by F. D. Lee
Bea glanced around at the other brown suits rushing past, carrying their clipboards and piles of paper. No one was paying them any attention, and she’d never actually met a dead-head before.
“Do you… do you know who you are?” she asked the imp, watching his face as he listened, looking for any kind of reaction. There was none.
“i am godwyve i work for the teller The Teller Cares About Me”
“Yes. Yes, he does. And, um, do you know who you were?”
Godwyve’s eyes remained unfocused, but he spoke a little more slowly when he answered, as if the question required great thought.
“i am godwyve yesterday i was godwyve tomorrow i shall be godwyve”
Bea started to ask another question, but stopped. He’d been completely Redacted; there was nothing left of him. She wondered what he’d done to deserve it, and hoped it was more serious than her own misdemeanours.
“That’s great,” she said, a brittle smile scratching her face. “Thank you for explaining.”
“you are welcome now i must bring you to meet mistasinon he is waiting”
“Mistasinon? That’s an odd name.”
“The Teller Cares About Him.”
“Yes, of course. The Teller Cares About Us.”
Godwyve led her to a row of four beige chairs. He waved her onto one before walking back down the hallway, presumably to move more people from one thinly upholstered seat to another.
Bea wiggled, trying to find a way to sit that didn’t make her realise that, despite its padding, her bottom also consisted of quite a large amount of bone. It wasn’t any use. Whoever had designed these chairs had obviously been a very malignant, evil creature – Bea suspected an elf. She sat up and turned around, attempting to rearrange the cushion into a more comfortable shape. It resisted her advances so she swore at it, loudly and imaginatively.
And so it was that she was found using language best not repeated to berate an innocent chair cushion.
Mistasinon coughed politely.
Bea turned around to see a willowy, dark-haired man with large brown eyes and skin the warm brown of ripe wheat, holding out a slim hand with neat fingernails. His hair was slicked back in a style that was just a bit too tidy, like the unnatural cleanliness of a house after a teenager’s party but crucially just before the parents come back. He was staring down at her from behind both a clipboard and a faintly bemused expression.
But Bea, cushion still in hand, was too horrified to notice anything more than the colour of his beautifully cut suit, which was the dark blue of the Plot Department. Not brown, not grey, not white: blue.
She jumped to her feet, holding out her hand and giving her name in as casual a manner as her jangled nerves would allow. She’d found when faced with clipboards it was best to introduce herself first, before the paperwork got a chance. He lifted an eyebrow as thick as her finger and glanced down at his notes. And yet, in a move that instantly guaranteed him her eternal gratitude, he refrained from correcting her.
“Nice to meet you, Bea,” he said, taking her hand in his and shaking it. “I’m Mistasinon. Yes, I know – the first thing we have in common, eh? Let’s get on, then. My office is just down here.”
Bea followed, making the right kind of noises to the dribs and drabs of conversation the Plotter made, while her mind reeled. Here was a Plotter, and he was leading her, Bea, to his office. She was going to a Plotter’s office!
Chapter Five
When they arrived at his office, Bea began to doubt her excitement.
This Mistasinon had brought her to little more than a box room, cluttered and crowded by Books and filing cabinets. He pulled out a chair for her and then attempted easing himself around both her and his desk, but in fact he only managed in difficulting himself into his seat.
“So, I gather you’ve just finished a story?” he asked, placing his clipboard on the desk, an action akin to the most violent of land-grabs and resulting in a number of pens being displaced. Bea reached down to rescue them from the asylum of the floor.
“Um, yes,” she said, trying to find a place to put the pens. “The heroine had to be woken by True Love’s Kiss, so it was my responsibility to make sure she wasn’t disturbed before the hero could come.”
Mistasinon watched as she tidied up his desk, making both the pens and his empty cup fit around the folders and Books.
“I know the one. It’s a long wait, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How did you pass the time?”
Bea felt a twinge of warning. But, she reasoned, if they knew, she wouldn’t be sitting here with a Plotter. Still, better play it safe. “I watched the Plot diligently, making sure nothing untoward happened.”
Mistasinon gave her the kind of look that said: ‘I know the cookie jar’s empty, and incidentally you’ve got chocolate all over your face’.
Bea replied with a little smile.
“You’ve been quite prolific since you started with us,” Mistasinon said, glancing down at his notes.
“Yes. I enjoy working.”
“So it seems,” he answered, indicating his now tidy desk. “Idle hands write poor verses.”
Bea sensed he was laughing at her. She brought her hands up and folded them on the desk in front of her.
“If you say so,” she answered coolly.
Mistasinon looked confused for a moment. He closed Bea’s folder. “I see from your records you moved here six years ago and have been Plot-watching all that time. Most people do it as a hobby, or as an excuse to get to Thaiana, smuggle in goods – but for you it seems to have become something of a career. No one in all that time recommended you for a Plot, despite your obvious drive. I wonder why?”
Bea realised he was expecting an answer. “I think they probably thought I couldn’t do it. But I can, I assure you. I can do most things, when I set my mind to it.”
The Plotter continued to look at her, his large brown eyes still. Bea tried to fill the silence.
“I work very hard. I’ve done almost all the Plot Types, and certainly all the romances.”
“But only Plot-watching?”
“Well, yes-”
“So you’ve never spoken to a character?”
“…No. But I could. They all want to be in a story.”
“And what about you?” Mistasinon asked, but before Bea could answer he waved the question away. “You were born in the Sheltering Forest?”
“Does that matter?”
“Not to me. Difficult time to try and make it in the big city, though. I also understand that you took matters into your own hands. With the Plot.”
Bea froze.
“More than once it seems,” Mistasinon continued. “Though the Book you handed to my colleague at the Grand seems to represent your masterwork. Did that particular story require what I can only describe as a wall of thorns?”
Bea could feel the blood draining from her face. She thought about Godwyve and wished she hadn’t. He’d read the Book. No one ever read the Books she worked on. They weren’t worth it. But he had. What could she do? Could she deny it? No, no, he’d read it. He knew. There was only one thing for it.
Bea swallowed.
“Yes, I think it did,” she said, moving from sentence to sentence with the careful hesitancy of an Arctic explorer stepping from drifting ice slab to drifting ice slab. “You see, there was only a very weak Plot holding the heroine… and it’s a devil if the wrong person stumbles on her, and I just thought… I just thought it would help the story… Which it did, I think…”
“The stories, I think, is more accurate,” Mistasinon corrected.
Bea understood then that she’d never really thought she’d be caught. The realisation landed in her mind like a hundredweight. She’d tried and failed, and changing the stories had been her rebellion. Bea swallowed, her mind racing. She’d changed the Plot. She was going to be Redacted.
“Are you alright?” Mistasinon asked.
“Am I – no, I mean, this
is it, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure about that. It doesn’t seem to have done any harm. In fact, we need a little more ingenuity.”
Bea gaped at him.
“Sorry?”
“Whatever for?”
“I’m not going to be Redacted?”
“Not if I can help it,” he said with a smile. “You’re not in any trouble. I’ve been reading good things about you.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart.”
“So the, uh, thicket isn’t a problem?”
“No. The ‘thicket’ isn’t a problem.” He was grinning now.
“Are you sure?”
And then he laughed. “I’m sure I’m not bothered in the least.”
Bea stared at him. He knew she had changed the stories and he didn’t care. Like a painful boil on the side of her nose she couldn’t stop herself from squeezing the situation until it burst.
“Are you really a Plotter?”
“I’m new to the Department, certainly,” he said.
“But you know I changed some of my stories? And you’re not angry?”
“A little more than some, I think. Anyway, you more adapted them than changed them.”
Bea tried to see the trap. But he just smiled at her. Veteran Generals would have clapped Mistasinon on the shoulder and shaken his hand, so good was his technique, and then retired in disgust at how dishonourable war had become.
“You haven’t told the white suits?” Bea asked.
“What business is it of theirs?” Mistasinon replied.
It was pretty much the Redaction Department’s only business, but Bea decided not to push that line of enquiry any further. “You know, uh, who I am?” she said instead.
“I believe I do, yes.”
“And there’s nothing that worries you about me?”
He looked at her levelly. “Why should I be worried, Bea?”
“So you know I’m a… garden fairy?” For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to say cabbage fairy.
“I try and make it a point not to judge people. That’s the Teller’s job, not mine.”
“I didn’t mean-”
Mistasinon made a dismissive sound and reached across the desk, placing his hand over hers. Bea looked down, startled by the gesture.
“Look,” he said. “I can imagine what it’s like to be a fairy in this city. And I know how difficult it can be trying to change, to be something else and having everyone looking over your shoulder, waiting for you to foul it up.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m not trying to catch you out. I like your ingenuity. I think in the circumstances you did the right thing.”
“You do?” Bea asked, conscious of the feel of his hand. She glanced up at his face and was surprised to see he was looking at her with genuine concern. She was used to attracting the interest of others, certainly, but interest in her experience did not equate to kindness.
In fact, there was something about him that didn’t add up. She’d seen Plotters before, at official ceremonies. Like Mistasinon they’d been dressed in blue, but that was as far as the similarities went. Where the other Plotters had simply been workers in uniform, Mistasinon looked… Bea searched for the right word but couldn’t find it, and then realised it wasn’t simply one thing.
Unlike the fae, whose skin, depending on tribe, tended towards cool tones of colour, Mistasinon’s skin was a warm brown, making him looked like one of the characters after a day in the sun. The second odd thing about him was his build. He was much taller than any fae tribe Bea knew, but he was slender as an elf. This, coupled with his large brown eyes and heavy eyebrows, gave him an air of fragility that was only enhanced by his shabby office and obviously lowly status.
And yet, his suit was better made than anything Bea was used to seeing. The material must have come through the black market because there couldn’t be any Ænathlian shopkeepers with enough influence to import something so beautiful, when necessities were so hard to come by.
But for all his unusualness he was certainly not ugly. The more she looked at him, the more Bea began to suspect he was, in fact, quite attractive. His hand was still holding hers across the table. This was not how she had imagined her first meeting with the Plot Department would go. She could feel a blush creeping up her neck.
“Well, the story finished and perhaps we might suggest a thicket for future versions,” Mistasinon smiled, answering the question Bea had forgotten she’d asked. He brought his hand back to his lap. Bea fought the urge to flex her fingers.
“So,” he continued, “your Books read very highly of you.”
And Bea lost the battle against the blush. She wasn’t used to being complimented, least of all by the GenAm.
“I’d like to put you on a slightly more involved story,” he continued, rubbing his neck absently. “As I’m sure you’re aware we’re having a few… issues… at the moment. It’s vitally important we get the Mirrors running again. So it’s all hands on deck, as it were. I don’t mean, of course, that we’re only advancing you because we’re desperate,” he added quickly, seeing the look on Bea’s face, “but, well-”
“You’re desperate?”
“Eager to pursue new avenues.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “You won’t be an FME, not as such, but you will have an official Plot to follow, with characters and a Book. If you finish it well, engender some belief, we’ll see about sending you through training. Oh yes, it’ll be a godmother assignment, only a small one, but I think that’s what you said you wanted in your letters? Does that sound alright?”
Bea didn’t even need to consider it. She’d been waiting years for this opportunity. And he’d said he was impressed by her. He didn’t mind the fact she had revised – ever so slightly – the stories. He said they needed people like her. He wasn’t at all what she had expected a Plotter to be like. He was nice, approachable, sympathetic.
He liked her ingenuity.
She liked his eyes.
“What story did you have in mind?” Bea asked in a professional-sounding voice.
“A classic,” Mistasinon answered, looking relieved. “It’s only a short one I admit, but there’s direct involvement with the heroine – I think you’ll be very pleased.”
Bea, in fact, wanted to jump for joy but judged the room unable to accommodate it. “Of course, of course. You can count on me!”
“I’m sure. I’ll be the one handling you,” he said. A look of panic darted across his face. “Um. Not… I don’t mean with my hands... Not that there’s any reason I wouldn’t… Er. I just I mean I’ll be looking at, over, after you.”
The stared at each other.
Mistasinon coughed.
“That is, I’ll expect you to report back to me at regular intervals. As you can imagine, it’s not usual to have untrained individuals working with a Plot.”
“Yes, of course. I understood what you meant,” Bea said kindly.
He gave her a grateful smile and then continued, with painful deliberateness, “I’ve chosen you, Bea, because I think you’ve got what we need to help save the city. I don’t think I have to tell you how important it is that the story finishes well. It’s not a difficult Plot, but your main priority is to get some belief coming in – no matter what. Do you understand?”
“Yes, absolutely. ‘No matter what’. Got it.” Bea said, surprised. She had expected a Plotter to be more precise with their language, but then she remembered the comment about ‘handling’ her.
“Good!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Go and pick up the Book from the Contents Department. You can begin tomorrow. You should have it wrapped up in a few days, but if there are any problems come straight to me. Don’t be shy. It’s my job to help you, Bea. And, um…”
“Yes?”
“…Never mind. Just don’t be a stranger.”
“Oh. No. No, of course not.” She stood up to leave. Her hand was on the door handle when she turned around and said, “Thank you.”
&nbs
p; “You really don’t need to thank me,” he said, surprised.
“No one else’s given me a chance before. And you’ve not reported me.”
“Well, I hope I won’t regret it,” he replied, smiling at her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Bea nodded and left his office, her thoughts focusing on her first ever Plot before the door had hit the frame. This was it, the moment when everything would change.
Chapter Six
While Bea was collecting her Book from the Contents Department, another meeting was unfolding in the characters’ world.
Llanotterly was one of the many smaller, semi-independent fiefdoms in Ehinenden, the Third Kingdom of Thaiana. Llanotterly lay in the north-west of Ehinenden, in the county of Caer Marllyn, near to the mouth of the river Ehi, for which the country was named. The Ehi was a good basis for the name, as in the old language Ehine meant strength and love.
Llanotterly itself was named after a small local water ferret that, upon hearing of the death of the first King, left the Ehi and travelled to the fledgling town centre, where it span around three times before falling down dead. No one was quite sure what the animal’s intentions had been, and so it was assumed that the event was mysterious and therefore significant. The locals still nodded a respectful hello whenever they saw an otter, causing no end of mirth in the rest of Ehinenden.
Llanotterly had recently been undergoing some significant difficulties, partly due to the growth of The Imperial City of Cerne Bralksteld to the west, and partly due to the death of the old King. Its new King was not having a good day. John was, as he would say, manifest with the blue devils and decidedly un-chipperoo.
He pressed his knuckles into the table, crumpling the map that was spread out below his hands. He glared down at it, trying to bully it into showing him something other than what he was seeing. It was proving to be annoyingly resistant to intimidation.
“Where’re the blighters now?” John asked.
“To the north, m’lord. ‘Ere, near the river,” Harold, the Overseer, pointed at an area near the top of the map.
