Much to Aix’s relief, he wasn’t put on the spot immediately; they did old favourites for a few songs, and then the pianist, Gabe Stanton, who had been playing Otho in the show, turned to Aix.
‘It’s your birthday, you get the first request.’
Aix thought about which songs showed off his voice best, and which of those were tiresome to most Theatre Kids, and which ones had always seemed to impress other Theatre Kids.
‘I need a Seymour Krelborne to my Audrey Two,’ he said, ‘but I can do “Feed Me”.’ He knew by now this was surprising, though it seemed hardly surprising to him—it was the villain song, of course he liked it.
‘Oooh, me!’ Xander said eagerly, bouncing up and down, which... didn’t exactly surprise Aix at all.
‘Key?’ Gabe asked.
‘I’m a baritone,’ Aix said, ‘whatever key that is. Down, Pippin.’
‘Uppy,’ she said, pointing at the piano.
‘There you go,’ Xander said, picking her up and setting her on top of the upright piano. She sat down immediately, which made Aix feel better about her safety up there.
Aix had done this song before, so he wasn’t nervous, and fed on the surprised delight of the crowd as he stood up, and showed them just how big and how loud he could be, singing duet with Xander.
‘Holy shit dude, that was amazing!’ Xander said, after they finished, with similar echoes from the other performers.
‘Oh gosh, thanks. You were so much fun to sing with.’
‘Your voice is so big!’ Jasmine said, sounding impressed.
‘Thank you,’ Aix felt a little abashed but also very excited at the praise from all these professionals. Out the corner of his eye, he saw one of the burly techs come over with a really fancy, comfortable-looking barstool.
‘Would this help?’ she asked.
‘Yes, actually,’ Aix said, climbing up on it, resting his heels on the bars between the legs. ‘Thank you.’
‘Anything else you wanna do from this show?’ Gabe asked.
‘Um...’
Pippin honked, waving her hands and turning her Flash orange and gold and red, and her Mask like a yellow cat... with a red mark across the forehead. Like baby Simba, Aix recognised, and smiled.
‘Whatchu want, bean?’
‘Zazu sone!’ she said, throwing her hands up. Aix laughed, and drew himself up as Gabe began to play, putting on his best haughty English accent, his most perfect diction. He’d sung this around Pippin before, but he was still surprised to hear her request it.
He made them laugh—because Dottore was a rôle he could do well, when he had the words all memorised—and Pippin’s laugh was most precious of all, as was her applause.
They did lots of Disney, old standards and new, and Aix apparently impressed so much he had people telling him to contact them for professional reasons, which blew his mind a little bit. It was late by the time people were going home; but going home wasn’t straightforward, for René, who wanted to start back to Baltimore as soon as possible, and who was quite the opposite of winding down for the evening.
‘I know I cannot stay as guest to you, madame,’ René was saying to Victoria, as she, Aix, Marshmallow, and René were lingering, as the staff cleaned around them. They were clustered over by the window with the best view, René sitting on the sill, Pippin curled up in René’s lap, having fallen asleep watching out the window.
‘Why not?’ Marshmallow asked, a little startled at the idea that Victoria would turn him out like that.
‘My husband is a vampire, my dear; they’re quite territorial creatures,’ Victoria explained, not looking up from her crochet.
‘So he can’t just... decide to lay that aside because he’s a thinking human being?’ Marshmallow asked, but her tone was that of someone testing an idea.
‘Mais non, mademoiselle,’ René said. ‘It is a pull inexorable. Monsieur Blackwood and I also have other reasons to loathe one another.’
‘Oh?’
‘He is English, mademoiselle,’ René said, with a wry smile.
Pippin suddenly woke up with a start, ‘Trouble! Trouble!’ she said, climbing off René’s lap. Both of them looked around, realising all at once the reason Victoria and Aix had gone quiet.
Both were limp—in the shadow of a decorative curtain, Victoria’s eyes were covered by a ghostly violet glow; but Aix’s eyes were black—and weeping black, viscous liquid.
‘Oh God, Oh Jesus fuck what is going on...’ Marshmallow leapt out of her chair feeling like a jolt had gone through her, and started to back away; Pippin grabbed the hem of her skirt and pulled her back.
‘No!’ she said, her voice strained with the effort of pulling against Marshmallow. ‘Bees a courage!’
‘She’s right,’ René said, ‘If you wish to be a Guardian, you must not run from such things. Besides,’ he gentled his tones, ‘Lady Victoria is a medium, this happens to her often.’ He looked around the room, seeing one of the staff at the bar, still cleaning up. ‘Excuse me,’ he called, crossing the room with somewhat more speed than was humanly possible. ‘Monsieur, might I have two notepads, and pens?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ the portly bartender pulled two half-used order pads from the drawer beneath the elderly cash register. ‘That okay?’
‘Parfait, monsieur. It is perfect, thank you,’ René said, taking the pads and two pens from him; it was fortuitous, he thought, that the room was so large that the bartender could not see what was going on. He sped back over to the mediums. Pippin had gotten Marshmallow to sit back down, and was Pantomiming furiously. ‘Now,’ René said to Marshmallow, ‘Do you know which hand they use to write?’
‘Aix is left handed, and Victoria is...’ Marshmallow closed her eyes tightly, trying to remember. ‘Isssss... also left-handed!’ she said triumphantly, and René handed her a pen and a pad.
‘Place the paper in her right hand first, then form her fingers around the pen. She will begin writing as soon as she feels it in her hand, I would wager, so be sure there is something to write on first.’
‘Okay,’ Marshmallow said, feeling giddy but glad for having a direction to channel all her nervous energy. She tried to be gentle, taking the crochet hook and yarn from Victoria’s hands, then putting the pad in Victoria’s right hand—but then Victoria grabbed her hands, and those glowing eyes looked straight at her, and a voice that was only using Victoria scraped out,
‘She has bound them deep in Domrak, she has bound them with the dragon’s bane—haste! Haste!’
Marshmallow had never been so terrified in all her life, but she stayed quiet, just trying to breathe, trying to pay attention, to think.
‘Who are you?’ she heard herself say, ‘Who speaks?’
‘He Who Waits Beneath the Houuuuuse...’ the last word trailed off, but not in a hiss—in a throaty scraping, like someone not used to using lungs. A ragged gasp like a drowning person, ‘She binds them all in Domrak, haste! Haste!’
Domrak sounded familiar, why did it sound familiar, Marshmallow thought. Domrak, Domrak, she felt like she’d heard that before... why was she thinking about gelfling? Wait! That was it! Domrak! That was a place in Thra!
‘She binds my brotherrrrrr binds him with the joker’s bane! The lacing-death! The Colourrrrrr—haste! Haste!’
Pippin was crying out in pain, and Marshmallow heard the sound of someone scribbling hard from where Aix was sitting, and the lights started to flicker, and eyes began to open up from places there shouldn’t be eyes, and the whole entire world went horribly sideways for a moment—
And then it stopped.
Marshmallow realised she’d been screaming, because her throat hurt; she felt Victoria’s hands holding hers more gently, and looked up to see Victoria looking down at her, her dark eyes quite normal again behind her spectacles.
‘What did I say?’ Victoria asked Marshmallow. ‘Did someone write it down?’
‘Yes,’ René said. ‘Mademoiselle Marshmallow should be commended. She got your visitor to answer a question.’
‘Excellent work, my dear!’ Victoria said warmly, knowing Marshmallow was frightened. ‘We’ll make a Guardian of you yet!’
‘I don’t know how much sense it makes,’ Marshmallow said, feeling shaky, but glad other people were being calm—it helped her calm down when other people were calm, even bustling. ‘He Who Waits Beneath The House?’
‘Oh, Cousin Squidge! Gracious, I didn’t know he had it in him,’ Victoria said, taking the pad of paper from René, and looking at it. ‘Domrak—that’s interesting, that’s the second time someone’s mentioned Domrak.’
‘It’s a place in Thra,’ Marshmallow said. ‘You know, the Dark Crystal?’
‘Oh, yes? Whereabouts?’ Victoria said, still studying the words. ‘Aix, did you write anything?’
‘Yeah.’ Aix sounded faint, and they all looked over to see him looking white as a sheet, and a little green around the edges. He held up the pad, which only had a drawing so realistic it almost looked like a photograph.
It was a gory picture of a duck that had been shot in the chest, but it was no kind of duck Marshmallow had ever seen.
‘Okay, why is that freaking you out?’ Marshmallow asked, hearing her own voice shaking a bit. ‘Because you... you look like that means something way serious.’
‘It’s me,’ Aix said in a faint voice. ‘My... I called myself aix because of... it’s me,’ he said, actually crying. René took the picture from him, handing it over to Victoria and sitting next to Aix, offering his embrace as a shelter. Aix took it gratefully, his sobs colourless with horror.
Victoria turned the page, and Marshmallow saw the big symbol carved into the paper, going down several layers from how hard Aix had pressed the pen over and over and over... ‘What’s that symbol mean?’ she asked.
‘Laloh,’ Pippin said, softly, pushing her way into Marshmallow’s lap, huddled and scared.
‘Laloh?’ Marshmallow echoed, seeing how Pippin’s Flash had gone all yellow, her Mask so scared it was almost viscerally upsetting to even touch her, to do anything but run. Marshmallow held on tight, closing her eyes so they didn’t trick her. She felt how scared Pippin was, how soft and small and scared, and held gently, made herself a safe place.
‘It’s okay, Pippin,’ Marshmallow made her voice calm, made her breathing calm, made herself relax. ‘It’s oooookay,’ she said. ‘We’re ooookay,’ she repeated, gently stroking Pippin’s back. ‘We’re all ooookay.’
She heard René speaking French, some of the words sounding recognisable—but then, Bonma used to calm Marshmallow down in French, albeit Louisiana French, rather than European French.
‘Quite right,’ Victoria said, gentling the crisp edges of her voice. ‘The first dire warning is always the most harrowing, Aix dear. You’re doing just fine. I screamed, my first time, so you’re already doing better than me.’
That got a shaky laugh. ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’
‘I knew that would get you thinking about something else!’ Victoria said with a wry smile. ‘Marshmallow, darling, get us all some water, there’s a love.’
Marshmallow carefully got up, still holding Pippin, who was holding tight to her. René came to help her after a few moments, and they went back across the big room—it felt so much bigger now that they were the only people in it.
‘First, let’s take a few moments to have some water and get our breath back... it takes a bit out of you,’ Victoria was saying to Aix, as she sipped from a cup of water. ‘We’re here now, we’re safe.’
‘Are we?’ Aix asked. ‘I’m... shit, I’m real close to a psychotic breakdown,’ he realised, as he made himself sit in the quiet and sip water.
‘Do you know what you need?’ Victoria asked.
‘I need a break,’ Aix said.
‘I need to make a phone call,’ Marshmallow lied, wanting some time alone, herself. ‘Hey, Pippin? Your friend needs you, okay?’
Pippin uncurled a little, and let Marshmallow put her in Aix’s lap. She clung to Aix, nuzzling him and purring. Her Flash was still all yellow, but she didn’t seem so tense anymore.
‘Go anywhere your heart desires, my dear lady,’ Victoria said with a smile. ‘Nowhere is off limits!’
Marshmallow was a little excited, at that. She went off by herself, going wherever her curiosity dictated. Exploring helped a lot of her fear; she had always been a type of person to want to go and read scary stories when she was afraid of something in real life, because it helped to have a fictional monster to be afraid of, one that couldn’t possibly exist in real life....
...Then again, that list had just dwindled, given what she knew now. Still, she put on her headphones to listen to some scary stories from her favourite podcast, quiet enough that she could still hear things outside them.
She had time, in the dark, to think about what she’d witnessed, and how everyone had handled it. It was a big, scary new world, and they had all—even Pippin—tried to help her understand that it wasn’t unusual, that it was okay. It was strange to have white folks do that.
⁂
‘Keep an ear on the young lady, if you would,’ Victoria said to René, who bowed his head obligingly.
‘As you say, madame,’ he said quietly, still sitting with Aix, who had gotten out of his chair and curled up on a nearby settee, toeing off his sneakers and tucking his feet under himself. He fit rather nicely in René’s arms, René thought—not too tall, which was uncommon for boys these days. René had gone from being a tall, hale farmer’s son to being a, as he had heard the younger folk say, ‘short king’. While it was perhaps a win for all of humanity that nutrition had gotten so much better, it still stung.
‘You smell nice,’ Aix said, softly.
‘That is kind of you to say,’ René said, with a bit of self-deprecating humour in his smile, knowing he smelled of cheap modern deodorants and soaps.
‘Well it’s true,’ came the stubborn reply.
Aix felt Pippin’s litle lead-feet as she stood up on his lap to hug him, and shifted to wrap an arm around her, nuzzle her as she nuzzled him, purring. ‘Hey,’ he said, softly, petting her ruff and little Ears, kissing her little forehead. ‘I love you, baby,’ he said softly.
‘Mwah,’ Pippin said, kissing his cheek with her little black lips.
Aix searched around for something good to think about, and proximity to René made him think of his inbox full of reviews, and the things he and Cameron had been talking about before this fiasco had kicked off....
‘I am single,’ he said, ‘as it happens. Since you were asking.’
René was still for a few moments, and then—he only shifted slightly, but Aix felt a change come over the way they were sitting together.
‘You said you were close to a breakdown,’ René said softly. ‘Tell me what you do to help ease the pain.’
‘Music,’ Aix said. ‘Usually I end up zeroing in on a single song and looping it for... like, hours.’
‘Oh, feel free,’ Victoria said gently.
Pippin was offering Aix his phone. ‘Polloh tiem?’
‘Yeye,’ Aix said, making her giggle with his imitation of her voice—his voice was far too low, but he made it husky like hers. Aix took a breath, let it out in a sigh—he didn’t like deep breathing, it was annoying and always made him hyperventilate, but he did like big sighs. He navigated to the music service he used—it was an old one, not the trendy one everyone else suddenly liked—and put all his stations on shuffle, with a small prayer, Apollo, take the wheel.
So things look bad and your back’s against the wall...
Your whole existence seems fuckin’ hopeless...
Aix started crying, laughing silently as the song went on. He’d not much liked the song before, but now... now, it hit just right.
You’re! A! Loser, baby—a loser-goddamn-baby, you’re a
Fucked up, little whiny bitch
You’re a loser—just like me...
Yeah, Aix thought, he wasn’t alone in this—he wasn’t uniquely fucked over nor fucked up, everyone here was as well, even Victoria. He pet Pippin, setting the song to loop and just sitting there, leaning against René, who was surprisingly warm for a dead guy.
He didn’t know when he passed out.
⁂
He woke up in the water, realising quickly he was in a dream, and... yep, he had a merrow tail again, and kicked, speeding through the water as easily and as fast as his memories of wearing flippers. The light was vaguely blue, and he was near enough to the surface to see the sun through the water; he swam up, surfacing to the sunlight—the proper, warm, golden sunlight, not the watery stuff from the north where he’d been stuck for the past few years. Proper angle of sun, proper blue of sky. He didn’t realise how much he’d missed it...
There was a marine cave, and a light, toward the shore. It was... wrong, for the rest of the environment. This wasn’t the right biome for sea-caves, this was home, and home only had the lowland beaches of flat sand for miles and lovely miles.
Well, it was a dream, he thought, and let the waves push him toward the shore, swimming with the current of the tides until he was pushed into the littoral cave, and onto the soft sand, where...he was waiting, tall and violet and a bit wiggly around the edges of reality, eyes constantly opening and closing everywhere on him, his form seeming like it was having trouble with what ‘static’ meant. It probably would have bothered a lot of people, but Aix’s Uncanny Valley was in a very different place than a lot of people.
Hello, boy.
Aix narrowed his eyes, as he pushed himself up on arms stronger than his had been in years, his tail disappearing as the sea heaved back, standing in time to feel the tide froth playfully through his toes, eating away the fine sand beneath his feet. He regarded Cthulhu, tilting his head. ‘Where did you learn that?’ he asked.
I read it in a book. I have been reading many books. Ones you recommended at the party. He did something then, flexed muscles on his cheeks, around his eyes—Aix realised he was smiling, and smiled back—not reflexively, but because it made him happy, knowing that was an effort to communicate with him.
Well of course, was the reply to that thought, I am a student of communication. That is why we have been trying to do it with humans for so long.
Aix was so startled the smile fell of. ‘You... you’re students?’
Of communication, yes. Our student-master is Azathoth. We learn by playing games, as the human Montessori teaches. You spoke of her, and I have read her writings, now, and spoken to those acolytes who use those ways to teach. He had stopped smiling, and tilted his head, looking out of the cave, at the sea; his brow wrinkled in distress. Her ways are not used by most humans?
Aix took a moment to absorb the revelation that made every Lovecraftian being so relatable so suddenly. ‘I... hang on. So you’re all grad students? And Azathoth is your teacher? And you... ohmygods, Pippin said you were playing a game, she told me. The clowns... the clowns.’
Shub-Zhigguroth’s children. She communicated with humans first, but has failed to communicate with all of you.
Aix sat down on the sand, ‘When you say “human”... is that... is that us? Or is that all living things on this planet?’
All things on this planet are humans, yes?
Aix smiled. ‘You know, I like that. It’s not wrong. But the common name for homo sapiens sapiens is “human being”, or “human”. And it only refers to that species, to... well, it gets complicated because of vampires, and fae, and so on. But people like me and Michaela and Roseblade, that species.’
That is... confusing. You are three separate kinds of being.
‘It is confusing, yes. That’s why I like your definition better. Trees are human, clowns are human, cats are human, I like that. It points out that Earth is the only place those exist, and that we are all here together on this little blue spaceship.’
There was silence, but it was full of both of them thinking, and in dreams, that was more present. The sea echoed in the cave, heaving and sighing against the sand, plashing against the rocks.
‘There is a piece of human art I want you to ask for,’ Aix said, after a while. ‘It is very well-known, you can ask anybody for it. Say you want to see “Earthrise”. When you see it, I want you to know that is the first time anybody on Earth saw Earth.’ His eyes started to fill with tears, but he could still speak through them, in a dream, ‘That is the first time in all of history that we saw everybody on Earth at once. And I want you to understand—for centuries, humans had thought that the world beyond the sky was blue.’ Aix paused, getting very big emotions, as he always did when he talked about this. ‘And we got up to what we thought was the world beyond the sky, and we looked down, and we saw that no, the world beyond the sky is not blue... we are blue.’
There was a long pause, and then, Is blue important to humans?
Aix nodded, ‘It is, yes. It’s the colour of... it’s hard to explain. Do you know what, um, what religion and faith mean?’
Many have attempted to explain it. They are not as good at explaining humanity as you are.
Aix gave a watery laugh, sniffling and wiping the tears away. ‘Humans are stories. We... we look up at the sky, and we ask where the sun goes every night, and before we could understand by observing the facts, we didn’t know. There was no answer. But the sun did go away at night. So we... created an answer. We told a story. Because... because we need answers, we ask questions so much, and many of them don’t have answers, and so we tell a story. We make it up. And that’s where religions came from. And we need stories so much that we worship them, that’s what religions are—they’re collections of stories, bodies of stories, that people have faith in.’
And when you find the factual answer, do people forget the story?
‘No. Facts are factual, but stories are true. Because stories are more than just an answer to where the sun goes, or what happens after we die, or why we exist. Stories tell us who we are, they...’ Aix struggled. ‘Your people must have evolved from something, must have had a time before they knew the answer to things like where the sun goes.’
We do not live in groups. We have no one to tell stories to. I am told that is important.
‘I... yeah, it must be,’ Aix said, quietly. ‘Ask about the history of the colour blue. Ask about the Space Race. Maybe that will help you understand, when you look at Earthrise. Art... art has layers, in a way that facts don’t. Art is a long conversation homo sapiens have been having with themselves for thousands of years.’
I want you to show me. I want you to tell me. Why did you leave?
‘I... I fled, because I was in danger.’
Aix felt the dreamscape change, build his memory of the moment he left, of the circumstances. The scene was dim, people were a little blurry, not really images so much as sounds and colours of sounds. Highlighted, blinding-bright with danger, was Anna Heeren.
Was Anna Heeren’s gun.
Aix was terrified of guns—and of the people who carried them.
Cthulhu saw this, because human memories were remarkable in how clearly they showed things—it wasn’t like what they called “photographs”, which only captured wavelengths of light and translated them into pigments, but didn’t preserve the thoughts and understandings and perception of the memory. But this place, this Dreamscape, was much more full an account.
⁂
Aix didn’t know what happened, but suddenly he woke up; instead of the recorded music, he heard someone on the piano.
‘—if we eat shit together, things will end up diff’rently.’
Aix was laying on one of the sofas, a blanket over him, his chair next to the sofa but out of the way of his legs should he sit up.
His heart was pounding in that scary, uneven way it had started doing during his panic attacks, nowadays. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to force himself to start singing. Singing always helped; no matter what was wrong with him, singing always helped.
‘It’s time to lose your self-loathin’
Excuse yourself, let hope in
As he put his glasses back on, blinked and watched the world come back into focus, he realised Marshmallow was back, because he heard her soprano voice blending with Victoria’s belted post-menopausal contralto. As he sat up all the way—easier on a sofa than a bed—he looked toward the piano, seeing Victoria sitting at the bench, Marshmallow standing on one side of it, Pippin sitting on top.
‘Baby. Play your cards
Be who you are
A loser
Just
Like
Me.’
Victoria played what Aix had always been taught was the Disney Chord at the end, and let the notes fade. Pippin beeped excitedly, leaping off the piano and landing on the floor with a somersalt and running over, tail high and Flash in bright red.
‘Welcome back to the world of the living,’ Marshmallow said with a wry smile, as Aix caught Pippin as she jumped on him, hugging him and babbling affectionately, giving him many nose-kisses.
‘I’m okay, Pippin, I’m ooookay,’ Aix laughed, snuggling her tight. ‘Where’s René?’
‘He needed to have dinner,’ Marshmallow said. ‘He stayed as long as he could. It’s been hours.’
‘And you were looping the song this whole time?’ Aix asked, incredulous. ‘Live?’
‘Well, no,’ Marshmallow said, as Victoria laughed—not unkindly.
‘I got the funniest feeling I ought to start playing the song on the piano a few moments ago,’ Victoria said, with a camp sort of lilt. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better for singing,’ Aix said. ‘I think a panic attack woke me up, though. I was talking to Cthulhu. He asked why I left, and telling him made me remember how scared I was.’
Victoria hummed, getting back into her chair from the piano bench and wheeling over, Marshmallow following, sitting on the sofa next to Aix. Aix leaned against Marshmallow when she gently bumped shoulders with him, and she gave him a hug. She wore perfume that smelled nice, Aix thought; it was sweet flowers, maybe cherry? He was no great shakes at recognising smells, having grown up in a scentless world due to hayfever and his family’s distaste for any kind of scent.
He thought on how to phrase what he’d learned—because he remembered all of it, all of the conversation he’d just had. ‘He... told me things. Why he’s here. Why any of them ever made contact with us.’ He took a breath, sat up and looked at them both. ‘They’re language students. They’ve been trying to learn our language, which is like... insanely difficult, when you’re from a species that isn’t even social enough to tell stories, and doesn’t communicate with noise.’
He looked at Pippin, ‘and you guys,’ he said, softly. ‘He said... he said Big Mama Jocosa had communicated to... some kind of Earth animal to make you guys, but I’m not sure if that means what it means on the surface, given what he thinks “human” means.’
‘What’s he think it means?’ Marshmallow asked.
‘Any living being on Earth. Not just us, everybody. Cats, trees, fish, clowns, everybody. Earthlings.’ He rested his head on her soft shoulder, smiling. ‘But using the word “human” for that makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Together,’ Pippin said, lacing her fingers together.
‘Yeah,’ Aix said. ‘We’re all together here on this little blue spaceship.’
Pippin tilted her head. ‘Uu?’
Aix shifted, sitting up to get out his phone and find the picture he’d been thinking of, so he could show Pippin.
She stared at it for a while, her Mask shifting around, not quite making any specific face—a sign a clown was doing a lot of thinking, trying to understand something.
‘That’s us,’ Aix said, a little misty-eyed about it, as he always was when looking at Earthrise. ‘That’s everybody in the whole world.’
Pippin tilted her head, and pantomimed only the word ‘everybody’. ‘Uu?’
‘Yeah,’ Aix said. ‘Some people went up into the sky real far, and looked back down, and that’s us!’
He wondered if she was capable of understanding. It was a very Big idea. She pointed at the grey curve of the moon. ‘Dat bees?’
‘That’s the moon!’
Pippin gasped dramatically, ‘Moon?’
‘Yeah, we sent some people up there in 1969!’ Aix was delighted to show Pippin things she’d never seen before.
‘Look, see?’ Marshmallow pulled up a photo of one of the astronauts standing on the moon.
They spent the next while just showing Pippin pictures of space, and astronauts, and Victoria produced a pad of paper and a box of crayons to assist with this, and by the time René came back in, it was to see Pippin on the floor, surrounded by drawings of the sky, the moon, and diagrams obviously drawn by human hands explaining space travel. Marshmallow was laying on the floor on her stomach, like Pippin, both of them drawing with crayons shared between them. Victoria was sitting on the most comfortable sofa, some distance away from Marshmallow and Pippin, reading a book in one hand, her other hand resting softly on Aix’s head, which was in her lap—the boy was at rest, though not quite asleep—René had long practise with listening to both.
As many immortals always felt in the presence of Victoria, René felt permitted the old-fashioned custom of bowing to the company, before delivering his somewhat interesting news.
‘I am told that the Heeren is dead,’ he said, and Marshmallow and Aix both sat up abruptly.
‘What!’ was Marshmallow’s sharp, barked expression of shock, but Aix, despite his sharp inhale, narrowed his eyes slightly and said, guardedly,
‘When?’
‘Some hours ago,’ René said. ‘I called home on my way to the hunt, and was given the—’
‘By whom?’ Aix interrupted, intensely. Intensely what, it was difficult to say, but those eyes were pinning René to the spot.
‘You sound as though you want to confirm a suspicion, did I miss something?’ René asked, and something about his tone, careful as it was, or his posture—again, carefully as René guarded against showing fear, must have told Aix more than the words. Aix drew himself back, taking off his glasses and putting a hand over his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry, I just—I just put together what might have happened. Shit,’ he hissed. ‘Fuck. He asked me why I left and I told him I was scared of her. I don’t—He doesn’t understand irrational fear anymore than he understands stories, apparently—if it was Cthulhu?’
‘It is not irrational to fear someone carrying a gun,’ Marshmallow said firmly.
‘And people who carry guns and go around threatening eldritch horrors who do not have to follow human laws have signed up for the consequences of that, death being one of them,’ Victoria added.
‘So, I’m... not in trouble?’ Aix asked, looking at Victoria—and René realised all at once that the reason he couldn’t identify Aix’s tone was because he was afraid, and René was so convinced of Aix’s power that he had not granted him that as a possible reaction.
‘ “In trouble” is something adults make up to scare children,’ Victoria said primly. ‘It doesn’t exist in reality. And witches,’ she said to Aix specifically, reaching over to touch his forearm for emphasis, ‘are never in trouble, dear—they make trouble.’
‘We can go home, then,’ Marshmallow said, pleased—but was caught out by a yawn. ‘Uh, not right this second, though, maybe after I sleep a couple hours.’
‘I have known how to drive since cars were invented,’ René said, with a little smile, ‘we still have a few hours before dawn, and can be in the tunnels by then. I am eager to return home.’
‘The tunnels?’ Marshmallow said, raising a brow. ‘What tunnels?’
‘There’s a world going on underground,’ Aix said, quoting from an old song. ‘We used the tunnels to get to Baltimore when I first dreamt of you,’ Aix said to René. ‘I was in Sleepy Hollow at the time.’ He chewed his lip. ‘One thing I didn’t get, though—why did Mike call it Tom Tunnel?’
‘Trunk of Many Things,’ Victoria said. ‘But the Folk are fond of proper names for grand constructs, which after all have earned them, so he became Tom. It isn’t only cars that go through, the cars are new and much-argued over—I don’t much hold with cars; but of course, you never hear of an ambulance being a train,’ she said, holding up her project to check it. ‘And our Michaela is very much the emergency services.’
‘Is it normal to be kinda scared of her?’ Marshmallow asked.
‘Only if you are fond of killing people,’ René said with a soft smile. ‘She is la femme formidable—very much as Lady Victoria is.’
Addendum:
Victoria chuckled. ‘That was a very good double-entendre, René,’ she said. ‘But wouldn’t you rather go by sea again?’
‘Speaking of things that have earned names, I won’t leave Bessie here,’ Marshmallow said. ‘And I don’t want to drive alone.’
‘I could drive you home—that is, if you don’t mind. My first car was a minivan—a Mercury.’
‘Not a hearse?’
Victoria laughed. ‘Oh no, dear—I was in my Terrible Pink Phase then. Hearses were the cars my parents drove, I wanted to rebel. I wanted a pink car, I listened to country and pop music, that’s how you rebel in gothic families.’
‘Hard same,’ Aix said, chuckling, ‘though mine weren’t as goth, more like... hipster or maybe like... white feminism lite. All the girl power, none of the reading or thinking. I discovered Dolly Parton during my teens and that was it for me. How ‘boutchu, Marshmallow?’
Marshmallow blinked. ‘Well, uh, we come from N’awlins, and Bonma raised me after we came up here, because there wasn’t anybody else who could. She used to rent a room in the house we own now; she worked real hard and we got real lucky with moving where we did, because I took a clowning class when I was little and I was gone. That was it. And clownworld is full of weird folks—but kind, very generous and very kind. Bonma didn’t mind them being weird, she never tears your head off unless you’re unkind or a scab. You can be any type of person at all—my cousin was really scared to come out as transgender, and Bonma just said, “Now, girl, you know I’m from N’awlins, we invented that down in Storyville”. When my Uncle brought home his boyfriend? “Now, young man, you know I’m from N’awlins, we invented that down in Storyville”. When I brought my metalhead and punkrock friends over, she just said “Now, you know I’m from N’awlins, we invented that down in Storyville”. But when she found out my cousin broke a picket line she cussed him up one way and down the other and I’d never seen her even raise her voice before, let alone cuss. She called every angel and ancestor and God and everybody to come curse him for breathing after doing a thing like breaking a picket line. So I never rebelled against Bonma, because rebelling against her is just... being a bad person.’ Marshmallow paused. ‘I did go to some parties and stay out late a few times, though, and I don’t talk about sex with her—that’s something you talk about with Aunties.’
‘A good and sensible upbringing,’ Victoria commented.
‘Storyville was the queerter—the queer quarter. Way Bonma tells it, that’s where everything’s from.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised ‘tall,’ Victoria said, not looking up as she did a tricky knot.
‘Oh, I researched Storyville when I was writing some fanfic about Alastor—you know, from Hazbin Hotel?’ Aix said.
‘Oh, yeah. I wish the writers had,’ Marshmallow said. ‘I don’t think it’s too much to want accurate portrayals of a black Creole man from 1920s N’awlins. I mean, he’s cool anyway, but there’s nothing particularly N’awlins about him.’
‘Yeah, I get you,’ Aix said with a nod.
‘The new Interview with the Vampire series has made Louis that,’ René said. ‘Accuracy regarding his blackness, I do not know—but, certainment, he is an accurate queer man.’
‘You know,’ Victoria said, idly. ‘You should meet Hext, Marshmallow. He’s the Wolf King of Brooklyn, a black Jewish friend of mine. He can tell you a deal about the state of the shapeshifters along the entire eastern seaboard, as his pack has been here for many generations. And one of his family may wish to travel with you to Baltimore.’
‘And the Calypso Queen is anchored in Coney Island,’ René said.
‘I’ll see how I feel after I meet Hext,’ Marshmallow said, unsure. ‘Sorry, I know I’m being kind of a stick in the mud.’
‘It’s okay,’ Aix said immediately. ‘Seriously, I’m from California, I get being attached to your car. I’d be attached to that car. I’d rather take a road trip with you again. Anyway, René, I don’t want to get on a boat again until I’m a stronger swimmer. Just because I still know how to swim doesn’t mean my body strong enough to do it again just yet.’
‘And it will be safer to have another driver and a white man with the both of us,’ Marshmallow said. ‘Even if he can only come out at night. ...Wait, shit,’ she said, rethinking this, ‘Sorry, can you even travel during the day, or do you have to be in a box?’
‘The modern UV film in cars is enough,’ René said with a chuckle; it was somewhat novel—and endearing—to have someone simply forget he was a monster. ‘But I will only be alert enough to drive at night.’
‘I’ve just had a thought,’ Victoria said. ‘If we can wait until tomorrow night, I can have Coffin bring The Dragon Wagon from Sleepy Hollow. It’s a trailer I made with my Uncle Travesty and Aunt Copernica.’
‘Oh wow, I’ve wanted a showman’s wagon for years now,’ Aix said, and Pippin beeped, wiggling. He chuckled. ‘I think Pippin wants to see the dragon wagon, huh, bean?’
Pippin climbed down to do a little excited dance, her Flash sparkling and her Mask gaining every colour she could make—a sure sign a clown was happy.
‘Well, Bessie’s got a trailer hitch for just that reason,’ Marshmallow said. ‘How big is the dragon wagon?’
‘She’s fifty by ten, about 6400 pounds.’
Aix and Marshmallow both whistled.
‘Damn, that’s huge,’ Marshmallow said.
‘That’s a single-wide, that is,’ Aix said.
‘She was big enough to actually live in full-time—which I did for entire summers, after I learned to drive. Or to sleep several large people and their pets—I used to show a clown during breaks from university.’
‘Uu?’ Pippin was always curious about the fate of clowns. In Pantomime, she asked where that clown was, was Victoria still friends with him?
‘Oh, she got attached to a retired circus clown in Sarasota; and far be it from me to stand in the way of Love. I’m still friends with her family, she’s quite the mother, so I hear.’ Victoria was sending a text as she spoke, and smiled as her phone chimed back instantly. ‘As it happens, Uncle Travesty is awake and restive. Perhaps René can drive you up to Sleepy Hollow tonight, and you can be guests at the family home until you’re ready to set off tomorrow.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ Aix said.
‘That big house in the photo in your apartment?’ Marshmallow said, eyes wide.
‘Oh my, no, that house got burnt down just after Abuelo and Grand-mere met,’ Victoria said mildly, sending a message to the staff to ready a few guest rooms. ‘We rebuilt it after, of course, but it was quite a nuisance. That’s why Abuelo became a lawyer.’