CHAPTER SEVEN
Her fingers flicker
Like snakes in the air,
The walls split open
At her green-eyed stare.
Her voice is thin
As the ghosts of bees,
She will crumble your bones,
She will make your blood freeze.
Spin a coin, spin a coin,
All fall down,
Queen Nefertiti
Stalks through the town.
"My good lord, who is that?"
Burlie watched the small knot of people coming towards her down the street of Plum Tree. They were pointing and staring at her, waving oil lanterns. Turn of the century clothes. Long skirts and long sleeved blouses for the women and suits for the men. Everyone wore a hat. A few were wearing costumes. Bed sheets or whatever old nonsense they could find in attics. Burlie was amused to see quite a few cross-dressers, girls with penciled on mustaches and boys in baggy dresses and flowered hats.
She stopped and waited for them, nerves fluttering.
One young man pointed his parasol at her. "Is that Yvonne? Holy moly roly."
A dark-haired girl about the same size as Burlie spoke up behind him. "It's not me."
He turned around in surprise. "Oh, hello, Yvonne. Sorry."
The buzz continued as they moved closer.
"But who is that?"
"What on Earth is she wearing?"
"Not a whole lot."
Burlie looked down at herself. Her midriff was bare, yes, so were her arms, but she was wearing a black tank top and black tights almost down to her knees. Black sandals. Silver costume jewelry. And a big black cloak over all. Nothing wrong with any of that.
Burlie stopped and waited for them.
And she began to think. What happened at the lake? She'd been truly horrified. Did she need to be? This was a dream, right? But it felt so real. Well, dreams do. So, nothing could hurt her here?
No, she couldn't entirely accept that. She wasn't alone here. This was also Fisk's dream.
Caution is always a good idea.
But why, under the circumstances, was he dreaming friendly people? Why was she? Some sort of subconscious wish for company and comfort?
The small crowd arrived. They seemed astonished and not just by her costume. One of the children ran closer, "Hello, miss?" she said. She was an adorable little girl in a clown costume. It was yellow with blue pom pom buttons down the front. Perfect little blue circles on both cheeks.
"Hello," Burlie said, missing Lydia badly. She smiled a bit. "If ya'll are going towards the lake, I wouldn't." Another dim roar sounded behind her and the people startled like chickens.
"There it is again!"
"I told you!"
They regrouped around Burlie. A man in a deerstalker hat and Victorian cloak cleared his throat. "Just what is that?" he asked. He pointed back the way she'd come with the mouth end of a large clay pipe.
"Elementary," Burlie said and he smiled. "A witch put a monster sea-serpent in the lake," she went on and rather enjoyed the confused sensation she made.
"Wait, you're a witch?" a tall, gawky girl shouted.
"No, I was put here, too," Burlie said.
"You're a monster sea-serpent?"
"No, it's in the lake," Burlie explained.
"You're a lake?"
The girl sputtered with laughter at Burlie's expression.
The clown girl huffed. "No one thinks you're funny, Violet," she said.
"Oh, lighten up."
Sherlock asked, "You're not joking? Some sort of giant creature is in the lake?"
"Yes, it smashed the docks."
"Now that I have to see," he said but he didn't move.
"Where did you say the witch was again?" an old woman asked and she stared at Burlie's stomach as if it might tear loose and attack her. The scarab twinkled blue in the warm lights.
"I don't know where he is," Burlie said and noticed that the crowd was growing. Doors were opening up and down the street. Everyone was staring. Help, she thought. I'm about to get lynched by the Plum Tree Mob. "His name's Fisk. He might be at Bathatch castle with my fam..."
"His name's Fisk? No. Madame Maxima the Magnificent would never allow such a person," said a woman. She had dark brown skin and wore a black dress with a white collar. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Sensible shoes on her feet. It wasn't a costume. She was a textbook crab of a spinster. But then she smiled and became human. "Maxima's the only witch we have and she's determined to stay that way."
A tall, fair man with an affable face and spectacles on his nose shook his head. "That's just a rumor, Miss Ada. I've not once seen Mrs. Batt do any magic work."
Burlie felt a tug on her cloak and looked down just in time to see a little boy shoot safely back behind his mother.
The old woman pushed past Mr. Spectacles, "Excuse me, Anzo," she said, and stood toe to toe with Burlie, her sharp chin jutting out. She raised her lantern even with the girl's face and Burlie blinked in the light. "Just who are you, young lady? Where did you come from? How did you get here? And what were your parents thinking letting you out looking like that?"
"My name is Burlie McLauren and there's nothing wrong with my costume," Burlie said.
"Errr, how is that bug staying put?" Anzo asked and Sherlock sputtered with laughter. Burlie felt another tug and a girl ran away, cackling. The little monsters were daring each other.
The crone raised her voice. "I don't know any McLaurens." As if that settled everything.
"Who are you?" Burlie almost shouted and the old woman fell back a step. "There's a witch here! Dropping monsters into your town. And you're worried about my costume?"
"It's a worrisome costume," Anzo pointed downwards. "Look, even her toenails are painted black." Everyone looked down as the lake monster roared again, the noise pulsing through the night air. "Cute feet, by the way."
The old woman who didn't know any McLaurens had recovered. She shok her finger in Burlie's face. "Don't you talk to me like that."
Priorities. Burlie ignored the crazy old coot and began to back away. "I have to go," she said and bumped into the people behind her. "Excuse me. Excuse me, everyone, I have to get to the castle. Stop that." She jerked her cloak away from Violet who was trying to crawl under it.
"Wait a second," Anzo started. He was stopped by a wailing blaaaaat of a horn and Burlie jumped.
The crowd parted. A car, a Model-A? A Model T? A very old model pulled in to the gap, practically right up to Burlie's legs, and a redheaded man dressed in a plain, brown suit with a bronze star on the lapel got out. He shut the door and gave Burlie a thorough look. It almost exhausted her but she didn't dare object. The crowd was practically bowing to him. "We're having a couple of problems at the carnival," he announced and an excited thrill went through the people. "And I just got the damnedest call from the Bliss brothers."
"Don't curse in front of the children!"
There was something wrong with that woman, Burlie decided. No one could be that determinedly old.
"Is this one trying to bite anybody?" he asked.
Ada shook her head. "She hasn't yet."
"But I live in hope," Anzo said.
"She's nice," avowed the little clown girl.
"Thank you, Martha," the cop said. "Well." He spotted the scarab and shared a look with Anzo. That man grinned. Burlie stared at them, insulted. Anzo, at least, cleared his throat and guiltily looked down and around. "What d'you have to say for yourself?" the Man asked Burlie.
"Says her name is McLauren and I haven't heard of any McLaur..."
"I'm asking," he interrupted and the old woman glared. He pointed at Burlie. "You."
"My name is Burlington McLauren," she said again.
"Burlie," Anzo clarified.
"Right. Burlie, thank you." She almost burst out laughing. She reined it in. "What the Blisses said is true," She was relieved when another unearthly screech sounded from the direction of the lake to give
proof to Randy and Ruddy's report. The redheaded man gave the horizon a tired look. "A witch named Fisk Iping is responsible for all this," Burlie explained. "He's British, a little shorter than you are, brown hair, and has one green eye and one blue eye. I don't know where he is."
He nodded his head. "Well, he sounds like a pretty frightening character."
Violet snickered.
It was a moment before Burlie could speak. They didn't believe her? Idiots. She was surrounded by idiots. All she could do was repeat, "He's released more than the lake monster here. "
"I know," said the newcomer. "I was there." He lifted an arm and Burlie saw he had slash marks in his coat sleeve. The good people of Plum Tree gasped.
And now Burlie was the idiot. He'd mentioned biting, hadn't he?
"Why are they here?" the sheriff asked.
"They're after me. I have to get past them to the castle."
"Sounds like fun," said Miss Ada. She patted her bun because a stray hair was worse than any monster. A buzz went round and round the crowd until Burlie wanted to scream. And she could scream but good now.
"Who are you people?" she asked.
Only the cop heard her over the hubbub. "My name, at least, is Wallace J. Piggsbee. I was elected sheriff of Souls by the Sea in 1899."
"Only because I couldn't vote," said the old woman.
"I love you, too, Aunt Agnes," Piggsbee said.
"Piggsbee? Wally Piggsbee?" Burlie gasped and the resemblance became obvious. This man was clean shaven, his hair cut short, but the red hair, the freckles, the grey eyes, they were the same. The calm intelligence was very different.
"Not Wally, please," he said. "Wallace. Or Sheriff or Mr. Piggsbee. I hate being called Wally."
And Burlie remembered. She finally remembered exactly who these people were.
The stone.
Their names were written on a book of stone.
Next to a deep pit.
She was compelled to repeat, "The Sheriff Piggsbee?"
"Don't give him a swelled head," Anzo warned her.
She looked up at him. "Anzo...Dahl? Dahl?"
Now he was truly surprised. "That's right. Now I know we haven't met before. I'd have remembered."
Burlie couldn't answer. She looked down at little Martha Allhope and wanted to cry. Oh, god. If she must have a heartbreaking dream why couldn't she just have a simple Flunked Out of School nightmare?
Anzo was suddenly distracted. "Now who's that coming?" he said, his height making him the local lookout tower.
What? Burlie turned to look along with everyone else. An odd young man was approaching. He had wild black hair shot through with stripes of white. He was wearing an ancient lab coat stained with horrible things. It wasn't a costume.
He reached the fringe of the group and gracefully bowed to them all from the waist. He straightened and said, "I fear I vas unable to perfectionate my slovenly appearance before thrusting myself upon your acquaintance." Burlie was too far away to be sure of his eyes but from where she was standing one looked lighter in color than the other.
He went on, "I am searching for a demon, a malignant barbarian wretch of disproportionately enormous size who has desolated my soul und filled my heart to the very brim with remorse und despair. Who has blighted..."
"Dr. Frankenstein?" Burlie guessed.
He looked at her. "You have the advantage of me." Something clicked in his eyes. He looked at her again. "You."
"Another stranger," crowed Aunt Agnes. "We ain't got any Frankenboogers around here either. You people need to go back where you came from."
"Victor Von Frankenstein?" Anzo laughed. "Oh, no."
"You know him?" Martha asked.
Anzo looked down on her with a smile. "I read the book. Took me forever."
"The man who made a Monster," Ada said. "In his la-bor-ah-tor-eeee."
"Not another one," Piggsbee groaned, his fingers playing through the claw marks in his coat sleeve. "How many are... ?" He stopped and his eyes went sharp.
Frankenstein was pushing through the crowd to Burlie. His eyes sparked with malice. "You," he said again.
Burlie turned her side to him and raised her fist. "Don't," she warned. There'd be no stopping this punch. To her complete surprise, Aunt Agnes planted herself in front of her. Anzo and Piggsbee moved closer, too.
Frankenstein froze and blinked at them. He blinked again as if someone was shining a bright light in his face. Suddenly someone was, Aunt Agnes raised her lantern to get a good look at him. "You got funny eyes."
"He has Fisk's eyes," Burlie said. "This is all," she unclenched her fist to wave it in the air. "Part his dream and part my dream and I can't wake up."
"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," Piggsbee said. "I'm real as the day is long."
Burlie shrugged. "Well?" She pointed at Frankenstein. "They're definitely not real."
Piggsbee turned to the doctor. "What do you have to say?"
"A lot," groaned Anzo and Burlie nodded. She'd read the book, too. It was a classic, the first of its kind, but damn.
Frankenstein paused. Burlie watched him closely.
Then his spine straightened and he surprised them all with a bark of laughter. "I say I am a man," he said. "Alive and standing before you all with both feet firmly on this ground and no fantastical other. As real, or more, as any of you. Cogito Ergo Sum!" He wound up by reaching past Aunt Agnes to poke Burlie in the shoulder with his finger.
Burlie considered poking him back, in the groin with her knee, but then he smiled at her. He outright grinned and settled his weight on one leg, relaxing, as if that microscopic bit of violence satisfied requirements and now he was happy.
Bizarre. Almost compulsively Burlie also reached around the old woman and tapped him on the chest. He was solid but that proved nothing. It also didn't really matter. "All right, Doctor," she said. "I take it back. You're real. In this place, anyway."
"What about us?" Miss Ada asked, peering shrewdly at Burlie.
"Errrr," Burlie looked to the sky in a shifty way and earned a laugh from everyone. But she felt...she felt...strange.
The sky was immense and it held her. The sky. What a sky. It went on for all eternity.
Is that what she felt? Eternity?
The sheriff was looking at her. Embarrassed, she shifted her attention down to her black toenails.
While the chills thundered up and down her flesh she heard a faint clip clop clip clop of hooves. She had the dim impression that the fancy mules of the carnival hayride were nearby. They weren't, of course.
A great black stallion was trotting up the street. His rider, a cloaked and weather-beaten Hessian soldier of the Revolutionary War, sat the beast as if he were part of it. He reined it in just shy of the edge of the crowd. It snorted and stuck sparks from the street with a hard clop! of its steel-shod hoof.
Aunt Agnes slowly backed away, cowed at last.
The rider looked straight at Burlie. How she could tell he was looking at her she really couldn't say.
He had no head.
"Why, hello," Violet broke the stunned silence.
The rider elbowed his thick black cloak out of the way and slowly reached to his side. Even more slowly he pulled out a great, gleaming sword from its scabbard. The metallic hiss echoed back and forth across the silent street. He gave it a casual twirl, the blade reflecting the light from the moon and the lanterns, then he grasped it firmly in his large, steady hand. The leather of his glove creaked. The horse lowered its head and pawed the street again, its massive muscles tensing.
"And goodbye!" Violet was gone.
The children shrieked and the adults yanked them backwards as the crowd melted under the white-hot attention of the rider. "You said they're after you, Miss Burlie?" the sheriff asked.
"Yes. Uh. Yes."
The horse was almost dancing with eagerness. The rider tightened his hand on the reins. Burlie was frozen.
"I refuse to entertain the possi
bility of directed malice and motion in a creature possessed of no brain." Frankenstein sounded offended. Burlie had forgotten he was there. The horseman slowly raised his sword arm.
"So I'll entertain it," Piggsbee said. Burlie realized, over the beating of the blood in her ears, that she, Frankenstein, and Piggsbee were the only people left in the street. Without the lamps surrounding them it was pretty damn dark. "When I say go, Burlie," Piggsbee went on. "Get in the car."
"I'm coming, too, mein freund."
"Suit yourself."
The rider dug his spurs into the stallion's side and it reared, screaming. The moon gleamed on the sharp, swinging steel.
"GO!" Burlie yelped. Then she was in the seat of the car and couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. Piggsbee threw himself behind the wheel. Burlie remembered to jerk her cloak out of the way this time as Frankenstein piled in beside her. The horse galloped past and they all ducked as the sword sliced through the air over Burlie's head. Piggsbee threw the car into gear and hit the gas. Burlie's head jerked back. "Here we go again."
"Hellish monster," Frankenstein observed as the horse screamed again and galloped after them.
"The bandstand, please," Burlie said to Piggsbee as if he were a cab driver. "Or the castle."
"You, baby, are goin' straight to jail."
Arrested again? The pounding of the hooves almost rattled her teeth. There was a blur of motion and the driver-side glass broke into a thousand pieces. She screamed. Piggsbee swore and violently turned the wheel. There was a thud and Burlie whipped around just in time to see the horse crashing off the road, legs thrashing. The rider whipped the sword through the air one last time and let fly. It shattered the rear glass. The blade embedded itself in the back of Burlie's seat and quivered there.
"Mein Gott!"
"Yes, please, straight to jail," Burlie demanded, shaking glass shards out of her hair.
Piggsbee floored it.