The Curious Case of Mary Ann

by Jenn Thorson

  This, Mary Ann thought, should make it hard for anyone following me this far. I’ll choose a door at random and go in and hide for a spell. Then I’ll pop out, find Rufus, and reevaluate. So she closed her eyes, spun around and pointed. It seemed she’d chosen the third door from the end of the left side. It was a very large door, indeed. To reach the knob, she would need to be taller. Much taller.

  But, being Turvian by birth and of Neath by trade, she knew well to keep a bite of Burgeonboosh with her whenever possible. And without pockets, she’d had to get creative about how that was done. She looked around modestly, fished down the neck of her dress, into her corset, and withdrew a handkerchief with a small, rather smashed quantity of the cake. Then, she thought, Even if they find me momentarily and I’m extraordinarily large, they’ll have to at least listen to what I say. Let’s see them try to behead me if I’m twice their size. The most they’d manage is a good be-ankling.

  So she took the bite — it was warm — grew to a manageable size for door-opening and did so.

  To her surprise, it proved to be a small room with stacked cases across the floor and garments on a rail hanging above her head. She took one look at one single garment of heavy velvet material, covered in hearts and encrusted with jewels, and it told Mary Ann precisely where she was.

  I’m in some kind of storage for Queen Valentina! Heart racing, she started to return to the hall, planning to choose another door, but the hallway door booted her back inside and slammed shut behind her. It was perfectly dark in the room now and there was a grinding sound, the room vibrating. In a moment, the ceiling was starting to lower and the back wall pressed in. There was quickly becoming nowhere to go and so Mary Ann climbed onto trunks and ducked her head between clothes just to stay upright at all.

  Finally, the movement stopped, and her fingers frantically searched for the doorknob to the hallway.

  She was not entirely surprised that at some point, the knob had excused itself and vanished. She tried pressing on the wall, hoping it would give. It did not. She tried prying it open with the fire poker that, by now, was bruised into her hand. No, Neath construction was made most sound. Besides, even if she did get it open, she very much doubted it would lead to that same hallway. There wasn’t much you could count on in this place. She thought it had made her a bit jaded.

  All right, she thought, determined to cheer herself. This is as good of a hiding place as any. Certainly no one would think to search the Queen’s storage for me, since I would never think to hide here. All I need now is to lie low and see how the landscape has changed.

  So she sat on a trunk resting her head on a fur coat and thought about her next steps. If Queen Valentina believed Rufus’ accusations, it would likely go to trial — ideal because it would at least confine Twain for a while. Mary Ann knew what the legal system was like in Neath. It was knee-jerk and easily distracted. So it would be very important to get out the points against Twain Morningstar as quickly and clearly as possible.

  While the current evidence against Twain was largely circumstantial, it surely was enough to launch an investigation. The pearls, she thought, were compelling enough to prompt some very serious questions. Not to mention, Mary Ann and Rufus could both testify to Twain’s motives firsthand, as he’d explained them. Mary Ann wasn’t even the only one to see the figure who looked like Jacob Morningstar at Rowan Carpenter’s home at the time of the murder. The trees saw him there, in pursuit of her with the murder weapon.

  The oysters, too, should be brought in for questioning, Mary Ann thought. They shouldn’t be allowed to shuck responsibility for their crimes. And with a little persuading, Mary Ann suspected at least some of them would crack under the pressure and confess.

  She adjusted her head. The fur coat, she noticed, was soothingly warm and suddenly purry.

  The coat said: “You do get invited into all the most interesting places, don’t you?”

  “Chester?” Mary Ann sat up. She couldn’t see the eyes and smile in the dark, but she was sure the cat saw her.

  “You’ve made this a very memorable Unbirthday party, that is for certain,” he said. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages. It’s good to liven these things up from the usual obsequious tributes, don’t you agree? It keeps Her Royal Wonderfulness from becoming complacent.”

  “Did you come from the party just now?” Mary Ann asked. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ll like it,” said the cat.

  “Tell me, anyway.”

  The cat sighed. “They’re still looking for you, you know, and Sir Rufus has been sent to the dungeon, in preparation of being beheaded. The gardener has convinced the Queen that you and the knight were in allegiance to rob him.”

  “Rob him! What would your average landscaper be doing with a huge box of loose pearls?”

  “He said he was gardening and he found them growing in the field where the wild pigs dig for truffles.”

  “That’s absurd! Why would pearls grow in a truffle field?”

  “He claims it’s a simple case of pearls before swine.”

  Mary Ann gritted her teeth and growled. “And the morel of this is, never trust a wild card.”

  “So what do you plan to do about it?” asked Chester.

  “Free Rufus, of course,” said Mary Ann. “I’m just not sure how to get down to the dungeon without being seen.”

  “You have your invisibility, do you not?”

  “I’m not so sure I do any longer, Chester,” she explained. “It’s been spotty, of late. Everyone seems to be noticing me like mad these days.”

  “Ah yes,” said the cat. “You’ve discovered your You. It happens to the best of us. And it’s very hard to go back on one’s own. You’ll need a You suppressant to get you through, I fancy.”

  Mary Ann was only half-listening. “If I use DwindleAde, I can become so small perhaps no one will see me. But it’ll take me forever to reach the dungeon. Each foot will feel like a mile. I’ll never get there in time.”

  “The suppressant is nothing you eat or drink, my dear,” said the cat. “It is what you feel about yourself. How did you feel when you first went invisible?”

  Mary Ann considered this. It was never that she’d felt small or low. Mostly, she’d felt nothing. Like nothing she did to keep the household running was visible or that it couldn’t be swapped out for the work of someone else equally transparent. That she was disconnected from everything that mattered, on a different plane of existence while life all moved around her. That her world was all Do and yet never Be. It was all Between. And that gave her an idea.

  In a moment, she pressed on the wall opposite the one she’d entered, a door popped open and she saw she hadn’t been hiding in a room at all; it was a standing wardrobe. She had also been in there so long, she must have shrunk back to her regular size, for everything outside the wardrobe appeared in reasonable proportion. She stepped from it and scanned the Queen’s quarters. The King’s chamber was to the left and the valet’s leftward beyond that, so the maid’s quarters were most likely to the right. In a moment she had gotten her hands on an extra maid’s uniform from the court of Neath. She stripped off her Turvy clothes and put the new clothes on. They fit her illy.

  They were perfect.

  “I told you,” said the cat, who was silently watching all this, “the suppressant is not a thing that can be eaten or worn. It —”

  “Oh, I know. But this helps get me into the mindset.” And she closed her eyes and thought back. Back to that first time in the Duchess’ home with the sun streaming through the window and the Duchess’ gaze streaming through Mary Ann. She thought about how she felt in that moment, that first time she faded away into the background.

  “Oh, say, that is very good,” said Chester. “You’ll go far with that.”

  I only need to get as far as the dungeon, she thought, but did not say so. She didn’t want to break the spell. She grabbed up her fire poker. And like a warm, spring breeze, s
he left the Queen’s quarters.

  The mindset got easier with every floor. As she passed the occasional guest returning to their chambers or servant running an errand, Mary Ann simply was not there. She was not there on the stairs down to the second floor, and she was nowhere down the steps to the first.

  By the time she reached the corridor leading down to the dungeon, it was as if she had never been. So she was somewhat taken aback when she had almost completely walked past the two guards at the dungeon entrance, when out of the corner of her eye she saw one guard do a double take.

  “Oy! Hold on a mo,” said the guard, a mustachioed fellow with four clubs etched into his armor.

  Mary Ann stopped and turned. She was nothing … Of no consequence … She was the cracks in the sidewalk … The space between the strings of a badminton racquet … The mist at dawn…

  He gestured. “What’s that you got in your hand, girl?”

  “Only a fire poker,” she heard herself say.

  “Oh.” He gave her an unfocused look. “A fire poker.” He turned to the other guard, a fellow in armor etched with eight clubs. “Can we let her in with a fire poker, Otto?”

  Otto looked on the chart in his hands. “Knife … cosh … sword … mace …” He scratched his head. “It don’t say nuffin’ here about no fire pokers, Faw. On account of it not being a weapon. It’s — what do you call it? — one of them household implements.”

  “Oh,” said Faw again, considering the point and finding it quite reasonable. “Right. Okay, then.”

  Mary Ann gave him a smile, a nothingy smile, one he would forget the moment she was gone, and he smiled back.

  Then she struck him on the head with the fire poker.

  In a second, Otto was right there with the kind of incisive retort that befit his elite training in the Queen’s Royal Guard. “Hey! You can’t —”

  She struck him, too. She took the key ring off of his unconscious form (and his belt), and rushed past the cells, peering into each one. There were a sizable number of people from the croquet game, several sadly raking their mallets along the bars. There was an assortment of waterfowl, who presumably hadn’t impressed the Queen with their water ballet. There were mimes…

  And there was Sir Rufus, who saw the housemaid, stood up and ran to the bars. “Mary Ann! How did you know I was here?”

  “An old friend told me,” she said. She began trying the keys.

  “And do you know I’m now charged with robbing Twain Morningstar?” Rufus asked.

  “I do.” Key two was no good. She moved on to the third one.

  “And did you know you’re wanted for robbery, as well? So it’s best you just leave now and forget all about me. My mother and father are aware of the situation — I told them everything — and they’re appealing to Queen Rosamund to use her pull with Valentina to —”

  “No good.”

  “You won’t hear me out?”

  “The key: it’s no good,” she said and tried the fourth one.

  “I’m supposed to get a trial,” he said hopefully.

  “Oh yes, I’ve heard these trials are very efficient. Sentencing first, verdict afterwards,” said Mary Ann. She heard a groan out of one of the guards, so she tried to speed things up a bit on the locksmith side of things.

  “I did like my head,” Rufus was saying now, wistfully touching his freckled face. “The way my chin was at just the right spot for propping it after a tiring day. And the way my hair showed an independence of spirit despite the will of a comb. Jolly self-possessed, it was. So brave.”

  Fifth key: no good.

  “I liked my neck, too,” he said, patting all around it. “It did such a cracking job holding up my head and nodding at things. It never let me down.”

  The guard was twitching awake now, so Mary Ann rushed over and gave the fellow a quick touch-up in the fire poker department, and his partner one for good measure, then it was back to the keys.

  “It’s a shame I’ll never get to quest for the Vorpal sword now,” Rufus mused. “If only that infernal faerie had let me pick it up when we were there. But that’s epics for y —”

  “Ah!” said Mary Ann, and the cell door swung open. “You can stop writing yourself off now. Come along.”

  They headed toward the door and all of the prisoners began shouting, “Free me!”

  “And me!”

  “I didn’t do nuffin’ wrong!”

  “Nor I!”

  “I did,” said someone Mary Ann couldn’t make out in the darkness of the cell. “I did right turrible things. But I’ll say I didn’t, if you’ll let me out.”

  Mary Ann looked at the enormous ring of keys. “No time,” she said, and tossed the ring their direction. It skidded to a stop outside of the first cell and the croquet players grabbed for it. “Sort it among yourselves!”

  Mary Ann and Rufus stepped over the guards and dashed up the dungeon stairs. She was clearly not invisible now and unlikely to return to that state any time soon.

  “My parents were meeting the Red Queen in the rose garden to discuss the issue,” said Rufus, as they ran down the hall to the back door. “If we could get to them and plead our case to her, perhaps —”

  From where they were, it sounded like much of the search party was in the hedge maze. Mary Ann suspected this based on the shouting and thumping coming from that direction. And it didn’t sound like they were entirely sure how to get out.

  “It’s this way, I know it!” came one voice.

  “No, that way! I thought I saw a sign,” said another.

  “My sense of direction is impeccable and it’s upways. We’ll just get a ladder and climb over the hedge.”

  “And where do you keep your ladder? In your waistcoat pocket?”

  Rufus laughed but Mary Ann was more interested in reaching the rose garden. Fortunately, Lord and Lady Carmine were there with Queen Rosamund, as planned.

  “Your Majesty,” said Mary Ann, stopping short in a breathless curtsey that almost sent Rufus crashing into her. “If you have a moment … Sir Rufus and I have information that’s vital to solving the crimes that have recently swept Red Turvy. And the accusations against us have been levied by one of the very parties responsible. We have learned that —”

  “Queen Rosamund may feel she has a moment,” said a high, chilly voice, “but you two do not!” Queen Valentina stood at the garden entrance, chin up and pointing at the two fugitives. “Off with their heads!” she screamed.

  The problem with this plan was that the bulk of her guard, including her executioner, was in the hedge maze.

  A voice said, “Er, soon as we can, Your Majesty.”

  “On our way. Maybe,” said another.

  “Well, fine,” snapped Valentina, “I shall take care of this myself.” And from behind her back, she drew the magic axe.

  “Your Majesty,” said Rufus, as quickly as he could, “please let us explain. Mary Ann saw someone who looked like your valet, Jacob Morningstar, behead her father, Rowan Carpenter, a craftsman of Turvy and notorious shellfish-lover. Since then, Carpenter’s business partner and thirty raths — all renowned oyster fanciers — each died recently under suspicious circumstances. The Two of Clubs, Twain Morningstar, as you know, has wild card capabilities and does the perfect impression of his second cousin; we saw it today. We also found in his possession a large number of pearls. We believe these were given to him by the oysters of Turvy, as payment for the murder of their greatest enemies.” He took a deep breath to replenish all that had been lost, and he looked to Mary Ann. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Yes,” said Mary Ann. “That is Twain Morningstar.”

  22

  The person who looked like Queen Valentina rushed at them, axe swinging. Mary Ann tried to block the first strike with the fire poker, but the axe ripped right through it with a zingy, metallic sound. Mary Ann dodged out of the way. Lord and Lady Carmine screamed and hid behind a trellis. Queen Rosamund was completely unruffled. She remained stiffly seated,
a look of distaste on her face. “Valentina, dear, this behavior does not become you!”

  “Any ideas?” asked Mary Ann of the knight.

  “What I wouldn’t do for a Vorpal sword right about now,” said Rufus.

  Mary Ann spied a number of stones in a flowerbed and gathered two of the largest, pitching them at the heart-clad figure. The first rock missed, but the second struck the Queen’s shoulder. Valentina let out a yelp, but didn’t drop the axe. Rufus saw Mary Ann was onto a good thing and followed suit, gathering what rocks he could and pitching them in a bruising shower.

  “How dare you assault a Queen!” said the impostor, trying to shield his face from the rain of rocks. Hitting them with the axe reduced them to a cloud of dust and pebbles. “Now come here and present your heads like proper subjects.”

  By now a group of Unbirthday revelers had arrived to see the source of the commotion. “Seize them!” said the fake Queen, and Mary Ann was grabbed by Mr. Milliner, his knobby hands firmly planted on her shoulders. He smelled like over-steeped tea and felt stiffener.

  He said, “You slipped away once, didn’t you, girl? But it won’t happen again.”

  She saw Rufus had been seized by a gryphon, its talons screeching against the knight’s metal shoulder plates.

  “Very nice!” said the fake Queen. “And now, we will be done with this charade once and for all.”

  She stepped forward with the axe.

  “Charades? Ooh, I do love a good game of charades! Count me in …” came a high, buoyant voice. Then, in a heartbeat, the voice had grown cold and suspicious. “Hold one moment …” And on to angry, “Who is this?!” The speaker was, in fact, Queen Valentina.

  The false queen turned. “Why, I’m …” Morningstar certainly did think fast, “you, of course.”