The Collectors #2

by Jacqueline West

  “She may not be able to.” Sesame inclined her head. “Falborg is certain to be keeping an eye on both her and us.”

  “Because the Collection is wish-proof, as you’ll recall, her options for communication are limited,” added Kernel.

  “And, as unpleasant as it may be to consider,” said Nail, in that low, clear voice that made everyone else fall silent, “there is the chance—however small—that she may have realigned with her uncle. She may be working with him against us.”

  “Pebble would never do that.” The words shot out of Van’s mouth before he could weigh them. “I was there when she left. She had to go with Mr. Falborg. He wished her to.”

  “Remember, Van Markson. A wish cannot force someone to do something they fundamentally would not do.” Nail’s voice stayed calm, but his dark eyes burned with something Van couldn’t identify.

  “Then you don’t think Mr. Falborg is imprisoning her?” Van asked. “You don’t think he’s . . . he’s hurting her?”

  Nail bent down, bringing his face level with Van’s. The rats on his shoulders sniffed at Van’s breath. Van looked at their bright, beady eyes. Raduslav and Violetta. They’d once sat on his shoulders and talked to him in their tiny, ratty voices. Now even they were keeping their distance.

  “Falborg takes good care of his possessions,” said Nail. “He will keep her safe. He will be kind. He will try to convince her to see things his way. Remember, she has seen them his way before.”

  Van swallowed. He’d once seen things Mr. Falborg’s way himself. Sometimes, in spite of everything he’d learned, he still did.

  “If she has realigned with Falborg,” Nail went on, “it’s all the more likely that she will contact you and not us. She may try to persuade you to act on her behalf.”

  Van swallowed again. “So—what should I do?”

  “Stay at the Greys’.” Nail’s voice was clear and hard, and Van knew this wasn’t advice. It was a command. “Leave the house as little as possible. If you see evidence of wishes, let us know immediately.” Nail’s tone softened very slightly. He gave Van’s shoulder a brief grasp. “Don’t lose hope, Van Markson.”

  He let go of Van’s shoulder and straightened to his full, towering height.

  Before Van could back away, Nail spoke again.

  “There is one other thing.” His stare fell onto Van like a stone dropped from a bridge. “Have you seen any trace of your escaped Wish Eater?”

  Every cell in Van’s body froze.

  His Wish Eater.

  Early that summer, kindly Mr. Falborg had led Van through the twisty corridors of his home. The big white house was crammed with odd and wondrous collections: beetles behind glass, mechanical iron banks, theatrical masks, wreaths of knotted human hair. In one hidden room, Mr. Falborg had shown Van his most precious collection of all: the Wish Eaters.

  The Wish Eaters were tiny, misty creatures, given refuge by Mr. Falborg before they could be trapped and exterminated by the Collectors. Mr. Falborg had given Van a Wish Eater of his own to care for: a big-eared, wide-eyed, lemurlike creature that Van had named Lemmy.

  When the Collectors had captured Lemmy, stealing the little Eater from its shoebox beneath Van’s bed, Van had rushed to the depths of the Collection to rescue it. But the Hold contained truths that Van hadn’t expected—truths about the danger of the Eaters, and about the real aims of the Holders that trapped them. Just when Van had realized that he couldn’t take Mr. Falborg’s side anymore, Mr. Falborg had dragged him back on to it. Controlled by Mr. Falborg’s wish, Van had released not just Lemmy, but a horde of tiny Eaters. Then he had watched, horrified, as those Eaters grew to monstrous size, feasting on collected wishes, injuring Collectors, and wreaking havoc on the Collection itself before scattering out into the city above.

  But Lemmy hadn’t scattered.

  Lemmy had saved Van’s life, pulling him from the path of an underground train, before flying off into the pale morning sky.

  Afterward, left behind by his friends, Van wasn’t sure where he belonged. Not with Mr. Falborg, who could be generous and kind, but also controlling and treacherous. Not with the Collectors, who kept the world safe by stealing its magic and driving creatures like Lemmy to extinction. After all, if Van hadn’t released Lemmy, he wouldn’t be standing here right now. He’d be as flat as a speeding train could make him.

  Van wavered, not meeting anyone’s eyes. He stared across the chamber at a mangled iron staircase instead. The Collectors stood silently around him.

  “No,” Van managed at last. “I haven’t seen the Eater.”

  Sesame and her pigeon inclined their heads. Kernel’s spectacles glittered. Behind Van, Jack loomed like a brick wall.

  Nail kept silent. The rat on his left shoulder whispered into his ear.

  “Very well,” said Nail at last. “Jack, you may take him home.” His gaze sliced to Van. “Keep your eyes sharp, Van Markson.” Nail turned back to Kernel and Sesame so that his final word was muffled. But it sounded like “Beware.”

  Maybe Nail had said, “Be aware.” Or even “Take care.” It didn’t matter. The warning had already tunneled straight down Van’s spine, filling each bone with ice.

  “Let’s go.” Jack’s big hand wheeled him around.

  Van staggered forward, half relieved, half wounded, not sure whether he was escaping or being thrown out.

  “Where are we going?” asked the squirrel on Van’s shoulder. “Can we stop for some peanuts on the way? Or—wait. For some popcorn and peanuts? Or—wait. For some caramel corn with peanuts?”

  “We are not going anywhere,” said Jack. He signaled to his raven.

  The bird dove at Barnavelt like a feathered warplane.

  Barnavelt gave a squeak. He leaped from Van’s shoulder onto the nearest staircase.

  “Bye, Barnavelt!” Van managed to call.

  “Bye, Van Gogh!” Barnavelt called back.

  Jack’s hand clamped tighter around Van’s arm, pulling him toward the doors.

  But before they could reach them, the doors swung open.

  A Collector stepped into the chamber.

  Jack yanked Van to the side. The raven on his shoulder cawed. Behind them, other Creatures and Collectors scattered like cars pulling out of the path of an ambulance, or like a flock of birds flying from a gun.

  The Collector strode toward the podium at the center of the room. Van caught a flash of sleek black hair and a high-collared coat with a spider on its lapel as she passed.

  “Who is that?” Van asked, staring after her.

  Jack muttered an answer.

  “A Debt Collector?” asked Van, who was pretty sure he’d heard that term before.

  “Death Collector,” said Jack. He shoved Van through the doors and into the darkness. “Anyone above dies, we take note. Because their preserved wishes die too. And dead wishes aren’t something to mess with.”

  Van had learned about dead wishes weeks ago. Kernel had said that they were the most dangerous wishes of all, impossible to predict or control. He’d called them “pure chaos.” Those words still lingered in Van’s mind, pulsing with a fiery, bottled light.

  Van and Jack started up the long staircase.

  “What happens to them? The dead wishes?” Van couldn’t help asking.

  “We keep them,” said Jack shortly.

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Safe!” shrieked the raven.

  As he climbed, Van glanced over the banister. The black pit gaped below. He thought of all the things that were hidden down there, and all the things that could be hidden down there, the corridors he had never seen and locked rooms he had never entered. Then he climbed faster.

  They passed the Calendar and the Atlas, crossed the expanse of the entry chamber, and hurried up the last narrow flight and out through the office of the City Collection Agency.

  Outside, the night was damp and still. Fog had settled over the city. Mist draped the tops of streetlamps, t
urning them to giant glowing Q-tips. Buildings disappeared a few stories from the ground. The moon and stars were so well hidden, they might not have existed at all.

  Van peered into the fog, wondering if a bicycle-drawn carriage was about to appear. But Jack had already turned to the left.

  Jack murmured something over his shoulder—something that sounded like “Complications dooming it all.” Van couldn’t gather the energy or the courage to ask him to repeat it. He simply scurried after him.

  They kept to the quiet streets, where cars were few and lights were dim. Jack strode along, his collar high. Van shivered in the damp air.

  Soon they approached a tiny park, where lilac hedges and a few green benches encircled a small, sputtering fountain. Van caught the scent of leaves decaying in rusty water.

  An old woman in a shabby sweater was passing the park on its opposite side. As Van watched, she pulled a coin from her handbag and tossed it toward the fountain. Van couldn’t hear or see the coin land, but he saw the old woman close her eyes for a moment, almost as if she was praying. She turned and shuffled slowly into the darkness.

  Jack raised a hand, signaling a stop.

  “Lemuel,” he commanded.

  The raven dove across the park. It soared toward the fountain, wings slicing the fog like scissors, and flashed down toward the water. A second later, it glided back to Jack’s shoulder, a gleaming coin in its beak.

  Lemuel dropped the coin into Jack’s palm.

  “Any others?” Jack asked.

  “Naw!” cawed the raven.

  Van couldn’t tell exactly what happened next, even though he’d seen it happen before.

  As Jack touched the coin, a glow emerged from inside of it, like a golden card pulled out of a plain envelope. Jack slid the glowing wish into one of his coat’s many pockets. He thrust the coin at Van. “Here.”

  Van looked down at the penny in his hand. It was dull and slightly damp, and it had the strange weight of something that had been alive, but wasn’t anymore. He glanced toward the street where the woman had shuffled away. The reminder that wishes were pulled out of the world every day, the chances for magic stolen in wisps of candle smoke and wet coins, made the night seem darker than before. But Jack was striding onward. With heavy feet, Van followed.

  He waited until Jack was passing through the beam of a streetlight before calling out, “Um . . . Jack?”

  Jack wheeled around, frowning down at him. He scanned the deserted street before answering. “Yes?”

  Van watched Jack’s sharp face in the streetlight. “I’ve been wondering, and I don’t know who to ask, now that Pebble’s gone . . .” He touched the wish-less penny in his pocket. “Why can I see wishes and hear Creatures and notice all of you when no one else can?”

  Jack gave a little snort. “. . . Been wondering that ourselves.”

  “Do you think—” Van pushed himself onward “—maybe—somebody in my family was a Collector, and so—”

  But Jack was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t work like that. You were born, right? You have a mother?”

  “Yes. I definitely have a mother.”

  Jack folded his arms. “Our best guess is—it’s just you. You notice things other people don’t bother to notice, right? You see and hear a bit differently?”

  Van nodded.

  “Maybe that’s all it is.”

  “Then . . . are there other normal people who can see and hear you? Like me?”

  Jack looked at Van with narrowed eyes. “At least one.”

  Neither of them had to say which one that was. But Van knew it was a certain crinkly-eyed old man in a spotless white suit.

  Ivor Falborg.

  Jack turned and walked on.

  At the corner of the Greys’ street, he stopped. He nodded along the foggy sidewalk toward the Greys’ front stoop.

  “Watch for her,” he muttered.

  No. I’ll watch from here. That was what Jack had said. Still, the words Van had almost heard hung on his heart like burrs. As though he had ever stopped watching for Pebble. As though he ever would.

  “Good night,” he whispered, because leaving in silence seemed rude.

  Then he shuffled forward down the sidewalk, still rubbing the penny with his thumb.

  Van reached the Greys’ stoop. He’d climbed hundreds of steps tonight, but these last few were the hardest. Van dragged himself onto the first broad stair, and then paused to glance back at the street behind him.

  Fog filled the air with soft gray ghosts. He could just make out the row of houses across the street, their windows dark, their lights out. The street corner was lost in fog. If Jack and Lemuel were still there, he was sure they couldn’t see him either. Still, he had the sense that he was not alone. That someone was watching.

  Van shuffled over the second step. An acorn crunched under his foot. Another step. The front door loomed above him like a sneer. He was about to haul himself over those last few feet when something wedged in the steps just ahead of him fluttered in the breeze. Van reached down and grabbed it.

  It was the postcard that he had picked up earlier—the one that had landed on him when he made his dive through the hedge. In all the panic and screaming and hugs from his mother, he must have dropped it and not even noticed.

  Van squinted down at it. On its front was a sketch of a rambling brick building with tall, skinny windows, pointed rooftops, and a peaked tower at one end. A shadowy forest surrounded it. It looked like a cross between a college and a castle, but it was probably just some weird old hotel, Van reasoned. He flipped the postcard over. There was no name or address, not even a stamp. Just the words WISH YOU WERE HERE.

  Van ran one finger over the message. Someone, somewhere, a long time ago, had written these words to someone they missed.

  Van knew how it felt to miss someone. He couldn’t even send a postcard to the ones he missed most.

  WISH YOU WERE HERE.

  Van glanced up at the Greys’ unfriendly front door. He wished he didn’t have to step through it. He wished both Pebble and Lemmy were with him. He wished he knew what to believe, or where he belonged.

  He wished.

  But he didn’t have any wishes to use. And he knew better than to rely on wishes, anyway.

  Van took a deep breath. Stuffing the postcard into his pajama pocket, he unlocked the looming front door and shut it again softly behind him.

  Even if he had stayed on the stoop, and even if he had looked straight up at the sky at that very moment, the heavy fog in the air would have kept him from seeing what happened next.

  He wouldn’t have seen the falling star streaking over the city, its flare swallowed by layers of clouds. He wouldn’t have seen the tiny firefly spark that formed over the stoop where he’d stood, hovering there for an instant before floating upward, winking softly.

  He wouldn’t have seen a creature with a large, hazy body and wide silvery eyes emerge from the fog. He wouldn’t have seen the creature float down above the Greys’ rooftop, grasp the floating spark with its fingers, and swallow it. He wouldn’t have noticed the shimmer that filled the air for an instant, swirling through the mist already drifting there.

  Van trudged upstairs to bed.

  And behind him, the world began to change.

  6

  Not So Buon Giorno

  “Buon giorno, caro mio!”

  Van squinted into an unwelcome beam of sunlight. Standing over his bed, as radiant as another sunbeam, was his mother.

  Van’s mother spoke Italian when she was especially happy. She used French when she was feeling nostalgic, and she slipped into German when she was mad. Even if Van hadn’t known all of this, the smile on her face would have told him everything.

  “Mom?” Van struggled to pull himself upright. He felt as though he’d spent most of the night running up and down damp stone staircases—which, of course, he had. “You’re . . . upstairs?”

  “Si, mio bambino caro!” His mother threw out the arm that was
n’t holding her sleek black cane. “My leg is almost fully healed, and I just couldn’t wait to share some good news. So I brought the good news to you!”

  Even though his mother’s voice filled the inside of his head like a big brass bell, Van groped for his hearing aids. He didn’t want to miss a single bit of what came next. Because the look on his mother’s face—and the Italian—told him it was something big.

  A flash of terror seared through him. Had Mr. Grey proposed? Were they getting married?

  Van glanced at his mother’s hands. No diamond rings. Not yet, anyway.

  “What is it?” he croaked, shoving the hearing aids into place.

  His mother perched on the side of the bed. She wore black slacks and an ivory silk blouse, plus a fancy necklace she’d gotten during their last stint in Santa Fe. Her coppery hair was swept up in a twist. His mother tended to dress up even when she was lying with a broken leg on somebody else’s couch, but now she looked especially dressed up. She looked like she was going somewhere.

  “Giovanni.” His mother leaned closer. “Yesterday, I was desperate, sure that the two of us were cursed. But today, I’m overjoyed.” She grabbed his hand in her two soft ones. “All of our problems are solved at once! New work for me, a place to live, and best of all, getting both of us out of this dangerous city!”

  The terror inside Van flared up again. “What?”

  “I have been offered a special position as Distinguished Coaching Artist-in-Residence”—Van could practically hear the capital letters in his mother’s voice—“at the Fox Den Opera’s fall festival season!”

  “What?” said Van again.

  “Fox Den is upstate—just a train ride away, but in a completely different world!” his mother sang. “It’s a marvelous old estate in the country. Acres of grounds, beautiful lodging for the entire opera company, professional chefs, a swimming pool, five rehearsal halls. It’s essentially heaven!”

  The words thunked through Van’s head like marbles spilling from a jar and bouncing off in all directions. Fall season. Swimming pool. Upstate.

  “Wait,” he managed. “So—we’re leaving?”