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Shadowpuppet seemed to catch the tension. It paused in its morning ablutions and studied a spot on the wall as if embarrassed at the decline of civility.
Brrr governed himself. Don’t lose it now. You’re closing in on things.
“Candle and Trism. Did their mutual attraction to Liir translate somehow into an attraction to each other? With Liir off rambling on some obligation or other—out of the farm—away from prying eyes—what happened?”
Or were Candle and Trism just using each other, somehow? As he and old Yackle were doing just now?
“There are some things even oracles can’t determine,” admitted Yackle. “What I do know is that by the time Liir returned, Trism had already left. Maybe he wanted to avoid Liir. Maybe he had persuaded Candle to join him later in some safe harbor, far from the attentions of a novice magician.”
“Magician!”
“Well, if Liir were Elphaba’s son, he’d be a witch of sorts, wouldn’t he? Or have the potential, anyway? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Now don’t you lie to me,” she snapped. “Have I ferreted out from you what your real aim is? Are you looking for Liir? You want to get at him through any avenue possible—through either of his lovers, Candle or Trism, or…”
Still, she paused; she couldn’t say it.
“Or what?” Brrr hoped that she would tell him what he wanted to know—the Grimmerie, the Grimmerie!—instead of what she needed to share. She kept on.
“So Commander Cherrystone circles Apple Press Farm, but Trism has already left. Cherrystone lies in wait for Liir to return. Then, just before dawn one morning, Candle leaves with a bundle under her arm. Hoping it might be the Grimmerie, Cherrystone throws all his efforts into following her. It turns out though that she has swifted away a bundle of rags, nothing more. She is deemed to have no importance—perhaps she acted the simpleton—and she is released.”
“What happened to them all?”
“Up in smoke,” she said. “They all went up in smoke, each in a separate puff.”
They both contemplated the convenience of a private exit.
“How do you know so much?” he pressed.
“Cherrystone returned here when all his other trails went cold. He conducted an interview with the old Superior Maunt. I’m sorry to say she died a few hours later. Either from shock or due to a stronger talent at self-preservation than I have been able to manage.”
“And he interviewed you,” said Brrr.
“You know it,” she replied.
“You have told me more than you told him,” he said, “and I didn’t go the length to put out your eyes the way he did.”
“The blind see history in a different way than the sighted. Besides”—she sighed as she spoke—“back then I had no idea I was going to prove so hopeless at dying a natural death. All that blood, all that mess—”
“Please,” he said. “Please. I did have some breakfast.”
“It’s ancient history,” she said. “This was nine years ago. Where are they all now? How did they disappear so thoroughly? If they are still alive, Liir would be twenty-eight or-nine—Candle likewise—Trism thirty-two—and…And…”
And, she thought, the child, the child; the child whom Candle had borne? But still she could not speak.
Brrr sat very still.
She sat up straight. “I have given you as much as I know. The truth is, once I went blind, I began to doubt my own oracular capacity. Perhaps Commander Cherrystone’s terrible attack on me was exactly the thing. I can smell a person,” she said, “I can smell a lie, but I can no longer see the truth right in front of my face.”
“You’ve corroborated a lot,” he agreed. “Still, how did you know so much about the movements of Trism and Candle?”
“Candle came back, for one night,” said Yackle. “She came back to thank me for…for everything. Sensibly, she wouldn’t tell me where she was going; this meant I could not have it forced out of me. She was a week or so ahead of Cherrystone.”
She appeared to look out the window. “I think of her often,” she said. “I liked the young girl. She was braver than most.
“Braver than you,” she continued.
“That’s not saying much,” said Brrr.
“I can smell a lie,” she said, “and I believe that you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
