The Trouble with Time, Part 2.11 - Faint

Less than nine days. Alice hates never having enough time. Constantly feeling the pressure of it, getting tighter and tighter as the end approaches. And she's tired. She's not sleeping well, too restless and nervous to fall asleep for more than a moment at a time. The only thing keeping her going is stubborness and the unwavering unwillingness to give up as long as there's time left.

She's running her fingers lightly along the impressions in the clay, poking at her breakfast with the fork in her other hand. It's a small key, one that reminds her of padlock keys back home. But here, who knows. She doesn't know enough about the Fey Wilds or its people to know if a small key opens a lock to something small, or if this can be a key to a door. She doesn't think it is, though. It feels like a key to something smaller. Of course something smaller can also be holding closed something big.

Alice sighs. She wishes Vanessa said something more in her note. Anything more. But she suspects Nessa's already pushing the limits of what she can do by getting them the imprint of a key.

"What does it open?" she asks the others, without much hope they'll have any kind of answer. The others look up from their breakfasts.

"Probably the inside," Alsebah shrugs. "Or not. Maybe it opens something you need to open to get there. But your friend wouldn't have risked getting this to you if it wasn't something you'll definitely need, and it will be important that you have it. Especially if she's under special observation of the King."

"Do you have materials to make a key here?" Kevin asks her. "I could find someone in the city, but I'd rather we not tell anyone we don't need to that we even have the template."

Alsebah snorts and waves a hand.

"Who do you think I am? Of course I can make something as simple as a key here."

Alice pushes the rest of her breakfast aside. She knows she should have eaten more, but she has next to no appetite.

"Let's go make a key then," she says and stands up.

Alsebah simply stares at her for a moment.

"You know much about metalworking?" she asks her in a tone that clearly tells she expects the answer to be no. Alice hesitates a moment, then shakes her head. "So you're not going to be much help in making one. Besides, if you let the grown-ups handle it, we can weave in a couple of things that might come in handy later. Some locks need a key and magic to open, after all."

Alice is not in the mood to be condescended to. Not even by someone who's probably ten times her age. She stares knives at Alsebah for a moment, but Alsebah stares right back, and soon she feels herself cracking under the weight of her eyes. She hands the piece of clay to Kevin and falls back into her chair.

"There we go," Alsebah says and stands up, motioning Kevin to go with her. "We'll be back in a couple of hours. Don't break anything."

And the two of them disappear through the door.

Alice sighs and buries her face in her arms, resting on the table. She's getting restless. She wants to go out there, to make some effort to look. She knows this way is better than blindly wandering around the biggest city she's ever heard of, hoping to stumble onto something that's very well hidden. But she needs to do something or she'll go crazy.

A hand lands on her back, stroking gently.

"We'll find it," Sam assures her. "Kevin and Alsebah know what they're doing. And they know the city. And now we know Vanessa can get us info when we need it. She clearly knows where the heart is, and still thinks we can find it."

Alice makes a noise, but even she's not sure if she's agreeing or disagreeing. She lifts her face to look out, resting her chin on her arm instead, and digs out the note that came with the mold.

"I just wish she'd said something more," Alice says, running her thumb over the letters on the thick paper in front of her face.

"I don't think she could," Sam tries. "You know that."

"Yeah, I do," she means to continue, but a faint, unfamiliar scent catches her nose. She frowns a bit.

"What?" Sam asks, slightly confused.

"What's that scent?"

"Scent?"

"That," she indicates with the hand and the paper before realising she can't point to a scent with no obvious source. She stops, but for a moment the scent is slightly less faint.

She brings the note to her nose and smells. The scent floods her, stronger, but still faint. It's a scent that reminds her of peppermint and cinnamon and freshly cut grass, but isn't exactly any of those. Another hint, a part of her mind says immediately. One that's so subtle because it has to go unnoticed by anyone who isn't meant to notice it.

"Smell this," she hands the note to Sam, who smells it. "That scent."

Sam looks at her for a moment, as if expecting her to continue.

"She has scented paper," Sam says, trying to understand what Alice wants them to understand. "It's a fancy thing, but not an uncommon one. The king did call her lady Vanessa, didn't he? It's not that surprising she would have scented paper."

"You don't think it's another clue?" Alice asks, still hopeful but losing it fast.

"No," Sam gives her an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

"It's nothing," she waves it off, but she can't hide her disappointment. Her moment of feeling like she's doing something, anything, to find Vanessa's heart slips away and shatters on the floor.

~x~

She's been pacing the room for almost an hour, trying to get rid of the extra energy and to trick her body into thinking she's not simply sitting on her hands while their time is ticking away, when Kevin and Alsebah finally return. Both she and Sam look up as they enter the room.

"Well, here you go," Alsebah says and offers her a small silver key on a thin silver chain. "One key to unlock whatever you need to unlock. Well, not whatever you need to unlock, it's not one of those keys, but one of the things you might need to unlock."

She pulls it over her head to hang on her neck and tucks in under her clothes. It's warm against her chest, giving her a sliver of hope.

"So, what have you kids been up to while we were gone?" Alsebah says as she practically crashes into a well-worn couch.

"Alice noticed the note was written on scented paper, and then paced the room for the rest of the time," Sam summarises. "So not much."

"The note has a scent?" Kevin asks and rounds the table to pick it up. He brings it to his nose and takes a careful sniff. There's a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Alice perks up, the hope of maybe having found something slithering back in as Kevin hands the note to Alsebah. She smells it too.

"Oh," she laughs. "That's clever."

"It is a hint?" Alice asks.

"I think so," Kevin nods.

"It's faint," Alsebah says, "but it's unmistakable."

"So what is it?"

"It's the gardens of the city," Kevin says. "That's the smell of the King's orchids. They're very hard to cultivate, and he prides himself on being able to grow... well, to hire people who know how to grow them. In the summer they grow in every garden in the city."

Alice's heart sinks.

"So how do you know it's a hint? If they're that common, it's not a surprise Nessa has paper smelling like them."

Alsebah is grinning before she even finishes.

"But see, while the King wants everyone to know he can make them grow even though it's hard, he also doesn't want anything about them to become common, or otherwise, what would be the specialty of them? He's banned the use of the scent from anyone but himself."

Alice's eyes widen at the implication.

"The heart is hidden in one of the gardens," it's barely louder than a whisper.

"Either that, or she's left us more clues in one of them," Kevin is smiling now too.

"So we have to go," Alice is already heading for the door. "We have to search the gardens."

The others follow her.

~x~

She soon learns searching public gardens is easier said than done. It turns out there are hundreds of them all around the city. They start from the ones close to the palace, but not so close someone working for the King would surely notice them searching, and move out from there. And as if the sheer number of them wasn't enough, everything is, obviously, covered in snow this time of year. They're half-way through the first garden before Alice realises they might easily be missing something simply because they can't see it under the thick layer covering everything except the well-maintained paths. But there's nothing they can do about it except try to be thorough. The longer it takes the deeper into despair and anger Alice seems to fall. More than once she wants to start over, certain they missed something important in the first garden, or the fifth, or the eightieth.

It takes three full days until they finally stumble onto what they have been looking for.

__________________________________________

I'm tired now.

The topic for tomorrow is Sand.

~matleena