A dark fairy zooms past in the hedgerow and Pumpkin the cat moves like an arrow after it, his enormous bottom wobbling off into the wilderness.
I step into my gardens with my sword and start collecting roses for my beloved Boo Boo. My queen of hearts.
The under-stink of this new world is a little like meat being left out too long. It merges within my kingdom of hearts, invents new plants, new life forms. I may have problems finding a gardener.
An armful of roses: they are big girls, heavy petals, red as meat; thorns like fairy blades. I shall gather her a mountain of them. A bloody wobbly tower of them with perhaps a little note attached.
Would you like to be my queen and live in my Palace of Hearts?
A heart in every room, on everything (including the chamber pots), and all of them for you, my love. Every one for you.
I find magpie feathers on the path and a coil of snail shells. Wonderful things, little parts of my garden. The language of fairies: magic gobbledygook floats in my kingdom. And now a staircase coiling to the underworlds has appeared. Coiling down into dark places; black feathers and toad croak. I leave the roses in a powerful heap by my door and go down the staircase to inspect my other kingdom. Pumpkin the cat watches me from a distance, licking his paws. What did the fairy taste like, I wonder?
A loopy amputation – that is what it feels like to walk down into the underworlds. You’ll feel disembowelled, stepping into deep magic. The Kingdom of the Underworld adjusts itself to its ruler. Before, under the rule of Mr Fingers, it was made of demented clockwork; the constant ticking of mechanical contraptions; the sounds of time. Regulated, obsessive tinkering.
I step into a world now of black hearts: jam flowers, fairies with tartan slippers, a river of red flower petals. Lush, nervous energy, bursting fairytales. The clocks have melted. Time has no meaning here anymore. My world is an upside down fairytale. A heart lollipop on a stick. Go on, give me a lick.
A little madness never hurt anyone.
I wander amongst my Palace of Hearts. I am alone here, despite the wildlife. I have no queen. No heirs. There is of course Pumpkin the cat, he would make a very fine ruler of the Underworlds.
Death appears. “Don’t you dare!”
“Dare what?” I turn around, surprised. He always pops up at the strangest moments.
“Don’t bequeath your new kingdom to an overweight cat.” He examines the lollipops. “This is an improvement from last time, if a little peculiar.”
“I didn’t know you could read my thoughts.”
“Sometimes, and it’s quite unnerving. You will be wondering what your responsibilities are now, I suppose. Mr Fingers spent most of his time collecting assassin sons and clocks. You will serve a greater purpose, I hope,” and he eyes me rather sternly.
“Shall we have some tea and cake?” I motion him towards a table under a black tree of raspberry jelly heads. Eyes made of marshmallows. On the table sits a pot of steaming tea and a plate of chocolate éclairs. Death pours the tea and adds three lumps of sugar and a dash of milk.
“You’re looking very well,” I say, for the sake of polite conversation.
His eyes turn from a deep shade of gold to black and fix upon me. His hand selects an éclair.
“Now then. I will be keeping an eye on you, Mr Loveheart. You can be rather naughty and unpredictable.”
I take my pistol out and shoot something above his head, which screams and falls to the ground with a thud.
“As I was saying,” continues Death, completely unfazed, “You can see this underworld is organic. It moulds itself to its king. Shapeshifts around you. You have made it bloom with life, Mr Loveheart, burst with it. It was a stagnant, dark place before. Now it is energy. It fizzes.”
A fairy with indigo wings zooms round Death’s head. Sits on his shoulder. She’s after his éclair.
“Another lump?” I pass him the sugar bowl.
“No, thank you,” and he peers at the fairy, who refuses to move from his shoulder. She squeaks some instructions at him.
“Your creatures are as impertinent as you are!” and he passes her an éclair. She picks it up, (it’s the same size as her) and carries it off.
“I’m very fond of fairies. They bite, you know, if you don’t give them sugar.”
Death eats his éclair. “This is very tasty. I see you’re thinking of wooing Miss Boo Boo.”
“Yes.”
“Professor Hummingbird is in the way of course. He will have to be removed,” says Death.
“Why do you help me?”
“Because I like you, Mr Loveheart. And because, I too am lonely.”
Pumpkin the cat mews from the top of the staircase at Loveheart Manor. He wants an éclair.
Revenge is best served with custard
I am sitting in my office, eating a custard tart.
It’s Monday morning and surprisingly chilly. I am looking at the Times, who have printed on their front page all six photographs of every wife of the Professor’s. Their faces stare out of the pages like fish underwater.
MURDER INVESTIGATION