by Jenn Thorson
“No, I had my eyes on Jacob Morningstar and your furry former employer,” said Rufus.
“And did you notice? Morningstar the Valet didn’t seem bothered by the gift or even especially curious about it.”
“I noticed his lack of noticing.” They arrived at the cottage clearly labeled, “Two.”
Mary Ann tried the front door, and it was not locked.
“So what are we looking for?” Rufus asked. “I personally would like a nice confession letter and some bloody clothes, but I recognize I tend to dream big these days.”
“You take this room,” Mary Ann said, indicating the parlor. “I’ll take the bedchamber.”
“Right,” said Rufus. “I’ll shout when I find whatever it is.”
“Please do,” she said.
She heard him thumping around in the other room while she began on the sleeping quarters. It was a small room with lots of natural light streaming through the drapes. It looked like it had been decorated at the same time as the castle, with the same red print textiles bearing the Hearts’ family pattern. She started with the side table and the dresser, then peered up into the fireplace, looked under the bed (so dusty! the man needed a good housemaid), then the wardrobe closet. Most of it was clothes — gardening clothes, royal event clothes, as well as extra blankets.
She grabbed a chair and climbed upon it to investigate the items on the upper shelf. She moved several blankets and an extra pillow, and that’s when she saw something at the very back of the upper wardrobe. It appeared to be a small, weathered wooden box. She strained and teetered on the chair to reach, but her fingertips only just brushed it.
“Rufus?” she called, realizing somewhere along the way she’d dropped the “Sir” altogether, and that was not the least bit proper.
But in a flash, he was beside her. “Found something?”
“Can you grab that?”
He traded places with her and had the box down in a moment. He handed it to her. “You have the honors.”
“It’s probably nothing,” she said, not believing it was nothing for even a second. The box seemed to be made of driftwood.
She swung the lid and inside the box was a small ocean’s worth of pearls.
“My, my, my!” said Rufus with a smile. “Perhaps he’s planning a fancy new outfit for the Queen’s next Unbirthday.”
But Mary Ann had lost her breath.
“Are you quite all right? You’re very pale. You’ve gone all White Turvian on me.” He fanned her with a hand.
“Son of a Bandersnatch, I get it now,” she said and her voice sounded very distant in her ears. “It all makes sense.”
“Sense? Here in Neath? Why, that’s quite an achievement. How’d we do it?” He dug into the box and let a handful of pearls run through his fingers. Some sand also sifted down into the bottom of the box. “Was I right about the party outfit?”
“Sorry, no.” She smiled. “But I think I know where these came from.”
“Well, if you want to be literal,” he said, “so do I: oysters.”
“Exactly!” she said.
“Oh.” He scratched his head and looked surprised. “So you do actually want to be literal?”
Her smile grew broader. “Yes.”
“Didn’t see that coming,” he said. “Explain?”
“These pearls,” she said, “are the motive, the evidence, and also reveal the identity of the real murderer.”
“Hold on.” He leaned on the chair. “Real murderer? But you saw Jacob Morningstar — or rather Twain Morningstar impersonating Jacob Morningstar — kill your father with an axe.”
“I did. And he was hired by the ones who paid him with these pearls.”
Rufus sized up the treasure before them. “But only a queen would have access to that amount of pearls. Or a jeweler.”
“Or an oyster,” said Mary Ann.
“We’re back at that literal thing again,” he said. “An oyster?”
“Not just one oyster. Based on the quantity, color and shape of these pearls, many oysters. I’d say all the remaining oysters along the river worked for quite a bit of time to make this box of pearls.”
“The oysters paid a hired killer in pearls to off your father?”
“My father and Mr. Banks. And —” Mary Ann’s mind was swimming now, practically surrounded by a sea of ideas. “And the raths! Of course! It’s so obvious!”
“The raths, too?” Lines creased Rufus’ forehead. “But why?”
“Why did Twain Morningstar and his uncle bow down to Queen Valentina when their suit lost the final War? Why is Mr. Rabbit so servile? Why did I lie before I knew I could trust you? Survival! Plain and simple. It makes people do mad things.”
Rufus raised an eyebrow. “Your father was a big seafood fan, then, was he?”
“Huge!” Mary Ann shouted gleefully. “Things to know about my father: he was a fine woodworker, a beautiful whistler, mediocre in the dad department, and ridiculously fond of seafood. Especially oysters.”
He grinned. “And not in the taking it on long walks in the moonlight way, I’m guessing.”
“Actually, there was this one time,” she said.
He looked uncomfortable. “I believe I’d rather not know.”
“Well, it was no happy ending for the oysters, that I can assure you,” Mary Ann told him. “Yes, indeed, getting rid of my father, Mr. Banks and those raths was absolutely vital to the Turvy oyster populations’ continued survival.”
“But wait,” said Rufus, who was just about caught up now, “the raths died because they ate poisoned shellfish. So are you saying —?”
“Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good,” Mary Ann said, her smile falling away. “I suspect that was what happened there.”
“What a way to go,” sighed Rufus. “Poisoned themselves only to have their corpses devoured. Dear me, I shall never eat oysters again.”
“I believe that was the point,” she said. “Oh, yes, this was a forwards murder plot, all right. Thoroughly pre-planned. There’ll be no undoing this one.”
Rufus nodded, looking grave. “I’m very sorry,” he said.
“At least now I know,” she said. “And, frankly, I should have figured it out sooner. My father’s raven neighbor loves to decorate her nest with found objects. When I visited, I noticed she had all these tiny shoes. They reminded me of my childhood, so I assumed they were doll shoes. But now I see: it was from meals with Father. He’d separate out the oyster shells for mosaic projects and then toss the little shoes in the bin. Shoes from the oysters’ tiny feet …”
Suddenly, Mary Ann recalled the glimmering tracks around the servants’ bedchamber in Carmine Manor … and the tiny footprints that were gone by morning. The oyster’s wet shoeprints had dried in the fireplace heat. That oyster had tried to save her life.
“I didn’t even know oysters had feet,” said Rufus now.
“Looking at it from their perspective, it’s tragic,” said Mary Ann, the magnitude of it all overcoming her. “The hundreds and hundreds of oysters Father led from their beds. He chatted with them and gained their trust, only to devour them all with a nice vinegar and pepper.”
“But, Mr. Banks,” said Rufus, “surely he wasn’t all that bad?”
“As bad or worse!” said Mary Ann. “A terrible glutton, he was! But yes, I’m certain if we spoke to my father’s neighbor she would say she got those shoes from my father’s rubbish.”
“Unless, of course,” said a voice from the door, “no one gets the chance to ask her.” Mary Ann and Rufus turned. It was Twain Morningstar, and he had the axe.
21
“Nobody ever makes things easy, do they?” asked Twain Morningstar as he stood in the bedchamber doorway, axe at the ready. “You were given ample opportunity to put this all behind you. I understand you were even warned. Nicely. But did you let it go? You did not. You dragged …” his eyes flicked to Rufus, “… friends into it.”
“So where does this leave
us?” asked Mary Ann, as she scanned the room for something, anything, to become a makeshift weapon. “You plan to kill us, as well? You might be able to off me without anyone blinking an eye, but Sir Rufus is a knight of Turvy. He will be missed.”
Rufus turned to her, looking concerned. “You would be missed.”
The sincerity in his tone was startling, disarming, even if she had been armed at all. Which she wasn’t. “Would I?”
“Of course!” He seemed surprised she’d even mentioned it. “You’ve been indispensible, both to my family and me. Why, I would have been but gristle stuck to the Jabberwock’s toothpick, if not for you. My humor would have been locked away in a humordor forever to gather dust and historic disconnect. You, Mary Ann, have made all the difference.”
“How very kind,” she managed.
“How very true,” he assured her.
“Oh, for the love of Neath,” Twain Morningstar growled, and it broke the spell in an instant. “That’s the trouble with being menacing in a land where everyone’s off their tea kettle. No one has a proper sense of danger.”
“Well,” Mary Ann thought quickly now, “the axe is very scary. And you do wield it in such an ominous way.”
“Yes, very!” agreed Rufus, taking the cue.
“And Rufus is free to correct me, of course,” continued Mary Ann, “but I think we’d both feel considerably more terrified right now, if we hadn’t just seen you do such an inspired comedy set back there.”
“Indeed, your King Rudolf was spot on,” said Rufus. “Huzzah you. Ovations all round.”
Twain’s face broke into a shocked smile. “Was it? Thanks very much. You know, I was a little concerned about it because it’s hard to balance the funny in a Queen’s Unbirthday crowd situation, without getting too politi — hey!”
And that’s when Mary Ann grabbed up the fire poker and pointed it at him.
“You’re coming with us,” she said.
“Where?” He was backing up towards the front door.
“You’re going to tell Queen Valentina all about how you got these pearls,” said Mary Ann.
“I’ll do no such thing,” Twain snapped. “Those pearls are my ticket out of here. Do you think I want to be a gardener all my life? Do you think I bowed and scraped and mowed and ’scaped all these years for nothing? I want my own theater where I’m the headliner every night and … and …” he searched for the words, “… box seats with those marvelous little gas lamps all round them. And I’m going to get them.” He motioned to the wooden container. “Give the pearls to me.”
“No-how,” said Mary Ann.
“All right, then. Go to Queen Valentina with them. See if I care,” he said, stepping aside from the front door and lowering the axe. “And then what? So? I have a box of pearls. They could be from anywhere. You can’t prove anything. The oysters won’t be so shellfish as to whelk on the deal. They’ll clam up. So all the mussel’s behind me. It’ll be your word against mine.”
“And mine,” said Rufus.
“Ah, yes: the Turvian Jabberwock slayer and Lord Carmine’s son…” Twain considered this. “You have some clout certainly. But remember: I am the Queen’s husband’s valet’s second cousin,” he proclaimed, “and —” He stroked his chin. “Actually, it doesn’t sound as grand when you put it that way, does it?”
They shook their heads.
“Right, once more from the top.” He cleared his throat. “I am the favorite cousin of the Queen’s favorite personal confidant and as such, I have the Queen’s ear.”
Rufus burst out laughing.
Morningstar’s face went red with anger. “I do! It’s the Queen of Diamonds’ — a War souvenir. Valentina let me keep it after her enemy’s execution. It’s in a very pretty jar.” He pointed to a bookshelf with the non-axe-holding hand.
It appeared the man was right. In a very pretty jar, there was definitely something floating that looked ear-ily ear-shaped. Mary Ann was glad they hadn’t noticed that sooner in their search. It might have hung them up for the rest of it.
“So go on,” pressed Twain. “Go talk to Queen Valentina. See where that gets you.” Twain stood back from the door and waved them onward. Mary Ann and Rufus backed out past him, a careful eye on his hatchet. Rufus went first and Mary Ann followed, the poker keeping a safe distance between them.
They made it outside, slamming the door on their assailant, and together they dragged a wrought iron garden bench before it to buy them some time. As they ran back toward the Unbirthday festivities, Mary Ann could hear glass shatter, an ornamental shrubbery curse someone, and the thump of something heavy clattering to the cobbled path, more glass tinkling.
“There went the front window,” called Rufus as they fled. “I suggest picking up our pace.”
It was hard to keep one’s head in a chase situation such as this, thought Mary Ann. More so, when your pursuer had a hatchet and might separate head from neck at any time.
They reached the Unbirthday crowd again. The group was in the middle of a rather chaotic water ballet presentation involving dodos, ducks and other waterfowl in a Royal pool. The music wasn’t quite timed to the movement, and none of it was timed to anyone else, so the twanging instruments and infernal squawking made concentration impossible. Mary Ann scanned for the Queen in the audience and spotted her forthwith. That lady had a bird’s eye view of the entertainment from a high throne-like chair.
Mary Ann and Rufus were pushing through the onlookers, toward the Queen, when Twain shouted: “Look! There! It’s that Mary-Ann-Alice person! Isn’t she the one wanted for causing a mistrial in the stolen tarts case?”
And at a wave of his finger, everyone looked from him to the direction he pointed. Everyone around Mary Ann and Rufus stepped back six feet.
“It is!” cried Mr. Rabbit, for the first time ever recognizing his housemaid immediately. “She made an awful mess of our trial! And she wrecked my home!”
“And assaulted me!” shouted Bill Leafliver, the lizard handyman who still bore the slings and bandages of his outrageous misfortune.
“And got me sacked!” said a voice, and Mary Ann realized, it was Celeste, of all people. She was standing there with a woman who must have been her sister, for the resemblance was profound, and three small children, all like DwindleAde copies. And at this moment, the former lady’s maid pulled a slip of paper from her pocket, holding it aloft. “And I have a list of her nefarious plans and nasty spying right here!”
Mary Ann cringed. So that’s where her checklist had gone.
“You think that’s bad,” Mr. Milliner spoke up now, “she abandoned my friends and me right in the middle of our tea with… no clean cups!”
This was the offense that made the crowd cry out in horror.
The Duchess wasn’t able to top any of that with her own story of abandonment. So instead she proclaimed, “And the moral of this is: not every servant is maid-to-order. Or a housemaid in hand is worth two in the bush.”
And everyone agreed quite powerfully at this wisdom.
“Your Majesty,” began Mary Ann, hoping to hasten things. She curtseyed before Queen Valentina. “I have important news to share with you about one of your court. We believe that Twain Morningstar is responsible for —”
But the crowd was already hastening in a different direction. “Grab her! Take her to the dungeon!” someone said.
“Take her to the gallows!” someone else shouted.
“Take her to the nearest wash basin! The teacups need scrubbing!” said Mr. Milliner.
“Son of a Bandersnatch,” muttered Mary Ann for the second time today, and she thrust the box of pearls at Rufus. “Tell them everything,” she said to him. “Explain as best you can.”
And since she still had the poker, she batted her way through the crowd and took off running. She wasn’t precisely sure where to go and it was hard to make sensible decisions about it when you had the population of two realms chasing you, demanding your skull and/or scullery skills.
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br /> She could make a break for Turvy, but that was unlikely to help. The whole Red Turvian guard wanted her for questioning in several murders. Was there enough value in turning herself in to them and telling them the whole story? Possibly, but it was hard to imagine D.I. and D.M. Tweedle ever being her saving grace. Things simply did not go that way in Turvy. The most she could do, she thought, was lose the crowd, find a good hiding place and stall long enough that Rufus had time to persuade Queen Valentina of the situation. That was her best option, and there were no guarantees there, either.
So she headed for the Queen’s gardens. There were enough structures and topographical elements to make direct visibility hard for her pursuers, but less chance of being trapped somewhere with no way out. She ran past the croquet garden, over the ruts and furrows that made the game a challenge. She dodged through a rose garden, the roses all in varying shades of red, and twisted her foot a bit in one of two holes, where it looked like rose bushes had been removed rather hastily. She regained her bearings and was soon right back where it all began, Twain Morningstar’s cottage. There was no back door there, so hiding in his home was hardly an option. Then she looked right, to the hedge maze.
She’d never done this maze and now was not the time to try it. Instead, she took several steps inside, removed her Turvian housemaid’s cap and tossed it over her shoulder to the entrance. It rolled and settled believably in the threshold. Then she left the maze and headed into the vegetable garden.
It had been a good year for broccoli, for it stood twenty feet high and the florets, ten beyond that. The thicket stank a bit, though, and Mary Ann wondered if that alone would prevent her pursuers from poking about, should she choose to hide there. But it was too close to the castle, so she moved on. The cabbage yawned and stretched its leaves as she ran by. The corn asked why she was running and promised an ear to the ground. Some baby peas cried at being awakened so abruptly and Mary Ann paused to cradle and shush them before someone heard. Fortunately, they fell back asleep in but a moment.
By now, she’d reached the Queen’s flower garden and it being a warm day, the flowers were all nodding their heads. Mary Ann was careful to slip through as quietly as she knew how. She came to a garden wall with a door, just her size, and she tried the knob, surprised to find it open. It led to a long hallway with a very tall, glass, three-legged table. Along the wall were doors … so many doors.