Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books)

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  Something thumped next to my head. When I got my wind back, I dug through the crackling leaves until I felt the spine of my overdue library book, which I had left on the settee in my bedroom. Just like Idden had said, Valefor and his magicking were helpful! Rolling to my feet, I looked up. The window was now closed, but I thought I could see a faint pale hand, waving at me frantically. I waved back and ran to catch the horsecar, feeling almost cheerful.

  FIVE

  Poppy Throws a Cake. Barking Dogs. Broken Glass. Temper Tantrum.

  THAT EVENING, I SAT in the Below Kitchen, having a late dessert and thinking. Somehow, I had been lost for less time than I had thought. By running as fast as my short legs could carry me, I had made the 7:45 horsecar in time, and slid into the Round Rotunda just as the first bell was ringing. By the time the second bell tolled, I was safely in line, ready for Morning Assembly. At lunch, Librarian Naberius accepted my fifty-one-glory fine with a fishy grin, and handed over volume 2 of Nini Mo’s autobiography.

  No visit to Madama, no letter to Mamma. A narrow squeak, but a squeak all the same.

  The rest of the day had been productive. In Dressmaking, I got the bodice of my Catorcena dress cut out. In Scriptive, I finished almost all the invitations, and in Literature, I got 100 percent on the pop vocab test. And all the while, my mind had spun around on the topic of Valefor, and it was spinning now still.

  Poor Valefor, all alone and forlorn. I know a little something about feeling all alone and forlorn. Ayah so, he was pompous, that’s true, but he was our Butler, and a part of our family. He was a magickal entity and must therefore know a lot about the Current, and therefore could probably be mighty helpful to me in my rangery aspirations. I wished that Udo, my best friend, were available to discuss, but—so annoying—he’d been under house arrest for two weeks and thus incommunicado for anything non-school-related. I wondered if the Elevator really would take me directly back to the Bibliotheca. I wouldn’t mind talking to Valefor some more, but I didn’t relish being lost again.

  My thoughtful chewing was interrupted by thundering from above. When the dogs started to howl out a welcome, all the joy went right out of my chocolate hazelnut cake. Suddenly the luscious cake felt as heavy as a pair of shoes in my stomach. The dogs bolted out of the kitchen and up the Below Stairs, yelping joyously.

  Once in a red moon, Poppy staggers down the Stairs of Exuberance and causes a lot of commotion. I always hope that he will save his acting out for when Mamma is home, because she puts up with nothing. The first sign of trouble from him and out comes her pearl-handled revolver and whack goes the barrel on the side of his head. Then she carries him back to the Eyrie, and we don’t hear much from Poppy for a while.

  I have a harder time handling him, because I don’t believe in whacking people to make them behave, even though I admit that it seems to work for Mamma. She is a soldier and soldiers are prone to whacking, so it’s understandable that she would feel comfortable with it. I have found that cajoling people and making nice is as effective as whacking, but it’s hard to cajole someone who is drunk and half mad.

  “Where’s Buck?” Poppy demanded, materializing in the doorway like a dæmon from the Abyss. He pushed a dog down off his chest and nudged another one out of his way with a grimy bare foot.

  “Mamma’s on inspection,” I said warily, from behind my fork. Like I said, I don’t believe in whacking, but I was glad that I was closer to the knife board than he was. “Are you hungry, Poppy?”

  Poppy doesn’t eat much—crackers and cookies mostly which I leave at the bottom of the Stairs of Exuberance or Mamma takes up to him. But sometimes he comes looking for something more substantial, and maybe that was all he wanted tonight.

  “Where’s Idden?” He sat down in the chair opposite me. His hands were steady and his eyes, sunken deep in the black stripe of the mourning band painted across his face, did not seem as bleary as usual. I had the sudden bubbling hope that he might be sober.

  “She’s gone back to Fort Jones,” I said. “Her leave was over.”

  “Lucky her. You can taste the sky at Fort Jones,” he said, reaching for my cake plate. “Get the hell down, Flynnie; you know that dogs can’t have chocolate. It will kill you for sure.” He paused the plate in midair and looked down at Flynn’s begging face, considering.

  “Here, Flynnie, here, pup,” I said hastily, dangling a cinnamon cookie. You never can guess what Poppy will do next, and among all the dogs, Flynn is my favorite. Sometimes he sprays, and always he quivers, but he is my darling boy.

  After Flynnie snatched the cookie, I tossed cookies to the other dogs, herded them all into the mudroom, locked the door, then put the key in my pocket. I wouldn’t have minded sitting in the mudroom with them, myself, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave Poppy alone.

  “Where’s Flora?” Poppy asked, shoveling the cake in. The last time he had come down from the Eyrie, I hadn’t been home, so I hadn’t seen him for about two weeks. He looked the same, though: like hell. His face was sharp as a blade, and his clothes were filthy.

  “I’m right here, Poppy,” I said, hoping he meant me, but pretty sure he did not.

  “Not you. Flora. Where is she?”

  He wasn’t sober. My heart sighed, and I tried to distract him. “When was the last time you changed your clothes, Poppy?”

  He paused midshovel. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

  “Well, they are awfully grungy, Poppy. Wouldn’t you feel better if you had some clean clothes? I’ll get you some if you want.”

  “Where’s Flora?” he demanded again.

  “Do you want ice cream with your cake, Poppy?” I asked. “I got three kinds: chocolate, peach—”

  “Where is Flora?” His voice was getting louder.

  “She went with Mamma on inspection,” I lied. I went to the icebox for the peach ice cream. He took the carton from me but, a moment later, abandoned the ice cream and sat silently, shoulders slumped, staring. “What’s wrong, Poppy?”

  “I lost her, Flora,” he said sadly. At least he recognized me again. “The Birdies took her from me.”

  “I know, Poppy, but it wasn’t your fault.” By Birdies I knew he meant the Huitzils. Huitzil means hummingbird and Birdie is the not-so-nice Califa nickname for our overlords.

  “Your mother will never forgive me.”

  “She will, Poppy, but you must forgive yourself.” Sometimes it is better to lie. Mamma never would forgive Poppy for losing the First Flora, but I privately felt that she deserved some of the blame herself. War is no place for a kid, yet Mamma had sent Flora to Poppy, and when he was captured, so was she. They were both taken to Anahautl City as prisoners. But although Poppy was ransomed, the First Flora was never seen again.

  “Why didn’t your mother leave me there? I deserved the darkness. I broke faith, Flora, I broke my word. I swore I’d never leave her and I did. I left her behind.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I swallowed hard, blinking. The chocolate torte had become a huge wad in the back of my throat.

  “Do you want some more ice cream, Poppy?” I asked lamely. Mamma would have known what to say, but Mamma wasn’t there. At least, I thought dolefully, he wasn’t throwing things. I kept an eye on the door, anyway. A good ranger knows how to make a swift exit.

  He put his elbows on the table, and the sleeves of his tattered cardigan fell away, showing livid knife stripes along his inner arms, one so fresh it still oozed. “Do you think she will ever forget what I did?”

  I wasn’t sure which “she” he was referring to, but I said, “I am sure that she would understand.”

  “How can she understand in the dark? I never saw her after that, they kept us apart, but I could hear the screaming, maybe that was me, it was so far off that I couldn’t quite make out the words, they gave me Moxley’s heart on a soup plate, with barley broth and carrots, and I have always hated cooked carrots. They make me sick!”

  He flung the plate against the wall, and the ca
ke exploded into chocolate and hazelnut shrapnel. After that, he screamed and yelled and got the dogs all into a huge barking uproar, and then escaped the kitchen. Although I couldn’t cajole him back up the Stairs of Exuberance to his Eyrie, I finally corralled him upstairs, in the Garterobe of Resolution, our only working potty, then locked the door.

  I brushed back my messy hair and plopped down on the hall settle to catch my breath. In the dustup, I had knocked my elbow against a case full of ancient family artifacts, and now the bone throbbed in time to my newly pulsing headache. For a moment I thought I might throw up. Rangers do not cry, but my nose was running in a most unprofessional way.

  “I had a ghost who was that noisy once, but you can bet that I got rid of him quickly.” It was Valefor.

  “I thought you couldn’t leave the Bibliotheca.” Despite the bad timing, I was a little pleased to see him. He was company, after all. I wiped my nose on the edge of my kilt. “Are you still banished?”

  He smirked. “Ayah so, but I’m feeling a bit better. Not completely myself, but stronger.”

  Although his voice sounded less scratchy, the rest of him bordered on the transparent. I could see the wall behind him, through him. But the coldfire violet eyes still glittered.

  “I can see through you,” I said.

  “Yes. I may be feeling better, but it’s still a lot of effort for me to get out. I could use another sip.” He looked at me hopefully.

  “Flora!" Poppy roared from the potty. “Unlock this door right now!"

  “He needs a good thumping,” Valefor said. “That would shut him up.”

  “I don’t believe in thumping people,” I answered. “And besides, it’s not Poppy’s fault that he is this way. So thumping him would hardly make him better. He’s sick.” “Hotspur’s drunk,” Val said. “It’s the curse of the Fyrdraacas. You’ll probably go that way one day yourself.”

  I said hotly, “I don’t drink.”

  “Not drunkenness, pinhead. I mean the madness. It’s been bred in the bone; you are all high-strung, like good hunting dogs. The Fyrdraacas make magnificent soldiers and fantastic lawyers, but it’s the madness in them that makes them great.”

  “Mamma’s not mad!”

  “There is more than one way of being crazy, Flora,” Valefor said. “Some people are crazy for glory, some crazy for drink, some crazy for duty. You’ll see.”

  I doubted it. I had no intention of becoming a drinker like Poppy, or a workaholic like Mamma, or a self-righteous git like Idden. Being a great ranger requires many qualities, but madness and drunkenness aren’t among them.

  Valefor continued, “Ah, poor Hotspur. He was so glorious once. The best of all the Fyrdraacas and the most beautiful, too. Who would have thought this day would come? I remember, when he was just a tot—”

  “Flora, damn you, let me out!”

  That crashing sound was probably Poppy throwing a chair against the door. Mamma was going to be very angry if she came home to find the Garterobe of Resolution trashed. We only have access to one indoor loo, and I hate going outside to the bog.

  “You could threaten his life with a railway share,” Valefor offered. “I have a huge collection of them in the Bibliotheca Mayor, and some of them are sharp as razors. Oh no, I forgot, you are a pacifist. I would suggest charming him with smiles and soap, then. That would be a good nonviolent approach. Honestly, I can’t see how you can be a Fyrdraaca and be a pacifist, too. It’s an absolute contradiction in terms.”

  I was not happy to see Val anymore. He was a snippy snapperhead and he was not helping at all. I ignored his happy pontificating and went back to the potty door. Poppy’s fits usually do blow over quickly. He screams and shouts for a while, and then he is done until the next time.

  “Poppy?”

  The hurtling noises abruptly stopped.

  “Flora, please let me out.” His voice sounded weak and far away.

  “Are you done screaming and shouting?”

  “Yes, Flora,” he said meekly “Promise?”

  “Flora—”

  “Poppy, I have the key and I am not going to let you out until you promise to be good.”

  He turned threatening. “I’m going to tell your mother.”

  “Tell her what? That I locked you in the Garterobe of Resolution because you were screaming and shouting and that you threw my cake against the kitchen wall?” There was a brief pause, and then his voice, less muffled, drifted through the keyhole. “I promise, Flora. Just please let me out. I need to get back to the Eyrie. I am feeling rather sick.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Valefor, breathing down my neck. “Let him stew for a while.”

  “Get off.” I pushed him away, my hand shredding through his arm like a knife through smoke. I gingerly opened the door and Poppy wobbled out. He sat patiently on the settle while I bandaged up the cuts on his hands. He had smashed the mirrors with his bare fists.

  “My eyes are too green. I can’t stand the way they stare in my face,” Poppy said, as though that was an explanation.

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” Valefor muttered. “Look on my face, I have become death, murderer of calm.”

  Poppy turned his head sharply, noticing Valefor for the first time. “What the hell are you doing down here?” Val shrank behind me, wavering.

  “If Buck catches you out, she’ll cut you up and use you for a raincoat,” Poppy warned.

  “Hold still, Poppy,” I ordered. He was shaking so hard that I kept smearing the Madama Twanky’s Cut-Eze on his shirt instead of his arm.

  “Ouch, careful with that stuff, it burns.”

  “Good on it,” I said. “Serves you right. Who’s going to clean up all that mess now, Poppy?”

  “Make your little friend do it. After all, it is his House,” Poppy said sarcastically.

  Valefor snorted. “Hardly anymore. Your darling lady wife locked me up in the Bibliotheca Mayor, and this is the first time I’ve been out in I don’t know how long.”

  “How did you get out?” Poppy asked.

  “Poppy,” I said, before Val could get me in trouble, “you should go back to your Eyrie and lie down for a while. I’m sure you’ll feel better, then—”

  “Watch him, Flora,” Poppy interrupted. “He is bound to spit and that’s going to burn. I warn you.”

  Whatever that meant. “Ayah so, Poppy, don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Poppy shambled to his feet. “You’d better get back to the Bibliotheca before Buck gets back, Valefor.”

  Val sniffed. “I am not afraid of Buck.”

  Poppy looked at him somberly. “You are the only one. And you are a fool.”

  SIX

  Cleaning Up. Val Makes an Offer. Wiggling Fingers. Another Kiss.

  I COULD HELP YOU clean up,” Val said, trailing behind me as I went downstairs to the kitchen to fetch a broom and let the dogs out.

  The dogs slunk out of the mudroom dejectedly, then slunk off into the garden. Flynnie pressed up against my legs sadly and pushed his head into my hand to be petted. I hugged his solid meaty bulk, and he licked my face before squirming free to follow his sibs into the darkness.

  “How can you do that? I thought you were diminished and without any ability.” I got the broom and a garbage sack out of the mudroom, and Val followed me back up the Below Stairs.

  “I am still weak, it’s true, but you have lent me enough to allow me some freedom. So now we are friends and I stick by my friends.”

  The Garterobe of Resolution was a wreck. Shards of glass winked like fallen stars on the floor and in the bathtub. The sink was full of tooth powder and bath salts, and the walls and ceiling were stuck with soggy toilet paper. FOR THIS WE ARE SOLDIERS was scrawled in red lip rouge across one of the walls. Even if I got the mess cleaned up, I could not replace the mirrors before Mamma returned. Both Poppy and I were going to be in big trouble.

  “My beautiful loo,” Val moaned, peering over my shoulder. “My beautiful loo. Do you have any idea how long
it took me to make those mirrors? Weeks of utter concentration and focused desire. And the tiles—oh, the energy to make them the most perfect shade of bleachy blue, after which I was almost invisible with exhaustion—now all cracked, and filthy, too. Hotspur made a mess, but he didn’t have far to go. Don’t you ever wash the bathroom floor, Flora Segunda?”

  “Well, can you do something about the mess?” I demanded, ignoring his crack. Valefor might not be afraid of Mamma, but I was. I did not want her to see this mess and say that I had not watched Poppy closely enough. “Well, if I were to have more Anima—”

  “How much?”

  He grinned at me hopefully. “Not a lot, just more. What did you have for dinner tonight?”

  “General Chow’s tofu.”

  He wrinkled his long nose. “I’m not that fond of such spicy food myself, but all right. It’s better than nothing.”

  “But be careful,” I said. “You almost made me pass out last time.”

  “I’ll be sweet as pie,” he promised. His lips brushed mine and then parted to take my breath. A slow tingle started in my toes and wiggled its way upward, as though my blood had turned fizzy.

  “That’s enough,” I said, breaking away. “You are making me dizzy.”

  Val grinned. “Ah, I feel so much better, you cannot believe it!”

  His hair, I realized, was not black. It was dark purple-blue, the color of a damson plum, and little threads of silver sparked in the thick curls now springing around his shoulders.

  “Just clean this place up, Valefor. It’s late and I have to go to bed. Tomorrow’s a school day.”

  “You are a busy one, aren’t you?” Valefor said. “Always rushing from here to there and there to here. You ought to just slow down and enjoy life. It’s short enough as it is without you hurrying.”

  Ha! As though there was anything about life to enjoy. “Clean it up. Now!”

  Valefor flourished a long finger.

  When the sparkly purple Invocation faded, not only was the Garterobe of Resolution tidied up, but it was actually clean. The silver taps gleamed and the porcelain sparkled. The broken loo chain had been replaced, Mamma’s cut-glass bottles were lined up neatly above the bath, and the towels were soft and fluffy. The mirror showed my astonished face and Valefor’s smug smile.