“Sorry,” she said hastily, and fled before she made a mess of things.
—
In the shadowyquiet of the bedroom, Elodie dressed, paying little attention to what she pulled from the kit (whichexplains how she came to wear a long plaid skirt; a lacy, blue-dotted shirtwaist; and a green silk opera coat embroidered with peacocks). She secured her hair in a lopsided braid. Then, grabbing maps, a weather station, and a field notebook, she left the room.
And a few seconds later returned to don stockings and shoes.
“It’s not my fault I’m being absent-minded,” she told the empty room defensively. After all, no woman cared about trivialities like clothing when the man of her dreams had…er…talked about glow-in-the-dark fish.
“Oh dear,” she murmured. “Perhaps he doesn’t want to romance me after all. Perhaps he really was just talking theoretically. I maypossiblyhave let my imagination run away with me.”
As usual,replied the room, with a smug silence.
“No, he kissed me,” she argued. She certainly hadn’t imagined that.
Feeling much tousled in spirit, and needing to regain some composure before going downstairs, she crossed to the window and peered out. In the Queen Mab’s little garden below, Gabriel was carrying Baby across the grass while Tegan Parry hovered anxiously, rope in hand. His face twisted in disgust at the general goatishness to which he was being exposed, and yet he held Baby with gentle care. Elodie’s heart melted, and she leaned against the window frame, sighing with such sentimentality that she felt embarrassed for herself. Forget being a geographer; this was undignified behavior for awoman, or at least one with self-respect. Straightening, she assessed the view for geographical hazards, and even succeeded in convincing herself that this had been her original aim.
The thaumaturgical flare had dissipated, in the randomflash-then-fade way that characterized this situation, and the most interesting thing she saw wasGabriel’s trousers straining against his derriere as he crouched to set Baby downa mangled bush of the same flowers the goat had been chewing when they encountered him.
“Well, thankfully the world isn’t on the immediate verge of self-destruction,” she mumbled, “even if I am.”
She went down to the taproom. A few tourists were already seated therein, perusing breakfast menus. At the bar, two local gentlemen in work clothes conversed with Mr. Parry, and they fell silent while watching her cross the room, their attitude so suspicious that Elodie rather wished something would explode to divert attention from her.
Taking a table within earshot of the locals, she half listened to them muttering,“Twll dyn pob Sais,”while she drew a map of Dôlylleuad. Their tone suggested they weren’t commenting on her exceptional fashion sense. Indeed, by the time Gabriel arrived, wearing a new jumper and with hands scrubbed so clean they glowed, she was beginning to feel decidedly uncomfortable.
“I think we are outstaying our welcome,” she whispered as he sat beside her. “Mr. Parry and his friends keep giving me grim looks.”
“It’s early morning,” Gabriel said, shifting his chair by increments beneath him until it was aligned perfectly with the table. “Everyone is grim at this hour. What are you drawing?”
“I’m layering different themes into a map of the village, trying to pinpoint the most likely location for a trove of thaumaturgic materials. We’re running out of time to find what is causing this chaos.” She tapped her pencil against her weather station, all the gauges of which were now promising imminent doom.
Donning his spectacles, Gabriel contemplated the weather station somberly. “We should just go ahead and evacuate the village.”
“I tend to agree. But in which direction?”
They frowned at her map. “Hmm,” they murmured in unison.
Just then, Mr. Parry appeared beside the table. “Did I hear you say ‘evacuate’?” he asked in a low, troubled voice. “What do you mean by that?”
Gabriel looked up over the rim of his spectacles. “To withdraw from an area for the purposes of safety. Also to empty the bowels, but that isn’t relevant in this situation.”
Elodie hastily turned a laugh into a cough. Then she smiled at the innkeeper. “Nothing’s been decided yet. Can we please order two cooked breakfasts and coffees?”
“Sure,” Mr. Parry said, but he was frowning as he left.
They worked together on the map, absently eating breakfast as they did so. They shared ideas, debated the scale of various features, and generally behaved in a manner befitting colleagues who may have recently undergone two interesting episodes of nervous overexcitement but who were otherwise not engaged in romance, let alone genuinely married.
It is true, however, that as their hands lay side by side on the tabletop, Gabriel’s smallest finger brushed against Elodie’s with a slowness that cast some suspicion on the idea of it being accidental. But since neither of them reacted in any way beyond a tremor of their breath, this can be dismissed.
And when Elodie bumped her knee against Gabriel’s, one can accept it as a simple consequence of their nearness, understanding that she was too tired after the morning’s exertions to move it away.
Furthermore, when Gabriel took his hand off the table andlaid it on that knee…well, actually, there is no banal interpretation of this, but since it happened out of sight, beneath the table, it need not be counted.
Professor Jackson arrived, resplendent in a quilted dressing gown, with the cloud of his hair bundled atop his head and pierced through with a dowsing rod. A bleary-eyed Algernon shuffled behind him. They sat opposite Elodie and Gabriel, and Algernon immediately took first her mug and then Gabriel’s, peering inside for any coffee. Finding some dregs in Gabriel’s, he drank them with an unhygienic desperation that left Gabriel staring, appalled.
“I’ll buy you your own,” Elodie said, raising her hand for service. “I’m sure the Home Office can stand the expense.”
Algernon did not argue. “Professor Jackson lectured me all night about the art of cartography,” he said grittily, rubbing his face.
