Chapter 4
Edmund opened his eyes to the massive form of Ung staring down at him.
After a sleep brought on by trauma, it is traditional for the sleeper to take a moment to remember where they are and what has happened. Dr. Vendebirk II theorizes in his On Morpheus that this is the brain’s attempt to expunge unpleasant memories of the previous day and being entirely too enthusiastic about it.
Edmund did not have this luxury. Every hour the deafening chime of the clock bell had snapped him awake, both reminding him of his present condition and keeping him from such deep respite.
“Does the Young Master want his breakfast?”
Edmund winced as he moved his stiff body, struggling against his creaking muscles. His back was moaning in pain from curling around his empty stomach all night. Remembering why it was empty, he noticed that his partially digested dinner had vanished from the floor where he had left it.
At the thought of food, he remembered Ung was still waiting for an answer, so he nodded.
Ung bowed and turned towards one of the many doorways. For a moment Edmund was certain Ung would vanish and leave Edmund as lost as he was before, trapped forever in the foyer of this horrible mansion.
Edmund swallowed; he wanted to speak, to say some phrase that would make Ung take Edmund back to his room, but his tongue was tied. He still didn’t know how to talk to servants.
Fortune took pity on him, however, as when Ung was half-way across the room, the massive butler stopped and turned back, his face passive and unassuming.
“Does the Young Master want me to escort him to his room?”
Edmund nodded. Ung lifted his hand, pointing in the direction he was heading. Edmund kicked the sleep out of his legs as he stood up and followed the lumbering form down the hallway.
“I will bring up the Young Master’s breakfast immediately,” Ung rumbled as they walked. “Matron has instructed me to remind the Young Master that her cousins will be arriving before lunch. I will help him dress to greet them at eleven. Does the Young Master wish to have his breakfast alone?”
“Yes,” Edmund didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but the idea of eating with anyone made his empty stomach churn again.
“Then I will not dress the Young Master for breakfast,” Ung nodded. “I will convey his apologies to Matron.”
Apologies? “I didn’t know she expected me to eat breakfast with her.”
“I cannot comment on Matron’s expectations. I will convey his apologies all the same; Matron cares very deeply about proper behavior from her guests and expects apologies whenever they act on their personal desires.”
Halfway down an unfamiliar hallway, Ung pulled up short and opened a door. On the other side was Edmund’s room. Ushering Edmund inside, Ung gave a small bow, nearly hitting his head on the door frame. “I will be back with the Young Master’s breakfast,” Ung said before closing the door in Edmund’s face.
Edmund turned around. It was the third time he had been in his room, and it was no more familiar as it had been the first time. It took several minutes for him to work up the courage to sit on the small couch, and no sooner had he done so there was a knock on his door.
“The Young Master’s breakfast,” the surprisingly quick Ung boomed, all but kneeling down to hand the silver tray to Edmund. The tray was set with what had to have been his breakfast; thin watery broth with a barely-cooked egg floating in it and more stale bread. “When he is finished, he may place the tray outside his door and I will collect it.”
Edmund ate on the floor with his back leaning against the door, pausing only once when the Mansion struck the hour so he didn’t bite his tongue.
As he ate, a passage from The Practical Brain and its Fluids by Dr. Valiance Ramberforst floated through his mind. The doctor had devoted a whole chapter to fear and its origins; “The Britannian brain,” he wrote, “is perhaps unique in its ability to experience fear for entirely rational reasons; that is to say, the unfamiliar. The Unfamiliar provides rational impetus for fear, as established methods of behavior, tradition, and even cause and effect may no longer apply in unfamiliar situations. It is this discomfort that has driven the Britannians to establish proper and stable forms of behavior, which in turn has united much of the known world under its rule.”
Edmund had never felt such fear in his life as he had last night. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, he had never felt fear at all. He had wanted to leave the orphanage to see new things, and when he finally got the chance he had panicked. That was inexcusable for either a scientist or a poet, and Edmund aspired to be both.
But if the purpose of fear was to spur people on to greatness then Edmund wasn’t going to argue. Getting lost was understandable in such a large mansion, but if he was going to live in Moulde Hall he needed to become as familiar with the hallways as he had with the orphanage.
Apples and Oranges, Edmund knew, even though he had never seen an orange. Moulde Hall could have held twenty orphanages in it. The thought of walking outside his door and entering the labyrinthine maze of corridors caused his heart to beat faster and his palms to sweat. What if he couldn’t find his way back to his room?
His room. He had to remember that. After all, he had returned to the room three times; it was the most familiar thing he had seen in all of Moulde Hall.
Edmund swallowed his last bite of bread and stared at his empty bowl. As bland as the meal had been, he felt better for having eaten it.
He began by exploring his room from wall to wall, studying every surface and crevice, running his hands over the fine gilt trim and smooth floor. He felt each leg of his chairs and desk and smelled the ancient wood that made up his bed. He looked for…he wasn’t sure what. All he knew was every inch he explored felt more and more like his own.
He moved on to the closet and then to the bathroom, studying each one carefully. In the orphanage he had known every hole in the plaster and every crack in the chairs.
When the mansion struck eight and his room felt well and truly his own, Edmund opened the door and stepped outside.
Then, just to be safe, the door’s frame and handle were studied with fierce attention before he turned to face the long hallway outside the…/his/ room.
He couldn’t just wander out into the Hall on his own, but he couldn’t stay in his room forever, either. All the same, even after studying his door so carefully, Edmund doubted his ability to find it again. Most of the doors were delicately ornamented, but his door was perfectly plain.
Then again, Ung had told him to leave the dishes outside of his door when he was finished, and that would make an effective marker for which door was his, at least for now.
With somewhere to return to, Edmund now needed somewhere to go. It had been a fairly quick journey from the Foyer to his room; perhaps he could start there? Besides, Ung had walked slower than Mrs. Kippling, and Edmund was confident he had a better memory of the doors, statues, and decorations they had passed.
Ung had opened Edmund’s door on the right, so they had to have come down the left corridor. Before that, they had turned left, which meant he would have to turn right…and before that…
Edmund backtracked in his mind, forming a map in his head as he slowly began to make his way back to the foyer. He only lost his way twice and both times he made his way back to the silver tray with little trouble.
When he finally found the foyer, Edmund turned around and made his way back to his room. When he reached the silver tray sitting next to the plain wooden door, Edmund walked back again. He walked back and forth from his room to the main doors of Moulde Hall, Pausing only when the mansion struck the hour, until he was confident he could get from one to the other without trouble.
On the fourth trip back to his room the silver tray was gone, but Edmund didn’t panic; he didn’t need the tray any more to know what door was his.
With this knowledge, Edmund thought of a wonderful experiment. If he didn’t need to see the tray to know where he was, did he need to see anything at all?
Twice, Edmund walked to and from his room with his eyes shut tightly every step of the way. When he reached the foyer the second time, he opened his eyes to see the giant form of Ung standing over him.
“It is time,” he said, his deep voice blending with the dwindling tones of the foyer clock, “for me to dress the Young Master to greet his family.”
The Moulde’s black-plumed coach lumbered up Haggard Hill, the top laden with luggage. The skeletal driver sat straight-backed on the driver’s bench, urging the horse onward with gentle taps of his whip.
Edmund tried to stand still in spite of his clothes. They were stiff, scratchy, and they soaked in the mid-morning heat that filtered through Brackenburg’s black smog. His pants were half as long as they should have been, and his stiff collar was twice as tall as it needed to be, covering his ears from bottom to top. The shirt sleeves would have hung to his thighs if the cuffs hadn’t been closed with thick black cuff-links that squeezed his wrists.
Edmund turned to look back at the large open front door of Moulde Hall. He hadn’t seen Matron at all that day; she obviously expected Edmund to greet the family for her. True, he didn’t know how to greet family, but he hadn’t known how to find his way between his room and the foyer. Now he did, because he had experimented and practiced. Could the same strategy be successful here?
At long last, the sagging horse pulled to a halt as a wiry man dressed in a fine top hat and coat shoved the carriage door aside and staggered out, gulping in huge lung-fulls of air though a salt and pepper mustache.
“I say,” the man complained in a clipped reedy voice, “If I had to stay in there one more minute, I would have…” he interrupted himself, eyes flickering to the three onlookers, “well…I would have suffocated.”
“Mister Pinsnip Sadwick,” Mrs. Kippling curtsied. “Welcome back to Moulde Hall.”
“Nothing welcome about it,” Pinsnip said. He brushed and fidgeted at his sleeves, flicking and plucking at unseen specks of dust. “She isn’t…” he interrupted himself again, “um…that is…Not here to greet us, is she? Has the old crow…” he searched for the phrase, “kicked the bucket yet?”
“Begging-your-pardon, Matron has not informed me so,” Mrs. Kippling answered. “I hope you won’t let your disappointment sour your stay with —”
“Yes, yes,” Pinsnip waved his hand as he glared back at the coach. “I need some distance from…this heat. Yes, the sun is…it’s making my scalp itch.” With that, he brushed past Mrs. Kippling and Ung without even noticing Edmund.
Was that greeting his family? The word “greeting” implied conversation of some kind, but Pinsnip hadn’t spoken to him at all. Perhaps remaining silent wouldn’t work. Matron couldn’t have expected him to be ignored.
The next person to leave the carriage was a young woman, at least fifteen years old, Edmund guessed. Her hair was jet black and straight, like Edmund’s, but her hair was long, almost to her waist, and her skin a smooth brown. Her long skirt hung so straight and still as she walked that Edmund wondered if she had legs at all. Her wide-set eyes were buried in a thick book as she walked to the front doors.
“Mistress Tunansia Charter,” Mrs. Kippling said, curtsying politely as the girl shot past them. “A pleasant morning, miss.”
“Hello,” Edmund said.
Tunansia froze. Slowly, she turned and floated back to him, her face sour. Her eyes looked him over like he was an unimpressive sculpture. Finally, she clicked her tongue and turned to Mrs. Kippling.
“Make sure you show him my room,” she sneered, “so he knows exactly where to stay away from.”
Edmund barely noticed her scorn, as he was far more interested in Tunansia’s book that now rested on her hip: A Pragmatic Study of Minerals in the Tribal Jungles of East Africa.
“How much of it have you read?” He asked, pointing so she wouldn’t be confused.
“All of it,” Tunansia said, not looking at Edmund.
“Ah,” Edmund himself had read it last year. “I particularly liked the chapter on aluminum.”
“Did you?” she asked, pronouncing each word like it was a particularly disgusting beetle.
“A material,” Edmund quoted, “with interesting potential applications as an accelerator for —”
“Begging-your-pardon we’ve taken enough of your time, Mistress,” Mrs. Kippling interrupted, curtsying again. Tunansia nodded in pointed agreement as she swept up the stairs and through the front door.
“That was a dangerous thing to do, Master Edmund, not-my-place,” Mrs. Kippling whispered as they turned back to the couch. “She is a cold one, make no mistake. You don’t want to get on her bad side. Safer to just keep silent for now. Let them speak to you begging-your-pardon, and don’t tell them anything they don’t already know.”
Stay silent, speak when spoken too, and don’t say anything they haven’t already heard. Her advice didn’t seem possible, much less reasonable; but Edmund was resolved to fulfill his obligations, no matter how impossible they were.
The next cousin drifted towards the mansion like a wisp of smoke. She was taller and older than Tunansia by a good deal. She had a black parasol to keep the barely-visible sun away, and her hair was a perfect blend of jet black and silvery white. Her skin was pale and gaunt, and her eyes were hollow and sunken. She looked, Edmund had to be honest, deathly ill.
When she reached the small group of greeters, she opened her mouth to speak, only to stop when her eyes landed on Edmund.
“And who are you?” she asked, her voice light and pleasant — a dreadful contrast to her somber form. She leaned down, her dark lips parting in what could have been a smile.
“Edmund,” he said, after deciding that she had spoken to him first, and staying silent after being asked a question would be more impolite than not.
The woman smiled wider as she extended her hand out to him. “My name is Miss Junapa Knittle,” she said, licking her lips as if savoring a delectable morsel. “I am Matron’s niece once removed on her mother’s side. Am I to take it you are a new servant?”
“I’m Matron’s son,” Edmund said. “She adopted me yesterday.”
Junapa’s smile faltered. “So recent! And not a day after we sent word we were arriving in town. I’m so sorry I hadn’t known; if I had heard she was planning on bringing another person into the family, I would have seen to it we arrived much earlier.” She shot a look to Ung and Mrs. Kippling as she stood. They were as still as statues. “I’m sure we shall get along famously. Here,” she slipped her hand into an inner pocket of her dress, and produced a small wrapped pale blue sweet, placing it in Edmund’s hand before sweeping into the house.
Edmund looked at the sweet in his palm, only to see it snatched away by Ung’s thick hand. The butler sniffed at it once, and threw it towards the sagging gazebo.
“By the seven rings on Saturn’s thumb, that was a refreshing ride!”
Mrs. Kippling stood up straighter and poked at her hair as a fine form of a man leapt from the carriage. He was dressed in a modern-cut coat, bright red and rimmed with silver like a circus ring-master. His top hat was a matching red with a mirrored shine. A mustache longer than any Edmund had ever seen curled under his ears, and he strode the distance from the coach in less than a second. When he reached the steps, his body snapped into position, posing like an actor. He only held the pose a second before he took Mrs. Kippling’s hand and brushed it against his lips.
“Mrs. Kindling,” he said, his dulcet baritone dancing about like a spring breeze. “A pleasure to see you again. I cannot express my excitement at enjoying your exquisite eatables once more! A culinary Castellan! A Baroness of banquets!”
“Oh, Mr. Popomus,” Mrs. Kippling’s face was red as she started to fan herself. “You flatterer!”
The man’s hands flew to his heart as a pained look plastered itself on his face. “Flattery, my dear? I’ve never flattered in all my life! You wound me almost as much to call me Mr. Popomus. Please, call me Kolb. I couldn’t bear to think that a lady of your good character wouldn’t be on first name terms with one such as myself.”
“Now that’s enough of that,” Mrs. Kippling said, somewhat louder than strictly necessary. “You get yourself inside so I can cook you some lunch.”
“Alas, my travels have taken their toll, and traversing the trail from Ninnenburg has tuckered me out. If you would send one of your lovely lunches to my room, I would be gratuitously grateful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and give greetings to dear Matron, and in return, receive her door in my face.”
It wasn’t until then that Kolb looked down at Edmund. His eyebrow shot up in surprise and a new smile split across his face.
“Well now! What have we here? A new servant? How lovely!” He gave a theatrical bow. “My name is Kolberman Popomus, of the Esthington Popomuses. I had the honor of being married to Matron’s dear niece before she was taken from us so suddenly by consumption, a short six years ago. The pain is still palpable, even to this day,” he whipped out a handkerchief, dabbed his eyes, and tucked it away again before Edmund could draw a breath. “I insist, however, on being called Kolb, no matter what Mrs. Keaping tells you to call me.”
Kolb waved his hands and produced a small apple out of thin air. He handed it to Edmund and patted him on the head. “Better eat that quick — before it hatches!” With a secret-laced grin, he spun towards the door, nodding towards Ung with an un-embellished “Hello.” Ung didn’t respond.
Edmund looked at the apple. He’d never read anything about an apple hatching, so Kolb must have been lying — or joking; he still wasn’t positive on the difference between the two. Remembering the sweet, and not wanting to behave improperly, he tossed the apple away.
When he turned back, he was startled by a wrinkled old face that had shoved itself into his. The face was framed by a thick stick-like plume of white hair, large bushy eyebrows, and a long chin that stuck out like the bow of a ship. One eye was peering deeply into Edmund’s, while the other was squinted almost shut. The old man’s back was bent almost in half like Matron’s, but while Matron held her limbs close like a vulture, this man stuck his out like a gnarled scarecrow.
“What are you, then?” the wrinkled face shouted.
“Master Edmund, allow me to introduce Mister Tricknee Rotledge,” Mrs. Kippling said.
“Master? Nonsense! She’d never…” Tricknee’s gaze darted from Mrs. Kippling to Edmund. “Why that…that rotten old bag of bones! That’s a good seven weeks of planning down the drain!”
Edmund stared as the old man muttered to himself, his eyebrows shifting furiously across his face. He’d been spoken to, but Mrs. Kippling had answered his question…could he say something now, or did he need to wait?
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Tricknee’s eyes met Edmund’s again. “Well. Fine then. Terrible to meet you,” the man stuck out a hand and gripped Edmund’s, squeezing hard. “Oh… and I suppose you’ll want to meet Googoltha, too.” He looked impatiently behind him. “Well there she is. Come here, girl! Meet your nemesis.”
Googoltha couldn’t have been older than Edmund. Her hair shone a pearly white in the sun, and she had the palest blue eyes Edmund had ever seen. Her skin was porcelain, covered by a blood red dress. She stared Edmund full in the face and slowly grinned. Her teeth were far pointier than they should have been.
“Right. Done that,” Tricknee muttered. “Well, boy, I look forward to causing your inevitable demise. I’ll see you later, if I’m unlucky. I’ll take my fourth-floor room,” He shouted as he stomped off towards the doors with Googoltha in tow. “I shan’t join for lunch, nor supper, probably. Too much to do.”
The second to last occupant of the coach was Mr. Shobbinton, who was talking with the last occupant; a tall handsome man with a pencil thin mustache. His hair was short and well groomed, and he was dressed in a long coat that covered his knees. Somehow he’d acquired a glass full of a sickly yellow liquid that he sipped at regularly. The two men were pointing at pieces of paper, until the tall man’s wandering eyes connected with Edmund’s.
With an unsteady gait, the man walked over to them. “By Jove,” he said over his shoulder with a voice that was all vowels and nose. “You weren’t joking, were you? The old battleaxe has jolly well gone and acquired an heir, what?”
“She is Matron of the Moulde Family,” Ung rumbled.
The man blinked in surprise as he turned to the towering butler. “Oh…Ung. Didn’t see you there. Do forgive me for not conversing, dear chap, but I’ve just been introduced to the Young Master.” The man reached out with his free hand to pat Edmund on the head. “Topping day, what? The name’s Wislydale. Burnabum Wislydale Rotledge Esquire, but everyone calls me Wislydale. Please dear boy, call me Wislydale.”
“Are you Mr. Tricknee’s son?” Edmund asked, noting the same last name and similar eyes that could have been piercing had they not been looking through a sticky yellow drink.
“True, but we don’t like to talk about it, what?” Wislydale grimaced before sipping at his glass. “I say, I don’t suppose I could get a top up, could I? Feeling a bit dry at the moment…”
Ung rumbled as he walked towards the Mansion, Wislydale’s smirk following after.
“Will we see you for lunch?” Mrs. Kippling asked, dragging the man’s gaze back.
“Mmm…I doubt it,” Wislydale’s eyelids wobbled uncertainly. “Feeling a bit knackered, what? And I’m sure the rest of us will want to stay as far away from each other as possible. Dashed long ride, you know? Even with my little pick-me-up.” He gave a little nod of his head, patted Edmund again, and sipped at his glass as he wandered off up the Mansion steps.
Mrs. Kippling’s hand rested on Edmund’s shoulder. “That’s your family now, Edmund. Much luck to you. Now let’s go inside; it’s time for lunch.”