400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  Hearing the clatter of hooves and the squelching of wheels, he rose, bade his hostess good day, and helped Toby lift his trunk into the back of the cart to which he had hitched Madame Eglentine. Binderwood was soon out of sight behind them. Not long after that, they turned onto the hornbeam drive.

  It was a strange, sullen morning at Pellapon Hall, the staff moving in an exhausted daze and the twins nowhere in evidence. Lord Pellapon strode up and down the corridor from the parlor to the foyer, irked as much by the private detective’s deterioration as by his defection. Nor did he appear overly grateful for Hewell’s offer to see Deakins safely back to London, and even into Bethlem Royal Hospital if need be.

  “Nervous collapse is always a danger in one so entirely dependent on his imagination,” Hewell said discreetly, out of Deakins’ hearing.

  “Then what about you? Do you not also rely on your wits?”

  “Wits are not the same thing, Lord Pellapon. I am but a civil servant, dependent on my superiors. Thus I avoid the burdens of too much independence and leave the difficult decisions to others more visionary.”

  Hewell led the docile, wide-eyed detective down to the cart and left him comfortably seated, humming to himself and counting his fingers until he proved he had hundreds of them. Hewell remounted the broad steps to take Lord Pellapon’s hand in farewell.

  “I apologize for the twins,” said the elder man. “They both complain of exhaustion or they would be here to see you off. Deakins was a great favorite of theirs until . . . well, they cannot understand how such afflictions may affect a grown man. A shame about his investigation. You know, he claimed to be on the verge of some revelation. And now the matter of my wayward mail’s no closer to resolution. It’s all a muddle.”

  “I don’t think the mail will trouble you any longer, Lord Pellapon. Upon thorough review of Merricott’s methods, I have suggested several procedural improvements—all minor, true, but cumulative in effect. Toby will see they are implemented immediately; you may rely on him to address your concerns. I believe you will note a distinct improvement from this moment forward.”

  “Well, that’s fine news, then! Dull procedure triumphs where fancy makes no headway!”

  “A sentiment worthy of enshrinement,” Hewell said, and stopped short, caught by a movement at an upper-story window. A face floated behind the glass. She was watching him, he realized with pride. His Queen!

  As if sensing how his heart leapt out to her, she slowly opened the window so that he might see her without the distortion of glass or darkness. Her skin was paler than any ivory, her hair so white as to be almost blue, and her eyes glinted faintly like twin red stars. From either side of the window frame, two pairs of smaller hands reached in to settle a bright three-pointed crown upon her head.

  “If I may,” said Hewell, “please tender my respects to the eldest Miss Pellapon.”

  “The eldest?”

  Hewell gave a slight wave to the Queen, but she responded not. He realized that her gaze, and her smile, were directed past him, to the cart, where Toby sat holding the reins. The lad grinned back, then noticed Hewell’s eyes upon him, whereupon he flushed and turned away, covering his sudden change of color by clucking imperiously at Madame Eglentine. When Hewell’s gaze returned to the upper window, he saw it had been shut and shuttered. The crowned white face was gone.

  “Ah, so you have seen Eliza,” said Lord Pellapon. “She reveals herself to very few. She was always a fragile child, but by some miracle she survived the contagion that carried off her mother. I am fortunate to have the three of them as reminders of Lady Pellapon, God rest her.”

  “Is it albinism that keeps her hid away?”

  “The doctor assures me that her condition does not preclude fresh air and sunlight, but she would almost always rather stay indoors, composing these tales of hers, these . . . games. The servants and her sisters appear to find them engaging. I suppose she has a talent for it.”

  Hewell received the impression that Lord Pellapon did not entirely disapprove.

  With paternal pride he added, “I must admit, she is a help to me, especially when it comes to ordering about her diabolical siblings and keeping the staff in line when they have tired of my commands. Frail she may be, but not so frail she cannot rule the house.”

  And more than that, thought Hewell, putting his hand to his heart, of which he silently acknowledged she was now the very queen.

  * * *

  “The Ghost Penny Post” copyright 2016 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar./Apr. 2016.

  THE FINEST, FULLEST FLOWERING

  A sour note shrieked from the limousine’s speakers, making Milston’s fingers curl in his lap. He took a moment to compose himself before rapping precisely, and with a now steady hand, on the glass separating him from the driver. The tone had droned into a hum that tunelessly dreamt of someday becoming hypnotic. “What is this we are listening to, and is there any way to turn it off?”

  “Down, sir, but not off, I’m afraid.” The driver lowered the volume to a level barely audible; this was in some respects even more annoying. “Part of the colony’s ambiance, sir. Part of the design. Won’t be much longer though, sir. We’re almost there.”

  “There” turned out to be a pale brown stucco bungalow, unremarkable except for the roof of green ceramic tile. From overhead, you might not see it among the trees. Everything here—from the hidden runway to the matte and muted colors of the limousine—bespoke discretion, if not outright camouflage. As he stepped from the car, and the driver came around to retrieve his single suitcase and worn black valise from the trunk, he heard the volume of the music increase again, and he realized it was everywhere, moaning from speakers in the trees. There was no turning it down. The sour notes, still plentiful, were also now unavoidable.

  His luggage was placed on a cart. “Your bags will be waiting for you in your suite. But first, sir, your tour.” The driver bowed, ducked back into the limousine, and executed a turn that took the car back toward the airfield. Milston looked about, waiting for a word or direction from the plump older man who stood watchfully by the cart, presumably a concierge. “Am I to meet my patron here?” he asked finally.

  “Mr. Milston, it is my great pleasure. Like you, I delight in anonymity. In fact, it has become essential to my survival. Without it, I could never travel—although at this point I rarely leave the island. All my needs are more than met here . . . as I hope they will be for you. Shall we begin?”

  Milston took the proffered hand, found it dry, uncalloused, possessed of a faint tremor. “What am I to call you?” he asked.

  “Patron would be perfect. I think you will find me worthy of the title. Nothing would please me more than to support your work. I understand you will need convincing, but surely you have already looked into my ability to fulfill my promises?”

  A young woman in a dun uniform emerged from the bungalow to retrieve the cart. The men walked into the trees. They soon came out on a terrace overlooking hectares of manicured parkland. There were more jade roofed bungalows, but no buildings taller than three stories—nothing that stood above the trees. From the plane, as it descended out of blinding tropical clouds, he had seen breakers and beach on the far side of the island. Plenty of room for the Patron’s playground.

  “Everywhere you wander—and I assure you there is no place off limits—you will come across beauties and wonders. My aim is to provide them in endless profusion. Of course, we are only a decade into the garden by now—barely out of the planning stages.”

  A small silver car awaited them, an electric capsule mounted on a buried track. The Patron urged him in, and once they were seated, the tiny car glided down the sloped terrace. The ubiquitous drone of the music had modulated into something like a faintly complaining whine. The car sped through sculpture gardens and groves where avant-garde topiary trimmers had been at work.

  “I will not attempt to impress you with the names of my gardeners. As w
ith many I’ve hired, the best practitioners are known by name only to the connoisseur. I rely on cognoscenti to advise me in all things. Which is of course how you came to my attention. Your work is the finest in the field, and you are approaching the height of your expressive powers. I hope to provide the opportunity to explore avenues you might never have dared believe could open to you.”

  The car rolled to a stop at another low, earth-colored villa, this one overlooking a lake. Fans of spray wavered against a backdrop of palms. The air was just warm enough to make the breeze delicious.

  Inside the house, the music was muted to whatever managed to filter in from outside. “A home of this sort is what we provide initially,” the Patron explained. “With time, architectural variety is expected to arise, and you would be encouraged to help design your own ideal accommodations. A great deal of what you see is blank slate, unmolded clay . . . whatever medium suits you.”

  They had come out into a room of several stories’ depth. The ceiling was all glass, flooded with sunlight, the cavernous space below filled with scaffolding. The center of all activity, suspended in the pit, was an enormous black stone over which dozens of artisans scrambled, busy with torches, chisels, drills. “A single iron meteorite, brought here at my expense, that Samira Potocki might pursue her inspiration. It is the heaviest single object ever lifted by air transport. I first had to commission and build a plane powerful enough to carry it. But expense has never hindered me. I liberate my artists to dream as big as they like . . . or as small. I just completed a STEM lab, for the whim of another resident who works at the level of the electron. Few will ever see the work he creates—but that is no longer the point of art, if it ever was. If the audience is properly appreciative, can it matter to the artist if that audience numbers only one? Ah, Samira! Meet our latest prospective colonist!”

  She was a small dark woman in dusty coveralls, with sharp features and bright eyes. “There is nothing so radiant as an artist fulfilled,” the Patron said, and her smile supported his statement.

  “Delighted,” she said. “I hope we will soon be neighbors.”

  “What are you working on?” he asked to be polite.

  “I’m not working on, I’m working toward.”

  “I offer all my artists the space and resources they need to explore without worrying about arriving anywhere. For Samira, a meteorite . . . for you, I wonder? I hope to learn what I can offer, beyond the obvious supplies.”

  Milston inclined his head, squeezed the sculptor’s hand briefly, and was ushered forward. Beyond the space full of scaffolding, outside again, another car waited to carry them deeper into jungle.

  “You can of course walk, drive or be driven, or request any manner of conveyance,” the Patron assured him. “For some, the incubatory process is stimulated by aimless driving, so we have started on construction of a self-contained highway system. There are creative solutions to every need, when you have access to sufficient resources. Also, I detected perhaps a bit of a mutual spark between you and Samira? Let me assure you that privacy will be respected and promoted in a way the outside can never approach. My guests can explore any type of relationships they wish, without censure. Whatever limits you wish to impose on your own tastes, I leave you to set for yourself. I hazard no guess as to your predilections. Now . . . from the visual arts, to the audible.”

  The building they next approached was a thin spire among the trees, itself a treehouse sheathed in translucent resin mesh. It was awkwardly placed in a scene of such balanced beauty. “One of our earliest residents,” the Patron said. “As you can see, he had a hand in his home’s design—and while his natural talents are many, in styling himself an architect I fear he might have finally overreached. Still, I do not like to inhibit my artists. This is all part of his growth.”

  They rode a small cylindrical lift up the trunk of the tower, stepping out onto a circular loft that gave a view through the trees of distant shore and a misty estuary. Wide white birds glided toward the waves. Seated before the vista, as if controlling it from a vast console of sliders and keys, was a man with long, thinning grey hair.

  The squonking of the island’s ongoing soundtrack grew aggrieved. “Our resident composer,” said the Patron.

  “Why are you disturbing me? Have I not asked you repeatedly to leave me off your tour?”

  The composer would not turn around. He treated them to a view of his bald, spotty pate, and that was all.

  “In most cases, I have respected that wish,” said the Patron. “But I felt an exception was necessary.” The Patron turned to Milston with an apologetic expression. “From time to time I may insist on a patron’s privilege. I trust I know better than to abuse it. Consider that we only come to admire the view.”

  “Well you’ve seen it. Now be off!”

  “I have been enjoying your latest compositions very much, I should mention,” said the Patron with apparent sincerity.

  The bony white fingers paused on the keyboard. “I am told that in certain of the residences, speakers have been disabled!” The air trembled with an extended note not quite of melancholy . . . not quite of anything specific enough to characterize. Milston found himself staring at the poorly manicured fingers, the ragged, bitten nails, like visual equivalents of the sounds that had accompanied his tour.

  “A pleasure meeting you,” he said, but there was no verbal reply from the composer, just another misplaced warble, a sonic non sequitur that sent the birds from the trees.

  From the treehouse they proceeded to a vast kitchen complex, where chefs with names he almost recognized ordered about kitchen staff of only slightly lesser celebrity. Lunch was served above the waves, on an enclosed pier from which he could look back toward the island or out toward the undisturbed horizon. Each dish was a revelation.

  “Imagine such miracles at every meal,” the Patron said. “And in every aspect of your life and work. Does it tempt you? There is much more still to see, but I wonder what you think so far?”

  “You are persuasive,” Milston allowed himself to say.

  “Well, it is not I alone . . . it is the enterprise. What we have here is a place that allows the fullest, finest flowering of human endeavor, in all its variety. The arts are permitted come into their own. What I get out of all this is something I cannot describe. To be patron . . . there is no greater honor or pleasure. Now, shall we go? There are others to meet. A tiny portion of our residents, but it should give you a taste of all you’ll have access to. Ultimately, our greatest resource is the community we’re gathering.”

  “Before we continue, I just want to clarify the one stipulation that I’m sure has been a sticking point for many before me. The fact that . . .”

  “You can never leave?”

  “That one, yes.”

  “Our residents find security in certainty. I can bring anything I like here, to the island, but nothing gets out. Nothing, and no one. A prison, some have called it, but one that allows for utter freedom of expression. I should think you especially would find this liberating, given that your own work has been so restricted, curtailed, and banned outright.”

  “What about the rest of the world? Don’t you wonder if you’re robbing them of something essential? Something they might miss?”

  “Does the world deserve them, Mr. Milston? Would that world miss you?”

  Milston, sitting very still, said nothing more.

  “Shall we?”

  They rose and walked along the pier, once more back to a silent silver capsule.

  The rest of the day was spent in the company of an extraordinary variety of extraordinary people—poets, painters, planners, programmers. At sunset they joined a party being held in a plaza by the sea. Milston mingled and the Patron disappeared, but Samira soon found him and introduced him to still more of the colony’s residents. The composer did not attend the fete, but he was there in spirit with a brooding score that made them all laugh, eliciting frequent snide remarks.

  “Please tell me y
ou are a new composer,” said an elderly woman with reflective pupils, but then she stopped his mouth with a finger. “No, don’t! For now, let us leave some mystery. There is little enough of that here, though each new arrival brings the hope of it.” And she gave him a wine-soaked kiss, with an expertly placed but feeble grasp at his crotch, which cost him nothing to endure.

  It was full tropic dark but still early when the Patron found him in the crowd, and pulled him aside once more. “Mr. Milston, I have given you a full day of my time. This is all I can offer a prospective resident, I’m afraid. In the morning, we either put you on a plane and you never hear from me again, or you wake to begin your new life here. If the former, I very much enjoyed meeting you, and I regret but respect your decision. If the latter, then you may sleep in as late as you wish. There will be plenty of time for further orientation, and I promise you, I will enjoy following your work, and look forward to learning from the master. Now, your suite is ready if you are.”

  They rode a silver car in silence through a landscape of artfully illuminated fountains and pools. Guests walked among the trees, watching the car pass, as if wondering what choice he had reached. But there had never really been any choice to make. When the car stopped before the bungalow where the day’s tour had begun, he shook the Patron’s hand and said, “I appear to be jet-lagged, apologies if I have not quite been myself. I’m sure I’ll feel better after a night’s rest. Can we meet again sometime tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Perfect,” said the Patron. “I’ll leave instructions that you are not to be disturbed. Good night. And welcome. You’ve made a splendid choice.”