Mearsies Heili Bounces Back

  Dhana’s dances were never planned, no set series of moves, much less trained technique. Just a series of impossibly complicated twirls and leaps and sways, sometimes to the beat, sometimes against it in a tense counterpoint, sometimes what we had called on Earth slow motion, her hands drifting and shaping in ways that told their own story.

  The entire ballroom went still, everyone from the oldest grandpa to the smallest local kid.

  Then, suddenly as she’d started, Dhana opened her eyes and walked away. Some people started rushing toward her; to divert them, I still sang, but I switched to one of our insult songs, and added in pocalubes—with some teases at fellows who go a-courting. The cousins fumed, their friends laughed, some of the older girls who wanted attention waited until I ran out of breath and began a glee. The boys joined in singing counterpoint, and everyone went back to having fun.

  Next day, we prepared to leave. The family members crowded around us to say a friendly good-bye. When one of them added, “Maybe someday we’ll meet again,” and I said, “But not in courtship, right?” they agreed with obvious relief.

  As soon as we were walking down the long tree-lined driveway, Seshe said wryly, “What did you tell ’em, CJ?”

  “Whom? I?” I said, looking around.

  “When you had your interview.” Irene made a google-eye face. “They came out looking like ghosts.”

  “Tell!” Sherry demanded.

  “You threatened to turn ’em into toads!” Faline cackled.

  “You did turn ’em into toads until they said uncle,” Gwen said earnestly.

  “Toads can say uncle?” Irene muttered, eyes turned skyward.

  Before an argument could break out, I said, “I remembered all that stuff about customs that Seshe said when we first came. And so I made up a fine marriage custom for queens in MH.”

  The girls looked at me expectantly.

  “Any fellow who marries a Mearsiean queen has to work on a farm for at least ten years. They acted like they’d sat on a cactus!”

  THREE

  “We Meet the Enemy”

  We knew there was an enemy out there, someone more or less our age. We also knew we’d meet, because if Kwenz picked an heir it would be someone who 1) hated Mearsieans, 2) wanted more land for the Chwahir, and 3) we’d hate, because Kwenz’s shopping list for an heir probably matched our shopping list for Rotten Person.

  Well, the time finally came.

  We’d been playing hide and go seek in the White Palace.

  It’s perfect for hide and seek, as it’s filled with a whole lot of rooms. A lot. In fact, we still haven’t gotten a right count, some think because we get bored before we can separate and make certain none are being counted twice. Others think we can’t get a right count because some rooms shift around in time. Yep, you read that, and no, I’m not drunk. (Nutso, maybe, but no worse than usual.)

  There’s nothing block-like about the White Palace. Block-like as in more ordinary castles, which are made of regular stone, like granite, and where you can see from inside and out that you get, say, four rooms to a side, with a hall in between. The White Palace is made of some weird white material that looks kind of like real deep-winter ice, but isn’t, and there aren’t any joins or blocks. It’s smooth everywhere, even the curves of the towers, which are connected by some straight lines, but none of the spire-topped towers are quite the same size. About the only thing that’s consistent is that some towers and rooms get lots of sun in the winter, and some get only indirect sun in summer, but lots of moving air. So you get round rooms, square rooms, and some weird-shaped rooms that are hard to describe. Crazy, that. I mean because it’s designed to somehow make the most of air and light patterns, there isn’t any magic forcing air around, or light.

  Okay, that’s boring, I know. The thing is, people do ask about the White Palace, and there’s even somebody—you’ll meet him later in another notebook if you haven’t fallen asleep, that is—who seems to know something of its history. We think this somebody hinted that the White Palace is actually one of the few remaining buildings left over from Old Sartor, which is the mysterious past when humans first came to this world and had all these powers and so forth. But they got themselves into trouble, and when I say that their kingdom fell apart more than four thousand years ago, you can see that Old Sartor is really old.

  So anyway, if they’d left behind a bunch of buildings like the White Palace, these got knocked down over the centuries, either by the owners or their enemies. But this area was deserted until the Mearsiean colony came along almost 800 years ago. Or, so we thought.

  But if it’s true that this building goes all the way back to those very old days, it would explain that biznai about sliding in and out of time.

  It may even explain why some people come here and insist the place is haunted.

  Okay, I’m getting back to us! We were playing hide and seek until Gwen showed up, so excited about what she’d found that she forgot the game.

  “Look here!” she said to those of us who had sneaked to ‘home’ past Dhana, who was It.

  She held out a carved box. The box was a fine dark wood, the carving like knotted ribbons all around it. Little white stalks were crossed in each knot.

  We all bent over it as she lifted the lid. A faint smell of wood and an unfamiliar flower scent wafted out, then vanished. Left was the dust of what must have been a bouquet. On the top lay a rose, with a thin ribbon around its stem, but when Gwen a tentative finger to it, it too crumbled to dust.

  She looked up, dismayed.

  “It’s okay,” Clair said from just behind us. “It’s probably been there for ages. Where did you find it?”

  “In a room with all these built-in drawers and things. I opened this one chest, thinking to hide in it, but it had all these boxes and drawers fitted into it. So I started looking at them, and I found this. I don’t know, I just had to bring it out for some reason.”

  Clair frowned, then looked surprised. “There’s something under the flower dust and the ribbon.”

  She reached in, felt around with her finger, and pulled out a thin little ring. She drew in her breath. “There’s magic on it.”

  Dhana had shown up, and she nodded—she could probably see it. The magic, I mean. We all saw the ring. I could almost see a kind of sparkle, though it might have been the light.

  “I have to study this,” Clair said, laying the ring on her palm. “And the box.”

  She loved puzzles like that. She pokes at magical and historical puzzles the way I like to draw.

  Faline looked around, making a face. “Game over? Nook! Let’s play!”

  “But we didn’t finish,” Diana said.

  “I don’t want to be It again.” Dhana looked around, the light making her eyes change color—gray, greenish, blue, honey-brown. “This place is too big. It’s too easy for you to win, and I always want to do what Gwen did, nose around in the rooms.”

  “I’ll be It.” Faline thumped her chest.

  “You cheat!” four voices exclaimed at once.

  “That’s not cheating! That’s strategy,” Faline announced.

  “Acting crazy and talking funny so we crack up and get found is strategy?” I asked, making a bigger prune face than hers.

  Faline turned to Irene. “That’s what you said.”

  “That’s what the kids on the Tornacios said,” Irene protested.

  Dhana snorted. “I never knew that strategy was walking like a crab and searching with your butt waving around like Fobo in one of her big dresses all poonched out in the back. I’ll have to remember that.”

  “Why do her dresses poonch out in back, is what I want to know.” Sherry reached behind her, fluffing her hands like a turkey tail. “Remember when we were in that wardrobe of hers? She had a bunch of those dresses. What is pretty about having a giant butt part sticking out?”

  “So everybody has to walk way behind you, so you look more important?” Gwen shrugged.

  “Fobo’s dresses
have trains longer than this room, and people to carry them,” Irene reminded us. “And a lot of guards with nothing to do but make sure people bow and so forth.” Irene waved her hand like Fobo did. It was probably supposed to look queenly, but it just looked bossy. “The trains and the guards do that job.”

  Faline grinned. “Maybe she’s got a giant spring under those bustles, and when she’s mad, she bends over, poinks a person, and kablooie! People get sproinged back a few days’ travel.” She windmilled her arms and staggered backwards, as Sherry and Gwen cracked up.

  That would make a great anti-villain aid, I thought. I’d seen some magic spells that might, with a ton of work, be adapted ...

  “I think it’s to make your waist look smaller,” Seshe said.

  “What’s pretty about having your waist look smaller?” Sherry promptly asked. “Does ‘pretty’ mean having a giant butt, too?”

  Dhana groaned. “What’s pretty about long eyelashes? They just catch more dust, but people say they’re pretty. What’s pretty? No, who cares what pretty is? Let’s think of a game!”

  Silence, everyone was looking at one another—except for Clair, who’d taken the box off to her magic chamber.

  “We’ve played all our games a gabillion times.” Irene sighed loudly.

  Diana grinned. “I got me such a good idea. But I’ve been saving it since winter. Until we got tired of our old games.”

  Everyone turned her way.

  “It’s team chase.” She held up her hand just as everyone was going to say we’d played it twice that week. “But. In the trees. No one can touch the ground once.”

  “Wow!” Gasps of excitement—smiles—rubbing hands.

  We discovered on going outside that a storm was moving in, which meant the game wouldn’t happen immediately. That gave us time to think about the stakes. When we played team games, we just had to have the winners get something, even if it was only the others cleaning up the mugs after we had hot chocolate.

  I was trying to think of something good—and that night, when it was my turn to patrol, I decided my stake would be that the losers take a few rain patrols for the winners.

  Not that I ever complained, except to whoever I was patrolling with. But it was weird. I love watching rain. When it was warm, I love running around in it. But I really hated doing patrol while wet and cold.

  Next day, at lunch, we sat up in the White Palace, everybody present but Clair, who’d run out earlier, after getting a message from someone.

  The storm had turned into a thunderboomer, which meant it was probably on its way out at last. The clouds made a corrugated dark gray blanket just below the white castle, with light flashes here and there. It was weird to watch.

  “So what’s the stakes?” Irene asked.

  Faline raised her spoon—and three people automatically ducked, so they wouldn’t get splattered with tomato-and-rice soup. “The losers have to paint themselves in stripes for a week!”

  All thumbs turned down, except for Faline’s and Sherry’s.

  “Losers have to do rain patrol for a week of rains,” I put in.

  All thumbs turned up except for those belonging to Dhana, Faline, and Sherry.

  “It has to be funny,” Faline said.

  Irene raised a forefinger skyward. “Funny mine is.” Dhana rolled her eyes at the finger, but stayed quiet, and Irene said, “The losers have to dress like PJ and Fobo for a week.”

  “Better.” Diana lunged forward, eyes wide. “They have to steal the clothes from them.”

  A roar of approval greeted her suggestion.

  I groaned. I would have loved that one, but was really hoping to get in my rain patrol idea. So were Gwen and Seshe, I saw, because their thumbs didn’t go up.

  “Tie vote—we have to have a—” Irene started, then halted when Clair came in, grinning.

  Behind her was a tall fellow with a swinging walk. We gave a shout of welcome when we recognized Clair’s cousin Puddlenose. That made his brown face flush all over as he grinned—a twin grin to Clair’s. He pulled out a chair, grabbed a plate, and piled it with about half the melted-cheese crispy potatoes on the serving platter.

  “Haven’t eaten for a while, eh?” Irene commented.

  “Two days,” Puddlenose said, between chomps. “So, what’re you all doing?”

  Irene explained quickly, not even trying to be fair about the choice of stakes. But Gwen spoke up feelingly for ours (she’d been on patrol with me the night before) and I stayed silent, thinking and watching. I’d noticed Diana’s eyes narrow so all you saw was the dark fringe of her eyelashes. What was it about eyelashes, anyhow? Hers were the prettiest in the gang, but of all of us, she cared least about anything pretty.

  What she did care about was winning. It wasn’t the prize so much as that great feeling you get after a game when you won. So that meant she had her best team in mind, same as I did. Only here was Clair, with her cousin, which would mean we couldn’t leave him out. But I didn’t want him on my team. I liked Puddlenose, and he was a good runner, but that long body of his just had to be cloddish in trees. And I knew Diana was thinking the same thing.

  There was one way out. When we had an odd number, we played without teams, first or last counted as loser.

  “Are you playing, Clair?” I asked.

  “Yes—if that appointment I told you about doesn’t happen.”

  No help there, but I forced a big grin. Now we’d be ten, and sure enough, it wasn’t just Diana giving me the hairy eyeball. Irene had just made the mental count too, for she said to Puddlenose in a sugary voice, “You like climbing trees?”

  “I haven’t done much of it. You know that from my last visit.” He laughed. “But it’s been fun the times I’ve tried.”

  Irene slithered a look my way, then Diana’s, and I knew she was thinking about who the teams would be. Then Dhana started giving us the fish-eye.

  I would swear Clair hadn’t looked at any of us, but she said, “How about this? Puddlenose and I will be on one team. Diana, will you join us? Gwen ... and Sherry?”

  I was more relieved than disappointed. So much for my sneakily planning the perfect team for this game, which would have been Diana, me, Seshe, Dhana, and Gwen—who’s small but very, very good at fast climbing when she’s determined. Only I wouldn’t have gotten Diana anyway, as she was behind the PJ/Fobo plan. Now I didn’t care which stake anyone picked, which was lucky, because Puddlenose instantly voted for the PJ/Fobo thing, and Gwen changed her mind, voting for it, too.

  Then she said, “Puddlenose, you have to come down to the Junky, and see your new room!”

  “You made me a room?” His eyes widened.

  Here was a palace cram-packed with rooms. So many rooms nobody could count them. But he was happy that we made him an extra hole in the ground—and Clair was excited to show him. Weird, I thought, as we all zapped downstairs.

  For a short time there was just noise as everybody talked at once, some telling Puddlenose the story of our expansion, Faline trying to cram in the visits to the Dudly Duo, and Puddlenose trying to thank everybody in sight for his own room, even though all that was in it so far was a bed and a trunk for clothes.

  “The ceiling is high enough so we could get a bunk bed if you ever want to invite a friend,” Clair said, when enough people had stopped yapping long enough to draw breath.

  “Invite a friend.” Puddlenose turned round and round. “Invite a friend. My own room.”

  We swept out again, to go back to planning the game, but I noticed Puddlenose was kind of quiet.

  o0o

  We decided to start the game the next day, once we’d set up a boundary by tying a knot of long-grass to the first limb of the trees selected. Those wouldn’t draw attention unless you were looking for the grass-knots, we figured.

  Seshe, Dhana, and Diana volunteered to put up the boundary that afternoon, so everyone went off to do things. I remembered Clair’s mention of her appointment, which was some weird thing about the Magic
Council, which had headquarters halfway around the world.

  She’d been brought a letter, in silver ink, supposedly from them. It came from the Wood Guild representative who came around once a year, an old man who never said never said much, just checked the Guild records at the Guild Hall on the cloudtop. In fact, it had only been the last couple of years that Clair had seen him at all.

  Now, suddenly, this year he had presented himself at the castle to say that on his next visit he would bring a Sartoran Mage Council representative to interview Clair.

  As we all broke up, Clair said, “What are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking of that Mage Council person. Why this interview with somebody all the way from Sartor?”

  “Well, not Sartor,” Clair reminded me. “They are under enchantment still, by Norsunder.”

  “Yeeech.” I felt that nasty back-of-neck prickle at the thought of Norsunder, run by powerful and ancient and evil sorcerers somewhere outside of time. They’d managed to cut off the most famous kingdom in the world, by some extra creepy enchantments. As soon as I’d heard about that, I’d thought, wow, am I glad Mearsies Heili is so small that the only kind of villains that take any interest in it are old fumblers like Kwenz, and greedy bustle-heads like Fobo.

  Was I wrong.

  But that was way later, and this is now. Er, that is, it’s then, when Clair and I were talking. I said, “Maybe this interview is because you’re a new queen?”

  “But why didn’t they come years ago?”

  “Maybe it takes that long to get the news? I dunno.”

  Clair frowned out the window as we passed into the hall. “Maybe. I’ve been thinking about that. I mean, despite all the wonderful stuff said about the Magic Council in the histories they can’t be very fast, or very good, about protecting the world because Fobo cut down an entire forest without permission of the Wood Guild, and there weren’t any consequences.”

  “Right. But I’m going to practice my magic, just the same. Because one thing for sure, I don’t trust any grownups far as I can throw ’em, and that goes double for ones who know magic. What if they want to give us some kind o’ magic test, or something? Glug.”