by Adam Dreece
“Um,” he said, embarrassed.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine,” said Elly, hiding a smile.
Mounira had been spending a lot of time at Tee’s house, with Tee one-on-one, and with Tee’s parents. More than once, Tee had dropped by Elly’s house with Mounira and found Elly to be in a foul mood. Today, though, things seemed to be different.
Tee pointed to the weights. “The coolest part is that after you’ve gone up, or come down, the system resets itself. It takes about a minute or two.”
“Huh,” said Mounira, looking at the well-hidden metal foot pedal. “So the pedal releases… oh, I see it. Clever. Did you guys make this?”
Richy scratched his head. “Actually, we don’t know who made it. We thought maybe Tee’s grandfather did, but too many things didn’t add up. The only thing we know is that somebody’s supporting us in being the Yellow Hoods. They made these cloaks, and our shock-sticks, too.”
“Interesting,” said Mounira, shaking her head in disbelief. “So, you blindly trust these things from someone you don’t know, who is spying on you? Huh. I wouldn’t.”
Everyone was silent. Tee, Elly, and Richy hadn’t really thought about it in quite a while. They’d discovered everything before they’d encountered LeLoup, and they’d taken it for granted that everything was innocent and well-meaning. They were kids who’d discovered treasure. Now, though, Mounira had a point.
Mounira had a habit of asking a ton of sharp questions. The others weren’t sure if it was a cultural difference, or something else, but it was hard to take sometimes. Maybe, they thought, she was just trying to fit in too hard, or maybe she felt a bit insecure because she was a couple of years younger than them.
“Well, ah, moving on,” said Richy, “we discovered—well, Tee discovered—the up-the-mountain and down-the-mountain network of pulleys and ropes a while ago. There are five going up, and four going down.”
“What does that mean?” asked Mounira. “Five going up?”
Elly sighed and raised her hand, volunteering for the taxing job of answering yet another question. “Each one takes you up part-way. See that area up there? It’s a plateau. This part takes you up to that flat part of the mountain, and then stops. The next one is only a couple of yards away from where this one drops you off. There’s also one a couple of yards the other way, for coming back down.”
Mounira nodded, having imagined a mental model of how this likely worked. “So, it’s probably done like that so you wouldn’t slide all the way back down if something went wrong—or else slide all the way down the mountain too fast…?”
“Um,” said Richy, scratching his head and smiling,“I hadn’t thought about that. It makes sense, though.”
“One more question,” said Mounira, tapping her chin as she gazed up the mountain.
“Go ahead,” said Tee, trying not to sound tired of the non-stop questions.
Mounira crouched down and placed her hand on the remaining inches of snow. “Have you tried wearing skis to go up the mountain, while holding the wooden bar?”
Richy was ready to answer just about any question—except that one. His mouth agape, he stopped and looked to Elly and Tee. They were all impressed with the idea.
Elly answered. “Actually, no. Had we thought about that, we could’ve tried going up weeks ago. Honestly, we’ve only tried to let it drag us up through the snow, but that has… problems, so we waited for the snow to mostly melt. With skis though, I think we really could ride on top of the snow. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that.”
Richy chuckled. “I think it’s too much fun being dragged up and nearly falling off. But, if we had another LeLoup situation, I’d be all for using some skis.”
“You know,” said Tee, “that makes me think of using a board with wheels on it, in summertime.”
“I was thinking the same,” said Mounira. “The weights would be able to pull you faster, like a current pushing you in a stream.”
“Huh,” said Tee, looking at Mounira differently. “Your dad isn’t an inventor, is he?”
“No,” said Mounira. “Nobody in my family is.”
Tee folded her arms. “Did you learn about science from anyone, or from books?”
“No,” answered Mounira, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just—I don’t know… hanging around you guys, I’m seeing things I never noticed before.”
“Oh,” said Tee. She remembered her granddad, Sam Baker, telling her once that, while there were geniuses like Nikolas, there were plenty of other kinds, too. Tee wasn’t sure Mounira was a genius, but she had definitely underestimated her young friend.
“I wonder… if you made the wheels—” started Mounira.
Richy snapped his fingers and completed her thought, “—shallow enough, then you could have wheels and skis on the same board?”
“Yes!” said Mounira.
“Hmm,” said Richy, bending down to look at the sail-carts for a moment. “It wouldn’t work for the sail-carts, though. The wheels and skis would need to be on opposite sides; otherwise, uneven terrain could cause the sail-cart to get stuck.”
“I’ve got some paper and a quill,” said Elly, removing her backpack. “But I don’t have any ink.”
Mounira jumped up, excited. “I have some ashes! In my pack!” She grabbed at the leather satchel she had on her belt.
“You have what?” asked Elly. Richy and Tee were curious, too.
“Ashes,” said Mounira. “Where I come from, we use ash for lots of different things. Sometimes, for writing. We just need to melt some of the snow for water, and mix it carefully.”
“Cool,” said Richy, picking up some snow. “I’ll make water.”
“Great!” said Elly, reaching into her backpack.
“Wait!” yelled Tee, her hands outstretched, and getting everyone’s attention.
“Is this a La la moment—because I’m not seeing it,” said Richy wryly, teasing Tee.
Tee gave him a friendly glare. “No. Don’t you think this would make more sense to do at the top of the mountain, at our three-floor treehouse, where we have a table? Not here in the snow?”
Elly, Richy, and Mounira each wore their own version of a boy-do-I-feel-silly expression.
“I don’t hear any yeses!” said Tee, stepping forward, playing up her role. “You know, times like this remind me of when I was young—”
Elly immediately threw her hands up. “Stop! I surrender. I give in. Please!” she joked. “Please—stop impersonating my mother!” Elly fell to her knees and then dramatically flopped over in the snow. “Can’t. Take. It. Losing my will to live! Mommy?”
For minutes, everyone roared in laughter. It was rare that Elly did anything that silly, and only with people she completely trusted.
After a few more minutes of joking around, Richy grabbed the wooden bar and headed up first. He dashed and jumped his way up to the plateau.
Mounira was to go next. She grabbed the handlebar with her one hand and looked nervously at Tee and Elly. She wasn’t quite sure how—or if—this was going to work, but she was determined to have no special treatment.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t tie you to it, or something?” asked Elly, innocently.
“I’ll be fine,” said Mounira, uncertain. “I can do anything you can do.”
Tee wasn’t convinced, but wasn’t going to play a big-sister card to overrule Mounira. “Okay, well, worst case, you’ll come barreling back down as a huge, angry snowball. We’ll probably be able to stop you from rolling all the way down the mountain,” she said.
“Yeah, probably,” added Elly. “Ready?” Elly asked Mounira, and then immediately kicked the foot pedal.
“Aaahhh!” yelled Mounira as she held on for all she was worth, running up at first, and then snowplowing and spinning the rest of the way up to the plateau.
“Huh! And here I thought you’d accepted her,” said Tee, giggling.
“No,” said Elly, smiling evilly. “But I’m not jealous anymore.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A Ginger Offer
“Mother, we have returned,” said Hans while opening the old wooden door, nearly taking it off its hinges. The once-majestic two-story home had long ago fallen into horrible disrepair.
Saul sighed and dropped his head. His shoulder-length, light brown hair briefly covered his face. “I bet the wood’s rotted through. Everything is.” Coming home always drained him.
They only seemed to notice what the house was really like whenever they returned to it. The smell of ginger lingered from years gone by, back from when Mother used to bake regularly. They’d learned in their teens how she used to lace all the goodies with the Ginger, a special mix of herbs to make children docile, passive, and even forgetful. Mother had told them she’d never used it on them.
Gretel took their red hooded cloaks and hung them up. She removed thin strips of leather from her hair and shook loose her mid-back-length platinum blond hair. She tucked the thin strips into a small pouch on her belt.
She looked at the fine cloaks that they had been given just months before. A long time ago, they’d had nice things. It was comforting to have something nice again. They wore those cloaks every time they left the house, like a uniform.
“What was the name of that man who gave us the red cloaks?” Gretel asked Hans.
Hans was standing in the kitchen, his light brown eyes scanning the mostly empty cupboards for something—anything—to eat. “The one who hired us to clean out that shop? I can’t remember.”
“Yeah, that one,” she replied.
“Thomas something, I think. Why?” he asked, turning to her.
“I was just thinking about the cloaks. He said they would help him remember us, and that we could trust other people with the same ones. Something still bothers me about that. I don’t feel like we got the whole story,” said Gretel.
“You worry too much,” said Saul, hiding his own concern.
“I’m sure we’ll find out, some day,” said Hans, “but until that happens, I don’t care. That cloak stopped a knife from going into my gut last week. I’m thankful to have it.”
Gretel smiled in agreement. The cloaks were not only nice-looking, but they had useful hidden pockets, and they’d discovered by accident the fabric was tough enough to stop a knife. Gretel wondered if it could stop an arrow, or maybe even a bullet.
She found herself looking at the moldy ceiling, and getting angry. She detested the house, but her brothers wouldn’t leave, and she felt she couldn’t just leave on her own. More than the house, she hated the nightmares that always seemed to take place somewhere in the house—nightmares that never made sense. She loathed Mother with a fury she kept tightly locked away, deep inside. She pushed those feelings so far down that sometimes she forgot about them.
Years ago, the house had been filled with a never-ending stream of children. While they weren’t always happy, at times there was happiness. They would play outside, or on the main floor, and then Mother would put them to bed, upstairs, locking them in, safe and sound.
Slowly over the years, Mother’s mind had decayed. It was her forceful insistence that stopped them from fixing things such as the leaking roof, eventually forcing them to seal off the mold-ridden upper floor.
“Why were you gone so long?” screeched a nasty old woman coming out of one of the ground-floor bedrooms. Her hair was wispy white, and her clothes, like those of Hans, Saul, and Gretel, were dirty and falling apart. She wore a beige shawl over her shoulders that was more brown-orange than beige. She held a gnarled cane, as she had for decades.
The old woman plopped herself into a broken rocking chair that barely moved, although she moved her body back and forth as if it did. “Tell me! Why were you gone so long?”
Hans, his back to her, answered. “We ran into some people, Mother. We decided to have some fun. We weren’t long. And anyway, you always say that.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” the old woman barked. Her eyes darted around the room, as if she were seeing imaginary children running around. She pulled her shawl tightly around herself. “Tell them to close the door,” she muttered. “They’re always leaving the door open.”
Hans closed the cupboards, giving up on the idea that there was anything to eat, and turned to Mother. Looking at Mother terrified him. He was willing to pounce on three or four travelers to rob them, or simply for fun, but Mother always made his gaze bend to the floor—made him like a scared, little boy.
Saul sat on the floor, arms wrapped around his legs, leaning against a wall. His stomach always turned when he took in that permanent smell of ginger and mold.
“Saul?” said Hans.
He looked up and realized that Hans was trying to get him to answer Mother. “Huh? Oh, yes. Those people just needed some help with their wares. They had too many nice things, and we helped them by taking some,” said Saul flatly. He hadn’t enjoyed it. He hadn’t enjoyed much of anything in a long time.
Gretel wanted to say something witty to lighten the mood and poke fun at Saul, but she just looked past Mother’s chair and out the window. The snowless ground would have flowers soon, and she liked flowers.
“Show me what you got,” the old lady commanded. She rose to her feet, cane in hand.
Gretel looked at Hans nervously. He picked up the bag he’d left just outside the door and showed it to Mother.
Mother had a look, and started shaking her head. “Garbage… garbage… oh, this might fetch us something,” she said. Items she thought were of no value were tossed onto the floor. “At least you didn’t completely waste my time,” she said, grilling Hans with her eyes.
Mother’s eyes narrowed and she raised her cane. “Are you holding out on me, boy?”
Hans shook his head nervously and stared at the ground.
“Fine. I’m going back to bed. Keep quiet,” said Mother as she left the room.
When Mother’s door closed, Hans and Gretel sighed in relief. Saul shook his head.
“You two are getting greedy. That was a huge risk,” said Saul.
Hans pointed at the bedroom door and said, “She’s going to be the death of us. If we share more with her, she’ll do what she’s been doing—using it up, and having no food for us.”
“We almost have enough saved for the three of us to leave,” said Gretel.
A knock at the door surprised everyone. They stood, frozen, looking at the door.
“Are we expecting anyone?” said Hans, moving for his rapier he’d left on the kitchen table.
Saul gave an idiotic look to his brother. “Do we ever have anyone come here? Who could find this place?” He went over to Mother’s bedroom door and knocked. “Mother, there’s someone here. Do you want us to open the door?”
The bedroom door whipped open and the bent-over old lady glared at Saul. “No—you’ll just screw it up.” She hobbled over to the door, muttering under her breath. Looking at the old, rotting front door, Mother suddenly felt anxious. She thought of the last time that there had been an unexpected knock, many years ago. She turned to Gretel. “You open it!”
Gretel got up off the chair at the kitchen table and opened the door.
Before them was a broad man with a reddish-brown beard. He was dressed in a beige and brown leather coat that went down to his boots. The serious look on his face made it evident he wasn’t there by accident.
“I’m here to see the Ginger Lady,” he said gruffly.
The old woman stumbled forward clumsily. “I’m she. Who sent you?” she asked desperately.
The man stepped in, and quickly scanned the home. “My name is the Hound. I’ve been sent by the Fare. They request you pay an old debt you owe.”
“Hmm,” said the old lady, licking her dry lips. She’d always been richly rewarded whenever someone connected to the Fare had asked something of her, and she did owe them. A decade ago, she’d been too greedy in stealing children, and would’ve been caught, if it weren’t for the Fare’s help. As a condition, she’d been for
ced to give up the children—and she had, except for Hans, Saul and Gretel, whom she’d hidden.
Mother stood there, shuffling back and forth. She didn’t want to appear desperate, but she was. She’d been more disoriented and confused lately, and wanted to enjoy life like the old days at least once more before her time came. “What are the terms?”
The Hound noticed the three red hooded cloaks by the door and remembered what Marcus had written in his letter. He wondered if the trio knew they had been marked as part of the Order of the Red Hoods. He almost asked, but then remembered he needed to keep things simple and to the point, as Marcus had instructed.
The Hound examined the trio again. He figured they were about twenty years old. While he could see Hans and Gretel as twins, Saul seemed to be the odd one out. He stopped himself before asking anything else and got back to the script.
“They said you may have children again, once you’ve successfully acquired someone they want and have handed them over to me,” said the Hound. The reaction on the old woman’s face told him such a reward was clearly of value to her. He tried not to imagine what it meant.
“Mother?” said Hans. “You can’t have children again, you’re too—”
Mother repelled Hans with a glare that ripped the man’s mental wounds open. He wilted before her.
“Those terms are acceptable. Now who do they want?” asked Mother, licking her lips again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Watt to Come
It was a beautiful, early April morning. Nikolas, Tee, and Mounira walked up the mountain road, back toward Nikolas’ house, carrying the bags they’d filled at the market. Going into town to pick up fresh goods had become a daily ritual.
Tee’s family had made Mounira feel like a long-lost cousin. Wherever she accompanied them, the family would introduce her as a close family friend. So far, the only people Mounira had met whom she didn’t care much for were the Cochon brothers. She was afraid of them, and despite assurances from Nikolas and others that she needn’t be, she remained unconvinced.