Bravado's House of Blues (14 page)

“I’m sure you’ll like this. Fairy tea is much better than the draught of stinging rain and sunshine you’ve been living on these many years.”

She poured the tea from the cup, where it ran, thick and viscous, into the cracked face of the warrior. Not at all like the good, hot tea she’d poured from the pot, but fairy tea suited the tastes of the imbiber.

The warrior seemed to like the tea, for he did not complain. After she’d had a second cup of her own, she poured not just another, but four more cups into the gullet of the metal man. Then she sprinkled a few of the crumbs from her nibbles into the open face, and set about packing her things.

“That is all I can do for you,” she said to the metal man. “I dearly hoped to hear your tale, but I fear I am not to your liking.” She took out the jack knife, cut a long curl from her very own hair, and lay it in the open palm of the metal man. “If you ever decide to waken, and find yourself in need of company, this should help you find me.”

Then she blew him a kiss and slung the satchel over her shoulder. She’d gone no more than seventy-three steps, not that she was counting, when she heard a scratchy, creaking noise from behind. She did not turn, but smiled, whispering to the seedling to be quiet and brave. Then she walked toward the next village in search for a wee bairn to take home to the White Queen.

For three days the metal man followed Molly and the seedling. At first the metal man spoke to her in a language of the forge, full of clatter and clanking and steam. Each day, Molly would stop for her tea, and the metal man would stand just beyond her sight, but she could hear him, panting and wheezing like a bellows. She would pour a third cup and let it sit, while she curled up for a nap. When she awoke, the tea was gone, and the cup returned to its saucer with nary a crack or nick in the fine porcelain.

Once, during her morning constitutional, Molly thought she heard a raspy sort of singing, but decided it was more likely the wind.

Nearing to dark on the fourth night since her last tea party, the metal man came staggering into her camp site. She’d set a tidy little fire to keep the dark at bay, and was considering another draught of tea, when she saw him.

“Welcome, Mr. Man,” she said, standing quickly. “So you have decided to join us on our journey?”

The metal man took another step forward so the flickering light of the fire painted him in roils of red and orange.

“I do not understand,” the metal man said, his voice like a stiff wire brush over the bottom of an exceedingly sooty pot.

“What vexes you?” Molly asked, turning so the seedling could see their visitor.

“Each afternoon you sit at tea, and each afternoon I come and drink what you leave me,” he said. “You must know I have taken the tea, and the occasional crumb that you have offered for me.”

Molly nodded once, trying to keep the smile from her lips.

“I crave the tea,” he said mournfully. “And my capacitors yearn for your company.”

Molly felt herself blush. Not many had ever requested her company. “Shall I pour tea, then?” she asked, stepping toward her satchel. “Would you like that?”

“Yes, please,” the metal man said stepping closer. “I would know if that is what wakened me from my long sleep.”

Molly smiled as she set the blanket on the ground. Perhaps it was my kiss, she thought quietly, lest the seedling grow jealous. Even a kiss blown upon the wind can have a mighty effect.

Once the tea was set, and the second cake nibbled a bit more, the metal man was able to move about more freely, and his voice had mellowed to a timbre suitable for a gentleman.

“I was a man once,” he told Molly as she packed away the magical teapot. “I had a family and everything, before the world came to an end.”

“Why did you decide to destroy the world?” Molly asked. “Were you tired of it?”

The metal man shook his angular head and wept tears of clear oil. “Hubris,” he said, the shame obvious. “We had made wonderful discoveries, like the ability to copy ourselves into robots.” He turned once, his six arms extended, and his weapons sheathed. “We were no longer confined to the fragile shells we once were. We’d conquered death.”

Molly sighed as she leaned back with her toes pointed to the fire. “And yet, you have all died, it seems.”

“Alas,” the metal man said, kneeling by the fire. “I fear you are correct.”

“What were you about before I woke you?” Molly asked.

“I was seeking another,” he said quietly. “Someone else to have a conversation with.”

“And here I found you.” Molly said smiling. “And we may converse as long as our hearts allow.”

“I would like that,” the metal man said. “And I will watch you while you sleep. Keep the wild things from your camp.”

“There are wild things?” Molly asked, yawning. “I have seen no one at all, until I met you. That is, beyond the bony dead.”

The metal man, Sir Reginald, Molly dubbed him, knew of a place, many days from here, where he’d had a signal once upon a time.

“It could be a bunker,” he said.

“Like a castle?” Molly asked.

“Yes,” Sir Reginald said. “Like a castle where the good folk hid while the world burned.”

“I would like to find this place,” Molly said. “I grow weary of this lush greenery, and the sparkling sunsets.”

“Is that so?” Sir Reginald asked.

“Perhaps not as much as I had thought,” she admitted. “Now that I have you here for conversation.”

The whole wide world woke one morning to the sound of Sir Reginald whooping and cavorting like the men-at-arms when they’ve had too much of the hard cider on festival nights. The clanking was what woke Molly, and she sat up so fast, she nearly sent the seedling flying into the underbrush. She’d only just thought to reach out and catch her as her hair went flying around in all directions. She tightened the braid that held the seedling, stood up and straightened her shirt before clearing her throat at Sir Reginald.

“I’ve found it,” he said solemnly. “I’ve found the signal once again, thanks to you and your divination.”

“The tea guides, and the blood follows,” she quoted the White Queen. “We only have to be open to the way.”

Sir Reginald bowed to her, and a crooked smile touched his metal-plated face. “You are a wonder, that’s for sure.”

They had a spot of morning tea, where Molly drew out the serving and the eating to the point that even Sir Reginald, who was a novice in the way of tea parties, grew restive.

“Why do we tarry?” he asked after Molly had had her third cuppa and picked the tiny seeds off a sliver of cake. “Did you not understand I have found a signal to a bunker, er. . . castle where there may be people?”

Molly looked sideways at the metal man, who’d grown less stiff since he’d been sharing her cake and tea. “You grow tired of my company?” she asked. “Are you so quick to abandon our grand adventure?”

The metal man sat back at that, a thoughtful glint in his bejeweled eyes.

“Do you not wish to return to your tea parties, and the princesses?” he asked quietly. “Have you not regaled me with tales of the Master of Hounds, the Mistress of Switches, and the scullery maids and their scandalous ways?”

“You know I have, sir knight. And I told you those tales in confidence.” She paled at the thought of those stories getting back to the palace of the White Queen. She’d not sit again, for the welts and blisters she would receive for such impertinence.

“We must complete your mission,” Sir Reginald offered.

“Of course,” Molly said, standing and tossing aside the last of her tea. She hastily bundled the pot, cakes, plates and blanket back into her satchel. She spun around four times, and stopped, facing the metal man. “I have flung off my melancholy and am ready to face the unknown.”

“You are a peculiar young woman,” the metal man said. “More comely than a rose, as witty as a jay, and as innocent as freshly fallen snow.”

Molly cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “Do you jest, Sir Reginald?”

He bowed once again. “You are the fairest lass I have seen in a thousand sunrises.”

Molly blushed, but straightened. “Let us off, then, you sly one. I would bet a thousand sunrises have passed without you seeing a soul alive, until I came along.”

Sir Reginald sniggered.

Soon the merry band was climbing down a steep ravine, chasing the signal that the metal man could hear.

“Tell me of it,” Molly asked as they rested part way down the ragged cliff face. “Do they sing to you, these old ones? Or do you hear the voices of other metal men such as yourself, full of clicks and clacks such as you sang to me when we first met?”

“They call for aid,” he said solemnly. “For rescue and succor. I do not know if they live, but I have hope for the first time in an eon.”

“Then that is good enough for our adventure,” Molly said, brushing dust from her britches.

They climbed for the rest of the day, only pausing when the sun dipped below the edge of the mountains to the west. They made camp along a deep ledge where they could have a small fire, and sleep without fear of rolling to their deaths in the midst of the night.

The next morning they climbed again, a sense of urgency suddenly overcoming Molly. The metal man, Sir Reginald, had grown quiet and would not speak of the signal any longer other than to say, “It is very old, and very sad.”

At the bottom of the great cliff wall, they turned northward and walked amongst the jumbled stones and thick brush.

“We are close,” Sir Reginald said the second day after they’d reached the bottom. He held out his cup for a second helping of tea. His hand had grown softer, rounder in the intervening days. Between the whispered kisses that Molly blew to him each night, and the power of the tea, the metal man transformed.

By the third night, they happened upon a vault door. A great gear pushed into the side of the rock face.

“Here is their final resting place,” he said. “They are inside.”

Molly hefted her satchel up higher on her shoulder and stood as tall as she could. Time to be brave, she told herself. This is the moment of truth.

She took the gloves from her satchel and put them on. When Sir Reginald looked at her, she wiggled her fingers at him and smiled. “The Mistress of Switches always says to present your best when meeting new folk.”

“Sound advice,” Sir Reginald said.

“Here,” Molly said, bending and plucking a small red flower from the ground at their feet. “Place this in your hair.”

She stood on her tip-toes and wove the red flower into Sir Reginald’s wavy, golden hair. The metal of his complexion had faded to a softer texture and his angular head flowed with golden locks.

“I believe,” he said as she stepped back to admire her work, “that the tea may have some magical powers I had not expected.”

“As the Mistress of Switches reminds us. We must be who we truly are when we sup with another, and share our table.”

“I see,” Sir Reginald said. “Shall we see if any others remain to satisfy your quest?”

Sir Reginald strode forward, touching a sequence of keys on the great door. After a moment, the whole world shook as the great cog rolled to the side, revealing a long passage into darkness. After a minute, pale light began to shimmer in the tunnel, and Molly poked her head inside.

The cavern was filled with great, long couches, each covered in glass. “Like the tales of Sleeping Beauty,” Molly said to Sir Reginald as they examined the sleeping forms within.

They were children, from the smallest infant, to children old enough for skipping and knitting, tea parties and grand adventures.

“So many,” Molly said as she walked deeper into the cavern. “Do you wonder where all their mommies and daddies have gone away to?”

Sir Reginald turned to a bank of glittering and glowing machines. With a swipe of his hand over what appeared to be a large crystal ball, he was able to learn the fate of these many children.

“There are no parents,” he said quietly. “No one to raise them once they wake.”

Molly was horrified at first, clasping the seedling in her fist and spinning in a slow circle. When the tiny light of the day hove into view a second time, she paused and looked back at Sir Reginald.

“Can you wake them? One at a time?”

“Yes, I believe so,” he answered her, his voice full of questions.

“Then, we shall do as I was asked,” she said with confidence. “The White Queen asked that I return a girl child to her in exchange for this seedling. A fair trade that would serve both her whims and the whims of the fickle fates.”

She leaned over one of the sleeping couches and brushed the frost from the glass. Inside slept a girl of about six summers, her fiery red hair falling around her pale face, a splash of freckles coloring her cheeks.

“We will start with this one,” she said, turning to Sir Reginald. “I will take her to the White Queen. The Mistress of Switches can show her the ways a child should behave, and we can let the seedlings have this world. They would grow here, and make it a place for themselves.”

“That is a fine idea,” Sir Reginald said, tears in his amber eyes. “There are many children here. Will your Mistress of Switches accept them all?”

“If she will not, the Master of Hounds will accept a few,” she said with a growing sense of right. “And the scullery maids all lament their childlessness. It is obvious by their actions, and the way they skulk about with the men-at-arms.”

“And how do we get there from here?”

“Easy-peasy,” Molly said. She took out her jack knife and strode out of the cave. Sir Reginald followed quickly, as if afraid to be left alone.

“Here, watch.”

She took the knife and scoured a circle in the thick grass. Once she’d done this, she took out the teapot and dribbled a bit of the sweet nectar into the circle, allowing the brown liquid to fill the cuts she’d made into the earth.

Finally she sat and sang a quiet song about moonbeams.

Sir Reginald gasped as a ring of toadstools sprouted before his eyes.

“Here is our way home,” Molly said rising.

“And the seedling?” he asked her.

Molly reached up and took down her long braid. For a moment, she struggled with the knot, but the seedling seemed to leap from her hands and onto the ground. In a heartbeat, a young girl stood before them, eyes like seashells and hair as fine as corn silk.