Chapter 11: 11 – Amerie

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The feline maid came back to clear the table; Amerie quickly finished the last of her wine to empty her glass. This was feeling less and less like a dream, more and more like she’d fallen into a disturbing crack in reality.

“Thank you,” the maid said, gathering everything together.

“Thanks for everything. I, um, I’m not quite sure what to do now.”

“Explore the house. Any door that will open for you is fair game. Be open to experiences.” The maid smiled at her, and hastened off with the tray of dishes.

For lack of anywhere better to go, Amerie went in the same direction the maid had. Maybe she could thank the cook for the delicious meal. She certainly felt more like she fit in the kitchen or something like that than she did in the rich and obviously expensive dining room.

Before long she heard motion, heard a steady rhythm that she thought was a knife against a cutting board, heard a clear androgynous voice singing a song though she didn’t recognize it and couldn’t understand the words.

The chopping rhythm paused, but not the song; she could still follow it easily, and after a moment, she could smell something appetizing.

She was all the way into the kitchen before she spotted the cook, just turning away from an enormous stainless-steel fridge that was absolutely modern, unlike anything else in the kitchen. She stopped with a small squeak.

The tall, red-skinned cook gave her a warm smile. “Well, hi there. It’s all right, come in. Peanut butter cookie for dessert? There’s a plate of them over on the table, help yourself.” Humming much the same tune, the cook used one hand to stir the contents of a frying pan on the stove and used others to chop up carrots and celery simultaneously. On the counter were the empty crusts of two more pot pies like the one Amerie had eaten, waiting to be filled, but these ones must have different contents.

“I, um... I’m not intruding?”

“Not at all. I love having company almost as much as I love cooking. I’m Tarragon.”

“Amerie. Um... the soup and the pie were delicious. Thank you.” Was the cook a man or a woman? The rainbow-coloured sarong could have been a feminine skirt or just a man’s style from, like, southeast Asia or something. The apron, so bright with hummingbirds and flowers she hadn’t really noticed the base colour, looked mostly practical. Nothing about that build really gave her any hints, and neither had anything about the cook’s face. At least a dozen brilliantly-white braids ended with beads of metallic colour and finish, gold and silver and copper, and a long scarf of many colours bound them all back.

“You are very welcome. I’m glad you liked it. It’s one thing to cook for residents, when I know their favourites and I can make a good guess what they’ll like. It’s trickier knowing what to cook on Hallowe’en when we generally seem to have at least one guest wander in.”

Amerie edged over to the big worktable, and found that it was so high that she had to use the rung of the stool to pull herself up onto the seat. The plate of cookies was lying there in easy reach, though. She picked up a cookie and nibbled at it. “These are really good.”

“I get lots of practice on cookies. And soups. Not everyone sleeps at the same times and not everyone has the same diet. It helps to have something available as a snack. There’s lots more chicken soup if you get hungry later in the night, just come help yourself even if I’m not here. So what brings you here?”

“Just... looking for a warm safe place to spend the night.”

“Ah. I see. Well, that bench underneath the windows is comfortable, people have fallen asleep on it before. Warm and safe, guaranteed.”

“Then what?”

“Then in the morning you leave safe and sound with no memory of seeing anything odd overnight. Or you might choose to spend the time experiencing as much as possible. There are a dozen or so people living here, depending on how you count. You don’t need to be afraid of anyone. Most of us are pretty friendly, and absolutely no one would hurt you. Neither of the Mallorys has any patience at all with that sort of thing. But things will inevitably get a bit strange at moments.”

“Stranger than already? I fell asleep in an abandoned house and got woken up to eat the best meal I’ve had in ages, and it’s gotten, um, a bit stranger since then.”

Tarragon laughed. “Oh, much stranger. Just go with the flow and have fun, and you’ll be fine. You don’t need to hide over here in the service area, either. Why don’t you go check out the nicer parts of the house?”

“I... honestly, I don’t know if I’m very comfortable wandering around someone else’s house.”

“Think of it as being like Wonderland, where all the rules are upside-down. What have you seen so far? Aside from the dining room?”

“Um... I came in the front door and found a room that was all roses, and fell asleep on the couch.” She still rather suspected she was still there, but this dream was fascinating.

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“That’ll be the ladies’ reception at the front, which also serves as Ségolène's office. Why don’t you go check out the far end of the house? The library, the games room, the loggia? You’ll run into at least one other resident over that way, possibly more, and from there you can ask them about the great hall and the stairs.”

“That feels... what if I interrupt someone?”

“It’s Hallowe’en. We all expect at least one guest wandering the house. You won’t interrupt anyone.” The cook moved the frying pan to a different burner and wiped multiple hands on a towel before offering her one. “Take another cookie for the road. I’ll show you the way over to the library.”

Amerie picked up another cookie, and shyly slid her hand into the red one. It was unexpectedly slender and soft, though definitely bigger than hers.

Tarragon took her across a corridor and through a smallish room with hooks on the walls.

“Do you need the bathroom? There’s a toilet right there. No? On the other side of this is the room I assume you found for yourself.”

“Yes.” It looked much more beautiful now, though, with the upholstery pristine ivory under the vibrant roses and vines and all the wood shining. She hadn’t noticed that against one wall was an ornate small rolltop desk, or the great door-sized mirror with its intricate gold-washed frame mounted on another wall.

“We go right past here to the entrance hall, and on the other side is the mirror set-up for men—no roses, it’s all autumn leaves. Victorian human gender conventions. Just keep walking straight, you’ll go through doorways but they’ll all be open, and when you have only solid wall in front of you, turn left. That’ll put you in the library. There might be someone around, Sally often is, but it depends. When you finish there, go out the other library door and walk straight, and you’ll go through the games room and into the loggia. Thalia spends almost all her time there, so you at least have high odds of meeting her.” The big cook let go of her hand. “I need to get back to the kitchen. You’ll be fine. Just try to have an open mind.”

“I... I’ll try. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Tarragon raised a hand in a kind of wave, and turned back towards the kitchen.

Amerie took a deep breath, and followed the directions.

The other reception room was indeed all autumn leaves, even the stained-glass window. Everything looked sturdier, but she still quite liked it. She’d expected it to be harder somehow, all dark leather with dead animal heads on the walls, but aside from a crossed pair of swords, she saw only music-themed decor: carefully-framed sheets of music, paintings of foreign people playing exotic instruments, even a beautiful flat drum with a painted head hung with a padded double-ended stick and some kind of flute or pipe and a thing that she thought vaguely might be a lute or something. This didn’t seem like a space she’d attribute to a rich man who had servants and could build a house like this. He might even be kind.

Past that was another small room with hooks, and then when she stood in a corridor she was facing a wall, so she turned left.

The library was stunning, and she immediately felt small and inadequate again. She did look around briefly, but it was just too uncomfortable. She’d come in that door, so the other one was... that one there.

The room she stepped into, the one Tarragon had referred to as the games room, was dominated by a round table, mostly gleaming reddish maple but aside from a ring around the outside, the top surface itself was covered with green fabric of some kind. Four matching chairs stood around it, two more against the walls, and it would probably be perfect for playing cards. On the table, though, was a gorgeous chess set that must be stone, black and white marble. On the beautiful sideboard cabinet of the same maple, and visible through sliding doors not entirely closed, she saw three decks of cards, but also Monopoly and Scrabble and Risk and several other board games, the boxes looking slightly battered.

That didn’t fit at all with the glamour of the room or the rest of the house, but it made her smile to think of Tarragon sitting here with... with whoever the other residents were, and playing something so ordinary on a night when they didn’t have an intruder underfoot. It was such a simple, friendly mental image that she held onto it while she continued onwards.

What was a loggia, anyway?

It turned out to be a rectangular room that had windows all along one long side while the far narrow end was open to the night air. The outer wall had two rows of shelves heavily laden with pots of plants, and more on the floor; the inner wall had more shelves, but these ones were jars and tools and things. Between the two were a few scattered items of furniture.

It also held a woman with skin of a strong leafy green. Her waist-length hair was all flowers and leaves. That probably should have been shocking, but after Tarragon, it wasn’t, really. She was wearing only a very simple summery dress with narrow shoulder straps and a skirt that stopped short of her knees, all in warm red and orange that contrasted with her skin. Currently, she was at a counter on the inner wall, fussing with a terracotta pot holding a leafy plant of some sort.

“Um. Hi,” Amerie said timidly. “Are... are you Thalia? Tarragon suggested I come over this way while I’m looking around.”

The green woman looked over her shoulder. “Come on in. Be careful not to touch any of the plants, the odd one might bite back, either metaphorically or literally. Tarragon feeds the household, and I keep everyone healthy.” Her forehead furrowed, as she watched Amerie come further into the room. She strode over to the shelves along the windowed wall, and chose a single flower to pick from a big terracotta pot painted with bright designs. Amerie winced back as the woman approached her. “Here. Welcome to the house.”

Amerie accepted the flower cautiously, which looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. The complex double bell actually shaded from violet deep inside through blue and yellow to brilliant crimson around the outer edge, with a vividly yellow-green thing in the middle she thought might be called a stamen. Automatically, she raised it so she could see if it had a scent, then hesitated.

“Go ahead. It smells quite nice.”

Amerie was already inhaling by the time Thalia added, “Plus it’ll be good for you. Goodness. You’re a shy little mouse, but I think we can fix that particular issue.”

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