She looked at him and her smile tightened. "You don't have much of a sense of humor, do you, Pinkie?" She stood up; her head almost touched the low ceiling. For a terrifying moment Theo thought she was going to wad him up like a candy bar wrapper. "In fact, I think you're a bit shallow, you know that?" She turned to Applecore. "See you when you get back from the station." She left the room with elephantine dignity.
"She's right, but," said the sprite, rising up from the floor like a helicopter with a bent rotor. "She didn't mean nothing by it — she was only messing. You must be a deft hand with the ladies back home."
"Yeah, whatever. I'm sorry. Aren't we supposed to be meeting Tansy?" It was bad enough having everyone back in the real world look at him like he was a complete loser — now it was starting to happen to him in Fairyland as well.
"Oh, 'course, wouldn't want to hold you up." She sounded angry.
As they walked down the hall — a different hall, Theo felt sure, but it had taken the place of the one that had been outside his door the previous night — he suddenly caught up to Dolly's parting comment. "What did she mean, 'see you when you get back from the station'?"
"Just because you act like an utter mean eejit sometimes doesn't mean I wouldn't see you off," Applecore said quietly. "I'm not spiteful, meself."
"You mean… you're not going with me?"
"Go with you? Back to the City? That's why Tansy's sending one of his relatives with you. What good would I be? Besides, this is where my family lives, I'm just back, and I owe my ma and da a good long visit."
"Oh." He was a bit stunned — no, worse than that: he was devastated. He had taken it for granted that Applecore would go with him.
By the time they reached Tansy's lab Theo was feeling very depressed and could barely muster the strength to respond to the count's greeting. Another fairy was with him, one who seemed somehow a bit younger (as far as could be told with such ageless faces) and was certainly a bit plumper, which meant he was built like a slender mortal. And he actually smiled, although he did not go so far as to extend his hand to Theo.
"This is my cousin, Rufinus weft-Daisy," Tansy explained as he led them across the house. The day was dark outside the long windows, the sky streaked with charcoal-colored clouds. "He's going to accompany you to the city."
"Rather exciting it will be, too," said Rufinus. "Quite secretive. Like the old days of the last Flower War."
Tansy gave him an irritated look. "Something which you were not yet alive to see. In any case, let's not have any talk like that where outsiders can hear. It won't do to set people thinking."
"Yes, yes, certainly." Rufinus gave a vigorous nod. "Quite right, Cousin Quillius."
Oh, my God, Theo thought miserably. I'm going off into horrible danger with an Upper-Class Twit for a bodyguard.
"Now, in just a moment Heath will bring the coach around to take you to the station…"
"Coach?"
"… And thus," Tansy told Theo sternly, "we do not have much time for chat. Cousin Rufinus will have ways of getting in touch with me, but on the very small chance that you two should become separated, I suppose you should be able to reach me, too. Using public communications may not be feasible, so…" — he reached into the breast pocket of his white coat — "… I want you to have this."
Theo stared dumbly at the tiny leather case for a moment. At last, since it seemed expected of him, he flicked it open. A piece of golden filigree lay cushioned in the velvet interior, a slightly abstract sculpture of a bird about the width and length of two extended fingers. "What… what is it?" he asked at last.
"It is what we call a shell. It will give your words wings," said Tansy complacently. "Open the case and speak to it when you are in dire need and I will speak back to you."
"Oh. It's kind of like… a cellular phone?"
Tansy frowned ever so slightly. "It is a scientific instrument. Treat it with respect." He regained his bonhomie as they reached the large, sand-colored entry hall whose main feature was a sweeping minimalist staircase. Theo hadn't realized the house had an upper story. If in fact it did. "Hob," Tansy said, "has Heath come with the coach?"
"He is waiting in the courtyard."
"Then your adventure is just about to begin, Master Vilmos." Tansy smiled. He was pretty good at it, but still not quite convincing. "Come — I will show you the way to the front doors."
My adventure? Theo could not help remembering other great euphemisms of the past, such as a high-school girlfriend telling him that breaking up would be "a learning experience."
The dark clouds had rolled in overhead, turning morning's glow to a midday twilight and filling the air with the wet smell of an approaching storm. It seemed to match the change for the worse in Theo's mood. If he had half-hoped that Dolly and Teddybear and some of the other household folk would come out to bid him farewell, he was disappointed. In fact, even Tansy did not seem to want to linger too long in the outside air. As they piled into the back of the coach, which turned out to be something that looked just like a slightly old-fashioned beige town car, indistinguishable (except for some extravagant bits of silver and gold ornament) from a vehicle that Theo might have seen idling in a pickup lane at San Francisco Airport during his boyhood, Tansy spoke quickly.
"You'll do fine. Rufinus knows just where to go — don't you, Rufinus?"
"Most certainly, Cousin." Young weft-Daisy laughed in a confident sort of way.
Theo shook his head in a mixture of confusion and resignation. He had many more questions to ask, but Applecore was crawling across his shoulder trying to get onto one of the backseat headrests and Rufinus was bashing him painfully in the shins with a huge suitcase he had dragged into the car. By the time Theo had figured out what was going on, Tansy had already slammed the door and retreated into the house, which looked much more normally shaped on the outside than he would ever have dreamed, a long modernist manor of pale stone, pagoda roofs, and not-quite-transparent glass.
Theo flinched as a nightmarish face peered in on Rufinus' side of the car. It had a long, horselike muzzle and was a sort of pearly gray-green, a skin color that went nicely with its crisp navy blue suit and cap. It had huge nostrils but no eyes. "Can I take that bag for you, governor?" it asked Rufinus. The arms that came through the car window ended in gloved hands rather than hooves, although the fingers were thick and spatulate. "I'll put it in the back."
"Most kind, Heath," said the young fairy with lordly condescension. "Just that one — I'll keep the smaller one with me."
When the strange greenish creature had disappeared around toward the trunk of the car, Theo let out his breath. "What… what is he?"
"Too loud by half," growled Applecore from her perch on top of the headrest as Heath thumped the suitcase into the trunk. The sprite was apparently still feeling the effects of her overindulgence.
Rufinus leaned toward Theo. "Of course, you're a stranger here. Heath is a doonie. They are terrible ones for the drink, doonies — fermented mare's milk is their tipple, don't you know — but extremely loyal. And they're excellent drivers, of course."
"Excellent… ? But he doesn't have any eyeballs!"
"Ah, but he smells extremely well."
"I've smelled better." Applecore was lying back with her eyes closed. "Ooh, the bleeding Trees, me head still throbs."
"Oh… my… God," Theo said quietly to himself as the chauffeur with no eyes climbed into the front seat and pulled out of the courtyard and its circular road, tires spitting gravel.
Oddly enough, Heath did indeed prove to be a very good driver; after a few minutes, even Theo had to admit that perhaps vision was an overrated commodity in the chauffeur business. Whether it was his excellent sense of smell that allowed him to do it, or some other strange trick beyond Theo's understanding, he kept squarely to the middle of the country lanes, made the turns without anyone shouting, "Hey, you, go right!" and stopped in plenty of time for processions of small strange animals Theo largely didn't recognize to cross the road in front of them.