Fragment 11

I knew my princess well enough to know that she wouldn't ignore my note. I'd had Toadlon push it under her door the night I came back from visiting Luigi. If what I'd written had rung true, it would hit a nerve. If not, she'd be curious enough to want to know what I was talking about. Add on a couple of days to account for her current mood, and I suspected she'd knock on my study door this evening.

Rather than calling for her to come in, I opened the door to her myself. She wore no finery, just a simple floor length dress covered by a cloak, with her hair arranged in a long braid over her shoulder. I noticed she'd not made up her face in its usual bright colours, but she didn't look dull by any means.

Expressionless, she held up the notepaper with my three-word question scrawled across it. "It's Dimentio, not Dimento," she said in a quiet voice, "and it's not a 'what', it's a 'who'."

I opened the door wider and invited her in.

I'd already arranged a chair for her to sit in, and I'd kept my kettle hot. I liked a little herbal tea in the evenings, and knew that she did, too. I offered her the chair and busied myself with making up the hot drinks. "So, Dimentio is a person? Do you want to tell me more about him? Assuming it's a he, I take it?"

That raised a little smile. "Yes, he was."

That was interesting. It probably meant he was dead, too.

Peach waited until I handed her a drink; she took it and cradled it in her hands for warmth. "How is Luigi?"

"Improving with every 1-UP," I told her. "I visited the hospital this morning. He's up and walking, with sticks."

"Oh, poor thing. Why must it take so long?"

I repeated Dr. Toadley's explanation about how the floro sprout had reduced the effectiveness of the 1-UP, slowing Luigi's recovery from the operation. Her face fell, and I took the opportunity to make my point clear.

"Your Highness, Luigi nearly lost his life because we had no information on your latest adventure. I know this one was different from the rest. I don't understand all this secrecy..."

"Where did you hear about Dimentio?"

"Apparently, Luigi called out 'Dimento' during a moment of delirium," I said. "Dr. Toadley wanted to know if it had any significance."

"Dimentio was evil. But he's dead. He tried to harness the evil that created the void, but we... Mario... destroyed him." She sipped at her tea. "He was responsible for planting that floro sprout in Luigi's brain."

Another revelation. I leaned forward. "So, Dimentio tried to control Luigi?"

At this, my princess jerked her head up suddenly. A haunted expression crept over her face, as if she were reliving a terrifying dream. "Dimentio's dead," she repeated, her eyes staring. "Mario destroyed him."

I could see her hands beginning to shake, and I took the cup from her before she spilled her tea. "I'm sorry," I said, "I can't even imagine the horrors you must have seen." I put her drink on the table beside her and sat down. "Mario mentioned that you'd even had to fight and defend yourself. Is that true?"

"Sometimes," she said, clasping her hands together. "But Mario did most of the fighting."

"Did you fight Bowser?"

"No!"

The force of her response took me aback. But I'd steered the conversation towards the beast, and I was determined to pursue it. "Did King Bowser kidnap you?"

She cowered in her chair. It reminded me of the frightened little girl who I'd taken into hiding after the koopas had taken our king all those years ago. "No," she whispered. "It was a man, who called himself Count Bleck."

"Was Count Bleck responsible for creating the void?"

The Princess choked, and then erupted into a fit of uncontrollable, hysterical sobbing. I had no idea what had triggered it, or how to console her. I strengthened my resolve to get to the bottom of this mystery, whatever it took.

My duties delayed my visit to the hospital until late the next morning. As I approached the main entrance I wasn't surprised to see Mario emerging from it. He looked tired and dishevelled; a growth of dark stubble covered the lower half of his face. Ever since Dr. Toadley had deemed Luigi fit enough to receive visitors, Mario had spent almost every waking moment with his brother, and had taken to sleeping overnight in the chair next to Luigi's bed.

"Taking a break, Master Mario?"

Yawning, Mario nodded.

"How is he?"

"They are doing the physio with him. I'm gonna go home and change my clothes." He looked at me. "You were coming to see him? He will be too tired after the physio."

"If he is, I'll come back later. It'll give you a chance to rest."

The implication that I would sit with Luigi while Mario took a break made him look uncomfortable. He hadn't been happy about me being the first to see Luigi, and had even shown some resentment towards the book I'd brought. He was looking pretty hostile towards me at that moment.

"Please don't interrogate him, Toadsworth. He has been through enough."

I wasn't having any of that. "And so has Princess Peach. Did you know last night was the first time she'd come out of her room for six days? What is she so sensitive about that it will cause her to cry for hours?"

Mario lowered his eyes.

"She told me about Dimentio. She told me that her kidnapper was known as Count Bleck. But as soon as I asked who created the void, she broke down. Why is that, Master Mario?"

He stepped forward and looked down at me, his brow drawn into an angry frown. "Because you are making too much of this." He spoke in a menacing whisper. "Dimentio is dead. Count Bleck is gone. The void has been closed up. It is finished. You're making mountains out of molehills."

I could feel my temper rising. "Perhaps you'd better tell that to the princess," I said, "because the way she's conducting herself at the moment suggests there are affairs that haven't been as neatly tied up as you might want me to believe."