I came upon the trail to find Bottom standing over three bodies, Lysander on his knees holding the downed Hermia’s hand.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bottom, have you gotten another one killed?” I inquired.
The ass-man shook his great head. “No, no, she’s just fainted. ’Twas Rumour appeared, trying to retrieve his hat.”
“Bloke’s face was just floating in air, like a mask,” said Lysander. “Hermia saw him and over she went. Poor thing is at her wit’s end. Exhausted and hungry.”
“What did Rumour say?” I inquired of Bottom.
“Mostly he wanted his hat back, which I wouldn’t give him, as it is Moth’s, and he said something about the three words again, then he called me a tosser and was gone.”
Helena began to make moaning noises and Bottom knelt beside her with his waterskin to attend her. I pushed him back and took his place. “Perhaps stand at a distance, mate, until she becomes accustomed to your handsome countenance.” I took the waterskin from him. “There’s a love,” I said to Helena, helping her sit up. There was already a blue bruise blooming on her jaw where Hermia had smote her. “Have a little sip.”
Helena pushed the waterskin away and looked first at Demetrius, then to Hermia.
“Oh good, the little bitch is dead,” said Helena, having recovered from her grief rather quickly, I thought. “I suppose I shall have you, then, Lysander.”
“She’s not dead,” said Lysander. “She’s just fainted. There was a man, a thing, a strange thing here.”
“I know, I saw it, a horrible man-donkey creature,” said Helena.
Bottom, looking crestfallen, stepped behind the trunk of a large oak before Helena could turn to see him.
“No, worse than that,” said Lysander. “A horrible thing, its face floating in the air like a mask. Moving like a ghost.”
“There is nothing more horrible than that thing I saw, tongues all over its head,” said Helena.
“That’s just a hat!” brayed Bottom, from behind his tree. “Not even my hat.”
Helena looked around, frightened. I offered her a drink. “Perhaps gentle your discourse, milady, Master Bottom is an actor and therefore is often fragile in his confidence. Apologies if his costume frightened you. He prepares for a play for the duke’s wedding, and his method dictates he wear the aspect of his character to give an honest performance.”
“Oh,” said Helena as my balderdash took root in her mind. “Sorry,” she called meekly to Bottom. “Do forgive me, but I had just seen my dear Demetrius slain.” Then she was off, throwing herself upon the dead fellow and wailing. “Oh, curse the gods, Demetrius is slain. My beloved Demetrius is slain!”
As I handed the waterskin to Lysander so he might minister to Hermia, I said, “She didn’t even like him the last time I saw her, and he didn’t like her the time before that.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” said Lysander.
“Aye, blithe idiot, such is the path of all love stories: love is but tragedy’s happy feint before a bolt to the heart. Or in this case, the back of the neck.” I sighed. “But why would anyone want to kill Demetrius other than he was a massive bellend? That arrow was meant for you, was it not?”
“It was,” said Helena, pushing up from her newly becorpsed lover. “They were arguing over Hermia. Again. Lysander was standing there, and Demetrius was on one knee pleading with Hermia to take him back, as if she had ever taken him in the first place. And Lysander called him a name.”
“A wally,” Lysander provided.
“Well spoken,” said the puppet Jones, from his spot down my back.
Helena waved for the puppet to shush. “And when Demetrius rose to confront Lysander—again—the bolt hit him in the back of the neck.”
“Came through to the front,” said Lysander, “the point blooming from his throat. He seemed rather surprised. I suppose the bolt was meant for me.”
“It was my father,” said Hermia. And we all started a bit, as she hadn’t even opened her eyes.
“Theseus’s simpering toady?” I inquired. “The logic plays. He did try to hire me to do the same.”
“That’s how a respectable father shows his love,” said Helena. “Not all the pretty praise and sweet embraces. Proper possession and control. Hermia’s father so loved her he threatened death on her, unless she married Demetrius. None of that prattle of being the apple of Daddy’s eye that I heard from my own father, great bag of rags that he is.”
“Oh thou sad, broken thing,” said I. “Since I landed here I have seen many wondrous and annoying things, but the glory of your wrong-thinking outshines them all.”
“She’s quite mad,” said Hermia.
“Maestro,” called Bottom from his spot behind the oak. “The watch approaches.” He nodded his muzzle rather furiously down the trail.
I stood. “Grab the fairy frocks, Bottom, we are away.”
“But what if it was the watch that killed Demetrius?” asked Hermia. “My father might have sent them, he is often in the company of Blacktooth and Burke at court.”
“It wasn’t the watch,” said I. “Probably. Let them lead you back to Athens, before you all perish from the elements and stupidity. And say nothing about our presence here.”
“But why?” asked Lysander, but I was already running down the trail with the ass-man clomping along behind me.
Chapter 12
The Squirrel is Strong with This One
The fairies dropped naked out of the trees, at dusk, and Cobweb immediately leapt into my arms and snogged me mercilessly, breathing her nutty breath on me, her skin redolent of bark and leaves from her squirrelly day out and about. I pushed her away after mere minutes.
“You’re a squirrel!”
“Well, you stink of cheese!”
“But you’re a squirrel!”
“Not all the time.”
“Enough of the time that you might have mentioned it before shagging me. Common courtesy, innit?”
Cobweb, wrist to forehead as if she might faint any second, said, “Oh, didst thou shag me? Methought me fanny was lightly brushed in the night by a foraging hummingbird. Could it have been . . . ?”
Moth and Peaseblossom snickered. Bottom honked.
Sarcasm does not wear well on the naked. “We should go. Blacktooth and Burke are behind us.”
“Not to worry, they are miles back, and not even following you.”
“How do you know?”
“Fine view from atop the trees.”
“Oh right. Squirrel. So, shall we gallantly bugger on, or do you need to gather some nuts first?”
“Why, haven’t you eaten? Are you hungry?”
Sarcasm is oft lost on the recently unsquirreled. “Grab your kit, sprite, night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast.”
Cobweb and the others retrieved their frocks and hats from Bottom, who, with Peaseblossom and Moth on his flanks, led us through the darkening forest toward the Night Palace. Time passed with just the crunch of leaves underfoot and we trod the first thousand or so miles before we spoke.
“Were you with us through the day?” I asked.
“No, we had duties to perform for the queen.”
“Even when you are a . . .”
“Daytime is the best time for gathering. We are always slaves, bound forever to serve.”
An immortal slave? My breath caught in my chest at the thought of it. I had been a slave. I knew the singular succor that was hope of freedom, even if promised after the grave, and yet I had forgotten what it was to not only have nothing, but be property. And as the all-licensed fool I’d had more privilege than most slaves. Yet, I had received Cobweb’s kindness and complained. Shame fell upon me like a hot shadow, and for the first time I found myself without words. I squinted and rubbed dust from my eyes and we walked for a long time before I spoke again, lest my voice break and she think me a wally.
When my shame settled, I said, “We encountered the young Athenian lovers again.
One was murdered.”
“One of the shoe whores? Well, what do they expect, strutting about the forest all tarted up with their smooth hair and their shoes. A wonder they lasted this long.”
“It was the one you stabbed in the chin with the crossbow quarrel.”
“The yellow-haired geezer?”
“Demetrius,” I provided.
“Well, he was annoyingly tall. Did the pointy-bearded one do it? He had the look of a scoundrel.”
“He was the target of the bolt that killed Demetrius. The same kind as killed the Puck.”
“You reckon it was the same killer ended the Puck?”
“I don’t know. I can’t figure the why of it. Hermia’s father, Egeus, propositioned me to kill Lysander—”
“Pointy Beard?”
“Aye, but why would he kill the Puck?”
“The Puck could be a right shit,” said Cobweb. She bowed her head. “May his memory shine like the stars ’til the end of days.”
“Right,” said I. “But Egeus is just a toady in Theseus’s court. There’s no reason for it.”
“Well, it wasn’t a fairy what did it.”
“Obviously, the sun was up when the Puck was killed, so that leaves out you lot. Wait, if the sun was out when he was shot and the Puck was a fairy, that means he wasn’t a squirrel?”
“The Puck could be anything at any time. Take any form. A shape-shifter of the first order was the Puck. There was no one like him.”
“But still, it couldn’t have been a fairy because you are all squirrels in daylight, right?”
“Yes, but also it wasn’t a fairy because we’re shit at killing each other, aren’t we? We live a long time but few of us are born, so if we were good murderers there wouldn’t be any of us at all.”
“But—and I don’t belabor this to be difficult—during the day you are fucking squirrels.”
“Not Titania.”
I stopped. “The queen of the bloody night does not change shapes like the rest of you?”
She stopped. “She’s different.”
“Obviously so.”
“She’s taller.”
“She’s not bloody taller. She’s a bit better kept, but she’s the same size as the rest of you. More of a nutter, I suppose.”
“Among my people, calling someone a nutter is a compliment. Moth is a smashing nutter.”
“I am,” said Moth.
“The squirrel is strong with this one,” said Cobweb.
“I don’t mean it that way,” said I.
“I am simple,” said Peaseblossom.
“We know, love,” said Cobweb. “It means someone who is good at remembering where they’ve hidden their nuts.”
“Fine,” said I. “She’s a nutter of the first rate. Do you think she killed the Puck?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t tending her that day.”
“Squirrels— Your people, I mean, tend her during the day? As squirrels?”
“Aye. She’s a goddess, isn’t she?”
“So we could just go back and ask the fairies who were with her on the morning the Puck was killed if they saw the murder?”
“Aye, if you want.”
“Then let’s do that,” said I.
“Pocket, you daft dog pizzle, she’s probably already killed one fool, do you want to give her another go at a second one? Fine, but I have become trifling fond of you and I shan’t watch you slain.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, thinking she might have a point. But once again, what was the why of it? I said, “Why would Titania wish to harm the Puck? Especially that morning when he was on his way to Theseus on an errand for her?”
Cobweb shrugged. “It makes as much sense as Oberon killing his own jester, yet we are on our way to his castle to ask him.”
“Do you imagine he’ll confess?”
“Oh my, yes, and then he will change Bottom back into a man, and give you the love potion for Theseus, and I shan’t be surprised if he lays a banquet for us, has his goblins bathe you in rosewater, and personally wanks you off in thanks.” She nodded at me, her wide eyes doubly wide to show just how bloody earnest she was.
“Sarcasm will make your tail fall off,” said I.
She feigned alarm and lifted her frock as if to check for a tail, then wagged her bottom at me. “Oh, blast! You’re right. Oh woe!” She bumped her naked hip against me, then scampered ahead to walk with the others.
“Squirrel!” I called, but was paid no mind.
I trod on a bit behind the others, and as I watched Peaseblossom twiddling the tongues on Moth’s hat of many tongues, I recalled Rumour’s parting chorus: “The passion of the Puck lies with the prince.”
“The boy!” I called to Cobweb. “The Indian boy in Titania’s charge, does he change into a squirrel at daylight?”
“No, he is mortal.”
But his ears were pointed. I’d seen them up close. Had Titania killed the Puck to protect the boy for some reason, perhaps from Oberon? The shadow king had banished her from the castle over the boy. If she had sent the killer, it would make sense she would blame Oberon for the Puck’s murder as misdirection.
I hurried to Cobweb’s side. “Were you with Titania when she fetched the boy from India?”
“No, none of us were. We don’t leave the forest except to steal from the mortals.”
“So no one knew this boy’s mother? No one was there for her death, nor the travels Titania says she had with her?”
“Only the Puck. When they traveled far it was always with the Puck.”
“They?”
“When Titania and Oberon travel the skies, of all the fairy and goblin people, only the Puck is—was—allowed in their company.”
“So no ships? No carriages, horses, elephants?”
“Maybe elephants,” said Cobweb.
“She traveled to India on a cracking huge gray animal, taller than a house, with great fan ears, tusks, and a long nose made for grasping?”
“Oh, no. No elephants either, then. Just she and the Puck.”
“Oh, bollocks. I should have never left Puck in the grotto that morning,” said I. “I would have seen he had been followed.”
“I do not think I care for elephants,” said Cobweb. “Wait, which grotto?”
“I don’t know, a great tree and rock hole, with a great stone in the stream shaped like a turtle.”
“Turtle Grotto?” said Cobweb.
“That would seem an entirely appropriate name for such a place.”
“That’s where Titania would meet Theseus,” said Peaseblossom.
“What?” said I, and verily “What” was repeated among our merry band as we stopped and turned our attention to the simple fairy.
“That’s where the night queen bonked the day duke,” said Peaseblossom. “Watched from a tree. I will say, a mortal will take his time in the day, when he’s a mind to. Not like a fairy bloke, quick poke under the tail and they’re off to the next tree without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“Titania was also shagging Theseus?” I asked.
The fairies all nodded.
“Can’t blame her, really,” said Moth. “After you two last night, thinking of giving a human mortal a go myself.”
“Me too,” said Peaseblossom.
“In all this time, you two have never shagged a mortal?” I said.
“Mortal man,” said Moth.
“All what time?” asked Peaseblossom.
“Well, all of your hundreds of years—how old are you, anyway?”
“Seven,” said Peaseblossom, not sounding entirely sure of her answer.
“Seven? Seven?” I turned to Cobweb. “You’re nine hundred years old and your mate is seven?”
“We are not good at counting,” said Moth.
“Nine hundred was an estimate,” said Cobweb.
“The point,” said I, “despite your appalling aptitude with figures, is Theseus and Titania were meeting at the very place where the Puck was killed. It could hav
e been either of them, or both of them in concert.”
“Except that Theseus sent you to find the killer, did he not?” asked Cobweb.
“Yes. No. Oh balls. So did Titania. Let us bugger on to the bloody Night Palace and ask the bloody shadow king to transform bloody Bottom back into a man, fetch us the bloody love potion flower, and confess to the killing of his bloody jester. Should be a piece of piss.”
“You seem bothered,” said Cobweb. “Shall I build a nest and we’ll have a bit of a rest before going on?” She leaned in and whispered in my ear breathily and with no stealth whatsoever, “A wee nap to rejuvenate the humors.”
“And to bonk his boots off,” said Peaseblossom, deftly reading the subtext through her intrepid thickness.
“I am sorely tempted to nap, but I think it best we get to the Night Palace, then rest.” Truth be told I was knackered from the day’s marching and I was not ambivalent about the fairy’s charms.
Cobweb said, “If you and Bottom need to get to Oberon tonight, then to Athens before Theseus hangs your friend, you’ll need to travel all night tonight and all day tomorrow. We fairies will be fine, but you two will need to rest.”
“You sleep during the day, then?”
“No, safer to sleep at night, like this. Less chance of being eaten by a cat.”
“Right, hadn’t thought of that.”
“Fancy a frolic, then?” asked Peaseblossom.
Cobweb put her arm around my waist. I allowed it. “It will sustain you, you being a living thing. You felt it last night, didn’t you?”
I had. The strength and speed I’d felt while chasing Demetrius’s killer—of course, the dance. I didn’t know they had known. “I thought you were forbidden to dance. Isn’t that Titania’s grievance with Oberon?”
“It is. And we are forbidden. But the Puck told us to dance as we please as long as Titania and Oberon do not see us.”
“It feels ever so naughty when it’s forbidden,” said Moth.
“A frolic it is, then,” said I. And without any ceremony or prelude, the three fairies shed their frocks and began to dance.
* * *
Bottom and I walked light after the frolic, this one in close proximity, washed us with an uncanny vigor. I felt again like I could run the rest of the way to the Night Palace, with a fairy or two on my back. I was barely able to resist adding a dance step to my cadence as we marched along the trail and I even taught the fairies the chorus to that alehouse standard “I Give Your Sweet Mum a Spot o’ the Pox.”
Shakespeare for Squirrels Page 13