Mom is at Grandmother’s house for Sunday afternoon tea. “Grandmother,” she said, “thinks you’re too old for tea. I don’t know what that means, but you don’t have to go.”
He knew exactly what it meant: It’s not safe.
The trees are dripping. The four inches of snow had all but melted. Oliver leans forward, cold snowmelt thwapping the back of his weatherproof jacket as he kneads his palm. The pain is gone, but not the lines.
Thoughts rattle in his head. A landslide of ideas and emotions keep him buried. They roll him upside down until nothing makes sense.
“Hey.” Molly’s wearing a short-sleeved Clash concert T-shirt with a wool scarf dangling over the handlebars of her mountain bike. Her hair is tied beneath a red bandana. “How’s the hand?”
He displays his palm, fingers spread. She bends over and squints, tracing the intricate pattern. “It looks like a brand. Does it hurt?”
He shakes his head.
Oliver pulls his stocking cap over his ears. Side by side, they pedal out of Town Square. A mile down the road, they turn onto a path and grind their way into the countryside. By the time they reach a meadow, their backs are spotted and their tired legs splattered with mud. They spread a blanket and lay out sandwiches, chips and dip with a thermos of dark roast coffee. The journal is placed in the middle like the guest of honor, a giant crease in the cover.
They eat in silence, letting the coffee hum through their exhaustion while staring at the Rockies, clouds sitting at the peaks like fluffy halos.
“I thought about your great-grandfather all night,” Molly says. “I don’t think I slept.”
She digs a spiral-bound notebook from her backpack. The pages are filled with sketches and notes in bubbles and arrows connecting thoughts. It’s half full. The first page is a diagram of the property, with house, garage, windmill and hobbit house all labeled, and the river running through it.
Oliver didn’t sleep much, either, but he didn’t write anything down. Wouldn’t have made sense if he did.
“Let’s start with the property.” She drops a finger on a square. “There’s the house and mysterious power and there’s Flury. I think it’s obvious, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Your great-grandfather brought back one of those orbs.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, just saying one of those orbs solves the power mystery. The journal said one of those small ones would power London. That explains why your grandmother has never paid a power bill. It might also explain how the trees shift and compasses don’t work.”
“It does?”
“It seems like magic, right? Maybe that just means we don’t understand, like Nog said.”
“But my orb was made of wood.”
“Prototype.” She flips a few pages, taps a sketch. “All those plans in the garage looked like someone was designing an orb. Your grandfather was a mechanic or engineer or something, right?”
“Yeah, but those are my great-grandfather’s journals. And maybe he built the orbs instead of stealing them.”
“I didn’t say he stole them. Maybe the elven gave them to him and sent him home.”
Oliver retreats into his thoughts. Molly was being nice. She’s thinking the same thing he is: there’s no way they gave him an orb. They claimed to be reluctant to join the human race. It seemed unlikely they’d give him something that could power London and wish him a Merry Christmas.
That means he’s a thief.
“Maybe he invented one,” Oliver says.
“The journals are in the early 1880s. He built the house in 1901, so that means he returns within twenty years. People were still riding horses, so I doubt he invented a cold fusion power orb. Maybe he carved the orb you had, but it’s more likely he brought back a functioning orb.”
Oliver rubs his palm, wishing the evidence wasn’t pointing in this direction.
“Look, we don’t know if he stole one or not, so let’s not assume.” She rubs his shoulder.
“Okay.”
“What we do know is that one of those orbs can power the house. It would also explain how a snowman can be running around the property.”
“Abominable.”
“Right. Abominable. Your great-grandfather brought back an orb and that explains Flury. So, the question is this: did he bring back more, and where are they?”
“Running around the woods.”
“I doubt it. You read what that lab looked like when he saw them as power generators. I think they’re hiding somewhere on the property.”
“You think there’s more than one.”
“There’s one in Flury, but I think there are others for power. It’s just a guess, a weird guess. But I consider us experts in the weird. So let’s assume there are more than one. Where would they be?”
“The woods. They chased me that one night.”
“Maybe. But there’s something different about them, I’m guessing. Your grandmother seems kind of scared of them.”
He’s not so sure she’s not scared of Flury.
“The garage.”
“Wrong.” She turns to an elaborate sketch of the elven science lab. “I told you, I didn’t sleep much. This is what I think the lab looked like. Those orbs were levitating on special equipment to generate power. I doubt she has them on a shelf behind a bag of peanuts.”
Oliver describes the house. There’s no basement that he knows of, and none of the rooms are suspicious. “It’s got to be the garage.”
“I know what you mean, I can smell the weird in there, too. But I think it’s just a place your grandfather tinkered and kept the journals.”
“But the footlocker wasn’t there.” It’s logical, he knows, but his gut feeling tells him there’s more to the garage. Grandmother didn’t know those journals were under the bench.
“Right,” Molly says. “Which makes me think…”
She goes back to her master sketch, accidentally smudging it with hummus. She thumps the far off circle.
“The hobbit house?” Oliver says. That nook definitely smells weird—a bunker in the trees with wifi. And the twins go out there most of the day. “I guess. But there’s nothing out there, either. We searched for secret doors and didn’t find one, remember?”
“I know, but maybe we missed something. Think we can get back out there?”
“Grandmother letting me explore the property?” He chuckles. “There’s a better chance I’ll turn into a snowman.”
She lies her head on his lap, eating chips. “Maybe you’re right, it was just your grandfather’s man cave, a place a guy can go to hang with his snowman. You know, kick back, play a little catch…or whatever you do with an abominable. What would you do? I mean, besides throw snowballs and fly and pummel things.”
“Protect,” Oliver says.
“Protect what?”
“I don’t know. That’s what the snowmen did for the elven. Maybe grandfather has one to protect him against those things in the trees.”
Silence stretches out as they recede into their own thoughts. At one time, Oliver would have wanted Flury to protect him from Grandmother, but he’d seen her when she was vulnerable. She was scared. Maybe she’s not scared of Flury. Maybe it’s those things in the woods.
“Last thing.” Molly tosses the notebook on his lap. The windmill is circled with question marks. “What’s that for? Because I know it’s not about the wind. It turns like a clock.”
“Maybe that’s the power center.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Maybe those orbs are under it. Is there a door or anything under it?”
He shakes his head. “Just dying grass.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s dying.”
They watch the clouds float past them, each one looking like a snowman. Her breathing turns heavy, and Oliver shuts his eyes. He’s falling under the temptation of a dream, the sun on his cheeks and birdsong in his head.
“I know one thing,” Molly says.
“Yeah?”
“Flury needs you.”
Oliver remains awake with that thought, but sleep eventually pulls him under, and he dreams of dark rooms and silver orbs. When he wakes up, he’s heavy with a thought, a realization that’s finally come to the surface.
Flury needs help.
F L U R Y
twenty-two
Oliver ends up reading the creased journal nine times.
He sneaks it into the bathroom in the mornings, takes it to work, and reads it on breaks. At night, he reads it by the light of his phone. Each time, he feels empty and sad when he finishes.
Helpless.
What good was a great discovery like the elven (and a man named Santa) if the price was separation from the one you love?
“Can I visit Grandmother with you?” he asks his mom one morning.
“Why?”
“No reason. Haven’t seen her in a while.”
Mom adjusts her headband. “Let me ask her. She hasn’t been feeling well this summer.”
This summer?
She’s in her eighties, so it could be that. Or the lack of snow.
October is dry and warm; not a single snowflake falls. His hand returns to normal; the lines vanish. Oliver reads the journal five more times. He and Molly refine their theories, but there’s little they can do when Grandmother “doesn’t feel like company.”
Halloween falls on a Thursday. Oliver is wiping down tables, a black eye patch to go along with his red bandana and the plastic sword on his hip, when Mom walks through the café door.
“Want to come?” she asks. “Just dropping off some groceries, we won’t be long.”
“Grandmother said it was okay?”
“No. But it’ll be quick.”
He takes an early lunch and grabs a few packets of pumpkin-flavored tea. Mom’s car is parked at Town Square, where straw bales, scarecrows and various stuffed displays haunt the grounds. The roads are steep and curvy. He remembers feeling carsick when they first arrived.
It’s almost been a year.
The gate is closed, but Mom has a remote. A chill crawls down his back. Unlike the vibrating hum back in the café, this sensation injects an inky cloud of fear beneath his skin. A second wave of creepy-crawlies hits him when the house comes into view. There’s no need to decorate it—it is Halloween. The sunlight falls around it, not on it.
Mom swings around the circle drive and, unlike a year ago when she strangled the steering wheel, begins humming.
“Did you ever go into the garage when you were little?” Oliver asks.
“All the time.”
“Anything weird?”
“Unless you consider tools weird.” She finds a tube of chapstick in her purse. “She means well, Oliver. I think she had a hard life, a lot of buried pain. You got to remember, she grew up in a different era. Love was different back then.”
“Is that what it is?”
“We all have unmet needs. Until we recognize them, life is hard.”
“That doesn’t make you angry?”
“No one can make me angry, only trigger angry thoughts.”
“You don’t have angry thoughts?”
“Oh, I have plenty.”
She pats his knee and gets out. He grabs a box of groceries from the back seat. Mom rings the doorbell. A year ago, she waited for Grandmother to open it. Now she walks in.
“Mother?” The silent house answers with a groan.
Oliver takes the box to the kitchen. The smell of old wood mixed with shadows makes for a distinct brew, what Molly calls “the weird.” I smell it.
Mom calls a few more times. She begins unpacking the box and finds the pumpkin tea.
“Did you bring this?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s sweet of you.”
“I thought she might like it.”
“She’ll hate it.”
“I know.”
The house groans again, unfamiliar with the sound of laughter. Mom gives him a quick hug. “See if your grandmother is upstairs.”
Oliver lets her finish unpacking the supplies. At the staircase, he stops on the bottom and looks at his hand—no redness or swelling. No lines.
No snow.
He studies the old framed photos on his way to the second floor, stopping at the illustration of a shipwreck. How did he get back? And why doesn’t anyone know about it?
History books don’t mention any survivors beyond the initial ones. No reports of a deckhand returning home months later—fat, healthy and hairy. It’s like he snuck back.
And if he had an orb, why didn’t he share it with the world?
Grandmother isn’t on the second floor or the third. Oliver goes to his former bedroom. The bed is made without a wrinkle, as if no one ever slept in it. It seems like just yesterday he was trapped between the bed and the window, Henry pushing his face into the pillow, driving his knee into his back, searching for the orb.
What was he going to do with it?
The shrill cry of the windmill calls. The rusted blades make a quick turn in a rogue breeze before resuming their methodical rotation. Across the field behind the autumn foliage, the hobbit house is hidden and the stream runs cold and deep. There are no tracks in the snowless grassy field.
Oliver reaches under the bed blindly and finds the binoculars still wedged in the bedsprings. The trees are too far to see much, even with the binoculars. If the orbs were hidden in the hobbit house, why weren’t there lights or heat? Molly and he decided one late night in the café, on their third latte, the orbs weren’t out there; she had checked for secret doors. It had to be at the windmill since it carried the strange current.
He aims the binoculars at the corroded structure. A gust of wind comes across the grass and swings the windwheel one full turn. The windmill cries out. There’s no room in the structure for a door. The grass around it is shorter and tanner than the surrounding field, like a blast of radiation. There could be a hidden entrance in the sod, but there are no outlines or handle. He could thump the ground for a hollow sound. It might be hard to explain what he’s doing. Just searching for a secret entrance, Grandmother. You know, where you hide the orbs great-grandfather stole.
He focuses directly beneath the windmill, hoping to see the faint outline of a trapdoor or the loop of a handle. There’s neither. He sweeps all around the legs. It’s the third time around he sees something.
It’s not what he’s looking for.
There, leaning on the back side of the nearest footing, is the corner of something tan and rectangular. He checks the other legs for something similar, maybe a strut that’s come loose or wooden block. It’s hard to tell from the bedroom, even with the binoculars. It’s the color of worn leather.
The sixth journal.
There are seven of them. Grandmother has four, the fifth one is in his backpack.
Oliver forces himself to walk quietly down the steps. He’s halfway to the kitchen when he realizes he’s still holding the binoculars and tucks them under his belt. The smell of pumpkin is in the kitchen.
“She’s not upstairs.” His voice is slightly pitched. “Have you seen her?”
“No, I haven’t,” she says from the pantry.
“I’ll look outside.”
“Check the garage.”
He moves to the sink, keeping his back to the pantry so she doesn’t see the binoculars bulging under his shirt. He can see the far wall of the garage. The car is gone.
“I’ll go look.”
Oliver rushes to the front of the house. After a quick scout around, he begins walking. Once he’s in the open, in full view of the family room picture window, he sprints. The little square is still at the foot of the windmill, and the closer he gets, the more he’s convinced.
It’s a journal.
He picks it up. Has it been out here since the last snow? He slides it under the binoculars. Using the heel of his boot, he thumps the ground in search of a hollow sound or the hard panel of a hidden door. H
e doesn’t quite make it to the center when something moves near the garage.
Oliver turns sideways behind a leg.
It’s like trying to hide a jelly bean behind a toothpick, but the figure walking toward the house cuts across the grass in evenly measured steps. Grandmother.
Her head is slightly bowed, watching the grass in front of her. Oliver is too close to the coarse iron leg, the waves of power twisting his stomach like a carnival ride. He dry heaves but stays in place. She appears lost in thought, not looking up until she’s reaching for the back door.
As soon as the door closes, he’s on the run.
The windmill sucked the strength from his legs, and he stumbles. Regaining his momentum, he runs a crooked line to the car without another fall and stashes the journal and binoculars beneath the seat. He takes a moment to catch his breath. Thankfully, a bag of apples is still on the back seat. He can use that as an excuse for going to the car. With his heart pounding in his throat, he stops on the porch.
The car wasn’t in the garage. And it didn’t drive up.
Another frigid wave passes through him.
He goes around the right side of the house and stops before walking through the backyard. There’s a stitching pain in his side. He takes several deep breaths with his hands on his hips. He’s got to look normal, just a casual walk across the lawn. They’ll see him from the kitchen. He counts to ten. Still slightly dizzy, he steps into the open with a bag of apples in one hand.
And stops in the middle of the yard.
He meant to just take a glance, like he was looking for Grandmother. But once he can see inside, his feet turn to concrete.
The car is there.
F L U R Y
twenty-three
Oliver parts the curtains.
Sleet ticks off the glass, settling on the window ledge and frosting the sidewalk around Town Square. Someone is parking right below their apartment. An older woman gets out and goes into the café.
Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set) Page 67