The Inventors and the Lost Island

by A. M. Morgen

  Darkness fell around them like a blanket. As the stars began to twinkle through the breaks in the clouds gathering overhead, George felt a familiar jumble of excitement and fear prickling in his gut. Something could happen at any moment. Ada adjusted the telescope aimed at her front steps, and George secured the top of his sticky ladder to the gutter, but otherwise it could have been any night spent with a friend. They ate their food and wrapped themselves in quilts to keep warm while they minded their traps like two fishermen waiting for fish to bite.

  A few carriages rumbled by, sleepy starlings tittered in the trees, some stray cats yowled in a far-off alley. Soon George’s eyelids became heavy. His chin nodded toward his chest. The sound of the wind rustling through the leaves was a beautiful lullaby. With any luck, he’d sleep peacefully all night under the stars and in the morning his ladder would be empty and Patty would be on Ada’s front porch, safe and sound.

  Suddenly, Ada was shaking his arm. “Wake up! They’re here!”

  George jolted awake. Ada glared at No. 5, her eyes burning bright as the gas lamps dotting Dorset Square. “It’s not a truffle farmer. It’s the Society. One of them got Patty’s arm. He’s heading for No. 10. Hurry.”

  A shiver of dread shook through George like an earthquake. He looked across Dorset Square. Patty had fallen onto her side. The dark shape of a man raced through the trees away from Ada’s trap. But the figure was like something out of a nightmare—he streaked over the grass on thin legs as tall as fenceposts. Patty’s disembodied arm dangled behind him like a worm twisting on a fishing line.

  In ten long strides, the man crossed Dorset Square and disappeared around the side of No. 10.

  “After him!” Ada cried. She was already climbing down from the roof into the attic.

  George raced after her, and soon they emerged onto the lawn and skidded to a halt, eyes searching for any sign of the shadowy figure.

  “Did you see how tall he was? I didn’t calibrate Patty’s strength properly to account for someone of that extreme height. Patty’s horizontal grip is stronger than her shoulder joint. Her arm sheared off with the rope when the man ran away. He must have gone inside,” Ada whispered breathlessly, then vaulted toward No. 10.

  George grasped Ada’s skirt to pull her back. “Wait—shouldn’t we get something to defend ourselves with?”

  “There’s no time. Our new neighbor is the Society. We can stop them once and for all. Here. Now. Patty’s arm is the evidence we need to charge them with trespassing.” Ada peeked around the edge of the house. “The coast is clear. I’m going.”

  She lifted her skirts and raced across the muddy strip of dirt that separated George’s house from No. 10. George knew Ada well enough to know that nothing he could say would stop her from charging into danger.

  So he took a deep breath and plunged after her.

  Chapter Two

  Are you sure he went this way?”

  Ada shushed him, then crept closer to No. 10. George followed at her heels. The shadows between No. 8 and No. 10 seemed to stretch and grab at their feet.

  After searching for a few seconds, Ada whispered, “Eureka,” pointing at a sheet of corrugated tin nailed against the side of No. 10 that faced George’s house. The tin sheet was swinging slightly like a pendulum. Ada gestured at George to help her push it to one side and prop it open with a loose brick. Doing so revealed a large rectangular opening a few feet above the ground. The bricks had not yet been laid to close it off completely.

  Peeking inside the black opening, George saw a narrow hallway that stretched into the dark house. There was no sign of the man who’d run off with Patty’s arm.

  “I didn’t notice this before. That metal sheet must have been blocking the only way inside,” George muttered, trying to keep the fear from his voice.

  “Help me up,” Ada said. Her smooth-bottomed shoes were slipping against the brick as she tried to climb up to the opening. George offered his knee as a foothold, and once Ada was inside, she pulled him up after her.

  George’s skin exploded with goose bumps as soon as he stepped inside. The walls on either side of him were still in the process of being plastered. Dust coated the floor. With a jolt of fear, George realized he and Ada were leaving footprints behind them, but the tall man had left none.

  “Do you see Patty’s arm? Let’s just grab that and go—”

  “Not yet,” Ada replied. At the end of a short hallway, the walls opened suddenly into one enormous room, which was about the size of George’s entire house. The weak orange light from the street lamps outside did not reach the ceilings, which vaulted nearly to the roof. A narrow balcony ran the length of the entire room above their heads, but there were no stairs to reach it.

  “One room? What sort of house is only one room?” Ada wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to be a ballroom. Or a library. Or both.”

  With a shiver, George had the sudden feeling that he’d been here before. Though he couldn’t quite place it, the room was familiar. He stopped. Squares of white marble were being installed in the floor, gleaming in the gloom as if lit from within. The tiles were similar in color to the marble in George’s foyer. No—they were the same exact color, a shade called Unicorn Horn. George had spent years polishing the marble in his home—he’d recognize it anywhere.

  The strange shiver crawled over his skin again as he surveyed the rest of the room. Every wall was lined with wooden shelves painted white. The decorative molding on the shelves was the same intricate pattern of oak leaves carved on the cornices of George’s foyer.

  “Ada…”

  “There’s Patty’s arm. Oh dear, it’s cracked. I’ll need to reinforce her joints with iron bolts, I think.” Ada rushed toward a pile of crates covered in a sheet. She picked up Patty’s white porcelain arm from where it lay near the base of the boxes. The rope was draped over it like a dead snake. She stomped in frustration. “There’s no sign of anyone here. I think he escaped.”

  Meanwhile, George was drawn to a set of bookshelves on the far side of the room. A row of narrow drawers for maps topped a set of tall shelves for atlases. He was not an expert on shelves, but their size, dimensions, and general appearance were so similar to those in his own library that he had to blink to assure himself that he wasn’t dreaming. It was as if these shelves, in a completely different house, were made to hold his grandfather’s collection of books.

  George peered at a small crescent-shaped indentation near the front of the middle shelf on the third row from the left. Though his grandfather had restored it from the ground up, No. 8 was the 1st Lord of Devonshire’s childhood home, so he had preserved it exactly as his father had originally designed it. And because George’s grandfather had also loved puzzles, many rooms were filled with secret compartments and places to hide his treasures. If George was wrong about this shelf, then nothing would happen. But if he was right…

  He pushed his finger into the indentation. A small strip of decorative molding popped off the front of the shelf to reveal a narrow compartment. “Zooks!” George said softly, staggering back with the piece of carved wood in his hand.

  Ada whipped her head around. “George, what are you doing?”

  “Proving a theory,” he replied breathlessly.

  George pressed the carved side of the wooden molding in his hand against the molding on the next-highest shelf. The carved pieces of wood fit together like a key into a lock. With a sharp click, the back panel of the shelf released to reveal yet another empty secret compartment above the one he’d already revealed.

  Ada gaped. “How did you do that?”

  “This is exactly the same as the library in my house,” George said. His grandfather loved puzzles with many steps and surprises that built upon each other like links in a chain. The solution to one puzzle was the key to the next and so on and so on. George looked around the room, unsure whether he should be delighted or disturbed.

  Ada strode toward him, then suddenly st
opped, dead in her tracks, in the middle of the room. Her whole body stiffened and her eyes grew wide as they fixed on a point beyond George down the hallway through which they had entered.

  George’s heart thumped. “What is it, Ada?”

  She looked at him. “We should leave, George.”

  “But—” George retorted. “This looks exactly like my house, Ada!”

  Ada hooked Patty’s arm underneath George’s elbow and pulled him down the dark hallway, dragging him back toward the temporary side entrance, while George persisted, “Why is there no front door? Where’s the kitchen? Where’s the staircase to get upstairs?”

  All of a sudden, though, he stopped. At the end of the hallway he saw what Ada had seen through the jagged opening half-covered by the tin panel.

  On the outside wall of his own house, someone had drawn a faint chalk outline of a door.

  “But…”

  He blinked again. An X was drawn inside the chalk outline on No. 8. The mark was almost invisible in the midnight darkness. But it was unmistakably there. It lined up perfectly with the temporary entrance to No. 10, which lined up perfectly with the hallway, which lined up perfectly with the hallway inside his own house, just steps away. No. 10 and No. 8 were close enough to span with a board.

  The plan of the house clicked into place as neatly as the missing piece of a puzzle.

  This strange house didn’t need a front door or a kitchen or a staircase because it would have those things as soon as it was connected to George’s. No. 10 wasn’t its own house at all.

  It was the new wing of No. 8.

  Chapter Three

  George’s heart didn’t stop pounding until they toppled through the doorway of Ada’s workshop.

  Only then did George finally feel that he could breathe again. Ada’s room was even more cluttered than usual, but the extra piles of scribbled-in notebooks and scattered machine parts made George feel safer. As if they were a barrier between him and the outside world. With every breath, his fear of what they’d seen in No. 10 dissolved until only anger and bravery burned in his chest.

  “How dare they!” George yelled at nobody in particular. “First, the Society tried to steal my map—and now they’re trying to steal my house!”

  Calmer now, Ada lit an oil lamp, then cleared a space on her workbench for Patty’s arm. They had carried the mechanical girl up from the front steps, and now she was sitting next to the workbench, patiently waiting for her missing limb to be reattached.

  “George—”

  “I saw the look on your face. You saw it, too—the Society bought No. 10 and intends to attach it to my house!” George paced between towers of books and piles of paper.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Ada admonished.

  “But you said—” He stared back at Ada, but her expression was resolute. “Fine. You want me to be rational and examine the evidence. Here’s the evidence: My mysterious next-door neighbor is building a house with no front door. Its inside matches the inside of my house. Its hallway matches up with my hallway. Its floor matches my floor. Someone has drawn the outline of a door on the side of my house exactly across from the only way into No. 10! Someone from the Society carried Patty’s arm into that house. Ergo and wherefore, I can conclude that the Society is going to invade my home at any moment.”

  “Invade is a strong word, don’t you think? I agree the chalk was suspicious, but unless it’s explosive chalk, no damage has been done. An empty building is hardly a crime. Let’s take a moment and think this through.”

  George slowed his pacing by a fraction. Panicking wouldn’t help. As usual, Ada was the voice of reason. The last time they’d seen the Society, its dastardly members were heading off to pursue their old enemy, Il Naso, in Spain. If the Society was now in Dorset Square, there was no telling what its plans might be.

  “What should I do? I should go to the authorities, shouldn’t I? Should I write to the Mallard sisters and find out who purchased their land? Or I could go down to the registry office and check the deed myself. Should we go right now?”

  “Hmmm,” Ada said, lowering her magnifying goggles over her eyes.

  George wrung his hands. “You’re quite right. It’s Sunday. The registry office won’t be open. Do you know where the Mallard sisters are?” Perhaps the women who had lived in No. 10 Dorset Square knew something that George could use against the Society members who had purchased their house.

  “Errrm,” Ada mumbled.

  “Please, Ada. This is very serious and—oh heavens! I beg your pardon!” George rushed to turn away as Ada pulled down Patty’s dress, revealing her smooth porcelain shoulder.

  Ada snorted with laughter. “She’s not a real person, George. She doesn’t need privacy.”

  In George’s haste to shield his eyes, he stepped too far into the clutter in the middle of the room and tripped over a stack of books, knocking them all to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’ll pick these up.”

  Ada dropped Patty’s arm, which landed with a thud on the workbench. She dove onto the ground, scrambling for the scattered books. “No, no. I’ll take care of it.”

  They both reached for the same slim, dark blue book. George grabbed the binding. At the same time, Ada plucked a yellowed slip of paper from between its pages, quickly folded it in half, and slipped it into her pocket. Curious, George turned the book over to read the title on the cover. Useful Needlework.

  “This is my book,” George said in surprise. In fact, it was one of only two books that he currently owned. All the rest had been sold to pay off his father’s debts after his grandfather died. Useful Needlework had survived because it had been hidden in one of the secret compartments, exactly like the one he’d found in No. 10. In every respect, Useful Needlework looked exactly the way one would expect a book entitled Useful Needlework to look.

  That is, not very useful at all.

  Ada rocked back on her heels to stand up. She rubbed her cheek nervously as she adjusted the lamp on her workbench. “I was going to return that to you soon.”

  “Why did you take it in the first place, though?” As soon as he asked, the answer popped into his head. Another one of his grandfather’s books, The History of the Rhône, had helped them find the Star of Victory in Geneva. Ada must have taken Useful Needlework to hunt for clues that might tell them why the Society wanted his map. “You were hunting for more clues!”

  “Well—”

  George’s heart began to thump. “What did you find?”

  Ada frowned. “I found a few things,” she said cautiously.

  George’s spirits lifted. “Really? Like what? Anything more about the island from the scrap of the map?”

  “No islands, but I learned some useful needlework. I’ve been doing the Brighton stitch all wrong. The vertical stitch should always be on top of the horizontal one.”

  “Very funny.” George lowered his voice. Ada’s mother wasn’t home, but one of her nosy servants might be listening on the other side of the door. “Did you find something about the map or not?”

  Instead of answering, Ada leaned closer into her work. A corner of yellow paper sticking out of her pocket flashed in the lamplight.

  “Maybe you’d like to share what’s on that piece of paper you’re pretending you didn’t just take out of the book?”

  Ada tucked the paper deeper into her pocket, then turned back to Patty. A sour feeling bubbled in George’s stomach. Ada was avoiding answering his questions. She had promised not to lie to him—which meant that right now, she was avoiding saying the truth. Ada knew something. Something terrible.

  “What is it? What did you find?”

  Ada sighed. “It’s nothing. Just an old letter, that’s all.”

  “Nothing?” George felt a flush of heat creeping up his neck. “Nothing” was the worst thing Ada could have said, because Ada always had something. “You promised not to lie to me. After everything we went through in Venice, I thought we trusted each other.”

  “I haven
’t lied to you, technically,” she snapped. There was a trace of hurt in her voice.

  George pressed her harder. “Then why won’t you show me that piece of paper? What is it?”

  “Don’t you imagine that your grandfather had a life outside of making treasure maps? Not everything we find has to be a clue. Maybe he hid something, and he didn’t mean for you to find it. Maybe he didn’t intend for you to examine every pen stroke of every word of every piece of paper he ever touched in his entire life.” She turned the wrench to tighten Patty’s bolts to emphasize her point. Patty’s blond curls swung. “Maybe it was just a coincidence I found it. It was hidden very well inside a false page,” countered Ada.

  George swallowed. “False page?”

  Ada turned around, finally, and met his gaze. Her eyes burned bright as a coal fire. “Drop it. You don’t want to know.”

  “It is important. What is it?”

  Ada gripped the edge of her workbench. “Aren’t you happy, George?” she asked, her voice suddenly softer and gentler. She waved her hand at the window toward No. 8. “Isn’t your business doing well? Don’t you have everything you want?”

  George was surprised that his nose began to itch as though he might cry. He shook away the feeling and instead thumped his knuckles loudly against Useful Needlework’s cover. “Don’t change the subject. You know how much the map means to me. I’m a Devonshire. It was my grandfather’s map, and his book, too. If it contains some secret, and if it’s related to the Society or that house next door—I have a right to know.”

  Ada pressed her fingertips to her forehead and closed her eyes. “It’s just that… once you know something, you can’t unknow it. It’s part of you forever. And it changes you. It hurts you. Believe me, I know. I know what it’s like when people… disappoint you. Especially people you love. I just want to protect you.”

  Protect? George swayed on his feet. “Miss Byron, if you believe I’m in some kind of danger, I deserve to know. I don’t need your protection. I need the truth.”