The new book comes out Friday!! Thought I would share the first chapter so you could check it out! I’m weird and included footnotes in the text. You can scroll down to see them at the end of the post :)
On to the mystery of the Caddywampus….
The Arrival and Primary Entanglements
Crockett and Brontë clambered off their train in Praktisch station (footnote 1), their eyes wild with wonder. They were greeted by the welcoming visual onslaught of decorations for the city’s Finnlicht Festival, a three-day event celebrating the hatching of the local fairy light insects. Around them, the walls and stalls in the station exploded with color. Tourists bustled in every direction, their voices lilting, laughing, and bellowing as if in song. Lively banners with images of large golden bugs hung from the roof. They rippled in the August breeze, the bug images catching the light and shimmering like golden flashes of light on water. All manner of stalls were out and filled with enticements for incoming visitors. The festival drew hordes of international tourists from the surrounding region, as the German town was situated near the country’s borders of Switzerland and France.
Brontë’s eyes skittered between the little bug-themed shops, her gaze taking in maps, advertised excursions, fairy-themed toys, and the most perplexing of all, a large overweight gentleman dressed as a fairy himself. He was barking in several languages, handing out a moonshine beverage which he promised “Would make you feel like one of the bugs! Your own butt may light up!”
“It’s exhilarating!” Brontë could barely contain her excitement. She squeezed Crockett’s arm and looked into her new husband’s mismatched eyes (one of which was green, the other blue).
Crockett returned her smile; however, it was less authentic than his wife’s. His pulse was rising quickly as he took in the storm of tourists and locals; his ears rang with the squeals of brakes indicating more arriving trains. “It’s quite a lot,” he said. “Petrarch made it sound a bit more…subdued.”
Petrarch, the solicitor under whom Crockett worked, suggested their honeymoon to Praktisch when things ended at the Mayweather Estate in their previous adventure. After days of murder, chaos, decapitations, light clerical legal work, and witchcraft, they took a quiet moment in the Mayweathers sitting room to gather themselves. Brontë and Crockett were eager to travel outside of England after their nuptials, and Petrarch suggested the insect light celebration called the Finnlicht Festival. It had been hosted in the little German town for nearly 100 years, starting in 1812 when Baron Turist von Trapp saw the potential. Petrarch and his late wife attended years before and stayed at a family-owned lodge, the Deutschefaber Inn, which the lawyer described as, “a euphoric, wondrous experience.”
“The Deutschefabers are a nice family,” Petrarch continued. “And the lights! I really can’t capture their beauty with words.” After he said this, he began doing a set of jumping jacks. (He assiduously exercised, although he retained a rather bulbous body shape.)
“Guten!” A woman carrying a lantern with a small toy fairy inside drifted by Crockett and Brontë. She giggled as she pulled a lever on the contraption and the tiny sprite inside went up and down. A series of mirrors inside the machine caused the fairy’s shiny body to reflect and sparkle.
“Oh!” Brontë put her hand to her mouth in delight. “Should we buy one, Crockett? Kordelia would find it amusing, I think.”
“It may be too banal for your sister.” Crockett inspected the device. He then gave Brontë a wink. “She may prefer something which bursts into flames.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Brontë laughed and squeezed Crockett’s hand. “Perhaps we’ll forgo gifts and only send letters. That should keep everyone safe.”
They had little additional time to decide on the purchase, as the massive man-fairy stumbled toward them, nearly knocking down the woman with the lanterns.
“Hullo,” he said gruffly. “Want a drink, then?” He shoved one of his bottles into Crockett’s face.(Footnote 2)
“It’s a bit early, I think,” Crockett said, disturbed by the odd elixir. He thought for a moment. “You knew we spoke English?”
“You’ve got that pale, sad look all Brits have.” The man appeared to give up on the sale. He began drinking from the bottle he’d pressed towards Crockett.
“Do we?” Brontë felt her cheek. Although she did appear like an average Brit—long brown hair, pale skin, and hazel eyes that glowed with the faint light of a colonizer’s superiority—she was sure, in this moment, she looked flushed and overjoyed.
“Aye,” the man-fairy said. “It’s a bit of a compliment. Rather be pale and sad than Irish, as they say.”
Crockett and Brontë could find no response to this, so they politely nodded and started to press forward.
“Be careful,” the man-fairy said softly. “There’s odd things about.”
Goosepimples appeared on Crockett’s arm. Upon disembarking from the train, he felt something macabre in the air. He had suspected it was a touch of constipation from the travel, but the man-fairy confirmed it may be something more onerous.
“Why do you say that?” Brontë’s face now indeed looked pale and sad.
“The week of the festival there’s always shenanigans about…too many people—foreigners.” The man-fairy leaned in closely to them. The young couple could smell the mix of morning breath and alcohol pour from his thick lips. “But this year there’s death.”
“Death?!” Crockett felt his hand go to his heart.
Brontë swallowed. “What do you mean?”
The man belched. He dabbed his mouth with a green handkerchief he had around his neck. “There was talk of canceling the festival after everything going on. The mayor won’t entertain the idea, though.”
Brontë’s eyes roamed over the train concourse once more. This time she picked up on subtle cues she missed in her reverie upon their arrival. The carnival atmosphere was present, but there was something amiss. Vendors who beamed brightly when someone approached grew nervous when left alone. The woman selling the toy fairy lights had ceased giggling; she was anxiously speaking to a young man carrying a satchel of fairy maps.
Crockett also noticed the bizarre atmosphere which hadn’t seemed so obvious when they arrived. Droplets of sweat formed on his brow. Despite their recent adventures into chicanery and murder, he was growing fearful that some hex had been placed on them. Everywhere they went there was a trail of blood.
“Could you tell us—” Brontë started, but Crockett quickly cut off her inquiry.
“All right then, we hope you’re well. Thank you for the drink offer.” He gently pushed Brontë forward.
They didn’t speak as they walked down the platform to collect their luggage. Crockett nervously rubbed his hands together. Brontë threw a backward glance at the man-fairy, who had uncapped another of his bottles and was sucking down its contents.
“An eventful week…”
“Brontë,” Crockett tried to smile, “it may be best if we don’t inquire. With what happened at the Mayweathers, I think we need a bit of a break from nefarious goings-ons.”
Brontë flicked her eyes around the station once more. Whereas Crockett felt an impending dread upon their arrival, she had felt nothing but anticipation, a feeling that she wished to hold on to. She also prudently recognized they were far from home and separated from Petrarch, whose wisdom had guided their previous adventures. “Yes,” she said pointing to their bags. “You’re right. It’s our honeymoon, and we need some relaxation.”
“We don’t want to be like that Ms. Fletcher from Northwest Jubileeburghampton that Mr. Mayweather told us about,” Crockett added. “Everywhere she went there was a murder. By the end of it, no one wanted to invite her anywhere.”
Brontë and Crockett collected their bags and made their way to the station’s exit. The awkward tension eased as they made their way out of the central terminal and onto the high street. Crockett extended his arm and took Brontë’s. He placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Sorry I’m distracted, darling,” he said. “I just feel a bit off. It could be the travel.” He motioned to a confectionary shop which had a beautiful display of silver and gold candies. He gave Brontë a bright smile and pulled her toward the front window.
As they stood outside the shop admiring the treats shaped like leaves, trees, and little golden bugs, Crockett squeezed his wife’s hand. He turned to her with a warm, somber expression. “Is it all right if we take a bit of a break from the adventuring? I just…have a terrible feeling.”
“And it’s not constipation?” Brontë pressed her hand to his stomach. “You had similar misgivings when we were traveling through France.”
“No, I thought the same, but I think it’s plain, quotidian dread.”
“Well dread is more readily handled than stopped bowels, so I think we are fine.” She kissed Crockett on the cheek. “Besides, with you it’s all adventure, Crockett! I’d say this trip shall simply be free of murder but full of adventure.”
As if on cue, a small, smiling policeman appeared beside them and coughed to catch their attention.
“Yes, officer?” Crockett’s hand tremored with growing fear. Their involvement in whatever malfeasance occurred in the town appeared to be an inevitability.
“Guten morgen,” the man said. He spouted off a bit more German to which Brontë and Crockett did their best to express incomprehension.
“Ah!” the officer said. “English?”
“Yes, please,” Crockett said. One of the reasons Petrarch suggested Praktisch was his experience that English was understood readily. How a small town on the border of France, Switzerland, and Germany excelled in English was a mystery, but they were grateful regardless.
“Good! The English! So, I have question about death. The man who was garrgged in the square. You know?”
“Garrgged?” Brontë turned to Crockett.
“Yes!” The little man giggled as if it were a marvelous joke. “Garrgged!” This time as he said it, he made a violent choking motion. “It happen a day ago—at night. The man garrgged.” This time the officer approached Crockett, gripped Crockett’s neck, and began to lightly choke him. “You see?”
Crockett jumped away from the officer. Brontë’s mouth fell open in surprise.
“Answer ‘no,’ I think. Thank you!” The officer tipped his hat and whistled a tune as he walked away.
“Oh, dear,” Crockett said feeling his neck where the officer’s hands had been.
“Is it us, Crockett?” Brontë asked. “Did Beatrice open some…I don’t know, a curse? Who would have thought a fish could cause such trouble.”
“Some fish obviously cause more trouble than others, but a herring you’d think would be relatively harmless.”
They returned their attention to the candy shop, but their eyes lacked the guileless wonder of their initial glances through the glass.
The mood inside the store was muted as well. The old woman who owned the shop appeared distracted when they entered. She smiled and gave them the German names for the candies when asked, but the moment they turned their attention from her, she would bite her thumb and look out the front windows of the store. In the end, they exited a bit sadly, Brontë chewing on a toffee and Crockett sucking on a strawberry-flavored lollipop.
“Crockett,” Brontë said looking at a group of jovial children passing by, “why are we so upset? We’re on our honeymoon! There has been a murder, but it has nothing to do with us. We are outside its orbit, unlike our previous experiences.”
“That’s true.” Crockett perked up. He took the lollipop from his mouth. “A man was killed in town, but we are staying at the Inn. Petrarch said it’s a good walk from the city center.”
“Honestly, we’re a bit egocentric, thinking murder is following us around. It happens. People die; it has nothing to do with us.”
“Nothing!” Crockett felt calm for the first time since he’d stepped from the train. His face brightened as he added, “Misfortune is everywhere. We don’t bring it!”
“No! We embrace it and tame it,” Brontë said, suddenly feeling the brazen mystery-solving impulse rise in her. Seeing Crockett so elated at the thought of no terror or horror, however, forced her to push it down. “But… now, we simply stand aside and let others take to solving it.” As she swallowed, she consciously tried to force her curiosity about the dramatic events in Praktisch further inside.
“It will be a rather quiet, calm vacation, then.” To punctuate his statement, Crockett shoved the lollipop back into his mouth.
The candy was no sooner between his lips than a woman ran shrieking down the street. Her pale hands were on her mouth, her eyes wild with fear. She scanned the crowd and ran toward a group of children gathered around a barker on a nearby corner. She reached out and gripped one of the young boys, shaking him sternly once her ringed fists had him in their grasp. The boy, his cheeks ruddy and his eyes wide, pointed across the street to a young girl with pigtails speaking to a vendor holding multicolored balloons. The woman appeared to be the children’s very addled mother. She sighed with relief, grabbed the boy’s hand, and stormed over to intercept the little girl. In moments, the family was sprinting down the street, the mother haranguing the children in frantic German.
“That mother appears to be tightly wound,” Brontë said.
Crockett smiled with the lollipop sticking out of his mouth. “I suppose that’s understandable since someone has been garrgged in the town square. It would set me a bit on edge as a parent.”
Brontë laughed, one quick short note. “I suppose that is a rather distressing event, parent or not.”
They both stood in silence for a moment, watching the place where the woman disappeared into the swelling crowd. When husband and wife were sure the other was not looking, they allowed two different but equally frightened looks to cross their countenances.
No joke, lollipop, or frivolity could hide it. Praktisch was a place bursting with fear.
Footnotes:
(Footnote 1): The name of the German town has been altered out of convenience. The editor thought the English towns from Beatrice were cumbersome, but the name of this town roughly translated from German means “little town on the border with a light festival and a rumored monster also home to a large and very scary castle which has been converted into a prison.”
(Footnote 2): The fist-draft writer, Earhart, with his consultant, Didiert, originally had the man-fairy speak in awkward Spenserian sonnets. It wasn’t altogether terrible, but the need for them to fill out the sonnet form for each exchange meant readers were subjected to pieces of his tragic backstory, which grew rather awkward and violent.