Note Interrupted

[Treadwell]

This morning, Aloisius H. Treadwell finds himself busily scrawling something down on paper as a chill runs through his still weary body.

= = = = =
Alice,

I should have you know in as few words as possible that I quite readily understand you hold no affection whatsoever to the man playing as your host here in Myrken Wood. Therefore, I hereby bequeath you my cottage by the lake to reside in as you see fit, with or without your husband Bart, so as to keep the two of us far, far away from each other. Quite honestly, I fear for one another's safety, sanity, and physical well-being should we have to spend many more nights together in this same building. In fact, I-----

= = = = =

The letter is interrupted by a clearing of a throat, a stabbing of a plump finger to the paper before Aloisius, and a waddling around to one side to reveal a portly old matron in her light, powder-blue dress.

"In fact *what*, Aloisius?"

"Good heavens. . . . *You're* in here?"

The note is taken up in Mrs. Drivel's hand with a flap, briefly read, and tossed into a waiting, orangey glowing fire with a shake of the woman's head.

"Of *course* I am! Although I can see you'd rather me be otherwise! I can take a hint, you fat, gaudy, selfish lout! And I'll be requiring your carriage and Arnold during my stay--and a few of your servants! Good *day!*"

And with that, Alice Drivel turns to make her way out of the Treadwell estate, leaving Aloisius to sit there in stunned, trembling silence.

[Treadwell]

The cottage by the lake has stood unused, the doors unopened for most of the past two years.

It is a dust-filled building that sees Mrs. Drivel--well, honestly, the *former* Mrs. Drivel, if the truth were out about her long since ages ago split from her Bartholomew--coughing and hacking and wobbling most unladylike outside.

A croak is finally given, around the time for lunch, for the servants she brought with her to get busy cleaning things, one room at a time. Soon, the cottage's living room is clean enough for her to waddle in and take a seat in a Treadwellian built rocking chair.

"Well, Alison, dear lady, you're home. . . and you're forevermore away from that *dreadful* Mr. Treadwell!"

She smiles. What to do about that dreadful Mr. Treadwell? And, as the tugs in her heart have occasionally begged otherwise these last weeks. . . is he really so dreadful after all?

[Treadwell]

This morning of the twenty-third, just before dawn, finds a familiar distinctive, ornate carriage rolling and wobbling its way westward from Myrken Wood, its lone passenger within snoring soundly. Given the recent appearance of Mrs. Alice Drivel riding around in this coach, one surely cannot find fault in thinking it might be the heavy old lady making such a racket. . . at least until one notices her standing at the window of the Treadwell cottage in a pink nightgown, scratching her belly and staring puffy-eyed and bleary after the coach and horse.

"I need it NOW, my dear!" Aloisius had said but moments ago as he rudely barged into the recently cleaned cabin, explaining something or other about needing to go back home to Westenford on business for a week or so. And, of course, with it rightly being his horse and carriage as it was, who could really stop him from reclaiming it?

So there a tired, wet-eyed, bleary Alice stands, watching, just to be given the shock of her life as a fat, glowing, pink buglike critter flutters up to her from behind, landing on her arm and piping up, in squeaky fashion with the following.

"Hullo, my good lady! Aloisius there's not all dreadful and horrible and bad, you know--only when he's taking to eating my friends! I'd dare say I know him rather well, mmph mmph!"

As an accompanying buzz of wings and small cloud of green lights join this plump pink one that now rests on her shoulder, Alice Drivel can't suppress a horrified squeal.

Richard Aengus has returned with his men.

[Treadwell]

The night of the thirty-first of October.

In a week's time, and a week's visits, Alice Drivel had come to accept the fairy king as someone to talk with. In fact, she'd rather become friends, oddly enough, with the squeaky-voiced little monarch, doing her best to keep him company, keep him fed, and keep him entertained. So, on this particular night, Alice, in her gossipy way, could not hold back a simple confession when asked why she came all the way to Myrken.

"A family, and, gods willing, children," she noted with a grunt. "Bartholomew is useless. For all our time together, he merely kept his nose in his books! But who would have a fat old woman new to town?"

To which the fairy king smiled, a devious plan forming in that little head of his. He could use this for his enjoyment, for a way to set something right for the bigling he'd so tormented, and for a way to reward this old lady who had treated him so, so well this past week. His answer?

"Why, Mr. Treadwell, of course!"

To which Alison laughed merrily, the first time in what felt like years. "You jest with me, good King Richard! I--I don't know if I like him much, myself, and I can't say much about his feelings other than disgust, themselves!"

A glorious spiral of pink light shot upward before her as the fairy furiously beat his wings; a burst of brilliant, pink, sparkling dust burst out in every direction with the fairy king's pleasant giggling!

"Of course I'm not! We fairies have our ways! Let me teach you of them!" And in the following moments, the fairy king grew, in height and in girth and with a dust-scattering explosion of pink, 'til he stood a much larger four feet, three inches, and the living room of the cottage was lightly layered in sugary amethyst. As Richard flopped breathlessly into a nearby rocker, his wings flitting tiredly behind him through its slats, he pulled a small satchel, about the size of a typical purse or pouch, from inside his robe.

"Oh! Heavens! Are--are you yourself? Are you well, my lord?"

"Ooooooooh, I'm fine! Just--let me rest a minute! I don't do this often!"

A minute, indeed, went by without a word from either fairy or old woman. Then, curiosity got the best of the former Mrs. Drivel--though the last name had never been swapped back to her birth name of Chopin--and she tap-tapped two plump fingers at the satchel in the fairy's hand.

"What's this?"

"This? Oooooooh, it's nothing special, my dear." A sly smile worked across the now-sweating fairy's floofy-bearded jowls. "You wouldn't really care to know!"

"Oh, yes I would! Give me that!" And so she snapped a hand out, taking up the satchel, much to the fairy's mirthful delight, melodious laughing rolling out and shaking his roly-poly self. Inside the pouch, Alice found out, were a couple dozen, perhaps, small vials, filled with the same pink-colored dust.

"If you truly want Mr. Treadwell to, hmm hmm, let any deep-down, well-hidden affections be known, my dear. . . That is the stuff you're looking for! It amounts to a fairy love potion! Would you, hee hee, care to know how it's used?"

A moment's hesitation, or two, held Alice in place. Years of being childless, a yearning to fix that, a burning frustration at her onetime husband's disinterest in such, and a desire to know just if there is really anyone here in Myrken Wood for her. . . made up her mind. She nodded, to the fairy's uproariously delighted hoots.

"Splendid! I'll tell you--on one condition!"

"WHAT?" It came out snappy, short, and anguished. Richard's grin grew even wider.

"You let me watch the results, day by day, in my own silent, invisible way."

A trembling nod. "It won't hurt either of us, will it?"

"Not a bit! Now, we fairies use that stuff in your hands for our amusement, I must note, because we intentionally don't use it correctly on you biglings, normally! It doesn't affect us, you see, as we're largely immune to our own dust, but mixed properly and treated just right. . . it makes a wonderfully funny love potion for you big folks! We, hmm hmm, have a great deal of fun by sneaking it into a man's or a woman's food for a week; without a comparable mate to do the same for, it means that the poor bigling will be going about rather foolishly looking to find love with just about anyone around! But," the fairy huffed a breath, "if used correctly!"

Alice waited, still gently shaking, the vials in the pouch tinkling-clattering slightly against each other.

"Why, the two biglings, regardless of who they are, are likely to be head over heels for each other in a week or less! Putting it in one bigling's every meal just leads to insanity; putting it in the food of two who are to be mated and matched--hee hee!--that is even more fun to watch!"

"So!" Richard added, charmingly, with a little burst of fairy dust forming on the end of his pinky finger as he leaned over to dot her cheeks as if with a special kind of rouge.

"What do you think? Lightly sprinkle your every meal that you share with Mr. Treadwell for a week, and allow yourself to spend time with him and. . . see what feelings grow? Hmm hmm?"

"Why, King Richard? Why are you so willing to do this?"

"Call it guilt, if you like, madam. Call it making up something to him, at long last. Do this, and I can just about guarantee you two will be forever enamored of each other--and ready to carry on a family, as you'd hoped! Fairy dust does. . . a number of odd things to you biglings!"

= = = = =

The morning of the second of November

A sleepy Aloisius Treadwell finds himself sprawled out at his dinner table, empty-bellied, ravenous, and smelling some of the most delightful stuff ever to come out of a kitchen. Enough food for a small family--or for an apron-wearing Alice and a nightgown-wearing Aloisius--is laid out before him and her. He smiles wide, not only at the sights and smells before him, but at the brief rub of Alice's hand across his shoulder.

"We've been at each other's throats long enough, Aloisius. Consider it penance, consider it sacrifice, enough if I humble myself to make you your meals this week?" Meek, soft, unsure words, hardly the usual from the woman so brazen in her interactions with the toymaker.

"Oooooooooh! With an offer like THAT, how can I resist, mmph mmph?"

[Treadwell]

The second and the third had been nothing terribly special: Treadwell's usual ravenous hunger was more than being adequately sated by Alice's cooking, and because of such, he was beginning to feel a certain liking toward the woman for it all. There had been the usual wholehearted praise of meals served to wonderful perfection, but no particularly emotional, amorous feelings.

That much changed starting yesterday morning. For Aloisius, the day had been spent in dreamy, starry-eyed adoration of Alice Chopin--as she was now back to calling herself, having abandoned the "Drivel" entirely. . . and for Alice, she was finding herself returning the same smitten gazes, both during meals and in the hours after.

And before his going out to that party at the Dagger, he'd even kissed her and called her his love dumpling with giggling merriment!

This morning, the fifth, on his return from the inn, the food is devoured happily by both parties, but it is understood by both parties that their hearts are elsewhere. Hours pass into the afternoon with the two of them spending time wrapped up together in a blanket in one of the lounge rooms, with quiet, happy cooing and whispering and, yes, a bit of loving. It is as if they are both some forty-five years younger and both in love for the first time, complete with pet names and cuddling and snuggling up on a couch barely big enough for the two of them and barely strong enough for the same. Their seemingly mutual disgust has rapidly been forgotten, it seems, replaced by something warmer, something better.

Alice, of course, thinks she knows what is happening.

Aloisius, of course, has not a clue of anything amiss, merely that for some inexplicable reason, he finds himself wonderfully attracted to a wonderful woman. . . and he contemplates taking special steps very soon, steps any normal man would think hasty and rash, steps involving a church and a priest and a lavish ceremony.

Richard Aengus, invisible and wide-grinned, is the only one who knows the truth quite well. He knows the exact effects of the fairy dust that Alice had been sprinkling throughout their meals--fairy dust he knows Treadwell is unable to see properly thanks to his inability to distinguish colors or even rightly taste once it is blended in with the mound of foods.

Raw, sprinkled fairy dust straight from the fingertips will put a fairy or a bigling to sleep, though fairies are far more resistant to it all, nearly to the point of immunity. Treadwell had learned that easily enough for the space of fifteen months of snoring slumber in Richard's palace.

Concentrated, mixed, sugary fairy dust, blended with foods, does nothing at all for a fairy. Instead, it serves as a splendid aphrodisiac for a bigling--and more, restoring health and vigor to practically every feature about human men and women, regardless of age.

Richard Aengus knows Aloisius Treadwell will be head over heels, ready to commit to marriage, by nightfall--or by midnight at the latest. Richard Aengus knows Alice Chopin will be the same, and perhaps more quickly; she never had fairy dust coursing through her blood for a year and a quarter, meaning she is certainly more susceptible to it than her would-be mate.

Richard Aengus also knows that the two old tubs will by week's end, married or not, be feeling rather. . . vigorous. He knows what impact this will have on man and woman alike.

He knows quite well he's going to enjoy watching them make perfectly ridiculous fools of themselves in the surely to follow wedding, and in their conceiving, carrying, delivering, and bringing up of any eventual children.

Richard Aengus also knows quite well what he means to do about it all.

[Treadwell]

The morning of Tuesday, the sixth, finds Aloisius and Alice waking on that same couch in that same lounge, as they had returned there after supper for more time together. They had spent the night snoring in each other's arms after being smothered in each other's kisses. But, it seems, that isn't enough for Alice. Waking first, she finds herself staring happily, softly at her new sweetums, her great fat sugar plum, and she lets him know her affection by waking the old tub of a lovebird with a series of kisses down his fluffy-bearded cheek to land on his lips. Beady black eyes open blearily, drowsily focusing in as well as they can on the face of someone special. Sleepy ears, though, can't help but wiggle gently as the toymaker hears his Alice's voice, cooing gently a simple phrase.

"I love you, Aloisius!"

Those four words take a moment to sink in, and they prompt a wide, sleepy smile before a returned row of similar smooches before a most unexpected reply huffs out in that squeaky, breathy voice.

"Marry me, Alice?"

And, as the equally sleepy, but still watching and still invisible Richard predicted and grins to hear of, the old woman's reply is a short, gasped, single phrase.

"When, my love?"

"After breakfast!"

To which Alice nods her head, but breakfast fails to come for another hour as the two lovey-dovey lumps continue in their adoration of each other. The meal is kept short, by their standards: massive, yet quick to make and quicker to eat.

And so, by the end of lunch time, the two stand giddily, happily, bursting-shaking-quivering merrily before an all too eager to please priest (eager thanks to a rather large contribution to his church made by the Councilor on the spot). The ceremony is kept simple for the pair, matching in their clothes: he in a red velvet suit and top hat, she in a dress and bonnet of the same. No visitors, no viewers, are required save a couple of the church officials for witnesses, and so a new, hastily turned page in their book begins with the words, "I do!"

And back home, in his palace in New Hibera, King Richard rolls about on his bed in hilarious, shrill laughter at it all.

[Treadwell]

The scene is one of the sitting rooms in the Treadwell mansion.

The characters are a round bigling woman named Alice, and a magically grown, similarly round, pink fairy named Richard. Both sit in this sitting room, on opposite couches, with cups of tea in hand.

A quiet slurrrrrp finds conversation and unusual friendship renewing.

"Well, madam! I see by that new ring on your hand and the rosy glow to your cheeks that you seem to be enjoying yourself with good old Aloisius?"

"Why, yes!" Alice blushes and giggles--yes, giggles, at her age! She says nothing more, as the fairy king continues.

"You know. . . I told you earlier it would make you forever enamored of each other, and it would be doing things for the two of you. Have you noticed, hmm hmm, anything unusual? I know you ought to be out of that first batch of dust. . . ."

To which Alice nods her head. "I have! If it's not 'Feed me, Alice,' it's 'Love me, Alice!' I'm not sure which part of him is doing his thinking for him nowadays!"

The fairy's shrill, merry giggling trills free, and, with a wide grin on his face as he strokes that floofy pink beard of his, "That's perfectly natural for this sort of situation, yes yes! And I suppose I ought to let you in on a little, teeny tiny secret. I know you and he are the same age, or thereabouts, and you told me at some point or other you wanted children. Well, it might not be the safest thing in the world for you to, hmm hmm, actively pursue a family. . . but, ooooooh, it's more than possible, now!"

Here, the fairy reaches into his suit coat as the woman simply stares at him over her cup of tea. Out comes another pouch of the fairy dust offered her earlier. "A second round of secret doses should work, if you so seriously wish for such. You said your former husband--"

And the fairy is silenced at the snatch of the dust from his plump pink hand. With a chuckle, a smile, and a pink burst of light, Richard Aengus disappears and returns to his normal three inch height, only to wing his way quietly through the open window he'd come in.

And Alice, with determination on her face but confusion in her head, makes for the kitchen to prepare her husband's supper.

Why was she trusting a fairy?

[Treadwell]

The scene: Richard Aengus's pink-lined, pink-walled, pink-furnitured bedroom in his palace in New Hibera.

The people: One rather round pink fairy and one nearly so round white fairy.

"Richard. . . I bring you some good news."

"Hmm hmmmmm? Yes yes, Orin?" Pudgy pink hands clap together and rub about in glee.

"But I'll have you know I went through all manner of Hell to find this information." A finger wags just a smidgeon from the king's great shnozz. It seems this is a most unhappy Orin Barrin, personal physician and half-brother of Richard Aengus.

"Oh? I just told you to watch, Doctor, and to report what you saw!"

"You just told me to watch! Good gods, Richard, do you have any clue what you were telling me to look at?"

"Errr, just that funny old bigling Treadwell and his missus?"

"Richard, you oaf! You had me watching them to see if they successfully conceived a child!"

"Oh. Umm. Yes."

Another wag of a plump pointer at a plumper snout follows.

"Well, they likely don't know it, yet, but it worked, as we predicted. White-wing magic is certainly good enough for discovering all these mysteries about the body, and biglings aren't terribly different from us. So, in a number of months, despite their ages and, ahem, health. . . ."

The doctor pauses as he sinks into a pink-cushioned chair, his wings finding their way through slits in the back for such.

"Why did you ever want to see her pregnant, again?"

Richard merely giggles, glowing a brighter pink than usual.

"I have my reasons, Orin, my brother! Hee hee!"

[Treadwell]

It has been a distressing few weeks for Orin Barrin of New Hibera. His half-brother and king Richard has been a merry, giggly mass of pink, for whatever reason, and that has made the doctor ill at ease. "He's never this pleased at anything!" Barrin notes. . . and then quietly disappears from the palace in New Hibera.

His destination is the home of Aloisius and Alice Treadwell. Rather than send a messenger on a most unusual errand, he takes care of this one himself. He finds his way into the home through a window left open to allow a chill breeze into a study, and in that study sits a table. Soon, on that table, a note rests, magically grown to bigling size by a fairy physician who quietly, invisibly leaves.

The note is simple. Alice's name adorns the wax seal.

= = = = =

Mrs. Treadwell,

Greetings from Orin Barrin, royal physician, New Hibera.

Just in case you don't already know, good lady, I can assure you that you are now, as the saying goes among you big folks, with child. Granted, I suppose the spats of illness at times and such might be proof enough of this, but if they are not, you have my word of this very matter.

Your child is a normal, human child. I know of no fairy plot to make you birth a fae or a changeling or any such--although I caution you to stay well clear of King Richard. He states that he "has his reasons" for helping you into this state, reasons I have been unable to pry from him. Given his notorious history with your husband, I should think his reasons fall into either seeking further retribution or newfound forgiveness.

Whatever the case, I implore you not to take your chances. I have very strong reason to believe that King Richard is not well. Being a three century old fairy is bad enough--senility starts to set in for most of us around three-twenty-five, and we live to four hundred at best--but do remember that he knows a great deal of what your husband knows, thanks to a potent bit of spellcasting when Mr. Treadwell was held, asleep, in our hands for fifteen of your bigling months. I believe that this overwhelming mass of knowledge is taking its toll on the poor fool, leading him to periods of confusion, impatience, wrath, and frustration.

In short, madam, I congratulate you on your forthcoming delivery in many months, and I think Richard a madman.

Good day, and blessed birth to you when that time comes.

Orin Barrin
= = = = =