Oscar from elsewhere, p.19
Oscar From Elsewhere, page 19
Before we got in, we stood in a huddle, breathing quickly while Bronte explained fast that the puddle had actually been a Shadow Mage that would have torn the skin and flesh from Astrid’s hands.
Harsh.
Esther went dead white.
Imogen cried and hugged her little sisters, held them out so she could look at them, said, “You’re okay! Are you okay? You’re okay!” then grabbed them into a hug again before they had a chance to answer. She even reached her arms out to hug me, saying, “Oscar! You’re—” And then she stopped. “You’re not okay! There’s blood all over your face!”
I’d forgotten about that.
There was a throat-clearing sound and Octavius introduced himself to us. Everything about him was very tidy, including his voice. He said, “The hotel advises that we board the carriage swiftly, and proceed to the hotel,” before he looked at the forest, in a meaningful yet very tidy way. “The Doom Lantern Witches are not far from here. They no doubt heard my yell. They will be approaching.”
I must have gone pale myself at that because he fixed me with a look and said seriously, “The blood is dry but you have clearly had a knock to your head. Do you have a headache? Blurred vision?”
“Yeah-nah, I’m all good,” I said. “It’s not a concussion. I’ve had a couple of those playing rugby league.”
Octavius turned to the others, ignoring me, and said, “Please keep this young man awake during our journey. Engage him in conversation. Step aboard and we’ll be on our way.” He was scanning the forest as he spoke.
Astrid took a step up into the carriage and paused. “The Doom Lantern Witches have the key fragment,” she told the others. “We heard them talk about it.”
Gruffudd’s head pushed its way out of Bronte’s pocket. “If the Witches have the key, please, let us collect it now. Imogen?” His head craned up, trying to find Imogen in the dark. “Imogen? If the Witches are rushing through the forest toward us, why do we not double back to their home and find the key? Will you not consider my family, my friends, beneath a growing mountain of silver?”
At that exact moment there was a distant crack! like a car backfiring.
Or maybe a stick breaking as people moved through the forest.
There was a sort of horrified silence, and we all looked from Gruffudd to the forest to the open carriage door.
Octavius spoke up. “The hotel will, of course, assist in any venture you may undertake. However, the hotel would like to gently remind its honored guests that the Doom Lantern Coven is ruthless, and that night is falling fast. Night intensifies the Witches’ already considerable power.” His eyes ran over us before he finished: “The hotel would gently recommend that the guests, who seem rather tired, and somewhat injured, proceed at once to the Royal Gaynor Hotel for dinner and bed.”
We looked back at the woods, pitch-black, and at the sky, a moody twilight gray.
Imogen took a deep breath and crouched down so she was face-to-face with Gruffudd. “We already have five pieces of the key,” she told him quickly. “We got another from a Water Sprite this afternoon. And we still have tomorrow.”
Gruffudd’s lower lip trembled.
Another crack! from the forest.
“When you are doing an exam,” Imogen said, speeding up even more, “you can be going along at a good pace and then you reach a very tricky question. It’s often better to continue with the exam and come back to the tricky question at the end.”
Exam advice. Unexpected.
Then I realized: “You mean we should keep going with the other key keepers and come back to the Witches at the end?”
Fairly reluctantly, Gruffudd agreed that this was a good idea, Octavius gave a subtle sigh of relief, and we clambered into the carriage and took off like a rocket.
* * *
The first thing that happened in the carriage ride was that we swapped stories of what we’d been getting up to. Imogen, Bronte, and Alejandro were great listeners, all three of them making a lot of shocked and impressed sounds as we talked about the rapids, getting thrown from the boat, finding the house, Astrid figuring out who lived there, the race through the forest, and Esther’s Spellbinding. When you tell people you’ve been having a pretty intense time, you don’t want them saying, “Ah well, whatever, you’re all good now.” You want their eyes wide and their heads shaking, mouths open and “What? Oh, you poor darlings!” That kind of thing is better, ’cause it means they get it.
They told us about how they’d seen the Genie, and the Water Sprite, which was a much shorter story.
After that I closed my eyes and rested my head against the carriage wall. Imogen yelped, “Oscar! We cannot let you fall asleep! Wake up!” and then I heard Bronte whisper, “What’s he interested in? We have to keep him interested,” and Alejandro said, “I know.”
They tried to keep me awake by asking questions about my skateboard. Only they kept calling it a “boardskate.”
Where had I acquired it? they wanted to know. And exactly how popular was this … toy … in my world? Offensive to call it a “toy,” but I let that go.
Alejandro asked how all the pieces fit together, and I explained about the board, trucks, wheels, grip tape, and all that. “The grip tape is why I’ve got these holes in my shoes and socks,” I said, pointing them out.
“You should stop using the grip tape then,” Imogen advised. “Leave the boardskate—sorry, skateboard—blank.”
I laughed. She seemed so definite.
Alejandro had been listening closely. “That heavy silver object we found in your satchel?” he asked. “This is a tool to be used on your boardskate?”
“Yeah, it’s a skate tool.”
“Oh!” Bronte said. “We thought you might have used that to create the wave.”
I kept laughing at them. The more I did, the more intensely they asked their questions—I think they were worried that my laughing meant I did have a head injury. But they were just funny.
* * *
Esther didn’t join in with the “boardskate” conversation.
She sat in the corner of the carriage and was silent. After about an hour of rolling along, she said very softly, “I should have known it was a Kwilligus and not water. I know water. I’m a Rain Weaver. And I’m meant to be able to sense shadow magic.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I did see darkness in the corner of my eye,” she added. “I thought it was just that I was tired.”
Then she turned her head so she was facing the carriage wall and I wouldn’t have even known she was crying, except that her shoulders moved up and down.
Imogen took a break from quizzing me about my board to put an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “It’s all right, it all worked out,” Imogen murmured. “You’re nothing like our mother. It’s all right, Esther, it’s all right.”
CHAPTER 55
IMOGEN
WHEN WE REACHED the hotel, Octavius opened the carriage door for us. It was suddenly freezing.
“What’s going on with the weather?” Bronte asked as she climbed out. “It was hot this morning, yet it’s been getting colder all afternoon.”
“Indeed,” Octavius agreed. “We are now on the outskirts of the city of Splendid. It has its own microclimate. Its weather systems sometimes creep out of the city and roll along the river and its banks. In Splendid, there has been snow lately. Here at the Royal Gaynor Hotel, our pond is frozen solid. At any rate, honored guests, welcome!” He gestured at the ornate white building. “The hotel will send your luggage to your suite while you—”
“Oh,” Esther said softly. “The luggage from our boat is in the river. And so is the boat.”
Octavius bowed at her courteously. “Thank you, Esther. The hotel is saddened by your loss. The hotel is also troubled by the nasty wound on Oscar’s forehead and the hotel does suspect a concussion, despite Oscar’s eloquent protestations. Yeah-nah, I believe he said. The hotel invites Oscar to come and see the hotel doctor. Meanwhile, the hotel invites the others to proceed to the private dining room. The hotel imagines you must be famished.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Astrid told him, “but I am very hungry.”
“Indeed,” Octavius repeated, and he ushered us into the hotel.
After that, the night became like a dream.
If I become descriptive when I explain it, that is not my fault. It is the fault of the night itself.
The hotel lobby was extraordinary. Its walls were hung with paintings, mosaics, and tapestries, and they soared to a ceiling studded with chandeliers. These dipped and sparkled like icicles, their reflections glittering in the water of several fountains. Pale pink rose petals drifted, constantly falling from vents in the walls and being puffed about by heated air. The effect was subtler than the petals in the Crystal Faery palace had been—there were fewer of these petals and they were of a paler pink. They gave off an exquisite scent, and you felt as if you were seeing everybody through a lens of coral. People are prettier that way.
Behind a counter of marble and jade, a woman murmured, “Welcome to the Royal Gaynor Hotel,” as we passed. Elegant adults in cocktail dresses and tuxedos drifted about amongst the petals or lounged before the roaring fireplace.
In the far corner of the lobby was a private dining room. Wood-paneled, with a long table set with polished silver, crystal glasses, and shiny candelabras. At the end of the room, a window overlooked a frozen pond. Outside, lit by golden lanterns, people in coats and scarves were skating in swooping circles.
“Please sit,” Octavius told us. “Oscar, if you would be so kind as to follow me?”
He withdrew from the room, Oscar following, and we sat around the elegant dining table giggling now and then. I think it was a nervous giggling. Our clothes seemed too worn and crushed, our shoes too scuffed, for this hotel.
Soon, Oscar was back, his blood-splattered face cleaned and bandaged.
“Just a mild concussion,” he told us. “No big deal.”
He was accompanied by a waiter, who pulled out a chair for him and, with a flourish, set a cloth napkin on his lap. Oscar seemed startled by this.
The waiter regarded us all. “How hungry are you?” he inquired.
“Very,” I said. “All we had for dinner last night was oatcakes, and all we’ve eaten today is a tomato sandwich for lunch.” I realized something. “Bronte didn’t even get a tomato sandwich because she was waiting for Esther at that time. What did the Crystal Faeries give you to eat, Esther?”
Esther blinked. “Oh. Nothing,” she replied. “I suppose they forgot. I was so busy curing people last night, and then I fell asleep, and then I woke up and cured more and then I left.”
There was a shocked silence around the table. “So you have not eaten anything since … lunchtime yesterday?” Alejandro checked.
“I suppose not,” Esther agreed.
“Right then,” said the waiter, and he turned and left the room.
“Esther,” Bronte said slowly. “To be able to sense magic and Spellbind, you need to be eating well, sleeping well, and feeling as calm as possible. No wonder you didn’t sense the shadow magic in the Kwilligus. The fact that you were able to Spellbind at all—when you’ve only just started training, and in those circumstances—is astonishing.”
Esther gave a very small smile.
A few moments later, a swarm of waiters arrived carrying trays laden with food. There was pork with crackling and applesauce, mint-and-rosemary lamb with gravy, crunchy potatoes, roasted carrots, and crusty bread. There were piles of steaming macaroni and cheese, stacks of mini-hamburgers and mini-pizzas, savory pastries and chicken drumsticks, salads of tomato and basil and candied walnuts, burnt butter pastas and smoked cauliflower, rich chocolate cake and delicate berry tarts, fizzy lemon drinks and watermelon juice.
As we ate, and watched the skaters on the pond, a great calm seemed to slide over us. Sleepily, we smiled at each other. We only spoke to say, “Would you pass the butter, please?” or “This lemonade is delicious” or “Gruffudd, you have your own plate of food, do you have to keep running around taking food from us? Oh, never mind. There’s plenty.”
Octavius returned just as we were setting cutlery down on empty plates.
“You may like to know that the hotel has retrieved and repaired the lost boat from the river,” he announced, “and has delivered it to Jasper Kestrel. The hotel has also retrieved several items of luggage from the river and its banks, and has taken the liberty of drying these out and sending them to your suite. The hotel wonders if you would care for a moonlight skate before bed?” He gestured at the picture window.
After that, memories become even more mingled in my mind—coats and scarves and lace-up skates; the soft lantern light; the glow of the moon; Bronte and my sisters, all experienced skaters, graceful as dancers on the ice; Alejandro and Oscar, both beginners, wobbling and frowning, hands outstretched.
Cinnamon doughnuts; mugs of hot chocolate; holding hands with the other girls, speeding in circles; chocolate-dipped strawberries; skating backward; Oscar and Alejandro becoming reckless and racing, crashing and skidding, laughing, pulling each other back up—the crack of the blades.
A deep bubble bath; bare feet buried in soft, plush carpet; a tiny dollhouse bed on a window ledge and Gruffudd exclaiming, “I want that bed! I’ll take that bed!” confused by our laughter; Bronte solemnly promising him that nobody else would take that bed; a window overlooking the city of Splendid—the banks of the skating pond merging now with the fat white pillows and feather-down quilts; sprinkling of stars in the cold night sky; sprinkling of city lights through windows; a confusion of lights, of waking and dreaming; our night murmurs slipping and blending into sleep—into the deepest, the most exquisite sleep, that I have ever slept.
CHAPTER 56
OSCAR
THURSDAY WAS A funny one.
I mean funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha.
It sped out from under us like a pair of ice skates, everything going exactly right and also exactly wrong.
Most of the day seemed to happen in the morning, so I’ll start with breakfast.
We had that in our suite, wearing plush white robes. There were matching slippers too, but we kept our feet bare to feel the carpet. That carpet! You wanted to squelch around in it. Soft and warm like a bathtub, it was. Only dry.
We ate while lying on the beds in our robes, stepping out now and then to feel the carpet. It was so brightly colored, the breakfast! The eggs, the fruit, the bacon. Everything! Everyone kept going on about how well they’d slept, and how soft the carpet was, and how brightly colored the breakfast was.
Imogen said the brightness meant it had nutritional value, and told us to “eat up”—we already were, it was delicious—then she asked how my head was (she’d asked that a few times the night before—they all had—it was cute)—then she remembered that she wanted to talk to Octavius about the best way to get back to the Witches.
She left her breakfast half-eaten and rushed off to find him.
While she was gone, I said something like, “She’s pretty determined, isn’t she?”
I was impressed she’d left her breakfast half-eaten.
The others all said things like “So determined! If she sees a problem, she solves it; that’s Imogen. She’s always been like that. She’s great at swimming and kickboxing too.”
That last part was unexpected. I’d seen no evidence of Imogen’s kickboxing so far, which was probably for the best.
“Tell us about your world, Oscar,” Esther said suddenly. She blushed a bit, as if she were suddenly embarrassed to have asked, so I said, “Sure,” and started talking.
I couldn’t help it: I told them that, in our world, there are cars, planes, computers, dishwashers, the internet, and mobiles, and that life is much easier as a result.
“Mobiles? Yes, we have them too. They hang above baby cradles. They are lovely,” Esther said.
I explained what a mobile phone was, and they were all amazed—but then Alejandro said that, back when he was a pirate, he had visited some Kingdoms in the Northern Climes.
“Some have this technology that you describe,” he said.
Astrid said, “Oh yes, Matron at our school went on a tour of the Northern Climes. She told us extraordinary stories about the province of Jagged Edge in the Kingdom of Cello, and its newfangled machinery.”
I stared at them. They were crunching away at their food, sipping at their drinks, and did not seem to realize how bizarre this was.
“But,” I said. “But, wait. You have those things in your world? So why would you not … why do you not …” Honestly, I couldn’t believe it.
“We don’t really want them,” Bronte told me apologetically, and the others all nodded and started murmuring about how noisy such things were, or how complicated, and how letters and telegrams were so much “nicer.”
“Motorcars are getting more popular in a lot of places,” Astrid told me. “And we have steam-powered ships and trains, of course, and plenty of industrial regions. More and more people have telephones in their homes too. Our family has one in the kitchen. Our school principal has one in her office too.”
“Except we’re keeping it to a minimum,” Esther explained.
This was all extremely confusing, and also annoying. Here’s why: I’d been thinking that, even though these kids were better than me at basically everything, at least my world was superior. We’d invented all this stuff!
And now it turned out, they’d invented it too. They just didn’t want it.
Alejandro seemed to realize I was getting depressed because he changed the subject and asked about animals in my Kingdom. (None of them ever got the hang of the word country.) I told them about koalas, kangaroos, red-bellied black snakes, and funnel-web spiders. Apart from Gruffudd, who was really bothered by the idea of funnel-web spiders, they all seemed happy to hear about the animals, and assured me they knew of “no such creatures.”
