Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (44 page)

“Hmm . . .” I ruminated over what Tybalt had revealed. “It seems everything in Father’s latest journal revolves around one project. In fact . . .” I flipped through some more pages. The crisp paper turned easily beneath my fingers, “the only thing he mentions that is not related to rebirth is his horticulture project.”

Tybalt eyed me evenly. “Would that be the horticulture project in the Wintergarden?”

“Here?” I cried. “In our Wintergarden?”

“I accompanied him when he went to check on it, last time he was here. He was kind enough to put down some shavings for me to capture.”

“Interesting! I’ll have to go down there and take a look,” I mused.

The Wintergarden was technically in Prospero Mansion; however, it was not on Earth. A journey there could take as long as four days. I made a note to make time for such a venture.

Tybalt stared into the fire. His body tensed, as if he were preparing to spring forward and bat at the dancing flames. Then he turned his head and regarded me again, saying, “The Eleusinians vanished long ago. I had thought the Eleusinians’ lore vanished with them, for they were good at keeping secrets. How is great Prospero gaining his wisdom concerning their rituals?”

“According to this journal, he has been summoning up the ghosts of the dead and invoking the lesser messengers of the Greek gods in order to question them.”

Tybalt froze mid-yawn and fixed me with a bright golden stare. “Summon the gods? I am no Mab to chasten the curious, but even by my standards, Master Prospero skirts dangerously near the line between daring and foolhardy. No cat would be so foolish as to trouble the gods! That might attract the interest of their father, horned Alastor—a fate I would only wish upon a dog, or Redesmere.”

“Alastor is the king of the elves,” I said. “You are thinking of Jupiter.”

“Mortals!” Tybalt eyed me disdainfully. “Your cumulative knowledge amounts to almost nothing. A bit here, a tiny glimpse there. You weave it together and declare that you have figured out the universe. All your myths and gathered lore are but hints of the truth; a truth that can only be glimpsed by
eyes that dare not blink.” He lowered himself regally, so that he sat in the posture of the Sphinx. “As for Alastor and Jupiter, the two are the same. Alastor is his name when he rules over the Seelie Court. The Lord of Heaven is what he is called by his children, the Greek and Roman gods. His Scandinavian children call him Odin. None of these names, however, is what he is called among my people.”

“And by what name do you call him?”

Tybalt turned his head and began washing his shoulder. “That can be of no interest to you, as you are not a feline.”

Sometimes, there is no point in talking to cats.

THE
fire crackled. A log floated by, carried by an Aerie One. I read on, picking my way through passages written in Homeric Greek, a language I had not used in decades. On the pages beyond were sketches in my father’s steady hand; pictures of the “Gate of False Dreams” and the “Gate of True Dreams,” a sketch of Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, and renditions of Eleusinians at their rituals. A rough sketch on a following page showed Father’s horticulture project. It seemed to involve sprouting a cutting of some kind.

As I was studying the sketch, Tybalt leapt up onto my chair again. Settling upon the arm and beginning to wash, he asked casually, “Has Mab gone to hunt down the saboteurs?”

“What saboteurs?”

“The ones who destroyed our truck.”

“The truck with the phoenix ashes? What makes you think it was sabotage?”

“We familiars hear things.”

“Interesting . . .”

Ariel’s voice interrupted, fluting softly. “Mistress, there is a visitor at the front portal. He refuses to surrender his name.”

“Maybe he’s one of the saboteurs,” suggested Tybalt.

“Or a policeman with grim news,” I said, standing. “Or a Jehovah’s Witness. They have been here three times in the last two months. Was he wearing a uniform, Ariel?”

“He was not a Beefeater, if that was the direction of your inquiry,” Ariel replied.

I sighed. There were disadvantages to having servants who did not get out much. “Bring the magic mirror, Ariel, the one that shows the house and grounds.”

*    *    *

WITH
a whoosh, a large oval mirror in a highly-polished peachwood frame flew into the lesser hall and came to rest on a marble stand made especially to hold it. I knelt before it.

Gazing into its misty gray depths, I chanted, “Mirror, mirror, on the floor, show me who is at the door.”

The mirror’s misty surface cleared to reveal the imposing facade of the front of the mansion. Snow swirled over the granite stoop. A lone man stood with his back to the mirror. The collar of his elegant charcoal cashmere overcoat was raised against the cold. His coat was so well-tailored that it emphasized rather than hid his lithe and athletic build. His expensive black kid gloves matched his coal black hair. He wore no uniform and carried no Bible.

“He shows remarkable understanding of the First Law,” Tybalt observed, referring, of course, to the First Law of Cats:
Always look good
. In cat etiquette, this extraordinarily important law was followed by two others:
Always have at least three escape exits
, and
When in doubt, wash
.

“I had not realized saboteurs could be so . . . catlike,” he finished, washing.

Almost as if he had heard Tybalt’s voice, my mystery visitor turned to glance down the gravel driveway stretching from the house, through the tall pines, to the road a quarter of a mile away. He now faced the mirror, his vivid brown eyes focused somewhere beyond us. I stared at his face, saying nothing.

“But then, he looks more like a statue than a saboteur,” Tybalt batted at the image in the mirror.

I continued to say nothing. The hall seemed to be shaking, though I suspected it was caused by the beating of my heart.

“Show him in, Ariel.” My voice sounded somewhat breathless to my ear. Tybalt tilted his head and fixed me with an inquiring golden eye. “It’s all right,” I said. “I know him.”

Ferdinand strode into the hall and tossed his coat over the back of a chair. He stopped when he saw me, his eyes drinking in my face. He stood thus for a moment, before pulling off his gloves, one finger at a time, and tossing them atop his overcoat. Then he came toward me, both arms outstretched.

“Miranda,
bella mia
!” Kneeling before me and seizing my hands, he drew them against his lips. His eyes gazed eagerly into mine, and he smiled happily. “How I have missed you!”

“Hello, Ferdinand,” I replied cordially. “What are you doing here?”

There came a low
grrrrr
. Tybalt sat crouched upon the large pillow. His claws needled the weave of the silk, as if preparing to attack. His golden eyes watched me, waiting for a sign. Seeing him, Ferdinand drew back and asked: “Are you a demon spirit? Or a harmless mortal creature?”

The black cat looked at me, for he never spoke in front of mundanes. I nodded.

“Why are you asking me? Cats don’t talk,” Tybalt replied. The firelight flickered in his eyes.

Turning his back on us, he circled three times and curled up on the pink silk pillow to sleep. As I sat down, there came the rustle of Aerie Ones passing among the draperies and tapestries as they gathered along the length of the hall. I was about to reassure them, figuring they were as alarmed by our visitor’s behavior as Tybalt had been, when Ariel spoke. His words startled me, for I had forgotten their acquaintance.

“Now I recognize you, Prince Ferdinand, whom once I drowned, then brought again to life’s shore. There young Mistress Miranda happened upon you, stretched upon the sands of her father’s island, waterlogged and stinking of brine. You were the first man her naïve eyes beheld, save for her father and wretched Caliban. Half my long captivity at the hands of the magician
Prospero has passed since last I beheld your face. You have changed much!” came Ariel’s voice. “Be as welcome here as you were unwelcome in Prospero’s more humble abode upon that long-forsaken island.”

“Ariel, my old friend! Is it truly you?” Ferdinand laughed. His voice rose with excitement. He bounded to his feet and gazed upward, here and there about the hall, as if by an effort of will he might see the invisible spirits of the air. The intensity of his reaction startled me, as I had not recalled he knew Ariel and the others more than briefly. His stay in Hell must have been unspeakably awful, if a reunion with even the vaguest of associates engendered such enthusiasm. “Oh, glorious! I accept your hospitality, kind spirit, and thank you for remembering me.”

“Of course, we recall you,” came the fluted answer. “For only in those few fair days when you dwelt with her was Mistress Miranda truly happy.”

“That is enough, Ariel. You are all excused!” I rose and smoothed my skirt. There was a rustling, then silence. The fire crackled. The room smelled pleasantly of burning wood.

As the Aerie Ones retreated, Ferdinand came toward me. I moved stiffly to stand beside the hearth. He hesitated, then threw himself into an overstuffed Victorian chair, stretching out his long legs, and smiled at me.

“Only happy when you are with me,
bella mia
? No, do not say anything. Ariel has revealed all!”

“That was long ago.” My voice was cold and distant. “What brought you here?”

“I am to spend Christmas vacation at the home of one of my professors in San Francisco. I took an early flight so I could spend this evening with you. I called yesterday, but there was only a machine,” Ferdinand said.

“I was in Seattle on business.”

“Ah! I suspected you were still away. Please, Miranda
bella
.” He gestured toward another Victorian armchair across the Persian rug from him. “Sit down, and let us speak of what we have seen in the long years since last we met. I have told you of my adventures. But what of you? When did you leave Milan? Where did you go?”

I gazed into the fire and considered. If the Ouija board could be trusted, he was who he said he was, and his story was true—at least the part about having been trapped in Hell. Nor did he exude the unpleasant aura of menace I had come to associate with demons. There was a still a mystery here, surely, but it could do no harm to talk with him. It might even be pleasant. I took the chair he had indicated.

“Very well, let us talk.”

We spoke long into the night. He told me tales he had heard from those he met in Hell; witty tales, pathetic tales, tales that wrenched the heart. I told him of our life since Prospero’s Island. Of our triumphant return to Milan, Ferdinand already knew, so I described what had come after; how Father had ruled Milan kindly and well for thirty-five years and how Uncle Antonio betrayed us to Louis XII of France and his French sorcerers. I described our flight to Switzerland, and how we settled in England, our life in the courts of Henry VIII and Queen Bess, and Theophrastus’s friendship with the impetuous Earl of Essex.

I told him the tale of how I had lost my raven hair; how Erasmus and I had quarreled; how he had used his staff upon me, leaving me with the thin and colorless hair of an old hag. I spoke of how I humbled my pride, bent my knee, and begged him to restore it—for the
Staff of Withering
could bring youth as well as the ravages of time—and of how he had laughed, claiming that my plight amused him. I told of the year-and-a-day journey I had taken to the World’s End, and of how washing my hair in that fountain had restored its life, but not its color, leaving me with the silver-white locks I still bore today.

I spoke of how Mephisto and Cornelius used their magic to create the tulip craze in Holland and of the disastrous crash that followed; of life with Logistilla in Denmark, while my brothers marched against the Spanish with Marlborough; and of Gregor’s second term as pope. I described Erasmus’s and Cornelius’s part in the East India Company; the high life in France under Napoleon III; and the steamer that took Theo and me to America in 1910. Finally, I summed up the tragedy that had befallen us since we arrived in this new land: how Gregor’s death had led to the breakup of my family.