The Silenced Tale, стр. 29
“She ate another whole cake in there,” Pip says, dropping a kiss on the crown of my head as she settles Alis between my legs. Our daughter props herself up against my shins. She shoves her hands into the bowl of cold noodles, grinning manically, and lifts them to her face to gum and slurp.
I keep a careful eye on her to ensure she doesn’t choke herself, and dutifully slurp up one of the noodles when she holds it up to me. Alis giggles and claps her sticky hands together as I cross my eyes and theatrically suck the noodle up between my lips. I hear the click and whir, see the flash of a camera, but I ignore them in favor of entertaining my daughter. I am lordling no more, so may cavort and be as silly as I like, with no fear of how I will look to those around me.
As the adults refill their drinks, chat amongst themselves, and circulate, Pip settles onto the floor beside us both, watching Alis with hungry, happy eyes.
“I wish I remembered this,” Pip says quietly, privately. “I have Dad’s pictures of me, but I don’t actually remember it.”
“No one remembers much from this age,” I say. “Not even folks like, ah, me.”
“And what are you like?” Nancy asks, moving her chair closer to involve herself in our conversation once more.
Pip and I exchange an exasperated glance.
“Eidetic memory,” I lie. “Or very close to one.”
Of course, I cannot say, “people Written to be clever, who have had the privilege to wear the Shadow’s Mask and so can sometimes access the memories of their predecessors of themselves at a young age.” Not that I could do so now, without the mask to store the memories and provide me access. My external hard drive is missing, as it were, and all I remember now are the files I had accessed so often that I had moved copies of them to my desktop: lists of Words and spells, of names and faces. But little of the personal life of the Shadow Hands that had come before me, of their preferences and memories.
Their knowledge, deep and vast as it is, is lost to me.
Nancy squints at me, then at my empty wine glass, where I have left it on the coffee table, well out of Alis’s reach.
“I’ll pour you another,” she offers, and stands.
“No, I am content. Thank you,” I reply. “One was enough for this afternoon.”
She makes a sound rather like frustration, and walks away—finally. I cannot blame people for their own social awkwardness, but sometimes, people ought to learn how to read the situation.
A shiver of concern trickles down my spine. Why was she so determined to interrogate me? It could be idle curiosity. She has watched Pip grow, I assume, so of course she would be invested in Pip’s relationships and happiness, and as such, only wants to connect with me. In which case, I am being rude.
But there is something . . . something else here. And I don’t know if it’s my own paranoia, born of Pip’s and Elgar’s own, or if it is really something to concern myself with.
When Alis finishes her bowl of noodles, she lifts it between chubby hands.
“Yah!” she shouts in triumph, and I have just enough time to say, “Ah, ah, sweeting,” and snatch the bowl out of her grip before she can spill the remaining sauce all over herself and the floor.
“Bu!” Alis protests at my intervention, looking mutinous.
“You missed your grandmother’s dire threats regarding her carpets, but I did not,” I say, grinning. “Now, up, up, let’s stand sweeting, and let’s wipe your hands clean. One last game for you, my dearest heart, and then we will put out the toys and you may maraud and raid to your heart’s content.”
Mollified by my promise to let her be as Turnish as she likes, Alis agrees to play along. “Yah!”
“Yes, sweeting,” I correct, hoping to trade on her current amiableness.
Alis squints and gives me a skeptical look. “Yah,” she insists, in a tone much like a Bynnebakker blacksmith. She looks at her mother, and then opens her hand near my face, as if to say, “Can you believe this idiot? Do you see what he’s trying to do?”
“I know, sweet pea,” Pip says. “Your da is an insufferable snob.”
Alis nods, as if she has any idea what a snob is, or if I am one or not.
Martin moves from where he’s standing beside Mei Fan, near the shrine, to a bundled blanket in the corner of the room. Martin brings the bundle into the middle of the open floor, and Alis turns her body to face him, standing on wobbly legs to watch what her grandfather is up to.
“Zhua zhou, baby girl,” Martin says to Alis in a far better Mandarin accent than the one I possess.
Pip moves back to stand beside me, and I rise to my feet so we both can watch unimpeded. She threads her fingers between mine and leans against my shoulder, and all is right and good in the Overrealm.
Martin unfolds the blanket across the carpet and spreads out all the small toys and trinkets contained inside it so that they are evenly spaced. Alis sticks one finger in her mouth, gray eyes watching this process curiously. On the blanket are a variety of objects that are meant to represent Alis’s future calling. There is a silver pen, which represents a scholarly life, a wooden abacus, which traditionally represents life as a businessperson, a toy car, a child’s stethoscope, a seal-stamp, a plastic spade, a measuring tape, a toy microphone, a small stuffed sheep, and a few other items that I cannot clearly make out from here.
“Go on, sweeting,” I say to Alis, urging her to uncurl her other hand from my trousers. “Take whichever toy you want. Pick whatever you