A few more leaves stirred from their branches as a puff of wind blew over the platform. Oliver watched them tumble past. The leaves were identical to those of the sick oak outside Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse, and with them came a disgusting scent—a sour odor—where had he smelled it before? Oliver took a deep sniff.…
And then he knew.
Like the ticking gears of a Windblowne water clock, pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
tick—He had indeed smelled this odor before—outside Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse. The smell from the sick oak. Looking down from the balcony, Oliver could see that the sick oak at Great-uncle Gilbert’s treehouse was in the exact same location as the riven oak here.
His great-uncle’s notes:
“the winds do not whisper…
but if you do whisper, O winds, then
whisper to me,
of oaks which dwell across the worlds.”
Oaks which dwell across the worlds. The sick oak there, the riven oak here—they had the same leaves. They were the same tree.
tick—Oaks on the mountain, losing their leaves in both Windblownes.
Oliver remembered his arrival in this Windblowne, how he had known right away that something was different about the world. The colors, the scents, the sounds, everything had been subtly altered. The only thing that had seemed the same to him was the oak leaves. Somehow, the oaks were the same—they lived in both worlds. And the damage from Lord Gilbert’s machines and those black strings was affecting Oliver’s Windblowne as well.
tick—
A crimson kite made from oak. A kite that traveled between worlds. The secret to traveling between worlds lay in the oaks.
Feeling returned to Oliver’s body, and he was able to stand. He looked warily at Lord Gilbert’s hunters. They perched silently in a row, not looking at Oliver, not looking at anything.
He started toward the steps. A cold fury filled him. He would finish the work the crimson kite started. He would smash the machines that were torturing the oak. He’d find a weapon—anything—and hammer them to pieces and pull down the black strings. He was not sure if there was still time to save the tree. But he would do as much damage as possible before Lord Gilbert could stop him.
He had taken only three steps when the nearest hunter raised a metal talon, lowered its synthetic fiber wings, and, looking directly at Oliver with its cold, glassy eyes, gave a menacing croak.
Oliver stood motionless. One by one, the other hunters turned their heads and fastened their empty stares upon him.
He took a step back, carefully, then another. The hunters’ gazes did not waver. Not until he felt the treehouse wall behind him did he realize he had been holding his breath.
Oliver heard a chuckle. Lord Gilbert was watching him with amusement. “You see, One,” he said, “things can go very badly for you if you don’t cooperate.” He gave his flashing panel a loving stroke. “My machine is all better. Now your training can begin. Two will teach you everything you need to know about the hunters. I’m sure it will seem intimidating at first, but have no fear. Your natural engineering talents will shine through. Join us in my laboratory!”
Lord Gilbert rushed past Oliver, snatching up the remains of the crimson kite. He continued inside. Two limped up the steps after him.
Oliver, looking at the row of hunters, realized that he had no choice but to follow, for now.
He heard voices from the direction of the workshop, or what Lord Gilbert had called his laboratory. He stalked to the doorway.
Right away, Oliver could see that a laboratory was like a workshop, except that all of the normal tools were replaced with more devices that blinked and hummed. There were workbenches made out of that smooth whitish stuff, and long tables, and racks of inscrutable equipment.
And there were fifty-six more hunters.
Oliver knew there were exactly fifty-six, because there were rows of narrow hutches built into all four walls, and each one had a small plate with a number from one to one hundred. In each hutch was a hunter, folded nearly flat. Only the first fifty-six were occupied.
Oliver stopped in the doorway.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Two. “None of these are activated.” He was hunched down on a stool, shivering.
“I’m not afraid,” said Oliver. He stepped into the laboratory and leapt a foot into the air as he heard a scrabbling sound beside him.
The noise came from one of several birdcages hanging in a corner. In the cage crouched a small, quivering hawk with wide, frightened eyes. It was pressed as far as possible from the human occupants of the laboratory.
Next to Two was the injured hunter. He had laid it on a workbench, with its broken wing sticking straight up. It had stopped writhing and jerking. Beside the hunter lay a number of screwdrivers, wrenches, and a few other tools Oliver didn’t recognize.
Lord Gilbert was bent over a kind of tablet on which the crimson kite had been stretched, its sails fixed in place by pegs. He was peering at it through a metal tube and muttering loudly, “Nothing … nothing!”
Oliver’s eye was caught by a flash of bright blue-green. It was one of Great-uncle Gilbert’s kites, folded flat on top of a stack of other colorful kites. All of his best kites, Oliver thought despairingly. Two had taken them all. They must have hoped that one of the others could do what the crimson kite did.
Lord Gilbert looked up from his tube and noticed Oliver. “You!” he said crossly. “Tell me more about this kite. My microscope reveals no unusual features. The sails are made of silk and the spars of ordinary oak. Where did he hide the circuitry?”
“Circuitry?” said Oliver, irritated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Actually, Oliver did know of one unusual feature of the kite’s design—the oaken spars—but he wasn’t about to share that with Lord Gilbert.
Lord Gilbert looked him up and down and sighed. “No, you probably don’t.”
“And even if I did,” Oliver continued, “I’d never tell you. I’m not going to help you, ever. I’m not like him.” He cast a withering glare at Two, who ducked his head. “And what’s more—”
“Oh, do shut up,” said Lord Gilbert. “Having two of you around is twice as annoying.” He shoved the microscope aside. “A shame I couldn’t force an explanation from the old fool before I banished him to that hell-world. Doubtless a few weeks of suffering will persuade him.…” His eyes fell on Oliver’s arm. “Ah!” he said brightly. “More of his craftsmanship!”
“Hey!” said Oliver, backing away. But Lord Gilbert yanked Great-uncle Gilbert’s beautiful handvane from Oliver’s forearm, wrenching his wrist in the process. He held up his prize, turning it about, squinting and muttering.
“That’s mine,” Oliver lied. “I made it, so hands off!”
Lord Gilbert shrugged. “Useless.” He tossed it aside on a bench and went back to digging around in Oliver’s pack. Oliver reached out carefully and took the handvane, slipping it onto his wrist. Then he went to the crimson kite, where it lay pinned under the microscope, and reached for it, too.
“Don’t touch,” Lord Gilbert warned without looking at Oliver. He gave the HM IV a meaningful tap.
Oliver looked longingly at the kite, a terrible sadness falling over him. It was hard to believe that this poor, ragged, torn thing had ever flown at all. It looked like nothing more than an old piece of silk drooping over the edge of the workbench.
“Try to focus on the future, Oliver One,” said Lord Gilbert. “This is all for the greater good. My machine, once perfected, will be able to send more than just one child, or a few letters—it will be able to send anything and anyone across all the worlds!”
“But you’re killing the oaks,” Oliver pointed out. “And your grandnephew.”
Lord Gilbert waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, there are inefficiencies. I have to draw power from the oaks on my mountain to run my machine. Soon they’ll all be dead. But there are more oaks on other worlds. I’ll build conduits between tho
se worlds and this one. The oaks are limitless.”
“But you’re not just killing the oaks on this mountain,” said Oliver. “You’re killing all the oaks on all the worlds.”
“Nonsense, boy,” chuckled Lord Gilbert. “Don’t argue with me about things you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“You didn’t know you were killing oaks on other worlds?” said Oliver. “Don’t you know the oaks are all connected? That they’re all the same oaks?”
Lord Gilbert sighed heavily. “Don’t expect me to try to explain these concepts to you. But what you describe is impossible.”
Oliver looked at him in disbelief. “You don’t even know how your own machine works, do you?”
“Of course I do,” huffed Lord Gilbert. “Phase resonance! Principles of quantum polyality!”
“You don’t know,” interrupted Oliver.
“I almost do,” said Lord Gilbert defensively.
“But Great-uncle Gilbert knows,” said Oliver with satisfaction. “And he wouldn’t tell you.”
Lord Gilbert gave a thin-lipped smile. “He’ll be willing to cooperate soon enough.”
“He’ll never cooperate with you,” said Oliver evenly.
“Two said that before, as well,” growled Lord Gilbert. “But look at him now.”
The argument was interrupted by a muffled explosion from outside. Lord Gilbert looked at the HM IV with alarm. “You!” He pointed at Two. “Train the other one. I’m needed outside.” He rushed from the laboratory.
Two and Oliver looked at each other. “Well,” said Two uncomfortably. “I suppose I should show you how the hunters work.”
He began repairing the damaged hunter with a screwdriver, providing detailed explanations as he went. Oliver did not understand a word. But he nodded and said, “Ah, I see!” anyway. Now that he knew what Lord Gilbert was capable of, he didn’t want the old man to discover that Oliver could be no use to him at all.
He nodded, and pretended, until he realized that Two was saying something about the brain and a thought occurred to him. “Wait,” he said. “Doesn’t traveling between worlds with that machine hurt the hunters, too?”
Two pursed his lips. “Yes. It hurts them. It even kills them, eventually. That’s why Lord Gilbert needs constant replacements. He’s trying to build a whole fleet of a hundred hunters to guard him once he’s able to travel to other worlds.”
Oliver looked at the folded hunters in their fifty-six hutches. “Why aren’t these … uh …”
“Activated?” said Two. “He’s using the oaks for power. The drain from so many hunters would kill the oaks within hours. Once he can get to other worlds, he’s going to build conduits that will add their power to his machine. Then he can activate them all.”
“But—” Oliver began, when suddenly Lord Gilbert’s voice crackled from Two’s handvane.
“Two!” ordered the scratchy voice. “The damage is worse than I feared! The machine could explode and destroy the entire mountain. I need your assistance at once!”
“That sounds serious,” said Oliver.
“It will be fine,” said Two. He looked around the laboratory, then grabbed a small metal can. “This is an oilcan. The joints on each hunter have to be oiled. Can you handle that?”
“Of course,” said Oliver, irate.
“Good. Get started.” Two thrust the can at Oliver and hurried from the laboratory.
The oilcan appeared to have a lever on top of it. Oliver gave it an experimental squeeze, and a squirt of black fluid shot onto the floor. Quickly, Oliver set the can on a workbench and pulled a rug over the dark stain.
He looked around the laboratory. He had no intention of helping Lord Gilbert, but he had no idea how to escape from this terrible situation without the crimson kite. He needed to come up with some kind of plan. Maybe he didn’t understand the equipment in the lab, but he might find something he could use among Two’s kitesmithing tools.
He went upstairs to find Two’s bedroom, which he guessed would double as his workshop, just like Oliver’s did.
There was no mistaking the room. Everything in it—the bed, the chest, the workbench—matched the furniture in his own room at home. But there was one large and dispiriting difference. Instead of the broken spars and misshapen sails and other kitesmithing monstrosities that had littered his bedroom at home, this room was full of beautiful kites—some on racks, some hanging from the ceiling. Oliver sighed.
He fell miserably into the chair in front of the workbench. He supposed that one of these kites belonged to him now. His gaze wandered over them. The experience was eerily like looking into a daydream. Each of the magnificent kites was exactly like one he had imagined making but had failed in every attempt to construct. He thought he ought to feel happy that he now owned one of these kites. He tried to rouse himself with the idea that he could use it in the Festival. After all, it was as if he had made it. But that was no good.
Two had all of the talent that Oliver lacked. “Your talents lie elsewhere,” Great-uncle Gilbert had said. Sure, thought Oliver. All that means is that I don’t have any talents at all.
He looked restlessly around the room. Two had probably built all of the other things that Oliver had imagined making, too.
He thought of his attempt at a secret drawer in his workbench. He looked carefully along one side of Two’s workbench. The wood appeared perfectly smooth, as though no door were there. But of course, Two had the talents that Oliver lacked. He would have built the drawer properly.
Oliver placed his fingers just where he had tried to put the hidden mechanism for opening his own drawer. And he pushed.
Click.
Triumph. With a satisfying hiss, a secret drawer slid out from the workbench. Oliver felt a moment of intense jealousy, then lifted the lid on the drawer and looked inside—
And realized he just might escape after all.
10
Oliver reached into the secret drawer. He withdrew a single oaken spar, still green and sticky and freshly cut. In the drawer remained a neat row of similar spars, all oak, whittled to various lengths. Oliver ran his fingers over their tacky surfaces. They felt as though they’d all been cut within the last few days.
He turned quickly to the kites and examined them one by one. None of them had spars of oak. No one used oak to make kite spars—no one except Great-uncle Gilbert. Yet Two had been crafting oaken spars and hiding them in a secret drawer in his workbench.
Oliver dropped onto the bed, thinking furiously. Two was a skilled kitesmith, and he must have noticed the odd oaken spars of the crimson kite right away. He must have decided to make his own kite, modeled after Great-uncle Gilbert’s. For some reason, he had hidden all of this from his guardian.
Oliver didn’t know why, but he did know this—whatever Two was scheming, it was not going to happen. Oliver had a much better plan for these oaken spars: he would use them himself, to repair the crimson kite, and escape from this Windblowne.
He wanted to try the repair right away, but he had to wait for night, when Lord Gilbert and Two would be sleeping. So, with impatient reluctance, he replaced the sticky spars exactly as he found them, closed the secret door with a snap, and lay back on the bed to formulate every detail of his new plan. This time, he vowed, no mistakes, nothing left to chance, and no improvising. This plan had to work, absolutely, with no excuses.…
Oliver woke to the sound of footsteps downstairs. He sat up in a rush. He must have fallen asleep. After all, he hadn’t gotten much rest last night. A delicious smell wafted into the bedroom, and Oliver realized he was famished. He was wondering if he should go downstairs and sullenly accept some lunch when he heard slow, soft steps coming up the stairs.
He buried himself under the blankets, not wanting his face to give away any hint of what he had discovered.
He heard the door open.
“I’m trying to sleep,” said Oliver, his voice muffled by the bedclothes.
A weary, raspy voice replied, “Sorry.
”
Oliver sat up in surprise, spilling pillows. He had not recognized the voice. But it was Two, and he looked terrible. He was even thinner, as though he had lost another ten pounds in the last few hours. In his hands was a bowl, and he bent forward as he held it, as if it were a boulder.
“You don’t look like you’re going to make it,” observed Oliver.
“Thanks,” said Two. He shuffled to the workbench and placed the bowl there with trembling hands. “Here’s your lunch.”
“I’m not hungry,” Oliver said, staring ravenously at the bowl. He was not sure what it was—some kind of complicated stew—but it looked and smelled heavenly. He didn’t think, though, that it would be a good idea to eat anything prepared by Lord Gilbert.
“It’s okay,” said Two, seeming to understand this. “I cooked it.”
Oliver sighed. “Of course you did.” Naturally, Two was also an expert chef. Oliver crawled out of bed and sat morosely at the bench. He took a bite. Yes, sadly, the stew was absolutely superb—far tastier than anything Oliver had ever managed to prepare.
Two flopped onto the bed. He stared dully at the ceiling, saying nothing.
Oliver, as he wolfed down the stew, watched him out of the corner of his eye. Two’s hands would not stop shaking, and the skin on his arms and legs was raw and red. “Why are you helping Lord Gilbert?” Oliver asked between mouthfuls, trying not to sound too concerned about it. “That machine is killing you.”
“I don’t have any choice,” said Two distantly.
“I would never work for him,” mumbled Oliver with as much determination as he could muster with a mouth full of stew. He swallowed. “I would never do anything he told me to do, no matter what!”
Two fixed him with a solemn stare. “What if helping Lord Gilbert gave you a chance to have the thing you’d always wanted most in the world?”
This gave Oliver pause. What would he do? The thing that Oliver had always wanted most in the world was to win first prize at the Festival.
“I still wouldn’t do it,” said Oliver. He realized with surprise that this was actually true. He had hardly given the Festival a thought all day. Oliver felt vaguely disturbed by this radical reordering of his priorities.
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