So when his knees made contact with the shallow riverbed, he splashed up with a gasp and blindly bolted toward the unguarded horses. He immediately felt the sting of water upon opening his eyes. Everything was eerily quiet, but once McNutt’s ears popped, the frightening curses of the Furnace Brook men could be heard closing in on him.
McNutt safely reached the forest’s edge, but as he mounted a horse, a scythe came slicing through the air, missing his arm by only inches. However, the furious men startled the horse as much as they’d scared McNutt, and soon the animal was charging away.
McNutt steered the horse down the rift in the trees the others had gone through. With angry shouts filling the air, McNutt rode on, knowing he would soon be chased as aggressively as he pursued the Van Cortlandt descendants.
But McNutt had to keep Catharine and Henry from obtaining the Sister Wheel. No amount of Furnace Brook men would stop him.
en Sylvan Terrace was a three-story yellow row house with green shutters located on a narrow cobblestone road that once functioned as a carriageway to an old mansion. Coach lights illuminated the other identical row houses crammed along Sylvan Terrace. But Maggie didn’t see any of that when her underground sleigh came upon the tunnel marked 188D.
“Here we are,” Ward announced, hopping off the sleigh and sprinting toward the tunnel entrance. Maggie, Clemmie, and Louis quickly followed.
The passage was different than the one under Chelsea Manor. Instead of being led directly to the ash pit, the tunnel was full of doors. Ward hurried past the entrances, muttering directions under his breath. Upon reaching the end of the passage, Ward turned left and disappeared through a doorway.
“This way,” his hushed voice called.
The pit was smaller than the one under Chelsea Manor. But there was still a mound of ash just below the ceiling, and Maggie wondered how they would get inside the house.
Apparently thinking the same thing, Louis stretched out an arm and lunged upward, trying to touch the ceiling in hopes of triggering an opening. But his efforts fell short and he landed clumsily on top of the ash pile.
Clemmie let out a hearty chuckle while Ward stared blankly at Louis before walking over to a darkened corner. He returned a moment later with a ladder.
Wet ash flew from Louis’ mouth as he blew a raspberry. He looked at Ward in annoyance as he steadied himself up on his knees. “And how did you find that?”
“Every ash pit has one,” Ward said simply, placing the ladder against a barely visible square frame in the ceiling. Maggie spotted a smirk twitching at the edge of Ward’s lips as he added, “We’re Foundlings, Louis. Not birds.” Ward scrambled up the ladder and slapped his palm on the frame’s center, causing the square to vanish. “It’s about knowing where to strike.”
Ward looked down at the Moore grandchildren and raised his eyebrows. “Is everyone ready? We are breaking into someone’s home, so no one will come to our defense if we’re caught. Surprisingly, not even the Garrisons.” Ward’s tone was light, but the underlying seriousness did not go unnoticed by Maggie. “So if you have any sneezes, coughs or other unnecessary noises, please kindly make them now.”
As Louis climbed the ladder after Ward, Clemmie gave Maggie a supportive shove, insisting she go next. The wobbly ladder creaked under her feet, but Maggie quickly reached Ward and Louis’ extended hands. They pulled her into the dirty cellar of Ten Sylvan Terrace with Clemmie arriving shortly after.
A window on the front end of the cellar let in a cool glow from the street outside. Old furniture and wooden barrels were packed against the walls with the exception of a round table with mismatching chairs. On top of the table, situated in the center of the room, was a single candle imprisoned within its own melted wax.
The back area was made extra dark by boarded up windows. In the corner there appeared to be a kitchen covered in tilting stacks of plates. A squeaking mouse weaved through the dishes, apparently indifferent to the intruders.
“Do you think we should search down here?” Ward asked.
Like Maggie, he seemed to notice there wasn’t a grandfather clock in sight.
“Only if we don’t find a clock upstairs.” Maggie tried to sound confident, but the truth was, if they didn’t find a grandfather clock, she didn’t know where else to look. The key could have been easily discarded years ago.
But Maggie tried not to worry about that possibility yet.
After emerging from the cellar and into the foyer on the main floor, Maggie could see the street through the window on the front door. The doorway to the left led to a parlor packed with furniture, including a regal grandfather clock ticking softly next to the fireplace. Silently, the group crept closer, and Clemmie, easily the tallest of the four, reached on top of the clock. But after churning up a cloud of dust, Clemmie’s hand returned with nothing.
Maggie, Louis, and Ward opened the glass panel and went about looking for the key inside the clock, clunking the weights and chains aside and feeling around the bottom. Ward even peeked under the clock, in case the key had fallen.
“Are you sure it’s not up there?” Maggie pleaded with Clemmie.
Rolling up his sleeves with a sigh, Clemmie made a second attempt at the top of the clock. Once again, his dusty hand returned empty.
“Anywhere else it could be?” Ward whispered, scanning the dark room.
Although the key could very well be hidden amongst the parlor’s numerous bookcases, searching through the endless shelves was a bit improbable. Instead Maggie nodded toward the desk in the corner.
Clemmie and Ward began rummaging around the desk, opening screeching drawers and shuffling through stacks of papers. But after a few minutes of unsuccessfully searching, Clemmie and Ward gave up.
A knot twisted in Maggie’s stomach as Ward patted her shoulder, trying to ease the disappointment. “We still haven’t looked upstairs.”
Ward led them back to the foyer and then crept up the staircase to the second floor. When reaching the top, he held out his hand to signal the others to wait while he checked if the coast was clear. Ward disappeared for a few moments, but when he returned, he waved them up.
The group stayed close together at first, just four shadows moving along the hallway. Then Maggie and Louis went down the hall to the farthest door while Clemmie and Ward started with the nearest.
Maggie and Louis opened the door and found a bedroom with white sheets eerily draped over the furniture. None of the ghostly figures looked to be clock shaped. But Maggie and Louis still picked up the ends of the sheets and peered underneath. They were just peeking below one that turned out to be a dresser when a door slammed in the hallway and then another violently swung open.
“Who the hell are you?” a deep voice shouted.
Maggie’s insides dropped.
The house wasn’t as empty as they thought.
Maggie and Louis scrambled to the bedroom door. Glancing out into the hall, the cousins not only spotted the silhouettes of Clemmie and Ward, but also a thick shadow of a man whose width was greater than the other two combined. A long shiny object was angled in front of Clemmie and Ward, and it took Maggie a moment to recognize that it was a sword.
The man had to be Sir Pringle Taylor.
“What are you doing in my house?” Sir Pringle wiggled the antiquated sword under Clemmie and Ward’s chins.
A few seconds of silence ticked by as Ward’s arm rose above his head. Maggie thought she spied something in his hand. And then with one sudden motion, Ward threw the object to the ground, releasing a storm of powder. The wide figure of Sir Pringle collapsed into a coughing fit while Clemmie and Ward stumbled toward the stairs.
“Run!” Ward shouted.
Maggie and Louis covered their faces as they struggled through the hazy hallway. But a familiar spice permeated the inside of her mouth.
Cinnamon.
Ward had dropped some kind of cinnamon explosion.
The spice-tinged air stung Maggie’s eyes, but it was the only o
pportunity to get by Sir Pringle who was against the wall, wheezing and wailing. His sword continued to fiercely wave as though dueling with the pungent scent. And Louis had to quickly dodge a blow while lunging toward the staircase.
Maggie had reached the main floor when Sir Pringle bounded after them.
“Hurry!” Ward cried, holding open the cellar door and waving to the others frantically.
They rushed down the cellar steps as Ward slammed the door behind them.
Maggie, Clemmie, and Louis charged toward the fireplace while Ward desperately held the door shut at the top of the stairs. Sir Pringle was trying to heave open the door from the other side.
“Go down!” Ward called. “Now!”
Heeding Ward’s instructions, Clemmie and Louis dropped down the fireplace opening. But Maggie hesitated.
“Come on, Maggie!” Clemmie yelled.
Maggie watched as Ward made one last effort at holding Sir Pringle at bay. Knowing he couldn’t keep the door closed much longer, Ward forcefully threw it open, knocking Sir Pringle back. Ward then ran toward Maggie whose legs were dangling in the fireplace hole.
“Drop!” Ward shouted.
Maggie plunged straight down, landing between Clemmie and Louis on the mound of ash just as Ward and Sir Pringle neared the fireplace. Ward leapt toward the opening and the Moore grandchildren watched in horror as the Foundling’s ankle was grabbed by a beefy hand in the middle of his desperate dive. His body was quickly pulled back up into the cellar.
The ladder rattled in Maggie’s hands as Ward and Sir Pringle scuffled on the floor above.
“Get… off… me,” Ward grunted, frantically trying to break free from Sir Pringle’s grasp.
“Where are your little friends? Why don’t you get them to help you?”
Maggie started back up the ladder, but was stopped by Louis.
“Don’t go!”
But Maggie brushed away Louis’ hand and continued climbing. When she peeked through the fireplace hole, Sir Pringle held Ward in a headlock, the sword poised under the Foundling’s throat.
“Now tell me, what are you doing in my house?” Sir Pringle growled, his heavy jowls quaking around his shaggy white moustache.
Sir Pringle was a hefty man; dressed head to toe in vertically striped long johns with white buttons that were straining to keep his large gut from bursting out the front. A blue nightcap sat high on his hairless head, leaving his thick, unkempt eyebrows to rest alone on the top of his wrinkled face.
Ward wiggled in Sir Pringle’s locked arm.
“Stop it,” Sir Pringle grumbled. “Stop moving.”
Sir Pringle brought the sword closer to Ward’s neck and nicked the skin like a razor that slipped while shaving.
“Release him,” Maggie declared, kicking her feet to avoid Clemmie and Louis who were trying to pull her back into the ash pit.
Maggie hopped out of the fireplace and stood in front of Sir Pringle and Ward. She had hoped Sir Pringle would be caught off guard by her reappearance, but she didn’t quite anticipate him to react as he did.
After seeing Maggie, Sir Pringle dropped his sword and backed into the wax-covered table, looking as though he had just seen something not of the living world.
A fat finger quivered Maggie’s direction. “You… you… you.”
The words were repeated over and over until Maggie finally asked, “What about me?”
Sir Pringle began pacing around the table, frantically muttering, “This is not real. A dream. All a vision of the mind.”
Maggie and Ward shared an uncertain look while Clemmie and Louis’ heads popped out of the fireplace hole.
“What’s happening?” Clemmie hissed.
Ward picked up the sword Sir Pringle had dropped. “I am unsure.”
“A ghost. A spirit,” Sir Pringle continued muttering.
“Who?” Ward asked.
Sir Pringle waved his hand at Maggie as he fell into one of the chairs behind the table. “You―you look… Catharine. It can’t be.”
“Catharine?” Ward repeated and glanced over at Maggie.
Maggie stepped forward and Sir Pringle jerked back in his seat.
“Grandmother Catharine?”
“Grandmother?”
“Your sister, Catharine. She is my grandmother,” Maggie explained slowly. “She married Clement Clarke Moore and had my mother, Mary.”
Sir Pringle continued to stare at Maggie with a gaping mouth.
“These are my cousins, Clemmie and Louis. They also are Clement and Catharine’s grandchildren.”
Sir Pringle glanced from Maggie to the two boys. “I wouldn’t believe it, but you look so much like Catharine. But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
Maggie hadn’t expected to be explaining the Nikolaos of Myra, Poppel, and Van Cortlandt history again that night. But starting with Grandmother Catharine and Sidney Livingston, Maggie condensed the epic family tale into a short narrative while Sir Pringle quietly listened.
“I always knew that Clement Clarke Moore was a bad sort,” Sir Pringle spat.
“I beg your pardon?” Maggie asked, not expecting that to be his first comment.
“I never met the man. I lived in England when he married my sister and didn’t return to America until after she had died. But I knew about him. And when Moore was named the author of that Christmas poem, I sensed something was awry.”
“The poem is hardly the issue here,” Ward said, placing his hands on his hips “If we don’t find the key for the Sister Wheels, the Garrisons will see to it that the Moores and Livingstons are destroyed.”
“Is that so? And why is that my problem?” Sir Pringle said, straightening up in his chair. “Why should I help you?”
“Because you are a Van Cortlandt descendant,” Ward continued. “They will come for you as well. I assure you that they don’t want to take any chances.”
“Well, there’s no reason for them to seek me out,” Sir Pringle sniffled. “I know nothing about these Sister Wheels. But I can say with absolute certainty that the key is not here.”
“How can you be so sure?” Clemmie asked.
Sir Pringle stared confidently at Clemmie. “Because when I inherited the place, I went through the entire house, and I can tell you, there was no key.”
Maggie sighed. “Then where else could it be?”
Sir Pringle rested his fat hands on top of his belly. “You said that one of the Sister Wheels was found in the fireplace at Chelsea Manor?”
Maggie nodded.
“So it was obviously put there by Catharine and her daughter, Margaret, since they were the only ones who knew of this Pebble or Poople place.”
“Poppel,” Ward corrected firmly.
“Right, Poppel,” Sir Pringle snorted. “So if Catharine had gone through all the trouble of bringing the Sister Wheel from Sylvan Terrace to Chelsea Manor in order to carry on the family secret, wouldn’t you think she would have also taken the key and hid it somewhere in the Manor as well?”
Maggie looked over to Ward, Clemmie, and Louis. They stood silent, processing Sir Pringle’s valid point.
“But where in Chelsea Manor?” Maggie turned back to Sir Pringle. “It would be nearly impossible to find and we haven’t got much time.”
Sir Pringle stuck up his finger. “Not nearly as impossible as you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever we may think of your grandfather, I know my sister and I doubt she would have kept all of this from Clement Clarke Moore.”
“You think Grandfather Clement knows where the key is?” Maggie asked.
She hadn’t even considered that possibility.
“Again, I never met Moore. And I do not doubt what you say about the Christmas poem,” Sir Pringle said. “But Catharine never would have married a man she didn’t trust. She may not have told him everything, but it’s unlikely that she didn’t confide any of this to him. I know that Catharine died rather suddenly. But if this key were as impo
rtant as you say it is, Catharine would have told Moore. I’m sure of it.”
“So what do you suggest?” Maggie asked.
Sir Pringle cocked one of his bushy eyebrows and curled his lip. “You have to return to Chelsea Manor.”
Ward threw up his arms in frustration. “It will take forever to get there from here. It’s a long way south and on a completely different track in the sleigh tunnel. We would have to go all the way back to Poppel to switch to the correct one.”
Sir Pringle shot up to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process.
“I have a horse and carriage,” he announced. “I can take you.”
But before the Moore grandchildren and Ward could accept the proposal, a familiar purple ball floated up from the fireplace hole that had been left open.
Ward spotted the sugarplum first and quickly dove toward the gleaming sphere. He knew its arrival likely meant bad news. So popping the sugarplum into his mouth, he gently began to chew.
Sir Pringle and the Moore grandchildren watched as Ward’s eyes filled with dread.
“What has happened?” Maggie asked nervously.
Ward took a big gulp, swallowing the rest of the sugarplum.
“War has begun in Poppel.”
hree horses came to a halt in front of the entrance to Van Cortlandt Manor. Jumping down from his horse, Albers ran over to the wooden gate and swung it open.
“Wesseling and I will keep watch here,” Albers said, grabbing the reins of his horse and steering it over to the stone wall that surrounded the estate. “I’m afraid we wouldn’t offer much assistance searching for the Sister Wheel. But we will be on the lookout and ready to ride back to the steamboat on a moment’s notice.”
“I wouldn’t say you couldn’t be of use searching for the wheel,” Henry said gruffly, sliding off his horse. “You have as good of a chance as we do at finding the blasted thing.”
Albers and Wesseling exchanged looks while Catharine shot Henry a scowl. No one appreciated Henry’s cynical attitude.
Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) Page 14