Perchance to Dream (8 page)

The woman turned nonetheless, the dark braids twisted about her head the same Raven’s Wing Black as Bertie’s shaggy mane. “Can I help you?”

Though Bertie knew the line, she could not speak it aloud.

I picture her with my father, along with five or six of my brothers and sisters. And—

The Family Dog came running. A huge, hairy beast, it dashed past the woman and lunged at the wall, barking madly. With a scream, Bertie dodged back only to whack her funny bone against the trellis. The woman grabbed the slobbering thing and dragged him back.

“Good gracious!” she said with a gasp. “Down! Get down!” Bertie was tempted to throw herself to the ground, so stern a command did the woman issue. The dog backed up with a reluctant whine and another bark. “Sit!” It planted its hindquarters on the ground, tail sweeping through the dirt like a janitor’s broom.

“My apologies,” Bertie finally managed. “And greetings to you, goodwife.”

The woman righted her apron, twisted askew by her canine intervention. “Who are you?”

Bertie took a deep breath and stepped into her proper role. “I am the Mistress of Revels, Rhymer, Singer, and Teller of Tales, on my way to a distant castle to perform for the Royal Family.”

As though on cue, the Incoming Storm arrived. Bertie’s free hand covered the scrimshaw medallion just before a droplet splashed down her nose, immediately followed by a dozen of its brethren. Squinting up, she marveled that the real experience felt exactly the same as the rain machines.

“You’re wet enough already, and it wouldn’t be right for me to leave you out here to drown.” Rushing back to the laundry line, the woman pulled the remaining clothes from their pegs and tossed them atop a wicker basket. “Follow me.”

“Er,” Bertie said, forgetting to be the Mistress of Revels, the Teller of Tales. “That is most kind of you.”

“Come along, I haven’t all day to stand about the yard.”

Keeping a wary eye upon the dog, Bertie followed the woman to the thatched-roof cottage and hesitated in the doorway. A merry fire burned in the hearth, string-tied bundles of dried herbs hung upside down from the rafters, and small pots of wildflowers dotted the table, the windowsills, and the mantelpiece with the sort of haphazard charm that indicated they’d been gathered by chubby fingers. “You’ve a lovely home.”

“My thanks.” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper as she jabbed at the cradle set in the corner. “It takes a lot of work to make it so, especially with the other children, thanks be they’re yet at school.”

Bertie lowered her voice to match, sitting on a bench at the nearby table and setting the journal before her. “How many do you have? Children, I mean?”

“Six, plus the wee one.” Passing the hearth, the farmwife dropped the basket on the swept-clean stone floor, removed lids from pots, and set the contents a-swish with a long-handled wooden spoon. Though she moved with the silent efficiency of one of the stagehands, a strange noise nevertheless turned into the hiccup-cry of a startled newborn. The woman sighed, and her voice returned to a normal volume. “This one’s hardly let me get a moment’s rest since she arrived.”

Lifting the tiny thing from its cradle, she afforded Bertie her first glimpse of a real baby. There were no infants at the Théâtre; for performances, swaddled dolls took their place, and Bertie had never been a child who played with dolls. Mr. Hastings had offered a parade of teddy bears and dainty porcelain-faced beauties, but why would Bertie want an inanimate sawdust-stuffed thing when she could frolic with the fairies?

Thus she was completely unprepared for the farmwife to ask, “Hold her a moment for me?” Without waiting for an answer, she deposited the baby in Bertie’s arms.

Startled by the soft, heavy weight of it, Bertie stared down into the child’s tiny face. Surely not every baby had hair like golden peach fuzz, milky blue eyes, or brilliant flakes of pink on such fat cheeks. “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” The woman opened a cupboard door to sort through a selection of medicinal liniments and powders. “Where did I put that ginger? You ought to have something hot to drink.” The ingredients the farmwife culled reeked of heat and spice, and she muttered to herself as she pulled a gently steaming kettle off the hearth.

Cautiously shifting the child, Bertie realized everything about the creature was as damp as her own skirts, from the spit bubbles the baby blew on berry-colored lips to her suspiciously soggy posterior. “I think she needs a change.”

Tsk
ing under her breath, the woman moved to take her progeny. “Oh, Beatrix, again?”

All roads lead to Bertie.

Bertie-the-elder got chills down her arms from something other than the cold outside. “Such a pretty name.”

“After my mother.” The farmwife whisked the child away, removing the soiled cloth diaper and replacing it with lightning efficiency. Wiping her hands on a towel, she shouldered the tiny thing before handing Bertie a humble ceramic mug filled to the rim. “That will help with the chill.”

My line. I know I have a line here.

“A debt paid today is one that cannot be called in tomorrow, so I will give you something in return. I can weave your daughter’s story on this … er … evening’s loom.”

The woman hesitated. In Bertie’s imagination, a violin held a long, high note; as it descended the scale, the farmwife took a deep breath and joined the Mistress of Revels at the table.

Long fingers flicked the gold belt dangling around Bertie’s waist. “One of these coins would pay for the drink, and a meal as well. There’s bread and stew, a bit of new cheese. Ale, if you’re thirsty.”

Not the line Bertie was expecting, and so the farmwife’s words took a moment to sink in. “Oh. Yes, please.” Bertie pried one of the glimmering discs from her belt and held it out.

The woman bit it, seemed pleased, then spirited it away into her kirtled apron. “Wash up. There’s a pump in the corner.”

There began a dance of plates and pitchers, knives and forks. The farmwife set out a bowl of thick stew, half a loaf of bread still warm from the brick oven, a small wheel of soft cheese. There was butter molded into the shape of a clover, and a stein of dark, home-brewed beer. Trying to remember she had any manners at all, Bertie fell upon the food, dipped up rich broth with the bread, consumed vegetables the fairies wouldn’t have touched even had they been dying of starvation. Between bites, she grinned at the baby, now nestled firmly in the laundry basket atop a pile of clean-but-rumpled shirts, and tried to keep up with the farmwife’s small talk.

“So you’re a performer?” The woman held a heavy iron up to her cheek to test the heat, then ran it over a pillowcase thick with embroidery. “Where’s the rest of your troupe?”

“The next village over,” Bertie hazarded, not knowing for certain if that was indeed the case. “I need to get back on the road soon.”

“Not with the weather as it is.”

“Oh, the rain.” Bertie glanced at the window and saw it was slashed with silver streaks. “Have you a bit of oilcloth I could purchase? I shouldn’t like my book to get wet.”

The farmwife nodded and went to fetch it, then, with a noise that was equal parts laughter and “silly child,” she took up a napkin. “Hold still, you’ve butter from ear to ear.”

Eyes squinched obediently shut, Bertie could almost imagine she was Beatrix, that she’d grown up in this house, that this woman—

“For another coin, you can stay in our barn. There’s plenty of hay in the loft.” The farmwife returned Bertie’s napkin to her. “More stew?”

Bertie wanted to say yes, but her ribs were already creaking. “No, thank you. I’ve had all I can hold.” Spreading the oilcloth between salt cellar and pickle jars, she managed to wrap it about the journal and secure all the edges without needing to pay for a length of twine, too.

The woman nodded, gathering the plates. “Just as well. The rest of the family will be back soon, and I’ll have another supper to serve. It’s a burden, I tell you, having this many mouths to feed.”

Not quite the right line, but Bertie understood it as her cue. Journal in hand, she rose and looked at the tiny Beatrix, sleeping in the basket, thumb firmly lodged in her mouth. “Does she have stars in her eyes?”

“I beg your pardon?” The farmwife looked up from the dishes.

“Stars?” Bertie’s head swam with the combined effects of her fall, the long walk, the beer, but there was no gainsaying Destiny. “You know, like those in the heavens above?”

Pulling another loaf of bread from the brick oven, the farmwife paused to think over the question. “I suppose so, though I thought it was but a teething fever….”

“She will want a life greater than this, you realize.”

“You mean the farm?”

“I mean upon the stage.”

The woman frowned. “You speak like the village idiot.” She abandoned the food to herd Bertie toward the door. “It’s none of my never mind if you don’t want to pass the night, but you’ll have to go now.”

The scene wasn’t playing out as she’d imagined it, though Bertie gave it a valiant effort, holding out her arms and summoning inflections not quite her own. “It’s not all roses and curtain calls and champagne on Opening Night, I fear. The bright lights mask the sorrow, but the sorrow is still there.”

“Sorrow?” The farmwife looked alarmed now, then shifted so her stance was that of a warrior ready to do battle. “I don’t know what nonsense you’re speaking, but you’re no longer welcome here.”

Bertie hastened to reassure her. “It’s all right if you have nothing to send with her, besides a mother’s love and best intentions.”

“Send with her? Just where do you think she is going?”

Too late, Bertie realized something had gone terribly awry. “With me?”

“Are you
insane
? Get out of my house! Go on! Shoo!” The woman shoved Bertie through the door, letting loose an ear-splitting whistle. The dog came charging, as yet a distant blur in the rain-soaked fields but rapidly approaching.

Bertie stumbled down the front path, the baby’s cry pursuing her. Twin slams: the cottage door, under the hand of the irate farmwife, and the gate, under Bertie’s own power. Seconds later, the hellhound leapt against the wooden boards, adding a barrage of doggy threats, punctuated by snapping teeth and flecks of spittle.

Running through the intermittent raindrops falling on the storm-darkened lane, Bertie threw fearful looks over her shoulder, worried the awful thing might figure out some way of leaping the stone wall that bordered the garden. With every footfall upon the road, a truth shook loose in her head to rattle about.

A child is not a thing given up easily
.
.
. a knack, a toy, a trick.

Bertie had believed it was Ophelia’s broken memory that had separated them—

But could she have really forgotten me, as though I were no more than a flower on the current?

Body aching and head swimming, she stumbled over a stone she couldn’t see and sat down hard in the dirt.

A hand clamped down on her arm. “There you are.”

With a scream, Bertie kicked out at her would-be attacker only to get hauled to her feet by a familiar man-shaped heap of fur. “Waschbär, you just scared five years off my life!”

“My apologies, fair Mistress.” The shadows under his eyes seemed to spread across the surrounding fields. “We’ve been searching for you for hours. Thankfully the road led us right to you.”

Out of the darkness behind him came the rumble of wooden wheels, accompanied by a roll of thunder and a fresh downpour. Squinting into the gold puddles of lantern light, Bertie could make out the dim outline of the caravan, the fairies’ enthusiastic waving, and the incensed expression on the air elemental’s face.

“Heave me into the ditch and be done with it,” she told the sneak-thief, “because Ariel’s going to wring my neck.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
Till of This Flat a Mountain You Have Made

F
ar from looking
worried, Waschbär hailed the caravan with a piercing whistle. As it drew closer, Bertie could see that Ariel had summoned the necessary winds to create a wavering bubble, tinted gold by the lantern light. Neatly encapsulating the caravan, air currents formed a constantly swirling roof against which persistent needles pattered. Four sparking incandescent orbs careened through the night and smacked into various parts of Bertie’s travel-frayed anatomy.

“Where have you been?!”

“We’ve been so worried—”

“There’s dessert in the hamper!”

“I’m not hungry,” Bertie told them.

Utter silence, composed of equal parts incredulity and shock. Then Moth found an explanation. “Something must have fried her brains.”

Bertie couldn’t even argue with that. “All I want is a few minutes rest.”

“Good luck with that,” Mustardseed said, clinging to her hair.

“Consider, if you will, giving her two seconds to breathe.” Waschbär helped her onto the caravan with far more care than the last time.

Sliding into the driver’s bench alongside Ariel, Bertie saw his expression was even worse close up.

“Such a romantic way to travel, don’t you think?” she ventured, though the next second she didn’t quite manage to suppress a sneeze. “You look awfully debonair, considering.” Her skirts stuck to her legs, clammy and discomfiting.

“Damp and debonair are two different things.” A slight movement of Ariel’s shoulders sent a ripple through his black silk shirt. His butterflies ventured out of his hair, took one look at the limp and bedraggled scene, and retreated whence they came. “Surely a wordsmith should know that.”

“This wasn’t my fault.”

“I didn’t say it was.” Not waiting for her to settle, Ariel snapped the reins smartly. The caravan started up again with a lurch.

“Then why do you look as though you’ve been drinking vinegar? It’s not like I wandered off into the fields to sing and shove flowers in my hair, shades of Ophelia.”

“I knew well enough you’d not wandered off,” he said with a scowl that should have shredded the clouds from the skies. Indeed, they parted for a fleeting moment, then coalesced, unconvinced he was their master in such matters. “I’ve been cursing myself all afternoon for not keeping a closer eye on you, not realizing until too late that he’d pulled you away from the group—”

“Bertie,” said Moth, sounding faint, “is that
blood
on your shirt?”

“Oh, just look at your bodice!” Peaseblossom cried.

Bertie understood, when next he spoke, that Ariel’s fury wasn’t directed at her. “Did the bird-creature do that to you?”

“Yes.” A hesitant twitch of the shoulder blades resulted only in mild discomfort and certainly nothing in comparison to the ache in her feet. “But it was an accident.”

“Where is he now?”

“Long gone.”
And a good thing, too!
Ariel looked as though he could murder someone midair. “I broke the connection.”

“How are we supposed to follow him, then?” Mustardseed wanted to know.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” The warm weight of a wool blanket settled on Bertie’s shoulders, placed there by Waschbär, and she smiled her thanks at the sneak-thief.

“Don’t linger on the notion of fog,” Peaseblossom said. “The weather is inclement enough as it is.”

Cobweb heaved a sigh. “It would be ever so much easier if a stagehand ran in with a map.”

The hoped-for moment of silence came and with it, inspiration.

“That just might work.” Bertie took a moment to squeeze her eyes shut and say a silent prayer before unwrapping the journal and uncapping the pen. “We don’t need the Scrimshander … just something that will chart his path. Something that will show us where he’s going.”

“I’m less concerned about his whereabouts than I am about your well-being,” Ariel argued. “Let me see the damage done to your back again.” Taking advantage of his distraction, a few raindrops wormed their way through his wind-shield. Ink immediately ran in rivulets down the length of the page, and the world around them melted to match, streamers of blue-black twisted about the bubble of light.

“Ariel! Mind the rain!”

With a frown, he exhaled upon the paper to dry it, but now the night’s ink painted the world into shifting curtains of dark velvet.

“We have to find him,” Bertie said softly.

Ariel scowled sidelong at her. “And when we catch up with him? What’s the sense in chasing him if he doesn’t want to help you?”

“Badinage and persiflage, Ariel. I just need the chance to speak with him.” She had to believe that now. “At the very least, he owes me that.”

A map most marvelous charts their course …

An otherworldly vine of brass and gold clambered over the lip of wood at their feet.

“A man-eating plant!” Moth retreated behind Bertie’s left ear.

“No, nor a fairy-eating one,” Bertie promised. She watched, fascinated, as unfurling metallic tendrils twisted up and over and down until a golden casing spanned the width of the driver’s bench. Within the frame, thousands of countless counterweighted brass rods rolled an enormous piece of parchment up, and to the left, constantly adjusting for their position.

“That would be the perfect little picnic table,” Moth observed, “if it didn’t have so much junk on it.”

“That junk,” Bertie said, “is the important bit.” Decorative steel engravings appeared on the map: vignette views, armorial shields, a scale, and a pair of crossed flags, one bearing Thalia’s mask of comedy, the other Melpomene’s mask of tragedy. Fixed in the center of the map was a miniature caravan, finely wrought in silver.

“It’s charted our course all the way back home.” Cobweb walked along a line, as thin as spidersilk, to a tiny façade of the Théâtre.

“That’s all very well, but we know where we’ve been,” Moth said.

Recognizing her mistake, Bertie hastened to add,

… even as it charts the Scrimshander’s position.

A tiny silver bird appeared on the map, skimming over the surface of the paper. A thick series of peaks indicated an approaching mountain range and the circuitous route they would have to take to cross it.

Peaseblossom heaved a tiny sigh of relief. “In any case, I’m glad we found you, because I’ve had just about all the excitement I can stand.”

“Oh, please!” Mustardseed nudged her. “You stole two extra bows tonight at curtain call.”

Before a fight could break out, the sneak-thief put a finger alongside his nose. “You did well, and performers require nourishment, do they not?”

“The villagers packed up the remains of the morning feast and sent it with us. Waschbär put on quite the show once we’d realized you were gone,” Peaseblossom explained. “Colored smokes and showers of sparks and sleight of hand, the likes of which I’ve never seen, not even back at the theater!”

“I couldn’t have competed with that,” Bertie said, a bit rueful as the sneak-thief chortled and dragged the basket into his lap.

“There are tricks, and then there are things of importance,” Waschbär said, wicker rummaging, “like currant buns and cheese,” here the boys dove headfirst into the hamper, “and quite a lot of wedding cake—”

“Oh, I forgot about Henry!” Peaseblossom fled into the carpetbag. Thereafter were muffled mumbles of “My dearest, I’m so sorry” and “I do hope this frosting will do to keep your head on.” The boys, after gathering a late-night snack, followed her in, prompting dire warnings of “don’t you dare lick him again.”

The mechanical horses began towing them up a slight incline, and within minutes, the rain falling beyond their golden bubble had turned to slush. The sway of the lanterns cast waltzing shadows, the particles of half-frozen water like the sequins on a ballroom dancer’s skirts, swirling around them only to disappear into the night’s black tuxedo jacket.

Bertie consulted the map, tracing their route from the cottage with one tired finger. “Now that we’ve entered the mountains, the road will fork into three paths. One along the top of the range, heading north. A second curving like a lady’s hairpin, and leading back the way we came.”

The sneak-thief’s arm appeared between them to trace the circuitous third route with a single curved claw. “And the third goes west, to the White Cliffs.”

“The cliffs?” Bertie’s skin prickled at the mention.

The sneak-thief nodded. “Yes.” Some sort of understanding passed between them like a flash of summer lightning. “Fowlsheugh.”

“Fowlsheugh.” She mouthed the word like a magic spell, and it tasted like salt and chalk. “I would bet all the coins on my belt that’s where Ophelia went with the Scrimshander. Where I went with Mrs. Edith.”

“The place where you nearly died,” Ariel said, in case she’d forgotten.

The Wardrobe Mistress of the Théâtre Illuminata had saved her that time. Remembering her more recent freefall, Bertie considered tying herself once more to the seat of the caravan.

Ariel studied the map, looking for options that weren’t there. “Perhaps he’ll veer in another direction.”

“He’s going home.” The way Waschbär settled in amongst the luggage, hamper between his knees and ferrets on his shoulders like a duchess’s stole, closed the door on conjecture and supposition. He reached past the fairies to extract a rose red apple, which he then peeled with the wicked-sharp obsidian knife. A coiled crimson streamer dangled from the fruit alongside the matching silk ribbon, the apple’s flesh laid bare to both the chill of his gaze and the night air. He offered fruit and knife to Bertie. “They nest in the cliffs, looking out upon the water.”

“Where the air meets the sea. A between-place.” Cutting a wedge of apple, shoving it into her mouth and tucking the knife into her skirts, she pulled out the journal and uncapped the pen. “The sort of place we might find a portal to Sedna’s world.”

Ariel tensed. “What are you going to do?”

“Hurry us along, just a bit.”

Following the mountain road, the horses pick up speed until the landscape is a white blur around them.

There was a hushed moment, then, with an icy exhalation of breath, the mountains urged them forward. The terrain twisted and turned, but instead of jolting them from their seats, the wagon eased around the corners and up the slight incline as though it floated rather than rolled. The horses ran at a gallop now, necks stretched and limbs dull silver in the occasional flashes of light from the lanterns. Their hooves should have made a terrible noise, but Bertie could only make out scraps of muffled thunder between lengthening intervals of crackling silence.

“Don’t you worry we’ll fall into a ravine?”

She could tell Ariel was shouting at her, that his winds whipped his hair about his shoulders, but the space between them filtered his voice and his motions through thick bubbled glass. It was as though she peered through the Theater Manager’s Office door, trying to catch a glimpse of the shadowy figures within, had her ear pressed against the sturdy wood, trying to eavesdrop on a conversation not meant for her.

“I said we’d follow the mountain road. We’ll be—” She was going to say fine, but couldn’t bring herself to voice the lie. As everyone else moved at the speed of starlight, she slowed, able to sense the presence of every stick, every stone, every bit of the passing countryside, not just what skimmed underfoot, but to the pinnacle of the mountains surrounding them. Placing the obsidian knife alongside the fountain pen in the journal, she swallowed hard. “I feel terribly odd.”

“You’re exhausted.” Ariel’s words were drawn out like warm molasses taffy. “Of course you feel odd.” Another moment passed before he added, “Why didn’t you use the journal?”

Trees she couldn’t see called to her, and everything tangled together: branches, journal, knife-ribbon. “I just did.”

“I meant before. When the Scrimshander took you.”

“I used it then, too.” Her synapses fired at half speed now, worn out with the lethal combination of confusion and exhaustion, and Bertie shoved the journal back into her bodice, fearing she might drop it.

A soft sigh stirred her hair. “Wait, don’t tell me. You summoned food of some sort.”

“You could say that.” No need to tell him about the cottage, the Beatrix-not-Beatrice, the misunderstanding with the farmwife and her rabid dog. Bertie turned her nose into the warmth of the wool blanket, head swimming. “Life is certainly not like a play.”

“No, that’s become quite apparent over the course of this day.” A long pause, during which Bertie nearly fell asleep. “You should have …”

She tired of waiting for him to sort through all the things she ought to have done. “Should have what?”

He made a frustrated noise. “Found a way to call me to you faster.”

“I tried to find the right way to word it, but I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone.”

More than I’ve already hurt Nate.

“There is that. I suppose I should be thankful.” Wrapping an arm about her waist with his free hand, Ariel pulled her closer. “Scratch that. I
am
thankful.”

“I’m only permitting such familiarity,” Bertie said in tones borrowed from Mrs. Edith, “to prevent a swift and sudden tumble over the side.” It wasn’t an idle fear, as the lanterns’ light threw long shadows over the edges of the mountain’s road. “Perhaps I
should
write something about us not falling over a cliff.”

“You’ve written enough already, and the horses are managing nicely.” A low chuckle. “Rest your head.”

“All right, then.” She leaned against Ariel and closed her eyes. Dual heartbeats like drums; Ariel’s pulse was the faster of the two, and Bertie struggled to keep up. The medallion pressed hard into her chest, or maybe that was the ache in her lungs—

“Little One, what have you done to yourself?” The scrimshaw reverberated with her father’s voice.

“Leave me alone. I haven’t done anything.” Bertie clenched her jaw, and the dark shifted around her.