by M. E. Eadie
***
It could have been wonderful, except for one major detail: Colin, Spike, and Melissa were to act as servants.
“I don’t get it, not at all,” said Colin in the process of placing another black dinner plate and sterling silver charger atop the red cloth-covered table.
As the light outside the large windows receded, the interior of the room took on a vibrant tone. The two black suits of armor, halberds gripped in metal fists, stood motionless on either side of the open doors. Colin cast a glance around the room at all his aunt’s new acquisitions.
“Have you ever wondered how we came to live with G.T?” he asked Spike.
Spike was holding up, in front of his nose, two of the seven pieces of cutlery for each place setting, an agonized expression on his face as though he was trying to work out an impossible problem. He shook his head.
“You know, I think I prefer chopsticks,” he said plaintively. Spike glanced at the setting Ofelia had placed as an example, and slowly, painfully replicated the placement.
“Well, think of it. You, Melissa, me, Grizzelda and Grandfather Thunder all living together,” Colin continued. “Where are our parents?”
“Lost,” Spike shrugged, grimacing, not really wanting to talk about the painful issue.
“All right, lost, but why leave us with her? She doesn’t even like us,” Colin whispered intensely, meaning every syllable. “I don’t trust her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. If G.T. asked you to look after Grizzelda, would you do it?”
“I suppose…” said Colin.
“Maybe it’s like that for her,” said Spike.
Colin picked up one of the crystal goblets, examined it and found a drop of water on it. He went to wipe it off, but paused, looking closer at his own reflected image in the drop. Holding the glass closer, the light from the dying sun hit it, refracting myriad colors into his eyes. The colors wrapped around him and the next thing he knew, he was falling into the water drop.
The texture of the grass beneath his feet was soft and comforting; the wind, gusting up the cliff from the distant ocean was full of the smell of salt and seaweed. Seagulls swirled in the air above his head, riding the updrafts and mewing their surprise at his sudden appearance. He was standing on a small plateau cut out of a mountain, which continued to ascend into strange, striated clouds that rushed by at an unnatural speed. There was no sun, but everything was illumined by some unseen source. Nothing about the place was normal, but as Colin had been discovering, normal was just a state of mind.
“Hello, Colin, how are you doing?” said a familiar voice behind him.
He turned and there, in his white buckskins, was Grandfather Thunder. His braided white hair hung down over his shoulders like two lengths of silk cord. His ancient, brown face crinkled with a smile. Colin’s first reaction was to try to touch him, to see if he was real, but his grandfather held up a hand, stopping him.
“Don’t touch me,” he said gently. “We are, and are not here. If you touch me, I will disappear.”
“Where are we?” asked Colin, noticing the wind bending a little yellow flower couched in a tuft of grass, but he felt no wind.
“We are…Inbetween. I came here just before I was about to die, so, here, I am not yet dead. You have some complaints about your aunt?” asked Grandfather Thunder.
“How did you know?” replied Colin.
His smile became broader. “You two are more alike than you know.”
“But Grizzelda…” he started plaintively, but was halted by an upraised hand.
“…is trying to do as she was instructed,” finished Grandfather. “Listen, I know that your aunt has difficulties with many things, but, at heart, she is a good person. She just needs to realize this. She too has things to overcome.”
Colin wanted to ask, ‘like what?’ but chose to change the focus. He didn’t want to spend any more time talking about his aunt. “What’s it like being dead, or almost dead?” asked Colin abruptly.
Grandfather Thunder responded with a benign smile. “Well, it wasn’t my first choice.”
“You prefer to be totally dead?”
“Yes, actually. If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it to its logical end. However, the idea was to watch and see what was going on and this is the best place to do that. Here, I can see the past, present, and even part of the potential future, potential, because the future is not yet written.”
Colin wanted to ask if he had seen anything, but before he could speak, Grandfather Thunder read his mind.
“I haven’t seen anything too bad lately, but that’s not too terribly discouraging, considering that if I see anything, it surely won’t be good. No news is good news, eh! Oh, by the way, how is your schooling going?”
“Not too good. We almost burned the school down, or Sergeant Peary did, but we got the blame.”
“Yes, he certainly threw those budgies into an apoplectic fit, but do not worry, there is more than one way to get an education. There are more schools than you know of. How did you learn to get here?” asked Grandfather.
“I…I don’t really know,” Colin tried to explain but could not find any words that fit. “I looked into a drop of water, and fell in?”
“Wonderful, see knowledge comes to you! There is something I want you to do. What have you noticed, about Grizzelda?”
“She’s getting a little crazy. I think a Nix got her,” responded Colin.
“I see. I’m glad to see we have come to the same observations. You need to watch her, Colin, and be careful around her.”
“You think Grizzelda is dangerous?”
“Grizzelda, no, but the Nix inside her, very. Just be on guard. Let’s just say she is not following her own voice.”
“So, what do I do if she gets even more crazy?”
“Call on Sargeant Peary. He’ll know how to deal with her. He isn’t your guardian for nothing.”
“There’s times when I think he’s a bit crazy too.”
Grandfather Thunder grinned. “Don’t worry, I don’t think it runs in the family. I think choice has a lot more to do with it than genes.”
He started to fade.
Colin wanted him to stay, to ask him about Zuhayer, about Sergeant Peary, about the entire Horwood family. Then he realized that it wasn’t Grandfather Thunder who was fading, it was he.
Colin wiped the drop of water off the glass.
“What did you say?” asked Spike. “What’s the matter with you? Your eyes look weird. Dreaming about Rhea and Colin, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g?”
“What… sorry… nothing, I wasn’t listening,” explained Colin rather quietly, breaking out of his trance.
“Do you think we’re going to get any time to sneak out, or do you think we’re going to be stuck in here all night?”
Colin shrugged, “Maybe the guests will be interesting.”
Colin’s words were prophetic. The guests were interesting, beyond his wildest imagination, much to his discomfort. As the appointed hour approached, the guests began to arrive. First to arrive was none other than Marcus Tiberius Dundas. Colin stared inquiringly at the short, rotund man’s formal dress. Complete with kilt and swinging sporran, Marcus, as jovial as ever, marched into the foyer cradling a set of bagpipes. With the bass and tenor drones sticking up over his shoulders, he looked a bit like a round, plaid, puffer fish. Grizzelda flowed over to him, giving him a hug and a kiss on each cheek. She actually seemed glad to see him.
Colin gave Spike a bewildered look.
“I hope my formal attire is appropriate for the occasion? I wear suits every day, and it’s not every day that I can wear this, so when the opportunity presents itself…” explained Marcus.
“No, no, you look lovely,” said Grizzelda fawningly, brushing a piece of lint from his shoulder.
Spike rolled his eyes, twisted up his face, and pursed his lips, pretending to
give Colin a kiss.
Grizzelda stopped them with a withering stare. “Don’t you two need to be in the kitchen, helping with the hors d’oeuvres...now!”
Ofelia and Melissa were both in black dresses fronted with white frilly aprons. They looked harried, and from the number of steaming pots and plates full of food, Colin knew why. It must have taken forever to prepare so much food. Melissa stared at them hard, silently accusing them of not helping out enough, which was true. Spike zoned in on the smell of the food.
“Delectable!” he said rubbing his hands together with obvious delight, “When do we eat?”
Ofelia gave them a tired smile, pointed to the trays of hors d’oeuvres set out on the kitchen counter, told them to “Sprint, boys!” then turned her back on them and busied herself at the stove. Melissa’s blue eye flashed frostily as she shoved a pile of neatly folded tea towels and assorted kitchen linens into a chest. The dinner was not turning out as she had imagined it. It didn’t take her long to realize she was not going to be the princess, but the servant, and she was learning how much work servants actually did.
“We eat after everyone else is done,” Ofelia called out to Spike, kindly, but firmly.
Spike, his ear cocked, heard the voice of Principal Devonish, full of fruity-scented flowers and fructose, shatter into shrill tones as she laughed.
“Principal Devonish! Why did she invite her here?”
Colin was so intent on Spike’s report that he failed to see Sergeant Peary materialize behind him.
“Maybe she didn’t get enough of my table-top dance routine?”
“Sergeant Peary!” exclaimed a startled Colin.
The Sergeant, for a change, looked more like his old self, his cigar smoldering contentedly away, his fatigues traded in for an immaculate black tuxedo. His bow tie seemed to be garroting his thick neck, cutting off the circulation to his brain. The red bloodstain on his white shirt peaked out obscenely from beneath his jacket.
The sharp detonation of a pan hitting the floor jerked their heads around to see Ofelia standing over the spilled vegetables, gawking at the ghost.
“Ofelia,” said Colin trying to assuage her shock as quickly as possible, “this is Sergeant Peary. Sergeant Peary, this is Ofelia, our friend.” He made sure to emphasize the word friend.
The Sergeant wafted over to her, took hold of her limp hand, and kissed it with his ghostly lips. “Enchanté, mademoiselle, so pleased to meet you.”
“He’s my guardian spirit,” said Colin, trying to further take the edge off the moment. “Isn’t that right, Sergeant Peary? That’s all you’re going to do tonight, right? Just protect. No dancing, right?”
Melissa giggled.
“Of course, but you know yourself, these protective inclinations I get aren’t something I can turn on and off,” said Sergeant Peary flicking his wrist. A stained, yellow document appeared out of the air. There was a red wax seal at the bottom making it look official. “After all, it’s part of the contract.”
“The contract?” asked Colin.
Sergeant Peary nodded emphatically. “There are a lot of people out there that are as close to being a Nix as you can get. You have to be on guard all the time.” His translucent hand flicked the air and the contract disappeared. The same hand then swooped beneath a tray of hors d’oeuvres, lifting it into the air.
“He can’t be serious,” said Spike.
“Deadly serious,” said Sergeant Peary grinning, ashes falling through the plate. Colin saw something bulging under the ghost’s tux jacket, something with the distinct outline of a machine gun. “Don’t worry, I won’t use it unless there are some machinations out there.” He paused, looking at them expectantly. “Don’t you get it? Machinations – machine gun!”
Nobody got it, and he gave a great suffering sigh.
