Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) (45 page)

This I could not argue with. I owed him my life. He had stayed in Bilskinir Baths, as they crumbled around him, to make sure I returned to the Waking World. He had carried me from the ruins and gotten me safely home. Without Udo, I’d still be dead. Really dead. Dead forever. The least I could do was give him a pair of boots in return. True, I had promised Springheel Jack that I would find him a new avatar, but I owed Udo first. And promises made under duress aren’t binding anyway, right? Right.

W
HEN WE REACHED
Bilskinir House, it was shrouded in fog. We rode toward the base of the cliff, me on Sieur Caballo, Pig sitting before me, and Udo on Bonzo. As we approached the rocky foundation, the fog lifted briefly Directly ahead, the Gateway of Munificence shimmered into existence. I now knew that this, not the little wooden gate at the top of the causeway, was Bilskinir’s main entrance. The Gateway only manifests to the Head of the House Haðraaða; it is activated by the scratchy Key I wore around my finger. Or so Udo had informed me, having gotten this information from the entry on Bilskinir House in
The City in Shadow and Shade
guidebook. Now that I was not running (jumping) for my life, I had leisure to examine the Gateway as we approached it. Like the rest of Bilskinir, it was gigantically elegant: two enormous silver doors, polished to a blazing shine. The doors slid open at our approach, and before I lost my nerve, I spurred Sieur Caballo forward.

Briefly, we passed through darkness, and then almost immediately into warm sunshine. Down the Tunnel of Trees we jogged, onto the carpetlike grass of Bilskinir’s Great Lawn. The sheep bleated a greeting and the dog pack flowed toward us, yodeling joyfully, Flynn dashing ahead to join them. The sky overhead looked like pale blue enamel, and the grass once again grew lush and thick, neatly cropped. The House gleamed sapphire-blue, its minarets, towers, buttresses, and gables glittering in the sunlight, which also made the windows look like hundreds of sparkling eyes watching us. Paimon’s blue bulk, a tall figure standing on Bilskinir’s wide front porch, was visible even at our distance.

I had thought I had already been about as afraid as I could ever be, before: when I had faced Axacaya and begged for my life; when I had told Mamma I would not go to the Barracks; when I had thought I might be trapped in the oubliette forever; when I had drowned in the Cold Plunge; when I had activated the Translocation Sigil. Those had been real fears, about real dangers. There was no danger here. And yet my fear lodged in my throat like a stone, making me shake.

Udo dismounted first and gave me his hand to help me down. I was glad, so glad, for Udo. He knew it, too, for he squeezed my hand tightly as we walked up the steps, and gave me a reassuring smile. Sieur Caballo followed Bonzo toward the stables.

At our approach, Paimon made the courtesy As a Servant to His Mistress, Respectfully but Without Servility. I returned the gesture As a Pupil to Her Teacher, with Honor and Respect and by the glint of his tusks, I think Paimon was pleased with my choice. He and Udo exchanged the courtesies To One Who Is Owed Great Thanks. Paimon nodded at Pig, who did not nod back.

"Come meet the rest of the family,” Paimon said when all this flourishing, bowing, gesturing, and waving was done.

"The rest of the family?” I said. "I thought I was all that was left.”

"Oh, no, madama, they are all here. Come. You shall see.”

As Udo and I followed Paimon into the Hall of Expectant Expectations, Udo poked me in the side and hissed, "Don’t forget the boots!”

The Hall of Expectant Expectations was not empty as I had seen it before, but full of a buzzing throng of people, who fell into silence as they saw us. Suddenly I felt woefully underdressed. The waiting throng was fantastically arrayed in formal court-dress, their gorgeously bright outfits accented with glittering jewelry. And me in my old kilt and Tiny Doom’s worn buckskin jacket. At least I had put on lip rouge and my hair was clean.

"The Head of the House Haðraaða,” Paimon said grandly, bowing so low that his mustachios brushed the floor.

The crowd surged at me like a tidal wave. People were coming at me left and right, back and front. I was kissed, hugged, patted, squeezed, and twirled. Paimon couldn’t keep up with the introductions; he was shooting names at me, rapid-fire, and they were flying right over my head. But one thing was clear: They were all Haðraaðas, literally hundreds of Haðraaðas, one after another. Where had they all come from? How had I not seen them before? And how could I be the
last
Haðraaða with all these Haðraaðas swarming me? Just as I was starting to feel light-headed from all the squeezing, the whirlwind parted. A familiar figure sailed forward. An imperious white head topped an imperious sangyn uniform—a Haðraaða I knew for an absolute fact was dead.

Hardhands.

“We’ve met, Paimon.” Hardhands cut off Paimon’s introduction. “Welcome to Bilskinir, almost-daughter.” He ignored Pig, which was fine because Pig ignored him, as well.

“But you are dead!” I blurted, which probably wasn’t the most polite thing to say, but I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. Next to me, Udo was uncharacteristically silent. I guess he was overwhelmed, too.

“Of course I am, girlie, or you shan’t be here, in charge,” Hardhands said scornfully. He might be dead, but he was still pretty stuck-up.

“What are you doing here if you are dead?” Udo asked, recovering.

“Ain’t this my House?” Hardhands replied. “Why should I leave it just because I’m dead? I like it here.”

Paimon interjected gently, “It is the custom of the Haðraaða family to rest within my environs, madama, even after death. You have seen the Cloakroom of the Abyss.”

“But they didn’t move then. I mean, they were all just lying there. Corpses!” I said. Hardhands was staring at me with an avid look that I didn’t particularly like, as though I were a scrumptious cupcake and he had a craving for sugar. “Except the last time, when they weren’t even there.”

“Then, they were assisting me in the defense of Bilskinir House,” Paimon answered. “Today, it is a special occasion, a new Head of the House, so of course the entire family is excited and animated. Normally the Animas are not so active. Georgiana Segunda was very concerned with family lineage; it was she who decided to use that as my underpinnings, the source of my continuing power, and so she spent much time tracking down the Anima of those Haðraaðas—and Bilskinirs—who had gone before us all, and bringing their Animas here, and containing them within my walls.”

“You mean they are ghosts?” I asked, aghast. “Or reanimated corpses? Are they trapped in their bodies, like Georgiana Segunda was? That’s horrible—”

“Ghosts!” Hardhands snorted. “Reanimated corpses! Listen to me, dolly—”

“Listen to you!” A voice behind him jeered, and he moved aside to allow entry to another familiar figure, who looked much, much better than I had last seen her: Georgiana Segunda. A ghoul no longer, she looked young and fresh. I realized now that we had the same color hair, coppery red, and just as curly, though her curls had been tamed into a mass of ringlets and mine were frizzy corkscrews. The enamel feathers of the Pontifexa crown on her white brow glimmered like dragonfly wings.

"Of course we are not trapped within our bodies like ghouls, dear Nyana,” Georgiana Segunda said, with a pointed glance at Hardhands. "At least most of us are not. I intended that the energies of this family should always nurture both this House and Paimon, who has deigned to be our servant. So it was agreed that when a Haðraaða dies, his or her Anima joins the others, and together we are a well of strength that Paimon may draw from. This is how he survived all those years with no established living Head of the House. We nourished him in the interim while we waited for you.”

"And you certainly did take your time!” Hardhands interjected. Georgiana Segunda whacked his arm with her fan—the fan Paimon had given me and with which I had fought off the Loliga’s tentacle in the pisser of the Poodle Dog. Hardhands gave Georgiana a loving gaze, and did not look a bit abashed.

"Welcome to the family, Nyana,” Georgiana Segunda said kindly "You may kiss me.”

She proffered a powdered cheek, and not knowing what else to do (and with the memory of Tiny Doom not so long ago—or, really, long ago—kissing that cheek, then filmed with mold), I kissed her. Her skin was smooth and soft and smelled like roses.

Georgiana Segunda said, “I am sorry that you had to deal with the Loliga, Nyana. Certainly, I never meant for things to work out the way they did. Tiny Doom should never have left you in the lurch that way—it was her responsibility to attend to the Loliga, and her responsibility to make sure that her daughter and heir knew her duties. But you acquitted yourself well, dear girl. You remind me of my dear mamma at that age; she also ascended at an early age, and was oft misjudged. Sweet as a bon-bon on the outside, but bite down and inside is an iron filling.”

“Hell on your teeth,” Hardhands remarked, and again was whacked with the fan.

Georgiana continued, “I think you shall do well, my dear. Come, now—we haven’t much time and I don’t feel like wasting it blathering. Let us dance! You, Udo, dear sweet boyish morsel, dance with me.”

Udo gallantly offered his arm to Georgiana Segunda and she swept him out to where the floor had suddenly cleared. Music burst out, and the rest of the Haðraaðas flung themselves into partnerships and began to hop about, extremely energetically for a horde of reanimated corpses and disembodied spirits.

"Shall we dance, little bon-bon?” Hardhands asked. He swung his arm low in a courtesy, but I shook my head. I still had the feeling that even though he wasn’t a ghoul, he might snap at me if he had the chance. Hardhands took my refusal with an incredulous lift of one long black eyebrow and stalked away, the tails of his sangyn kilts swishing behind him with a reptilian hiss.

The dance floor was a crush of the Haðraaða dead. Those with bodies were so animated and forceful that you would hardly know, unless you squinted, they were dead. Those without bodies were ethereal and transparent, yet they, too, maintained their personalities. They knew who they were. Their Anima remained strong.

All the Haðraaðas were here.

All, I realized, but one.

Tiny Doom.

Her catafalque in the Cloakroom of the Abyss was empty; thanks to the Birdies there had been no body to bring home. But the Birdies couldn’t touch her Anima; they could kill her body but they couldn’t extinguish her soul. She had to be here somewhere. Everywhere I looked there were Haðraaðas, dancing, laughing, eating, talking. Standing in line at the buffet; laughing at each other’s jokes; feeding the dogs nibbles; dancing the mazurka; threatening each other with umbrellas; toasting each other with punch glasses. Paimon had vanished; perhaps he was refilling the canapés, or retrieving Springheel Jack’s boots. And I didn’t see Tiny Doom anywhere.

“Where is she, Pig?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

Then, I heard her voice in my head, as clear as if she were standing beside me. So clear, in fact, that I turned and looked, but there was no one there.

The Ultimate fiking Ranger Dare, baby.

And with a sick excitement, I realized that there was only one reason that Tiny Doom would not be here, celebrating my ascension with the rest of the Haðraaða family.

She wasn’t dead.

 

Statement of Intent Magical Working No. 9

by
Nyana Georgiana Brakespeare Haðraaða
or Fyrdraaca
Written in Sub-Rosa Ranger
Scriptive Code

Dear
Mamma Butcher Brakespeare Azota
Tiny Doom:

Everyone thinks the Birdies killed you, sacrificed you to one of their gods, whose priests ate your body while he ate your soul. Everyone thinks you are more than just dead, that you’ve been erased from the Waking World and Elsewhere, without a trace of your Anima surviving to cross the Abyss. Even Paimon thinks this.
I am the denizen of Bilskinir House
, he told me.
No member of the Haðraaða family can be unknown to me; if she escaped the Birdies and survived, I would know it. But she didn’t
, he said.
Tezcatlipoca took her and she’s Gone
.

I don’t care what Paimon says, or what he thinks he knows. He might be Bilskinir House’s Butler, but I am the Head of the Family and I know you are still alive. I am your daughter, and I know.

I
know
it. In my heart and my head and my very gut.

And I’m really fiking furious about it.

Never leave a comrade behind
, the great ranger Nini Mo said. Well, you not only left me behind,
Mamma
, but you left me in the lurch.

I’m sure you’d say that you were trying to protect me by getting Buck Fyrdraaca to pass me off as her own child, by getting Buck to lie to me all those years about being my mother. (And by the way—was it really fair to hide this knowledge from Poppy, too? He’s my father. Didn’t he deserve to know who my real mother is? He knows now, but finding out was a terrible shock. And believe me, after all the horrible things Poppy’s been through, he did not need another terrible shock.) I know you were only trying to save me from the Birdies, who would kill me for no other reason than I was your daughter. But did you ever think about what this meant for me?