November 1930
Hilary met her sisters in Maple’s room the next morning before breakfast. It was smaller than the other two bedrooms and less lavish, but it also had three comfortable chairs and a coffee table gathered near a large, sunny window that was the perfect place to discuss their shared dream from the night before. Betty brought her pencil and notepad, extracting a pair of stockings, four eagle feathers, and a cotton skirt from her chair before she could sit down. Maple was never known for her neatness. Mrs. Fox spent months hissing at her to keep her room neat before she finally gave up and just dusted under the piles of clothes and stockings and movie magazines.
“Ok, ladies, and Walter,” Hilary nodded at the teddy bear seated next to Maple in his own little chair, “the meeting is now in session. Considering I heard Betty wake up screaming and Maple ran into my bedroom with Walter and asked to sleep on the couch again, I assume you all had the same terrifying nightmare that I did.”
Maple pulled Walter close to her chest, her brown eyes wide. “It was the scariest dream I ever had, an’ that includes the last solo one. She’s just gonna turn those poor guys into her own pets! They ain’t pets! They’re people!”
Hilary made a face. “Tell that to Pablum. I know I have a reputation for being difficult,” her sisters snorted and rolled their eyes, “but even I never went so far as to turn people who disagreed with me into slimy, wart-ridden troll-things.”
“Hilary, you’ve never had truck with groups in Europe folks here are worried about,” Betty added. “That we know of.”
“Yeah!” Maple clutched poor Walter so hard, if the bear could breathe, he’d be straining for it. “That’s what she’s scared of. If someone tells those FBI guys C.J’s been talkin’ to that we have info on goin’s on in Europe here, I’ll bet she’d be tossed out of the US faster n’ you can say ‘we’ve caught a Central Powers spy.’”
Betty sighed. “The trouble is…where is that information? C.J said the FBI was supposed to get information, but they never did.”
“I think I have an idea.” Maple raised her hand and wiggled her crimson lacquered fingernails. “All that coded stuff Eagle’s been workin’ on in his room is about the goin’s on in Europe. It’s all he’ll squawk about. Well,” she added with a slight smirk, “most of the time. When we ain’t talkin’ ‘bout what we do in the air. Which is a lot of fun.”
Hilary coughed to get her sister back on track. Maple’s mind did have a tendency to wander, especially towards…that subject. “Yes, well, what you two do on your own time is your business, but this is important. It could be the key to getting that Czechoslovakian piranha out of my roles and our nightmares.”
“I think Bear is one of the major keys to all this.” Betty pulled the notepad closer to her chest and sighed. “He’s been making a lot of progress with his writing. We’re almost done with our Bear Prince story, and he’s now able to read most of Beauty and the Beast.”
She looked up at them, her own sweet chocolate brown eyes full of sadness. “The trouble is, every time someone brings up Jeff around him, or tries to get him to look at Eagle’s notes, or even mentions what he was before, he panics and starts complaining about the darkness in his head and how much it pains him. It takes me twenty minutes or more to get him calmed down after one of those episodes.”
“Yeah, Maple snarled, “‘cause someone don’t want him rememberin’ what he was, or Jeff, or bein’ able to help Eagle. Eagle says ‘bout half of his papers are decoded. The others were supposed to be, but they weren’t able to get to ‘em before they were attacked. By what, he won’t say. His wings keep movin’ too fast when I ask him ‘bout it for me to figure it out.”
“And Troll just freezes up when I ask and goes into coughing fits.” Hilary’s growl nearly matched Troll’s. “And I’ll bet that ‘she’ they’re all terrified of is Pavla. I can see her attacking an innocent bear and troll.”
“And…” Betty’s eyes grew even wider. “Hilary, those monsters of Pavla’s who attack us in the dreams…don’t they look like Troll?”
Hilary made a face. “Not that much. Troll’s far more elegant and refined than those boorish imitations of Pablum’s could ever dream of.” She nodded at Betty’s notes. “We don’t have much time. I don’t want my Troll, or Bear, or Eagle, or anyone in this household to end up as pets for the Wicked Witch of Eastern Europe. Betty, I know it hurts him, but Bear has to look at those messages again. Maybe we can figure out a way to ease him into them.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Betty frowned and chewed on the end of her pencil. “We were all there the last time, and he still panicked.”
“Betty,” Hilary pointed out gently, “there’s a reason for his panic. Those blocks are there to keep him from remembering something. Very likely, he’s the one who decoded those papers, and Pavla has no desire for him to finish the rest.”
She nodded at her sister’s notepad. “Betty, write this down. First of all, we need to start working together more often if we’re going to break Pablum’s hold on this household. I think it might help if we spent more time in the music room, especially Bear.”
“Hilary’s right.” Maple grinned. “Did you see how he came to life a couple of weeks ago, when we were all dancin’ and he got to choose the song? Maybe you guys oughta write to music more often, too. Maybe that’ll break those blocks faster.”
“You might have something there.” Betty wrote everything down. “Maple, Eagle needs to be brought out with everyone else. He has to stop hiding. We can’t have the guys blaming themselves for all this forever. The time for blame is past.”
“I agree.” Hilary nodded. “I’ll try to get Troll out more, too. He’s still asking me to marry him.” She rubbed her finger where Troll…and Jeff…often did. “I’d accept. I’m really starting to enjoy his company. He’s a rather good actor, for a monster, and he’s amazing with those roses of his. He’s just...well, I don’t think he is…”
Betty frowned. “But he’s not Jeff.”
Her oldest sister sighed. “I’m not sure what he is anymore. I need to figure it out.”
Mr. Cat arrived at the door, his fluffy white tail curly around him and his broom as he stared out of those owlish glasses. “Ladies, it’s time for breakfast. We’ll be having pumpkin pancakes, pork sausage, scrambled eggs, and stewed apples. Grab them, before Bear eats them all.”
“Sounds good to me!” Maple settled Walter on his chair and patted his head. “See ya later, Walt!”
Betty tucked the notes under her arm. “I’ll work on these after breakfast.”
“Good idea. We’ll see what we can come up with.” Hilary followed the other two, her mind still on Troll. There was just…Jeff said that the men were in the house. He said they were close! If they were close, where were they? She had the feeling Troll, as the head of the household, would know best…and she aimed to get answers from that grotesque leftover from Lon Chaney’s fever dreams, no matter how much control Pablum thought she had over him.
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