It’s been five years since Ida left behind Josephine and Fargus, and she’s still searching for a cure for her chronic childhood . . .

Chapter One

When the door to the tavern opened, the miners put down their drinks and stared.  Standing alone in the doorway was a child. She looked to be about 12 years old and she was wearing a sweet frilly dress with a green bow carefully tied at the waist. She had huge emerald eyes framed by tight black curls. She blinked her enormous eyelashes, said nothing, and walked into the pub. Several patrons kept watching the door after she entered, expecting a parent to follow her in at any moment. But none did.

Not many strangers passed through this part of the land. Lollup was a rough mining town whose beauty could only be found three miles below ground.  Lollup’s chief export, the Honey Stone, was the bright pink of a summer evening, and it could burn for hours. The stones provided fuel for most of the country, but coaxing it out of the hard clay that lay underneath the mountains was brutal work.  In Lollup, days were long and lives were short. Few dared to enter such a mountain community.

The strange girl walked confidently towards the bar. She carried a worn leather bag that was incongruous with her pristine patent leather shoes. Several large men made way for her, not sure what would bring a young girl to this adult establishment. The girl found an empty stool and, not without effort, hoisted herself upon its wobbly seat. Silence still filled the sticky air. The bartender, Harry Ickman, was watching her closely from the far end of the bar, assuming that a customer’s wife had sent this child to fetch a husband for dinner.

But she was looking at him expectantly and he realized that she wanted to be served. “Yes, miss. What can I get for you? A glass of milk?”

The girl smiled. “Strawberry juice, please.”

Harry uncorked a large bottle, poured a glass and placed it on the bar. The girl took a long, slow sip of her drink and spun on her stool so that she was looking out at the rest of the tavern. She surveyed the tired faces of the miners, still sooty from their day in the mine, until her eyes came to rest on a group of men sitting in a circle in the corner.

“Oooh, cards!” she chirped and jumped off her stool, almost spilling strawberry juice down her dress. She approached the men, who were so engrossed in their game that they hadn’t noticed her entrance.

She stood behind a wide man with oversized sideburns and looked over his shoulder at his cards. She squinted at them a moment and then declared loudly, “I wouldn’t get rid of that if I were you. I would go with the seven.”

The table of men burst into laughter, and the one with the sideburns turned to glare at the girl. “Mind your business, ya brat!” and he swatted at the air like she was a bug.

Another man with ashy skin and a beard said, “Maybe you should listen to her Yusef. You haven’t won a hand all night.” The other men chuckled.

Yusef glared at the girl, and then played the card he had originally intended, a ten.

The player to his left was called Tippo, and he was known for his poor mining skills and taste for uncooked rabbit. Tippo sneered and put out his fist with a dirty thumb pointing down. He then put the thumb on the ten and dragged it towards himself. “That was just about the worst hand you’ve played yet.” He picked up the card and added it to his hand. “That would be a dead man’s lock, my friend. You’re out.”

Yusef cursed and then handed Tippo a gold coin.

Tippo then turned to the girl and asked, “Who taught ya to play ‘Black Thumb’ little girl? Yer daddy?”

“Oh no,” the girl said sweetly. “It’s like a kid’s game. I just learned from watching.”

“Ho ho,” the man guffawed. “Did you hear that Jusef? It’s a kid’s game! You can learn just from watchin’!” He laughed like a diseased weasel.

“I’d like to see her try,” Jusef said bitterly and got up to go to the bar.

“I’d love to!” And before anyone knew what was happening, the girl was sitting in Jusef’s chair.

“Uh, wait a minute young lady,” Tippo said. “This here is an adult game. We’re playin’ for cash.”
“Oh. How embarrassing,” she replied. The girl held up her leather bag and shook it, the sound of coins lighting up the men’s eyes. She said, “I only have twenty coins. Is that enough?”

Twenty coins was more than any of the miners made in a week. Tippo winked at the other two men sitting at the table. 

“Twenty coins is just about the perfect amount,” Tippo told her. “It’s Reginald’s deal. One-eyed jacks are wild and there’s a penalty for black deuces.”

The girl gulped down the rest of her juice and then belched loudly. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, “Fun!” 

Reginald shuffled the cards slowly, not sure how he felt about gambling with a child, but twenty coins! Imagine how happy his wife would be if he came home with that! “Ante up!” he announced, and everyone, including the girl, put two coins in the center of the table. He then dealt the hand at lightening speed.

The girl looked at her cards and then waited for the man to her right to begin. He was older and seemed to have difficulty seeing his cards. Finally, he threw down a four of hearts. The girl smiled sweetly and threw down a ten of spades. Then Tippo and Reginald put down cards.

Time for round two. Reginald dealt another hand, but before anyone could pick them up, Tippo said, “I raise the pot five coins.” And he threw in the money.

The old man put down all his cards. “I fold!”

The girl looked slightly confused. “So…. if I lose this game I’m going to lose my two coins plus another five coins?”

Tippo knew he had to handle this just right. “Yes, darlin’. But if you win, you’re goin’ to get seven brand new shiny coins!”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Seven coins! Golly!” She quickly threw in five more coins, and so did Reginald, who was looking nervous. Tippo grinned.

Everyone looked at their new cards. The girl frowned and Tippo could feel his heart racing.

It was the girl’s turn and she put down a one-eyed jack. Tippo couldn’t believe it. A wild card! The silly child had just given up a wild card. What a dope.

He quickly put his thumb on the jack and added it to his hand, trying to suppress his giddiness. He selected a three of diamonds and put it on the table.

Reginald scowled, “I’m out.” He put his cards face down on the table.

Tippo smiled at the girl, “Lookin’ like it’s just you and me.”

By this time, a crowd had gathered. The rest of the tavern was interested in the game, curious to see how the girl would do.  A waitress squeezed through. “This child should not be allowed to gamble. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”

Tippo glared at her. “Francis, why don’t you get me another whiskey?” Several men agreed, thinking this was the most interesting thing to happen in Lollup in weeks.

Francis glowered. “Fine,” and returned to the bar.

Tippo quickly turned back to the game, knowing that he only had a moment before someone else tried to end the game, and Tippo was not about to let anyone get in the way of him and his twenty coins.

He signaled to Reginald to deal them the last cards. Reginald complied and Tippo picked them up and kept a straight face, but inside he was dancing. He now had two red aces, two red kings, and a wild card. It was a “Red Thumb.” He looked over at the girl and tried to read her face. She look befuddled. There was no way he could lose. He looked the girl in the eye and said, “I raise you 13 coins.”

The crowd gasped. It was an unheard of amount to gamble, let alone win from a child. But the girl stayed steady. “Okey, dokey,” she said and without batting an eye she placed her entire satchel of money in the middle of the table.

There was now a total of 58 coins, almost a month’s wages.  Everyone held their breath.

Tippo smirked and put his cards up on the table. “Red Thumb!” he announced, and he clapped his hands and whooped for everyone to hear.

He began reaching for the money pot when the girl said innocently, “Don’t I get to show everybody my cards?”

“Of course you do sweetheart. You go right ahead,” he said.

And the girl placed her cards on the table. She had two black aces, two black kings, and one black jack. It was a “Black Thumb” with no wild cards. The highest hand you could get. Tippo’s jaw fell open. The odds of the girl getting that hand were . . . were . . . Tippo sank in his chair as he realized how much money he had just lost.

The other people in the bar were laughing and clapping, happy to see the little girl beat Tippo, who had won money from almost everyone in Lollup over the years.

The girl leaned forward, grabbed her bag and started to scoop the rest of the money inside. “This was so exciting! I can’t wait to teach my friends!”

She stood up and put the bag over her shoulder, the weight of it making her stand lopsided. “I need to go meet my mother now. She’s visiting her sister and she’ll be worried about me.” And before anyone knew what was happening she had scurried to the door.

As she was walking out, she turned back to the bar. “Thank you, gentlemen. It was a pleasure. And please don’t use this evening as an excuse to teach your children to gamble. Gambling with children is wrong.” She smiled wickedly and was gone.

Tippo finally came out of his state of shock. He jumped up from his seat and ran after her, sure that somehow she had just swindled him, even if he couldn’t explain how. But when he got outside, she was nowhere to be seen. She had disappeared as mysteriously as she had arrived.

Tippo shook his head and went back inside and found a roomful of men laughing at him. He said loudly, “Tell ya’ll what. I promise to buy y’all a round a drinks. And y’all promise me you won’t ever talk about this here little incident ever again.”

The men just laughed harder.

***

By the next morning, Ida was several miles south of the mining town. She had learned over the years that it was best to get as far away as possible after she’d hit a card game. She was now in the middle of a thin forest, with not a soul in sight.

Her feet hurt. She had been walking since midnight and she could no longer ignore the dull throbbing.  She sat down on a rock and took off her patent leather shoes, sighing with relief.

She then opened up her bag, pulled out her coin purse, and dumped all the contents onto the dirt in front of her. She knew how much she had won, but she counted it anyway, each coin filling her with more satisfaction. Fifty-eight coins. Ida smiled. It was enough to get her back to Gulm. She could buy a horse for the journey and still have enough for provisions. She figured she could be there within the week.

She then grabbed her regular clothes from the bag, and happily pulled her frilly dress up over her head. Five playing cards fell to the ground, Ida’s original hand that she had hid one at a time during the game. Ruffles tended to hide a lot, she had learned. She had walked into the tavern with a perfect ‘Black Thumb’ hidden within her petticoat.

She now pulled on cotton pants, a simple shirt and a decent pair of walking shoes. She grabbed a hat and forced her black bob up into it until, from afar, one might not be sure if Ida was a girl or a boy. She took out a small flask and took a grateful sip of water.

She suddenly had a pang of guilt, which she wished she could push aside. Not only had she cheated the miner, she had taken advantage of his perception of her as young, innocent and ignorant. For in a million years the man couldn’t have guessed the truth – that Ida was actually seventeen years old.

He couldn’t tell from looking at her because in the last five years she had not aged a single day.

CHAPTER TWO

Ida’s cropped black hair had not grown an inch, her feet had not elongated a millimeter, and her rosy cheeks still held the baby fat of childhood. She was stuck at four foot eight inches tall and her hand was only just wide enough to hold a small apple.

If you looked deep into Ida’s sharp green eyes you could see the wisdom she had gained and the hardship she had endured.  The world was not ready to accept a girl unable to proceed into adolescence. People were frightened of her. And if she was honest, sometimes she was frightened of herself.

Ida counted among her virtues intelligence, wit and a flawless complexion. If pressed she would have to confess that her vices included fighting, stealing and a pure delight in telling a really good lie. She was also foul-mouthed, proud, and a perfect shot with a pointed rock.  And over the last five years, she had become one heck of a hustler.

Ida’s past was something she didn’t like to discuss much. The events that had led to her chronic childhood were her own blasted business. And besides, no one would ever believe her. She had experienced and seen things that most of us can’t imagine, even if we live to be a hundred.

But even with all the adventures, Ida longed to look her real age.  She had always looked forward to being a young woman, to grow tall and watch her face and body change from girlhood to womanhood. She wanted to be friends with people her own age. The adolescents she met now just scoffed at her and treated her like a baby. It was infuriating. She wanted to be trusted with the responsibilities that her age deserved.

She was sick of being patted on the head and smiled at like she was dumb as a cow patty. When anyone offered her help or advice, she would snap. If actual twelve-year-olds approached her to play, she would lash out at them and storm off in a temper, leaving a shocked child behind. She might feel bad about it the next day, but the worse she felt about herself, the more she hated the world around her, the world that was going on, growing and maturing without her.

Her search for a cure had become an obsession, and there was really nothing else in her life. She had traveled far and wide, sampling various miracle cures, tonics and pills. She had eaten a raw egg from the nest of the purple tern, spent three days in the heat of the Yurelian Desert Caves, and paid a sorceress to dip her feet in wax made from white bees, all the time supporting herself by gambling and the occasional theft. But none of the cures had worked, and the years were ticking by.  So she finally decided she was looking in the wrong place, that is to say, she had decided that perhaps she was looking in the wrong world. 

In the orphanage where she had been raised there was a special doorway, something called a “Brokhun’s Crack,” and Ida’s friend Josephine had said that the magic door would take you wherever you needed to go.

So Ida had surmised that if she went through the doorway needing to find a cure, the door would send her to the right place. It was flawless logic in Ida’s mind, and she chided herself for not thinking of it sooner.

She replaced the coins into the bag and shoved her frilly dress on top. She didn’t want to waste any more time. She had spent the last eight months traveling from town to town, slowly but surely making her way back to the Institute, the place she once called home. And she was now so close she could taste it.