Prospero Regained (70 page)

“Before we go telling you all our little secrets, Father,” Erasmus interrupted, “or fill you in on our new plan for family-wide, periodic, staff rotation, perhaps it is time for
you
to answer a few questions of ours.”

We all looked at Father with great interest, but he gave a curt shake of his head.

“That would not be wise,” he explained. “Our enemies are very dangerous. It is best you ask me your questions later, one at a time.”

Erasmus shrugged and went back to applying bandages, though some of the others looked quite disappointed. I sighed. Apparently, everything was going right back to the way it had been. Somehow, I had hoped things would be different.

Mab had been sitting at the far end of the table, eating a Boston Cream doughnut. He came forward to stand politely before Father, his hat in his hand.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Pros…” Midword, Mab halted and threw down his hat. “Beggin’ nothing! I’m a free agent now!” He jabbed a finger at Father. “You listen to me, Lucretius, and listen well! I’m far older than you and a good lick wiser. So take it from me: secrecy breeds distrust, and distrust is a primary weapon of our enemy! True, it was useful that the demons did not know about the
Staff of Wisdom
—but look at the price you paid!”

Father appeared quite taken aback. It had been a long time since someone had addressed him by his given name. I wondered if he had forgotten he had one.

“I beg your pardon.” He drew his bushy brows together and frowned, quite an intimidating sight. “How so?”

Mab refused to be daunted. “If you had encouraged Miss Miranda to be honest about being jilted by Ferdinand, Mr. Erasmus would not have come to distrust her. If Mr. Erasmus had not distrusted her, your brother Antonio would never have gotten the hold on Mr. Erasmus that he did. If Antonio had not gotten his claws into Mr. Erasmus, he would not have been able to cast his spell, and Miss Miranda and the Professor would not have bickered so much. If they had not bickered so much, Mr. Ulysses would not have gone off on his own to be captured by Abaddon, which led to no end of mess.

“What’s more, if Mr. Ulysses and Madam Logistilla had known about the antidemonic effect of the
Staff of Silence,
Mr. Ulysses could have written out his plea for help back in 1921, before Mr. Gregor spent most of a century in prison and Mr. Theophrastus nearly died from the influence of the
Staff of Persuasion,
which had fallen under the influences of the demons.” As Mab spoke, Father looked rapidly from Cornelius to Theo, and I realized how many things we had not yet told him.

“Secrecy has harmed your family a great deal,” Mab concluded, “nearly costing several lives. I, for one, say the time has come to do away with it!”

Titus lifted his hands and brought them together with a resounding
crack,
once and then again. Moments later, the rest of us joined in, until we all clapped furiously. Mab looked faintly embarrassed, but he winked at me.

“Whatever answer you give, Father, I’d give it politely.” Erasmus finished off Theo’s bandage. He leaned forward and announced in a stage whisper, “This Mab fellow is secretly the god of the Nor’easterly, and he doesn’t work for us anymore.”

Father stroked his beard, regarding us without saying anything for quite some time. Finally, he replied, “Very well. I will answer one question from each of you. After that, you will have to wait until I have rested and regained my strength before you quiz me further. For I have endured more than any man who has ever descended into the Inferno and returned to the sunlit lands, and I am very weary.”

He turned to me, where I sat to his right. “Miranda, you are the heroine of the hour. You may go first. After that, I will take one question each, in order, from eldest to youngest.”

“Will you really answer, Father?” I asked hopefully and then, grinning, quoted Shakespeare’s lines for my alter ego. “For ‘You have often begun to tell me what I am, but stopp’d, And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding “Stay: not yet.”’”

“You cannot best me with the Bard.” Father chuckled. Smiling, he quoted back. “‘The hour’s now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; Obey and be attentive.’”

I asked without hesitation, “Why didn’t you tell us that there were demons in our staffs?”

“I told each of you what I felt you needed to know,” Father replied. “There was no demon in your staff, Daughter, so I did not see the need to explain the matter to you. The more people I told, the more chance of the information falling into the wrong hands.”

“Did you tell my siblings about how, if they resisted the demons in their staffs…”

“Shhhh!” Father raised his finger to his lips, cutting me off. “
They
are present in this room.” He pointed his elbow at Cornelius’s staff. “They will hear you.”

“Oh!”

“We’ll discuss that later, Child,” he promised.

Mephisto jumped up and down waving his hand. “Me! Pick me! I’m next.”

“No, Mephistopheles,” Father replied mildly, “Caliban is next.”

“Oops!” Mephisto covered his mouth with both hands. “Your turn, Calvin.”

Caliban grasped his club, turning it in his lap. “I don’t have many questions that haven’t been answered by…” He looked down at his club. “But there is something I would like to ask you …

“Master … Brother Mephisto told me that Erasmus had spoken of a place in your journal where you wrote of Sycorax’s child. I know you spoke to this matter in Hell, but I wanted to hear it again, directly from your lips, when we were not being overheard by enemies, so that you do not have a reason to be hiding anything or, perhaps, lying.”

Father colored faintly. He glanced at Erasmus, his eyes narrowing. “I didn’t know you had that journal.”

I snorted with irony and self-amusement. And to think that I had been jealous.

Erasmus smiled and shrugged. “You said I could take any journal I found in the teak chest. This one was next to the chest. I figured that counted.”

“Indeed.” Father’s eyes glittered with amusement. “And from reading it, you learned that I had a child by the witch Sycorax. Ah, I see now: you thought it was Miranda.” Pushing his food aside, Father reached out and clasped Caliban’s shoulder. “Yes. I am your father, and you are my son.”

Caliban gazed at us all with worshipful delight. He had already known, but he, who had lived in such solitude, seemed overwhelmed, to be joining such a large, noisy family. He probably would probably always be closest to Mephisto, yet he was already establishing relationships with my other siblings, particularly Cornelius and Ulysses, whom he had toted around in Hell. This was a good thing, I decided. Ulysses could use a little exposure to wisdom.

“That’s right,” Erasmus laughed. He stood and came over and slapped Caliban on the back. “You are our older brother, now. Next time Father disappears, you’ll be the one in charge.”

“Oh, no!’ Caliban gasped. “T-that’s Master Mephisto’s job!”

“Oh-ho-ho!” Mephisto chortled. “You’re the eldest now! I’m off the hook!” He immediately plopped his head down on the table and pretended to snooze making
konk-feewww
noises. He opened one eye. “Besides, I’m Little Brother now. Not Master.”

“He’s right,” Titus rumpled. “You’re our eldest brother, and there’s no getting out of it.” He grinned and gave Caliban a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Nice having another big ‘un around to help me with the heavy lifting.”

Caliban smiled, touched. The others grinned at him. Ulysses gave him a thumbs-up. He blushed under all the attention.

I reached out and lay my hand on his arm. “Welcome to the family, brother. You’re really one of us now.”

Tears came into his eyes. He opened his mouth but could not speak.

Father cleared his throat. “Please. Stop choking the boy up. He can’t finish his question.”

“How come you treated him so much more badly than you treated the rest of us?” Logistilla asked archly, giving Caliban a sisterly smile.

“Do not think me too heartless, Daughter,” Father replied. “I treated Caliban as my son until his attack on Miranda. After that, I admit I was less than fatherly. As soon as Mephisto was up to the task, I sent him to take care of Caliban, which he has done admirably over the years.”

“There were a few rough spots when Mephisto first lost his wits.” Caliban wiped sauce from his face with his sleeve. Mephisto
tsked
at him and handed him a napkin. “But he has been a good master…”—he grinned—“… brother to me. Who were the ‘A.T.’ I hear that I terrorized?”

“Angelikon Teknon,”
Father replied, “Angel Child.”

“You mean that passage meant Caliban was troubling Little Miranda?” Erasmus hit his forehead with a resounding
slap.
“Oh, Lord! Did I get that one wrong!”

“Who’s next?” Father pointed his finger and moved it around the room until it fell upon Mephisto. “Mephistopheles. You’re the next eldest, and you have your hand up.”

Mephisto indeed did have his hand up. He waved it wildly, grinning his happy, goofy smile. I could not help chuckling. Of all my brothers, Mephisto had surprised me the most. I never would have guessed, back when we first found him singing on a tomato crate, dressed in a filthy poncho, that he had been looking out for the rest of us. I felt quite ashamed.

I was particularly touched by the care he had taken of Theo. While I had sat at home bemoaning Theo’s situation, Mephisto, of all people, had been out there doing something. Theo seemed chagrined, too—especially since he learned that the warning Voice he heard so often came courtesy of Mephisto. His former irritation with his elder brother seemed to be giving way to a grudging respect.

Leaping up, Mephisto cried out, “What was it like, Daddy, ‘pooning an angel?”

My father flushed. “Unions with angelic beings are not as unions between mortals. It was more a meeting of hearts.”

“You mean you’ve been in love with an angel all these centuries, and you’ve never even boinked her?” Rising, Mephisto came over and patted Father on the shoulder. “That must have been difficult for you!”

Father turned as red as his glass of wine. He cleared his throat. “Hmph, right. Moving right along … Theophrastus?”

Theo’s face was now a deep tan, except for the white raccoon mask around his eyes where his goggles had been. Nothing we had accomplished, not even realizing my long-cherished dream of becoming a Sibyl, pleased me as much as seeing Theo’s youthful and healthy face. In amazed delight, I realized that my plan to drag him out of that cozy old farmhouse had worked. I had saved Theo, and the world was a better place for it.

“Father, during the period when Miranda was under the spell … I mean, lacking in free will … how come nobody else noticed?” Theo asked.

“Mephisto noticed, and Titus,” Father replied.

I glanced in surprise at both brothers. Titus ducked his head, embarrassed; Mephisto winked and gave me a thumbs-up.

“They helped me keep an eye on her. They did not believe I was the one behind it, so they did not hesitate to come to me.” Father fixed his keen gaze on Theo who flushed. “As for the rest, they believed Erasmus.”

“Excuse me?” Erasmus glanced up from his food.

Father fixed his keen gaze on him. “Every time Miranda acted oddly, Erasmus gave her behavior a malicious spin, accusing her of having some malevolent motive, such as callousness or spite. Since this offered an explanation for her behavior, the rest of you looked no deeper.”

“Well, I feel like an even bigger idiot! That’s me: Erasmus, the Baby Angel Torturer. If you need me, I’ll be here banging my head against this table.” Erasmus banged his head against the table with an audible
crack.

“Stop that!” Logistilla cried. “This is an antique table.”

“Thanks so much for your sisterly concern,” drawled Erasmus, rubbing his head.

Theo leaned forward, a discerning glint in his eye. “And you didn’t set him straight because you thought that it was better that she be misunderstood than that she be understood and mistreated.”

“Exactly,” Father replied. “In my mind, it was the lesser of two evils. If others had known, they might have found ways to order her around like a servant. That Erasmus’s dislike of Miranda might lead to evil in and of itself, I fear I did not take into consideration.”

The tome containing the demonic face began to howl and thrash about in its chains. Father made a gesture, but nothing happened. He made it again, more impatiently, then looked chagrined as he recalled there were no airy servants left to obey his commands. Instead, he nodded to Titus, Erasmus, and Caliban, who wrestled the thing off its pedestal and into the back of the library, where it could carry on howling and wailing without interrupting our conversation.

As we waited, I told Gregor and Theo about seeing my mother and what she had told me about the fallen angels and the nature of Hell. Theo balked, unwilling to believe such heresy. He pointed out that since I had woken up in the field of flowers next to the tumbled Tower of Thorns afterward, there was no evidence that my visit with my mother had really happened. Perhaps, I had dreamt it. Gregor, however, nodded, as if my words confirmed a theory.

“We of the Church have long debated this question. There are those among us who believe that, since God can save a man’s soul right up to the last minute—far after life seems to have fled to the mortal observer—it was possible that everyone had repented, and Hell was empty, because no one had ever gone there. During my second term as pope, I had a good friend, a Franciscan friar, who held this position and would debate it with me at length. He held that we of the Church should all pray that his theory was the true one, for who would wish it to be otherwise. I, on the other hand, thought that I knew better because of our family’s dealings with demons and the like.”

Gregor smiled with weary sheepishness, “Apparently, Brother Laurence was right.”

Mab sat beside me, a second doughnut in hand. Seeing his craggy face brought a sudden pang of sorrow. Our time together was coming to an end. Mab had realized his greatest wish. He was now free. He could leave. He could even go back to his previous state as a bodiless spirit. The thought of him giving up his life as Mab and returning to being the Northwest Wind made me unexpectedly sad, as if I had just learned that a friend was going to die. I had come to rely upon him so. How would I run Prospero, Inc., without him?