Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Crackpot Hall: The Fyrdraaca Family at Home
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
AFTER
Preview of Flora's Dare by Ysabeau S. Wilce
What I Learned Last Term
ONE
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Copyright © 2007 by Ysabeau S. Wilce
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilce, Ysabeau S.
Flora Segunda: Being the magickal mishaps of a girl of spirit, her glass-gazing sidekick, two ominous butlers (one blue), a house with eleven thousand rooms, and a red dog/Ysabeau S. Wilce.
p. cm.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Flora Fyrdraaca, whose mother is the Warlord’s Commanding General and whose father is mad, kindly helps her house’s magical—and long-banished—butler, unaware that he draws strength from the Fyrdraaca will. [1. Fantasy] I. Title: Flora Segunda. II. Title. III. Series.
PZ7.W6438Flo 2007
[Fic]—dc22 2005052526
ISBN-13: 978-0-15-205433-5 ISBN-10: 0-15-205433-2
Text set in Requiem
Designed by Linda Lockowitz
First edition
A C E G H F D B
Printed in the United States of America
For Two Furies, Ooo & My
The Maiden caught me in the Wild
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And Lock’d me up with a golden Key.
—WILLIAM BLAKE
Crackpot Hall: The Fyrdraaca Family at Home
A Speech by Flora Nemain Fyrdraaca or Fyrdraaca on the Occasion of her Fourteenth Birthday
Crackpot Hall has eleven thousand rooms, but only one potty.
The Warlord freed all the slaves, but he forgot to free me.
Like Crackpot Hall, the Fyrdraaca family used to be glorious, but has now fallen on hard times.
BLASTED HECK, I’m supposed to be writing my Catorcena speech, where I am supposed to be celebrating the fabulousness of my House, the glory of my family, the fantasticness of my future. But I can’t think of what to write because Crackpot Hall isn’t fabulous, and the Fyrdraaca family is not much glorious anymore, and my future is hardly going to be fantastic. In my speech, I’m supposed to write the truth.
Well, here’s some truth.
Let’s start with the fabulousness of my House. So there are four great Houses in the City of Califa, and every one of them but Crackpot Hall has a magickal Butler. At Saeta House, your hat is taken by Furfur’s floaty hands. At Sanctuary School, Archangel Bob wafts through the hallways, his red wings fluttering blanketlike behind him, and not one mote of dust or one smudge of dirt escapes his eye. Bilskinir House is closed now, since the Haôraaôa family died out years ago, but they say Paimon is there still, waiting for a family that will never come home again.
And then there is our House, Crackpot Hall.
At Crackpot Hall I take your hat, and I try (mostly unsuccessfully) to watch out for dust motes, and I make sure the lamps are lit at night. No Butler, just me, Flora Nemain Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca, last on the Fyrdraaca family list, slaving away at endless chores that should be done by our Butler. But thanks to Mamma, we don’t have a Butler anymore.
They don’t call my mamma the Rock of Califa for nothing. Mamma doesn’t like swirling décor and shifty rooms any more than she likes swirling clothes and shifty people. Mamma prefers things that do not change, and a House with a mind of its own often does just that. Also Mamma hates magick; it’s a trick, she says, a cheat, an easy way to do hard things. Mamma is all about the hard things. So she banished our Butler, and now Crackpot Hall is quiet and still.
Quiet and still and falling apart.
Ayah so, this quietness is good for Mamma’s peace of mind, but it’s awful for the rest of us. When it rains, water leaks through the windows and puddles on the floor. Crackpot’s fancy front gates are too heavy to open, so we have to use the delivery gate, like servants, and our garden is an overgrown jungle. Most of the House we can’t even get to—doors do not open, stairs stop on the first step, hallways end in darkness. Crackpot Hall has eleven thousand rooms, and my family lives like squatters in just a few of them. The toilet in the one potty we can get to is always overflowing, and when it does, we have to go outside to the bog, where it is dark and cold, and the wooden seat is splintery.
The Butler was banished before I was born, so I don’t remember Crackpot Hall’s glory, but my sister Idden does. According to Idden, before, when you entered a room, the lights flickered on and the fire rose up to greet you. Before, when you reached for a towel, it was clean and fluffy and smelled of lemony sunshine. Before, delicious dinners appeared on command and dirty dishes disappeared. Before, rooms shifted with your desire, so it was only ever a short step away to the potty, and you had dozens of potties to choose from. Now, all gone. That’s the truth about Crackpot Hall.
The truth about the glory of my family. From the outside, I guess the Fyrdraacas look pretty glorious still—some of the Fyrdraacas, anyway. There used to be many more Fyrdraacas, but like the House itself, we’ve dwindled. Now we are just four.
Mamma is Juliet Buchanan Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca, the Warlord’s Commanding General. She helped broker the peace with the Huitzil Empire, thus saving the Republic from certain defeat and ruin. That was almost fourteen years ago, just after I was born, but crowds still cheer Mamma in the street, and she hasn’t paid for a drink since. The Warlord is really old now
and has only one leg, so he relies on Mamma for everything.
Idden graduated with honors from Benica Barracks, joined the Enthusiastics, the most prestigious regiment in the Army of Califa, and has already been promoted to captain. She has perfectly straight teeth, can rhyme sonnets on the fly, and will probably make colonel before she’s thirty.
Of our five gazehounds, two (Flashingly Fine and Dashingly Handsome) have won the Warlord’s Cup at the Saeta Kennel Club Dog Show. Two others (Lashings in Wine and Crash Worship) are champion hunters and once brought down a bear.
And then there is Flynn.
Flynn is the youngest gazehound pup. He is as burnished red as his siblings and has the same caramelcolored eyes. But as the runt, he did not come out right. He’s prone to overheating and falling over, piddling when he gets excited, and yapping like a little poodle.
And then there is Poppy.
Poppy is Reverdy Anacreon Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca, and he used to be the glory of the Fyrdraaca family. He was a champion shot and a champion steeplechase rider. No man in the Republic could fight harder, shoot straighter, dance longer, or bust heads harder than my father. He was renowned for spirit and devilry, a real Hotspur, and so he was dubbed by the press, and so everyone calls him. But during the Huitzil War, he got captured, and the Virreina of Huitzil convicted him of war crimes. He spent three years in a Huitzil prison, and when Mamma finally ransomed him, he was broken.
Once my family had another Flora Fyrdraaca, and by all accounts she was fabulous. This was before I was born, so I never knew her. When she was lost, Mamma destroyed everything in the House she had ever touched; now no trace of her remains at Crackpot. But Idden managed to hide one of Flora’s images from Mamma’s purge, and in this portrait, Flora has golden curls and pink rosebud lips, the spitting image of Mamma. Even Idden, who can be pretty sour, allows that the First Flora was supercute, a real doll, sunshiny and happy all the day long. Adorable.
But the First Flora is gone now, lost in the War, and I’m hardly a replacement. I’m only the Second Flora. Flora Segunda. I don’t have golden curls or rosebud lips, nor do I look the slightest bit like Mamma. I’m not adorable, and I’m certainly not sunshiny, and I don’t see there is much in life to be happy about. Particularly not now. That’s the truth about the glory of the Fyrdraaca family.
And that brings me to the truth about the fantasticness of my future. Fyrdraacas are soldiers, Mamma says. We are born to the gun. So when Fyrdraacas turn fourteen and celebrate their Catorcena, and are then adults in the eyes of the Warlord, off we go to Benica Barracks to learn to march, to learn to ride, to learn to shoot, to learn to die.
But I do not want to go to the Barracks and learn to be a killer, a servant, a slave. To learn to follow orders, like Idden, and to learn to kill, like Poppy, and to learn to give everything for my country, like Mamma. Not me!
I want to be a ranger, a scout, a spy. Rangers don’t follow orders; they slide around the rules, scoot around the edges of the law. They hide and they listen and they uncover things that are concealed. They discover the truth though it be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.
Rangers act with cunning and with clarity of Will, and absolute focus—and magick. Nyana Keegan, the greatest ranger who ever lived, could turn her thoughts outside in, and when she turned her thoughts inside out again, she was someone else entirely. Nini Mo, as everyone called her, could read sign on the air, smell someone’s thoughts, and twist broken glass into fire. She was a great adept who turned the Current to her Will and used magick to further her aims.
When the War started, Nini Mo organized the Ranger Corps to act as the eyes and ears of the Army, to go where no soldier could go, and to use cunning and cleverness—and magick—to win the kinds of battles that are not fought with guns and swords. No one but Nini knew who the rangers were, and this secrecy made them deadly. But as part of the peace accord with the Huitzil Empire, the Ranger Corps was disbanded, its rangers dispersed, some arrested, some killed. They say there are no rangers anymore, although I don’t believe that. Rangers are sly and hard to catch, like coyotes, and I am sure that some of them got away.
So I can’t join the Ranger Corps on my own, but I could be a ranger alone, as rangers really prefer to be. Then, why not satisfy Mamma, satisfy family tradition, and go to Benica Barracks, anyway? Be a soldier publicly and a ranger in private?
Because soldiers cannot practice magick, of course. Adepts have one foot in the Waking World and one foot Elsewhere, and that’s hardly conducive to military discipline. Adepts are loyal to their Art first, the Warlord second—if at all. There’s no honor in magick, and a soldier, says Mamma, is nothing without honor. A soldier caught meddling in the Current would be shot.
I can’t be a soldier and a ranger, too. But I don’t dare tell Mamma that I will not go to the Barracks. Mamma never raises her voice or threatens, but her disapproval hurts, and she expects so much to be obeyed that everyone obeys her. Every Fyrdraaca for generations has gone to the Barracks, even the dogs. For my whole life, Mamma has spoken of duty and how important it is to be true to your family honor and to your country.
Even if this means being untrue to yourself.
ONE
Mamma. Sleeping Late. An Overdue Library Book. The Elevator.
AS COMMANDING GENERAL of the Army of Califa, Mamma is in charge of just about everything, so she is not much home—she’s always off on an inspection, or maneuvers, or at a grand council somewhere, or just working late. Thus, Crackpot’s crumbling is no particular bother to her. Idden, too, is nicely out of it, even if her current post, Fort Jones, is the back end of Nowhere. At least she can count on having someone else do her laundry and cook her supper.
Mostly just Poppy and I are stuck home alone, which really works out to just me alone, because Poppy only comes out of his Eyrie when the booze and cigarillos run out. Then he’s just a thin shadow in a worn cadet shawl and bloodstained frock coat creeping out the back door, off to buy more booze, so he hardly counts at all. Thus, it is me who reaps all the inconvenience.
When Mamma is home, she gets up at oh-dark-thirty and makes me get up with her, so that we can have family time at breakfast. This, of course, is not really family time, since Poppy isn’t there, and Idden isn’t there, and the First Flora isn’t there. On these occasions, it’s just Mamma and me, half a family, having half-a-family time. And since that’s all we are ever going to have, that’s what we have to learn to like.
It makes Mamma happy to pretend we are a happy family, so I sit and suffer through warmed-over takeaway and café au lait, and she asks me about school, and I ask her about work, and this morning time makes up for the fact that she stays at the War Department every night until ten and I usually eat supper alone.
But when Mamma is off on one of her trips, I sleep until the very last minute and rush off to Sanctuary School without my breakfast, but with an extra half hour of snore.
Now, the Butler may be banished, but that doesn’t mean that the House is entirely dead. Occasionally it groans and thrashes a bit, like a sleeping person whose body moves though her mind drifts far away. But it never moves like you would want it to, like before, when the potty would be next to your bedroom in the middle of the night, but tucked Elsewhere otherwise. Sometimes the long way is the short way and the short way is the long way, and occasionally there is no way at all.
This does not happen too often, because Mamma is strict that it should not. Before, the Butler kept Crackpot in order, but now it’s Mamma’s Will alone that keeps the House in line. She likes to be in control of things and usually is. But when Mamma is gone, her grip slips a bit, and then so does the way downstairs, or to the back door, or maybe even to the potty. The House moves not in a good and useful way, but in a horribly inconveniently annoying way. Sometimes you have to be careful.
Like the Elevator. Our rooms are spread along three floors, and it’s a bit of a hike to get from the kitchen in the basement up to my second-floor bedroom. The Elevato
r would be much quicker, but we aren’t supposed to use it without Mamma. Once, when I was just a tot, Poppy tried to take the Elevator back to his Eyrie. Mamma warned him not to, but he was drunk, and he roared that he would see her in hell before he’d take another order from her, General Fyrdraaca, sir! When he staggered onto the Elevator, the iron grille slammed just like an eyelid snapping shut in fear, with Poppy still cursing blue as the cage moved upward.
The Elevator came back empty a few minutes later, and for a full week, we could hear distant howling and shouting drifting around us, but always out of our reach. Poppy finally staggered out of the Door of Delectable Desires, disheveled and pale, and, without a word, started the long climb up the Stairs of Exuberance to his Eyrie, from which he did not stir for the next six months.
After that, Mamma made Idden and me swear not to use the Elevator without her. With her, the Elevator goes where it should: It wouldn’t dare do anything else. But she doesn’t trust it with the rest of us, and so I have to climb up and down a zillion stairs, which is a chore, particularly when you are loaded down with laundry.
And that’s where everything started—with the Elevator.
Mamma was gone on an inspection of Angeles Barracks, and I woke up on the sharp edge of running extremely late. I had been up until nearly three trying to write my stupid Catorcena speech—a total waste of time, for the speech is supposed to celebrate your family and future, and what about my family and future is there to celebrate? But I had stayed up half the night trying, and here was the result: I had overslept.
Tardiness is not encouraged at Sanctuary School. Most of the kids sleep there, and that I do not is a benefit Mamma arranged due to the need for someone to keep an eye on Poppy during her frequent absences. Of course, I’d rather sleep at Sanctuary, for Poppy is not someone you want to get stuck keeping an eye on. When he is good, there’s nothing to see, for he keeps to the Eyrie and is silent. When he is bad, he screams like a banshee and crashes furniture. But there are the dogs to consider, as well. If Poppy were left alone to feed them, they’d starve.
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) Page 1