Blood & Flowers

by Penny Blubaugh

  “See?” Bron said. “It works exactly the way we planned.”

  Floss nodded. “I like it.” Then she turned to him and said, “I need turquoise dinosaur fur. Is Elbe still selling knickknacks and ephemera?”

  Bron nodded. “He is. Fred said something about needing to go to Elbe’s just this morning. I’m going to be busy soon with the early dinner folk. But if you and Fred go together, you know your chances of a direct hit will increase. Two are always better than one when Elbe is involved.”

  “Especially if one of the two is Fred,” Floss agreed.

  “This sounds interesting,” Nicholas said. “Can I go too?”

  “And me,” I said, jumping up. “Anyone who sells dinosaur fur will most likely have something excellent that I really need. Or want.”

  “Only turquoise fur. No other colors,” Floss cautioned me.

  “That’s okay.” I patted her shoulder. “Fur colors aren’t one of my major sources of interest.”

  “But light source is one of mine,” said Nicholas. “Would this Elbe have anything I could use?”

  Bron laughed. “Elbe has everything. It’s getting to him that’s the problem. Taking Fred will help. He and Elbe have a bond.”

  As if he had been summoned, Fred walked into the discussion. “Actually, I’ve been wanting to see Elbe,” he said, after Floss explained what she needed. “Now’s as good a time as any.” Nicholas and I followed Fred and Floss outside, and the Elbe search began.

  Finding Elbe did take some time. Fred and Floss wandered in what seemed to be totally random patterns, passing each other now and then. Their mouths moved, but no discernible words came out. Nicholas and I started out trying to follow them, but it all became so complicated and convoluted that we finally gave up. We settled down on a bench in front of Dau Hermanos, and since I couldn’t do anything but relax, that’s just what I did. I was so relaxed it was almost shameful.

  Floss walked past us, headed north. I watched her lazily, not turning my head, just letting her slide in and out of focus. Nicholas said, “It’s good here. I like it.”

  “It seems safe, doesn’t it? Warm. Easy. All that talk before about rulers and powers and dangers—it’s like a book of myths.”

  “Do you miss it?” he asked suddenly. “Where we were before?”

  I sat up straight, relaxation gone. “You sound like you think we’re never going back.” Even to myself, I sounded scared. Nicholas was right, it was good here, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stay forever. Fred crossed behind Nicholas and bisected Floss’s path. I tried to take the nervousness out of my voice and added, “They promised. We can still go home.”

  “Maybe we won’t want to.”

  “Wait. Law school?”

  He shrugged. “There must be some kind of fey court system. Maybe I’ll talk to Fred or Bron.” He looked past my shoulder, then switched his gaze to my face. He repeated, “It’s good here, Persia. Being with you here is even better.”

  He looked at me for what seemed like a very long time and I forgot to worry about staying or going. I forgot to worry about anything except Nicholas. His eyes smiled, and when he moved to kiss me I was there before he was. It was a good kiss, a B&B kiss but better, because there was no acting required. They kept improving as we went along, these kisses. Very nice. Very promising.

  When we broke apart Nicholas started to say something, but he never got the chance because behind us Floss said, “Ah,” in a satisfied way. I looked over Nicholas’s shoulder and, as if it had been there all along, a log building stood decked out in a wraparound porch, prayer flags hanging from the roof edges and fluttering in a nonexistent breeze. On the porch was an old-fashioned drink cooler flanked by two white rocking chairs. The word “Elbe” was written in blue on a board placed over the front door, and the whole place was framed by a perfect rainbow. I heard ice-cream truck music coming from inside.

  “Hey,” Floss yelled, in full stevedore voice. “Are you coming? Got to catch him while he’s here.”

  By the time Nicholas and I got to the steps, Fred had disappeared inside and I could hear laughter. Floss slammed through the door. Nicholas and I walked with care, holding hands like Hansel and Gretel approaching the witch’s cottage, but as soon as we were inside, I could tell that we didn’t have one thing to worry about.

  Elbe’s was exactly like Knobbe’s, and completely different at the same time. The atmosphere was Knobbe casual and Knobbe cluttered, but the stock was uniquely Faerie. I looked at the cauldrons and bolts of velvet, the arrows and the dried herbs, the shoes and the jars labeled “Wing Repair.” I could see why Floss had wanted to come here for her dinosaur fur.

  Fred was at the counter making a yellow and green wooden yo-yo do tricks that would have made a yo-yo professional sick with envy. He was barely watching his hands. Instead he was wrapped in deep conversation with a man who had Einstein hair the color of a blue Popsicle. He had one gold hoop on his left ear and two silver hoops on his right and a thick silver band on his right thumb. When Fred’s yo-yo finally tangled in its string, he laughed like he’d heard the joke of the century.

  “Practice, my man. Practice,” he said, as Fred rolled the string back onto the toy. “You’ll never get any good if you don’t practice.”

  “So you say.” Fred’s voice was lazy and relaxed. I didn’t realize he’d heard us come in but, without turning around, he added, “These are our friends, Elbe. Persia, Nicholas, meet Elbe of Elbe’s Old-Fashioned Emporium.”

  Elbe said, “Ah, part of Floss’s group. Everyone’s waiting for the show, you know. You’re the talk of the neighborhood.”

  I glanced at Nicholas. “That’s vaguely alarming.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said, and he grinned. “More like exciting.”

  “Exactly right,” said Elbe.

  “But we just finally got things organized enough to really think we could pull this off,” I protested.

  Elbe shrugged. “We’re fey. We travel good news at a rapid rate.”

  “Nicholas needs lights,” Fred said.

  “Traveling lights. But I don’t think I want candles,” Nicholas added.

  “Why not faerielight?” Elbe asked.

  “I don’t know much about it, and even if I did, I don’t have any handy,” said Fred. “But that might be an alternative.” Their voices faded away as they walked to the back of the store.

  I heard floorboards creak behind me. I turned and saw Floss walking toward the counter holding handfuls of turquoise fur. When she said, “Look! Perfect!” tips of the stuff got into her mouth.

  I took a few pieces away from her. “You’re going to choke on that,” I said. The fur was soft, soft, and smelled like baby powder and fire.

  Floss blew fur off her lips. “Thanks. Anything you need?”

  I looked at all of it in pure delight and said, “How could I possibly know?”

  Fred, Elbe, and Nicholas came back just then. Nicholas looked very pleased. He held a box that glowed with a soft, clear light around the edges, and Fred said, “I am buying this yo-yo. Very nice balance.”

  Floss put her fur down, and I added mine to her stack. “Seriously, Persia,” she said. “If you want anything, get it now. Elbe never stays in one place for too long.”

  He sounded half apologetic when he said, “So many people need so many things.”

  “Bookmaking?” I asked. Elbe pointed to the far west wall. When I got there I breathed out, “Oh,” on a long exhalation. The waxed threads alone were mind-boggling. They were arranged in careful rows following the color wheel, but every shade and tint was there too, not just normal color-wheel colors. Green, but not only light green, green, and dark green. There was willow, spring, frog, moss, fern, sage, olive—everything. Each color was like that. There must have been hundreds to choose from. I said, “Knobbe Three would be beside himself.” If I’d had this before, those Dau Hermanos menus would have been unbelievable.

  When Floss came up behind me and said, “Ready? E
lbe has to be going,” I was still simply standing and looking, on a color high.

  “Persia?” Floss said, and she jiggled my arm.

  “Not in a million years, Floss. I couldn’t even start to be ready. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before I started those books for Bron?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “I guess we never thought about it. It’s Elbe. Everyone already knows.”

  “Not me. I didn’t.”

  “You do now. Take what you want, and let’s go.”

  “Floss, I can’t,” I moaned. “Just look at all of this.” I picked up a spool of cherry red with a brilliance that said the cherries had just been picked from the tree and turned into thread by fey magic. I waved it at Floss and repeated, “Look!”

  She sighed, a huge deep sound. “If you want something, you need to take it. Elbe has to go.”

  When I still stood there, just looking, she grabbed two colors from each group. “I can use some of these too,” she said, and she caught my arm and walked me up to Elbe.

  Almost before I knew what had happened we were standing in an empty spot near Dau Hermanos. Floss held her armload of fur tied with a bright pink ribbon, Fred twirled his yo-yo, Nicholas held his box of light and chewed on a peppermint stick as long as his forearm, and I held a perfect package wrapped in soft cream cloth with razor-sharp corners tied with a jaunty, green striped bow.

  “Wow,” I said. “Talk about trippy.”

  Floss glanced at me over her pile of turquoise fur. “What? It’s just Elbe.” She shook her head and walked toward Bron and Rohan’s. Fred followed her, his yo-yo walking behind him like a trained dog. Nicholas grinned. “Come on, Persia. Let’s get my light upstairs. Then we can unroll your package and see exactly what Floss has decided you’ll need.” He looked down at me and jiggled his box of light. He sounded a little hesitant when he added, “Maybe we could work on that kiss a little more too. You know, that one we tried just before Elbe came?” He acted like he thought I might have forgotten.

  “I didn’t forget,” I said, and I smiled at him. “Really.”

  He grinned himself, looked relieved, and nodded. “To get really good at something you have to practice. Just like the theater.”

  He was so sincere. I clutched my package a little tighter and leaned in to him. My lips touched his ear when I whispered, “Maybe we should just do the practicing now.”

  Nicholas stopped. Then he looked down at the box in his hands, as if he’d just remembered he was holding it. With reluctance he said, “I need to get this inside.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about faerielight. Maybe it explodes if it’s trapped for too long without air. Maybe it grows.” He repeated, “Let me just get it upstairs.”

  I didn’t think faerielight grew or exploded. Fred wouldn’t let Nicholas handle growing or exploding stuff. But I was more than happy to follow Nicholas inside. Practicing your art was always important. And practicing kisses as art was even better. They were like chocolate, those kisses. Addictive.

  XVIII

  “You see underneath.”

  We Outlaws were on a roll. Nicholas and Fred were concocting stilt platforms that would fit on our pilfered bicycles. Once they were finished, the platforms were going to be rigged to hold faerielights and gels. Floss was creating three-quarter life-size puppets dressed in lace, taffeta, ruffles, and fishnets. When I complimented her on her imagination she looked at her creations with a critical eye.

  “Do you think so?” she asked. “I was worried that some of the people I’d modeled them on might take offense.”

  I looked at the nut brown pointed ears, at the gleaming teeth, at the seemingly lidless eyes, at the extra digit fingers. “You know people who look like this?” I asked. “Because even in the restaurant, I didn’t notice anyone with those eyes.” I looked again, more carefully this time, and added, “Some of the ears, maybe, but not those eyes. And certainly not those teeth.”

  She shrugged. “Persia. You haven’t seen everyone, but I’m sure you’ve seen these. Maybe you’re not paying attention.”

  I shook my head. “I’m paying attention, all right. I’ve seen Reginald, for example, and even though he’s supercreepy—even he didn’t have those teeth and those eyes.”

  Floss was working with tea-colored lace. She draped it around her neck, walked over to me, and searched my eyes. Then she shook her head. “There’s no cloud over your eyes, Persia. You’re seeing clearly.”

  She juggled the ends of her lace back and forth and seemed to be thinking. Then she said, “Maybe you’re one of those who see the inside, not the outside.” She looked at me again, and this time she nodded. “Uh-huh. That’s what it is, I think. It’s your own form of magic.” And she went back to crafting an elaborate ruched collar and tie for the shaggy turquoise dog made of Elbe’s dinosaur fur.

  I started to ask her to explain personal magic, and then I remembered it was Floss I was talking to. I might not understand, but if Floss said I had magic, it was probably true, at least on some level. It was also something I was going to have to figure out without her help because, again, this was Floss. She’d said what she thought. After that, she was usually through, no matter how much her comments left the other person in the dark.

  I found Lucia involved in a deeply choreographed hand puppet chorus line, which isn’t all that easy to do with hand puppets. Supplying her background music was Max, crooning dance-hall songs in a beautiful baritone. I watched for a minute. “Excellent,” I said. “Quite dax. And this mixes with karaoke how?”

  Max stopped singing. “Tonio’s working out the final kinks in the dance-hall idea, so Lucia and I thought we’d work on the audience participation aspect. We handle the bigger puppets, and they get the small, less-important ones. They choose their song depending on the action.”

  I considered all the responses I could make and finally gave him the best one of all. “I like it.”

  “Of course you do,” Tonio said, popping his head into the room. “The main idea was yours, after all. And that red you used for highlights on the posters is perfect for this. We just need to give everything that circusy, vaudeville look.”

  My mind ran with contrasting colors and design ideas. “Yes. Easy.” I was almost out the door when I remembered what Floss had said. I repeated it. “Floss says I see the insides of things, not the outsides.”

  Lucia glanced up from the little earrings she was adjusting on her puppet’s head. Without taking time to think she said, “You always have, ever since I’ve known you. You saw what I was right away.”

  “I saw a smart, sweet person who’d had a rough time,” I said. “I saw a sparkle.”

  “Right. Most people saw a dirty, nasty street kid who was out to get them.”

  I stared at her in shock. “You?”

  Lucia shrugged. “See?”

  Tonio said, “The first time you saw me, Persia. Remember?”

  “You gave me a paste pot and said that I looked open-minded.”

  “Yes, and you thought?”

  Without considering I replied, “Kind. Gentle. Vaguely injured. Trustworthy.”

  Max grinned. “Perfect. Most people don’t get past the first impression of gay.”

  “He was kind of flamboyant that day.” I smiled. “But that’s so superficial.”

  “What Floss said.” Lucia’s puppet nodded. “You see underneath.”

  “Well,” I said. I’d have to think about this. I turned to go tackle my part of the preproduction, but I stopped in the doorway. “What’s the final name of this, then?”

  “Stay with Sing Cubed,” Max said. “We thought we’d subtitle it A Dance Hall Karaoke.”

  I nodded. “Just so you know, Floss is making a blue dog with a collar and tie.”

  “Darling,” said Tonio, “you know Floss can make everything do anything.”

  He was right, of course. I nodded again and left to make vaudeville-themed programs. These would be my audience books for this production, but they’d b
e much more elaborate than my earlier books. Now that I’d had practice with Dau Hermanos’s menus, I could fly with these books of lyrics. First the gray-and-black-washed covers with that red trim. Bindings stitched with those fabulous threads from Elbe’s. Then all I’d need were the song lists. Maybe I could write the titles in gold and blood-red? Then they’d mimic the posters. When these programs passed through the crowd, they’d wow people. I was sure of it.

  XIX

  “Maybe he’ll die.”

  I’ve always liked to get up early. Less competition for thinking time and sitting time and staring into nothing time. It turned out that Bron had the same habit, so we’d come to the point of joint early-morning breakfasts. It was a little ritual of tea, sweet breads, and egg tacos. We’d sit in the early patches of sun that washed through the windows of Dau Hermanos. We wouldn’t talk much, and when we did we’d just sort of throw words out and wait to see if they got caught. So it was something of a surprise when Bron addressed me directly just as I bit into a rolled tortilla. The other surprise was that he sounded hesitant, not like Bron at all.

  “Persia,” he said, and then his voice just faded away.

  He shifted in his chair and looked at the bar instead of the window and tried again. “Persia.”

  I said, “Yes, Bron?” this time in an attempt to encourage him.

  “There’s something that may be a situation.”

  It took him a long time to say that sentence, and I felt a little chill run through the sunlight. “Maybe you just want to say it?”

  He sighed a soft puff of air. “There’s a rumor floating through the area. Reginald seems to have a houseguest.”

  Thankfully I could only imagine what living as Reginald’s houseguest must entail. Just as I could only imagine what kind of a person would find a stay with Reginald attractive. “More power to the houseguest.”

  “Yes. Well. The particular houseguest seems to be a large part of the rumor. He’s not fey. He crossed over without a guide so he must have a good deal of power.”