A Midsummer's Day by Heather Montford Page B

Now it was annoying.  Vaughn pushed the constable aside.  “I’m just going to find a friend.”
    “Vile scum.  Thou art to come with me.”  The constable pulled a sword from a scabbard at his hip.  It shone in the sunlight.   It was sharp.
    Where in the hell did he get a sword?  The only weapons in the festival were at the joust and at the whip and swordfight show.  Johnny didn’t even carry a sword.
    Vaughn did the only thing he could think to do.  He bolted.  He ran through the Crossroads, disrupting two stage shows and a large group of nobles walking around the dust in aimless circles.  The commotion he caused stalled the constable.  He ducked between the strength testing machine and a snack shop.  He snuck down a hill and hid between two shops cut into the hill just beyond the Dead Road.
    Above him, the constable worked to calm down the riled nobility.  Below him, on the Dead Road, all was normal.
    Except, of course, for the stark lack of tourists that now seemed to have spread throughout every inch of the festival like a sickness.
    Vaughn sat, safely hidden between the highest corners of two shops, and tried to catch his breath.  He rested his head in his hands.  “What in the hell am I going to do?”
    There was no way he could get back to the break room now.  There was no way he could get to…
    Sammie…  She wandered down the Dead Road, dripping in her wet dunking dress and soaking hair.  She’d just come from the pond.
    She looked around her, a dazed and lost look on her face as she looked at the people around her.  She looked for something she couldn’t find.  With every step, what little hope she had in her face drained away.
    She wasn’t finding signs of tourists.  She wasn’t seeing a friendly face that would reveal that the strange things happening were just some strange, cruel joke.
    Tears filled her silver eyes.  She wasn’t a part of this joke.
    Vaughn snuck to the bottom of the hill.  He waved at her.  But she didn’t turn.  She didn’t even look his way by accident.
    When she walked by, Vaughn grabbed her.
    <>
    She couldn’t scream.
    Unseen hands grabbed her.  Yanked her to the side, to a place hidden between two shops.
    It would finish her off.
    And yet… she couldn’t scream.  If the thing that grabbed her killed her…  Well, at least the horribleness would end.  This cruel, sadistic joke would end.
    It wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen.
    The face of her attacker came into view.  The warm, friendly brown eyes of her best friend smiled at her.
    But was it really Vaughn?  Or had he fallen prey to the same thing that had turned Johnny into Jameson Kent?  If Vaughn wasn’t Vaughn…  If he had turned into Puck, would he still have the friendship he shared with Lady Anne?  Or would he have turned into a proper Tudor beggar, and only sought her out for sinister reasons?
    Sammie’s lungs clamped shut.  She gasped for air.  Damned her asthma.  Damned all this stress and confusion.  Damned this joke or this concussion or whatever caused this wildfire of hell.
    “Hey hey hey.”  He, whoever he was, cupped her face in his hands.  “It’s just me, Sam.  It’s just me.  Breathe, sweetheart.”
    The sound of her real name calmed her down.  She leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder.  “You called me Sam.”  She forced herself to take a slow, shaky breath.
    “Of course I did,” Vaughn said without his cockney beggar accent.  “I take it you’re a victim of the same cruel joke I am.”
    Tears filled her raw eyes.  “I don’t think this is a joke.”  Her breathing came in short bursts.  “Johnny didn’t know me, Vaughn.  He thinks I’m really Anne.  He thinks that he’s really Jameson Kent.”
    “Johnny didn’t know you?  I can’t believe that.”  Vaughn sat back on his haunches.  “Are you sure he just wasn’t acting?”
    She shook her head.  “You know him, Vaughn.  He can’t even pull off a