The Glass Town Game

by Catherynne M. Valente

  “All right, all right, Annie. I wouldn’t let them do anything awful to your fingernails. I say, girls frighten so easily!”

  “I’m not frightened! I’m angry, because you’re being . . . you’re being . . . oh, you’re just being Branwell all over yourself! I’m hungry and cold and we’re far too high up and I want to go home!”

  “Yes, but, Anne . . . do you really want to go back to Glass Town? You heard what Brunty said! This whole beastly war is their fault! They steal all the stuff to make their grog from Gondal and they don’t let them have a drop. I don’t call that fair and I don’t call that right. If Mrs. Reed down the way popped over the garden wall in Haworth and swiped all our onions, Papa’d go bashing on her door, wouldn’t he?”

  “I suppose . . .”

  “And what if they were the only onions in the world? And what if they were magic onions that you could make medicine out of, medicine that should go to anyone who needs it, only Mrs. Reed was hoarding it just for herself and her million horrid children who always pull the washing down whenever we’ve got it pinned up nice? Well, then everyone would go bashing on her door!”

  “Oh, the Reeds aren’t so bad as all that! Well, John’s a brute. But Georgiana gave me a crabapple out of her pocket once and you never have. I’m on the side of the crabapples! You shouldn’t talk nasty behind people’s backs, Bran.”

  “They aren’t the goodies, Anne! Just because Glass Town has a Wellington doesn’t make them England. And even if it did, England isn’t so jolly nice to anybody not called England anyhow.”

  “Bran! We’re English!”

  “So’s Prince John and Morgan le Fay and Mrs. Reed and Macbeth and the Headmaster at Charlotte and Em’s school and Richard the Third and Henry ‘Dunno, What’dya Think, I’ll Just Cut All My Wives’ Heads Off, Shall I?’ the bloody Eighth! No one’s good just from being born any place.” He tugged on the sleeve of Anne’s red and blue nightgown. “All the same colors, like you said! Glass Town isn’t any safer or sweeter than Gondal, Annie. Perhaps we should break out of prison. Perhaps you’re right and I’m wrong. But if we do spring ourselves . . . perhaps we should think about rescuing Charlotte and Emily, not the other way round.”

  “But Brunty isn’t sweet at all. He’s a Master Spy! That means he lies for fun! You haven’t heard one word of what anyone in Glass Town has to say about it!”

  “I don’t need to! They’ve got the magic onions from Gondal’s garden. Gondal just wants its own back. And isn’t that what we want, too? Why not throw in with those who see the world our way? We could use a frog army right about now, that’s for certain.”

  “But that’s just it, Bran.” Anne twisted her fingers and stared down at her bare, frozen toes. “They do have the magic onions.”

  Anne hadn’t wanted to say. She’d wanted to sneak her prize home while no one was looking, and then when they got there everyone would say how astonishingly clever and brave and nimble she was. And her mother, whom she couldn’t remember, not really, would love her best of all. Of all of them. But now, Bran had gone and spoilt everything, like he always did.

  A soft, sidelong smile crossed Anne’s face. No matter how it came out in the end, she’d done it. Not Bran or Emily or even Charlotte. No one could argue with that. No one could best her. She reached into her dressing gown.

  The door of their cell swung inward with a horrid scrape and crunch of wood against flagstone. Anne’s hand froze. She put it back at her side. A tall girl entered with a smile on her face like a birthday candle—merry, but oh, how it burned. She was made all of cake from top to bottom. Cake and whirls of icing, swirls of icing, rosettes and pipettes and ribbons and twirls of vanilla, strawberry, pistachio, lemon, and lavender icing. She wore a great buttercream gown with a hoop skirt that barely fit through the door. Her hair rose up from her head in clouds of meringue, toasted at the tips. Her eyes were bright blue, her mouth bright pink, and she moved like a nervous ballerina. She was carrying a silver tray that steamed with lovely, hot smells Branwell had almost forgotten existed. She closed the door behind her with a sweet, creamy foot. She looked fifteen at the outside, but carried herself very proudly.

  “Bonjour, children!” she said, and very sweetly. “You will be Monsieur Branwell and Mademoiselle Anne, and I? Je m’appelle Marie, d’accord!”

  Branwell looked at Anne. Anne looked at Branwell. An awkward silence ticked by.

  “G . . . good morning, Miss Marie,” Anne stammered. She knew that face. She knew her. But it was too impossible. She couldn’t force herself to ask.

  “Terribly sorry, but would that be Marie Antoinette?” Bran cut in.

  “But of course, my darling! I am the one and the only, all other Maries are stealing from me, yes? It is a sin to call a shop girl by the same name as someone as marvelous as myself!”

  “But . . .” Anne sunk her chin into her chest. She raised it again. She lowered it. “But aren’t you quite dead?”

  “Deader than the Sunday roast, I’d say,” Branwell scoffed. “You can’t have Napoleon and Marie Antoinette in the same city, it’s just . . . it’s just wrong! They killed you! Long before Boney got his crown! They cut your head off!”

  Marie Antoinette stroked her vanilla throat with a frosted hand. Beneath the thin frosting they could see the red velvet cake of her famous neck. “Pssh! Is nothing a little icing cannot fix! My cherie, Monsieur Bonaparte, allows me to stay on as maidservant so long as I never, never touch the crowns in the cupboard, or even think about them.”

  Branwell goggled. “Maidservant? You were Queen of France!”

  “Is not so different as you think, young man,” the Queen said ruefully. “At least a maidservant only uses the guillotine to chop carrots, no?”

  Something slid into place in Anne’s mind. “Are you our interrogator?”

  “I said maidservant, did I not? You heard me, loud and clear and loud again? I am here to clean up after M. Brunty’s petite mess. But first, you must eat! Eat bread, bread, all the bread you can stuff in your adorable faces. You see? Enough bread for all. I learn my lessons.”

  Marie Antoinette had brought a silver tray piled high with food. Branwell blinked, confused. He saw no pots of fire or flutes of champagne or dishes full of hardtacks, just simple brown bread and brown soup and brown tea, no different than if Tabitha herself had served them up. Where had they gotten all this?

  “There is nothing for the heart like the taste of home,” Marie said in a singsong voice. “That’s what I always say.”

  A moment later it was all gone, and Anne had no memory at all of eating. She just opened her starving mouth and then Branwell was licking his fingers like a wolfy pig.

  “I thought Boney would come.” Bran pouted through the crumbs. “I thought he’d want to meet us. Very well, then!”

  Branwell sat up straight. He stuck out his chin. He could feel himself getting courageous. He would be courageous.

  “Do your worst!” he shouted.

  “Please don’t!” cried Anne. “I like my fingernails!”

  Marie turned her head to one side. Her meringue curls tottered. “And how do you imagine that you are at all important enough for the Emperor to trouble his time with? Are you Wellington’s son? Douro’s heir? Silly me, I thought you were the two wee little mad children Brunty brought in! With two mad sisters running whizz and wild out there, scheming with bad elements, stirring up trouble?”

  “Charlotte and Em!” Anne cried.

  “At least they are not locked up tight, yes? I think they are maybe cleverer than you, Monsieur Branwell. If you had not put out Brunty with your wonderful bucket, he would have died—kack!—and you would not be here with me! But no! What a fool am I! That is not you! You are someone important. I am so absent of mind! Why, I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached. Who are you then, my darlings? You have my full attention.”

  “We . . . we are . . . I mean that Brunty did bring us in, and I am Anne and he is Branwell, but we’re not mad. And we’r
e not little.”

  Marie Antoinette made a mocking pout with her pretty iced mouth. “Oh, you are just precious. Precious like a lost earring! Did you not babble in the presence of the Brunty and say something about having made us all up like Cinderella? Did you not call Wellington and Napoleon your toys and make wild claims about having gotten them from a shop in Leeedz?”

  “It’s the truth,” mumbled Branwell. She was so beautiful. He hated her beautiful mocking mouth. He wanted it to smile for him.

  “Well, that is rather awfully mad, non? Insane. Crazy as cake! You did not make me up! If anyone made me up, it was myself! You said I was the Queen of France. How can I be Queen of France and a little boy’s toy all at the same once?”

  Anne blushed. “Sometimes we . . . sometimes we used real people in our games. To make them more exciting. Because sometimes the real people were terribly interesting or beautiful and . . . and we wanted to meet them and show them the moors behind our house and feed them eggs from our chickens, but we couldn’t, you see, because they were very dead or very famous, so we called our toys by their names and invented stories for them, stories that brought them to us.”

  Marie Antoinette wrinkled her delicate powdered-sugar nose. “Disgusting. Rude. You ought to be spanked. But, then how do you know I am your toy-Marie, and not the real-Marie?”

  Bran and Anne exchanged glances, and Anne spoke. “You’re made of cake.”

  “And alive,” Branwell added.

  “And Napoleon’s maid,” Anne put in.

  “But of course. And who else have you invented?”

  Bran blew air out of his cheeks. “Well, just . . . everyone, really! Crashey and Bravey and Gravey and Napoleon and Wellington and Rogue and—oh! You said Douro! The Marquis of Douro? He’s one of ours! And Mr. Bud and Mr. Tree and Tracky and Boaster . . .”

  “Not Brunty, though,” Anne said softly. “Not Bestminster. Not lots of them, when you think about it.”

  Marie Antoinette sparkled at Bran. She put her frosting-face in her delicate hands and smiled. “Did you do all that by yourself? What a talent you must be!”

  “Well, Charlotte did Douro mostly. And Wellington. And Gravey and Crashey and Zenobia. But I did Dr. Home. His backstory, anyway; she ran off with him a bit over the winter. . . . And Emily did Ross and Parry and a jolly lot of ladies I can’t remember the names of because she won’t let me hold them hostage in my castles. . . . Rogue is mine, though! And Napoleon!”

  Marie leaned closer. He could smell the warm baking pastry of her heart. “Fascinating! Tell me more! Who else?”

  Branwell warmed under the sun of Marie’s interest. He wracked his mind. “Oh! Anne has some sad little dolly called Victoria, but we haven’t met her yet. She’s Anne’s secret.”

  “Bran! You . . . you worm!”

  “She talks to her doll all night long. There’s a million stories and she won’t tell us one,” Branwell confided in his new friend. Anne went white with rage.

  Marie patted Anne’s hand. She smelled like warm, rich chocolate and cool lemon cake. “Do not be upset at your brother, mon fille! It is not beautiful on you. Why would you keep secrets from him? He seems very nice! You should never keep secrets from your family.”

  “He wouldn’t understand,” pleaded Anne, her eyes full of tears. “He’ll be angry. He gets very angry, miss.”

  “Don’t we all, petite Anne? Ah, but you see, there is no proof! How can I believe such a thing?”

  Branwell went red. “You don’t know anything! I can prove it!”

  “Can you?” The former Queen of France said curiously.

  “Can you?” said Anne. “How?”

  He would turn that mocking expression into admiration. He would.

  “I know all about Glass Town. And Gondal, too. I know every plan Wellington’s ever had, every siege, every defense. I can tell you—”

  Marie leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, mon amour? What can you tell me?”

  Anne pinched him more viciously than he had ever been pinched in his life. Branwell went slack with horror. In another moment, he would have told that perfect icing-girl everything he could think of, just so that she would believe him and think he was important enough to meet Napoleon and smile. Just for her smile.

  “No,” he croaked. “Nothing. I am mad. Mad as mittens. You can’t invent a person. You can’t invent a world. It’s preposterous. Like you said.”

  Marie clapped her coconut-cream hands and giggled. “Oh, do you know I am so good at interrogating! Brunty is always telling me fingernails, fingernails, and if that doesn’t work, why not try cutting off a toe? But is only me to tidy up all that drippety-slop. Why bother with any of that when you can wink and flutter and gasp at a boy who is so dreadfully afraid that he is not so good as anyone else? A sad little sour-faced baby punching his sisters because he knows he’s the least of them? Is easy as eating cake.”

  “You knew we were telling the truth?” Anne asked miserably.

  “Brunty always knows. Is the fourth rule of spying. When Someone Tells You Something Impossible, Listen.”

  “But I didn’t,” Bran rasped. Oh, he was wretched. He was just what they all said. He was small and vicious and useless. “I didn’t give them up. And I won’t. I won’t ever. I am a locked chest buried in a well in the ground.”

  Marie Antoinette shrugged. She rubbed her finger round the rim of one of the empty bowls of brown soup and tasted it. “C’est la vie! It would be much better for you if you did. There are worse things than me in this place. And if you don’t spill your delicate English innards, then we’ll bury all of you in a chest in a well in the ground, trouble-stirring sisters and all. Brunty is home, and the world is about to change. Soon grog won’t matter any more than madness. Maybe you should be on the better side of that world, non? We have the most delicious cake here.”

  With that, Marie Antoinette swept out of the room and shut the door fast. A long, horrible quiet fell onto Branwell and Anne. He could not bear to look at her. She could not bear to speak to him. Finally, when the sun began to get low and golden outside their windows, Anne sighed and said:

  “Don’t listen to her. Didn’t you hear the frogs in the courtyard?”

  “No, of course not. It’s a hundred feet down and I had other things to think about!”

  Anne, who always heard everything, the little spy without rules, shrugged. “I did. They moan and complain so, and when they march, their knees creak. Don’t listen to Marie. They’re losing the war.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The High Ground

  Might I trouble you for a dance, Miss . . . ?”

  Emily coughed, glanced round, and found herself standing far, far too close to the boy Crashey had said quite confidently was Lord Byron. All his wild animal pelts didn’t frighten her. He looked rather like a calico cat—sleek panther fur along his jaw, snow leopard on his high cheekbones, bear on his throat, fox on his forehead, peacock feathers glinting among the long curly hair of a Newfoundland dog that tumbled round his beautiful face. He winked one green-gold wolfish eye at her. He smelled like long summer days on the green and fresh ink.

  Emily choked. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you!” She stood on tiptoe, scanning the crowd for her sister. She saw Charlotte’s golden hair and waved. “Char . . . Currer? Erm. Mr. Byron wants to dance with you.”

  The poet demurred. “Not at all, my silver siren. Begging the pardon of your sister, but I was asking you.”

  The harpsichord clanged to life and before she could think, before she could tell him she didn’t know how, before her heart could even beat, Emily was swept away to the dance floor in the arms of Lord Byron. The stars glittered on her silver hair, her silver forehead, her silver fingers, and her dog’s-ear white gown.

  “I am going to ask the Duke to dance,” Charlotte said firmly and quietly. Why not, after all? She needed political help. Military help. She would not ask a poet for that, nor a physician, nor grieving parents.

  “Darling, he
’s just a touch above your station, don’t you think?” purred Miss Austen, hiding a face built from shattered teacups behind a huge lace fan. “We Misses and Ladies had best stick with our boys in uniform. Unless Thrushcross is having a much better year than I’ve heard, hm?”

  The young gossip already knew all about her. This was why Charlotte didn’t like her books. It was just exactly like listening to her aunt whisper and nag about this or that village scandal, only with a very excellent vocabulary. The best thing that could ever happen to anyone in those stories was to get married and then get on with only feeling things through a lace curtain. Charlotte hoped Jane wouldn’t ask anything too pointed about the northern counties. She had nearly run out of her carefully planned and double-checked lies. She would have to start making new things up off the top of her head soon, and that seemed unlikely to go well with the great gossip of Glass Town.

  “The train will never come if the station’s closed,” Zenobia Elrington said in a soft, deep, velveteen voice. She was woven out of fresh, green sugar stalks. Here and there, the leaves fell away to reveal moist, dark, golden cane. But her eyes! Where Charlotte had irises and pupils, Zenobia had black coals. Where Emily had clear whites, Zenobia had round pale flames burning in her lovely face. Charlotte glanced at the Lady’s hands: Her fingertips were scorched where she had wiped away tears of sadness or laughter in her life.

  “Every soul in Glass Town asks the Genii for blessings,” Zenobia said, lowering her fiery gaze. “To ask a Duke for a dance is much less imposition.”

  Jane fluttered her fan in consternation. “Oh, but you mustn’t do the asking! That’s preposterous! What do they teach you out there in the boonies? It’s all very well to ask the potatoes to grow or the cows to milk, but a mere Lady asking a Duke to the floor? Zenobia! Tell her it is not done!”

  Lady Elrington turned her burning gaze to Josephine in her great birdcage, high above the ball. Three throbbingly red petals fell from her hair and drifted down to the jeweled floor.