by E. G. Foley
She might be as ornery as a little green garden snake, but if she fancied Archie, then at least the chit was an excellent judge of character.
“Now, let’s get out of here,” he said firmly, feeling very much the man in charge (and loving it). “I reckon we climb out this way. First, let me make sure they’re gone.”
She continued muttering about his stubbornness under her breath, but now that he understood the truth about her mean façade, he found it rather amusing. She had fooled everyone—well, except for Archie—into thinking she was nasty and cold, a typical, sharp-edged witch.
In light of his present understanding, Jake found he actually admired Nixie for her bravery and her good intentions about protecting others from her curse. It was sad to realize she only acted like a gloomy grump to drive away anyone who tried to befriend her.
Well, the poor girl had been through enough. He vowed to himself that he and his friends would see her freed from this curse, and those horrid Bugganes stopped and punished. If only Red were back in fighting shape…
As Jake marched to the picture frame window, another thought occurred to him. What about everybody thinking I’m a thief? When will I figure out who took the Queen’s flag?
But he shrugged the matter off as unworthy of the sort of selfless hero he desired to be one day. This was more important. Better he should lose his reputation than poor little Nixie lose her life.
He hid a wry smile as he thought of how much the tough girl would hate being called “poor little Nixie.”
Arriving before the window, his first order of business was to check and make sure the Bugganes had indeed vacated the gallery and were not lurking out there, waiting for them to emerge so they could renew their attack.
Peering through the thick, glass-like pane, Jake could see the bench he had overturned and the portrait he had knocked off the wall. He winced, hoping it wasn’t too badly damaged. But when he leaned closer, trying to get a better view down the long gallery, he bumped his forehead on the same invisible barrier that had kept the Bugganes from getting in. He rubbed his brow, scowling.
That was his first inkling, however, that getting out of the painting might present more of a problem than either he or Nixie had anticipated.
A sudden wave of uneasiness washed through him. He slowly turned around and looked at Nixie’s broken wand. It had got them into the painting somehow, but cracked into its broken-arm shape, he doubted it was fit for duty now.
No, magic had got them in, but it clearly wasn’t going to get them out of this. Turning back to the gilded frame, he examined it, running his hands over the carved wood, knocking on the glass. It seemed solid.
“I hope nobody’s out there strolling around the art gallery and sees us climbing out of the painting,” Nixie remarked wryly. “That would be pretty funny.”
“Aye, and if anyone sees us, we’ll probably get in trouble for this, too—and some of us can’t really afford it at the moment.” As he spoke, Jake continued trying to figure out the trick of the picture-frame window. He took hold of the bottom and strove to lift it open like a regular window, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I’m cold.”
“Uh, Nixie? I think…we’ve got a problem.”
“What?” She was lying on the grass again, half-asleep and shivering a little in the autumn chill.
“How do we get out of here?”
She didn’t move. “How should I know?”
“Well, you better help me figure it out because I am beginning to think we might be trapped.”
“Trapped?” She sat up, furrowing her brow. “Here, let me take a look.” She struggled to her feet, wincing with pain, (he didn’t dare offer to help her stand up), and limped over to investigate the matter herself.
She repeated the same motions he had performed, knocking on the pane, then tracing the joints with her fingertips, searching for a latch.
“It doesn’t want to open,” she admitted.
“That’s what I told you. Face it,” he added darkly, “we’re stuck inside this painting.”
She scoffed, refusing to accept it. “There’s got to be a way out.”
“Maybe I should break the glass. I’ll go find a rock from that stream to smash it with—”
“Absolutely not!” She put an arm out to stop him. “We can’t risk breaking the da Vinci barrier.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, even if you could physically shatter this thick, magical glass, which I doubt, it’d ruin the whole purpose of the collection. The Elders would lock us up and throw away the key! They don’t call it the Enchanted Gallery for nothing, you know. We’re going to have to find another way.”
“I didn’t know they call it the Enchanted Gallery, and what’s a da Vinci barrier?” Jake muttered.
She stared at him. “You didn’t read the plaque?”
“What plaque?”
“The big brass one by the entrance! That tells the history of what all this is about?”
Jake pressed his lips together.
“I’ll bet Archie read it,” she said reproachfully.
Aye, I think he did. As Jake recalled, he hadn’t been listening while his cousin had nattered on about the paintings.
Blast.
“I’m not really the plaque-reading sort,” he admitted in chagrin. “Mind giving a quick summary?”
She rolled her eyes. “Very well. This whole collection was recently donated to the Order by a wealthy Jewish family who acquired the art over several centuries, starting from the days of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a family friend of their original ancestor in France—and a great mage himself. Leonardo invented many things, as Archie could probably tell you.”
“Aye.” Inventor of the original flying machine, Leonardo da Vinci was one of his cousin’s top heroes.
“Well, one of Leonardo’s secret discoveries was a formula for some magical varnish or shellac that lets people travel into paintings, like we just did. According to legend, Leonardo originally used it to hide his Jewish friends when the agents of the Inquisition came to arrest them unjustly. The churchmen were going to force them either to convert or face torture and burning at the stake—along with the town’s witches, gypsies, and other Magic-folk.”
Jake winced.
“Leonardo saved many by these means,” Nixie continued. “The Inquisition suspected something supernatural was going on and destroyed several of his paintings. They would’ve killed him, too, if he weren’t so famous. But Leonardo realized the danger. If one of his paintings was destroyed with his friends inside it, he knew they could die. So somehow he fiddled with the formula again and was able to connect several pieces of artwork by magic. This way, the people hiding inside could escape from one painting to another in case the Inquisition got hold of the one where they were hiding.
“Once he transported his paintings with the fugitives inside to a safe location, he let them out and gave the paintings to them so they could use them again anytime another persecution broke out. He also taught them the formula for the shellac so they could apply it to more artwork if the need ever arose again in the future. And, of course, it did.
“The size the collection has grown to proves how often fresh rounds of persecution have broken out against the Jews throughout Europe, poor souls.” She glanced pensively at the window frame. “I have no idea how my spell penetrated Leonardo’s protective magical barrier, but maybe the Enchanted Gallery took us in, since Jenny Greenteeth meant to destroy us. Maybe it somehow sensed that we were in mortal danger, just like the people for whom it was originally created.”
“Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any stranger,” Jake mumbled. “Paintings that look back at you.”
Nixie shrugged. “For all I know, some of the fugitives might still be hiding somewhere in the collection.”
“Medieval folk? Wouldn’t they be dead now?”
“I should think time works differently in here, Jake. We’re not in the regular world anymore.”
“You can say that again. Well, if they’re in here somewhere, maybe we can find them and they’ll show us the way out.”
“Good thinking. But—wait. There’s something else you need to know about these paintings.”
“What’s that?”
“The Inquisition captured a witch who had once hidden inside the collection. They tortured her until she gave up the secret of how to get in and how the paintings were connected. Measures had to be taken. From that point on, the fugitives added all sorts of obstacles and booby-traps into the paintings to stop any intruders.”
“Really?” He looked around. “I don’t see anything dangerous-looking here. That dog ran by a few minutes ago, but it showed no interest in us. We’ve seen nothing since.”
She shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, only one of the paintings is truly safe—the beautiful farm landscape on the end. Did you see it?”
“The sunshiny one? With all the sunflowers? Aye, I know it.” Jake smiled at the thought of getting to go there in semi-real life.
Nixie let out a wistful sigh. “It looks so peaceful. That’s the one I fell asleep staring at,” she added. “It’s supposedly a painting of the original family’s home in Provence.”
“Leonardo painted them a picture of their home where they could take refuge? That was goodhearted of him.”
“Actually, the farm scene was by a much later artist. I don’t know his name. Point is, if anybody’s still hiding in the collection, that’s probably where we’ll find them. I vote we make our way there.”
This could be fun, trekking from painting to painting, thought Jake. It was a little like being a Lightrider going through portals, only in miniature. Good practice, anyway—and after being accused of stealing the Queen’s flag, this might be as close as he’d ever get to living his dream, so he might as well enjoy it.
He shrugged off the depressing thought. “Well, we’d better get walking. Er, can you walk on that ankle?”
“Not very well, and not for the distance I have a feeling we’re going to have to go.” She looked down at her feet, encased in the black, lace-up boots that all witches seemed to love. “Good thing I had my boots laced tight, or I might’ve wound up with a break instead of a sprain.”
“You want to soak it in the stream before we go?”
“No, let me try a healing spell.” She sat down with her broken wand and tried to straighten it out without snapping the floppy end off; Jake heard her mumbling under her breath that it might still have a little bit of power left in it, since the tip hadn’t broken off entirely.
While she concentrated on her ankle, he studied the autumn scenery around him, looking for any clue about hidden dangers or which way they should go. The green, distant ridge was empty. He looked for a path among the grove of gorgeous trees, to no avail.
“Nixie,” he remarked, looking around in all directions, “did you happen to notice what sort of painting we flew into? It all happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to look.”
“No, I didn’t dare take my eyes off Jenny Greenteeth.”
“Hmm.” There was not so much as a sheep in the field with them. It might make sense to follow the brook that meandered through the pastures…
But when he started scanning the squat stone fence around the field, he suddenly stopped on the rustic, weathered stile built over the thorny hedgerow.
In the old tradition of common-use land laws, quaint stepladders like that could be found all over the English countryside, allowing health-minded walkers easy passage over farmers’ fences. Since many country ramblers also loved to take their dogs along on their hikes, many stiles even had a pull-up chute called a dog door.
But this stile, Jake thought, had to be unique in all of England—namely, because one of the ladder’s wooden uprights was shaped like a giant paintbrush.
It was as good as an arrow pointing to the exit.
“Think I’ve found our way out.” A wry smile crooked his lips as he tapped Nixie on the shoulder. “Lookie there. I reckon we go that way.”
She followed his gesture, spotted the strange stile over the hedgerow, then turned and actually smiled at him. “Clever. I guess we’ll just have to follow the paintbrushes.”
He nodded. “Did the wand work at all?”
“A little, I think—” she started, when a strange sound in the distance cut her off her words.
Two deep, brassy, musical notes floated to them on the brisk air and then were instantly repeated.
Nixie turned to Jake in alarm. “What was that?”
“Dash me, it sounded like a horn,” he said, confused.
But the next noise gave them their answer: a clamor of wild barking.
They looked at each other and gasped in mutual realization of the kind of painting they were in.
The foxhunting scene!
“That creature you saw a little while ago—that must have been the fox!”
Jake pulled Nixie to her feet. “Come on. We’ve got to move or they’ll trample us! Look at all the riders coming over the ridge! They’re heading straight for us!”
“Never mind the riders, look at all those dogs!” Nixie gulped. “Jake, we’ve got to go. They’re on the hunt, they’ve scented blood! If they find us instead of their quarry, they’ll tear us apart, just like they do to the poor fox when they finally catch it!”
He clenched his jaw. “Hold onto me.” He grabbed her elbow to support her on the side where she was hurt. Then he hurried her along across the uneven field, while the baying of dozens of bloodthirsty hounds grew louder, and the ground began to shake with the hoofbeats of the riders bearing down on them.
The red-coated sportsmen flew over fences, water ditches, and fallen logs on their gleaming Thoroughbreds. The dogs streamed through the dog gates of two distant stiles.
All of them, men and dogs alike, had gleaming red eyes.
The hunting horn sounded again.
“Tallyho, lads! There’s our quarry!” boomed the master of the hunt.
“Hurry up!” Jake pulled Nixie up the rungs of the stile.
The pack’s furious barking grew deafening, and the thunder of the horses’ hooves swelled as the riders began leaping over the hedgerow on the far side of the field.
The hounds would be upon them in seconds.
“We’ll never outrun them!” Nixie cried, looking over her shoulder.
But when Jake reached the top of the stile, he stared down at the other side in confusion. Instead of solid ground, the bottom rung gave way to empty air. He caught a whiff of salt breeze from somewhere far below.
Before he could show Nixie his dilemma, she pushed him forward, not realizing he was standing on a ledge. “Go, hurry up, they’re coming!”
“Wait, no—ahhhhh!” Jake lost his balance at her shove.
He fell off the stile, arms flailing, and screamed as he plummeted like a stone through the clouds below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Queen’s Flag
“Don’t worry, this won’t take long,” Dani assured their captive.
“I know you’re nervous about meeting Queen Victoria, but it’s hours until teatime and Jake needs our help!” Archie chimed in.
The two of them had only just succeeded in dragging Isabelle out of the Bradford suite, now that her hair was curled and coiffed to perfection.
“I still don’t see what you need me for,” she protested halfheartedly as they pulled her down the hallway, each holding fast to one of her wrists so she didn’t try to escape. “Where is our cousin, anyway?”
“Oh, he’s interviewing some ghosts to find out if they saw anything last night,” Archie said. “He’ll be back soon, I should think.”
“We just want you to walk around the crowd with us and try to sense who the real thief is, since we know it wasn’t Jake who stole the Queen’s flag,” Dani explained.
“Oh, is that all? Pick an unknown thief out of the crowd?” Isabelle asked dryly. “I thought I had my Assessment two years a
go.”
“Won’t you at least try for a few minutes, please?” her brother insisted, but Dani took a roundabout tack.
“You know, Izzy, Jake blamed Maddox for the theft. If you help us find the real culprit, you’ll be clearing Maddox, too.”
She let out a glum sigh. “Very well. But you can quit harping on about him. Mr. St. Trinian has made his feelings clear.”
“If you believe him,” Dani said with a shrug.
“Guardians don’t lie, remember? Oh, never mind. Let me concentrate.” Isabelle yanked her hands free as the three of them arrived at the top of the staircase above the entrance hall. “Hmm.”
She sauntered down the steps, perusing the throng of excited youngsters waiting to participate in the games that had been organized for them that day.
Dani and Archie exchanged an eager glance.
By the front doors of Merlin Hall, the centaur lady in charge of arranging the day’s entertainments for the children clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention, and when that failed, she banged the marble floor with her front hoof. “Quiet, now! Everybody, please! Let us begin!”
Her fairy helpers buzzed over the children’s heads, shushing them. “Listen up for your instructions!”
Isabelle walked casually along the back wall, scanning the crowd. Dani pursed her lips in thought, then leaned toward Archie.
“What if it wasn’t a kid who took the flag?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “What sort of adult would bother?”
“Good point.”
Someone in the crowd seemed to have got Isabelle’s attention. She stopped, tilted her head, gazing into the middle of the throng. She took a few steps closer, paused again, glanced around, and then walked back to the two of them.
Dani and Archie went down to the bottom step to hear her results just as the centaur lady finished explaining the rules of the treasure hunt to all the children gathered in the entrance hall. The doors opened, and the kids poured out noisily into the sunshine and rushed off to participate in the game.
“I think I’ve got something,” Isabelle said.