The Collectors #2

by Jacqueline West

“What did she say?” Van asked Barnavelt.

  “Oh. ‘You can’t trust an EATER,’” the squirrel answered cheerily, bouncing along the branch between them. “She also said, ‘Are you crazy?’ Do you want me to tell her yes or no?”

  “Lemmy is helping us,” Van insisted. “You saw it for yourself. Maybe Wish Eaters are only dangerous if people have been keeping them in boxes or cages for years and poking them with iron spikes.”

  Pebble didn’t answer. Her sandals skidded on the next branch.

  “It’s going to take you half an hour to climb down one tree,” said Van. “Aren’t we in a hurry?” He leaned toward Pebble over Lemmy’s misty arm. “I know you don’t trust Eaters. But I trust this one. Don’t you trust me?”

  Finally Pebble halted. She turned toward Van, avoiding Lemmy’s eyes. Her face was furious. “Fine,” she muttered. “. . . Otherwise . . . too late.”

  Lemmy opened its free arm. Pebble edged along the branch toward it. She let the Wish Eater scoop her gently into the air, still not looking at its face. Her lips were pale and tight.

  Barnavelt took a flying leap to Pebble’s head. “Wheeeeeee!” the squirrel crowed. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Lemmy rose through the trees. It broke through the leafy canopy, and the night sky with its steadily burning stars surrounded them once more.

  The Wish Eater steered toward the Falborg estate. As they skirted the Fox Den, Van caught the scent of smoke and the flash of red emergency lights. His thoughts shot to Peter, lying so still on the ground. His heart clenched. But he couldn’t change what had happened. He could only try to stop things from getting even worse.

  “Wheeee!” Barnavelt squealed again. “I’ve never climbed up this high before! Pebble, have you ever climbed up this high? Hey! Van! You’re up here too! Isn’t this great? Hey! Where are we going?”

  The Wish Eater soared steadily ahead. Treetops rushed past their dangling feet. In minutes, the Falborg mansion appeared ahead of them, its peaked tower jutting through the woods.

  Lemmy descended into a grove of pines at the edge of the Falborg lawn. Van and Pebble slipped out of the Eater’s arms.

  “Thank you, Lemmy.” Van reached up to touch the Eater’s dewy side.

  “Yes,” Pebble mumbled. “Thanks.” She gazed at the Wish Eater for a moment, as though she might be about to say something else. But she whirled around and took off toward the house instead.

  “She says, ‘Hurry up, Van!’” the squirrel yelled from her shoulder.

  “Lemmy.” Van patted the Wish Eater’s foot. “You should go. Hide somewhere safe. We don’t want Mr. Falborg trying to re-collect you.” He fought a sudden tightness in his throat. “But I hope . . . I hope I’ll see you again.”

  Lemmy gave Van a shy smile before whisking off into the trees. In a blink, it was gone.

  Van rushed to catch up with Pebble.

  The brick mansion loomed before them, a still, sharp silhouette against the wavering darkness of the woods. Lights burned in the lower windows.

  Pebble flung open the front door. “Uncle Ivor!” She stormed into the entry, Van tagging after. The light of the crystal chandeliers made him squint.

  “Uncle Ivor!” Pebble yelled again. Her voice rang from the high ceiling. “Where are you?”

  “Mabel?”

  The voice wasn’t Mr. Falborg’s.

  Van whipped around. Two figures emerged from a doorway to their left: a tall, broad-shouldered man with wavy gray hair and a woman in a neat linen suit.

  Hans and Gerda.

  Mr. Falborg’s staff looked down at them with warm, surprised eyes.

  “Why, Mabel,” said Gerda, in the swooping accent that Van remembered. “Look achoo. What . . . all muddy . . . dis?”

  “And Master Markson,” said Hans, putting a big hand on Van’s shoulder. “You look . . . all right?”

  “He asked, ‘Are you all right?’” prompted the squirrel on Pebble’s shoulder. “Well, are you?”

  Van’s tongue went numb.

  Hans and Gerda had always been kind to him. Of course, that was back when he was on Mr. Falborg’s side. Did they know he was an enemy now?

  “I . . . ,” he began.

  Pebble saved him by interrupting. “Where’s Uncle Ivor?”

  “Mr. Falborg . . . beck . . . opera yet,” answered Gerda. “Come into the kitchen. . . . cleaned up. But Mabel . . .” She frowned at the squirrel on Pebble’s shoulder. “I don’t tink you should bring dat dirty rodent in here.”

  Without answering, Pebble dodged past Hans and Gerda. She plowed through the doorway where they’d emerged, Van once again racing to catch up.

  “Mabel!” Gerda called after them. “What are you doing?”

  “Did that woman call Van a dirty rodent?” Van heard Barnavelt ask. “That’s not very nice.”

  Pebble rushed through a large, well-lit kitchen. A cup of steaming tea and an unfinished game of cards lay on the kitchen table. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon. Van wished he could plunk down in a padded chair, sip a cup of something warm, and play a lazy game of Go Fish—but the world of safe and comfortable things was falling apart around them. He wasn’t sure that world would ever come back. Pebble hurried to the back of the kitchen, and Van hurried after her, with Gerda and Hans shuffling confusedly behind.

  Inside a huge walk-in pantry, Pebble wrenched open a wooden door. A burst of cool air swirled through it. On the other side, Van made out a flight of stairs leading steeply downward.

  The cold, stone-scented air sent Van’s thoughts to the Collection, to that long staircase descending into the darkness. Pebble charged down the stairs ahead of him. She flicked on a light switch as she ran.

  Van followed her into the mansion’s basement.

  The basement had high ceilings, stone walls, and several huge chambers branching off from a central room. Dusty lights glowed from the rafters. It was the kind of place where a very wealthy person might store thousands of bottles of wine, or build a hidden swimming pool, or install a giant pipe organ. Van had seen basements like this one beneath French châteaus. But Mr. Falborg’s basement didn’t have a wine cellar or a swimming pool or a pipe organ.

  It had boxes. Empty boxes.

  They were scattered across the stone floor, tumbling from shelves and spilling from every corner. Small cardboard boxes. Wooden chests. Brass-tacked steamer trunks. All of them were open, their lids gaping or tossed aside. And all of them were empty.

  “Should’ve known . . . ,” Pebble breathed, her words carrying through the still underground air.

  “Known what?” asked Van, scurrying closer.

  “All those Eaters at the Fox Den.” Pebble gestured to the empty boxes, to the open doorways of the basement’s other chambers. “They were his.”

  She pressed her hands to either side of her head. The squirrel skittered out of the way of her fingers.

  Pebble mumbled something that sounded like All the pain . . .

  “What is she saying?” Van asked Barnavelt.

  The squirrel blinked back at him. “Oh. She says it was all a plan. That Uncle Ivor knew about the meteor shower, and that there would be a big crowd at the opera for opening night. He must have had Hans and Gerda release the Eaters while he was at the Fox Den, so they could eat all the wishes that the crowd made and grow huge and powerful. Then he sent them away. And I know where they went. Wait.” The squirrel blinked again. “I don’t know where they went.”

  “I do.” Van recalled the Wish Eaters dwindling into the distance. “They went to the city.”

  Pebble nodded. “To the Collection.” Now her voice was like ground glass. It sawed straight into Van’s ears. “But the Holders are here. Because I called them here.”

  “So the Hold will be unguarded,” Van said, putting the rest of the pieces together. “Mr. Falborg’s Eaters will swarm in and release all the other Eaters, and destroy the Collection, and then . . .”

  Pebble finished for him. “He’ll have an army.”
r />   Van began to ask another question, but Pebble suddenly froze. Her eyes went wide. Her head whipped toward the top of the stairs.

  It was only then that Van realized something: Hans and Gerda hadn’t followed them into the basement.

  There was a thump as the basement door swung shut.

  A look of fear and fury flashed across Pebble’s face.

  “What is it?” asked Van.

  “I don’t know,” answered Barnavelt. “But I think I heard a click. Did I hear a click?” The squirrel paused for an instant, glancing from Pebble to Van. “Oh. That makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?”

  Barnavelt’s inky eyes stared at him. “Pebble says, ‘They locked us in.’”

  18

  Blackout

  “Gerda!” Pebble pounded at the basement door. “Hans! Let us out!”

  Below her, Van turned in a slow circle. With one hearing aid gone, even Pebble’s loudest yells sounded weak and mushy. There was no point in yelling for Hans and Gerda anyway. Mr. Falborg’s assistants hadn’t locked them in the basement by accident.

  They would have to find another way out.

  Van scanned their resources. Other than the heaps of empty boxes, the basement was empty. There were no tools for door smashing, no handy ladders for climbing up to the basement’s high and narrow windows. There was nothing but bare stone walls, a hanging fuse box, and a bedraggled girl with a squirrel on her head stomping back down a staircase.

  The squirrel’s eyes landed on Van. “Hey! Van!” it squeaked cheerily. “You’re locked down here too?”

  “Barnavelt, those windows are too small for us,” said Van. “But do you think you could get through?”

  Barnavelt leaped from Pebble’s head. In three jumps, he had bounded up the stone wall and reached one of the tiny windows. He nudged its frame outward.

  “I can get through!” he announced. “Hey, this glass is really dirty. Now my paws are really dirty.” The squirrel blinked down at them. “You know what? I don’t think you two can fit through this window.”

  Van stepped closer. “But maybe you could run back to the Fox Den and tell the Collectors that we’re trapped here.”

  “No,” said a muffled voice.

  Van turned.

  Pebble had collapsed on the floor behind him. “No point,” she said, her voice thick. “It’s too late. And it’s my fault.”

  Van hurried toward her, kneeling down to look into her face. Barnavelt jumped from the windowsill to Van’s shoulder, taking the opportunity to wipe his dirty paws on Van’s dress shirt.

  “I was so stupid.” Pebble’s mossy eyes were wet. “Uncle Ivor tricked me. The wishing well, his plans—it was all pretend. It was just a way to get the Collectors here. I thought I was spying on him, being so clever and careful, but the whole time—” She choked, her voice breaking. “The whole time, he was just using me.”

  “You didn’t know.” Van put one hand on Pebble’s back. She sagged beneath his touch, as though her body was shrinking into itself.

  Pebble sobbed something Van couldn’t catch.

  “She says, ‘I should have,’” Barnavelt murmured. “She says, ‘He uses everybody. I just didn’t think he’d do it to me. Not after everything.’ She says, ‘Everything is ruined, and it’s my fault.’”

  Van’s chest ached.

  The guilt he carried for hurting his mother, and now for injuring Peter too, was almost too much to lift. He could only imagine the weight crushing Pebble now.

  He pressed his shoulder against hers. “We’re still with you, Pebble,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Barnavelt chimed in, hopping from Van’s shoulder to hers. “I’d get trapped anywhere with you.”

  Pebble sniffled. Her head stayed bowed.

  Van scanned the basement again, his eyes like razors. There had to be something here. Could they bash the door with one of the old steamer trunks? Was there a hairpin or a lost nail somewhere that might help them try to pick the lock? His gaze slashed over something dull and unobtrusive hanging on the wall. Something that usually went unnoticed.

  The fuse box.

  Van had seen similar boxes backstage, in opera houses and theaters around the world. Lighting technicians were usually very nice to a small boy watching shyly from the wings. He’d helped them aim spotlights and change colored gels. Sometimes he’d even gotten to flip switches.

  And suddenly, Van knew what to do.

  Dread and hope spiked through him. He didn’t like the dark. He didn’t want to give up his vision—his sharpest sense, the tool that let him understand Pebble and that kept him from stumbling into danger. But he needed to take this chance.

  “Pebble,” he whispered. “Get ready. When Hans and Gerda come down here, we run.”

  Pebble’s head lifted slightly. “But—”

  Van wasn’t about to waste time arguing. Jumping to his feet, he scurried to the box and opened its metal door. Two rows of horizontal switches waited inside. And at the bottom of those rows, twice as wide as the rest, was one big red switch.

  The master.

  Van pried the switch to the side.

  It snapped down with a forceful click. The basement went black. In the same instant, Van felt something buzz to a stop in the walls and ceiling all around him—as though by flipping that switch, he had shut off the power in the entire huge house.

  Because he had.

  Van whirled back toward Pebble and Barnavelt. The glow of the narrow windows gave him just enough light to catch the glints of their eyes.

  “What happened?” Barnavelt squeaked. “What time is it?”

  In the dimness, Van grabbed Pebble’s arm and pulled her close to the staircase. They huddled there, shoulder against shoulder.

  The basement door inched open above.

  “Mabel? Master Markson?” called Gerda’s voice. “Half . . . play . . . the fuse box?”

  Van held his breath. Beside him, Pebble and Barnavelt kept still.

  Gerda and Hans muttered to each other in a language Van could barely hear and didn’t understand anyway. They crept slowly down the stairs, their outlines blacker blots against the dark.

  Hans stepped toward the fuse box.

  At the same moment, Van yanked Pebble up the staircase.

  Gerda shouted behind them, but Van and Pebble were already halfway up the steps.

  Pebble slammed the door and turned the bolt.

  Just in time.

  The basement door rattled with the force of pounding fists. Muffled voices yelled.

  “Ooh,” murmured Barnavelt. “They’re really angry.”

  “You can understand their language?” Van asked.

  “No,” Barnavelt answered. “But I understand angry.”

  Pebble grabbed a wooden chair and wedged it under the doorknob. Then, with a nod at Van, she raced toward the kitchen.

  “. . . should . . . time,” she called back over her shoulder. “Just need . . . find out . . . Uncle Ivor’s planning.”

  “But is Mr. Falborg even here?” Van asked, skidding across the kitchen’s tile floor. “How do you know there’s anything to find?”

  “Why . . . basement . . . something?”

  “Why what?” Van asked.

  “She says, ‘Why would Hans and Gerda lock us in the basement if they weren’t protecting something?’” Barnavelt answered. “Ooh. That’s a good point.”

  They dashed through the dark entryway. Van tried to look in every direction at once, expecting Mr. Falborg—or perhaps a monstrous Eater—to glide silently out of the shadows. But the only sign of life was their own footsteps making the floorboards tremble, their own quick breaths stirring the air.

  At the entrance to the gigantic living room, they both skidded to a stop.

  A row of suits of armor stood across the archway. Their metal gloves grasped axes, maces, heavy broadswords. Even in the dimness, the weapons glittered. If it weren’t for the pedestals beneath them, and the fact that they stood inhumanly stil
l, they would have looked like a row of knights standing guard.

  “Were those there before?” asked Barnavelt softly. “Because I don’t remember those being there before.”

  Van’s eyes flicked past the suits of armor. Drifting toward the ceiling of the huge chamber was a burst of silvery mist.

  A wish coming true.

  “. . . fit between them,” said Pebble, in a way that made Van think she was coaching herself as much as him. Ducking her head beneath two knights’ metal elbows, Pebble darted through the suits of armor into the next room.

  It was just like squeezing through a big fence, Van told himself, crouching into the smallest shape possible. Keeping one eye on a glinting battle-ax, he inched past the hollow knights and into the next chamber.

  Without the glow of its stained-glass lamps, the huge room felt unpleasantly dim and cold. Lumps of heavy furniture loomed through the dark. The dim, distorted blur of his own reflection slid across the glass display cases, making it look like someone else was creeping toward him.

  Van’s heartbeat staggered.

  He hated this. He hated the darkness. He hated the way that it could hide the most dangerous secrets, no matter how carefully he looked.

  “Van?” he thought he heard Pebble call. But he couldn’t tell where the sound had come from, if it had come at all. He squinted through the shadows for the flutter of a white dress.

  “Pebble?” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  Behind him, a footfall made the floorboards vibrate. Van whirled around.

  A suit of armor loomed over him. A beam of moonlight caught the ax in its—moving—hands.

  “Van!” Barnavelt’s voice yelled. “Over here! By the staircase!”

  Van lunged away from the armor. He collided with an armchair, knocking it off its feet. Its fall shook the floor. Behind him, heavy footsteps drew closer. Van darted left, changing direction, tearing blindly through the shadows. His chest smacked the edge of a hard glass surface, knocking the air out of his lungs.

  Van shoved himself backward from the display case. He dodged sideways, crashing into something warm and muddy. Something that smelled vaguely like flowers.

  “Van!” squeaked Barnavelt’s voice. “Where have you been?”