Geek Fantasy Novel (5 page)

Ralph pulled on an only-slightly-wrinkled dress shirt, changed his wet socks for dry, his sneakers for loafers, and dashed into the castle beneath the slackening rain. He threw open the door to the entrance hall, startling a maid and footman, who scurried away before Ralph could apologize. Behind a rustic curio he did indeed find a pile of ethernet cables, a half-dozen routers, a couple of dusty discs, the instruction manual to an air conditioner, and a half-eaten tart. He tucked his legs beneath him and got to work.

The yellow cables were tangled in with the blue and the red, which were in turn looped around a length of new black cable, still in its twisty-ties. The whole mess looked like a map of a subway. He knew he would eventually sort through the cables, but trickier was that the essential black cable was pinned
beneath a leg of the curio. He braced himself and strained the display case an inch off the ground. Porcelain shepherds made a hushed slide on the shelves above.

He had finished untangling the cables when he heard a sob from somewhere within the house. He froze to listen, but the sob wasn’t repeated. Then a few minutes later, as he was powering on a router, he heard another short wail. He set the contraption down and traced the noise to Beatrice’s wing.

He stood at the edge and peered down a hallway done in black and red paint and leafy iron fixtures. “Hello?” he called, but there was no response.

Cautiously, Ralph made his way farther in, his footfalls resounding against the bare stone floor. All the doors off the hallway were of solid wood, heavily varnished and banded in dark metal, dust settled into their ridges. The cries — less hysterical but more frequent now — came from one of the higher floors.

Ralph mounted a creaking circular staircase, only to face a similar hallway at its end. He crept down. Though similarly decorated, this hallway didn’t feel as gloomy; sunlight from the windows cast shining trapezoids on the ground. The decorations weren’t as dusty; some of the doors hung open. The cries had lightened, too, and had begun to sound like expressions of both sadness and joy.

Ralph rounded the last stretch of the hallway to face a short balcony with a single door. It was ajar, and as Ralph pushed it he felt the air shift from the chill of climate-controlled indoors to the muggy warmth of the evening. Beatrice stood alone beneath the sky, leaning against a water cistern, worrying a piece of fabric between her slender fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Ralph said. “I couldn’t help but hear you.”

Beatrice coughed and remained silent. Then, once she began speaking,
her words spilled out easily. “Oh God,” she said, running a palm over her red-rimmed eyes. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s been an intense day. I’m sure you get it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Beatrice sighed and pressed her fingertips together. “I bet you don’t even know what happened. No one’s dared say a word about it since we got home.”

Ralph took a deep breath. “I understand your real mom just died.”

“She’s been dead awhile, actually. Gert dragged her feet getting the service together. My mum was in a coma for like half a year, and it’s not like anyone ever had a doubt how it was going to end.” Beatrice stared at him with bleary eyes.

“Mind if I stand next to you?”

Beatrice looked surprised. “No, go ahead.”

Ralph leaned next to her, against the cistern. They watched the sunset. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like to lose a parent,” he said.

“I bet you could imagine it. You’d probably come up with something like what I’m feeling. I feel like
I
can’t imagine it, and it’s happening to me.”

“Oh.”

“Wait. Where are your parents?”

“Back in Jersey. They don’t talk to the British side. Something to do with wishes.”

“Oh. That’s weird.” Beatrice shrugged. “It feels like I’m not feeling as much as I should be feeling. And that’s weird, too. I lost my mum. And it’s like I’m totally sad about it, but I’m also wondering what’s for dinner. How am I possibly wondering what’s for dinner?”

Ralph wondered what was for dinner, too.

“Her name was Annabelle,” Beatrice said as the pinks of the sunset first started deepening to purples. “It’s a name suited for dying, isn’t it?”

Ralph frowned.

“I didn’t know her really well,” Beatrice said. “My father divorced her when I was little, and Gert’s basically been my mother. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead. It’s so … strange.”

“Your brother and sister don’t seem too cut up,” Ralph says.

“They barely knew her. Not that I did much more. Father met Annabelle in college. She kind of left me with him for a while, couldn’t stomach the idea of raising kids when she was in her early twenties. So that was when he married Gert. None of us have seen my real mother for a long time. I used to talk to her every few months but it always felt odd, like some huge space was between us but we were supposed to pretend it wasn’t there. Then she got in a coma and died. Why are you here?”

“Hold on. Hold on,” Ralph said. Beatrice was so rapidly intimate. Maybe that was why she was so quiet; it must be tiring to be vulnerable with everyone.

Beatrice stared at him steadily. “What is it? Do you not believe me?”

“Of course I do. I’m processing, that’s all. I’m not going all authenticity police on you.”

“ ‘Authenticity police?’ You’re such a geek. Look, I should get ready for dinner. Gert’s always a monster when people are late. I’ll meet you down there.”

“Daphne told me there are guards set up around the castle tonight.”

Beatrice looked up sharply. “She did?”

“Yeah. She was going to show me, but I wasn’t tall enough. Have any idea why she would make up stories about guards?”

Beatrice sucked in her breath. “It’s best we didn’t talk about it. She’s always going on that Mum’s supposedly hired protection. Daphne’s such a romantic; she’s probably spying on us right now and getting excited.”

“So she’s definitely making it up, right?”

“Who cares?” Beatrice said, pushing back from the wall and rubbing tiny pebbles off her palm. “If there’re guards, they must be doing their work. If not, then we didn’t need them, anyway.”

Ralph returned to his cables. While he began to thread the yellow cable out from the others, he paused, sure he heard yet more sobbing. And these cries — tiny, really, mere whiffles of anguish — were right beside him. Ralph slowly turned, but he could see no one. It was as if the sobs were coming from the curio itself.

He moved toward the emanation point of the phantom cries, and there he saw it: One of the porcelain maids was crying. No more than two inches tall, crowded by piglets and paperboys, she was leaning heavily on her crook and weeping, her whole body shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Ralph asked, before a half dozen far more vital questions sprang to mind.

She rubbed a sleeve across her red glazed lips and sat down, disappearing in the ceramic crowd. “I’ve lost my ducklings,” she said.

Ralph slid a ceramic king over to better see her. “Where are they?” he asked, again censoring a number of more pressing questions (it seemed rude to question someone’s very existence, or ability to speak, even though she was two inches tall; besides, this might be the way of all British home decoration).

The maid pointed her crook at Ralph.
“You
made me slide away from
them, when you lifted the corner of the curio. They’re over there, on the other side of the shelf, and I can’t leave my pedestal to get them.”

“All right, all right,” Ralph said. And, with a scan to make sure he was alone, he pinched the maid’s pedestal between his fingers.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried.

“I thought —”

“You think I want to be back with them? I’ve been stuck next to those unmoving quackers for fifty-odd years!”

“Oh.”

“They’re so tiresome. How do you think it feels to listen to an eternity of squawks, to have your only source of physical pleasure be a weekly feather-dusting? You think I’m yearning to go back to the usual?”

“No, I don’t think I was assuming anything,” Ralph said, flustered.

The maid patted down the pockets of her apron, searching for something. Her movements were suddenly sluggish.

“You do realize that you’re a talking knickknack?” Ralph asked.

“You’re going to waste my last seconds of animation asking stupid questions?”

“Why only a few seconds?”

“Look, if you want more, you’d better talk to Chessie.”

“Who’s Chessie?”

“Are you serious? Your aunt — Gert and Mary’s sister!”

“Oh. Is she here?”

“She’d like to be. Go and talk to her. You’ll find her quite extraordinary. All young men do.”

“Where can I find her?” Ralph asked. But by then the maid had stopped moving entirely.

When Beatrice emerged from her wing, Ralph was staring at a couch cushion. She asked what was wrong, and he stammered something about jet lag and maneuvered to the subject of Chessie. He said he had overheard a servant use her name; he didn’t go into any more specifics, as he wasn’t sure whether having conversed with a porcelain milkmaid meant that he was insane.

Beatrice shook her head gravely. “Oh, I think I know. Daphne’s guard stories make more sense now. Could be that Aunt Chessie’s found out where we are.”

“Wait. This isn’t Chessie, the famous ‘Duchess of Cheshire’ Chessie?”

“You’ve heard of her?”

“Of course. She’s, like, famous. She sells The Butt Sculptor in the States. Never seen her, though.”

“That’s the very Chessie. We’re none of us allowed to see her. I used to think it was typical Gert snobbery, but now I’m starting to think it’s something more specific. Especially if Daphne’s stories about armed guards are true. I
knew
it was a matter of time before she found us again. Come on.”

Ralph followed Beatrice downstairs to her favorite eavesdropping spot, a leaf-papered bench to one side of the window of Gert and Gideon’s study. It provided a wavy view of the occupants inside and, as the stone around the frame was centuries old and crumbling, transmitted a good amount of sound as well. They watched the shadow of Gert talk on the phone, unloading on an unfortunate friend the vicissitudes of various falling investments and the difficulties of hiring a new groundskeeper.

“I sit here sometimes and listen to how ridiculous she is with other people, so that when she gets cross with me I can remember that it’s nothing personal,” Beatrice said.

“How often do you sit out here?” Ralph asked.

“Oh, a lot. I bring a book sometimes, and spend the afternoon. No one bothers me.”

“Why does your mom want to avoid Chessie so much?”

“Surely you know! It’s probably the same reason your parents have kept you hidden away in New Jersey.”

Ralph shook his head.

“Chessie used to have a son. And seven years ago, he was suddenly
gone!’

“Gone?”

“We were all there, though we kids were too young to remember much. They were playing some silly game for her son’s sixteenth birthday. Chessie granted him a wish, and then the next day —
poof!
— he had disappeared. The papers said he was abducted, there was an international hunt — surely you heard about all this?”

“No, not at all.”

Beatrice was about to ask a question but then raised a finger. “Wait.”

They leaned in to spy better.

“— I will not have her anywhere near my children, do you hear me?” Gert was saying into the phone. “I don’t
care
if she’s driven all the way from London … and why
now?
… No, I will
never
be ready…. He
disappeared,
do you understand? It’s all so
medieval.
I’m sorry, it’s inexcusable. Stop her. Do whatever it takes, just stop her.” Gert slammed down the phone.

“Looks like Chessie’s coming to dinner,” Beatrice said.

But Chessie didn’t come to dinner. The meal passed uneventfully: The food was unappetizing but impeccably prepared; the conversation was guarded and political and dominated throughout by the Battersby parents; all present yearned for it to be over as soon as possible.

Only one incident is really worth noting. Just as the entrée was served, a great ruckus arose on the lawn, ending with what sounded like a gunshot, causing Gideon to drop his salad fork into his wine. When Daphne exclaimed and Cecil asked if he could investigate, Gert informed them that they could settle down and start their candied venison instead.

If you’re wondering what Ralph was thinking at this point, we shouldn’t really know, as he was being so polite that his face revealed none of his thoughts — or at least he thought it didn’t. If we looked closely, though, we’d see that his expression was engaged but simultaneously a little distant, like your best friend’s when your story’s gone long. He was scared he didn’t know how to behave in front of minor aristocracy like the Battersbys, or especially in front of a true royal celebrity like Chessie, and he wasn’t sure if he especially liked Gert, or cared to find out whether he liked Gideon.