Blood & Flowers

by Penny Blubaugh

  Lucia grinned up at him as if she’d been given star XM390 for a birthday present and said, “Bicycle theater!”

  There was silence. Then everyone looked at her, and El Jeffery said, “Let me rephrase that. Lucia often has good ideas.” He paused. Then “Lucia sometimes has good ideas. Or—may have good ideas.”

  He might have kept talking, but now it was Lucia’s turn to punch something. She chose El Jeffery’s arm. I’d never once seen Lucia punch someone, seriously or in play. Lucia in Faerie and Lucia at home seemed to be two very different people.

  “This is a great idea,” she said. “Like Tonio said, it gives us a chance to adapt. It gives us time to relax and scope out the lay of the land. It keeps us busy, but it’s not taxing.” She beamed.

  That silence again until I said, “Um, Lucia, what is bicycle theater?”

  She seemed shocked when she said, “You don’t know?” Multiple heads shook back and forth in the universal gesture for no.

  “Oh. Well…” Lucia seemed at a loss for words. “I thought everyone…” She trailed off again.

  “Lucia, I don’t think so,” said Nicholas, while Floss watched her with wide, encouraging eyes.

  Lucia pulled herself together, a visible movement, took a deep breath, and said, “Bicycle theater. Okay. You set up a traveling stage. A small one. You can mount it on a trailer or on the bicycle itself. Then you do your show wherever, whenever, with little puppets. And you have a coin box so people can drop in money for the show. And music too, if you want. Or little lights. Or—”

  “Tiny street theater!” Tonio crowed. “Taking Outlaws back to its roots.”

  “In a small way,” Max said. “Pun intended.”

  “Multiple setups. We could go all over.” Nicholas looked at the land, the hills, the dirt paths, the rocks in the road and added, “You can ride a bicycle around here, can’t you, Floss?”

  “Depending on where you want to go,” she said in that oblique Floss way.

  “In town.” That was El Jeffery. “It could work in town, or near Dau Hermanos.”

  “Uh, Floss?” I said. “Isn’t there something about the fey and metal? Bikes are metal, right? Do they even have metal things here? Because going back to get a bike or a couple of bikes might—”

  Floss coughed to stop me and said, “Titanium.”

  “What?”

  “Steel is horrible stuff. Everybody knows. Titanium, though, that’s just fine. Plus it shimmers like a rainbow when it’s in the sun. Especially,” she said after a moment of contemplation, “if it’s purple.”

  There was really only one answer to that. “Oh,” I said, and Floss nodded once, very regally.

  El Jeffery said, “You have those bikes in the shed, you know,” and I saw Floss stiffen. It was so slight a movement that I might have wondered if I’d imagined it, but Floss made it clear that I hadn’t.

  “I wasn’t planning on going home,” she said in clear, clean syllables. I know I wasn’t the only one who saw El Jeffery wince, and in my limited experience, it’s not that easy to tell when a griffin winces.

  “You do have that option,” El Jeffery said. “But Fred was talking about you just yesterday.” Floss didn’t say a word. El Jeffery added, “He’ll know you’re here, just like I did. He’ll feel it. And he did say how much he missed you.”

  Floss jiggled her shoulders and shook her head, while Lucia said, “Freddy?” on a little sigh.

  Floss focused on Lucia. “He’ll certainly know I’m here if I’m with Lucia,” she said in a thoughtful, measured way, and Lucia blushed.

  “He does worry. And he’s nothing like the rest,” El Jeffery said in a low voice. He seemed to be addressing only the question of Fred and ignoring completely the idea of Lucia and Fred. That was too bad, because Lucia with some unknown named Fred suddenly seemed like a topic of high interest to me.

  Then, as if he were saying something delicate in mixed company, possibly something in poor taste as well, he added, “Feron may feel it too, you know.”

  “Mmph,” Floss said, which for Floss was almost no statement at all.

  “Feron?” Nicholas asked.

  Floss glared at him and he tilted his head to the side, eyes wide. “I’m just curious because you sort of growled.”

  “Older brother,” El Jeffery said. “Didn’t she mention him?”

  “She didn’t mention family much at all,” Nicholas said.

  “Maybe because it’s no one else’s business?” Floss asked on a long sigh.

  Nicholas held up a hand. “That’s probably true.” Then he grinned. “But it’d be hard to not be interested. Still, pax.”

  “Double pax,” El Jeffery added, both paws up.

  Floss shook her head, and when she answered El Jeffery she skipped over Feron and right over Fred and Lucia, too. “Before we worry about bicycles and my family, let’s get food. I plan much better on a full stomach, and even though I’m always famished before a show, I can never eat.”

  “Famished before, famished after,” Tonio bantered.

  “Famished during a show,” El Jeffery added.

  Tonio turned toward him, hand in the air, and they high-fived. Tonio’s hand looked like a miniature marshmallow against El Jeffery’s pie-sized paw.

  Floss tried to look mad and ended up giggling. I think it was the first time I’d ever heard Floss giggle.

  Nicholas was the only one who held back as we started a walking train that followed Floss and El Jeffery. When I realized he wasn’t with me I glanced back and raised my eyebrows. “Are you coming?”

  He dragged his feet as he came up to me. “Faerie seems very cool. But I just thought—Faerie food?” he whispered. “You know, eat it and stay here forever? Sort of like a superpsychedelic experience that never ends?”

  Floss heard, even though I almost didn’t. Fey must have ears like street kids. Always wide open. She turned back and said, “Don’t worry. That only happens if we let it. You’re with us.”

  El Jeffery chimed in, “You’ll be perfectly safe.” And hungry as I was, I decided there was no reason not to believe them.

  “Because, really,” I said to Nicholas, continuing my thought out loud, “it’s just Floss, after all.”

  XIII

  “Mélange. Just like the world.”

  Faerie food was safe. Faerie food was delicious. And it seemed to be in endless supply at Dau Hermanos, the Welsh-Mexican-themed diner where Floss and El Jeffery took us that afternoon.

  Dau Hermanos seemed to be a sort of old-fashioned roadhouse. The front of the place nearly touched the cobbles that ran past it, and there was a huge, grassy, chalk-colored field with wildflowers in the back. The restaurant was on the ground floor, and there were rooms upstairs. Kind of a fey bed-and-breakfast.

  “Because,” Floss had said as we approached, “the two closest towns are that way”—she pointed past the hills to the north—“and that way.” This time she pointed to the river running to the west. “This place is kind of centrally located.”

  I was curious. “What are the towns like?”

  El Jeffery said, “Townish. Crowded. Harder to breathe and harder to see the sky. Especially at night.”

  “Romantic griffin,” Floss said with a grin, and she opened the door.

  The Dau Hermanos menu was six pages long. Buckets of fresh beer, ten different kinds of tacos, mountains of salad with lime-cilantro dressing, avocados, lamb empanadas, and gallons of tea. Mariachi music and bagpipes on the jukebox, wool capes on the walls, and red striped shawls on the tables.

  Tonio’s eyes shone happily, and I knew, because I knew Tonio, that he had to be drinking in the color and culture mash-up. Max, who had kept his menu after we’d ordered, was reading it over and over like it was a love letter. Lucia and Nicholas looked relaxed, and El Jeffery and Floss looked as happy as I felt with the food spread out in front of us.

  I waved my hand through the air, trying to encompass the Dau Hermanos experience. “So,” I said to Floss and El
Jeffery, “does this kind of mix and match happen here a lot?”

  Floss chewed a stray tortilla chip drenched in fish salsa and nodded. “We cross the border a lot. At least”—she glanced at El Jeffery—“some of us do.”

  “It’s not my fault,” he said, calm and slow. “I tend to stand out more when I’m not in Faerie.”

  “If you’d practice glamouring,” Floss said, and stopped as if she’d actually completed the sentence.

  “It’s just so much work. You know how lazy I am.” He shrugged, but there was a definite grin settled on his beak.

  “Foolish griffin,” Floss said. She smiled as she slapped him on the foreleg. “You’re not lazy at all. You just don’t really want to go.”

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  “But other people?” I persisted. “They go?”

  “Most come back,” El Jeffery said, with a glance at Floss. “Most just want a quick look, a taste. They take what they like, then bring it back here. And you get this.” He pointed to the Dau Hermanos menu still clutched in Max’s hands.

  “You make it sound easy. Does it work like that going the other way? Because Floss, you had to bring us through. We couldn’t do it on our own. You said it was hard to do that. Like when Nicholas wanted to come and couldn’t make it work.”

  “It’s not easy,” Floss said, stretching out the words, “but we all know it’s not impossible.” She glanced at Lucia, then added, “Mostly, if you’re alone, you require that strong need that we talked about before. Or a strong emotion. You sort of wish yourself through.”

  A look I couldn’t read flashed across Lucia’s face. “If you’re lucky, you end up in the right place,” she said in a soft voice.

  I thought about what Floss had said. “So Major could do that? We’re not safe here, after all?” Everyone looked at me, and I added, “He’s got strong emotion, that’s for sure.”

  But Floss shook her head and looked frustrated. “It’s not like that. Even if he tried to use hate or anger to wish himself through, it’s still tricky. And hate and anger are always skinny, weak emotions. They’re not easy to work with. Really, chances of him getting through with those are almost nil.”

  “Unless he’s connected with a sponsor,” El Jeffery added.

  Floss stopped eating. She looked thoughtful. “There’s certainly been fey activity back home. Remember that last influx of dust and drinks? That had a fey edge to it. And there was that presence I thought I felt.”

  “I remember that,” I said. “We talked about it. But you said you couldn’t pin it down. You said it wasn’t anything to worry about.”

  “I know, I know.” She looked thoughtful, but then she shook her head. “No.” She seemed positive. “No, I don’t see how that has any connection with Major.”

  “Maybe Major’s a dust dealer,” I said, excited.

  But now Tonio shook his head. He blew out a soft, one-syllable laugh. “There’s no way. Something like that would involve a lot of work. Networks, employees, travel. And money. You’d have to have a good-sized bankroll to start that kind of an operation. As much as he wants power, Major doesn’t work if he doesn’t have to, and he’d never spend a cent on something that wasn’t a sure thing. And even if it was a sure thing, the payoff would have to be extraordinary or he wouldn’t take the risks. Major’s only goal is to benefit Major, and I can’t see anyone giving him enough of an incentive to risk a run-in with the law.”

  I still liked my theory. “You said he’d been traveling,” I told Floss.

  She snorted. “Your guesses of Alabama and Greece were better than a guess for Faerie.”

  “He’s been really busy annoying us,” Max said. “Where would he find the time to gather drinks and dust, let alone get a distribution network going?”

  “And to get through on his own, using hate as a passport?” El Jeffery said, making it sound like a question. “The damage factor would be quite high, I think.” He tapped a talon on the table to emphasize his point.

  Nicholas wrapped my hand in his. He bumped my leg with his own, a sweet version of footsie. Both things blew Major right out of my mind. I slid my chair so close to Nicholas that I could feel his body heat, and I held tight to his hand. He grinned at me. “Relax, Persia. We’re fine. Can’t you feel it?”

  Tonio nodded and said, “Listen to Nicholas. He’s a smart guy.”

  Max grinned and even winked.

  All the messages coming my way were clear and clean. Everyone seemed calm and blissful. It appeared to be working for them, so I decided “Why not?” and I squeezed Nicholas’s fingers in my own as an affirmation.

  A tall, slender, ethereal man came to our table, followed by a squat, barrel-chested gentleman.

  “Floss!” said the tall one. “You’re home. I knew it! I would have been here earlier, but the kitchen wanted me.”

  “If that’s where you were, it was time well spent. The food was fabulous.” She pointed at all of us. “I brought my friends,” she said. Then she nodded at the two men. “These are the brothers this place is named for. Bron”—she pointed at the tall one—“and Rohan.”

  Names were exchanged like packages on a holiday morning, and then Nicholas asked the obvious question. “Brothers?”

  Rohan laughed. “In name.”

  “Which is generally so much stronger than blood,” said Bron.

  Tonio said, “Mélange. Just like the world.”

  I looked at my friends, old and new, and felt relaxed and calm. As soon as I realized that, I also realized that I was so tired that I didn’t think my eyes would stay open a moment longer. From a distance I heard Floss say, “I think we’re going to need a few rooms….”

  I woke feeling like I’d slept for a year or two, and I let the thoughts of Faerie food slip through my mind one more time. This time I wasn’t worried. This time I just wondered if it was a very fine restorative, and then I decided not to wonder so much, to just let the good feelings flow along.

  The window in my room was opened an inch or two. There was a breeze blowing through that smelled of clover and dandelions. And cocoa mulch, too, that reminded me of the chocolate factory we’d left behind. The breeze slipped past Lucia, where she slept in the bed next to mine, and ruffled her hair like a lover.

  I stretched three good, long yoga stretches, and shoved back the covers. It wasn’t until I was fully out of bed, glancing down at a T-shirt I couldn’t recall putting on the night before, that I remembered the only thing I had to wear was the dinner dress from the last scene of B&B. Then next to the door I saw a chair piled high with clothes. I dug through the jumble and found jeans and a shirt with the Dau Hermanos logo—a triskelion topped by a flat-brimmed Mexican hat. I dressed and left the room, pulling the door closed so softly that I didn’t even hear the lock snick.

  There were no clocks in the dining room of Dau Hermanos, but the way the light filtered through the windows made me think it was very late morning. There were no calendars, either, but I was pretty sure it was tomorrow, as long as I believed I’d left home yesterday. Then I saw the ethereal guy from the night before. He was called something very fey, so not John or Ron, but—Bron. That was it, or at least I thought that was it.

  Still, I wasn’t so positive that I was going to risk using the name. When I said, “Hi,” I just let the name slide. No point in irritating my host. Then, even though I probably sounded like an addled human, I tacked on, “You wouldn’t happen to know what day it is, would you?”

  He looked amused. “Wednesday.”

  Mindful that I was standing in a Faerie diner, I said cautiously, “The day after yesterday?” and he laughed. Someone that fragile-looking shouldn’t have a laugh involving snorts. He brought it under control faster than I would have been able to, but there was still a lingering smile when he said, “That’s an ambivalent question, isn’t it?”

  Maybe it was the laugh. Maybe it was the casual way he leaned against the breakfast bar. More probably it was the way he hooked one long, el
egant foot around the leg of a stool and placed it, with perfect precision, right in front of me. He just put me at ease. I climbed up on the stool and said, “Ambivalent. Okay. But I’m still not too clear on where and when I am.”

  “Faerie food.”

  I jumped up, all that nice relaxation gone—snap—and looked for an escape route.

  “No, no.” He waved his long-fingered hands at me. They moved like he was sketching pictures in the air, and he looked frustrated. “That’s not what I meant. Look, let’s start over.”

  “Hmm.” I wasn’t ready to commit, but I sat down, on the very edge of the stool.

  He bowed to me, as if I were royalty. “Persia. Welcome to Dau Hermanos, the best Welsh-Mex restaurant in Faerie.”

  “Just how many of those are there, then?” I muttered.

  His grin was wicked when he said, “One.” And he laughed again.

  “Now,” he continued, “about fey food. I only meant that it can make you sleep the sleep of the just and righteous. You wake feeling rejuvenated.”

  I had to agree with that. But, “I won’t have to stay here forever? Until I die and my bleached bones are buried in the far, far hills?”

  He raised both eyebrows. “What have you been reading?”

  I blushed. He smiled and said, “Or should I just say only if you want to?”

  Still able to feel the flush on my face I said, “Yeah, that might be better.”

  “Consider it said.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “And now, what will you eat? The breakfast crowd leaves by nine and we reopen at one, but I can certainly find something if you tell me what you’d like.”

  “Eggs?” I guessed.

  “Certainly. And…?”

  Twenty minutes later I had a platter of food that I wasn’t sure I’d even make a dent in, and eighteen minutes after that it was gone. During those eighteen minutes I’d confirmed that yes, he really was Bron, he’d known Floss for years (a look here that made me wonder just what “known” meant), and he held strong feelings of dislike for her privileged family, all except for Fred, his best friend. He also said that he’d gone to cooking school in Vermont. “The winters were as cold and snowy as here, and the summers were just as hot, but I couldn’t stay. I loved it, but I missed here too much. I came back home.”