Dovetail’s sigh of relief echoed loudly in the empty bedroom. “Yes, husepavua.”
“Black and gray?” Yves snorted. “They’re just like their mother; she was a moody little bitch. It’s ironic that Sire felt that he couldn’t safely lock Esme up and use her as a brood mare. Yet she turned around and made herself one.”
“Do you think there are more than these two?”
“Assuredly,” Yves said. “Finding them is the problem. Damn these monkeys with their mechanical idiocy. Every twenty years, they’re changing how the world works. Just as you’re starting to understand how to run their machines, they change everything. Nothing new works with anything old.”
Dovetail made a sound of disgust. “I know. Every fifty years I’ve had to completely redo all the damn lighting because they’ve changed the lightbulbs again. You can’t get one of these to save your soul.” She apparently held up the old bulb. There had been an antique crystal chandler hanging in Lain’s bedroom with large flame-shaped bulbs. “What is it you need, husepavua?”
“I need you to supervise uncrating our prize.”
“Ha! I heard about your adventure! So we’re going to take it apart here? I thought you’d ship it to Elfhome with the others.”
“I don’t want the others to know I have it. They’ve been saying that the beast doesn’t exist. I’m not sure if they were being naïve or deceitful.”
“Or just plain stupid.”
“Possibly. Still, you’re right. This is not the best of places for spell-working, so I need your expertise.”
“Understood.”
Footsteps echoed, moving away.
“Husepavua?” Dovetail called before Yves left the room. “Will we follow Sire soon?”
Follow? Follow Ming where? The twins hadn’t seen Ming since before Shutdown. Had he return to Elfhome without any fanfare?
“What are a few months to the thousands of years that we’ve waited?” Yves said.
“I’m so sick of this world,” Dovetail whispered fiercely. “I’ll be glad when we can go home. Reclaim all that was taken from us. I hate huddling around little pools of magic, praying that it will be enough to sustain us. I hate the monkeys with their stupid hidebound mores that keep changing according to some illogical male whim. Don’t bathe together. Don’t go out without a veil. Don’t go out without your breast covered up like it’s something indecent instead of a simple mammary gland. Don’t sleep with the slaves! Don’t own slaves. Treat everyone equally. They’re imbeciles.”
“Oui, oui.” Yves laughed in agreement. “We will follow soon. The monkeys found us that damned box with the loaded nactka. Sire now has everything in hand that he needs to crush the rebel slaves underfoot. We will continue to funnel weapons to Pittsburgh for as long as we can and then destroy the gate. A year or two at most.”
“Tomorrow would not be soon enough.”
Yves snickered at Dovetail’s impatience. “Patience. We want the first blow to be crippling.”
Jillian was in character. Louise wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or bad. Her twin had found an Air Force officer’s peaked cap, a baseball and glove. She strutted around the card table, tossing up the ball and catching it. She had placed an enlisted man’s garrison cap on Nikola’s head; judging by the beat of his thumping tail, this made him one happy puppy. Even Joy had a little paper hat that she was currently taste-testing.
“Private Dufae!” Jillian flung the baseball so it hit the floor, bounced off the side of the desk, and rebounded to her glove. “Cue The Great Escape theme song.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Nikola saluted, paw cocked up to his ear. The trumpet and drum military music started to play on Jillian’s tablet.
“Now to break out from Stalag Luft Drei, we face the following difficulties.” Jillian used a broad Midwest accent that gave a nod toward Missouri.
Nikola cocked his head. “Stalag Luft Drei?”
“Prison for Air Force Three,” Louise translated the German and then explained. “She means here. Just go with it.”
Louise decided that Jillian being in character was a good thing. She was patterning after Steve McQueen as Hilts, the most defiant of the Allied prisoners. Unfortunately, Hilts was recaptured in the movie.
“The Stalag is isolated deep in the German province of Lower Silesia.” Jillian nodded to the card table and flung the baseball again. The ball thud-thunked as it hit the floor at an angle and rebounded off the side of the vanity. It smacked back into the glove.
Blueprints covered the card table. The title block identified them as the original plans for the mansion as it was built in 1905. As Louise had suspected, several outbuildings that served as servants’ quarters flanked the mansion, hidden from view. The detached garage had originally been a large carriage house. Further out was a stable for the estate’s horses. Someone had noted that the stable had been converted to a dormitory in 1930s. “Where did you get these?”
“Esme.” Jillian gestured toward the secret room as if their genetic donor was hidden within it, handing out secret documentation like the French Resistance. “As we can see, the estate is mindboggling large for this close to New York City. Ming must have bought the land from Native Americans with glass beads, as there’s no evidence that it ever changed hands on the county records.” Jillian pointed to a satellite map on her tablet. It showed a paved walking trail through a public park. “We’ll need at least fifteen minutes to get from this bedroom to this trail.” She slid her finger several inches down the winding path line to the park’s parking lot and then across a busy street to a small collection of buildings. “This small strip mall is the nearest public building. I figure it would take us an hour to walk there. We could arguably call a taxi to pick us up there and take us into town. It’s ten miles as the crow flies to the nearest train station, River Edge, but that’s up and down fairly steep hillsides and across the Hackensack River. We’ll have to stick to the sidewalk, and that adds another four to five miles to our hike.”
So half a day to walk to the nearest train station since Louise didn’t think she could walk fifteen miles without breaks. They would need to cover the distance before the secret elves noticed that they were gone. If the twins left immediately after breakfast, however, they would just be reaching the train station at lunchtime, which they normally ate with Anna. They’d be missed, and the elves would probably check all logical points of transportation. Leaving after lunch created the same scenario, only dinner being the trigger. If they left in the evening, they might miss the last train. Two little girls out in the middle of the night would draw instant attention. Even the hour’s walk to get a taxi was full of danger. This would all be so much easier if they were just adults!
They probably would have to figure out alternate transportation. Something clever and unexpected. In prison movies they used laundry trucks, but the secret elves washed their own linens. Louise started a checklist of things they would need. It seemed massively overwhelming, but at least Jillian wasn’t huddled in bed, crying.
“I’ve devised four exit routes from this room to the sidewalk, depending on time of day.” Jillian poured out M&Ms onto the blueprint. “In the mornings, Nattie is in the kitchen along with Celine. Ming and Anna are in their suites in the east wing.” She slid red M&Ms to mark the locations of the adults. “And the rest are scattered among the outbuildings.” She placed four green M&Ms in the west wing. “And we’re here.”