Perchance to Dream (6 page)

“Yeah!” Cobweb crowed. “Applicable in layer cake.”

“Unless whatever cake I conjure has poisonous frosting.” Something that couldn’t kill them might be a safer option, never mind that Mrs. Edith’s upbringing had cultivated a deep-seated need for clean underwear. “Perhaps I should pen some clothing first?”

Ariel shook his head, dislodging bits of grass from his hair. “A change of attire will be mandatory at some juncture.”

“Clothes are a waste of a perfectly good word-wish.” It was difficult to understand Mustardseed, given that he was mumbling through a sulk of colossal proportions. “Such a girl thing to do.”

“Just for that, I should conjure you a cancan skirt.” After carefully considering the wording—and deciding to omit anything that might cause a chorus line to enter Stage Left—Bertie wrote,

Atop the caravan appeared luggage filled with tools, spare parts, and clothes of the sensible sort: nothing made of silk, and nary a corset to be seen.

“Incoming,” Waschbär noted as he deftly leapt off the caravan.

A low whistling noise increased in pitch and volume. Following the sneak-thief’s lead, Ariel looped an arm around Bertie’s waist and pulled her as far forward as the leather belt would permit, then shielded her when something heavy landed behind them with a
thud
!

“Would you kindly remove yourself, sir?” Shoving Ariel aside, Bertie sat up and spotted a steamer trunk, stickered on all sides and scuffed around the edges.

Clickity-clack!
Its latches popped open, while valises, carpetbags, and linen-wrapped bundles of all shapes and sizes rained down upon them. The moment the baggage deluge tapered off with a reticule dripping bead fringe and a gilt cage large enough for a hummingbird, Waschbär’s quivering nose reappeared over the edge of the caravan.

“Should you decide to write about foodstuffs,” he observed, “give me enough warning to ready some buckets.”

“Of course,” Bertie said, loosening her belt strap enough to twist around in the seat.

“What’s in all that junk?” Cobweb asked just before a late incoming messenger bag nearly felled him.

“Let us rummage.” Bertie’s aching toes tapped in anticipation of mary janes, but the uppermost folded garment in the open trunk was a nightdress, less substantial than the sunlight shining through it. “What sort of frivolous nonsense is this?”

Ariel considered the soft lace and pale ribbons. “The sort that a lady wears to bed.”

Cheeks flaring, Bertie flung the nightgown back, noting with relief the presence of a pair of jeans, a knit pullover, and assorted underthings that she hoped were her size. She dearly wished she could stop here and change, but it would just be a waste of time and she certainly had no desire to be dragged half naked down a backcountry road. The clean clothes would have to wait, at least for now.

“That went rather well,” Moth said. “No one was killed by a high-heeled shoe to the noggin.”

“Still,” Mustardseed said worriedly, “if you’re going to make with the eats, you might want to start with muffins.”

“Pancakes!” said Cobweb.

“Croissants are soft,” Peaseblossom ventured, “like little buttery pillows.”

Four fairies tipped their heads back and opened their mouths wide, waiting for a rain of breakfast foods. Watching them, Bertie realized that, since leaving the theater, she’d only partaken of three reluctant bites of apple. Her head was suddenly a balloon on a string, drifting up away from her shoulders, and she felt faint. The hair-dye fumes sometimes did the same….

But when’s the last time I keeled over from hunger?

She couldn’t remember, because such a thing didn’t happen at the Théâtre. Though they were only a day’s journey from that place, they might as well have been a million miles away. Reminding herself that she’d managed the clothes, albeit with an unexpected manner of delivery, Bertie started to write.

With bellies grumbling …

She paused, uncertain what to say next. In the lull, Something Happened.

“I could certainly do with a bit more scenery.” The voice was unfamiliar: a low sort of rumbling filtered through a few yards of intestine and with a touch of acidic sarcasm.

Mustardseed clapped his hands over his belly. “What did you do?”

Similar complaints rumbled through everyone’s middles, and Bertie’s own stomach spoke sotto voce. “Her diet is deplorable, if I may say so. None of you have any idea what this girl has put me through over the years.”

Peaseblossom had her hands pressed to her front as her stomach bellowed in a startling, deep voice, “Don’t play the martyr. This one can eat an entire chocolate cream pie all by herself.”

The fairy’s mouth dropped open. “I’ve never!”

The stomachs commiserated in a series of burps and belches that had Bertie blushing crimson to the tips of her ears. Waschbär’s stomach didn’t speak in any recognizable language but carped and nitpicked in a tongue all its own. Pip Pip and Cheerio, thoroughly embarrassed by the goings-on in their midsections, retreated to the sneak-thief’s fur-lined pockets.

“An addendum might be in order, milady.” Even Ariel looked discomfited, though his own innards had yet to tattle on him, and Bertie wondered just what, if anything, he did eat.

“No kidding.” She tapped the end of the fountain pen against the journal until she thought better of it. “I need to be specific. And put everything on tables.”

With bellies grumbling
silently,
a veritable wedding feast appears upon roadside trestle tables: a banquet of roasted chicken and cold ham, pigeon pie and leg of lamb.

Their suddenly silenced bellies gave her hope, and Bertie lifted her eyes to the landscape, fully expecting the manifestation of such abundance. But she was disappointed by the same rolling green grass, the same outlying purple mountains, the same avian-shaped figure now fleeing as fast as his wings would take him away from her.

“No matter,” she said, telling herself it was the truth. “We don’t have time for a blissful repast on the roadside, anyway.”

“Maybe you need to write more,” Moth said, shading his eyes from the sun. “Say something about jam puffs and pound cake.”

“I’ll give you a pound cake!” Cobweb punched him in the back of the head. “How was it?”

Bertie ignored the fistfight that broke out with cries of “knuckle sandwich!” as she tried to determine a way to word “hardtack” without maiming someone.

Sandwiches, knuckle or not, are a good idea. We can cobble them together without hardly stopping.

Orange wheels of sharp cheddar rest alongside bowls of fresh butter. And the bread! Rolls and biscuits and braided loaves.

“Still nothing,” Mustardseed fretted. “Be more specific!”

“Don’t forget the napkins,” Peaseblossom said. “And niceties like plates.”

“Who needs plates?” Moth scoffed. “There isn’t any food to put on plates, anyway. The Teller of Tales messed something up.”

Bertie didn’t know what was worse, the prospect of getting pelted with pickled eggs, or the fact that it hadn’t happened yet. Scowling up at the sky, she allowed her rumbling stomach to get the best of her.

Plain glass bowls brim over with fresh fruit and stewed, served with trifles and whipped cream, ladyfingers and sponge cake. Alongside that is horseradish and mint sauce and salad dressing, mustards and oils and salts and peppers. And when hunger is slaked, thirst must be addressed, with tea service for a hundred or more, alongside lemonade, ginger beer, soda water …

Stomach protesting the as-yet-imaginary feast, Bertie capped the fountain pen with a scowl. “I’m just torturing all of us, writing like this.”

The fairies drummed their heels and howled. Waschbär turned up his collar to deflect the terrible noise, and Ariel put on his introspective face. Now that he was ignoring her, Bertie had the sudden, perverse desire to ask him what he was thinking.

Such an ingénue thing to do!

When they crested the next hill, Bertie lost interest in speaking with Ariel as a tiny town came into view. Thatched cottages dotted the green slope, while plumes of wood smoke flavored the air with a spicy reek.

“Are those sheep?” Moth squinted at the wooly things far afield.

“How quaint,” Cobweb said.

“If quaint means smelly, sure.”

“Maybe this is where the food is!” Bertie leaned as far forward as her belt permitted, trying to get a better look. Red-painted Dutch doors stood half open to the sunshine. Flowers bloomed in window boxes, and the aforementioned sheep chewed mouthfuls of long, sweetly scented grass with all due consideration.

“It’s a hamlet,” Ariel supplied, then pointed his finger at the fairies. “Don’t even think about it.”

Geared up to deliver jokes at the expense of the Danish prince, they deflated.

Peaseblossom tossed her hair over her little shoulders. “Not all of us go for the easy quip.”

“But three out of four fairies agree that
Hamlet
puns are funny,” Moth said.

“Plus there are corollary ham jokes to be made—” Before Mustardseed could finish the thought, all four fairies lifted their noses and screeched, “I SMELL BACON!”

And they jetted away, leaving trails of glitter in their wake.

CHAPTER SIX
To Preserve Mine Honour, I’ll Perform

T
he Scrimshander didn’t pause
simply because the fairies had disappeared in search of sustenance. Only the leather strap around her waist prevented Bertie from being dragged from her seat as he surged forward, and her surprised cry was matched by one of frustration from her father as he was forced yet again to circle overhead.

Leaning over Ariel, Bertie snapped the reins on the backs of the mechanical horses. “We can’t stop to let the fairies gorge, bacon or not.”

“You’re going to get between them and food? Try not to lose a finger.”

About to say something cutting, Bertie caught the intoxicating scent of freshly baked bread atop the starch-crisp bouquet of Morning in the Countryside and relented half an inch. “Maybe we can trade for a picnic hamper? Then we could eat without stopping.”

“Trade what, exactly?” Ariel squinted as they rattled down the main road. “And with whom?”

Bertie tried to peer through the window of the next cottage they passed. “It is odd we haven’t met anyone yet.”

“Perhaps they’re waiting in the wings with pitchforks and flaming torches.” The air elemental turned his head and gave the sneak-thief a pointed look. “Have you anything in your pockets they might be missing?”

“This is not a place riddled with unwanted things,” Waschbär answered. “Each item has a purpose, each tool used daily and put away clean, every scrap of food hard-won from earth and animal.”

“That’s good to hear.” Especially since Bertie had spotted several farmwives swarming around the open village square. The crowd cleared a bit to reveal laden banquet tables, and Bertie pointed a finger in triumph. “You see? The journal
did
conjure food! Just not quite the way we expected it.”

“I suppose you never imagined it was appearing elsewhere,” Ariel said. “Nor that the fairies will probably be knee-deep in it by now.”

The villagers approached the caravan, their expressions a varied study in Grim, Ominous, and Disapproving. “Something’s run through the raspberry blancmange,” the closest of them shouted.

Another chimed in. “Two cold cabinet puddings in moulds completely ruined!”

“What in the blue blazes is cabinet pudding?” Bertie asked.

But “do those small, obnoxious creatures belong to you?” was not the answer she was looking for.

For a moment, Bertie was tempted to say, “Why, no!” and set the whip to the mechanical horses, but her sense of duty—and a horrible curiosity—won out. “Yes, I’m afraid they do.”

Fanned out across the road, the villagers gave Ariel the choice between stopping or trampling someone. He brought the caravan to a halt, and Bertie braced herself, expecting a pull upon her that didn’t come. Peering up at the ballerina clouds in gray-edged tutus, the blue of the backdrop faded somewhat, it was easier to spot the Scrimshander weaving through the overcast like a needle through cloth.

Surrounding the caravan, the village women continued listing the damages. “Every drop of the whipped syllabub …”

“Bites taken out of the candied ginger.”

“There’s a debt to be settled!”

“We haven’t any money,” Bertie said, prompting a low rumble from the irate crowd. “Perhaps we can offer something in exchange?” With a glance at the sky, she added, “I’m afraid we’re in a terrible rush—”

A man in a drab-colored uniform, apparently the constable, pushed his way to the front. “Come this way, please.”

His expression was the same worn by Mrs. Edith and the Theater Manager when they would not be budged. Wondering if the connection to her father was still intact, Bertie unbuckled the leather strap binding her to the caravan. Seconds later, she was heaved from the wagon. The villagers stared as Bertie swung to and fro like a trapeze performer, carefully clutching the journal to her chest as she slowly drifted to the ground like a bit of thistledown.

“One of our many illusions.” Ariel mimicked her elaborate dismount with the aid of his winds.

“Never mind your illusions!” A woman wearing daisy-sprigged green silk and the darkest of the frowns immediately seized Bertie by the elbow and dragged her toward a collection of trestle tables. “How will you compensate for such damage? Have you any idea how long it takes to prepare a wedding feast?”

Ariel caught up with them. “Longer, I would guess, than it takes my young friend here to write ‘a veritable wedding feast.’”

“Surely there wasn’t that much damage done …” Bertie’s voice trailed off when they reached the trestle tables. Horror deprived her of her own words, so she borrowed some of Mr. Tibbs’s. “How in the name of the sweet god’s suspenders did you wreak so much havoc so quickly?!”

Three fairies sat in the wrack and ruin, heads hanging in shame. “We’re sorry, Bertie, honest.”

“But there was the pigeon pie—”

“The cheesecakes—”

“The fruit turnovers …”

“You treated these tables like the ones in the Green Room! This isn’t the Théâtre, if you’ve forgotten already.” They tried to apologize again, but she was having none of it. “Shut up. Where’s Peaseblossom?”

Three fingers pointed, and Bertie turned. The last member of the ravaging horde sat atop a thankfully undamaged confectionary masterpiece. Dark fruitcake peeped between ornate scrolls of royal icing and meringue, which in turn was interspersed with orange blossoms, but it was the sight of Peaseblossom clutching a marzipan groom that caught Bertie unprepared. “Pease!”

The fairy didn’t bat a lash, so busy was she making doe eyes at the manikin. “Yes?”

“Get down from there!”

Peaseblossom turned slowly and gave Bertie the most Evil of Eyes before hissing like a tiny spiteful cat.

Bertie was shocked down to her toes. “Peaseblossom!”

“You don’t understand! You’ve never been in love!” The fairy clutched the marzipan figurine, subsiding into mumbles of “I won’t let them separate us” and “never fear, my beloved” while the boys made gagging noises.

“He’s not real, Pease,” Bertie tried to reason with her normally rational friend.

“I don’t care! I like the strong and silent type!” Peaseblossom clutched the tiny groom until his almond-paste head fell off. Over her disconcerted
eep!
Bertie grabbed both fairy and her beheaded paramour.

“You’ve
ruined
someone’s wedding feast—” Bertie started to remonstrate before the Scrimshander towed her face-first into the cake. For several seconds, Bertie’s entire world was candied fruit, nuts, and meringue. Though she’d managed to close her eyes, her mouth had been ajar to scream and the frosting had not only filled that but gone up her nose as well. Flailing, she inadvertently dropped everything: fairy, marzipan groom, journal.

A set of strong arms extracted her, and it was to Ariel’s credit that he did not laugh has he did his best to wipe off Bertie’s face. “No one at the theater would ever believe that was an accident.”

“It
was
an accident!” She choked on what turned out to be a stray orange blossom as she located the journal in the grass. Peaseblossom had disappeared with her newfound love, but the boys hovered near Bertie’s frosting-bedecked face, trying to get their licks in while the village women clucked over this horrifying new development.

“We’ll need time to prepare another cake.”

“I could manage a new meal in a few hours.”

A young woman dressed in an ivory gown appeared on the fringe of the crowd. “Performers for the celebration?” She clapped her hands and turned to the woman in daisy-sprigged silk. “Thank you, Mother!”

“We didn’t hire them,” the woman protested. “They arrived without warning, and I’m afraid there was some damage to the luncheon.”

“Pah!” The girl—for she couldn’t have been older than eighteen—waved at Bertie with great enthusiasm. “I would sooner have dancing and music and a play than food.”

Ariel knew a cue when he heard one. “‘If music be the food of love, play on.’” He made her a lovely bow. “I take it you are the bride to be?”

She colored prettily under her flowered wreath. “I am.”

Ariel started to hum a song of spellbound honeybees. The air around him shimmered and turned faintly gold, and his familiars emerged to settle around his brow like a crown. When he lifted his hand to his hair, a perfectly white butterfly walked with delicate legs onto his finger.

“Oh, how lovely!” the bride exclaimed.

“Not so lovely as you.” Deftly transferring the compliment along with the unusual adornment to her carefully arranged curls, Ariel spoke with a purr. “Permit us, fair maiden, to work off our debt with songs and storytellings.”

Bertie broke between them. “Would you excuse us for a moment, please?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Ariel by the arm and dragged him away. “Have you lost your mind? We can’t stop to sing for the fairies’ suppers—”

“Breakfasts.”

“Whatever!” Spinning like a compass needle, Bertie sought out the Scrimshander, though the growing cloud bank made it difficult to spot him. “I could be dragged off at any second!”

Behind them, the mechanical horses whickered, matching metallic whinnies that were a prologue to the rattle and shake of the caravan lurching forward. Bertie twisted around in time to see their clockwork livestock led away by a man with a blacksmith’s musculature.

“That’s ours!” she shouted as Waschbär’s nose peeped over the side. Bertie flapped a hand at him in a silent if agitated order to get down and stay put. “Just where are you taking that?”

“In lieu of payment for the damages.” But he halted, looking to the constable for orders.

“I didn’t say we’d trade the caravan!” Bertie tried to calculate how many people they might trample if she put the buggy whip to the mechanical horses.

“They are going to perform for us instead,” the bride said, intercepting the constable. “As part of the wedding celebration!”

“A limited engagement. One hour only!” Ariel nudged Bertie aside and ran back to the caravan, leaping atop it.

“Ah!” The constable and the blacksmith shared a whispered conversation that ended with the latter unhitching the horses and leading them away.

“Until the debt is paid,” the constable said in passing. “We’ll permit you to retain use of the caravan, since it no doubt stores your costumes and properties.”

“A thousand thanks, kind sir!” From one of the bags, Ariel had produced a black silk top hat. Buoyed by the shifting tides of excitement below his perch atop the driver’s seat, he rolled it deftly up one arm, across the back of his neck with a bounce, and down the other arm. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are but a group of humble thespians, traveling the fair countryside in search of an audience to astound and amaze!”

Hat firmly in place, Ariel began juggling scarves of brown-patterned silk which, midair, transformed into flaming billets of wood.

“Oh!” said the crowd.

As the sticks turned into green-glass wine bottles, Bertie hoped the villagers’ subtext was “Oh! How amazing!” and not “Oh! They’re witches! Someone fetch the ducking stool!”

Ariel hasn’t been the King of All Games around me for a long time.

It was years ago that they’d crawled through the catwalks, played leapfrog over the auditorium chairs, whistled in scene changes that transported them to any fairyland they liked. Her nostalgia was short-lived, though, as the Scrimshander towed her several feet away from the crowd surrounding the performing air elemental. Contemplating a return to the lap belt, Bertie circled around to the side of the caravan.

Out of the corner of his smiling lips, Ariel hissed at her and the fairies, “Get a puppet show set up,” before raising his voice back to a ringmaster’s bellow. “We are performers of all sorts: mimes, mimics, and mummers, with a little magic thrown in for good measure!”

“I absolutely and unequivocally refuse to mime,” Cobweb announced, landing on Bertie’s shoulder.

She turned her head to glower at him. “You got us into this mess, you can help us get out of it.”

He deflated, but still managed a sassy “mimes are creepy. All that time spent not talking is unnatural.”

“Mimicking is fine,” Moth said, “but we don’t have enough bandages for mummers.”

“We could rip up some of the clothes,” Peaseblossom said. “I would like to be the Queen Mummer.”

They flew atop the caravan, where they put their little heads together and set to rummaging in the boxes and bags. Snippets of satin, sequins, and string drifted about them like gaily colored dust motes as they argued in undertones, pausing only to shout, “We need a stage!”

Casting about her for something that could serve as a performance area, Bertie asked “Will a hatbox do?”

“Cut a proscenium arch into the side for an opening!” Mustardseed ordered as the fairies pushed, shoved, pinched, and, in Moth’s case, bit Cobweb in the backside to be the first into the Dressing Room.

“You weevil-ridden bastard!” exclaimed Cobweb from the depths of the carpetbag decorated with vivid, pink roses.

“What’s a theater without a proscenium arch?” Bertie said with a dribble of sarcasm as she ducked into the caravan and rummaged in the drawers. A sudden tug from the Scrimshander landed her on her bum, hindering her search momentarily. In the mess on the floor, though, she located an ancient but wicked-sharp knife, the sort meant to cut meat tough as shoe leather and stale loaves of bread. Carrying it gingerly outside, she sat upon the stairs and braced the hatbox against her knees, sawing away at the cardboard until a scalloped proscenium arch emerged, somewhat crooked for her haste to finish and set the knife down before a wayward tug caused her to pull an inadvertent Juliet.

“Is the stage ready yet?” demanded the carpetbag.

“Only just.” Bertie placed the hatbox on an upturned barrel and dumped the contents of the talking luggage inside the miniature theater without further ceremony. As they took their places, she caught glimpses of trailing yarn and rouged cheeks. “Where’d you get the makeup?”

It was Peaseblossom who answered. “Moth found a lovely bit of red satin. When he spat on it enough, the color came off.”