Blood & Flowers (13 page)

“If they won't know, why push it that hard?” Fred asked.

“Because even if they don't know, the commentary is there.”

Tonio backed Floss. “You have to start somewhere,” he said, which made me believe that he and Floss had talked about Faerie and rulers much more than I'd ever suspected.

Fred looked uncomfortable, then said, in the same careful way he'd spoken before, “Maybe you're right. Maybe so. But for now I think I'll just let you plan, and I'll go chat with Bron.” As he faded away both of his bicycles snuggled together like puppies on the grass.

T
he upstairs rooms of Dau Hermanos began to resemble Max and Tonio's apartment. Floss had a room to herself. Most of the time the door was closed, but the bits of cloth and threads that bounced out whenever that door was opened, as well as the smell of glues, let everyone know that Floss was deep in the throes of creation.

Tonio was hunched over a small table in a room near the top of the stairs. The table was covered with coffee stains, ink smears, and pages of scribbles that I assumed would eventually become our script.

Max and Lucia sat together and mumbled what
sounded like magic words. Magic to me, at least, because I never could get a grasp on accounts payable. They also argued amiably about tickets and box office receipts until Lucia heard El Jeffery calling and went to practice unicycle riding.

In one corner of the largest upstairs room Nicholas worked with Fred. Fred and Bron had apparently hashed out Fred's reluctance to be “in-your-face,” and Fred had become an honorary Outlaw. He and Nicholas were working on nonelectrical lighting effects, electricity being something that couldn't be counted on in Faerie.

“Maybe too modern?” Fred had suggested when Nicholas snarled over a previously-working-now-not-working-at-all outlet. “We have a long history that took place well before electricity was invented. Some things don't connect the way they should. Just like the electricity, actually.” He sounded apologetic when he added, “I'm not sure why it comes and goes. It just does.”

“Useless,” Nicholas muttered. I was sure he wasn't talking about Fred because he was pointing at the
offending outlet, the one with the new singe mark.

“We'll do it another way,” Fred said. Yet another long, meandering discussion on alternate forms of lighting began.

Since Fred had been recruited less for his knowledge of lights and gels than for his knowledge of Faerie, his answers on electricity seemed not so good until I thought about it. I couldn't explain how electricity worked outside of Faerie. Why should he be able to explain how it didn't work inside?

Ideas about electricity aside, I was glad Fred was working with us. His presence made our choice of staging a play here, as well as our choice of material, feel honest and right.

I'd set myself up in the opposite corner of the room where I could work on various paper projects. It was nice to be near Nicholas, but I had another reason too. Listening to the exchanges between him and Fred, with the occasional visits from Bron, was like getting an abridged history lesson in fey life, past and present. And maybe future.

I was in my little corner working on menus when I smelled burning and heard a pop that sounded like a cork bouncing out of a bottle of something with
high levels of carbonation. I looked up and saw both Nicholas and Fred pressed against the wall, staring nervously at the small fire burning at their feet.

I jumped up, ready to stomp on the flames, when Fred waved his hand in the air, twisted his wrist, and breathed out a small puff of air. The fire died instantly. Fred breathed again, but this breath looked more like relief.

“I don't know, Nicholas,” he said. He sounded regretful. “I told you I wasn't sure about that.”

“It was just flash paper,” Nicholas protested. “It shouldn't have done anything but flash. Poof.”

“Remember where you are,” Fred said.

“I do! I am! But we need to get some kind of lighting that flicks in and out. For the scene where the bride finds the vats of blood and bone. Like lightning.”

“Let Floss make lightning,” I said as I walked carefully across the floor.

“Floss is otherwise engaged,” Fred said.

Nicholas nodded. “What he said. I need to figure this one out on my own.”

I went to look for Floss. My arms were loaded with
menus for Bron, but I poked my head into Floss's new domain anyway. It looked much like the living room at Max and Tonio's place back home. I saw pieces of gold brocade, white lace, and cloth the color of the sky during an eclipse. I saw ankle boots and floating puppets in various stages of dismemberment. In one corner I saw a huge black box that looked like it wanted to transform into a house or a room but couldn't decide which was more effective.

Floss was on her back on the floor, eyes fixed on the ceiling where a wide-eyed, screaming face stared down at her. She was pointing at it and muttering, “No, I need you to be much more ethereal.”

The face sighed.

I went downstairs and dropped the menus on the breakfast bar. Then I went back upstairs. I found Tonio bent over his desk making notes on a script that had obviously seen better days, which was interesting because he'd only been working on this thing for two days, tops. Nothing about this concept, from script to lights to puppets, seemed to be working.

“Hi,” I said.

Tonio looked up, eyes narrow. Then he frowned at me and said, “Persia.”

“Right,” I said. I crouched next to him. “Listen, can I talk to you about this whole Mr. Fox thing?”

Those narrowed eyes opened wide, as if he were inviting questions.

“Floss is talking to disembodied heads; Nicholas is starting fires in an upstairs bedroom. The last I saw of her, Lucia was trying to learn how to ride a unicycle using El Jeffery for support. I'm making menus because I can't make posters or programs for a production with no name. Max is cutting out tickets with pinking shears. And you're holed up like a mad scientist inventing secret formulas.” I waited a beat. “Where's the cohesion? Where's the all-for-one attitude? This doesn't feel very Outlaw to me, except maybe in the literal sense.”

Tonio said, “You don't think this is going to work?”

“I didn't say that. I think there's a possibility that it's going to work just fine. It's just that right now it seems sort of…”

I searched for the best word while Tonio sighed
and collapsed in his chair. “Sloppy?” he supplied. “Slapdash? It seemed like a good idea when I came up with it.”

“Yeah, it did. But now I'm not getting such a good feeling.”

“Any suggestions?” He looked like he really wanted to know.

“Not me. All I can come up with is something blue. I keep seeing pale blue against night sky, but that could just be the program covers. Ask Floss.”

Tonio shoved his papers aside and got up. “Why not?”

We went to visit Floss. With no preamble Tonio said to her, “Persia says this isn't working.”

Floss rolled onto her side, propped herself up on one elbow, and said, “There's no fun in it. I think that's the problem.”

“
The Bastard and the Beauty
wasn't all-out fun,” I said.

Floss shrugged. “But it had moments of lightness. Quite a few, actually. This just seems bleak. And no,” she added before we could speak, “it's not because it's my family we're prodding. They need prodding. It's just so…”

“Flat and dark?” I offered.

“The smart bride wins in the end,” said Tonio, but he sounded like he was trying too hard.

“Right. But remember that review for
B&B
that we had? The one we all liked? ‘Moralism without didacticism.' This whole thing seems to model school,” I said. “It's like it's just trying too hard.”

We sat on Floss's floor in a little circle. Dead wife puppets danced on their strings, moving on bursts of clove-and-arugula-scented air that blew through the windows.

Eventually Tonio tried, “Music and dance?”

Floss shook her head. “That doesn't mean less teachy.”

“Other than sticking it to the royal family, what are we after?”

“Good question, Persia. Maybe that's where we should have started.” Tonio stretched his neck and back, then shook his head. “I think I got so stuck looking for ideas that I lost the whole idea of the Outlaws.”

“I don't think it has to be
très
Outlaw,” I said. “It just has to be something we all like.”

Nicholas walked in on the end of my sentence. Floss said, “Where's Fred?” and he shrugged. He looked tired. “I think he decided burning the place down wasn't such a good idea after all. He said he needed thinking room.”

Tonio said, “I think we agree with him,” just as Max and Lucia walked in together. Max was massaging his fingers, and Lucia had a bruise on her wrist and a bandage on her knee. They looked as tired as the rest of us.

“Oh, my,” Tonio said after one careful look around the room. “This looks dire.”

Max stretched out on the floor and sighed. “Is it Faerie that makes me so tired, or is it just that I'm not happy with what I'm doing right now?”

The question didn't seem to be directed to anyone in particular, but Floss answered. “Residual magic. It floats along and affects everyone it touches.” Then she added, “But you may not like what you're doing, either.”

Max closed his eyes and Tonio patted his head.

“If magic is the culprit, it does make some people
tired,” Floss said, explaining further. “But there are others who get energized.” She sounded like she was trying, and failing, to be peppy.

“Energized not working here,” Nicholas muttered.

“It's not so obvious if you're fey.” Now Floss sounded apologetic.

“We think Mr. Fox is a wash,” Tonio said, in a sudden left turn.

Nicholas brightened up immediately. “Oh, good,” he said, while Lucia dropped back on her elbows, winced, and breathed out a sigh that sounded like relief.

“Why didn't you all just tell me?” Tonio asked.

“I did,” I said.

“Yes, you did. No one else bothered.”

“I kept thinking it'd pull itself together,” Floss said.

“Well, sure.” Nicholas nodded at Floss. “You at least understand magic, which is probably the only thing we could have used to save it.”

Lucia said, as if she were chatting to herself, “Karaoke.”

Nicholas winced. “Oh, no. Karaoke is possibly the
saddest thing ever. You've obviously never been to a karaoke bar. People with absolutely no talent performing for an audience of drunks. It's painful. Not cute. Not funny. It just hurts.”

I agreed. “Yeah, really, Lucia. I don't think so.”

Lucia looked affronted. “Puppet karaoke,” she said, as if that explained everything.

I heard a clicking in the hall that sounded like lion claws walking on wood, and then El Jeffery poked his head around the doorframe. “Lucia should not ride a unicycle,” he said as his body followed his head. “No. Not at all. I, on the other hand, am quite accomplished on a unicycle. Did you know that I can even ride one while keeping a beat with a small drum? Perhaps a bodhran.”

“Why do I have the feeling that you want to be in the play?” asked Floss.

“Even though said play exists in name only,” added Tonio.

“It doesn't, you know,” Max said, still in his prone position. When we all looked at him he shrugged. “We can't name it if we don't know what it is. And
just for the record, I like the idea of puppet karaoke. Or I think I would if I knew how it worked. It sounds lighthearted. I could use some lighthearted.”

“Yes!” Lucia held out her palm. Max reached one arm up from his stretched-out position on the floor and tapped her fingertips.

“Explain it, then,” Tonio said, challenge in his voice. “Show us just how lighthearted it is.”

Lucia made one hand into a bunny and began to sing “Mustang Sally.” I giggled. I couldn't help it. The combination of the lyrics and a bouncy, double-eared finger rabbit just made me laugh. El Jeffery drummed a backbeat on the floor. Nicholas nodded along. Floss made her hand into an impromptu fish that danced with Lucia's rabbit. Max grinned up at Tonio. “How much more convinced do you need to be?”

“No more, really.” Tonio laughed. It was great to hear that bassoon laugh. The mood in the room lifted right up. “Think of the puppets! We can do anything, because anything can sing karaoke.” He glanced at me and Floss. “Remember my music and dance idea for Mr. Fox? That could translate nicely.”

Lucia looked pleased with herself. She stopped singing and let her rabbit puppet turn back into a hand. Floss stopped being a fish while Max said, “What? Mr. Fox is a song-and-dance man?”

“No way,” Floss said. “Not him. But she could be. The wife. She could be an actress….”

“A music hall actress,” I said. “We need a piano.”

“We don't have a piano,” Nicholas pointed out. “We appear to have a drum.”

“That is correct,” El Jeffery said. “But I can also do small cymbals. And bells.”

“And my tambourine,” Lucia said, sounding pleased.

“Oh!” Tonio snapped his fingers. “Mr. Fox could be the producer. That gives him power over her. And over the actresses before her.”

“Money, money, money,” sang Nicholas.

“Metaphorical death,” said Max.

Floss called out, “Purple boas, lace gloves, and red berets.”