Fair Peril Read online

  “Santa Fe store!” LeeVon liked faux cowboys too, and the Santa Fe store had plenty of those, along with faux-sandstone statuettes of howling coyotes and coffee-table baskets made of synthetic mesquite. No Emily.

  “Plastic!” Buffy burst out. “Everything’s fake, everything’s plastic, just like those goddamn fake pies where I work. Fake British, fake Southwestern, fake Colonial, fake Native American, fake Oriental, just like every other goddamn mall in the whole goddamn country, full of plastic, homogenized multiethnicity.”

  LeeVon ogled her, pop-eyed. “What do you mean, Best Beloved? It’s wonderful! Fuchsia trees, hootoo birds flying everywhere—it’s not like any other mall I’ve ever seen.”

  Buffy stopped walking and looked down at the frog in her arms. His eyes, the metallic rings of his irises, seemed to pulse and glow like gold straight out of the smelting fire.

  Uh-oh. Buffy said, “You’re seeing things.”

  “I’m seeing what’s there, Maddie!”

  “That’s what I mean.” They made plastic key lime pie to make you believe that real key lime pie existed. Which it did. Bizarre thought. Following it, Buffy barely noticed that LeeVon had called her by her childhood name. “Let’s go down to one of the fountains.”

  “Good! But don’t let the bearcats get me.”

  Bearcats?

  At the fountain’s (probably fake) marble verge, Buffy placed LeeVon in the water and watched him skim away with graceful thrusts of his ballet-dancer legs. How could frogs sit so much like beanbags, or like husbands during football season, yet swim so much like Baryshnikov flying? Watching LeeVon, Buffy found it hard to remember that the frog had been a man, but felt vaguely willing to believe that he would be a man someday, as if being a talking frog were kind of a tadpole stage for being a certain kind of man.

  She realized that she was very tired. Not thinking too clearly. Unfocused, she sat and stared blearily, without blinking, at the coins lying in the fountain. They were mostly pennies. Kind of golden. Underwater. Circles, circles, rippling, magnified, big, bigger than pennies, gold circles, gold ripples, gold rings. Interesting, how a pool of water made everything look different. Buffy dipped her hand into the water, then lifted it and watched the drops fall like liquid light from her fingertips. She watched them splash and make rings. She put her hands into the water, both of them, then dabbed water on her face, her eyes. She expected cold, to wake her up, but it was not cold, not at all; it was as warm as transparent blood, soaking into her skin as if it were a part of her. She shifted her glazed gaze to the statue atop its pedestal, the deer, rearing. A stag with antlers of gold, filigree wings. She stared and waited, so exhausted she knew what would happen.

  It did.

  The stag moved, flexing its muscular neck to rear higher, leaping away from its pedestal. It soared on real golden-eagle wings instead of silly filigree, and looked down on her with eyes so wise she had to look away. She lowered her gaze and saw the bearcats lolling on breasty boulders around the pool, sunning themselves, their fuzzy tummies turned fearlessly to the sky. A dense and convoluted forest rose all around, lavender green dilly dilly, a mazy, layered, intertwined, up-down-and-sideward forest, not at all like the thin and boring vertical Pennsylvania forest where she had met Prince Adamus d’Aurca. This was the Forest Multifarious, a living labyrinthine complication so tall that the sky showed only as a tinted dome far overhead. Birds called, invisible. The air smelled like hollyhocks.

  A splish-splash plashing made her look down as an eight-inch, dark torpedo shape swam up to her. She blinked. For a moment the frog, gleaming wet, had been not quite a frog.

  “LeeVon?”

  “Yepperdoodles.” He was really a very nice guy. Could have said sarcastically, “Who else did you think it might be? You know a lot of frogs with nose rings and tattoos?” But LeeVon hardly ever seemed to get sarcastic.

  “Don’t mind me,” Buffy said. “For a moment there, you were looking kind of phallic.”

  “Why, thank you, Best Beloved.” LeeVon hopped out of the water to perch on the stone beside her, puffing proudly, with his head up like a—Buffy blinked again at the phrase that came to mind, drew back, and gave him a hard glance askance.

  “Uh, LeeVon. This pool got a name?” She was thinking that Adamus had said something about a pool. LeeVon was a superlibrarian. He would know.

  He did. “I believe they are all inclusively named the Collective Unconscious.”

  “Oh. I see.” Buffy didn’t quite see, but she did have all too firm a grasp—mental grasp—of one concept. “Well, I apologize.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I apologize. Apparently turning a guy into a frog is kind of a hands-on way of calling him a prick.”

  “Hands-on?”

  “Shut up.” She turned away from the sleekly throbbing frog with gold rings in its nostrils to look around. So this was the place. The Forest Multifarious. Hootoo birds. A wise-eyed deer circling overhead on golden wings. A white snake rippling past.

  Buffy breathed deeply—now the air smelled of coltslip. She felt good in this place, better than she had felt in a long time, certainly better than she had ever felt in any ordinary shopping mall. She did not feel at all tired anymore. She said to LeeVon, “We ought to be able to find Emily now.”

  Prince Adamus turned his head from side to side upon the petal-soft pillow but did not awaken. His sleep was made of gossamer chains as whisper-strong as the Queen’s touch. He could not awaken, not yet. To awaken would have been to grieve, perhaps to act—thoughts unbefitting a fairy-tale prince. Therefore, until it was time to dress in fine garments and return to court, it was better for him to sleep and be beautiful.

  Beautiful, he slept.

  As befitted a medieval prince, he slept naked between sheets that smelled of coltslip and amaranth. His shoulders flexed, and he dreamed not of the flowers but of Emily. He slept naked and alone.

  He lay on a bed quilted out of sweet rushes and silk, smelling of bluebells and asphodel. The bed was cupped in a bower braided thick with briar roses. The bower grew out of the bight of a great white wych oak tree taller than a tower. The tree swayed in a dark wind. In the treetop the bed swayed.

  Adamus stirred in his sleep and moaned. He arched his back as if in pain. He whispered, “Emily …”

  Where was she?

  His dreams were dark and troubled, though he did not awaken. Of her own accord she would not have left him. What had they done with her? Where had she gone?

  “It’s getting dark,” LeeVon said.

  “Your point being?” Balancing her way along a horizontal limb far above the ground, or floor, whatever, Buffy spoke sharply—but since searching the upper galleries of the mall for Emily now meant climbing around in the forest canopy, she felt entitled to a little edge in her tone. Needing both hands free, she had stowed LeeVon in her bra, specifically in her cleavage, where he had become annoying. His wet feet tickled. He talked too much. She wished he would just stay quiet and allow her to forget about him and concentrate on not breaking her neck—but he insisted on squirming around and poking his head out of her shirt and making useless comments.

  “My point being, we ought to be heading back. I have to get to the Pony Ride.”

  “Back” seemed so far away that for a moment she did not know what he was talking about. “The Pony Ride?”

  “The bar where we hope to get some sexy guy drunk enough to unfrog me.”

  Buffy had forgotten about LeeVon’s agenda for the evening and his life. Even under normal circumstances she would have found it a bit of a strain to escort a frog to a gay bar—she had never felt comfortable in bars, gay or otherwise, and did not usually go into them—and at this point she felt like she couldn’t deal with it. Her surge of energy had worn off, or playing Ms. Tarzan had taken it out of her, and once more she felt exhausted. Had not eaten or slept in far too long. Drifting in a state beyond exhaustion. Go to the Pony Ride and party? Somebody had to be kidding.

  As her mam
a had raised her to be nice, she hedged, of course. “I don’t think I can find the way out of here anymore.” One of her childhood nightmares had involved getting separated from her mother in a big store and getting lost and being locked in the big dark store overnight with all that spooky merchandise. The nightmare had made her hate big stores for years. She still hated them. But nightmares can be useful sometimes.

  “You found the john,” LeeVon pointed out.

  This was true. The odd thing was, the mall was still a mall. Walls still rose, or rather, trees rose like a wall. Needing to pee, Buffy had managed to part the lavender-green foliage long enough to find a real ladies’ room, apparently in Nordstrom’s.

  LeeVon said, “It’s not like there’s only one way out of here, Best Beloved. This is a mall. It has lots of entrances.”

  “So?”

  “So there are lots of ways out of here.”

  “Not necessarily. People get into here lots of ways, that’s all.” Into this place that was a place yet not a place. Where everything was itself yet something else.

  “Maybe so, Best Beloved. But you can get us out.” LeeVon spoke with a calm certainty that was more than cheerleading, more like faith in her.

  Undeserved.

  Silently Buffy balanced her way to where she could brace her hands against a tree trunk. Then she stood still and spoke the truth. “Maybe I could, but I’m not. No way am I leaving here without Emily.”

  LeeVon lost his calm. “Buffles, you promised!”

  “I didn’t exactly promise; I intended. Look, things change, plans change. With any sort of luck I can get you to the bar tomorrow night.”

  “You said! That counts as a promise.”

  “Not really.”

  “In this place it does.” LeeVon’s voice shot from a childish whine to a low … threat? Was it anger Buffy was hearing, or concern? She could not interpret. “They’re serious about promises here.”

  “I can’t help that. I’m not leaving without Emily.” Buffy added hastily, “Look, LeeVon, I’m sure we can find somebody to kiss you here.”

  “Oh, right. Like I’m going to hop up to some guy and say, ‘Kiss me and I’ll turn into a librarian.’”

  Buffy leaned against the tree trunk and closed her pulsing eyes.

  “It’s risky enough going up to guys when I’m human,” LeeVon grumbled.

  Buffy pressed her hands to her eyelids.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” LeeVon sounded peevish but resigned. “Just get me to a fountain. I’m all dried out.” They had ditched the paper towels someplace. Maybe in the Disney store. Talk about plastic. There was a place that took soul cake from all over the world and turned it into sugar and celluloid. Even seeing lavender green, Buffy could not make Disney come alive. Mannequins said, “May I help you?” in there.

  Soul cake?

  Fountain. The immediate problem was a fountain for LeeVon.

  Buffy found a spiral vine to take her down to the understory, then a leaning trunk the rest of the way to the ground. To find a pool she followed the sound of splashing water. A hootoo bird flew right by her head, flashing its crazy grin. A ferret or something slipped into the underbrush. Must be passing the pet store. On the floor, growing right out of the tiles, bloomed flowers so yellow they seemed alight. Coltsfoot? Primrose? Cowslip? Coltslip, that was the word, coltslip.

  Bright round stones wavered in the bottom of the pool. No, coins. Pennies and things. Fountain. Buffy sat on the stone rim and watched LeeVon leap in with that distinctive froggy ker-plop. Watched him scud away. Watched the ripples and the pennies reflecting the fading light. Looked up. This was the fountain with the statue of a girl on the high pedestal. A very beautiful girl with her golden hair pulled straight back Alice-in-Wonderland-fashion above her serious golden eyes. She had a garland of golden roses and she had a golden ball in her dainty white hands, but no one to play with. Lovely girl. She had to be lonely up there, thirty feet above the water on her narrow tower. Now Buffy noticed the golden star shining on her forehead, very bright against the night gathering in the glass dome.

  “That’s a princess,” she said aloud.

  LeeVon popped his head out of the pool. “C’mon in,” he called to her. “The water’s fine.”

  “No, thank you.” Swim? She felt more likely to fall asleep in there and drown. Trying to keep herself going, forgetting that the pool was not chilly but as warm as a womb, she leaned over and splashed that limpid water on her face and eyes.

  When she looked up again, the princess on the pedestal was Emily, scowling down at her.

  Buffy lunged to her feet, clambered up, and teetered on the rim of the fountain, hands stretched toward this princess presence that was ineluctably her daughter. Her mouth moved, but only croaking noises came out.

  “What are you doing here?” Emily asked icily.

  “Graaah—graah—graa—”

  “Found yourself another talking frog to lord it over, I see.”

  “Looking for you!” One exchange too late, Buffy finally got it together in regard to vocalization. “Honey, are you all right? Have you been keeping warm? Are your allergies bothering you? Do you need your inhaler?”

  Where did you sleep? How much of yourself did you give to him?

  Emily rolled her eyes and did not answer either the spoken questions or the unspoken ones.

  Is there any of you left for me?

  “Are you all right?” Buffy demanded, neck cranked all the way back to look at her daughter.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” But Emily’s tone had thawed marginally. She flounced her creamy lace-festooned skirts out of the way, sat on the edge of her plinth, swung her slippered feet, and peered down. “Mom,” she decreed from on high, “that shirt doesn’t match your jeans at all. Not even close.”

  For God’s sake. It was Buffy’s turn to scowl. “Get down from there,” she commanded.

  “Like how?”

  Buffy opened her mouth and shut it again, feeling her eyes getting froggishly large.

  Emily spoke quickly to revise her spontaneous response. “It’s nice up here,” she declared. “I like it.”

  “Yes, heaven forbid your mother should think you need help.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Mom. It’s dangerous here.” Emily said this with smooth-faced bemusement. Fair Peril meant nothing to her personally; she was young and therefore certain that nothing irreversible could happen to her. But it surprised her to see her mother venturing there.

  “You should talk. I’m not the one imprisoned on top of a—”

  “It’s not a prison!” Emily flounced to her feet, glaring.

  “No?”

  “No. It’s a, um, a great honor. Because I belong to Adamus, you see.” When Emily mentioned the name, her hard young face softened into a starry-eyed smile, her chest swelled, her voice lilted. “He’s so sweet. He adores me.”

  “So he put you on a pedestal.”

  “No, Mom.” But Emily lost her smile, looking unsure. “Anyway,” she added loyally, “it’s an awesome view.”

  “Does he come around to feed you?”

  “Of course that would be what you’d think of.” The golden star on Emily’s forehead blazed with the force of her youthful scorn. “Like I need to eat?”

  “Of course you need to eat.” Buffy felt panic begin to pound in her temples. She had to get Emily down, had to get her down, there had to be a way—why hadn’t she paid more attention in physics class, damn it? Think. Think. Okay, maybe she could run cables down from the trees—no, across from the galleries—no; if she broke the statue, then Emily would be in pieces—

  A distant but insistent noise kept trying to demand her attention. It was like somebody was talking at her from a building next door through a garbage chute or something. With her focus thoroughly on Emily, Buffy barely noticed the interruption—but then a large, forceful hand grabbed her upper arm.

  Buffy spun around, nearly toppling into the pool. Ogres, two of them! Blue ogres
a head taller than she was and about twice as wide. She gasped and fought to break free, threw herself from side to side, tried to flee, but one had a dragon grip on her and the other one snagged her other arm. She struggled wildly.

  “Come with us, ma’am. You’re only making it worse.”

  Cops?

  Damn.

  The sudden change in her perception staggered her, and the cops took advantage of her discombobulation to get her moving. They whisked her toward a mall entrance, and Buffy had never considered herself a very whiskable person. Son of a bitch, this new fact of life, that things were themselves plus something else, could be a pain in the butt. “I was just trying to talk with my daughter,” Buffy protested. “Emily!” She lagged, sagged, dragged her feet, making herself as heavy as possible, trying to look back over her shoulder, but all she saw was mall—Walden-books, people, SALE signs, and railings—as they hustled her along. “What did I do?” she appealed. “Is there a rule against standing on the edge of the fountain?”

  “You’re wanted for questioning.” The cop sounded so utterly bored that Buffy knew he had told her this before. It was humiliating how bored the cops were after the fight she had put up. It was embarrassing how people were staring.

  The other cop said, “You are Madeleine Murphy, correct?”

  “Buffy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’re wanted for questioning concerning the whereabouts of Prentis Sewell.”

  Tempestt sat in the middle of the thick parlor carpet, sorting through decorator magazines and waiting for the phone to ring. The cops were in the other room, by the downstairs extension, waiting right along with her. The cops seemed to think that the phone should ring, somebody should call to state a political manifesto or demand ransom or something. Tempestt didn’t think so. No reason; she just didn’t think so. She had no theories, didn’t like to overwork her brain, but she expected that, wherever Prentis was, he would find a way to get home soon enough. Meanwhile, she was worried about him, of course, but she could not honestly say she missed him. It was nice to be able to sit and look at her magazines without Prentis wanting her for something. Prentis could be a real ass-hassle when he was around the house.