by Tiffany Tsao
He was reading only the headings now, too excited to try perusing every line. There were the seven flavours that Uncle Yusuf had sold in the Tutti-Frutti Ice Cream Shop. There were others that he thought he remembered from his visit to the Great Freezer so many years ago. But all the rest of the names were wholly unfamiliar and wonderfully evocative: Gossamer, Thrill, Blanket, Fern Spore, Mercy, Gravity, Lullaby.
The handwriting alternated between an elegant cursive hand and a legible but childish print. “Yusuf’s,” said Benn, pointing to an instance of the former. “Mine,” he said, pointing to an example of the latter. Murgatroyd kept turning the pages. He noticed that the first few recipes were carefully printed and error-free, but as the book progressed, the writing became messier: lines were crossed out and notes were scrawled in the margins or between words. Then as the book progressed still further, the mistakes and scribbled additions became few and far between once again, and the recipes grew shorter, consisting only of references to past recipes with some additional lines thrown in. For example:
Pearl
See Plain, Mote, Firefly, Overcoat
Alternate in layers, ratio 1:2:3:2
Extra yolk if F pale.
Less yolk if O thick.
“Sorry the middle part is so messy,” said Benn. “At first, we’d write rough drafts and copy the final versions into this book, but then we just began writing them straight into the book as we experimented. Then we reached the stage where we didn’t need to make any corrections at all—we’d just work out a new recipe in conversation, make the corrections then, and write down the results.
“Are all the flavours in here?” asked Murgatroyd wonderingly. “All seven hundred and thirty-six?”
Everyone in the More Known World knew that magical figure—the number of flavours the Quest had found stocked in the Great Freezer at the time of Yusuf’s death. Benn laughed. “Afraid not. By number three hundred or so, we were creating flavours by feel.” He tapped his right temple. “These were our new recipe books.”
Murgatroyd leaned in closer to examine Benn’s head.
“Our brains,” Benn clarified, stepping back. “We memorized them.”
Murgatroyd grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Right.”
While Benn and Murgatroyd were talking and leafing through the recipe book, Ann had taken the opportunity to peruse the other items in the display case, scrutinizing them one by one. There was something about the evident care with which objects had been laid out and the simplicity of the dark wood surface on which they’d been placed that made Ann feel warm inside. More than just warm; despite the precarious situation she and Murgatroyd had gotten themselves into, she felt almost happy. Then she realized why this was. A museum, she thought. They’re like exhibits in a museum. She had loved going to museums as a little girl. They were the one thing about the Known World she missed. She appreciated all kinds: art, history, and natural history; maritime and aerospace; ones about the Civil War and the Holocaust and the Underground Railroad; ones paying tribute to famous authors and musicians.
Being active on the pageant circuit meant she and her mother had spent a lot of time on the road. And she’d found out early on there were museums everywhere. Practically every county she and her mother drove through had one, even if it was just an old family home that was open to the public, or one or two dusty rooms documenting the area’s history. A lot of small towns had museums dedicated to the most specific and unusual things. They’d once visited a museum about barbed wire in Kansas, and in Missouri, they’d stopped by a place devoted entirely to ornaments and jewellery made of human hair. Ann even remembered standing in a room in someone’s house that had been wallpapered entirely in framed vintage tiki bar menus—“The most comprehensive collection of its kind in the whole US of A,” the paunchy, bleary-voiced man had boasted, giving her mother a timid wink. Her mother didn’t enjoy museums that much and would have preferred going to the movies. But the museums they went to had an advantage: admission was usually cheap or free. And they had to save every penny they could to keep Ann “pageant fit.”
What am I doing?
With a start, Ann shook herself out of her childhood and back into the present. And for a split-second she was terrified. She never thought that much about the past, not when she was awake. First the dreams, more and more of them, and now this. What’s happening to me?
“Any questions?”
It was Benn. He was standing beside her. She looked around to make sure Murgatroyd was all right and saw he was in the domed extension on the far side of the house, examining a wooden contraption that was a cross between a medieval torture device and a bicycle.
“These objects,” she said with forced nonchalance. “What are they?”
“They’re artefacts,” said Benn with some pride. “From these people, my adopted tribe. I’ve even named them.”
“What, the artefacts?”
“No, the people. I call them the Originals. They were the first ones here.” Benn gazed lovingly at the display case. “I’ve always been fascinated with ancient civilizations. Now I’m part of one.”
Benn pointed to the group of objects closest to them. “These are eating implements: dishes, bowls, cutlery. And that’s an all-purpose knife, a short-bladed war knife, and a ceremonial war club. Most of these are several generations old. You can tell from the colour. The more recent ones are pigmented.” It was obvious, now that Benn had pointed it out: the majority of the objects he had mentioned were beige, and next to their red neighbours, resting on a red wood surface, and surrounded by a reddish-black earth floor and pink clay walls, they looked as if some artefact vampire had drained them dry.
“What about those?” asked Ann, pointing to the garments and the tiny fur moccasins. Benn removed the garments and shook them out. It was actually a single cloak made of two pieces of fabric—one a silky creamy purple with intricate patterns embroidered on it in blush-coloured thread, the other woollen and drab and the colour of terra-cotta. Both sides of the cloak had their own collar and buttons, and it looked as if it were made for two people to wear.
“A wedding robe,” explained Benn. “The couple has to wear it for the first twenty days of their married life. It’s a custom. This is the one my wife and I wore.”
“You’re married?” Ann asked.
“Widowed. She died in childbirth.”
Ann looked at the baby shoes. “So those—”
“Never used,” said Benn tonelessly. He folded the robe and returned it to its place in the case. “I’ve made my peace, though. The plagues sweep through every two or three generations. And it happened a long time ago, before Yusuf arrived.”
Never one to dwell on past tragedies, Ann heard Yusuf’s name and seized her chance. “And when was that exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know. We don’t keep track of time in the same way. We measure long periods in generations, and shorter ones in days. I know he was still part of the Quest then.”
“How did he get here?”
“Sailed across the lake, of course. There’s no other way to get to our island.”
“Was he looking for all of you?”
Benn chuckled. “No, he found us quite by accident. He was floating on a raft half-dead, and we fished him out and nursed him back to health. He was as surprised as you were to find us—and to discover how long the Originals had been living here. All that on top of the fact that the whole country had turned red since the last time he’d visited the Territory—I’m surprised he didn’t go round the twist.”
The more Benn spoke, the more easily his words flowed. His demeanour had transformed too. In place of a scowl, his lips were spread wide in a benevolent beam. Hostility and fear had given way to joviality and candour, as if he had suddenly changed his mind, as if he no longer considered Ann and Murgatroyd a threat. There was no explanation for it, but Ann thought she might as well take advantage of the situation to glean as much information as she could.
“I understand how Yusu
f got here. But what about you? And these . . . Originals? The Quest spends months teaching new Oddfit recruits how to search for unopened cracks between Territories. They’re nearly impossible for untrained Oddfits to find. And opening them for the first time is another matter altogether.”
Benn nodded. “Yusuf was as baffled as you are. He reckoned there must have been something special about the crack the Originals and I came through, judging from how I ended up here—and how the first Originals ended up here too. As easy as falling through an open door.”
Ann remembered what she had learned earlier. “Nutmeg mentioned that someone among you could travel among different Territories.”
Benn touched his chest. “That’s me.”
“So, you’re an Oddfit, then?”
Benn broke into a grin. “Didn’t know it until Yusuf told me! It was such a relief, knowing why I felt so restless all the time. And when he taught me how to transfer between Territories! Wow!”
“But none of the others are? Oddfits, I mean.”
Benn shook his head.
“And that crack you fell through. It was somewhere on this island?”
To Ann’s disappointment, Benn’s grin widened. “Crikey, you’re clever, aren’t you?”
Ann gave him a blank look, though inwardly she swore.
The grin on Benn’s face turned smug. “Well, as it so happens, the answer to your question is no. And what’s more, no one’s ever been able to find it again.”
“Why is all the furniture curved?” Ann asked, changing the subject. There was no point in pursuing the matter. It made more sense to get him to lower his guard once more.
Benn’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the intent behind Ann’s question. He concluded there was no harm in answering. “It has to do with the one principle on which all Original civilization is based.”
“Which is?”
He cleared his throat and proceeded to emit a silence that seemed very lofty indeed.
“And in English?” Ann asked.
“Roughly translated, it means, ‘To complement is the highest virtue.’”
“I see. So the curve of the furniture is meant to enhance the curvature of the walls.”
“Exactly. And the colour of our buildings complements the pinkness of the sky.”
Ann was intrigued. “But surely complementing another thing doesn’t always require mimicry.”
Benn was impressed. “You’re right. There are many different ways: complement by contrast, for example. The design of a wedding robe may vary dramatically according to its maker and the preferences of the couple and their families. But the halves always have to be very different from each other, so that one will offset the unique qualities of the other. And to commemorate someone having reached their full height, which we consider their coming of age, an individual is given a whole new wardrobe designed to augment their natural body shape and features.”
He gestured at his own person, the stockiness of which was indeed enhanced by his tiny jacket and sarong. Benn was animated again, obviously excited about being able to impart his knowledge about the Originals to someone for whom it was all new.
He continued. “There is another saying, however: ‘The best complement of all is silence.’ And that’s why the Originals’ language is based on silence, not sound, unlike our language or any other languages of the Known World.” He chuckled. “Well, that’s one reason. There’s also the fact that this Territory is our home.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Ann asked.
Benn stared at her. “The Quest still hasn’t realized?”
“Realized what?”
He shook his head in wonder at Ann’s ignorance. “That the longer you stay in this Territory, the more difficult it becomes to speak.”
Ann scoffed at the idea. “Murgatroyd and I are still speaking, aren’t we? And plenty of other Questians have been here for long periods of time without reporting any problems.”
Benn kept shaking his head, which Ann was beginning to find rather irritating. “It takes months. Years. And it doesn’t make you unable to speak—it just makes you lazy about it.”
Ann still wasn’t convinced. “You and Nutmeg seem to speak well enough.”
“Ah, there’s a trick to it,” said Benn with a gleam in his eye. He snorted—in the same way he and Nutmeg had been doing all along. Ann had assumed this was a by-product of an accent, much like the rolled r of a French person speaking English, or the difficulty a non-native Xhosa speaker might have clicking her tongue.
“For some reason,” Benn continued, “this makes it much easier to speak.”
Ann made a sound indicating her disbelief.
“No, not like that. More like this.” Benn demonstrated again.
“That’s not what I was . . . oh, never mind. You can’t be serious. You’re telling me that the entire population of Flee Town would speak a lot more if only they knew about snorting before they said anything?”
“It’s not quite that simple,” said Benn. “If someone really doesn’t want to speak, or doesn’t care that much about it, all the snorting in the worlds won’t help. Also, snorting like this isn’t exactly intuitive. It certainly took me a long time to find out. If I hadn’t had to communicate with Yusuf when we first found him, I don’t think I’d have ever spoken again.”
“And you taught Nutmeg English?”
“Both Yusuf and I did. I mean, a lot of the others were curious about learning a few words here and there, but only Nutmeg was determined to master the language. And for the most part, she has. I’ve been speaking to her since she was a little girl.”
Suddenly they heard Murgatroyd’s voice.
“Ann, look at this!”
Ann and Benn trotted over to the enormous torture bicycle, which Murgatroyd was straddling.
“I think I’ve figured out what it is,” he exclaimed. “It mixes the ice cream!” Straining every muscle in his scrawny legs, he moved the pedals forward a fraction. The gears connected to the pedals shifted as well, as did the enormous wooden paddle behind the seat.
“You’re right,” said Benn. He pointed to an enormous round wooden container filled with dirty clothes just a few metres away. “And that’s the mixing bowl that goes with the paddle. I use it to hold the washing when I’m not making ice cream.”
“Show us how it works!” exclaimed Murgatroyd, clambering off the seat.
Benn obliged and, taking Murgatroyd’s place, he began to pedal, slowly at first, then faster, his thighs and calves flexing in time to the revolutions of the paddle. Once he had provided sufficient demonstration of his strength and skill, he dismounted and patted the seat affectionately. “You should have seen how fast I could churn when I was younger, and how long! Yusuf could never compete.” He grinned. “I was the muscle even if he was the brains.”
“I thought both of you came up with the recipes,” said Murgatroyd.
“We did, but inventing new flavours always came more easily to Yusuf than it did to me. To be honest, most of the ones I came up with were slight variations on existing ones. Yusuf was the one who thought of some of the really dazzling stuff. But when it came to the churning—the physical labour . . .” He thrust out his chest and pointed to himself with his thumb. “That was my specialty.”
Ann inadvertently rolled her eyes. Murgatroyd, on the other hand, gazed at Benn, eyes shining with admiration.
“So you’d make the ice cream here and then transfer it to the Great Freezer?” asked Murgatroyd.
Benn chuckled. “Is that what you call it? ‘The Great Freezer’? No, we made everything in the freezer itself. The milk and cream came from our chickens, and the eggs came from the birds on the lake.”
“What about the other ingredients?” she asked.
“From all over!” Benn exclaimed. “That was fun too, travelling to new Territories, hunting for new ingredients. We went all over the More Known World. I can’t go to the Known World—it’s too allergic to me. But Yusuf
would bring back the most extraordinary things from there: coffee beans, vanilla pods, chilli peppers, nutmeg. That’s where Nutmeg got her name. Yusuf brought back a whole sack of them. Everyone got one.”
Murgatroyd stared again at the pedal-powered ice cream churner. “If you made the ice cream in the Great Freezer, why is this here?”
The energy generated by the recollections of his ice cream–making exploits began to fade from Benn’s face, and suddenly he looked very tired. “I transferred it here after Yusuf died,” he said, touching the seat again, this time stroking it gently, as one might a dozing pet. “I wanted a souvenir of the good old days, I suppose.”
“How many trips did you have to make?” asked Ann, coming up with an estimate in her own mind. It was a large machine and very heavy looking. One would have to dismantle it and transfer it in stages.
“Did it in one,” said Benn.
Ann blinked. “You’re joking.”
He smiled. “Strapped the whole thing to my back. And it was a multistage transfer too. Told you I was strong.”
Ann made a mental note of this and filed it away. To detract attention from the fact that this was what she was doing, she asked another question. “Where did the idea of making ice cream come from?”
Murgatroyd’s eyes lit up. “Yes, where?” he asked, clapping his hands in anticipation of the answer.
“It was Yusuf’s idea,” said Benn. “He came up with it during his first stay with us—it took him a long time to recover after we rescued him.”
“And you really don’t know when that was?” pressed Ann, though she could guess. The One once told her of a quarrel she and Yusuf had had—it had driven Yusuf to vanish without a trace for a little over a year.
Benn thought for a while. “Well, sometime after we rescued him, we found out that a man and a woman had set up camp on the mainland—where Flee Town is now.”
Flee Town’s founders, Ann thought. 1974. The date lined up with what she knew about when the ice cream began appearing in the settlements. She nodded, encouraging him to continue his tale.
