The Door in the Alley

by Adrienne Kress

  “Nice llama,” said the melted man with a bit of a laugh, raising his hand to pet the animal. He placed his hand on the top of its head and, much to Evie’s disappointment, the llama stayed put. “What a nice stupid beastie,” he said, giving the top of its head a scratch.

  The llama stared and chewed.

  Then the llama spat.

  He spat right in the melted man’s face, and the melted man recoiled and stumbled backward. “You stupid animal!” he growled, wiping at his face. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at the llama and Evie gasped. Surely he wasn’t about to kill the lovely creature. But she watched in relief as one of the llama’s friends charged the man and hit him right in his ribs with its head. It so surprised the melted man that he was knocked off his feet, his gun flying out of his hand. More llamas surrounded him and started kicking at him and spitting, and Evie took the moment to give her plan a go. She dove into the herd and fell right on top of the man. He stared at her in shock for a moment and then she quickly reached into his left jacket pocket. It had to be somewhere on him. It had to be. For their part, the llamas were kind enough to keep their kicking to the melted man, though one struck her by mistake on her thigh, causing her to look up and wince from the pain. The culprit made a guttural trill by way of apology. There was no time to nurse her leg; she had to find the key. She shoved her hand into his right jacket pocket.

  The key…the key…

  Why was she always looking for a key…?

  The key!

  She pulled herself up and the llamas closed in once more around the man. She turned and started running toward the low fence. She had to get back to the Reptile Realm as fast as she could before the melted man escaped. She felt so stupidly slow. Suddenly she sensed someone was keeping pace with her. Shoot. It was him. He’d made it out of the herd! She turned and was pleasantly surprised to see not a scary melted man, but the male llama jogging beside her. She stopped. The llama stopped. They looked at each other.

  Or maybe…

  “So how do we escape, then?” asked Catherine.

  “We didn’t really have one planned,” admitted Sebastian, playing with his piece of straw and feeling more and more hopeless as the minutes ticked by.

  Catherine sighed sadly. “I suppose that is typical of the young of any species. They don’t tend to plan ahead.”

  “That’s actually really untrue,” said Sebastian, feeling defensive. “We’ve done really well…up until this point.”

  Catherine didn’t say anything, just exchanged a look with Penelope that made Sebastian more angry. He stood up in a huff. “You know what? We didn’t need to do any of this. I certainly shouldn’t be here. None of this is any of my business.” He could feel the tears welling up, ready to burst forth, and it terrified him. “And now Evie’s in serious danger, and when those men come back who knows what they’ll do and—”

  “Who’s that?” asked Catherine, staring out of the terrarium.

  Sebastian turned and saw Evie racing toward them. She stopped abruptly in front of the glass and placed her palms against it, staring at them wide-eyed. Sebastian flew over in pure relief and said loudly, so she could hear him through the glass, “You’re okay!”

  Evie grinned and held up a key.

  “She can get us out of here!” said Catherine, sounding impressed.

  “Yes!” said Sebastian, now feeling guilty he had been so worried that Evie was in danger and couldn’t take care of herself when all this time she was being awesome. He pointed to the right. “The door’s over there!” he said, and Evie nodded. She dashed out of sight and a moment later the door to the terrarium was flung open.

  “You’re okay!” she said.

  “You’re okay too!” he said.

  “Okay, you two…young…people. Let’s get out of here!” Sebastian turned and saw that Catherine was now standing, free from Penelope, who slithered up to Evie and gave her a once-over. For the first time Sebastian could see just how tall Catherine was—over six feet—and he was surprised how young she still looked. She had aged a little bit since the pictures, with small, almost imperceptible lines around her eyes and mouth, but otherwise she looked almost exactly the same as twenty years ago. Her hair was as brilliant red as ever, not a gray hair to be seen.

  “Are you Catherine Lind?” asked Evie as Catherine walked over to the door. She said it with a slight almost-shyness, it sounded like.

  “I am,” replied Catherine, turning and looking at her. Her voice softened. “Evie Drake. You look just like your grandfather. But a female. And a kid. Like a baby goat.” The two appraised each other for a moment, Evie staring at her with one of her classic unreadable expressions and Catherine looking her up and down with considerable interest as if she were a newly discovered species. Then Catherine said, “Okay, let’s go.” She turned to Penelope and gave her one final scratch. “Thank you, girl. You saved my life.” Then the three of them ran out of the terrarium and through the main doors of the Reptile Realm.

  The fresh air felt wonderful on Sebastian’s face, but he had no time to enjoy it, fearing at any moment the men would reappear. All three of them continued apace, running past a llama standing on the side of the pathway, chewing. Sebastian gave it a quick look and then looked at Evie.

  “He let me ride him back here. It’s…a long story,” she said, and Sebastian nodded. It must be.

  They tore through the zoo as fast as they could. They turned onto the main thoroughfare and stopped short. Right by the gates stood the wired-jaw man, looking smugly proud of himself.

  There’s another exit. “This way!” said Sebastian, and he started down the small path that ran perpendicular to the gates. The man saw them and began chasing them.

  “Where are you going?” called out Catherine.

  “There’s a side exit for school visits,” Sebastian shouted back.

  “Are you sure?” she yelled again.

  “He’s got a photographic memory!” Evie called out.

  Why can’t people just trust without questioning everything? wondered Sebastian. It was extremely frustrating. And sure enough, there it was, the side exit. And beyond it a street with some shops, with people even sitting on a patio for lunch. It was very strange seeing people just having a relaxing day after all they’d been through.

  They burst out through the gates and turned down the street. Without really thinking too much about it, knowing that the wired-jaw man was still somewhere behind them, Sebastian quickly turned down a narrow alley and then, seeing a side entrance to a café, led Catherine and Evie inside. They burst into the packed café and came to a frantic stop. Then Sebastian collected himself and walked as casually as he could into the middle of the large crowd waiting for their drinks to be made, Catherine ducking down a little to disguise her height. Sebastian glanced out the front windows just in time to see the wired-jaw man fly by. Sebastian turned quickly and crouched right in front of a table of two teenagers. He stared at their black ankle boots and thick gray socks with red stripes for a moment.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Holding his breath in fear.

  He looked ahead and saw Evie also on the ground.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” asked one of the teens, bending down and looking at him.

  “Oh yeah, sorry, I dropped…something….”

  “Okay. Cool.”

  More waiting.

  More waiting.

  How much more waiting?

  And when would he be able to breathe again?

  “Okay, kids, it’s safe to stand up,” said Catherine from above them. Her brown work boots came into view and Sebastian slowly stood up. “He’s gone. For now.”

  Sebastian nodded and felt his heart calm to a more regular rhythm. He looked at Evie, who was pushing her hair back behind her ears.

  “That’s a relief,” said Evie, and she walked over to Catherine. That’s an understatement, thought Sebastian. “Now,” she said, “I think we need to talk.”

 
; They found a small table at the back of the café, far away from any windows and well hidden by the crowd still standing around the counter, and ordered three hot chocolates. Evie honestly couldn’t think of anything that had ever tasted better in her life. Maybe staring death in the face just made things tastier. She certainly didn’t feel much like testing her theory any more than she just had, though.

  “But you’re both so young,” Catherine was saying, still staring at them in confusion.

  “Maybe, but we need to protect the key and save my grandfather,” Evie said, wondering what being young had to do with anything. “We need you. It’s as simple as that. My grandfather needs you,” she added, making her voice more patient-sounding.

  “Can’t you just help us?” pressed Sebastian.

  “Please.” Evie opened her eyes as wide as they could go, trying to look as helpless and sweet as possible.

  Catherine was quiet for a moment longer, and then, when Evie felt like she was about to fall to her knees and pathetically beg in desperation, she said, “You look like a little puppy dog with that expression. I like puppies. I suppose when you think about it,” she said almost to herself, “kids are a bit like puppies, really.”

  Evie wasn’t sure where this train of thought was leading, but she hoped it was in their favor. Catherine smiled a small smile for the first time.

  “I’m not great with humans,” she confessed.

  “Me neither,” said Sebastian.

  Catherine turned to him and, after a moment, nodded. “Well, I think first of all I need to understand more about what’s going on here. Can I see this letter from Alistair?”

  Evie felt a little nervous as she passed her grandfather’s letter to Catherine. It was weird, but after all this effort trying to track down someone from the Filipendulous Five to help, she all of a sudden wondered if they were right to have done so. I mean, what did she really know about Catherine anyway? Could she be trusted? Still, what choice did they have?

  “Wait. This can’t be,” said Catherine as she read the letter. She looked up at Evie in surprise. It was the first time she’d come across as truly thrown for a loop—not suspicious, not concerned, but honestly intrigued.

  “What?” asked Sebastian.

  “When did you get this?” Catherine quickly passed the letter back to Evie.

  “Three days ago. But the Andersons got it last week,” she replied.

  “Yes, it’s starting to make sense,” Catherine said, thinking hard. “Alistair sent me a letter last week as well.”

  “What?” asked Sebastian, wide-eyed.

  “Well, it really was nothing that pressing, just a regular letter. Once in a while I do get letters from the team, except Doris. She has completely vanished.” Catherine seemed sad as she said it. “It mentioned nothing of being in trouble, which is why I found all this quite surprising at first, but now, reading this letter…I remember how mine was strangely phrased, not a usual ‘this is what I’m up to these days’ kind of thing. It was odd, I remember that. Then I thought maybe he was just getting a little long in the tooth, as it were. But now…now I think he wrote a hidden message in mine. I think…I could be wrong, but that bit about the four directions, it’s too poetic really for him….”

  “ ‘The four directions all point home,’ ” quoted Evie, reading the letter again herself. She looked up when she realized. “You say you got a letter….Maybe you all got letters?”

  “There is no way of knowing for certain right now, but…”

  “The four directions, that’s the four of you. All four of you got letters, and they all point to ‘home.’ They point to where Alistair is.” Yes, that was it! It hadn’t been a clue to find Benedict at all. It had been a clue to find her grandfather! Evie was starting to feel excited and hopeful again.

  “I do believe so. I do believe he’s asking all of us to save him,” agreed Catherine. “And he gave us each some kind of clue that when combined with the others will tell us how to do so.”

  “Why would he do that? Why would he speak in riddles in the first place?” asked Sebastian, confused.

  “I don’t know.” Catherine leaned back in her chair and furrowed her brow.

  “Maybe,” Evie said slowly. “Maybe so that no one letter could reveal where he was? Maybe…” She thought harder. All this time deep down she’d assumed that there had been a connection between the men and her grandfather. That the reason he was in danger had to do with them, that they maybe even had him prisoner or something. But she had actually never had any evidence of that at all. Maybe she’d been wrong. “Maybe I was wrong; these men don’t have him at all. He’s in danger somewhere else, trapped somewhere else, and the men are also looking for him. He’s being careful so that if a letter fell into the wrong hands, they couldn’t find him!” Her heartbeat was so loud in her throat she felt a need to speak over its thudding.

  “Shh!” said Catherine quickly.

  Evie nodded, glancing over her shoulder. Fortunately, no one in the café seemed to have noticed her outburst. It was so hard to contain it all, though; it was all making so much sense…except…No. No it wasn’t. “But why would those men be looking for him at all?” she asked. “I mean, he doesn’t have the key, and they clearly know that, so what does he have that they want?”

  Catherine leaned forward in her seat and picked up her mug of hot chocolate. “His piece of the map,” she said, then took a sip.

  “His piece of what map?” asked Evie. This was new. There was a map, too?

  Catherine took a moment, and then seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I think…yes, I think it’s time to tell you the story,” she said slowly.

  “The story of what?” asked Evie.

  “Of why the Filipendulous Five disbanded all those many years ago.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Sebastian, practically jumping out of his seat. This time a few people sitting at the table beside them glanced over at the noise. “I mean,” he said, settling himself down, “yes, please. I’m very curious about that.”

  “Well,” began Catherine after giving him a look, “our last expedition was meant to take us deep into the Mariana Trench. Do you know what that is?”

  “I do!” said Sebastian, raising his hand high into the air. Evie shook her head. He was so delightfully odd sometimes.

  Catherine looked confused. She pointed at Sebastian hesitantly. “Uh, yes…,” she said, “young boy?”

  “Sebastian,” he reminded her. “I have the answer.”

  “Oh,” Catherine said, puzzled. “Okay.”

  “The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the last places on all the earth that hasn’t been explored. No one knows what’s down there.”

  “Yes, that’s the Mariana Trench,” said Catherine with a smile. “Well done, Sebastian the boy. Except you’re wrong about one thing. It has been explored. By us.” She looked away for a moment, almost seeming to forget the two of them were there.

  “No, that’s impossible. The trench is so deep in the ocean that no human has been able to reach its farthest depths.” Sebastian sat with his mouth agape, and Evie thought it would have looked kind of funny if this weren’t such a serious moment.

  Catherine’s expression seemed to grow darker, heavier. “It was to be the greatest exploration of all time. We built a special submarine for the venture, one that wouldn’t be crushed under the weight of all the water on top of it, one that was able to dive to depths previously never humanly possible. We packed it up, we piloted it deep into the ocean, and we made our way into the dark unknown of the trench. The creatures that live down there, you cannot even imagine.” Catherine’s eyes got a little misty as she continued to look off somewhere into the distance. “It was a treacherous journey, and we almost didn’t make it until we came upon something so completely bizarre it changed everything.”

  “What? What was it?” asked Sebastian, leaning forward.

  “We suddenly found ourselves emerging out of
the water. This was completely unexpected and seemed to defy all the laws of physics. But it happened. And before us was a waterfall, tall and shimmering in the light from our submarine. As we climbed out of the vessel, we were covered in its fine mist. I’d never felt more alive, more ready for whatever adventures might come my way. I felt ten years younger.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Evie. She was starting to see where this story was going. Catherine nodded at her.

  “Yes, whatever the water was, wherever we were, there was some kind of special property that made us feel younger and more alive.”

  “A fountain of youth,” Evie breathed in awe.

  “Well, no, not really. It wasn’t a fountain, it was a waterfall. And we don’t know if it made us actually younger or made us just feel that way. We took a sample and left. But we never got a chance to study it. On our journey back to the surface we encountered a beast unlike any I had ever seen before. Twice the size of the submarine, with sharp teeth and incredible strength. Also, despite its size, it was terribly agile and quick. It attacked our ship and we fought it. Fought it long and hard. The ship’s structural integrity was compromised. We couldn’t escape the beast, and none of our smaller weapons could pierce it. So finally we shot a missile at it.”

  “You have missiles?” said Sebastian, but Catherine ignored the question.

  “The creature easily outmaneuvered the weapon, but the missile struck a rock wall behind it, showering large debris onto the beast and burying it. The result was our freedom, yes, but what we did not know until we surfaced was that the explosion into the rock had triggered an earthquake. The earthquake was so large that it had produced a tsunami that, by the time it reached land, washed out all the homes and businesses of a small island nation nearby.”

  “That’s terrible!” said Evie, aghast.

  “It was,” said Catherine softly. She took a moment before she continued. “Everyone assumed it was caused naturally, but we knew the fault was ours. We did what we could. We gave them all the money we had earned over the years of exploring. We stayed for a year and a half, helped rebuild the island, and when it was done, when all our money had been spent, we had no desire to explore again. So much damage that did not need to have happened, just because we wanted to be the best, to discover all the secrets of the world. It was selfish.”