Chapter 38

Harlequinade

r Asher got up, offering his chair to Pippin. She did a handspring onto it, though even standing on the seat meant only the little fat tendrils on her head poked over the edge of the table. However, she simply vaulted herself up onto the table instead, standing on it. This made Gogo get down onto Aix’s lap again, and—hesitantly, because he Wasn’t Allowed On Tables—put an experimental paw on the table. As usual, Aix gently pushed his paw off with a finger.

Pippin looked very much smaller than usual because of her unitard; usually, like most clowns, she wore very loose clothing. Now, in stark black and white with green beetles beaded onto her costume (the one at her shoulder was actually part of an antique brooch from the 19^th century), her smallness was very clear.

‘Joey bees for playtime,’ she said to the assembled, hands on her hips. ‘No bees peepoh. No make a joey work.’

‘And what of person rights?’ Mistress asked her gently.

Pippin pointed to the kitten. ‘Liddoh brothercat. Okopus. Ollie-phant. Joey.’

‘Those are animal rights.’

‘Animal welfare,’ Aix corrected, because he was in zoology and rescue, and had the experience to be suspicious of the phrase ‘animal rights’. ‘People have rights; animals have laws protecting their welfare.’

‘Ye! Joeys bees aminal. No human beans. Aminal beans,’ Pippin said stubbornly. ‘Joey bees see what humans-peepoh do to other humans-peepoh. Peppoh live in Big Easy town. Peppoh see what a white human beans do to a black human beans,’ Pippin said, looking at Mistress intensely, before looking around at all of them. ‘I see how magics-peepoh do to other magics-peepoh-the-babies. I see you,’ she said, ominously.

‘Magic people? Immortals?’

‘Vampires,’ Aix said. Pippin nodded. ‘Magic is blood.’

‘I see what bad man do to René-he-baby,’ Pippin went on. ‘I see what bad lady do to Fixis-she-baby. I see what humans-peepoh do. All joey see. We no wan’ human beans rights. No bees civazashun beans.’ She shook her head and made a sharp cutting motion with her hands, her Flash going red with disagreement. ‘No detu. Joey no civazashun beans, joeys aminal beans.’

‘I suppose to deny you would be disrespectful of your autonomy,’ Mistress said. ‘but it rests uneasy with me.’

Pippin came over and silently opened her arms in offer of a hug. Mistress allowed her, gently putting her hand on Pippin’s back as Pippin hugged around her soft neck.

‘Is okay magic lady doin’ a Concern. But Joeys not bees like you. But I see. Peppoh see.’

‘Who is Pepper? Other than apparently a clown familiar with racism.’

‘Peppoh many lots age joey. Har—’ Pippin paused, looking at Aix. She knew Aix had figured out a way for her to say the word more easily. ‘Say in Romaji, Duckie?’

‘Hārekuwin,’ Aix said. He’d caught on to Pippin avoiding certain blended phonemes pretty instantly, and had introduced her to Japanese, which did not have them, as a way to pronounce words in ways that were easier for her. They used a sort of hybrid method that utilised sounds Pippin could make, but that didn’t always appear in Japanese (like w). Harlequin was one of the most difficult words that Pippin nevertheless needed to say often.

‘Hārekuwin,’ Pippin said, with a little nod. ‘Peppoh bees live down down down inna jazztown! Peppoh Mari Gra Joey.’ Pippin said this with a tone of much awe and impress.

‘Pepper was Alix St Croix’s clown in the 1920s, in New Orleans. We—well, my cousin—recently reunited with him,’ Hext said. ‘You all remember my goy cousin, the Cultbreaker?’

‘Sure, he’s a good kid,’ Scarpa said. ‘Funny as hell.’

‘Are you also “many lots years”, little one?’ Mr Asher said, now sitting where had once been Rosenrot’s chair. Pippin gasped melodramatically, making her eyes wide and her Mask shocked, splaying a tiny inky hand on her chest.

‘Miss’r sir! As’een a lady her age!’ she said censoriously, drawing herself up to look down her tiny button nose at him in scandal and with the biggest frown she could muster, her ruff fluffed out and Flash in her Mask making it sparkle like a drag queen’s glitter. Roseblade and the other fops giggled, and Aix stifled laughter. To his enormous credit, Mr Asher managed to keep from laughing, though his beard curled in a smile, dark eyes twinkling.

‘Ah, of course, my most humble apologies, madame,’ he said gravely, with a little bow. ‘I withdraw my question.’

‘Is Pepper older than you, bean?’ Aix asked, knowing he could speak to her casually, because she understood his respect for her even so. She respected him in turn, and really, Aix felt Pippin was the only person where he was on equal footing. It was an odd feeling, but a nice one. They took turns taking care of one another, and the rest of the time they were friends. She was the best roommate he’d ever had.

‘Ye! Peppoh many lots veryest joey!’

‘And what does Pepper remember?’ Aix knew this game, he knew the correct question was ‘what does x remember?’, because clowns did not count, they didn’t like to. It was like how fae didn’t believe in writing things down if those things were important. Clowns, also, seemed to have… not exactly a collective memory; but, because they were psionic, they could share any kind of information they wanted instantly, rather like a sort of joey-wide intranet. So, it was a crowd-sourced community database of information.¹

‘Peppoh mem’r…’ Pippin paused in that particular way when she was assembling a word. ‘…waranateen bees innavenened. Onna islan waaaaay away. Inna sillytown.’

‘Sillytown?’ Aix prompted gently, ‘Why is it silly?’

‘Dotties make it on toppa water.’

‘…Venice?’ Scarpa said, many of his eyes widening.

‘Well, she ain’t talkin’ about Mexico City, old son,’ Aix said, arching a brow. Scarpa cackled, at that—they had quickly become friends, but Scarpa still hadn’t known Aix for more than a day or so, and wasn’t familiar with just how unafraid of him Aix was.

‘Could you translate, for those of us who don’t speak English well,’ Claudiu asked, a little shyly. Aix looked at Pippin for permission, and she nodded.

‘She said, “Pepper remembers quarantine being invented. On an island way far away, in Sillytown. It’s silly because the humans built it on top of the water”. Pip, is that why joeys started to get pushy about masks and washing hands?’

Pippin nodded. ‘Peppoh—an Miss’r Ban. Rosie fren.’ She pointed at Roseblade. ‘Miss’r Ban amemer Bad Miss’r Death come, like Bad Miss Rona. Come when he fancy joey live inna Big House inna Rosielan’.’

Aix was silent for a while, parsing this—and also parsing the shock as he put it together, who Young Master Ban was.

Clowns never died; and, during the last days of the 20^th century, when the information superhighway had started but hadn’t been choked and throttled with social media, there had been quite a few niche message boards and LiveJournal communities for clownkeeping enthusiasts. And, on said message boards and LiveJournal communities, there had been groups of people devoted to stringing together evidence, trying to track clowns through the years. Some were easy—everyone knew Robin Goodfellow, he was still called that and well-documented. But many clowns had just seemingly disappeared, especially because there had long been superstition about their being some form of fae, and it being that they were only pets, and not noteworthy. The group effort, the ability to communicate on a global scale, had helped the clownkeeping community find some of these elder joeys, and one in particular had been everyone’s literal white whale:

White Peter, the beloved clown of Charles II of England. White Peter, often cited as the first therapy clown. White Peter, who was—and this was important—albino.

There was a theory, put forth by someone in a LiveJournal community Aix had once been a part of, that White Peter had been all over the British isles, and still lived there somewhere, passed down through a family somehow hidden from history; the legitimacy of all of the evidence was, unfortunately, tarnished by some of the less legitimate sources. The post had become legendary for the bullying that followed Jem’s long essay, and was now a meme that most people didn’t remember the source of, forever obscuring and obstructing any attempt to find White Peter ever again. If you saw a white anything—an animal, a rock, anything—you took a photo and said you’d found White Peter. It had begun with just animals in the UK but had gotten more and more surreal and dadaist over the years, as internet humour had evolved to be less and less comprehensible. Even Aix’s favourite show had joked that one of the characters—the white and pink one, with the pink eyes and the powerful ‘master’—was White Peter.

‘Translation?’ Claudiu asked. Aix sighed, and finally realised he could take off his mask, which was soggy and awful. Carefully, he did so, peeling off the tape, which was very sticky and needed careful work to not simply peel off the mask and stay on his face, dried his tears, and said,

‘She said Pepper isn’t the only clown that remembers plagues. Young Master Ban remembers when the Black Plague came through London.’ Aix paused, kissing Gogo’s little forehead contemplatively. ‘Back when Young Master Ban was called White Peter, so… the Restoration period.’ Afraid he was going off on a tangent, Aix looked at Gogo for a moment and then went on, ‘…anyway, she says Pepper and Master Ban being familiar with plagues meant they could impart to the other joeys how important it was to wash hands and for humans to wear masks. And, I imagine, tell them that joeys needn’t worry about catching or passing it on.’

‘What do you mean, tell them?’ Claudiu asked, curiously.

‘Well like… they’re psionic. All of clowndom. They talk to each other?’ It wasn’t a weird notion to Aix, but he realised to people who hadn’t grown up with something like the internet, it would not be a thought, even if they could. ‘I… sorry, I thought all psions would have thought of doing that, but… that’s because I grew up when a global instant-communications network was already established,’ he added, mostly to himself.

‘…The implications of that are chilling,’ Michaela said. Hext shoved at her shoulder lightly.

‘Nah, you’re just saying that because you only interact with actual monsters. Clowns ain’t monsters, they’re clowns.’

‘Is it a true collective mind, or is the sharing voluntary?’ Garnet asked, in a surprisingly shrewd and thoughtful voice. ‘The Quakingfolk are a collective mind, but the Sluagh simply have a sort of… group chat. They can keep secrets, if they want to.’ When everyone looked at him with the same shock, he shrugged. ‘What? It’s useful for knowing who you can fuck without Mumsy finding out.’

‘They’ve been here for hundreds of years, gathering all our secrets,’ the King murmured, though his low voice carried. ‘We thought they were safe, but they live with and without the Mummery. They’re a leak if they are able to communicate so clearly at will.’

‘No!’ Pippin said immediately, and Aix felt her fear—she knew what a genocide was. ‘Joey silly, nobody lis’en he! Joey nice, joeys no mean to nobody!’ Her Mask was distressed, and she looked at Aix. ‘Tell him, Duckie. Tell him Sophie says.’

Sophie. Ah, yes. Aix’s favourite tv show that wasn’t animated had some very good lessons on human nature, being that every episode was a heist; and Aix had been watching said show a lot for comfort in the past couple of weeks. Pippin was showing him her memory of one particular scene, where Sophie was coaching a young team member in their first grift.

People who are greedy and use people, they have a blind spot—they can’t imagine anyone who’s not like them.

It was gratifying and relieving to know Pippin only acted innocent. She knew the score, really. She always had. Aix suspected she was the same age as Pepper, and knew she couldn’t admit it or people wouldn’t think she was Baby anymore, and wouldn’t let her be.

Aix looked around at everyone, just to be sure he could say what he wanted to say without solecism, because it was a pretty serious thing to accuse people of.

‘With the exception of Cthulhu and possibly Mistress and Mr Asher, all of you are from cultures that know and use violence—including betrayal—to control others. I know for a fact you’re all predatory animals. Clowns are none of these things, and that makes it hard to understand they’re not going to even consider betrayal, because the idea of controlling other people isn’t something they would ever want to do. It’s like… why would a fish dream of arson?’

Aix wasn’t sure if this landed, exactly, but Pippin assured him she did see the change, the way Aix’s words made everyone stop and reconsider their suspicion; and Pippin also came over and hugged Aix, too.

Detu Duckie. Duckie good fren to joeys. Good lawyer fren.

‘…Clowns saved lives,’ Milady said to the King, finally. ‘They were insistent and that saved lives. I saw them, wherever I travelled. Shaming people without masks. Pestering them.’

‘In DC too,’ Mistress said. ‘And making themselves a wall around the vulnerable. Teaching the children, and the homeless, and anyone else that they could.’

‘And the south,’ Mike agreed. ‘News was mightily cross with ‘em, so were the anti-maskers. But you cain’t stop Old Joe if he gets a notion, and that’s the truth.’

‘You ever been to Boston?’ Heather asked, with a wry smile. Aix was immediately intrigued, especially since Pippin gave a type of laugh he’d never heard before—a mischievous one. ‘Unwise to consider starting shit with joeys, young man,’ she said to Dracula, once again drawing the impression of her true size around herself. She didn’t change shape or size, but somehow you were reminded of just how big a seal she really was. ‘They don’t start fights, but they’ll finish one.’

What’s in Boston? Have you lived there before? Aix asked Pippin silently.

Punch not short for notheen, in Boss Town. Pippin answered, covering her mouth to stifle her wicked giggle, her Mask turning impishly red and black and white, and her Ears raising and going stripey, like the horns of the animated imps on a cartoon Aix had shown her recently. She showed him the distinctively Bostonian clowns—called ‘boyos’ or ‘the big lads’—who were and had always been part of the Irish community. And big they were—not taffy-stretched and spindly like a Nightwatch, but what Aix could only describe as strapping, wiry with muscle and lean as fish.

And they did indeed punch; but always up—cops, skinheads, abusers, any and all landlords (well! They were Irish clowns, after all), and they Loomed as well as Nightwatchers did, which meant they were good as bouncers or as silent intimidation against scabs during strikes. Boston clowns were working clowns, had always been, and were the only clowns that truly fought—willingly, readily, and well.

Aix couldn’t help the way one side of his mouth tugged up in a smile. You know, we’re going to Boston in January. Maybe it wasn’t on-topic, and maybe Aix was missing the rest of the conversation going on around him, but right now he didn’t care—he needed a break.

Pippin gasped, her Flash turning from mischief-red to excited blue and yellow and pink. She did her usual excited handspring, and was on the floor and running outside, Gogo laying his ears back at her loud beeping and hunkering down, tail curling around himself. Even though Pippin was his friend, she was still very Concerningly Loud sometimes.

‘Tătic,’ Claudiu said softly, ‘I think the little one is right; perhaps it is time for a recess? There is much for all of us to think on.’

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