Grimm Conversations In a Wagon

    “Listen, you amphibian bastard! You’ll tell the rubes what I tell you and make it convincing or there’ll be hell to pay” The Ineffable Cagliostro rapped his walkingstick on the floor of the wagon.

     “Do you think it’s easy talking all day when you’re a frog?” said Wilhelm the Prophetic Frog. “My tongue is backwards and I have no voice box.”

      “You have no trouble giving me backtalk.”

      “Backtalk! You know I am a king.”

      “You may have been a king but now you’re just a talking frog. As long as I have you trapped under that dome you’re my talking frog and will do as I please. You are king of what realm?”

      “I’m not telling you. I expect to be disenchanted one day and return to my throne. If you and your show ever enter my realm, I have plans for you.” 

       “What may they be?”

       “I have a dungeon full of ingenious devices left over from the Heresy Wars. We don’t use them anymore, we’re an enlightened country but for you I’d gladly put them back into use. Don’t think confessing and recanting your crimes will get you any leniency. I know your crimes and want you to suffer.”

       Cagliostro blanched but tried to keep his composure. In his business there were many places it was unsafe for him to return. “Disenchanted? Something about being thrown against a wall by a king’s daughter. Fat chance of that happening. The only people I let touch you are my own family and I am no king.”

        “Can you put me in water more often? When my skin gets dry I get sluggish and less alert.” 

        “I keep you wet enough. I know you. Whenever you are not under your dome you try to escape. You even try to break the dome but it’s too heavy. It makes me laugh to watch you smash your face against it.”

        “Also, can you get your children to be more routine about feeding me flies. I know they're disgusting but they seem to be all I can digest. Of your children only Kaz is regular about feeding me, not because she likes me but because she enjoys catching flies. The rest tend to forget that I need to eat.”

         “Speaking of Kaz, she is experienced in the prophecy grift. Aren’t you, Kaz?”

         “Yes, Father,” his young dark-eyed daughter said.

         “You’ve learned how to tell people what they want to hear. That’s fine but you should rely on what Kaz whispers to you from behind the curtain to add a more other worldly effect. If I tell you to say something specific you repeat it word for word and sell it. Your bad performance with the burgher in the last town cost me a lucrative grift and caused us to have to leave earlier than I’d hoped. I trust I won’t have to go back to burning you again.”

          Later that night as the mule drawn wagon rumbled along the dark road Wilhelm asked, “Kaz, are you awake?”

          “I’m always awake at this time of night. I dream while I’m awake, so I don’t need as much sleep as the rest of my family.”

          “I can hear them snoring around the wagon. I think even your brother up front holding the reins has fallen asleep.Things were better for you before your father ordered your brothers to catch me.”

          “Yes, you slimy thing! I was the Elfen Sybil and Father and both my mothers loved me.”

          “Now you stand behind the curtain and give me cues and no one pay any attention to you.”

          “A fortune telling girl is not as big a draw as a talking frog. You can’t even see the future.”

        “If I could see the future, believe me, I would have quietly hopped away rather than shouting when your wagon almost ran me over.”

        “I can see the future when my night angel talks to me and sends me visions.”

        Wilhelm’s skin always went cold when Kaz talked like that. “If I was gone you could be the Elfen Sybil again.”

         “Quiet, you green vermin.” 

         “They’d dress you up in silks and baubles.”

         “I don’t care about that.”

         “Rich ladies would give you presents.”

         “They were nice even though Father always sold them for drink in the next town.”

         “Handsome boys would want to talk to you. All you have to do is lift up the dome, pick me up, and throw me out the back of the wagon.”

          “Father would punish me.”

          “Only for a little while. Without me your charlatan father will need the Elfen Sybil.”

          “He is not a charlatan! He is the Ineffable Cagliostro.”

          “The original Cagliostro was also a charlatan. He died in prison twenty years ago. Your father isn’t even the only man roaming the Realms claiming to be Cagliostro to make a dishonest living.”

           “How do you know?”

           “People tell things to kings.”

           “I don’t believe you’re a king.”

           “Your father can claim he doesn’t know I’m a king but I think your night angel told you all about me. You probably know more about my spell and the witch that cast it than I do.”

           “You know I hate you, you spotted fly eater! My night angel told me to tell you that you will get your heart’s desire if you jump into the next well that you see. I don’t know what that means and I would rather you die than get your heart’s desire but I when my night angel tells me to say something I always obey.” 

           “Why is that?”

           “If I don’t do as she says she sends me visions of unimaginable horrors. What is more terrible is I know they will happen but I don’t know when.” 

            Wilhelm’s skin went colder. He decided to take a different tack. “I don’t believe your night angel is real. You're just a lunatic girl that belongs in a madhouse.”

            Kaz snatched up the dome and groped around until she gripped Wilhelm. “I’ll squeeze you to death right now!”

            “Then I won’t find my well,” said Wihelm with the last bit of air in his lungs. “Your night angel won’t like that.”

            Kaz stumbled to the back of the wagon and threw him against the hanging canvas. “I hope you are crushed by the next cart on the road.” she sobbed

            Wilhelm dropped onto the road. “Now what?"