“No, you’ve got it all wrong.” Lul pushed strands of seaweed from her eyes and smiled reassuringly up at her customer. “It’s [i]‘sandwich shop’[/i], not ‘sand witch shop’—Silent ‘t’, see?” The skeleton looked at the sandwiches on Lul’s cart, sockets narrowed. “You stupid? Nobody eats around here. Now where’s my sand sculpture?” Shame pricked Lul’s cheeks as she flicked her tail, conjuring a twisting edifice from the sand. “There you go,” she said thickly. “Good luck with the contest.” [hr] Lul stared up at the muddy, sunless sky and wiped her eyes with a scaled hand. She hated this dumb tourist town and all the dumb, [i]small-minded[/i] creatures who lived there. Who cared about the Annual Underworld Sand-garden competition anyway? What about what [i]she[/i] wanted? She clutched the book tightly to her chest and stared out to where the dull grey beach met the dull grey ocean. On the horizon, the gateway to the Overworld shimmered and twisted like it had the day the book washed ashore. “I bet it's amazing there,” she whispered to the book. “It must be wonderful living somewhere where people want to try something new.” [hr] Green flames licked the carcass of the Grökhog as Lul turned the spit. She checked the book again. Well, she had no idea what a ‘chicken’ was, but hopefully Grökhog was an okay substitute. A wonderful smell pressed at her nose from the nearby kiln: fresh bread and brimstone. It smelt like a dream. A twig snapped and Lul looked round to see her father watching from the edge of the clearing. Ignoring the look in his eyes she held up a finished sandwich. “Look, Pa. It’s called a cheese and sundried tomato sandwich. Wanna try some? The, uh, tomatoes aren’t sundried because we don’t have a sun here, but it should still taste great, right?” All eight eyes blinked slowly, a strange colour in them that Lul couldn’t comprehend. Then he slowly clacked his mandibles. “Come on, time for work.” Lul watched him leave, then gazed at the sandwich. She took a bite but couldn’t taste anything. Her eyes itched. [hr] The next day she painted her cart in bright colours and pulled it to the beach. She neatly arranged the sandwiches by colour and size, and wore her best smile. Nobody bought anything except sand, and everybody was noisy about the reasons why. Lul kept smiling though, even when her mouth started to hurt. [hr] “Hey Lul,” Maen’s voice boomed across the workshop on the beach. “Hear you’ve been freaking everyone out with your dumb food cart again.” Lul’s magical grip on the miniature sand sculpture tightened as she glared at her brother. “It’s [i]not[/i] dumb, Maen.” Both mouths grinned. “No, but [i]you[/i] must be. Food’s for idiots in the Overworld... Or those enchanted by them.” “Maen.” Their father’s voice crashed against the tide. “What? She’s a sand witch, Pa. Time she started acting like one.” “You... I...” Lul swallowed. That was it. She snapped her tail and her sculpture disintegrated. “I don’t [i]want[/i] to be one,” she hissed, her eyes burning. “Maybe I can do better than all [i]this[/i]. Mom thought so.” She ran home, far away from their expressions. Lul pretended she was asleep when her father checked on her. Her hearts raced as she felt him pry the book from her fingers. She heard the sound of pages being turned, and felt something in the air that weighed unpleasantly on her chest. His fingers brushed hers for the longest time when he returned the book. [hr] “The mayor gave my space away?” The goblin shrugged as he unloaded his cart of dumb rock statues and other stupid tourist-town things. “Yeah. Yer pa told ‘im you didn’t need it no more.” Lul looked back at her packed cart, suddenly feeling stupid and tired. She kicked it, kicked it again. Then she ran down to the shore, her eyes burning, and tried to throw the book away, but the tide kept bringing it back. When the storm finally carried her home, Lul found her father sitting at his work bench. “How could you, Pa?” she growled, her chest sore. “I said I didn’t want to be a sand witch.” He silenced her without moving, his eyes fixed on a square of paper on the bench. Eventually, a chitinous claw pushed it towards her. “And you won’t be,” he whispered. Lul turned it over, and her breath caught. The ticket to the Overworld shimmered in her hand.