The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode, click here. To read the entire novel, begin here.

Newly arrived at the island kingdom of Sur Kellan, Zack and Gina were taken to an inn by their rescuers Maerith and Shelcor. Now preparing to fill their grumbling stomachs, they’d nearly forgotten their mission.

“Gina!” Zack whispered urgently, “We still gotta find the you-know-what!”

“What? Oh! Right!” Gina turned to the fisher folk and said, “There’s something we really have to—”

“Nay, cheldings,” Shelcor replied. “Yer must eat first.”

The Innkeeper greeted Maerith and Shelcor by name, and then welcomed the two “sea whelps,” Zack and Gina. He set down a platter piled with slimy yellow shellfish. He also placed a big brick of mottled orange and yellow cheese before them, and a wooden bowl piled high with dried bread and burbeedup, a sweet-sour curd made from Kellish flax-berries (burbees). “The meeth’s fresh-brewed,” he said, placing four metal mugs on the table and pointing to a bowl on the seaside wall. He scrutinized Zack and Gina, then pointed to a smaller bowl. “An’ that’n for the cheldings.”

Gina nibbled a hard shard of bread and tasted a fingerful of burbeedup, then asked, “Have you got any shrennel bread?”

“Nay, lass. An’ it costs a pithy bimmie when I can get it. It don’t usually survive the voyage from Frenga without turnin’ all sad an’ moldry-like. The sea, yer know, it’s sometimes wet!” He winked.

“Thanks ever so much for explaining,” snarked Gina.

Shelcor went to fill their mugs, as Maerith picked up a glassy-eyed mollusk (yes, it had eyes!) from the platter, slid it onto a chunk of burbeedupped bread, and bit into the combo.

Zack imitated her technique. It was easy to see why the bread needed to be dry, for the shellfish instantly permeated it with a mucousy wetness. He nibbled a corner and gagged, “Ooooo, crugg! Raw!”

“Nay need for cooking,” said Maerith. “Fliffers is tender an’ sweet. They soak the bread with their goodness, and with a bit a’ burbee the two fairly sing tergether in your mouth!”

Shelcor sat down with four frothy mugs, then tossed three fliffers down his throat in quick succession. He lifted his mug toward the ceiling and proclaimed, “There’s naught but is of Uol!”

“There’s naught but is of Uol!” Maerith repeated with glowing eyes.

The fliffers tasted like phlegm, and the burbeedup like pickled grapes, but the cheese was the best they’d ever eaten. And the meeth was nothing short of miraculous, sweet and frothy with a flavor akin to caramel apples and roasted nuts.

Maerith and Shelcor said little unless asked, yet Zack and Gina felt completely at ease with them. The two fisher folk inquired about their fall into the sea, but seemed to understand when Gina quickly changed the subject.

Perhaps they too had secrets.

φ

Thoughts: “Eating like a local” can be daunting, but it’s a great way to experience another culture.

To read the next episode, click here.

*A brief Glossary of SurKellish words: spiffwit = a flightless seabird; chelding = child; shrennel bread = a staple in the Kingdom of Frenga; pithy = precious; bimmie = smallest coin in the Kingdom of Sur Kellan.