Charlie, Abe, Rufus and Lenore were already there when Eddie emerged from the secret passage. He doubted they had even noticed his absence, for they paid no mind to his arrival. They were entranced with the nursery. Indeed, Eddie found himself in a room so amazing that it fell outside the prior limits of his imagination.
∞
If there had been any doubt in Abe’s mind that Lenore shared his fascination with trains, it was put to rest by the tracks that ran all around the room, sometimes on the floor, sometimes near the ceiling. They curved, switched-back, and had stations at intervals. The train engine was about the size of Abe’s forearm. It chugged and puffed and huffed real steam. A little red caboose brought up the rear, behind a series of coal, grain, and passenger cars.
Other amazing toys filled the room.
Rufus had found a set of connected tubes, boxes, and spheres through which he could roam. He climbed up and slid down, crawled through to a rope bridge and made his way across it. He explored the unending curves, ladders, and slides with single-minded fascination. Abe realized the structure’s configuration kept changing so that it was never the same, much like the palace itself had done. At one point, Rufus stuck his head out of a porthole, and Abe asked, “You doin’ all right there, Rufus?” The boy nodded solemnly then disappeared back inside.
Eddie had discovered a miniature version of Paris during the Reign of Terror, complete with Versailles, the Bastille, and a working guillotine. Tiny French men and women swarmed the streets, crying with miniscule voices, “Liberté, egalité, fraternité!” A black-hooded executioner escorted victim after victim to the guillotine. Some fought, in vain, while others went to their deaths without complaint. The heads filled a tiny basket, and bodies were tossed on a wagon that returned to the prison so they could be reunited with their heads and guillotined again.
Charlie had wandered deeper into the room than anyone, giving each magical toy a cursory inspection, taking inventory while he decided which interested him the most.
“Charlie,” said Lenore. She had moved to stand near him. “I have something I want to show you.” She reached out and took his hand, leading him away from a life-size, three-dimensional lion broken into a thousand puzzle pieces; someone had nearly completed putting it back together. Its head roared, but it had no hindquarters or tail to swish.
Lenore walked him to a small house set back in a corner, and said, “I think this is something you will enjoy.” The house was painted in many different colors and had plants growing in window boxes. “Go on and knock,” she told him, so Charlie knocked.
After a brief wait, the door opened, and Charlie was shocked to find a gorilla standing there, on its hind legs. The gorilla said, “Welcome. Would you like some tea?” It moved to one side, and another gorilla emerged carrying a table with its front paws.
Charlie stumbled backward to get out of its way.
The second gorilla set the table down. The first gorilla produced chairs, and before long, Charlie and Leonore were seated at a table, being served tea by two talking primates. Charlie laughed at the gorillas’ British manners and clumsy mishaps.
“Do you know why humans don’t eat fleas?” asked the first gorilla.
The second replied, “No. Why don’t humans eat fleas?”
The first gorilla said, “Because they can’t get them to stay on their forks!” The gorillas found that hilarious and their howling laughter joined Charlie’s.
“Would you care for a crumpet or two, sir?” asked a gorilla.
Lenore stopped Charlie from accepting with a hand on his arm. With a wink of her eye, she assured him that the gorillas were better comedians than cooks.
Charlie, whose stomach had begun to growl, took the news with disappointment, but then, the gorillas joined them at the table, and all thoughts of hunger fled from his mind. They discussed which philosopher, Descartes or Locke, had it right. This was a topic into which Charlie could sink his teeth.
A knock on the nursery door escaped the boys’ attention. Only Kushala had the presence of mind to notice and respond. She opened to a young servant, a blond boy with enormous blue eyes, and said, “Yes?”
The boy looked back down the hallway, then up at Kushala. “The princess’s presence is required.” He stood at attention, playing the role of messenger.
Kushala crouched down and adjusted the boy’s lace collar. “When, where and by what person?”
The boy lifted his chin out of the way of her tidying. He lost the formal tone and was just a boy again. “There’s a birthday present just arrived. In the main foyer.”
“Run along,” said Kushala, “and tell them you’ve delivered your message. The princess will be there in her own time.”
Princess Lenore’s eyes lit up when she learned of the present. She made an announcement. “Beloved guests! I must leave you for a short time, but I will return.”
Charlie asked, “Should we go with you?”
The princess’s sunshine curls swayed as she shook her head. “The duties of a princess are arduous indeed. I will be too pre-occupied to pay you much attention. It’s best if you stay here and amuse yourselves until I return. Play to your hearts’ content.” With that and a shift of skirts assisted by her long-armed pincers, she breezed out of the room.
The boys returned to their distractions, and thus, they didn’t notice when servants entered bearing large, golden trays. It wasn’t until one of the servants announced, “Afternoon nibbles are served, my lords,” that the boys lifted their heads.
They saw a feast laid out before them. Even from across the room, they could smell the sweet fruits and sugary goodness baked into the cakes and pies. They put aside their toys and converged upon the buffet. It included the most tantalizing array of desserts the boys had ever witnessed.
They all—including Rufus, who had to stand on tiptoe—reached for a treat.
Before any fingers could touch a delicacy, however, a hum rose in volume and pitch. The pixies had returned, en masse. The sound of their wings was the drone of a vast swarm of bees. The light dimmed in the room, shadowed by so many tiny bodies.
Some of the pixies dogged the boys, pinching and nipping them, herding them away from the table. Others attacked the sweets and tore them to shreds, throwing berries at one another and swimming in the pudding. Still others surrounded the poor servants that had delivered the trays.
A chocolate bon-bon rolled across the floor and came to a stop at Abe’s feet. The boy bent to reach for it, but before he could grab it, a pixie dove onto it. The creature tumbled some distance, wrapped around the treat. When it stopped rolling, it sat up and swayed in place, dizzy. It had a smear of chocolate and powdered sugar all down the front of its naked body.
Charlie, Abe, Eddie and Rufus stared in heart-wrenching disappointment as the pixies played in the food, getting it all over their bodies, in their hair and upon their wings.
Amidst all the buzzing, the pixie laughter, and the boys’ cries of distress, a single voice rose in command. “Tell me who sent these trays!” Kushala had two servants cornered. Her face was flushed with anger, green eyes blazing. The cute puffs of her hair had exploded into spikes, pointy and dangerous-looking.
Both servants cowered before her.
“Tell me,” she commanded, “or I’ll turn you both into black sheep.”
One of the two dropped to a crouch. He covered his head with his arms and pleaded, “No, please, Mistress Kushala. We meant no harm. We were just following orders.”
The other hid his face.
Kushala stepped up to that one. “Speak. It’s too late for you to protect your benefactor. Tell me now, or you’ll spend the rest of your days growing black wool for the king.”
Even the pixies had stopped their rowdy play and were watching, frosting dripping off their noses and slipping down their thighs. One threw a handful of cake at another, as an afterthought, it too paused to listen.
The servant said, “Pope Innocent.”
Kushala su
cked in a breath through her nose, long and loud. “Get out of my sight, and take those trays with you.”
Only the most observant of the boys, Charlie, saw the transition of her hair from spikes back down to puffs. She faced them. “What a mess. I hope you gentlemen will accept my pardon. I think it’s time I took this child back to his father.” She took Rufus by the hand and left with him.
The servants rushed to the trays and carried them out, pixie passengers and all. Four of the pixies picked up the corners of the table cloth and flew it out as well, taking with it any crumbs or smears of fruit glaze that might have remained behind.
Abe said, “What in blue blazes just happened?”
Eddie answered him, “I think I understand.”
All eyes turned to him.
With his hands clasped in front of him, Eddie told them the story of the pixie on the commode and of the four rules it had relayed to him.
∞
“What exactly did it say?” asked Charlie.
Eddie sighed. “Exactly what I said. Don’t eat or drink anything, or we can’t go home. Don’t stay too long. Don’t split up, and don’t fall asleep.”
Abe grabbed Eddie by the collar. “And it took you all this time to get around to telling us?” He shook the other boy. “What if I’d ate something?” He shook him again. “What if I’d got thirsty? Then I’d be stuck in this God-forsaken place for the rest of my life.” He pulled back a fist. “Why I oughta—”
Eddie flinched back, his hands coming up to shield his face.
“Wait,” interjected Charlie. He put a hand on Abe’s cocked arm. “You’re both missing an important discovery.”
Abe slid his eyes sideways to Charlie.
Eddie peeked out through his fingers.
Charlie paced away from them. “It stands to reason that, if imbibing causes us to remain here forever, then—” He paused for dramatic effect. “—not imbibing leaves us free to depart.”
Abe’s punching arm drifted down to his side. “But that ain’t what that papal jackass said.”
“Unfortunately, when a human being is the source of your data, it’s inherently unreliable.”
“What?” asked Abe.
Charlie smirked. “He lied.”
“The Pope’s plotting to keep us here,” said Eddie. “He sent the food, and I heard him say he’d make sure we’d be trapped here forever.”
“When did he say that?” asked Abe. He pushed Eddie back, releasing his collar.
Eddie straightened his shirt. “When we were in the secret passageway, there was a peephole. The pope was talking to somebody, but I couldn’t see who it was.”
Charlie and Abe exhausted Eddie’s memory of the overheard conversation, then they sat together on the floor, thinking.
Charlie said, “The longer we stay, the harder it’ll be to stay awake and say no to food or water. We have to make our escape.”
Eddie asked, “But how?”
Abe put one hand on each of his companion’s shoulders. “Same way we got here, boys. Same way we got here.”
Charlie huffed. “You don’t mean in the airship?”
“I do indeed.” Abe grinned. “I reckon if a buffoon who wears his nightshirt on the outside of his clothes can fly it, then so can we.”
Eddie shook his head. “We’d have to get out of the palace and past all those people in the garden. We’ll never make it.”
A small voice said, “I know a way.”
Everyone looked down at Eddie’s pocket.
“What’s that thing doing in there?” Abe asked.
Eddie pulled the pocket open wider. “He’s the one who told me the rules. I promised I’d take him back with me.”
The pixie crawled out, leapt away from Eddie and flew in a circle around his head. “Nobody’s going to the other Otherworld without my help.”
∞
Chapter 2
The boys dug into the nursery’s dress-up corner and found costumes to disguise themselves. Eddie wore a satin, Elizabethan doublet. “If we can’t get past the people outside, we’ll never get out of here.” He lifted his chin to show off the fake mustache stuck to his upper lip with wax. “How does it look?”
“Ridiculous.” Charlie spun in place. “What about me?” He wore a French chevalier’s costume, including a riding coat and a wide-brimmed hat that shielded his eyes and put his face in shadows.
Abe wore a colonial frock coat and tricorn hat. “You both look like girls. I, on the other hand, look like an American president.” He admired himself in the mirror.
Eddie snorted. “You could never be a president.” He put on an unflattering mockery of Abe’s accent. “Yer just a farm boy. You ain’t got no manners, and you cain’t read.”
Abe flushed. “I can too read,” he said and faked a lunge in Eddie’s direction.
Eddie took a hasty step backward.
Charlie moved between them. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s make our move.” He headed for the door. The other two followed, though Abe shook his fist at Eddie behind Charlie’s back.
The pixie flew just ahead. “Move your arses,” it said. “This way.” It waved them forward.
They dashed down the hall past doors, paintings, and consoles with lace doilies and vases of daisies upon them. The unending Persian carpet dampened their footfalls. They dodged and wove, and when someone came near, they hid. They peered around corners and communicated with gestures. The maze of corridors went on for ages, turning right then left then left then right and up stairs and down stairs, and in doors and out doors.
They came to an open-air courtyard surrounded on all four sides by floor-to-ceiling casement windows. Palm trees and azalea bushes grew in the center.
The pixie signaled a halt. It whispered, “This is the most tricky part. We have to get across to the other side.”
The boys plotted their path with care. One at a time, they ran across the open area to the middle. Once there, they hunkered down next to a scarlet azalea. From that vantage, they could see into the rooms surrounding the courtyard. The rooms were all unique, one sapphire, one ruby, one emerald, and one gold. A giant four-poster bed occupied one. Another held couches and chairs. One had an easel with a canvas. And in the fourth, there stood a man, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a brocaded jacket and knee breeches with hose, and he had a golden crown upon his head.
“Is that Lenore’s father?” asked Eddie.
“Shhhh,” said the pixie. “Yeah. That’s King Emric.”
The king strode to the window. He paused there, looking out into the courtyard, brow furrowed. Then, he paced back in the other direction.
The pixie hissed, “Go! Now!”
The boys scuttled across the courtyard, bent low, until they heard, “You there!” At this, they all froze in place. “Come here.”
“Aw, shite,” said the pixie. “Don’t stop!”
Abe didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Eddie’s hand and started running. Charlie took the hint and stayed on their heels. They crossed the courtyard and heard “Guards!”
The pixie zipped over to the emerald room’s French doors, ready for when the boys flung them open and stumbled inside. They knocked over the easel. Charlie paused to pick it up, but looked over his shoulder and saw two ogre-faced guards bearing down on him. His good intentions caught in his throat, and he yelped. It took less than a dozen steps for him to catch up with the others. “G-guards,” he gasped.
He needn’t have bothered.
Abe wrenched open the hall door to find a wall of guard blocking the exit. “Looks like the dogs got us treed.”
“We’re doomed,” said Eddie.
Charlie watched the other two guards close in on them.
The pixie disappeared.
“Stand aside,” said a commanding voice. The guards parted to let King Emric approach.
The king moved without hurry. Hands clasped behind his back, he stepped up to the boys and posed with one foot placed d
aintily in front of the other.
Charlie removed his hat and bowed. Seeing this, Eddie and Abe followed suit.
The king looked down his nose at them. “What is this business?”
Abe and Eddie nodded at Charlie.
Charlie held himself with dignity. “Your Highness, we were trying to return to the airship. We have discovered a terrible plot against our security.”
Charlie Darwin, or The Trine of 1809 (Stories in the Ether) Page 4