“Into the Collection,” Van breathed.
“Sesame caught me in the entry chamber,” said Pebble. “But when she saw how scared I was, she was nice to me. She gave me a handkerchief, because my face was all wet, and a big warm coat to wear, because I was cold. She told me her name. And I met Nail and Jack and a bunch of others, and the squirrel climbed up onto my shoulder and said his name was Barnavelt.”
“Were you surprised?” Van asked. “To hear a squirrel talk?”
“I’d never seen a real squirrel before.” Pebble gave a sheepish smile. “I thought maybe they all talked. Anyway, the grown-ups were trying to decide what to do. They didn’t know who I was or why I could see them, and I was trying to listen and look around at the same time, and the place was so big and there were so many people . . . and then there was this huge crashing sound from the street up above. It was so loud, it made the walls shake. Stones started falling from the ceiling.”
“What was it?” Van asked.
“The grown-ups all ran up the stairs to see, and I went with them. There had been an explosion across the street. A whole building had collapsed. The street was full of dust and smoke and screaming, and there was silver wish mist everywhere.” Pebble swallowed. “Everybody was rushing around, shouting at each other. Nobody noticed when Hans and Gerda pulled up to the curb and yanked me into the car.”
“So . . . Mr. Falborg used a wish?”
Pebble nodded. “He needed a distraction to get me safely home again. But other people got hurt.” She tugged at her sweater. “Before that, I hadn’t realized that sometimes wishes made bad things happen. That when you make a wish, you risk hurting someone else with the way it comes true.”
Van thought of the garbage truck roaring across the sidewalk inches from his body. He thought of his mother, lying broken on the street. He held the flashlight steady and waited for Pebble to go on.
“When I got home, Uncle Ivor was so excited that his plan to get me into the Collection had worked. He asked me a million questions. He said that now that I had gotten inside the Collection, I could go back again and learn even more. He wanted me to find out about the trapped Wish Eaters, where they were, how they were kept. He wanted me to find out about the collected wishes. And he wanted—he wanted me to steal a dead wish.”
“A dead wish?” Van repeated. “Why?”
“Because they’re the most powerful. They’re pure magic. And because Uncle Ivor can make all the wishes that he wants, but he can’t collect other peoples’ wishes. He can’t create a dead wish. Like I said, he isn’t a Collector.”
Pebble paused for a moment, staring into Van’s face, before continuing.
“The next day, Hans drove me back to the Collection, and I sneaked inside. But this time . . . I don’t know.” Her voice faltered. “These people had been nice to me. They saw me. I didn’t want to spy on them or steal from them. I didn’t know what to do. In the end, it didn’t even matter, because somewhere way down that staircase, in the dark . . . I got lost.”
Van knew that darkness well. The chilly dampness of the air. The terrible, wall-rumbling roars that came from the Hold below. In the beam of his flashlight, he saw Pebble shiver, and knew she was remembering those things too. “What happened?” he breathed.
“Nail found me.”
“Was he angry?”
Pebble shook her head. “He was . . . he was nice.” A smile moved the corners of her mouth. “The Collectors had figured out almost everything about me by then. They knew I’d been sent there. They knew who sent me. But Nail didn’t ask about any of that. He just explained what the Collectors did, and why. He let me see the Holders containing a giant Wish Eater. He showed me the Collection. He explained about dead wishes, and why they’re so dangerous. The more he talked, the more I realized how many people Uncle Ivor and I might have hurt just by wishing. How many things we might have messed up without even knowing it.
“Of course when I got home, Uncle Ivor wanted to know everything I’d learned,” Pebble went on. “But I wouldn’t tell him anything. Except that I wasn’t ever going to spy for him again.”
A breeze whisked through the woods, sending its cold fingers down the collar of Van’s shirt. “Was he angry?”
“Uncle Ivor doesn’t get angry. He just gets disappointed.” There was bitterness in Pebble’s voice now. “He couldn’t believe that I would betray him. That I’d forgotten where I belonged. Who I belonged to.” She stiffened, as though the words still chafed her. “He said I had put us in danger, and we would be leaving the next day, and I would never see the city again. He said he’d been wrong to let me out in the first place. And then he locked me in my bedroom.”
Van stared at Pebble, waiting. He realized that he’d clenched both hands, as though he himself was about to pound desperately at a locked door.
“It was late at night when I heard a little voice at the window.” Another small, fragile smile started to pull at Pebble’s mouth. “Barnavelt had come for me.”
“What did you do?”
Pebble’s smile opened wider. “I used my bedside lamp to break the glass in the window.”
“Didn’t anybody notice?”
“Probably. But I was out of the house by then.” Her smile was bright and steady now. “Barnavelt and I climbed down a tree. I’d never even touched a tree before. I’d never been outside at night. I’d never gotten to just run and run and run. Barnavelt led the way through the city. I remember there were animals everywhere—squirrels, rats, pigeons, cats. There was moonlight on the river. There were so many stars. It was all so big, and now I was part of it. And when we got to the Collection, it was—it was like they had all been waiting for me.” Tears sparkled in Pebble’s eyes. “Hundreds of people—and they all knew who I was. They gave me a new name. I was one of them.”
“So that’s how you left,” said Van, after a silent moment. “No wonder Mr. Falborg wanted you to come back.”
“I didn’t do it to hurt him,” said Pebble, almost as if she were explaining this to Mr. Falborg himself. “I think he really believed—at least partly—that by locking me in, he was keeping me safe.”
“Just like he does with the Wish Eaters.”
“Yeah,” said Pebble. “He loves them too.” She raised her head, meeting Van’s eyes. “But what he’s doing is wrong. It’s all a big mistake. I want to stop him before he does something really dangerous.”
“The Collectors will come,” said Van, with more certainty than he felt. “They’ll get the message. They’ll be here.”
Another breeze whipped through the woods. Van shivered.
Pebble’s face hardened suddenly. Her louder, sharper voice returned. “I’d better get back. You should too.” She pushed herself away from the fallen tree. Van put the flashlight in her waiting hand, losing her face in the flickering shadows.
“Van.” Pebble’s voice spoke through the darkness. “. . . Sorry . . . mixed up in this.”
“I’m not sorry,” said Van, without even having to think. “I mean, I’m sorry my mother got hurt. But everything else . . . I wouldn’t take anything back.”
Pebble’s silhouette held very still for a moment. Something brushed Van’s arm—something like the touch of a hand. But Pebble was already turning away.
“See you Friday!” she called over her shoulder.
Then she rushed away, the trees folding around her.
Back in his own room, Van couldn’t sleep.
He knelt beside his miniature stage, lining up a row of dinosaurs and dragons and sparkling bits of jewelry behind the White Wizard. They faced off against a mass of robots and toy animals and miniature soldiers. SuperVan and Pawn Girl stood between the enemy lines.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
For as long as Van knelt there, his head growing heavier and his eyes growing sleepier, the two sides faced off in perfect stillness.
Finally Van crawled into bed. He turned his head so he couldn’t see the stage anymo
re, or think about the battle that might come, or wonder which side would finally win.
13
Meet Mabel
“Très charmant,” said Van’s mother, straightening the ends of his bow tie.
Unless “charmant” meant uncomfortable, Van wasn’t sure he agreed. “Do I have to get all dressed up even if I’m not going to the opera?”
“You’re attending the gala reception with me,” said his mother, giving Van’s white shirt and gray vest a final tweak. “There will be scores of people who want to see you. And Giovanni, are you sure you don’t want to stay for the performance? You already know the story of Hansel and Gretel, and the music is lovely.”
Van glanced down at the festival program lying on the kitchen table. “The composer’s actual name is Engelbert Humperdinck?”
“Yes, that was his actual name.” His mother swished toward the entryway mirror and adjusted a pin in her upswept hair. She smoothed the folds of her green silk gown—the one that made her look like a giant melted emerald. “People can’t help what they’re named, Giovanni.”
“They can’t help their last names. His parents didn’t have to name him Engelbert.”
His mother sighed. “All right, caro mio. Andiamo.” She held out her arm for Van to take, and the two of them stepped out the door.
The gala season opening had begun. The Fox Den driveways swarmed with running valets and arriving cars. A string quartet played in the gardens. The grounds blossomed with operagoers in bright clothes. And beyond them, on every side, the woods waved softly.
It was Friday evening at last.
His mother steered him toward the festival tent. People sauntered in and out, laughing, calling to one another, sipping from sparkling glasses. The moment Van and his mother entered, every head turned.
“Ingrid!” someone shouted. “Ingrid, darling!”
In another instant, Ingrid Markson was surrounded by fans and friends, and Van was several feet deep in a pool of babbling grown-ups. He craned around someone’s elbow. Far away, he could see the edge of the woods—the woods where the wishing well and its hidden Eater waited, surrounded by moss and shadows.
But if everything went according to plan, the Eater wouldn’t stay hidden for long.
A thread of anticipation shot through him. Just a couple of hours . . .
“Lovely to see you!” his mother was singing to a bunch of people Van didn’t recognize, grasping hands and kissing cheeks. “So glad you’re here! . . . Darling! It’s been too long!”
Van stopped trying to follow the conversation. He kept his eyes on the forest, drifting on the flood of noise and names that whirled around him. But then his mother shouted a name that he recognized. A name that plunged him straight down into the freezing dark.
“Why, Mr. Falborg!”
Van’s heart stuttered.
Could he have heard wrong? Was his mind playing tricks on him? As though his body was stuck in slow motion, Van turned toward the target of his mother’s voice.
And there he was.
Ivor Falborg.
Opera aficionado. Curio collector. Van’s almost-murderer.
Mr. Falborg looked crisp and elegant in his customary white suit. His eyes were blue and crinkly. His smile was warm.
It filled Van’s bones with ice.
“Signorina Markson!” Mr. Falborg bowed over her hand. “How glorious to see you. If only you were gracing us with your voice, this evening would be perfect.”
Van’s mother laughed her bell-like laugh. “You’re too kind!” She gave Van’s shoulder a squeeze. “Giovanni, it’s Mr. Falborg, our friend from the city! What a lovely surprise!”
Van swallowed something that felt like a fistful of shattered glass. “Huh . . . hello,” he rasped.
“Do you come to the Fox Den regularly?” sang his mother.
“Every fall season,” said Mr. Falborg, his own smile gliding back and forth between Van and his mother as easily as if he chatted with his attempted murder victims and their parents every day. “. . . a little country place . . . not far from here. I’m currently living there with my niece. Please, let me introduce you to my Mabel.”
He gestured to the person hiding behind him.
And there was Pebble.
Sort of.
Her usual sloppy ponytail had been swept into a shiny knob on the back of her head and encircled by little blossoms on bobby pins. A fussy white dress with a yellow sash puffed around her. Instead of sneakers, her feet were strapped into stiff white sandals. If she hadn’t had Pebble’s mossy-penny eyes, with Pebble’s personality glaring straight out of them, she would barely have been Pebble at all.
Van had seen cats in Halloween costumes who looked more comfortable than Pebble did at that moment.
He made a sound that wanted to be a laugh but came out as a muffled snurk instead.
“Lovely to meet you, Mabel,” said Van’s mother, leaning over to take Pebble’s hand. She gave Van a bump with her elbow. “Giovanni, say hello.”
Van had to chew on his lips for a second. “Nice to meet you, Mabel,” he managed.
Pebble’s eyes narrowed. “Nice to meet you, Giovanni.”
Mr. Falborg stood beside them, still beaming as though this were just a lovely late summer day at an opera festival. Of course, Mr. Falborg knew that Van and Pebble already knew each other. He knew they had worked together on the side of the Collectors. He knew “Mabel” had another, realer name. But he obviously felt so secure in Pebble’s loyalty—or at least in his power over her—that he could bring her here, straight to her old friend and ally, without even a waver in his crinkly smile.
Something about this made Van’s stomach hurt.
“Well. We ought to let you greet your other admirers,” said Mr. Falborg to Van’s mother. He beamed at both of them again. “Good day, Signorina and Signor Markson.” With a last bow, he ushered Pebble away.
Van’s mother turned toward a knot of waiting fans. Van was left alone, gulping deep breaths, waiting for the ice in his spine to thaw. Could Pebble have been right about her uncle? Might his own near-murder have been nothing but an accident, a wish gone wrong? And how much did that matter? If someone kept a child locked up for eight years because he imagined that could keep the child safe, did that make it all right?
It was hard to think. The tent was growing even louder, voices pummeling Van’s head like mallets on a timpani. He had crept as far into one corner as he could go without tripping over any tent posts when somebody grabbed his elbow.
“Hey,” Pebble whispered. Her words were swamped by noise. “. . . staying in . . . opera?”
“What? No, I’m not staying,” Van answered. “Are you?”
Pebble shook her head. “In ten . . . all pretend . . . stomachache.” A funny expression tugged at her face. “You see the composer’s name?”
Van grinned back at her. “Engelbert Humperdinck. It sounds like the punch line of a joke you’d get in trouble for telling.”
Pebble snickered, covering her mouth with one hand. “Right,” she said, stiffening again. “. . . edge of the woods when the show starts. See you then.”
She darted back into the crowd.
Moments later, when a hand grabbed his arm again, Van wondered what else Pebble had to tell him. Maybe she’d thought of the perfect joke for the punch line of Engelbert Humperdinck.
He spun around, eager to hear it.
But the hand on his arm wasn’t Pebble’s. It was his mother’s.
And the eyes staring back at him weren’t Pebble’s either.
They were the ice-water eyes of Peter Grey.
14
Peter and the Woods
“Giovanni, look who it is!” His mother’s voice chimed over the crowd. “Charles and Peter are here!”
Mr. Grey, looking even snootier than usual in a pearl-gray suit, murmured something that Van couldn’t catch. He and Van’s mother clasped hands and kissed each other on the cheeks. Peter turned away from the kissing, look
ing mildly ill.
Van swayed on his feet.
Peter Grey. Peter Grey and his father. Here. Tonight. Along with Pebble and Mr. Falborg and—hopefully—a bunch of incoming Collectors and an ancient wish-eating monster. Van felt as though he’d just swallowed a week’s worth of meals at once.
“What a joy to see you again so soon!” Van’s mother went on. “I had no idea you would be here!”
Mr. Grey smiled back at her. “Thought we saw an opening for separating you two.”
No, thought Van. He couldn’t have said that. He must have said something about opening performance and surprising you two. Still, the look Mr. Grey was giving his mother made Van want to dive between them and do some separating of his own.
“I’m so glad I’ll have company for the performance!” his mother exclaimed. “I can’t convince Giovanni to attend with me. He would rather sit in our rooms and read comic books.” Her eyebrows rose. “Perhaps Peter would enjoy that too! Peter, would you rather spend the evening with Giovanni than be stuck with a bunch of stuffy old adults?”
Peter’s face brightened.
“No!” Van shouted.
His mother and Mr. Grey turned to look down at him. Mr. Grey looked annoyed. His mother looked stunned.
The expression that had lightened Peter’s face disappeared in an instant, leaving it as cool and hard as a marble floor.
“That’s all right,” said Peter, before anyone else could speak. His eyes stayed away from Van. “I want to see the opera.”
“Oh, you’ll love this production.” Van’s mother rushed to cover the awkwardness. “The choreography is simply sublime . . .”
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