After pushing the beds together for a battlefield, the boys drafted their faded brown pillows for hills and their shoes for fortifications and artillery, then camouflaged the plastic soldiers in the coarse green blankets.
"Conrad, aren't you playing?" said Lucien.
"That's not a real game. Let's play Risk."
"I told you. It's not there."
"You didn't even look."
"I looked after breakfast."
As it was Saturday, the boys were left to their own devices, and after breakfast could read, play, or study, so long as they steered clear of the Holy Foyer. Their worship room was called The Holy Foyer bcause the Elderliches said it was the entrance to the True World of Alsantia. Four pews flanked either side of the aisle which led to the altar and a stained glass window in three columns of panes—four, six, and four—depicting the life of The Shining Prince.
When worship was boring, Lucien kept himself awake by picking a new path through the window panes. Not only did each series make sense, but the story could divert to icons hung on pillars and the smaller windows in the embrasures. While each holy image guided the eye to the stained glass window, and in turn directed the viewer to the altar, there was no right order. It was a Choose Your Own Adventure with one ending.
Although the Holy Foyers fascinated Lucien, he was glad for this break from serving The Shining Prince. Not that Lucien was a non-believer; in fact, he was persuaded the parables in Worlds class were plausible, and respectful of the wisdom of the Elderliches. Just as it is easy to live bewildered by or numb to life's mysteries, it was only a little harder for Lucien to grasp an additional mystery, and in the contradiction, find peace of mind.
"There are plenty of soldiers, Conrad."
Conrad pulled jeans on, then shoes.
"Where are you going?" Aito asked.
"Outside."
"They won't let you."
"I'm almost grown up. If they don't have an errand for me to run, they can't stop me from bouncing a ball."
"Sure they can," said Lucien. "Are you that much older than the last time they said no?"
"Much older," said Conrad. "Old enough to tell you not to hang around Loren."
"Why?" said Aito.
"Yeah," said Lucien. "Who do you think you are? My Elderlich?"
"As long as we're sharing a room, I'm your keeper."
"You're not my keeper," scoffed Lucien. "You're still a beast yourself."
"Don't associate with Loren," said Conrad. "I mean it."
Lucien scowled but said nothing; he only picked up a plastic soldier and pointed it at Conrad. "Pew pew pew." Having already turned his back to step through the door, the older boy did not see his make-believe assassination.
"Is he gone?" asked Aito.
When Lucien sprang from the bed to shut the door, Aito swept the soldiers to the floor, then stooped to reach under his bed. With its split sides and burst corners, the Risk box was fragmenting, and in Aito's rush to unfold the board, pieces spilled from the crushed cardboard to flick across the blankets.
They played without conversation until Lucien had slightly less than half the board but the strategic advantage of Australia, when Aito's rumbling stomach echoed Lucien's sudden craving for tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.
"What time is it?" said Aito.
"Lunch," said Lucien.
"Let's go. I'm starving."
"Do you concede?" said Lucien.
"No! Let's leave the board."
"I won't want to play later."
"But Conrad might see it," said Aito.
"I like the way you think," said Lucien. By leaving the played board on the bed, they sent the message that Conrad wasn't the boss of them, their pastimes, or their friends.
After changing their pajamas for vestures and shoes, they walked the lonely halls to the stairwell, which smelled faintly of roasting potatoes and a simmering pot of something herbed, salty, and savory.
"I miss meat," said Aito.
"You don't even remember meat," said Lucien.
"I do too. I was older than you were when they took me."
"That's what you say, but you were always here."
"I'm a year older, Lucien."
Perhaps because Lucien stood nearly a foot taller, Aito liked to remind Lucien of that fact.
"I remember my first day," continued Aito.
"You said 'I'm so glad to see you,' like we were long lost friends."
Not remembering their first meeting, Lucien could only take Aito at face value. Though Lucien's unusually crisp memory could recall how many french fries he ate a week ago, a mist obscured everything before the age of five, as if he was freshly minted at that age instead of born the usual way. Though Aito claimed their friendship started two years earlier, when Lucien was not yet quite three, as far as Lucien was concerned, he was always friends with Aito. His earliest memory was a day in the library with Aito, when they played Risk and Monopoly, or rather, the short variation of them that they could put together at the age of five, creating not their own house rules, but funhouse rules, which put the pieces through entirely new paces. Although Lucien remembered the thimble leading a green army out of South America and Africa to conquer the dog's orange army in North America and Europe, he was fuzzy on who was who; there might have been four players at the table, though he only remembered Aito.
While lunch had no meat, it had "chik'n," as in "chik'n casserole," roasted potatoes, and mushroom gravy. Having never had meat—at least, as far as he recollected—Lucien did not mind "chik'n". When Aito called it fake meat, that seemed more dishonest than the 'chik'n,' for the Elderliches weren't intending to put one over on the Animalytes by serving it, but only to nourish them. If they called it not "chik'n," but chicken, and let the children believe they ate flesh when they were not, that would be fake meat, but clearly labeling it made it not a dishonest fake, but an honest imitation. That said, Lucien had such an honest dislike for mushrooms that he could not fake his way through lunch. Both casserole and gravy were swarming with mushrooms, as if an entire can of the rubbery bits was emptied in both dishes. After sitting down across from Loren and Berangere—the last two left at lunch—Lucien mournfully picked out the mushrooms like so many pebbles from his casserole, then fished them out of the gravy with his fork.
"You got all the mushrooms, Lucien," smirked Loren.
"Oji got meat." Aito pointed to the ginger kitten, who lay curled up on the table next to a small bowl reeking of fish.
"Usually we're the last ones in line," said Berangere, looking at Lucien's casserole heap. "I'm glad I didn't get that plate."
"We were playing Risk."
Berangere looked annoyed, then smiled. "Keep it. Chiyo is a horrible sport and it's no fun to play Risk with her at all."
"We left it on the bed. Conrad might have already seen it." Outside of the boys' and girls' rooms, Conrad and Chiyo were inseparable.
"He wasn't at lunch," said Loren.
"Then there's still time to hide it," said Berangere.
Hanne exited the kitchen, removed her apron, and hung it on a chair. "Berangere. Do you want to go to the store?" Njal followed her into the dining room.
"Can Loren come?"
Hanne looked at Njal, then Loren. "Do you want to go?"
"Can I?" Loren looked hopeful.
"Though there's room in the car, and an extra set of hands is always useful, Vieno wouldn't like it. Can you keep a secret?"
Njal added, "it's just to the store and back."
"Can we go?" said Aito.
"There is only room for two, boys," said Hanne. "When you're finished, turn off the lights and close the door." She emphasized the last command, as if shutting the door on further appeals to expand their shopping expedition. "Don't be here when we come back—and don't pilfer any granola bars."
At the mension of their nocturnal raid, the others avoided Hanne's eyes, but Lucien couldn't help looking up. Her thick eyebrows knit into aan amused but stern smile and he looked away.
When Njal swung the door behind them, it did not stick, and as it swayed to a one inch view of trash bags heaped in the alley, a trickling odor tained the savory smell of Hanne's cooking.
Lucien froze with his hand on the metal door. "Aito," he hissed.
"What?" Aito's loudness prompted Lucien to hold his finger to his lips, then wave the other boy over to the door, where they peered through the crack. When Aito jolted and pulled away, Lucien held him fast.
"Shh," Lucien hissed again.
There were too many to count, unless Lucien counted them at leisure by memory. While the horde of rats might have been thought a swarm if they milled about, climbed over each others' backs, and gnashed and chittered, the vermin sat on their haunches tranquilly like an attentive congregation. They resembled a swarm in only one respect--unless Lucien counted them at leisure by memory, there were too many to count. Though they were unruffled creatures, their tails and whiskers twitched, and they shifted in the alley seats as they whispered to each other.
Yes, they whispered; not only did their leader, who was twice as tall as his rodent minions, incline his nose skyward in a hoarse whisper, but the massed rats rustled as well, with nods and low chitters of agreement. That the vermin assembled so diplomatically when a feast of refuse leaned against the alley was a terrifying testimony to their ill will and fell intent, but the whispers were out of a nightmare.
"Those can't be rats." Though Aito lowered his voice, it wasn't low enough, and the mass of rat heads flicked towards them, their eyes glinting, then surged at the cracked door with jaws thrown wide, which looked in that frightened moment as unhinged as boa constrictors'. Aito and Lucien slammed the door shut, but not before six rats poured inside, and two more were pinched in two between the jamb and the edge.
Scurrying to their table, the rats jumped on the bench, leaped onto the table top,
rattled plates still piled with food, then dove at the ginger cat.
Aito shouted "Oji!"
When the cat's eyes flicked open, he sprang to the next table, turning as he landed on his haunches. Though the rats pounced after him, chirruping with rage, they fell short, landing on the bench, and as they scrambled to the table top, Oji batted them to the floor, then bounded down to crush one under his paws.
"Get help," shouted Aito, then seized a broom to scatter two of the rats like dust-mice; for a moment, the cat and the boy seemed to fight back to back, as if they often faced this common enemy as trusted allies. When Aito pinned one with the brush end of the broom, and Oji snagged its belly with his claws and yanked, unreeling the rat's insides across the floor, Lucien ran through the door.
When they were allowed to watch TV—usually on Saturday and Sunday evenings—rats meant to call the exterminator. Though the library had a battered Yellow Pages, it was so old that its yellow pages were even yellower, and even if the numbers were good, where would Lucien get a phone? While Vieno and Njal had cell phones, they squirreled them away in their vestments, and if The Mansion of the Shining Prince had an old-styled phone with a loopy cord, like the antiques on AMC and Nick at Nite, he did not know where it was.
He raced through the halls to the library, where the phone book was used as a doorstop, and after ripping out the Exterminator pages, he darted back as the door clattered behind him. Conrad, climbing up the stairs, gave a start as Lucien ran past and rattled the locked door of the Elderlich's office.
"Shh! They don't know I left," said Conrad.
"Rats!" yelled Lucien, full in his face, then jumped back in the library, where less from strength than the freak vigor of excitement, jimmied the window until its lock snapped, then stepped onto the fire escape. The air crackled as he stepped through the window. Sprinkles of rain beaded on the black metal and wet his socks as he pounded down the metal stairs, then dashed down the alley, dodging the puddles until the gushing rain slicked the alley and soaked his feet, when he started plowing through them with huge splashes.
"Lucien!" Conrad called from the window.
"Rats!" Lucien screamed back, then turned the corner.
Though it was raining, the sidewalks were bustling, and though their raincoats, umbrellas, and ponchos were wetter than he was, all the people stared at Lucien.
He was not only shoeless, his sodden socks squirted water with his every sloshy step,
and he was wearing his vestments. Though the robes weren't pure white on the best of days--
Lucien spilled more than most kids, and only used utensils when he couldn't translate a meal into finger food—contrasted to the dark clouds, the dreary alley, and the somber suits and uniforms of passing workers, Lucien seemed to glow.
Though it was the loudest building in sight, with four vehicles gassing at the pumps,
another three parked at the front spaces, and both registers backed up with long lines, Lucien chose the convenience store to make the call.
Lucien jumped at the flutter of the automatic doors, then started again at the beep beep of the security system, a sound he knew only from TV, and when he turned in surprise, he jostled a brutish woman that looked like she might have hungrily stalked Hansel and Gretel to Draden. At their shuddering impact, the front of her flowery dress took the shape of a watery blot, though Lucien felt no drier from the transfer of the rain. "Don't just stand there!" she roared. When he shivered for the fourth time, she seemed to take stock of Lucien. "What are you wearing? Where's your mother?"
"I'm sorry," stammered Lucien. "I'm an orphan. I live at The Mansion."
The irate old woman glowered at Lucien. "What orphan lives in a mansion? I hope your name's Warbucks. This dress wasn't cheap." <
Having watched a few versions of Annie, Lucien laughed weakly at the joke. "I have no money. It's just water. Won't it dry?" Not that Lucien was getting any drier, though the rain drained down his vestments and through his socks to puddle on the floor.
"Hey!" shouted a cashier, "no shoes, no service."
"I'm sorry," said Lucien. "Can I use your phone?"
"You're not using my cell," said the cashier. "I've been burned by that one before."
"There's that landline in the back," said the other cashier.
"He's not using that, either."
"Please," said Lucien. "There are rats in the alley. I need to call an exterminator."
At this announcement, the line thinned immediately, as some put back their purchases, others dropped them in visible disgust, and many asked for the number to "corporate." Amid this tumult of complaints, Lucien darted through the back room door, past stacks of cardboard boxes, and into a small office, which had a clunky cordless as large as a dumbbell.
As the ruder of the two cashiers headed for the office, Lucien closed and locked the door. "Hey, kid! Let me in! I have to call my manager!"
When Lucien unrolled the phone book pages, the edges were pasty from rain, and the middle was blurred where he clenched the yellow pages, but there were still over a dozen numbers to call. Though the first four played beeps and disconnection messages, and the fifth was a gruff "wrong number" followed by a hang up, the sixth rang four times, then was answered with"Ratzappers, we kill critters! How can I help you?" Not only was the company name promising, but the agent sounded perfectly gleeful, as if she waited for Lucien's call all day.
"Rats are in our kitchen."
"Okay! We can help. Is this QwiKafe?"
"Yes, but I ran here. The rats are in The Mansion of the Shining Prince."
"Which prince?"
"No, The Mansion of the Shining Prince. It's a church."
"Ohhhh..." The voice faded until the receiver felt not only silent, but lifeless. Lucien first thought she hung up, put him on hold, or muted him, but the absence of all noise, not only her voice, but music, tones, and static, made him wonder if he had only imagined their conversation, as if he pretended to hear a friendly voice in a toy phone. One second he held a voiceless lump of inert plastic, and the next, he heard the faint strum of a harp, then a new voice.
"Did you say your name is Lucien?" rasped the scratchy voice. His thick accent hugged the Ds, Ns, and M for longer, as if savoring their taste. Not only did the accent seem familiar, but when the harp became agitated, his heart hammered, as if there was something to fear.
"No. I mean my name is Lucien, but I don't remember saying so." Lucien stammered. "Who is this?"
"She already said--Ratzappers." Where she had emphasized RAT, he stressed ZAPP-ers. "We'll be there in four hours."
"Hours?" said Lucien in stunned disbelief.
"This isn't the moving pictures." This archaic phrase only increased Lucien's uneasiness, for who called movies moving pictures anymore? "Thank you for calling Rat-ZAPPers."
Not that this was the time or place, he told himself, but he should stop lying to himself; The Mansion of the Shining Prince wasn't a mansion or a church, it was a cult.
Lucien turned to the office windows.The cashier paced back and forth while talking on his cell phone. When the cashier reached the leftwards point of his pacing foot path, Lucien opened the door, dashed past the box piles, and barged into the convenience store, which had no sign of its former mob of customers other than the smeared boot prints on the mudstained floor.
Lucien did not stop until the brownstone front steps, where Hamund sat waiting.
"Hello, Lucien." Hamund's manner was easy, as if Lucien had not broken a cardinal rule of The Mansion. "Why were you yelling about rats? And to whom?"
"Am I in trouble?"
"Who was it, Lucien? An Elderlich should only ask once, but you've had an eventful day, and I don't mind repeating myself."
"No one," Lucien lied. "I was only excited about the rats."
"Where did you see rats?"
"In the cafeteria—Aito and Oji killed one."
"Lucien," Hamund said patiently. "I'll talk to Aito. Perhaps Oji let in alley cats, Lucien, but there were no rats. Do you understand?"
"I saw them," said Lucien stubbornly. "And I called the exterminator."
"You called..." Hamund stood over Lucien. "How did you call?"
"At QwiKafe."
"What?"
"The convenience store."
"You should not have done that."
Nothing Lucien said or did was right to Hamund. "Can I go to my room?"
"No."
Lucien glowered at the Elderlich. "Why not?"
"Conrad is being disciplined. You may wait in the Holy Foyer." As Lucien brushed past, Hamund added, "don't speak to the exterminators, Lucien."
"I won't."
"I won't, what?"
"I won't, Elderlich." When Hamund went inside, Lucien's eye roll was so epic that his hand shook on the railing, and he might have tipped over if he risked a head bob. He sighed. Why should he wait in the Holy Foyer when The Elderliches would drone there for two hours tomorrow, singing songs he barely understood? They could talk and chant and talk some more, but for Lucien it was don't speak, don't talk, don't say anything, keep it inside.
The Holy Foyer had already been mopped, and its windows polished to a lambent sheen, so that though the chandeliers were off, the candles were unlit, and gray skies dimmed the stained glass window, the room caged a brightness waiting to shine.
Lucien slumped in a pew. The Mansion of the Shining Prince was a cult. He had always known it, known that there was something wrong despite his best friend. Though he did not want to be anywhere without Aito, neither did he want to be in The Mansion. Waiting in The Holy Foyer was an uncomfortable reminder of what this cult was really like without the distraction of his friend. Without Aito, the Mansion would be a horror show of boredom--he would cease to live, and only breathe and eat to mark the days. If he could not persuade his friend to join him, he would never be motivated to escape.
Slumped between the pews, Lucien froze perfectly still when he heard the voices.
"Do not worry. I will outmaneuver the laughing ones."
"I am not worried--suspicious, perhaps, but not worried; nor am I afraid, but only determined."
"Allay your suspicions, Balanta. I have matters well in hand."
"Should I not question, when you use their idioms?"
"Forgive me. I meant 'as this tale befits my paw.'"
"Here's one for you: twice a ratter, always a renegade. You can't turn coats as easily as you can change skin."
Lucien could no longer keep himself from looking. Poking his head over the pew, he saw only the grayed windows and the dim interior, but when he slid to the end for a peek down the aisle, he scuffled back to his hiding place.
They were rats. Not whispering, but talking with perfectly audible voices. As the phrase "as this tale befits my paw" echoed in his mind, Lucien realized it wasn't English. How could he know a language, but neither the name of it, nor the land where it was spoken?
One raised its voice. "Your fawning pains me. Send me home."
"I will accompany you as far as Musgel."
"If you cannot be dissuaded. Just do it."
While the next words were a chaotic gush of nonsense, Lucien was more alarmed when the animal swelled with a deep, sonorous bass that rattled the windows.
As the light brightened, shedding distorted stained glass images of the prince, Lucien thought the sun was finally out, driving the rats back to their dens. But when the pews, chandeliers, and flagstone floor faded behind a grassy hill, a row of trees, and a bubbling stream, all of which seemed to fog up from the floor before hardening under the glare. When Lucien shielded his eyes, his hand came up dewy and grass-stained. Grass tickled his chin and stirred under his other hand where he lay on the tree-shaded hill, watching the rats scurry up the slope towards the stained glass window. While the Holy Foyer was now ghostly, and the grassy hill real, both seemed spectral compared to the stained glass window, which seemed cut out of an even sterner reality where it hung in mid-air. Just as the window seemed a glimpse of a higher place, the Holy Foyer's double doors, still open on the hallway of The Mansion, stuck out like a Coke can on a beach.
Lucien stumbled to his knees, stunned and breathless, and nearly fell face-first. Though he arrived here laying down, it felt like he was thrown by a speeding truck. While he was amazed, he felt less that the excitement upwelled in him, but that he was steeped in wonder natural to this world.
When the stained glass windows faded, their faintest outlines glittered, as if they were guardian angels of this strange wood. While they had roots, branches, leaves, and blossoms like the trees of Earth, the trees of this place were giants. The leafy canopy of the tree above Lucien might have swallowed a city block. When its branches quivered, creaked, and slid, he tiptoed gingerly, thinking not to tempt any lurking critters, then he did a double-take: nothing was shaking the tree except its own animated vines. He backpedaled away from the snaking vines to look up at the broader boughs of a tree so gargantuan that a squirrel might feel that it had run a marathon crossing from one side to the other. When violet and blue orchids inched along its branches, turning spotted petals toward Lucien, he felt eerily like he was being watched, a queasiness that increased when the rats scurried up a ridge spiraling around the mighty tree.
The trees were only the most spectaculat plant life in this world. One shrub had thorns like claws, and another had glassy fruit. Though there were no road signs, Lucien knew this was Alsantia. If the worlds were true, was The Mansion truly a cult, or were they something else? He fought these ambivalent feelings, for no matter what Elderliches were elsewhere, on Earth they were a cult. Even if Worlds were real, they held no place for him, and his life lay through the Holy Foyer. This only doubled his resolve to be free of The Mansion of the Shining Prince.
Then he saw the deer. Though he had seen horses and elephants on TV, the enormous deer was the largest animal he had ever seen with his own eyes, and its rack of antlers was nearly as tall as it was, so tall that when it flicked its points at the rats, they flew over Lucien's head to crash into the clawed bush, where one was transfixed, dying instantly without a squeak, and the other hissed, less like a rat than like a balloon, as its angry life ebbed away.
"Psst."
Aito stood in the doorway, gesturing to Lucien to come back to the Holy Foyer. It was weird to see the hallway's dull green paint, and the phony white of Aito's vestment, contrasted with the vibrant greens, blues, violets, and reds of the warm woodland.
"Filth! Good riddance!" The deer towered over Lucien and tossed its head, snipping a few leaves from low branches. Though the animal was so vast that any of its antlers were longer than Lucien was tall, he was more intimidated by the human-like disdain etching its face. When it spoke, this scorn could no longer be doubted: "Not you! Though you are far from your walls, doe-eyed baby human, and neither your smallness nor your youth forgive our war."
When the deer took another step, its next proud breath swelled its chest so far forward that Lucien backpedaled to avoid collision. "Stop running, fawn."
"I'm not a fawn," Lucien said. "And you're going to hit me."
"If I wanted to hit you, you'd be dead, fawn."
"I'm not a fawn."
"Why don't you run, fawn? Return through those strange doors with your Makian friend."
"What? Who?"
"Don't think I don't see your portal, nor the other doe-eyed baby human behind you."
When Aito yelled, "run!", Lucien stopped shaking and looked at the deer. He drew himself to his full height, stuck out his chest, and just as he was about to give the deer an earful, the beast's scowl flared up as pitiless as when slaying the rats, and when it reared to flail its hooves, Lucien ran for the Holy Foyer.
"Come on!" yelled Aito. "Run!"
When Lucien's heart pounded with a chest-exploding fear, he felt like screaming or growling, but could only pant. Had the Holy Foyer tripled in size? He hadn't walked that far under the trees. Unable to risk a backwards glance, Aito's agonized expression and the deer's shadow told him the beast was a step away, drawing out the chase to bully him for fun. Lucien had less interest in indulging this cruel bully than in patronizing Conrad, as if this large animal carried his amusement too far, a slip of its ungainly horns or hooves might make its threat of impalement or trampling real.
No sooner did Lucien sprint through than he seized one door, Aito seized another, and they slammed them on the charging deer. In the gap before the doors pinched shut,
the deer smiled smugly and lowered its antlers. "Get back!" Lucien screamed, just as the rack's impact flung the doors wide and the boys against the wall.
When Lucien backed away on his hands and knees, it was less from the mighty deer than from the impossibility of the walls and ceiling blurring when they could not contain the beast. The spectral deer rippled back and forth between worlds as it advanced.
"Go back!" said Lucien. "You're becoming real!"
"Don't tell me what to do, doe-eyed baby human." But when the deer looked side to side at its antlers and ears passing slower through the plaster, it tried to turn back, and its horn snagged on the wall. In its struggles to free itself from hardening reality, the deer flung forward, crushed the wall, shattered the railing, and splintered three stairs as it rolled towards the front door.
When Lucien heard the crash, he stepped down cautiously. He did not want to be trampled or gored if it charged upstairs.
Bright blood spattered the smashed glass and gouged wood of the front door, and the deer stood in the parking lot over a few fragments of torn antler, swaying woozily as it turned in circles, leaning its head so far back that it could have scored its hindquarters with its own antlers. The deer's eyes were agog at Draden's piled stone and brick, endless glass, and captured lights.
When the station wagon turned quickly into The Mansion's lot, Lucien saw Hanne flinch as she hit the deer.