Blood & Flowers (9 page)

W
e took Lucia's advice. We trooped off to the chocolate factory, and I tried not to think about anything but
The Bastard and the Beauty
. I was doing so well, too, until just before curtain time. That was when Tonio came backstage and said, “There are a lot of empty seats out there.”

Max jerked up his head. “We sold a full house.”

“Looks like the street talk finally caught up with us. Knobbe Three was right after all,” Tonio said, looking at me.

I sighed. “He so often is. It's really tiresome.”

Tonio managed a smile. The rest of us stood in a huddle until Max said, “Okay, boys and girls, time to play.”

We seemed to inhale once, in sync, and the show began.

It was a good show, one of our best. The connection between the Outlaws and the audience was like a fine, bright wire that stretched between us, a tight-rope that words and magic walked on all night long.

“Swan song,” Nicholas muttered between acts, but he didn't seem unhappy. In fact, none of us did. We were buoyant, like nothing could touch us, high as the proverbial kite.

But of course the kite comes down sometime. It's the laws of physics, and of gravity. After the curtain call Floss said, “He's out there. Major. Standing by the entrance looking pleased. Looking proud.” She frowned. “There's a travel look about him too.”

“What's a ‘travel look'?” I asked.

Floss shook her head. She seemed frustrated. “I can't explain it better than that. There's just an aura about him that says he's been someplace recently. Someplace far from here.”

“Alabama?” I suggested.

“Greece?” Lucia asked.

“I don't know,” Floss said. “It's almost like he's masked it, but I doubt he'd know how.” She stopped talking and glanced at Lucia and me. “Alabama or Greece?” she asked, and she sounded incredulous.

“Bastard,” Nicholas said, before we could answer. There was no emotion at all in his voice. I knew “bastard” wasn't a place, or any kind of a reference to Lucia or to me. I was sure this lack of emotion was because, if he'd let himself feel, he would have turned physical. At least, that was the way my mind was working. I wanted to punch something. Hard. Rabbit punches like I'd seen Max use in training.

Max poked his head around the curtain and pulled it back fast. He shook his head and said, “It's that supercilious smile he wears that irritates me more than anything.”

There was silence. There were eyes moving back and forth. Then, suddenly, there was Floss. “This is no fun,” she enunciated carefully. “I believe we have a plan that needs to be executed. I suggest we start it now.”

She turned and walked toward the back door, the one that led to the alley. Lucia watched her, then said, “We should follow her.” She nodded. “Everybody, we should follow Floss.”

And like a mandate had been issued, that's just what we did. As we got close to the door, Floss made some complicated movements with her left wrist and, as if it had been there all along, hidden by a thin glamour, a door opened in the door. A scent of rainbows and blood wafted in. We stepped through, and that was how the Outlaws, in a chicken suit, tuxedo, and dinner dress, among other articles of clothing, ended up in Faerie.

“Floss.” I wanted to sound calm, but my voice came out more like a baby-doll squeak as I pointed to the mass of feathers and fur that was moving toward us. Whatever the creature was, with its hawklike face, its wings, and its huge lion paws, I was sure I should be standing behind someone who knew what was what, not facing it on my own. Floss turned. She smiled the first real smile I'd seen from her in days. “Ohhh,” she whispered, and then she ran and flung herself into the thing's furry arms.

I moved very carefully and stopped near Lucia. In a low voice I said, “Is this one of those corner-of-the-eye things? One of those scary things that sneaks up on you?”

Lucia was smiling too, just like Floss. Not cringing, not hiding, not acting at all like this was a scary thing. She yanked off her chicken feet and her chicken hat and said, “Persia! Of course not. It's El Jeffery,” as if that explained everything. And she hurried toward the creature and Floss. The next thing I knew, she was wrapped in a group hug that obviously had nothing to do with trolls, blood, or holes in bridges.

I'd already learned something, or at least I thought I had. It seemed obvious that El Jeffery, one of the names Lucia had mentioned in our old life, couldn't be Floss's brother, unless family relationships in Faerie were amazingly strange.

I fidgeted, not sure where to turn or what to do next. I glanced at the other Outlaws. Nicholas was looking around with a smile on his face that said Christmas. Tonio looked more relaxed than I'd seen him since Major, and Max looked wary.

It seemed to take forever for Floss and Lucia to break away. When they did Floss said, “This is El Jeffery,” to us, and to El Jeffery she said, “And these are my friends.” She sounded proud of us, Outlaws and creature alike. Lucia stood to one side, her hands wrapped around one of El Jeffery's thick lion-like paws.

“El Jeffery and I grew up together,” Floss continued. “We've been like this forever.” She held up two fingers, crossed.

El Jeffery laughed, a warm, thick sound. Blackberry wine or blueberry syrup. That laugh poured
over me and I sighed happily. I felt the same way that Tonio seemed to feel, like I was back on smooth ground after miles of walking through fields of land mines. Then he or she started coming toward us.

I couldn't help it. I started backing up. So big, and so…

“There's nothing to fear. I could never harm a friend of Floss's.”

Floss smacked El Jeffery on the forearm, still smiling. “You couldn't harm anyone. Don't pretend to be fierce for effect.”

“Band name,” El Jeffery said immediately, and if a feathered face could grin, that's what happened.

“Fierce for Effect.” Lucia squinted her eyes as if she were looking at the name in lights and then nodded. “It's not bad.”

Floss raised her eyebrows. “Flailing Nails was better.”

“More punk, though,” El Jeffery said. “Doesn't match your guitar style.”

“Wait! Floss plays guitar?” I asked.

El Jeffery looked surprised. “She never told you?”

“He exaggerates,” Floss said. “He always makes it sound like I know what I'm doing.”

“It's way better than my tambourines and jangles,” said Lucia.

“You play tambourine?” I asked. And what was a jangle? How could I know so little about the people I thought I knew?

 

Nicholas spun in place, still looking dazed and pleased. “I feel like I'm five years old.” Then he stopped spinning, looked straight at Floss, and said, “Why did you keep this a secret for so long?”

“I didn't. It was always here. It's not my fault you couldn't find it.”

“Right,” he agreed. “Want and need.” His grin stretched wide and he spun again. “This is just so great!”

“Don't forget,” Lucia cautioned, “it's not always quite as great as it seems.”

“Nothing ever is,” Tonio said. “That's why so much of what we do is doomed to fail.” His expression didn't match his words. He still looked calm and peaceful.

“Cheery,” said Max, but I noticed that he and Tonio
were holding hands like they meant it, something I hadn't seen for a very long time. That in itself seemed to make this a worthwhile venture.

So there we all were in Faerie. There were little hills rolling away to my right. The grass underfoot was soft and springy and looked nothing like the grass I would have seen at home. Even the sun seemed brighter and, at the same time, more benevolent. There wasn't a drop of blood in sight. Major was trapped on the other side of a magic door. Everything seemed practically perfect.

Maybe we could make a play out of all this badness we'd been dealing with. “The Outlaws' Escape,” I said, giving the words shiny, capital letters.

“Huh?” said Nicholas elegantly.

“A new play,” I said. “We—”

“We all play ourselves,” Lucia cried.

“What,” Floss said, “is the fun in that?”

“Right.” That was Tonio. “The whole point of us is puppets.”

“And magic,” said Floss.

“And commentary,” said Max.

I said, “But it's the story line. We do play us; we just sex it up with the puppets and Floss's wonders.”

“Sex it up?” Nicholas asked.

I blushed, but I still said yes to Nicholas and pretended to ignore Tonio's laughter, which he tried to cover up by coughing and saying, “It might be a little ambitious. After all, we don't really know how it ends.”

“Ah, but does anything ever really end?”

Floss snorted. “Max, you sound like Derrida or Nietzsche.”

“Or Shakespeare.” Tonio punched him on the arm. “But seriously, I think we need time to adjust. If we're going to play here—in both senses of the word—I think we need to start small.”

“I know,” Lucia cried. “I know just what we need to do!”

El Jeffery patted her head with one of his lion paws and looked at the rest of us with round, green eyes. “Lucia has good ideas. You should listen to her.”

Lucia grinned up at him as if she'd been given star XM390 for a birthday present and said, “Bicycle theater!”

There was silence. Then everyone looked at her, and El Jeffery said, “Let me rephrase that. Lucia often has good ideas.” He paused. Then “Lucia sometimes has good ideas. Or—may have good ideas.”

He might have kept talking, but now it was Lucia's turn to punch something. She chose El Jeffery's arm. I'd never once seen Lucia punch someone, seriously or in play. Lucia in Faerie and Lucia at home seemed to be two very different people.

“This is a great idea,” she said. “Like Tonio said, it gives us a chance to adapt. It gives us time to relax and scope out the lay of the land. It keeps us busy, but it's not taxing.” She beamed.

That silence again until I said, “Um, Lucia, what is bicycle theater?”

She seemed shocked when she said, “You don't know?” Multiple heads shook back and forth in the universal gesture for no.

“Oh. Well…” Lucia seemed at a loss for words. “I thought everyone…” She trailed off again.

“Lucia, I don't think so,” said Nicholas, while Floss watched her with wide, encouraging eyes.

Lucia pulled herself together, a visible movement, took a deep breath, and said, “Bicycle theater. Okay. You set up a traveling stage. A small one. You can mount it on a trailer or on the bicycle itself. Then you do your show wherever, whenever, with little puppets. And you have a coin box so people can drop in money for the show. And music too, if you want. Or little lights. Or—”

“Tiny street theater!” Tonio crowed. “Taking Outlaws back to its roots.”

“In a small way,” Max said. “Pun intended.”

“Multiple setups. We could go all over.” Nicholas looked at the land, the hills, the dirt paths, the rocks in the road and added, “You can ride a bicycle around here, can't you, Floss?”

“Depending on where you want to go,” she said in that oblique Floss way.

“In town.” That was El Jeffery. “It could work in town, or near Dau Hermanos.”

“Uh, Floss?” I said. “Isn't there something about the fey and metal? Bikes are metal, right? Do they even have metal things here? Because going back to
get a bike or a couple of bikes might—”

Floss coughed to stop me and said, “Titanium.”

“What?”

“Steel is horrible stuff. Everybody knows. Titanium, though, that's just fine. Plus it shimmers like a rainbow when it's in the sun. Especially,” she said after a moment of contemplation, “if it's purple.”

There was really only one answer to that. “Oh,” I said, and Floss nodded once, very regally.

El Jeffery said, “You have those bikes in the shed, you know,” and I saw Floss stiffen. It was so slight a movement that I might have wondered if I'd imagined it, but Floss made it clear that I hadn't.

“I wasn't planning on going home,” she said in clear, clean syllables. I know I wasn't the only one who saw El Jeffery wince, and in my limited experience, it's not that easy to tell when a griffin winces.

“You do have that option,” El Jeffery said. “But Fred was talking about you just yesterday.” Floss didn't say a word. El Jeffery added, “He'll know you're here, just like I did. He'll feel it. And he did say how much he missed you.”

Floss jiggled her shoulders and shook her head, while Lucia said, “Freddy?” on a little sigh.

Floss focused on Lucia. “He'll certainly know I'm here if I'm with Lucia,” she said in a thoughtful, measured way, and Lucia blushed.

“He does worry. And he's nothing like the rest,” El Jeffery said in a low voice. He seemed to be addressing only the question of Fred and ignoring completely the idea of Lucia and Fred. That was too bad, because Lucia with some unknown named Fred suddenly seemed like a topic of high interest to me.

Then, as if he were saying something delicate in mixed company, possibly something in poor taste as well, he added, “Feron may feel it too, you know.”

“Mmph,” Floss said, which for Floss was almost no statement at all.

“Feron?” Nicholas asked.

Floss glared at him and he tilted his head to the side, eyes wide. “I'm just curious because you sort of growled.”