Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) (30 page)

“He looks pretty good for a guy whose wife shot him in the throat with an arrow,” Udo said.

“No one ever proved that Butcher Brakespeare really shot him in the throat—” I stopped, caught suddenly by a glance at my hand, which still held back the curtain.

“Udo,” I quavered.

The knobby lines of my bones shone through my flesh, like rocks at the bottom of a clear mountain stream.

“Pigface Pogocrud,” Udo said. “Don’t panic, Flora—we still have time, I swear. It will be okay. Come on.”

He pulled the flag up over that cold beautiful face, and I was glad to see it disappear. It was exactly the kind of face that could haunt you in your dreams. And my dreams were crowded enough as it was.

As we clambered down the tiny stairs and struggled to put the drapes back as they were before, there came the faint sound of footsteps. A voice drifted down the stairwell, our only way out.

The iron gate at the top of the stairwell squeaked as unseen hands pushed it open. We wasted no time frozen in fear, but scrambled about, trying to find a safe spot. The funeral urns by the doorway were far too big; the little alcoves were not big enough, and I didn’t fancy getting too friendly with any of the pallid dead.

“Hey,” Udo hissed. For a second, I couldn’t find him, then saw a frantically waving hand and part of Udo’s head, poking out from underneath the drapes that hid the bottom of Hardhands’s catafalque. “There’s plenty of room—hurry!”

The footsteps were closer now, ringing like bells, and I thought that I could hear the ominous scrape of claws on the marble. I skidded across the floor, almost banging myself right into the edge of the catafalque. It was a tight squeeze, sliding underneath, but I made it, sucking in a lungful of dry dusty air. Udo dropped the drape, and again we were in pitch-blackness.

The space was cramped and the stale air tasted of sickly-sweet decay. The thought dropped into my brain that perhaps the figure above was merely an effigy, and down here, bony and sharp, was the real thing, twisted sinews and gritty bones, and perhaps it did not want to share its space. I buried my face in the back of Udo’s jacket, trying to choke that thought down.

The footsteps tapped, tapped, tapped, stopped.

Tapped, tapped, stopped, tapped, stopped.

“Ave?” The voice, echoing off the marble, sounded as though it came from behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I clutched at Udo, trying not to make a move, a sound, a rustle, a breath. We lay there in terrified silence, and only the mouthful of cloth I was biting kept me from screaming.

“Ave? Who’s there?”

It was not Paimon’s bell-like voice that spoke these words. But if not Paimon, who? The voice sounded distantly familiar. The footsteps came closer and I felt a swish of air as the drapes twitched.

“How about you, you old bastard?” the voice asked, and stairs squeaked. “Have you been gibbering around again? Snapperhead son of a bitch, it does my heart glad to see you lying there like a cold stiff log. I only rue that I was not the one who stretched you there, tinpot Pigface—”

The swearing stopped, and it was my fault. Udo’s hair was tickling my nose, and though I tried to hold back the sneeze, I could not. It was a small sneeze, as muffled in Udo’s back as I could make it. I held my breath and Udo pinched me, as though I needed any reminder to be quiet.

“Well now,” the voice said. “I never heard of a ghost with a cold.”

I stifled another sneeze, and then suddenly a hard hand was on my foot, yanking. I couldn’t help it, my sneeze turned into a scream, and though I kicked and grabbed and Udo grabbed on to me, the grip was like iron and would not let me go. I slithered along the floor, underneath the drape, and then I was squirming and shrieking and kicking in the open air.

W
HAT HAVE WE HERE,
then? A little ghost? Or a little spy?” The man with the grip inspected me at arm’s length. It was a hard grip and a long arm, and the man’s face was not friendly, though there was something familiar about it. In his free hand, he carried a lantern, and this he held up so its light shone on my face.

“Let her go,” Udo said heroically, taking the wrong cue to exit his refuge.

“Two little spies! A matched set.” The man laughed, and by this laugh, I knew him. It wasn’t as hysterical as the last time I’d heard it, but it was otherwise the same.

“Poppy!” I squeaked, for it
was
Poppy. A Poppy strangely different, but Poppy all the same. No mourning band was painted across his eyes, and without its smudging, he looked younger, his face fuller, less skeletal. The Skinner scars on his cheeks looked vivid, fresh. His eyes were clear and steady, and the arm that held up the lantern showed no sign of injury or constraint.

And his hair! A copper-red braid the exact shade of a brand-new glory hung over his left shoulder and trailed down to tuck into the sash of his dressing gown. As long as I could remember, Poppy’s silver hair had been cut razor short, almost to his skull. Mamma and Idden are both blonde, but my hair is red, and now I knew why.

“Poppy! It’s me, Flora!” I cried.

“What are you doing here, Hotspur?” Udo asked.

Poppy squinted. “You know me?”

“Of course we do. You are Reverdy Anacreon Fyrdraaca, called Hotspur,” Udo answered.

“Ayah so, but who are you?”

“But it’s me, Flora—me. Your daughter, Flora, and Udo, too. See, it’s Udo. Don’t you know us?”

Poppy said grimly, “It is true that I have a daughter named Flora, but she is only six years old, and home, tucked safely into bed, I hope. And I don’t know any Udo.” Poppy let me go. “I think Paimon should explain what is going on here—”

“No!” Udo and I shouted, almost together. “Not Paimon.”

“Look, Poppy,” I said, desperately. “Look!” I yanked at my collar, and pulled out my identification badge. Mamma insists that Idden and I (and the dogs, too) wear our badges all the time. One side has my name; the other, the Crackpot seal. It is to identify us in case we are ever lost. I guess I was pretty lost now.

Poppy took the badge and held it in the lantern light. “‘Flora Nemain Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca,’” he read, and then looked at me, wonderingly. “I recognize that badge; I had it made when you were born. Flora! Why are you so old? What happened?”

“I don’t know, Poppy. We got lost in the House, running from Paimon, Udo and me, and somehow now we are here, and you are, too—”

Udo interrupted, “I think that time is out of whack here. Paimon said he’d slow it down, but maybe he’s turned it too far back or moved it forward or something.” “How old are you, Flora?” Poppy asked.

“Thirteen—I mean, fourteen. Tomorrow,” I answered. “Look at you, Flora! Your hair was so fair, and now it’s so red, and what on earth are you wearing? Is fashion so bad in the future? Come and kiss me, baby.”

Normally I don’t like to hug Poppy, but this time I went to his embrace willingly. Poppy’s arms were strong and warm, and he smelled of pipe weed and bay rum. I kissed him, his cheek scratchy beneath my lips, and hugged him so tightly that he gurgled in mock alarm. He said, over my head, “And who, darling boy, are you?” “He’s my best friend, Poppy. Udo Moxley Landaðon ov Sorrel,” I said into Poppy’s soft woolen chest.

“Sorrel? Moxley has a son—wait until I tell him! He’ll be so tickled!”

Udo said in a strangled voice, “My father! You know my father?” Udo’s birth father was killed before Udo was born, and though he still has two fathers, I think it bothers him that he never got a chance to meet the one who engendered him.

“Of course. Damn, if only Moxley weren’t at the War Department with the General, we could march straight up and say hello. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to meet you.”

“My father was Buck’s adjutant?” Udo said, bewildered.

“Buck—a general!” Poppy laughed. “I told her she’d never escape family fate! General Fyrdraaca—that’s hilarious. No, not Buck, but General Haðraaða Segunda. Your father and I are her aides, which is why we live here at Bilskinir. And let me tell you, I’ve had some pretty strange things happen to me in this House. Once, I was on the way to the loo in the middle of the night, and a set of tiger fire irons chased me—and they would have gotten me, too, if I hadn’t managed to beat them down with a hat stand. But never this strange as to meet my own grown daughter. Tell me, why on earth were you hiding under Hardhands’s bier?”

“We were running from Paimon—he is going to eat us!” Udo answered. “He’s still going to eat us if he catches us. You’ve got to help us, Hotspur!”

“Don’t worry about Paimon, I can handle him,” Poppy answered. “Now, darling, don’t cry.”

I couldn’t help it. It was all too much. To be so hungry and then so full and then so hungry again. Being chased, hiding, and now this Poppy, tall and true and beautiful, and talking very fast but not the least bit crazy. Poppy as he once was, as I had never known him. Sane. Beautiful. Normal.

“Poppy,” I gasped. “I’m in terrible trouble—”

“Ha! I doubt that any trouble you are in is any worse than any trouble I have been in. I am the troublemaker in this family, I’ll have you know!”

Udo said, “Well, it is pretty bad, Hotspur.”

Poppy squeezed me tightly. “I’ll be the judge of that. Did you accidentally burn down the Redlegs’ hay shack?”

“No—”

“Did you get caught stealing the Warlord’s best hat for a dare?”

“No—”

“Did you lose twenty-five thousand divas at whist?” “No—”

“Well, then, my title remains secure,” Poppy said triumphantly.

I moaned. “It’s worse than all that. Mamma shall kill me if she finds out—”

Udo interrupted, “Look—Flora’s disappearing. We don’t really have time to explain. We came to Bilskinir to get one of the Semiote Verbs—it’s the only thing that will fix her, but Paimon won’t help us.”

“We’ll see about that,” Poppy said grimly. “If Flora is in trouble, Paimon will be helpful, or he’ll be sorry.
Paimon!”

“No!” Udo and I yelled together. “He’ll eat us—” “Ha! I’d like to see him try to eat my child!
Paimon!”
Poppy hollered.

My neck began to prickle. With an audible pop, the air before us whirled into a Vortex, whose diameter grew wider and wider, until Paimon stepped out of the nimbus of blue coldfire.

Udo gave a little shriek, a squeaky little mouselike sound that didn’t sound heroic at all. My own scream didn’t sound particularly heroic, either. But I couldn’t help it.

Paimon had taken off his hat.

P
AIMON’S HAT HAD
only hinted at what lay beneath its shadowy brim: a peek of blue mustachio, a twinkle of tusks. But without the hat, the full monstrousness of Paimon was revealed in all its monstrousness. Two great curling horns, as thick as my neck, sprang from a broad blue forehead. Eyebrows as tufty as mice shadowed round blue eyes, whose pupils were narrow and slitty, like a goat’s. Silver spectacles balanced on a leathery black oxlike nose. His jaw, big enough to chomp me up in one bite, supported the enormous tusks that sprang from either side of his enormous mouth, filled with equally enormous white teeth, as large as domino tiles. Long fringy ears, somewhat like a cocker spaniel’s, framed this grotesque face, their prettiness making the rest of Paimon’s face seem all the more horrible in comparison.

When he saw us and Poppy, Paimon’s eyebrows lowered and his mouth opened, roaringly: “Major Fyrdraaca, what are
you
doing here? Flora, Udo, I have been looking everywhere for you.”

“Poppy! Don’t let him eat us!” I cried. Udo and I had scurried behind Poppy at the first sight of Paimon, and now I peered around his back, not able to take my eyes off the denizen. I had never seen anyone so big or so blue. The Quetzals were the marriage of bird and human, and each taken alone would be fine. It was this unnatural combination that caused their grotesqueness. But Paimon was like nothing else I had seen before, the monster from a nightmare, the horror under your bed, the thing that gets you on the way to the loo in the middle of the night.

“Eat you!” Paimon said in dismay. “Eat you! Where did you get the idea I would eat you?”

Udo answered, “That water elemental—Alfonzo—
said
you were going to eat us.”

Paimon rolled his golf-ball-sized eyes and looked a little hurt. “Alfonzo is extremely untrustworthy. You should not listen to him. I have no intention of eating anyone.”

“Never mind the eating, Paimon,” Poppy said. “What the hell is going on here? Why is Flora here, strangely aged, and why is she disappearing? And why won’t you help her?”

Paimon sighed, a sigh that was almost a roar. “There has been some terrible misunderstanding. I knew I was thrown off balance, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Madama Fyrdraaca’s current instability is disruptive, and this disruption has made your times overlap. I apologize for the confusion; this is really not good. You should not have met. It’s bad precedent. You must go back, Major Fyrdraaca.”

“No matter, that. It’s only eight years,” Poppy said impatiently. “We have met, and now I want you to help Flora. Give her what she needs.”

Eight years? This could not be Poppy eight years ago. I remembered that Poppy well. That Poppy had ruined the slumber party I had for my sixth birthday by climbing onto the roof of the stables and howling like a coyote all night long. This was not that Poppy. With horror, I realized he thought I was the other Flora. He was trying to save the First Flora. He didn’t know me at all.

“Poppy, I’m—,” I started to say, but Paimon interrupted.

“What she asks for is useless. The solution she has suggested will not solve her problem.” Paimon’s words were directed at Poppy, but he aimed a glinty blue twinkle at me that clearly meant
Not another word,
and so glinty was that twinkle that I had to obey.

“And what exactly is this problem?” Poppy asked.

I will do the explaining,
said that glinty blue twinkle, and explain Paimon did—an explanation that was basically the truth, with one big exception: He didn’t mention that Valefor was banished, only that he and I had become intertwined and I was attempting now to extricate myself, before I disappeared. And he did not explain that I was the
Second
Flora.