“Will she be all right?” Gage asked. “Pepper, I mean? Did I get here in time?”
“She’s brought danger to us all,” said Doctor Ill. “She doesn’t deserve to be all right. She betrayed us. Go away.”
Gage put his smooth boy’s chin right down on the stump. He was close enough that the skibbereen could have poked his eyes out if they’d been armed with sticks. “Fix her up!” he shouted, so loudly that Silviana sat down suddenly and made an unladylike noise in her skirts. Even Pepper’s curled body rolled over in the force of Gage’s shout.
“There are some things even wishes can’t fix,” asserted Doctor Ill. But he went forward to have a look at her body. What-the-Dickens couldn’t see what the crown actually did — whether he had little vials of toothpaste in his vest pocket, or a healing touch with a gentle fist. But before long Pepper’s wings, which had been curling up like dead leaves, began to relax and resume something of their original shape.
“Will she fly again?” asked Gage.
“She won’t need to,” answered Doctor Ill. “I’ve made her spine relax, and that’s made her look calm. I can’t make her live. We all have our duty, and she has a duty to die.”
“But if she’s alive, maybe she’ll get better,” said the boy. “Thanks to your help. Is she alive?”
Doctor Ill slapped his hands together as if disgusted with having actually touched a failing skibberee. “I’ve done what you asked,” he said curtly. “I’ve earned your respect. Now you do the honorable thing and leave us alone.”
Gage sat back on his heels. “Don’t mind me; I’ll just listen,” he said. “That’s all I want to do.”
What-the-Dickens turned to the crown. “Why did you defend me? Why have you risked your life for me? What about ‘hidden and forbidden’?”
“Asking questions again, are we?” queried Old Flossie, glowering.
Doctor Ill shushed the stump mistress, and said to What-the-Dickens, “Listen, little mushroom-head. You are worth too much to us to lose. If you could imagine how to harness a truck’s tailwind to travel more swiftly — and if you could catch a ride from a grisset — well, you may be dumb as they come, but you’ve got some sort of cleverness about you. We can use your skills. It wasn’t kindness on my part. It was conservation of our natural resources: yours.”
“But you wouldn’t come forward to save Pepper on her own merits,” said What-the-Dickens.
“We can afford to live without Pepper if it’s her time to die,” said Silviana. “That’s what they mean. You, you trickster, you’re more valuable than you look.” She added, apologetically, “You look like a shell-shocked dandelion.”
“You’d let her die just because she’s — ordinary?” asked Gage, a cloud of youthful outrage all but spitting upon them. What-the-Dickens had almost forgotten he was there: it was as if one of the heads on Mount Rushmore opened its mouth and admitted being irritated by a hiker near his chin.
“You, pipe down,” cried Doctor Ill to Gage. “I’m tired of being pestered by a juvenile barbarian. And you, What-the-Difference! Your ignorance has stopped being comic and is become vexing. You know nothing of our society’s traditions. Have you ever heard Silviana tell the story of the honorable death? No, of course not. You’re from ‘away.’ Listen to me, you. A skibberee folds her wings when it’s her time to die, and she doesn’t ask for an exemption or a furlough. It isn’t done. Her ‘once upon a time’ ends here.”
“But you’re a doctor,” said What-the-Dickens. “You must see exceptions? Surely?”
“Yours is not to question the crown!” sang out Old Flossie, to a venomous melody.
“I’m a doctor, yes: a doctor of social policy and military strategy,” continued Doctor Ill wearily. “And I rule out exceptions. She missed earning her license as an Agent of Change. Don’t require that she also surrender her chance for an honorable death. That would add insult to injury, and be selfish of you.”
“An honorable death?”
“We must do what we’re told! In any community with as little chance of survival as ours, how would we maintain discipline if we made exceptions for every life? We are frail creatures — you’re young and you don’t know this yet. Don’t make it worse for her. She fumbled; she failed. She had an accident. We accept, we move on —”
“It’s also an accident that I was born an orphan,” replied What-the-Dickens, “and that I missed out on all the early training. I can’t help it if I can imagine that maybe she doesn’t really need to die. I didn’t learn all that the very moment I was born. I haven’t mastered that lesson yet.”
What-the-Dickens came forward again. Now he knelt beside Pepper. Now he stroked her brow. It was as if she was sleeping, very deeply but peacefully. She looked as peppery as usual, only less present somehow.
The crown’s voice became more sympathetic. “You are too young to know the story about death. I see that now.”
“Is there a different story for her, then? Pepper, can you hear me? Listen: A new chapter in the Duty Pageant. A new duty put upon us: to make it. Are you listening? Not once upon a time, but, oh, next upon a time. Next upon a time, Pepper stirred from her torpor. She woke up, blinking in the light, and — and —”
Storytelling wasn’t one of his hidden talents.
“— and it felt okay. And she got up and, um, moved around some.”
“Stop that,” said Doctor Ill. “Mawkish fool. No one gave you the right to make up nonsense. You’ll regret it.”
“Let him talk,” said Gage, putting his hand out to form a wall that gave What-the-Dickens and Pepper some privacy behind it. It was like One Hundred Years of Solitude without the solitude.
“Pepper,” said What-the-Dickens, and he licked her wing tips, both of them. They had the flavor of salt tears cut with lemon.
“I’ve had enough out of you,” cried Doctor Ill. Bravely and rashly, he rushed toward Gage’s hand.
“Ow. Did you sting me? I didn’t know you could do that,” said Gage, removing his hand in a rush.
“Me either,” said What-the-Dickens, impressed.
“You’re not the only one with hidden talents,” growled the crown. “Hidden and forbidden. But useful at times. Comes from a life in the service.”
Old Flossie sighed. “You’re lucky that human is just a kitten or he’d have squashed us all flat just then.” Gage was busy hopping up and down with his stung hand tucked in his armpit.
“All is lost,” said Doctor Ill. “Come now, while the human menace is distracted. We must abandon hope, we must abandon the remains of the invalid. We must fly and reestablish ourselves elsewhere. What-the-Dickens, come.”
“Come with us,” said Silviana. She reached out her perfect hand to him. “I need you. We need you.” The orphan looked up at her. “Do good where it can still be done,” said Silviana. “Here. With us.”
Doctor Ill had flown to the fungus that disguised the portal entrance. Rashly he flung it aside. “We are lost. We are ruined. Let’s scram,” he said.
But Gage put his hand on the fungus and clamped it back into place. “You don’t have to fly,” said the human boy. “I won’t squeal. Your secret’s safe with me. Really. Pepper told me everything, all about your colony, and the tooth plantation, and the wishing candles. I can see why it’s so important. I won’t tell.”
“You know too much,” said Old Flossie. “You have to die.” She looked at Doctor Ill. “You have anything stronger in the poison department?”
“Oh, I’ll die eventually,” said Gage without distress. “But I can keep a secret until then.”
“Humans can’t keep secrets,” said Doctor Ill, spitting. “Don’t get me started. Humans do nothing but chatter from the cradle to the grave.”
“So how are you going to kill me? Sting me to death? I hope not. Slash my ankles with a porcupine needle? Tattoo me to death with poison ivy juice?”
“Could we buy his silence?” asked Pepper in a quavery tone as she tried to sit up.
What-the-
Dickens said her name. Once, twice, then again.
He fell on his knees to give her a hug, but she said, “Gentle! I’m not myself,” and he held back. Maybe she meant she wasn’t Pepper anymore. Then who could she be?
“You’re alive,” he said, “and you’re home.”
“I’m lingering,” she corrected him, “and I’m still here. For now.”
“We haven’t much time,” said Silviana. “Skibbereen are never seen, and the sun is getting higher.” She mimed the sun mounting in the sky, though they could all see it for themselves: a white burning hole punched in the pale blue.
“I mean it,” Pepper said. Her voice came out as a papery rustle. “Listen to me. Gage was good enough to carry me here, since I can’t fly — or I couldn’t, anyway.” She flexed her bad wing. It still had a rip in it, but the frame and struts seemed more or less intact. “I owe him big-time, so I gotta trade him something. Maybe I could trade him extra, and buy his silence.”
“I doubt that would work,” said Old Flossie. “Humans are tricksy creatures and never keep their end of a promise.”
“Try me,” said Gage, but no one paid him any attention.
“Besides,” said Pepper, “now I know what the human wants.”
“What?” asked Doctor Ill, Old Flossie, and What-the-Dickens all at the same time. Even Gage was listening curiously.
“He paid close attention to what I told him about the Undertree Common. He wanted to hear about all my earlier missions and assignments. He wanted to know everything about other folks. He is in love with stories and words and all that kind of thing.” Pepper rolled her eyes.
“Could we give him Silviana?” mused Old Flossie. “I’ve gone off her a bit, anyway.” Silviana sulked, not quite so prettily as usual, and made a face.
“No,” said What-the-Dickens. “No hostages! Are you crazy?”
“Besides,” said Doctor Ill, “Silviana has a name, and she’s earned it. She’s a star.”
“Do I get a say?” asked Gage. “You’re right about the stories, incidentally. I don’t have enough to read. But I don’t want to take another captive. Are you kidding? McCavity is more trouble than she’s worth already. I wish I could liberate her. That’s why I brought Pepper back in the first place. I don’t want to imprison anyone else. That nasty cat is more pet than I can handle as it is.”
What-the-Dickens felt the smallest twinge, a kind of memory of hope, for some old belief that used to be called McCavity. But that longing sizzled out. McCavity had been his first big mistake. There was no need to repeat it.
“I have an idea,” said What-the-Dickens. “Or I almost do.” He puzzled over the math of it in his head. This plus this equals that plus that. Or does it? “Do you know a child named Lee Gangster? Cowboy pajamas, missing front tooth?”
“I never met the pajamas. But sure, I know him. In my classroom, his desk is right next to mine.”
“Well,” said What-the-Dickens, “he has an ancient grandmother with a mess of poetry books she can’t stand. Maybe she would trade you her books.”
“Trade? But for what?”
“For McCavity. Didn’t you say you wanted to get rid of her?”
Gage looked stunned. “Do you think old Mrs. Gangster would really do that?”
“You could ask her. She’ll be much nicer to you if she doesn’t think you’re the Fairy of Death come to take her soul away.”
“I can act kind of human,” said Gage. “With a little practice, I mean.”
“So that’s all settled,” said Pepper.
“No, it isn’t,” said Doctor Ill, who was pinching the finger of one hand with the fingers of his other hand and looking befuddled. “Our rogue skibberee, What’s-the-Use, has negotiated a trade. It’s all very sweet, all hearts and ribbons and such, but it has nothing to do with us, and doesn’t solve our problem.”
He didn’t so much glare at Pepper as wince in her direction. “You still sang like a canary in a cage. You told too much. You are banished, and as for this human — well, I was being crude when I said he had to die. But we’re ruined here. We’ll have to mount a campaign and invade those creeps over at Grave End. Big military maneuvers. Attack, fall back, attack. Ugh, and live among all those granite headstones with the dreadful carved angels. Too depressing. And the loss of life in an invasion. Think of it. Not to mention the trouble of packing.”
“Do you think I’d ever tell anyone that I talked to tooth fairies?” said Gage. “Really, I’d be labeled such a loser. Or worse. Can’t you just trust me?”
“I wish I could. But humans are notoriously untrustworthy, and we’re not about to start now. Old Flossie, go call up the home guard. We evacuate at sunset.”
“Wait,” said What-the-Dickens. “Wait. I have an idea.”
They waited.
“Bring us a candle,” he said at last. “Bring us a full-moon-grown birthday candle. Gage can light it, and he can make a wish, and then he will blow the candle out.”
“So what?” said Doctor Ill. “What will that solve?”
“Depending on what the wish is,” said What-the-Dickens, thinking slowly and carefully — for he knew he had a plodding mind —“perhaps everything. If what we need is that he had never found out about us —”
The morning wind swayed the branches, rustling.
Light billowed. Was that a scatter of June petals, with June scent? Little confetti dots of ripped white blossom on the breeze.
Away, a grisset trashed some summer melody, but good.
“I think I see what you’re getting at,” said Gage. For a mountain of a kid his voice could go soft and throaty. “I could wish”— and he gulped once or twice —“that I’d forget I ever met any of you.”
“Uncommonly decent,” said Doctor Ill. “Hardly human, in fact.”
Old Flossie poked Doctor Ill in the ribs. “Don’t trust him. Why would he do that? What good could that possibly do him?”
“It would do you good,” said Gage. “I don’t need to be paid for that. I mean, really.”
Have I got this right? wondered What-the-Dickens. The possibility of wishing strengthens the imagination to consider, at times, that things could improve. Could be different. They could. They might.
“You better hurry before I change my mind,” warned Gage. “I’m trying to be decent here, but I’m not a saint.”
Doctor Ill signaled behind his back, and Old Flossie scurried away. “What if we bring you a candle and you wish for something else?” said the crown. “What if you wish all skibbereen were ninety feet tall and yodeled as they flew?”
“I’m not cruel, and I’m not stupid,” said Gage.
“He isn’t either of those,” said Pepper.
“But you must wish to remember my idea about trading McCavity for the books,” said What-the-Dickens. “If anyone could master that bewitching cat of yours, it’s old Mrs. Lee Gangster. She might be an ancient monster in her own right, but she’s lonely. And she could terrorize McCavity as much as McCavity deserves it.”
Gage sat down next to the stump. He brought his face close to the tree trunk and looked at Doctor Ill, Pepper, and What-the-Dickens. “I’m trying to remember you as hard as I can before I make a wish to forget you just as hard,” he said. His eyes, I must admit, were not entirely dry. “Can you just answer me something? Even if I only get to know it for a little while?”
Doctor Ill, as graciously as he could, said, “Oh, go on, then. Ask.”
“Why are you so eager to give us human beings wishes?” asked young Gage. “It’s one thing that Pepper couldn’t explain.”
“That’s classified,” said Doctor Ill. “Released only on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know. I may be grateful to you, but I’m not giving away state secrets here, you big clod.”
“Well, tell me this, then,” said Gage. “Teenagers always make fun of kids believing in tooth fairies. How can you stand it?”
“Skibbereen,” said Silviana, “if you want to use the correct term. S
kibbereen are never seen.” She flounced, to be seen.
“We don’t protest what we can’t change,” said Doctor Ill. “Besides, a little misinformation can help clear away any residual memory of teeth and wishes, or the rare occasional glimpse by a human child of a skibberee Agent of Change. Children talk themselves out of their convictions as they grow up and become distracted by their huge selfish selves. All the literature is consistent on this point. Children begin to think they’ve imagined us.”
“I won’t,” said Gage. “Forgive me,” he remarked, blowing his nose on his pajama sleeve. “I’ve spent an awful lot of my life being lonely and bored, and it’s sad to meet you all, and learn there is a full city of skibbereen within walking distance, only to say good-bye so soon.”
“But I’ll never forget you,” said Pepper.
“And I’ll never forget you either,” said What-the-Dickens.
“Ah, here she is. The stump mistress can really move when she’s on a mission,” said Doctor Ill. Old Flossie, breathing heavily, had a newly harvested candle under one arm. Under the other, she carried a book of matches that spelled out, in curly red script, LUCIANO’S RISTORANTE, FAMILIES WELCOME.
“I hope this works,” she said, when she could catch her breath.
“I hope so too,” said What-the-Dickens, but he was partly lying.
“Can I say good-bye?” said Gage Tavenner.
“Better not to,” said Doctor Ill. “Just do your job, fellow. It’ll all be over soon. I should say, if you carry this out, you’ll be teaching me something new about human honor. If you fail, of course, I’ll hate you, and I’ll hunt you down, and find a way to kill you.”
They all looked at him. “You know, for a little fellow, you’re a big bully,” said Gage.
“I take that as a compliment,” said Doctor Ill briskly. “Come now, let’s not dawdle. The sun dries out our wings, and this chapter is almost over.”