Precious had been unaware that his father kept a journal. He read those volumes repeatedly. In truth, he had little else to do.
* * *
Papa started keeping journals long before he came to the Ghost Country. They recalled countless memories that Papa had sloughed unwillingly, and some so ugly that he must have wanted them lost.
The seven volumes were recorded and structured scattershot, scatterbrained, with no particular focus. The journalist could ramble endlessly about minutiae while largely ignoring something that might be of critical interest to a later investigator. Papa had meant to write down anything that he feared that he would forget. That was mostly family stuff, about not only Laissa and someone called Kitten, but also other, earlier “daughters,” some collected not already conveniently deceased.
Papa had kept at his journal until the last hour.
Papa had become as obsessed with recording his story as he had become obsessed with Laissa. Work on his journal became his main reason for barring Laissa from his laboratory.
Precious found a worn playing card tipped into the last volume, where Papa’s hand had become too shaky to read. Or the card could have come from a fortune-teller’s deck. It was hand-painted. It was oversize. It seemed slippery and vibrant when held. Could it be a keepsake?
No! It had to be the key used to manage Papa’s flying carpet.
Precious usually paid the carpet no heed, though it might be useful in an emergency. Had it deteriorated? Could he activate it? He should find out.
Reading Papa’s journals, reviewing his early disappointments, Precious realized that his father had meant him to see all this long ago, hoping that the son could complete the task that the father had not been able to complete.
Belatedly, Precious felt honored. Papa always had trouble communicating with anyone other than Laissa, while Laissa never needed much from Papa but his comforting presence. Precious was an emotionally constipated reflection of his father—who did truly care for his Papa.
Precious started his own journal once he grasped the vision that Papa had had for him, though that vision could never be fully his own.
27
In Modern Times: Twisting Fate
The twins never acted up but they were not happy. I told the Old Man, “They do behave but I don’t know why. Their mom hasn’t been remotely motherly.”
He eyed me like he wondered what was wrong with me—which got me wondering what was wrong with me? All this girly fussing just was not Croaker.
Was I being crafted into some sort of candy-ass?
“I am Croaker, sir. I promise you that.”
“But?”
“Exactly. But. Between you and her…”
“Let me offer an innovative notion. Back the fuck off. Stop fussing. Do your job. Set bones. Sew people up. Cure the clap. Write down what you have to write down but let the rest take care of itself. Because it always does, in the end.”
Not bad advice, actually. “You’re right, boss. That makes practical sense. That’s how we should do it. What’s wrong with me lately? How come I obsess about crap that don’t have nothing to do with the Company?”
“That one is easy, boyo. You went to the Tower. You fell in love. But then She turned you loose.”
The Old Man was neither angry nor stressed, nor was he pleased by having gotten in a dig. He was rehearsing the facts as he saw them.
Again I was overlooking the fact that I was the Annals-writing mushroom man best kept shielded from operational and strategic details. The Captain might know why our employer wanted the first Tides Elba forgotten. He might even know why she insisted on ignoring my kids.
Only…!
“You’re a mushroom man, too!” It was a lightning strike. If I left off feeling sorry for Croaker and raised my eyes I could see that I was no more shut out than was the first among us. I was but a single constituent of a battalion of mushroom men.
The Old Man pretended because we all counted on him to know.
“You evil bastard.”
“Croaker?”
“Never mind. It’s crystal, now. Every mother’s son among us is being fried in the same black pan. Nobody knows what’s going on. Anything that we think we know is almost certainly not true. You don’t know anything more than I do. And now I’m beginning to think that maybe even the Taken is without a clue.” Our mistress was known for playing lives-long games that only she could fathom. That was how she had become the Lady.
The Captain deployed his ingenuous smile, neither denying nor confirming, just suggesting that he knew something that would remain a mystery to everyone else.
I did not buy in. “That won’t work … What the hell is that?” A huge racket had started up outside.
“How would I know? Being just another mushroom man? Maybe you could take a look and report back.”
The brouhaha surrounded Buzzard Neck and Elmo, now arriving with treasures that included a passel of pretty girls. Even worn out and covered with road grime those lassies were easy on the eye. Several hundred brothers made time to come get their eyes eased and their fantasies inspired.
Sergeant Nwynn took custody and hustled the girls into the safety of the dormitory.
I did note that Elmo had come in with sixteen girls instead of twelve.
Pretties must be springing up like weeds out in the wilderness.
Turned out that the extras had been winkled out by our Tower-trained sister hunters, who looked even more exhausted than did Elmo’s troopers.
The entire compound began to suffer an increasing bleakness of spirit almost as soon as those girls arrived.
Where was Tides Elba? We had to dispose of another kitty clutch before the emotional climate turned totally filthy!
Even the hunter girls felt it, though they had been trained to handle it. If even they were not immune to the synch … But we were supposed to be safe from the worst for another month!
I fussed constantly. I worried like me doing something useful was the only possible cure.
Firefly said, “You’re being ridiculous, Dad. You aren’t even close to being the heart of it. You’re just somebody who lives in the neighborhood. Most of this stuff has nothing to do with you.”
So. Croaker’s ego deftly eviscerated by a six-year-old. Or maybe seven. The twins had been underfoot for a long time.
Baku sounded very Captain when she said, “Just do what you’re supposed to do. Sew them up. Set their bones. Give them medicine. Nag them about taking better care of themselves. And when you don’t have anything else to do try to make life more interesting for your kids.”
Which was pure self-service with a life-lesson touch.
I tried doing what everyone said I should, while fearing that I would end up stuck with children forever.
The Company has little use for camp followers. They are dead weight, operationally. They complicate the tactical situation when a real fight develops. A soldier needs to concentrate on the threat in front of him, not on that to the woman and kids behind him.
* * *
I suffered through another fine supper. The meal was gloomy for me and the kids but there was merriment aplenty in the kitchen. The town girls laughed and squealed and teased one another about boys. Town boys, I hoped. We did not need the drama that could come of them getting involved with anyone from the Company.
Speaking of town boys. “Anybody seen Gurdlief Speak lately? He used to be underfoot all the time—especially at mealtime.”
The kids avoided my gaze. Both looked like they were caught up in an internal debate. I snapped, “Tell me!”
Firefly took a deep breath, held it a moment, then set it free. “I can’t say for absolute, but I’m pretty sure he stowed away on the carpet last time Tides Elba headed for the Tower.”
The sheer audacious stupidity of that bludgeoned me mute. Eventually, I managed to squeak, “Really?”
Shin said, “Really. Ninety percent sure.”
“And you think so why?”
&
nbsp; “Because Gurdlief never stopped asking about the Tower. It never scared him like it does normal people. Whenever there was nobody but us around, the Tower was all he wanted to talk about.”
“And then he disappeared,” Shin said. “I looked everywhere that I could reach. No Gurdlief, nowhere, nohow, not anymore. Him trying to sneak into the Tower was the only logical conclusion.”
Six years old. Or maybe seven, with no reason to make anything up.
“That’s insane.” Nobody goes to the Tower voluntarily.
“He’s just curious, Dad. And you’re the one that made him that way.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Blame it all on Croaker. El, darling! Can you stop giggling long enough to light the lamps in the mistress’s bedroom?” I asked the kids, “What are those girls on about, anyway?”
Firefly shrugged. Shin exchanged looks with her, his face abnormally blank. Ankou materialized from nowhere obvious and stared at me as though to ask, “Are you sure about what you’re planning, boss?”
“Of course I’m not sure. But I have to do something.”
I was getting agitated again. A moment of reflection would have convinced me that Gurdlief was in no real peril. They would not mistreat him in the Tower, though he might never be allowed to leave. Mischievous Rain would speak up for him.
Still …
“Thank you, El. What are you girls up to with all that racket?”
She reddened, studied the floor. “Just joking around, sir.” She scooted away so she would not have to deal with follow-up questions.
I was officially an old-fart grown-up, not to be trusted.
I said so aloud.
Firefly observed, “Was there ever any doubt? You have to be at least a hundred years old, Dad.”
“I nurture a fantasy wherein I am the second-most-important thug in this gang because I read and write and pay attention to what’s going on.”
Nobody disagreed. Which meant squat.
Firefly said, “You think you have something to report that Mom can’t figure out for herself? Then you better get on in there and jabber.”
So. The little monster thought I might be wasting someone’s time. Not mine, though. Nobody but Croaker ever thinks that Croaker’s time can be wasted.
Cheeks still pink, El came back to make sure that she had done the lamps right, and to snuff them if I changed my mind.
Blessed Baku and I headed into the bedroom. Beloved Shin and Ankou tagged along.
Little good it did them.
Little good the exercise did anyone.
I rambled through the protocol briskly, excited, but got no reaction, not even a chirp of a wind chime.
I tried again because it was not reasonable to expect someone out west to be waiting around in case the folks in Aloe started barking.
My second try got the same nothing, at which point my oldest daughter dazzled me with, “What the hell are those morons out there doing?”
Baku exercised the protocol twice herself. Her results matched mine, whereupon she launched an inspired spate of improvisational and age-inappropriate verbal artifice.
Shin took a shot, smugly confident that Baku and I must be massive screwups. He would show us how it was done.
The boy never lacked confidence.
Moments later he looked like he had had been handed a surprise whipping.
I asked the devil cat, “You want to take a whack?”
Ankou had his third eye open and seemed seriously troubled, like there should have been some response unless a major disaster had befallen Charm.
Collective disappointment devoured a third of an hour. Sweet soul El stood by all the while, mainly being nosy but also staying handy in case we needed something. The girl did understand that although it was neither flashy nor stinky, we were involved in serious sorcery. She stood her ground despite being scared stiff.
As we abandoned the bedroom I told El that I was impressed by her courage. Were I a bit younger I would ask her to marry me.
I suffered from some weird notion that I could tease the girl.
Her courage remained unbroken. “You have a wife already, sir, who is much stronger and far more beautiful than me.”
Firefly burst into laughter. “Ha! She told you, Dad!”
“I wasn’t … I was teasing … El, I was teasing. Really. I would never try anything inappropriate with you girls.”
“I know that, sir. I do. If you wanted a younger girl you would find a way to get past Sergeant Nwynn or you would go out in the country to catch one of the wild girls.” My goofy look sapped her courage, but only for a moment. “The whole world can see that only one woman … interests you, sir, although she comes in a hundred age flavors.”
Firefly got a real kick out of watching me writhe. “Oh! Ouch! And every single one of them is too young for you, Dad! You’re stuck with me and Mom.” Which made no sense.
She made a gesture, either to her brother or to El. Shin joined El in the bedroom, helping extinguish lamps. Firefly asked me, “Why don’t we go visit the Dark Horse, Dad? You probably need to get yourself outside a couple gallons of beer.”
How old was she? “Not going to happen, kiddo.…”
The other town girls arrived as a crowd. Sana announced, “There’s something weird going on outside, sir. There’s noises.”
“Isn’t it your turn to go home for the night, Sana? You want me to have someone escort you?”
“Dad, shut your pork pie hole and listen to what she’s saying.”
That from my son. It was the first time he called me Dad. I suspected that he had a crush on Sana, though Sana lacked Flora’s outstanding assets. Sana had her own special allure. She treated Shin better than he deserved.
“Sana?”
The girl had nothing to add.
So. Weird noises. And the source of the weirdness made itself manifest shortly, without the courtesy of knocking.
Firefly shrieked, “Mom!”
“Hey, Bug.”
Shin was a scant second behind his twin in a hug assault on Mischievous Rain, the version with scarlet streaks in her hair. The version that suited Croaker far better than did the cranky redhead.
Even Ankou bounded toward her.
Croaker did not bound. That would have been undignified. Croaker hovered outside the cluster hug and grumbled, “About damned time you came home, woman.”
* * *
Holiday time.
I got a night off. I went to bed in my own room. But I did not sleep well.
My heart and mind would not let me forget, for even long enough to nap, that that woman was just barely thirty feet away, overhead. The woman who was the template for every dark-haired beauty our guys had caught. The one that El said …
Mischievous Rain had dropped out of the twilight without warning. She had hugged her children, petted her cat, held her husband’s hand for three seconds—then had ordered that husband to get some rest because they had serious business to attend to in the morning. The children got sent to their beds, then the town girls likewise. The Taken was readying herself for bed before her husband left the floor.
Seldom do I drink anything more potent than Markeg Zhorab’s brews, and those only in moderation—where moderation can be defined as Croaker made it back to the compound without passing out before he got there.
I gave up my town place right after I came down with a crippling case of the families.
Blackhearts in Aloe had discovered the wonders of distilled spirits. The worst villains triple-distilled, then added anise to create a potation that masqueraded as licorice-flavored water. It was so tasty! So good! I kept some in the infirmary for medicinal use. I did not touch it, normally. But that night I needed a little something to help me fall asleep.
* * *
It took Blessed Baku, Beloved Shin, and all the king’s horses to drag me out for breakfast. But I had gotten me seven hours of pure unconsciousness.
I was one tortured mess once it ended, though.
A de
vil had homesteaded the top of my head. She owned a brace of long-handle hammers that she used to pound my temples like my noodle was a big bass drum.
This hangover was epic. I could have suffered worse only in a previous life.
Exaggeration? Maybe. But I was for sure not in fighting form.
Sana produced a marvelous breakfast. That did not help. What little I did get down kept threatening to come back up.
Mischievous Rain saw me first so was the first to ask, “What the hell did you do to yourself?”
“I had trouble falling asleep. So I sipped me some uzok. The first mug was so good that I decided to have me another one. And that one was so good that I went ahead and finished the bottle. Then I broke out another bottle.”
I was not allowed to do anything more hygienic than change my underwear. Mischievous Rain wanted to get to work now.
I self-medicated liberally. That helped only a little. It did not end the shakes. It did not keep my purported wife from becoming ferociously exasperated. The blind could see that Croaker would never participate productively in anything today.
* * *
Baku and Shin flanked me. I was on my knees, anticipating the return of breakfast. Self-medication had overcome the worst pain but now I was suffering a whole nother level of blitzedness.
It would be an age before I was fit to be useful.
Mischievous Rain put the operational part of her scheme on hold. The twins received instructions to make sure that I did not drown myself in my own barf. They herded me back to my quarters. They changed my bed. They made me drink water. Mischievous Rain did not check on me but others did, none failing to mention delays that were all my fault. And the kids made me drink more water.
Why did she not just get on with it without me?
The water helped, some. By noon I feared that I might survive. I began to think, which meant that I began to question.
Really, why had she let my stupid behavior hold her up?
* * *
So there I was, recovered enough to indulge in shame while being chaperoned mercilessly by unforgiving children, when two of my least favorite people, Two Dead and Buzzard Neck, turned up. They confiscated anything that they thought I might be tempted to use to help me sleep, ever again. They came with the Old Man’s blessing, after he had been vigorously encouraged by Mischievous Rain.