He’d forgotten: in fairylands there is evil, too. Monsters and curses. Dangers lurking in disguise. Demons, dragons, rats as big as oxen. Things that could destroy you with a glance. He thinks of the man at the Common. He thinks of his father, his broad shoulders and strong hands, lifting him back to his feet. But his father is far away, cocooned in the soundless library, where the outside world cannot reach. He has no idea where Bird is, and this more than anything makes Bird feel terribly alone.
He stays there for a long while, trying to smooth his breathing, trying to steady his hands, which won’t stay still. When he’s finally ready, he rises on shaky feet and picks his way back to the corner. He’s run backward, several blocks off course. When he reaches Park Avenue, he moves quickly and cautiously, scanning the streets. He feels conspicuous now; he notices people noticing him. He understands, as he hadn’t before. Perhaps he’d been invisible once, but the spell has worn off—or maybe it had only ever been in his imagination. People can see him, and at last he understands how small he is, how easily the world could shred him to pieces.
* * *
? ? ?
It’s late afternoon by the time he finally reaches the address: a big brick building, flowered window boxes, a huge green door. Not an apartment building—a single-family townhouse, a thing he had not known existed here. The Duchess’s castle. Cautiously, he studies it from across the street. In stories you might find anything inside a castle: riches, an enchantress, an ogre waiting to devour you. But this is it, the place his mother has sent him. Street name and numbers written in her own hand. A leap of faith, then.
He climbs the marble steps and reaches for the brass knocker and raps it, three times, against the green-painted wood.
It feels an eternity, but it’s really only a minute or two before an older white man answers the door. He’s a bit stout, in a uniform: shiny brass buttons on navy-blue wool, like the captain on a ship. He eyes Bird coldly, and Bird swallows twice before he can speak.
I am here to see the Duchess, Bird announces, and as if by magic, the captain nods, and steps aside.
A foyer of sunny yellow, a fireplace with a fire lit, even though it’s only October. Cream-colored tiles on the floor, studded with squares of ambery brown. A marble-topped table with scrolled legs squats in the middle of the room, its only apparent purpose to hold the biggest vase of flowers Bird has ever seen. All around him the lights are haloed with gold.
I’m here to see the Duchess, Bird repeats, trying to sound surer than he is, and the captain squints down at him.
I’ll have to call up, he says. Who may I say is here, please?
And because he is hungry and thirsty and exhausted, because he has walked for miles on an empty stomach, because his head feels uncannily detached from his body, like a balloon floating just over his shoulders, because he feels slightly unreal and he’s not sure this place is real, let alone this city, nor the Duchess he’s come to see, Bird answers as if he were in a fairy tale, too.
Bird Gardner, he says. Margaret’s son.
If you will wait here, the captain says.
Bird hovers uncertainly by one of the chairs near the fireplace. It is covered in sandy velvet and reminds him of a throne. With his fingertips he traces the chiseled grooves on the arms, and words his father has taught him float back: Mahogany. Alabaster. Filigree. He clears his throat. On the mantel is a little gold clock, a little golden woman gesturing decorously toward the time. Almost five. Soon his father will head home and discover that he is gone.
The captain returns. If you’ll follow me, he says.
He strides through an archway and down the hall and Bird trails behind him, cautious, peering around corners, waiting for a monster to spring. But all they pass is a palaceworth of luxuries. A paneled silk screen, stitched with cypress trees and cranes and a pagoda in the far-off distance. A sofa of yellow silk with cushions shaped like candy rolls; a huge oval dining room, its floor a dizzying parquet. Everything here seems to be touched with gold: the handles of the urns and vases on the mantelpieces, the twisted tassels on the drapes, even the claws of the lions’ feet on which the tables and chairs rest. Then they are at the foot of a grand swooping staircase spiraling up and up and up, a lush tawny carpet spilling down its center. He has never seen such a staircase. A delicate chandelier dangles on a chain swathed in velvet. Bird counts: one story, two, three, four, and far above them a compass-shaped skylight, a blue crystal pool of sky.
This way, please, the captain says. And then Bird sees it: just beside the staircase, a little elevator, wood-paneled and parquet-floored. An elevator in a house, he thinks in awe. The captain gestures with one hand and Bird steps inside, feels as if he’s climbing into a polished nutshell.
She’s waiting for you upstairs, the captain says. He pulls a brass grate shut, caging Bird inside.
As the elevator shudders upward, Bird’s mind whirls. Around him the brass bars of the grate rattle, as if something is trying to get out, or in. He has no idea what he is heading toward. What will the Duchess be like? Will she be kind, or will she be threatening? He pictures the evil queens from storybooks, all malice sheathed in charm. Trust, he thinks to himself: in the stories you had to trust strangers on your quest. Even this elevator is decorated, as befits a palace. Miniature golden frames around sketches of ancient buildings and winged women. A small white telephone. On the back wall, a round mirror bulges and flexes, bending his face back to him in distorted form: an ogre’s, or maybe a dwarf’s.
At last the elevator opens. A living room, as big as their apartment back home. Another table; another bowl billowing with flowers. In the polished surface he can see his own face peering back up at himself. Underfoot the carpet is gold patterned. The home of nobility, for sure.
And then there she is, gliding through French doors at the end of the room: the Duchess. Younger than he’d expected: regal, tall, blond hair clipped short around her head. Pearls. A blue drapey pantsuit instead of a gown, but it is clear to him she is a woman of power. For a moment Bird’s voice deserts him, and he simply stares up at her. She doesn’t break the silence, just looks down at him in bemusement.
Are you the Duchess? he finally asks. But he already knows she is.
And who do we have here? she asks. One eyebrow raised. Skeptical.
Bird, he says, trembling. Margaret’s son.
For a moment he fears she will say, who? But she doesn’t. Instead she says, rather coldly, Why are you here?
My mother, he says, the answer so obvious it feels ridiculous to say it. I came here to find her.
What makes you think she’s here? the Duchess asks. The smallest tendril of curiosity curling the edge of her voice.
Because, he says, and pauses. Feeling for the answer inside himself. Because I want to know why she left me. Because I want her back. Because I want her to want me back, too.
She sent me a message, he says.
The Duchess purses her lips, and he can’t tell if she is perplexed or pleased or angry. For a moment she’s like a teacher, weighing the answer he’s given, deciding between praise and punishment.
I see. So your mother—she asked you to come here?
Bird hesitates. Wonders if he should lie, if this is a test. His chest tightens.
I’m not sure, he admits. But she left me this address. A long time ago. I thought—I thought you might know where she is.
From his pocket he pulls the scrap of paper, or what remains of it. Tattered and crumpled, edges smudged with blue dye from his jeans. But there it is, in his mother’s handwriting: the very address in which they stand.
I see, the Duchess says again. And you came here alone? Where’s your father?
How does she know about his father, Bird thinks with a jolt.
He doesn’t know I’m here, he says, and as the words pass his lips, it hits him again how alarmingly true this is. His father has no idea where he is; his father cannot help him or save him.
The Duchess leans closer, scrutinizing him, her eyes needle-sharp. Up close he can see that her face is only just beginning to wrinkle, that her hair is not yet gray. She’s maybe the age, he realizes, that his mother would be.