’m thinking?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know, Bek. What are you thinking?” she solemnly replied.
    â€œThat’s it. That’s good. The right answer. The right … answer,” I said, much relieved. “It’s so such … annoying to … have to … have to push the same … idea … three times to get it out … once. What’s it like to be Queen of the Acrotwist Clowns?”
    â€œWhat? Why ask that? Don’t you want to know what happened, why we’re here again?” responded Kar.
    â€œFirst, so said … first, what’s it like to be … Queen? Second, yes … second, what happened?” I insisted, fuddlement full well in control of my mind.
    â€œAll right, Bek. You settle and dry off. I’ll tell you first about being Queen Jebb,” said Kar, still hugging her knees, still staring at me. “I get to throw the first pie at every pie fight. I am first in line to be cleaned in the Sudser after every pie fight. So said, truth, I am first in line for everything unless I want to be second or third or last. I make the Clock watch schedule. I