“Quiet, Spiritling, your contribution was not requested,” Cornelius said sharply. “Can you manage this spell, Mephisto?”
“Yeah, sure!” Mephisto announced cheerfully. “Easy as pie.”
“Let’s do it then,” said Erasmus, rising to his feet. “What do we need?”
“Darkness would help,” Mab muttered.
“Silence!” Cornelius commanded.
This was too much.
“Cornelius,” I said crisply, “in the future, you will refrain from ordering my people around.”
“I will remind you, Sister, he is a Prospero, Inc. employee. That means he works for us both—” Cornelius began.
Mab cut him off. “It’s okay, Ma’am. If your know-it-all brother thinks he can do without my help, more power to him. But, if the two remaining Three Shadowed Ones show up and make off with his staff, don’t blame me.”
Cornelius was so shocked by Mab’s impertinence he could think of nothing to say. I, too, said nothing because everything that came to mind was inflammatory, and I felt this was hardly the time to begin an argument. The tension was broken by Erasmus’s laughter.
“And he’s sarcastic to boot! Are you sure you can’t be persuaded to part with him, Sister Dear?” he asked.
“Positive,” I replied severely.
“Anyone have a better plan?” asked Cornelius. When no one answered, he said, “Very well. Normally, I abhor unnecessary uses of sorcery, but I agree that this is in a good cause. What do we need to do, Mephisto?”
“Best done at night,” said Theo. I was pleased to hear that his voice was recovering. He no longer sounded so hoarse. “Sunlight interferes with magic.”
I saw Mab smiling to himself as he sat back on the piano bench.
“Very well, then. Tonight at nightfall at this Grove of Books,” said Erasmus.
Titus had lowered himself heavily into the empty green armchair and closed his eyes. Now he opened them and said, “Woman! Gregor can’t have been on Mars since the twenties. Where was he?”
Logistilla hesitated for a long time, worrying the black cloth of her silky dress between her fingers. At last, she admitted in a small voice, “He was . . . a leopard.”
“You mean, one of your leopards?” asked Theo, his voice dangerously low.
“Well, it was better that than let the demon kill Ulysses,” she replied.
“Bah!” spat Titus. “Your own twin.”
“Better than having him dead,” Logistilla spat back. “Or, than losing Ulysses. Besides, life among my menagerie’s not so bad. I don’t know what you are talking about: ‘realize what you had lost.’ It was only two years. Nothing in comparison to your long life.”
Titus rose unsteadily to his feet and glared down at Logistilla.
“Two years to me is as nothing, it is as dust in the desert. But, two years in the lives of my children . . . that is something of inestimable value that can never be reclaimed. The eldest one has passed from the idyllic days of childhood into being a youth without me there to guide him. I was not there to offer them wisdom or love. I was not even there to mislead them through well-meaning incompetence. Worse, you unnatural witch, you were not there, either.” Grimacing in disgust, he turned his back on her and sat down again. Crossing his arms, he growled, “I don’t know what it is with the women in our family. No natural womanly affections. Miranda at least has an excuse: her abstinence buys us immortality. But, you! You have no excuse.”
Taken aback, I asked, “Pardon me, but I’m missing something here. How does Logistilla’s not raising your children make her an unwomanly witch?”
“They’re my children, too,” Logistilla objected hotly. “And I believe I make a fine mother. I’ve visited them on every birthday they’ve had, and at Easter, and during all their holidays. Well, I’ve missed a few, but I was there for most of them. The rest of the time, they are busy. They attend a very prestigious boarding school. I chose it myself.”
Silence fell throughout the music room.
“Your children, too?” Theo asked puzzled. “Are these children adopted?”
“Ewww!” cried Mephisto. “Titus! How could you?”
“Didn’t realize we could do that,” murmured Erasmus, amused. “What of you, Theo? Care to take a stab at marrying your darling Miranda?”
Theo crossed his arms and glared at Erasmus, but beneath his gray beard were the telltale signs of a deep blush.
“Logistilla is only my half-sister,” Titus explained evenly, without a trace of guilt or embarrassment. “We were born more than thirty-five years apart. We did not even grow up in the same country. There are not many immortal women to choose from, you know, unless you care to wed soulless swan maidens and selkie like Erasmus, and we’ve all seen how that’s turned out. I am tired of having wives dying out from under me. Besides, I thought if I married Logistilla, our mutual children might meet even Miranda’s definition of family.”
“Mine!” I exclaimed, startled. “What do I have to do with it?”
“You control the Water of Life,” Titus explained. “I am also tired of watching my children age, wither, and die. I want them to live. Like us.”
“Me?” I exclaimed. “Father’s the one who decided who got the Water and who did not. I merely carried out his instructions.”
At this, Theo frowned, and Erasmus threw me a look of such malice that anything I might have added died unspoken.
“Father’s then,” Titus continued placidly. “I thought children of two members of the family would clearly fall under the fullest definition of family. . . . Wonder how the boys are.”
“They were fine as of a week ago,” Mab drawled. “We saw ’em in Santa’s scrying pool, the one he uses to ‘know if you’ve been bad or good.’ ”
“I am pleased to hear it,” said Titus, and his battered face broke into a warm fatherly smile. “It has been a long time. I believe I will leave you all and go to them.”
He started to rise. He looked so determined, despite his wounds, and so pleased at the thought of seeing his sons again, that I was hesitant to break the truth to him.
“How?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Titus hesitated.
“Ulysses brought us here,” I said. “There is no other way off the island.”
“You could ride Pegasus!” suggested Mephisto.
Titus turned. His expression was one of sad amusement. “Within the last hour, I was shot by a gun, mauled by a bear, and nearly gored by a rhino. Even though the bullet has now been removed and I have been fortified with Water, I doubt I am fit enough to endure a several-thousand-mile ride on the back of a winged horse.”
“How are the rest of us going to get off this island?” asked Cornelius.
“I’ll send an Aerie One to the mainland,” I said. “They can contact Prospero, Inc. and have a ship or a Lear sent.”
“Don’t bother,” replied Erasmus airily. “We can all stay around to confront Ulysses tonight and welcome Gregor back, and then Ulysses can take us each home . . . or we can take ourselves home with his staff, depending upon how Ulysses’s meeting with Gregor turns out. Somehow, I expect our Martian brother is not going to be too pleased with good old Ulysses.”
“Very well. I’ll wait. After two years, what is a few more hours?” said Titus, sitting back down in the armchair. He promptly fell asleep and began snoring.
As soon as we split up, Mab hurried over to me, clutching his notebook.
“I’d like to make my report, Ma’am. On the subject of the disappearance of Mr. Ulysses. Then, I suggest we go question the Harebrain.”
“And exactly what did you find out about our good Ulysses’s escape?” asked Erasmus, leaving Cornelius and Titus by the window and coming to lean against the back of my chair. His dark eyes watched me, mocking and arrogant; a wicked smile played across his thin lips.
I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you owe me an apology, Erasmus?”
“For what?”
“For having accused
me of forging the document about Ulysses.”
Erasmus considered, then shook his head. “You may have been innocent in this case, Sweet Sister, but I’m sure you have done some other vile thing I have not yet discovered. So, in keeping with the law of conservation of apologies, I’ll let my accusations stand.”
What was it that made men refuse to apologize to me? My brother was nearly as obstinate as a certain elf I knew.
I sighed. “Do you work at being obnoxious, Erasmus? Or are you naturally that way?”
“It comes naturally to me,” Erasmus replied, smiling, “as it does to you.”
“Do you mind?” asked Mab, gesturing toward his notebook.
Erasmus was smiling broadly now. “Oh, don’t mind me. Go ahead with your detecting.”
Mephisto clapped Erasmus on the shoulder and announced, “He’s just jealous because he’s behind Theo and me in the ‘marry a sister’ queue. You do prefer me to Erasmus, don’t you?” he finished hopefully.
“I see this is going to be a long day,” Mab observed dryly, shaking his head.
“Go ahead, Mab. What did you find?” I repeated, ignoring my brothers.
“Well, it’s like this, Ma’am. Best as I can tell from the evidence, Mr. Ulysses had a miniature grapple-gun device in his ring. He used it to snag his staff. The staff carried him to some place on this world, probably a secret hideout he had set up for just such purposes. Staff was probably preset to transport to said spot if stabbed with the dart from the grapple. My readings suggest this hideout is somewhere in the Himalayas, but you just don’t get the kind of accuracy on in-world hops that you can get on interdimensional jumps. Sorry about that.”
Erasmus asked, “Are you telling me that our brother Ulysses managed to hit a stick about an inch wide from across a room with a dart he shot out of a ring on a finger that was behind his head?”
“Yeah,” said Mab. “I know I got that part right, I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Incredible,” Erasmus exclaimed. “I couldn’t do that, could you? I don’t have that kind of aim.”
“Mr. Ulysses is a perp, Sir. Thieving is all he does. Apparently, it’s all he’s ever done, for more than a hundred years. I’d recommend you feel proud of yourself if you can’t pull off a stunt like that, Professor Prospero. It means you haven’t wasted your time on immoral frivolities.”
“Oh, I have most certainly wasted my time on immoral frivolities, just not the same immoral frivolities as Ulysses—and you may call me Erasmus,” said my brother, flopping down on the Roman couch and folding his arms behind his head.
“Ah . . . right, Mr. Erasmus, then,” Mab said. He screwed up his face and scratched at his eternal stubble. “That about covers Mr. Ulysses, Ma’am. It’s time we had a talk with the Hatless Wonder, here.” He glanced down at Erasmus. “A private talk, I’m thinking, Ma’am.”
“Oh, don’t let my presence interfere,” Erasmus began cheerfully.
“We won’t,” I said, rising and grabbing Mephisto by one arm. Mab grabbed the other, and we practically dragged him toward an inner door that led to Father’s instrument repair shop.
“Bye-bye,” called Mephisto to a bemused Erasmus as we shoved him into the repair shop. Behind us, I could hear Erasmus chuckling.
We made our way into the repair shop and pushed Mephisto up onto the workbench, where he sat amidst lathes, scraps of wood, piano strings, and sharping bars while Mab and I found three usable chairs. The small room smelled of wood oil and damp stone. As I helped Mephisto down onto a three-legged stool, Mab knelt and sniffed the sawdust by the foot of the workbench, grunting noncommittally.
Joining us, Mab said, “Okay, put on the blasted hat, or we’ll hold you down and shove it on that empty head of yours.”
“If my head is empty, where do I keep the rabbit brain you keep talking about, hmm?”
“Rabbits have far more brains than you do, punk. Now put on the hat!”
“No.” Mephisto shook his head stubbornly and threw the hat down onto the wood chips.
I took a different tack. “Have it your way. I’ll go get Erasmus and Titus. I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear all about your Mephistopheles, Prince of Hell, routine. Or perhaps, I should get Cornelius and his staff?”
“Shhhh!” Mephisto held his finger up to his lips and looked furtively about. “Quiet about the Rince-pay of Ell-hay! What if someone hears you? How did you find out about that, anyway?” He peered at me suspiciously.
“You showed us,” I stated.
“Oh,” he blinked, then shrugged. “Guess I had my reasons. Okay, give me the hat.”
Mab picked up and brushed off the hat. He peered inside, pointing to a band of overlapping pieces of some kind of horn, which wrapped around the inside of the hat. “Horse hoof,” he muttered. “Wonder what that’s for?”
Mephisto looked at it thoughtfully and then tapped his staff on the ground.
I began to imagine the straw and wood shavings were a cat, a white cat with brindle spots. After a moment, I could imagine it very clearly, as if the cat were really here. Only, unlike the way Mephisto’s staff usually worked, no cat appeared. Or at least, my eyes could not see it. Yet, every time I glanced at the spot beside Mephisto’s stool, I received a distinct impression of such a cat.
A soft high-pitched voice spoke out of the air. “My name is Schrödinger. I am your familiar. You are Mephistopheles Prospero, son of the great magician Lucretius Prospero, once Duke of Milan. You are his eldest son and heir. You have asked me to remind you of this because you have damaged your memory in order to escape a great curse. You brought this curse upon yourself through the use of demonic powers you cleverly obtained. You must keep the existence of these powers a secret from your brothers, lest they kill you. You cannot see me because I have been struck by a car and am now a ghost. Nonetheless, I am present and can answer your questions and do your bidding.”
“By Setebos and Titania!” muttered Mab. “Poor thing.”
“Ah! Someone else is present!” I imagined the cat’s green eyes glancing from Mab to me, straining as if it had trouble seeing into our realm. “How . . . unfortunate. I apologize for any secrets I have unintentionally spilled.”
“Schrödinger, Santa gave me a hat that restores my memory. Miranda wants me to put it on and tell her things. Should I do it?” Mephisto asked.
The ghostly cat spoke. “Do not don the hat. If you recall the particulars of the situation that led you to your current condition, a dire fate will befall you. Leave the room. If your sister will promise not to repeat what she learns, I will answer her questions. You may tell her that Tybalt vouches for her.”
“I promise,” I said, amused that Schrödinger was willing to trust me based on the good word of my familiar.
“I don’t like this,” Mab began. “It’s bad luck to consort with ghosts. I think we should get Harebrain to . . .” but Mephisto was already jumping down from his stool.
“Oh, goody, I’m off the hook,” he declared, dropping the hat into my lap. The feathers brushed my face, tickling my nose. “Here, Miranda, you’d better keep this. I might need it some time.” Then, he went charging back into the music room shouting, “Yoo hoo! Who’s up for a game of Scrabble? Titus? Wake up, you sleepyhead. Your snoring is disturbing the dead. I know! I just saw a ghost stirring in the little room over there.”
The door swung shut, blocking out the rest of Mephisto’s inane banter. I turned to the cat, or more accurately, I turned toward where the cat was not, but where I continued to believe that it sat licking its paw.
“What happened to Mephisto?” I asked.
“Mortals are not so different from cats,” Schrödinger began. “When we want something, we hunt it down. When you want something, you hunt it down. In this way, we are alike. Cats are wise enough not to hunt down beasts too large for them to catch. Your brother, I fear, does not share this wisdom.”
“How so?” I asked.
“The Faery Queen danced before him, and he was foo
l enough to consider himself her equal. He called upon his secret art to summon her and bind her, but she proved too subtle for him.”
The Faery Queen again! I recalled the night, back in 1627, when we came upon the elves dancing before their howe, a night of floating sparks and pine boughs and dancing among the stars. Looking back, my recollection of that night was often misty, but three things I remember clearly: Father dancing with Queen Maeve, Mephisto entertaining the High Lords of the Elven Council with juggling and acrobatic tricks after playing his violin for the queen, and myself dancing with Astreus, who laughed at the mockery of his fellows as he swept me off the earth to twirl amidst the star-lit sky. I closed my eyes a moment, remembering the fresh windy smell of him and the eerie unearthly way I felt whenever he stood close to me, both that night and, more recently, at Father Christmas’s.
But my thoughts were straying from the topic. Schrödinger was speaking of the Elven Queen, not the Lord of the Winds. I recalled the statue Mephisto had carved of Queen Maeve on his great mural. He had certainly captured her beauty, even if he shared it with the demon queen. An odd chill ran down my back as I recalled the “M.” in Father’s journal. Could that stand for Maeve? Was Father mixed up in Mephisto’s madness, too? Oh, I prayed not!
“What is this secret art?” asked Mab.
The ghostly cat replied, “Mephisto knows the art by which the object of one’s desire might be summoned and compelled to come. It is the same art Prospero practices, but Prospero draws his power from a Heavenly source. Not so Mephisto.”
With a shiver, I recalled the spell Mephisto had spoken of, the very same one we hoped to use tonight to summon Ulysses, the one he claimed Father used to summon my mother.
Aloud, I asked, “So, he summoned up Queen Maeve, and she cursed him for his impudence? No wonder she was annoyed to see him at her table over Christmas!”
Prospero in Hell Page 25
