“Mamma! You’re back!”
The blankets wiggled and surged as I poked and prodded, and then finally, Mamma’s face emerged, “Ayah, I’m back, darling. Here, give me a kiss.” She wrestled me into a squeezy embrace, and then didn’t let me go, but settled back against the pillows. I buried my face in her neck, breathing in the familiar smell: lemon verbena, gunpowder, and ink. And today, the distant salt smell of the sea.
“Why are you back so soon? What happened?”
Mamma grimaced. “The Ambassador called me back. He’s rather annoyed someone tried to kill him. He wants me to explain why.”
“I’m sorry, Mamma.” But you saved yourself a big waste of time, I thought.
She squeezed me. “It’s all right, darling. Going to Fort Jones would have been a fool’s errand, anyway. Idden is long gone. I wanted to see for myself, but it would have made no difference.”
Guilt twanged at me. “I’m sure she’s all right, wherever she is, Mamma. Idden’s too mean to have anything happen to her.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Flora.” Mamma stroked my head.
“But I mean it as a compliment. Who would dare mess with Idden? She’d bite their hand off if they tried to grab her. I’m sure she’s fine, Mamma, really. Don’t worry.” Darn Idden—couldn’t she at least send Mamma a note saying she was alive?
“I hope you are right, Flora.”
Despite her sadness, Mamma seemed in a mellow mood. Or maybe she was just sleepy. Either way, perhaps this was a good time to bring up Poppy’s meltdown. It is better, said Nini Mo, to let someone else give the bad news. On the other hand, sometimes it is best to be first. “Mamma, at the Ball—”
“Your father already told me what happened, Flora.”
“It wasn’t my fault, Mamma, really. I could hardly—”
“We’ll talk about it at breakfast, Flora. I need my coffee before I consider any further troubles. I’m exhausted. Ayah so?”
“Ayah so, Mamma,” I said, kissing her forehead. She did look very tired, and a little sunburned, too. I noticed, for the first time, that thin lines of silver ran through her short blond hair. I was getting older, and Mamma was, too.
For some reason this thought made me sad.
POPPY DIDN’T SAY A WORD to me when I came into the kitchen and I didn’t say a word back, for all I cared to say would get me in even deeper trouble. I sat down at the table and drank coffee; Poppy stood over the stove and fried bacon. Mamma came down a few minutes later, in a cloud of dogs.
“I’m starving,” she announced, sitting at the table. “I think I could eat an entire side of bacon.”
“You need to lay off the bacon, Buck,” Poppy said. “You are getting a little tummy. You won’t be able to get your weskit buttoned soon.”
Mamma put her cup down and smiled. “This is just the start of my little tummy. Soon it will not be so little anymore.”
I looked up from my waffles. Poppy’s face had turned as white as an egg. “What do you mean, Buck?”
“I hope it’s a boy this time, Hotspur. Then you will have some company in this nest of Fyrdraaca females.”
Mamma and a baby! I sat there like a snapperhead, shocked into silence, my waffles abandoned. Of course, I knew that Poppy had moved back down into Mamma’s room, and that she had begun closing her door at night, and making the dogs sleep in with me—but a baby! Mamma was fifty-one years old! Surely that’s too old for a baby!
“When will this happen, Buck?” Poppy asked very quietly.
Mamma answered through a mouthful of waffle. “At the end of the summer.”
“This is a great surprise.”
“So the Goddess does love her jokes.” Mamma smiled at Poppy, but he turned back to the stove, where the bacon was beginning to burn. He pulled the skillet off the fire, damped the burner, and put the bacon on a plate. He set the plate on the table and then, without another word, disappeared upstairs.
Mamma took a pile of bacon and passed the plate to me. I took two slices but didn’t eat them. “Is Poppy mad?”
“No, darling, he’s just surprised. You must remember that he was gone when you were born, and you were two years old before he came home. The last baby he remembers is your namesake. I am sure that he cannot help but think of her now.”
The memory of what Valefor had told me about the birth of the First Flora dropped into my head: that Mamma had almost died, and only Val’s intervention had saved her and Flora, as well. And that had been years ago; when Mamma had been young. She was no spring chicken now, and with Valefor banished he would not be able to intervene if things went bad.
Mamma said confidently, “But Hotspur will be happy, when he gets over the surprise. What do you think—girl or boy? Pass me another waffle; I’m starving. I forgot how hungry I get when I am in pig.”
“Girl, of course,” I said automatically, still thinking of all the horrible things that could go wrong. And thinking, too, of the Loliga, whose labor pains threatened to destroy us all. Lord Axacaya and I would not let that happen.
“This family already has had three girls. Four if you count me. Don’t you think that it’s time Poppy had some company?”
“Boys are troublesome and vain, Mamma. Look at Udo.”
“I am thinking of Udo, such a handsome boy. Well, we shall get what the Goddess gives us, and we shall like it, too. Why do you look so worried, honey?”
“What if you should die, Mamma? It’s not that easy having a baby”
Mamma laughed. “I guess I know how hard it is to have a baby, Flora. I’m not going to die. It’s true I’m not so young, but I’m healthy as a horse, and no baby is going to break me. Never you fear. But listen, Flora—about Lord Axacaya, and your confinement—”
“Poppy is unreasonable! It wasn’t my fault! And the scene he made—”
Mamma sighed. “And I know all about the scene—happily the assassination attempt drove it off the front pages, but the CPG managed to find space for it on page two. I understand you could not snub Lord Axacaya; it would have been very bad protocol.”
“So my confinement is lifted?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m sorry, Flora. I have to uphold your father. Even though it may seem unfair, it is true that you did speak extremely disrespectfully to him—let me finish. You know that Lord Axacaya is a sore subject with him, and he was only trying to protect you from what he perceived as a threat. Lord Axacaya is no friend to us, Flora. Can you blame Hotspur for being worried for your safety?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Mamma can be many things, but she is almost always fair. And this was completely, totally, not fair. Not fair to me and certainly not fair to Lord Axacaya—Mamma had misjudged him. Hadn’t he helped me when I needed help? Wasn’t he worried only about the City and her safety? I burned to point all of this out, but, of course, I couldn’t. Mamma still didn’t know about my earlier brush with Anima Enervation, and I aimed to keep it that way.
“Lord Axacaya was very kind to me, Mamma. And when Poppy threatened him, he didn’t raise his hand. Poppy was the one who acted badly.”
“Lord Axacaya never strikes openly, Flora,” Mamma said, “and I do not disagree that Hotspur overreacted.”
I burst out, “How can you agree with me and yet still uphold Poppy? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I agree that you could not avoid Lord Axacaya. But you had no call to argue with your father, and that is what he confined you for. And as he was right to take offense at that behavior, I see no reason why I should not confirm his sentence. You were extremely insolent and disrespectful. Can you deny that?”
“But—!”
“Do you deny it?”
“No—but I was no more disrespectful than Poppy was to me!”
“Hotspur’s behavior is not the issue here. We are discussing your behavior, and at your own admittance you were disrespectful and insolent.”
Now Mamma sounded more like the judge advocate general than a mother. Scratc
h Mamma and she bleeds Army black; she must always look at things in terms of regulations, even when governing her own family. I know Mamma well enough to know that if I argued with her now, I would only dig myself in deeper. But it wasn’t fair!
“Please do not cause me extra trouble, Flora. I have enough as it is, what with Idden gone, and your father in mud with the Warlord. Not to mention riots and seditious editorials, and this Azota cult thing. I depend on you, Flora. Particularly now, with the baby.”
My heart almost exploded with guilt. Mamma knows how to put the screws on. I was a few seconds away from bawling. That’s how good Mamma is; she can get you to feel wrong about being right.
“However, I will,” Mamma continued, “lighten the sentence from two weeks to one. And during the day, you may have the run of the House. You must only retreat to your room at night. You may also take your meals with us, if you like.”
Thanks for a big fat load of nothing. I glared at Mamma, but she continued to eat her waffles—and mine—ignoring me. I felt sorry for that poor little baby, blissfully unaware of the awful fate awaiting it. It is horrible to be a Fyrdraaca.
Twenty-Five
A Search. Band Practice. Udo In Heels.
VALEFOR WAS IN raptures about the baby. He twirled about my room, burbling about new blood, new life, new starts. Then he vanished into some distant part of Crackpot Hall to see if he could find the Fyrdraaca layette set. I couldn’t argue with the new-life bit, nor with the new start, but it seemed to me that we were talking about the same old Fyrdraaca blood, and that was going to cancel out everything else. If Idden didn’t reappear, would Mamma call the new kid Idden Segunda? Was that Mamma’s goal—every time she lost a kid, she’d replace it with another? A terrible thought, I know, but now I was full of terrible thoughts.
Like what would happen if Lord Axacaya and I didn’t free the Loliga. We’d all be squashed by falling rubble or burned up by fire. That would be it for all the Fyrdraacas, and maybe it would be a good thing, too. The Fyrdraaca line would end.
That was too terrible. No one else in the City deserved to be squashed. The City itself did not deserve to fall. And the Loliga deserved to be free. Would Nini Mo lie on her bed, thinking mean and evil things about her parents when there was a City to save?
No, of course not.
Lord Axacaya was counting on me. The City was counting on me, even if the City didn’t know it. So I jerked myself out of my brood and tried to focus. I could still follow through with the plan I had made with Lord Axacaya. I would just sneak out again. I had agreed to meet him at midnight at the Lone Mountain Columbarium, which sits just outside the City limits on the Point Lobos Road. Together we would then ride out to Bilskinir House and I would ask Paimon very nicely to help save the City by giving me Georgiana Haðraaða’s Diario. Or by telling me what was in it. Once Lord Axacaya knew what to do, he would do it. And once the City was saved, surely Lord Axacaya would be impressed enough with my bravery and force of character to agree to teach me Gramatica. I would have proven myself worthy of instruction.
Poppy never showed for my tactic lesson, so I spent the afternoon rereading The Eschata and practicing my knot tying. By six o’clock I was bored of knots and I was impatient, but I couldn’t sneak out until after bedtime. Then, a stroke of luck.
Mamma had to go to Saeta House, and she took Poppy with her so he could apologize to the Warlord in person. A Formal Apology is long and tedious; it would take them at least four hours, and by the time they came home, I’d be in bed, of course—or at least so they would think. In the meantime, I was left alone, on my own recognizance, from which I did not hesitate to release myself the moment they were out the door. I left behind a closed bed door, and Valefor primed to provide a few diversionary snores, if necessary. As long as I was home by morning, they’d never know I had been gone.
I didn’t have to meet Lord Axacaya for an hour or so, which gave me time to do something else first.
AT CASE TIGGER, I found a scene straight out of a yellowback terror novel. The front door was ajar and Case Tigger looked like it had been the scene of room-to-room fighting between several heavily armed factions. Udo’s six younger brothers and sisters are constantly locked in a battle for supremacy. A battle that, today at least, appeared to be to the death.
I found Gesilher (age six) barricaded in the pantry where he had eaten an entire shelf of jam. There he was rolling about on the floor, sure he had been poisoned, though he was able to pause long enough between convulsions to tell me that Madama Landaðon and the Daddies had gone to Calistoga for three days, leaving Udo in charge, and that as soon as their barouche had turned the corner, Udo had scarpered, leaving the kids to their own devices.
These devices were thus: the Evil Twins, as everyone (even their parents) call Ulrik and Ulrika (eleven), had moved their fight for domination from the mental to the physical; the noxious Gunn-Brit (thirteen) was in the upstairs bathroom tinting her hair green; Ylva (five) had been taken hostage by Ulrik, who was hoping to trade her to Ulrika in return for rights over their favorite orange sweater. Moxley, I was relieved to hear, had gone with his parents—he’s only six months old and not yet weaned.
I advised Ges to stay in the pantry until his parents returned—or he died of a surfeit of sugar, whichever came first. Dodged Ulrik and Ulrika’s rubber arrow cross fire and made it out of Case Tigger alive. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew where Udo was.
At el Mono Real, this suspicion was confirmed. Bongo, the java-jerk, told me that Udo and the Zu-Zu had been in earlier for coffees, and when they left, they’d been headed back to band practice at her place. Of course, Bongo knew where the Zu-Zu lived because there is nothing about anyone who is cool that Bongo does not know. He scrawled me a map on the back of a takeaway menu.
The Zu-Zu lived in a narrow black house on a narrow black alley in LoHa, the supertrendy part of town where all the supertrendy people live. The house is as tall and thin as she is, I thought sourly as I rang the bell, then stood simmering on the black marble stoop. No one answered, so I rang again, banged on the heavy iron door, and then, just because it would make me feel better, kicked at it.
After about five minutes of hammering, the door swung open, letting out a cloud of cigarillo smoke thick enough to choke a horse.
“Ayah?” The man who answered the door was as tall and pallid as the Zu-Zu, and wore a black velvet smoking jacket. Poppy at his absolute worst had never looked as bad as this guy; his aspect was both corpselike and stoned.
“I’m looking for Udo. Is he here?”
“Udo ... um ... who?” the man said, vaguely.
“Udo? Tall, blond, obnoxious taste in hats.”
“Oh, ayah, Zu’s little boy Come on in. I saw him around once.”
The inside of the house was as foggy as the Bay at midnight, but not nearly as fresh. I followed the Corpse into what I supposed was a parlor, although the clouds of smoke obscured most of the furniture. A group of equally zoned people sat in a circle on the floor playing knickety-knock with a squealing air elemental. They sat like black stones, flicking the poor little thing back and forth, oblivious to its distress.
“Udo?” I asked the Corpse, who’d thrown himself on a fainting sofa and begun puffing on a hookah that was not, I suspected, filled with tobacco.
The Corpse pointed vaguely toward the ceiling. “You look very sweet,” he mumbled. “Why don’t you come and sit on my lap?”
Ayah, right. I’d rather set myself on fire. I made my way back to the parlor door, not particularly caring if I kicked anyone on the way or not, but then I stopped. The elemental was making a mewling noise like a baby’s cry. I went back to the circle and stood there, ignored, and when the elemental was flicked in my direction, I bent down and grabbed it.
The stoners just sat there, staring at nothing. The elemental crouched, shivering, in my hand; it looked like a little hedgehog—a hedgehog with translucent bat wings. Its little pointy nose wiggled anxiously.
“
I’ll let you go, but not until we are out of here, ayah so?” I whispered to it, not sure if it would understand. What do elementals speak, if they can speak at all? Gramatica, I guess. I did not know how to say anything comforting in Gramatica, so I hoped the creature would take friendliness from my tone. It scurried up my arm and nestled itself inside my coat pocket.
I went up the narrow stairs, jumping over empty bottles and discarded shoes that were strewn on the risers. The upstairs hallway was dim, the walls lined with huge black vases full of dead flowers and pictures of various cemetery-scapes. The first door opened to the filthiest bathroom I had ever seen; it was worse, far worse, than even the bathroom at the Poodle Dog. I hastily closed the door against the stench and hoped that the horrific image had not burned itself into my brain, ready to surface again in my nightmares. You’d think the Warlord’s granddaughter would have a maid, but maybe she thought it was cool to be a mess.
The second door revealed a large brass bed piled with five snoring dogs, who were so lazy that they didn’t bother to notice me. The wolfish dog closest to the door did open one yellow eye to see who was letting in the cold air, but then dropped the lid closed and went back to snoring. I realized it was a wolf and shut the door hastily.
The next door opened to the fluttering glitter of candlelight. At one end of the room stood a small stage, scattered with musical instruments: a drum kit, a banjo, a guitar. Califa’s Lip Rouge were not practicing very hard; in front of the stage, they were lolling about on cushions, almost invisible in a fog of cigarillo smoke and incense.
“Udo!” I said sharply.
A tall shape rose from the shadowy sprawl. As Udo came into full view, I almost shrieked with horror. His gorgeous shiny golden hair, his greatest vanity and most cherished possession, was now a flattened jet black, hanging around his face in matted tendrils like limp strands of licorice.
Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) Page 17
