The Long-Lost Home

by Maryrose Wood

  Water, water, everywhere,

  And all the boards did shrink;

  Water, water, everywhere,

  Nor any drop to drink.

  “Cake, cake, everywhere, and not a slice for me,” she recited, using her poetic license to make the poem fit her own circumstances more neatly. She pressed her nose to the glass and stared at the muffins and biscuits, the trays of tarts, and the magnificent Black Forest cakes, thickly frosted in snow-white icing, with crowns of cherries and shaved dark chocolate on top.

  Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection, bedraggled and wide-eyed. Reluctantly she backed away from the glass. “I look like a runaway cabin boy,” she thought. “If I am seen lurking around, I am likely to be turned over to the police.”

  What to do? She had no money, no plan, no hope, and no Black Forest cake! The situation was bleak. She turned to go. But where?

  Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

  A bell jingled as a customer left the establishment next to the bakery. Penelope had been so distracted by her own misery that she had not even noticed the shop next door. She looked in the window, and her carpetbag slipped to the ground.

  “Books!” she exclaimed. And not just any books. Here was a whole series of books, lovingly displayed in an artful tableau of a pony paddock, with miniature carved and painted pony figures grazing on green velvet grass, and little white fences made of whitewashed twigs lashed together with thread. The titles were all in German, but there was no mistaking the illustrations of Edith-Anne Pevington and her beloved pony, Rainbow, on the covers.

  Penelope’s heart swelled as if she had received a thousand birthday cards all at once. “Eine Gewitterwolke für Regenbogen,” she said, pronouncing one of the titles as best she could. “That must be A Stormcloud for Rainbow!” The sad-faced pony and gray skies gave it away. (Fans of books about ponies know that A Stormcloud for Rainbow is the most melancholy tale in the series. This is not saying much, as the Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! books incline toward the cheerful. However, in this episode Rainbow falls into a funk after losing an important competition and questions the meaning of everything a pony holds dear. Having red ribbons braided through one’s mane, prancing obediently through obstacle courses, and taking jumps at a trot—what was it all for? To win a trophy? To please Edith-Anne Pevington? Was that all there was to a pony’s life?)

  Penelope smiled, then beamed, then laughed aloud, for even the grimmest Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! book had joy to spare. “I will go into this bookshop, just to look,” she decided. “It may have an atlas, if the travel section is well stocked. Perhaps all is not yet lost.” Just like that, hope was restored. It was a sliver of hope, mind you, thin as the thinnest crescent moon, but sometimes a sliver is all a person needs. The bell jingled softly as she entered.

  Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

  The shop was tiny, but like all the best bookstores it gave the distinct impression that whatever book one needed was somewhere within its overflowing shelves. A colorful globe—a real one, mounted on a wooden stand that let it spin as the earth does—led her to the travel section. There she found a whole shelf of guidebooks, to cities near and far, and past and present, too. “One for Istanbul and one for Constantinople,” she marveled. “And here is one for Rome, and one for ancient Rome. Truly, it is the Eternal City.”

  There were maps an arms’-breadth wide that folded like accordions until they could be slipped into a pocket, and dictionaries that translated words from one language into a dozen others. There were memoirs by Arctic explorers, fearless mountaineers, and deep-sea divers who braved the briny deep wearing those newfangled diving costumes. These were heavy suits with helmets into which air was pumped, allowing a person to breathe underwater. What an invention!

  And there on its own small desk, propped at an angle on a wooden stand, just waiting to be opened, was a perfectly splendid atlas.

  Penelope put down her carpetbag and wiped her hands on her sailor pants before touching the beautiful volume. She leafed through the maps until she found Frankenforde. Then she turned page after page, examining every bit of terrain that lay between her and where she most longed to be.

  At first she thought she must be mistaken. She flipped the pages back and forth. How could there still be so many miles of mountains, rivers, lakes, and forests to march up, down, around, and through? And this before ever reaching the English Channel! That would be a mighty swim, indeed.

  “It is too far!” she blurted. Then she began to cry in earnest, for the truth was as plain as the difference between the right foot and the left, the North Pole and the South, the new moon and the full: with scarcely a week left, there was no possible way she could get back to England in time to save her beloved Incorrigibles.

  Whether Edward Ashton achieved his murderous schemes or the curse upon the Ashtons put a gruesome end to them all hardly mattered. She had failed, and she would never see the children again.

  Nor would she see Simon, or Miss Mortimer or Mrs. Clarke, or even that dear scamp Nutsawoo!

  She wept in that tiny bookshop in Frankenforde, and rubbed the dirty sleeve of her fisherman’s sweater across her wet cheeks and leaky nose. It was a stormcloud for Rainbow indeed. Her shoulders heaved as she tried to quiet her sobs. What she longed to do was howl with grief, long and loud. But that would hardly be good manners in a bookshop.

  “Weltschmerz?” a kind voice asked, just behind her. Penelope turned. It was a woman, a sales clerk, no doubt. She must have been alerted by all the sniffling and shuddering. Perhaps she had come to prevent her unhappy customer from dripping hot salty tears on the books.

  The woman gazed at her with great sympathy and held out a clean pocket handkerchief.

  “Thank you very much,” Penelope said, taking it. She wiped her eyes, and blew her nose, and could not help noticing that the handkerchief had the letter L embroidered upon it. “How odd,” she mumbled through her sobs, not caring if the clerk understood her. “At my school we learned to embroider pocket handkerchiefs in just this way. I have lost all mine during my travels, unfortunately, else I would show you how similar they are. For my last name too begins with an L. . . .”

  She looked up to find the sales clerk staring at her, open-mouthed. The woman’s gray-green eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Penelope?” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “Penelope Lumley? Of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females?”

  “Why, yes.” Sheer surprise stopped Penelope’s crying at once. She stared at the woman’s face. It had a familiar look to it—there was the same elfin chin as Cassiopeia, the poetic mouth of Beowulf. And the woman wore her hair just as Miss Mortimer did, in a pretty chignon at the base of her neck. Only the color was different. It was not blond, like Miss Mortimer’s, but a once-vivid auburn that had been softened by time, with strands of silver running through.

  “Oh—how unlikely this is!” the woman said, finding her voice. “And yet we must embrace the unexpected and not lose hope, as Charlotte never fails to remind me. Penny, my dear Penny—you must have found the clue I left for you! How clever you are!”

  “Clue? What clue?” Penelope felt woozy. The ground rolled beneath her feet as if it were her first day aboard ship.

  The woman reached out to steady her, and let her hand rest on Penelope’s arm. “Penelope. Do you know who I am?”

  “She means to say—do you know who we are?” A man appeared at the woman’s side. He looked at Penelope with the same clear-eyed gaze as Alexander Incorrigible, though his eyes shone.

  Penelope took a deep, calming breath and looked from one eager, misty-eyed face to the other. “If I am not mistaken,” she said, with all the professionalism she could muster, “you are the Long-Lost Lumleys.”

  WHAT A HEARTWARMING SCENE BURST into bloom! There were enough hugs and glad tears and cries of “Who would believe it?” and “Did you ever?” to bring a hundred sentimental West End plays to a happy end. But it was strange, too, for Penelope had not seen her parents for such a very long tim
e.

  And they also admitted that they found it strange, for the Penelope who stood before them was a young woman (albeit an oddly dressed one), and not the small child they had last seen many years before.

  Penelope’s feelings were so mixed between joy and something far more bittersweet, one might easily have mistaken it for Christmas Day. There were so many questions to ask, and answer! But there was one question Penelope needed settled on the spot. Even though she believed she already knew the truth, it felt both urgent and necessary that she hear it straight from the Lumleys’ mouths, so to speak.

  “Excuse me—that is, I must ask you—about, well . . .” Her lower lip trembled, and she could say no more.

  Mater Lumley gazed at her, soft eyed as a cow. “I expect you want to know where we have been all these years, and why we left you at Swanburne and did not come back?”

  “And why you did not hear from us, year after year, not even on your birthday?” Pater Lumley added. They both looked very sad.

  Penelope shook her head. Of course she did want to know these things, but all that could wait until later. “What I most wish to know is this—” she began. Her mother took her by both hands.

  “I know we have a great deal to explain, Penelope,” Mater Lumley said. “We did what we did for your safety. Yet it must have been horribly difficult for you. I am so sorry.”

  “It was difficult for us, too, but we are adults, and made a choice. You are—you were—a child, with no say in the matter. I am sorry, too.” Pater Lumley’s voice was rough and soft at the same time.

  “Well, the past cannot be changed,” Penelope said, after a moment. Which was true, yet it meant a great deal to hear these words of apology from her parents. She felt her spirit grow lighter, as if a package she had been carrying for a long time could finally be put down. “Until someone invents a time machine, that is! And we are together now, which is more important. But the most important thing of all . . .” She paused, unsure how to broach a topic so near to her heart.

  “Is a meal, no doubt! You must be starving. Come.” Mater Lumley stood and took her by the hand. Pater Lumley reached for the carpetbag.

  “Here, let me carry your—albatross!” he said, smiling. “Hmm, why so many feathers? Were you trying to fly back to England?”

  The question she so desperately longed to ask withered on her tongue, as the very mention of England upset her all over again. Mater Lumley whispered something to her husband. He nodded, then went to the front door and turned over the GEÖFFNET sign to GESCHLOSSEN, to say that the bookstore was closed.

  Mater Lumley led Penelope through a short hallway at the back of the shop and up a flight of stairs to the apartment above the store. It was a lovely, sunny place, with trailing green plants in the windows. The walls were lined with books and paintings, and there were embroidered pillows on every chair. “Just like at Swanburne,” Penelope said, which made her weep afresh, for had any Swanburne girl ever failed so miserably at her duties?

  Mater Lumley was a wise woman. She made no attempt to cheer Penelope or pepper her with questions or advice. Instead she brought her a cozy blanket and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. By this time Pater Lumley had joined them upstairs. As they waited for the water to come to a boil, he assembled a truly excellent sliced apple, cheddar, and mustard sandwich, one that would have put Old Timothy’s best efforts to shame.

  Mater Lumley made Penelope a cup of tea, with milk and two sugars, just the way she liked it, and Pater Lumley put the sandwich on a pretty plate with a leaf-and-flower pattern all ’round the edges, much like the sign that had welcomed Penelope to Frankenforde. Then they both sat quietly and waited, for as anyone who has ever tamed a wild thing knows, if one remains calm and friendly and offers a tasty treat, even a creature who has suffered a great shock will soon calm down enough to make friends.

  So it was with Penelope. Before long her heart settled a bit, and with a nod of thanks, she reached for her food. One bite, and she was ravenous. After she had devoured it all, Mater Lumley produced a thick slice of Black Forest cake from the bakery next door. By the last forkful Penelope had declared it the best meal she had eaten in her life (and Penelope had once dined at the Fern Court in London, run by the world-famous Chef Philippe, so this was high praise indeed.)

  Now the words came in a flood. She told her parents all that had happened, from the day of her arrival at Ashton Place to her terrible banishment to Plinkst, her daring escape from the Babushkinovs, her time at sea, and now, this unexpected reunion in Frankenforde. By the time she was done telling, it was evening. More sandwiches were served, with soup this time, and more tea and cake. The sunny apartment was now cozily dark and lit by the hearth fire Pater Lumley carefully built and tended.

  Her parents had listened quietly all the way through and gave no sign of surprise, not even when Penelope explained that Edward Ashton was alive and determined to satisfy the curse upon the Ashtons by delivering Penelope and the Incorrigibles—all of whom seemed to be descended from Agatha Swanburne herself, though Penelope still did not know exactly how—to an untimely and gruesome end.

  “In doing so, he thinks he will save his side of the family tree from extinction. He told me so himself,” she said miserably. “But time is running out. The exact words of the curse are: ‘In the fourth generation, the hunt begins—and ends.’ One way or the other, the curse will end when Lady Constance’s baby is born.”

  “And not a moment sooner, either.” Pater Lumley frowned in concentration. It was an expression that would be familiar to anyone who had observed Penelope deep in thought. “No wonder Ashton’s efforts have failed. The spirits Beyond the Veil have a taste for the theatrical. They’ll want to be on hand for a spectacular event. A grand finale, if you will. When is the child expected?”

  “The first full moon of May. Scarcely a week from now.” Penelope stared glumly at her hands. “I will never get back to England in time. It is impossible!”

  Her parents exchanged a look, the kind of look in which something is decided without a word being spoken.

  “We must not lose hope,” Mater Lumley said gently. “As my grandmother said, ‘When the impossible becomes merely difficult, that’s when you know you’ve—’”

  “Your grandmother! Do you mean Agatha Swanburne was my great-grandmother?” Penelope interrupted.

  “Indeed she was.” Mater Lumley rose from her chair. She stretched and yawned. “It has been a remarkable day, and there is much to ponder, but even the most extraordinary days of our lives last no longer than the ordinary ones, and are ‘rounded with a sleep,’ as Shakespeare wrote.”

  “Yes, in The Tempest. Marvelous play! Yet I have always wondered why there are so many stories about shipwrecks, when so few of us are sailors.” Now Pater Lumley stood. He too yawned and stretched. “I will soon be rounded with a sleep myself. Let us go to bed, and leave the harder questions till tomorrow, when we are rested and can think better.”

  Her parents were right, of course, and not only because Shakespeare said so. Still, Penelope did not want the day or the conversation to end. “But Mater Lumley . . . Pater Lumley . . .” She stopped to stifle a yawn herself, for they are highly contagious, as the Lumley parents clearly knew! “I want to ask so many things! About our family tree, for example . . .”

  Mater Lumley smoothed back her hair with a hand, an elegant gesture that made Penelope think of Miss Mortimer. “I am sure you have many questions, my long-lost girl, but late bedtimes will do none of us any good. On the other hand . . .”

  Pater Lumley chuckled and went to stoke the fire, for clearly they would be up a little while longer.

  “On the other hand, you have gone a long time without answers,” his wife finished, taking a seat once more. “Tonight, three questions only. The rest can wait till tomorrow.”

  Three! Penelope frowned. How was she to winnow down her countless questions to a mere troika? Luckily she had read enough of those wish-giving, genie-in-a-bottle stories
to know not to ask a yes-or-no question, for those were always a waste. “All right,” she said, after considering it. “My first question is: what happened to Agatha Ashton and her descendants after Pax threw her out?”

  Mater Lumley smiled. “The adventures of Agatha Ashton could fill a book! There are countless tales of her world travels, the remarkable people she met, and the things she learned. Too many to share now, though someday I will tell you them all.” At Penelope’s disappointed look, she went on. “But when Agatha was done traveling, and had gained the kind of wisdom that is won only through broad-minded experience, she returned to England. There she met and married a man named Theodore Swanburne. They had a daughter named Theodora. She too grew up to be a fascinating woman, a scientist with a special interest in the nature of time. They say she even tried to invent a time machine!”

  Penelope’s eyes grew wide, but she knew better than to ask a second question by accident!

  “She very nearly succeeded, too. Or so she often claimed. Theodora married a fellow scientist, Dr. Samuel Mortimer. He was a widower with a little girl of his own, not quite two years old. Sadly, his wife had died of a fever not long after the birth. The child’s name was, and is, Charlotte.”

  “Miss Charlotte Mortimer!” Penelope exclaimed. “So that is how Agatha Swanburne became Miss Mortimer’s grandmother.”

  “Yes. Theodora was her stepmother, and she could not have asked for a better one. A few years later, Theodora and Samuel had another daughter.”

  “And here she sits. Your mother, Susannah.” Pater Lumley kissed his wife on the cheek and gave the fire another poke.

  Penelope shook her head in wonder. Imagine, her mother and Miss Mortimer, children together!