Blueberry Pancakes Forever

by Angelica Banks

  ‘Ruff,’ Baxterr responded.

  At that moment, a hint of light appeared on the horizon – a golden haze of the kind that you sometimes see out the window of an aeroplane when you are flying towards a new day faster than it can possibly run away. Just as writers rarely venture anywhere without a pencil and notepad, Colette rarely went anywhere without a camera. As she took in the remarkable sight before her, she cursed herself for only grabbing her coat and hat in her haste, and not running back downstairs to grab her equipment. She doubted anyone had ever filmed the place she was heading towards and certainly not from the back of a Winged Dog. And at that thought she again felt the thrill of amazement that here she was, on a flying dog, going who knew where, and that thrill went all the way up her spine.

  The gold rim of light grew larger and larger, until the sky brightened to a soft blue above a dense ellipse of cloud. Peeping out of the cloud was a green hillside, and on the hillside was a single, magnificent tree. It was as wide as the widest boab Colette had ever seen, and Baxterr was making directly for it. Above the tree, he banked in a steep arc, causing Colette to slip sideways and grasp Baxterr’s fur even more tightly.

  ‘Was that quite necessary?’ Colette asked.

  ‘Ruff,’ said Baxterr.

  ‘Not fun exactly,’ said Colette. ‘A little advance warning might be—’

  Baxterr barked.

  Colette said, ‘Okay, but why?’

  Before Colette received an explanation, Baxterr plunged right through the cloud that rimmed the hillside. Mist swirled around Colette’s face before they emerged not into a sunlit world, as she had expected, but again into a darkness that might have been night, only bigger than any night she had known. The darkness was teeming with globes, and other shapes. They were red and stripy, or orange and yellow with spots. They were ruby and emerald, sapphire and turquoise, opal and tourmaline. They were spherical and oblong, in the shape of obelisks and crescents, jellyfish and starfish, spirals and helices. It was as if she were under the sea, and yet she was not under the sea. The floating things were huge, they were tiny, they were racing around and slowly drifting. They were transparent or opaque, patterned, glittering, shimmering like moonlight in water or as black as a cat at midnight. Colette’s eyes did not blink, and her jaw fell open, and she turned her head this way and that doing her best to take in this extraordinary and unimaginable sight. Where were they? Had she fallen out of the universe she knew and into another? Yes, she considered. Yes, she almost certainly had.

  Baxterr flew with clear intent. His nose was pointed towards one particular sphere, a huge globe with a faint rainbow shimmer as if it were reflecting sunlight through rain. As they flew closer, Colette could see, through the rainbow glow, a mountain range sheathed in snow, and further away tracts of deep forest. She could see a bitter wind-whipped sea and tall, forbidding cliffs. Could it be? Why of course, she thought. She might have been far from Brown Street for ten years, but the wonder of travel was there were always places to find books – new or secondhand – and Colette was as familiar with the world of Vivienne Small as you are.

  They are all worlds, she thought, gazing about her. They are the worlds of writers. This was such an extraordinary revelation that her eyes watered and a single tear ran down her cheek.

  ‘Ruff, ruff,’ Baxterr instructed as he put back his ears and folded his wings.

  Colette braced, realising that they were about to pierce the glassy membrane and enter the world of Vivienne Small. Baxterr, of course, passed effortlessly through this shimmering exterior – nose, eyes, ears, shoulders. But the same was not true of Colette Baden-Baden. She smacked into the membrane like an insect against the windscreen of a car. She lost hold of Baxterr’s fur and tried desperately to cling on, but the glassy surface was as slippery as a soap bubble. Baxterr continued on, and Colette began to slide and then, as there was nothing to hold on to, she began to fall.

  Colette fell and fell, and her heart flew up into her throat as if a small bird were lodged there, flapping wildly in terror. If it is in my throat, then it must be a swallow, Colette thought to herself, and the joke reminded her to laugh, for it had always been a plan of hers to meet death with a smile on her face.

  Down through the sky she tumbled, head over feet, head over feet. The worlds around her whirled and glowed, baubles of colour and phosphorescence. She thought that this must be what it would be like to be an ant floating inside a kaleidoscope.

  ‘So, Colette, you are going to die,’ she said to herself matter-of-factly as she fell. ‘It is not such a terrible way to go, falling from a flying dog. I am seeing incredible things. I am seeing the worlds of writers. This is not something dying people see every day.’

  Indeed Colette was seeing incredible things in the worlds she was falling past. Was that a waterfall of chocolate? Was that a green sheep? Was that a bear walking beside a boy who was riding a wolf? Was that a girl in a red sequinned suit atop a high-wire? Was that a submarine under the sea?

  Colette continued to talk to herself as she fell. ‘You remember what you learned at skydiving school. Nothing hurts except the landing. And even that probably not for more than the briefest moment. There may not be time to feel any pain at all. It might all just go black. Or yellow. Or green. I would like it to go orange. A bright, edible orange. It’s a better death than starving. Better than drowning, too. Much better than burning. Yes, falling will do. Falling is not so bad.’

  Colette began to feel a little light-headed, as if she were high in the mountains where oxygen was a luxury.

  ‘There is a problem though, Colette, is there not? If you die, you will break your promise to care for Tuesday until Serendipity returns. So I think you cannot die. Not yet. Not even in this pleasant falling-through-worlds kind of way. You must try to stop falling.’

  But of course, as some of you may yet discover, attempting to defy gravity is not an easy thing to do. It takes lift and thrust, feathered or reptilian wings, or some sophisticated engineering. None of which was immediately available to Colette. And so it was that after a little while, the worlds became blurrier, her thoughts became more distant, and her eyes closed. Despite her best efforts to maintain consciousness (which included an attempt to sing opera), Colette Baden-Baden passed out.

  Chapter Eleven

  Some time after passing out, Colette Baden-Baden fell onto a large ottoman. It was covered in brown and white cowhide that matched a nearby chair, two rugs and a pair of couches that were set around a glowing fire. In its final moments, her landing was more of a gentle descent than a plummet, and when her body met with the ottoman, it simply behaved like good custard. It spread. Stomach down, head to one side, arms and legs splayed out, Colette sprawled. She did not immediately wake up, which meant that the man sitting a short distance away at a desk of instruments – who had been intently working on the insides of something that resembled a large fishbowl – had plenty of time to consider the fallen creature, and then walk across the large room to observe it more closely.

  The man, as some of you may have guessed, was the Gardener. He noticed that the furry creature on his ottoman was snoring gently. He peered at it and saw that despite the bearskin coat, beaver-skin boots and racoon hat (he knew his wild animals), this was in fact a woman. The Gardener scratched a white scraggly beard and gazed up into the open roof above his rooms in the Conservatory.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ he said, ‘I’d have done most anything to have a woman fall from the sky. But now it’s happened, I’m not at all sure what to do about it.’

  He looked down at himself. The shirt he was wearing was the same one he’d been wearing both day and night for a length of time that might have been weeks. There was evidence of several meals and splashes of black coffee on both shirt and trousers. Under the nails of his hands, and embedded into the knuckles, was earth and sand, mud and grit, glue and paint. His hair hung down his back in a braid that resembled a frayed and ancient rope. His boots were dusty and he suspected he smell
ed like the camping swag he liked to take with him when he journeyed out to inspect the worlds beyond the Conservatory.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time for some personal grooming,’ he said to himself, still observing the woman.

  Since becoming the Gardener, he had been perplexed by managing any sort of a schedule. Worlds needed routine maintenance, and they had their own unique rhythms that had nothing to do with anything he could organise. He had discovered that he simply couldn’t predict when a writer was going to cause upheaval. If he couldn’t solve a problem from the Conservatory – using the instruments and implements that were arrayed on shelves and in drawers and boxes – he would need to go in to the world and inspect it. Sometimes this took days and weeks, and there was always a backlog.

  If it was a simple task, like stopping a river from bursting through a dam, or ensuring a certain species didn’t get out of control and kill everything else, or cleaning up after a severe storm, then the Gardener could do all he needed to do from the comfort of the Conservatory. However, other things were more complicated. A newly created world sometimes needed help maintaining a steady axis, or grew so fast it endangered itself and others. Old worlds became fragile and threatened to drift away altogether, and he had to lasso them back. Occasionally, a whole host of minor characters would end up floating in the middle of vast oceans or stranded on the wrong side of a disaster area. It fell to the Gardener to rescue or reroute, and these were no easy tasks.

  In the Conservatory there were no days or nights. No weeks or months either, technically. The sun did not rise. The sun did not set. The Gardener simply lived amid the perpetual swirl of worlds in infinite darkness. Whenever he thought it must be breakfast time, breakfast food appeared on the long side table. It was the same with dinner. But he’d had several spells, since he’d taken over from the previous Gardener, when he ate nothing but breakfast for every meal. Apart from his dog, Apache, who was curled up asleep on the rug, he did not have company at all. But now company had arrived, in the form of a furry woman, and he thought he’d best be hospitable.

  So when Colette Baden-Baden awoke, the first thing she saw was a pair of fancy snakeskin cowboy boots polished to a high gleam, a pair of long legs in faded yet neatly pressed jeans, a belt buckle with a buffalo skull, a shirt in red check with pearl buttons and, above all that, the clean-shaven face of a man with a fine head of white hair, neatly tied back, and a pair of warm blue eyes, observing her from a couch close by.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I am the Gardener and I made coffee.’ He spoke with a particular twang.

  He poured Colette a cup from a pot on a table beside him as she sat up and took in the extraordinary room. She observed the cowhide rugs and portraits of painted ponies prancing across wide-open prairies. Two identical hatstands were hung with a collection of cowboy hats, every one of them white, though some were grubbier and older than others. Along one wall, from a row of metal hooks, hung coils of rope in various thicknesses and lengths. There was also a boathook leaning against the same wall. A cheerful fire blazed in a circular fireplace in front of which, regarding her with curiosity, lay an enormous white dog with a deep brown patch over one eye.

  ‘I think you might have saved my life,’ said Colette to the man, wondering if in fact she was dead, and this was some of kind afterlife. He handed her a cup and Colette breathed in the scent of hickory. She was very partial to hickory.

  ‘Are you a writer?’ Colette frowned.

  ‘Oh, I was. But now I’m the Gardener. Nice to meet you, ma’am.’

  ‘Colette Baden-Baden,’ said Colette gruffly, shaking the Gardener’s outstretched hand, still uncertain what to make of all this.

  ‘Well, Ms Baden-Baden,’ said the Gardener, in his long drawl, ‘you seem a little unstuck from whatever was your purpose before you landed here. Where exactly were you going, or what had been your intention when you set out? My experience, limited though it is, would indicate that it’s mighty unusual for people to just drop in.’ Colette took a deep breath. The coffee was beginning to make her feel a little more solid. She still wasn’t sure she was alive, but it appeared that she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t sure if this Gardener was of sound mind, but he was probably no madder than many people she had met. She pursed her lips and began to organise an answer to this most difficult question. She considered what she could say to this man about Serendipity and Tuesday, Brown Street and threads, and the fact she had come on a flying dog. But before she could open her mouth, Baxterr flew in and landed on the broad rug.

  ‘Ha!’ grunted Colette. ‘So you found me!’

  ‘Ruff,’ said Baxterr, resuming his everyday size and wingless shape, which made him look like an innocently small, shaggy, golden, brown-eyed dog. He bounded up to Colette.

  ‘Ruff, ruff, ruff,’ he continued. This was accompanied by a great deal of tail wagging, eye contact and pawing of her knees.

  ‘Oh, you don’t say,’ said Colette. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant for me either. I know you warned me, but until it happened I didn’t understand why a person who was not a writer …’

  ‘Baxterr?’ said the Gardener.

  ‘Ruff,’ said Baxterr, spinning around to regard the Gardener. ‘Ruff, ruff, ruff!’

  ‘Rooof,’ said the enormous dog, standing up and wagging her tail. She completely dwarfed Baxterr, and when she nosed him playfully with her strong muzzle, she knocked him right off his feet. Baxterr righted himself, as if nothing untoward had happened at all, and returned to his conversation with Colette.

  ‘Ruff, ruff, ruff,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I know you are bursting at the seams to find Tuesday, and so am I. But maybe this is a good place to get help, yes?’ said Colette.

  The big white dog gave another deep, friendly ‘Rooof’, wagged her tail, and regarded Baxterr questioningly.

  Colette said, ‘I think I can answer your query. He wants to leave, even though he’s just arrived, because he’s worried about his human.’

  ‘Of course. Young Tuesday,’ the Gardener said, with a frown. ‘But how did she and Baxterr get separated? I’m sure that’s not regular.’

  ‘Ruff,’ confirmed Baxterr.

  The Gardener turned to Colette. ‘Let me introduce myself again. I am the Gardener, but my name is Silver Nightly, and let me say that any friend of Baxterr or Tuesday is a true friend of mine.’

  ‘Ruff, ruff,’ said Baxterr.

  ‘Rooof, rooof,’ said Silver Nightly’s dog.

  Colette sighed. ‘Where to begin?’ she murmured, before sharing with Silver Nightly the news about Denis, and describing the terrible year that had followed his death. And then, without mentioning names or specifics, she told him how Tuesday’s mother had gone away and how she, Colette, as Tuesday’s godmother, had made a solemn promise to take care of Tuesday for the duration of her mother’s absence.

  ‘As you can see,’ said Colette. ‘We are in need of quite urgent help. It seems I cannot get to the world of Vivienne Small to find Tuesday because the laws of this universe simply do not allow it. I am not a writer. But Baxterr, it appears, can go anywhere. And your dog, Apache, is the same?’

  ‘You know her name?’ asked Silver Nightly.

  ‘She told me herself,’ said Colette.

  Silver Nightly was startled.

  ‘She decided, no doubt, that I am a person who can be trusted with a name. But please, what do you suggest for our predicament?’

  Silver Nightly ran a hand through his white hair. ‘Well, you’re an anomaly, Ms Baden-Baden. I think there’s only one person who might be able to solve this. And that is the Librarian.’

  ‘The Librarian?’

  ‘Yup. She’s a mighty interesting woman. Not a good one to cross. But, in a fix like this, given Tuesday’s age, I know she’d want to be sure that young lady was safely in her story and getting along with it. I don’t think for a moment she’ll let you intervene. But I don’t suppose it can hurt to ask.’

  ‘And where is this Librarian?’
asked Colette, observing the two jetties that stretched away from the room as if they might be expecting a ship to sail in at any moment. She also observed how only one jetty had a door leading to it.

  ‘Oh, no,’ laughed Silver Nightly. ‘Madame Librarian is in the great Library. It’s about as far from here as it’s possible to get. You might say if this is the South Pole, then she’s at the North. But she has a way of knowing everything. When I made a few errors in my early time here, overdid my job a little, stopped an invasion, found a letter, got a boy reunited with the girl he loved, she had some harsh things to say. It’s a delicate thing. A little intervention can cause a lot of chaos. Gardening is a … well … a vocation.’

  ‘Can you show me a little of your work?’ Colette asked.

  Baxterr whined and cocked his head.

  ‘I may never come this way again, doggo. A few minutes and we’ll be on our way. How I wish I had brought my camera.’

  Baxterr seemed to accept this, though his tail quivered and his paws were restless. Anyone who knew him well would understand he was feeling impatient, but trying to be polite and not show it.

  Silver Nightly walked with Colette to a long bench with an array of instruments and metal arms each holding a spherical object covered with a cloth. He took the cover from one of these spheres and handed Colette a peculiar pair of spectacles that were like the glasses optometrists use to examine your eyes.

  ‘If you use these, you’ll be able to see a whole lot better,’ he said.

  Colette slid on the spectacles and peered into the world that was now greatly magnified. She could see a city. The old stone buildings stood proud and tall, and in the streets a crowd had gathered. Some people carried torches, others carried red flags, and all were marching and possibly singing. Colette observed the black glint of cannons being manoeuvred over cobblestones. And in front of them was a great stone building she was sure was the Bastille, the famous French prison. But all of it was frozen, as if a magic wand had been waved and stopped them all in their tracks.