16 - Murder and Other Perils of Basket Weaving

  Pelensgrad, Time for Bed

  The town smelled worse than the city. If there was one takeaway from the experience, it was that the Middle Ages were smelly. Between the sewage that flowed through the street, the horse manure on every corner, and the body odor of every person they met, Petra concluded it was even worse than the time she had scrubbed the monkey cage on 'Volunteer for the Zoo' day. She couldn't understand why anyone would want to travel to the past.

  Had she not steeled her nostrils by dealing with butt bombs her three-year-old created before she started potty training, she would have been vomiting at every foul odor to waft their way. Most of her compatriots weren't doing too well either, and Tim actually had vomited on more than one occasion. Jack was pale and could barely walk, so Annelise had to hold him on the other side. The only other person not affected was Aiden. She supposed he had burned out all his olfactory glands with all the pot he smoked. She figured that he was so used to not smelling anything that it probably didn't even register when he got a new body.

  Annelise wove them through the town until they got to a door with a stylized moon marked on the top. She was about to knock when Petra said, "Wait, I appreciate everything you've done for us so far, but why are you helping us?"

  Annelise said, "It is the way of the moon mages. We are hunted and feared, so we know what it is like to be misunderstood. When I heard you talk about what had happened, I knew that we could help."

  Petra didn't know how to put it gently, so she just went and said it. "To be honest, I have some trust issues with you. Right now, there are way more of us than you. I figured if you tried anything, I could just slit your throat. When we walk through that door, I don't know if that's true. How do I know you weren't the one who cast the spell that got us here?"

  "You saw how challenging the spell was for your friend to make us the glasses of disguise," Annelise said. "Do you think I would have such powerful magic? And if I did, why would I spend my life wenching a tavern? Powerful wizards ascend to great heights in this land."

  "Right, but still, what assurances do I have that you and your moon mage pals aren't just taking advantage of the situation and plan to ransom us off?"

  "You don't," Annelise said. "I know our time together has been short, and I may not have earned your trust, but I took an oath to safeguard those who are forced to walk at night. To help the ones who are shunned by society. There's a mighty sorceress of my order. She will know what to do, and more importantly, she has the magic to do it. I only wish to take you to her."

  "She is here? In this town?" Petra said.

  "Oh, no, she is far away, and the journey will be hard. But if there is a person who can return you to the land where you came from, it is the Mistress of the Moon. But you are free to not choose this path. I can leave you here, bid you good luck, and leave you to walk the night as you will."

  Petra turned to the others. Aiden shrugged and said, "She got us this far."

  "All right," Petra said. "Let's meet your coven."

  "It's not a coven. Just Terrance. He weaves baskets, dabbles in a little moon magic at night. Either way, his loft is quite cozy. Can sleep the lot of us if we squeeze, and he knows a shortcut through the woods north of here. Quite deadly to inexperienced travelers, but necessary if we are going to make it to the All-Seeing Tower and to my mistress."

  "Of course," Petra rolled her eyes and knew she would have to figure out some excuse not to spoon with Tim while they slept. However, the attic seemed like a better alternative than being caught by the guards who would inevitably search the town.

  They pushed the door open and filed into the basket weaver's shop. There were various forms of baskets on display, ranging from large round ones a farmer would use to gather crops to the little rectangular ones where a kid might store their rocks. Sure enough, Jonathan wandered over to the smaller ones muttering about adding them to his collection.

  There was a small table with raw materials where the basket weaver must have worked. However, there was no basket weaver. "Hello?" Annelise called out, but there was no answer.

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  "Where is he?" Tim asked.

  "I was assured he'd be here," Annelise responded.

  "Assured by whom?" Petra questioned.

  "Um...by him. I cast a spell."

  "I didn't see you cast any spells."

  "It was while you were trying to convince your son to go potty."

  Petra shrugged. It was true that she was distracted a lot by her son. Typically, if he refused to go potty, which he often did, she could lift him up and put him on the toilet. However, a man with tree trunks for arms wasn't as easy to order around. She had to use all her parenting powers of cajoling to get her son to do anything. If Petra didn't want to be shepherding a knight in yellow-stained armor, she had to pull out all the stops when the lumbering man held his crotch and danced around.

  What she didn't understand was why the kid didn't just go to the bathroom. Even when her son was regular-sized, he'd try to hold it in over going pee. He'd be watching TV, and the hand would go to the crotch as if just pinching it off would keep it in. Number Blocks , Cocomelon , and her child's favorite YouTube celebrity that Petra dared not mention by name (she called him Voldemort) could be paused. Yet Jonathan would fight going potty as if Petra were handing out edicts that all TVs in the kingdom should be destroyed.

  Now that her kid was giant in child terms, it compounded a problem that she hadn't thought could get any worse and turned it into an impending disaster. Even though Petra didn't want to admit it, she finally understood some of the hell she had put her parents through, now that she was a mother herself. Sometimes even putting on clothes would merit her kid screaming as if she had murdered a basket full of puppies, or bath time was sometimes treated as if it were a life sentence in prison. She somehow soldiered on through it all.

  It was hard because she had conflicting feelings tearing her apart about being a mother. On the one hand, she wanted nothing more than to do things like shop for summer dresses rather than scrub human feces from soiled toddler pants. Hang with her friends and talk about video games in the wee hours rather than trying to convince a kid that he should just go to sleep. A day at the mall without following around a toddler who would find novel ways to break his bones if she averted her eyes for a second.

  Then there were the other feelings inside her too. She would grin when he requested to wear pants by calling them longs. She'd beam with joy when he snuggled up to her while watching Story Bots . The first time he said, "I love you, Mommy," had made her melt inside. Frustration, joy, pain, sleepless nights, the judgment from others about how she was just another person who had screwed up her life, were all part of the package of motherhood.

  There were times she felt like she was barely keeping it together. There was this nagging feeling that somehow enforcing bedtime was somehow scarring her child for life. Sleepless nights were typical when her kid screamed like a serial killer had broken into the room even though it was merely a misplaced stuffed kitty. She even had to tackle him when he had found a fork and an electric socket.

  It seemed that most of her waking hours were spent attempting to save him from a premature demise. Her mom had rented a cabin near a freeway when he was one, and she had spent most of the time making sure he wouldn't wander out in traffic. They had gone to Yellowstone, and the kid took off at full speed toward the boiling geyser. There was even an incident at her uncle's house where he had discovered how to open the oven.

  Petra was surprised that any humans were alive at all. Being a parent of a small child felt like being an always-on-duty air traffic controller. The worst part about it was that when her friends at school would try to sympathize with her, they would say things like, "I know what it's like. I'm a dog mom."

  Petra would explode at them and say, "You know nothing of what it's like! You can't leave your kid locked up for eight hours in a cage and call it parenting!"

  She didn't make many friends in community college because she couldn't just do nothing but play video games all day with them. Yet somehow, it was all worth it. Maybe it was the way that Jonathan laughed when she tickled him. He'd cackle with glee when she chased him around this loop between the kitchen and living room. He wanted to show her everything. She could experience life through his eyes when a flower was something new and exciting.

  She'd do anything for that kid, including getting his childhood back. He was a little too young to be pulling a Tom Hanks. They needed to find their way home.

  Unfortunately, home had never seemed farther away because they eventually found Terrance. He was lying behind the counter of his shop. The man's throat was torn out, and claws had raked across his body. Terrance wouldn't be helping them anytime soon.

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