Bird hovers uncertainly by one of the chairs near the fireplace. It is covered in sandy velvet and reminds him of a throne. With his fingertips he traces the chiseled grooves on the arms, and words his father has taught him float back: Mahogany. Alabaster. Filigree. He clears his throat. On the mantel is a little gold clock, a little golden woman gesturing decorously toward the time. Almost five. Soon his father will head home and discover that he is gone.
The captain returns. If you’ll follow me, he says.
He strides through an archway and down the hall and Bird trails behind him, cautious, peering around corners, waiting for a monster to spring. But all they pass is a palaceworth of luxuries. A paneled silk screen, stitched with cypress trees and cranes and a pagoda in the far-off distance. A sofa of yellow silk with cushions shaped like candy rolls; a huge oval dining room, its floor a dizzying parquet. Everything here seems to be touched with gold: the handles of the urns and vases on the mantelpieces, the twisted tassels on the drapes, even the claws of the lions’ feet on which the tables and chairs rest. Then they are at the foot of a grand swooping staircase spiraling up and up and up, a lush tawny carpet spilling down its center. He has never seen such a staircase. A delicate chandelier dangles on a chain swathed in velvet. Bird counts: one story, two, three, four, and far above them a compass-shaped skylight, a blue crystal pool of sky.
This way, please, the captain says. And then Bird sees it: just beside the staircase, a little elevator, wood-paneled and parquet-floored. An elevator in a house, he thinks in awe. The captain gestures with one hand and Bird steps inside, feels as if he’s climbing into a polished nutshell.
She’s waiting for you upstairs, the captain says. He pulls a brass grate shut, caging Bird inside.
As the elevator shudders upward, Bird’s mind whirls. Around him the brass bars of the grate rattle, as if something is trying to get out, or in. He has no idea what he is heading toward. What will the Duchess be like? Will she be kind, or will she be threatening? He pictures the evil queens from storybooks, all malice sheathed in charm. Trust, he thinks to himself: in the stories you had to trust strangers on your quest. Even this elevator is decorated, as befits a palace. Miniature golden frames around sketches of ancient buildings and winged women. A small white telephone. On the back wall, a round mirror bulges and flexes, bending his face back to him in distorted form: an ogre’s, or maybe a dwarf’s.
At last the elevator opens. A living room, as big as their apartment back home. Another table; another bowl billowing with flowers. In the polished surface he can see his own face peering back up at himself. Underfoot the carpet is gold patterned. The home of nobility, for sure.
And then there she is, gliding through French doors at the end of the room: the Duchess. Younger than he’d expected: regal, tall, blond hair clipped short around her head. Pearls. A blue drapey pantsuit instead of a gown, but it is clear to him she is a woman of power. For a moment Bird’s voice deserts him, and he simply stares up at her. She doesn’t break the silence, just looks down at him in bemusement.
Are you the Duchess? he finally asks. But he already knows she is.
And who do we have here? she asks. One eyebrow raised. Skeptical.
Bird, he says, trembling. Margaret’s son.
For a moment he fears she will say, who? But she doesn’t. Instead she says, rather coldly, Why are you here?
My mother, he says, the answer so obvious it feels ridiculous to say it. I came here to find her.
What makes you think she’s here? the Duchess asks. The smallest tendril of curiosity curling the edge of her voice.
Because, he says, and pauses. Feeling for the answer inside himself. Because I want to know why she left me. Because I want her back. Because I want her to want me back, too.
She sent me a message, he says.
The Duchess purses her lips, and he can’t tell if she is perplexed or pleased or angry. For a moment she’s like a teacher, weighing the answer he’s given, deciding between praise and punishment.
I see. So your mother—she asked you to come here?
Bird hesitates. Wonders if he should lie, if this is a test. His chest tightens.
I’m not sure, he admits. But she left me this address. A long time ago. I thought—I thought you might know where she is.
From his pocket he pulls the scrap of paper, or what remains of it. Tattered and crumpled, edges smudged with blue dye from his jeans. But there it is, in his mother’s handwriting: the very address in which they stand.
I see, the Duchess says again. And you came here alone? Where’s your father?