She put down her pencil, and got up to close the door after looking down the hall to either side. Keith watched her, curious.
“I don’t want anyone to hear this,” she said, coming back and sitting down close to Keith. “You’ve got trouble coming. That Gilbreth woman has something against you. I saw her conspiring with Brendan. He’s up to something. What did you do to that woman?”
“It’s nothing personal, honest,” Keith said. “Purely … environmental.”
“Uh-huh. You watch out for Brendan, you hear me?” the young woman warned. “He’s a rat at heart, and now he’s just been given a free-lance job to do what he’d like best, which is to bounce his competition out of this program.” Keith nodded.
“Thanks, Dorothy, I’ll be ready. I owe you.”
“No way. We’re partners,” She gave him a thumbs-up. “Judge Yeast, remember? And when are we going to work on that big ad spread that Paul wants us to come up with?”
Keith grinned. “How about now?”
“Good! I’ve got some ideas that beat your old ones hollow. What do you think of that?” Dorothy said, challenging him with her pencil raised like a rapier.
“Bring ’em on,” Keith said with delight. “We’ll see about that.”
Refreshed from a good meeting, Keith felt his creative juices flowing. In no time, they had the beginnings of another good layout roughed out. Keith watched over her shoulder, and started to snicker at her final drawing.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
“If you put a loaf of French bread in that position with that slogan, they won’t be able to air this commercial before nine P.M. on weeknights,” Keith said, composing his face with difficulty. Dorothy looked from him to her sketch, and laughed sheepishly.
“I just don’t think in those terms,” she said, her cheeks glowing. She swatted his hand with her art gum eraser. “All right, Einstein, what other kind of bread would be right for ‘Getting off lightly’?”
“Brioches, maybe, or a regular loaf with a big round dome on the top. We’ll make it bounce lightly across the screen, instead of lifting off at an angle.”
When Brendan returned to the conference room, he had an angelic smile on his face. Keith and Dorothy glanced up at him, then went back to their work. He came around the table and sat down across from them.
“Nice. Have good meetings?” he asked them.
“Hot,” Dorothy said. “They love me in Art.”
“I was thinking about you during mine, Brendan,” Keith said, deliberately taunting. “We were talking about desiccated prunes.”
The other young man flushed. “You were all over our discussion, too, Keith. The subject was fertilizer.”
“Oh, yeah,” Keith said, nodding knowingly, one red brow in the air. “The kind that feeds amber waves of grain.”
“Hey,” Brendan said, alarmed at the covert accusation of plagiarism, “we’re supposed to be a team, right? Weren’t you the one pushing for creative fission?”
“What’s that about fission?” Sean asked, coming in and dropping into the chair at the end of the table. His notebook had loose pages hanging out at angles. He looked exhausted but happy.
“Keith’s fishin’ for a compliment,” Dorothy said with a wink. “Gilbreth liked one of his lines. Brendan sold it to her.”
“Hey, pretty good, you two,” Sean said encouragingly. “This is what the business should be like, huh?”
Paul appeared in the door and clapped his hands together like thunder. “Well, boys and girls, it’s been a hell of a day, hasn’t it? You’ve all done very well, and I’m proud of you. I’m gonna let you go early so I can go home and collapse, too. All right? Let’s clean up, and free up the room.”
While the others gathered their papers and cups from the table, Dorothy showed Paul the layout she and Keith had worked up.
“Good,” he said, nodding. “Consistent. Marketable. Keeps the same idea in mind. As long as you make the punch line short, people will remember it.” He handed it back with an encouraging smile. “Send it over to Bob, and let’s see what he thinks, all right?”
“Sure, Paul,” Dorothy said, then added shyly, “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”
“I know you are,” Paul said. “Good job. Send it over. I’m sure Bob will think the same as I do.”
Keith slewed a glance over at Brendan. “No problem, Paul. I’ll put it in interoffice mail at the desk.”
Keith was lucidly aware of Brendan’s eyes on his back as he picked up his drawings and layouts. They followed him to the file cabinet where each of them had a drawer for keeping things in the office. Paul had the master key, but the drawers were left open most of the day for easy access. Keith figured Brendan would strike at that first. He wasn’t worried. There was little about physical practical jokes he didn’t know, having had dozens played upon him in the dorm. He stuffed his notebook and papers into the drawer at the usual haphazard angles. Under cover of the rest, he crumpled one of them into a ball at the bottom of the drawer, putting his will into it, giving the fibers more strength, and enhancing the shape of the piece of paper, square and flat. Leaving the crushed paper concealed, he hastily slid the drawer shut.
“Night, Paul. Night, Dorothy. I’ll drop this at the desk for Bob.” Keith left the room with a cheery farewell wave to the others, and whistled a little tune as he walked down the hall to the elevator.
He wished he could be there to enjoy the results when Brendan pulled the drawer open.
***
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Though he was impatient to know how the search was going, Keith waited until he got home that evening before calling the farm. Calla, Holl’s mother, picked up the phone.
“They’ve moved her far away,” Calla said in answer to Keith’s question, “but your friends are on the trail. The Big One and the Small Ones of the Air have sniffed out a hiding place they think to be hers.”
“That’s great!” Keith exclaimed.
“Aye. Holl and my great-grandson have gone out with them to see if the sighting was a true one.”
“I can’t believe Tay got back into a balloon on purpose,” Keith said, laughing out loud. His brother and sister, watching television at the other end of the room, glanced back to see what was so funny, and went back to their program.
“Believe,” Calla said, answering his chuckle with one of her own. “Love conquers even the greatest of fears. And did it not, he would still never dare to show the white feather. The Master has gone with them.”
“You’re kidding!”
She gave her warm laugh again. “No indeed. I wish I were a bird in the sky, to see what it is like.”
“There’d be a flock of us up there,” Keith said. “Keep me posted. I want to hear the moment they bring Dola home. And I’ve got to hear all about the Master in a balloon.”
“I promise you, Keith Doyle,” Calla said. “You shall.”
“Your laconic discourse does nothing to enhance understanding,” the Master said disapprovingly. “Please try to use complete sentences. Ve haf plenty of time until the wind calms down and your craft may lift.”
Frank took a deep breath and tried again to explain. Holl, leaning up against the balloon basket with his pipe between his teeth, exchanged sympathetic glances with Tay, and pushed the bill of his Cubs cap down over his eyes to hide his expression. Shaking his head, Tay copied his gesture. “Keith’s air sprites came this morning while I was giving rides. Scared hell out of my passengers. They zoomed around like fireflies.”
“The passengers?” the Master asked, peering at him over his glasses. For all that his inquisitor, fedora hat and all, came up no higher than his middle shirt button, Frank Winslow seemed to be thoroughly intimidated.
“N-no, the air sprites. They made pictures at me.”
“Their means of communication, Master,” Holl put in. “They can project images into your mind’s eye.”
“I see.”
“Pretty bu
t confusing,” Winslow added. “Two pictures over and over again, one of that little blond girl in the dark in front of a—a striped house, and another where she was walking on a leash.”
“Around her neck? Like a dog?” Tay asked, his face darkening.
Frank thought about it. “No, like a toddler.” He sketched a body harness on his own frame with his hands.
“That gifs me a gut picture of her situation,” the Master said. “And they vill help us to find the house mit stripes?”
The balloon pilot made an impatient gesture at the sky. “Yeah, if this wind ever dies down.” The nearby treetops were leaning slightly to the northeast, and their uppermost twigs, whistling and crackling, swayed in an impatient dance.
At a small helium tank in the rear of the pickup truck, Frank filled a rubber balloon, tied it off, and let it go. It sped upward and out of sight into the eastern sky. There were already streaks of color at the horizon, reminding them that night was little more than an hour away. Frank watched it carefully, and shook his head. Holl tapped out his pipe and put it away.
“Pity we can’t whistle down the wind, as Keith Doyle is always suggesting we can,” Holl said, with a twinkle in his eye. Frank looked at him. “Oh, you’ve not been listening to his stories, have you?” Holl asked. “Do you think I can stick my fingers in my mouth like this,” he put thumb and forefinger in his mouth and blew a piercing blast, “and the wind will die down as I will it to?”
At that moment, the treetops on the perimeter of the field straightened up and the swaying came to a standstill, their slight noise dying away. Frank turned to look at Holl, who returned his stare indignantly.
“Coincidence,” he said. “Oh, come now, it was about to happen.”
“Circus stunt,” Murphy scoffed. “I saw the trees on the west calming down half a second before he did it.”
“Uh-huh,” Frank said, his eyes still on Holl. The other elves looked amused. He swallowed hard. “We better get moving, then.” He and Murphy moved to pull the bag containing the balloon out of the truck bed.
“How may ve help you?” the Master asked.
Following the instructions of the humans, the Little Folk helped spread out the Iris’s balloon, and helped raise its mouth to face the fan while Murphy and Frank fastened the steel loops of the cables to the burner assembly. Swiftly, the great rainbow filled out. Tay, the Master, and Holl helped hold it in place until the fan was replaced by the burners, and the balloon rose off the ground of its own accord.
“Sure are strong for midgets,” Murphy offered a grudging compliment. Tay grinned.
“You should run away and join us at the circus,” he shouted over the burners. “We’ve a place for giants like you.”
Frank climbed into the basket and Murphy helped flip it upright. “Hop in!” Frank yelled. “She’s ready to go!”
Tay and Holl hopped over the edge, and held out their hands to the Master. Murphy held on to the woven belt threaded through the basket, keeping it down until the little man was aboard.
Murphy let go, and the Skyship Iris once again performed her magic, as the earth dropped effortlessly and soundlessly away beneath them, and the trees came forward to meet them.
“Murphy thought you were from the circus,” Frank said as soon as they were aloft. “How come he didn’t know what you are?”
“People see vhat they believe they see,” the Master said. “He believes us to be vun thing, so for him that is vhat ve are. You see us as another thing, but efen you do not truly know.”
“You must not be very much help at home,” Dola complained to Skinny. He had spent nearly the whole of the first day and half the second reading magazines flat on his back on the old couch while Dola had cleaned around him. She decided she was not going to do all the work and leave him to sit about like an invalid.
“It’s just gonna get dirty again,” Skinny said, glancing around him. He pointed at the bottom of the door, which hung a thumb’s breadth too high in its frame. “The wind comes right through here.”
“Well, I can’t live waiting for the dust to settle. Will you not help?”
Skinny seemed surprised she’d asked. “I thought you brownie things got all bent out of shape if anyone helped you with the housework,” he said.
Dola put her hands on her hips. “I’ve told you, I’m a natural creature, not a fantastic thing like a brownie.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” Skinny went back to his magazine.
“Ugh!” Dola exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “I can’t take the time to explain things over and over to you.”
“Why not?” Skinny abruptly let loose of all the resentment he had saved up. His face turned red, and he waved his arms, advancing on her in fury. “We got nothing but time! All my days off, and I’ve gotta stay nights here, too! And then I’m stuck with a gal who yells more than my wife does. Go ahead, tell me again!”
Dola, big-eyed, dropped her broom and shrank back from Skinny. It was this new side of him Jake had appealed to when he handed over the shotgun. She was reminded all over again that Big Folk were dangerous, and though he seemed as much a playful buffoon as Keith Doyle, Skinny was a stranger. She withdrew a half step at a time toward her sleeping room, wondering if the iron lock on the door was enough to hold him off while she spelled the wood closed.
Skinny’s fearsome mood ended as quickly as it had begun when he realized he’d frightened her. He extended a hand to her. “I’m sorry, little girl. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. It … this is all wrong, I know it.”
Dola nodded, not touching him, not prepared to trust him again so soon. She fought to regain her former confidence, but it sounded in her own ears like bravado. “All right, then,” she said, looking up at him. “We’re both shut up against our will. We will make the best of it, shall we?”
Skinny nodded slowly. He looked sidelong at her as if asking permission, then went back to the couch and picked up his magazine. She didn’t protest. He sat down. Dola picked up the broom and went back to sweeping dust out of the corners. It was less trouble to work alone than to set off the Big One’s unchancy temper, but she still resented his laziness.
Once the floor was reasonably clean, Dola sat down on the hearth rug with a frayed pillow slip taken from the store of tattered bed linens in the bedroom dresser. It was useless, having been washed and used until it was threadbare as gauze. It would do to make light strips of the kind the Folk used at home, to supplement the sad light bulbs in the elderly lamps. She cut a small slit in the hem with her belt knife, gathered the edges in both hands, and tore.
Skinny’s head popped up again. “What are you doing with that?” He leaned over the back of the couch and yanked the cloth out of her hands.
“Making a cleaning rag,” Dola said reasonably. “This place is a terrible mess. Won’t your Boss-lady be pleased if it’s in better order next time she comes?”
“I guess.” Skinny tossed it back at her. “All right. I’m being jumpy. You just scared heck out of me.”
As long as he left her alone, she used the quiet time to concentrate on finding her folk in the great distance. The ride, two nights before, had taken so many twists and curves that she was all disoriented. Her mind swept slowly in a great arc, seeking and touching, until she found them. Strong as a beacon, the reassuring presence of the Folk reached out to her and gave her confidence. She wondered what it was that had stood between her and them before, and if they could see her now.
Now that she had a vector to follow, she might start out any time to finding her way away from this place, but only the birds and cartographers knew what stood in the way between here and home. She’d bide her time until she knew more about the land in between. All the necessities were here for her comfort. The moment she was ready, she’d vanish. There wasn’t enough metal in these walls to harm her. They were only wood, and felt so weak in some spots that she could kick through with her bare foot. When she meant to escape, it would be no trouble.
In the depths of th
e old couch, Dola heard the rustle and sigh as Skinny finished his magazine and put it down. She addressed him, pitching her voice so it was impossible for him to ignore her.
“Do you know why it is the Boss-lady is keeping me here? I am sure she doesn’t want me.”
“Dunno,” Skinny said. “I think it has something to do with Ms. Gilbreth running for election.” He clapped his hand over his mouth.
“Oh, I already know her name,” Dola said easily. “I know a lot about her. But why would anyone vote for her?”
“Well, ’cause she’s for all the right things. Education. The environment. Farmer’s rights.”
“But it is only sensible to be for these things,” Dola said. “Isn’t her opponent in favor of them, too?”
“No,” Skinny said, then added by way of amendment, “well, he says he is, but he’s lying.”
“And how do you know that Boss-lady is not also lying?”
That flustered him. “’Cause I work for her. I know she’s for those things. She says so all the time.”
“Saying is not doing,” Dola said, thinking of the nasty smelling sludge that came out of the truck that took her away from Hollow Tree Farm. It was the same that the water-workers were complaining had to be cleaned out of the aquifer. It was proof that Gilbreth employees were the ones dumping, if only she could go home to tell the Master. “It does sound as if there is not much to choose between the candidates.”
“You don’t know about politics,” Skinny said, but he didn’t sound sure, either. He fell silent, staring at the window. Dola followed his eyes.
“It’s a fine day. What about taking a walk in the woods?”
“No way,” Pilton said uneasily. “You’d just jump into a tree somewhere, and I’d never find you.”
“Oh, would you stop?” Dola asked, exasperated. “I live neither in trees nor in little burrows under rocks. Walking’s all I wish. Fresh air, and maybe some herbs for the cooking. We must eat, and I’d rather it be flavored with something other than the dusty preparations in those boxes,” she shrugged toward the food supplies. “Unless you plan to cook.”
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