9

THE HOME OF THE CLOPPER

 

LEADING Maria Beppina to a partly buried arch of the Theater, the Clopper unlocks a rickety door of roughly nailed together boards. The passage is so low that even Maria Beppina has to duck to go through.

The Clopper leads Maria Beppina down a pitch-black set of stone stairs, her wooden shoe clopping louder than ever, echoing off the walls.

“What is your name, dear?” the Clopper says, pressing Maria Beppina’s hand a little more tightly between her bony fingers.

“Maria Beppina,” Maria Beppina says.

At the bottom of the steps, the Clopper lights a candle, revealing a secret world.

“Do you like chamomile tea, Maria Beppina?” the Clopper says, setting the candle to some twigs in the fireplace and hanging a kettle there.

Maria Beppina nods yes.

What happens next is odd. The Clopper sets a table with two normal-sized cups and three small ones. At once, a bat, an owl, and a rat emerge from the shadows to join them at table.

“These are my friends, Sigismondo, Bruno, and Rafaella,” the Clopper says.

The three of them chatter and hoot, almost like they were talking in a real language.

“Are they demons?” Maria Beppina asks. The chattering and hooting stops. “Not to offend you!”

“Oh, they aren’t offended, sweetie,” the Clopper says, pouring them each some tea. The bat and rat each skillfully use their wings and front paws to put a lump of sugar in their cups, while Sigismondo the owl drops two in with his beak.

“Owls like their tea very sweet,” the Clopper says. “And demons too.”

“Do they know the black rooster who lives in the alley behind the blacksmith’s house? He always attacks my father,” Maria Beppina says. “Daddy is sure he’s a demon.”

“Well, why don’t you ask them?”

Maria Beppina does, strange as it seems. The animals confer with one another, gesturing with their paws and wings and shrugging. They shake their heads no to her.

Rafaella, the bat, squeaks something. “There are so many demons here you can’t know every one of them,” the Clopper says, translating.

“But don’t you all meet around the Tree of the Janara?”

At this, the three smallest guests laugh. Maria Beppina didn’t know animals could laugh.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“Oh, you don’t need to, dear!” the Clopper says, patting her hand. “It is so nice to have a child come to visit!” she says. “Can I get you something to eat, dear?”

“Sure,” Maria Beppina says.

The Clopper moves around, looking in old pots and crocks, but can’t find anything. The rat, Bruno, helpfully scurries down from his perch into a

hole in the wall and comes back holding a half-eaten cookie in his mouth. He lays it in front of Maria Beppina.

Maria Beppina smiles, politely pretending to nibble on it.

“I’m sure I had food somewhere,” the Clopper says, clopping around with her one wooden clog.

“What happened to your other shoe?” Maria Beppina asks.

“My other shoe?” The Clopper looks down, surprised to see one of her feet is bare. “That’s strange. Where is my other shoe?”

The animals all chitter and hoot and laugh again.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters, dear?” the Clopper asks.

“No,” Maria Beppina says. “My mom died after she had me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetie,” the Clopper says. The animals look down into their cups of tea, also sorrowful.

“It’s okay,” Maria Beppina says. “I mean, I never knew her. And it’s kind of like I have brothers and sisters, because we live upstairs from my cousins. It’s just, well, I’m not sure whether or not they like me.”

“NONSENSE, dear!” the Clopper says. “How could anyone not love you!”

The ceiling rumbles, and from the world above comes the sound of kids screaming as they run across the Theater. Maria Beppina points up. “Don’t you have to do something about that?” she asks.

The Clopper looks puzzled.

“You know, chase them,” Maria Beppina says.

“Oh, no,” the Clopper says. “I hardly ever run after children anymore. They hear my footsteps even when I’m not there. They scare themselves.” She chuckles into her teacup. The animals laugh too, and so does Maria Beppina.

Maria Beppina thinks about asking the Clopper why she started chasing after children in the first place. There are so many things she wants to ask her about—the Janara, the Manalonga, the ring—but the Clopper is doing something better than answering questions. She’s listening.

So Maria Beppina just talks to the Clopper. She talks about her father, and her downstairs neighbors, and her friends, but mostly just about herself. The Clopper laughs pleasantly at everything Maria Beppina says, and so do her demon friends.

Another pot of tea and many cubes of sugar later, the Clopper leads Maria Beppina back up the dark stairs. The door opens with a creak, the sun pours in, and the old witch blinks.

“So I guess this is what I do when I catch someone,” she says to Maria Beppina, patting her hand. “I have them in for tea.”