by Rob Reger
Later/earlier, again
We are back in Lily’s bedroom, 1790. Longest day of our lives. Time for bed!
Saturday, August 14, 179O
Today's assignments:
• Serious code-breaking (LATE!!)-113 points
• Enact Grand Scheme to Thwart Boris Forever-1313 points
Opal and Pearl woke us up in the late afternoon. I think they had the best intentions of letting us sleep in until sundown, but we had left them piles of delectable Foodstuffs From the Ages (OK, mostly from the Blandindulle supermarket), and they could not hold back their extravagant gratitude any longer.
PEARL: Asparagus! Asparagus in August, Lily! It’s like sorcery!
Opal: And those chocolate confections with the creamy center! The ones wrapped in very thin metal! I thought I would expire with pleasure!
Me: [Groggy.] Yes. There’s nothing quite like your very first artificial sugar high. Hey, it must be about time for us to put on our show for Boris, right?
Later
Plan is in motion. Caleb is with Boris in the caravan, ready to alert him once Lily is prepared. Man, I hope we can trust him. Opal and Pearl have hidden all anachronistic foodstuffs and made a pretty passable sickroom out of Lily’s bedroom. We have decorated Lily’s face with beads of sugary icing—brilliant effect! And the paramytosilicate extract is in Pearl’s pocket, all ready to deal Lily her fake-death blow, and destroy Boris’ dreams of Black Potion Power once and for all!
Later
I’m hiding in the attic with the cats. Boris is downstairs with Lily. Sure wish I could hear what’s going on. Heavy footsteps, some raised voices—that’s about all I can make out. Please, please let him believe she is dying!
Later
Clotpoles! The plan seems to have gone horribly awry! Pearl and Opal are in hysterics. Boris has taken Lily away!!! Here’s a rough re-enactment I dragged out of Opal and Pearl:
BORIS: You! Blasted fawning dewberry of a woman! Why did you not summon me earlier?
Pearl: But . . . she only just fell ill . . .
B: Clearly, she is not safe in your care. I shall take her to my caravan, where I can stand watch over her myself.
P: No! Oh, Cousin Boris, I pray you, do not remove my child!
B: Be silent, you clay-brained featherhead! I shall send for the finest doctor in town and return your daughter when she recovers. IF she recovers.
Pearl never had a chance to give Lily the extract. Caleb is not around—he didn’t arrive with Boris like he promised to. Opal is freaking out that something has happened to him. As for me, I am feeling a complete renewal of my ugly suspicions about Caleb’s role in all this. I KNEW we shouldn’t have trusted him to help with our plans! How do we know his loyalties aren’t really with Boris? As for what he says he told the mayor, well, I have absolutely no proof that he even SAW the mayor! And now I’m thinking back to the day he menaced me in the hall, and reflecting that if I were as psychic as Caleb, I’d be in a perfect position to play both sides off each other, and be the only one benefiting from the whole mess. Well, not if I can help it. The cats and I are off to the caravan!
Later
Am under the caravan. AGAIN. With the paramytosilicate extract in my pocket, the 1790s outfit on, Mystery and Enigma by my side, and the chamber-pot trapdoor open just a crack, so that I can hear what’s going on inside. Boris definitely seems to have called a doctor in to see Lily. I really can’t tell if this doctor sounds competent at all. He’s been talking on and on about miasmas and humors—no hint of bloodletting yet. If I hear any mention of that, I’m just going to have to bust in and let the chips fall where they may!
Two minutes later
He has mentioned bloodletting. Here I go—
MUCH later
So much has happened! I hardly know where to start. Will just chronicle events as they occurred. Let’s see—oh yeah, bloodletting. I did not really stop to think at all, but rode my sense of panic right up through that trapdoor and into the caravan. There was Lily, stretched out on a bunk, eyes closed, playing sick; there was (I assumed) the doctor, with his terrifying (and totally nonsterile) lancet poised over my aunt’s innocent arm, hunting for a vein; there was Boris, sitting behind the doctor, looking angry and anxious; there was Caleb, gagged and tied to a chair (interesting, but I’d have to come back to that later, as I had a vein to save).
So I popped up out of the floor. That’s really all I did. The doctor saw me, shrieked, and fled into the night, knocking Boris over in his hurry to get away from the horrible apparition. Boris’ chair went over backward, and I heard a thump as his head hit something hard. I went up closer to get a look at him—out cold. I locked the caravan door, just in case Musket Man and Thugly were around, and turned my attention to Caleb, who was gazing at me with pleading eyes. I unfolded my pocketknife and approached him.
I can be kinda psychic in my own way too, and I could plainly see what he was thinking—he knew all my suspicions, and everything I’d heard Boris say. He knew I still wanted my revenge on him for the menacing; he knew how easy it would be for me to slide that knife between his ribs or across his windpipe, and tell Opal it had been Boris. —Hmph. I decide whom to avenge myself on, and when! I cut him loose, of course. Murder’s not my style. But I let him know pretty clearly that I’d get him some other time, when he least expected it.
CALEB: Thank you, Miss Emily. I swear on . . . I swear on my love for Miss Opal, you can trust me completely.
Me: Oh, well, we’ll see about that. First tell me why you’re tied up like this!
C: Boris lost his temper completely when he heard that Lily had fallen ill. Furthermore, he has the patience of a mosquito, and blames me for failing to help him obtain the black potion.
Me: OK, any thoughts on the current mess?
C: Certainly! To start with, Boris never saw you there before the doctor knocked him over. Perhaps you’ll find it advisable to hide again before he revives.
ME: Why bother? He knows I’m around. You just HAD to tell him, didn’t you?
C: Yes, I DID have to tell him. The one you call Musket Man had already seen you and was soon to tell Boris himself.
Me: WHAT? How did he see me?
C: Oh, they have a peephole into Pearl’s room.
Me: Oh. I see.
C: However, you bring up a salient point. He knows of your presence and will likely pursue you, unless . . .
E: [Suspecting where this was going.] Unless . . .
C: Unless you’re dead.
Me: You know, it would be a LITTLE easier for me to believe you if you didn’t SAY things like that.
C: I think you may have some trust issues, Miss Emily.
Me: Now where would a 1790s guy have encountered a phrase like “trust issues”?
C: [Innocently.] The same place I encountered “Evil Overlord of the Universe,” “dratting joithead psychic,” and “Metal Machine Music.”
Me: [Grrrr . . . ] OK . . . but I only have enough extract for one dose.
C: Then you must pretend! I will tell Boris you came here of your own initiative to see the doctor, but your case of white fever was too advanced, and the sight of your departed cousin caused you to perish in shock. He’ll believe it, I assure you.
Me: OK then, I’m just going to give Lily her dose . . . it’ll make her appear dead for about three hours. And I guess I’ll just have to fake it as long as I can. Hey, Lily, how ya doing there? That was great, staying in character through all that, but you can open your eyes now. . . Uh, Aunt Lily?
That’s when Caleb and I discovered that Lily was actually unconscious.
ME: What did that doctor do before I got here? WHAT DID HE DO TO HER????
Caleb: Well, he stood over her, talking about bloodletting, waving his lancet around! Any young lady would faint under circumstances such as those!
Me: Not real big on girl power, are you, Caleb?
I’ve read enough eighteenth-century literature to know how to revive a young lady from a f
aint. But seeing as I was fresh out of smelling salts and mulled wine, and not really knowing what it means to chafe someone’s hands, I settled for some light slapping and poking. Eventually her eyes opened.
LILY: Is that awful doctor gone?
Me: Long gone. Are you ready to die? It won’t hurt a bit—and we’ll all be waiting for you on the other side . . . of the, uh, nap, I mean. Sorry, I just always wanted to say that.
L: I’m ready! [Catching sight of Caleb. Gushing.] Oh, Caleb . . . I saw Cousin Emily’s mother, Patricia. She has your mouth—and Opal’s chin!
Caleb: Errrr??—Oh. My goodness. Isn’t that interesting, Miss Emily?
Me: [Light dawning.] Uhhhhh . . . VERY interesting!
C: [Laughing. Very pleased with himself.] I suppose that makes me your great-great-grandfather, doesn’t it?
Me: Probably more like ten or twelve “greats,” but yeah, it looks that way.
C: Well, then, I’m going to expect a little more respect and obedience out of you, in that case.
Me: Why, you—oh. Ha. Ha. Yes. You got me. The old intergenerational humor barrier.
C: In all seriousness, Miss Emily, would you mind tying me up again before Boris recovers?
Good gobfarx. How downright SLOW of me not to have pieced THAT together before now. OF COURSE Opal and Caleb are my direct ancestors! That Diabolical Revenge I was so looking forward to wreaking on Caleb will now need to be dialed down to Family-Style Payback—still a bit stronger than Cat-Specific Comeuppance in my personal hierarchy of vengeances, but milder than Just-for-Fun Retaliation. Oh well. Will console myself by making Caleb’s revenge an exercise in retribution style points.
Oh. And another thing. I don’t think I’m too far off the mark to suppose that Caleb and Opal are most likely Jakey’s ancestors as well! Will have to make sure to call him Cousin next time I see him.
—Anyway, back to the story—
I retied Caleb, dosed Lily, gave the cats strict instructions to stay hidden under the bed until further notice, and got myself all laid out in fake death next to Lily before Boris woke up. There was a lot of groaning, followed by a loud scream of horror, followed by a lot of swearing, followed by a loud temper tantrum, followed by loud questions directed at Caleb, followed by the apparent untying of Caleb’s gag, followed by Caleb’s soothing voice as he attempted to calm Boris down. I had never witnessed Caleb actually talking to Boris before. Wow . . . I really didn’t realize just how tightly Caleb has Boris wound around his finger! I wonder if Jakey does the same with Attikol?
Here are the high points of their conversation (translated from 1790s English):
Caleb convinced Boris that he had fainted at the sight of Miss Lily’s tragic death at the hands of the doctor.
Then he spun a brilliant web of lies concerning my arrival (alas, too late for treatment) and subsequent death.
Boris then launched into a diatribe on why Caleb had learned nothing of “those witches’ secrets” during his time with the Étrange family.
Then threatened to dump him off the wharf, still tied to his chair.
And announced his intention of dumping my body and Lily’s at the mass graves and driving the caravan straight out of town.
At which point Caleb made a big show of Revealing Ye Olde Grande Secret, then told Boris the Étrange family’s ancestral source of dark elixir, which had finally been made clear to him when Lily was at death’s door.
Said secret being that dark elixir is formed in the graves of the Étrange family’s so-called Dark Girls—namely, me and Lily.
So all Boris needed to do was to observe a few simple rituals: first, give me and Lily a properly respectful burial in a safe place (most logically, the basement of Lily’s house), and second, say the Words of Dark Summoning over our coffins. Then sit back and wait.
Furthermore, there was really no need to keep Pearl and Opal around any longer now that Lily was dead. Naturally, they’d need to be “taken care of” as well.
Needless to say, my guts were churning with fear and distrust as I was listening to all this!
And I was pretty much resigning myself to being buried alive, if not killed outright, especially when Caleb told Boris where he could find the last two coffins left in Seasidetown.
Said coffins having been reserved by the town coffin maker for himself and his wife.
But Caleb, boasting of his ability to see inside every mind in town, assured Boris that the coffin maker believed the plague was over, and was ready to sell.
And with that, Caleb hurried out on his grim errand.
Leaving me alone with my evil Uncle Boris and my unconscious Great-Aunt Lily.
I listened in anxiety and fear for a while as Boris scratchy-scratched at something on his desk. Had no idea what he was doing until I had a bit of an insight into yet another thing Boris and I have in common: the journal-writing habit. OF COURSE he was chronicling all this so that, unbeknownst to him, his Great-Grandson Attikol could one day read it . . . and use it to track ME down.
Oh wait a flamdrabbling minute.
Wasn’t my plan supposed to do something to prevent that possibility?
But I hadn’t achieved that at all. I’d been so caught up in making the Three Deaths of Lily coincide, I’d overlooked the need to hide Opal and Pearl (and therefore, their descendants . . . and therefore, ME) for all time.
It looked like that was going to be OK, though . . . because Caleb was apparently taking care of that for me, with the (hopefully fake) deaths of Opal and Pearl.
At least, I seriously hoped that was the case. Of course, if he was actually going to have them killed, I’d never be born, and wouldn’t be in much condition to care.
Ages passed . . . Well, OK, seriously, like two hours. I was starting to get a bit anxious about the paramytosilicate extract wearing off before Lily was safely buried. And, I’ll admit it, my eyes were getting a BIT uncomfortable staying open that long. (Didn’t I mention? I’d decided to be dead with my eyes open.) I mean, I WAS proclaimed Staring Contest Champion of the Hemisphere for three years running . . . but two hours is a long time, even for me.
Ages passed . . . I tried a little mental code-breaking to while away the time. Usually that calms me down like a charm, but this time, well, those dratting Ms kept fouling things up every time I thought I’d come up with something.
Ages passed . . . I started to SERIOUSLY doubt Caleb’s intentions of following through with any plan at all. What if he had abandoned us to Boris? Lily would be waking up soon. The lie would be out. And Boris, knowing what he thought he knew about the origins of his Black Potion, might decide to REALLY kill Lily this time.
And then, FINALLY, Caleb returned.
He had the coffins—two truly beautiful coffins, which happened to get placed near the foot of the bunk, conveniently within my field of vision. I lay there and just admired them. Those lines, that grain, that depth of color, the sheer artisanship! Man, I’ve always been kind of a connoisseur of fly-looking coffins, but I don’t think I ever saw any that a coffin maker crafted for himself. Those puppies were SICK! Could hardly believe my luck. I was about to be buried in the best-looking coffin I’d ever seen, and I wouldn’t even be too dead to enjoy myself.
Caleb and Boris managed to rudely interrupt my reverie by putting Lily in her coffin. Then it was my turn. The lid closed over my face.59 Boris slammed around the caravan, asking where the hammer was, but Caleb stopped him, offering to nail the lids himself, then convinced Boris to get out and find those thugs of his so they could “take care of” Pearl and Opal.
Anyway, as soon as Boris was gone, Caleb lifted the lids, and I called for the cats to come and get inside the coffins.
ME: OK, Caleb, I hope I can trust you, man. You sure you have a solid plan?
Caleb: Absolutely solid. Your friend John Ebenezer helped me prepare the coffins with false bottoms—see the latch? He has widened the passageway to the tunnel, as well—you will simply drop down into it. You will find your machine th
ere. Use this handkerchief in it. My mother sent it to me just days ago. She wove the fabric herself. It should get you to her home in Salem. Now, don’t fear—I’ll see it in her mind as soon as you arrive. And if I don’t, I’ll exhume the coffins myself.
Me: WHAT THE GLAMKINS? Exhume the coffins? You’re really going to BURY us?
C: I can think of no way around it! Boris will expect to see you buried, and—
Me: Oh, I wasn’t complaining. [Arranging Mystery comfortably at my feet.] [Lying back and folding my hands across my chest.] It’s a bit of a dream come true for me. Nail those lids down kind of loose, though. We WILL need air.
C: [Flustered. Maybe a little weirded out.] Never fear, Miss Emily, I’ve tucked breathing straws all around the perimeter. I do hope the dirt doesn’t pack down too tightly around you, though.
So there I was, feeling like the luckiest girl on earth. To be buried alive in such a majestic coffin! MAJOR life goal achieved!!!!
Eventually Boris and thugs arrived and carried our coffins out to what was presumably a cart of some kind, because we then had a jolting ride back to Lily’s house. Around then I started to get fussed about when Lily would wake up. Had I calculated the dosage correctly for her weight? Would she wake up before we were buried, and kick and scream? Or would she wake too late—and we’d be underground for another hour, slowly running out of air, until her fake death transitioned seamlessly into her real death? And I’d be responsible—just like the family rumor said. Caleb was right to have been suspicious of me—I wasn’t handling this well at all—I couldn’t be trusted—!!!