Except the Queen (16 page)

I realized that when first I saw the dove, I had hoped for better news. I wanted Serana to save me. I wanted my older sister, the farsighted one, to have saved herself and to come rescue me. But it was not to be.

I pondered our misery, our exile, our loss. I was not like Serana, a poet full of sharp words that pierced any veil. My words were long, rambling, fumbling . . . the need to reveal themselves at greater length. No dove could carry all my words to her. It must be the eagle. So setting the dove down in a box of linen towels, along with a bit of bread crumbs and a bowl of water, I slipped from my rooms and headed down the stairs.

I walked down the street to where I knew a sign was planted beneath a burning light. “Farewell,” it said. So— Baba Yaga’s house resided on a street with a name that mocked my loneliness. So be it. I returned to the house, now settled in the thick dark shadows of the pines, and on the porch searched for numbers. On two black boxes I saw two sets of numbers. On a hunch, I reached into one of the boxes and pulled out an envelope. I smiled, seeing the same “forever” stamp, and the address of my own house, clearly printed beneath the name “Occupant.” I decided that I was an occupant as much as anyone, so I put the letter in my pocket and went upstairs again.

On the second-floor landing I heard again the sound of a girl crying—mournful, heart-wrenching weeping; a despair so intense it held me like a spell. It was the voice I had been hearing the last few nights. I wanted to knock, to call out, to do anything to make that pitiful wailing cease. I raised my fist, then stopped. I had a letter to write. I had my sister to think of. Indeed, I had my own deep misery to deal with. So I merely continued up the stairs to my rooms.

On a tiny piece of paper and in the tiniest of letters, I wrote to Serana, trying desperately not to drown my poor messenger with the weight of my thoughts.

In the morning I fed the dove, tied the rolled message to one leg, and sent him on his way. And then the waiting began again. But this time I waited in hope, not despair.

T
he minute the dove took off, I thought to go exploring. It would be a few days before he could possibly return with a letter for me from Meteora. Besides, I had a new plan. If I had to remain stuck here in this place so sogged with humanity, I knew I had to learn its twists and turns. Also, the day was pearly and I was desperate to be outside. I missed being where there was grass underfoot.
Surely
, I thought,
in this village there has to be a green somewhere.
I just wanted to find a place where flowers pied the meadow and oaks whispered secrets into a soft wind, and I could lie down among the greens and golds.

But I needed to speak with the Man of Flowers in his bodega shop. About the village greenery first. And second—if I thought him true enough—to ask for help finding my sister. For though I could not go
to
her without bringing the iron rains, I thought I could perhaps tell her how to come to me.

But to my surprise as I opened the front door, a familiar person was walking slowly up the stairs, her old peach face wearing a serene expression.

“Jamie Oldcourse,” I said. “I have been wondering where you were.” Though of course I had not been thinking of her at that moment.

She grinned up at me. “I was just coming to see you, Mabel.” The tinkling bells were still there in her voice.

For a moment, I forgot who Mabel was. I remembered only in time to wipe the confusion from my face with an answering grin.

“And why are you here now?” I asked.

“Paperwork,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Ah,
I thought,
the Law of Papers
and nodded my head.

“Come join me at a café,” she urged. “This is easier done over tea and cake.” She said it as though adding honey to a bitter brew.

No sooner had I set foot on the stairs when the smell assaulted me. “By the moon and stars. . . .” I gasped.

Jamie Oldcourse, unperturbed by the stench, continued chatting about paperwork.

I was afraid to say anything, for fear of exposing my innocence. But I looked hard around me and finally saw the huge black bags of some slick material up and down the walk. They even spilled over into the road. More black bags piled up against the spindly trees. Some of them had fallen open and from what I could see, they were full of the tag ends and rag ends of dinners. So
that
was the awful smell! But how long had they been sitting out here in the sun? Since I had not been out for days, waiting by the window for my messenger’s return, I did not exactly have a count. But how they stank! I took out the silken patch and held it to my nose.

“Sure is ripe,” Jamie Oldcourse said.

“Assuredly. Do you know what has happened here?”

“Strike.” Then seeing the blankness of my face, she added, “The garbage men have gone on strike. They refuse to collect the garbage until they have been paid more.”

“Then pay them,” I said.

She laughed as if I had said something amusing, and we made our way toward the café.

Two young women dressed like men in blue striped pants and jackets stepped around me quickly as though I were unclean. A girl with hair an improbable shade of red, and with a strange small blue stick in one ear,
brushed past me, talking to invisible spirits. A father carrying a child on his back nearly plowed into me. Through it all, Jamie Oldcourse gently steered me across the street toward the place of cakes.

I soon realized that I had become invisible to almost everyone we passed, the result of being old and fat in this world. No doubt seeing the shadows that crossed my face, Jamie Oldcourse patted me on the shoulder. “Not to worry, Mabel, I shall explain more fully once we’ve had a sit-down and something to eat. You look a bit pale, dear.”

But even after an hour sitting in the café shop, though we both drank tea and ate the most delicious cakes with the odd name of
profiteroles
, I still did not tell her of my invisibility, nor did I understand the importance of those papers. Except that I was to receive an “allowance” of some money, and though it was not much, it might relieve me of the task of finding work. Thus, dutifully did I sign everything she handed me, using her pen and her ink and the name she knew me by. In exchange, she gave me an envelope with some of the green bills and a paper sack of foods that she bought right there: bread that smelled sharply of chives, a glass bottle full of something called olives, another larger bottle of sparkling juice of green grapes surprisingly called white, several cheeses, and three more of the profiteroles. “Because you like them so much.”

I was now so beholden to her, I would never be free, but that I could not help. I had to live after all, and perhaps this was the human way.
But being beholden to Jamie Oldcourse is better than being beholden to someone else
, I thought, as I walked quickly back to Number 13.

*   *   *

I
WAITED ONLY TWO DAYS
for a reply from Meteora, for this time Coo-coo-rico knew the way, but—oh!—he was a bedraggled mite. I held him close, fed him honey water and bread. Even though I was desperate to read what my
sister had written, I waited until he was safe and fed before I even took the note from his leg. Attention must be given to our minions, or the world falls into pieces. The Queen should remember that.

The letter was as tattered and torn as the dove. I unscrolled the fragment of my sister’s love and read:
Dearest Sister
and immediately broke into a cascade of tears. I do not remember ever weeping this way in the Greenwood. Yet here, in the gray stone walls of a human city, I cannot seem to stop myself.

She said:
“Promise not to feel any more sorry for me than I do for myself.”
And I realized my tears were for both of us, apart and desperately unhappy. I gawked at Baba Yaga’s name. That my sweet sister had touched the Old Hag’s heart. Who could believe it? And then I sighed when she said so pointedly,
“As pretty seedlings we squandered our power . . . never thinking for a moment we might be emptied like an upturned basket of seed corn left to scatter.”
Who could have guessed she would become the wiser of us? And so she further proved, having discovered the eagle mail.

I promised myself that once Coo-coo-rico was recovered, I would go down the street, to the Man of Flowers, and using some of the money given to me by Jamie Oldcourse to buy things at his store, ask him to show me the eagle mail. Surely, as he had been kind before, he would be so again.

As for my address, it seemed that Jamie Oldcourse had solved that for me already, for the paper sachet with my money in it had an address on the outside with my name and many numbers, and not all of them magical, but it would have to do.

*   *   *

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
, I
PUT
the bird in a little nest made of toweling, and sat down by the light of the moon to write.