Loris of New Castle

Chapter 9

Her short ‘Welcome Home’ seemed to be the cue for everyone else to break free and cheer. I thought my heart would jump out of my chest at all the noise. Luckily, Pilosa, ‘Mother’ or ‘Mumsy’ as she kept insisting I call her, didn’t seem to mind me mutually clinging to her arm as we walked through all the shouting and hurrahing to the house. She apparently took my shaking for excitement and emotion, not the near mindless terror I actually felt. If I’d thought that I could bolt into a patch of bushes or into a crawl space under the house, I would have.

Next came all the names. Yes, I know there were a lot of them before; there were even more now. Pilosa nattered on and on, and I was forced to shake the hand of every single person lining the walkway. I had so much humanity on my hands by the time we reached the door, it was all I could do not to run shrieking to the little pond in the front yard and plunge my arm up to the elbow into it. Then there were relatives.

Once we made it inside, I barely had enough time to gawk at the entry. It was just as eccentric as the outside. Before I knew it I was shuffled into one of the most opulent rooms I have ever seen. It dripped luxury. They had rugs on the wall. On the wall! I was told they were called ‘tapestries’ . They looked just like pictures and covered up the fact that the walls also had deep burgundy and gold lines running up and down them. It seemed like a waste to me, having such rich colors on the wall and then doing everything to cover them up, but that pattern seemed repeated through the room-something colorful draped in something even more colorful or patterned.

The couch was white with a green pattern that looked like fern fiddleheads, but they had lacey blankets draped over their backs and arms. There were five, little girls crammed on to it. Each girl seemed to wear exactly the same white, frilly dress, like the same person repeated into miniature five times. The chairs were the same way with various adults occupying them, all seeming to be preoccupied in taking tea.

The tables were actual carved wood and had little feet, like wolves or catamounts, but they all wore white blankets as though they might catch cold. Any place a vase or figurine or statuette could be put, it was, regardless of the fact each wall had its own cabinet with real glass in it stocked with even more strange items I was later told were ‘knick-knacks’. These odd broken bits and partially carved stones, I was informed, were ‘souvenirs’ and memorabilia from Walkabouts and expeditions.

Sitting in the largest, plumpest, and only unadorned leather chair in the room was a figure whose white hair and pale eyes reminded me unsettlingly of a female version of Gimlet. Despite the commotion and hubbub in the entry, the second we entered her presence, the banter softened to a burble before slowing to a hush. She did not bother to rise from her chair where she held a wicked looking set of needles with a light netting between them. I wondered what sort of a weapon this was as the more she clicked the needles together, the longer the net became.

A large man dressed in brown and khaki with sandy hair rose from one of the couches and approached me. He took a circle of glass on a long, metal tether from his breast pocket and set it in place over his right eye, where it miraculously stayed in place. With a touch, the lens suddenly became three, each a different color that swiveled and shifted their order one after the other. He had a mustache nearly as impressive as the Colonel’s, but this was more of a sweeper brush that twitched under his nose, much like the starry whiskers of a mole, as he regarded me. After a moment he straightened.

“So this is the Loris?”

Pilosa put a protective hand on my shoulder.

“This is our Loris, yes.”

The man straightened and swiveled to address the old woman in the leather chair.

He announced loudly, “Grandmother, this is the-“

“Yes, I heard you, Cebis!” she snapped. “I’m old, not deaf. Something your scions might do well to remember at the breakfast table.”

“Hm? Quite.” Cebis turned back to me. “I, young Loris, am your Uncle Cebis. The regal woman you behold knitting in the chair is your Great Grandmother Catalyn.” He paused, giving weight to his words. “You are one of the only families in New Castle to actually have a Great Gran of any sort, but she’s a determined and crusty matron, memory like an elephant too, downright Nixonian, so don’t do anything you don’t want her remembering and reminding you of for the rest of your life.”

Great Catalyn snorted and waved her hand, “Get on with it Cebis, or she’ll drop from boredom if not from exhaustion.”

Uncle Cebis’s mustache ruffled in annoyance, “Quite. Moving on. You have, of course, already met your mother Pilosa. Well, over in this chair, this paragon of gentility and motherhood is your Aunt Silvia, mother to your cousins over here on the couch, from oldest to youngest, tallest to smallest, Abbi, Blanche, Cori, Danse, and Eyrie, with hopefully a little ‘Fauna’ or ‘Ford’ on the way.”

Aunt Silvia was a downy-haired woman with ringlets and large eyes that seemed perpetually on the verge of tearing up. She sat with her hands perpetually on her small belly, cheeks reddening, and she spoke in a high, whispy voice. I thought perhaps she might be having a spell.

“Oh Loris,” she cooed, “We are ever, ever so glad to have found you! Your mummy, Pilosa, is ever so excited to have a child of her own now!”

I felt Pilosa shift behind me as she leaned forward and murmured in a low voice, “Bunny, dear, you make it sound as though Loris hadn’t been my own all along, but I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s not like a breeder wife has all that much time to pay attention to anything but her own. How is Vickers, by the way, Cebis?”

I wasn’t entirely sure what just transpired, except that there was some mutual exchange of unpleasantness, judging from the horrified look on Silvia’s face, the sudden stiffening of everyone else in the room, and Great Catalyn’s warning, “Pilosa!”

Pilosa snorted and waved her hand, stepping around me and into the room. She put her hands on my shoulders then knelt to face me, her skirts pooling out around her. She had shockingly dark eyes, almost black on black. It made them look huge. They shimmered now with excitement or expectation. I wasn’t sure which made me more nervous. Pilosa seemed a very loud woman for me to be related to.

“Loris, sweetness, how old do you think you are? Do you remember your age?”

I averted my eyes, but everyone in the room was looking at me. The little girls on the couch all looked like miniature versions of their mother. Their hair color ranged from blond on the eldest who regarded me with a bored expression to red at its darkest on the youngest who was draped over the armrest, almost asleep. They had almost as much lace and fabric on them as the couch they crammed on to. They were all now conversing with each other in hushed whispers, about me no doubt.

“Lorus has thirteen years.” After all, I was old enough to mate.

Pilosa grinned. She had huge teeth.

“Very good, Loris, you remembered!” She patted my head and smoothed my hair. “This means you have been missing for almost 10 years. This end of November is your birthday. You will turn 14. That’s an important age for a New Castle child.”

She turned to look expectantly at Great Catalyn whose face remained neutral. She did give a slight nod of her head, which Pilosa took as agreement. She gave a little squeal and then suddenly grabbed me and squeezed me again.

“So in a month, thirty days, we’re going to have a big birthday party for you! But not just any party. Since you missed ten years of us celebrating, we’re going to have a party for all ten years of missed birthdays! It will be an all day, all night party!”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say or do, but obviously Pilosa was very excited by this prospect.

“Th-that sounds good?” I was going to have to find out what a birthday and party were very quickly.

“I know!” Pilosa clapped her hands together. “It will be the event of the season! It will be bigger than White Day!” She laughed and put a hand over her mouth. “The other Wardens and Wardensans are going to freak!”

I looked around the room, an uneasy smile on my face, but now only the pack of cousins seemed to be looking at me.

Pilosa patted her cheek, “Give your Mumsy a kiss, Loris. Then we’ll send you off to bed.”

I felt my face grow hot.

“L-Lorus doesn’t know ‘kiss’.”

There was a laugh from the couch. One of the little girls in the middle, Danse I think, grabbed her sister’s face next to her and mashed her own face against her cheek. It reminded me unsettlingly of what the Roadies called ‘necking’ or ‘getteneton’. Usually, much more touching followed.

“Like this, Loris!”

That close? I looked at Pilosa in horror, but she smiled and patted her cheek again. What was this ‘kiss’ for anyway? I hesitated, but now everyone was staring again in expectation. Frowning I slowly leaned in then took a breath and mashed my nose into her cheek.

“Oh! Eh, well, almost,” Pilosa laughed in surprise. “More like this, my sweet.”

She leaned her face in next to mine, but I felt her lips press against my cheek and make a soft smacking noise instead of her nose. I pulled back, startled and put a hand on my cheek. She hadn’t bitten me, so I wasn’t marked, but then what was the purpose of that?

“Ladies and Gentleman, I suspect it has been a rather long day for young Loris,” Miss Crane announced from the back of the room. “She will most assuredly benefit from sleep.”

Great Catalyn nodded, “Indeed. It is well past the hour I usually retire. Very well. Pilosa, you no doubt will want to introduce Loris to her quarters and attendants. Silvia, good evening to you and your daughters. Cebis, a moment more, if you will. Crane, a glass of the Chambliss.”

As of one accord, everyone in the room nodded to Great Catalyn and said, “Yes, Warden Forsythe.”

It was with great relief that I was finally steered back out of the room. It felt like hours going up twisting stairs and down winding hallways. The inside was just as crazy and mismatched as the outside. I thought perhaps I would be put in the same room as my cousins, but they all went filing past, the littlest one, Eyrie, squeaking, “Nigh night!” before disappearing down the hall.

After that, I was taken into a room as big as the hospital ward I had been staying in. There was only one bed in this room though. It was a strange piece of furniture that even had its own tent held aloft by four posts as though to stave off rain. Three women suddenly appeared, and before I could fight, they had my shirt over my head, britches off, and a long, white shirt back over my head. It was something they called a ‘nightgown’. Apparently, this was not just something that the Forsythes did. They claimed all Castelians dressed similarly for bed, as though it were an occasion.

Finally, the lamps were extinguished, and with one more bizarre kiss on the cheek from Pilosa, I was left alone. Without the lamps, the room was nearly pitch dark. That didn’t bother me. I had been put plenty of places with no light. As my eyes adjusted and I peered about the space, I realized it was the first time in over three months that I had been left completely alone. My hands fumbled about with the sheets, clawing them closer to wrap around me. There was so much empty space. At least in the woods I could burrow into a log or hide under a rock. In Purgatory there was always another body within arm’s reach. As many blankets as I pulled around me, I still felt soft and exposed.

It was so quiet. There was no breathing from fellow patients. There was no creaking of tent poles or branches overhead. It was a still night, so not even the wind blew past the window. I felt I could hear the loud thumping of my own heart. For a moment I thought about calling out to Pilosa or maybe Miss Crane. What came out of my throat though was such a sad squeak, it immediately made me feel ashamed.

So, quietly pulling one of the blankets with me, I slipped out of bed then under it. The tight space under the boards was much more comfortable. Once I had my back against the wall and the blankets wrapped around me, I could at last quiet my thoughts and drift to sleep.