Small Persons With Wings (9 page)

“Nothing?” I said, cutting myself a hunk of cheese.

“Worse than nothing,” my mom said. “We just realized we have to go through all that moldy stuff in the backyard.”

“Plus the mattresses in the guest rooms,” I said.

Dad groaned. “Bloody old man. Why couldn't he make this easy?”

“When did he ever make anything easy?” Mom said.

The moving van distracted us by rumbling up to the front door and honking. The sun was low in the sky by the time we got our possessions moved in and set in place.

Moving my stuff into my new room felt like starting my life all over again. I forgot all about Chief Wright and his freckled son and the weird real estate lady. Even though my genes were against me, I resolved to (a) play sports, (b) eat less, (c) become thinner and cooler. I was going to (d) have friends in this place. I would (e) wear blue eye shadow, and (f) walk into school holding hands with someone—a taller and smarter version of Benny who liked Degas.

Listing things doesn't necessarily mean you're being rational. Particularly when the only boy I'd met so far was Timmo the weight-bearing space-nerd.

I stuck my china guy in his regular spot on my dresser and danced him around the way I used to when I was little. I wished Fidius would turn up. I wanted to apologize for trying to show him off to the kindergarten. When I became popular, I wanted him to know about it.

My stomach growled. I was wondering if anyone was going to make dinner when an alarm bell went off in my head.

We'd forgotten Durindana for eleven hours. Eleven and a half, to be accurate.

Mom and Dad were in their bedroom, swearing at each other in an affectionate and jocular fashion as they tried to hang her still life with poppies.

“Hey,” I said, running in and almost killing myself when the scatter rug . . . well, scattered. “Anybody feed Durindana?”

The swearing got un-jocular in a hurry.

“We'd better go down there together,” Dad said as we bustled around the kitchen tearing bread and cheese and tomatoes into small bits, all we could think of at short notice. “She's not going to be happy.”

We were pretty tired and the stairwell was dark, which must be why we didn't notice the change of wallpaper on the way down to the front door. Later, when we had it together, we discovered that the wall closest to the pub had broken out in striped silk. It must have oozed through the plaster like some eighteenth-century mildew.

Having made it to the sidewalk without noticing anything unusual, Dad reached for the pub doorknob and stumbled backward in surprise. There was a new door, a stunning blue one with a fancy gold handle. Light and tinkling classical music poured out the mail slot, which had never had a flap.

I could tell Dad didn't want to go in there, but we aren't descended from a warrior archbishop for nothing. He took a deep breath and opened the door. The three of us huddled in the doorway, aghast.

Parvi were everywhere, and I mean EVerywhere. You could barely see the chandelier for all the ornately dressed little ladies and guys sitting on the prongs, swinging it slightly. More of them were sitting on the windowsills, all over the grimy tables, on the wall sconces, on the bar.

Six feet above the floor, fifty small figures were flying around in a circle, all packed together and moving so fast I couldn't distinguish one from another.
The Circulus
, I thought.
Powering the magic that makes illusions.
Now and then, a beautifully dressed figure would fly up from the floor and ease into the circle, while another would emerge from it and float blissfully downward.

As they circled, stuff kept happening in the room until it was covered with marble, gold filigree, and silk. The top of the bar and the tables turned into glass. Brocaded and tasseled wall hangings unfurled themselves from the ceiling. The windows grew heavy velvet drapes.

The only thing that stayed the same was the chandelier, except it was sparkling clean.

On every surface, matchbooks and other bits of debris were turning into Parvi-sized tables and chairs and sofas and beds.

“Aw, dang it,” Mom whispered.

Dad looked at the bread and cheese and tomatoes in the palm of his hand. It had been a pitiful offering to begin with. Now it was an embarrassment. “Here, Mellie,” he whispered, “put this on the stairs next door. Quick, before anybody sees it.”

“
Turpini!
” Two small figures made a beeline for us, joined us on the sidewalk. Hand in hand, they hovered in front of Dad's nose. Dad didn't brush them away like wasps, but his fingers twitched.

The lady wore a gown of some shiny, gold-colored cloth, ruffled and flounced and so encrusted with jewels I couldn't see how she stayed in the air. Her white-powdered hair was piled high, with white plumes bobbing around in it. She had a fancy necklace and a bunch of bracelets so brilliant it hurt to look at them.

Her gentleman was in a purple satin suit with knee breeches, a pink brocade vest, and his own bunch of ruffles. He had big jeweled buttons on his coat and powdered hair tied back with a black velvet ribbon. Totally looked like they came out of a Watteau painting.

The gentleman nodded to the lady and dropped her hand. He swept off his plumed hat and bowed to us in midair, face expressionless.

“Er, how do you do?” Dad said as the little man settled his hat back on his head.

“
Rinaldo sum
,” the little man said in that tinny Parvi voice.

“
Linguam Latinam non loquimur,”
Dad said, meaning that we didn't speak Latin. Then he said the same thing in French. “
Et nous ne parlons pas français
. Do you speak English?”

“I speak very, very well. My naming is to be . . .” He got the fish eye from the overdressed lady, and tried again. “I . . . am been . . . I am being . . . I
am
Rinaldo, gubernator of the Parvi Pennati. This is being . . . This is the Lady Noctua, my consort and
domina
of the Circulus.” He indicated the circling figures under the chandelier.

Rinaldo. Fidius's former best friend. Who made fun of Fidius's parents.
He didn't look like a bad guy, although it's hard to tell without cues from a person's facial expression.

“How do you do?” Dad said again. “I am Roland and this is my, uh, consort, Veronica. Our daughter is Melissa Angelica.”

“Names of lineage,” Rinaldo said, beaming. “Such as mine.”

I kept forgetting to ask what that meant.

“
Alors,
” Lady Noctua said. “To business, Rinaldo. Roland Turpin, we are to be imposing upon the hospitality of this house. We invoke the pact of our ancestors.”

“I can see that,” Dad said. “May I ask why?”

“Please enter and be seating of yourselves in comfort.” Rinaldo gestured like a head waiter.

“Yeah, Dad,” I said. “Better get in there and shut the door.” A car slowed down behind me. They probably couldn't see into the pub. But still.

Thanks to the Parvi's natural chill, we could see our breath. The breeze from the whirring Circulus didn't help. I hoped we wouldn't stay long.

Rinaldo shooed some ladies off three human-sized chairs around a table and invited us to sit. Lady Noctua curtsied to us in midair before gliding down to the table next to ours, where a bunch of ladies and gentlemen were making merry.

Mom was unnaturally quiet, her eyes practically rolling around in her head as she sized up the miniature population. I guess she hadn't seen so many Parvi in one place before. You couldn't keep tabs on them all.

If there's only one of her, there's not much she can do to us,
that's what Dad had said. My scalp was still sore from that “not much.” What could a group of Parvi do to us?

Rinaldo landed on our tabletop. He sat down in a miniature chair, swept off his plumed hat, and set it on a tiny round table, fluffing the feather. “Ah.” He put his feet up on another chair. “
Melius.
Better.”

“If I may ask again,” Dad said, “why are you here? Not that we're not delighted to have you, of course.”

His voice boomed over the chatter, which dimmed immediately. A thousand eyes focused on Rinaldo.

Rinaldo stood up, putting his hat back on so he could sweep it off again in a bow. “It is been—bah, this English—it
is
my duty to announce that the Parvi Pennati, children of the Larger Gods, wish to regain the Gemmaluna, gem of insight, which our forebears in happier times have entrusted to the esteemed family of Turpini.”

The crowd murmured. We Turpini looked at one another sideways. I zipped my lips, in case I blurted out that we had no idea where the stupid moonstone even was.

Dad assumed the role of family spokesman. “May I ask why you want it back?”

“We taste no food!” a little lady shrieked from the floor.

“We cannot smile or frown!” a little guy in a scarlet coat shouted. It was true—now that I looked around, the Parvi did seem awfully Stoic. Unlike Durindana, who almost had real facial expressions. Where was she, anyway?

“Bah!
Crétin
!” A little guy in green tackled the guy in scarlet and they rolled around on the floor, punching and hair-pulling. All over the room, little ladies and gentlemen unfurled their beautiful wings—
fwap!
—and started shoving and shouting. Here and there, wings began to darken.

“Peace! Peace, my Parvi Pennati!” Rinaldo beckoned to us. We bent in close. “As you see, many of the Parvi Pennati do not want the Gemma to return. Even my dear Lady Noctua.” He bowed to Lady Noctua. She gave him the cold shoulder and turned her attention to the guy next to her.
Nice marriage,
I thought.

“If we have the Gemmaluna,” Rinaldo continued, “we shall make from it an elixir to regain the Magica Vera, our true power, which makes real objects for our comfort and support.” He gestured toward a small table covered with a silk carpet. Displayed on it were a miniature plow, a bunch of tiny pots and pans, some earthenware pottery, and a collection of tweensy tools: mallets and shovels and things.

Dad looked puzzled. “I know a little about the elixir. But why would you want pots and plows instead of . . .” He waved around at all the brocade and gold and marble.

“
Exactement
!” yelled the guy next to Lady Noctua, brandishing his fists at Rinaldo. Rinaldo shook his head sadly. “We love our comforts,” he said. “But the magic that creates the beauty you see around us, the Magica Artificia, it has developed . . . how do you say this . . . a side effect.”

“And what is that?” Dad asked.

Rinaldo loosened his lacy neck-cloth while Lady Noctua's table glared at him. “Since the time of my grand-père, we have watched our senses die. No one now living is remembering the taste of food. Few can smell the spring air. We cannot use our faces to express what we feel. Those most adept at the Magica Artificia are the ones least able to smell or smile.”

“Why is that happening?”

“We do not know. Our
magi
—myself and Noctua among them—have tested and tested, trying to identify the difficulty. And now we . . . that is, most of the Parvi Pennati”—Rinaldo slid a glance at his wife—“we believe we shall lose all our senses if we continue with the Magica Artificia. Our hearing, our sight, perhaps speech, even the sense of touch.”

“Wow,” Dad said.

“Pah,” said Lady Noctua.

“Yes, Roland Turpin, it is very wow,” Rinaldo said. “Our remaining senses are being dear to us. We admire the look and texture of food because we cannot taste it, the sound and feel of a breeze because we cannot sniff the air. We must act before all such pleasures leave us.”

“Will you get back the other senses?” I asked. “I mean, once Fidius got away from the Circulus, he could smile a little.”

“Fidius?” Rinaldo said. Was it my imagination, or did his wings darken? “You know Fidius?”

“Yes,” I said. “And Durindana is even more—” The gentlemen and ladies at Noctua's table broke into raucous laughter. “Inepta,” one of the ladies said, and the others cracked up.

“Inepta
,
” Rinaldo repeated. “This is how we call her. Always she stumbles in the dance, bespills herself with food. She falls from the air and disrupts the Circulus. Even now she sleeps as a besotted one. Puh.”

“Oh,” my mom said, the first words out of her mouth since we sat down, “here she is now.”

Durindana stood in her pink bed, barely keeping her balance as the chandelier swung gently back and forth. Surrounded by opulence, she looked even more disheveled than before. I hoped she wouldn't embarrass herself by trying to fly.

As she wobbled there, her pink dress turned bright blue and her hair tidied itself.

“She's fixing herself up,” I said. “The Circulus must be helping her.”

“The least she could be doing,” Rinaldo said.

“Ho, Inepta,” shouted a gentleman at the next table, waving his hat.

He yelled something I couldn't understand, and his friends shrieked with laughter. Lady Noctua slapped him with her fan, but in a flirty way, not really angry.

Durindana shouted something back. “
Something-something-pupa-something
,” I heard. She gestured at Dad and me, gabbled some more Latin.

The room went silent. The music faltered. Every face turned to the chandelier. “Ha!” yelled the hat-waving gentleman. “
Inepta-something-something-pupa-something!”

Every little being in the room started to yuck it up, doubling over, slapping one another on the back. Lady Noctua covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking. Rinaldo said something none of us could hear. Dad bent down to him.