Spelled

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Authors: Betsy Schow
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to sink again, I flailed around in the water for something to grab. My hand hit horn behind me. I grabbed it and turned in the water to see what I hoped was my rescuer. It was Kato. He hadn’t flown off and left me. I wondered if his cannonball dive was the result of a failed attempt at flight or if it had been intentional when my head hadn’t resurfaced. Didn’t matter. On my mental score sheet, I had to add a plus column.
    Rule of favor or not, I owed him my life.
    Lightning cracked through the sky, electrifying the very air. Thunder boomed as evidence of Griz’s temper tantrum. Out of sight, she screamed in rage from above. “Do yourself a favor and drown, little princess. Because that will be a much kinder fate than what you’ll get the next time I find you.”
    A light spot in the dark water caught my eye. It was Rexi’s blond head. She looked totally different with her hair plastered to her head instead of sticking straight up. “Let’s not do that again, okay?” she said, panting and swimming toward us.
    â€œSounds like a plan.” I grabbed her green sleeve and helped pull her to us. Each of us hanging on to one of Kato’s horns, we floated down the river and kept ourselves hidden under the cliff’s rocky shelf. An hour of floating later, both Griz and our hiding place were gone. The high canyon walls ended abruptly, the depth turning shallow as we floated up to a beach.
    I desperately wanted to get out of the water. My skin was beginning to resemble the withered figs. Clawing through the sand, I hauled myself onto the beach. Blessed land. I closed my eyes and savored the feel of the fine grains beneath my hands. “Thank Grimm.”
    When I opened them again, a pair of sightless, milky-white eyes held captive in a wrinkly and decapitated head stared back at me.
    â€œExcuse me,” the head said. “Could you give me a hand? I seem to have lost mine.”
    Shrieking, I scrambled back into the water—away from the grotesque head—treading over Rexi and dunking her underwater in the process.
    â€œWhat is with you?” she sputtered.
    I raised a shaky hand and pointed. “It talked. How can it be talking? It’s a dead head.”
    Rexi shoved me off her. “Obviously not too dead if it’s talking.”
    Minor details. I turned away and froggy-paddled down the shallow part a bit. “I think I’ll float a little farther downstream and find another head-free beach.”
    â€œHelloooo? A little help if you please?” the head cried plaintively.
    Against my better judgment, I looked back. While I was freaking out, Kato had jumped out of the water and gone to play on the beach. He was batting the head back and forth between his two massive paws.
    Rexi shrugged. “At least he’s not trying to eat it.”
    â€œI’m getting quite dizzy,” the head complained, the milky eyes rolling around, probably not on purpose.
    With the poutiest lips, I gave Rexi a pleading look. No effect. I switched to what I hoped was a steely yet regal glare.
    She shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t work for you anymore. Your High and Mightiness will just have to clean up after her own pet this time.”
    â€œBut I really, really don’t want to.” While claiming ownership of him earlier, this was not what I had had in mind.
    Though I’d gained fifty pounds in the form of my waterlogged dress, I reluctantly slogged up the beach again. Grimacing, I picked up the head by its scraggly, sand lice–infested gray hair.
    â€œUm, is there someplace in particular you’d like me to put you, Ms. Head?” I wrinkled my nose and held it out as far as my arm would stretch.
    â€œCall me Hydra. If you would be a dear, my cottage is just up the beach a bit.” Her milky eyes still rattled around the sockets a bit.
    My whole outlook perked up at the thought of a place to rest. It helped me combat the ick

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