Chapter 17

Having learned at his Halloween party that Tamisin actually could control lightning, or at least summon it, Jak was even more nervous about escorting her through the fey countryside. As a person who’d proven to have real power, not only was she dangerous to be around, but she was valuable to all kinds of fey. And since those goblins at the party had seen what she could do, word was bound to have spread.

They were passing between two farmers’ fields when the first cat streaked through the hay to fall in step just behind them. Another arrived the moment they entered the forest, dropping down from a branch to land lightly on its feet and start off down the path in front of them.

It was nearly dark by then, but at the first curve in the forest Jak saw lights shining through the windows of a squat stone building with an oddly peaked roof. A picture of a large, emerald green beetle decorated a swinging sign above the door.

“Thank goodness,” said Tamisin. “I was afraid we wouldn’t reach it before nightfall.”

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” said Jak, but he wasn’t looking at Tamisin or the inn when he said it. The cats had stopped on the path directly in front of the inn and had turned to face him. With the fur on the arched spines of both cats bristling, their ears pinned back, and their tails lashing, Jak was sure they were trying to tell him something. “Maybe we should just …”

The door to the inn flew open behind the cats, revealing a manlike figure in the doorway. Wielding a broom, he darted out of the inn and swatted at the cats, chasing them off into the night. “Won’t you come in?” he asked, hustling Jak and Tamisin inside.

It took a moment for Jak’s eyes to adjust to the dim light filtering through the smoke from the fireplace, and so he was startled when a goblin appeared out of the shadows to greet them. His mottled scalp was hairless, and he had neither lashes nor eyebrows to soften the appearance of his bulging eyes. He wore dark moleskin pants and an apron over a brown shirt that was rolled up at the elbows, exposing big, muscular arms and little, short-fingered hands. Even before he spoke, the goblin flicked his tongue at each of them, tasting their scent.

“Bob, of the lizard clan, at your service,” he said, wiping his hands on his apron. “Welcome to the Green Beetle Inn. I’m the proprietor. How many people in your party?”

“Just two,” said Jak.

The innkeeper grunted and turned to survey the room. Although it was early in the evening, it was already crowded. The only unoccupied table was near that of three old women dressed in gray who sat hunched in the corner by the fireplace. Jak could tell why no one had sat at the empty table when he saw that the smoke from the fireplace always blew in its direction. “Come along, sir,” said Bob as he threaded his way between the tables.

Jak was starting to follow when Tamisin grabbed his hand and pulled him back. “Is he a goblin?” she whispered into his ear. When Jak nodded, she said, “Maybe you were right and we shouldn’t be here. If those other goblins were after me—”

Jak squeezed her hand. “We’re here and everyone in this room has already seen us. It wouldn’t do any good if we left now. Just let me do the talking and don’t let them see that you’re afraid. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

“If you’re sure …”

With Tamisin still holding his hand, Jak led the way to the table. They had no sooner taken their seats facing the hearth than she began to cough. “Did you want a smoking or nonsmoking table?” asked Bob.

“Nonsmoking, please,” Jak said, glancing at Tamisin.

“Ah,” Bob said. Taking a pinch of something from his pocket, he sprinkled it on the table. The smoke swirled and changed direction, heading into a six-inch hole in the center of the tabletop. Apparently the smoke had been coming from the table, not from the chimney. “Sorry about that. A fire elemental sat here last, and we all know how much they like smoke. Now, what will it be—a bite of supper or a good stout drink? We’re known for our bug juice. I make it fresh myself every day. Our most popular is the green beetle juice, though we also have cricket and wasp.”

“Just the supper, please,” said Jak.

Tamisin leaned toward the innkeeper. “Could we have a menu?”

Bob looked surprised. “What would we be doing with menus, I’d like to know? I can tell you what I’m serving, seeing as I cooked it. We have vegetable soup and some rattlesnake stew,” he said in a singsong voice.

Watercress salad with dressing of dew,

Fricasseed slugs with a green pepper slime,

A nice fresh puree of turtle and lime,

Skunk-cabbage rolls and some Mayapple pie,

Roasted pig snout and rhinoceros thigh,

Hair of the dog and the cat it dragged in,

Fresh rodent custard, with artichoke skin.

Tamisin was looking a little green, so Jak gave his order first. “I’ll have the rodent custard.”

“Vegetable soup, please,” said Tamisin.

The innkeeper smiled, revealing sharply pointed teeth. “Very good. I made a vat of it yesterday. And what would you like to drink? If you don’t care for bug juice, we have ale—pale, dark, or sludge. We also have cow’s milk, rabbit’s milk, and mouse’s milk.”

“Water, please,” Jak said. “For both of us.”

“Spring, river, or rain? Clean or dirty?”

“We’d prefer the clean spring water.”

“There will be a five percent surcharge for that.”

As Bob left to fetch the order, Jak turned to see who else was there. Two other lizard goblins wearing aprons bustled about, serving food and taking orders. A group of leprechauns sat at a long table in the back of the room. Jak was watching them when a voice at the next table said, “It’s my turn!”

After glancing at the three women beside them, Jak found it difficult not to stare. With their gray hair, grayish complexions, and long, sad faces, they looked alike enough to be sisters. Two of the women had empty eye sockets, and the tallest had one red-rimmed eye through which she was warily watching the thinnest woman reach toward her face. “Oh, all right!” she said finally. “You can have the eye, but I get the tooth now.”

“You can’t have the tooth yet. I just got it!” declared the shortest of the three, exposing an old, yellowed tooth in her otherwise empty mouth.

“Then hurry up and finish eating,” said the old woman as she plucked the eye out of her socket.

The woman with the tooth grumbled, then took one more bite of the bread she clutched. When she’d swallowed it, she brushed her hand across the table, pushing the crumbs into the hole in the middle. Jak expected the bread to fall through the hole and land on the floor, but it seemed to have disappeared.

Glancing at the tables behind him, he saw that there were holes in all of them. A young man wearing travel-worn clothes and mud-splattered boots dropped a crust into the hole at his table and it too disappeared.

“Here you go, miss,” said Bob, setting the soup in front of Tamisin. “And for you, sir …”

Jak sniffed the bowl set before him. It smelled deliciously mousy with a touch of rat, just the way he liked it. Picking up his spoon, he poked the green artichoke skin covering the custard, but before he took a taste, he glanced at Tamisin. “How’s your soup?” he asked.

Tamisin dipped her spoon in the soup and tasted it. “Really good, actually.” She gave his bowl a sideways glance. “A lot of things are different here from what I’m used to back home. I’m just going to have to try to get used to it.”

“I know how that goes,” said Jak, remembering how hard it had been to adjust to his uncle’s household when he’d moved in as a young kit. He’d lived with his parents before that and had never seen either one eat something that was still alive.

They were almost finished when one of the goblin waiters set two enormous glasses filled to the brim with a green liquid on their table. The waiter resembled the innkeeper so much that he might have been a younger version of the goblin. The only thing that wasn’t the same was the way he looked at Jak and Tamisin. It made Jak uneasy, and when the waiter said, “Green beetle juice, compliments of the house,” curling his lip in the imitation of a smile, Jak became more than a little suspicious.

“No, thank you,” said Jak. “The water is fine.”

“I insist,” said the goblin, his smile broadening until his face looked like it might split in two. “You won’t know what you’re missing unless you try it.”

“We really don’t want—,” Tamisin began.

The goblin’s vertical pupils narrowed and the false smile disappeared. “Around here, it’s considered rude to turn down a fine drink like this.”

Jak felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. “We weren’t trying to be rude—”

“Good. Then drink it,” said the waiter. Although he wasn’t very tall, he looked threatening as he hovered beside their chairs. He was still standing there when Jak picked up the glass and sniffed. It smelled like mud and rotting straw, although there was a hint of something acidic, too. There was no way either Jak or Tamisin was about to swallow that.

“Thank you,” Jak said, forcing himself to smile.

The goblin nodded, but he didn’t leave until a leprechaun shouted from across the room, “Waiter, another round of drinks for my friends!” Tucking his tray under his arm, the goblin sneered at Jak before leaving.

“We can’t drink this,” Jak told Tamisin as soon as the waiter was gone.

“Thank goodness!” said Tamisin, looking visibly relieved. “I thought you were going to say that I had to.”

“There’s something in it besides freshly squeezed beetles,” Jak said. “Watch what I do, then do the same. Just make sure that none of the goblins see you doing this.”

Moving his bowl so his body blocked it from the goblins’ view, Jak poured half the beetle juice into the bowl, then emptied the bowl into the hole in the middle of the table, hoping any goblins who saw would think it was the last of the custard. He kept his eyes on the goblins while Tamisin copied him, and whispered, “Don’t pour it all out at once. He’ll never believe that you drank the whole thing that fast.”

Tamisin did what he’d said and had already set her bowl back down before the waiter returned. “Do you like it?” he asked, pointing at Jak’s glass.

“It’s very good,” he said, trying to look sincere.

The waiter grinned at them again, and was about to say something else when one of the gray women called, “Over here, young goblin.” Scowling, the waiter went to her side, looking impatient while she peered into a small gray bag with her one eye. When she’d found what she was looking for, she smiled toothlessly and handed him a piece of amber containing a beetle. “That should cover the room as well,” she said.

“Yes, indeed,” said the waiter. “With change left over.”

“Are you ready, ladies?” she asked her companions. After a great deal of fuss during which they knocked over their chairs and bumped into one another, they held hands as they tromped across the room single file, the one with the eye leading the others to the staircase.

Jak yawned until his jaw made a cracking sound. When Bob stopped at their table and asked if they wanted a room to spend the night, Jak was ready to accept. After a long walk and nearly two days without sleep, he couldn’t face going out into the dark and trying to find somewhere to sleep that would be safe.

Jak and Tamisin were following the innkeeper up the stairs when Jak glanced back at the dining room. The goblin waiter stood by the stairs, watching them almost as if he expected something to happen. Whatever it was, Jak was certain that it wasn’t anything good.

Tamisin was so tired that she had to struggle to keep her eyes open, and she knew Jak was just as tired. When the innkeeper opened the door to a room, she kicked off her shoes, collapsed on the board-hard mattress, and flung her arm across her eyes to block out the light. She heard the goblin leave, but it wasn’t until she heard another bed creaking that she realized Jak was still there. He was sitting on a narrow bed on the other side of the tiny room. A wavering candle was the only source of light.

“They said this is all they had,” Jak said in response to Tamisin’s questioning look. “Do you have any money with you?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “But I doubt American money is going to do us any good.”

Jak held out his hand. “All I need is one coin.”

Tamisin shrugged and reached into her purse. “You can have it, but they aren’t going to take it. You saw as well as I did what kind of money they want, and believe me, I don’t have any green beetles in amber.”

“No,” said Jak, “but I do.” Where he’d been holding a quarter in his hand just a moment before, he now had a piece of yellow amber and the same kind of beetle that Tamisin had seen in the gray woman’s hand.

“That’s amazing!” she said, reaching for it. “How did you manage that?”

“It’s just something I can do,” he said.

“Can all goblins do that?”

Jak shrugged. “Goblins can change natural things, but as far as I know I’m the only one who can change stuff like this. You know, things that have already been made into something else.”

“What are you doing now?” Tamisin asked when Jak dropped onto his knees beside his bed.

“Looking at these beds. You were right when you said that we couldn’t stay outside at night, but we’re not a whole lot safer in here. We’re going to have to take a few precautions. Most goblins won’t give anything away unless it benefits them. There was something in that beetle juice the waiter gave us, either a poison or some kind of drug. If I’m right, we should be having a visitor later tonight, and I’m not going to let us become victims. Yeah, just as I thought … These beds are bolted to the floor so we can’t move them to block the door. If you look, you’ll see that there are no locks on the doors either. This is all laid out to make it easy for them.”

“So what do you suggest?” Tamisin asked.

Jak stood up and brushed off his hands, then went to place his palms on the door. “I can change the door like I did that coin, to start with,” he said. “I’ll make it so no one can open it.” He closed his eyes and a moment later there was a shiny metal lock on the door.

“That should be enough, shouldn’t it?” asked Tamisin.

“I don’t know,” Jak said. “Those goblins could have a dozen ways into this room and that was just the most obvious. I think we should sleep under the beds, just in case. It would be harder for them to find us there, and it might give me enough time to do something. It’s dirty, but a little bit of dirt is better than a whole lot of dead.”

“You mean he wants to kill us?” Tamisin asked, her voice rising to a near squeak.

“That’s one of the possibilities,” said Jak. “But we’re not going to give him the chance. Take that blanket off the bed. You can roll yourself up in it. I want you to crawl under the bed and make yourself comfortable. There’s no telling how long we’ll have to stay there. And whatever you do, don’t come out until I tell you to. I don’t know much about lizard goblins, but if we’re lucky, they don’t see well in the dark.”

The cobwebs and layer of dust under the bed made Tamisin glad that she had taken Jak’s advice and brought the blanket with her. Using her purse as a pillow, she curled up in the musty-smelling blanket and stared at the underside of the bed above her. She tried not to fall asleep, but after Jak blew out the candle and crawled under the other bed, the darkness was absolute and her eyes kept closing.

“When do you think that goblin will come?” she whispered to Jak.

“Probably as soon as he thinks we’re asleep.”

“Pretty soon then, huh?”

“As long as we’re quiet.”

“So what if we stay up all night talking? Do you think they’d leave us alone?”

“I don’t think I could,” Jak murmured. “I’m practically asleep as it is.”

“Yeah,” said Tamisin, “me, too.”

“Jak,” she whispered a minute later. “What will happen to us if we both fall asleep? Jak?” When he didn’t answer, she knew he had already drifted off. It was up to her to stay awake, so as long as she could manage it … Tamisin yawned and rubbed her eyes. A moment later, she, too, was asleep.

“Snake snot!”

Tamisin’s eyes shot open when someone swore only a few inches away. She recognized the voice of the goblin waiter even though he hadn’t said much. He couldn’t have found her already, could he? Thunder rumbled in the distance. Tamisin held her breath as the goblin scrambled to his feet. Apparently, he couldn’t see in the dark, because he still acted as if she was in the bed, not under it.

“What is it, Gob?” whispered a scratchier voice.

“I tripped over somebody’s shoes! It’s so dark in here I can’t see my hand in front of my face! First the door wouldn’t open, and now this. I’m glad I oiled the hinges on the trapdoor last week.”

“Shut up, Gob. You’ll wake them!”

“I put the potion in the juice. We can’t wake them. They’re sleeping like the dead.”

“Or will be soon enough,” Gob snickered. “Got your knife?”

“In my hand. Where’s the bed?”

“Ow! You jabbed my belly, you brainless flea! Stop waving that knife around and get over here. Take my hand, Hob … that’s it. The bed’s right there. I’ll go to this one … Ready? Now!”

Tamisin cowered under the bed as the two goblins hacked and slashed at the mattresses. She wondered if Jak was awake or if he was sleeping through it all. Even if the goblins didn’t wake him, surely the thunder would. It had gotten closer and a whole lot louder. The two goblins didn’t seem to hear it though, because they kept stabbing the beds as if nothing else in the world mattered. When they finally stopped, they were both panting from exertion. Tamisin was afraid to think about what would come next.

“That should do it,” said Gob. “They’ll have more holes in them now than Granny Nutshell’s cheese. We’ll have the money come morning. Let me see if this one … wait! Nobody’s here!”

“Of course somebody’s there. We just stabbed them, didn’t we? Wait a minute! This one’s empty, too!”

Tamisin could hear the goblin beside her fumbling with the bedding, trying to find her blood-soaked body. It wouldn’t be long before they started looking somewhere else—like under the bed.

Suddenly the goblin on the other side of the room crashed to the floor. “Hey!” he shouted. “Why did you trip me?”

“What are you talking about?” said the one standing over Tamisin’s bed. “I didn’t … Ow! My nose! What’s the big idea!”

“I didn’t touch you, you big baby! What makes you think …”

Tamisin heard the thud of a blow landing. “That hurt!” squealed a goblin. “Don’t think you’re getting away with that, you slippery-tongued …”

“Why you—!”

Tamisin lay under the bed, not sure what to think. It sounded as if the two goblins were fighting, but she couldn’t imagine why they would be unless … It occurred to her that Jak might have done something. He’d talked about luck and whether or not the goblins could see in the dark. If he got the two of them fighting with each other …

Voices outside the room were shouting, “What’s going on in there?” “We’re trying to get some sleep!” “Quit making that racket!”

The door flew open and candlelight from the hall lit the room. Tamisin saw Jak step behind the now-open door.

The hallway was full of the inn’s patrons, but it was one of the gray ladies who stomped into the room. She was still poking her eye in place when she shouted, “Stop it this instant, you two!” in a voice that reminded Tamisin of a gym teacher she’d once hated. The goblins drew apart, scowling furiously at each other. Neither one seemed to notice Jak.

“Bob!” the gray woman shouted into the hallway. “Come see what your nephews have done.”

“Is it safe to come out now?” Tamisin asked from under the bed.

“Sure,” said Jak. Seeing him standing there for the first time, the two goblins looked confused.

“What’s going on in here?” asked Bob, forcing his way into the room. When he spotted the ruined mattresses, he looked almost expectant, but then disappointment set in and finally anger. It struck Tamisin that he had known about the attack and had thought to find them dead in their beds. If so many of his other guests hadn’t been standing there, she thought he might still have done something awful to her and Jak. As it was he didn’t dare touch them now, so he began shouting at the two younger lizard goblins.

“Gobbledygook, Hobnob, what do you two think you’re doing?” roared Bob.

The waiters turned with a start, their mouths gaping in surprise.

“Uncle Thingamabob! We were just—”

“We didn’t mean—”

The innkeeper’s face was bright red. “Were you trying to kill a guest?” he said. “How will we get repeat customers if you kill them on their first stay? And what about the mattresses? I paid good money for them! The cost of replacing those is coming out of your wages.”

“We’re sorry, Uncle Bob!” croaked his nephews.

Bob was still scolding the two younger goblins when the gray woman turned to Tamisin and said, “Are you all right, my dear? From the look of things, I’d say you’ve had a dreadful experience. Why don’t you come with me so you can freshen up?”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Tamisin, trying not to look at the woman’s gaping eye socket. “Can my friend Jak come, too?”

“That’s okay, Tam. You go ahead. I want to make sure that we get another room.” He gave the innkeeper a look. The goblin opened his mouth to protest until he saw the faces of the other guests.

“I’ll take care of it,” Bob said.

The three gray women were very gracious to Tamisin. They let her use the pitcher of water they’d paid to have brought to their room, claiming that she needed it more than they did. While Tamisin washed the grime from her face and hands and combed the cobwebs from her hair, the old ladies sat on their beds facing her as if all three could see what she was doing. When Tamisin turned to thank them, the woman with the eye said, “You’re quite welcome, my dear. If there’s ever anything else we can do to help …”

“Tamisin, are you ready?” Jak said from the open doorway. “Bob found us another room.”

“I thought they didn’t have any others,” said Tamisin, following him into the hall. She was closing the door when she saw that the three women were sitting with their heads together, whispering. When she thanked them and waved good-bye, the one with the eye waved back, giving her a wide, empty-mouthed smile.

Jak took her hand in his. “It’s amazing how much a story can change when you have witnesses.”

Their new room couldn’t have been more different from the first. A shiny lantern glowed on a table between two comfortable beds. There was a window with curtains and, just as Jak had been promised, a real lock on the door that worked from the inside. Tamisin groaned as she lay down on the soft mattress. “This is so much better,” she said. “Don’t you think so, Jak? Jak?” She turned her head to look at her companion, but he was already asleep.

Tamisin pulled the blanket up to her chin and snuggled down under the covers. She’d been wary of Jak almost since she met him, but he had always been nice to her and had gone out of his way to protect her from the nastier goblins, first at his party and then that very night at the inn. It was foolish to distrust him just because he was half goblin. Having seen how well he could fight and how protective he was of her, Tamisin realized that she felt safe when she was around him. It was a nice thought, especially when she was drifting off to sleep.

When they went downstairs to pay their bill the next morning, some of the guests who had been there the night before still lingered in the taproom. The three gray women were seated at the table closest to the door. Everyone grew quiet when Tamisin walked into the room, but when she turned to stand beside Jak she could hear them start talking again in not-quite-whispers.

“She looks just like her.”

“I told you so!”

“I seen her once when I was a girl. It can’t be her, though. What would she be doin’ in a place like this?”

Tamisin was wondering who they were talking about when a familiar masked figure walked through the door.

“Tobi, what are you doing here?” Jak asked.

The little goblin looked relieved to see them, but all he said was, “I thought ya might like some company on the road, seein’ ya’ve got a long way to travel.”

“We need to go.” Jak cast a nervous glance at the people seated at the tables, who had all stopped talking and were obviously trying to listen in on his conversation. “Come on, Tamisin,” Jak said, hustling her past Tobi.

The cats were outside, waiting under an old oak. They stood and stretched, then fell into line behind Jak and Tamisin as they set off down the path. “We don’t want everyone knowing where we are, remember?” Jak said, keeping his voice low. “We were trying to avoid attracting attention, not wave a flag and say, ‘Look at us!’ After last night everyone who was at the inn will be talking about what happened. Soon everyone will know that we stayed at the Green Beetle. And now, with Tobi showing up and announcing where we were headed …”

“But he didn’t,” Tamisin began.

“He was about to,” Jak said, scowling.

“Hey, you two! Wait for me!” Tobi was running down the path, waving his tail behind him. “Ya left so fast,” Tobi panted, “that I couldn’t keep up. Ya always were faster than a griffin late fer dinner, Jak. Back at school when we was runnin’ races … Lookie there! Ya got cats followin’ ya. I know they liked ya on the other side, but I didn’t expect to see ’em here.”

“You were in school together?” asked Tamisin.

Tobi nodded. “Sure. Jak and me been best buds since we was young ’uns. Ya mean ta say he never told ya bout good ole Tobi?”

“No, he never did.” Tamisin gave Jak a curious look, then smiled at the raccoon goblin. “But then, I never told him about you either. Like how you followed me every day for weeks.”

Tobi grimaced. “Ya knew ’bout that? I could-a sworn …”

Tamisin’s smile grew. “And how much you like big dogs in fenced-in yards. Now, Jak,” she said, turning to face him, “I want to know: who is this ‘she’ those people were talking about back there?”