by F. D. Lee
According to the Plot, the hero and Sindy would meet in the forest, the hero rescuing Sindy from some kind of mild peril. They would share a tender moment and part, to be reunited in the Second Act.
Bea had set the peril up that morning, although she’d had to be quite ingenious. Normally a troll would be contracted in, but there was no way Bea was going to risk the GenAm attributing her success to someone else. It had taken some doing, but she felt confident she had a pretty special danger for the hero to save the heroine from. One that she would be able to take full credit for.
There was nothing to worry about. Of course, the addition of an unknown male character wasn’t an ideal beginning to her first ever Plot, but Bea had by now convinced herself that it wouldn’t matter in the end. Sindy would Fall In Love the minute she met the hero, and any amount of second cakes and mystery men would be forgotten.
In fact, nothing really had gone wrong, had it? The heroine was on her way to meet her hero, just like the Plot demanded. All Bea had to do now was observe and perhaps pick up a few key details to use later, when she met the heroine before the Ball.
The sound of hoof-beats clip-clopped across Bea’s inner monologue.
This was it.
Bea gathered up her skirts and settled behind the nearest bush to watch the story begin.
Sindy paused to pick some flowers, humming to herself. She looked, Bea was pleased to see, absolutely beautiful. The sun was floating through the leaves in ribbons, catching her golden hair and making it shine. Birds sang sweetly, and little rabbits hopped around the glade. It was perfect.
Bea took a deep breath. There was nothing she could do now but watch…
One day, as the fair maiden walked through the forest, she was chanced upon by a tall, handsome stranger. He rode a white stallion, the dappled sunlight catching in his hair. The maid gazed into his clear blue eyes and realised she had never before seen such a man. It was love at first sight.
…or at least, that was what was supposed to happen. What actually happened was this:
Bea, from her vantage point, saw the handsome King ride ever closer to the glade in which Sindy so charmingly stood, his stallion prancing beneath him. He looked magnificent. Bea smiled. She’d always known she could do this. She didn’t know why she’d been so nervous. In just a few moments the King would burst forth and see Sindy looking beautiful. They’d walk a spell, trip the trap Bea had laid, he’d save her in a dashing fashion and they’d Fall In Love.
Bea covered her mouth to stop herself squealing with excitement.
Everything was going perfectly.
And then it all went wrong.
“My lord,” called a voice from somewhere behind the King. It was a voice more musical than even the most talented elf, softer than the most seductive adhene, more convincing than the most persuasive imp. The trouble was not the voice. The trouble was what it said next:
“We appear to be headed in the wrong direction. The camp is far east of here.”
Bea watched helplessly as the King pulled his horse up and turned back the way he had come, away from Sindy and his destiny. Sindy finished picking flowers, took her bag of flour and walked off in the opposite direction, back to her house.
Bea swore. She didn’t know what to do, but she had to do something. She watched Sindy disappearing into the forest, and made a choice.
She swept up her bag and ran after the King. She had no idea what she would do when she found him, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. The most important thing right now was to get the introduction back on-Plot. And, she added, to find out who had ruined it in the first place.
It didn’t take Bea long to catch up with her hero. He was sitting astride his horse, talking to a tall, broad-shouldered man who was holding a map and wearing a hood that completely obscured his face. She ducked behind a tree and listened.
“Look here old bean, the map clearly states the damnable thing is here,” the King said, leaning over his horse’s neck to indicate a point on the map.
“Indeed, Sire, you are correct. We, however, are here,” the hooded man said patiently.
“What’s that? We can’t be there, S. We left the castle out of the north gate. We’re here, blast it.”
Bea bit her lip. Her whole Plot was being jeopardised because neither one could read a map? If it wasn’t so horrendous she’d laugh.
“Sire,” the hood sighed, “I assure you we are moving in the wrong direction. Her house is… yes, her house is about a mile in that direction, but if we are here the encampment must surely be here.”
Bea continued her attack against her lower lip. Things were really going wrong now. She should go straight back to the GenAm and report everything that had happened to Mistasinon. It would be alright. He’d give her a new Plot to work on, surely? The GenAm needed the stories running. She should do the right thing.
But…
He might not give her a new Plot. If the stories were so desperately needed, maybe he wouldn’t risk her fouling up another one. Especially if she couldn’t even get the introduction right. The introduction for mortal gods’ sake. It practically told itself.
She could fix it.
No one would ever know.
‘No matter what’. That’s what Mistasinon had said.
Bea stepped out from behind the tree.
“Um. Hello.”
The two men looked up.
Bea managed a smile. It was absolutely imperative to the Plot that she, as the godmother, didn’t meet the King. She needed to play this very carefully.
“What what? You alright there, gel?” The King asked.
Bea’s smile froze. It suddenly occurred to her she had no idea how to talk to the characters.
“Er. Marry. I wish ye good morrow? Lawks.”
The two men stared.
“Ah? Well. Good morrow to you, too,” the King said.
“I have come, cometh, to this place, here, I mean, to make merry…er…” Bea faltered as her brain pointed out that her mouth had just said ‘make merry’, “…make merry, that is, with the, um, the tidings. Merry tidings. I am hererereth” – that didn’t sound right – “to guide you, for I am a humble…woodcutter, going about my humble wood cutting, here in these humble woods.” That was better.
The King smiled at her. The other man, the one in the hood, cocked his head in a way that made Bea feel relieved she couldn’t see his face. For some reason she had the feeling his expression, hidden behind his cowl, was not a friendly one.
“Gosh. That is a bit of luck. Me and my Ad-”
“John,” the hooded man said, a note of warning in his voice.
“Ah, yes, right-ho. Nearly had cats everywhere! My friend and I appear to have got turned around. You don’t know where the traitors’ camp is, do you?”
Out of the corner of her eye Bea saw the hooded man drop his face into his hand.
“The traitors’ camp?” she asked, and then, remembering herself, added, “oodalally.”
“Oh right, no, no, sorry. I meant the rebels’ camp of course. Good old rebels, what? Voice of the people, et-cetera.”
Bea, a person for whom the phrase ‘impulsive’ was too well thought out, was tempted to ask what he meant, but she was too preoccupied with her Plot.
“Yea, there’s a house, um, just down that way, I faith. You could ask there. That’s what I’d do. If I were lost. Ask at a nearby house. Marry.” She’d better get the hero and the heroine together quickly, she was running out of words.
The King turned to the hooded man, who was standing with his arms folded.
“What say you, S.?”
“Had not you intended your visit to be conducted with the minimal amount of notice possible?” he replied. “It is troublesome enough to have met with this ‘woodcutter’.”
“It’s only just a little way,” Bea said, noting the way the hooded man said woodcutter and not liking it one bit. “I knoweth the maiden who liveth thereth. She’s very, sorry, verily prett
y. And she can sing and cook. You’re bound to like her.”
“Well… that’s… spiffing,” John said, clearly not up to speed on why singing and cooking made her better able to give him directions. “Now, S., I don’t see what harm it can do to go find this cottage and sort this whole mess out. I am the K- that is, I am the one with the map, and so I think it’s down to me to call the shots.”
The hooded man stood silent.
Bea held her breath.
And then he nodded.
“Jolly good,” John smiled. “Lead on then, miss.”
Bea couldn’t believe it!
She’d done it!
And they all said fairies couldn’t do anything more important than tidy houses or pick up teeth! Well, this just showed them-
“Madam, if it verily please you,” the hooded man said, picking up the reins of his horse and leading it by hand.
“Oh, yes, sorry.”
Bea started towards Sindy’s house. The hooded man walked next to her, keeping a distance between her and the King. Bea found herself wondering if he wasn’t some kind of bodyguard. There was something about the way he moved that seemed to suggest he was wary of her, like he thought she was suddenly going to assassinate her hero.
Well, when he saw that she was leading the King to his rightful destiny, he’d have to swallow his words. Though he hadn’t actually said very much to her. Well, he was certainly thinking some pretty unkind things, if his body language was any clue. She supposed she shouldn’t let it upset her. She only wished that, just once, someone might not instantly assume she didn’t know what she was doing.
“I suspect you know very well what it is you are doing. Therein lies the problem,” the hooded man said.
“Excuse me?”
The hood snorted, and then muttered something in a language Bea didn’t recognize.
“Oh yes, very brave. Why not say it so I can understand it?” Bea snapped, forgetting her role as humble woodcutter.
The hood turned to face her. “Happily. I-”
A scream filled the forest.
“Mortal gods!” Bea cried out, breaking into a run, “the bear!”
“The bear?” the hooded man said. But Bea was already running ahead, her feet pounding against the leafy carpet of the forest.
She’d forgotten about the bear. The bear that she’d set up to frighten Sindy, the one that John was supposed to save her from. The one which she’d secured with a rope and a clockwork release, the trigger of which Sindy must have stepped on. The very same bear that she’d decided to use because she didn’t want to get in a troll and risk sharing her success.
Another scream rang out.
Tears stung Bea’s eyes as she ran. She hurtled through the forest, the trees blocking her like prison bars, causing her to slide and stumble. The ground began to climb, and Bea to slow.
She wasn’t going to make it in time…
And then suddenly John was overtaking her, his stallion churning up the ground as it galloped.
Bea pushed forward as another scream filled the forest and then, abruptly, cut off. Still running, she reached down and swept up a large, heavy stick and charged over the brow of the hill.
Chapter Eight
John was still on his horse, his sword half out of its scabbard, about to face down the bear, Sindy on the ground next to him. The bear was standing on its hind legs, its great paws raised to swipe, its claws long and sharp. John’s horse, already panicked, was mid buck. There was no way he would be able to keep his seat, not with his right hand freeing his sword from its scabbard and only his left to hold the reins. The two characters didn’t stand a chance against the creature.
Except they were all frozen mid-action.
Bea could only think they looked like statues. It was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. She reached out and touched Sindy’s nose, which was so cold her finger tingled with the contact.
“I know not what you imagined you might achieve with that stick.”
Bea spun round, bringing her branch up. The hooded man stepped out from behind a tree, his left hand pressing tight on his stomach, as if he were trying not to be sick.
“I was going to save them,” Bea said. “Obviously. But when I got here they were like this.”
“You appear to have misplaced you accent. I trust you will make no great effort to locate it?”
Bea coughed. “Yes. Well. Do you know what’s happened to them?”
The hooded man leaned against the tree. He seemed unsteady on his feet. Bea was about to ask him if he was feeling alright when he said, “the more pertinent question is how such a creature came to be in the forest, bound and ready to attack.”
Bea looked around the clearing, but there was no help to be found.
“I note with interest that it appears to have consumed a mixture of datura stramonium,” the hooded man continued. Bea was really beginning to hate the sound of his voice, melodic as it was.
“Oh, well, you know what bears are like. They’ll eat anything.”
“Indeed. They are voracious. Though I admit I had not, before this moment, known one to travel across the Shared Sea in order to find a plant that grows only in Sal Dorma. And yet even this does not represent the most intriguing aspect of this mystery.”
“It doesn’t?” Bea said weakly.
“No. For such a culinary beast I am shocked it did not know that datura stramonium, if not diluted with milk, is an extremely potent hallucinogenic.”
“Oh.”
“I would imagine the poor creature was ill prepared to be woken by a skipping blonde with flowers entwined in her hair.”
“Oh.”
“Such things are, I am given to understand, the cause of far reaching psychological trauma. It is a wonder no one was killed.”
“Fine, alright,” Bea said. She looked again at the frozen characters. “Are they alright?”
“They are perfectly safe,” he answered, stepping carefully away from the tree. “You are from the General Administration, are you not? This is how they manage their affairs now?”
“You’re not a character? Wait. Were you sent here to check up on me?”
“I am not. I was not.”
Bea sighed with relief. “Ah. You must have misread your Book. Still, I’m glad you were here. So how’d you freeze them?”
“Magic.”
“Magic can’t do that. It’s not strong enough. Everyone knows that. Anyway, the Teller, whocaresaboutus, banned magic. I’ve never seen anything like this before. You’re sure they’re alright?”
The hood looked at John, still fixed like a statue. “They will survive what I have done. Would you be able to claim the same?”
Bea opened her mouth to answer, and realised he was bloody well right, wasn’t he? If he hadn’t done whatever it was he’d done, she almost certainly would have killed her characters. She felt a sudden stab of guilt.
“And what would your Plotter say if he knew you’d done that?” Bea snapped, waving her arm at the tableau.
“I beg your pardon?”
“In fact, if you hadn’t interfered in the first place, none of this would have happened anyway.”
The hood stared at her.
“I suppose it’s not entirely your fault,” Bea relented. “And you did help, so, you know. Thanks. But clearly there’s been a mistake.”
“The General Administration is wont to make mistakes,” he replied, the shadow of his face, hidden by his hood, paying her very close attention.
“Yes, well… sometimes, maybe,” Bea said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. “So, I guess you’d better unfreeze them and then I’ll sort out the introduction. Really, what have you done to them?”
“Magic, as I have told you.” The hooded man stepped further into the clearing. He still moved carefully, but he seemed to be recovering from whatever sickness had overcome him.
“Why exactly are you here?” Bea asked.
He stopped, staring at her until she began to feel
very uncomfortable. Bea put her hands on her hips, steeling herself for what she was certain was going to be some kind of tirade. Instead, when he spoke his voice was gentle and conciliatory, slipping past her defences like greased silk.
“I am here to help these people,” he said. “Perhaps I may also be of assistance to you. Would not you rather leave all this to me? Would not you prefer to be away from all this, somewhere quiet, where there is no call to struggle so? Maybe… with your family, your mother and your brother? Away from all the hatred and anger and fear? Are you not tired of running?”
Bea realised she was. Why couldn’t she go home? What would they say, really? So she’d run away, and since then everything had gone wrong… There was nothing for her in the city. What was it about her that always insisted on pushing forward?
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
Something wasn’t right.
“Who are you?”
“You do not behave like one of them,” he said, dodging her question. “You are not in uniform – or perhaps the costume has changed?”
“I – they’re making my uniform,” Bea lied. She’d asked for a uniform, but the Contents Department had refused. She still wasn’t really a godmother. Not yet, anyway.
“What did you say your role was again?” Bea tried. It was getting harder for her to ignore the possibility that this person might not in fact be another FME. Which left only one other alternative, something Bea wasn’t prepared to acknowledge. It would be too awful – her first ever Plot – no, mortal gods damn it, whoever he was, he wasn’t going to take it away from her. She’d work it out later. Right now, she had to protect what was hers.
Bea stepped between him and the King.
“Exactly why are you here with my characters?”
“Your ‘characters’? You are certainly one of the General Administration, uniform or no.”
