Prospero in Hell (28 page)

But I did care what they thought, I realized with some astonishment. I loved my family—annoying as they could be—and I cared about their opinions, even Erasmus’s. Much as I also hated him, I knew his judgment was good—in any area not involving me.

It slowly dawned on me that, all this time, I begrudged my siblings going their own way because I missed their company. Why had I not realized it? I had been so busy resenting them and criticizing them, I had not stopped to consider why their absence bothered me so. Oh, sure, Prospero, Inc. was harder to run without them, but, in truth, that was the least of it.

I missed them. True, sometimes they were hard to get along with. In my heart, however, I knew we belonged all together. Each one of us was like a portion of a whole. And something felt empty when any one of us was gone, like ghost pains in a missing limb.

I had always felt it, I realized now, but my heart had been so cold. I had
been so cut off from the rest of humanity, that I had not even noticed. I had not recognized my pain for what it was—love.

Erasmus kept his house cool, but the press of bodies had raised the temperature, until, even in my short-sleeved gown, I found myself uncomfortably warm. In the corner farthest from the entrance, a maid had opened one of the tall windows. I crossed the room to stand beside it, enjoying the play of cool breeze across the bare skin of my arms.

Outside, all was dark and as silent as falling snow. As I leaned closer, breathing in the crisp night air, a pale young man stepped out of the darkness. He paused on the casement, his cloak of black feathers swirling about him like the folding wings of a swan. His features were familiar; yet, for a moment, I could not place them.

“Fiachra!” I exclaimed, when the mists of time parted long enough for me to dredge up his name.

The pale youth leapt lightly to the ballroom floor and bowed over my hand, pressing it between his own. His skin was cool and smooth, like porcelain. His hair was midnight-black, and as he leaned toward me, I caught a whiff that reminded me of moonlight and faraway alpine flowers.

“Aunt Miranda.”

“It has been a long time,” I smiled.

“As mortals measure it, perhaps. Where I dwell, in Tir Nan Og, time is meaningless. What need have the Forever Young of clocks and hourglasses?” His voice was beautiful, like song, but one could not hear it long and still take it for human.

“Sounds heavenly,” I said dreamily, his voice and feathered cloak evoking memories of my recent flight amidst the stars. Recalling that flight brought other memories upon which I dared not dwell, such as the pure melodies of the Music of the Spheres I so longed to hear again, or the laughing gleam in Astreus’s eyes as he knelt among the black plumage, watching me gape at the living constellations. I banished those memories quickly, embarrassed that, with Ferdinand so close, my thoughts would betray me and linger on the forbidden elf.

“ ’Tis a land of peace and wonder, true; yet only the naïve confuse our fair realm with paradise. Those Who Know never entirely forget the shadow of Tithe and Hell.” He gazed at me, and a black lake reflecting purple mountains beneath a starry sky swam in his swanlike eyes. I stared fascinated.

“What brings you here?” I asked.

“My father has bound me by a vow that, once annually, I would step foot within his house. I fulfill my obligation by attending this, his celebration honoring the death and rebirth of the year,” he replied gravely.

“Interesting. What was his purpose in having you swear such an oath?”

“He feared I would forget him entirely if I stay away too long; and so I might, for who in the Land of the Young spares a thought for those without, unless bound and bidden to do so? And yet, when my foot touches this floor and I again breathe the scents of the mortal world, all my affection for my father rushes back to me.”

“How funny we should meet. I was just thinking of you,” I said, struck by how little he had changed in three centuries, rather like someone else I knew. I glanced briefly over my shoulder, searching the crowd, but caught no glimpse of the face for which I sought.

“How so?” he asked, and I flinched, searching for an answer that did not include Roundheads with bloody crosses or the smell of burnt swan-cloak.

“Do you remember the time your mother tried to feed you slugs?” I tried. A faint flicker of a smile visited his pale face.

“And Father was furious. Yes, I have heard the tale.”

“Is he a good father, my brother Erasmus?” I asked curiously.

Fiachra cocked his head like a bird and regarded me with his starry stare. “Good? To whom would I compare him? He is the only father I have.”

“Ah… of course. Well. Good to see you again, Fiachra Swan-Lord, son of Reginleif, the Swan Maiden.”

He bowed over my hand again. “And you as well, Lady Miranda, Handmaiden of the Unicorn.”

I made a circuit of the room again, but saw neither Ulysses nor Ferdinand. A pretty maid, dressed in the same livery our servants had worn back in the seventeenth century, served punch from a large bowl of cranberry crystal. I accepted a glass and went to stand beside an ice sculpture shaped like a swan. The air was slightly cooler there. As I sipped the drink, which tasted of mulberries and sherry, I pondered Fiachra’s claim that merely a whiff of the mortal world was enough to bring back his recollections of his life with his father.

Memory worked like that in my experience as well. The smell of mulberries still brought back to me pleasant fall afternoons spent preparing those berries to make morath, and a particularly sorrowful encounter with an old friend. The gleam of the chandelier reflected off Logistilla’s enchanted
gown recalled a hundred balls in a dozen different ballrooms over a span of years longer than the life of the United States of America. The sketch Father had drawn of us on the ship that sailed us triumphantly back to Milan brought back memories of creaking riggings and salty wind and laughter as Ferdinand and I became tangled in the ropes and fell to the ground together in a wickedly forbidden heap.

The red punch glass slipped through my fingers and bounced against the polished floor, its bright content spilling slowly across the wood.

I could remember the scene as if it were yesterday: the swaying of the ship, the smell of his skin, the pressure of his hands as he taught me to pull in the lines, the scratching of Father’s charcoal against the parchment of his journal as he sketched us together, Ferdinand and I.

But if the youth in Father’s picture, with his Italian brow and rugged jutting chin, was Ferdinand… who was the ungodly handsome Adonis I had invited to meet me here tonight?

Like the shock of an icy wave bursting through a dam, I remembered.

It had been a cold January day in 1774, during the reign of Mad King George. Logistilla and I shared an open-topped carriage, hurrying through snow-flurries in hopes of making curtain-up at King’s Theatre, where Shakespeare’s
Tempest
was to be performed as a ballet for the first time. We were late because we had stopped by my sister’s favorite horse dealer. High-steppers were just coming into fashion, and Logistilla insisted on having a pair to breed with her Arabians. So, precious minutes had been wasted haggling over Hackneys and Norfolk Trotters.

Just as we rounded the corner into Haymarket, a jarvey driving an open car like Jehu son of Nimshi—or, as one might say today, a cabbie driving an open carriage like a daredevil—came careening around a bend and collided with our carriage, entangling wheels. My sister, our maidservants, and I all spilled out into the snow.

As we sat upon the road, brushing slush from our ruffles and muffs, an astonishingly handsome young man appeared out of the falling snow, smiling like something from a dream as he asked if we were whole. I assured him no harm had been done, but Logistilla gave him a tongue-lashing, ranting on about how he might have killed us or, worse, broken our necks and left us paralyzed for life, and how would he explain that to God upon his Judgment Day?

Chagrined, the gracious Adonis had helped us to rise and climb back into our vehicle, which our driver and the jarvey had now set right. As he departed, leaping back onto the hired cab, with Logistilla still shouting abuse at him, he gave me a conspiratorial wink.

Imagine my surprise, when we arrived at King’s Theatre to discover our handsome Adonis dancing the part of Ferdinand.

I saw every performance of that ballet. Watching the warmth and grace of that young man as he danced, evoked such vivid memories of my lost love that, for a time, I forgot the modern day and lived again the wonder and enchantment of my childhood.

Looking back, I suspected it was during this period that Shakespeare’s version became commingled in my memory with the original events; just as the face of that graceful dancer settled into my memory, replacing the features of the real Ferdinand. I glanced nervously around Erasmus’s ballroom, now dreading to catch a glimpse of the same face I had, only moments before, longed to see.

How had the imposter—the man whom I met at the Lincoln Memorial and later let into my house—known to impersonate the false image?

The answer, when it came to me, made my skin crawl: Baelor of the Baleful Eye. The mind-reading demon must have riffled through my thoughts, like some mental Peeping Tom, stealing the image of my lost love. What else had he taken? Time tables of phoenix ash-bearing trucks? Locations of Prospero, Inc. warehouses? I shuddered, contemplating other damaging information he might have pilfered from me.

Baelor himself could not be the modern Ferdinand; however, as he could not speak without a victim to possess, much less carry on hours of intimate and witty conversation. So, who then? Osae the Red was a shapechanger, true; yet he was hardly more than a brute. He could not even impersonate Mab without his bestial passions getting the best of him. I doubted he could pull off a character as subtle as Modern Ferdinand. That left… With a low moan, I hid my face in my hands.

To have been suckered by an incubus! And at my age!

Me. The daughter of the mighty Prospero. The Handmaiden of Eurynome. For over five hundred and fifty years I had avoided the depredations of rakes and incubi, only to be hoodwinked the moment my father stepped out of the picture! If nothing else suggested I had been under some kind of an enchantment that was now wearing off, this did!

Hope kindled in my breast when I recalled the Aerie Ones had also recognized Ferdinand, but it died just as quickly as I remembered that Ariel had not recognized our visitor until after I called him by name. Ferdinand’s unexpected enthusiasm over his reunion with my airy servants was also explained. Seir, who did not realize how little Ferdinand had known of Ariel and his kin, had overacted.

I reviewed the possible candidates again and came, regretfully, to the
same conclusion. Of the Three Shadowed Ones, only the incubus could have pulled off a subterfuge of such finesse. The Ferdinand I had met—and kissed—must have been Seir of the Shadows. I rubbed my lips hard against my palms, as if I could cleanse away the demon’s touch.

No wonder the Ouija board had hesitated when I asked if Ferdinand were a shapechanger. The Three Shadowed Ones must have instructed the spirits responding to answer literally. No, he was not a shapechanger by nature, he was an incubus. I should have asked whether he was a demon!

Even my Lady had tried to warn me. She had protected me from Seir when he appeared as Ferdinand in my dream. I had not heeded Her warning, because I had banked on the fact that Seir of the Shadows could not alter his shape in the waking world.

So, how had he changed his shape?

Logistilla’s staff! What else could be causing her staff to flash unexpectedly except the Three Shadowed Ones, who had already demonstrated they could manipulate our staffs? Baelor must have fed the image of the false Ferdinand he had stolen from my mind to the
Staff of Transmogrification
and caused it to alter Seir’s appearance.

More shameful still: It was not that I had confessed family secrets to the enemy that troubled me most, but the realization that I would be denied the chance to voice my worries to Ferdinand’s sympathetic ear.

Oh, how far I had fallen!

My face burned as hotly as if I stood beside a roaring hearth. I turned and fled, seeking solitude.

Only there was no solitude to be sought. Merry partygoers chatted in every nook and corner, and the library room and the many sitting rooms were occupied by guests involved in quiet conversations or romantic tête-à-têtes. So I wandered like a ghost among the throngs of glittering guests, seeking solace in anonymity.