chapter 4- pied piper

“Okay what’s your talent to win a prize,” I shifted nervously.

Calida shrugged and I felt my anxiety intensify.

“I can win it,” I muttered.
My mother had made me commit several poems to memory as a child. The vendor, Randolph, was a fellow countryman of my mother’s. I had memorized several poems written about their homeland.
I rattled one off without a second thought.

Randolph smiled imagining the sea foam slapping a weathered cliff face. In the twinkling of a moment I wondered if it was somewhere I’d ever see.

He gave me a quiet nod of approval. With a peppy jolt Calida grabbed her flute.
Her head turned and she winked at me. She started walking the way we’d come down the line of vendors. I didn’t follow immediately. A crowd was building by those booths. The party was in full swing. I almost said something but it was too late. She planted herself in front of Lauchlan’s bakery booth. I was only a couple steps behind. That’s when she started to play her new flute.

The smooth tones carried throughout the room. The higher pitches flowed into the low ones with an angelic ambience. The crowd began to gather around her playing. I could feel my self go slack jawed.

The faint raise of her brows and the twitch at the edges of her mouth gave away that she was smiling boastfully. I heard mumurs of admiration rising above the crowd. The length of Calida’s skirt spun as she danced to her own tune. The last note echoed as I watched a coiling blonde curl circle around her spinning body. I watched her curls knock into her sides from the abrupt stop. There was a roar of appreciation from everyone around us. I felt my spirits lifting with the crescendo of applause. Then my eyes locked on Oormi from across the crowd. Her face was darkened with disapproval. I might have not been an expert lip reader yet. I could easily make out what she was saying.
“Bewitched”

The noise of the crowd fell away in my mind. Calida placed in my hand a box of fudge and cherry nut nougat she’d won. I just held it blankly as everything blurred around me. Still the only thing I could hear was the word bewitched over and over again. Flashing in my mind’s eye was Calida leading all of court as the pied piper. All of us entranced by her music. Following her to our ruin. The more I watched the imaginary image in my head the more I began to believe Oormi. I felt the hair on my neck prick upwards as Calida smiled up at me as we stood dead center in the swarm of people.
——

My glass of elderflower lemonade clinked against my teeth as I choked on a gulp.

Calida’s flute came out of her mouth so she could silently laugh at me. I sputtered on juice that had gone down the wrong way.
“Why do you keep doing that,” I coughed out in irritation.

“Doing what?” She mouthed flipping her hair over her shoulder and smiling at me.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I tried to mimic the short tune she had been playing.

She shook her head no but the way her brows lifted and mouth curled suspiciously I didn’t believe her.
I went to say something but she quickly started playing again. This was a normal tune and I relaxed into my seat. After a couple sips of lemonade I reached for the knife. I overshot the slab of cake I was cutting, and ended up with a comically large piece. The extra large slice plopped on to my plate. The tune Calida was playing on her flute quickly changed.

I’d noticed in the past weeks that Calida used her flute for more than just music. Various members of court had their own theme song. When we’d discuss them or when they’d enter a room she’d play each person’s tune. For my sister, Alara, Calida played the royal fanfare. For the King she played a regal waltz interlude. Oormi conjured up a classical rendition of a thunderstorm.

A couple days ago it came to my attention she’d added a new tune to her repertoire. We’d been walking back from dinner. Passing through the conservatory a little glimmer of reflected moonlight caught my eye. It was a lost ring. As I bent over to pick it up I heard a loud ping. Straightening back up I almost immediately realized the some metal loops on my corset-back dress had burst off. Calida smirked and that’s when I heard her new melody for the first time. It was the same royal fanfare that was trumpeted when a monarch or the like entered a room. However, she’d altered the key. Each note of the fanfare was trumpeted out in a way sounded comical, like an elephant walking. Hearing the botched version of the royal fanfare I rubbed my stomach consciously. I tried to stop thinking about the night I’d burst my dress. However, it was hard with Calida playing those same notes over and over again.

I sunk my fork into the fat slab of cake that had started her playing the offending tune. The longer I listened the more I started to imagine what the screwy rendition of the royal fanfare could be insinuating. As the melody continued I could picture myself on a palanquin. The servants holding it up straining under the weight of carrying me around. With each note I could see another treat passing my lips and weighing it down more. I quickly shook the thought from my mind. I shoveled up a bite of cake almost out of habit. Calida’s incessant playing made me hyper aware that each bite was another step towards overflowing a palanquin. I found myself unable to stop. The entire slab of cake disappeared into my lips. I found myself hacking out an even bigger piece. To my dismay Calida was still tooting out the elephant version of the royal fanfare. Almost fueled by the dissonance building my chest I gobbled down the cake faster.

“Are you calling me fat?”
Cake crumbs speckled my lips and my breathing was uneven from the way I was eating. Calida stopped dead in her tracks, and I realized my tone was unnerving. She didn’t mouth a reply, she just shoved the flute back into her face after a couple seconds. She began to play a song instead. I heard a loud clank. I hadn’t even realized how forcefully I’d been holding my fork. Slowly it dawned on me I’d released the fork when she changed her tune.
I slumped into the chair feeling dizzyingly over stimulated. That’s when there was an angry pounding on the door. Calida stopped playing. Then, in her regular unruly fashion Oormi burst into the room. Visible irritation rippled over her face when she caught a glimpse of Calida and then my mostly demolished cake. I heard her mutter
“Typical,” under her breath. I braced myself. If I wasn’t so heavy she probably would have lifted me up by my collar when she yanked it.
“You said you’d deal with Kacia,” her hot breath so close the smell of cider stung my nose.

“Alara was supposed to tour the south coast but winter storms set in and she didn’t sail out in time,” I groaned

I’d had every intention of asking my sister to take Kacia as part of her entourage on that trip.

“Fix it,” Oormi demanded.

“I can’t exactly control the weather. Sailing is out of season for the winter,” I squirmed.

Oormi’s grip tightened on my collar, “find a way to fix it.” She let me go and I craned my body away from her. In her usual blustery fashion Oormi stormed out. Calida gave me a worried look and I shrugged. It was time to go talk to my sister.
——

“ Ice singers,” Calida shifted her face curiously.

I nodded, “They are one of the King’s favorite performers. It’s kind of like figure skating.”

Calida scrunched up her nose, “Isn’t it too warm to skate on the ice?”

I gestured down the hill to the lake where a crowd was forming “It’s complicated, but you’ll see.”
Deep down I felt relieved that I wasn’t the sovereign. This was an event I would have liked to skip. If I didn’t have to deal with Oormi I would’ve avoided coming out here at all. Maybe it wasn’t just events I wanted to avoid. The trees, now sparse of leaves, were decorated with white lanterns. Out away from the crowd under a tree I spotted Arthur. His body was arched like a French curve as his back leaned against the tree. Curved in opposite was Kacia. I felt my stomach twisting as I saw her teasing a curly coil of his hair.

“No wonder Oormi’s livid,” Calida spun around to face me so I could read her lips. I looked at my feet after noding. Icy dead grass crunched under my shoes. I heard trumpeters play the royal fanfare. I saw Calida peek over at me as if on cue. I self-consciously crossed my arms over top my stomach and she immediately looked away.
The King parted the crowd first. I found myself admiring icicle like diamonds on his collar. Alara followed behind him. Her ears were draped with icicle shaped gems to match. She had a white train that went up to her face. It almost seemed like a blue and white blizzard flurrying around her bodice. The royals had a raised booth for watching the frozen lake. Once they took their seats the crowd began to buzz with excitement.

Hearing the royal fanfare had caused frustration to bubble up in my chest. I looked over at Calida as if staring at her might help me discern a motive for the strange way she conducted herself. She looked up at me with a gentle expression. Almost as if to proclaim her innocence. I noticed she was shivering. Then she shuffled over squishing into my side and I felt the shivering stop.

It was almost annoying that I was no longer annoyed. I glanced through the crowd. One perk of keeping Calida around was improving my lip reading. I could eavesdrop from far away. A skill that would not be neglected while I was at court. My eyes danced from noble to noble hoping I might visually eavesdrop something about a far away trip. I had no such luck.