“We look amazing. This is just, oh my gods,where’s my phone? My party is never going to believe me when I tell them about this.’
I sheath my swords with a frown. “Charlie, no selfies. Come on. We have a job to do.”
“Who made you the fun police, Frowny Mcgee?”
The urge to spin kick Charlie’s phone into the open field next to us overcomes me but as soon as it does, it vanishes again. “What did you call me?” I whisper. I raise a hand to my face and touch my lips, my cheeks, then back to my lips.
“Oh my gods…I-I’m…frowning!” I laugh and point to my face with both hands. “Look! Do you see this? I-I was annoyed at you and I didn’t smile. I frowned. I broke my smile!!” Excitement and adrenaline roll through me and even though I want to take my new expression out for a spin, I can’t. The only thing I can do is smile. I’m just so happy about frowning.
“You did” Jaak tells me with a warm smile. “I’m proud of you.”
“How long have I been doing this? Was this my first frown? Why didn’t you take a picture?!”
“You’ve been doing it for a while. I just thought it was a thing now,” Charlie says, turning his phone in my direction. “Okay, do it again. Really put your back into it.” I frown as hard as I can and Charlie takes a few photos for me. “That’s a pretty serious frown. Good job, Meadow.”
“Thank you, thank you,” I throw my arms around him and hug him. I’m careful not to squeeze too hard. “This is the best day and this, this is a sign.”
“A sign of what?” Jaak asks.
“That we’re going to win. I’ve never been able to do this. Not ever, not once, not even when I tried as hard as I could but I did it today and you said,” I point at Charlie, “that I’ve been doing it for a while?”
“Yeah, first one I saw was in the basement. I didn’t say anything because it’s not polite to comment on that sort of thing. Big‘you should smile more’energy. No thanks.”
I press my hands to my cheeks and giggle. “Oh my gods. My face, my expressions. They’re mine.All mine.”
Jaak rubs his thumb against my cheek. “And each of them is beautiful. I am honored I get to spend an entire lifetime seeing them all.”
I blush and Charlie makes gagging sounds behind us. I smile and take a deep breath, refocus and look us over again. It won’tdo for me to be over the moon about frowning if I never get to do it again because the world gets served up for dinner.
“Okay, okay. I’m ready and we’re set to blend right in. It’s Halloween. They’ll never guess that any of this stuff really works,” I tell them. “The plan is we go in like we talked about and go straight for the Chamber of Commerce. If anything is going down, it’s going to be there.”
My gut tells me I’m right even if I know jack about businesses, I know my intuition has rarely led me astray. Even when I was brainwashed and couldn’t even frown, I knew things weren’t right.
By the time we get to the Bitter Root welcome sign, it’s mid morning and the Halloween festivities are in full swing. I can hear the sound of a parade and band, along with the cheers of a crowd. I’m grateful to see that my decision to dress us up in costumes to hide our weapons worked. Everyone we pass is dressed in something. There’s goblins, princesses and dinosaurs, even a few random aliens. Every single storefront and street corner looks like Halloween threw up on it. There’s pumpkins and bats, witches and banners with ghosts. People stand out front of buildings holding giant bowls of candy. A group of kids runs by laughing and screaming and they’re dressed like mini versions of us. We’re going to blend right in just like I wanted. Perfect.
“This place is cute,” Charlie says, looking around but then holds up a finger. “Where are all the cars, though?”
“They’re not allowed in town,” I tell him and hold up my hands when he gets a confused look on his face. “I don’t know why. You know how cult towns are and this is definitely a cult town.”
He nods. “Yeah, okay. Every cult has its thing. No cars and capitalism, and the end of the world here, an interesting mix. Which way is the Chamber of Commerce?”
“That way,” I say, pointing to the right. “We never actually got there because it was closed last time but it’s not far.” I turn to Jaak and touch his arm. “Come on, we better swing by Mort’s and see if he has any leads on the head mage.”
Jaak nods and leads us down the street. The crowds are thicker here with more people and it sounds like we're getting closer to the parade. “It will be good to see how the young Oculus is faring now that he knows the truth of this place.”
“An Ocu-what? Octopus?” Charlie asks.
I start to explain about Mort but I stop. In front of us is Pancakes and More and the windows are all busted out. The window Jaak and I sat in front of with the painted pancakes is in broken shards on the sidewalk and inside too.
“We have to check on Dina!” I jog across the street with Jaak and Charlie a step behind me. We shoulder through the crowd and when we get inside of the restaurant my stomach drops.
“What happened in here?” I whisper.
The quaint and cheery diner is destroyed. Tables are overturned, chairs are broken and someone put the stools through the other windows around the restaurant. Condiments and menus are strewn across the floor and in the middle of it all sits Dina. She’s on the floor, head in her hands and crying.
“Dina?”
She looks up when I say her name. She looks confused to see me and then slowly gets to her feet. “Morning. Sorry, we can’t make you any breakfast today. Things are a bit of a mess.”
