Riddle for the Ages (110)

PSI-2

Mordecai crouched down in front of the shop window and arranged the collar of Erik’s shirt, and pulled up the stockings and straightened the cuffs on the pant legs. He had already removed and pocketed the goofy-looking striped hat with the hole for Erik’s eye, so they were running out the clock on his socket starting to hurt in the cold. “Okay, what are we trying to accomplish?”

“Sheet… music,” Erik managed, frowning.

“And maybe a record to match if they have it,” the red man added. “So what must we do at all costs?”

Erik sighed and shook his head. “Pretend we’re… civilized.” They’d been over this so many times he was starting to get worried… and annoyed. Annorried. This was supposed to be a fun present!

“Right. We are representing poor people and colored people in a real shop downtown where they don’t sell second-hand stuff, we don’t ruin it for everyone else.”

“No running, no yelling,” Erik said.

“Right.” Mordecai consulted the shop window and undid his coat to adjust his own jacket and tie. “And smile.” He made one. Erik did too, and they stood there smiling at each other like beauty contestants in the swimsuit competition.

“Uncle, what’s ‘obsequiousness?’” Erik asked through his teeth.

“A form of psychological gymnastics which can win you the fight,” Mordecai replied and he pushed open the door.

It was cavernous inside, with undressed beams on the ceiling and hanging lights. A radio station that favored dull classical pieces played from some tastefully understated speakers. There were aisles with racks of music and records with occasional displays of instruments to break up the monotony. A wrought-iron staircase spiraled up to the second floor and a handwritten sign indicated VINTAGE MUSIC was up there. Similar signs offered RENTALS, PIANO LESSONS, and PRACTICE ROOMS BY THE HOUR. The floor was creaking planks and everything smelled of dust and varnish — similar to Mordecai’s violin case, which Erik had learned to associate with music in the first place. It only helped a little. It was like a pair of starched underwear in here.

The woman who was standing behind the glass counter and sorting through a crate of records looked up at the sound of the bell above the door and tipped down her reading glasses. She also smiled. “Oh, Mr. Eidel. It’s been so long! Happy Yule! Was there something popular you couldn’t quite get off the radio?”

He laughed. Ha, ha, I would feel so much better if you didn’t quite remember me or got me mixed up with someone else sometimes, given that I‘m only in here a couple times a year, lady-behind-the-counter-whom-I-only-sort-of-recall! It was definitely a Miss, and something which he had tried to tell himself was music-related so he’d remember it, but he had a sense of humor so now he wasn’t sure. Miss Flatt? Miss Fort? Miss Arpeggio? “Oh, no, not today, my dear.” That would do. It seemed friendly. “I promised Erik he could pick out some music of his own once he learned to sight-read well enough to get through a whole song. So of course I’ve come to the best music store in town!”

“Oh, what an adorable…” said Miss (Possibly Key…?) and she jerked to a halt in mid-lean like a balky automaton, staring at Erik’s metal eye. “Is it a toy?”

No, lady, I’m a live performance, Erik thought, smiling. “No, ma’am. It helps me see. You have a lovely store.”

Mordecai saw a smart remark rise to Erik’s mouth and get rejected, like someone resetting a photograph. He didn’t even get mad enough to slow down. Mordecai patted him on the head. Good boy. Learn how to fly too high for them to see you and you’ll get away with anything.

…Only please don’t do that with me, he thought, with a flicker of concern.

“He’s so polite!” gushed Miss (Barre..?).

We’re impressed with the trainer and not the monkey, aren’t we? Mordecai thought, smiling. And this was not a mental picture that was as easy for him to reset as tapping a finger on a photo. It was much harder to shrug off an arrow when it was sticking out of a loved one. “Well, we do our best,” he managed finally. Oh, gods, I sound like Ann…

“We know all about not running in nice stores and not touching things that don’t belong to us, don’t we?” the woman asked Erik, leaning down.

We know all about taking our business to stores without condescending salespeople, don’t we? Mordecai thought. He should’ve gone to that place down in SoHo. It was cheaper too. It was just that they sold glass hookahs and rolling paper in there, also, and the owner thought his name was ‘Hey, man…’

“Yes, ma’am,” Erik said, impeccably.

Mordecai lifted a finger, “Ah, it is all right if he looks through the sheet music I’m going to buy for him, isn’t it, my dear?”

“Are his hands clean?” she asked Mordecai, frowning.

———

They walked down the aisle towards the new sheet music with their clean hands folded politely in front of them. There was a drum kit set up and labeled in firm slashes of black marker: DO NOT PLAY. Erik spoke in a low voice, aside, “If she were my… teacher I’d put a… tack on her… chair.”

Mordecai snickered. “We can insult her all we like as long as we keep our voices down. It’s far enough away. If you want to go through the older stuff on the second floor we can even talk to each other like human beings.”

“Can… we… stop… smiling?” Erik said.

“If she doesn’t come over to ‘help’ us, then yes.”

Erik huffed a sigh and deflated. He smiled again, but more genuinely. “It’s kinda fun pretending I’m Maggie.”

“I think I slipped into being Ann for a second back there,” Mordecai admitted. “Oh, look. Here’s that Top Forty drivel your Auntie Hyacinth likes so much.” The display rack was a cardboard jukebox, with the top ten hits of the week displayed as song selections. “Not to prejudice your opinion in any way, dear one.” He lifted both hands. “You can have anything you like. The Beatles are upstairs, if you’re curious.” He grinned.

“We’ve got all their stuff,” Erik said. A lot of it wasn’t written down, but Uncle Mordecai could produce any given Beatles tune with some music-ruled paper and a pencil — even the older stuff, when Erik had dared him.

“I don’t think I know all the covers,” Mordecai said contemplatively. “You don’t feel a burning desire to learn ‘Please Mr. Postman,’ or ‘Twist and Shout,’ do you?”

“Calliope has the Marvelettes doing ‘Mr. Postman,’” Erik said. He noted ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ slotted into the Top Ten Hits of 1376 on the side of the jukebox at No. 5 and investigated the folio to see if it said anything about being a spacing exercise. “I like it okay.”

Mordecai winced. “Well, it’s not much of a present if Calliope already has it, is it, dear one?”

Erik peeped around the edge of a display, “Is it for… New Year’s or can I have it… right… away?”

Technically Yule was presents and parties the whole time, but only rich people did that. If you were normal, there were three ‘must party’ days in the season: Midwinter, New Year’s, and Twelfth Night. These were spaced well enough to allow stomachs and pocketbooks to recover and each had their own themes and traditions. The poor could mitigate this by ignoring the themes, drawing names out of a hat so everyone got one present, just doing Twelfth Night, or some combination thereof. The destitute could eat reasonably well in soup kitchens for the duration and try not to freeze while admiring the pretty lights.

Midwinter decorations were green and white and forest-related, including birds and animals. You were supposed to put the Yule tree up on Midwinter Eve, unless you were fond of fire hazards and bought yours at the beginning of December. Thus they were a lot cheaper three days later when Hyacinth and her boarders swooped down upon some lucky tree lot to buy up a piece of the remaining stock. Presents were meant to be handmade things demonstrating pure affection, like the lopsided striped hat with the hole for Erik’s eye that Calliope had knitted for him so his socket wouldn’t get cold. Some families found the obligation a bit stressful and resorted to store-bought items that looked earnestly-wrought, and could be passed off as personal creations — or not, according to taste. Hyacinth’s ex-family, well-heeled enough to do all twelve days, had preferred to give imported Iliodarian folk art. Someone had handmade it somewhere, presumably.

New Year’s was tomorrow night, with presents traditionally given at midnight but pushed back any number of hours into Old Year’s by parents who wanted their children to sleep. The colors were red and gold, for wealth and luck. A gift of fireworks was absolutely necessary for midnight (ish) and the chasing away of ghosts and misfortune. Children were also given clever little mechanical toys, many of which made loud repetitive noises. (Erik guessed some sheet music might count for that.) The traditional gift for adults was alcohol. Hyacinth had once been gifted a wind-up monkey in Farsian robes that smiled and banged cymbals — at a young enough age that she unironically adored it. Later, when one turned up in a horror movie and David screamed at it, she’d been annoyed, which only made him scream louder. He also made her another one, life-sized, in gold plate. He called it Mister Hellmouth. Even Hyacinth had to admit it was better — it breathed fire — but she tried not to let on.

Twelfth Night, a week later, was one last hurrah before partyless cold winter closed back in. The colors were silver and blue, as if to ease the overstimulated brain back into snow and boredom. The presents subverted this. Twelfth Night was for the good stuff. Even better than Mister Hellmouth. Stuff that made people scream and cry — in the nicest of ways. David had on multiple occasions attempted to give Hyacinth a pony for Twelfth Night. (When she was sixteen he had merged silver stars to the poor thing and labeled it ‘Magical Lesbian Hornless Safety Unicorn!’ She was not amused.) Now, living in a house with no roof, she and her boarders just did their best. Sometimes they did the names-in-a-hat thing, or just more handmade stuff but really carefully this time. Sanaam would get home at some point with something for everyone, anyway — and try to cram twelve days of celebration into one night with his family so he didn’t feel left out. Actual Twelfth Night was for a lot of hugs and a nice meal and meaning well.

“It’s for right away,” Mordecai replied. “Yule means presents anytime, without warning, even if not constantly.” He frowned. “Do you mind it’s not wrapped?”

Erik lifted the folio he was holding and ruffled the pages inside. “You better not. I’d keep opening it until there was nothing left.”

“Milo could probably figure out something…”

“It’s from you,” Erik said firmly.

“I suppose,” Mordecai allowed with a smile. “See anything you like or do you have taste?”

“No and no,” Erik said. He took a few paces away and started having a look through NEW ARTISTS. Mordecai slid in beside him. It was good to be aware of the new music, even if he’d probably learn it off the radio.

“Most of this stuff is guitar,” Erik noted. He had to go back five or six folios before he found piano, then violin.

“Guitars are cool,” Mordecai said. “Guitarists are cool. Specifically lead guitarists. Nobody loves the bass player.”

“What about Paul?”

“…Okay, but he was cute.” Mordecai lifted a folio labeled Violin/Cello. “But bowed instruments are important, even if they just end up in tiny print in the liner notes. There’s only so much you can do to sustain the vibration in a guitar or a drum. Bowed instruments are great for magic effects, and they can keep up with the singer. They can be the singer if you do it right. When you make a guitar sing, it can only hold a note for a little bit. So we’re lucky at least seventy-five-percent of the Beatles could carry a tune,” he added.

“Couldn’t you make a better guitar?” Erik asked. “One that goes as long as you want it? With a button or something?”

“You can do anything with magic,” Mordecai said. “But that doesn’t mean you should. If someone’s come up with an auto-vibrating guitar, it hasn’t caught on.” He shook his head. “It’s not great to put buttons or magic on an instrument, anyway. Any kind. Messes with the tone. The magic we do isn’t glued to the violin, it’s from us.”

“Anchored, Uncle. Magic is anchored.”

Mordecai leaned back and folded his arms. “Magnificent D’Iver is smarter than your old uncle, huh?”

“Only… some stuff,” Erik replied.

Mordecai stifled a laugh against his sleeve. Miss Martha-My-Dear or whoever wouldn’t approve of any fun in the store. DO NOT PLAY. “Oh, I see.”

“Do you know what ‘quantum superposition’ is?” Erik said. “Maggie wasn’t sure.”

Oh, well, now I have to, Mordecai thought. “Well, ‘superposition’ is when things are so close together they’re on top of each other,” he said. “But I don’t know ‘quantum.’ Who did you hear it from?”

“Violet. She says Calliope’s worried about it, but she’s trying to be a good scientist. Calliope is.”

“Aha,” said Mordecai. “Then it might not be a word yet. Sometimes we can take words apart and try to figure them out. ‘Quantum’ sounds like ‘quantity,’ so it might mean an amount. But you can get in trouble doing that too, because Anglais is two languages smushed together in the first place and we like to borrow words from everywhere and it all has different rules. Does ‘a lot of things almost on top of each other’ make sense for what she was talking about?”

“Could it be a lot of things that might happen?”

“That does sound like a very Violet thing to say.”

Erik nodded slowly. “Then yeah. She said Calliope doesn’t want to ‘change the results by observing them.’ That’s how come she doesn’t tell Milo she wants to like him but she’s trying to figure out what kind of person he really is. She thinks it’s mean to make him guess about how she feels, but if he knows it’s a test, he’ll freak out and mark all the answers ‘no.’”

“Oh, is that what’s going on back home?” said Mordecai, blinking.

Erik sighed and rocked back on his heels. “No. Lots more. All the time. But I don’t always get it, and a lot of it… bothers me. I can’t… say the stuff I don’t get ‘cos I don’t… know if it’s… bad.”

Mordecai turned away from the rack of music, crouched down and put hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Erik, I don’t want you to hold things inside and try to handle them all by yourself because you’re afraid they might hurt me. That hurts you. You know that, right? Yeah?” Erik gave him a weak nod, looking away. “I’m stronger than I look, okay? I can carry a lot of stuff.”

Erik shook his head. It was still twisted aside so Mordecai could only see his metal eye — that one had a lot less expression, just a shutter mechanism that opened and closed. “I… used to… say… stuff. I… didn’t… like it.” You didn’t like it, he didn’t dare say. He remembered a little when he said something about the cats, that was from the hotel. That was really bad. His uncle ran out and he was pacing back and forth in the alley and he yelled and hurt Milo.

He brought his head up, his expression pleading. “It’s not… real if I don’t… say it. Like… monsters in the… corner of your… eye. Don’t… look, don’t… see.”

“But you know they’re there,” Mordecai said.

Erik nodded.

Mordecai knelt and drew Erik into a hug. “Yeah. I get monsters like that too. It sucks.”

“…Yeah,” said Erik. He wrapped both arms around his uncle and held tight. They were like that for a little, but when Mordecai felt dampness against him he pulled a tissue out of his coat pocket and set Erik back a little to wipe his face. If his eye got wet it might freeze or something.

Erik snickered and scrubbed the back of his hand across his cheek. “‘Paranoid.’ I like that. It sounds like itself.”

“It is a smallish monster with large eyes and high blood pressure,” Mordecai said. “It has cold feet like a little mouse. I’ve been doing this longer than you so I know things like that,” he went on, sternly. “Please let me help you when you can. I have to trust you to pick when I’ll help more than hurt, but I will always try to help when you need.”

“Can I help you sometimes too?” Erik said.

“Ah.” Mordecai dropped his hands to his sides and turned his head away. “Erik… you are seven…”

Erik held up eight fingers, irritated.

“I’m sorry. Eight. But you are not responsible for holding my hand when I’m scared and picking me up when I fall down. You might have a kid of your own someday, that’s when you’ll do things like that. You have to trust me to fix myself. Or to get an adult person to help fix me if I can’t do that.”

Erik frowned deeply. “Not… fair.”

“We’re not the same kind of person, dear one,” Mordecai said. “We’re not equal. You’re small and still growing and that makes you special. You can hang a swing on a big tree and play on it, no problem. You try that with a little sapling and you’ll kill it. You need extra right now so you can grow up strong… and maybe a little less like me.”

What am I supposed to do when I find you hiding in the bathroom with a pile of tissues? Erik wanted to say, but that was so jumbled up he couldn’t even make it be words in his head, just pictures and feelings. He pointed at his uncle and he said, “Bathroom… Tissues… Hide…”

Mordecai got it in three, like some kind of messed up party game. “Okay, I know what you’re talking about. That wasn’t fair of me. I didn’t go for help when I should have and you ended up in charge of me. Sometimes I think I can straighten myself out and I can’t and then I fall on you. I’m still learning how to ask people for help. If that happens again I think you should get Auntie Hyacinth or Calliope to come help you with me and not put me back together all by yourself, okay?”

“Stuck in the bathroom, that’s no fun, call emergency services, one-one-one,” Erik sang under his breath, dripping with acid.

“Huh?” said Mordecai.

Erik wiped his gray eye with a fist. “You’re s’posed to rat people out if they do magic. It’s dumb.”

“Who told you that?”

“The… government.” Erik sighed. “I don’t… want to tell more… people. It… feels like when you had to… help me with the… bathroom when you’re that way.”

“It feels that way for me too, and that’s why I act stupid about it,” Mordecai said. “I might need you to push me to be smart sometimes. I am not thrilled about that because that’s not something you should have to do, but that’s some help I need.”

Erik considered that. Usually if his uncle was telling lies to make him feel better, someone would pop up and tell him because they thought that was funny. He did not get any invisible input on this reluctant acceptance of some help and after a few long moments he nodded slowly. Relief made the words come faster, “Okay. I’m still small and dumb so I’ll help you with a small, dumb monster. Deal?” He offered his hand to shake.

“You’re not dumb, dear one.”

“More than you.”

“Only about some stuff,” Mordecai allowed. He shook the hand. “Okay, I’ll fight monsters with you, but you’re junior and I’m senior. I’m the knight errant and you’re my faithful squire and I will teach you to slay dragons but in the meantime I’ll try to keep them from eating you.”

“I like dragons,” Erik said sadly.

“We’ll only slay the mean ones. The nice ones can come live in Hyacinth’s house with the rest of us weirdos.”

Erik managed a smile. “Okay.”

“Are we about done with the new artists? You ready to head upstairs with the Beatles and the Stones and the good stuff? Or would you rather play…” He picked up the nearest. “Enya?”

Erik wrinkled his nose. “It sounds like an ingredient. What’s ‘new-age?’”

“A travesty,” Mordecai said, hauling back to his feet. He offered his hand. “Upstairs?”

“Upstairs!”

The woman behind the counter looked up and said, “Shh!”

“Do… Not… Play,” Erik said, solely for Mordecai’s benefit, behind smiling teeth.

“I’m so sorry, my dear, he was just so excited about your lovely spiral staircase,” Mordecai made himself say. “Erik is terribly passionate about his architecture, gothic cathedrals and all that. Isn’t it nice for a young boy to have an intellectual hobby?”

“Don’t let him run up it,” the woman said.

“I would sooner damage my child than your beautiful staircase, believe me.” He bowed. “Erik, we are humanoid automatons and if we go any faster than a brisk walk our gears will show,” he added in a lower voice. “Let’s fool her into thinking we’re people.”

They strode stiffly by the counter to the staircase with their arms at their sides. “Click,” Erik remarked in passing.

“Just a couple of sapient life forms purchasing vintage sheet music and not intending to consume it as code,” Mordecai said grandly.

The woman stared after them, but their behavior was not coherent enough for her to parse it as an insult or even ask him if he’d said what she thought he’d said.

———

They collapsed laughing when they reached the second floor and were safe, muffling it with hands and coats as needed.

“Oh, my gods, that’s much better,” Mordecai said. He coughed into a tissue and wiped his mouth. “Are we unsupervised, Erik?” he asked in a low, suspicious voice. “Check.”

There was a man in a collarless blazer and voluminous scarf sorting through the blues music and a kid in one of the practice rooms blowing himself into a silent apoplexy with a trombone, visible through a window in the closed door. Otherwise, they were alone with the crates and shelves and the hand-lettered signs. Nobody official who might throw them out. The wallpaper up here had large tacky flowers and had been covered with more-fashionable posters of old album art and Music Vox films. It was much better, despite the continued classical soundtrack and the stodgy upright piano, once again labeled: DO NOT PLAY.

A smaller sign tented atop the closed keyboard advised: For Piano Lessons, See Miss Pepper (downstairs).

Miss Pepper, Mordecai thought. He smacked a hand to his head. Music-related. Why do I self-sabotage all the time? This is a condiment, a spice.

He regarded a faded poster for Yellow Submarine.

…And now the next time I come in here, I’ll be convinced her name is Miss Jeremy Hillary Boob.

Erik snickered. “I want to come next time and see you call her that.”

Mordecai swatted him gently on the back, “Well, go pick out some music you can learn by the time I forget this place annoys me. Figure on four months and don’t run, she can hear you through the ceiling.”

Erik giggled and took off at a reasonable pace, hands stuffed in his pockets. He walked down the aisles and regarded the signs. Jazz sheet music is a contradiction, he reminded himself, striding past it. So’s the Grateful Dead.

He drew up short upon encountering a sign with a bicycle horn drawn on it. NOVELTY MUSIC.

Novelty…?

I know what that is!

His uncle never called it that (he called it ‘no’) but Calliope did! He flipped through the folios with urgency and yanked out one with a familiar name to show. “Uncle!”

Mordecai noted the enthusiasm, and then the sign at the end of the aisle, and he rushed over as if Erik had just drawn out a two-handed sword. Oh, gods, no, I forget they hid that stuff up here… “Erik, no!”

“Spike… Jones!” Erik said, grinning. A portrait of a blond man with bug eyes and a polka-dot bow tie grinned also from the cover of the music.

“Erik, that stuff has weird noises and a lot of talking and it’s really hard to do,” Mordecai said rapidly. “And it’s hard to get it from the sheet music, you’ll just be dis…”

Erik’s hand came up like a ‘no sale’ flag on a cash register. “Calliope… has…”

“Well, then it’s not a very nice present if she already has half of it!” Mordecai plowed over him. “I want to get you the music and the record! It’s Yule!”

That would at least preclude ‘You Always Hurt the One You Love’ and ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas…’

He belatedly realized that he had just ensured Erik would not only be repeatedly playing novelty music but also a record of novelty music, a migraine headache in stereo.

Erik easily picked out five folios of things he’d caught on the radio and adored and walked them over to the record crates to match them up, smiling.

It can’t be worse than ‘Yes, We have No Bananas,’ Mordecai thought, pleading with reality. It absolutely can’t be…

———

Mordecai was collapsed in one of the big chairs in the front room, with both hands clutched over his head. He was not enjoying the tree or the festive atmosphere one least little bit, although it did intermittently occur that it might be nice to crawl into the lit terracotta brazier, pull the flames closed above him and depart this cruel world without waiting to see what Erik had gotten him for New Year’s.

Calliope was playing records with her door open. Record. Calliope was playing record, singular. The children were delighted. Maggie had the whole damn day off, and Erik couldn’t help showing off his present. He hadn’t even hauled out the violin to try playing the sheet music yet.

When ‘Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?’ by the Happiness Boys ground to a halt in a flurry of cheers, Calliope obligingly flipped the record and reset the needle, and ‘Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?’ began again, but this time by Lulu Belle and Scotty. They had banjos. It was a special edition.

“It’s catchy,” Hyacinth allowed.

“So is typhoid!” Mordecai cried.

“But more fun!” Maggie opined, dancing with Erik.

Hyacinth wandered into the kitchen via the dining room and resisted the urge to yank Milo by the arm. He had been hiding just inside the doorframe, but she could see the tips of his shoes. She pointed a finger and spoke in a low voice, “The door is open! Go in there and listen with her, dummy!”

Milo rapidly shook his head, crossing his hands in front of him, and staggered back a pace.

“Oh, hey, Milo,” Maggie said. “When did you get home?”

Milo vanished back into the kitchen. He could be heard knocking into chairs and then glimpsed barreling out of the other doorway and hooking upstairs to his room, a blur of white shirt and dark trousers. The door closed with a quiet ‘click.’

Calliope peeked out of her room holding a smiling Lucy against her and absorbed the circumstances: No more Milo, Hyacinth looking up the stairs, Maggie looking confused, and Erik looking sad.

“Thanks for screwing up my data set, Cin!” Calliope accused. “Geez! You’re worse than the squirt bottle lady!” She closed the door to her room and stopped the music with a faint scratch.

“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Hyacinth said.

Erik sighed. “I do.”

Mordecai peered hopefully over the back of the chair like a trench-bound soldier. “Dear one, what if I make lunch and then we never play any music ever again?”