I glanced up at the windowsill. Sunshine, cloud, rainbow, and finally,finally, monkey.
It was a creepy little thing. It was meant to resemble a baby chimp, but its face was too yellow, its eyes too red. It sat hunched up with two big cymbals in its hands, clapping them together to the head-bopping beat.
Okay, I got it. Clapper.
But what really made the little monkey creepy was that voice. It was not happy at all. Wave after wave of sadness and sorrow radiated off the little fuzz ball of grief as itclacked andclacked with the never-ending power of the sun.
If you’re sad and you know it, clack, clack, clack…
“Gotcha.” I tugged it off of the shelf in such a hurry, I tipped over the rainbow and didn’t pause to right it.
Holy hells, the grief was even more concentrated now that I was holding the thing.
I knew I had to walk back across the diner. Knew I had to get the monkey to Crow so we could shove it in the box. So we could find some way to contain the curse.
But every breath was heavy. The room was going darker and darker. And I was cold.
Cold and alone.
If you’re sad and you know it, then you really gotta show it…
No, I wasn’t alone. I had Ryder with me. I had my sisters. I had this town and all these people and deities and others who made up my big, wild, vibrant family.
Plus, I had that Reed stubbornness.
I set my shoulders and turned back toward the front of the diner. Every step was like walking through deep water in the middle of a storm. Every thought was blanked out by the yelling, howling, cursing grief.
Why would anyone even want to put this kind of sorrow out into the world?
I tipped my head down and bulled forward, sweat prickling between my shoulders, under my arms, edging my hairline.
Fighting sadness was damn hard work.
I thought I’d made it at least halfway across the floor, but when I blinked away sweat to check my progress, I’d only made it about three feet.
Maybe I should rip off the monkey’s head. Would that make it stop sadding all over the place? Knowing my luck, it would increase the potency of the curse.
The three people at the table ahead of me slumped down into their breakfasts. I winced because the woman had face-planted into a stack of pancakes with blackberry jam. The white headband she was wearing was ruined.
I could do this. Ihadto do this before the sorrow spread.
“Hey, all right, just.” Crow was suddenly there, shining like a silver lining around the clouds in my head, his hands sure and strong as he turned the monkey in my hand.
“It should be… Where is the…?” He let go of the monkey.
Trying to support it was like holding a brick, except that the brick was made of lead and my arms were made of mashed potatoes.
“Maybe it’s in… Ah-ha! There we are.”
My sweaty grip was slipping. I didn’t want to let the monkey fall, didn’t want to break it in case the shattered monkey bits would spread the curse even more. But there was no way I could hold on to the slippery little jerk much longer.
Crow finally plucked the toy out of my hands. He pressed a butterfly sticker with one wrinkled wing on the monkey’s butt and dropped the toy into the box. A glob of glowing gold radiated around the monkey for a moment, then Crow pushed the lid down so fast, it farted.
“There,” he said. “That should do it.”
The light returned to the world, the sky outside brightening, the crackly old speakers humming to life with a mellow, bluesy folk song.
I blinked a couple times and took a deep breath, my pulse falling back into a lighter rhythm. It felt like someone had just untwisted a phantom vice from around my heart.
