“There isn’t anything else.”
“Go check again,” she said.
He climbed back out of the car and scurried over to where she had appeared. There was nothing else on the ground except an expanding pool of vomit. He turned around and made a great show of shrugging. Suddenly a hole opened up in the sky just in front of him, about twelve feet off the ground, and things began raining out—luggage, books, and boxes tied with twine. Within three seconds, there was enough cargo to fill the back of his car, and he dutifully started loading it.
“You want to go back to your house?” he asked.
“Is Mr. Baxter there?”
“No,” said Buttermore. “He’s in town, but um, I’m not sure where he’s living.”
“Is Zoantheria living there?”
“I um, again, I don’t rightly know where she is. She was seen a few weeks ago. But I don’t think your house has been used for some years now.”
“Years now?” She frowned. “What year is it?
“It’s 1919.” Buttermore, having finished loading the new cargo, climbed once again behind the wheel.”
“How long have I been gone then?”
“Four or five years, I would guess.”
“Well, that’s not so bad, is it?” said Senta. “I thought it was more like a hundred.”
“So where do you want to go?” asked the photographer.
“Let’s go to your house,” she said. “I always did like your family, especially that fat little boy of yours. What was his name again?”
“Easton.”
“Easton,” she repeated. “Excellent. In fact, I have a present for him. He doesn’t already have a watch, does he? What is he now, eight or nine years old?”
“He’s eighteen, last Festuary.”
“Excellent, a young man should have a watch” she smiled wanly at him. “I’m going to sleep now. Don’t forget to wake me when we get there.”
Chapter Fourteen: The Sorceress Returns
“Kafira Kristos,” hissed Saba Colbshallow. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me that building belonged to you.”
“Who else would it belong to?” asked Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne Staff. “Why do you care anyway?”
Unlike other recent meetings, which had taken place in her bedroom, the two of them stared at each other over the vast oak expanse of Iolanthe’s desk, in the office of the Colonial Governor. It was a room designed to impress and intimidate. The ceiling was more than twenty feet high and the entire south wall was made up of large windows that looked out over the now expansive city. The opposite wall was filled with two large world maps. One featured Brechalon, the rest of Sumir, and the western hemisphere, while the other featured Birmisia, the entirety of Mallon, and the east. She leaned back in the leather-clad chair and pressed her fingertips together. His chair was within arms reach of the globe, so large that it took two people to turn it on its axis.
“I’m not talking about the building,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t give a crap about the building.”
“What is it that you think you give a crap about then?”
“It’s that Kafira-damned machine!” He looked at her as if she were suddenly stupid or insane. “That thing is dangerous! You know that it is! Senta’s brother died seeing the original was disposed of.”
“That’s the story, anyway.” She pursed her lips. “All we really know is that Senta destroyed a good portion of Mallontah.”
“Even if you don’t believe it, that thing has been trouble going all the way back to the beginning—to Suvir Kesi.”
“It may be, and I’m not saying that it’s true, but maybe, that particular machine became tainted with evil magic. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter now. It’s gone. These machines are new. They have not been infected in that way. They are ready to be used as the designer originally intended.”
“For what?”
“For civic planning, for engineering, for education.”
“I guess I mean for whom?”
“For me.” She stood up and leaned over the desk. “They’re mine. They’re my machines. They’re nobody else’s. They are of no concern to you.”
“Anything that concerns you is of concern to me,” he said.
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Whatever concerns you concerns me. Whatever this relationship is that we have…”
She laughed. “Is that what this is about? You’re jealous? My husband invented the Result Mechanism and that’s somehow a threat to your manhood?”
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” said Saba. “Perhaps we should discuss this later.”
“Upset that another man got to the holy land before you? Other men have. Better men.”
Saba took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He stood slowly up.
“So this is how it ends.”
“Nothing ends until I say it does,” said Iolanthe.
“You just did.” He turned and started the long walk to the door. The trip across the deep red carpet seemed like a journey of a fortnight, like a journey that would never end. He expected at any moment to be stopped with a word or to be called back, but he wasn’t. He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and a second later was in the outer office, next to Mrs. Wardlaw’s desk.
And he knew at that moment that he would never be with Iolanthe again—never be in her bed again. He had loved her as long as he could remember. In fact, his earliest memory was of loving her. But he would never have her again. He would never touch her and feel her purr into his neck. He would never taste her lips again.
“This is what it feels like,” he said. “This is what it feels like to be cast out of heaven.”
“What’s that, Chief?” asked Mrs. Wardlaw from behind a file folder.
“Good day, Mrs. Wardlaw.”
* * * * *
“Why the long face, Police Constable?”
Saba didn’t look up at first.
“It’s Police Chief…” he started to say as he walked the winding cobblestone path through the empty lot south of the Gurrman Building. Then he glanced into the charcoal-lined grey eyes of the image before him. He stumbled slightly and his foot landed in moist soil, wetting his sock.
“Zurfina!”
The vision might have been something out of dream or a nightmare, but it wasn’t. It was out of his own memory. Standing in the shade of an apple tree, she leaned against its trunk, her knee-high red and black leather boots crossed at the ankles. She was wearing some strange little leather skirt that didn’t quite come down to her knees, and left her garters, decorated with little red and black bows visibly holding her fishnet stockings, up almost, but not quite, to the bottom of her skirt. Her torso was covered with the type of leather corset that the sorceress Zurfina had made famous, red and black leather, hiding very little, low enough to expose the star tattoos above each bosom, and with a cutout specifically designed to show the one around her navel.
“Did you miss me, my little Saba?” she said in a deep, breathy voice.
“Senta!” He launched himself across the distance between them to capture her in a fierce embrace. “Thank Kafira.”
“But that was my best Zurfina impersonation.”
“You can’t fool me, Senta.” He squeezed her tighter. “Besides, you’re too tall. I heard just the other day that you might be alive, but I didn’t dare let myself believe it.”
“You thought I was dead?” She shrugged his arms off of her. “How could you think that?
“You were gone for more than four years, without contacting anyone. No word to me. No word to Hero. No word to your daughter.”
She crossed her arms. “Sen.”
“Are you going to say you had forgotten about her?”
She gave him an embarrassed smile. “I was going to say that. It would have been a lie though. It’s actually quite frightening how often I’ve thought of her.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why is she living in your wife�
�s house?”
“It’s my house and she’s my daughter. Did you expect her to live with Kieran Baxter and his new wife?” He watched her carefully and felt a guilty satisfaction as her face turned pale.
“His what?”
“A lot of things have changed around here in the past four years,” he said. “Not all of them good. Not all of them what one would expect either, I suppose.”
She stared at him for a moment more. Then she snapped her fingers and disappeared.
Saba stared at the spot where the sorceress had been, and then started once again toward the spot where he had left his car, his wet sock squishing with every other step. The fire chamber was completely cold, so he had to shovel in some coal, and wait for it to heat up the water after he had started the fire. As he was sitting behind the steering wheel, waiting for the hiss of steam, he suddenly chuckled to himself. He didn’t want to admit it, but it had felt good seeing Senta’s face when she found out Baxter was married. It felt good to know that he wasn’t the only one who had lost something.
What would Baxter’s face look like when he saw Senta? Saba burst out into a loud laugh. Now that would be something! Then again… Some things went beyond the bounds of what would be funny. One might laugh heartily if a man accidentally hit himself in the face. When that same man gouged out both of his own eyes… well, one didn’t laugh at that.
When the steam carriage indicated that it was ready, Saba drove home. Turning off the brick street and onto the red chert drive, he came to a stop in front of the machine shed, just adjacent to the kitchen door. One lizzie came running out from the kitchen and another from behind the shed. He paid them little attention as they opened the rolling door and pushed the vehicle into its berth. In four steps, he was inside without having cast even a single glance at the great mansion across the street.
After grabbing a bottle of soda water from the froredor, he stepped into dining room to find his two daughters sitting at the dining table. Both were drawing pictures on large pieces of white paper with colorful wax crayons. Both were scribbling wildly past the edges of the paper and onto the expensive tabletop.
“Does Mummy know what you’re doing?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” said DeeDee.
“She said she could care less what I did,” added Sen.
“She did, did she?”
“Daddy?” asked DeeDee, stopping and looking up with her oddly-hued eyes. “Does that mean she cares quite a lot or only a wee bit? Iolana always said that if a person was to say ‘could care less’ that would tell you that they had to care at least a little.”
“You should write to Iolana and ask her. No doubt she will have the correct opinion.”
“Iolana says opinions are neither correct nor incorrect?”
“Iolana should…” he stopped and looked at his sweet, innocent daughter’s face. “She would appreciate a letter from you in any case, in my opinion. Why don’t you go write her now? I need to speak to your sister.”
DeeDee stood up and hurried into the other room. A few seconds later, Saba could hear her bounding up the stairs. He sat down in her still warm seat.
“So what have you been doing today, besides drawing a picture of… um, what is that a picture of?”
He turned his head this way and that, but couldn’t make out anything more than a multicolored blob.
“It’s love.”
“Oh, an abstract. Very creative, my little darling.”
“Thanks. Throwing rocks.”
“What?”
“That’s what else we were doing.”
“What were you throwing rocks at?”
“Velociraptors.”
“Sen! If you see a velociraptor or a deinonychus, or especially a utahraptor, you must come into the house immediately! They are very dangerous.”
“It’s okay. Allium ate seven of them, but then she was so full she didn’t want to play the rest of the day.”
“That’s fine,” said her father, “but promise me that you will stay away from any of those beasts.”
“Okay.”
It was at this point in the conversation that Saba realized the girl had not looked up at him once. “I want to talk to you about something important. Can you look at me for a moment?”
“Yup,” she replied, still drawing wildly.
“Do it, please.”
She set the crayon atop her paper and folded her hands in front of her. She gazed up into his eyes giving every impression of humoring a subordinate. He found it unnerving.
“Dear, I have some very good news. We thought that your mother was in heaven. As it turns out however, she’s alive. In fact, she’s back in Birmisia.”
“Yes,” said Sen. “Allium told me already.”
“She did? Well, that was convenient. Have you seen your mother yet?”
“No.”
“I’m sure you will, very soon.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m quite sure. She loves you very much.”
“No she doesn’t.” The girl picked up the crayon and returned her attention to her paper. “I don’t love her either.”
His audience at an end, Saba watched the girl for a moment and then left her to her work, as he took the stairs up to his room. He suddenly felt almost too tired to make the trip, but at last he was there and sat down on the foot of his bed to remove his shoes and socks, one dry and one damp. Then without getting up, he took off his jacket and waistcoat, tossing them on the floor. His tie and shirt soon followed.
“You’re home early.”
He looked up to see Loana in the doorway. He wasn’t surprised that she was still in her evening gown. Neither spoke for several minutes. Finally she entered the room, stepped over the clothing on the floor and sat down beside him.
“Senta’s back,” he said. “She’s not dead, turns out.”
“That’s lucky for you.”
“How is it lucky for me?”
“Mr. Baxter is married now. You can have Senta.”
“I don’t want her and she certainly doesn’t want me. It wasn’t like that. It was just one time.” He stopped and laughed.
“What?” she wondered.
“She’s the one woman in the world I could claim ensorcelled me and forced me against my will.”
Loana giggled briefly.
“I won’t say that. It’s not true. It was just stupid. It was just one stupid time and it produced that sweet little girl down there that her mother has completely ruined. You and I haven’t helped her either.”
“I can’t love her,” said Loana. “I’m tired of trying.”
“She’ll be going back with her mother soon. No doubt there. I don’t know if that’s good or not, but it will leave just us. You and me and DeeDee, and my mother, I suppose.”
“And one ghost.”
“I don’t blame you for Virgil’s death,” he said. “I was just hurt.”
“Don’t you think I was?” she raised her voice, but not as much, he thought, as was probably warranted.
“Of course you were. I know.” He was silent for a long time. “I suppose it’s too late to try again.”
“For another child?”
“No. I mean us—the two of us—to try again. Marriage and love—is it too late?”
“Probably,” she said.
“That’s what I thought.”
* * * * *
“Good morning, Mr. Baxter,” said Miss Lorikeet.
Baxter thought again about how fetching his secretary was. Too young for him, even considering that his wife and former mistress were both a decade younger than he was.
“It’s good to be back. Let that be a lesson to you to stay out of vacant lots, young lady. They’re full of mischief.”
“I’m just glad you’re back, sir, and that you’re going to be okay. The work is piling up and you know I don’t have a head for such things.”
“We’ll soon have it all tickety-boo, as my wife would say.”
Stepping through
the doorway to his office, he closed the door behind him and took his place at his desk. Looking around through the glass walls, he could see every employee on the floor, and more importantly perhaps, they could see him—back at work, no worse for a little wear. He opened the file on the S.S. Comet. It was due in any day, a smaller ship as far as displacement went, but she was a classy little number, sure to be filled with an equal number of the newly rich commoner and recently poor aristocracy, the latter hoping to meet the former and the former up for pretty much anything.
When he looked up a few minutes later, he saw one of the clerks, Gaspar, talking to a tall woman in a bizarre mixture of leather corset, lace skirts, and fishnet stockings. His hand shaking, he tried to pick up the glass of water on his desk, but succeeded only in knocking it over. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. She was gone. She wasn’t coming back. As he stared, they both turned in his direction, Gaspar pointing and the woman smiling and starting toward him. Oh, sweet Kafira, it was her. But it couldn’t be her. She opened the door to his office and stepped inside, closing it after her.
“Get out!” he hissed.
She seemed surprised. “Not the welcome I was expecting.”
“You’re not her! You can’t be! She’s dead!” In his peripheral vision, he could see the people in the outer office looking at him. They could hear him through the glass walls. He was shouting. “You get out!”
“Kieran,” she said, soothingly. “I had to go away. I know it’s been very hard, but I’m back now.”
“No!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it all better.”
“Pantagria or whatever demon you are, this is your last chance!” He whipped a pistol out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at her. His hand was shaking wildly.
“Baxter, it’s me.”
“Get out now, or I’ll kill you!”
Her eyes and her mouth opened wider. The look of shock slowly transformed into a frown. Lifting up her right hand, she snapped her fingers and disappeared with a pop.
Baxter dropped the gun on the desk and dropped himself into his chair. He began shaking uncontrollably. He knew people were watching him, but he didn’t care. The chiming clock on the wall told him when thirty minutes had passed. By that time, he was almost breathing normally. Then he saw it.
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