Prospero in Hell (43 page)

Slowly, I reached out and touched the shimmering green satin of my tea gown. The cloth felt cool and smooth beneath my bruised fingers. Reaching into the pocket of my cloak, I drew out the silver fan and laid it across the enchanted dress.

How differently last night—and the rest of my life—might have been, if I had just had these two things with me.

Seeing the circlet caused yet another pang of pain. While I had been telling myself that I would never see Astreus again, in my heart I had believed otherwise. I had secretly hoped that if I merely waited long enough, we would chance to meet again: perhaps during another Christmas feast, or when his tasks in the Void were finally complete and he was again left to his own devices.

But, that was when I had imagined I would be around two hundred, three hundred, even a thousand years. With only a scant century left, my chance of running into the elf lord again shrank to naught.

As I pushed the circlet back under my cloak, where its glittering silver
would not mock me, something about it caught my eye. I paused and peered at it more closely. It was made of alternating lengths of horn and silver. Only, what I had previously taken for horn looked exactly like the substance that lined Mephisto’s hat—horse’s hoof, according to Mab.

For an instant, I wondered why Astreus had worn this at the Christmas feast instead of his customary crown of stars and what had prompted Father Christmas to give it to me. Then my misery smothered any curiosity, and I put the circlet away.

Beside the pile of garments lay my flute. Picking it up, I lay its cool polished wood against my cheek. Thank goodness, I had not given in to my foolish whim and thrown it into the sea. Without my Lady to calm me and Father to guide me, its music was the only solace that remained.

I could not hide from the world forever. The next time someone knocked at the door, I answered softly, hoping whoever it was would not hear me and go away.

“Who is it?”

“Gregor.”

Gregor! He was alive again! How could have I forgotten! Rushing forward, I threw open the door.

My long-thought-dead brother stood in the doorway garbed in one of Father’s black scholar’s robes. He had been washed and groomed since last I had seen him. His hair now fell to his broad shoulders in a soft black wave, and his black beard had been trimmed close, like Theo’s, emphasizing the strength of his chin. His skin was still swarthier than mine, despite his many years of indoor confinement in the underground bunker Ulysses had apparently imprisoned him in, but his once bulky stature had been replaced by a lithe lean build. While his eyes still retained their old ferocity, the intensity had been muted by a new reflective introspection. All this gave him the appearance of a sixteenth-century priest, or perhaps, a Spanish poet.

Gregor came into my room and spoke. His voice had not changed. It was still the same hoarse near-whisper I recalled from ages passed.

“Miranda, I have come to express my gratitude,” he said. “I have been given to understand I have you to thank for my liberation.”

“Me?” I squeaked, astonished.

“I have been speaking with one called Mab. He tells me you orchestrated the search that led to my release.”

I nearly demurred, explaining that he owed his rescue to Mab’s good
detective work, but it occurred to me he was right. Mab had originally been against my investigating the whereabouts of my brothers. He had wanted to concentrate on the disappearance of Father. Only my insistence had led to the investigation, which eventually revealed Gregor’s whereabouts.

“You are welcome,” I said, as graciously as I could, and then, tears welling up in my eyes, I burst out, “Gregor, Eurynome has deserted me! W-we are all going to die!”

Gregor stepped forward and took my hands in his. His hands were large and warm. “God works in mysterious ways, Miranda. If it is His will our family linger upon the Earth doing His works, then we shall remain. If not, we shall depart for a better place.”

“But, She was… What will I do without Her?” I wept.

“Pray, and your answer will come. The answers God in Heaven gives us may not be as easy to hear as the will of your pagan goddess, but His kingdom is greater, and His blessings more certain.”

“How can you believe that?” I asked, pulling one hand free to wipe my eyes. “You were imprisoned for nearly a century! Do you think your God intended you to suffer like that? Didn’t you lose hope?”

“No,” Gregor’s eyes glittered with stern conviction. “There were dark days, but I knew God would not desert me, whether I made my bed in Hell or on Mars. He would not have allowed me to remain in such a situation unless there was something for me to learn. So, I strove to learn all that I could during my imprisonment.”

“And this comforted you?”

Gregor nodded. “I spend much of the time meditating on the differences between the Catholic and Protestant doctrines and trying to reconcile them in my mind. I believe I have come to some kind of conclusion.”

“But decades in prison! Why would you put up with a god who treats you in such a manner?”

Gregor hesitated, as if listening. A twinkle of amusement appeared in his dark eyes. “If your Lady, as you called her, asked you to spend a century in seclusion for some purpose of her own, would you have hesitated?”

“No,” I admitted, “not even for an instant.”

“We are not so different, you and I. We just serve different powers. My God, however, never abandons those who serve Him.”

I pulled away, ashamed. Reaching forward, he took my hands again and squeezed them. “He is a generous God, Miranda. He turns no one away, not even those who previously defied him. Turn to Him now, and He will comfort
you. You think your present sorrow is solid, like a sphere of diamond encasing your soul. But, the nature of sorrow is closer to that of ice. Ice melts when warmth is applied. Seek Him, and He will lift your sorrow, freeing you as the spring sun frees the land from winter’s ice.”

I had never thought of myself as “defying the Christian god.” In fact, I considered myself a good Protestant; however, Gregor, the ex-pope, did not see things as I did.

I murmured, “I met another Handmaiden once who told me Eurynome was a Holy Spirit that God had granted to some race of creatures from an earlier cycle of creation, a race that has since been entirely saved. She said Eurynome had been offered a place in Heaven, but had chosen to remain behind, helping others.”

“Pagans often make up stories in an attempt to lend the majesty of our God to their deities,” Gregor replied, nodding. “It shows how much they wish to be objects of His regard.”

I was too heart-sore to argue theology. “You must be very angry with Ulysses. Can God free you from that, too?”

“He already has. I was tremendously angry with Ulysses for, oh, the first decade or so. But then I began listening to God. He told me I had better things to do. For myself, I have forgiven Ulysses. I leave the matter of his punishment to the rest of you.”

“You are a better man than I.” I shook my head and smiled wanly. “I could never do that.”

“Is that so? Caliban tells it otherwise,” Gregor replied gruffly, a faint twinkle in his eye.

He had me there. A feather’s breath of warmth brushed against my soul, like a single green sprout peeking up amidst a field of snow.

Then, I remembered our current plight and my weariness returned. “You didn’t seem surprised by my news—that we were mortal again.”

“It’s all the others have talked about since your attack,” Gregor snorted in disgust, looking more like his old more volatile self.

“All? What about rescuing Father? We only have a little over four days left. Haven’t they been putting together a plan?”

“Four days until what?” asked Gregor, frowning. “Erasmus explained Father is a prisoner in Hell, but no one mentioned a rescue attempt.”

“But the Angel of the Bottomless Pit said they were going to kill him on Twelfth Night! And today is January Second; that gives us just under five days!”

Gregor’s frown darkened. “No one spoke a word of this. Apparently, concern for their own eventual demise has erased all more immediate concerns from their minds.”

“I thought they would be planning an excursion to Father’s mansion in Oregon—so we could use the dogwood in the Wintergarden to summon Father’s staff, the same way we used the mahogany to summon Ulysses…”

Only as the words left my mouth did I realize that I had not had a chance to tell anyone my idea before I met Osae. No one else even knew about the dogwood.

I picked up my enchanted tea gown. “I had better come out. Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

When I finally emerged from my room, Mab was standing guard beside my door. I balked, suddenly awkward and uncomfortable, fearing he would say: “I told you so.”

“Ma’am?” Mab stood against the wall, his hands stuck in the pockets of his trench coat. “I’m… It sucks, Ma’am. Should never have happened.”

I tried to maintain my composure but failed. Tears spilled down my cheeks. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, Mab patted it against my face with uncharacteristic tenderness.

“Don’t cry, Ma’am. Breaks my heart.”

Smiling through my tears, my voice faint and breaking, I echoed the words he had spoken to me way back in Chicago. “Didn’t know you had one.”

My family had gathered in the music room again. The roar of the waterfall was still muted, but the flues in the wall were open, and a lilting windy symphony filled the chamber. Cornelius sat in the corner near the lever, his head cocked as he listened to the music of wind and stone. Near him, Ulysses and Logistilla sat at a small table playing cards with a set of antique
tarocco
trumps from Father’s library. A length of chain had been passed through one of the fluting holes in the stone wall. One side of it led to a metal ring clamped about Ulysses’s ankle. The other side led to a ring on Logistilla’s leg. Neither of their staffs was in evidence.

Erasmus lay stretched out on the divan, his hands crossed behind his head, a half-empty bottle of wine beside him, and two more empty bottles on the floor. Theo was sitting in one of the plush green armchairs, sipping from a long-stemmed glass and frowning. Gregor had joined them in the second armchair. He appeared to be drinking coffee.

In the opposite corner from Cornelius, Titus smiled with paternal pride at two boys, the same two that Father Christmas’s scrying pool had shown in the library that held the dollhouse version of Prospero’s Mansion—apparently someone had used Ulysses’s staff to fetch them from Georgia. The elder, a slender nervous boy, wore glasses. He sat upon a stool reading a book. The younger, who was rounder of face and more athletic build, had taken one of the antique mandolins off the wall and was running in circles making a
zoom-zoom
noise, pretending it was an airplane.

Caliban sat near the fireplace, just beside the grand piano. He had taken apart one of the trombones and was tapping out a dent in the brass with tools from Father’s workroom. Mephisto sat near him on the piano bench, singing softly and accompanying himself on one of Father’s lutes.

As I approached, Mephisto was still singing his rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Like a mighty army

Moves the Church of God

Brothers we are treading

On some gooey sod.

“Please, Mephisto,” Cornelius called from where he sat trying to hear the fluting of the winds. “I beg of you! Can’t you play somewhere else?”

“Miranda!” said Theo, coming to his feet. He looked both frightened and relieved to see me.

Everybody else looked up and stared.

They gawked at me. My brothers and sister stared as if my shame were visible to the eye. I would have been too ashamed to move, or even breathe, but was rescued by my mounting indignation. How dare they! They did not deserve the effort I had gone to upon their behalf! Oh, if only I had listened to Mab and stayed home.

Glancing across the room, I noticed that Erasmus looked faintly amused, as if he had expected this.