“And where is it?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Bilskinir House.”
THIRTY
Udo’s Hot Words. A Hot Bath. Muffins. Udo’s Plan.
I SAT DOWN ON THE BED, my confidence dribbling away. Would this nightmare never end? Each time I thought we had a solution, another problem arose, and my energies were rapidly ebbing. Again I felt cold and empty, and as limp as a piece of string. “We can’t do it, Udo. Paimon will eat us up! He’ll gobble us down!”
“Oh, pooh!” said Valefor. “Paimon will do nothing of the kind.”
“We can’t give up, Flora. We can do it. We’ll find a way,” Udo entreated me. “We’ll get the Word.”
“I don’t care if I disappear! Then I don’t have to worry about going to the stupid Barracks, or stupid Poppy, or Mamma, or anything!”
Udo was horrified. “How can you say that?”
“It’s the Fyrdraaca speaking,” Valefor said. “It always comes out—”
I cut him off, shouting, “I don’t care what happens to me! I just don’t care! I’m a horrible failure and it’s better this way. I thought I was so clever and rangery, and I wasn’t anything at all but a stupid heartless mindless snapperhead!”
“Do you know who you exactly sound like, Flora?” Udo asked. He loomed over me with his arms crossed, looking lordly. “You exactly sound like Hotspur! Just exactly—‘I don’t care,’ ‘I’m so tormented,’ ‘If I die it’ll be all the same to me,’ ‘Oh, leave me alone to my darkness!’”
Anger bit at me, snapping with sharp teeth, for of course he was right, and yet it made me bitterly mad to know that he was. I turned away, biting my lip hard and wanting to smack him. So much for my belief in peace—when it came down to it, I was a Fyrdraaca all the way.
“She is her father’s child. What do you expect?” Valefor interjected. “But you should think, for once, of someone other than yourself, Flora.”
“Shut up, Valefor!” Udo shouted, and then to me: “You are always complaining that he won’t suck it up, that he whines like a baby, and now you are doing the same thing, Flora.”
“Leave me alone, Udo!”
“You are always talking about Nini Mo and how she didn’t give up. You’re right—you’ll never be a ranger, but not because you fail, because you do give up! Nini Mo failed plenty of times, and yet she kept trying. That’s what made her great!”
“Leave me alone! Get out, Udo!” I shouted, and even to my own ears, I sounded shrewish and stupid, and that just made me angrier. His words cut me to the very bone, because even in my blackest state, I knew they were true.
“What is Buck gonna say if she comes home and finds you disappeared?” Udo demanded.
I said wildly, “Maybe she’ll be glad—one less stupid Fyrdraaca for her to worry about.” I pushed by Udo, past Valefor, blindingly, wanting only to get away from them, wanting only to hide. I ran down the hallway, Udo following me, and slammed the bathroom door in his face.
My chest hurt like I might cry, but no tears came. I turned the taps on the tub and, while the bath filled, looked at myself in the mirror. I did look slightly transparent; if I stared hard enough at my reflection, I could see through to the stained-glass window behind me. I shivered, but from cold or fear, I wasn’t sure, then turned off the taps.
It was a relief to get out of my soggy clothes and slide into the hot water. I was so tired that when I yawned, it felt as though my jaw would crack. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“Can I come in?” Udo’s voice asked through the door. I sank down until the bubbles tickled my nose, then called my assent. The door opened, and the steam parted, and there was Udo, with a coffee cup in one hand and a muffin in the other.
“I brought you breakfast. Valefor’s in such a cheerful mood that he broke his ban on helping, and cleaned the kitchen up.” Udo set the cup and muffin on the edge of the tub and flipped the loo lid down to sit. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Flora.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said in a small voice. I reached a soapy arm for the cup. It was perfect: hot, sweet, and milky. Udo always remembers how I like my coffee.
Udo continued, “But you drive me mad when you talk like Hotspur, and there is no reason for it.”
“But we just get in deeper and it just gets harder, Udo,” I said. “And I feel so tired and slow. I can’t go on.”
“That’s because Valefor is sucking your Will away, Flora. You gotta remember what you feel isn’t real. It’s just a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. You know, you aren’t the only one who feels pretty bad about last night, Flora—”
“Maybe, but—”
“Let me finish—but I can’t afford to feel bad right now. I have a plan and I’m gonna do it, Flora, and if you don’t wanna go, then that’s fine, I’ll do it myself. I’m going to Bilskinir and I’m going to get that Word, and then we’ll restore Val and you’ll be all right.”
I felt tears burn and hoped that Udo would think it was just the steam. He was really too good to me. “How are you going to do that? Remember what the CPG said about the kids on the field trip getting eaten?”
“The CPG is just trying to sell papers; you can’t believe anything you read there—remember last year when they ran that exposé claiming that the Warlord turns into a flamingo on the full moon? Valefor told me that Paimon was never that strong to begin with; he was really wrapped up with the Haûraaûa family, and without them in the House to sustain him, he’s probably withered away by now. I’m sure that he’ll be no problem, and just in case, I’ll be supersneaky. I reckon if I can get by Mam’s curfew, I can get by some scrawny denizen.”
“But what about that blue light we saw from the beach?”
“Valefor says there’s a lighthouse. It’s probably an automaton.”
“But Bilskinir’s a big House, even if there is no Paimon—how will you find the Word?”
Udo grinned and looked smug. “You should see how eager Valefor is now; he’s practically rolling around like a hoop to be helpful. He found me this book.” Udo displayed a small gilt-edged volume, Califa in Sunshine and Shade: A Guide to the City and All Its Environs, Both Savory and Sweet. “It has an entire chapter on Bilskinir, with a map, even. See”—Udo opened the book and began to read—“‘...and most assuredly not to be missed is the Saloon of Embarrassment of Riches. Here is kept the Haðraaða family’s greatest treasures, including Banastre Haðraaða’s gilded baby shoes, the Bilskinir Dollhouse, the Orb of Great Golden Weight, the Plushy Pink Pig, and several Semiote Verbs.’ It will be as easy as pie, Flora. I won’t be gone more than a couple of hours, and we’ll have plenty of time to restore Valefor before Buck gets home, and you’ll be as good as new. What do you say?”
I closed my eyes. Udo, alone, risking for me; Udo’s plan, which actually sounded like a pretty good one. I guess not all my Will was gone, because when I dug down deep inside to the depths of my heart, I found that I did not really want to vanish, leave Flynnie, leave Udo, leave Mamma. Would Nini Mo give up? She was my role model. Poppy was not.
A ranger is made, not born, Nini Mo said. A ranger doesn’t give in, or give out.
I was born a Fyrdraaca, but I could make myself a ranger. I was tired and I wanted to sleep, but what fun is sleep if you do not dream—and do not wake?
I opened my eyes.
Udo, looking damp and wilted in the steam, said, “Well?”
“Hand me my robe and get out,” I answered, and he grinned in relief.
THIRTY-ONE
Bilskinir. The Causeway. Waves.
RANGERS ARE MASTERS at sneaking; it is their very rationale, their nature, their Will. Nini Mo snuck into the Virreina of Huitzil’s seraglio and snuck the sixteen-year-old Infanta Eliade right out from under her mamma’s nose before the Infanta could be sacrificed to the Huitzil goddess of rain. Then Nini Mo escorted the Infanta to Califa, where she married the Warlord and lived happily ever after.
If Nini Mo could sneak into the Virreina’s s
eraglio and sneak the future Warlady out, then surely we could sneak into Bilskinir and steal a Semiote Verb. Of course we could, and then we would go home, restore Valefor, and live happily ever after, too.
Of course we could.
My heart remained optimistic, at least a little, but the rest of me was starting to feel pretty draggy. My head hurt, and my tummy growled with a hunger that even the maple-nut muffin couldn’t satisfy.
We were going to miss another day of school, but that hardly seemed worth worrying about now. Even when Udo spends the night at Crackpot, he still has to walk the kiddies to school. So when he ran off to do that, I went down to the kitchen to try to plug the hole in my tum with a pound of bacon and two bowls of oatmeal.
An hour or so later, Udo returned, with egg-and-cheese on a roll and the extremely good news that a huge fog bank was moving through Ocean’s Gate into the Bay and that Cow Hollow Harbor would be fogged in by noon. This meant that Mamma’s ferry was sure to be delayed, buying us a little more time.
When we went to saddle the horses, we discovered that Mouse had thrown a shoe. There was no time to call the farrier; we’d have to double up on Bonzo, and this we did. Once again we rode out of the City, into the Outside Lands, via Portal Pass, only this time, when we reached the fork where Sandy Road goes south toward the Zoo Battery, we turned north onto Point Lobos Road.
The day, which started so sunshiny, had, as Udo predicted, turned cold and chilly. Even swaddled in Poppy’s buffalo coat, I was cold, oh-so-cold, and glad that Udo rode behind me, for he radiated heat like a hot-water bottle. In front of me, Flynnie rode draped like a sock over my pommel. Twice we had tried to return him to Crackpot, and twice he had somehow caught up with us; finally, we had to let him come, but he hadn’t been able to keep up. Luckily, Bonzo is pretty strong, and Flynn doesn’t weigh much, and he was warm, too, although boney.
The easy rhythm of Bonzo’s walk lulled me into a haze. I felt drifty and half asleep, or maybe I was asleep and this was all a dream—
“Look!” Udo pointed.
We had crested the Point Lobos Hill, and there, ahead, Bilskinir stood, silhouetted against a hovering fog bank. The House sits on a tall promontory, at the northern edge of the Pacifica Playa, and the rocks upon which it perches looked black as the best dark chocolate. They rose straight up from the water, so sheer that I’d wager not even a lizard could find foothold upon the glassy stone, and where the cliffs ended and the foundations of Bilskinir began was hard to say. I had never been this close to it before, and it struck me now that the House looked dark and ominous, almost brooding.
“What style do you think that is?” Udo asked. Flynnie wiggled and kicked, so I pushed him down off Bonzo. He skidded down the sand dune and rushed to the waterline, flushing a flock of seagulls off the sand.
“I don’t know. Early Awful Baroque? It looks a bit like a wedding cake,” I answered, yawning.
“An evil wedding cake.”
“How can a wedding cake be evil?”
“It can be black, and ominous, and evil.”
A roadway, rotten and broken, started at the beach and undulated up the side of the cliff, becoming lost from view around the northern edge. The smooth sandy beach gave way to rocks, scooped with shallow tidal pools, clotted with seaweed. Seagulls swooped and curled, their yelping cries echoed by the distant barking of sea lions.
I urged Bonzo down onto the beach, toward the roadway. Flynn scrabbled ahead of us, nosing seaweed and splashing through the water, barking at any bird that had the gall to come too close.
Soon we stood at the very root of the House, and its height above us seemed enormous and pressing. When I tilted my head back, the perspective swayed and wavered, and for a sickening second, I thought the entire House—turrets, spires, domes, buttresses, gingerbread, and all—was about to slide down upon our heads.
The tide was coming in, a green scrim of water surging up over the beach. Each wave came a little higher, and fell back a little less. The bottom of the roadway had flooded out, but I hoped not very deeply.
“How long do you think it takes for the tide to come in?” I asked Udo, pulling Bonzo to a halt, just above the water’s edge.
“Not long,” he said. “It’s rising awful fast.”
I didn’t ask Udo how high he thought the tide would get. By the damp discoloration of the sand and the seaweed on the rocks, I could tell this part of the beach would be entirely flooded at high tide, and a good part of the roadway, as well.
“And then how long until the tide goes down?”
“Six hours, give or take.”
“I hope Mamma is very delayed,” I said dolefully.
“Or maybe Bilskinir has a back door,” Udo suggested. “The guidebook didn’t say anything about one, but there has to be a way out other than across the beach. Look: Snapperdog!”
Flynnie had abandoned his sniffing and was now splashing through the surf. He climbed onto a piece of the broken causeway and turned to look back at us, barking.
“Snapperdog says we are falling behind,” Udo said.
“Flynn! Get back here!” I shouted, but Snapperdog is notorious for ignoring commands, and he ignored this one, too. He bounced down off the broken bit of causeway, disappeared into a smack of surf, and when the wave pulled back, reappeared higher up on the road, shaking off water.
I could not let Flynn go where I would not follow, so I put heel to Bonzo and nudged her on. The water splashed around us, first just lapping the edge of the road, wetting Bonzo’s hooves. If that had been all, it would have been easy as pie, just as Udo had promised. But it seemed that as the road rose, curving up around the side of the cliff, so, too, did the waves rise higher and higher, keeping pace with the roadway’s ascent.
I gave Bonzo her head, trusting that she knew better than I how firm her footing was, and she moved toward the shelter of the cliff side, as far from the edge as she could get. Ahead, through the spray, Flynn could be occasionally seen bouncing from rock to rock. The ocean was surging ever upward, and falling back less and less, so that soon Bonzo’s fetlocks were wet. We drew our feet up as high as we could, to try to keep our boots dry.
“Good girl, good girl,” I cooed. Bonzo’s ears flickered and she continued onward, her head down, her muscles rolling under my thighs. Once she staggered, sliding, and for an awful second, I thought we were done for. I dropped the reins and grabbed at her mane, clamping on to her as hard as I could. Udo nearly cut off my breathing with his squeeze. Icy cold water surged, soaking us, but then Bonzo recovered her footing.
I twisted, craning my neck, and saw that the roadway behind us had vanished into the swirling gush of the incoming tide. There’s no way out but through.
“This totally sucks!” Udo shouted, and I could not argue with him. I’m not afraid of the water, but these waves were strangely insistent, like grabby hands trying to snatch us, to drag us under. I twisted the reins tightly around my hands and was, finally, glad for Udo’s viselike grip around my middle.
Bonzo, solidly, ignored the grabby water. Her head hanging low, she continued onward as surefooted as a mule. Now the sea was up above the stirrups, and I could not pull my feet any higher. Water slapped into my eyes; I blinked the sting away and wiped at my face with a wet sleeve. The coldness felt like acid eating at my flesh. My frozen fingers could hardly grasp the reins. Now the water was up to Bonzo’s chest, swirling and sucking. The roar was thunderous.
Udo knocked me in the ribs, pointing, and I pushed my sodden hair out of my eyes. We had rounded a curve, and I could see ahead, at the top of a steep grade, the tall structure of a gate. A red figure posed in front: Flynn. If Snapperdog could make it, so could we.
Suddenly the waves fell back, and the water began to ebb. In a few seconds, the road was clear again, although still slick with seawater. The ocean had gone as flat as paper, the tide high, but not high enough to reach the road. And then a swell appeared on the water’s smoothness, a swell that grew into a bulge and elonga
ted upward into a wave.
With no urging from me, Bonzo broke into a jog, her hooves skittering on the wet rocks.
“Flora!” Udo moaned in my ear.
“I know—hold on. We’ll be okay. Come on, Bonzo, come on, girl.”
Higher and higher the wave grew, stretching like molten glass until it hung over us like a liquid ceiling, translucent blue and green, and still it did not surge downward. Even if Bonzo had been in the clear to canter, she would not be able to outrun the wave’s break. But it did not break, only grew higher and higher. For a second, a minute, an hour, an eternity, the entire sea hung over our heads, heavy and smothering.
Then the wave collapsed. The noise was incredible, like the roar of a mob, or an avalanche, or a hundred cannons firing at once, or a thousand soldiers screaming together. My life did not flash before my eyes, like in books, but I thought of what Mamma would say when she found out that I had gotten Bonzo drowned, and that now she could not be mad about Valefor, and that I hoped I would see Udo on the other side, and I wished I’d been a bit nicer to Poppy, and—
Suddenly I realized the noise was receding and I was not drowned. I opened my eyes and saw that the water had been flung back by some invisible barrier. Bonzo had stopped and was looking about, bemused. Above us, around us, water thrashed and pounded, but not a drop touched us. Each time a wave rose, for a few seconds we were in a luminous tunnel of blue and green. Then the water would be repelled and the dreary daylight returned. The roadway was now smooth and dry.
“I think I just lost fifteen years off my life,” Udo said. “And I almost pissed my drawers. Maybe I did piss my drawers. I’m so wet, I cannot tell.”
A few more steps and we had reached the top of the road. Somehow I would have thought the gate to Bilskinir would be enormous and nasty, with spikes and bars and thorns and maybe gargoyles spitting boiling oil. But it wasn’t. It was a plain white wooden gate, set in a plain white wooden fence, not so high as Bonzo’s head. It was open.
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 20