Cure for Wereduck Read online

  John sat at the end of her bed. “Are you mad at me?”

  Kate put her hands behind her head and looked at the ceiling. She’d thought about that question for the last couple of hours, but she still couldn’t find the right words to explain how she felt.

  “Things just feel stupid, you know?” she said.

  “What kind of stupid?”

  “Like, they’re not supposed to be like this. We’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be here,” she said.

  “But we are here,” he said. “I am here.”

  “It’s hard enough having to pick up my whole life—which was perfectly great before you and your dad came along—and move it to boring Ontario,” said Kate. “And you have to go and make it harder by being Mr. Perfect Son.”

  John scowled. Kate had struck a nerve. She didn’t realize what she was going to say until she had already said it. But it was exactly how she felt. Right or wrong, this whole dumb situation seemed like John’s fault.

  “Wow,” said John, his eyes flaring. “Wow.” He shook his head.

  Several seconds passed as both waited for the other to say something.

  “That’s it, huh?” said Kate. “Just ‘wow’?”

  “I guess so,” he said. John stood to walk out. He paused a moment with his hand on the doorknob. “Cool room,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  Kate sat at the kitchen table flipping through index cards in her grandmother’s recipe box. Wacka watched from her perch on the chair next to her as Bobby skipped into the room.

  “Eleven-year-olds don’t skip,” said Kate without looking up.

  “Huh,” said Bobby. He paused a moment, looking concerned, then skipped gleefully around the kitchen table. “Well, look at that,” said Bobby, mid-skip. “Looks like you’re wrong, Ms. Ducky.”

  Kate smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been a bit of a grump the last couple of weeks.”

  “Man, I’m used to it,” said Bobby, plopping into a chair across the table. “What are you doing?”

  “I was looking for Grandma’s cake recipe,” said Kate, flipping back through the cards.

  “What for?”

  “Can’t a girl just do something nice for her family?” she said.

  Bobby looked around. “Who, you mean you?”

  “Shut up,” she said with a grin. Her eyes fell on the title of a weathered index card near the back of the box. The handwriting was in an old-fashioned, spidery script that was not her grandmother’s. “What’s this?”

  “What?” said Bobby, leaning in.

  “‘A Cure for Werewolf,’” she read. She looked at her brother. “What the heck does that mean?” She scanned the ingredients on the card. “Yuck. There’s a lot of weird stuff in here.”

  “What is it?”

  “‘A rest from the monthly lunar madness,’” read Kate. She paused, mulling over the card. “I think this is a temporary cure for being a werewolf.”

  “Weird,” said her brother. “Why would someone want to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kate. “Not everyone likes being a wolf, I guess. Let’s go find Grandma.”

  Wacka gave a little quack as Kate scooped her up and led Bobby outside. They found Marge hanging laundry in the sun.

  “Grandma,” said Kate. “We found something in your recipe box.”

  Marge smacked her lips. “Banana bread?” she said, pinning one end of a bedsheet to the clothesline. “Sounds great. I encourage you to make it.”

  “Ha,” replied Bobby. “Seriously. ‘Cure for Werewolf.’ What’s that all about?”

  Marge’s eyes brightened as she dropped a wet towel back into the basket. “You found that? Let me see.” She took the card from Kate and looked it over. “I haven’t seen this in years,” she said. “That’s your great-great-grandmother’s handwriting, did you know that? I’ve been meaning to re-copy it. See how faded it’s become?”

  “Yeah, but what is it? Is it for real?” asked Kate.

  “My granny swore it worked, but she never made it herself,” said Marge. “Mum and I always thought it was a bit of a joke. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Why don’t you think it works?” asked Kate.

  “Oh, I don’t know one way or another, but if there was a cure for werewolves—even a temporary one—I think we’d know about it,” said Marge. “I think this is just a bit of superstitious nonsense. Look,” she said, tapping the card, “a couple of these ingredients would be nearly impossible to find anyway.”

  “Like what?” asked Bobby.

  Marge thumbed the card. “Well, actually, some of these are just old-fashioned names for wild herbs. Like this: beggar’s buttons. That’s just burdock. But it says here it has to be harvested ‘under a waning moon,’” she chuckled, reading down the list. “And then there’s the poem at the end:

  If the wolf you seek to calm,

  Let this potion be your guide:

  A shot of silver, a soothing balm;

  Still the beast that lives inside.

  “It just sounds made-up to me,” she said.

  “Does most of the stuff grow around here?” asked Kate.

  Marge read through the card. “Well, I think most of it would, if you know where to look. Loostrife you might have trouble with. That’s European, unless it came here as an invasive species. Kronos’s blood? I couldn’t even begin to guess what that is. And silver nitrate. Pretty sure you’d have to visit a nineteenth-century apothecary for that one.” She handed the card back to Kate. “I’d just hate to see you go to all the trouble for nothing.”

  “Thanks,” said Kate, deflating.

  Kate walked back to the kitchen and slid the recipe card behind the others in the box on the kitchen table. Then she paused a moment. She didn’t mind her new life as a wereduck, but the promise of being able to turn it on and off was intriguing.

  She pulled it back out.

  It couldn’t hurt to try.

  John dropped a bag of sweet corn on the kitchen counter as he walked into the house after a day of work. He was about to walk into the living room but stopped short. Kate stood in the doorway, blocking his path.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said, attempting to walk around her. She stepped to the side, still blocking his way.

  “Hey,” she repeated.

  “I’m trying to get my bag so I can go to the library.”

  “Right. I know.” She glanced at the ceiling and took a breath. “I was wondering if I could, y’know, come with you.”

  He stepped around her and grabbed his bag. “You don’t need my permission.”

  “And I was wondering,” she continued, swivelling to face him, “if maybe, you might, y’know, help me find some stuff.”

  John stood back a moment and stared at her. “But that would, y’know, require talking to me,” said John. “Which, y’know, I didn’t think you did anymore.”

  “Well, maybe I need your help looking up some stuff,” said Kate. She looked at the floor. “And maybe I haven’t been the nicest to you since we got here.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “Maybe,” he said.

  “And maybe,” she said, “maybe I’m sorry about that.”

  “Huh,” said John, considering. “Well, what do you need me for? I thought that’s why they invented the internet.”

  “Well, what I’m looking for doesn’t seem to be on it.”

  “Okay,” he said, relaxing slightly. “So what exactly are you looking for?”

  “This,” she said. Kate dug a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to John. “I have a list of old names for wild herbs and plants. I want to know what they really are and where I can find them.”

  John took the paper. “Okay,” he said. “Why do you need that?”

  “Do you re
ally need to know?” asked Kate.

  “Not really,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I was just curious about how far you’d go with, y’know, talking.”

  John and Kate stood in front of the card files in the old, small-town library. John’s fingers flipped through the long drawer of index cards.

  “Herbs of Europe, Wildflowers of Western Canada, The Big Book of British Herbs…” read John. “These don’t seem to be what you’re looking for.”

  Kate stood with her arms crossed. “Is that it? They don’t have anything on the plants that grow around here?”

  “Not that I can find,” he said, sliding the drawer back into place. “But if it’s here, I bet Marty can find it.”

  “Who’s Marty?”

  John brightened. “He’s the librarian. He’s awesome. Come on.”

  The two walked to the front of the library, where a skinny man with greying hair was copying dates into a ledger. He was so focused on his task, he didn’t notice the two teens approach.

  “Hey, Marty,” whispered John.

  The man jolted to attention, dropping his pencil. “John!” he exclaimed at the top of his lungs. “You nearly scared me to death! How are you today? You brought a friend! How nice.” He thrust his hand at Kate. “I’m Marty.”

  Kate shook his offered hand. She introduced herself. “Aren’t we supposed to be quiet in a library?”

  “Well, right now, there are exactly three people in this library,” began Marty, glancing around, “and darn it if all of them aren’t standing right here. I think we can safely chat without disturbing anyone.”

  Kate blushed. She liked this man’s easy way.

  “Marty, we’re trying to find a book about local wild plants and herbs,” said John. “Have you got anything?”

  “Got anything!” Marty waved his hands and clasped them in front of his heart. “I’ve the perfect book. To the local section!”

  Marty dashed toward a back corner of the library, leaving Kate and John to scurry after. He stopped in front of a small set of shelves.

  “This is where we hide—sorry, keep—the books written by local authors. We occasionally get someone who wrote their family history or a book of bad poetry and drops off a copy. They’re usually dreadful, but in your case, you want Muriel Tuttle’s book. It’s charming. A real peach.”

  Marty’s fingers skimmed the spines on the shelf. “Got it,” he said, grabbing a book bound with yellowed canvas. He handed it to Kate. “Local Flora. Probably my favourite book in the whole library. Treat it gently.”

  Kate opened it and gingerly leafed through a few pages. The book didn’t seem so special to her; its pages were filled with sparse, handwritten text and simple illustrations of plants.

  “It’s nice,” she lied.

  “Nice?” exclaimed Marty, yanking the book from her hands. “Look at this.” He flipped to the page titled “Dandelion.” It was illustrated with a simple ink drawing of a dandelion, with neat, handwritten text beneath. “This lady spent her whole life hiking through every forest and hedgerow in this county with a sketchbook under her arm. She’d spend entire days drawing and re-drawing illustrations of every plant—even simple, everyday things like dandelions—to get them perfect. And look at this.” His finger traced the writing beneath the picture. “Latin name. Common name. Folk name. Common uses. Where it grows. It’s just perfect.”

  Kate attempted to match Marty’s enthusiasm with a smile. “That’s really neat.”

  Marty looked dreamily into the distance as he continued. “She brought it in about twenty years ago when I had just started working here as a shelver. Tiny old lady—she was so shy about it. Came in and said she’d written a book and wondered if we’d like it. We always say yes, no matter how bad it is, but this is just a work of genius. Written and illustrated completely by hand. I must have chatted with her for hours. I’m afraid I embarrassed her with my gushing.”

  “Sounds exactly like what you need, Kate,” said John.

  She nodded.

  “Y’know,” said Marty, lost in his own train of thought, “I asked her if she’d tried sending it to a publisher, but she wasn’t interested. She just wanted to record the plants that grow within fifteen kilometres of her house. And she’d never travelled farther than that herself in her whole life. Like a modern-day Kant. Amazing, isn’t it? She dropped it off that day, and I never saw her again.”

  He tapped the book against his chin and noticed Kate and John staring at him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Got a bit carried away there.”

  He walked them back to the front desk where he scratched a few details into his ledger. He stamped the slip in the back of the book and handed it to Kate. “Take care of it. It’s the only copy.”

  “Like, only copy?” said Kate.

  “She wrote it, bound it, and brought it here as a gift to the library. It’s the only copy that I know of.”

  “Wow,” marvelled Kate. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, and John,” said Marty. “I had another delivery from the central library.” He hefted a small cardboard box filled with dozens of spools of what looked like miniature movie film from below the desk.

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “What’s that?”

  “Microfilm,” explained Marty. “It’s just what it sounds like: tiny film. This is how we kept record of old newspapers before we could digitize them, which, unfortunately, is still something we can’t afford to do at our little library. These spools have hundreds of issues on them.” He turned to John. “I’ll leave it here for whenever you need it.”

  “Oh, great,” said John, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Kate thought he looked a little bit nervous. “Thanks.”

  The two walked out of the library a few minutes later, Kate with the yellow book under her arm.

  “What’s with the microfilm?” she asked. “Are you some sort of 1980s secret agent or something?”

  “Ha. It’s nothing.”

  “No, seriously. What’s it for?”

  “Nothing,” he snapped. “It’s just some stuff I’m looking up. It’s not a big deal.”

  “If it’s not a big deal, why not tell me—”

  “All right,” he said, looking straight ahead. “First tell me why we were looking up all those old weeds.”

  Kate squirmed. She didn’t want to confess about the cure. What if he laughed? She wasn’t ready to bring him in on this secret. Not yet.

  She shrugged. “It’s just something I’m interested in.”

  “Okay,” said John. “Well then, I guess I’m just interested in microfilm.”

  Kate sighed. The truce wasn’t going well.

  Dirk’s foot tapped nervously as he watched the floor numbers tick by in the elevator. He looked at his watch. He was already five minutes late for his interview.

  “Dang.”

  The button for Dirk’s floor was already lit, but he jabbed at it repeatedly anyway.

  A bell dinged. The elevator stopped to let on a new passenger: a young woman with a newspaper tucked under her arm. Dirk nodded a curt greeting.

  He stared again at the floor numbers, willing them to move faster. After a few floors, he couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of his eye that the woman was staring at him.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered, “but aren’t you Dirk Bragg? The reporter?”

  Dirk looked at her. The woman was in her mid-twenties. Dirk could now see the newspaper in her hand was, in fact, a copy of Really Real News—the very issue with his story about the wereduck.

  Dirk chuffed. “Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”

  The woman blushed. “I thought that was you,” she said shyly. “I just think your work at Really Real News is….” She paused a moment, searching for a strong enough word. “Amazin
g.”

  “Well,” said Dirk, trying to look modest. “I don’t know about amazing, but—”

  “No, really,” she gushed. “I just think you’re a genius. You’re probably pretty busy, but—gosh—would you mind signing my newspaper?”

  She thrust it at him.

  “I’m on my way to an important radio interview,” said Dirk, “but sure. Anything for a fan.”

  He plucked a pen from his shirt pocket.

  “Great,” she said. “Can you make it out to Karen?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, scribbling her name.

  “My friends will absolutely flip out that I met you,” said Karen. “We just think you’ve taken outrageous, made-up news to another level. I mean, where do you come up with this stuff? It’s absolutely preposterous and embarrassing, but you write it so sincerely—like you actually seem to believe it.”

  Dirk’s face flushed. “Well, I wouldn’t say I, uh—”

  “No, I mean it,” she said. “This wereduck story? It’s so absurd that it’s perfect. And there are idiots out there who actually think it’s true!”

  “Gosh, um, Karen. I really think you should consider—” said Dirk.

  “And when you were on America This Morning?” said Karen. “When you sang that stupid song? It was like performance art.”

  The elevator bell dinged again.

  “Oh, that’s my floor,” said Karen. “Thanks, Mr. Bragg.” She gave him a hug, which he reluctantly returned. “Keep up the amazing work.”

  She stepped out of the elevator. The doors shut. Dirk’s mouth didn’t.

  “We’re going to go right to the phone lines,” said the radio host sitting across the dimly lit studio from Dirk. “We have a number of callers waiting to speak with Dirk Bragg, the senior investigative reporter for Really Real News. The man who witnessed, with his own eyes, evidence of werewolves—and a wereduck. Our first caller is Bill from Des Moines. What’s your question for Dirk Bragg, Bill?”

  “Oh, hi,” came a voice over the studio phone lines. “Wow, I can’t believe I made it through. Mr. Bragg, I saw you on America This Morning and read your article in the paper. Great stuff.”