by Tad Williams
Thinking how close she had been to this Kingaree made Lucinda feel queasy. “Why is everyone so scared of him?”
Ragnar shook his head-firmly this time. “You do not need to hear any more stories. All you need to know is to keep away from this man if you ever see him again. Tell Simos or me as fast as you can. Or Gideon.”
Lucinda’s heart fell further. “Tell Gideon? Sure, if we ever find him. If this Kingaree guy hasn’t killed him or something… ”
Ragnar clicked his tongue and flapped the reins. Culpepper began to pull the wagon back onto the road, leaving Elliot and his broad silver pond behind. “Do not underestimate Gideon Goldring, child,” the bearded man said. “You know how stubborn he is. Well, Gideon is also stronger and more determined than you can guess.”
Chapter 12
Ergodicity and Other Big Words
As Colin Needle walked toward the library he watched the male dragon Alamu flying in long, lazy circles a few hundred feet above the house as if enjoying the sight of Colin’s mother’s sprawling gardens. A little afternoon sun peeked through the heavy clouds, glinting off the creature’s coppery scales and shining through the gray membranes of his wings-the only brightness Colin had seen in hours. A storm was moving in on the valley, a swell of thunderheads crouched above the farthest hills like an angry genie. Alamu glided low, then swung high into the air again.
Electric fences are all well and good, Colin thought, but what if Ed Stillman and his men are camped out there on Springs Road taking pictures with a telephoto lens right now? It’s going to be hard for him to miss an actual dragon flying around. His stomach flopped in queasy discontent: just one more thing to worry about.
The billionaire Stillman had double-crossed him last summer, but what was worse was that Colin had fallen for the man’s lies-in fact, he had been as gullible as one of the Jenkins kids. That still didn’t sit well. Now Ed Stillman was just one more, apparently permanent problem. Somebody was going to have to solve these problems and save Ordinary Farm. Gideon Goldring was gone, maybe dead; Colin’s mother was busy picking up the slack of Gideon’s absence; and Walkwell and Ragnar and the Jenkins children were no use at all. Only Colin Needle could solve the farm’s problems and make everything work again.
The sad thing, though-the truly infuriating thing-was that only Colin himself seemed to understand that.
In the library Colin sat among the papers and books piled on his table and felt something like despair. Almost every weekday for two months he had been sitting here, keeping an eye out for another Magic Necklace Drop (as he sarcastically thought of it) and had filled the time studying everything he could find about the science of the Fault Line (because none of his plans for the farm would work if he couldn’t use the Fault Line.) And what did he have to show for all that work? Piles of physics books he could barely read, let alone understand, because they were full of crazy terms like ergodicity and Poincare Recurrence Theorem and Loschmidt’s Paradox, terms that Colin couldn’t make much sense out of even when he found them in ordinary science books. Still, he had worked his way through all of them, making plenty of notes at first, but as it became clearer and clearer that the science was far beyond him he had mostly given up. Despite what he’d said to Tyler Jenkins, Colin knew he was never going to make a Continuascope on his own; he had only threatened it to make his enemy worry.
As for finding Grace, he didn’t think he was going to have any luck with that either. She had disappeared so completely on that night twenty years ago that almost everyone on the farm assumed she’d somehow wound up in the Fault Line. But if she had, why should her golden locket turn up here in the library, a thousand yards away from the silo and the strange phenomenon hidden beneath it? Gideon only had Tyler Jenkins’ word that it had actually come from the library, but the old man had still stuck Colin in the library, lonely as a lighthouse keeper, waiting for some other memento of Grace’s to show up, all on Tyler Jenkins’ dubious say-so…
A new and startling thought came to Colin then, an idea so astonishing that for a moment he forgot to breathe. The Jenkins brat had already been in the Fault Line once and traveled to the Ice Age-by accident, he had claimed-then walked back out again no worse for wear, the cave girl Ooola trailing after him like a lovesick puppy. But what if that hadn’t been an accident? What if Tyler had found a Continuascope of his own-perhaps some early prototype of Octavio Tinker’s? If so, then he might have found the locket somewhere in the Fault Line and just pretended to find it here in the library, to keep everyone fooled about where it had really come from…
But if Tyler Jenkins had his own Continuascope, why was he always asking questions about the whereabouts of the old one? That didn’t make sense. Colin knew that if he had a Continuascope, he’d be in the Fault Line every time he had the chance.
So much was happening, and it was so hard to make sense of it all. The Jenkins kids were back on the farm. Gideon had disappeared. Kingaree had returned. Could all those things happening at the same time really be coincidence?
Thunder rumbled over the distant hills. Colin Needle decided he was tired of secrets. It was time to talk to the one person who almost certainly knew more than she had told him so far… about everything.
His mother stood in front of the elaborate old Victorian washstand and the pretty, black-haired woman in the mirror looked back at her, expression thoughtful and pale face somber. She was so beautiful! Looking at her now, Colin couldn’t believe he had been about to tell Lucinda Jenkins that he suspected her of knowing more than she was saying about Gideon’s disappearance. Yes, his mother might have a temper, but he felt certain she would never do anything to harm the man who had saved her life…!
She extended a finger and her nail touched the surface of the glass with a soft click. She moved her finger and then touched the surface again. The same click. Colin watched her, both repelled and fascinated. “Tell me, Mother,” he said at last, “why did you go to the trouble of having this thing hauled up the stairs and installed in here?”
“I’m not entirely certain.” She gazed somberly at her own reflection. “It feels… strange to me. Older than it looks. But perhaps you’re going to tell me differently?”
He was sure she was teasing him-mocking him. “What do you mean, Mother?”
She flicked the mirror with her nail again- tik, tik, tik. “I seem to remember that I asked you to bring me anything you could find about the piece or its acquisition in Octavio Tinker’s papers.”
“There’s nothing. I told you that already.”
“I hoped you had come to tell me you were wrong, Colin. That you found out something about it. Because it intrigues me, and I am seldom if ever wrong about such feelings.” She gave the mirror another dreamy stare. “Something, there is something… ”
“I came to ask you some questions, Mother. Still no news about Gideon?”
A sharp, annoyed stare. “Why on earth are you asking me? Do you think I would hide it from you if we heard something? Really, Colin, just when I have so much extra work to do.” She stared at him for a long silent moment. It was all Colin could do not to turn away from his mother’s hard, fierce eyes, but there was something in her face he had seldom seen before. It took him a moment to recognize the unfamiliar expression: she was anxious. But why? Did his mother know something about Gideon Goldring’s disappearance after all?
“You’re worried, aren’t you, dear?” she asked, more lightly than before. “It’s not good for you to brood about things, Colin. We’re all worried about Gideon.”
Something about the casual way she spoke upset him. “Really, Mother? All of us?”
Her lip curled in a snarl. She looked so angry he took a startled step back. “What is that supposed to mean? You do say the most incomprehensible things sometimes. I’m glad you’re going out for the evening tomorrow. It will be good for you.”
It took him a moment to realize what she’d just said. “Going out? What do you mean?”
“Oh, didn’t I
tell you? The people on the next farm over, those
… Spanish people… asked you over for their holiday celebration. Surely you remember that tomorrow is July the Fourth. Independence Day, don’t they call it?”
“The Carrillos? They invited me?”
“Of course. They sent us a letter and it said, ‘the children are invited.’ Like it or not, you are still one of the children, so of course you are expected to go.”
Colin found it very hard to believe the Carrillos wanted him at their Fourth of July gathering. “I don’t want to go to their stupid party.”
“Nevertheless, you will go-I insist, Colin. We owe them several favors. Also, before he disappeared Gideon was rather rude about not answering Mr. Carrillo’s questions, so we must do our best to be polite to them. I want you on your best behavior.” She turned back the mirror, gazing at it again as though it was a magical picture that showed her heart’s desire. “Oh, and would you please go tell Caesar he may come up for his physic? I’m brewing his special tea.”
Colin was walking downstairs toward the kitchen when he suddenly realized that he had never asked his mother any of the questions he’d planned to ask. He also realized that going to Cresta Sol dairy farm for the evening tomorrow had nothing to do with the Carrillos at all, except that they provided a useful excuse: it was his mother who wanted him gone. He had no idea what she planned to do, but he was certain she didn’t want to do it in front of him.
Thunder boomed again, and outside the window a flash briefly turned the sky white. Lightning, and not very far away.
Another son would have felt disturbed by his mother’s secrecy, and might even have marched back upstairs to argue about it, but Colin Needle was used to being inconvenient, to being kept in the dark, and he was also used to doing what Patience Needle wanted him to do, or at least appearing to do so.
He would go to the Carrillos-but nothing on earth, not even his beautiful, cold, clever mother, could make him enjoy himself.
Chapter 13
A Free Man in Pennsylvania
The more Tyler thought, the angrier he got.
“What’s with this place? Are they all crazy?” He was having so much trouble paying attention to what he was doing that he dropped his flashlight. The batteries he had been loading popped out and rolled across the floor. “That Kingaree’s a slavery guy? What if he’d tried to kill you? They never tell us anything about anything-we always have to find out for ourselves!”
“They’re all from the past, Tyler! They don’t belong here and they’d be in trouble if people found out they were here. Of course they keep secrets.”
Tyler scowled: he’d thought Lucinda was getting better about pretending things were fine when they obviously weren’t. “I don’t care if they’re from Magic Happy Land, Luce-t hey invited us! Dropped us into the middle of all this and didn’t warn us about any of this dangerous crazy stuff-dragons! Billionaires with helicopters and guns! Crazy… slave-whippers from the Civil War days! And now Gideon’s gone, so we’re the only people in this whole place who even legally exist. ” For perhaps the first time ever, Tyler was beginning to wonder if they really did belong at Ordinary Farm. As if to emphasize this thought, thunder boomed in the nearby hills.
Then he thought of Colin and his creepy mother again and his heart filled with anger. “No, it’s not us who don’t belong here…!” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.” He had been planning to go back out and look for Gideon until the evening meal, but instead he put down the flashlight and stood. “Come on. Maybe this Kingaree guy you met really does have something to do with Gideon disappearing-and if he does, I know who might have some answers.”
The women in the kitchen were just starting supper. Tyler noted the good smells with approval, but he was in too much of a hurry to appreciate them properly. However, a little bit of something to take along might not be a bad idea, he thought…
“He is upstairs,” Pema told them. “In Gideon’s study.”
“Meanwhile, if you touch that bacon, Junge, you will be beaten,” Sarah warned him. Defeated, Tyler led Lucinda up the stairs.
Caesar looked up from dusting. With Gideon Goldring now missing for almost a week it was hard to know how much cleaning of his study was really necessary, but Caesar regarded it as his personal job to take care of both Gideon and his rooms, and it seemed he would continue doing it whether Gideon was around or not.
“Hello, children,” he said. “Are you looking for something?”
“For you, Caesar. Could we ask you some questions?”
The old man laughed, showing very white teeth. “I suppose you can.” They were not his own teeth: Mr. Walkwell had found them for him in a church jumble sale in Standard Valley, and although they didn’t fit tremendously well, Caesar was very proud of them. He had lost most of his own at a young age.
Weird we know that about him, but didn’t know he was a runaway slave, Tyler thought. “Did you hear that Lucinda met Jackson Kingaree? He came up to her in town and introduced himself.”
Caesar’s expression grew more distant, but he kept his smile. “Oh, I heard, yes. Terrible thing.”
“We want to know more. About Kingaree. We think he might have something to do with Gideon’s disappearance.”
Caesar looked at Tyler for a long second more, then turned away from them to dust a spotless shelf. “I can’t talk now, children. Too busy.” His voice hitched. “I’m just too sad about Mister Gideon.”
“Just talk to us, Caesar-please!”
“Tyler, leave him alone!” Lucinda whispered, but he ignored her.
“Nobody tells us anything around here. What happened?” Tyler was doing his best to keep calm, but he was tired of everyone avoiding his questions. “Please, Caesar. Did Gideon make a deal with Kingaree? And if he did, why did Kingaree leave the farm?”
Caesar turned suddenly. His smile was gone and his face looked as stern and hard as a wooden mask. “Why did Kingaree leave? Because he’s a devil, that’s why. Because like the Good Book says, the devil needs the whole world to roam in, to go back and forth doing his mischief.”
“Ragnar told me… ” Lucinda obviously did not want to say it-as if it were a dirty word. “He said you were Kingaree’s… slave… ”
“That ain’t true!” Caesar shook his head. “But it ain’t Ragnar’s fault-he’s from far, far back and don’t know any better. Yes, I was a slave once in South Carolina, but to a better man than Jackson Kingaree. Still, don’t nobody want to be a slave even for a kind master. I earned my freedom and went North to live in Pennsylvania. Then one day I was at the market in Charlesville and Kingaree and his gang of slave-chasers snatched me up like I was nothing but an animal, even though I was in free territory and a free man. He was going to carry me quick over the border to Maryland… it was a slave state then… Oh, sweet God…!”
Lightning whitewashed the sky above the mountains outside the window-a summer storm was on its way; thunder followed moments later. Tyler saw that Caesar was shaking so hard that his long, lean body was swaying like a windblown tree. The old man felt for the chair-Gideon’s empty chair-and sat down. “I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “I didn’t mean … ”
“You didn’t know any better either, son. You children don’t know nothing about how things were in my day, ’less they teach it to you in school. But back then you had to know because it was the way of the world-what everyone tell you. ‘Never tease a strange dog. Don’t look white folk in the eye, especially white women. Watch out for the slave-catchers.’ ” He laughed, but it was a cracked, unhappy sound. “Yes, that devil Kingaree took me. Then when his wagon lost a wheel and when I wouldn’t walk in chains to Baltimore, he beat me. I said he might as well kill me right there because I wasn’t ever going back to the south. He damn near did.” He looked at Lucinda. “I beg pardon for my salty language, Miss.”
Lucinda only shook her head. She was pale and Tyler thought she looked like she was
close to crying.
“I got away from him, though,” Caesar said. “The Lord was bound to keep me free, and He made sure those shackles were just a little too big for me. After a while, I got out of ‘em.’ He lifted his arms and pulled back his sleeves. Both wrists were badly scarred, covered with streaky gray bumps. ‘I got away into the woods just before we come to the Susquehanna ferry. Kingaree and his dogs and men, they come after me. They were shootin’ too. One way or another, they weren’t going to let me go home again.” He took a shaky breath. “But then Mister Gideon come out of nowhere, just like the Lord’s angel. Asked me if I wanted to get away from all this. Don’t take much to guess I said yes.” Caesar laughed; it was shaky but less bitter this time.
“What was Gideon doing there?” asked Tyler.
“Looking for a Thunderbird, that’s what he told me later.” Caesar shrugged. “At the time, I wasn’t asking nothing-those dogs and all were right behind me. So Mister Gideon took out this strange thing looked half like a trumpet, half like the insides of a fancy pocket watch. He waved it around and started fiddling with it. Just then, Kingaree’s biggest dog come charging out of the trees with Kingaree right behind. Mister Gideon made some kind of big, sparky, burning hole in the air and tugged me through it. Stretched me like nothing you’d ever seen-like string through a knothole!”
“Wow.” Tyler’s heart was beating hard just hearing it. “But somehow Kingaree came through, too.”
Caesar nodded. “Maybe that was the good Lord’s plan-bring that evil man here, where he couldn’t catch any more poor colored folk and drag ‘em into slavery. Still, I can’t help wishing that He woulda dropped Jackson Kingaree in the ocean instead.”
“That’s so terrible!” said Lucinda. “I’m sorry, Caesar.”
“Weren’t your fault, child. Even your granny and your grampy weren’t born back then. Eighteen and forty-eight, that was-long time ago.” He sighed. “We’ll just pray that Kingaree doesn’t come around here-or that if he does, he does it when Mr. Walkwell’s back to catch him at it.”