“My pleasure.”
Stepping back into the blessed warmth of the kitchen, I stood hugging my arms and waiting for the chill to subside. Martha Claus smiled cheerfully and took the tray from my chilled fingers. The kitchen elves kept to their tasks, though many were smiling and a few giggling outright. And Mab . . . Mab was leaning against the alcove wall, whooping like a loon.
“You set me up, Mab!”
“T-true, M-ma’am,” he said, hardly able to speak due to laughter, “but, y-you gotta admit. I-it was funny.”
“I admit nothing of the sort!”
Before I could continue my tirade, the elf maids presented me with a wonderful-smelling breakfast laid out on a silver tray, and Mother Christmas whisked me off to a charming little table by a window through which I could see the bear, who waved.
* * *
MAB and I eventually left the kitchen and went in search of Mephisto. We found him in a little chapel looking out on fields of ice, where he knelt in prayer. When Mab exclaimed this seemed out of character for the harebrain, Mephisto replied hotly that it was Christmas, and only heathens did not go to mass on Christmas. Mab pointed out no mass was being performed, to which Mephisto replied that this was not his fault.
For myself, I was relieved to see my brother could kneel in front of a cross without his feet smoking.
I knelt beside him, and the two of us gave thanks together for the bounty we had received during the previous year. While we prayed, Mab wandered about, examining the crucifix and sniffing the altar.
Father Christmas found us on our way back from the chapel. He no longer wore the Coca-Cola Santa outfit we had seen at the mall. Instead, he looked much as I recalled him from our meeting during Queen Victoria’s reign: scarlet raiment under dark green robes trimmed with ermine, high black boots, and a crown of holly encircling his white hair. He carried his staff, a tall length of polished wood from which living holly leaves sprouted, and some mischievous elf had woven a sprig of mistletoe into his long snowy beard. When he smiled, warm crinkles appeared around his blue eyes, and I was suddenly reminded of my father. Saddened, I realized this would be the first Christmas I spent without Father in a hundred and twenty-three years.
“Ho-ho-ho!” he greeted us.
Mephisto did a somersault in mid-air, landing like a gymnast with his arms spread.
“Presents!”
Father Christmas laughed jovially. “Just so!”
“Even me?” Mab asked, surprised, when Father Christmas seemed to include him. “I thought you didn’t give gifts to my kind.”
“I have made an exception upon this occasion of your visit to my home,” Father Christmas replied.
“Oh . . . that’s nice.” Mab was both pleased and dubious. Leaning toward me, he whispered rapidly, “Was I supposed to get something for him?”
I shook my head.
“You sure? This isn’t one of those things like leprechauns, where they make you shoes, but if you don’t pay them, they stick you with two lefts?”
“No,” I laughed. “Father Christmas is no elf, despite what the poets might say. He is generosity itself. One of the very few we can accept gifts from without fear.”
“Still,” muttered Mab, “I’d feel better if I had something to give him.”
FATHER Christmas led us to a huge feasting hall. Garlands of pine boughs decorated the walls, and the doors were hung with mistletoe. Long oak tables had been set with plates and silver. Three lovely elf maidens carrying large cornucopias walked about the hall, filling the long fluted cups. At each setting, they tipped the horn of plenty and commanded, “Cornucopia, make red wine,” or “Cornucopia, make brandy.” The requested liquid poured from the mouth, filling the glass.
“That’s nifty!” Mephisto bounced over and peered up one of the long hornlike devices. “Does that thing make food, too?”
“Oh, yes,” the elf girl replied sweetly. She spoke with a heavy Swedish accent. “Though I only know how to make sweets. Mrs. Claus, now, she can make roast beef and shepherd’s pie and piping hot mashed potatoes come from the cornucopia.”
“Cocoa all around!” called Father Christmas jovially.
The graceful elf girl ran lightly off, returning quickly with four huge red-and-green mugs. She then produced hot chocolate, complete with thick foam and whipped cream. At Mephisto’s request, she even coaxed her cornucopia into making marshmallows. Father Christmas gestured for us each to take a sweet-smelling cup, and led us across the great chamber to an enormous hearth where a huge fire burned, as great as any Guy Fawkes Day bonfire.
To our left was a living spruce so large that a hole had been cut in the roof to allow the tree to tower over the house. Gold tinsel and frosted red-glass balls, each containing its own tiny light, hung from its branches. Beneath the tree, atop the red-and-white skirt that surrounded the trunk, lay presents wrapped in green paper and tied with pink ribbon.
Mephisto rushed forward and began tossing presents to and fro, looking for one bearing his name. Mab approached more slowly, scanning the pile more dubiously. I would have walked forward, too, but Father Christmas bent down beside me and spoke quietly in my ear.
“Your gift will come later, dear child.”
Mephisto’s box contained a black cavalier’s hat with a tall indigo ostrich feather.
“Well . . . that’s dumb!” he pouted. “When we were at the mall, you promised me the thing I most wanted!” Cheering up, he added, “But then I did get my staff back, and that was what I really wanted. So, maybe a stupid hat is not so bad.”
“Mephisto!” I cried, shamed by his rudeness.
“Miranda . . . it’s a hat! That’s as bad as getting presents from Logistilla. She always gives clothes— icky presents.”
This was too much. “Mephisto, Logistilla makes invulnerable clothing with magic woven into them. That’s hardly something to complain about!”
Mephisto stuck out his tongue. “You can have your opinion. I have mine. But I wouldn’t want to be a spoil sport, or rain on your Christmas parade, so,” he gave Father Christmas his biggest smile showing all his teeth, “thanks anyway, Santa-Baby!”
“You’re welcome, Mephisto,” Father Christmas replied, not in the least dismayed.
Mab opened his package, revealing a waterproof notebook and a tiny silver space pen of the sort that provided its own pressure. “Hey, now I can write underwater. Bet that’ll come in handy!”
I turned to reprimand him for his manners, as well. Then I saw the big grin splitting his face. His comment had not been intended as sarcasm. Mab was genuinely delighted with the pen.
As Mephisto put the pink bow back on the hat box and began waltzing it about the large hall, I turned to Father Christmas.
“Has Mab explained why we came?”
He nodded his snowy head. “Yes. You wish to look into the Scrying Pool of Naughty and Nice, which my elves watch to compile our famous list. It would be my . . .”
A bell rang in the distance. Father Christmas stood and swallowed the remainder of his hot chocolate, wiping the foam from his mustache. “You must excuse me. My guests are arriving. As soon as they are comfortably settled, I will come and find you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
The Scrying Pool of Naughty and Nice
We lay hidden in a snow bank as the High Council came across the moonlit snow. Arrayed in their finery, they rode in single file, each upon a long-maned sable horse draped with bells. Their cloaks of state flowed over the rumps of their steeds, trailing along the snow behind them. The cloaks were mirrored, like pools of ice, reflecting the pale arctic moonlight, each with its own touch of subtle color tinting the silver: royal purple for the elf king, followed by gold, black, flame red, white, green, scarlet, and indigo. Each lord wore a crown: gems for Ivaldi Goldenarm, the craftsman, whom earth elementals served; jagged spears of ice for Valendur the Dark, lord of water spirits; flickering flames for Vandel Spitfire; white swan wings for Carbonel, lord of beast
s; a hoop of living wood bursting with roses and ivy leaves for Delling, the Forest lord; a cruel crown fashioned from edged dagger blades and curving tines for the warlord Aundelair; and a diadem of iridescent pearls for the sorcerer-scholar Fincunir. The elf king alone went crownless. No circlet could pass over his towering antlers.
The snow insulated us a bit, but I still shivered. There was a knot in my stomach, which I tried to attribute to the cold. Drawing the hood of my borrowed fur coat closer about my face, I peered down the line of the procession again, searching for a cloak of deep blue and a crown of stars, but I could not find them.
Beside me, Mab stirred and muttered, “Hey! Where’s our elf?”
“Our elf?’ ” I asked, though I knew exactly whom he meant.
“Astreus, the Lord of the Winds. The elf who represents us Aerie Ones on the High Council.”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” I observed.
Mab’s eyes narrowed. He shot me a suspicious look. “Wait a second . . . that elf you danced with, the one Mephisto wanted you to marry . . . You don’t mean it was . . .”
Mephisto interrupted him. “Hey, Miranda, where’s your elf? I don’t see him.”
I sighed.
AFTER the stately procession passed, we crept back to the main house by a circuitous route, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. Mephisto wandered off to swim in the sauna-pool, while Mab and I gathered steaming mugs of hot cocoa laced with mint liqueur, and followed Father Christmas down the narrow cedar-paneled halls to the scriery.
The scriery opened off the hall, a dark room lit only by the silver light shining out from the large black marble basin. The light reflected off tiny crystal chips set into the ceiling. These “stars” formed unrecognizable patterns, until I leaned over and looked into the waters of the basin. There, the concave surface altered the shape of the patterns overhead so they formed the familiar constellations. Staring into the pool, I experienced the illusion that I was looking up at the dome of the night sky.
Father Christmas lifted his holly staff and tapped it three times lightly on the floor. In his deep booming voice, he said, “Ask what you will.”
“Is there anything we should be wary of?” asked Mab.
Santa shook his head. “My pool can show you no evil things. This pool sees with my authority. The secrets of adults are not mine to reveal. Its waters will only show you children.”
“So we don’t have to worry about accidentally looking, say, into the depths of Hell or the Unendurable Citadel?” Mab said.
“No. No earthly scrying pool will show you the Underworld. For that, you would need Merlin’s crystal sphere.”
“Good thing Mephisto destroyed it!” I murmured emphatically.
“Ah . . . about that sphere, Ma’am . . .” Mab began.
Father Christmas’s deep voice interrupted him. “Look where you will. I would stay and assist you, but I am needed elsewhere to prepare for the feast.” Smiling, he drew the door closed, leaving us alone in the semi-darkness.
Stepping up to the side of the pool, I looked into its star-studded waters and said, “Show me the children of Titus Prospero.”
Ripples of light spread from one star fleck, filling the pool and obscuring the rest of the night sky. In the center of the spreading ripples, an image appeared. It grew until it filled the entire surface. Two boys of about nine and eleven years sat in what appeared to be a large library, perhaps in a mansion. The older one read a book. Large round glasses gave his thin face an owlish appearance. The younger one looked more athletic, reminding me, with a pang, of a youthful Theo. His slumped shoulders betrayed his boredom. He bounced a ball against the wooden floor.
The older boy glanced at the younger. When he spoke, a sweet inhuman voice, issued from out of the empty air beside Mab and me, repeating the words he spoke. The crystal pristine voice spoke rapidly, though unhurriedly, in order to faithfully convey the boy’s rambling, rushed chatter.
“Typhon, must you make so much noise with that ball? Because if you must, then that’s okay, but I am trying to read here. I just got to the part where the hero is trying to save the pig from the man with the antlers, only you are making a such a racket I can’t hear myself think, much less read. So I would be much happier if you were quiet. You could read a book, too, you know. Maybe one on sports? You seem to like sports. I read a good one once, The History of Sportsmanship. It’s on the shelf behind you. Or, maybe you could dribble your ball downstairs?”
The younger boy ignored him and continued to dribble his ball on the library floor. He looked petulant and lonely.
“Or not,” said the older boy, sighing and continuing to read.
“Interesting. They look very much like us,” I said. “Wonder where they are?”
“Ask the pool to pull back the image,” said Mab.
I threw Mab an uncertain glance, but gave it a try. “Pool, pull the image back and show us the outside of the house,” I commanded.
It worked. Mab grinned smugly. The image now showed an old Southern plantation house flanked by sycamores dripping with Spanish moss.
“I know that place,” I said, surprised. “That’s Logistilla’s house in Georgia! She didn’t breathe a word about this when we questioned her about the family. I wonder if Titus is staying there as well. Pool, show us who else lives in the house.” But either no one else did, or they were adults, for the image did not move.
“Guess it wouldn’t work to try and trick it by claiming Titus never really grew up or something,” Mab said thoughtfully.
“No. Maybe with Mephisto, but not with Titus. He’s the most stolid of us. But at least we know where his children are. We can send an Aerie One to spy the place out, and see if Titus is there, too,” I finished, though I doubted it. Why would he have stopped sending me cards if he were merely in Georgia?
Just for the heck of it, I commanded, “Show me Prospero.” Again, the image remained fixed on the red mansion and the dripping moss. “Show me Titus Prospero’s children again.”
The image returned to the two boys. I bent over the water, examining the room. The library was multi-level, with more books visible on a balcony above. To one side, on a raised dais, stood the most intricate doll house I had ever seen. As tall as the older child, it stood open, displaying to the viewer the interior of a toy mansion with twin wings.
“How strange! Mab, do you see that toy house? What do you make of it?”
Mab leaned forward, peering into the scrying pool. “Huh! That’s Prospero’s Mansion, Ma’am. That’s your house!” Mab bent even closer, his nose just above the water. “Looks just like it, Ma’am, down to the last detail . . . except a few of the toy doorways are made of ivory. I can see the little statues in the Great Hall! There’s the lesser hall, the library, Mr. Prospero’s study, and that underground corridor that runs to the Vault, and the Wintergarden. And, look! At the top! There’s the eyrie! Hey, they’ve even got my cot in there!” He frowned and scribbled something in his notebook, muttering, “Better ward it again next time I’m at the mansion.”
“Why would Titus’s children have a doll house that looked exactly like Father’s house, down to the furniture and furnishings?” I asked slowly. “That seems . . .”
“Occultish?” Mab drawled. “Yeah, I was thinkin’ the same thing.”
“So, if this is Logistilla’s place . . .” My voice trailed off.
“You think that’s Logistilla’s voodoo house? I don’t like it, Ma’am. Specially not after that devil stench I smelled at her place.” He frowned, his gaze fixed on the doll house. “We still don’t know how that incubus got into the mansion.”
I shivered and began chafing my arms. “We haven’t found Titus, but we’ve learned some interesting things nonetheless. I guess that’s all we’re going to see here, unless there are other children in our family I do not know about.”
The image shifted again. This time, it showed a group of dark-haired children playing in the street. As I watched, a man dr
essed in jeans and a blue shirt called to one of the children to come home. Apparently, the pool showed adults if they happened to pass close to children. Mab and I leaned closer.
“Why is the pool showing us this scene? Who is this boy? . . . Hey! I recognize that man! Mab, where have we seen him before?”
“I think . . .” Mab peered closer. “I know! He was one of the workmen at the Lincoln Memorial. He was the young guy hanging around with the fellow Harebrain nicknamed Mr. Mustache.”
I leaned closer, examining the brass ring on the workman’s hand. Gasping, I grabbed Mab’s shoulder. “Oh, Mab! We are such fools! Look at the symbol on his ring! That wasn’t the Star of David those masons were wearing! It was—”
“The Seal of Solomon,” Mab finished. His voice trembled slightly. “Ma’am, those guys aren’t Freemasons. They’re Orbis Suleimani!”
“No wonder they followed us down to the Caribbean!” I whispered, releasing Mab to pace about the room. “The Orbis Suleimani are devoted to removing all traces of magic from Mankind. If they heard us talking at the monument. . . . That man in the motorboat! Mr. Mustache!”
Mab’s face was grim. “If he was one of them, he might not have been sent by the Three Shadowed Ones after all.”
“Oh dear, and I had been congratulating myself for taking him out so cleverly.” I shivered suddenly. “I hope he survived the crash . . . unless the Orbis Suleimani is in cahoots with the Three Shadowed Ones, which could be the case if Cornelius has gone bad.” I froze. “Ferdinand! He was with us in D.C. He’s probably in danger, too! Do you think the pool was trying to warn us?”
“I wouldn’t burst your buttons, Ma’am. If they haven’t gotten him by now, he’s probably safe. Either way, there’s no point in our running off half-cocked to look for him.”
“Still, perhaps, we should leave immediately, as you suggested. Without waiting for dinner, I mean.”
“Glad to hear you talking sense, Ma’am,” Mab agreed, adding under his breath, “Even if I don’t much care for the cause.”
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 37