Mister Monday: Chapters Nineteen and Twenty

[pangolin20]

Chapter Eighteen | Table of Contents | Chapters Twenty-One and Twenty-Two

Corneille Blanche: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Mister Monday! Last time, Arthur spoke with the Old One again, he met up with Suzy, and they fled the Coal Cellar via the Improbable Stair. Let us see what happens this time.

We open on Suzy asking how “this works”, after they have been climbing for at least two hundred steps. She asks if they will just keep climbing until they fall over and roll down all the way. Arthur doesn’t know. He is tired, but also “weirdly exhilarated”. After all, he would never have been able to climb this fast this quickly without the Key, and he relishes the way the air “flow[s] easily in and out of his lungs”, even if his muscles complain at the effort. I can certainly imagine that he would like that!

He tells Suzy that they need to keep going, and they will encounter Landings, and then they need to find the Stair again quickly, or they will be stuck for ever. I still do not see how that makes sense. What is to prevent Arthur from letting Suzy use the Key to get on the Stair, for example? Suzy grumbles about this a bit, and says her “old man” used to say you should never “volunteer for nothing”. Well, if you did not volunteer for this, you would not have had any adventure either. She then almost stops and Arthur has to tug her forward.

He asks what it is. Suzy explains that she remembered her father for a moment, which she has not done in years, due to the constant washing between the ears. Oh, that is quite nice for her! Then she suddenly draws his attention to something in front of them. Arthur looks ahead, and he sees that there is “something colourful” coming from the white glow. Simultaneously, he feels that the steps are moving “like an escalator”, and they are approaching whatever lies ahead “much faster than walking speed”. Suzy tells him to look out, and then they are out of the Stair! (So I guess the Stair just threw them off, and that was why it went so fast?)

They are now in knee-deep water, amid lush plants that “look[] like house-sized cabbages”, and the sun is visible in a “clear blue sky”. Arthur sees that it is a landing and says they need to get onto the Stair again. A “deep bellow” then sounds, and from behind one of the plants, a “huge reptilian head” with a very long neck appears. Arthur complains about “more dinosaurs”. Well, that is why the Stair deposited you here, after all.

He thinks this dinosaur fortunately looks like a “plant eater”, though it is as big as a “semitrailer”… or an “articulated lorry”, as the newer edition puts it. Consequently, it can easily crush him and Suzy “without even meaning to”. He also notes it has a “swampy blue colour, with mottled patches of a deep purple”. (Nice colour scheme!) Looking at this, Arthur has the urge to “break into hysterical laughter”, for some reason, but he naturally has to look for the Improbable Stair…

The dinosaur bellows again and moves ahead, crushing the cabbage plant. Even if it is just curious, it still is a “major danger”, so they need to get on the Stair. Yes, thank you, I knew that already. So Arthur looks around frantically, and Suzy loosens her grip a bit. Arthur says she needs to keep holding on, or she will be left behind. …Or she can just grab your hand again when you enter. (sighs)

Then he sees a “bunch of tall reeds”, which might just be useful! He drags Suzy after him as he walks to it. If he can just bend one of the reeds into the shape of steps, that might be enough. Without thinking further, he puts the Key through his belt, and immediately his asthma returns. He realises that they must be in the Secondary Realms, maybe even “in the distant past of his own world”, and he needs to Key to be able to “get his breathing a hundred per cent”. But he has no time. Then ask Suzy to do it?

Also, I would think that it is in Earth’s distant past. What other worlds with dinosaurs does Arthur know about, after all? That also makes me wonder… since they are in the past, are they changing it now, or has the Stair already accounted for them and thrown them off where they are needed? The Old One’s explanation leads me to think the former is more likely, so… how can they mess up? We will not get an answer, but I am interested in this.

Arthur quickly bends the reed at several points, lets it “hang out at an angle” and grabs the Key again. He visualises steps coming from the top of the reed toward the sky, steps that transform from thin outlines to marble steps. Just then a wave splashes against his back, as the dinosaur comes closer. Suzy “gasp[s] or stifle[s] a scream”. Then Arthur jumps, Suzy flies up, and they are on the Stair again, “dripping wet”. Yay!

Arthur can breathe freely again, and he feels like “collapsing in relief”, but he knows he cannot. He wearily pulls on Suzy’s hand and goes to climb once again. Suzy asks how many Landings they will have to “put up with”. She flaps her wings to dry them off, and Arthur notes some of the coal dust has come off, and they look a bit whiter. Arthur says he does not know, and as he says that, the step beneath his feet goes “sort of soft”, and he almost fears he will fall through.

So, as “quickly and confidently as he [can]”, he says that he knows where they are going, while envisioning Monday’s Antechamber. He says he does not know how many Landings there will be, and they will go to the Antechamber to meet the Will. The step hardens again while he speaks. Suzy reacts like this:

‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ said Suzy sarcastically. ‘My friend the Will. I hope you sticks by your promise, Artie.’

I honestly cannot blame her. After all, Arthur only told her just now where they are even going! He does not seem to have much confidence in this venture, either, so she is quite right to complain. Arthur tells her not to call him “Artie”, and says he will do whatever he can to get her and the other Piper’s children home. Would they even want to, though? As he says this, the steps in front of him “[do] a sort of shimmy” and seem to curve a bit. It only takes a second, though, and Arthur is not sure if it actually means anything. Hmm, maybe it adjusts the path it will take in response to you promising to take the Piper’s children back home?

Suzy then warns for something up ahead, and the next moment, they have reached another Landing. Here it is “dark and cool”. Arthur raises the Key, but he can only see “[w]et stone walls” and he deduces they are in a cave. This seems to be less dangerous, at least. Arthur hears a slight noise and turns around. In a corner some people “grovel[] in abject fear”. They are “naked but covered in thick pelts of hair, and their heads [are] ridged and bony”.

Arthur thinks they are “Neanderthals” or “Cro-Magnons” or the like. No, these are much too recent for the people he is seeing here, and I would rather go with Australopithecus (I hope I spelled that right) and say they are some millions of years back. That does mean that they are coming closer to the present day, so there is some progress, at least? Arthur wants to tell them not to be afraid, but there is no time, and he knows they will not understand him. They will also be less afraid once you are gone, so…

Arthur turns to the wall and quickly makes some “zigzag and very uneven steps”. Before he can start visualising the Stair, Suzy tells him they do not look much like steps. Arthur shushes her and finds that he cannot visualise the Stair at all now, so he begins to panic about being “trapped in the Stone Age for ever”. He manages to break out of his panic, however, and takes a deep breath. He makes more steps, taking his time more, and making them “more geometric”.

Then, in what seems like narration, but is styled like thought, he says that they look like and are steps. He is going to jump at them, “dragging the ungrateful Suzy with him”. He jumps at the wall “with his eyes open”, almost expecting to bounce off the wall. But he does not, and white light explodes around him. They are back on the Improbable Stair. That is nice.

They keep climbing silently for a while. Then Suzy apologises for what she said and says she will keep “[her] lips pegged shut now”. (I really quite like how this conflict is shown to play out.) Arthur says, after a bit, that it was not her fault, he does not think the drawing would have worked either way, and he doubted it before she spoke. (Hmmm-mmm.) Suzy then asks quietly if Arthur will not leave her behind. Arthur says that he of course will not, so shocked that he almost stops climbing.

Suzy then says that she has “been remembering things”. She remembers first seeing the Piper. Her mother took her “out into the country” and left her there. She was a “city girl”, so she did not know what to do, and then the Piper came, with lots of children dancing behind him… So that is how the Piper’s children came to the House in the first place! I do wonder how he got them in… I know he could have used the Improbable Stair, so maybe he had the children all hold on to each other? Sir Thursday shows this is possible, after all.

I am also glad for her that she does have those memories back. After all, even if she does not like them, she can decided for herself not to pay attention to them, rather than having them removed from her mind. (And I am quite sure she will not forget these again, too!)

Arthur grips her hand even tighter, since he knows he cannot say anything. Suzy blows her memories off somewhat, by attributing it to “the air or somefing”, while she wipes her nose with a handkerchief. Arthur plays along… and then they are at the next Landing.

This is a nice one. They are standing at the side of a road, beneath a clear sky, with “the slightest of clouds” on the horizon. The road is “hardly more of a track”, as it is mostly dirt with some “irregular paving stones”. On one side, “[s]hort, gnarly trees” stand in “irregular rows”. Arthur and Suzy are on a “field of short grass” on the other side, which is kept short by some goats, who are looking at them from a hillside “a few hundred yards away”.

Arthur now spots a stack of stones beneath the trees, and figures they can make steps from them. So they go across the road to the steps, and when they have almost reached it, Arthur spots a man running toward them down the road. He runs fast, but with a “steady rhythm” which shows that he can keep up his speed for a long time. He is “thin and sinewy and [wears] only a loincloth and sandals”, and sweat is shining on his chest.

He slows down a bit when he first sees them, and again when Suzy flutters with her wings. He stares at her and makes a “formal gesture”, “as if to shield his eyes from the sun and salute at the same time”. He says this:

‘Victory at Marathon!’ he shouted. ‘The Persians are defeated! We thank Nike for the victory!’

This would be Pheidippides (or Philippides), then, who supposedly was a messenger who brought this news from Marathon to Athene and then fell dead. It is nice to see, and I like that we see the Key’s translation powers in action, too. (That is how Arthur can understand Ancient Greek, after all.)

Pheidippides does not stop, but looks away as he passes and nearly trips. Arthur and Suzy go over to the pile of stones, where Suzy helps Arthur stack them up in steps. Arthur brandishes the Key, steps onto the stones, and they are immediately on the Improbable Stair! That is very nice!

Arthur says he thinks he knows where it was: on Earth, “[i]n history”. Yes, that is a very good guess, if only because of how vague it was. I can say it must be somewhere in Attica, between Marathon and Athens, in 490 BCE. Arthur explains he did a project on “where some famous trademark names came from”, so the man thought Suzy was “Nike, the winged goddess of victory”. (I think this could have made him deduce that they are in Ancient Greece… and I would expect Suzy to have at least heard of that once.)

Suzy snorts at that and says that there probably would be no confusion if she could get her wings off. Arthur then wonders if it is possible to skip the Landings, as he thinks the Architect never did so without wanting to. She also held all the Keys, so I think that might have helped. He tells Suzy to come on, and the chapter ends with the note that they do.

Since this and the next chapter are relatively short, I guess that Kerlois can do the next one too. I will get them, then. (leaves and comes back with Kerlois a while later)

Kerlois: The next chapter opens with Arthur starting to climb at “a punishing pace”, climbing several steps at once. Suzy asks why they go so fast. Arthur thinks there might just be fewer Landings if they go faster. Either way, it feels like the “right thing to do”. Suzy says that if it is not, they will just “run into the Landings even faster”. Well, you will still arrive at your destination faster, so what does it matter?

Arthur does not answer, as he feels that by going faster he may get to the Antechamber faster (which he will), and that he will cut out Landings (which he said just now!). But it is “only a feeling”. He never manages to “find out enough about anything”, after all… Just then, Suzy alerts him to another Landing. Arthur sees “something solid” ahead, then the Key hits it and they tumble “through a light wooden door” onto a “narrow cobbled street”. How very convenient.

For a moment, Arthur thinks he is back in the Atrium, but then he smells a “terrible stench” and knows he is not. All along the street are piled bodies, which have been covered with lime. Arthur says they almost look like “statues or dummies” because of that, but there is the smell, and flies buzzing above the bodies, and rats skittering around the bodies and the “open sewer” on the other side of the street. There is no sign of any living people.

Arthur holds his breath and tries not to vomit as he looks around. The houses are narrow, have three stories and lean over, so it is “heavily shadowed”. The houses are stone up to about six feet, but are made of wood above that height. Most houses have “thatched roofs”, though some have “wood or slate”. They all have “bright painted doors and shutters”. We are told that, in Arthur’s time, they would be very old, “too old to be found outside England or Europe”. Here they are not exactly old. I take this as confirmation that Arthur does not live in Europe, then? (Also, England is part of Europe.)

He thinks that it would have been a cheerful street, but it is certainly not now. On every house there is a “whitewashed cross” on the front door and walls. Arthur knows what that means: the bubonic plague has been here. Hmmm, I see those would have rather been red or black, but the practice is correct. He thinks they are probably in England, since there had been “a terrible outbreak of the plague there in the 1660s”. Or, it might just be “an equivalent time in some other world”. He just does not know enough to be sure. I think it is quite unlikely some other world would resemble England in the 1660s so much, so this is certainly Earth.

Corneille Blanche: This does explain why Suzy’s mother sent her to the countryside; presumably the plague would be less intense there (because of less people). Further, I see why the Piper would have drawn children from this place, since the survivors might well surmise that these children simply died. It was quite smart of him, I must admit.

Kerlois: Indeed… Suzy now lets go of Arthur’s hand, and he cannot grab it again. He tells her they have to keep going. Suzy does not come back, and Arthur hurries after her as she crosses the street and pushes against “a pale blue door”. It opens a few inches, but then hits a body that “block[s] the doorway”. That… shows the horror of this quite effectively, I would say. Suzy pushes at it again, then kicks it and begins to cry. We get some description of that, and of her wings hanging “drab and woebegone” on her back.

We get this:

‘What is it?’ asked Arthur. Suzy had always seemed so happy-go-lucky, even when confronted by dinosaurs or sword-waving barbarians. What had happened to her?

Corneille Blanche: “Sword-waving barbarians”? When did those happen? Was that supposed to be in the Ancient Greece segment? Seriously, someone should have caught this.

Kerlois: Also, if he truly thinks she was so “happy-go-lucky”, he has not actually spent any time around her. We have seen her not be like that quite some times; even in the very previous chapter, she griped at him for being vague. As for the dinosaur… she seemed to take that quite seriously, and was intimidated by the Midnight Visitors immediately after. What a mess this is!

Well, what turns out to be the case is this:

‘This was my house!’ she sobbed. ‘It’s all coming back to me. This was where we lived!’

Oh my, that is quite horrible! I almost wonder if the body the door is stuck on is one of her family members… no, then I doubt she would want to get in so much.

Well, I also think it is quite clear none of the Piper’s children are going to go back home to this. Even if their families are still alive, which they will be in some cases, how would they ever fit in again? They would be immortal, come to think of it, so that would become a problem, too.

All of this could have been prevented if the Piper had maybe bothered to cure people of the plague, but instead he abducted them, and now they are stuck in the House… It truly is a quite sad story they all have.

Back to the present, Suzy goes to the nearest pile of bodies and tries to roll over the top one. Arthur grabs her wrist and pulls her away, though. He says she cannot do anything, she cannot stay here, and they need to find the Improbable Stair again. Yes, all of that is true, but what is the problem with letting her find out if her family is dead? If the Sleepy Plague escalated and there were many deaths, Arthur, would you not want to know, either? I appreciate that you can keep a clear head, but you should find out with the Key, or at least do something to let her know who has survived!

Just then, a voice says that it is “Jack Dyer’s daughter, Suzy, come back as the Angel of Death”. For an instant Arthur and Suzy think one of the corpses spoke. Then they see “what look[s] like a bundle of rags” rise up from the next doorway. It turns out to be an old woman in a “fur-lined robe”, even thought the day is warm. She holds a “wet handkerchief” to her face, and Arthur can smell the “cloves and rose oil mixture” it has been drenched in.

The woman mumbles that Suzy “died anyway”. She told Suzy’s mother that it was “stupid” to take her away; after all, death does knows “no parish boundary”, and it goes where it wills. Suzy asks if her mother is dead. The woman laughs that everyone is dead, and she is too, “only [she] [doesn’t] know it yet”. Oh… that is very bad indeed.

Corneille Blanche: I wonder if they should help this woman… Then again, she does not exactly seem to want that, and since she is still alive, I think she might make it, too. (Also, I think the Improbable Stair specifically put them here so Arthur can see what he would be returning the Piper’s children to.)

Kerlois: Arthur now pulls on Suzy’s hand again. She does not resist, but does not help either. Why, maybe she is still quite troubled by learning that her entire family has died? He tells her to come on. In the “next house” he sees a wide-open door, and he knows there has to be a staircase inside. But even so, he worries he has stayed here longer than elsewhere, and Suzy “had let go of his hand”. She never held your hand before the Coal Cellar, and you managed to get on just fine. It is starting to remind of me of Eragon with all this worrying without clear cause…

He tells her to think of the Antechamber, as he drags her through the doorway, along a “short and very narrow hall” and onto a spiral stair so tight he hits the steps above him. Suzy begins to climb without being prompted. He further tells her to concentrate on going back to the House (which I think is more productive than thinking about the Antechamber, which she might well not know).

As Arthur calls this out, he tries to concentrate himself. He cannot help but think about “all the dead bodies”, though. He has apparently never seen a dead human before now, and he has always imagined it would be “in a hospital bed”. Well, given the epidemics his country suffers from, and how often he is in the hospital, I would also expect that. He cannot stop thinking about the piles of corpses, just covered in lime “by the few survivors too frightened to do anything else”.

He says that the Sleepy Plague is a “modern equivalent of the bubonic plague”. The doctors and healers “back then” did not have an idea how it spread or where it came from, he says. Well, they actually had plenty ideas where it came from, but it took quite a while before the correct source was found. He says that modern doctors are in the same position with the Sleepy Plague. I am quite sure they know how the Sleepy Plague is transmitted (presumably by coughing or such), though they naturally do not know where it comes from.

Arthur is the only hope, and if he fails, the disease might “kill almost everybody in his city”, including those he loves and cares about, just like the last epidemic did with his parents. Then it will spread, and there will be bodies in the streets just like here… He now goes to concentrate fiercely on Monday’s Antechamber.

The last “wooden and plaster step” turns into marble beneath his feet, and white light streams from the walls. He is back on the Improbable Stair! (It also seems to be not a moment too late.) His left hand is closed so tightly that for a moment he does not know if Suzy has come along. Then he looks back… and she is there. She says that Arthur is “stuck with [her]” and tries to smile, which she fails at. She thinks there is no point in going home now.

I can certainly see that. In the House, she at least has the other Piper’s children, who she has known for quite some time… Arthur now walks up once more, saying they could find the records for her family and change them so they “lived through the plague”. Suzy points out that no one has ever found a record once, and she guesses that she will just go back to ink-filling.

Corneille Blanche: I would add that messing with the past like this will likely cause quite some trouble in the present.

Kerlois: Arthur says that she will not, trying to sound more confident and hopeful than he feels. They will beat Mister Monday and get the Lower House sorted out, just you see. Suzy answers with something that “sound[s] like a snort”, though it might as well be her blowing her nose. Arthur says he will truly concentrate on the Antechamber now, and he thinks that they will get there without another landing if he just focuses hard enough. Suzy then points out that there is one coming up.

Arthur swears and tries to go faster, as if he can somehow skip the Landing. He cannot, however, and from one moment to the next, they are “somewhere completely different”. This is not the sort of Landing they have experienced before, though. This is not “the age of dinosaurs, or a cave, or ancient Greece, or plague-ridden Europe”. This has a “new-model widescreen TV” with the sound turned off, that shows a newsreader, a “leather lounge”, a “coffee table laden with copies of Rolling Stone and Fortune” and “an empty bottle of Coke”. It is a typical living room from “his own time”.

Then he is even more amazed to see Leaf sit up “from where she’d been lying face down on the sofa”. That is interesting! She has been crying, Arthur sees. When she sees them, she “stare[s] open-mouthed”, and then screams. She recognises Arthur, but seems to think that Suzy is an angel. Suzy quickly says that she is not one. She composes herself and says she just cannot get her wings off, and introduces herself.

Leaf “nod[s] cautiously” and goes to stand at the other end of the couch. She asks if it actually is Arthur. He says it is him, and they cannot stop, then asks if there is a staircase to another floor. Leaf points it out. Just then the newsreader is replaced by “a shot of a burning building”, which is Arthur’s school! Leaf begins to ask something, but Arthur tells her they cannot wait and heads for the staircase, “yanking Suzy away from staring at the television”. (I certainly see why she would stare at that!) Leaf runs after them.

Arthur asks which day it is, and if the school was on fire yesterday or something. Leaf says it “came on the news fifteen minutes ago” (so then almost no time has passed on Earth!), and the whole town is in quarantine. She asks what he is doing here and if he has the clock hand the Fetchers sought. Arthur asks if Leaf’s family is okay. Leaf says they are very sick and in “weird comas”. She implores Arthur to do something about it.

Just then, Arthur runs up the stairs and Leaf’s voice disappears as he and Suzy go back onto the Improbable Stair. Oh, good on them! Suzy asks if Leaf was Arthur’s “sister” or “[his] betrothed” (that would be quite young!). Arthur says she is “[j]ust a friend”, and she is Leaf. He tells her to please be quiet, because they are coming up to something.

Again he feels the Stair accelerate beneath his feet, and colour appears in the light. He tells Suzy to hang on, and there the chapter ends. They certainly have come quite a way, then!

Well, until chapter 23, then!

Corneille Noire: And see me in chapter 22!