by Mike Rich
Grace offered the same gesture and words to Jack.
There was a protective look to all four of the men, which, now, in this moment of stunning revelation, made perfect sense to Henry.
“I tasked Mr. Grace and his men with watching over all of you,” Skavenger explained with a now tender voice. “Testing you as well, of course, since you began solving my riddles faster than the other hunters. Even faster than that pesky Hiram Doubt.”
He gave the two of them a sly and subtle look as he added, “You shouldn’t have worried, you know. All you had to do was consider the name I’d given him to decide if he was a real threat.”
Ohhhh, of course . . . of course that’s what you did. Doubt!
Skavenger stood in front of them, softly placing a hand on each boy’s shoulder. “They were guarding you, Henry. You too, Jackson. And your good friend, Ernest.” Then he smiled sadly as he said, “Unfortunately, though . . . we very much failed one of you.”
Grace moved closer to face both of them. One in particular.
“Henry,” he said with an almost broken voice. “We tried our best to save her that night in Paris. But the river had already taken her away.” His voice began to struggle, now nothing more than a pained whisper. “I’m glad I was at least able to pull you out.”
Henry looked up at the man who’d been the source of so much of his own fear. The man who’d glided past him on the distant side of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s mansion, who had silently stood outside the cavern of boxes on the train, who had held him high against the railing of the SS Persévérance.
The man who had saved his life.
“That . . . that was you?” Henry managed, even though he was close to speechless. “I . . . I didn’t know who . . . I wasn’t sure . . .”
His voice trailed off as he looked up to offer Grace a nod of extreme gratitude. “Thank you . . . and . . . thanks for trying to save Mattie.”
The once-but-no-longer Dark Man gave Henry a sorrowful nod as Skavenger moved behind the brown oak table and placed his hands on each side of the leather case.
“Gentlemen . . . I think it’s time we discuss the reason that you and many others risked so much during my hunt.” His voice softened as his fingers tapped the small leather satchel. “A fortune both enormous and incalculable.”
It’s NOT money. Not in that tiny thing. It’s gotta be something else. Something better.
Henry saw Jack giving him a puzzled glance—one that Skavenger caught as well. “Problème?” he asked with a wry smile.
“Oh . . . no, sir,” Jack answered. “No problem. I just . . . I guess I wasn’t expecting . . . whatever it is, to be in that.”
Henry thought it best to wait for the right moment to ask his own question. The question that involved Skavenger’s name on the ledger sheet that had been lost in France.
Not only his name, but also a promise.
To whoever has found this page from my ledger: find me. There is a way back.
Henry’s eyes rose up to the architect of the Great Hunt.
“Henry, I have something to ask you,” Skavenger said in his most serious voice yet. “What do you believe is the enormous and incalculable reward for winning this hunt that I constructed? Something no one aside from you and Jackson has ever been able to do.”
Henry didn’t have to ponder long. “I think it’s something we don’t expect it to be,” he answered.
Skavenger said nothing, content to let the small smile now growing on his face speak for itself. He looked toward Jack.
“And you, Jackson?”
Same as Henry, Jack barely wasted a second.
“I think, Mr. Skavenger,” he said almost sheepishly, “I think I’ve already won enough, just by doin’ what nobody thought I could. That’s the real reason I did this in the first place. To show I wasn’t nuthin’.” He then stopped for a moment before finishing. “Whatever your reward is . . . I want Henry to have it.”
Henry was overwhelmed. Not only by what Jack had just said, but because he could have sworn he heard more than one of the Dark Men sniffling back tears.
Skavenger placed his palms on top of the small satchel. His smile had now grown into one of immense pride.
“And now I know,” he said, his hands moving toward the small latch. “Now I know that my reward will go to someone truly worthy. Because it must only go to someone who proves themselves worthy or truly needful in the moment. Someone clever. Someone brave and adventurous. Someone who will make certain my greatest treasure will be used well for their entire lifetime.”
The fire crackled and spit as Skavenger opened the satchel and pulled out a perfectly bound leather journal. Its cover was hard and weathered. He laid it down on the table in front of them.
Henry took in a swift breath.
There it is. That has to be it.
“My father was given this by his father,” Skavenger began, the tips of his fingers now softly pressing down on the cover. “I lost my own father far too soon . . . and . . . I have no child to give it to. And being as I am no longer the young man I once was . . .”
With a single grand move, he folded the leather cover open . . . revealing a hundred, perhaps more, crisp and bright white . . .
LEDGER PAGES!
All of them precisely the same as the single sheet that had brought Henry to 1885.
Each box on the first page was full. Each date and destination complete. The very first line declared that Skavenger saw the Declaration of Independence being signed!
The creator of the Great Hunt looked at the two awestruck young men in front of him. “The origins of this journal are uncertain,” he said with reverence. “But its powers? Its magic? Those are undeniable.”
Jack looked understandably confused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But . . . whaaaat exactly is that?”
“The key to anytime and anywhere, Jackson,” Skavenger answered as if it made all the sense in the world. “A book that can take you to another place, another time. Just tell the ledger when and where you wish to go, out loud”—he snapped his fingers—“and you’re there! Great moments, great rewards! A book that will give you—”
“Another life,” Henry whispered, not quite realizing he’d even said it.
Skavenger tilted his head and fixed him with a long and curious look. “No, Henry,” he said. “We will always have just this one life. But the ledger? The ledger lets us experience the great adventure that our lives are meant to be.”
Jack still looked lost, which, had Henry not used one of the book’s pages himself on Christmas Eve, would have been his look as well.
“Mr. Skavenger?” Henry asked. “If this journal . . . these ledger pages . . . can take us anytime, anywhere. Can we go back and stop things from . . .”
He held back from saying the rest. The old gentleman’s teardrop scar now seemed especially appropriate, because his eyes were quickly welling with tears.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” Skavenger sadly answered. “The things we do, the decisions we make when the ledger takes us somewhere, they can affect the small, inconsequential fragments of one’s history, but they cannot change our destiny.” He swallowed back the emotion overtaking him. “If you hadn’t traveled to Paris, Matilda would have met her fate in a different manner, but she would have met it all the same. At that same age, that same time, that same moment.”
Henry nodded, his eyes falling back on the journal.
“Young man, you have more than proven yourself these past few weeks,” Skavenger assured him, then pushed the ancient ledger forward. “Go on, pick it up! There are hundreds of pages filled with the adventures of my lifetime. If you are truly meant to be its new owner, Henry”—he pointed a long finger at the ghostly-written entries—“My adventures will disappear . . . to make way for yours.”
Henry looked at every face in the room, and the kindness he saw made his own eyes well up with tears.
I’ve only got one adventure I want to take.
Just one.
Even though he’d lost his own ledger page, he now realized he’d found a way back after all. It was resting right there on the table in front of him. A way back . . .
Home.
Carefully, Henry gathered up each side of the journal’s heavy cover and slowly lifted it. There, on the inside, etched into the aged and experienced leather, were the words:
The Adventures of Hunter S. Skavenger
An orange ember snapped in the fireplace as Henry turned to the first page, and then the second; countless adventures and destinations jumped out at him in deep, bold black . . .
Wait . . . wait, hold on . . . aren’t the words supposed to be . . . ?
He looked up to see a grave expression on Skavenger’s face, as well as those of all four Dark Men.
Henry realized in a heartbeat what they were thinking. What he was thinking too. His eyes quickly fell back onto the book in his hands . . . the words on the first page still as dark and black as they were a second earlier.
He sighed the deepest of sighs. All of the places he’d worked to find, all of the places he’d been . . .
The telephone exchange in Hell’s Kitchen. The Vanderbilt Mansion at 5th and 57th. The Jennings Establishment, where he’d first encountered the Colton brothers. The Natchez riverboat on which he’d met Mark Twain. Paris. Le Chasseur. Gustave Eiffel. All of those names, all of those places—they were still only in Henry’s mind and not on the pages of the ledger below.
Henry’s shoulders sagged as he looked up. “It’s not meant for me, is it?”
Because of Mattie, that’s why. If I hadn’t promised her a tower . . .
The creator of the Great Hunt sighed as well. “I’m so sorry, Henry,” was all Skavenger could bring himself to say.
I’m not going home after all. Not ever. I’m stuck in 1885.
Overwhelmed with that knowledge, Henry gently lowered the journal back onto the table. A tear rolled down his cheek.
“No!” Jack angrily shouted and reached for the old ledger. “Don’t give up, Henry! Just hold it longer! Maybe that’s . . .”
A twinkle of soft blue light sparkled and burst from the cover, brightly snaking its way around Jack’s fingers the second they touched the book. He yanked his hand back as if it had just touched a blazing-hot cast-iron skillet.
The eyes of the graceful old gentleman locked on what they’d just seen, and he shook his head in wonder.
Henry understood as well. Even in the middle of his own crushing disappointment, he felt a strong sense of satisfaction that if the ledger wasn’t meant for him, at least it might be meant for . . .
“Jack.” Henry smiled. He reached over and once again lifted the book, but now offered it to the young man who’d taught him so much about fear and how to conquer it.
The hardscrabble street kid who’d always been the toughest and most cynical of the bunch, from when he first grabbed Henry by the collar in Central Park, all the way to their race through Five Points . . . gulped.
Jack’s hands hovered over the book as if he felt he might not really deserve to touch it. For the first time since he’d met him, Henry could see that his great-great-grandfather . . . was frightened.
Jack looked at him and shook his head—not much, but enough to let Henry know he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Henry assured him. “What was it you told me on the ship to France? ‘If you come through it, what reason you got to still be afraid of anything?’”
He then picked up the old leather journal and placed it into Jack’s reluctant hands.
The same burst of twinkling blue light they’d all seen a moment ago flowed outward from the cover and wrapped around the book itself this time; brightly enough that Jack could see the words on the first page. But only for a second or two.
July 4th, 1776, Philadelph . . .
July 4th, 1776, Phil . . .
July . . .
One by one, the words began to fade and disappear from the ledger. Henry held his breath as he watched each entry become nothing more than a vacant white box. Jack turned the page with a trembling hand, witnessing the same thing happening on the second page.
It is for him. It’s always been for him.
Jack fanned the entire ledger and the hundred or more pages blurred from a graying charcoal into a nearly eye-blinding white as they quickly whipped by in his hand.
Skavenger’s list of adventures . . . now completely gone.
“Turn back to the cover, on the inside,” Skavenger instructed with a knowing smile.
Jack did just that. And there . . . elegantly etched in the interior of the front leather cover were the words:
The Adventures of Jackson Babbitt
He lifted his head to look at Skavenger, who then said the words the young man had waited a lifetime to hear.
“Well done, Jackson.”
“Thank you,” Jack managed to somehow reply through a sudden and obvious swirl of emotion. Even the Dark Men, all four, gave him a thump on the back to congratulate him.
“We have much, much to talk about, you and I, which shall begin in just a moment.” Skavenger gestured with his hand for Jack to give the journal back to him. “Not to worry, the ledger’s yours and yours alone. However . . . I do wish to have a private word with Henry, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure, of course,” Jack replied, handing it back to him before exchanging a dazed, bewildered smile with Henry and then following the Dark Men out of the room.
All was quiet aside from the snapping, bright fire.
Skavenger held the ledger with one hand and his cane with the other. “Quite a night, wouldn’t you say?” he asked.
“Yes,” Henry replied, looking down for a second. “It sure has been.”
Skavenger’s curious look returned, now that it was just the two of them. “Henry Babbitt,” he said, cocking his head, “there are things I suspect about you, things I’m quite certain would be difficult for you to explain. Would I be correct in that assumption?”
“I think you might be, sir,” Henry answered.
“I thought so.” Skavenger sighed and Henry could tell he was pondering what to do. “Young man, I have two options for you,” the creator of the Great Hunt went on to say. “I have a carriage outside that can take you to your home, wherever it is here in the city, safe and sound. Or . . .”
Skavenger opened the journal to the very back and ripped out . . . a single, precious ledger sheet. He held it up between two fingers as he closed the cover with his other hand.
“Perhaps this would be of more help,” he suggested with a prying twinkle in his eye.
The young man’s eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. “But it won’t work for me. Will it?”
The graceful gentleman stood and moved closer to him. “You’re forgetting what I said about the journal and its powers, Henry. It works for those who are worthy or truly needful in the moment. Why this will work for you now, while the journal as a whole won’t, you should be able to figure out.” Skavenger offered the young boy a kind smile.
Henry did the same in return. It wasn’t the largest of smiles quite yet, but rather a faint and hopeful one.
“Unless you choose the carriage ride, that is.” Skavenger held the ledger sheet a short, tantalizing distance away from the young hunter. “I was thinking of keeping a single sheet anyway, had no one solved this year’s hunt. Maybe leave it somewhere. You know, one last clue to be found . . . whenever.”
“Maybe in the Astor Library,” Henry suggested. “Two hundred and fourteen pages inside some book.”
Skavenger no longer “suspected” a thing. He knew.
“You should definitely take this.” He twisted his fingers to let the ledger sheet dip in Henry’s direction, followed a second later by the ancient journal. The hopeful young boy took both.
“Give the journal back to Jackson.” Skavenger smiled. “Then the two of you meet me in the carriage. I’m sure you can offer directions as to where I should probably t
ake you.”
Henry somehow found a way to nod. It wasn’t easy, given the flutter of anticipation he now felt with the blank ledger sheet right there in his quivering hand.
Skavenger gave him a proud pat on the shoulder and then walked toward the door, but not before stopping to look back one more time.
“Henry,” he quietly said as he leaned the wolf-headed cane against the wall, never to retrieve it. “You should know that you and Jackson were both more than worthy of the journal.” He then turned and looked straight at him.
“It’s just not your time yet. Is it?”
And with that, Hunter S. Skavenger smiled and walked out.
A moment later, Henry found Jack waiting by himself just inside the front door. He handed him the age-old ledger.
“Thanks,” Jack quietly said, and then broke into still-stunned laughter. “He wants me to go with him so he can show me how this thing even works. Can you believe it?”
“It’s pretty incredible.” Henry grinned.
“No kiddin’, it is.”
Jack poked his thumb toward the door. “Well . . . you ready to go? Should be a little easier going out of here than coming in. Carriage and Dark Men and all. I’m gonna need you to be there for me when—”
Jack’s voice stopped cold. He’d just noticed the single ledger sheet in Henry’s hands.
“Oh, yeah.” Henry held it up, knowing it all probably looked confusing. “Mr. Skavenger gave me this one so that I can, well, it’s uhhhh . . . kind of a really, really long story, Jack. I’ll tell you everything on the way to where you’re gonna drop me off.”
“Wait . . . you . . . drop you off?” Jack stammered.
Henry held up a hand to calm him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be okay. I hope.” He could tell things were now starting to tumble into place for his fourteen-year-old, maybe fifteen-year-old, ancestor.
“But,” Jack sputtered some more, “the only reason you’d need one of those is so you could . . . wait, you mean . . . all this time . . . Babbitt?”