Banished (The Storymakers) by Betsy Schow

Author:Betsy Schow [Schow, Betsy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2018-02-05T16:00:00+00:00

“No matter how bright and plentiful the light, it only takes one drop of darkness to spoil it.”

—Evil Queen

19

Inkling of Disaster

Dorthea

John was pretty unconvinced by my plan. After all, how could shoes solve anything? He couldn’t understand that shoes could solve most dark days. And magical shoes—hex, I knew they could solve anything. One click, and I’d be back in Story before you could say, “There’s no place like home.”

Even though John thought I was being extra crazy, he suggested we look for the shoes in the mall—a wondrous place with endless stores. And the shopkeepers let you take your items home with you instead of waiting for the United Pegasus Service to deliver them.

There were stores that said you’d pay less and stores that screamed you’d pay more. In all, we stopped at five stores entirely devoted to shoes. If Griz wasn’t hot on our heels, I would have thought I’d gone to heaven. A heaven of, well, heels. Pumps and stilettos. Some refined, some more edgy. Heels far too tall, ones impossible for even me to walk around that mall in. I saw so many shoes the unthinkable happened. Shoe shopping got old.

There weren’t a lot of people in the stores. And the ones who were there were all talking about one thing—the tornadoes that had ripped through the downtown yesterday. Even the shopkeepers. When we could get them to stop talking about the storm and look at my picture, none had seen a shoe remotely like the pair of heels on the page. The exception was one tired girl behind the blue glittery counter of the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique. She took a second look and brightened.

“No way shoes like that would be a stock item. There’s not a chance anyplace in the mall would have them. Those slick kicks have to be custom.” She popped her gum and returned the page to me.

John rested his forehead on the counter and sighed. “So I endured hours of unspeakable torture for nothing?”

“Men,” the rainbow-haired shopgirl said and rolled her eyes. “We have the unalienable right to shop. It’s in the constitution.”

“Right next to the clause that says guys have the right to complain about it,” John muttered.

“Hush,” I said, stepping on his foot. Which wasn’t nearly as effective in sneakers. Then I asked the girl, “So where can I get custom shoes like this made?”

The girl laughed until she had to wipe tears from her eyes. “You know we are not in New York, right? Welcome to Kansas, where high fashion is a pair of stonewashed overalls.”

My shoulders drooped. “It’s hopeless then. I’m stuck here.”

“Hey, chica,” the girl said and gripped my shoulder. “I feel you. I’m just working this crappy job until I save enough to blow this haystack. Then it’s off to Los Angeles or Paris maybe.” She looked me up and down, wrinkling her nose at my button-down shirt. “You don’t seem the type, but with a design for killer shoes like that, maybe…”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.

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