Before the Next Wave Crashed
She was fair-skinned and red-headed- the other side of the pilings
- working on a furnace
- which is a fun thing
- Mr and Mrs Mint
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Before the next wave crashed, I clambered to the top of one of the smaller boulders. From there I made my way higher until I was clear of the surf. Hopping like a nimble parkour aficionado, I summited the rock pile and caught my first glimpse of what lay beyond. It was a lagoon ringing a beach of black sand, which in turn ringed the island’s central steep mountain. Sharp dorsal fins cut the choppy water. High above me, the zeppelin my brother had commandeered was being reeled in to the makeshift gangway.
A woman on the beach spotted me. She was fair-skinned and red-headed, like Tessa and all of her sisters. But perhaps her milky complexion was due to the grease paint of a mime. It was hard to tell from this distance. I was wary. The woman walked to a small jetty and untied an outrigger canoe from the other side of the pilings. She shoved it into the shark-infested lagoon, hopped in, and started paddling directly toward me.
When she was 10 feet away from me she stopped. “What the hell are you wearing, Jason?” she asked, dispelling any lingering fears that she was a mime.
I looked down at my bedraggled uniform. The peacock vest had not survived my swim unscathed. Feathers were dripping and drooping everywhere.
“I’ve been working on a furnace,” I lisped.
“All the livelong day,” we said together, which is a fun thing under most circumstances.
She laughed and maneuvered the canoe close to me so I could board. Her prowess with the oars told me that this was most likely Tatiana. In addition to being the sister in Tessa’s family born just after Titania, she was a crew champion at the Academy, and specialized in maritime skullduggery. What she wanted with Jason was anyone’s guess.
As she rowed us back to shore, she said, “Mr and Mrs Mint have been waiting for you.”
My blood ran cold. Myndilynn and Mingus Mint were an infamous pair. Myndilynn was a seemingly sane woman, except for the fact that she was in a relationship with a life-size wooden puppet replica of her late husband Mingus. When the real Mingus was alive, she would sit in his lap and he would pretend to puppet her. After Mingus died under mysterious circumstances, Myndilynn saw no reason to change things. She built a replica of Mingus and still sits in his lap, pretending to be his puppet.
Mimes were bad enough, but those silent bastards in league with the Ventriloquist Syndicate? Unthinkable.
bonus points for using them in order
