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Gradually, with the help of Thackery's impresslike supply of barley water, my throat healed completely. I awoke one morning to the tranquility of an early April day, free of pain and finally feeling rested. I theorised that I had remained in Thackery's home for three days already with barely any thanks, so I resolved to go down-stairs and show my gratitude.
The corridors were squealish-floored and filled with a warm glow, pleasantly temperate. The trees interrupted the light continually with their waving arms, drinking in the sun. I had only to follow my nose to find Thackery; the lovely aromas coming from the kitchen down-stairs betrayed his prowess as a cook. When I appeared in the kitchen, Thackery startled and seemed to arm himself with a ladle.
"Oh, it's only you, lad! Don't scare me like that. It's extremely impolite, the scaring, seeing as I am a guest in your house," said Thackery. Before I could remind him that it was the other way round, he continued, "And get back to bed at that! You are still ill. Just look at your skin," he said scornfully, coming to meet me. "I can see right through it!"
It became obvious to me that he had never visited the Hightopp village, as he would have become accustomed to such appearances. Every one of we Hightopps are horribly pale, excepting the little ones. A hazard of our trade, you will understand. It was the mercury that bleached our skin an unnatural milky shade after a habit of hatmaking. When I was young, I often theorised that was why so many toxic flowers were bright, pure white. Why, we had so much poison in our bodies, it would never fail to do away with us one way or another, be it by confusing us, stiffening us or choking us to death. Quite a horrid unfortunate thing really, but there was no known cure and it couldn't be avoided, only helped for a little while. As I thought on this, Thackery was muttering to himself about how it was uncouth, TERRIBLY uncouth really, to appear before a guest while entirely transparent.
"I am not transparent, Thackery," I said placatingly. With that, he hopped closer to me and stuck his ladle under my chin as if he intended harm. He caught my eyes.
"I'll be the judge of that," he growled. Then he brightened, taking his ladle away. "Looking to take a walk, are you? Go on, go on! Let me show you the outside. It's really very pretty. Very pretty, like..."
"Paint on a teacup," I finished, guessingly. Again, he brightened, then almost shoved me out the front door.
I was surprised to behold the exterior of the house. It was not a house in fact, but a windmill, its paperlike blades turning slowly and steadily with the breeze. Its builder had rendered it a peculiar, crooked shape that delighted the eye. A ways apart from the windmill was a line of tables, complete with tableclothes, chairs and even several ornate carpets underneath them. None of the tables matched in size or shape. As I stood admiring, Thackery bustled out of the windmill holding a tray, upon which was a large pitcher of hot chocolate.
"Let me help you with that," I said, noting how he struggled under it.
"No, no, I've got this one," he said, setting it down. "But you can go in and fetch the other tray, eh?" So I went inside. I found a tray on the counter filled with bowls of brown sugar porridge, tattie scones and glasses of orangeat, all Outlandish dishes. With a smile, I realised that Thackery was endeavouring to make me at home. I decided to renew my mission to thank him. I went outside, where Thackery was setting the tables with amusely speed and precision, seeming to stab the tabletop with his darting paws as he raucous laid down silverware and porcelain tea-things.
"Thackery, I really must thank you for all you've done for me," I said, setting down my tray.
"The cat, his name is Chessur." Thackery laughed merrily. "Chessur Katze! Could you imagine?" I disregarded his disregardment and continued on, studying again the tranquil, quaintsome windmill.
"This windmill, do you keep it?" I asked.
"I should think I do. It is mine, do you hear, guddler?" he asserted. Outwardly I nodded and took that as a "yes," but inwardly I feared the possible return of the ladle.
"Your name is Tarrant Hightopp, yes? That is what the cat said," mentioned Thackery, gathering up the trays.
"Yes, it is." He nodded in some direction, ears twitching as he thought on this new information.
"All that fire, quite pretty, quite striking, all those flames," he mused, eyes fixed at an unknown point in the distance. He held the trays to his rabbit heart; he spoke with sudden, disarming lucidity. "You're like a phoenix, you know," he said, and my heart was in my throat and I didn't know why. I started to protest, to tell him that no, phoenixes commonly had an affinity for raspberries and gingham pattern, and I didn't care for the taste of raspberries, so no, I was not like a phoenix in the slightest; but I couldn't say any thing.
"Lad," Thackery said, attempting to make me attend.
"Yes?" I turned to him.
"You're crying," he said. I brought a hand to my face, puzzled. "Why is that?" he said, with a playful spring to his words. Did he mean to challenge some riddle? If so, I could provide no answer. Abruptly, my mind connected the word "phoenix" to the prescence of the hat, quite the dark-hindered guess, a shot in the dark. I felt the top of my head, and I had no hat.
"I think I have discovered why I'm so miserable," I lied (to put Thackery at ease, if indeed he was worried), and rushed into the house.
Before I could wear it, I had to fix it. Sitting on my bed, it looked pitiful: black burns lined the rim, ash crumbling off them; its shape was squashed and disfigureish; the ribbon was pockmarked with scorches and plagued by tears; dirt and dust had been ground into the bottom of the hat, ruining a portion of its silk inner lining. There was nothing else for it. I took an emergency sewing kit from my jacket-pocket, cleared off the room's only table and got to work.
Hours of feverish mending later, I put it on again and examined myself in the looking-glass. The hat looked like it belonged, resting on my wavy poisoned flame-lily orange hair; I hadn't the proper tools to restore its shape, but it was full of hat-pins and several sewing needles that I had stuck into the band in case of emergency, and boasted a new pink ribbon wrapped over the old one that trailed down to my back. I liked it.
"Are you finished admiring yourself yet?" Chessur asked from a corner of the room. I startled and turned to look at him, glaring. He grinned easily. "Mr. Earwicket is insisting he host you and I for dinner." He vanished and became whole again at the door. "Coming?" I hesitated to agree with him, but nodded upon recalling that I had consumed nothing but barley water for nearly three days. My appetite had turned ravenous.
As I walked over the creaksome floor-boards, I thought on my efforts of the day. It had been difficult to mend some thing so thoroughly trampled and burnt, stripped as it was of the greater part of its protective outer layer of fabric, as well as any decoration or identity.
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When I reached the out-door tables, Thackery again looked at me with lucidity. A singularly saddened, pitying look crossed his countenance.
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It was difficult to restore something so affected to working order. But I had done it. I was rather confident that I had done it.
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