Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (37 page)

I frowned, not liking what Logistilla was implying. “Father is far older and wiser than we, Logistilla. We should not question his purposes.”

“Older and wiser, my foot! Papa is much closer in age to you, Miranda, than you and Mephisto are to me,” Logistilla replied. “After all, how old could Papa have been when you were born? Thirty? Fifty? He didn’t become immortal until after you brought him the Water of Life, right?”

“Didn’t Mr. Prospero have the magic of the . . .” Mab flipped through his notes, “
Staff of Decay
at his disposal? Can’t that be used to keep a person young, as well as to age them? Or did I get that wrong?”

“It can make you young,” Logistilla replied slowly, “but it can’t heal illnesses and wounds, the way the Water of Life can. Erasmus experimented at one point with trying to keep people young using his staff alone. After a few uses, they became fragile and weak. It could extend life ten years, twenty years, maybe thirty, but not longer.

“Even so, Papa’s brothers and sister were still alive when Mephisto was young, and we know Papa wasn’t using his magic to preserve them! You know how niggardly he is when it comes to sharing immortality. So, we have a pretty good idea of how old he was.

“But, back to my point, Miranda, you were born one hundred and thirty-five years before Gregor and me, and Mephisto, here . . .” She fluttered her long narrow hand in his direction. “Mephisto’s a hundred and seventeen years older than we. I certainly don’t venerate the two of you based on your greater age,” she concluded.

“Maybe you should,” Mephisto replied. “I could do with some venerating. It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

Logistilla chuckled, and Mab snorted, shaking his head in disgust. I
chewed my candy in silence. My sister’s math was correct. Father was closer to me in age than I was to her, and yet, somehow he had seemed ancient with wisdom, even when I was a child, in a manner my brothers and I had never achieved. I wondered why. Was Father different from us in some fundamental way? Or was my great admiration for him proof of Theo’s perfidious theory?

“So, tell me about our new enemies,” said Logistilla.

“Three demons called the Three Shadowed Ones. They are after our staffs. So far, they have gotten Mephisto’s and Gregor’s,” I said.

“The Three Shadowed Ones? Not the very same who hounded us after . . .” She frowned. “The incident involving equines of which I refuse to speak?”

“Yes. Do you remember them?”

“Quite well.” Something about the way she spoke disturbed me. Before I could respond, Logistilla turned to address Mephisto. “You mean it was this enemy of Papa’s who stole your staff?”

Mephisto turned his head away and sniffed pointedly.

“They can’t be far away.” Mab looked around suspiciously. “They sicced a human servant on us on our way here, and some two-bit spirit big mouth claims they’ve cast some kind of doom over your family so that you’ll all be dead by Twelfth Night, or something.”

“Really?” Logistilla stiffened. “That’s disturbing!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Madam Logistilla. Low level spirits like that are notorious liars; but, on the other hand, it never hurts to be careful. Here’s a list of precautions you might want to take.” Mab began scribbling rapidly.

I asked carefully, “I know spirits exaggerate, Mab, but do they predict doom upon a particular date if there is nothing to it?”

“Well . . .” Mab scratched his head; his gray-black hair stuck out all awry. “That’s a good question. The general answer is: sure, they are always predicting the end of the world on such and such a day. Problem is, ‘such and such a day’ is usually well in the future at the time of the prediction. Twelfth Night, on the other hand, is less than three weeks away. That kind of prediction usually has some teeth behind it. It suggests that these Three Shadowy Creeps are up to something no good.”

“That’s . . . disturbing,” Logistilla mused. My sister suddenly whipped her head around to face me. “Gregor’s? Did you say they have Gregor’s staff?”

“Yeah.” Mephisto put his hands on his hips.

“But it was buried with his body!” Her voice rose.

“Well, they have it now,” I replied. “They used it to attack the mansion.”

I sipped my wine. How had the Three Shadowed Ones come to have access to Gregor’s coffin? The more I thought about it, the more the Ouija board’s last message troubled me. If Gregor’s body was “No Longer” in Elgin, Illinois, what had become of it? Had Father moved the grave? If so, for what reason? And why had Ferdinand climbed out of Hell to find himself in the same town where Gregor was, or had been, buried? A number of possibilities came to mind, none of them pleasing.

Logistilla lifted her glass to her dark red lips and sipped. Her expression became calm again. “My island’s been invaded three times in the last month. Twice by a dark shape who fled when my pets went out to meet him. Once by men who are now part of my retinue. I have no way of telling whether the incidents are related. Oh, and one other thing: Both times the dark shape came, my staff gave off a flash of green light of its own accord. It’s never done that before. It was the oddest thing.”

“Did the dark shape have red eyes, red like fresh blood?” Mab asked. Logistilla nodded. “That was the incubus Seir of the Shadows. He’s one of the Three. He’s after your staff. You better watch out, Ma’am; one of their number is a shapechanger.” Mab gestured toward the sleeping beasts littered about the room.

Logistilla threw back her head and laughed again. “Do you hear that, my pet?” she asked, addressing the pit bull. “They’re worried about a shapechanger! Here! On St. Dismas!” She let out a long, throaty chuckle. Shaking her head, she added, “No worry there! My pets would notice a stranger in their midst immediately. They’re much smarter than ordinary beasts, you know. A shapechanger, you say? Not Theo’s old shapechanger, is it? What was his name?”

“José the Red?” Mephisto offered.

“Osae,” Mab corrected him. “Yeah, the very same.”

“Really! How very peculiar.” She turned toward me. “I assume you’ve reached all the others. I can’t imagine you’d bother getting around to me until the end.”

“Hardly. I’ve seen you, Theo, and Mephisto here.”

“Yes, of course, your dear Theo.” She laughed harshly. “Not quite the dashing figure he once was, is he? What a pitiful waste of flesh.”

“I sent Cornelius a letter,” I replied, refusing to rise to her bait. I had never made a secret of the fact that Theo was my favorite. “Have you seen any of the others?”

“Oh, Cornelius,” she snorted. “I wouldn’t trust him as far as . . . but no matter. The others? Erasmus throws a New Year’s Eve party every year. Care to go? I’ll give you my invitation. And Mephisto came by a few months ago with the sob story about losing his staff. Taken by demons of Hell, was it? Really, Mephisto, you should be more careful whom you take to bed. Why don’t you tie them up or turn them into goats while you are sleeping? It would be safer that way. Other than Mephisto, Erasmus, and Cornelius? I haven’t seen anyone in years.”

Logistilla lifted her wine glass again, holding it up between herself and the chandelier. As she stared into the swirling red liquid, she asked, “Have you heard anything from Ulysses or Titus?”

“I thought Titus was living in the Okefenokee Swamp with his children,” Mephisto spouted. “At least, until recently.”

That was news to me. I had not known Titus had children. Until two years ago, he had sent me a birthday card every year. They always arrived the day before my birthday, like clockwork. However, he had never mentioned children, or even a new wife.

“Titus is such a fuddy-duddy these days,” Logistilla scoffed. “He probably sat down somewhere a year or so back and hasn’t bothered to get up. Pah! And he was such a dashing figure in his youth!”

“It’s ’cause he’s so big,” Mephisto offered cheerily. “Makes it hard to move!”

“So, you haven’t seen Ulysses?” Logistilla asked again.

“What is the trouble with Cornelius?” I returned to her earlier topic. Last I had heard, Logistilla and Cornelius had been on the best of terms. She could never have held the title to her Russian estates through the Communist regimes without help from the
Staff of Persuasion
. What had caused their recent falling out?

Logistilla lowered her glass and pursed her lips. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say.”

I did not intend to give her the satisfaction of seeing me beg. I waited. She obliged me.

“Doesn’t it strike you as peculiar,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder before leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner, “that Theo has kept this latest resolution of his, right up through growing into an old man? I mean, how many such resolutions has Theo ever kept before?”

She had me. I bit. “What does this have to do with Cornelius?”

“It’s just that the day we met to try and summon up Gregor’s spirit, the day Theo made his rash vow?” Her eyes gleamed spitefully as she reveled in my discomfort.

“Yes?” I tried to keep impatience from my voice.

“I thought I saw . . . I could be wrong, I realize. I could be misinterpreting . . .” She glanced over her shoulder again and leaned closer, dropping her voice. “And to tell you the truth, I had forgotten about it until speaking with you today.”

“What did you see, Logistilla?”

“Just after the ritual ended, just before Theo made his speech?” Logistilla whispered. “I saw Cornelius holding the
Staff of Persuasion
in front of Theo’s eyes—you know, his staff that hypnotizes and makes people obey?—I could not hear his words, but I could see the movement of his lips. He was saying something about ‘abandoning magic.’ ”

I left the house and walked out onto the beach, a pale strip before the black of the ocean. It was almost dawn. As soon as it grew light, we would depart. Meanwhile, our sloop rested peacefully beside the dock, the tall mast with its reefed sail silhouetted against the faint light along the horizon, its rigging clinking softly in the low breeze.

To either side of the tall Victorian house stretched woods, black and murky save for the gleam of a single pair of eyes. As I walked along the edge of the forest toward the shore, swinging my flute, the door of the house creaked behind me. Turning, I saw Mab approaching.

“You okay, Ma’am?”

“I guess so.” I stopped swinging the flute and hugged my arms, suddenly cold. “It’s just . . . difficult to hear such things about my family. I know I haven’t always liked them, but I didn’t . . . I didn’t think we would betray each other.”

“Are you sure your sister’s accusations are legit?”

I nodded sadly. “Several times over the years, I’ve seen Theo get very enthusiastic about something only to have a sudden dullness come over his eyes. That’s the effect of the
Staff of Persuasion
. I’ve seen it before. I’m dismayed I did not recognize it, but who would have imagined one of us would do such a thing? To think Theo might die, because of Cornelius! It’s . . .” I trailed off and stood a time, watching the pale light slowly spread across the sky.

My mind was not on Theo or Cornelius, but on Father. Cornelius’s betrayal hurt, but it did not shock me. I had liked Cornelius quite a bit when he was a boy. Over the last century or so, however, he had become devious and subtle, so much so that I almost expected something like this from him—though why he would strike out at Theo baffled me. I had thought everyone loved Theo.

Father, on the other hand, I loved and respected—or thought I did. But Father had wielded the
Staff of Persuasion
throughout my entire youth. Did I admire Father? Or had he enchanted me so I could not believe otherwise?

I stared off into the starry horizon. My family was crumbling away, falling to death, madness, and betrayal. For the first time, in as long as I could remember, I felt lonely.

“Mab,” I said, “do you recall the day I told you about the Three Shadowed Ones? You thought Father was probably dead already and said, ‘Sorry to hear it, Ma’am.’ What if our positions had been reversed? What if it had been Father telling you the Three Shadowed Ones were after
me
? Would that have been your only reaction, ‘Sorry to hear it, Sir’?”