I sit back down on the bed, the sheets twisted around me, and listen to the water in the bathroom begin to run. I feel a dull, sick ache in my stomach.
Well it's two months, right? Two whole months and who knows, maybe you can change his mind.
Change it to what? another part of me asks. The challenge strikes me as being Sisyphean - no matter what tactic I try, the rock is going to roll back down the hill before I manage to get it to the top.
Still, you have two months. But this doesn't seem like a very long time at all. How am I supposed to accomplish anything in just two months - clearing my name, changing Hieronymous' mind, curing Professor Potsdam, rescuing Ahmed-
My stomach dips at the thought. I forgot Ahmed. He's stuck in the Otherworld now, with only that horrible demon for company. Maybe he's already dead, I think. Maybe Damien's already sacrificed him - or maybe the goblins have-
I shake my head briskly, trying to loosen the thought and toss it away. There isn't anything I can do for Ahmed now. I just have to find someone who can go rescue him for me. I already know it won't be Hieronymous - going to the Otherworld is not exactly on his top ten list of things he loves to do. Maybe this Emmy person can take me, if she's half the magician she seems to be.
Well that's a start, I think, although even I have to admit to myself that going to the Otherworld to fight a demon for my best friend isn't exactly the sort of thing you ask someone to do on your first acquaintance.
You'll just have to work up to it, that's all. So what next?
My stomach answers for me by giving a low growl. Despite all the stew I put away last night, I'm suddenly starving again. I'm a little nervous about wandering around the house - will I be in anyone's way? But the memory of how nice to me Kip had been, and another rumble from my stomach decide for me - I get out of bed and make my way downstairs.
As soon as I reach the foyer I can hear the sounds of clattering again - Kip in the kitchen, my stomach hopes. And then halfway there, I pause. Kip's voice is audible, saying something indistinct, and then there's another, softer voice saying something in answer. Suddenly self-conscious, I remember that I haven't brushed my hair since getting out of bed.
Well, it's going to be a complete mess either way, I decide, screw up my courage, and walk to the kitchen.
Right before I walk through the doorway, a wall of scent hits me - not food, but right now, it's just about the best smell in the entire world - coffee. I duck inside and see Kip heating a pan on the stove. At my step, he turns with his wide grin. "Well," he says, "good morning." Then his eyes go over my shoulder. "Emmy, this is one of our guests."
I turn to see a woman sitting at the table, in the same seat I'd taken for supper last night. Well - at first glance she looks like a woman, but I realize looking at her that she can't be more than a year or two older than me. She has pale skin and bright red hair, a striking contrast, but one that makes her face look a bit washed out. It doesn't help that she's swathed entirely in black - a long skirt, boots, a sweater, and what looks like at least three scarves - which makes her face look paper white against the fabric. She's pushed both thumbs through the wide knit sleeves of her thick sweater, and has both hands wrapped around a mug, which is paused halfway to her mouth. And there's something strange about her eyes - they look too big for her face, and somehow too blank. Before I can figure out what it is, she gives me a quick, nervous smile, and I remember my manners. "Hi," I say, "I'm Eliza."
Emmy just stares at me, her cup still poised in front of her. I begin to grow uncomfortable at the silence, but then Kip speaks up behind me.
"Emmy can be a little shy with strangers," he says, as though Emmy were a little kid hiding behind his legs rather than a girl - woman - older than me.
I smile back at her. "That's okay," I say, and then wonder what to do next.
Fortunately, Kip rescues me. "Will you fetch some more mugs, Eliza? They're just in that cupboard, on the left."
I run over, grateful to have been sent on an errand, and have to stand on tiptoe to pull two mismatched mugs from the shelf. Kip has taken the pan off the stove, and he takes the mugs one at a time, and pours the heated coffee through a strainer into each. He hands me one, and I can barely wait until it cools before I start sipping. After a month with no coffee, it tastes like some divine elixir, and I put away half the cup in a few seconds.
"That stuff is gross. It smells like - like stank water," blurts Emmy suddenly, and she gives a shrill little giggle into her own mug.
"Now Emmy, that isn't polite," Kip chides. "Just because you don't care for coffee doesn't mean you need to ruin everyone else's appetite."
"With your cooking, she couldn't ruin my appetite if she tried," I say, aware that I sound sycophantic but too eager to stay on Kip's good side to care. It works - he grins at me again and sips at his own mug with satisfaction.
"Hey, Emmy," I continue, "did you know that there's a kind of coffee made from beans they collect from civit cat poop?"
Kip seems to speak to Emmy as though she were a child and I know of no surer way to get a kid to like you - absent a fistful of candy - than to make poop jokes.
Again, my tactic works. Emmy bursts into a flurry of giggles, laughing so hard that she spills hot cocoa from her mug onto the wooden table's surface. Kip frowns at me in mock-disappointment. "You two are both disgusting," he says. Emmy is still giggling helplessly, and I begin to wonder whether she's all there. And if she isn't, how could she have generated wards around the house so powerful that even Hieronymous commented on their strength? Maybe she's some kind of magical savant, I reason, although there's something about her that makes me wonder.
Kip interrupts my train of thought. "Eliza, are those the same clothes you came in yesterday?"
"Uh," I start, looking down at my white prison pajamas. "Yeah. I haven't got anything else."
"Maybe Emmy can lend you some," Kip says, giving Emmy a meaningful look. "She has too many clothes as it is." I can believe it, as it looks as though Emmy's currently wearing three outfits at the same time.
"You only want us out of your kitchen," says Emmy in a sing-song voice.
"I'm making breakfast," Kip replies, "and I can make it faster without you two underfoot."
"Pancakes!" Emmy shouts.
"I think you've had enough sugar for one morning," says Kip. "I'm making eggs, and you're going to eat them."
"I'll eat them if you put them in pancakes," Emmy replies.
"Don't be difficult," Kip says. "Now go on upstairs."
Emmy leaps up from her seat and grabs my hand. "You can see my room," she says. "Kip's not allowed in but you can see it." She sticks her tongue out at Kip's back, and drags me back toward the staircase leading to the second floor.
We ascend and head straight to the back hallway where Emmy drags me up another, narrower staircase, then leads me to a small door that she has to duck under to get through.
Emmy's room is part of the attic, under one of the dramatic gables. Once through the door, the room opens into a wide expanse with a high, pointed ceiling and a row of little windows set near the floor. The space is filled with a magpie's nest of raggedy, rickety, or just plain broken down treasures. There's a full length mirror with an ornate and tarnished brass frame and a canopy bed with one of the poles broken, so that the canopy has to be pinned to the wall by one of its corners. There are multiple dressers with missing drawers, and a vanity table, all of them strewn with knickknacks, shiny rocks, makeup and hair brushes. There's also a huge wardrobe shoved into a corner, with one of its doors coming off the hinge. Every conceivable surface is draped with clothing, seemingly all of it black and drapey, identical to what Emmy is currently wearing.
Emmy leads me to the center of a relatively clear patch of floor, then steps back and considers me, serious as a fashion designer looking over her model.
"It's good that you came to us today," she intones loftily. "Because you need a lot of work."
"Gee, thanks," I deadpan, and Emmy sticks her tongue out at me.
"Take those off," she orders, waving her hand vaguely at my prison pajamas. I dutifully strip down to the white underwear and entirely unsupportive bra that came with the uniform. "Those too," Emmy says, and when I hesitate, she bursts "it's okay, we're both girls." Then she squints at me. "You are a girl, right? Kip says it's impolite to make assumptions but sometimes I forget."
"That's good advice," I admit, "but it's okay. I'm a girl. Just... one that's not used to stripping in front of strangers before breakfast."
Emmy rolls her eyes at me, but digs into one of the piles of clothing on her bed. She unearths a fake kimono that's too shiny to be anything but rayon and tosses it at me. "You can wear that."
"Thanks," I say, putting it on, then doing the wriggling dance of taking off my underwear without taking off the outer robe, a move perfected by shy middle school girls in gym locker rooms across America.
I have my back turned to Emmy, and she suddenly asks "what did you do to your hair?"
"Burned it off," I say, and she giggles as though I've just admitted to some embarrassing fashion faux pas.
"Why didn't you fix it?" she asks.
"Well I can't really see the back of my head," I start, and Emmy giggles harder.
"No-o, with a spell," she says.
"Oh. I can't do spells any more," I say, the words heavy and smooth as river pebbles in my mouth.
Emmy's eyes widen. "Did you get expelled?"
After a moment's pause to consider the question, I say "yeah. I guess I did."
Emmy nods, then steps over my pile of prison clothes to pat me on the arm. "It's okay," she says. "We can still be friends."
"Oh," I say, and give Emmy a tentative smile. "Thanks?"
Emmy grins, then skips across the room and starts digging into a pile of clothes that spill out of one of the lopsided dresser drawers. She starts flinging things at me - a black sweater, a t-shirt, a pair of tights, some underwear. As I pick them up, I see that they all have the store tags still on them.
"Where do you get all these clothes?" I ask, examining the sweater tag.
"I steal them from the outlet mall down the highway," Emmy says, still half buried in the stack. She tosses a long black skirt over her shoulder in my direction.
"Uh-" I say, and she straightens and turns.
"Well how else am I supposed to get clothes if I don't have any money?" she asks, looking at me as though this were the most obvious answer in the world.
I look at the sweater in my hands, then shrug, and tear off the tag. I'm already a fugitive after all - no reason to be squeamish about wearing a few shoplifted clothes. I dress in the items Emmy has thrown me, but quickly run into a snag. The sweater and skirt probably fit Emmy's long frame, but both are laughably long on me. Emmy snickers as I roll back the sleeves of the sweater and try hiking up the hem of the skirt so that it won't drag on the floor.
"You look like a little kid playing dress-up," Emmy says. "Here, I can fit them."
"Really?" I ask. I haven't seen anyone fit clothes except for Professor Potsdam; the spell she'd used had seemed more complicated than any of those I've learned in school so far.
"Sure!" Emmy says, and launches into the spell.
Emmy's casting is unlike anything I've ever seen. She doesn't cast with her hands, but seemingly with her whole body, a set of lurching movements that could be dance steps, but are a little too ungainly. Actually, she resembles nothing so much as a large black bird struggling to take off from the ground. And yet, the spell is effective - once she completes it, I feel the sweater tightening around me, and the skirt rising so that instead of flopping past my toes, it brushes my ankles. The overall effect is nearly as good as Professor Potsdam's magical tailoring.
"Wow," I say. "Where'd you learn to do that?"
Emmy shrugs. "Around."
I consider this. Whatever "around" is, Emmy certainly didn't learn her technique from Kip.
"Did you learn it in school?" I ask. Emmy shrugs again, not answering. She seems engrossed in picking at a thread from the hole in her sweater sleeve.
"Where'd you go to school?" I ask. "Was it in California, like Kip? Did you get expelled too?"
"I didn't go to school and anyway it sucked!" Emmy yells suddenly and with surprising vehemence. I'm struck silent, judging it best not to point out the inconsistency in Emmy's statement. And at that moment, I realize what's wrong with Emmy's eyes - they have no irises. Her eyes are all white with huge black pupils, and nothing in between. The effect, along with her outburst, is incredibly creepy, and I feel my skin pucker into gooseflesh under the warm wool of the sweater.
Emmy cuts her eyes away from mine, and goes back to picking at her sweater. After a long silence, she says "sorry," in a very soft voice. Then, suddenly, she looks up at me and grins. "Want me to cut your hair?"
I have to think about whether I want Emmy to come near my head with a pair of scissors, but decide that refusing would probably just make her angrier. "Sure," I say.
"Okay!" she says happily, then shoves a pile of clothes off of a chair and steers me into it. "I cut my own hair," she says, "and I shave Kip's head, too. I'm really good at it."
"How do you color it like that?" I ask. "Magic?"
She shakes her head. "Manic Panic. But spells keep the color from fading out too much. I tried coloring it with magic one time but it's real easy to mess up. I fried my hair worse than you did." Emmy has unearthed a pair of shears from the mess on her vanity table and has started clacking away at the back of my head, now as cheerful as she had been before her outburst. I keep as still as I can under her shears until she says "there!" and lets me stand. She bats at the back of my sweater and steers me to the brass-framed mirror.
"H-uh," I say, when I see my reflection, "that's actually... really nice." Emmy has removed the damaged portion of my hair in the back, and cut the rest of it into a sort of bob, short at the nape of my neck but longer in the front, just past my chin. It's smart-looking, particularly for a home job, and makes me look - well, a little grown up.
"I like it!" I pronounce, and Emmy claps her hands in childish glee.
We make our way back down to the kitchen to find Kip stirring a pan of scrambled eggs. He looks up and sighs when he sees us. "You two look like Heckle and Jeckle," he says. "Emmy, is there a single piece of clothing in your possession that isn't black?"
"Nope!" says Emmy. "Did you make pancakes?"
"No," Kip says. "Eat your eggs. You need the protein."
The two of them bicker good-naturedly as Kip dishes out breakfast, and - to my intense gratitude - pours me a fresh cup of coffee to replace the one I'd abandoned on the way to Emmy's room. The eggs are plain but hot and immensely satisfying piled on a piece of buttery rye toast.
I'm halfway through my breakfast when I hear an "Eliza?" from the front of the house. It's Hieronymous - who, I realize, I hadn't told that I'd be going downstairs. I feel a quick twinge of guilt, and swallow my mouthful of eggs. "Scuze me," I say to Emmy and Kip. "I'll be right back." I dash from my chair out of the kitchen and toward the front foyer.
Hieronymous is there, looking at the front door as though considering whether to go out through it. "Hey," I say, and he starts and turns towards me.
"Ah," he says. "There you are."
I glance at the door, then back to Hieronymous. "Were you, like, worried about me?"
He frowns. "I was merely concerned that you might have been foolish enough to attempt to leave the premises without informing me first." He cocks his head at me, one eyebrow raised. "I wasn't aware that there was to be a funeral."
"Well you certainly dressed for it," I snap. He's also in head to toe black, a sweater over a collared shirt and pair of trousers, all of which seem to be better fitted and in better shape than yesterday's robes. Actually, I've never seen him dressed so casually before, and I find it an interesting change.
"Sorry," I say, suddenly abashed for snapping at him. "I guess I'm feeling a little combative this morning."
Hieronymous crosses his arms in front of him, and gives me a thoughtful look. "It was not my intention to raise your hackles this morning, Eliza," he says. "I understand that you have had a trying time of it in the past few weeks-"
"Try months," I interrupt, but he ignores me.
"-and are consequently under a great deal of strain," he finishes. "But I ask you to accept that when it comes to determining your future, I am far more acquainted with the risks of staying within this world than you are."
"Then can't you tell me what they are and let me make a decision about it?" I ask, my voice more plaintive than I'd like it to sound. "It's my life, Hieronymous. My entire life. And you're acting like the decision's been made for me already."
"If not for the fact of our marriage, I believe it would have been decided for you already," Hieronymous says, quietly.
"Yeah, I know," I admit. "Same if you hadn't been there to rescue me. Even if it was self-interest, it was pretty... gallant, I guess."
Hieronymous smirks at this. "High praise indeed."
"So can I propose something?" I ask, and Hieronymous raises his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue. "A truce. Just for now."
"And what would that entail?" he asks.
"We drop the subject, go into the kitchen, and have some breakfast without any more fighting, and maybe we pick up this conversation later. Does that sound reasonable?"
Hieronymous gives me a measured look, and finally says "if you like."
I sigh, relieved. "Great. Kitchen's this way." I lead the way into the back of the house. "So," I say when we enter the room, "this is Kip, and this is Emmy - she's the one I told you about, who does the wards? She's the one who lent me the clothes, and she cut my hair - look!" I swish it around in what I hope is a fetching sort of way. "Doesn't it look-"
I cut off when I realize Hieronymous isn't behind me any more, and turn around. Hieronymous has stopped in the doorframe, eyes widened, his mouth half open as if in shock.
"Hey," I say, "are you okay?"
He doesn't answer, because that's when Emmy begins to scream.