“Do druids have any magical abilities I should worry about?” I ask.
“Depends! I was friends with a druid once!” says Bulan. “Well, you could say he and I were… more than friends, actually… Oh, look what you’ve done. You’ve made me miss my body.”
Mandy pats him on the head. “There, there.”
“What’s next on the list?” I say, because lamenting a centuries-past romantic tragedy is not a good ritual for a wedding.
“Right!” Bulan returns to form, all but cross-eyed as he evaluates the bullet-pointed items on the clipboard. “We need to create thewedding stage, then tackle the seating. And bring over the flowers, the catering—”
“Weren’t you supposed to be illiterate?” I ask.
“I have a highly detailed memory!”
“Great. Anyway, let’s get the pallets out first.”
“To the secret island!” Bulan shouts with a two-foot-high bounce.
Mandy claps her hands together. “Yay, secrets!”
According to Google Street View, the only thing in the middle of Frye Pond should be lily pads and frogs. Maybe mosquitoes carrying West Nile and malaria. But Fi told us to expect an oddly luminous island in the center of Frye Pond, and sure enough, that’s the spectacle we discover. It’s so mesmerizing, it initially keeps us from looking at the shoreline—and our feet. Which is how I end up banging my shin into the first of five canoes with firefly-lit lanterns affixed to their hulls.
“At least that solves how we’re getting to the magic island,” I mutter, rubbing my leg. “Let’s load up, team.”
“Check!” calls out Mandy after biting into a chocolate bar.
“We can only say check after we’ve gotten the pallets ready,” I remind her.
“Uncheck!” Mandy pretends to roll up her sleeves, then jumps into action, alternating between chewing and chattily unloading pallets to me. The two of us pack the first canoe, only belatedly realizing we’ll need to be inside them to cross the pond. As a result of our oversight, I’m forced to sit hunched, with my head twisted so far left it’s like I’m auditioning forThe Exorcist. Which is how I happen to spot the hazy form of something in the woods, ten feet deep into the trees.
Pretty much the moment I see it, the indefinable, whitish thing pops out of sight. Like, it actuallypops. What the hell?
“Did you see that?” I ask.
Mandy cranes her neck. “What, the moon?”
I shake my head. “It could’ve been a plastic bag…”
Though those don’t randomly move or pop. A ghost, maybe? Only, it didn’t remind me of the ghosts at Dave and Amanda’s wedding. I clinghard to the oars, feeling weirdly vulnerable, when salvation appears in the form of a light over the water.
“?’Ello,” calls out a voice emanating from the glimmering light. The person who the voice belongs to seems to be—
I’m sorry, it’s not a person.
Okay, that’s rude. People can be hairy. That doesn’t make them lose their personhood. But this person is ungroomed to the point of approximating a friendless primate, without a companion to pick bugs from their hair. I squint.
And, shit. It really isn’t a person. It’s Sasquatch.
So, apparently, Fi failed to mention that her venue coordinator is America’s #1 Most Wanted Cryptid.
“?’Ello,” the Sasquatch booms again. “Are you Sabby?”
“Yeah, hi,” I call back. “Are you my venue contact? Robert?”
“That’s right,” says Robert the Sasquatch, balancing a lantern on his head as he swims toward us. “Lovely to meet you, Sabby and friends.”
I check behind me once again, confirming the plastic bag hasn’t returned for an encore performance. Then I sweep my arm toward my staff in introduction. “This is Mandy and Bulan.”
“Hello!” they say.
