“Despite present evidence to the contrary,” he said around his mouthful, “I really do prefer bones. I like my cardboard hut out front of the gravy yard. I even find it enjoyable to keep up with the kiddy gangs, and learn their rhymes, and bear witness to their final wars. And, no offense”—Beatrice wondered who he thought would take offense; the August Crown wasn’t the world’s liveliest conversationalist—“I just hate babysitting. Really, this entire venture stretched even my illustrious ambassadorial tolerance to its absolute limit, and this with the Barka Gang being doubtless the least vexing specimens of their species. I chalk that up to the benefits of strong leadership, you know. Nothing like discipline, and cleverness, and kindness in a leader to create harmonious cohesion in the underlings.”
He eyed Beatrice. He twirled the August Crown in his long white hands.
Startled, she took a step backward. “I don’t think…”
But the Flabberghast spun up from the ground like a motley tornado, a bone sticking out of his mouth like a cigarette, his long, oddly jointed hands extended, and plopped the August Crown upon her head. Granny Two-Shoes patted it and laughed. The sound was rare and small. Barely a breath.
“There!” cried the Flabberghast. “Three cheers for Beatrice, Queen of the Big Bah-Ha!”
No one cheered, but Diodiance did stretch to her tiptoes to ding one of the August Crown’s bells.
“Ha! Look atcha, Queen B! Ain’t you just like one of those ladygods your Dad used to whopper on about? Not Durga. One of the others. Those deadland queens. Remember all those stories you told us, B? ’Bout Hel and Ereshkigoogle and Pursopoly?”
“Persephone,” Beatrice murmured. Then, with longing, “Dad.”
She could feel him right behind her, so near, just beyond the stone elephants and the warm golden splash of light. She wanted to go to him, go right now, tell him how she’d lived, how she’d died, everything that had happened since, ask him what came next, and if they’d ever have to part ways again.
Beatrice sighed, and turned away from the Elephant Gate. “All right. I’ll wear your August Crown.”
The Flabberghast’s voice was gentle. “It is not mine, Beatrice. It is yours—very simply, because it needs you. And it is only for a little while, after all.”
“I know.” Beatrice laughed a little. “Ten years, right? Give or take.”
Granny Two-Shoes climbed down from her shoulders and into her arms again, and Beatrice clasped her close and looked over at Tex and Diodiance. “What do you think, Barkas dear? Figure I can sort out this here Big Bah-Ha in ten years or so?”
Tex blew a raspberry. “B, you’ll have it spick-and-span by the time I get slapped up. That’s what? Four years? Three if my growth spurt comes young. Whaddya think, Di?”
Diodiance shrugged. “Two years tops, she’s whupped this place to shape. After that, you ’n’ me, Tex, we’ll get here in no time flat. But I’m thinking, Queen B, we’d best not pass the Elephant Gate ourselves till Granny Two-Shoes joins us. No fair tryin’ to make us laugh for joy before then. We all go in together or not at all.”
“I will wait,” Beatrice promised. “We will all wait.”
The Flabberghast took Granny Two-Shoes’ hand in his and squinted to inspect her wrist. “Hark, friends. Our time draws to an end. Your scabs are almost completely formed.”
Granny Two-Shoes tugged her hand free and pressed it to her heart. Yes, she noticed. It was squeezing. Had been feeling strained for some time. Her ears made a noise like being born.
She remembered. Granny Two-Shoes remembered everything.
Beatrice helped her up onto Sheepdog Sal’s back and tousled her tangled hair. “See you later, kiddo. In every pinch, just ask yourself, ‘what would Durga do?’ Keep that knife sharp. Serve those Rubberbabies ding-danged tarnation in a soup tureen whenever you can.”
Granny Two-Shoes nodded. Looked down. Blinked and blinked at Sal’s flopsy ears so as not to cry. It was not yet night. She only cried at night.
Beatrice tossed her slingshot to Tex. “Yours, my man.”
“Thanks, Beatrice,” he mumbled. His tears fell into the gray dust, hot and living. The water welled up, sparkled, began to form a stream.
The first of seven rivers, Beatrice thought.
She unwound a blue ribbon from her hair and dropped it into Diodiance’s outstretched palm. Diodiance wrapped it twice around her arm and tied it off with her teeth. Her lips trembled.
Drip. Drip. Splash.
Another river.
“Quickly now, children,” said the Flabberghast. “Not through the arch, but through the elephant’s legs. The left elephant, mind. The one on the right takes you to a far different place.” He winked a long black eye and lifted his slender wrist. “Ah, speaking of which, before you go…Might you spare me those last precious dewdrops of your wet blood? That I may myself get back through, you understand. The doors to the deadlands are tricky and likely to lock behind one.”
Tex hesitated, but Diodiance whacked him on the arm. Granny Two-Shoes acquiesced before either of them, anointing him with the sticky remnant of her wound. Tex and Diodiance followed suit, then slung their arms around each other and disappeared between the stone legs. Sheepdog Sal licked Beatrice’s hand and bounded away with Granny Two-Shoes clinging tightly to her fur. Lastly, the Flabberghast shouldered what was left of the Gray Harlequin like a sack of presents. He turned his stagger into a bow for Beatrice.
“I apologize,” he said, “for flensing your skin before you were quite dead all the way through, then stretching it upon my wall. But I needed a doorway. And your skin was so very, very clear.”
Bent low like that, he came face-to-face with her. In the blackness of his eyes, stars.
Beatrice asked softly, “We’ll never know, will we? Whatever it is you are.”
“I,” he answered, laughing, “am the Flabberghast!”
Then off he danced with that weight on his back, awkward as tumbleweed. Only Beatrice noticed he did not leave through the left set of stone legs. He’d taken the ones on the right. Went elsewhere. Where the Tall Ones go.
Resolutely, Beatrice turned her back again on the Elephant Gate. A golden wind warmed her neck. A rent in the gray sky showed a gleam of blue.
Eleven Lovely Emilies smiled down at her.
Acknowledgments
I should begin, as this book begins, with Gene Wolfe. As he mentioned, my father introduced us when I was eighteen. Quite unrelated to this life-changing event, I had just read my first Gene Wolfe novel, The Shadow of the Torturer. Kismet? You bet. In Gene I found a mentor and correspondent, a kindred spirit who brought me to my first convention (it was actually World Horror in Chicago, where he and Neil Gaiman were the Guests of Honor; Readercon and the ostensible witch coven came a bit later), gave me my first graphic novel (Sandman: Fables and Reflections), and critiqued my first short stories. He’s the one who told me to write short stories in the first place. He said that’s how writers begin. Then they work their way up to novels after they had some credits to their byline. He taught me how to write a cover letter, and the proper format for a manuscript. He taught me everything I know. One of the brightest moments of our friendship for me came when he introduced me to the waitress at his favorite restaurant as “my honorary granddaughter.” If ever an apprentice earned her journeyman papers through the kindness and acuity of a true master, I am that apprentice, and my undisputed master is Gene Wolfe.