No. Perdita’s been giving it a lot of thought, and she thinks they mistook her for Harriet. She is, after all, about the age that Harriet was when they last saw her, and they are as much alike in build and facial features as one would expect a mother and daughter to be. One wouldn’t call them twins, but seeing Perdita for the first time must have been like seeing Harriet after an interval, after a few details had been forgotten. The gray-haired seventeen-year-old comes in and she’s like a gingerbread ghost, her chronological age bearing very little relation to her exterior. Then Perdita spoke, and Halloween was canceled.
“So it was Rémy you met first—and then he told you he’d found Gretel and . . .” Harriet’s grabbing her coat; now that she knows who to go and hit, they can finish talking later. But the doll named Lollipop says: “Mother-of-Perdita, I really wasn’t going to mention this, but . . . if the arrangement with Gretel was that she’d be in touch once you’d grown up, might it not be the case that she hasn’t been in touch because you still haven’t . . . ?”
And Perdita tells Harriet she needs to sit down and hear her out, just as Perdita has heard Harriet out all bloody night.
Harriet sits down and hears that Rémy met up with Perdita at a train station café, took down all the details Perdita was able to give, and then contacted her a few days later, saying he couldn’t take the case after all. He told her it was for personal reasons and took the time to send her a list of alternative birthday presents, each of which actually came in under Perdita’s budget . . . she’d been impressed not just by this but by the presents actually being the sort of thing Harriet would like—so when Harriet had begun talking about Rémy, Perdita had sort of hoped he was her dad. Perdita says she knows the gentleman detective has his boyfriend and his pet tortoise to think of.
(“Rémy Kercheval fell for someone? Rémy Nearboy Kercheval fell for someone?”
Perdita says yes, provided the gentleman detective is Rémy Nearboy Kercheval . . .
Whoever the boyfriend is, Harriet is ready to take his master class on enchanting the hard-hearted. Or are the hard-hearted only conquered when their deeds are outdone?)
At any rate, Perdita stopped herself from asking the gentleman detective for more time than he gave her of his own accord. But even after he dropped Perdita’s case, he stayed in touch, sent her links to YouTube playlists and online essays and articles, all with accompanying jokes of the dad variety. Perdita responded in kind—they emailed more or less daily until he told her there was a family situation (“family situation,” “personal reasons,” . . . ) and he’d have to be out of contact for a while. The situation seemed to have been a result of tracking down Gretel Kercheval . . . and the woman who said that was her name, the woman Perdita thinks must be Tamar, she was the next to contact Perdita.
“Oh,” says Harriet. “And have you heard from your Tesco Value investigator since?”
Perdita hasn’t. She misses him. Perdita thinks only two people knew she was visiting Kercheval House that day, and that the two people were “Hansel” and “Gretel.” Ambrose and Tamar.
“Go back to Tamar emailing you under Gretel’s name.”
There they were in Perdita’s inbox, a handful of emails, sender’s name Gretel Kercheval. To Perdita these messages seemed legit, partly because of the fond reminiscences of Harriet’s baking prowess and an unmistakable familiarity with the unedited history of the Lee family gingerbread. Tamar’s fifth email invited Perdita to her family home, out in Whitby, and sent an address. Perdita ran that address by her gentlemen detective to see what he thought. Could this person really be Mum’s friend Gretel?
“But he didn’t reply.”
He didn’t, but someone replied from his account saying Perdita should go.
“How are you so sure it wasn’t him?”
He’d blatantly been hacked, that was all. If Harriet still doesn’t know what Perdita means, then she should imagine getting a message from Perdita that’s so utterly inconsistent with the tone, style, and even punctuation of all Perdita’s other messages that she, Harriet, is tempted to send the imposter some helpful tips on how to make the ruse less transparent next time.
“Still, you went to visit . . .”
Still, Perdita went to visit. It all seemed like such a caper. Until she got to the house and saw Hansel—well, she’ll call him Ambrose now—and met Gretel—all right, Tamar. It was all such a caper until Perdita sat down with those two and a certain mind-bending pressure that came in with them, a blend of the things Ambrose hoped and wanted Perdita to be and the things Tamar was very much afraid Perdita was. Welcome and get lost.
What Perdita now thinks Tamar wanted from this meeting: never to be scammed again. To keep six family members as the functional limit, and not to sit idly by while some newcomer pops up and pushes Gabriel down to an even lower position on his father’s list of priorities.
What Perdita now thinks Ambrose wanted from this meeting: acknowledgment of Rémy’s daughter (Ambrose must have been sure Perdita was his granddaughter—only a child of Rémy’s could be this bloody-minded) and assurance of said daughter’s safety.
What Perdita wanted and still wants: to do something nice for her mum for a change. And she told them so, Tamar and Ambrose—she told them so repeatedly!
What went on that afternoon and evening: Tamar poured Perdita purple tea, which Perdita didn’t drink. Ambrose blundered into the room (to “Gretel”’s intense displeasure) and there was some talk of Druhástrana, things both Tamar and Ambrose remembered the Lees mentioning, much of it new to Perdita, so possibly misremembered. Still, Perdita kept trying to steer the conversation back around to the real Gretel Kercheval and how she might be found or contacted, how to bring about the reunion Perdita was seeking . . . and how she stressed that help reuniting Harriet and Gretel was all she was seeking from them! All that was of no use, the conversation got on to Druhástranian lore gathered from other sources, and Tamar, as if struck by sudden recollection, opened a little drawer on the table beside her and took out a sachet filled with powder. Perdita watched Ambrose, who didn’t seem to have seen this powder before but didn’t seem happy about it, and Perdita listened to the story of the sachet: it had come to Tamar from a reliable source, someone who had once given her husband three carrier pigeons that had turned out to be truly Druhástranian.
The contents of this sachet—Tamar leaned forward, placed the sachet in Perdita’s palm, and closed her fingers around it. This is how your mother and grandmother left Druhástrana . . . Margot made gingerbread with it.
That’s only half the truth, Ambrose said. Perdita turned to him: So—half a lie?
No—it’s just that the truth goes on beyond what she said, and no transit records were kept, so if you’re inclined to believe her, I can’t show you anything that’d change your mind—
Tamar shook the sachet and continued as if Ambrose hadn’t even spoken.
This is how they left, and this is how you can go there and look for Gretel Kercheval.
Tamar told Perdita that this was the last of eight sachets, and that thanks to these sachets, she, Tamar, had been to Druhá City and back several times now.
Half-truths again . . . that was what Ambrose muttered.
What’s Druhá City like? Perdita asked.
Tamar frowned. Pricier than you’d think.
Ambrose looked scared witless, so it was more for him than for herself that Perdita said: Hey, fake Gretel, you’re not trying to kill me, are you?
Tamar blinked. I’m not trying to kill you. Your desire to go abroad coincides with my very dear wish for you not to be here, that’s all.
So you gave me one sachet. That way it’ll be hard for me to come back.
Not really, Ambrose said, studying Tamar’s face. Not if you’re going to the same place the stuff in the sachet came from. Shouldn’t be long before you’re back—and then there are a few people to introduce you to.