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Charlotte’s bravery was starting to wilt. She looked down at the notebook uncertainly. What lovely writing Rogue had! Perhaps they could be friends one day, for Charlotte admired good handwriting almost as much as she admired good deeds and good intentions. She caught herself again, thinking of the future, of friendship, when Bran was dead and nothing did matter anymore. Take charge, she told herself. You’ve still got to look after everyone that’s left and keep them safe. You’re still the oldest, for all the good it does. It is, as Em says, your entire job. Charlotte gave the little notebook a squeeze against her chest and dashed over to their suitcases, trying to keep an eye on Anne inching toward her frog, feeling extremely silly and not at all sure what in the world this would accomplish.
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw her youngest sister do something awful. And wonderful. And awful. As the frog bent its great, wide head to nibble at the rind of bacon, Anne gave out a bloodcurdling savage war cry and leapt up on his back. She kicked his ribs brutally with her little feet and hauled back on the rope of his catapult with both arms. The frog burbled in pain and charged off wildly toward his own King, cursing Anne, cursing himself, cursing bacon and fate and the agony of war.
“For Branwell!” Anne shrieked. “For Bran and England and Bran all over again and forever!”
“Hurry up!” shouted the squad of wooden soldiers.
“You can’t save her out here!” Bravey pleaded.
“O, Glorious Baggage!” Charlotte read out in her sweetest voice. “Blessed Childe of the Great Trunk! Scion of the Ancient House of Lug! I, while acknowledging Your Individual Right to Free Will, Self-Determination, Parliamentary Representation, and Bodily Autonomy, do Most Humbly Beg of You to stop mucking about and show me what you’ve got!” Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. “I say, this is long!” she whispered at the soldiers and her siblings.
Anne pointed the frog at Napoleon and slashed at the catapult’s rope with the bayonet of her gun. It sprang; she dropped her rifle; she ducked as the basket hurled a beaten iron ball into the air.
“You’re a rotten little goblin,” the frog sighed as it flew.
“Keep going, for pine’s sake!” Crashey hissed.
Charlotte tore her eyes away from Anne. A nimble frog-sniper was galloping clumsily toward her on webbed feet, lashing out
with his tongue, trying to snatch at the handles of the suitcases with it. Charlotte cried out miserably, tears coming in earnest now. It wasn’t supposed to be this way; it was supposed to be an adventure, a game, a joy! She cringed as she swung out the rifle’s butt. Shooting was one thing, but to harm a poor creature right to its face was too horrid. A sickening crack echoed out over the plaza as she connected and the beast flopped flat. Charlotte’s hands and her voice shook horribly as she held up the paper again and read.
“Carry me as I have Carried You, and in exchange, I solemnly swear never to Forget You in a Train Station and Condemn you to the Fiery Depths of the Left Luggage Office, nor Bash You Roughly when Lifting You into the Overhead Rack or forget to Pack My Toiletries Carefully and thereby Spill Unpleasant Unguents Upon, Throughout, and All Over You. You are the very Best and Prettiest and Strongest and Hardiest and Most Spacious of all Luggage, and I am awfully lucky to have purchased You, and not any of the Other Assorted Valises from the Shop. Valesium in excelsis, keep me safe!”
The two suitcases instantly unsnapped their lids and smacked them twice like teeth gnashing. Then, something began to happen. Something astonishing. Something enormous.
Anne’s shot crashed directly into Napoleon’s rooster. It stove in his wing, the one made out of an old dented teapot that looked so very like the one Aunt Elizabeth polished every month despite the dent. The chicken crooned pitifully and turned its blazing eyes toward its master, begging silently for help, for love, for forgiveness. Then, the rooster toppled over, clucking in misery and trying to reach the wound with his beak while Napoleon struggled to get out from under its fiery bulk. Anne cackled in vengeful delight. She turned the frog back toward her sisters and kicked and kicked his ribs until he was running at daredevil speed.
Charlotte and Emily’s old, weather-beaten bags, the plain, familiar bags they’d used for years, since the first time they went off to the yawning cold prison called School, the bags that had been weapons a moment ago, outdid themselves. They unfolded and unpacked, joined together and grew—and grew and grew—until they became an enormous house wedged between the haberdasher and the redgrocer, yet taller by far than either of them, with two patched, threadbare leather and brass towers and dozens of windows made from their petticoats and bonnets and stockings and a great double door made from one of Emily’s black dresses and one of Charlotte’s.
It looked just exactly like Westminster Abbey. If only Westminster Abbey had a giant wooden handle at the top for easy carrying.
“FIRE!” howled Napoleon and Wellington.
Anne leapt off her frog as he barreled past the redgrocer and the haberdasher. She rolled and tumbled over herself and dove past the astonished throng of them all into the suitcase-abbey. Charlotte, Emily, and the wooden soldiers only just dragged the doors of the luggage closed behind them when the world exploded into a hurricane of frog fire and lime smoke.
EIGHT
A Refreshment of Spirits
Inside the luggage, they found a very pleasant lounge room waiting for them. Several long couches spread invitingly around a large table set with a whiskey and hardtack for the men and tea cake for the children. Vases of flowers were arranged elegantly around the room, the ceilings arched far above their heads like church buttresses, and several rich tapestries decorated the linen-lined walls, as well as stitched pockets meant for the securing of various smaller items within a suitcase. Charlotte and Emily felt somewhat embarrassed when they noticed that the couches were their old boots swelled up and stuffed till soft, the flowers were folded out of pages from the books they’d packed for School, and the rich tapestries were their shawls and gloves and chemises and hairpins and ribbons scrunched together, braided and twisted to look like hunting scenes and bowls of apples. The soldiers didn’t seem to care one bit. They cleared off the whiskey and hardtack and cakes with businesslike quickness and laid out the bodies of Branwell and Leftenant Gravey on the table.
Sergeant Crashey drew a strange amber flask from his belt and tipped it into Gravey’s mouth, then Bran’s. Something the color of moonlight dripped out and splattered onto the corpses of the poor dead boys. In half a moment, the hole punched through Bran’s heart and through the Leftenant’s wooden head knotted up like two stitches knit together. Gravey groaned and rolled over onto his side. Crashey tucked his little bottle away again with a snort of satisfaction at a job well done. He relaxed, took off his helmet, letting an unkempt ruff of sawdusty curls free. Gravey managed to get himself sitting upright with the help of his men.
Branwell didn’t stir.
Oh, thought Emily, without hope, well, of course it won’t work on our Bran, whatever it is. He’s not made of anything fixable. We’re not like them. We don’t come back. We know that. We know it better than anyone. Rogue watched the whole operation out of his one good eye. Anne thought she saw a sappy tear well up in his wooden lashes. He must be such a very good man, she thought, to weep for his friend coming back to life. Most people only weep when somebody dies.
“That was a good one, wasn’t it, Sergeant?” Gravey coughed a leaf or two into his hand. “I spun right around like a top! Did you laugh? You know I always want to get a good laugh when I go.”
“I chuckled,” Crashey admitted. “But you’ll never top Wehglon! Exploded seven times in one day!”
“Aw, I know, I know, Crash, my man,” he sighed, grabbing his comrade’s arm and hoisting himself upright again. “But a real artist never gives up trying to top himself!”
“I laughed,” Branwell mumbled groggily, without opening his eyes. Three identical gasps rose up from the girls. Bran touched his heart. He stuck his finger through the bullet hole in his waistcoat. Finally, he winked one eye open, then the other. “I did. I laughed!” he said, though he hadn’t really, but now that he knew he should, he resolved always to do it when something dreadful happened right in front of him. Or to him. But what had happened to him? He remembered the red, the lovely warm feeling and the redness, but that was all.
One moment, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne thought they’d never breathe again, and the next, they were hugging their brother with the ferociousness of a fistfight. They tackled him to the ground. He squirmed and protested, but, just for a second, toward the end, he shut his eyes and relaxed into his sisters’ arms and enjoyed their love and their tears as much as he’d ever enjoyed plum jam or hot soup.
“You scared me,” whispered Charlotte. “You scared me so.” But I wasn’t wrong, she thought to herself. I wasn’t, after all.
