Small Persons With Wings (23 page)

The doors weren't locked. They opened smoothly but with a rusty creak. “Guess she hasn't fixed the sound effects,” Timmo said.

“Fidius?” I called softly, poking my head through the door. The front hall had new brocaded wallpaper, but the ceiling was a mass of chipped plaster. It was Parvi-frigid, and yet I could swear I heard a furnace humming—very faintly, very far away.

It wasn't a furnace. “The Circulus!” Durindana cried. She wriggled out of Timmo's pocket and torpedoed straight ahead, down a hallway, through a door at the end ... gone.

“Durindana! You can't barge in there!” I hustled after her, Timmo at my heels.

To my relief, she was waiting for us down a halffancified hallway, bobbing up and down with impatient wing beats. “You must tear down this wall, Turpina.”

“Sure. I'll get the sledgehammer out of my pocket.”

“Hold on.” Timmo put on the moonstone ring. “There's a door here. There's a keyhole but no doorknob or anything.”

I peered at the foofed-up version. A neat crack ran from the floor through the molding and wallpaper to a point about a foot above my head, where it took a sharp left. “Can you pick the lock?”

“No. But maybe the key's around someplace,” Timmo said. “You won't be able to see it, but maybe I can, with the ring on and all.” He turned around in a slow circle, eyes darting.

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “You don't lock a door and leave the key hanging around next to it. You put it in your pocket or stick it in a drawer or something. It could be anywhere.”

“So what's your suggestion?” Timmo said. “Got that sledgehammer?” He wandered off down the hallway, searching floor, windowsills, molding.

Durindana fluttered up to a chandelier over our heads and settled on a gold-encrusted prong. “What would this key smell like?” she asked.

“I dunno—metal. Keys don't really smell like much.” I looked up at her. Her eyes were closed. “Hey, don't fall asleep up there. You'll fall off.”

“I am concentrating, Turpina.”

“Well, I guess I'm wrong,” Timmo said, coming back. “I've looked everywhere.”

Durindana gave a little cry. “Here! It is here!” She pointed at a hanging crystal, high in the chandelier. Timmo whooped. “She's right! There's a key hanging up there.”

Durindana floated down to us with the crystal. Timmo grabbed it, stuck it into the wall, turned it, and—
snick
—a brocaded door popped open.

“Awesome, Durindana,” I said.

“Hurry, Turpina,” she said.

The door opened onto a narrow, cobwebby wooden staircase angling down and out of sight around a corner. The humming was louder. I eased onto the top step, which creaked like a gunshot. But it held, so I kept going and Timmo joined me, Durindana hovering fretfully over our heads.

At the bottom of the stairs, we peeked through a doorway into a large stone room. A cistern in the center had rotting wooden chutes feeding into it, probably for rainwater. At the far end of the room, a freight doorway opened onto the ocean.
We're inside the cliff
. Gigi Kramer hadn't bothered to foof this place up—it looked the way it must have a hundred years ago.

Except for the colorful circle of Small Persons speeding around and around above the cistern wall.

“
Tiens
, every lady should have her own Circulus,” Gigi Kramer said from behind us, five steps up. “It is so much more convenient.”

TIMMO WAS BREATHING FUNNY. I thought he was falling under Gigi Kramer's spell, but then I remembered he had on the moonstone. So he was seeing the mannequin, not Gigi the glam-queen.

“So agreeable of you to visit,” Gigi Kramer said, sweeping us into the cistern room ahead of her. “Perhaps you will be staying for a while, yes?”

“No.” I decided to memorize the room in case Gigi tried some kind of illusion on me.
Focus on one real thing.
The ocean sighed and slapped and splooshed outside the freight door, a constant noise, always there if you needed it—in case of trouble, I'd concentrate on that.

Durindana cried out and flung herself at a Circulus member who had dropped down to rest on the cistern. “This Small Person is not herself!” Durindana snapped her fingers in front of the lady's nose, shook her by the shoulders. “You have enchanted them with Magica Mala, you bad, bad Parva Pennata!”

Gigi smiled. “
Zut
. I shall release them when the Turpina is giving me the Gemmaluna.”

“We don't have it,” I said. Timmo put his hand in his pocket.

“I am surprised to hear that,” Gigi said. “Because I am certain this horrified boy is seeing the doll, not the beautiful Gigantea. Therefore, he is wearing the Gemma.”

“I don't have it,” Timmo said. “I just think you're strange-looking.”

The Circulus picked up speed, hummed louder. At my feet, a couple of stones flipped up and chains snaked out, wound around my ankles, held them fast. “Hey. Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Timmo asked.

Sea noises
, I told myself.
Listen to the ocean. Imagine what's real.
I closed my eyes and there it was behind the hum of the Circulus:
sigh-slap-sploosh, sigh-slap-sploosh
. I willed my foot to move, and it did.
Okay. So far so good. Remember, there aren't any chains, really.

“You will be pleased to know that I am watching your
parentes
for you,” Gigi said. “Why, observe! There is your father. What is in those little bottles?”

She got me—I opened my eyes. On the wall in front of me was a TV screen, and on the screen was my dad, sitting on the floor in the breakfast room beside the box of nip bottles. The box was open. I'd ripped the tape off the night before to get at the bottle I had in my back pocket right now.

Four or five of the little bottles were on the floor, tipped over and empty. As I watched, Dad unscrewed the one in his hand, downed it in one gulp.

“No,” I whispered. “Dad, you said you wouldn't.”
Ocean sounds. C'mon. Sea noises.
The screen faded. I could see the stone wall through my dad's ghostly face.

But I could still see him. He opened another bottle, drained it. Then he buried his head in his hands and sobbed like a child. I'd never seen him cry. “Daddy,” I said.

No! Concentrate! Ocean noises. Sigh . . . sploosh
. But all I could hear was my dad, sobbing. I couldn't move my feet, couldn't take my eyes from the screen. Timmo spoke but I couldn't hear the words.

Dad wiped his eyes on his sleeve, raised his face to the ceiling, and howled like a dog. He stood up, swayed in place, then shuffled for the stairs, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. He trudged upstairs to the family quarters, then to the third floor. To the fourth floor.

He was heading for the roof.

“Dad!” I screamed. “No, no, no, no, no!”

I had to get out of there, run home before he jumped. But the chains held my feet immobile on the stone floor. I twisted myself around, writhed in place, my screams echoing in that stone-lined room. Timmo was yelling something, but I didn't care what it was. All I knew was that my dad was drunk and throwing himself off the roof, and all because I'd left that stupid box open.

Gigi Kramer was beside me, laughing. She said something, but I couldn't hear that either. “Let me go,” I begged her. “Please, please, let me go. I'll do anything. Please. Anything.”

Timmo shoved past me, touched hands with Gigi Kramer. She waved and the television screen disappeared. So did the chains.

Sobbing, I stumbled for the door, but Timmo grabbed my arm. “Mellie, whatever you saw, it wasn't real. It wasn't real.”

“My dad was drunk and going to the roof.”

“Oh, yeah? How'd you see him? Somebody there with a camera?”

“Silly Turpina, your
père
is where you left him,” Gigi said.

Which was when I noticed what she had in her hand. She held it up so the moonstone shimmered in the light streaming in from the ocean.

“The moonstone!” I made a swipe for the ring, but Gigi evaded me. “How'd she get that?”

“I gave it to her,” Timmo said. “What did you expect, with you screaming like that? You said you'd do anything, so I did it for you.”

I shoved him. “You had no right. That belonged to my family, not to . . . to . . .”

“Cattle?” Timmo was turning red.

I turned to Gigi Kramer. “So am I myself again now?”

She gave me a shark's stare. “I am finished with you, large child. You are what you are.”

“I'm still a frog, aren't I?” I asked Timmo.

“Yeah. You are.”

“So what was the point of giving her the ring, bird-brain?”

He got redder. “You were screaming, you freakin' dork. What was I supposed to do?”

I didn't get a chance to answer. Durindana, who had been following the action from Timmo's shoulder, took to the air. “Ai-yi-yi!” she shrieked, and dove into the Circulus.

It was like putting your finger in the water from a hose. Colorful figures ricocheted in fifty directions at high speed, some of them slamming into the walls, others hurtling through the doorway over the sea. Durindana fell out of the air and went
splat
on the cistern wall.

Magica Mala, it turned out, took a lot of power—especially when you'd been maintaining Versailles, entrancing fifty Circulus members, and balancing a mannequin on spike heels. And even the most skillful
maga
needed a Circulus at her beck and call.

All of a sudden, this one had no Circulus at all, not here and not across town.

Gigi took her gloves off, attempted to slide the moonstone ring on her finger, but she missed. She tried again, missed again. She stumbled on her high heels, as if the Parva inside was losing her grip on the mannequin.

Her blond hair started to look . . . I don't know . . . plastic.

And then it occurred to me: The moonstone wouldn't work for Gigi, and all I had to do was take it back. She could use it “only if given directly by us, its true owners,” that's what Grand-père had said. Timmo had given the ring to her, sure . . . but he wasn't an owner, was he?

I didn't, didn't, didn't want to touch Gigi. But I hurled myself at the fist that held the moonstone, grabbed it in my two hands, tried to open the frigid fingers.
Cold, cold, cold, freezing cold, it burns! It burns!
One finger opened, then two. She staggered backward until I was close enough to ram her hand into the wall. She shrieked and the fingers opened, the ring bouncing across the floor.

I let go of Gigi and stuck my hands in my armpits—a handy frostbite-prevention tip courtesy of the Girl Scouts. Timmo retrieved the ring and presented it to me with a bow that might have been a tad sarcastic. I stuck it in my pocket and resumed the armpit maneuver.

Gigi lurched at me, but she'd lost control of her feet. Her hair was entirely plastic now, her skin shining weirdly, with faint neck cracks. She pitched past us and careened across the room, now regaining her footing, now losing it. She headed for the doorway over the ocean, but it didn't look like she wanted to. She got control and struggled backward, then lost it and stumbled forward again.

“Whoa,” Timmo said, “she's going to fall through.”

“Stop her,” I said, but it was too late. After one final struggle to stay on her feet, Gigi gave a tinny wail and toppled out of sight, leaving behind one sequined shoe.

Timmo and I rushed to the doorway. The mannequin floated thirty feet below, a tiny figure scrambling around on her torso, too far away to identify.

“That'll keep her for a while,” Timmo said.

The Circulus members were scattered around the floor, grooming their wings. They were supposedly the best of the Parvi, and yet they looked totally wiped out by their recent experiences. “Durindana,” I called. “Is Fidius here?”

“I do not see him.” Durindana gabbled in Latin to a little guy, who shook his head.

Durindana wobbled into the air, leaving a section of skirt to disintegrate on the stones. She too needed a Circulus. “These Parvi must leave quickly, while they can still fly,” she shrilled, and aimed a stream of Latin at the wing-groomers. To my surprise, most of them obeyed orders and took to the air, streaming out the door to the stairs. Not one of them called her “Inepta.”

A few, however, rose weakly into the air only to fall
splat
. “Too late for these guys,” Timmo said.

“You must carry us.” Durindana made a drunken beeline for Timmo's jacket pocket.

At least a dozen Parvi needed a lift. By the time we headed for the stairs, Timmo had three in each jacket pocket and two in each of the side pockets of his jeans. The rest jostled for comfortable spots in my sweatshirt pouch.

“You look like you're pregnant with eels,” Timmo said.

“Do you have to waddle like that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

Upstairs, Gigi's handiwork was undoing itself fast, patches of mold staining the damask wallpaper. I looked at my hands—was it my imagination, or was the green fading?

Timmo peered into my face. “You have a nose. And you're definitely less green. If we time it right, maybe we can make it back to the pub before the Circulus starts up again. You'll look more normal and I won't have to wear that stupid mask.”

“We can't leave until we look for Fidius,” I said. “Who knows what she's done to him.”