Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess Read Free Page B

confused.”
    “Forsooth! I am the best story-teller in the
world. I do not expect you to know so, as you are an unfortunate
orphan without any knowledge of the world.” I looked over my
shoulder at his pinched little face. “In truth I was not trying to
tell you the story of the Queen of Aerithraine. If I had, you would
be filled with wonder and excitement. I have made half my fortune
from that story, and a better story, a truer story, a more profound
story; you are not likely to hear in all the days of your life. But
I was not trying to tell that story. I was trying to explain that
the Queen of Aerithraine has a soft spot for orphans. In fact, I
suppose that I do so myself, as I am almost an orphan.”
    “You are almost an orphan?”
    “Indeed.”
    “How can you be almost an orphan?”
    “Why couldn’t I be?” I demanded. “If anyone
can be, I could be.”
    “What I mean is…” He took a deep breath.
“How can one be almost an orphan?”
    “Oh. Well, it’s only that my parents aren’t
dead.”
    “I see,” said he.
    “But they were kidnapped,” I confided.
    “Are you sure they didn’t just run away?” he
asked.
    “It was a stormy night and I had been away
from my parents’ home, which is to say my former home, which is to
say Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills, and I was returning
for a visit. As I approached I heard a disturbance, though at first
I attributed it to the sounds of the storm. Then I looked up at the
cottage window to see figures silhouetted on the shade, locked in a
grim struggle.”
    “What did you do?”
    “Why, I rushed forward to aid my poor old
mother, who as I recall smells of warm pie, and my poor old father,
and my sister Celia, and my aunt Oregana, and my cousin Gervil, and
my other cousin Tuki, who is a girl cousin, which is to say a
cousin who is a girl, which makes sense, because whoever heard of a
boy named Tuki.”
    “They were all struggling by the
window?”
    “They may all have been struggling by the
window, or some of them may have been, or perhaps only one of them
was struggling by the window. I don’t know, because when I burst
into the front door, they were all gone. The back door was open
wide and the rain was splashing in.”
    “What happened to them?”
    “I know not.”
    “Were there any clues?”
    “Indeed there were.”
    “What were they?”
    “The table had been set for nine, which was
two places too many.”
    “Three places!” said the orphan
triumphantly. “You thought I wasn’t paying attention. There was
your father, mother, sister, aunt, and two cousins. That makes
six.”
    “They would also have set a place for
Geneva.”
    “Of course they would have. Who is she?”
    “She’s my other cousin, which is to say
Gervil’s sister, only she’s imaginary, but she wasn’t always
imaginary, which is to say she died, but Gervil still sees her, so
Aunt Oregana always sets a place for her.”
    “What other clues?”
    I listed them off. “There was a knife stuck
in Gervil’s bed. Floorboards had been loosened in several rooms.
There were drops of purple liquid leading out the back door. And
someone had hung bunches of onions from the rafters of the dining
room. Most mysterious of all was the fact that the tracks led away
from the house only fifty feet and then disappeared entirely.”
    The orphan gripped me around the waist and
squeezed. “How terrible,” he said, in a tiny voice.

Chapter Six: Wherein I begin to tell the
story of the Queen of Aerithraine.

    Hysteria clomped along slowly down the snow
covered road for some time. The orphan was so quiet that for a
while I thought he must have fallen asleep. But at last he stirred
and shifted a bit in his seat, which is to say upon Hysteria’s
flank. I myself had been quiet as I remembered the events of that
horrible night.
    “What are you thinking about?” asked the
orphan.
    “I’m thinking about that horrible night,” I
replied.
    “Did you never find your family?”
    “No,