Writing – In The Spa – 1/2

“So… You’re Whackus Bonkus?”

There was no-one in sight as Antonia spoke, and on first glance you might be forgiven for thinking she was insane. As she looked down, it became clear that she was addressing the huge, ornate sword laid across her lap.

“Mitzi named you that, didn’t she? I haven’t known her very long, but it sounds like something only she would do to an ancient, magical heirloom. Do you like it, or is it torture every time she says it?”

Antonia was sitting on a tree stump in a little wooded area about five minutes’ walk from Cerric. Cerric was a town – mercifully larger than Plinton – that was known for its Spas and Baths. Set low on an ancient mountain, water flowing through there was fresh and clean, having fallen only a mile or so upstream in the hills. People travelled to Cerric to “take fresh air”, but Antonia suspected it was mostly a marketing thing, and had little basis in geographical or medical knowledge.

It was night time, and the woods were incredibly dark. Occasionally, Antonia would cast a small light-spell in her hand and check her belongings, but she tried to restrict this to avoid drawing any attention to herself.

Looking down, she allowed herself a tiny magical light between her fingers as she admired the otherworldly blue-green of Whackus’ metal blade. Although it had been dangerous, she had to admit that getting the sword repaired in Loreel had been a good idea: it had always looked scary, but now it looked formidable.

“I bet you had other names before Whackus Bonkus. Probably slightly more noble ones.”

The sword did not respond: only Mitzi could hear it speaking. Antonia had to assume that Mitzi wasn’t pulling some elaborate prank. Otherwise, she was just talking to herself, but this was far from unheard of.

“Mitzi has named herself as well. Mitzi Harper. Do you call her Lyra Casseopeia, or do you call her Mitzi? I don’t suppose many people would call her Mitzi. They would probably think the Princess picking a name for herself would be a bit of a folly.”

Antonia looked into the distance as she talked; she was speaking more to herself than to the sword.

“… I picked a name for myself, too. When I was nine. Although, my name before that was Antonio, so I wasn’t particularly creative with it.”

Whackus Bonkus listened patiently, which he seemed to be very good at doing.

“Everyone thought it was a folly too, at first. Then, when they realised I was serious, they were confused. Then they thought it wasn’t going to last. But,” Antonia said, “I’m still Antonia today.

“Because I am Antonia. Antonia Bramstoker, the Jaw-Droppening! The Star-Aligner, the Confuser and Infuser or Fancies and Whim!”

She smiled at herself.

“Whackus Bonkus, I would ask you to pick a card, but you’ve no hands. And I gave away my Ace of Spades… temporarily.”

Antonia fell into thought, reminded of where her card was, and considered her mission.

“Mitzi has been gone for a while. It’s terribly dark – I hope she’s alright. She is my bounty, after all,” Antonia said softly, as if she were trying to convince herself.

“Whackus… I would never have found her in Loreel if your hilt hadn’t been glowing. You gave her position away to me. Why did you do that?”

Antonia’s ears pricked and she fell silent: she could hear footsteps disturbing the moss and twigs on the woody floor. Her hand moved and found the hilt of her own rapier: even if she wanted to fight with Whackus, he was far too heavy to wield usefully.

A voice came through the trees.

“…Antonia? Antonia?”

“I’m here, Mitzi.” Antonia felt a rush of relief at Mitzi’s return. Adrenaline still rushed in her ears and her chest pounded as she cast a light, showing Mitzi where to step and find her.

Mitzi slumped onto her knees at the base of the tree stump. She pulled Antonia’s hand down toward her face and held her hands around the ball of light as if she were warming them, although it gave out no heat. Antonia could see in her eyes that Mitzi was exhausted.

“I’m glad to see you back, prisoner.”

“You know I wouldn’t try anything. I’m dead without Whackus Bonkus,” Mitzi replied. She made no attempt to grab the sword on Antonia’s lap.

Antonia wondered in a second of panic whether Whackus might immediately start telling Mitzi what she had told him, but Mitzi showed no signs that he was speaking to her. Instead, Antonia addressed Mitzi.

“Did you manage to … find anything?”

Mitzi rummaged in her satchel distractedly and pulled out a handful of coins. She held them up to the light, and Antonia gasped in surprise.

Mitzi spoke before Antonia had a chance to. “I need to learn how to make a light as steady and bright as yours. I’m shit-scared of the dark.”

“How did you get these?” Antonia tried to stay on subject.

“I told you not to ask about how I was going to get them.” Mitzi pocketed the coins again. “I got them. That’s it.” She rolled onto her back on the floor.

Antonia leaned forward and held her light over Mitzi, who watched it with half-closed eyes.

Mitzi was filthy. Antonia was well-aware she wasn’t looking too well herself, and missed being able to put her face paint on, but Mitzi was on a different level. She was more careless as they walked, tripped and fell more, and made little attempt to clean herself up when she did. They had been travelling for a week now, unable to stop anywhere with washrooms lest someone recognise Mitzi as the missing princess. Mitzi’s face, shirt and arms were all discoloured with dirt.

Antonia’s heart pulled at the sight of her, and she rolled her eyes at herself in the darkness. Sometimes she wished she weren’t so self-aware: she knew what this feeling was, and it was deeply inconvenient.

At length, an idea came to her.

“Mitzi… did you get a chance to see the baths in Cerric?”

“Sure. They’re as big as the rest of the town put together. But they’re all closed now.”

“Did they look… easy to break into?”

Mitzi propped herself up on her elbows, raising an eyebrow in thought.

“Come to think of it? They did.”

00000000000

Antonia and Mitzi took care to enter Cerric from above, climbing up the hill and creeping back down behind the bath houses. This way, they avoided the town and any unwanted attention.

The bath houses were splendid, and Antonia was surprised by their size. They sprawled across several hundred metres of land; slabs of smooth cream stone held up by ornate Ionic pillars. Many of the walls were made up of glass panes, showing the shimmering, still baths and pools inside. The sight of it made the girls lucidly aware of how dirty they were.

They ran into their first problem: the double doors at the Spa’s entrance faced the village, soaked in direct moonlight. Mitzi peered around a corner, Antonia not far behind her. Although no-one else was in sight, this would be a dangerous entrance to take.

“Merde.” Antonia was having trouble thinking straight. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but she had hoped it would be easier than this. “Do you think we can take another entrance? A back door, maybe?”

Mitzi shook her head, still contemplating the main entrance. “No. The other doors were all metal and padlocked. I guess the only reason this one isn’t is because of how mad you’d have to be to try and break in this way.”

The doors themselves were made of thick glass, set into a grand, statement glass wall. They could have broken them quite easily, but the point of this mission wasn’t to steal anything: it was important that they not be detected.

Without consulting Antonia, Mitzi pushed away from the side of the building and walked up to the door.

“Mitzi!!” Antonia hissed.

Mitzi didn’t listen. She tried the door handle, but with no luck. When she returned to Antonia, she was amused by the fear and concern written over her face.

“What are you doing?”

“I had to try. How cool would it have been if they were just open?” Mitzi grinned. Her face fell when Antonia showed no signs of calming down.

“Relax a little, Antonia,” she whispered. “I can’t see anyone around. If we had been spotted, someone would have shouted, and I’m confident we could have just run away in plenty of time. We’re not going to get in there by standing in the shadows and staring at it.”

There was something to what Mitzi said. Reluctantly, Antonia conceded.

“Well. Did you see anything useful?”

“The handles on the inside don’t look like the handles on the outside. The ones I tried were just knobs, but there’s a sort of bar on each handle behind the glass. And since there wasn’t an obvious lock… I think it might just open from the inside.”

Antonia’s eyes widened. “Wow. I didn’t realise you were looking out for so many things.”

Mitzi harrumphed as if to say, now, you can trust me SOMETIMES. She blushed a little, though: in truth, Whackus Bonkus had spoken in her ear before she ran, reminding her watch for everything she had just mentioned. She felt a pang of shame.

I really am useless without this sword. Nothing I’ve done so far on this trip has been on my own merit. I can’t even have my own ideas.

Meanwhile, Antonia, who I’m pretty sure is just an entertainer, has fought her own fights. She doesn’t want to be here. She just needs this money for her sick family. Who am I to be putting her through this?

For the first time, Mitzi thought: If I turned myself in, I could just give her the money.

Antonia’s eyes were drawn away from the doors as she realised Mitzi was looking her up and down.

She doesn’t suit sneaking around forests and back streets. She suits her face paint. She suited the bar, playing the piano, doing her tricks…

Her tricks.

“Antonia!”

Antonia jumped at the sudden speech.

“Do you have your gloves on you?”

Antonia patted her pack, indicating that she did.

Mitzi looked closely through the glass walls, examining the baths. A bath had been constructed over a fire pit in the corner of the room, so that the water might be heated when the fire was lit. Above this, the ceiling broke into a lattice to let smoke out.

Excitedly, Mitzi pointed.

“You see those holes in the ceiling over there?

What if you made your glove float in from the ceiling, and open the door from the inside? Just like you made them float at the piano, when you were singing at the bar.”

Antonia’s eyebrows shot up. She rummaged and took out one of her gloves. As if to test that she still could, she let go of the glove, and it stayed suspended in mid-air. Mitzi was delighted. Antonia made it do a little wave and Mitzi smiled even more widely. Finally, Antonia began to feel her spirits lift.

“You say that you know a little magic,” she said, “so you must know that magic requires energy from your body. I’m familiar with all this, but I’m not sure I can make the glove travel so far away from myself with so little practice. It will take all my concentration.”

“Are you asking me to shut up?” Mitzi grinned.

“Now that you say it…”

Antonia and Mitzi crept around the building until they were at the closest point to the openings. Taking a deep breath, Antonia flicked her hand and sent the glove upward.

Mitzi gazed at Antonia’s hands.

“I just love it when your hands glow.”

As she spoke, the glowing stopped and Mitzi watched Antonia catch the glove as it fell with a little thwip.

“What did I say about talking?”

“Whoops. Sorry.”

Antonia was sweating, and her brow was furrowed. The last thing she wanted to do was lose her precious glove on the ceiling: if she lost control of it once it left her line of sight, she wouldn’t be able to get it back.

The glove disappeared over the edge of the building. Both girls held their breaths.

Antonia spent a few seconds in deep concentration, staring at the holes. When she could hold on for no longer, she shook her hand in frustration, slumping against the wall.

“Antonia.” Mitzi knelt down to check on her, but a disturbance in the light caused her head to snap back to the baths.

“Antonia!”

The excitement in Mitzi’s voice led Antonia to follow her gaze. At the last moment, the glove must have dropped over the edge – and now fell lightly into the bathhouse, landing on dark rocks next to the pool.

The success hardened Antonia’s resolve. Still exhausted, she crawled alongside the building until she was between the glove and the door. Now she could see it again through the glass, the spell was slightly simpler to cast, but still difficult. With immense effort, she moved the glove to the door, pulled the handle, and – click!

“It worked!! Antonia, it worked!” Mitzi held Antonia’s hands triumphantly. “That was incredible.”

Antonia was breathing heavily, still on the floor.

“If I had to smell you like this for one more day, I don’t think I would have made it much past Cerric.”

Mitzi snorted, pulling Antonia back to her feet.

“No, but I’m serious.” Antonia let herself be led into the building quietly. “We are finding you some soap in there.”