Barnaby awoke at precisely 5:13 AM, burdened with glorious knowledge. (Also a full bladder, but that was incidental.)

Everyone in this house is sick. Everyone. Lucy and Calliope and Hyacinth went down last night.

Everyone in this house is sick except me!

He sang a few snatches of “Master of the House” as he added a halting quarter-inch to the contents of the chamber pot, and then rinsed his hands in the cracked thrift-store washbasin which in no way made up for the lack of plumbing.

He opened the wardrobe to consult the mirror hanging on the inside and found he’d also papered over this one. Well, no matter. He remembered approximately where his hair was, he could comb it like that.

He dried his hands on his bathrobe while regarding a truly pitiful collection of three different kinds of pyjamas and one threadbare suit — which he had been wearing when Hyacinth found him/kidnapped him.

She sent for the papers, but she didn’t bother about the clothes. I am reasonably sure I had a furnished room at the time… or some kind of nest. I require a nest.

…I suppose it is possible I cut up the other clothing and have distributed it around my current habitat in an idiosyncratic manner, as I am wont.

He considered the walls and boxes and walls of boxes around him. Well, no matter. He pulled out the suit and dusted it.

What shall we do today, Mr. Graham? Breakfast at Hennessy’s? Lunch at the Swan? Shall I “do the movies”? A show? Oh, damn it, I’ve missed Ann’s shows at the Slaughterhouse. By… a lot, haven’t I?

He dropped the suit in a pile and approached his littered desk, in search of the program — which he certainly must have by now!

Damn Hyacinth. She is always… she and contrived circumstances — and her contrived circumstances! — are always conspiring to keep me out of the plot. Well, now I shall have a day all to myself! She’s knocked out on cold medicine and she can’t stop me.

Everyone will be so thrilled to see me, I don’t get overplay like all the others. It’s not about them, anyway, despite all evidence to the contrary. I suspect it is some kind of convoluted plea for attention… or possibly a failed business venture. Huh.

He diverted and wrote Possibly a failed business venture? on a small pad of yellow notepaper and applied the sheet to the wall above the desk, where he would notice it… probably at an opportune moment. Or never. In any case, it was there if he needed it. He absently pocketed the notepad and the pencil.

…As I was saying — internally! — I shall have a day all to myself. We will entitle it “Barnaby’s Day Out,” and there will be hijinks aplenty! There is still enough money in the big glass jar for the bus, although it is doubtful any will remain for Twelfth Night…

“Musical Teachers?”

He frowned and shuffled the papers on his desk with both hands, rearranging random piles like a man doing Three Card Monte.

I am neither musical nor a teacher and I certainly shall not be instructing a cadre of street urchins on the finer points of Paul McCartney’s “Frog Song.” Or “The Tennessee Waltz.” Or “Way To Go”…

“Honestly, Cousin Violet, will you make up your damn mind?” he demanded, too loud in the stillness. “How many revisions of this are you going to do, you maniac?”

He swept all the papers to the floor and hopefully examined the blank surface.

But there were no more blank surfaces, not for him. Everything was so marked up he could barely see.

He slumped and sighed. I’m not going to go out and do anything at all, am I? I’m going to do something cute and funny and then vanish again. That is my function.

“Onward!” he cried. He lifted a rhetorical finger and marched to the attic stairs, engaging the mechanism which let them down (usually… most of the way) with a flourish! “Onward, onward, ever onward, strode the valiant Mr. Graham! Against the implacable tide of Fate! Equally implacable, was he! Just not as strong. And much handsomer!”

He tramped down the stairs with his hand up, leading the charge.

The mage lights had popped on when the staircase touched down. Barnaby winced at them. It was brighter than he was used to, and the contrast with silence, snow and darkness outside was unpleasant. It was like a museum with spotlighted display cases and a lot of signs up saying DO NOT TOUCH. Except, here, it was DO NOT WAKE.

“I shall only wake them if I’m meant to wake them,” he muttered — but more softly than he would have if he were entirely secure.

He saw Hyacinth’s door and the scarred paint where the numbers used to be. He also saw an endless shifting succession of people knocking on that door in the middle of the night to get her up, overlaid like ghosts — only some of them hadn’t been yet and some of them never would.

Hyacinth, that guy with the compound fracture is bleeding again. Hyacinth, they’re bombing us again. Hyacinth, that kid’s crying again. The house is on fire. The roof fell in. The window’s broken. Hyacinth, it’s my brother… it’s my mother… it’s my wife. It’s Erik. It’s Lucy.

She’s really unhappy and she’s really hot.

I mean, I’m guessing the one is because of the other, Calliope. It’s okay. Babies run hot — and always in the middle of the night. They’re wired that way.

I’m so glad you find this amusing, Hyacinth! As soon as I noticed he was burning up like a book of matches I ran him right up here so you could laugh at him. That is so helpful of you!

I am laughing at you, Mordecai. You seem old enough, but you act like a nervous house-sitter with a pet goldfish to look after. It’s just a cold, he’s not gonna go belly-up in the tank. Lemme see if I’ve got an enema bulb so you can clear out his nose…

I kinda thought those were for the other end.

Eh, they’re all-purpose. We do whatever works in this house, Calliope, I don’t know if you’ve noticed. Sometimes I wonder about how your ‘noticing things’ gear works — if it works. Don’t worry, it’s clean.

Get away from him with that, you maniac!

Why is everything an argument with you, huh? Even saving your stupid life was an argument…

It’s my fault because of the record player.

Sit with her, Hyacinth. I’m going to go out and look for him…

“I am the master of exposition,” said Barnaby, under his breath. “I am the gangster of love.” And now he sang, “I am the monarch of the seas! The ruler of the Queen’s Navee! Whose praise Marsellia loudly chants,” he pointed to closed doors at random, “and you are my sisters and my cousins and my aunts!”

“The monarch of the sees,” he amended sourly. It wasn’t just Alice’s damn door. The whole front room was full of shuffling circumstance, past, present, future and possible, crammed to the rafters.

A Yule tree. A dozen Yule trees. A million presents. Bleeding refugees. Riot victims. Sick babies. Abused women. Dead men. Dead pigeons. Nude Sanaam Descending a Staircase. Arguments. Crying. Laughter. Mordecai playing ‘cello. Mordecai playing violin. Erik playing violin. Erik playing piano. Ann singing. Milo… no, not here. But he could see it from here. He could see everything from here.

He could never quite grasp… The gods just kept throwing more and more pieces at him, there was too much of it for him to play with it and click it together like Erik with that puzzle with the shapes…

It’s too easy for him. Milo doesn’t know. Milo makes things to have them, he doesn’t care what they do. You’d better watch him, Alice.

My gods, that’s a lot of dead people. Did that happen yet? Maybe I can still…

He caught himself at the top of the sweeping staircase. He already had the pencil in his hand for marking up the ill-omened wallpaper.

He sighed.

I’m not going out because I’d hate it, of course. I can’t cope with the front room… I can barely cope with the front room. There are so many more people out there. So many things. There’s a war out there. Two wars. Every war. There’s only a piece of it in here.

We’re going to need a piano. And a… a “microwave”? And a funny T-shirt.

Ann won’t let David buy an ocelot? Well, that’s very sensible of her.

Isn’t he dead yet?

So, what can I do — purely for my own amusement and only incidentally for the enjoyment of others — without waking the rest of the house and definitely not David in case he’s not dead yet?

It was a little easier to sort through the possibilities with a goal in mind. He finally found one he liked and strode off with it clutched in his hot little hand — metaphorically, of course.

◈◈◈

“Huh?’ Calliope said, blinking. She pulled out a tissue and used it. They were starting to run out of those. Seth just had a roll of toilet paper in the basement.

“It’s only the madman from the attic, Miss Otis, pay me no mind,” Barnaby said. He walked into her closet and removed an object. “It’s for a practical joke.”

“Don’t wake Lucy,” Calliope said.

“I don’t think I will,” Barnaby said. “Alice might. It’s a shame you won’t be able to teach the children life drawing. Perhaps we shall save that for later. Back to sleep in the meantime, dear.”

“Yeah,” Calliope said. She pulled the blanket over her head and turned towards the wall.

I wish I could tell her Milo’s going to be all right, Barnaby thought. But she’ll like it better when she finds it out for herself. Every time. He closed the door quietly behind him.

◈◈◈

Hyacinth woke up at about seven, also needing to pee. She screamed and fell out of the bed, landing with her hand precisely in the chamber pot.

“Oh, goddammit, Barnaby, I fucking well know that was you!”

Calliope’s multi-headed eyeless doll-tree monstrosity observed placidly from the dresser amidst the unsorted socks. He had affixed a yellow scrap of paper with a smiley face drawn on it at the top, in place of the solar disc, like a signature.

◈◈◈

Milo woke up when Hyacinth screamed and smacked on the mage light on the wall beside the bed.

What? What? Oh, my gods, what the fuck is that?

He threw his pillow at it. Then the mage light, which he unstuck. It impacted the mirror above the dresser — which cracked and then repaired itself — and it landed on the pillow, still glowing.

Milo, Milo, I think… I think it’s a mouse or something…

It is not a mouse! It has red eyes and it’s evil!

Is it still there…?

He approached cautiously, picked up the mage light, and held it in case he needed a bludgeon. Then he very, very slowly, an inch at a time, moved the pillow.

The hairy object on the dresser fell over with a clink. Its cymbals touched together just slightly.

Milo, it’s a toy. It’s a toy.

Milo poked at the wind-up monkey with the tip of his smallest finger, as if it might have germs. I’m still pretty sure it’s evil, Ann.

There was a note on yellow paper under the evil monkey, which Milo slid towards him before picking up.

Mr. Rose, this is Monsieur Al-Mufti. Hyacinth forgot about him in her purse. She will be very impressed with him and with you if you can get him to breathe fire and play “Send in the Clowns” by 12th;Night.

PS: Yes, I scared you on purpose and it was hilarious. Just be glad I didn’t move your chamber pot.

Milo frowned and crumpled the note. Tonight is Twelfth Night. How’m I supposed to make a musical, fire-breathing devil-monkey by tonight?

◈◈◈

Ten minutes later, Milo exited his room, impeccably made-up and distracted by gears and a sinus headache. He did not notice the rest of the household — including Seth, who was no longer disallowed stairs — gathered around Hyacinth’s door and admiring Calliope’s art project.

Meanwhile, Barnaby, the author of the piece, slumbered blissfully on. He’d done all his laughing hours ago.

“If it is only a sculpture, I shall get dressed and go down to the school,” the General said. She turned halfway and regarded it out of the corner of her eye. When it did not move or catch fire or otherwise behave suspiciously, she continued on to her room.

“She’s going to do what?” Seth said, blinking.