Next❧
Index
ou don’t have to drive us all the way in, Amber,’ Aix said, as they got closer to the city. ‘I feel safe around Lance, I can use the subway if you get me to a station.’
‘Easiest would be to drop you in the Village, at Canal street. You sure?’
‘Yeah, Lance is good. Um,’ Aix checked the map Victoria had given him of accessible stations. ‘…Canal and Broadway is the only accessible station. The one in the village, the 1? That’s only got stairs.’
‘Ah shit. Well, that’s okay, just a few down and that gives me more of a turning radius to get back into Jersey.’
‘Okay. Thank you, Amber.’
‘No worries, kiddo.’
Traffic was such a standstill that it didn’t actually delay anybody to get the chair out of the back, and Lance being there meant he could do it, and Amber stayed at the wheel. Aix tried not to stress about it, waiting on the sidewalk with the kitten and Pippin hidden in the carrier, clutched to his chest.
At least there were gays, at least it was June, at least today was Friday.
A group of drag queens all in pink with rhinestone masks, along with other assorted gays with assorted other gaily-coloured masks, passed by; and the very tallest drag queen screamed like an excited cockatoo at Lance and then started speaking Hawai‘ian at him.
Lance looked up, and his eyebrows went up in shock, even as he shut the doors to the trailer, quickly and efficiently locking it again, before knocking on the walls to signal Amber. He answered as he moved the chair onto the sidewalk; and to the pink drag queen’s credit, she waited for Aix to settle down before approaching, though she kept talking excitedly with Lance.
Aix tried not to feel nervous as he went to settle into the chair, balancing his rolling backpack and the carrier and the drawstring bag over his shoulders that had his pillow in it as he came over. There was a sharp whistle, and the shortest drag queen, who had brown skin but the green eyes and Mediterranean features Aix hoped were Italian motioned to one of her butch friends.
‘Deano, help the lady with her bags!’
‘Oh—thank you,’ Aix said, as Dean came over to help him. Dean was a butch… something, very very handsome, in a suit and with the kind of haircut that meant a few brylcreemed strands fell rakishly over his forehead as he took the rolling suitcase and duffel.
‘No problem, sweetheart,’ Dean said in the same broad accent, and Aix heart fluttered. He wasn’t much into the butches usually, but that Noir-ish sort of dandy always got to him. ‘I’m Dean. Queen Zo Sinnamon is my cousin. I guess you know Princess O’s little bro, huh? Small world.’
‘Yeah, small world,’ Aix said, a little flustered still at Dean’s charm. ‘I’m Aix,’ Aix said, overwhelmed by immediately running into a group of a bunch of people that were friendly and queer and pretty. He felt underdressed once again, and uncomfortable in his veil. ‘I’m a he-him or,’ he added, feeling daring, ‘the gay she.’ He’d never been around people who knew how to say ‘she’ so it was the Gay She, before, but drag queens were those people.
‘Ohhh, family!’ Sinnamon said, delightedly. ‘Where ya headed, The Howard? The Tribeca? What.’ She cracked her gum.
‘Wolf Castle Tower, uptown.’
‘Ahhh, so ya headin’ fa Lafayette street’s entrance,’ Dean said, nodding.
‘Yeah,’ Aix said, Lance pulling the handle out of the back of the chair gently and starting to push him. ‘Where were y’all headed?’ He tried not to wince at the twang in his voice.
‘Home, but I can come with ya,’ Dean said. ‘How bout you, Enz?’ he asked Sinnamon.
‘Sure, I’ll come,’ Sinnamon said.
‘I’m headed that way,’ said the only white person in the group, a blonde glamour queen with a fan, ‘may as well take the Q. I’m Pinky Focks, by the way, darling.’
‘I’m Mitch, this is my sister Queenie,’ said the other butch, who was bigger and dressed far more casually, in a t-shirt that showed off her muscly arms and the pinup girl tattoos on them. The one she introduced as Queenie was very femme in a mink coat and peekaboo curls kind of way, and reminded Aix of the real Cruella De Vil—the one from the book, who wore an Absolutely Simple White Mink Coat and whom Aix had always imagined as being very severely, very lethally pretty.
‘We’ll tell Zia so she doesn’t worry,’ Queenie said to Queen Sinnamon and Dean, and Aix wondered if they were related, even as his heart leapt at the word ‘zia’. ‘Zia’ meant they were definiely Italian. Like him.
‘I cannot believe we just ran into you,’ Princess O was saying to Lance, as they continued down the sidewalk, and Aix noticed Dean kept on one side of him, and Princess was beside Lance, with Sinnamon on Aix’s other side and Pinky leading. It gave him an actual escort, protective flanking on all sides.
Aix felt very safe.
You okay, Pippin? Is kitten okay?
Little brother scare. Scare big noise. I tell him is okay, we safe in here in the safebox.
Yeah, you’re safe. I know it’s a lot of noises and smells, we’ll be underground in the human ferry road soon, and then we will be home. Thank you for staying hidden.
Humanspeople not like joeys in new york. Make us go’way to Boss town.
I won’t let them do that to you, Pippin. I promise.
Ye. I stay in the safebox.
The elevator was only big enough for Dean, Lance, and Aix, so the others met them underground. To Aix, the subway station seemed weirdly empty; but it was also somewhat comforting to be somewhere people were more masked, and to see more Muslims just scattered around, along with Sikhs and even a group of Hasidim. Aix always felt safer the more different religions he saw, and this city was the only place he’d ever felt the constant threat of Christianity ease off.
The train car was mostly empty this time of night, and Aix only realised he had forgotten to call Virginia in all the excitement when the train started going and it was impossible to do so.
Oops.
‘I’ve been working at Nepenthé,’ Lance was saying to his brother.
‘Shut up!’ Sinnamon said, smacking Lance’s arm, as Pinky squealed.
On Aix’s lap, the carrier wiggled, and Aix felt Pippin’s frustration. She wanted to come out and see the Humanspeople Mommies, and be made much of.
‘So hey,’ Aix said, ‘Um, you should come and hang out with me in my apartment. I know it’s late. I don’t. Have a lot of stuff in there, but… lots of the people in my building are nocturnal, and they’re nice.’
‘Oh we know about The Castle,’ Pinky said archly.
‘Pinky has like seven exes in there,’ Princess whispered behind her fan, barely holding back a giggle.
‘I have a couple friends from the auto shop,’ Dean said, as Pinky glared at Princess, who stuck out her pierced tongue. ‘This is our stop, c’man.’ Dean got up, and gave a hand to the femmes out of the train and onto the next one.
‘So, what’s the story?’ Dean asked, after they all got settled on the F train, which had the older and more personable arrangements of orange and yellow seats facing every which way. It made navigating harder for a wheelchair but it was still more personable and friendly, and Aix liked it better. ‘Why were you on a big rig?’
‘With horses on it,’ Pinky added dreamily. From the rhinestoned riding habit she was wearing, Aix figured her for a Horse Girl.
‘That’s Miss Amber,’ Aix said, ‘she’s a friend. It’s a long story, but um, basically I came here in an emergency situation, and my place at the Castle doesn’t exactly have any food or anything. I hope somebody’s awake,’ he said, fretfully. Maybe he should have eaten something when they’d stopped at Big Z’s….
‘Ear!’
‘Aww, the baby wants to have a say too,’ Sinnamon cooed at the carrier on Aix’s lap. ‘Hi, baby.’
‘Yee!’
Aix could tell that was Pippin doing a very good impression of a kitten.
‘He gotta leash?’
‘Yes but I can’t, um… I just can’t,’ Aix said, glancing around the train car as it slowed to a stop at a lonely platform. He was so nervous he didn’t see Princess O narrowing her dark eyes thoughtfully. She leaned forward, over Sinnamon, who was much shorter than her.
‘Ahh, you got an Italian Particolour in there, huh?’ she said, a grin clearly audible in her voice, even though the mask covered it.
‘Say no more, babe,’ Dean said immediately.
‘Zia’s got onna them,’ Sinnamon said, and Dean nodded.
Aix recalled what Victoria had said, about clowns having been banned from the city because of racist policies reacting to Italian immigrants bringing them from the old country. Knowing that other people still smuggled them in under euphemisms was comforting.
Pinky was craning her neck, fan flipped out to hide her mouth from anyone eavesdropping. ‘How are you hiding one in a carrier that small?’
‘She’s very small,’ Aix said. ‘She’s got dwarfism we think.’
‘Ear!’ said Pippin.
‘She also very wants attention from a bunch of drag queens,’ Aix added, as a concession to Pippin. ‘We have that in common,’ he added, in another burst of daring that immediately bent in on itself to become shyness, his eyes dropping to the carrier.
Go Duckie go! Pippin cheered him on.
‘Aww, povero buffonina,’ Sinnamon cooed to the carrier, moving closer and putting her hand against one of the mesh sides of the carrier. Her heart melted as she felt a tiny hand push back, saw a tiny face.
When they arrived at Lexington and 63rd, the station and streets were even emptier, and Aix’s new friends assured him that as soon as they were inside the elevator or lobby of Wolf Castle Towers, it was safe to let Pippin out. In the half-lit lobby of the Castle, there was one of the trolls at the desk, her face hidden by a mask and her ears by a worn-in hoodie with the logo from Wicked.
‘Ladies,’ she said, in the lower part of her register; she didn’t have a smooth voice—Trolls didn’t—but it was still that flirtatious quality. ‘Sir,’ she said to Dean, after, and then, realising who Aix was, standing up and leaning forward to look at him down in the wheelchair, curious and wanting to grant him the respect of eye-contact. ‘You’re the witch, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ Aix said, ‘Is Mrs Monday-Clovis awake? Or Mr Monday-Clovis. I don’t have my keys yet.’
‘Yeah, they just walked in a few minutes ago. Try the roof if they don’t answer the door. Your stuff isn’t here yet.’
‘Oh yeah, um,’ Aix said, then made a decision. ‘Could y’all give me a second?’
‘Sure thing. Here, gimmie the bambina,’ Sinnamon said, opening her arms for the carrier. ‘We’ll take her up to the roof.’
‘Okay, just be aware there is also a kitten in there,’ Aix said.
‘The sixteenth floor, then,’ Pinky corrected, sighing. ‘Come on, I’ll see if Fizzorum is home.’
Pippin actually beeped, and her Flash lit up again. ‘Duckie!’ she said, distressed.
Aix glanced at the night guard, who quirked a brow.
‘You don’t have like, a cursed songbird in there do you? Virginia doesn’t allow that shit.’
‘No, no, she’s—um, she’s a joey,’ Aix said, lowering his voice.
‘Oh!’ the troll said, relaxing. ‘I mean, what joey?’ and she winked. ‘I didn’t see nothin’. That’s a cat.’
Aix went over to Sinnamon, who had set down the carrier on one of the many low tables around the lobby, and unzipped the carrier, seeing the kitten was still being very quiet, likely because Pippin’s arms were around him gently and making him feel safe. Pippin looked at him.
‘Hey, c’mere, beeble,’ Aix said, feeling safe enough—the lobby wasn’t full of windows, it was an older building, and so nobody could see in from the street as he got her out, petting the kitten a little and tucking the blanket around him a little more securely in apology. He seemed very happy and purry though, since meeting his big sister. Aix wondered if she could communicate with him, explain things that it was impossible to explain to pets. But for the moment, he was just grateful the kitten wasn’t traumatised, and let Pippin climb into his lap.
‘Ohhh you’re so little,’ Sinnamon cooed, the others gathering around her—Dean, Princess, and Sinnamon crouched down, and Pinky sat on the edge of the low table.
‘Ye,’ Pippin said, very pleased, as she hugged Aix around the neck, peering around at everyone with her big dark eyes.
‘Okay, Pippin, sweetheart, can you go with Queen Sinnamon and Princess O and Pinky Focks and Dean and little brothercat? They want to play with you while Mommy talks to Auntie Gin.’
‘And you can meet some other special cat people,’ Pinky said, in a soft-edged voice one was surprised to hear from her, because she had so far been the quintessential white bitchy fashionista.
Duckie bees safe without Pippins?
Aix realised, with a pang of heartbreak, that Pippin might have been just as scared of the whole Heeren affair as he had been, and had been clinging to him as much for her sake as to comfort him. He hugged her.
‘Oh, sweetie, it’s okay, I promise. Everyone in this building likes me and will protect me from bad people like that. You just look after little brothercat for me, okay?’ Tell him I’m sorry I haven’t been able to sit with him for a good long time yet.
‘It’s true, if you are the witch I’ve been hearin’ about—the one that’s a teacher, yeah? You gonna teach folks to read?’ Dean asked. Aix glanced up at him, and nodded.
‘Yeah, that’s me. She’s scared because I was kidnapped by someone a few days ago, when I was stopped in Baltimore, originally on my way here. Pippin saved me, but it was still touch-and-go for a minute.’
‘Ah, jeez,’ Sinnamon said, but to Aix’s relief none of them overreacted; Pinky even leaned over to hug him.
‘Oh, you poor thing. Is that why you’re here now?’
‘Oh, no. Um, she’s dead now,’ Aix said. ‘But uh, she had rozzer friends. That’s why I’m here now.’
‘Ugh,’ Princess O muttered. ‘Well, don’t worry about that here, little one,’ he told Pippin in a sweeter voice.
‘Yeah, yer family now,’ Dean said. ‘Both of ya, and the little guy in there—he sleepin? Wow, that’s a bomb proof cat.’
I put little brother sleepyplace, but he okay! Just sleepan.
Well, that explained it. Aix trusted her, he knew she was a bit older than she seemed, and knew cats.
‘Aix?’ called a voice from the elevators, and they all looked over to see Virginia, in a well-worn blue set of sweats and another handmade mask with a rainbow fabric. ‘Oh, hi Pinky,’ she said, ‘Dean. Girls.’ She looked back at Aix. ‘Sorry, the desk called me and said you were here. What happened?’
‘Ohhh,’ Aix said, in a soft sing-song, ‘a lot. Um, this is Pippin, she’s my new pedigree Italian Particolour cat.’
‘Ear!’ Pippin said, her Mask turning cat-like with a little nose and whisker-lines and a siamese mask. She was delighted with the giggling this caused.
‘Hm, well we do allow cats and she does look very polite,’ Virgina said, offering her hand because she wasn’t entirely sure how to interact with clowns, but it couldn’t hurt. Pippin put her little inky hands on Virginia’s and sniffed her hand, her long tail swishing. Virginia used her free hand to get a set of keys from her sweatshirt pocket, offering them to Aix.
‘Here, I brought you keys. Is that all you’ve got?’ she asked, gesturing to the bags.
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘Warren’s already making you something so you have some ready-to-eat meals right away. We got in from the theatre a bit ago.’
‘Thank you,’ Aix said, and handed one of the keys to Lance. ‘Um, here, Lance. If you wanna go up to my apartment and hang out. It’s empty, but it’s somewhere to put my stuff and let the kitten out so he can explore and stuff.’
‘You good by yourself?’ Lance asked, just to be sure.
‘Yeah, now that I’m inside I’m good to push myself around.’
‘Okay,’ he said, pushing the chair’s handle back in, getting Aix’s rolling backpack and slinging the rucksack over his broad, tattooed shoulders. Pippin hopped down onto the floor to walk, but reached into the carrier to take the blanket-wrapped bundle of kitten, carrying him herself.
After they left, Virginia settled on the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Mummery,’ Aix said, and Virginia nodded, silently leading Aix past the reception desk and into a back office, where another troll was sitting, just taking a sip of coffee.
‘Oh, uh,’ he said, ‘hi, Virginia.’
‘Hey, Mugwort. Give us a second alone in here?’
‘Sure,’ Mugwort said, ‘but I’m taking the coffee.’
‘Yeah, it’s fine. Reasonable exception. If you’re on break, you’re still on break even if you sit out there.’
‘Cool.’ He left, carrying the mug. When the door closed, Virginia sat down in his vacated chair.
‘What’s up? Victoria left town on Tuesday but she said it was an emergency and she didn’t have time to explain. And now you’re here, but your movers never arrived. Are you okay?’
Aix took a deep breath. ‘You know what you were telling me about being seized by Destiny and saving the kingdom…?’ and he told her. She didn’t speak—a feat for a New Yorker, they were very vocal listeners—until he was done catching her up.
‘—and so ironically, right as we settled all my stuff in a storage unit down there, I needed to come up here after all. I don’t have any food or bedding other than my one pillow, and I’m not really sure how I’m gonna survive up here without that, but I’m trying to have faith that everyone in this building might be willing to lend me something or other, just for a couple days.’
‘Jesus, of course we are,’ Virginia said, with feeling. ‘You ran into the right people—I’d trust Dean and his family with my life, and Tris—that’s Princess Cassia—is actually a vampire’s familiar, down in Staten Island. Pinky works for that elf gentleman you met when you first came here.’
‘Oh, oh okay. So… so they’re all inside the Mummery, or whatever the term is.’
Virginia chuckled. ‘Yeah, yeah they are.’ She got to her feet. ‘Come on, Warren wants to feed you. He’s been practising. Oh, before we do go, though—are you planning to stay and teach?’
‘Yes! Yes, defs. I was planning to at least weekend here, or something like that. I’ve never split time before. If nothing else, to teach reading and writing to folks. That’s important.’
‘Oh good. Good. We’re struggling without a teacher, and you seemed like a perfect fit. Teachers are sort of few and far between, in this world.’ She opened the door and went out first, holding the door for Aix to wheel out. Mugwort had apparently been told who Aix was, because he was regarding Aix differently.
‘Toadflax says you might need help unpacking,’ Mugwort said.
‘Um, not at the moment, I just have my suitcase.’
‘You go on ahead, Aix, I’ll be up in a minute,’ Virginia said, knowing what a burden it was to keep repeating a retelling of something awful.
As Aix wheeled off to the elevators, she turned to the two trolls and briefly outlined the situation in Eglenor style, trusting it would spread out into the rest of the building with speed (and accuracy; rumour didn’t distort as much, in a culture that didn’t have the printed word and relied on oral tradition), before going up to join Aix at the elevators.
‘So, we’ve got a twin mattress and bed that we moved into your apartment,’ Virginia said, as the elevator went up. ‘Everyone wanted the honour of giving the new witch a housewarming gift, so the apartment is… basically furnished? I know you said you were particular about décor, so I hope it’s not too awful. It’s all stuff that goes with the apartment, that um, storybook cottage aesthetic.’
‘I’m verklempt, oh my god,’ Aix said, tearing up. ‘Fuck. I. I’ve never had a community before.’
‘Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it?’ Virginia said, her blue eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘The furniture is mostly from the dwarfs, and you’ve got this gorgeous cuckoo clock that I figured we should put in the kitchen so it’s as far from your bedroom as possible, and the pantry is full of course, with non-perishables that work with your food stuff.’
Virginia knew this would be interpreted by Aix as overwhelming kindness, because Aix was like her, and used to a hard and heartless world; it pleased her to keep listing all the specific ways people were kind, knowing that Aix might be crying but it was good crying. The kid needed to know everyone had their back, after having to run from the police a few hours ago.
When the elevator opened, Warren and the dogs were there, all with big smiles.
‘Warren,’ Virginia said, with a fond exasperation, ‘mask.’
‘Oh! It’s here somewhere…’ he patted the pockets of his suit jacket and pulled out a crumpled fabric mask with a moon on it, putting it on. ‘Sorry,’ he said, sheepishly.
‘Hey, puppohs!’ Aix said softly, wheeling into the hall and letting the dogs all come up to him for petting.
‘Ih!’ said Ticky, feathery tail wagging furiously. ‘Ip!’
‘Yeah? I have some little friends for you to meet soon.’
‘What do clowns eat?’ Virginia asked.
‘Sweets mostly,’ Warren said immediately.
‘Yeah, they’re frugivores, but if they’re broody they need meat or eggs. Pippin likes apples,’ Aix said. ‘And they can live on things like refined sugar, which nobody has ever been able to figure out, until now.’
‘Until now?’ Virginia asked, as they went down the hall. ‘Go home,’ she told the dogs, gesturing. ‘Go home, go on.’
‘Come on,’ Warren said, trotting off toward their apartment, the dogs swarming after him—all but Ticky, who whined loudly and hesitated.
‘Go home, Ticky,’ Aix said, copying the gesture, knowing dog commands were more somatic than verbal. Ticky whined, but at Warren’s soft bark, she obeyed, and Warren came back after letting them all inside.
Aix opened his new door with his new key, and didn’t look up until he got all the way inside. Lance was there alone, in the kitchen, the kitten wasn’t with him.
‘Hi, Aix,’ he said. ‘Everyone else went down to hang out with the werecats, I figured if anybody knew how to take care of a kitten, it would be them, I hope it’s okay.’ He was mixing something up in a big wooden bowl, but jerked his head to indicate the apartment. ‘I thought you said the apartment was empty.’
‘I thought it was,’ Aix said, looking around at everything….
The wooden floor was now covered with a large dark green and gold rug with intricate leafy vine patterns, and there was a small chaise lounge upholstered in deep green fabric that perfectly fit under the window, and a carved mahogany desk that looked like someone had built it to perfectly accommodate a desktop computer, which was incongruous with it being a carved wooden desk. A beautiful painting of a glade hung on one wall, and…
‘How is there a fireplace,’ Aix said. ‘What the fuck oh my god I love it.’ It was brick, matched the kitchen’s bricks, and had a curved brass fender upholstered in sensible black wool, and a screen.
He went into the bedroom—whoever had arranged everything had known he was in a chair, there was very little clutter and a direct pathway between rooms that was nice and wide, also it looked as though the doors had been widened since he was last here, and he knew they’d been converted to pocket-doors since then, which was frankly impressive—and gasped at the sight of the bed, which was also, like the rest of the furniture, carved of mahogany wood, and though it wasn’t a four-poster or canopy, someone had hung curtains from the ceiling all around it. They were blue and green in a damask pattern of leaves and flowers in nouveau swoops and curls. The floor now had a wall-to-wall rug that had a pattern that mimicked a field of clover and strawberries.
Being in this room again reminded him of the conversation he’d had in here, sitting under the window, and he suddenly realised… ‘Oh my god! You told me about them before! The drag queens I just met!’ He came out of the bedroom, looking for Virginia. ‘You told me about them!’
‘I did,’ Virginia said, having wondered when he would remember, if at all.
‘Lance is Tristan’s brother! He works for René!’
‘Small world,’ Virginia said. ‘Apparently he hadn’t mentioned that to Tris.’
‘I didn’t want him to worry about Mom,’ Lance said bashfully, cracking eggs into the bowl and starting to stir again. ‘But she’s okay, really; and with how much René pays me, and how much Tris gets… we’re gonna be able to buy Mom a house back on The Island soon, or at least an apartment. And Leilani is staying with Mom now that I’ve left, so it’s not like I abandoned her. But Tristan worries, you know? He worries because he feels like he should be taking care of Mom.’
Aix listened while getting out of his chair and pushing it over by the hinge-side of the front door, taking his shoes off and leaving them beside it too. He didn’t really have any ability to countenance taking care of a mother, or wanting to support her, so he stayed quiet, and just walked around the apartment, opening drawers and looking at things. He tried out the comfy-looking swivel chair in front of the desk by the window, and it was actually wide enough for him, and deep enough. He started moving some of the little ornaments into drawers, quietly going through and cat-proofing as much as possible, sitting down at intervals.
Going back into the bedroom, he found that Lance had unpacked for him, putting things in the dresser and the closet, neatly putting his pillow and stuffed animal on the bed.
There were, also, masks in the dresser. George must have packed him some. They were all neatly folded in their own individual plastic bags, and they were black.
Aix stared at them for a while, thinking. They had head bands, not ear loops. He wasn’t sure he wanted to show his hair yet, though. He took off the niqab and the hijab, setting the pin down on the little shell dish on the dresser, and taking off the underscarf, and his glasses, putting the underscarf back on fresh, careful of his makeup, and putting his glasses back on again, and looking at his face. He was made-up, still, and now that René was so far away, Aix kind of felt like the invisible hand of his vampire lover was all he would have, for a while. It was intolerable, suddenly, to not show it as much as he could.
Were Pards like werecats? It seemed like they weren’t, because Cameron looked nothing like the nurse that had helped him when he’d fainted. Were they more or less likely to transmit the plague? Could he go unmasked? But then again, there were other humans around, so no, he couldn’t.
He missed Pippin.
He wanted to get to know his fucking kitten, also. He hadn’t had any time to do that, yet! He tied the veil back on, but only the veil, throwing the burqa layer over his head and feeling a bit scared but deciding he needed to do it because he was scared. He shouldn’t be scared of making a different choice. He assessed his outfit, looked through the closet, finding that George had packed him poet shirts and had… found him clothes? There were new pants, and Aix found they actually fit perfectly when he shut the bedroom door and hurriedly tried them on.
He didn’t normally fit into pants, which was why he hated them; but when they fit… and these bell-bottom jeans fit. They fit very well. He didn’t have a full-length mirror anywhere; but just looking down at them, and feeling them, he could tell they fit. They seemed vintage, especially since they came up so high. Carefully but quickly, Aix swapped his current outfit for the new jeans and one of the black poet shirts, and felt very confident about himself, suddenly, and much less worried about everything generally.
He decided to go barefoot, because he felt like being barefoot, and the floor seemed very soft compared to all the concrete he’d been walking on, and went back out of the bedroom.
‘I’m going to go see where Pippin and my new baby got off to,’ he announced. ‘Did they say, Lance?’
‘Sixteenth floor, though I’m not sure which apartment, there was some indication that’s kind of a communal floor.’
‘Pards are like that,’ Warren said, with a bit of fond annoyance. ‘No respect for territory. Or doors.’
‘I think they just live in bigger and less organized groups, is all,’ Virginia said, squeezing her husband’s arm. ‘If Pinky is the one choosing, it’s probably 1609.’
‘Okay,’ Aix said, and paused at his wheelchair to get his keys, checking to make sure he had everything. ‘Do Pards feed guests?’
‘Zozo and Dean will make sure you have food, don’t worry,’ Virginia said. She wanted to ask why Aix was not getting in his chair, but that was a personal decision, and she already knew from Victoria that most wheelchair users walked a little bit, and Aix was more mobile than Victoria too. Maybe the chair was just for being outside of home territory, that made sense. There were certainly plenty of nice places to sit all over the hallways and elevators.
‘Is this cane for me?’ Aix said, noticing it in the stand by the door.
‘Yeah,’ Virginia said. ‘Carver didn’t know if you used a cane, but she figured you should have one anyway as a weapon.’
‘Would Carver happen to be a troll?’ Aix asked, trying to get a sense for which names went with whom.
‘She is,’ Virginia said, chuckling. ‘Originally she did not get her name from carving wood.’
‘Noice,’ Aix said in a low, boyish growl of admiration, but did not take the cane with him. ‘Okay, thank you so much for being here for me, I know I should eat but I’m antsy and need to do stuff.’
‘I’m making you some breads for breakfast,’ Lance said. ‘And I’m getting a sleeping bag lent to me so don’t worry about that.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you later,’ Aix said, and locked the door behind him—Virginia was glad he had city instincts, the few months she’d had to spend teaching Warren to lock doors had been nerve-wracking.
‘I wanted to cook for him tonight,’ Warren said, a whine under his words.
‘I think he’d really appreciate having meals he can just grab and eat, for a couple weeks,’ Lance said. ‘He’s going to Romania in a short while, on top of all this.’
‘Is that… important?’ Warren said. ‘Why would he need to go there?’
Virginia, however, was narrowing her eyes. ‘Romania…? Oh my god,’ she said, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god.’
‘What?’ Warren said, agitated and whining, tail low. ‘What.’
‘Uh, the… the King of the Dead lives there,’ Virginia told him, looking at Lance, who nodded with a confused expression.
‘They have a King?’
Lance noted that Warren seemed visibly disturbed by this notion. What sort of werewolf was he, then, to have a tail at all times, and to not know about vampires? Lance was curious; he hadn’t been inside of this world for long, but it seemed as though this building were… very different from anything he’d seen in Baltimore, or been told by George. This place was in the Mummery, wasn’t it? Lance didn’t know how to ask, so he just kept baking, and spoke as though they knew.
‘I’m told it is fairly standard to bring a representative of a new people to meet the King, and to receive formal recognition for a new…’ he paused. ‘Hunter’ wasn’t the right word, but not everyone was a witch either. ‘Watchperson,’ he said, because Aix reminded him strongly of Vimes, in the way René reminded him strongly of Vetinari. ‘The Council has been called.’
‘I didn’t realise the Council meant Dracula,’ Virginia said, on a half-frantic laugh of shock. Lance chuckled.
‘I couldn’t believe it either. Nobody calls him that, by the way. It’s Voivodul Drăculești, or The King. Aix calls him Your Grace, he says that’s the medieval address for a King.’
‘So, how much of the book is true?’ Virginia asked curiously. ‘We’ve been reading the Dracula Daily thing for a while. My daughter set us up a whole book club on Dreamwidth with all her classmates talking about it, too.’
‘I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask, yet,’ Lance said, pouring the batter into a loaf pan. ‘I’ve met Ms Van Helsing, though.’
‘Oh, yeah, Mike’s a Van Helsing,’ Virginia said, laughing at her own obliviousness, ‘I always forget that.’
Outside, Aix went down to the elevator, sitting down on the bench inside as he went down to the sixteenth floor, telling everyone he had made it to Virginia’s safely and had met some new friends, and there was probably a party or something he was about to go to on the sixteenth floor.
Michaela: That’s a cross between backstage and a party dorm.
Victoria: And an excellent place to cheer up!
When the elevator opened, there was immediately the happy noise of activity, and the faint scent of cats. Aix stepped out of the elevator, immediately seeing a naked calico Pard crossing the hallway from one apartment’s open door to another; she froze and looked at him, her tail fluffing out a bit in surprise, ears perked.
‘Hi,’ Aix said, ‘I’m Aix, I’m the witch?’
‘Oh!’ she said, and came up to him, sniffing at him and rubbing against him immediately, getting some of her white fur on his clothes. Aix didn’t mind. ‘You’ll want to see your baby, yes?’ She took his hand and led him down the hall and into another apartment—they all seemed to just have their doors half-closed, if closed at all. Aix didn’t catch individual conversations or noises, but the tones were all happy and calm, nothing was making him tense up.
‘He’s so sweet, and the little clown too. She’s practically a cat, herself,’ the Pard added, pleased in the way of all felines at this.
There were sex noises coming from a couple doorways, not loudly, and the smell of food from a few others. Everywhere was the general atmosphere of a party happening in multiple rooms, which was… Aix had always liked parties, at least, when they weren’t themed around binge-drinking and nothing else.
‘Yanameer, who is that?’ called a large but lithe pard with a mane-like ruff and brown and black tabby stripes.
‘I’m the new witch from upstairs,’ Aix said.
‘You smell good, we should fuck,’ he said in response, and Aix… wasn’t even surprised, honestly. He almost laughed.
‘Maybe!’ he said, on a delighted laugh, ‘I need to eat and look after my kitten first.’
‘Oh it’s your kitten!’ he said, catching up to them. ‘I thought it was Dean’s, he’s so protective of him.’
It was a lived-in apartment, with lots of squashy low furniture and art all over the walls, and about a dozen people scattered around, most of them Pards. It felt like Aix had walked right into the first musical he’d ever known as a child, and he was enchanted.
Pippin and the kitten were playing with each other on one part of the sofa, and Pippin seemed to have foregone her clothing somewhere, because she was naked. Aix sat on the ottoman in front of their bit of the sofa.
‘Hi babies,’ he cooed.
‘Duckie!’ Pippin said.
‘Yi!’ said the kitten, bouncing up to Aix in the slightly-awkward way of kittens his age, ‘Ih!’
Aix slowly offered his hand to sniff, wishing he could still make high-pitched cat noises. He’d just embarrass himself at this point, he knew it. The kitten purred and butted against his hand immediately, and Aix heart melted.
I tell him all about humanspeople Mommy an how much Mommy luv he. Pippin said happily, sitting on the edge of the sofa and kicking her bare feet. He wam jump on Mommylap.
Aix saw the tell-tale head-bobbing from the kitten and leaned back, patting his lap. ‘Come on,’ he said in the little voice that he’d started using when his voice had dropped too low for him to do the falsetto most people used to talk to animals. The kitten launched himself off the sofa and Aix caught him. There was more than just Aix cheering this effort.
‘Good job!’ Aix said, petting the little one.
‘Yi!’
‘What are we gonna name you?’ Aix said, and suddenly the room went very quiet, and many shining eyes turned to him. Aix hummed softly to himself, and Queen Sinnamon, one of the people bracketing the part of the sofa kitten and Pippin had been playing on, sang softly,
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter
Aix joined in immediately, pitch-perfect and not even having to pay much attention—the songs were etched into his heart indelibly, as any childhood-learned song was.
It isn’t just one of your holiday games
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a Cat must have three diff’rent names
It was spine-tingling to hear a whole room full of actual Jellicle cats join in that song, which was rather spooky to begin with; but it made Aix feel welcome, and he felt the magic in him, spreading it with his hands over the kitten, weaving a protective spell of Aix’s love over him as Aix sang, and felt the power he always felt at singing together in a group.
Next❧