Unfortunate Incidents
A One-Shot in Three Parts
By ChocolateEclar
A/N: Unlike my previous Chrestomanci pieces, this one is totally unrelated to the others. In fact, it takes place during the events of the new book, The Pinhoe Egg. It's a short little thing that will hopefully help me jump back into With This Ring. Please enjoy and review.
Part I: Trapped
Chrestomanci strode purposely towards one edge of the clearing for what felt like the millionth time in only a day. Or at least he thought a day had passed. The space in this wood seemed to be a little unsure of where or when it was too. He thrust out with a strong, firm wall of magic only to bounce back just as always.
He straightened his sweater and sat on the ground like a child. He felt like one too. Stuck in a box, he grunted silently. He stood up again and leaned heavily on the walking stick he had conjured earlier, back in the third hour or so trapped there. He could not set off any of the alarms that meant he was in trouble because he was not sure if this was even a concrete place. He was still in his homeworld as far as he knew. It felt like it in any case. But this danged wood stubbornly held him fast inside.
It probably thinks it's an affront that I even managed to enter at all, he grumbled to himself.
He stepped back into the wood and poked at bramble and roots with his walking stick. Millie was probably having a fit. Janet and Julia and Roger were probably off being children. He imagined them riding their bicycles around the grounds. He was glad the horse phase had passed. That took him to Cat.
Well, he thought, if one nine-lived enchanted can end up in this place…
He turned back towards the clearing just as Cat was stepping in on the other side. The scrawny little boy had an entirely different sort of magic than him. Well, each Chrestomanci turns out better than the last, he thought.
Part II: Flying
Chrestomanci decided, after his last unfortunate stay in the woods, to gain a view from above to investigate. He talked with Roger beforehand, who seemed generally shocked his father knew about the flying machine but not overly surprised. Chrestomanci folded his hands on his desk and put on a face that made Roger shrink a bit. No, not surprising at all.
Then, they went behind the shed to find Joe. "I wonder," Chrestomanci said, "does anyone happen to have a flying machine handy?" Joe scrambled to hide his tools before realizing what Chrestomanci had said.
"We can show him!" Roger insisted, indicating in his tone that they had to show him. Joe understood. What the Big Man wanted, he received.
Chrestomanci, Roger, and Joe lifted up into the air on top of the mass of bicycles, tables, and chairs powered by the stuffed eagle. The beginning was jerky, as the boys pedaled away, and Chrestomanci stuck himself firmly to his spot. It would not do to lose a life this way.
His thoughts on the woods coming closer, he did not notice Cat or the horse or the griffin at first. It was Roger who said, "What's he doing out here?" Chrestomanci turned his dark gaze to the path below them and spotted Cat and his two strange animals facing a man. Chrestomanci wanted to reference a film on Twelve B about talking to animals, but he knew it would be wasted on Roger and Joe.
He saw the gun before Roger and Joe did. It did not help much. There was a shout below them from Cat and then Mr. Falow – Farlen – Farleigh? fired the gun at them up in the sky.
"Bother," grunted Chrestomanci in that calm way that meant he was now very irritated. Roger and Joe did not hear him because they were so absorbed in the knowledge that Chrestomanci was now spurting blood at them from his arm. They managed a poor sort of landing garbling and yelping all the way.
As Roger and Joe looked at Chrestomanci wide-eyed and speechless, Chrestomanci said through clenched teeth, "I don't want to lose a life today. Would either of you mind so terribly losing a shirt to wrap this up?" The moment for inaction passed then, and Joe removed his shirt to wrap it around the bullet wound.
"You won't lose a life, Dad," insisted Roger, although he was panicking worse than Joe. When they went back up in the flying machine, Chrestomanci grunted and actually swore.
Another bad day was beginning.
Part III: Resolutions
Chrestomanci listened to the Faleries – Farliffs – Faleighs (yes, that had to be right) and Pinhoes quarrel and wanted very much for them to go on trying to kill each other for the rest of their lives. However, he knew that would not be very good for the people around them, nor little Marianne, so he talked to them as Jason reeled the one family's magic away.
Millie read off a bunch of facts on the families, and he smiled slightly. Then a little of the feeling returned in his arm again and his skin took on a greener cast.
"Would you oblige me in reminding me not to be shot again?" he asked Millie when they were heading to the car to go to the Dell House.
"Of course, love," Millie replied, although she looked concernedly at his arm in the makeshift sling.
Chrestomanci almost wished he had lost a life, then the pain would be gone at least, but it seemed like a stupid waste of a life on a man who was now a tree. Of course, falling down the stairs and careening out of a tower had been a stupid waste of two lives too, but he digressed.