The Voyage of the Minotaur Page 8

  “Get those clothes off and hop in the tub,” said Zurfina. “When you get out, we’ll get you dressed appropriately.”

  The sorceress picked up a small bottle of bath salts, dumped them into the water, and then left, closing the door behind her. Senta peeled off her brown sweater, her brown linen dress, and her full-length bloomers, and then climbed over the edge of the great claw-foot tub. The water was now almost the same aquamarine color as one of the shades of ceramic on the wall—an effect of the bath salts. It was steamy and warm and Senta took her time enjoying the sheer luxury of being able to totally submerse her own body. When her fingers and toes began to look like prunes, she climbed back out. She was going to put her clothes back on, but Zurfina appeared, and pulled her still naked back into the main room, where the small steel dragon still sat on his plinth, watching. The sorceress stood the girl in the center of the room.

  “Your hair is a mess,” she said.

  Zurfina pointed with her index finger and drew a circle around Senta’s head. There was a gust of wind and the girl felt her hair fly up and then settle back down. She ran her hand through it and was surprised to feel that it was clean and smooth, and was now shorter than it had been—chin length all the way around. The woman handed her a pair of knee-length black bloomers with puffs of lace at the bottom of the legs and a black camisole, both of which Senta scrambled into. The dress that she was given next was smooth and rather amorphous, with no pleats, belts, beads, or decorations of any kind. And it was completely black.

  “It doesn’t cover my legs,” said Senta.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have stockings.”

  The stockings, or more accurately woolen socks, turned out to be knee-highs, which tucked under Senta’s bloomer legs, and had inch wide alternating horizontal black and white stripes. Then the sorceress handed her a pair of very shiny black leather shoes, with square heels, and leather straps with buckles for fastening them on.

  “No button hooks for us, Pet,” said Zurfina.

  Senta was not used to wearing shoes, but after trying them on, decided that they were not too uncomfortable. The final piece of her ensemble was a black ribbon, which Zurfina tied around the back of her neck and over her hair, forming a huge bow on top, as big as her head. The woman, again guiding her by the shoulders, moved her to stand in front of a cheval glass, so that she could see her own reflection. The girl could hardly recognize herself. There was certainly no doubt about to whom this child belonged. She, like her mistress, stood out as a shadow stands out at mid-day.

  Zurfina called over one of the translucent people who were still wandering about the room, packing up books and objects d’magik. This ghostly person was a tall man in a stiff suit with a bowler hat. He had a stern face, through which Senta could see one of the bedposts. The sorceress handed her mystical servant an envelope. The tall man bowed at the waist, allowing Senta to look through his head at a row of books on a bookcase across the room from her. He then turned on his heel and left.

  “That’s a letter for Mrs. Gantonin,” said Zurfina. “Along with a sizeable remuneration for the loss of your income. Now.”

  Zurfina sat on the edge of the four-poster bed and, holding Senta by the shoulders, turned the girl to look her in the face. She peered deeply into the girl’s eyes for a long time as if searching for something. Just as she was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the staring contest, Senta felt something change in the back of her mind. It was as if something clicked in her brain.

  “All right, let’s see what you can do. Repeat after me. Uuthanum.”

  “Uuthanum.”

  “Again, Uuthanum.”

  “Uuthanum.”

  “No, it’s four syllables. Uuthanum.”

  “Uuthanum.”

  “Good. Now hold out your hand.”

  Senta held out her left hand, open, palm up. Zurfina placed a gold coin in it. Senta had never held a gold coin before. This one was very shiny and had a picture of a sad looking man with a mustache on it. After a moment she realized that she had been staring at the coin for an overly long period, and looked back at the sorceress’s face.

  “Do you want to see the other side?” asked Zurfina.

  Senta nodded.

  “Point with your other hand. Then twirl your finger around above the decimark.”

  Senta did so.

  “Now do that and say the magic word.”

  “Uuthanum,” said Senta, while twirling her right index finger over the coin.

  The coin suddenly flipped over in her hand. The obverse featured a cross, wreathed in laurels. Senta stopped pointing and crossed herself.

  “Yes, the Kafirites own the world,” said Zurfina, placing a finger on her chin. “But it wasn’t their savior that made that coin flip over. That power didn’t come from her or her father, the Zaeri God. It was magic: power left over from the gods of old—Omris and Siris, worshipped by the Argrathians who built great pyramids to honor them; Juton and Treffia, gods of the Donnata who held great games in their honor; and Worron and Tommulon for whom the Ixecians sacrificed human blood, long after people in northern Sumir had begun planting crosses in the churches. It was magic, and it was all channeled through here.”

  The sorceress pressed her finger to Senta’s forehead.

  “You can keep the decimark,” she said, and started to stand up, then quickly sat back down and looked into Senta’s eyes once more. “What would you buy with that?”

  “A doll.”

  “What kind of doll?”

  “A girl doll.”

  “What girl doll.”

  “The doll in the window of the toy store.”

  “Is it a mechanical doll? Do its eyes open and close when you lay it down or sit it up? Does it say ‘Mama’?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Go get your doll. But practice your magic.”

  Senta walked slowly to the door, holding the gold coin in her open hand, as if it might disappear at any moment. She stopped near the steel dragon, sitting on his plinth, and turned back around to look at the woman in the strange black apparel—waiting for additional confirmation that it was indeed all right to take the coin and go to the toy store. Zurfina waved her on. The steel dragon let out a long hiss.

  “Cheeky twonk!” said Senta.

  The steel dragon, with his mouth the size of a house cat’s, took a snap at her. She jumped back and squealed. Then she dashed out the door, down the two flights of stairs and through the shop filled with strange translucent proprietors and strange translucent customers. She found herself once again on the street. People were walking up and down the cement sidewalk. Steam carriages were driving up and down the cobblestone street. The horse drawn trolley was moving along at its same clopping pace. And Senta stood in her strange black costume, with black and white striped legs—the only new clothes she had ever owned—clutching more money than she had ever dreamed of holding.

  Closing her fist tightly around the coin, Senta took off down the street, around the corner and down Prince Tybalt Boulevard. She was running faster than she had ever run. She thought that, to the other people on the street, she must appear nothing more than a black streak flying by like magic. Like magic! She was just about to reach the corner of Avenue Phoenix, around which sat the toy store, when her feet suddenly stopped and of their own accord, took her into the alley just behind the row of stores. She stood against the wall and opened her left hand to look at the coin. Magic! She pointed at the coin with her right index finger.

  “Uuthanum,” she said, and twirled her finger.

  The coin flipped over in her palm.

  “Uuthanum,” she said, again twirling her finger.

  This time the coin sat up on its edge and began to spin.

  She could do magic!

  “Hey, gimme that!” said a voice nearby.

  Senta looked up to see a boy a few feet away from her. He had been sitting in a pile of trash, but now rose to his feet. He was a bit older and about twice
as thick as Senta, but about the same height. He wore a pair of pants that might have once been white, but now were decidedly dark grey. His shirt, if the upside down writing on the front were any indication, had once been a sack of Farmer’s Best Grade “A” Flour.

  “Gimme that.”

  Senta closed her fist around the decimark and put her hand behind her back, but she didn’t say anything. The boy moved closer and balled up his fist. Senta pointed at him with her right index finger.

  “Uuthanum!” she said.

  She didn’t think it would really work, but if she could flip the boy over, like the coin, then she could run back out onto the street. The boy didn’t flip over. Instead, a blue cone sprang from her outstretched finger, expanding to engulf the boy. There was a crackling sound. The boy’s skin turned blue. Frost formed on his hair, his eyelashes, and his nose. Senta pulled her finger back, but the cone remained for a moment before fading. The end of the boy’s nose turned black. He opened his mouth to scream, but his lips cracked and began to bleed. He turned to run, and then fell screaming. He got back up and ran away down the alley, but he had left a frozen big toe on the ground where he had fallen.

  Senta walked over and bent down to look at the frozen big toe on the packed dirt ground of the alley. She had a sudden urge to pick it up and put it in her pocket, but she didn’t. She did reach out and touch it with her finger. It wobbled slightly. Standing back up, she walked out of the alley and around the corner to the front of Humboldt’s Fine Toys. The same toys were in the window that had been there when she had last looked inside—the life-like, singing bird; the mechanical ships, trains, and steam carriages; and the doll. With a feeling she had never felt before and could not put a name to, Senta walked over to the door, pushed it open, and walked inside.

  A bell hanging above the door chimed as Senta walked in. Though brightly lit, the room seemed somehow darker than it really was because it was so filled with toys. Overflowing counters left only tiny little aisles through which to negotiate. There was no shopkeeper to be seen, but the girl heard a muffled call from the back, and a moment later a man walked into the main shop. He was an older man with thinning grey hair and a bushy mustache, wearing a white shirt with brown suspenders. He wore gold-framed pince-nez glasses. When he saw the child standing in his store, with fine, new, frighteningly inky black clothing, he visibly started.

  “Hello, young miss,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I want the doll.”

  “Which doll?”

  Senta looked around, suddenly realizing that there were scores, maybe hundreds of dolls in the shop. There were dolls on the counters and dolls on the shelves along the back wall. There were even dolls hanging from the ceiling. Most, like the one in the window, were cloth-bodied dolls, with ceramic hands and feet. Some wore beautiful miniature gowns, though others wore day dresses. They ranged in size from a petit six inches to one that was nearly as tall as Senta.

  “I want the doll in the window.”

  Nodding, the man went to the window and retrieved the doll. He carefully held it by its cloth body, with its porcelain face peeking over the top of his hand and the cloth legs with black porcelain shoes dangling below it. He walked back to the counter and slipping back behind it, set the doll down in front of Senta.

  “I can see the attraction,” said the toy maker.

  Senta suddenly realized that the doll looked like her; or rather she now looked like the doll. She hadn’t this morning when she had gotten up, but now she had a new black dress, and shiny new black shoes, and a new short haircut.

  “It’s four marks,” said the toy maker.

  Senta placed the decimark on the counter next to the doll. The man looked at it for a moment, and then bent down to retrieve a box from below the counter. He opened the box, picked up the gold coin, and placed it inside. Then carefully picking through the contents of the box, he pulled out six one mark banknotes and put them on the counter. Senta picked up the banknotes and folded them until they fit snugly in her hand. She then tentatively reached out for the doll.

  “Wait,” said the man, and Senta jumped.

  Putting the box back under the counter, the man rummaged around for a moment below the counter, reappearing with a small piece of black ribbon. He tied the ribbon around the back of the doll’s neck and over the top of her hair, making a large black bow.

  “There you go. Now it’s perfect.”

  Senta picked up the doll. It was lighter than she expected. Its body was full of fluff, and its head, though porcelain, was empty. There was something special about it in any case—something weighty, but not in the way that real things weighed. It was connected somehow to the magic that had been turned on in her head. Or maybe the magic was there all along and Zurfina had made it so that Senta could see it. Senta suddenly realized that these were thoughts that she never would have had before. They were, like the doll, weighty but weightless. How could that be? For the first time in her young life she glimpsed an idea that seemed paradoxical, though she didn’t yet know that word.

  “Uuthanum,” she whispered, and the doll seemed to smile back at her.

  Stepping out of Humbolt’s Fine Toys, Senta heard the calliope playing from the park across Prince Tybolt Avenue. The six wadded up one mark banknotes poking her palm reminding her of their presence. If such fortune had passed to her in the past, she would have not thought twice about buying fish and chips or a sausage on a stick and sitting down on a bench in the park to enjoy it. Now however, she felt something pulling her in the opposite direction. She walked west down the Avenue Phoenix, past the women’s clothing stores and the men’s clothing stores, and the millinery shop, and the haberdasher, past the bookstore, and the store which sold fine glassware. She passed the clockmaker, the tobacconist, and the jeweler, the store that sold lamps, and the florist. She then reached the great plaza. Before she knew it, she was standing at the entrance to Café Carlo, looking at the menu that stood behind a pane of glass, just to the left of the brass dragon, which she had so many times polished.

  From the vendors who worked from their carts, a single mark would buy a huge meal: three pieces of battered fish sitting on a cone of chips, or four sausages on sticks, but at Café Carlo, most of the entrees cost more than two marks. Senta however felt rich with the six one mark banknotes wadded up in her hand. She stepped into the doorway of the café. New clothes meant money, and it took only a moment for Carlo to notice someone with money, regardless of how young, standing in his doorway. He was suddenly there, his corpulent middle arriving just before the rest of him.

  “Can I help you, young miss?”

  Senta couldn’t believe it. Carlo didn’t recognize her. She knew that she looked different in her new clothing, draped in inky blackness. That couldn’t be enough for him not to know who she was, surely. Perhaps the strange new feeling that she was experiencing was having an influence upon her outside as well as her inside.

  “Is it too late for tea?”

  “Heavens no,” said Carlo. “We’re still serving the luncheon. Can I get a table for you and… your parents?”

  “Just me.”

  If Carlo thought it unusual for a nine-year-old girl to dine alone, he made no indication of it. He led her to a table several seats away from where the woman Senta now knew as Miss Dechantagne often sat. This seat was more to Senta’s liking than the one the woman preferred, further away from the wrought iron fence, which divided the outdoor portion of the café from the sidewalk and street. The wide restaurateur pulled out a chair for the girl, and she sat down. She didn’t think the chair was any more comfortable than any other chair she had ever sat on. He handed her a menu, then disappeared.

  About half of the other tables in the outdoor portion of the café were occupied. Each of the tables, including the one at which she sat had four chairs arranged around it. Senta sat her doll in the chair to her left. It leaned its head back and look skyward. She didn’t need to look at the menu. She knew what
she wanted. When Carlo returned, she made her order. Within a few minutes, Senta had a plate with a cucumber sandwich, carefully cut into fourths and with all of the crusts cut off. Next to that was a steaming pot of tea and a porcelain teacup. Senta poured herself a cup of tea and poured one for her doll as well, then let them sit to cool. Then she daintily picked up a piece of sandwich and brought it to her lips. It was cool and crispy and light—not like real food at all.

  “Is it as good as you thought it would be?” asked a husky voice next to her.

  Senta turned to find Zurfina at her right elbow. The sorceress pulled out a chair, opposite the doll, and sat down.

  “Well, is it?”

  Senta nodded and took another bite. Although he seemed strangely wary when he returned, Carlo nevertheless rushed to see to the needs of the additional patron seated at the table.

  “Bring us some tea cakes and two glasses of white wine,” said the sorceress, and then she reached over and fed herself one quarter of Senta’s cucumber sandwich.

  Zurfina, Senta, and Senta’s doll sat at the table in Café Carlo, in the great square and enjoyed their tea. Senta had her first taste of teacakes, which she loved. In fact, she ate hers and most of Zurfina’s teacakes. She also had her first taste of white wine, which she really didn’t like. In fact Zurfina drank most of Senta’s wine.