The Water and the Wild (14 page)

“What for?” said Adelaide, snapping to attention. “There's nothing to tell Mr. Ingle that you can't tell all of us.”

“Or that Adelaide can't hear,” said Fife.

Adelaide gave Fife a dirty look.

“I just want to ask Mr. Ingle something personal,” Lottie said crossly. “It's my own private business.”

“Right, then,” said Fife, stretching his arms between Lottie and Adelaide in a peacemaking gesture. “Let's not get worked up. You, Ollie, and I can have our own secret conversation, can't we, Ada?”

Adelaide aimed a kick at Fife's shin, but his feet left the ground just in time for her to miss and lose her balance. It
looked like Adelaide was working up a shout, and Lottie seized the lull to push Mr. Ingle into his room and shut the door behind them.

“My!” said Mr. Ingle, smiling as he toppled inside. “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?”

“See! That's exactly why I want to talk to you, Mr. Ingle,” Lottie said.

“About apple trees?” Mr. Ingle looked confused.

“No,” said Lottie. “Because you said that you knew my parents, Bertram and Eloise.”

From outside the door, Lottie heard Fife say in a voice that was extra loud for her benefit, “Well, I guess we'll just go and have our own deliciously secret conversation! Did I mention that it's going to be
deliciously secret
?”

Mr. Ingle took a seat on a tattered, spring-pocked sofa. He motioned for Lottie to do the same.

“Moritasgus locked up in the Southerly dungeons,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor fellow.”

Lottie took a seat on the sofa. “Mr. Ingle,” she said, “is it my fault that Mr. Wilfer was taken away?”

“No,” said Mr. Ingle. “That is the Southerly King's fault. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.”

“He doesn't seem to me to be a very good king,” said Lottie. “Back where I come from, you can't just go around burning up gardens and throwing people into dungeons. At least, not anymore.”

“Ah, where you come from . . .”

Lottie waited for Mr. Ingle to finish that thought, but apparently Mr. Ingle thought it was finished enough. He looked entranced, like he'd just spotted a distant ship on the horizon.

“Mr. Ingle?” Lottie pressed, attempting to reel in his attention.

Without a word, Mr. Ingle got up from the couch, opened the door, and left the room.

Lottie was afraid that she had offended the innkeeper in some way. Mr. Ingle returned, however, in a minute's time. By the looks of his tousled hair and heaving chest, it seemed he'd made an effort to retrieve whatever he now held.

It was a birdcage.

“Do you know what this is?” Mr. Ingle asked, setting the birdcage in front of her.

Lottie squinted at the cage. It was simply designed—a small, silver-barred dome with a single perch. What had
captured Lottie's attention wasn't the birdcage at all but what was inside it.

A small bird sat inside, on the perch. Its head was tucked down, its body completely still. Its feathers were a deep, inky black.

“Is it—
alive
?” Lottie whispered.

“I've held him in my keeping for far too long,” said Mr. Ingle. “Eloise told me that you would be back for him one day, and blow me down if she wasn't right. Now, if you'd be so good as to wake him up?”

Lottie frowned at Mr. Ingle. Then she frowned at the small, still bird.

“It's sleeping?”

“For more than twelve years now.” Mr. Ingle hesitated. Then, quietly, he asked, “You
do
know what this is, don't you?”

“It's a bird,” Lottie said, though she guessed that Mr. Ingle was expecting another answer, and something inside Lottie told her that she knew what this answer was.

Mr. Ingle unlatched the cage door and motioned for Lottie to lean closer. “Put out your hands,” he instructed. “Both of them. Form them like a bowl. Then ask him to wake up. He knows your voice.”

Lottie didn't see how a
bird
could possibly know her voice, let alone a bird she'd never seen before. Still, she did as Mr. Ingle asked and placed her cupped hands at the birdcage's open door.

“Um,” she said. “Wake up?”

Nothing happened for a long moment. Then the little mound of feathers began to quiver. Then it rustled. Then the bird untucked his head from his breast and opened his eyes. Suddenly, he gave a great, fluttering jump and landed in Lottie's cupped hands. She gave a cry of surprise.

The bird stared up at her. He chirped.

“What kind of bird
is
it?” Lottie whispered.

“He's an obsidian warbler, if we're being specific,” said Mr. Ingle. “Even more specifically, he's a genga.”

The bird opened his slate-gray beak and piped out another tweet. It was a soothing sound that put Lottie in mind of wind chimes on a late April day.

“I've seen one of these before,” said Lottie. “Adelaide keeps one in her pocket.”

“The pocket is customary. You can use your own pocket if you'd like. Or you may choose a satchel or a hat. Anywhere close by. Gengas don't like to be separated from their sprites.”

Lottie blinked dumbly at the chirruping bird. Then she understood.

“It's
my
genga?” she whispered.

Mr. Ingle nodded. “Look. He knows you.”

The warbler had fluttered to the edge of Lottie's hands and perched precariously on her fingertips, his head tilted to one side and black eyes glinting curiously at Lottie. Then, in one great go, he hopped from Lottie's hands and landed on her knee. He bent his head and scrunched his feathers up in a cottony poof, and then he sprung into an upward swoop. He circled about the room, skimming the edge of the crown molding with his wings. At last, he settled back on Lottie's knee and gave a low, content warble.

Cautiously, Lottie outstretched her forefinger and brushed it along the genga's wing. The bird cooed and rubbed his downy face against Lottie's fingernail.

“He's beautiful,” she whispered. “How can he have been asleep this whole time?”

“Gengas only respond to their owners' voice,” said Mr. Ingle. “They're extremely delicate creatures, you understand. That is why Eloise entrusted yours to me. Any being that lives outside of his or her own world is bound to grow weak. But gengas are especially fragile. Your parents had
decided to raise you amongst the humans, and Earth is no place for a creature so thoroughly Limnlike as a genga.”

“Why didn't my parents choose to live here?”

“Why,” said Mr. Ingle, “your father was human, and Limn had begun to take its toll on his health. It was only natural that he moved back to his own kind. Eloise practically forced him back into Earth. She thought it would save his life. She was wrong, poor dear.”

“My parents really are dead, then?” Lottie whispered.

Mr. Ingle looked ashamed of himself, like he had just told a terrible joke. Still, he nodded. “They really are. Didn't you know?”

“I knew,” said Lottie. “I just—well, Mr. Ingle, do you ever like to pretend that things aren't quite the way you've been told they are?”

Mr. Ingle shook his head.

After a long silence, Lottie said, “I guess that was very stupid of me.”

“No, not stupid,” said Mr. Ingle, patting Lottie's arm. “But they are dead. You mustn't deceive yourself about that any longer.”

Lottie looked down at her genga, which was roosting on her knee. He breathed deeply, his dark body glinting
in the lamplight with every rise and fall of his tiny chest. Lottie measured her own breaths by the genga's. She was working up the courage to ask something.

“How did they die?”

“Aaah,” Mr. Ingle sighed. “The Plague took your mother, same as it took all the other Fiskes.”

“The Plague?”

Mr. Ingle lowered his eyes, his walnut face producing still more wrinkles. “The Plague struck all of Albion Isle some years before you were born. Our island has long suffered from pestilences, but this was the worst of them all. Many Southerlies died, and Northerlies too. Plants withered and trees rotted. The disease took ahold of the will o' the wisps in a strange manner, changing in ways it did not with sprites; it torments them still. Fiskes were particularly susceptible. No one knows why, though some think it was because their keen had grown so weak. They no longer had their former abilities.”

“What abilities?”

“Didn't Moritasgus tell you?” Mr. Ingle shook his head. “Each of them possessed a renowned ability to command. Mab the Great, the very first queen of Albion Isle, was a Fiske. But then—no one knows why—the Fiskes
began to lose their abilities. Their keen grew weaker and weaker, until a Fiske king abdicated. He thought it best for the island, but everything went to ruin after that. Up sprung the Northerly and Southerly Courts and all types of mayhem. That was generations ago.”

“I don't have any—special abilities,” said Lottie.

“Yes, it would seem that human halflings don't have keens,” said Mr. Ingle. “Though you're very rare, you know. Your mother herself wanted nothing to do with politics, but she was strong. She had a marvelous heart. Moritasgus and I were very good friends with your mother and her family, growing up. When she grew sick, she entrusted us both with the task of caring for you and your father in Earth. Then your father died of his own illness, and you were taken away. We thought we had lost you. But Moritasgus did not stop searching, and he found you at last in New Kemble. Just before your sixth birthday, I believe it was.”

“Yes,” Lottie whispered, and found she had begun to cry. “That was just when it was. That was when I found the copper box.”

Mr. Ingle looked very frightened to be in a room with a crying girl.

“I think,” he said, “you'd better get some rest, don't you? You're leaving first thing in the morning, and it won't be an easy trip if you're avoiding the main roads.”

“So,” said Lottie, “my mother was a sprite and my father was a human. Is that why Mr. Grissom is after me? Because I'm a halfling? Does the Southerly King not like humans or something?”

Mr. Ingle shook his head. “The king doesn't like
Fiskes
. These are hopeless times for many sprites, and there are wishful stories about a Fiske returning to take the throne.”

Lottie's genga exhaled a low, mournful whistle.

“But that's ridiculous! I don't want his stupid throne.”

Mr. Ingle leaned forward, his voice suddenly hushed. “Listen closely, Charlotte, for this is important advice: once you arrive at the Southerly Court, the two Wilfer children must make a formal petition to the king to save their father. That is how things are done. You, however, should stay out of sight. Don't show your face to the king. Don't even breathe the name Fiske.

“As for that Fife boy,” Mr. Ingle added, “it'd be smarter if he stayed out of this matter entirely. Marked Northerlies like him are neither wanted nor welcome in the Southerly Court.”

Lottie's brow creased. “I don't think there's a chance of him staying out of the matter.”

Mr. Ingle smiled. “No, I don't think so, either. That boy reeks of a thirst for adventure. Your mother smelled the same.”

Lottie liked Mr. Ingle, but all this talk about people's scents was a little unsettling.

“Now,” Mr. Ingle said, “time for bed.”

There was still so much more that Lottie wanted to know, a press of questions she hadn't even formulated yet. But Eliot came first, and Lottie was not fool enough to think she could walk a day's journey without sleep. She sighed and nodded.

Gingerly, she scooted her palm across her leg, toward her genga. The bird stooped to inspect Lottie's fingers. Then he gave a merry hop back onto her hand.

Lottie looked nervously at Mr. Ingle. “Am I really supposed to just put him in my pocket?”

“He's in no danger,” Mr. Ingle said. “Gengas don't breathe like we do. In fact, I imagine he's quite eager to be close to you after so long a separation.”

Lottie gave the bird an apologetic look. Then she closed her eyes and, in one swift movement, she tucked
him into her coat pocket. She removed her hand. Then she glanced down. Her pocket rustled, and a happy little chirp emerged.

“That's going to take some getting used to,” she said.

“You'll catch on soon enough.”

Mr. Ingle rose to his feet. He opened the door and ushered Lottie past him into the hallway.

“Thank you, Mr. Ingle,” said Lottie. “Thanks for telling me things. Especially, you know, things about
them
.”

“Don't thank me for sharing memories,” Mr. Ingle tutted, shutting the door to a mere crack. “These days, it's memory that keeps me alive.”

“Mr. Ingle?”

“Hm?”

“What are good names for a genga?”

“Your mother named your genga when she named you.” Mr. Ingle's wrinkled smile was visible even through the crack in the door. “She named him Trouble.”