Doug mouthed a name: Mr. Everett.
I nodded in agreement. “Professor Everett?” I said. “Is that you?”
The person outside the door hesitated a moment. “McPhee?” he said. “Is that Finley? Are you inside?”
“I’m in the kitchen, Mr. Everett,” I said.
“I’m here, too,” Doug said.
“Hello,” Aiby added.
Professor Everett came into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. In his hand was a walking stick with a carved duck’s beak for a handle.
“What are you three doing here?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “You gave me quite a fright.”
“We might ask you the same question,” I said, surprised by my own courage.
Mr. Everett took a couple of hesitant steps toward us while leaning on the walking stick. He seemed to use it more out of habit than real necessity. When he got to the table in the middle of the kitchen, I couldn’t help but notice the long knife that still lay there amidst the abandoned vegetables.
Professor Everett let out a deep sigh. “This story gets stranger every day,” he said.
“Agreed,” Aiby muttered.
Mr. Everett pulled one of the cane chairs out and sat down, leaning his head on his hands. He locked eyes with my brother. “What are you doing here, Doug?” he said. “Shouldn’t you be working on the farm with your father right now?”
Doug was caught off guard by the accusation, which was probably Mr. Everett’s intent. “Oh, I let him know I needed a couple hours off to . . . to go on a picnic,” Doug said, flushing red.
Aiby smiled. “What about you, Mr. Everett? To put it frankly — what are you doing here?”
He leaned in close to the three of us. “Frankly, you say? All right then, my child, I’ll tell you frankly why I’m here: I was somewhat of a friend to Cumai. In fact, I was a very close friend. I came to see her every week and brought her things from the shop,” Mr. Everett said. He waved his hands at the space around us. “And whenever it was possible, we spent several hours sitting right here and chatting about old times.” He sighed. “And besides, I’m the one who found her.” He pointed to the white doorstep that led to the secret cloister, the one that Doug saw as a simple closet. “Right there, resting on that . . .”
I waited to hear which word he’d choose to describe the magical door.
Doug spoke instead, ruining my plan. “In front of the closet,” Doug said.
Mr. Everett nodded. “Yes, my good boy. The closet.”
I exchanged looks with Aiby. She was clutching the Fludd Lenses in her fist.
“It was a terrible thing,” Mr. Everett added, “and entirely unexpected. After finding her dead, I went to get help. I’ve only now had time to return to clean up her place since no one else will do it.”
“She had a brother,” I said.
“A brother, you say?” he asked. The expression on his face was one of surprise, though his voice was flat. “I’m fairly certain she didn’t have a brother.”
“Come on, Mr. Everett,” Aiby said. “We said we’d talk about things frankly. If you really were Cumai’s friend, I find it unlikely that she never mentioned her brother to you. The one who lives on the islands.”
“The guardian,” I added.
With those few words, Mr. Everett’s face soured. His fingers stiffened as if he were grabbing some invisible object from the air. “But you shouldn’t know about him,” he said, pausing to collect his thoughts. “Ah, but, of course! It was your father, right? It had to have been your father.”
Mr. Everett was looking at Aiby, so I figured he must be referring to Locan Lily.
“So will you tell us what really happened here, Mr. Everett?” Aiby said, her voice impressively calm considering the circumstances.
Mr. Everett’s eyes darted around as quickly as a ferret. It reminded me of my friend Sammy when he cheated on his homework and got caught — an unmistakable blend of anger and guilt.
“Oh, well, it’s a very complicated matter,” Mr. Everett said.
“I can imagine,” Aiby said. “But perhaps I can explain it to you.”
“You shouldn’t be able to explain anything at all,” Mr. Everett muttered. “But certainly, if you know about her brother, then you also know about last night.”
“Of course,” I said. “We also know about the Reverend.”
Mr. Everett’s eyes grew large. “I see,” he said. “And if you know about the Reverend, then you’ll understand why I came here: we divided up the work, so to speak.”
“Who divided up what work?” Aiby asked.
“Those who were with him at the funeral,” Mr. Everett said. “To protect him and to convince them!”
That’s when everything came together. Mr. Lily’s story about the Others who were infuriated by Cumai’s death, Doug’s story about the funeral at sea that the Reverend hadn’t returned from, and Somerled’s story about what had happened inside the mill. Just like that, all became clear to me.
The short tale that followed confirmed it. Apparently Mr. Everett, Reverend Prospero, Mr. McBlack, Mr. McStay, and Piper had left via boat a little after midnight, telling the others they were going to bury old lady Cumai at sea as she’d requested.
“But in reality, we weren’t supposed to bury her at sea,” Mr. Everett confessed. “We were supposed to . . . deliver her.”
“Return her,” Aiby corrected him. Once again Mr. Everett was surprised by what we knew about the situation.
“Yes,” he admitted with difficulty. “We were supposed to return her to the Others. We were supposed to bring her to one of the islands, following a course that only the Reverend knew, and deliver her to her brother. But when we got there, things didn’t go well. There were so many people on that island. People whom none of us had ever seen before. Not even the Reverend, who’s been here many more years than the rest of us, could explain it. But I suppose some things are best left unspoken. Not here, at least.”
“Well said,” mumbled Doug, who must have understood less than a tenth of what Mr. Everett had told us up to that point.
“There were so many of them, as I said — and Wark wasn’t even the angriest,” Mr. Everett said.
“Wark?” I asked.
“Cumai’s brother,” Aiby guessed.
Mr. Everett nodded. “Precisely. All of them were furious. Even the big, stone ones. There was one Other in particular who kept talking angrily,” he said. He rubbed his chin. “Which one was it? No, not the elemental . . . it looked like a woman. A stone woman, that’s right! She was as sharp as a diamond and just as brilliant. So anyway, that was the situation when we arrived at the island. They were waiting for us, and they were furious.”
We were all silent for a long time. I felt a sort of presence near us and turned to look at the apple tree in the cloister. It was covered by shadow, maybe from a cloud passing overhead.
“But if it hadn’t been for that stone woman,” Mr. Everett said, “perhaps they wouldn’t have taken the Reverend hostage. If Prospero were with us now, perhaps we’d have a chance at finding out who killed Cumai . . .”
So that’s why the Others were angry, I realized. They knew that Cumai had been murdered and were insisting that the residents of Applecross hand the culprit over to them. They were holding the Reverend hostage until the killer was turned over to them!
“But we know who it was!” Doug exclaimed. “Isn’t that right, Viper?”
“Shut up, Doug!” I said, but it was too late.
Mr. Everett looked at him. “What did you say?”
“They told me who it was!” Doug said, pointing at Aiby and me.
“Is that true?” asked Mr. Everett.
A small thud came from the cloister behind us as a green apple fell from the tree. It rolled around in the flowers below.
“Who killed Cumai?” Mr
. Everett insisted. “Tell me. Now.”
“Askell,” Aiby murmured.
“Semueld Askell?” Mr. Everett asked.
“Semueld Askell,” I repeated.
Mr. Everett grabbed his head with his hands and tugged like he wanted to pull out his hair. “Oh, no, no, no! It’s impossible, absolutely impossible!”
“Mr. Everett,” said Aiby, “you two were friends, weren’t you?”
“I heard you talking to Askell in your store,” I added.
“It’s true!” Mr. Everett said. “He has come in and spoken to me many times, certainly. He’s a good guy . . . a good man! He just finished his studies at an excellent university. An economics degree from the University of Chicago, in fact. And he knows a lot about magic. He’s asked me many questions and looked for lots of souvenirs. But it couldn’t have been him.”
“We found a shard from his cloak,” I said.
“What cloak?” Mr. Everett asked.
“The one he wears to disguise himself and change shapes,” Aiby whispered. “The Cloak of Mirrors.”
Mr. Everett got to his feet then and leaned on his walking stick with both his hands. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? The Semueld Askell I know is a pleasant young man who doesn’t wear a cloak. I see him go jogging every morning along the coast, always between five and six in the morning. He’s also a trekking enthusiast. He’s asked for practically every map of the paths around the bay. To the best of my knowledge, he’s staying here for a year here to write a book for his university.”
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” Mr. Everett said. “At the campground.”
The Applecross campground was just outside the village in the fields that surrounded the river. For a good part of the year, the Applecross River was little more than a harmless trickle. During the summer, when the first campers’ tents started to appear, it swelled with water.
Hidden from both the coastal road and the one that climbed into the mountains, the campground housed most of the town’s tourists. Bicyclists, kayakers, and trekkers all lodged there. Few of them arrived in cars since the mountain road was dangerous for inexperienced drivers. And besides, the coastal road was much more scenic.
Tourists stayed for a week at most, setting up revolting barbecues on the lawn, or descending on the village to guzzle beers at the Greenlock Pub. Our tourists seemed to love sporting the worst possible combinations of socks and shorts.
McStay, who owned the inn, did not view them highly and therefore his pub didn’t serve them the best mussels and shrimp. But the tourists always seemed happy anyway.
Strangely enough, if the weather grew cold and the campground was hit with a downpour, most tourists seemed even more satisfied with their vacations. Maybe they felt they got the authentic Scottish experience that way. Who knows.
All this, at least, is what Mr. Everett told us about them on the way from Cumai’s mill to the entrance to the campground. But the second part of his story was much more interesting than his snobbish attitude toward the campers. He told us about his friendship with Cumai, with whom he said he’d spent years trading tales.
Previous to their companionship, Mr. Everett had often felt like a boring academic. He was pleasantly surprised by the interest Cumai showed in his field of research: art history.
In turn, Mr. Everett had been fascinated by the fantastic tales told by the strange lady of the mill. When Aiby asked him what kind of tales these were, he told us one about a big tree with white leaves that suddenly sprouted a strange blue leaf.
It was a short and touching tale. Aiby was sniffling, so Mr. Everett handed her his handkerchief. Aiby thanked him for this odd act of gallantry and wiped her eyes, then slipped the handkerchief into my backpack. Patches marked his passage on the hedge that surrounded the campground, then he trotted inside and barked to announce his arrival to us.
The sky was becoming ominously dark. I checked the time on the watch that was ticking away softly in my jeans pocket. Aiby smiled at me, apparently glad I still had it with me.
There were about a dozen tents, each one set up a bit away from the others. A few wooden huts used for showers and toilets were located in the middle. Two cyclists were in the process of hanging a battalion of colored socks on a laundry line. Another two were perched on folding beach chairs while reading books on their tablets.
Even without Mr. Everett’s guidance, we would’ve had no trouble guessing which tent was Semueld Askell’s. At the far end of the campground was a round tent with a conical roof. Its walls were covered with hides and furs. It looked like a small circus tent, except that it was completely white.
Behind the bizarre home, I noticed a giant black jeep with tinted windows and a roof antenna. I pointed it out to Doug.
“Now that is a jeep,” he said in admiration.
We walked over to the tent without saying a word. It smelled of goat and other scents I couldn’t quite place, though none of them were pleasant. Its only entrance was covered by a large, cracked leather hide.
“Semueld?” Mr. Everett called out loudly, stopping at the threshold. “Are you home?”
We waited a moment. Mr. Everett repeated his question. He finally turned to us. “Apparently he’s not here,” he said.
The hide covering the entrance to the tent rose slightly, as if inviting us to enter anyway.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
Aiby slipped on the colored glasses and chose the violet lenses. After a quick look she said, “There isn’t any protection magic present. It’s just a tent.”
“But it’s still Semueld Askell’s tent,” I muttered. “And we certainly can’t tell him we just happened to be passing through.”
Aiby took off the glasses and nodded. “But this could be our only opportunity to . . . take a quick look around. Then we can leave.”
“Do you really think he’d let us? Don’t you think it’s strange he left all his things here without any sort of protection?” I said.
“The Fludd Lenses don’t lie,” Aiby said. “We have nothing to fear.”
Mr. Everett looked inside somewhat uncomfortably. The two tablet readers had turned their backs to us and the sock hangers had disappeared having finished hanging their laundry.
“If you stand guard outside,” Aiby said, “I’ll go in and take a look.”
I nodded. “Fine by me,” I said.
“I’m coming with you, Aiby,” Doug said.
“Why?” I protested.
“This isn’t a good idea, kids,” Mr. Everett said, but he said it like he meant the opposite. I got the feeling he’d brought us here precisely so we’d enter that tent.
“I’m not going inside,” I said, watching for Mr. Everett’s reaction.
“We’ll only take a second,” Aiby said, motioning for Doug to follow her inside.
I kept staring at Mr. Everett, wondering what game he was playing, and whose side he was on.
Aiby slipped beneath the leather hide that was protecting the entrance and inspected the interior. I said nothing, but I was pretty certain we were making the umpteenth mistake of the day. Doug followed her and let the hide drop to the ground behind them.
“Straight into the wolves’ den,” I whispered.
While we were waiting for Aiby and my brother to finish their reconnaissance, I asked Mr. Everett which island they’d taken old lady Cumai to. Mr. Everett’s response was vague, claiming he hadn’t been at the helm, it was the dead of night, and only Reverend Prospero knew the route.
“Was there a bonfire on that island?” I asked him.
“Yes,” Mr. Everett said.
The Professor kept looking back and forth at the tent and the campgrounds as if he were waiting for something to happen.
It seemed like hours passed, though it ha
d only been about five minutes. “How long have they been inside?” I asked.
“They should’ve come out by now,” Mr. Everett said.
Patches wagged his tail as two cyclists appeared at the campground, towing their luggage in a bike cart behind them.
“He’ll be back soon,” Mr. Everett said, his tone grim. “We have to warn them.”
“What do you intend to do?” I asked.
“Wait for me here,” he said.
He lifted the hide and disappeared inside the tent.
I heard him calling out Doug and Aiby’s names. “Let’s get out of here!” he added.
There was no response. “Now what?” I said to myself.
I stood in front of Askell’s giant, smelly tent, wondering why my three companions in adventure had gone silent. I considered taking out the silver watch I had in my pocket, just in case. Maybe I could pull the hand back one hour earlier so I could convince them not to enter the campground. I decided against it, since it didn’t feel like the right time to use it.
Then I heard a child’s laughter. The two cyclists who had just arrived had clearly not brought their luggage in the bike cart. Instead, a happy two-year-old boy poked his head out from the trailer.
Watching them, I found myself smiling and wishing I had traveled with my parents. My mom and dad hadn’t been beyond Glasgow since my brother and I were born. Before that, they’d only been to London a few times.
Hearing the laughter, I put the watch back in my pocket. If that little boy was happy, then it wasn’t the right moment to turn back time. Besides, I figured everything was fine and I just needed to calm down.
“Maybe we should go inside,” I whispered to my companion. “What do you think, Patches?”
As always, he agreed with me. So we went inside.
The interior of Askell’s tent did not look at all like a tent, but rather a giant New York apartment. The floor was covered with white rugs and there were a few elegant lacquered trunks atop them. Between them were some gilded cushions scattered around.
In the middle of the tent was a massive black table cluttered with maps and instruments. On one side, a big hearth contained a roaring inferno worthy of a rocket ship. To the left of the entrance was a discarded machine that looked like an enormous dismantled washing machine, or maybe a turbine for a submarine.
Map of the Passages: 3 (Enchanted Emporium) Page 8