Dust & Grim by Chuck Wendig

Author:Chuck Wendig [Wendig, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

24. meadow talk

OVER THE NEXT FEW NIGHTS, THE WATCHERS, DUSTIN, AND VIVACIA buzzed to and fro, ramping up their research, suggesting plans, and other stuff that didn’t really include Molly.

Which made Molly feel alone. And sad. And mad. And worst of all, lost. The other night in the barn, she’d felt like, okay, maybe she could help them fix this. Perhaps she had a role to play yet. It was, in a sense, like cosplay: She knew she wasn’t really prepared to fight any of these fights, but that’s how cosplay was. You put on the outfit of someone else—someone much cooler, someone way more capable—and then you played the role of superhero, or space pilot, or anime assassin princess. And if you got the outfit just right, and the attitude just so, you could almost believe it was real.

But she couldn’t pretend her way out of this one.

It was only now that she understood that any hope she’d had of fixing what she’d broken was gone—what could she do? She was in over her head. So, in her Molly costume (T-shirt and jeans), she wandered out into the meadow and sat down in the dark, amid wildflowers whose blooms and blossoms had closed up for the night.

She tried not to cry. But she cried, anyway. A little bit.

A presence startled her, and she quickly wiped away tears.

“You’re sitting amid all kinds of really cool flowers,” Marsha said behind her. “I see swamp buttercups and some hairy beardtongue and star grass and—ooh, there’s my namesake. Some skullcap. Little purple flowers. Not particularly showy, but I like them. Bonus medicinal value, if you care about that sort of thing.”

Marsha plunked down next to her. It was a movement with little grace, but Molly appreciated that, feeling very ungraceful herself, with tear tracks on her face.

“How can you see all those flowers?” Molly asked. “It’s dark out.”

“I can see in the dark.”

“Of course you can,” Molly said dully. “You have special powers. Gifts. I have…” She sighed. “Nothing.”

“You have your family.”

“I don’t have them. And they only have me because I shoved my way into their lives. And actually, it’s just Dustin. I’m not related to Viv. I am related to Gordo, who turned out to be a monster.” She winced. “Sorry. Not supposed to say that word.”

Marsha sighed. “Well, if your uncle is truly aspiring to become a Devourer”—she lowered her voice—“then that word super-duper applies.” She let out a weird little giggle.

They sat for a while, quiet. The wind swept across the dark meadow.

“So, like, I have questions,” Molly said finally.

“And I have answers.” Marsha pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Let’s hope they match!”

“You’re… I don’t know what you are. The Goodly Neighbors. Are you like… fairies? Is that a thing? Is that a rude word? I don’t want to use a slur or whatever.”

Marsha laughed another of her goofy, knee-slapper snorts. “Aw, no, it’s not a nasty word. It’s a bit antiquated but we don’t hate it. Fairy comes from fae or fey.

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