Avion Symphony, Chapter Five

Blinking away the last of her tears, 4-H-N saw she and Villanelle had moved on from where they’d been. Now a track wound downhill through grassy countryside and sunshine.

“You’re nearly at the end of your journey,” confirmed the robotic girl. “Just follow the path the rest of the way. Only this is as far as I can go with you.”

4-H-N scrambled to her feet and gazed at her. She’d been such a comfort and a guide in that last terrible vision.

“It’ll be OK this time,” Villanelle assured 4-H-N. “And when you’re there, you’ll understand why I can’t come.”

That was all she would say. Then she raised her arms above her head, tucked in her knees and transformed to a small airborne hovercraft, which Villanelle apparently did now. She bade farewell to 4-H-N and then was on her way, presumably heading back to her team of mechanical Avion in her own distant era.

At such short notice, the best 4-H-N could do was: “Bye, Villanelle.”

There seemed to be so much more to say. And 4-H-N marvelled that the sudden absence of Houkase High’s single most notorious first-year should ever have left her so lonely.

As instructed 4-H-N set off, marvelling too at how different were these golden-green uplands to rainy ruinous Taito. Beneath her bare soles the neatly-mown verge felt like summer.

Presently she perceived at the foot of the valley an expansive estate. It was spectacular, but it did not ramble as such ancestral seats were wont to do. Each brick seemed rather to have been carefully aligned with a set-square, and no upright intersected the horizontal but at precise right-angles. 4-H-N concluded she was in the future, but even so, this place’s architect clearly stopped at nothing short of bringing his blueprints to life. Sheet-glass vistas spanned into the distance, shining back the first red blaze of mellowing day.

“Jeez, Villanelle,” muttered 4-H-N. “I’ve got my nightie on.”

The great gates to this modernistic manor-house were directly ahead, and in the courtyard beyond them an elderly gentleman was waiting.

He was tall, grey-haired and elegant. A sporty jacket of rich plum was offset by fawn breeches and brown leather boots polished to a warm glow. As 4-H-N approached, his rosy old face crinkled with kindness.

“My dear,” he greeted her. “Suffice to say I was aware in advance I should have the pleasure of your company. You will join me for refreshments?”

It was something about the voice. Even despite the words themselves.

4-H-N stared.

No way.

Yet just above his welcoming smile that beamed geniality and courteousness, the twirl of the gentleman’s grey moustache left her no margin for doubt.

It was.

Sunbeams slanting to the close of day fell through the perforations of pineapple-rings in the pitcher of punch, looking like rods of light on which these luscious glistering cogs were to turn. Madeleines and fairy-cakes arrayed along the coffee-table were gears, their ridged edges interlocking. 4-H-N gratefully partook while her host urged her to help herself.

Huge square windows seemed to set the capacious reception-room amid gilded late-afternoon clouds. There were angular couches, pillars of brick, and over the fireplace’s rectangular arch a magnificent coat-of-arms. Everywhere, on the walls and every shelf and surface, antiquities and trophies and remembrances stood in such number as to make the place a museum.

It amazed 4-H-N how much she and the gentleman found they had to talk about. They laughed together too, helplessly almost, at the old schemes and kidnappings and mechanized monstrosities. Perhaps it was because they’d both been starting out in Japan at the time, but high-flying death-defying memories of a bygone Tokyo lived and breathed in that very room.

4-H-N didn’t think she’d ever heard a lovelier laugh than his. Which was quite something to say, seeing as she remembered his old one.

Nor was she embarrassed about the nightie anymore. It wasn’t as if this gentleman had ever known her to wear anything particularly different.

Presently 4-H-N thought it only polite to inquire after two old friends. Right away her host steered her to one of his many framed photographs, of a young man with the sort of face no girl would easily forget. He was dressed in mechanic’s overalls and grinning for the camera as he went about his job, servicing vintage roadsters. 4-H-N shook her head.

“I can’t believe that,” she declared. “So he made good in the end?”

This the elderly gentleman proudly confirmed. Casting about the gallery however 4-H-N couldn’t spot anything of the other one.

“So, what about…?” she began.

“Ah,” replied the gentleman, suddenly very tactful. “The Costa del Sol, I gather. He has a villa there. Only, of course, you understand…”

4-H-N supposed she did. No photos, no forwarding address.

“Then he made good too,” she remarked.

The old gentleman laughed so much that he needed his monogrammed handkerchief to dab at the corners of his eyes, at which he told 4-H-N his greatest regret was that they had not done this long ago. Then, noting she had finished her drink, he wheeled in a gleaming urn with two china cups and all the tea-things.

4-H-N had to fight back a tear or two of her own when her gaze alighted on the Villanelle-who-was, bold and slightly sardonic in her sailor-collar uniform. She remembered now that morning when the school photographer had come. Hanging behind it was what 4-H-N took to be the original schematic of Villanelle’s true form.

Every parent deserved to have such little keepsakes. No point splitting hairs with talk about who was and wasn’t really what. Not all daughters were born in the usual way, but that didn’t mean the men who made them were any less their fathers. If it had, then 4-H-N in that moment wouldn’t have wanted above all else to hurry home to Dr. James Neetkins, hug him extra tight, and tell him she’d always be there.

It went without saying there were no graduation or wedding-day pictures. Villanelle’s abrupt departure made perfect sense now, for 4-H-N could only imagine goodbyes said centuries ago were better left there. Indeed, had Villanelle stuck around a little longer, she might have been tempted to hint to her that maybe she wasn’t supposed to live forever. Maybe in that she’d taken too much on herself.

There was something though. It occupied the far wall, and 4-H-N’s attention was curiously drawn to it as her companion poured.

Faded ink met fraying parchment in a vast and venerable map, though what course of country it charted out 4-H-N could never have known. Far more important was that this ancient document also had a song to it, and just like the first, it was one she knew. 4-H-N added milk to her teacup, and as her silver spoon swirled the still contents to realms of living cumulonimbus depth, so the map’s steady sepia parted like a break in the sky.

Acoustic guitars began to chord the prelude.

And 4-H-N saw Chester and Villanelle.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE