THE BLUE BOY
By Lynn K. Hollander
Chapter 6 -- Movement
"Huh," Gries said.
"He's moved," Baudier said.
"I believe so," the witch agreed, looking at the golden arrow.
"Have you some idea of the distance?"
"A somewhat lesser distance than the first casting; towards the sunrise."
"Let's walk back. The first casting was south and a little west of us. Is he due east?"
"More or less. I'll be able to do another search after a nap. This world takes a lot out of me."
"Ingelram isn't walking," Mante said. "He's a small boy. He isn't walking these distances."
"He's half Damasi," Gries pointed out. "Walking's easier for them than it is for us."
"He's a baby Damasi. Antrag said he could levitate a little, but not anything else."
"The cars," Baudier said. "Someone has him? And is moving him around?"
"I was wondering about the gates."
"Absolutely not," Cham said. "Our gate is not anywhere near either path and it has not opened since we arrived."
"There are other gates here."
Cham looked over at the black metal foil leaves, still standing stiffly away from each other under the glass dome. "No gate within five leagues has opened since we arrived.
"Cars, then," Baudier said.
"Considering the distances involved, perhaps we should hire a driver," Tivon said, eyeing Gries, who dropped her pack on the floor and went to the women's bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
"I'll go talk to Mac, the native at the posting station," Baudier nodded. "He may know of someone. Or I'll ask the bartender."
"Oh, and I paid the rent," Tivon said.
"So did I," Baudier said.
"I'll kill him," Tivon said.
"Who?"
"The landlord!" Tivon said.
"Wait," Mante said. "I don't think he cheated us, I think it's the spell."
"Oh," Baudier said, frowning. "You may be right."
"Which spell?" Tivon asked.
"The `state of indifference' one. The landlord may not have paid enough attention to us to notice when we pay the rent," Mante said.
"Right. So, only I will pay the rent, and I'll get a receipt."
"I wish we could read," Cham said, from the table. "I wish I could read."
"Which language?" Baudier said, waving a hand at The Sunnydale Evening Gazette, Registro Ocupacion, The Sunnydale Press, two papers in Chinese and one in Korean.
"At this point, I don't care. I've been reading since I was four. I don't feel totally like me, if I can't read."
***
Spike looked up as Ann let herself into the kitchen. "You're up and about early," he commented.
"I took Darcy to kindergarten, for a short session. I'll bring him back for his nap."
"I was wondering," Spike said. "Why do you know about a kindergarten?"
"As I said, I know the woman who runs it," Ann reminded him.
"For how long?" Spike took his Cambells out of the microwave and added Tabasco and celery salt.
"Some years."
"Three or four figures?"
"Clever boy," Ann said. "I've known Moly all your life."
"And longer than that, probably. Why does she run a school?"
"She enjoys it, even as different as contemporary schools are."
"What do you mean? Different from what?"
"Well, she ran on for a while, about how simple it was when she took the baby from the back door of the castle, raised her up and returned her to her parents when the queen or king sent the nurse with the signet ring," Ann said, putting the teakettle on the stove. "Now, Moly has to bother with vaccination certificates, test scores, accreditation of teachers, safety inspections and the other human rules and regulations. Which reminds me, Nancy is coming around this morning; we have to generate various papers."
"Forgery as a way of life?"
"More or less. Back to Moly: she does what she can--the school is nearly as safe as this house, at least as far as strangers and non-custodial parents not equipped with either a letter from a custodial parent or a court order, but to some degree, she misses the old days."
"How safe is this house?"
"There's a careful balance between adequate safeguards and flashing neon signs saying Don't touch! This is valuable. Do you want some tea?"
"Thanks, no, I'm headed for bed. Are there flashing lights pointing at us?" Spike asked.
"No. I go more for camouflage and misdirection, but with lots of alarms and detectors. We are never impervious to the point of attracting attention. In any case, at the moment, we want anyone looking for Darcy to be able to find him, but in a way that lets us look at her first."
The vampire nodded. "What sort of test scores does the state expect from kindergartners?"
"Moly will handle that."
"Does Darcy like her?"
"Yes," Ann smiled.
Spike smiled back, then said: "Willow called, she asks that you call her back."
"She was looking into rumors about Cerro Reynaldo. I wonder what she found out."
***
Ann called Willow, who said: "Can you come over? Susan is out of town and still not opening her e-mail, but it turns out I know the girl who is a new clerk over at the SPCA, and I met her for lunch yesterday. She just e-mailed me a bunch of data, about missing pets."
"Hold on," Ann said, and appeared in the Rosenberg dining room, where Willow had installed her computer for the summer. "Hi."
"Hi. Look here: see the cycle? I graphed the data, number of missing pet reports, with the phases of the moon--and the calendar date and the temperature, which don't seem to correlate at all--and we get these peaks every seventh full moon."
"This wasn't a full moon," Ann said. "At least not here."
"This graph," Willow said, "is stray animal reports; arrivals, I figure. They peak every fifteenth first quarter."
"Over what time span?"
"Twenty years or so," Willow said. "The senior clerk got her first computer back then. She's a counter."
"And it doesn't matter what she counts?"
"Not really, not to her."
"This wasn't first quarter, either."
"Yes, it's no help, but it's beautiful data."
"It may help in the long run. If I sit there next fifteenth first quarter, I may be able to identify the other side of the gate. When?"
"Another four moons."
"Something to look forward to," Ann shrugged. "Good work, Willow, thank you. Now, I have some strange, possibly welcome, news for you."
***
"He's moved again," Gries said.
"That's the direction he was before, isn't it?"
"Yes," Gries said.
"Take a walk, take a nap. In the afternoon, we'll locate him again, and start looking for a pattern," Baudier said.
"How are we going to get him if he keeps moving?" Cham said.
"If there is a pattern," Baudier said, "at some point we will know where he is going to be, and be there first."
"I'm going shopping," Gries said. "According to Raquel, down the hall, there's a witchcraft supply shop near the main part of town. I want some local simples."
"Mante, go with her. I think I will go talk to Mac."
"This is going to take forever," Cham said.
***
"You achieved saturation coverage, it appears," Giles said, picking some papers off the floor and putting them back on the desk. "Scarcely a telephone pole, wall or store window lacks a poster or notice showing Darcy and the phone number."
"The 800 number has been busy already. It appears there is a greater than average number of birthday parties this month," Ann said, buttoning her shirt. "And none of the hostesses have any imagination whatsoever."
"There must be a reason Martha Stewart is so popular," Giles said.
"With whom? I found two local jugglers who are willing to accept subcontracts, so everyone is happy." Ann found her boots and sat in the rickety second chair to slip them on.
"Not even a request for T-shirts?"
"Well, yes and no. The new jugglers wanted some. I had Willow make separate versions--with a different color baby for each of them--and since this was a commercial transaction, she gets a commission from each sale."
"How do you find local jugglers?"
"You call the local juggling school, which is in the Yellow Pages, between Jewelry Repair and Juices."
"I see."
"You always seem disappointed when I do anything the simplest way."
"You use magic so easily and so often, I am surprised when your explanations are so prosaic."
Ann laughed at him. "This will please you: Gang Long asked his grandmother for some yunü, to be Darcy's nursemaids. They'll arrive later today."
"Yunü?"
"Jade maidens, celestial attendants. You see them in paintings, standing around Xiwangmu or one of her fellow gods, holding incense burners or sunshades."
"I suppose a nanny, even a proper British nanny, would flee screaming into the night the first time Darcy changed."
"Rupert, Mary Poppins would find my household disconcerting."
"Have you come to a decision about Darcy? Are you trusting him?"
"Not completely. My truth spells are fallible," Ann said. "You weren't present when Harmony declared everyone loved her but Buffy."
"Are you worried?"
"He's very young. He may not understand. He may understand and may be trying to deceive us. He may be deceived himself. Someone else may be using him to deceive us... The possibilities are many. Claire says he's healthy, as far as she can tell, in both forms, and his teeth, when he's the blond, indicate he can eat a mixed diet of meat, grain, fruit and vegetables. We don't know what is normal for his type and what are his idiosyncratic tastes."
"Did Claire have any idea what he is?"
"No, and neither did Nancy when she stopped by. I ported Lorne, the host from Karitas, here yesterday, and even he has no idea what Darcy is. All we discovered is that Darcy has a pleasant enough singing voice, if you like childish trebles, and a good ear."
"What else did he tell you?"
"He tried to shy off, saying he doesn't like reading anything to do with me, but I insisted. He finally said Darcy likes us and doesn't really want to go back where he came from, but he does want to go home. To get that much out of him, I had to threaten to program his karaoke machine to play nothing but `Hyperdrive' or `Freewill'."
"That's a telling threat."
"It appears to be. I sent a message to Berengar, but I haven't heard from him yet, and I may not for a week or so. Where's Dawn?"
"Up at her school, helping get ready for the open house. She's a little anxious about it."
Ann nodded. "I had to promise to be normal."
Giles looked at her and raised one brow.
"I said I would be as normal as possible. I'm off," Ann said, kissing Giles. "I'm picking up Darcy."
"I wondered why you had the Mercedes." He rose and unlocked the door to his tiny office.
"Some of the staff and most of the children are human," Ann said. "If Darcy and I port in and out, we may alarm them. I'll save it for emergencies." She kissed Giles again, and left the office.
***
"Look," Mante said.
Gries inspected the poster the guard had indicated. "I cannot read the language."
"Does the boy look like Ingelram?"
"He somewhat resembles the sketch the governess gave us, I admit, but so do all the white haired children here. I have never actually seen him."
"What I find astounding is the variety of skin colors that go with the same white hair. I've seen every skin shade from unhealthy pale to golden brown to a sort of eggplant, all with hair like electrum. The picture on the container of milk looked like him, too, and that was really done in black and yellow," Mante sighed.
"I wonder what the red baby on the tabard is supposed to represent."
"Why did we come here?" Mante asked.
"I'm wondering if local supplies will help my spells work more easily," Gries said. The pair fell silent as a tall, pale skinned, black haired woman exited the shop and passed them. She stepped into the street, got into a silver colored car, and drove it away.
"Driving doesn't look that difficult," Mante said, holding the door for the witch. "If we had a car. I was watching the little theater last night. Cars can be stolen, apparently quite easily."
"Also hired," Gries said, going in.
***