The Strangers

by Jacqueline West

  The lanky man tucked the book under one arm. “Your parents?” he repeated. “I think so. Yes. Well, yes and no.”

  Olive’s heart shot up like a rocket, then took a rapid nosedive. “What?”

  “Yes,” said the lanky man. “I’ve seen ’em. They sleep right out there, don’t they?” The man pointed through the frame, at the Dunwoodys’ deserted bedroom. “But last night, they didn’t.”

  “Oh,” said Olive. “But they haven’t come in here, have they?”

  “No,” said the man. “No sirree. I’ve been alone in here for”—his eyes traveled around the painted glade, as if they were looking for a clue—“oh, I don’t know,” he finished, when they didn’t find one. “It’s been a long time.”

  Olive nodded, wheeling back toward the frame. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Wait!” The man darted forward, following her along the cobblestone path. “Do you have to leave again so soon?” He held out one long-fingered hand. “I’m Robert. Roberto the Magnificent, that is. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

  “No,” said Olive, with a quick shake of the man’s hand. The man’s warm hand. This man had once been alive. Placing her fingers on the bottom of the picture frame, she gave his narrow, eager face a closer look.

  “How about Binkle and Rudd’s World-Wandering Carnival?”

  “No,” said Olive again. “Sorry.”

  “I was the main attraction.” The lanky man pointed at his chest. “Traveling magician. Watch.” The man made a little explosive gesture, and a bouquet of paper roses popped out of his sleeve. “For you, little lady,” he announced. The roses shot back up his sleeve before he could grab them.

  “My tricks don’t work too well in here.” The man sighed. “And that’s all they were. Tricks. I told the old man, I said, ‘Look, I’m a sleight-of-hand artist. A carnival performer.’ But he said I should be grateful he was just confining me, not destroying me like he’d done to the others.”

  Olive stared up into the magician’s face. “Was this ‘old man’ really tall and bony, with deep eyes and—”

  “And a voice that sounds like he eats gravel for breakfast?” The magician nodded intently. “That’s him.”

  “I know who he is,” said Olive. “He and—” A lump of something hard and icy formed at the back of her throat. “He and his granddaughter have taken my parents.” She whirled back toward the frame. “I’m sorry,” she called over her shoulder. “I need to keep looking.”

  “Do you really have to go?” The man transferred his little book—Cleverton’s Completely Confounding Card Tricks! read the cover—from under one arm to the other, rooting in his jacket pockets. “I think I had a pack of cards in here . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” said Olive again, with one leg already through the frame. “But I’ll come back and visit sometime.”

  When Olive landed on her parents’ bedroom floor and glanced back up at the canvas, Roberto the Magnificent was walking slowly back toward the gazebo, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed.

  Olive felt a little tug of guilt. But she had to get back to the search. There was no time to spare. She raced into the hallway. A few steps ahead of her, Horatio’s furry orange form dove through the frame around the moonlit forest and landed on the faded carpet. He looked up at Olive. “No sign of them in the forest,” he reported. “Morton’s neighbors haven’t seen them either, and Morton’s had them searching every house on the street.”

  “Would you check Annabelle’s empty portrait?” Olive asked. “I’ll take the paintings in the blue room.”

  With a nod, Horatio shot off like a fuzzy orange arrow, and Olive pounded along the hall to the blue bedroom, plunging into the painting of the grand ball.

  “Olive!” shouted the dancers.

  “Olive!” shouted the musicians in the orchestra.

  “Olive!” shouted the conductor, still waving his baton even though the music had stopped. “Will you join us for a waltz?”

  “I can’t,” panted Olive. “I’m looking for someone. You haven’t seen any new people in here, have you?”

  The conductor blinked at Olive. “Is this a trick question?”

  “I mean my mom and dad. I thought they might be here, hidden in the crowd.” Olive wove through the pairs of dancers. “Mom! Dad!”

  “Mom!” shouted some of the dancers. “Dad!” shouted the others. Soon everybody in the painted ballroom was shouting “Mom! Dad! Mom! Dad!” but nobody was answering.

  “Thank you,” Olive called, rushing back toward the frame, leaving the musicians happily twanging and plucking to the rhythm of their new chant.

  The porter in the painted castle was delighted to see Olive too.

  “Back for another tour?” he boomed as Olive skidded across the mossy drawbridge.

  “I’m looking for my parents,” Olive puffed. “Have you seen them?”

  The porter glanced around. “I know every inch of this castle,” he said, raising his lantern so that its beams fell over the dark stone floors and crumbling walls. High above, painted stars flecked the deep blue sky. “And I can tell you this: Your parents are not here.”

  Olive met Horatio in the doorway of the blue bedroom.

  “No luck,” said the cat.

  “Me neither,” said Olive sadly. She pointed to the painting of a bowl of odd fruits hanging on the wall between two bedroom doors. “I suppose we’d better check in there.”

  Horatio looked slightly startled. “I don’t think we’ll find your parents inside a bowl of fruit, Olive.”

  “But we might find something else,” Olive argued. “Let’s look, just to be sure.”

  Thanks to Ms. Teedlebaum’s art class, Olive knew that this kind of painting was called a still life. Olive’s class had painted still lifes of their own, using whatever objects they could extract from the clutter in Ms. Teedlebaum’s classroom, which had made for some very strange compositions. Olive’s own still life had included a rubber chicken, a pack of gum, and a toilet plunger. Aldous McMartin’s still life was far more beautiful, but no less strange. Inside the painting’s dark-walled room, Olive stared down into the bowl of fruit. Horatio perched on the table, following her movements with sharp green eyes.

  “My parents aren’t here, obviously,” said Olive. “But maybe there’s a clue at the bottom of this bowl—a hidden key or a map or something.” She grabbed the wide silver dish and spilled the fruits across the table, but there was nothing hidden underneath. The moment she turned the bowl upright, the fruits flew back to their usual positions inside it. Olive bent lower, squinting at the bowl’s contents.

  The painted bowl was filled with something that looked like aquamarine grapes, and pink-peeled citrus fruits, and a yellowish object that had a long, looping vine and was shaped like a teardrop. Olive sniffed at one cylindrical orange fruit. It smelled fruity—in the way that a candy store smells fruity, as though a bunch of strong, separate flavors had been poured together to concoct something new.

  “Maybe these are magical,” she said thoughtfully, with the fruit still smooshed against her nose. “Maybe if I take a bite, I’ll shrink, or see things, or fly, or something.”

  “Or something, yes,” said Horatio warningly. “Get poisoned, or something. Throw up all over this table, or something.”

  “I’m going to try it,” said Olive, turning away from Horatio’s frown. She took a tiny bite.

  The fruit was crunchy, and tasted like an unripe pear soaked in orange juice. Before Olive had time to chew it, her mouth was empty. The fruit in her hand was whole once again, the little indents left by her teeth rapidly mending and disappearing.

  “How do you feel?” asked Horatio, watching her closely.

  “Just the same,” said Olive softly, putting the fruit back into the bowl.

  “Come along.” Horatio’s voice was milder now. “We
have one more painting to check.”

  At the end of the hall, just outside the pink bedroom, a painting of a Scottish hillside hung in a shadowy patch of the wall. Olive shuddered, gazing through the frame at the rippling bracken, the swooping birds, the small stone church perched high on the hill. In the foreground, nearly covered by heather and gorse, an oily smudge marked the spot where Olive had encountered a younger, painted version of Aldous McMartin and—with Rutherford’s help, and a few well-aimed squirts of paint thinner—dissolved him into nothing.

  “I will examine the forest and the cottage,” said Horatio, seeing Olive’s hesitation. “You can check the hilltop; it’s much lighter up there. He’s gone, Olive,” the cat added as Olive adjusted the spectacles with shaky fingers. “We will be safe.”

  “I know,” Olive whispered. “It’s just . . . I know.”

  The bracken crackled softly under her shoes as she landed inside the painting. Leaping in after her, Horatio cut a path toward the yellow-leafed forest, the orange tips of his ears dwindling quickly out of sight amid the brush. Olive took a deep breath. Giving the smudged spot a wide berth, she trotted up the hillside.

  The church’s wooden doors opened with a creak. Inside, dusty daylight streamed through the high windows and burnished the wood of the empty pews. “Dad?” Olive’s voice rang against the walls. “Mom?” Even without waiting for an answer, she could tell that she was the only one there.

  Olive stepped back out through the doors, into the small cemetery that clustered close to the church. Its gravestones were weathered and soft, brushed by the butter-pale sun. These were nothing like the cold, broken stones built into the walls of the basement. Olive wound between the ancient plots, running her fingers over the slightly warm stones. She paused beside a pair of angular headstones that leaned together in a friendly way, their faces overgrown by painted ferns and wildflowers. Olive brushed her fingers over the edge of one stone. Strange—this stone felt wrong, somehow. It felt smoother and sharper than the others, which were as pocked and porous as English muffins. This stone felt newer. Mildly curious, Olive crouched down and brushed the fluttering ferns aside.

  An icy wind surged through her body. It numbed her heart, freezing her lungs and pummeling her stomach. The ferns pulled themselves swiftly back into their places, but Olive had had plenty of time to read the two simple words carved beneath.

  Mother, said one. Father, said the other.

  10

  “HORATIO!” OLIVE SCREAMED. “Horatio!” Her voice blew away over the rippling hillside.

  An orange streak barreled up from the valley below. “Olive!” Horatio leaped over the crest of the hill, racing toward her through the graveyard. “Are you all right?”

  Olive pointed at the headstones, her arm trembling. “These aren’t—” The question stuck in her dry mouth. “These aren’t—?”

  “No, Olive,” said Horatio firmly. “Those are not your mother and father. I promise you.”

  Olive pressed her hands hard against her aching chest, feeling slightly silly. “I just—I couldn’t remember if these two stones had been here before, and they looked different from the others . . .”

  “They are different,” said Horatio. He sat down beside Olive, facing the overgrown headstones. “Annabelle McMartin brought them here herself, long after this painting was completed.”

  “Why?” Olive asked. Her heart gave another tightening clench. “Oh no. She—you mean—these aren’t Morton’s mother and father, are they?”

  “No,” Horatio answered. “They are Annabelle’s.”

  Olive’s heart began to beat again. “Annabelle’s?”

  “Albert McMartin—Aldous’s only son—had no talent for magic. Or anything else, for that matter. He was kind, and lazy, and stupid.” Horatio looked away from the graves, his eyes flickering over the sunny hillside. “But he was not so stupid that he couldn’t see the evil in his own father. And after years of watching neighbors disappear, Albert got off his lazy backside and took action.” Horatio’s voice grew softer, even though there was no one around to hear. “One night, when Aldous McMartin was away, Albert built a huge fire in the library fireplace and burned all of Aldous’s self-portraits, one after another. Then he fled the house with his wife and daughter. But Annabelle was already a young woman—a stubborn, cruel young woman—and she worshipped her grandfather. She sent him a message revealing everything that her father had done. Naturally, Aldous was furious. He hauled them all back to this house, called his son a traitor, accused him of trying to destroy the family, and . . .” Horatio hesitated. “That was that,” he concluded quietly. “After Aldous disposed of Albert and his wife, he interred them here, inside Elsewhere, where no outsiders could ever find them.” Horatio’s eyes darted back to the graves. “Much later, after Aldous himself had died, Annabelle had the headstones carved and placed them here.”

  “She did?” Olive wavered, looking down at the simple stones. “Why?”

  “Annabelle McMartin was not a good person, Olive,” said Horatio. “But she wasn’t the monster that Aldous had hoped to raise. And Aldous himself may be to blame for that.”

  Olive watched the wildflowers fluttering over the carved names. “I can’t believe Aldous could kill his own son,” she said. “I mean—didn’t Albert’s mother mind?”

  Horatio stiffened slightly. “By that time, Aldous’s wife was long gone.” The cat cocked one furry eyebrow. “And you should not underestimate Aldous’s pride. He believed that his family tree bore the greatest magicians who had ever lived, that each generation would grow more powerful, more intelligent, more ruthless—and then his own son turned out to be a failure. Annabelle McMartin was his last hope. Now that even she is gone . . . in a human sense . . . the family has no heir.”

  Olive nodded down at the quiet graves. “And that’s just what the real Ms. McMartin wanted. For the family to fade away.”

  “But that is not what this house wants.” Horatio’s eyes glittered up at Olive. “You’ve made it clear that you won’t join their side—at least, not without a fight. And you don’t have any magical talent at all.”

  Olive’s shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

  “Don’t be disappointed,” Horatio snapped. “That is a good thing, I assure you. It may well have saved your life already.” He turned back toward the graves. “But I believe . . . and I fear . . . that the McMartins are seeking someone to train. Someone to take on this house. Someone with gifts that you do not possess, and without the conscience that you do. And they will need to find him before their power is worn away completely.”

  For a moment, they stood side by side as the wind rustled over the heather and one blackbird wheeled in the pale, painted sky.

  “You know what I think?” said Olive as they headed back down through the bracken on the hill. “I think I’m never going to come into this painting again.”

  “I can’t say that I blame you,” said Horatio.

  “I mean, if I had known that there were actual—”

  Olive stopped. Far below them, where the picture frame hung in midair, a large black cat had just zoomed into the painting like something launched from a giant’s slingshot.

  “Information to report, miss!” Leopold shouted from the foot of the hill. “There were witnesses to the invasion! Come with me!”

  Olive and Horatio broke into a run.

  Downstairs, the kitchen was eerily still. Sunday mornings in the old stone house usually meant stacks of Mr. Dunwoody’s pancakes (he claimed to have discovered the ideal ratio of butter to maple syrup), fresh orange juice for Olive, and several pots of coffee for Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody, which would keep the coffeepot puffing and steaming away until afternoon.

  But not today.

  No pancakes sizzled softly on the stove. No coffee-scented mathematicians bustled back and forth between the worn stone counters. Today, the room felt almost hungrily
empty, like a cupboard with nothing on its shelves.

  Olive and Horatio followed Leopold to the corner, near the painting of three stonemasons at work on a wall.

  Leopold cleared his throat. “If you don’t object, miss, I shall let you enter on your own. There was a bit of unpleasantness during my own sojourn, and I was forced to depart without gathering the necessary information.”

  “I understand,” said Olive. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ducking her head and squeezing her shoulders to her ears, Olive wedged herself through the painting’s small frame. Before her feet had hit the ground, a massive, furry missile had knocked her backward into the grass. Olive blinked up at the painted sky as a slobbering brown dog bounced around her, snuffling at her ears and licking her chin.

  “Off, Baltus. Get off,” Olive muttered.

  “Sorry about that, Miss Olive,” said one of the three stonemasons at work on the never-finished wall. “He’s still pretty excited about our visit from that cat.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Olive, managing to roll out from under Baltus’s kisses.

  “You’re not hurt?” the second mason asked, leaning over the wall for a closer look and knocking a stone out of its place. It floated back to its spot like a granite soap bubble.

  “I’m fine,” said Olive, hurrying toward the wall. Baltus trotted beside her. “Leopold said that you saw something last night.”

  “Indeed we did.” The first mason removed his cap to scratch his head. He glanced at the other two for support. Then he looked at Olive out of the corner of his eyes, as though she’d just caught him composing a love poem. “. . . Monsters,” he mumbled.

  “Monsters?” Olive echoed.

  “There were monsters.” He pointed to the frame. “Out there.”

  “There were monsters in the kitchen?” Olive pictured Dracula squeezing a bag of oranges while Swamp Thing flipped a pancake. “What kind of monsters?”