The Demon in the Pastry Shop

29: The Song You Can't Sing

The longer she thought about it, the more she wanted to slap him. Kit had never slapped anyone in her life, but she was premeditating a slap right now.

Her chains dragged across the wooden floor as she paced the short walk her shackles would allow her.

Wherever he got the information about her marriage, it was either sorely lacking or he interpreted it wrongly. But source was beside the point! Whatever knowledge he possessed, he came at her with it as if she was intentionally hiding her marriage from him. Like she was ashamed of the fact! And then.

And then.

Kit crossed her arms and huffed.

Luca must be a really terrible person if you're cheating on him with me.

Even if he didn't know what he was talking about -which she sincerely hoped he didn't or else she might be premeditating something other than a slap- to sully Luca's character was the lowest of the low.

Kit sat back down and stared so hard at the shackles that had been Silus', chewing on her lip that she didn't notice the person watching her from the other side of the bars. When she caught the figure lingering in her periphery, she jolted and pressed a hand to her heart, exhale in a shudder.

"You really don't talk, do you?" the sprite spoke up, curling her fingers through the checkered bars. Like many sentient beings in the In-Between, she had a human-looking form. She had two ox-horns on the sides of her head, drooping down like the sad ears of a dog. Her eyelashes were just as long and droopy. Her neck, shoulders, arms, and hands were covered in the hairy hide of an ox.

Which made the black feathers growing from her cheek and along her fingers seem out of place.

"But she still asked you to sing?" she supposed, her brown eyes like the plush dirt of a garden. She shifted on her hooves over a step. Kit saw the pretty brown shapes coloring her forehead.

Kit nodded to her question. The Ox Sprite with shimmering blue-black feathers looked very, very sad even on the other side of this jail cell. Kit thought she should be nice.

"The song you can't sing must be better than any song you could play then, I guess," the Ox Sprite sighed.

Kit shrugged.

"I refused to sing too. I was too embarrassed because I knew I sounded horrible. Miss Lolona didn't lock me up though. But I know now refusing was the wrong choice. The price I pay for staying and not complying is too high," her eyes fell to the baby feathers poking out of her skin where they shouldn't. She glanced at Kit, her eye framed through the bars, "it wasn't out of pride that you refused though, isn't that right?"

Kit nodded. She hated questions that were phrased that way. Because yes, that was right. No, it wasn't out of pride. She could only use her head to communicate. It made things difficult.

"It's not that bad here," the Ox Sprite assured her, though it sounded like she was telling herself more than telling Kit, "it's a much better-" she tore her face away from the bars to cough, snapping over at the waist as she wretched out tiny feathers that floated to the floor once she hacked them out of her lungs.

They were growing even inside her. Kit watched in horror. Was this to be her fate?

"Once you can sing or play something, Miss Lolona will let you stay and do whatever you want in the Land of Captivators," the Ox Sprite said after she regained herself. Solemnly, she turned her head to the side and picked out another small feather from under her tongue. Her eyes flicked back to Kit, "but you would never be able to sing, I think."

Kit nodded her head.

"I don't know what she would do then," the Ox Sprite considered, tapping her bottom lip, "maybe she would set you free. But more likely, I think... I think she might do to you something far worse than this."

A couple years ago, Luca bought a television. It was a brand new invention from the Ace of Sciences, a technology shared and scattered across the In-Between. The ruler of some realm took up the mantle of broadcasting the news across the In-Between. They showed celebrations, ceremonies, and sometimes they would even cover disasters.

Luca and Kit sat in front of the television when they broadcasted the day an entire city was destroyed by a gigantic beast from the Fissure. Luca left after the first minute, saying that he would read it on the next newspaper instead. But Kit watched it. Kit watched the reporter in the midst of the chaos, fire raining down and buildings being swallowed whole with people inside. People somewhere far away. Far away, but still being eaten.

The threat of Miss Lolona and the appearance of this cryptic Ox Sprite felt like getting stuck in front of the television, unable to look away but instead hypnotized with a horror that gripped her entire body. The Ox Sprite became the reporter coming to give her the cold, hard facts of her demise.

"I volunteered to assist Sheriff this month," the Ox Sprite whispered.

Kit was drowning. The words came to her thick and muffled through the water. There was no meaning to them.

The Ox Sprite looked around and pulled her hands from the bars into her body, "I have a copy of the keys."

Those words had meaning. Those words grabbed Kit by her shoulders and shook her. She held out her gaze like a microphone to her reporter and crept to the furthest extend of her chains. Her breaths, bated.

"Yes, yes, I think I will," the Ox Sprite nodded to her, taking her ring of keys off her belt quietly and lifting them to the doors, "I'll free you, silent songbird. You'll be made to sing for no one."