A full complement of diners surrounded the Dechantagne table for the first time in a great while.  Radley Staff sat at the head of the table, his wife on his right hand and his daughter on his left.  Looking proudly from his spot directly opposite his uncle was Augie Dechantagne, a stack of books between his chair and his bottom.  His mother sat on his right hand and his sister, in her high chair, on his left.  Filling in the seats between Iolanthe and Terra were Mrs. Colbshallow and her son and daughter-in-law.  On the other side of the table were Cissy and two guests—Honor Hertling and her little sister Hero.

“How wonderful to have us all together,” said Staff, waving for one of the servants to start filling the soup bowls.

“It will make for a lovely Oddyndessen,” said Honor Hertling.

“For a what?”

“It’s a Zaeri holy day,” said Yuah, her eyes never quite moving up from the table.  “We don’t really celebrate it anymore in Brechalon.”

“Well, how lovely,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.  “It’s always wonderful to learn new things.”

“Should we…” said Staff.  “Would you… Is a prayer appropriate, considering?”

“We don’t usually do that,” said his wife, drumming her fingers on the table.

“Surely it can’t hurt… guests and all.”

“I could offer a simple prayer,” said Honor, and when Staff gave a nod that she should continue, she closed her eyes and intoned, “Great Lord, as you did with Odessah before his great journey, give us your blessings on this day.  Amen.”

“In Kafira’s name, Amen,” said Loana Colbshallow, making the sign of the cross.

She was followed about three ticks later by both her husband and mother-in-law.

The lizzies quickly served onion soup.  This was followed by a fruit and cress salad.  As soon as the salad plates had been removed, the servants began placing the main course.  Mrs. Colbshallow, though of course knowing nothing of Oddyndessen, had put together as fine a meal as she ever had.  A large pork roast was the center point, though there was also poached fish.  Pudding, peas, chips, and roasted mixed vegetables were placed on overflowing plates around the table.

“Wonderful as always mother,” said Saba Colbshallow.

“I think you’ve outdone yourself mother dear,” said his wife.

“Here, here,” agreed Staff.  “Dearest?”

“The problem is Mrs. Colbshallow,” said Iolanthe.  “Your meals are always so perfect.”

Everyone at the table sat staring, not sure if there was more to come, and not sure whether this was intended as an insult or a compliment.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Colbshallow after a minute.  She turned to Honor Hertling.  “It’s a shame that your brother couldn’t attend.”

“Yes.  He sends his regrets, but two ships came into port today, so he was needed at the docks.  I hear that the lizzies have begun to move back in to Lizzietown, General Staff.”

“Yes, some of them have.  It’s just Mr. Staff.”

“Some are moving back into town,” said Iolanthe.  “But I have let it be known that these savage witch doctors will not be tolerated.”

She turned and stared at Yuah, but her sister-in-law never looked up from the table.  Yuah just sat and absentmindedly moved the peas around her plate with her fork.

“What’s your man?” asked Augie Dechantagne as he slid his wooden playing piece, marked to resemble a utahraptor forward to attack a similar wooden piece controlled by his cousin Iolana.

“Drache Girl,” she said.

“No fair!” he cried.  “That’s supposed to be your lizzie witch doctor.”

“No, he’s over here.”  She pointed to another wooden square several inches closer to her.  “I moved him when you were eating all my lizzies with your tyrannosaurus.”

“I’m not playing anymore!”

“It’s just as well,” said Iolana, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.  “You know you can’t win when I have the Drache Girl.”

“Yuh huh.  What if I have Hoonan Matriarch?”

“What if I have Insane Witch Woman?” the girl countered, sliding her glasses back into place on her button nose.

“Tonahass Ssotook,” he snarled.

Iolana slapped him across the cheek.  Insane Witch Woman was a powerful piece that guaranteed victory for its owner, but that was no excuse for such profanity.  Augie jumped to his feet, tears escaping his already full eyes, and ran from the room, but not before kicking the little wooden squares across the rug.  The girl set about gathering the pieces all up and putting them back into their cloth bag.  She was just finishing as her aunt Yuah entered the parlor and sat down on the sofa.

“Good morning, Aunt Yuah.”

“Come here,” ordered her aunt, as she sat down.  “Let me see your new dress.”

Iolana sat the game on the coffee table and standing in front of the woman, twirled around.  Her shin-length red dress with a trim of yellow bows was spread out around her by the three petticoats beneath it.

“Yes, you look just darling.”  Yuah, reached out and adjusted a red bow in flowing locks of blond hair.  “What do you think of it?”

“I love it,” said the girl.  “It’s even nicer than the dresses that Mama buys for me.  Thank you.”

“Well, if you are going to grow up to be a princess, you must look the part, mustn’t you?”

“I have no desire to be a princess, Aunt Yuah.”

“You have no desire… What kind of five year old child talks that way?  What kind of little girl doesn’t want to grow up to be a princess?  What exactly do you want to be then?”

“I want to go to Brech City and attend at St. Dante University,” said Iolana.  “I’m going to read every book ever written and be a professor of literature.”

“I never heard of anything so ridiculous.  Women do not become professors of anything, let alone professors of literature.”

“Tonahass Ssotook,” muttered the girl.

The smack of her aunt’s palm meeting her cheek echoed throughout the lower floor of the mansion.

Upstairs in the nursery, Cissy sat on the wooden toy box, Augie curled up in her lap, as she rocked the cradle containing little Terra back and forth.  She looked from one to the other.  The little girl was almost too big for the cradle.  In fact she was almost too big for her baby bed.  Soon the family would have to bring in a grown up human bed and convert the nursery to a bedroom.  The boy’s tears had stopped and now he absentmindedly played with the lizzie’s dewlap as she hissed soothingly to him.  He was already too big for the nursery and his uncle was converting the room in the far back corner of the house into a suitable boy’s room.  It had already been outfitted wood paneling and a gold rug.  A dresser, a desk, and chair had been moved in, and several stuffed dinosaur heads had been mounted on the wall.

Yuah passed the doorway heading toward her bedroom.  Cissy shifted and Augie leaned back and looked up at his nurse.

“Go down and tlay with Iolana,” said Cissy.

“I don’t want to.  I don’t like her anymore.”

“Little hoonan say wrong words.  Little hoonan know it.  Tell her sorry.”

“I’m not sorry.  She wasn’t playing fair.”

“Tell her sorry.  She loves little hoonan.  He loves her.”

“No I don’t,” he said, but got up and stomped out of the nursery.

Cissy stood and stepped through the doorway, but instead of following the boy down the sweeping staircase, she turned right toward Yuah’s bedroom door.  She gently turned the doorknob, not surprised to find it locked.  Lifting the knob up with both hands, she bumped the door with her shoulder.  It opened and she stepped inside.

“Get out you…” Yuah started.  She was lying on her bed, her head propped up on two pillows, with a small glass vial of blue liquid in her hands.  “Oh, it’s you.  Don’t bother me.  I want to be alone.”

Cissy crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, snatched the tiny bottle from her hands and threw it across the room.  It dashed to pieces against the cold stones of the unused fireplace.

“You stupid bloody bitch!”  Yuah jumped to her feet on the bed.  “That was two hundred marks!”

Suddenly her eyes jumped toward the small nightstand beside the bed.  Cissy followed her eyes to see a small wooden box with several more of the tiny vials.  They both jumped for the little box, but the reptilian was quicker.  With a swift motion, it too flew into the fireplace, the box breaking apart and the bottles all smashing to pieces.

Yuah let out a cry halfway between a scream and a growl and jumped onto Cissy’s shoulders.  The lizzie easily pulled her away and tossed her on the bed.  With a quick backward kick, she shut the door.  Then she grabbed the woman by the shoulder and dragged her to her feet.

“I’ll kill you, you stupid lizzie.”

“No!” hissed Cissy.  “Kill yourself!  Kill yourself with staahstiachtio.  Yuah whant to die?  I do it for you now!”

She pressed a claw-tipped finger against the skin right between the woman’s eyes.

“Yuah whant to die?”

Yuah whimpered and then sobbed.  “Go ahead.  Do it.”

“Is it what you whant?  Whant Augie to be orphan?  Terra?  Grow with no…”

Yuah broke down into uncontrollable weeping.  Cissy let her go and she wilted down onto the bed, where she lay crying.

Someone pounded on the door.

“What’s going on in there?” called Mrs. Colbshallow.

“You whant Augie and Terra to live like lizzies with no family?  You have to not staahstiachtio.  None.  None.”

“I can’t do it!” wailed Yuah.  “I want to do it, but it’s too hard.  It’s too hard.  Just kill me.  Just kill me.”

“No,” said Cissy.  “Yuah whill do it.  Yuah whill do it for Augie and Terra.  There whill be no more staahstiachtio.  None.”

Yuah looked up at her through bloodshot eyes.

“None,” said Cissy.  “Yuah say it.  None.”

Isaak Wissinger leaned over the ship’s railing and stared down into the dark blue water.  He wasn’t the only one.  Dozens of other passengers on the S.S. Waif des Vaterlands were lined up to watch as half a dozen giant turtles, each larger than a kitchen table swam along apparently oblivious to the steel vessel chugging past them.  They were large, but not nearly as amazing as the writer had expected, having heard for years legends of the monsters to be found in Mallon.

After leaving his employment with Herr Fuhrmann, Wissinger had taken the train from Butzbach to Friedaport, where he had worked on the docks until he had enough accumulated wealth to book passage, steerage class, to Mallontah.  This had taken him several months, but at last he had set sail.  Now, he had been on the ship for forty five days.  His daily meals consisted of porridge in the morning, a piece dried tack for lunch, and for supper a soup made of beans and rancid pork.  It was infinitely better that his diet in the ghetto had been.

“Herr Holdern?”

It took Wissinger a moment to remember that he was Herr Holdern.

“Yes?”

He turned to find a greasy looking little man standing behind him.  He didn’t recall seeing him before, and after a month and a half at sea, that was remarkable in and of itself.

“Do I know you?”

“I do not think so, but I know some Holderns.  Do you come from Boxstein?”

“No,” replied Wissinger.

“Do you have relatives there perhaps?”

“Not that I know of.  You know how it is.  People move all around and lose touch.  You meet someone with the same last name and they may or may not be related.  My people come from Bad Syke, but who knows?”

“What is it you did in Bad Syke?”

“Oh, I’m not from Bad Syke.  I still have cousins living there, I think.  I grew up in Wahlstedt.”

“And what did you do there then?”

“Teamster.”

“A teamster?” said the greasy fellow.  “I took you for a scholar.”

“I doubt you get calluses like this reading books,” said Wissinger, holding up his palms.  “Why, I try to stay as far away from schools and books as possible.”

“I see.”

“But it is pleasant to meet you, Mister…”

“Spinne.  Adolf Spinne.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Herr Spinne.  Maybe we can talk again before we make port.”

“Perhaps,” said Spinne with an oily smile.

Wissinger turned and made his way through the portal and down several sets of stairs to his berth.  His was one of twenty-five bunks stacked five high in the relatively small cabin.  Most of his roommates slept at night, so he tried to spend as much time as possible outside at night, instead taking in a long morning and afternoon nap.  He climbed into his bed, second from the top and pulled the sleeping curtains closed around him.  He could hear the sounds of a woman moaning in passion close by.  She was in the same room, but in one of the other bunk stacks.  This wasn’t all that unusual.  People grabbed what comfort and satisfaction they could, and there were very few places to find any real privacy on a ship as crammed as this one.

“Sweet music isn’t it?” said a husky voice near his head.

Before he could respond, the curtain surrounding him was pulled aside to reveal Zurfina’s face, framed in a shock of blond hair.  She climbed up into the bed on top of him.  There was no room to lie side by side even had that been her intention.  He was surprised though not unhappy to find that she was completely naked, and let out a deep sigh as she rubbed herself up and down his entire length.

“Missed me?”

“Yes indeed.”

She kissed him deeply, letting her tongue explore every part of his mouth.

“Have you been true to me?” she asked as she kissed his neck and reached down to unfasten his pants.

“Yes,” he said, then sighed again as she freed him from his trousers.  “Um, have you been true to me?”

She stopped and looked guiltily up at him, then shrugged.

“When you get to Birmisia, if you want, I’ll be true to you then,” she said, “for a while.”

“Oh, Lord help me, at this moment I really don’t care.”

There was almost no room for him to maneuver, so he simply lay back and let her do all the work.  It was a work for which she once again proved her skill, though she was somewhat louder than the woman who had been in the nearby bunk.  Wissinger didn’t realize it at the time, but he was none too discrete himself.  Afterwards he fell asleep with her still wrapped around him, and when he woke she gave him a repeat performance.

“The day after tomorrow you dock in Mallontah,” she said when they were done.

“That’s good.”

“Yes, but you still have a problem.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s that Spinne fellow you just spoke to.  He’s a Zaeri catcher.”

“I don’t think he suspects me.”

“But you’re not sure, are you?”  Zurfina licked his lips.  “I have to admit, I admire how good a liar you’ve become.  I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“It’s a writer’s skill,” he replied.  “What do you think I should do?”

“Just make it to Birmisia the best you can.”  She kissed him deeply.  “I have to leave and you won’t see me again until after you leave Mallontah.”

She slid off of him and out of the bed.  Wissinger pulled back the curtain to look at her one last time before she left, but she had already gone.