Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (12 page)

Mephisto pouted and crossed his arms.

“Very well.” I stepped on the brake. “We’ll turn around and give up. Mab won’t help you. We won’t help Theo.”

We were driving through miles of national forest. Dark pines flanked the narrow road. To the right, a dirt road led to a camping area. I pulled off the road here and began turning the vehicle around, my seat rising and falling as the car bumped over the deep ruts.

“Okay, okay!” Mephisto cried, as the tires spun on the sand. “I’ll put up with his rude interruptions for the sake of progress. After all, my staff is more important than my vanity.”

“Glad something is,” Mab muttered under his breath. I shot him a warning glance.

Turning the car about again, I drove back onto the highway and continued in the direction we had been going. The forest parted to reveal craggy gray cliffs. Half visible in the distance, white-capped mountains hovered like dark ghosts.

“What were the questions again?” Mephisto asked cheerfully.

“Did this happen in Chicago?” Mab replied through clenched teeth.

“No.”

Mab waited, but Mephisto did not elaborate. Sighing, he asked, “Where did it happen?”

“Washington—D. C.”

“I see,” Mab made a note. “What did the guy look like? The one you saw running with your staff?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Stocky guy in a gray pinstripe suit, with bright red hair.”

“Ever seen him before?”

Mephisto hesitated, brows furrowed, then he shrugged and shook his head.

“Go on,” Mab encouraged.

“As I was saying, the guy climbed into a truck. I hailed a cab, and we chased him. It was just like in the movies. We were careening left and right, cutting off congressmen and buses! Just like James Bond or Knight Rider!”

“Did you catch him?”

The animated expression on Mephisto’s face died. “No. We had to stop for a light. That never happens in the movies!”

He shot an accusing glance at Mab, who sank back in the seat. Reaching up, Mab tilted his hat over his face and muttered, “I wouldn’t know.”

Mephisto continued to glare.

Mab sighed. “So then what? You left D. C. and came to Chicago. Why? Because the light was better in Chicago?”

Mephisto snorted impatiently and forged ahead. “I was heartbroken! And after I’d had such faith in the cab driver! But, he was worthy after all. You see, he had noted the truck’s license plate and its licensing number. You know, those numbers trucks have painted on their doors? The cab driver called a friend of his, who found the address of the company that owned the truck. We went there. It was a big warehouse in Maryland. Just as we arrived, I saw my staff going in the door. I rushed in after it, but I couldn’t find the staff or the man. They threw me out, but I went back after dark.”

Mephisto launched into a convoluted story that described how he snuck
back in the dead of night and broke into the warehouse, but which also included what he had had for dinner that night, and the process he went through to have his fancy clothes dry-cleaned now that he no longer had his angel valet. His meandering tale was punctuated regularly by brisk questions from Mab.

The rhythm of the road and the constant scratching of Mab’s pencil lulled me into allowing my thoughts to drift. We had passed the state line and were now in Vermont. Thickly forested hills rolled away in all directions, dotted here and there with patches of snow. High overhead, turkey vultures circled, their ragged wingtips silhouetted against the winter sky. Closer at hand, the liquid eyes of deer watched our progress from beneath overhanging boughs of pine and spruce.

As I gazed out at the gorgeous vista, contemplating Mephisto’s story, I began to wonder, again, what had happened to him. He had always been athletic, but he had been nimble of mind as well. Back in his youth, whenever a puzzle confronted the family, Mephistopheles would invariably be the first to solve it. Things came naturally to him that others had to work hard to achieve. Erasmus might currently be the best magician in the family—other than Father, of course—but that was only because Mephisto had dropped out of the running. Nor was magic the only area where Mephistopheles had excelled. He had also been a master with a paintbrush and with a blade, at one point earning himself the sobriquet of “the best swordsman in Christendom.”

When Mephisto’s condition became apparent, Father devoted a century to searching for a cure. Then, one day, he ceased pursuing the matter. I questioned him about this more than once, but Father could be extremely cagey when he wished. To this day, I did not know if he had discovered something that caused him to back off or if he merely decided the matter was no longer worth pursuing.

IN
the back seat, Mephisto was finishing his story. “. . . had to run, but that was okay, because by then I’d broken open every object big enough to possibly hold my staff. I think . . . I might have made a mess.”

“Let me guess,” Mab drawled slowly, “You didn’t find it?”

Mephisto shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t in there, and no one carried it out. Between the cab driver and me, we watched all the doors. But one truck left between when I arrived and when I got inside.”

“And . . . ?”

“That truck went to Chicago. So, that’s where I went!”

“Did you pay the cabby for his considerable investment of time?” I asked curiously.

Mephisto nodded. “I gave him my wallet.”

“Was there anything in it?”

“No, but it was a really expensive wallet, studded with diamonds! My brother Ulysses gave it to me. The cab driver was happy.”

“So, you followed the truck to Chicago?” Mab asked.

“Well, I started with the address the truck had been delivering to. I had found it in the office of the warehouse in Maryland. That’s how I knew where it had gone. But the place was empty when I arrived. It must have been a fake address!” He frowned and shrugged. “Or maybe I remembered it wrong.”

“How long between when the truck left Maryland and when you arrived in Chicago?”

Mephisto hesitated while he figured it out, counting on his fingers. Finally, he said. “Eleven.”

“Eleven hours?”

“No, eleven weeks,” Mephisto said. When Mab groaned, he added defensively. “It took me a while to get there. I visited Theo, Miranda, and Logistilla first. Oh, and I went by Cornelius’s to borrow money.”

Mab sighed. “One last question. What were you doing in Chicago when we found you?”

Mephisto answered cheerfully, “Oh, that’s easy. I was on my way to Daddy’s local office to borrow money. Only I’d been there to hit them up for dough already a few days ago—when I first arrived—so I didn’t know if they’d help me again. So, I was trying to make a little on my own.” Mephisto turned toward me. “Clever of you to come walking down the very road where I sat singing, Miranda!”

“Cleverness had nothing to do with it,” I replied, “My Lady directed me to walk that way.”

“What a good egg that Unicorn is!” Mephisto exclaimed. He put his chin on his palm. “She really knows her stuff!”

I cringed but did not rebuke him; calling my Lady a “good egg” was not, technically, disrespectful.

Mab took his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not much I can do here unless you want to give up the other matter, Miss Miranda. Trail’s a little old.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to investigate the workers at that warehouse and the Chicago address. Could you find the warehouse again, Mephisto?” I asked.

“Sure!” my brother chirped, “It’s right in the spot that I left it!”

“One would hope,” muttered Mab.

The fuel gauge was only barely below the half line and I was impatient to get to Theo’s, but an intuition from my Lady suggested I should refill before going any further, so I turned onto a local road.

“Hey, where are we going? This looks familiar. Are we there yet?” Mephisto peered out the window.

I sighed. “We’re stopping for gas. As for whether or not we’re there yet . . . you are directing us, remember?”

“Oops! Sorry.”

“You do know where you’re taking us, don’t you?” Mab turned in his seat. “Because if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”

Mephisto cried plaintively, “Miranda, don’t let him talk to me like that!”

I forced my voice to remain calm. “Do you know where we are going?”

“Yes. Of course. I just got confused. Everyone gets confused sometimes. Even sane people.” Mephisto spoke with mock resentfulness, but there was an undertone of genuine bitterness, as if he hated his lack of sanity. Neither Mab nor I answered, and an uncomfortable silence followed.

As we arrived at a service station, however, I happened to glance at my brother in the rearview mirror, and a strange thing happened. For an instant, I had such sympathy for his plight that it was as if I were the one who had lost my sanity, who had felt slip from me my intelligence, my memory, and everything that made me myself. For the first time, I contemplated how the brilliant and talented youthful Mephisto would have felt about his foolish older self. He would have been appalled—much as I might feel were I to come upon an older version of myself who was an imbecile or who had lost the favor of Eurynome.

The experience left me shaken.

*  *  *

SURROUNDED
by forest, the service station stood by itself except for a squat thrift shop across the road. Next to the thrift shop was a huge, sprawling, gravel parking lot, far larger than a store of its type would ever need. Perhaps the building had once been a restaurant.

As Mab pumped the gas, Mephisto rolled down his window and scrambled up until he was sitting in the window of the car door. Crossing his arms, he leaned on the roof, looking around.

“Miranda? Did you ever notice that every gas station off every highway looks like every other gas station off a highway? And, every small town thrift shop is called The Elephant’s Trunk?”

“No,” I murmured.

He was right about the name of the thrift shop. A gray wooden cutout of an elephant hung above the sign. The glass bay windows showed plastic mannequins with painted hair. They were dressed in outfits from the twenties through the fifties. One of the mannequins was missing a hand.

The soft voice of my Lady spoke in my heart.

Go into the store
.

Immediately, I left the car and crossed the road to the thrift shop. Behind me, Mephisto had climbed out of his window and leapt down to the pavement. His footsteps echoed behind mine. He caught up with me as I reached the door, and we walked into the tiny shop together.

The musty smell of old clothes nearly caused me to retreat. I stood blinking, my hand over my nose, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. As my vision cleared, the clerk came toward us, smiling simperingly at Mephisto. She was a thin woman in a red knit dress.

“Oops, got to go!” Mephisto spun on his heels. He wrinkled his nose as he left, calling, “Icky smell!”

The clerk hesitated, frowning, before coming to serve me. I refrained from smirking. Middle-aged women pursuing my daffy brother always amused me, though how he managed to impress this one so quickly was mystifying.

“Can I help you? We’re having a special on sequined gowns and flapper hats.” An eager look came over her face as, with her trained eye, she took in my dress, examining its shimmering emerald satin, its high lace collar, its narrow fitted waist, and its puffed shoulders. “That’s a lovely tea gown you’re wearing. A reproduction of a Worth gown, perhaps? Circa 1894? It’s amazingly well preserved! What extraordinary fabric! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Is it for sale?”

I considered saying: “Actually, it’s a Logistilla Original, circa 1910, and as for selling it, can you afford to offer me, oh, say, the moon?” But that would have been impolite. Instead, I settled for the more civil: “No. It was a gift from my sister.”

“A pity. Maybe you came for this?” she asked. She gave the door through which Mephisto had disappeared one last puzzled glance before gesturing toward a display at the center of the shop.