Small Persons With Wings (26 page)

“Who on earth would do that to us?” Mom said.

“Gigi Kramer,” I said. “She wanted to keep us up there until it was too late to give back the moonstone. She must be close by.”

“Who's Gigi Kramer?” Dad asked.

Durindana catapulted up the stairs from the second floor, wearing white satin with diamonds and gold lace, her hair pouffed, powdered, and ostrich-plumed. “What are you doing, Turpini? It is thirty-seven minutes past ten of the clock and you are not at all foofed in the panoply of your state. Hurry! Hurry!”

“We had to walk through flames to get here,” I said.

“Turpini. Always they make excuses. Hurry! Hurry!”

I was starving. Mom and Dad must have been too. But we dutifully went to our rooms.

My little china guy was grinning like a jerk on my bureau. I sank down on my bed.
What had Fidius intended?
Why had he said all that to my parents about me being in danger, about not needing them? Part of me wanted to believe that he'd just been in a brown-winged mood, and regretted the results. But then why wasn't he the one who warned me when my parents were on the roof?

I caught a glimpse of my frog face in the mirror and gave myself a shake. One more hour and all this would be over. My parents were laughing next door.
I wonder what they're wearing.

I wonder what
I'm
wearing.

Because we would be in the pub with a bunch of chill-inducing Parvi, I unpacked my best winter outfit, a red wool jumper with a turtleneck and tights. In the mirror it didn't look much like panoply. I blamed the frog's head and the drool.

I rummaged further and came up with a gold cape that had been the basis of several Halloween costumes, the most recent and lamest being the Princess Superhero from Hell. I didn't bother looking for the werewolf teeth that went with that one, but I did find the tiara and stuck it on my bald, green head. The tiara had fake blood all over it, but it would have to do.

When we gathered at the top of the stairs, Dad was wearing a white bedspread as a cape over his gray suit with the cadmium yellow paint on the knee. Mom had a silvery silk bathrobe, given to her by her mother, over an ancient turquoise pantsuit with a split seam in the butt.

Snappy dressers, the Turpini.

“Hey, Mellie,” Timmo yelled from downstairs. “Are you up there?”

He put us all to shame in a Dracula costume complete with black tie and red-lined cape. It was too small for him—it looked like the Lord of the Undead was wearing capri pants—but he got an A for effort.

The clock was sitting at the kitchen table. I didn't have my bottle of whiskey, so I shut my eyes and tried to feel Grand-père's scrawny old arms, pulling me back from the parapet. The memory already was fading
. Imagine what's real. Concentrate.

And there he was, holding the moonstone ring, gazing around at the rosy silk hangings, brocade wallpaper, gold filigreed this and that. “
Mon Dieux
,
c'est beau.
Beautiful.”

He put the ring on his pinky. “Lie to me.”

I didn't hesitate. “You're not my grandpère, and I don't like you very much.”

“Mellie!” my mom said.

Grand-père put his head back and hooted. “Not bad for an amphibian.”

“Mellie,” Dad said. “Can you understand him? What's he bonging about now?”

“Tell him it's time to go downstairs.” Grand-père stood up. “Time to end all this and see what it's like to be cattle. Get me a purple velvet cushion.”

I translated. Mom rummaged under the sink and came up with . . . a purple velvet cushion. “This may be a floor sponge,” she said.

“Give it to Grand-père. He's supposed to carry it.”

I learned what “looked askance” means—bug-eyed with a hint of “dang it”—although all Mom said was, “Does he have hands?”

“You were seeing him as an old man before the elixir wore off,” I pointed out.

“A lot can happen in two hours.” She held the pillow out to Grand-père. “I can't tell if he's got it. Does he have it?”

“He's got it,” I said.

Grand-père processed out the door to the reception lounge. He looked fine to me, but of course everybody else saw him as a floating clock with a pillow wafting along in front.

“Cool,” Timmo whispered.

Grand-père led us in a ceremonial procession down the stairs and into the night, where he pounded three times on the pub door. That wasn't specified in the instructions, but it felt right.

Rinaldo hurled himself out of the mail slot. “Noctua, my Lady Noctua! We have searched and we cannot find her. If she does not return, the ceremony will fail! The others, they will expel her from the Parvi Pennati!”

“It's after eleven,” I told him. “You don't have much time.”

Rinaldo bobbed up and down, wringing, wringing, wringing his hands.

“Time to be a leader,” Dad said.

Rinaldo gave him a beady-eyed look, stopped wringing, straightened his shoulders. “I know this, Roland Turpin. We must begin without
ma chère.
And hope that she returns in time.”

The Parvi were milling about on the floor in a mass of silks and diamonds. When we walked in, Rinaldo yelled something tinny in Latin. Almost all of his people rose into the air, hovered below the spinning Circulus. A small cluster of Parvi huddled on the bar, backs to the rest of us.
Noctua's supporters
, I thought.

Durindana flitted over to hover near me. I couldn't see Fidius right off. Just as well. Part of me still loved him, the friend of my childhood, but a much larger part wanted to stomp on him.

Rinaldo faced his people, wings flapping. They stared back at him, waiting. “
Circulo desistite
!” he shouted. “Stop the Circulus,” Mom whispered.

The crowd moaned. The Circulus slowed, colors un-blurred, individuals became distinct. Slow . . . slower . . . then it stopped, the members fluttering down to join their friends. Durindana's ostrich plumes dried up and fell out of her hair, disappearing before they hit the floor.

Rinaldo beckoned to us, and Grand-père led us across the now-empty floor. I was losing my grip on my imagination, and now saw him as a floating clock.

“Turpini,” Rinaldo said, “will you part with the gem of insight, legacy of the Archbishop thy progenitor, dispelling the Obligatio Turpinorum for all time?”

The moonstone ring glistened on its purple velvet pillow that was really a sponge. It had been mine for three days or all my life, depending on how you looked at it. Archbishop Turpin had worn it in 775, then his children, then their children, down the generations for twelve hundred years. It gave us a special relationship with magical winged creatures no one else knew existed.

If I wore it, I could find out who liked me. I shot a glance at Timmo, who winked.
Maybe I can find another way. Imagine what's real.

“Too bad,” Dad muttered. “I was looking forward to buying a good used car.”

“May I remind you,” Mom said, “that our daughter is a frog?”

Dad took both our hands in his, her normal one, my green one. “Good point,” he said. “Yea, Rinaldo. We'll part with it.”

“Yea,” Mom said.

“Yea,” I said.

“We'll take that as a ‘yea,' ” Dad said.

And, simple as that, the Gemmaluna wasn't ours anymore.

Someone shoved me, hard. Sprawled on the marble floor, I looked up to see a pair of hot pink ballet flats sashay by. Sashaying fast.

She pushed Grand-père over, pillow and moonstone flying through the air. The Parvi let out a piercing group scream. Dad snatched at the ring but not fast enough—it arched right into Gigi Kramer's pink-gloved hand.

Gigi Kramer had the Gemma. And she hadn't stolen it, because it didn't belong to anyone until the Parvi voted to accept it.

A white-and-gold blur zipped past me. “Durindana, no!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet. “She'll hurt you!”

Durindana rapped Gigi on the nose. “Who is inside there? The Gemma is not yours, you bad Parva. No one shall own the Gemmaluna except the Turpini and the Parvi Pennati!”

“The Gemmaluna is for the making of elixir.” Rinaldo joined Durindana in front of Gigi's nose. “It is for all of us, not one alone.”

“
Zut
,” Gigi said, and cackled. “
Zut, zut, zut, zut, zut
.” She held the ring out to Rinaldo, who dove for it and flipped over in midair when she pulled it away. “How blind can you be, my dear Parvi? It doesn't matter who owns the Gemma. All you need is the hand and mind to wield its power. Fifteen years have I hidden my work from the
magi
, and now I understand our magics as no one has before, even Imprexa herself. Behold!”

She slipped the ring on her finger and flung her arms wide, palms up, cupped hands wafting back and forth as if scooping the air. Durindana retreated to my shoulder. “She tries to use the Magica Mala,” she said in my ear. “It requires gesture when other magics do not. But this cannot work. She has no Circulus to give her power.”

Gigi grinned. “Mademoiselle Durindana thinks all Parvi Pennati are as inept as she is. Some of us can store the power of the Circulus, remember?”

She doesn't have Versailles to keep up. And she's wearing flats.
Gigi learned from experience.

Muttering in Latin, eyes closed, Gigi raised her arms slow, slow, deathly slow until her cupped palms met over her head. “
Donum potestatis peto
,” she intoned—“I seek the Gift of Power,” Durindana translated in a whisper. Gigi went rigid, arms straight in the air, fingers splayed like sunbursts. The lights flickered. The hovering Parvi moaned like February.

We waited for . . . something. “Did anything happen?” Timmo whispered.

“I don't know,” I whispered back.

Gigi's eyes flipped open. “Hmm. Not enough power for the Three Magics, apparently. No matter. The Circulus must begin again.”

“Never,” Rinaldo said.

Gigi smiled. “Size is power, Rinaldo. For example . . .” Quick as a snake, she nabbed Rinaldo in her fist. He struggled to free himself but he was helpless, his wings crushed in her fingers. A picture flashed into my mind from long ago, from kindergarten—Fidius trapped in a glass jar with no room to unfurl his wings, his panic and anger.

Gigi pressed Rinaldo to her cheek, his face a fraction of an inch from her shark-like eye.

Noctua
, I thought.
How could she?

“Open your eyes, Rinaldo,” Gigi said gently, squeezing him in her fist, muttering more Latin. He stopped struggling, went limp in her hand. “
Circulum incipe
.”

“She says, start the Circulus,” Durindana whispered.

“
Circulum
,” Rinaldo muttered. “
Incipe
.” My heart sank. He was a zombie.

“Tell your people now, Rinaldo. Tell your Parvi Pennati.” Gigi opened her hand. Rinaldo collapsed on her palm, but his wings unfurled and shook themselves out. He jerked into the air and faced the fluttering horde.

“
Circulum incipite!”
he cried, waving his arms. “
Circulum incipite
,
Parvi Pennati
.” (“Start the Circulus, Parvi Pennati,” Durindana whispered.)

A cheer went up from the Small Persons on the bar. A handful of Circulus members lined up under the chandelier, ready to begin again. But the rest of the crowd hovered in place, not sure what to do.

I remembered the Circulus in the cistern room. “She enchanted almost the whole Circulus last time,” I whispered.

“Too many of us now,” Durindana said. “And her power will not last without a Circulus.” She left my shoulder for Rinaldo's side. “Rinaldo, no, do not start the Circulus.
Noli Circulum incipere.”

Gigi grabbed for her, but Durindana darted away. “
Nolite circulum incipere,
” she called to the Parvi. They gave one another the fish eye, but they obeyed her: Nobody moved, nobody else joined the circle under the chandelier.

“You wish to fight me, Inepta.” Gigi smiled. “Very well.” She recaptured Rinaldo, whispered to him, flung him away from her as if releasing a bird. He landed on the bar and stood there, uncertain. Gigi drew a complicated shape in the air and said, “
Incipe
, Rinaldo.”

Tears ran down Rinaldo's expressionless face. On their own, seemingly against his will, his hands crept over his shoulder, grasped the top of his right wing.

He gave a mighty shriek and ripped the top of his wing right off.

Every Small Person in the room shrieked with him. Rinaldo sank to his knees, the dead iridescent fragment pressed to his cheek.

“Dang it!” Mom yelled (more or less). Dad held her back, I guess so she wouldn't get turned into a frog.

Rinaldo had a hand on his left wing now. My eyesight blurred with tears. Timmo was breathing so hard I could hear him.

“
Circulum incipe
, Rinaldo,” Gigi said. Rinaldo mouthed the words, kneeling there with a healthy wing in one hand, a ruin in the other. But he made no sound.

A fast-moving smudge of rose-colored silk whirred in through the mail slot, landed on the bar next to Rinaldo. I blinked my tears away so I could see. She helped him to his feet, murmuring to him, soothing him.

It was Lady Noctua.

My brain went numb.

Gigi gestured. Rinaldo twisted free of his wife, pulled his hands from her grasp. He reached back and ripped the top off of his left wing.