Clemency Pogue Read online

  The fairy buzzed down to Noah, who was clutching the Bible and staring at the fairy as if into headlights. The fairy paid his shock no attention, but landed gracefully on the crescent of his ear and began to whisper to him.

  Noah stared ahead, dazed for a moment, and then frantically took up his crumpled paper and stub of a pencil. He erased manfully for a full forty seconds before flipping the pencil over and scribbling mad affection across the page.

  Clemency left them, the young boy in love finally able to express it across the loose-leaf, the fairy whispering maddening sweetness in his ear.

  Chapter 9

  “I HOPE THAT’S done with.” Chaphesmeeso was blushing slightly. He scratched at his head through his pointy metal hat.

  “All done,” said Clemency. “And I brought that fairy back to life.” She pulled in her lips until they disappeared and produced a toothless, self-satisfied smile.

  “Reanimator, you? No. How did you find her name?” Chaphesmeeso’s rabbit ears perked.

  “It was written across her knuckles,” Clemency said.

  “Ah. Clever. Clever, clever.” Chaphesmeeso nodded; he approved of this. A grin cracked the gourdish skin covering his face, but then faltered.

  He looked down at his own hands as if he had caught them telling his secrets. He looked nervously at Clemency for a moment before splaying his mottled, wrinkled fingers out before her.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Are any of these marks words?”

  Clemency studied the numerous freckles, liver spots, and scars.

  “Nope,” she said, unable to read anything but a lifetime’s worth of digging, “but that birthmark there kind of looks like an elephant holding an ax.”

  “Egad,” Chaphesmeeso said, recovering his composure as he looked down at the pachydermatological blotch. “Maybe I’ll name him Choppy.”

  “So.” Clemency was still riding high on her crest of success with Jeffrey’s tooth. “Who’s next?”

  “Well, now’s the time to scratch the rind, Clemcruel or Clemenkind? A fairy in jolly old England dropped dead into the icing of a child’s birthday cake. Cream cheese frosting, I believe. The Fairy of Wishes Denied was denying young Amy’s birthday wishes by the eternal flame of her eighth and final candle. No matter how often or hard Amy puffed, the fairy relit the candle. So, fairy mortar, but fairly moral, I ask: A child’s happiness or a fairy’s life?” Chaphesmeeso rocked back on his heels.

  “A child’s happiness. Let’s move on.” Clemency judged, and well, as a fairy is little more than intentions with wings and a child is possibly everything.

  “Fine and good. A fairy’s life or the happiness of cows?” Chaphesmeeso asked. Occupied with Clemency, he had not yet heard of the Fairy of Random Prodding’s return to life and to the torment of jigging Texan cattle.

  “A good fairy or a bad one?”

  “Undeniably bad.”

  “The happiness of cows.”

  (These last three lines, translated into Japanese, make a beautiful haiku.)

  “Fine and good. A fairy’s life or the satisfaction of a very bad child?”

  “A fairy’s life. What’s the story?” Clemency was filled to the rim with confidence. Every time she moved, a little dribbled down the side.

  “Hobololi, Mississippi. There is a little boy named Sinclair Grimm, an only child, except for a sibling dog. Sinclair’s dear old mom loves that dog more than her son, which is frankly understandable. The dog is friendly and smart, and the boy is not. All that we know is that Sinclair is concocting a plan. A plan like a cheap raincoat, horrible and irreversible. A Fairy of Instinct and Wisdom was hovering nearby, to intercede whenever Sinclair started to crank the wheels of his plan, but that fairy dropped dead as a sugar cube into Sinclair’s tea, and he drank her. If that boy’s actions are any indication of his insides, that fairy’s likely grateful that your murderous misbelief drew death’s drapes over her eyes before granting her a tomb with a view of his plumbing.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Let’s go to Hobololi, and see what happens.” She lifted Chaphesmeeso by his ears, and they were off.

  Chapter 10

  BARRELING THROUGH THE EARTH like a tunneling locomotive, Clemency heard huge hollow clangs like stones being thrown against a tin shed.

  Clang. Clang. Clangclang CLANG.

  “Drad nastit.” Chaphesmeeso muttered a moment before they burst up through the earth in Mississippi.

  Chapter 11

  CHAPHESMEESO HAD DARK stones stuck to his pointy metal hat. They clung squat and heavy like toads.

  “Drad nastit,” he said again, and clustered his grubby fingers around them. He pulled mightily and the stones came loose one by one. “Stickystones,” he said.

  The stickystones dropped to the ground, clustered together, and stuck fast.

  “Wow,” Clemency said. She picked up a few of the stones and they snapped together in the palm of her hand. She pulled them apart and they snapped together once more. She pressed them against her head, and they fell away, back into her palm.

  “They only stick to one another,” she said.

  “And my hat.” Chaphesmeeso groaned. “And the tips of my poor little toes.”

  Clemency looked down. A little dark rock was stuck to one of the horseshoelike rings nailed under Chaphesmeeso’s hoof.

  “Huh,” Clem said, figuring. “They stick to metal. I suppose.”

  “Well, suppose all you want—it’s free.” The hobgoblin threw the last of the stones onto the ground.

  Clem held a stone about two inches from Chaphesmeeso’s hat. It pulled in her hand like a small bird. She released it and it jumped to Chaphesmeeso’s hat with a great clang.

  “Hey, stop that, you wicked tormentuous imp. I’ve had kindlier mosquitoes buzz in my ear.”

  Chaphesmeeso moodily pulled the magnet from his hat and dropped it to the ground. “Oughtn’t we go help this child?”

  “Right,” Clem said. She hiked up her pants and set her jaw. “Show me the way.”

  “Ah,” said the hobgoblin, and placed one tough finger against the side of his nose. He sniffed meaningfully. “The perfumed earl,” he said.

  Clemency’s brow lowered. She sniffed the air. She could indeed smell perfume. She sniffed again. “The earl?” she asked.

  “Earl Grey,” Chaphesmeeso explained, and stomped gracefully back into a drape of kudzu. Clemency followed, and they trekked through foliage so intensely green that Clem feared it would rub off on her. Chaphesmeeso’s thick green-to-orange skin almost seemed to disappear in the vegetation. The air was thick and slightly sweet, and in the distance, through the woods, clouds moved along the ground like the misplaced ghosts of rogue elephants.

  Through the wilderness they trudged and then through a sudden thinning to a huge, ordered garden of the same plants. The girl and the hobgoblin stayed on the edge of the wilderness and watched a very thin and very pale boy sitting cross-legged in front of a great mound of broken china teapots and cups.

  The boy had five teapots lined up in front of him, and a tower of unused cups and saucers that would not have stood out in Pisa. The boy took a draining last slurp from a teacup and tossed it over his shoulder as if he had spilled salt and wanted to catch the devil off guard. The cup shattered against the pile, adding its fragments to the mass. He picked up another cup from the stack by the tree, poured tea into it, squeezed lemon into the tea, and then began to drink it with intense determination.

  “He seems a little more than thirsty,” said Clem.

  “A little more than thirsty, a little moron surely.” Chaphesmeeso grumbled. “His name is Sinclair, and he is a very bitter boy. He owns a dog named Chester, who is clever and kind and, despite his limited vocabulary, a charming conversationalist. Sinclair is none of these, and even less of other things. The only thing he has discovered he is good at so far in life is bleeding from the nose, which he does copiously, often, and with fervor. Sinclair’s mother has noticed the qualities lacking in her son and present in her dog
, and has dished out her love accordingly. Sinclair is a bitter little pip. And he is plotting something overwhelmingly wicked—we just don’t know what.”

  “That’s real sad.” Clemency looked with pity on the boy, who seemed to be drowning his sorrow and lapels in Earl Grey. “I hope he doesn’t hurt the dog.”

  Another teacup smashed against the pile behind Sinclair.

  “He must be about to burst,” Clemency said. “Let’s go introduce ourselves to the dog, see if we can figure this out.”

  “Right. Dogward ho.” Chaphesmeeso led them around the perimeter of the garden and to a huge, pillared, white house. It was roughly the size of a breadbox, only much, much larger. Clem and Chaphesmeeso squeezed in through an opening in a screen of the porch, and wandered into the house. They followed the hobgoblin’s nose into the kitchen, where a great mangy mutt lay on the tiles, soaking up the cool.

  Chester, the dog, looked shocked at Chaphesmeeso for a moment, and then at Clemency, and then grinned wide, breathing happily.

  “Hello, sir,” said Chaphesmeeso.

  “Hey, pup,” said Clem, and squatted down next to the dog. She scratched his back and he lifted his ears, as if to say, Scratch behind these. Clemency did, and Chester showed such pleasure and gratitude that Clemency was overwhelmed with warmth and satisfaction.

  Chester made a charming little grumble and rolled over to show heaven his belly. Clemency scratched it briefly and then patted him twice. Chester flipped over onto his feet and licked Clemency’s cheek once, quickly, with a dry tongue.

  As Clemency stood, Chester waddled over to Chaphesmeeso. He sat down casually before the hobgoblin and offered his paw. Chaphesmeeso took the paw and shook it formally.

  “How do you do?” said Chaphesmeeso.

  Chester glanced briefly at Clemency and then back at Chaphesmeeso and gave him a wink that said, Oh, not too bad, you know how it goes: humans. But such is our lot.

  Chaphesmeeso laughed politely, and Chester made another charming little grumble.

  “Do we have to worry about anybody else in the house?” asked Clem, looking around.

  “No, not a-tall. Maybe a few servants here and there, but servants and imaginary creatures have an understanding.”

  Clemency scratched Chester’s head again. “This is a good dog.”

  “A noble mutt.” Chaphesmeeso smiled in agreement at the pooch.

  A door slammed from the back of the house, and hurried childish footsteps stomped across a wooden floor.

  “Sinclair,” said Clemency. She and the hobgoblin walked on tiptoes, following the sounds of stomping feet. Through a hallway, a den, a great living room, and then they could see him, standing pale and malicious through a doorway.

  He was standing in the middle of a room that was all dark wood and expensive furniture. He cast a slow, sweeping gaze across the room, arcing like a lighthouse of bitterness on the rocky shores of filial ingratitude. The room was some kind of a study; it reeked of authority and tradition. His gaze fixed on an object out of sight, against a far wall. He stood gazing at it for a moment like a matador, and then charged out of sight.

  Clemency and Chaphesmeeso eased forward to the doorway and peeked through. Sinclair was standing next to a beautiful antique sofa, all cushioning and wood, shined by years of loving use. A lever extended from one of its ends, and Sinclair’s angry little fingers wrapped around it like a gang of worms.

  With a crazed, baboon look in his eye, he pulled the lever sharply. There was a great sproing, and the sofa unfolded and shot forward into a bed.

  “Hah!” snorted Sinclair in anticipated triumph.

  He yanked the lever the other way and with a dangerous gniorps, the bed sucked itself back into the form of a sofa, springs coiling and creaking noisily.

  “Ahhh.” Sinclair sneered like Napoleon Bonaparte, only scarier. He gave the lever another mighty yank and the bed shot out and slammed down onto the floor again. Sinclair leaped onto the bed and began jumping up and down.

  Clemency could hear the tea sloshing around inside of him.

  The soft tumbling patter of four-footed steps clumpered up behind the girl and the hobgoblin, and Chester walked up and sat between them, watching the bitter, bouncing boy. The dog tilted his head to the side, confused and concerned.

  Sinclair gave one last mighty bounce that bent a spring inside the bed, and then fell to his knees. He grabbed a cushion from the sofa bed and brought it to his mouth. He opened his chompers impossibly wide and tore into the cushion, like the cotton-starved caboose of a vengeful porcupine.

  The girl, the hobgoblin, and the dog were flabbergasted. Sinclair ripped out huge chunks of fluff and cotton, and tossed them about with his head. He whipped back and forth, tearing at the cushion, trailing streamers of cotton that clung to Sinclair like baby opossums. Fluff wrapped itself around Sinclair’s head, stuck to his clothes. When the cushion was mauled and torn beyond repair, Sinclair spitefully dropped it to the ground with another horrible laugh. He grabbed another cushion, the tea still sloshing within him, and brought it to his toothed pit of destruction.

  Chester’s eyes were wide as saucers (the flying kind) and his jaw dangled. He was making a small whimpering sound.

  Chaphesmeeso watched the boy with slight disgust, but admired the craftsmanship. Clemency was aghast. In fact, she was two ghasts. Her mind began to form around Sinclair’s sinister plot.

  She looked down at Chester, and then at Sinclair, who had finished with his second cushion and was on his hands and knees, tearing at the bed itself. He was acting like a bad dog. The boy was acting like a bad dog.

  “He’s framing Chester. His mother’s going to think that the dog did this,” she said.

  Chaphesmeeso and Chester looked at her.

  “The ghoul,” Chaphesmeeso said. “A boy is a dog’s best fiend, indeed.” He patted the dog with sympathy. Chester looked from girl to hobgoblin, and then back at the boy, hopeless.

  Sinclair stood up and tore into a third cushion, still raving like a berserker. And then the true horror began.

  It was an image that would burn itself into Clemency’s retina like the burning of the Hindenburg.

  Sorrow and disgust.

  The terrifying unthinkable potential of the human spirit.

  An action so despicable, so pointless and cruel, that every person the witness meets for the rest of his life is doubted, simply for sharing species with the transgressor.

  Sinclair paused, sloshing. He still held the cushion between his teeth, but his hands left it, traveling south, as if for a holiday. They were not on holiday, though; they had a purpose. A dark, effluvial purpose.

  The hands settled on his pants.

  “No,” said Clemency. Chaphesmeeso covered his eyes. A weak whimper escaped Chester and flitted away.

  There was an unzipping. A pause. A sound like eggs frying on the hot stones of Hades, as Sinclair tinkled on the bed.

  Tinkled like a horse back from a long night of drinking with its friends.

  Tinkled like a punctured water tower.

  Tinkled like a bell suspended in the heart of a young lover.

  Maybe you should stop reading, and take a little time to think about how bad this is.

  Chapter 12

  CLEMENCY COULD NOT just stand by and let this happen. Maybe the Fairy of Instinct and Wisdom would have done something by now, for it was certainly too late to stop it.

  Pee-damp fluff lay scattered about like the dead and dying on a battlefield. If only Sinclair’s mother would walk in the room now, everything would be so clear. She could see that the dog was innocent. She would understand that Sinclair needed more attention, more love. Clemency wished she could freeze the moment, could seal it in amber and wait for Sinclair’s mom to arrive.

  It was the time for action. Chaphesmeeso still covered his eyes; his rabbit’s ears thrust themselves into the pig’s ears to block out the sound. Chester was on the verge of hyperventilating. Clemency took a deep breath.


  She clenched her fists at her sides and strode into the room. Sinclair looked up and saw her. His eyes widened and his face flushed apple red. Clemency paid him no mind, but strode across the room to the edge of the sofa bed and wrapped her hand around the lever. She looked Sinclair in the eye.

  “Be brave. This is for the best,” she said, and pulled the lever.

  Gniorps! With fluff strewn all over his head and chest, the cushion locked between his teeth, and peeing still, Sinclair buckled and fell into the bed as it sucked itself into a sofa.

  Clemency stumbled away, shaken with the horror that she could still see silhouetted against the black of her eyelids every time she blinked. Chaphesmeeso slowly took his hands from his eyes.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Clemency nodded at the hobgoblin. The sofa had a large boy-shaped lump in it, and a small puddle developing underneath.

  “When his mother gets home, she’ll understand,” Clemency said. She turned to Chester, who was leaning against Chaphesmeeso’s leg, catching his breath.

  “Chester,” she said, “when Sinclair’s mom gets home, I want you to lead her to him. Try to make her understand that he just needs more attention.”

  Chester nodded, and then pushed himself upright. He padded over to Clemency and sat before her and offered his paw. Clemency took it and shook it.

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  Chapter 13

  “OKAY, WHO’S LEFT?”

  “Well,” said Chaphesmeeso. “Nobody. Except the girl with a pea and a fairy keeping her brain company.”

  “Ah.” This pained Clemency slightly. “Well, I guess we better go back.” Perhaps she had gained some experience in her quest that would grant her newfound wisdom.