“If things go bad, the most useful thing you can do is to just pretend you’re a robot that anyone can order around.”
“Just do nothing while someone is hurting…”
“You’ll be doing something. You’ll be acting. Just like Jillian was Peter Pan in the play. Your character is the robot dog, Tesla, and nothing more.”
He made a soft whimpering noise. Louise suspected that if he was a real little boy, he’d be crying. It was so sad that all he could do is little half vocalizations so it sounded like he was mumbling “Ow…ow…ow…ow.” She was sure that the pain was real, but he had no way to shed tears.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She stroked his head. “It was just a dream.”
Only she knew it wasn’t.
How ironic that she discovered that she actually had a special magical gift, only to have it scare the shit out of her. This knowing was confusing and horrifying. She could see the future and it was the stuff of nightmares. Obviously there had to be a way to use her ability to pick a future she wanted; Ming wouldn’t hold Anna so dear if he couldn’t use her gift for his own gain. Louise felt like she was trapped in a maze with dozens of literal “dead” ends.
She’d been keeping her promise to Aunt Kitty, unconsciously waiting for her to pull off some legal miracle so that they could live with her. Louise had been too scared to be honest with herself. Jillian might have spent the last ten days curled up in bed, but Louise truthfully hadn’t been much better. She’d limited herself to spying on the secret elves and being overwhelmed by everything.
The awful truth was that Aunt Kitty wasn’t going to win custody of the twins. She didn’t have the money to win a legal battle against Anna. The only way the girls could live with her was if she took them and ran. To stay hidden, Aunt Kitty would have to abandon her songwriting career, something she worked her entire life to create. If they were found, Aunt Kitty could be arrested for kidnapping. The best their aunt could hope for was simply going bankrupt, and the worst was spending the rest of her life in prison.
Her dreams were full of danger. Dark Caves. Cages. Dark wings. Fire. Things falling out of the sky. Jillian falling from great heights. Nikola battered and broken and dying.
Only one thing was clear. The moment they tried to flee, Ming would bring to bear all his massive resources to recapture them.
Obviously she had to take away all his assets before they fled.
* * *
The next morning a work crew invaded Lain’s old bedroom. Tall, lean, and beautiful, they looked more like movie stars than construction workers. They spoke French to each other loudly, but when they were talking quietly, a word or two of Elvish would slip in. Louise sat against the door of the connecting bathroom, keeping track of the worker’s progress. She had wanted to use a spy camera but she was afraid the elves would find it as they remodeled the room.
While they worked with the slow deliberate care of craftsmen, there were several of them, they worked without taking breaks, and the room wasn’t that large. In a day they had sanded down the floor by hand, swept it clean, wiped it down with mineral spirits, applied a dark stain and then several coats of sealer. The next day the secret elves returned to paint. Slowly. Carefully.
She felt like she was in a race against them. When they were finished, Anna would want to move on to Esme’s bedroom. If Ming found the secret room, everything would unravel. The secret elves would search Tesla and find the babies. They would trap Joy. And if the twins lost the rest of their family, Jillian would break so completely, there would be no fixing her.
Before that happened, they had to cripple Ming and flee the mansion. She and the babies studied Desmarais’ sprawling empire, trying to figure out how to wreak the greatest havoc.
It quickly became apparent how dependent Ming was on Anna for his wealth. His oldest surviving company bred champion quality animals. There had been other companies that had done well and then failed as he refused to change his business plan to cope with changes in technology and cultural ideals. He’d been a plantation owner in Huntsville, Alabama, prior to the Civil War. All that survived the war was a company that built quality horse coaches but that died as cars took over. He’d had a large distillery that hadn’t survive the Prohibition. Toward the end of the last century, he’d been rich but not impressively so, for as many mouths he had to feed. Immediately after marrying Anna, a series of successful high-risk investments skyrocketed his wealth to a level comparable to small countries. Judging by the current financial newsfeeds, Anna continued to make huge gambles with their wealth.