This New and Poisonous Air (14 page)

She reached into her still bulging pockets and produced two handfuls of wooden monsters which Herr Adle looked at carefully. “The Irontooths made them for me,” she said.

From the pile, he selected the little man bound inside a wheel, hairy body stiff, face contorted in fear and rage. “This one is quite powerful. How do you interpret it?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t have a meaning, as far as I know. It’s meant as a toy, though I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

He handed the little man back to her. “Keep hold of these treasures, my dear. It’s not every day that I see creatures quite so interesting.”

She settled back against the cushioned seat, pleased to have shown him something new, and soon the carriage arrived at a fine stone house bordered on either side by thickets of trees and brake ferns. A candle hovered in the front window, illuminating the long face of a maid who stooped to watch Herr Adle and Illinca emerge. “Is this your house?” Illinca asked, drawing the collar of her ragged dress higher to protect herself from the cold night wind.

“If only,” Herr Adle said. “I told you, I believe, that I am a visitor by trade. This is the home of a friend of mine who’s abroad and has been kind enough to invite us to lodge here in his absence. Now, you need to curb your inquisition once we get inside, my girl. You may betray our secrets.”

“What secrets do we have?” she said.

He patted her head. “Quite a few, I’d say.”

Illinca was still confused but composed herself. She had to save her questions for important things. “Will we find my father in the morning?”

“Perhaps,” Herr Adle said, pausing to consider. “But you must prepare yourself that we won’t find him until the next day or the day after that. At any rate, soon, dear, very soon, and in the meantime, I shall keep you fed and happy.”

HE DID NOT LIE. The two were served roast lamb and fennel in a room with pressed metal walls that reminded Illinca of being inside a large oven. Over the course of the dinner, Herr Adle talked a great deal, telling Illinca about the plague towns he’d seen. “Absolutely dripping with pestilence,” he said, gesturing with his silver fork. “I saw a woman who died on laundry day, hung herself over
the line between the linens, if you believe it. And I saw a man with half his head half-rotted off, still hammering at a piece of wood, as if
work
was that important.”

“Why haven’t you taken sick?” she said.

He paused, chewing his lamb. “I could ask the same of you, couldn’t I, my little dear? Perhaps we’re both angels, descended to view this horror but remain untouched.”

“You don’t need to talk to me like that,” she said.

Herr Adle raised his black eyebrows, “Well then, most likely our humors are somehow suited to this new and poisonous air.”

Illinca pushed at her food on the bone-colored plate, her stomach feeling more full than it had in years. “May I ask another question, Herr Adle?”

He wiped his mouth, then tossed the napkin aside. “If you must. But please don’t let the maids hear. They really are such cunts at this house.”

“What’s cunt?”

“A person of no manners,” he replied.

She committed this word to memory and then said, “You don’t think something’s happened to my father, do you? ”

“I thought the Irontooths were strong men, Illinca.”

“Oh, they are. I saw one of them bend a metal bar with his bare hands once, and another can chop down a tree with only five blows of an axe.”

“Then nothing has happened to them,” he said, matter of fact. “Nothing at all.”

She imagined she was turning the pages of Herr Adle’s booklike face, searching for answers, but finding only a language she didn’t understand. After dinner, he dropped to one knee and spoke quietly to her. “The maids will see you to your room,” he said. “You need not speak to them
or ask their names. They’re going to provide you with a costume. Take it graciously and go to bed.”

“A costume?” Illinca asked.

He plucked at his odd cloak with the pumpkin-colored lining. “I have mine and now you shall have yours. And one more thing, dear—in the night, it’s important that you stay in your room. These large houses can be very dangerous when all the lights are put out. There are ghosts.”

Illinca nodded silently. She knew of ghosts.

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Herr Adle said.

She snapped her heels like a little soldier. “There’s nothing to fear, sir.”

He laughed, and then they both laughed together. Herr Adle left her then with the sour-faced servants who acted like she was something they’d found in the yard. She watched as he mounted the stairs and entered a door at the end of the landing, marking its place in case she needed him. The maids took her to a small bedroom and gave her three dresses—one made of pressed velvet with glass beads sewn around the neckline and the other two of cotton with white lace. They even provided a small valise in which to carry these articles, and at that point, Illinca couldn’t help herself. She had to ask. “Whose things are these?”

The two maids paused, the one with darker features frowning at the lighter one. Finally, the darker said, “They belonged to the little Missus, didn’t they now?”

“She doesn’t need them still?” said Illinca. “I don’t want to take her nice things.”

“On no—she’s in the ground,” the lighter maid responded. “As far as I can count, she only needs one dress there.”

Illinca felt a rush of sadness for the dead girl and wondered too if this had been her bedroom. She didn’t
ask the maids because she was fairly sure of the answer and had no interest in terrible dreams. That night, she woke to the sound of the wind creaking the great house like a ship, and she sat up in bed to see that her old rag dress was still on the chair where the maids had hastily tossed it, but the wooden creatures had spilled from the pockets and onto the floor. Two of them had broken. One of the heads had snapped off the two-headed bird, and the goat-faced cat had lost its fragile horns. Illinca knelt on the floor and held both of them for a while, trying hard not to cry there in the dark, thinking of the Irontooths and her father. She wrapped all of the animals in her old dress, which from now on, would simply act as a cushion for her treasures, hopefully providing the animals some needed protection. She’d hate to break any more because, as Herr Adle said, they were objects of interest in a world that was emptying of such things. When she turned to get back into bed, she thought better of it. She needed to find Herr Adle and ask him to name a definite day they would find her father. She’d been foolish to come this far without some notion of schedule, and she hated herself for a moment for being so imprudent and girlish. If they didn’t find him, she would request that she be returned to her village so she could wait in the cottage. She wondered, just for a moment, if Herr Adle would refuse this request, but as of yet, he’d been nothing but kind, so she put the idea away.

Illinca crept along the black hall, not afraid of ghosts or devils but of the maids—Dark and Light—who’d probably pinch her if they found her and tell her more cruel things about their dead Missus. She reached the oaken door at the end of the landing, the one through which she’d seen Herr Adle disappear earlier and knocked softly enough, making sure she’d wake no one else. A rustling came
from within, and finally the door opened to show a crack of face, but the man who looked out at her was not Herr Adle. This person had straw-colored hair and a mole on his chin. “What is it?” he asked.

“Is Herr Adle in the room?” Illinca said.

The straw-haired man looked at her. “Who?”

“Herr Heinrich Adle, the visitor,” she said. “This is his room.”

The man seemed angry now. “I can assure you that this is no one’s room but mine. Are you one of the maid’s children?”

She stepped back. Her feet were bare and the floor suddenly felt very cold. The man opened the door wider to peer at her, and in the shadows beyond him, Illinca saw Herr Adle’s pumpkin-colored cloak hanging from one bed post. “Are you not his friend?” she whispered, “the one who invited us to stay? Is that not his cape?”

The man’s eyes narrowed as if what she’d said was completely mad. “If you’re through with your games, little girl,” he said. “I’d like to return to my sleep.” He slammed the door, and she refused to jump at the frightening loudness of the sound. Illinca walked the halls, fearing that Herr Adle had abandoned her, an idea that made no sense. Why could he play such a cruel joke? At a time of such uncertainty, there would be no advantage to duping a child. The maids seemed to know him and he’d certainly entered that room only a few hours before. His pumpkin cloak even hung on the post. So what had happened to put things so out of joint? She looked for clues in the house, but found only a large wooden clock in a room full of dusty books, some of which were larger than even her mother’s Bible. The clock had eyes painted on its face, two staring orbs, and in the darkness they were first her mother’s soft eyes and then her father’s. She put her arms around the big
clock and held it, feeling it tick against her narrow chest, like her own heart beating.

Illinca remembered a story her father had told her about a man who could change his shape at will, becoming an animal and then a man again. “He was a kind of devil, to be sure,” her father said. “He couldn’t live like a civilized person because he was always turning into a bird or a wolf or a bat and fleeing into the countryside, and when he turned back into a man, he never looked the same as the man he’d been before.” She wondered if Herr Adle was a thing like that, a changing demon, though part of her knew better. Only darkness and her own fear made her think such things. If Herr Adle changed, he did so in nature, not in form.

When the dark maid woke her at dawn, Illinca asked if Herr Adle had abandoned her. The maid crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “Of course not, stupid child. If he left you here for me to wipe your ass, I’d go after him myself and wring his neck. The last thing we need is another brat bawling about her cough and rash.” She found Herr Adle seated at the table in the pressed metal room, eating a breakfast of boiled eggs and bread. When he saw Illinca in her new dress, he acted like she was the daughter of the king, bowing to her and helping her into her own chair. She watched him carefully, not asking about the man she’d seen the night before. Instead, she checked for any trace of blond in his dark hair or the shadow of a dissolving mole.

THAT DAY, THE CARRIAGE WAS HALTED on the road near a marsh, and when Illinca saw who’d stopped them, she felt like a hand was at her throat. The King’s Dogs, wheezing
through their leather muzzles, ordered the carriage driver to dismount and open the door, hurrying the poor man along with their cudgels. They could certainly see Herr Adle and Illinca plainly enough through the glass, just as she could see them, and once the door was opened, one of the Dogs, who had a yellow crust built over his left eye said, “No one is to be on this road.”

Herr Adle leaned against the brass handle of the carriage door and said, “I’m taking my daughter to her mother in the south. We understand the restrictions, but I’m afraid if I do not get her there soon, they’ll never see each other again.”

The Dog glanced back at the other riders who were having a conversation of their own and then examined Illinca with his good eye. She tried to smile, which is what she thought a daughter of nobility would do. “You both should be imprisoned,” the Dog said.

“The open countryside has become prison enough for us all,” Herr Adle said with poetic air, then he gave a mild cough, and the Dog drew back, blinking in surprise.

Illinca started coughing too, as hard as she knew how, putting her hand over her mouth and attempting to appear frightened by the force of her expectorations. The Dog withdrew, circling his horse with the others. “Be certain not to stop along the way, imbeciles,” he said. “The Mortality spreads, you know?”

“I’m well aware,” said Herr Adle, waving a hand dramatically, as if to draw air to his lungs.