by Ian Doyle
That seemed to surprise my beloved. “Not this puppet?”
“No. A gingerbread man. Then the other man, the one I didn’t know, began chanting.” Simon’s eyes grew round. “I knew he was a wizard then. As he talked, fire sprang up from the chalk lines of the circle. I felt myself being pushed into the gingerbread man.”
“As you should have been,” James said.
I wondered if it would have been any more surprising to find a stuffed gingerbread man on our doorstep.
“Where did the puppet come from?” James asked.
Simon held out his stick arms with the ill-made hands. “This is Mr. Jinx. He was my favorite toy for a long time. I kept him because I didn’t want to throw him away.” He paused. “During the wizard’s spell, when I was about to sink into the gingerbread man, Mr. Jinx reached out for me and pulled me to him.”
“How?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Had Mr. Jinx ever before exhibited a magical nature?”
“When I was little, I used to think that he was alive. My friends sometimes made fun of me because I told them he would talk to me and play with me. Without me pulling his strings.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t remember now, but I think that he did. I was very small then.”
“Simon,” I asked, “how old are you?”
“Eleven,” he said.
I could not remember being eleven. I could not ever imagine how afraid he must have felt. I smiled at him. “You’re very brave,” I said.
He smiled a little. “Thank you, Lady Gallatin.”
“So you found yourself in Mr. Jinx’s body instead of the gingerbread man?” James asked.
“Yes.”
“Where was Mr. Jinx at the time?”
“In my house. I closed my eyes in the school basement, then opened them in my bedroom.”
“Do you know what happened to – “ Curbing his impatience to know the parameters of the intrigue confronting him, my beloved thought about what he was about to ask.
“My body?” Simon asked.
“Yes.”
“It came home.” Those blue eyes looked so sad again. “Someone else is wearing it. I had waited in my room, not knowing what to do. My father was at his offices and I didn’t know how to find him on foot. As I am,” he gestured to his wooden body, “I couldn’t ask a hack to take me there.”
“No,” James replied, “I suppose you couldn’t. Even in Drummond, which is known far and wide for its magical marvels, you couldn’t very well be running through the city unescorted. Wasn’t there anyone else at home you could have asked for help?”
“I was afraid. My father doesn’t like anything to do with magic. My stepmother was home, but since her marriage to my father two years ago, we’ve never gotten on.”
“So what happened when your body returned home?” James asked.
“He caught me and threw me onto the fireplace. Before I could get back out, he locked the grate.” Simon touched his soot-covered cheeks. “At first I thought I would burn. Then I managed to climb up the chimney and escape the house.”
“Did your opponent know you escaped?”
“He heard me running across the roof. I slipped and fell into the yard. By that time, he was at the window. He yelled the most frightful things at me, and promised that he would hack me to pieces with an axe.”
“But wouldn’t that have killed you?” I asked before I thought to remember how callous that question was.
“No,” my beloved said. “With the spell still in operation, Simon would have been trapped in the body of the gingerbread man.”
He seemed predisposed now and I knew he’d turned his mind to the auguries of the puzzle set before him. Without thinking, he strode to the fireplace and turned the logs, never noticing as I did how Simon drew back from the fire.
“Only your relationship with your toy – with Mr. Jinx – saved you, you know,” my beloved said after a moment. “Doubtless, your kidnappers would have trapped you in the gingerbread man, bagged you, and stored you somewhere till you were driven insane by your captivity. That needed you alive, but they hadn’t counted on your puppet.” He smiled a little then. “I believe it had some magic in it. Perhaps you were right, Simon, when you believed Mr. Jinx talked to you and played with you when you were younger. Some fairy magic is delicate like that, connected only to the belief of a child. I think he protected you now.”
“I was told by a talking horse that you could help me,” Simon said. “He saw me in the street and called out to me.”
I smiled. “I see Cobblepot is still spreading your name about, beloved.”
James grinned at that. The horse, Cobblepot, is a favorite of ours.
“I didn’t believe him,” Simon said, “even though I had heard of you and read about you in the papers. But it was the gargoyles that convinced me.”
“The gargoyles in this city,” James declared, with a mixture of resignation, irritation and fondness, “have forever been busybodies. Worse than magpies.”
“They directed me to your door.”
“And now here we are,” my husband said. “We need to figure out our next steps. I suppose you’ve tried to return home after your escape?”
“Yes. The man wearing my body waits there for me. I knocked on the door several times after my father got home, but the servants now have orders to destroy me on sight.”
“Well, that presents a problem, doesn’t it?”
Simon was quiet for a moment. “I only want to return home, Lord Gallatin. I love my father very much.”
“Well then,” said my beloved, with a conviction and passion that made me love him all the more, “we’ll have to make that happen, won’t we?”
3
We went visiting at eleven o’clock that night, after my husband called round to Mr. Courtland Delhalm’s home through the scrying bowl. That Mr. Delhalm should welcome us into his home at such a late hour only testified to how highly he regarded my beloved.
Dressed in heavy outerwear against the winter’s chill, even a coat for Simon, we took a hired cab to the Delhalm home. Simon was distraught the whole way, I could tell though he tried to hide it and the wooden face was difficult to read.
Outside the cab, the snow swirled. The cab wheels shushed through the drifts. A haze clung round the full moons and all three of them appeared fragile and watchful. Clouds muted most of the stars, but there was enough light to watch the gargoyles and dragonets playing tag like children across the building roofs and in the sky.
For a moment, when we passed a small coach drawn by two fierce Northern bears – a matched pair of red-furred beasts with paws near the size of bushel baskets, Simon forgot his sadness and pressed his small wooden nose against the glass of the coach window. He raved about the large creatures, causing James and I to laugh at his antics. Even though he was a wooden boy at the moment, we saw the child in him.
The sight hurt my heart and I found I had to fight back tears. I was doomed to never be able to give my beloved a child of his own. Seeing Simon so bedazzled by the world reminded me of that. Without a word, my husband’s hand found mine and clasped it tightly.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll always love you.”
I took solace in that, and found the strength in me to laugh anew at Simon’s glee.
*
Two mechanical men guarded the Delhalm home. They stood seven feet tall and held muskets at the ready. Of course, those muskets fired four-pound balls and could demolish a runaway coach.
These were vaguely man-shaped, though not all mechanical men were. Designed with the standard two arms and two legs, though that wasn’t always adhered to either, they resembled – with their fierce metal beards – Zarrannite soldiers from the Frozen Wasteland. Someone had painted on livery, but they looked like they were frozen in a battlefield of snow.
Behind them, sandwiched between tall spruce trees wearing heavy coats of snow, the Delhalm
home stood three stories tall. Four chimneys poured smoke and embers into the air. A greenhouse stood to the left, balanced by the carriage house on the right. Lamps lit the front of the house. Dead rose gardens stood out front, filled with birdbaths and statues that I thought must have looked quite fetching in the spring and summer.
Our coachman, Edmond, let us out in front of the house. My beloved asked Simon to stay inside the coach for the moment, and I knew James did this because it would be so hard on the boy to visit his home. And to see his stolen body!
I went with my beloved because I knew he would want me to. James prizes my impressions of people we cross in his business. Sometimes I see things that he doesn’t, and sometimes I miss things that he sees, but I always give him something to think about whichever I do. He says it gives him perspective.
“Halt,” one of the mechanical men brayed in a voice devoid of emotion. He leveled his firearm in our direction.
James stepped in front of me at once. “Point that cursed weapon away,” my beloved snarled. “And do so now.”
The mechanical man remained adamant and kept his weapon centered on us. “This is private property,” he declared without emotion. “You may not trespass.”
The front door opened and a rotund man stepped out onto the porch. At least in his fifties, his hair was gray and receded from his broad forehead. His features were pinched into permanent disapproval. “Clank,” said he.
“Yes, Mr. Delhalm?” the mechanical man replied. Steam hissed from his joints as he turned his head. The engine within him stoked up with audible thumping.
Mechanical men, though fierce and terrible watchdogs that were nearly indestructible and didn’t need to sleep, required immense amounts of power. The coal furnace inside their bodies made touching them problematic; their superheated metal “skin” usually burned anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. Fighting them hand-to-hand was not a good stratagem.
“These are my guests,” Mr. Courtland Delhalm announced.
“Very good, Mr. Delhalm.” Clank lowered his massive artillery piece and stood once more rigidly at attention. Snowflakes that settled on his metal hide hissed into oblivion.
Mr. Delhalm waved to us, ushering us to the house. James and I went along the shoveled walk. At the porch, we paused to stomp our feet and rid ourselves of the excess snow that didn’t fall off on its own.
By that time, a young woman appeared in the doorway. No older than her early twenties, she had red-gold hair that trailed down her shoulders in rampant curls. A corset, cinched very tightly given the effect it made, divided her body into its voluptuous hourglass shape. The milky white tops of her breasts lay exposed in the moonslight. Evidently she didn’t follow the Queen’s rules for proper attire. A necklace gleamed in her throat. Bracelets shone at her wrists. Rings caught and reflected the moonslight.
“Lord Gallatin,” the young woman said without awaiting a proper introduction, “please do come in. You’ll catch your death out there in this cold.”
“My wife,” Mr. Delhalm said, gesturing to the young woman. “Mrs. Delhalm.”
“Do call me Vivian,” she said, offering her hand to my husband.
James, sometimes forgetful while he was on the hunt, started forward.
“Beloved,” I said, “perhaps I should wait in the coach.”
Recovering quickly, understanding what I needed, James took my elbow, shook his head as if chiding himself, and said, “Forgive me, my dear. I would forget my head were it not attached.” Turning, he presented me to the Delhalms. “Mr. Delhalm, Mrs. Delhalm, may I present my beautiful wife, Lady Gallatin.”
“Lady Gallatin,” Vivian said, “please come inside. You’re surely chilled standing out there. We can talk while the men do whatever it is they feel they must do.”
On my husband’s arm then, I stepped into the house where Simon no longer lived, and wondered when I might see their enchanted progeny.
*
After the maid took our coats in the foyer, James and Mr. Delhalm retired to the latter’s study to discuss whatever business my beloved had concocted as a cover for his preliminary investigation into the household. I was left in the big parlor off the foyer with Mrs. Delhalm.
“Please,” said my hostess, waving toward one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace, “do sit.”
I sat and looked around. The room was overly large, ostentatious almost, and appointed with expensive things. I recognized several of the pieces as Siahnean in origin, which was austere in their strange craftsmanship rather than elegant. Most of the pieces had faces of animals and demons carved on them. Those images, I knew from my own interests and readings, came from the Siahnean mythology, filled with battles and beings with fierce powers.
Above the mantle on the fireplace hung a portrait of Mr. Delhalm and his pretty young wife. He occupied a large chair that sat even his considerable bulk comfortably. Vivian Delhalm stood behind him, one arm across her husband’s chair and a smile on her beautiful face.
“That’s a lovely portrait,” I said, wishing to break into the conversation as soon as was possible. I was somewhat uncomfortable round Vivian Delhalm, as I am round all highborn ladies. Despite the fact that I am now and will forever be Lady Gallatin, I was not born to title.
“It is, isn’t it?” She sat in a chair across from me, leaning back casually, well relaxed and at ease. Then she smiled and clapped her hands twice.
Immediately, the picture above the fireplace changed and showed only Vivian Delhalm standing in a beautiful spring garden in full bloom. Three claps produced yet another portrait image in the frame, this one of Vivian Delhalm standing in a summer dress with a parasol near a brook. Listening closely, I heard the brook babbling in the background.
“It’s enchanted, of course,” said she, stating what was plainly obvious only to take pride in it. “Quite expensive, but my husband is a dear and indulges my whims.”
At once, I felt on more even footing with Vivian Delhalm. She might play the part of a highborn lady, but I knew that she wasn’t. No highborn would so casually flaunt wealth, nor remark upon it. No, I thought at the time, Vivian Delhalm’s roots had not been among the elite, and I found that interesting.
We made small talk again for a while. She was much better at it than I. She knew the affairs of the Courts of Lords and their ladies and mistresses, and took great delight in recounting them. My subject matter for conversation tended more toward books, music and art, though I was not going to comment any further on her gaudy portrait.
I listened with feigned interest, and I must have been quite convincing at charade for she would not quiet herself and droned on. During one of those few times she had to stop to think of something she had not told me, I asked her, “I’d heard you had a son.”
That stopped her in her tracks for a moment. Then she nodded. “We do. His name is Simon. Actually, he is my husband’s son from his previous marriage. The former Mrs. Courtland Delhalm died.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. She was crossing Markham Bridge when her team bolted and dumped the coach into Traveler River.” Vivian Delhalm put on a sad face, but I knew straightaway it was only for show.
Markham Bridge was one of eleven bridges that crossed the river. In the early days of Drummond, in the infancy of the Empire, explorers had come up Traveler River and laid claim to all the lands. After that, the river had become the main artery that allowed so much commerce to take place in the city. It was deep and held secrets of its own that sometimes spilled over into the Ghost Marshes and small cave systems right outside of the city.
“I only met Courtland three years ago,” Vivian Delhalm said. “He’d been grieving for his lost wife for six months. I was quite attracted to him. Men of power draw me to them like a lodestone, but there was something special about Courtland.”
I thought to myself, perhaps a bit unkindly I’m afraid, that the attraction was rooted in her husband’s great wealth.
“After a few
weeks, I convinced him that grieving for the poor dear was over,” she went on. “I mean, a few people talked about our quick nuptials, but when true love bites you, you can’t just walk away.”
I couldn’t argue that. James and I had found each other quickly, and in our eight years together, our love has never wavered. “I know,” I told her.
She smiled, looking deep into my eyes, which few people have been able to do. “You do know,” she said. “You love your James the same way I love Courtland.”
She would never understand how deeply I loved James. No one would. But I stilled my tongue despite its desperate attempts to free itself and tell her exactly that. But a small voice distracted me.
“Mother.”
I turned and saw a young boy standing in the parlor doorway. He was young and intent, with a headful of blond curls and cerulean blue eyes. He was long and lanky, and his build promised strength and grace to come. He wore a dark suit cut to fit him.
“Simon,” she said. “Whatever are you doing up at this late hour?”
“I heard voices,” he replied.
Vivian Delhalm held her arms out to the imposter posing as her stepson. He approached her and sat on her lap, though he was clearly too big to do so. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“I can’t remember,” he said. His gaze rested on me, though his stepmother’s hands caressed his blond locks.
I got the strangest feeling that he knew me from somewhere, though I had no clue as to where that might have been. Many people in Drummond know of my husband, and – through him – of me.
I stared at him, wondering who would be cruel-hearted enough to steal a boy’s body. The sad thing wasn’t that I could think of those who would – the aged and infirm – but that I could think of so many.
Then I noticed the dark fleck on his lower lip. Closer inspection revealed it to be tobacco. Only then did my keen sense of smell detect the sweet odor of pipe tobacco on him.
Vivian Delhalm tenderly kissed her stepson’s brow. “You’ve no fever.” Then her eyes widened as she stared over my shoulder. “Wretched thing!” She pushed her stepson from her lap and stood up, grabbing the poker from the fireplace.
