Free Figgs & Phantoms by Ellen Raskin Page B

breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things.
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned,
or fear conceived,
Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.”
    A deathly chill crept over Mona’s flesh as, unable to move, unable to scream, she watched the leopard change form.
    Its rosettes spun like pinwheels; its bulk exceeded its frame. And still it grew. The formless shadow floated toward her, its armless arms outstretched in a ghostly transfiguration of night. Then, with a flash of teeth and a glint of steel, the monstrous being gathered its substance into the shape of a magnificent wild-eyed man.
    â€œUncle Florence?” Mona muttered hoarsely in the desperate hope that this was her uncle’s new form. “Uncle Florence, it’s me, Mona,” she babbled. “Uncle Florence?”
    â€œNo,” the pirate roared, his teeth bared in anger and his black hair flying in a sudden howl of wind. Leopard eyes ablaze, he unsheathed his sword and flourished its razor-sharp blade.
    Mona tore wildly at the tangled growth.
    Tap-tap-tap echoed from the distance.
    Tap-tap-tappity-tap-tap. The noise rose to a clattering crescendo.
    With an agonized yell the pirate clapped his hands to his ears. His sword fell, slashing through the vines around Mona’s leg.
    Free, afraid to look back, Mona fled down the path that opened before her feet, trampling flowers and ferns as she ran toward the tapping, her arms held out trying to clutch the sound of the dancing feet.

    Tap-tap-tappity-tap. A blurred face appeared in the whiteness. Someone was holding Mona’s hand.
    â€œUncle Florence,” Mona cried, straining to sit up. Still entangled in vines, she fell back into the soft sand. “Uncle Florence,” she whispered as the face faded into the fronds of the pink palm.

    Alone, bound only by the unknown, Mona sat up and stared into the curtained wilderness. She shuddered as she remembered the jungle of yesterday. Or was it a century ago? Shaking her head free of doubt and nightmare terrors, she struggled to think only of Uncle Florence. Not of his physical presence (she could not even guess at that), but of his hopes, his loves, his dream of “simple and quiet things.”
    A butterfly lighted on her shoulder and flitted away. Mona watched its colors change subtly from lavender to purple to violet.

    The butterfly fluttered through the peach trees and plum trees and disappeared. Mona crossed a Claude Lorrain landscape and walked through a small village. The streets were deserted; its shops empty.
    She turned the corner at Hemlock and Ash as the large mahogany doors of the opera house were closing. Mona was the last in a long line of shadowy shapes that climbed the carpeted stairway into a huge, triple-tiered auditorium. Crystal chandeliers twinkled from the gilt ceiling, then dimmed as Mona felt her way to a plush seat in the middle of the back row. She wished she had remembered to buy a box of popcorn on the way in.
    The red velvet curtain parted to reveal a grand piano on the center of a bare stage. A man and a woman in formal dress emerged from the wings and bowed to the welcoming applause.
    A box flew out of Mona’s hand, raining popcorn on the neighboring shadows. “Uncle Florence!” Mona shouted, but invisible bonds held her in her seat. Her cry went unnoticed; the show was about to begin and nothing could stop it.
    The man sat down at the piano, flexed his long fingers, and placed his gracefully arched hands on the keys. He played brilliantly. Mona recognized the left-hand accompaniment to Schubert’s “Who Is Sylvia?”
    Uncle Florence looked remarkably unchanged, Mona thought. He was perhaps slightly younger, and his feet reached the pedals of the piano, but she was certain that she was not dreaming him this time. She never would have invited Phoebe to Capri.
    Phoebe. Mona studied the singer with a critical eye. She wasn’t beautiful, but she