Part Three: A Present For Poor Erik

The question was not, as it turned out, an actual question so much as it was a token gesture of respect. Mademoiselle Giry could no more refuse Erik than she could stop the sun from advancing in the sky, or force Torgo to let go of that rat right now. Or, rather, she could refuse him all she wanted, but it had no practical effect, for he did what he wished regardless.

Which was not, she thought, the proper way to react to your benefactress. But then, the boy clearly hadn't been very well brought up. Though he bowed (frostily) when she wished them a good evening, and acknowledged her presence (icily) when she arrived each afternoon, please and thank you were foreign words to him, in a language he found no use for. Do such and such was a favorite phrase with him, if one substituted for "such and such" whatever imperious request he was currently making.

So the monkey stayed, though she protested. The monkey stayed, and when she came down the next day (walking warily) there was a repeat performance, while the boys stood and watched. Eventually, the monkey returned to its place on Joshua's shoulder, hooting and shrieking, as Mademoiselle Giry slogged her way to the bank of the lake.

"You've found the duckweed," said Erik, by way of greeting. "That was our only one. Please put it back."

Mademoiselle Giry stood and fumed at them all equally. She was not prejudiced; there was no difference between boy and monkey, in her sight. Not when it came to punishment, anyway.

"I'm glad I can entertain you all," she gritted through slightly slimy teeth.

"Oh, me too," said Torgo, enthusiastically. "I would clap, except, you know. The rats." He held up his fur-filled hands to demonstrate.

"Did you want something?" prompted Joshua, petting the monkey. "Only, Giry here is still quite upset."

The sight of Mademoiselle Giry's face as she beheld her namesake was something to behold. Erik, for one, certainly beheld it.

"It's a sort of token of our respect," he said.

His tone was perfectly calm, and Mademoiselle Giry was left with two options: to take the statement at face value and view it as a compliment, or to tease out the underlying insult which, to be honest, was not very deeply hidden. She was a relatively simple girl, was Little Giry, and she took the path of least resistance. Resistance, after all, was widely known to be useless.

"Oh, my beautiful boys," she said, helplessly in love, and utterly wrong on all counts. "How sweet of you, to be sure! I only wish you'd have him checked, to see if he is a girl. And, perhaps, for rabies. But never mind that now. I've brought you some bread." She dug in her pocket and came out with a handful of sog. "It's a bit collapsed now," she admitted, examining it. "But if we spread it out, it will soon dry."

She set to making a sort of bread and mud pie on the bank, while the boys looked on with skeptical disgust. She was humming to herself as she patted it into shape. The two boys looked eagerly at Erik to see if he was possibly going to snap her neck while her attention was elsewhere, but the Devil's child seemed uninclined towards violence at the moment, oddly enough; he was not usually a fan of people humming.

Mademoiselle Giry reflected that it was at times like this that she truly prided herself on her inventiveness. Of which necessity was the mother, which made Mademoiselle Giry a sort of adopted sister, she supposed. It gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling of acceptance that was entirely misguided.

"Oh!" she said, as a thought struck her heavily about the head with enough blunt force to stun a cow, and she hopped totteringly to her feet. "I've brought you a present, Erik!"

"Really, mademoiselle," said Erik politely, "haven't you already done enough?"

"Or too much, maybe," muttered Joshua to Torgo.

"No, no, this is something quite different from saving your hides, giving you new life, granting you a place to live and start over, bringing you food and drink, sustaining your very existence, and becoming a sort of idealized mother figure who yet manages to awaken your early awareness of the feminine form in a complicated way that could only be accurately rendered by Shakespeare after large quantities of ale! This is—" She fumbled in her pocket and withdrew something small and white, which she presented to Erik proudly.

Erik observed it cautiously.

"A golf ball?" he queried after a moment.

"No, no— drat! It got scrunched up in the lake. Just a moment." She set to unraveling the ball of white fabric, which was, eventually, revealed to be an inexpertly-made and very rumpled mask of the half-face variety. Erik's eyes took on an expression of deep skepticism, which Mademoiselle Giry completely misinterpreted.

"Yes, my dearest," she said reverently. "All for you! All for poor Erik!"

Something beneath the bag he wore twitched spasmodically, though it was impossible to tell if it was his lower lip, his upper, his cheek, or even a wayward nostril.

"In case it has somehow escaped your notice, my friend, my face is already far more than adequately covered."

"But you don't need to wear an entire bag," wheedled Little Giry, wheedlingly. "It's really a quite small portion of your face that has— issues. Just think, with this mask, you could go about quite normally!"

Erik sneered so clearly that it was practically visible through the burlap sack.

"Normally," he said.

"Yes, as if," said Joshua.

But Mademoiselle Giry was nothing if not stubborn; and she was not nothing. "Well, you ought to give it a try," she said. "You can't very well refuse something without having tried it!"

"Mademoiselle, I have as yet refused cannibalism without feeling my worldview too constrained."

"Ah— ew." Giry wrinkled her nose. "That's disgusting, Erik."

Erik shrugged. "Even so."

"Are you saying you equate this poor little mask with— eating people?"

"I'm saying, perhaps each had their time of being in vogue; but that time is not this time, and they have fallen out of public favor. Leave my bag alone."

"But Erik," whined Giry. "Erik, the bag needs a wash."

He had to stop and consider that. It was, after all perfectly true.

"That's perfectly true," he said grudgingly.

"I told you!" crowed Little Giry.

"I will need some soap, perhaps."

"Naturally," said Giry, rolling her eyes, and gave the boy a gently upbraiding slap on the back of his head. The— curiously lumpy back of his head.

"Ow," said a voice. Giry frowned at him. Erik stared at her impassively.

"Tricks will get you nowhere," Giry said warningly.

"Your opinion is breathtaking in its utter wrongness," said Erik, politely. He took the mask from her hand and gave her a bow. She echoed it, gravely, and whilst her head was down he returned the slap upside the head, with interest.

She did not complain as she rubbed at her head, though she did frown at him. She was a fair girl, she was— but was that any way to treat the one who'd saved you, really? Who'd saved you and, in addition, had made a mask specifically to fit your unusual face?

No, she really didn't think so. She decided that a dignified and aloof removal of her person was the correct reaction to such an attitude. Her furry namesake attempted to interfere with this plan, but she had fought it off and was making for the door with rapidity when Erik's shout arrested her.

"Mademoiselle!"

She turned back, one foot hovering over the threshold of the door. Erik's voice had a certain commanding quality, to be sure. It made her— dare she admit it— tremble.

But he was looking at her quite calmly, clearly not about to demand that she do something she oughtn't. Perhaps when they were older—

"Our duckweed, mademoiselle."

She gaped at him. He made a sweeping, elegant gesture with one hand, managing to indicate both the aquatic plant that decorated the front of her bodice and the curiously bereft lake simultaneously.

"Did I not instruct you to put it back?"

And he had, after all. She removed it from her dress with some difficult and tossed it. It landed in the lake with a slight plop, and Little Giry raised her chin as she prepared herself to leave once more.

"I do adore you boys," she said. "Regardless of what you do, and how many rats you put in my bed, and how much artful graffiti you apply to the walls, and how often you order me about. My love will never end. Love never dies."

Erik felt a little shudder wrack his shoulders, but this was the note that Mademoiselle Giry had decided to end on, and she was gone with only a slight stumble over the threshold.

"Is it just me," ventured Joshua, "or did that sound terribly ominous?"

It wasn't just him.