The Emerald Atlas

by John Stephens

  As Kate descended the narrow spiral stairs from Miss Crumley’s office, the air grew colder, and she drew her thin sweater more tightly around herself. Adults seeing Kate for the first time always took note of what a remarkably pretty girl she was, with her dark blond hair and large hazel eyes. But if they looked closer, they saw the furrow of concentration that had taken up residence on her brow, the way her fingernails were bitten to the quick, the weary tension in her limbs, and rather than saying, “Oh, what a pretty girl,” they would cluck and murmur, “The poor thing.” For to look at Kate, pretty as she was, was to see someone who lived in constant anticipation of life’s next blow.

  Leaving the side door of the orphanage, Kate saw a group of children gathered around a skeletal tree at the edge of the yard. A small girl with thin legs and short, chestnut-colored hair was throwing rocks at a boy in the branches, yelling at him to come down and fight.

  Kate pushed through the crowd of laughing, jeering children as Emma picked up another stone.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Emma turned. There were red circles on her cheeks, and her dark eyes were bright.

  “He ripped my book! I was just sitting there reading and he grabbed my book and ripped it! I swear, I didn’t do anything! And now he won’t even come down and fight!”

  “It’s not true,” cried the boy in the tree. “She’s crazy!”

  “Shut up!” Emma yelled, and threw the rock. The boy ducked behind the tree as it bounced off the trunk.

  Emma was small for eleven. All knees and elbows. But every child in the orphanage respected and feared her temper. When cornered or aroused, she would fight like a devil. Kicking and scratching and biting. Kate sometimes wondered whether her sister would have been as fierce if they’d never been separated from their parents. Emma was the only one who had no memory of their mother and father. Even Michael had hazy recollections of being cared for and loved. As far as Emma was concerned, this was the only life she had ever known, and it had one rule: When you stopped fighting, you were finished. Unfortunately, there were always a few older boys who went out of their way to rile her, relishing the way Emma worked herself into a fury. Their favorite target, not surprisingly, was the children’s single-letter surname. Since Kate was the oldest, at fourteen, it was usually her job to calm her sister down.

  “We have to find Michael,” Kate said. “There’s a woman coming to see us.”

  A hush fell over the children. There had not been a prospective parent at the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans in months.

  “I don’t care,” Emma said. “I’m not going.”

  “She’d have to be a loon to want you,” called the boy in the tree.

  Emma seized a rock and winged it. The boy wasn’t quick enough, and it caught him on the elbow.

  “Oww!”

  “Emma”—Kate took her sister’s arm—“Miss Crumley says this is our last chance.”

  Emma pulled herself free. She stooped and picked up another rock. But it was clear the fight had gone out of her, and Kate waited quietly as Emma tossed the rock from hand to hand, then threw it weakly against the tree.

  “Fine.”

  “Do you know where Michael is?”

  Emma nodded. Kate took her hand, and the children parted so they could pass.

  The girls found Michael in the woods above the orphanage, exploring a cave he’d discovered the week before. He was pretending it was the mouth of an old dwarf tunnel. All his life, Michael had been obsessed with stories of magical creatures. Wizards who battled dragons. Knights who fought off maiden-hungry goblins. Clever farmhands outwitting trolls. He read everything he could get his hands on. But he was particularly fond of stories about dwarves.

  “They have a long and noble history. And they’re very industrious. Not always combing their hair and mooning about with mirrors the way elves do. Dwarves work.”

  Michael had a very low opinion of elves.

  The source of this passion was a book titled The Dwarf Omnibus, written by one G. G. Greenleaf. Waking up that first morning of their new lives, parentless, in a strange room, Kate had discovered the book tucked into Michael’s blankets. She’d immediately recognized it as their mother’s Christmas present to their father. Over the years, Michael had read the book dozens of times. It was, Kate knew, his way of staying connected to a father he barely remembered. So she tried, and tried to convince Emma, to be understanding when Michael would launch into one of his impromptu lectures. But it wasn’t always easy.

  The air in the cave was damp and mossy, but the ceiling was high enough that Kate and Emma could walk upright. Michael was a dozen feet from the entrance, kneeling beside a flashlight. He was just this side of scrawny, and he had the same chestnut hair and dark eyes as his younger sister, though his were hidden behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. People often mistook them for twins, which irritated Michael no end. “I’m a year older,” Michael would say. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

  There was a flash, then a whirring, and Michael’s battered Polaroid camera spat out a picture. He had found the camera in a junk store in downtown Baltimore a few weeks earlier, along with a dozen packs of film that the owner had more or less given him, and ever since, he had been using it for his exploring game, constantly reminding Kate and Emma how important it was to document your discoveries.

  “Here.” Michael showed his sisters a rock he’d just photographed. “What do you think that is?”

  Emma groaned. “A rock.”

  “What is it?” Kate asked, willing to go along.

  “An old dwarf ax head,” Michael said. “There’s water damage, obviously. These are hardly ideal conditions for preservation.”

  “That’s funny,” Emma said. “ ’Cause it looks just like a rock.”

  “All right, enough,” Kate said, for she could see Michael was about to get upset. She told him about the woman coming to see them.

  “You go,” he said. “I’ve got work here.”

  Most orphans longed to be adopted. They dreamed of a rich, kind couple whisking them away to a life of comfort and love. Kate and her brother and sister did not. For that matter, they refused to be referred to as orphans.

  “Our parents are alive,” Kate would say, or Emma would say, or Michael. “And one day they’re coming back for us.”

  Of course, they had nothing to support this belief. They had been left at St. Mary’s Orphanage on the banks of the Charles River in Boston one snowy Christmas Eve ten years earlier, and since that time they had not heard the faintest whisper from their parents or any other relation. They couldn’t even say what the P of their last name stood for. But still, they continued to believe, deep in their hearts, that their parents would one day reappear. This was due entirely to the fact that Kate had never stopped reminding Michael and Emma of their mother’s promise, on that last night, that they would all be together again as a family. It made the thought of being claimed by some stranger totally unacceptable. Unfortunately, this time, there were other considerations.

  “Miss Crumley says this is our last chance.”

  Michael sighed and let the rock fall from his hand. Then he picked up his flashlight and followed his sisters out of the cave.

  In the past ten years, the children had been in no fewer than twelve different orphanages. Their shortest stay had been two weeks. Their longest by far had been at their first home, St. Mary’s. Nearly three years. But then St. Mary’s had burned down—along with the Mother Superior, a kind woman named Sister Agatha, who took a special interest in the children but who had a bad habit of smoking in bed. Leaving St. Mary’s was the start of a journey that took them from orphanage to orphanage to orphanage. Just as the children would get settled in one place, they would have to move again. Finally, they stopped expecting to stay anywhere more than a few months, stopped trying to make friends. They learned to count only on each other.

  The reason behind all this moving about was that the children we
re, in adoption-speak, “difficult to place.” To adopt one, a family had to adopt all three. But a family willing to adopt three children in a single stroke was a rare thing, and the Miss Crumleys of the world were not long on patience.

  Kate understood that if this lady didn’t take them, Miss Crumley would cite it as proof that she had tried her best but the children were hopeless, and they’d be shuffled off to the next orphanage. Her hope was that if she and her brother and sister were well behaved, then even if the interview was a failure, Miss Crumley would think twice about sending them away. Not that the children had any great love for their present home. The water was brown. The beds hard. The food made your stomach ache if you ate too much, but if you ate too little, your stomach ached anyway. No, the problem was that as the years had gone by, each new orphanage had been worse than the last. In fact, when they’d arrived at the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans six months earlier, Kate had thought, This is it, we’ve reached the bottom. But now she wondered, What if there’s someplace even worse?

  She didn’t want to find out.

  Half an hour later, washed and dressed in their best clothes (which was not saying a great deal), the children knocked at the door of Miss Crumley’s office.

  “Come in.”

  Kate led Emma by the hand. Michael followed close behind. She had counseled them, “Just smile and don’t say a lot. Who knows? Maybe she’ll be great. Then we can just stay with her till Mom and Dad come back.”

  But when Kate saw the large woman wrapped in a coat composed entirely of white feathers, holding a purse in the shape of a swan and wearing a hat from which a swan’s head curved upward like a question mark, she knew it was hopeless.

  “I suppose these are the foundlings,” Mrs. Lovestock said, stepping forward to loom over the children. “Their last name is P, you say?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Lovestock,” Miss Crumley tittered. She only came up to the giant woman’s waist. “They’re three of our best. Oh, I do love them so. But painful as it would be to part with them, I could force myself to. Knowing they’d be going to such a wonderful home.”

  “Hmp.” Mrs. Lovestock bent to inspect them, causing the swan’s head to dip forward with an air of curiosity.

  Kate glanced over and saw Emma and Michael staring wide-eyed at the bird.

  “I should warn you now,” Mrs. Lovestock said, “I don’t go in for any childish higgledy-piggledy. I won’t have running, shouting, yelling, loud laughter, dirty hands or feet, rude comments about the bank.…” Each time she ticked off something she wouldn’t tolerate, the swan’s head nodded as if in agreement. “… I also don’t care for excessive talking, rubbing of the hands, or full pockets. I despise children with full pockets.”

  “Oh, these children have never had a thing in their pockets, I can assure you, Mrs. Lovestock,” said Miss Crumley. “Not a thing.”

  “In addition, I expect—”

  “What’s that on your head?” Emma interrupted.

  “Excuse me?” The woman looked startled.

  “That thing on your head. What’s that supposed to be?”

  “Emma …,” Kate warned.

  “I know what it is,” Michael said.

  “Do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “So what is it?” Emma demanded.

  Mrs. Lovestock turned on the quivering orphanage director. “Miss Crumley, what in the world is going on here?”

  “Nothing, Mrs. Lovestock, nothing at all. I assure you—”

  “It’s a snake,” Michael said.

  Mrs. Lovestock looked as if someone had slapped her.

  “That’s not a snake,” Emma said.

  “It is too.” Michael was studying the woman’s hat. “It’s a cobra.”

  “But it’s all white.”

  “She probably painted it.” He addressed Mrs. Lovestock. “Is that what you did? Did you paint it?”

  “Michael! Emma!” Kate hissed. “Be quiet!”

  “I was just asking if she painted—”

  “Shhh!”

  For what felt like a very long time, there was just the whisper of the radiator and the sound of Miss Crumley nervously clasping and unclasping her hands.

  “Never in my life …,” Mrs. Lovestock finally began.

  “My dear Mrs. Lovestock,” Miss Crumley twitched.

  Kate knew she had to say something. If they were to have any hope of not being sent away, she needed to smooth things over. But then the woman said the thing.

  “I understand one can expect only so much from orphans—”

  “We’re not orphans,” Kate interrupted.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Orphans are kids whose parents are dead,” Michael said. “Ours aren’t.”

  “They’re coming back for us,” Emma added.

  “Pay them no mind, Mrs. Lovestock. Pay them no mind. It’s just idle orphan chatter.” Miss Crumley held up the bowl of sweets. “Candy?”

  Mrs. Lovestock ignored her.

  “It’s true,” Emma insisted. “They’re coming back. Honest.”

  “Listen to me.” Mrs. Lovestock leaned forward. “I am an understanding woman. You may ask anyone. But one thing I will not tolerate is fantasy. This is an orphanage. You are orphans. If your parents had wanted you, they would not have left you on the street like last week’s garbage without so much as a civilized name! P indeed! You should be thankful someone such as myself is willing to excuse your atrocious lack of manners—and your complete ignorance of the most beautiful waterfowl in the world—and take you into my home. Now, what do you have to say for yourselves?”

  Kate saw Miss Crumley glaring at her around the woman’s waist. She knew if she didn’t apologize to the Swan Lady, Miss Crumley would almost certainly send them somewhere that would make the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans look like a fancy vacation resort. But what was the alternative? Going to live with this woman who insisted that their parents had thrown them away like trash and had no intention of ever returning? She squeezed her sister’s hand.

  “You know,” she said, “it does look like a snake.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Miss Crumley’s Revenge

  The train jerked, waking Kate. She’d fallen asleep against the window, and her forehead was cold. After stopping in New York at midmorning, the train had continued north along the Hudson, past Hyde Park and Albany and a dozen other smaller towns that clung to the water’s edge, and now, as she looked out, she saw that ice had crept in along the sides of the river, and they were traveling through a landscape of rolling, snowy hills, marked here and there with farmhouses. They had left Baltimore early that morning. Miss Crumley had taken them to the station herself.

  “Well, I hope you’re better behaved at your next home.” The children stood on the platform, each holding a bag that contained their clothes and a few possessions.

  Kate had known Miss Crumley wouldn’t pass up the chance for a final scolding.

  “I told the head of your new orphanage—Dr. Pym, I think his name was, yes, Dr. Stanislaus Pym—that you would all probably grow up to be criminals and murderers, and he said that was exactly the type he was looking for. Ha! I can only imagine what’s in store for you three.”

  It had been two weeks since the disastrous interview with Mrs. Lovestock. Miss Crumley had immediately contacted every orphanage she knew, searching for any place that would have the children. Only days earlier, Kate had been outside her office and heard her pleading into the phone, “I understand you’re an animal shelter. But really, these children don’t need much.” Then the call had come that an orphanage was willing to take them.

  “Where is it we’re going?” Kate asked.

  “Cambridge Falls. It’s up near the border apparently. Never been there myself.”

  “Is it supposed to be nice?”

  “Is it nice?” Miss Crumley chuckled as if this was the best joke she had heard in a very long time. “Oh, I should say not. O
h no, not a bit. Now, here’re your tickets for the train. You take it to Westport. Then go to the pier just past the main docks. There’ll be a boat to carry you across the lake. Dr. Pym said someone will meet you at the other side. Off you go. I wash my hands of you.”

  The children climbed aboard, found an empty compartment, and settled in. They could see Miss Crumley on the platform, watching them.

  “Look at her,” Emma said. “She’s staying to make sure we really leave. I’d love to get at her just once.” She balled her hands into fists.

  “Anyone want a piece of candy?”

  The girls stared in amazement. Michael was holding a plastic bag bursting with candy. He shrugged. “I snuck into her office last night.”

  On the platform, Miss Crumley watched with satisfaction as the train heaved into motion. But walking back to the orphanage, she was troubled by the memory of the youngest hooligan, Emma, sticking out her tongue as the train pulled away. Miss Crumley could swear the girl had been eating a piece of licorice. But that was ridiculous. Where would such a child get licorice?

  When they’d stopped in Albany, Kate had jumped off and used the little bit of money she had to buy cheese sandwiches, which the children ate as they were carried north and the landscape outside became more and more hilly. Their lunch dispatched, Michael and Emma went off to explore the train while Kate settled back and let her eyes drift closed. She was asleep almost instantly.

  Kate had a dream in which she was standing before a large stone house. It was massive, dark, and threatening, and she very much did not want to enter. But then suddenly she was inside it and descending a dimly lit stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs, she pushed through a door into a study. On the surface it looked normal enough, a desk, chairs, fireplace, bookcases. But every time she turned around, the surroundings changed. The walls slid back. The books reshuffled themselves. The chairs switched places. And then it gripped her—an awful, heart-stopping fear. There was danger here. Terrible danger for herself and her brother and sister.