Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (9 page)

There was a creak somewhere off to his left and before Robert could begin explaining his innocence, two Gnomes flung themselves at his head, causing him to stagger backward, slip on a dead rabbit, and smash his head into the counter. Unconsciousness, who was quickly becoming a fast friend of Robert’s, came to visit once more.

The cataclysm he had caused had been purely accidental. It was the complete opposite of the dull mediocrity that had caused him to slumber in the first place that had pulled him back to consciousness or maybe even back into existence. Out of everything in any of the worlds he had visited in the past, present, or future, he understood himself and his own existence least of all.

For thousands of years he had slipped out of reality and dwelt where no one would ever dare look for him. He was distinctly aware that he was not fully in control of himself yet and though he had tried, couldn’t yet take corporeal form. Wherever he drifted, sparks of his abilities ran amok. He knew it would be this way until he could contain himself.

His essence floated now in Othaside over the wooden shards of a broken coffee table in Robert Darkly’s apartment. Whatever had drawn him back had happened here in this apartment. Some event, although the only current casualty appeared to be a coffee table, had caused just as big an impact on his home reality and on this one as the cataclysm he himself had caused. His essence giggled in the only way that a non-corporeal creature can. Madness, he thought with a smile, is fundamental.

Robert’s landlady, Gertrude, was on the phone with her friend Beatrice, a semi-retired schoolteacher who lived her life with rigorous structure. Gertrude and Beatrice had discovered long ago that they were far too self-involved to be friends and as a consequence they hadn’t actually seen each other in over five years. Instead, they resigned themselves to a weekly phone call where Gertrude would complain about the hardships of her own life and Beatrice would respond by complaining about her latest ailment. As far as definitions went, it could barely be considered a conversation.

“It’s my arthritis, ya see, flares up every time it rains,” complained Beatrice.

“I always had high hopes of being a prima ballerina in the London Ballet, you see,” responded Gertrude, “but then that bus hit me back in seventy-nine, ruined any chance so when my Jim bought this place it’s where I ended up. Never wanted to be a landlady, bloody ungrateful tenants the lot of them.”

“Feels like someone’s turned my bones to ice, can barely get out of bed and you know how I like to get up early.”

“I slave all day to make sure the building doesn’t fall down and chase them to make sure they pay rent on time but they don’t care, you know, they just don’t care!”

“And then there’s this rash I got. I think it’s because I switched my laundry detergent, never should have don’t that, it’s all itchy and red.”

“Of course I still like to watch the ballet on the telly when it’s on.”

“The doctor gave me some ointment but I don’t think it’s working. And it smells funny.”

“I’m very partial to the tutus. Always liked a good tutu. Of course I’d probably look like a hippopotamus in a tutu if I tried one on now.”

“And then my dog got into the ointment, poor thing hasn’t been able to stop pooping.”

“You know what else irritates me is this weather, this one tenant came in today and dripped water all over my clean floors. Of course I’m going to have to call the cleaner to come back and redo them and you can imagine how much that’s going to cost.”

“Of course that’s nothing out of the ordinary, he has a very sensitive digestive system, does Rexworth.”

“Although he’s a very nice man is the cleaner, a bit young for me but I often catch him looking at me when I’ve got my rollers out. It’s flattering, of course, but completely inappropriate.”

There was a knock at Gertrude’s door. Unbeknownst to her, the fabric of reality was being disturbed by the non-corporeal creature currently floating up on the third floor in Robert Darkly’s apartment. Such knowledge, had she possessed it, may have affected her decision to open the door.

“Oh, Beatrice, I’m so sorry but there’s someone at the door. I’ll have to call you back,” said Gertrude and hung up without waiting for a response. Most of their conversations ended this way.

Reality as she knew it outside of Gertrude’s small apartment ceased to exist and was replaced with something completely different. Gertrude swung open her door with the confidence of a woman who had every intention of berating what she expected to be one of her tenants complaining about something leaking, not working, or smelling funny. It came as a surprise to her when she found that the hallway outside of her room had turned into a jungle, complete with a waterfall, colourful flowers, and an assortment of animals, the most outstanding of which was a hippopotamus wearing a pink tutu.

Gertrude shrieked, causing one of her rollers to dislodge, and slammed the door. She ran to her kitchen cupboard, grabbed her portable phone and a bottle of Scotch, then flung open her living room curtain to find that London had turned itself upside down, literally. The entire city was hanging upside down from where the sky normally was and people were falling down toward where the sky was now sitting. A hippopotamus wearing a pink tutu fell past her window. She closed the curtain again.

Gertrude prided herself on her ability to remain cool during a crisis. She took a long swig from the bottle of Scotch and dialled 9-9-9.

“Emergency service, how may I direct your call?” came the serious voice on the other end of the phone.

“Get me the police, and the fire service, and the mayor! You need to alert the army. London’s upside down and there’s a jungle in my hallway.”

“Ma’am, have you been drinking?”

“No,” said Gertrude and took another swig from the bottle. “Listen to me, you idiot, do you think I could make this up? I’m not drunk. There’s a hippo wearing a tutu outside my door. Come down and see for yourself. Oh, you probably can’t because you’re upside down. Now I think of it, you’re very calm for someone who’s upside down.”

“Look, lady, just sleep it off and I’m sure everything will be fine,” said the operator and hung up.

Gertrude downed the rest of the Scotch and turned it upside down to brandish the bottle as a weapon as there came another knock at the door. She crept over to the door, tightened her grip on the bottle, swung open the door and let out a war cry that would have made an Apache Indian proud.

Mrs Tibbot from the first floor was quite unprepared when Gertrude lunged at her, swinging an empty Scotch bottle.

Gertrude realized at the last minute that she was about to assault a seventy-year-old woman who was possibly the furthest thing from a hippopotamus wearing a tutu. Everyone knew that a seventy-year-old woman isn’t really the furthest thing from a hippopotamus wearing a tutu. The furthest thing was actually a wombat wearing a negligee, a sad but true fact of life.

She released the empty Scotch bottle, which shattered against the hallway wall, raining glass upon Mrs Tibbot, who screamed and shuffled off down the hall as fast as her seventy years would allow.

“Mrs Tibbot,” shouted Gertrude, “it’s quite all right, I just thought you were a hippo!”

Gertrude stalked back into her apartment and closed the door.

“Bloody stupid tenants,” she said to herself. She grabbed a broom and dustpan to clean up the glass in the hallway, swung open the door, and almost tripped over an alligator. The hippopotamus, which was still sporting the tutu, stared at Gertrude with love in its eyes.

Gertrude shrieked and ran back into her apartment, slammed the door, and locked all seven of the deadbolts she’d had installed. She grabbed a second bottle of Scotch from her liquor cabinet, settled down into the corner of her living room and resolved to keep drinking until all this madness ended.

At that moment, the creature in Robert’s apartment vanished and reality as Gertrude knew it, without alligators, hippos, and tutus, returned to normal.

Robert regained consciousness and immediately began to panic. For some reason, he couldn’t see, he was completely blind, he couldn’t be blind, what had happened? Had those small men plucked out his eyes? He didn’t want to live blind, he liked looking at things, he liked having the use of his eyes and… Realization dawned on him and, feeling like a complete idiot, Robert opened his eyes.

Several things were staring down at Robert as he lay on the floor. The first one he noticed was Lily, because she was beautiful; the second was the angry-looking blond gentleman who looked only a little less angry than before. The two small men who looked to Robert a lot like garden Gnomes were whispering between themselves while casting sidelong glances down to where he was lying. They seemed to be arguing about something. The last person staring at him was not a person at all but a giant white rabbit wearing a red housecoat. The rabbit looked sad and clutched its left shoulder with a fuzzy paw. It looked injured.

“What?” was all Robert could come up with.

Lily and the blond man helped him up so he was standing face to face with the giant rabbit.

“Robert,” began Lily, “this is the White Rabbit. He’s the Regulator. He lives here at the Exchange. All of these other rabbits worked for him.”

“What?” said Robert again.

“A bit slow, isn’t he?” said the White Rabbit with a flawless British accent that sounded a lot like Noel Coward. It was the kind of accent that indicated to everyone else in the room that the owner of the accent was far better than anyone within ten square miles. “I would have thought that with his lineage he would be a bit quicker on his feet. Why don’t you all come into the back room and we can talk about this.”

“You two,” said the blond to the Gnomes, “go and report back to your general.”

“Go to hell, ya Giant-killing moron,” snarled the Gnome on the left. The Gnomes hopped down off the counter they had been occupying and vanished out the door.

Lily took Robert’s hand and guided him through the circular door behind the counter. The White Rabbit looked at his dead rabbits and shook his head sadly before climbing through the doorway.

The back room was basically how the average person’s living room would look if it was moved into a cave that had been carved out by rabbits. There was a coffee table, a couple of end tables, a rather nice couch, a beat-up looking recliner, a blazing fireplace, and a big screen TV. A small kitchenette had been built into one corner. The overall feeling was warm and cosy.

“Be a darling, Jack, and make us some tea. I dare say we could all use a cup right about now,” said the Rabbit.

The blond man, Jack, busied himself in the kitchenette.

Robert took a seat on the couch next to Lily while the White Rabbit settled into the recliner. He pulled his paw away from his shoulder to reveal a deep knife wound that was still trickling blood.

“Are you going to be okay?” asked Lily.

“I should be fine,” said the Rabbit, “in a matter of hours this will be nothing more than a scratch and a painful recollection. One of the advantages of being imbued with magical significance, you know.”

Jack brought over a tray of cups and handed everyone their tea, then sat down in front of the fire. Robert noted that Jack must have played rugby in his younger days; he looked strong, well built but a little worn around the edges. His blond hair was tied back; his eyes looked stern but tired. Robert would have placed him in his mid-forties.