The Secrets of Ordinary Farm of-2

by Tad Williams

“But we’re not going to the past! He told you not to!”

  “No, and we’re not going to,” Tyler said. “But we’re not really in our time either right now. I can just tell.” And he could. As Octavio Tinker had said, they were in some kind of when that didn’t belong to any of them-a not-place in not-time. “So if you want to get back to where we were, we’re going to have to step through too.” He reached out his hand. Steve looked at it with mistrust. “It’s nothing weird. You have to be touching me.” Again, he didn’t know how he knew it, he just knew it.

  “It’s not that, man,” said Steve. “It’s just… you promise, no raggedy ghost things?”

  “I’m not promising anything. I hardly know what’s going on myself. You should know that by now.”

  Steve swallowed, then stretched out his hand and squeezed Tyler’s in his damp fingers. “If you get us killed, Jenkins, I’ll totally kill you back… ”

  And then Tyler took a step toward the stone and darkness swallowed them, and they fell out of the damp tunnels into a hot, crackling void.

  Chapter 31

  Electrified

  Lucinda knew she had been in less comfortable places than in the back seat of Edward Stillman’s expensive car, wedged between him and the large, frowning man named Deuce, but off the top of her head she couldn’t think of any that didn’t include live dragons.

  As they slid onto Springs Road in the growing rainstorm, Stillman broke the long silence. “You know, I’m not as bad as Gideon makes me out to be,” he said. “ He’s the interloper, after all. And now that I think about it, if you’re related to Octavio then you’re far more closely related to me than you are to Gideon Goldring.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Lucinda didn’t really want to talk. Her stomach was so nervous and jumpy that she was afraid she might throw up at any moment.

  “Please. I despise the way children talk today,” he told her. “ ’Whatever’-a lumpish word for lumpish ideas. Show a little respect for your elders, child. You might learn something.”

  She had asked him to bring her, Lucinda reminded herself, and now she was stuck with him, so maybe it would be better not to make him too angry. “Sorry, Mr… Mr. Stillman, I’m just really worried. Are we really related?”

  “Your grandfather was Octavio’s nephew. Your grandfather was also my cousin.”

  “Okay, we’re family, I guess. But why do you want to hurt Gideon?”

  Stillman made a noise of disgust. “Haven’t you been listening? He’s the one who hurt me! He stole what was most important to me in the whole world-Grace Tinker. Oh, and also my access to Octavio’s papers. Can you even imagine how frustrating it is for a scientist like me to not to have access his own uncle’s ground-breaking work?”

  Lucinda didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, that does sound… very frustrating.”

  “I grew up spending summers here, just like you and your brother. The farm was mine… or it should have been! Then Gideon Goldring came along and started weaseling his way into everything.” Stillman was angry now, his eyes narrow and his lips pale. “Do you want to see something?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but took out his phone and touched a button, then held it out to Lucinda. “Look. Look at this! Do you know who that is?”

  It was a photograph of four people walking, two in the background and two in the foreground, all of them on the gravel driveway in front the main house at Ordinary Farm, a spot she could recognize easily even in an old picture. The two in the back were talking and looked very stern and businesslike-a younger version of what could only be Uncle Gideon and an older version of Octavio Tinker than she was used to seeing in the library portrait. There was something else strange about the picture as well, some nagging detail she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Which one…?” she asked.

  Stillman’s finger stabbed the screen. “There. Right in front. With Grace Tinker.” And indeed, now that she paid more attention to the foreground couple, Lucinda recognized Gideon’s lovely, brown-haired wife from the pictures she had seen in the parlor. The long-haired man walking beside her and apparently making her laugh was young and fit, dressed in slacks and sandals and a Hawaiian shirt…

  “You,” she said quietly. “That’s you walking with Grace.”

  “It certainly is,” said Stillman. “We were good friends since her childhood, and would have been more one day, but Gideon stole her from me.”

  “Eww, wasn’t she like your cousin or something? That’s disgusting!”

  He gave her an extremely cold look. “Cousin once removed. Perfectly acceptable. Do you want to know what’s truly disgusting, little girl? Gideon married her, then when he knew he could secure the farm for himself, he got rid of her.”

  Lucinda thought of the misery she had seen on Uncle Gideon’s face when he talked about his lost wife. “I don’t believe he would hurt her-that he would do anything bad to her. He really loved her!”

  “Hah.” Stillman shook his head. It was strange to look from the face in the picture to the face beside her. Ed Stillman was still slender, still handsome. Except for his gray hair he might have been the man in the picture, escaped from the past and dropped into the present like something out of the Fault Line. “Gideon Goldring never loved anyone but himself,” he said angrily. “If he cared for her so much, where is she? And why did he do everything on God’s green earth to keep the police from properly searching that property?”

  Lucinda knew: because they would have found a lot of things no one had ever seen before. They would have found a hole into the past. They would have found monsters… “I don’t know,” she said. A thought had suddenly occurred to her: if Ed Stillman had truly been a favorite of old Octavio and his granddaughter, why didn’t he know about the Fault Line? Octavio Tinker would have had to work hard to keep it secret from a regular visitor, but he obviously had done just that. Had Octavio decided a long time ago that Stillman wasn’t trustworthy? “Gideon probably had his reasons to keep the police out, because I know he really loved Grace.”

  Stillman looked at her in disgust. “He truly has you children brainwashed, doesn’t he? Oh, poor old Gideon! Everyone’s out to get him!” He stared at the screen of his phone and his face changed, softened. “So many years ago-Good Lord! I was here more than I was at my parents’ house-a lot more… ”

  Another thing that had puzzled Lucinda suddenly revealed itself to her. “Who took that picture?”

  “What?”

  “If all of you are in the picture, even Octavio, who took it?” Because that had been back in the days before Mr. Walkwell or any of the other Fault Line people, hadn’t it? Had it even been a farm then, or just Octavio Tinker’s crazy house?

  Stillman looked at her as though she had asked him to explain Santa Claus. “Who took it? What does that matter? Dorothea, probably-Grace’s cousin from back east. She lived on the farm for several years. There were always lots of people around in the old days-it was a joyful place, full of music and good conversation. Before Gideon took over.”

  There are still lots of people there, Lucinda thought but didn’t say. It’s just they’re from the Ice Age and ancient Mongolia and places like that…

  The driver now pulled over to the side of the road. The windshield wipers swooshed back and forth, but the rain was coming down so hard it didn’t make much difference. Lightning blanked the sky for a long moment. Lucinda could dimly see the front gate of Ordinary Farm appear a hundred yards away, but it had disappeared by the time the thunder finally came.

  “We’re there, Mr. Stillman,” said the man behind the wheel. “Do you want to call the house again or something?”

  “Call? What am I, a stranger?” Stillman laughed. “No, we’re going in, Cater. Drive through the gate.”

  “It’s shut,” the driver pointed out.

  “So?”

  Cater gunned the engine.

  “But there’s an electrical fence!” cried Lucinda, suddenly terrified.

  Stillman laughed even louder. “Oh, goodnes
s, do you think an electric fence is going to hurt us? In here? Girl, you could hose down this car with an AK-47 from close range and barely scratch it…!”

  The car leaped forward and smashed against the front gate in a grinding explosion of metal poles and snapping wires. There was no shock, or at least none that Lucinda could feel, and an instant later they were through the outer perimeter, a few strands of fence still tangled in the bumper and dragging in the gravel as they headed toward the inner gate, where the trick would no doubt be repeated.

  But what if the animals get out? she wanted to shout. What if the manticores get loose? It terrified her to think of those things with their long claws and weird, manlike faces roaming the countryside. But what could she say about it? She tried, “Gideon has watchdogs, Mr. Stillman-big, dangerous ones! If we… ”

  Ed Stillman smiled and reached under his jacket, but this time instead of bringing out a cell phone he produced an ugly squared-off pistol, so flat and unreflective in the dim light of the car that she could hardly even see it. Still, it drew her eye like an evil magical object from a fairytale. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the watchdogs, young lady,” Stillman told her, “unless it’s their safety you’re worrying about. Because the explosive bullets in this baby would kill a rhinoceros.”

  “We don’t have any rhinos on Ordinary Farm,” she said faintly as they swerved and spun through gravel, hurrying toward the farmhouse and whatever terrible craziness she’d set into motion.

  “Well, that’s lucky for the rhinos, then,” said Edward Stillman, slipping the gun back into its holster. “Because I’m in a bad, bad mood.”

  Chapter 32

  March of the Buttheads

  “O kay, Jenkins,” Steve said as they staggered out into wider spaces of the Fault Line cavern, “I definitely have to give you one thing-some interesting stuff happens when I hang out with you.”

  Tyler flicked the beam of his flashlight around until he located the ladder and the hatch door above it and the tightness in his chest eased a little. They were in the right time, anyway, or at least it looked that way. “Sorry, what?”

  Steve just went on as though Tyler hadn’t said anything. “I mean, whoa, I wish I knew you when I was little. ‘Mom, can I have a play date with Tyler? We’re going to go through the mirror and we might meet some ghosts and then we’re going to play with the dragons… ’ ”

  “Crap.” The feeling of having made a mistake-of having made a lot of mistakes-suddenly crashed down on top of him. “Crap, crap, crap.”

  “What’s wrong?” Steve suddenly looked serious, darting his own flashlight all around the rocky chamber. “What is it?”

  “I totally forgot-it’s locked.” Tyler smacked at his leg in frustration. “I’m such an idiot! There’s a padlock on the other side of this thing as big as your head. We can’t get out this way. Shoot!” He climbed up the ladder and shoved at the hatch to show Steve what he meant, but to his astonishment the trap door not only moved, it popped right open.

  “Guess they don’t make those padlocks like they used to,” Steve said. “Can we just get out of here now?”

  “But… but… ” Tyler pushed the hatch open and lifted his head. The silo was as empty and cobwebbed as it had been the last time. Wow, I can’t believe most of the summer’s gone by and this is the first time I’ve been here! he thought. He had been dreaming about the Fault Line most of the year, but it just showed how crazy this summer had been. To emphasize the point, rain was drumming hard on the silo roof, as if this were not August but February. “There’s another lock, too-on the outside of the silo door… ”

  “Yeah, well, check it before you waste too much time telling me how it’s as big as a horse or something,” said Steve. “Y’know, just in case it’s open, too. Then let’s go get something to eat.”

  Tyler wasn’t as surprised this time when he pushed on the door and found it unlocked. He peeked outside just as lightning whitened the sky, then let the door fall closed again as thunder followed only a second or two later.

  “Let’s go, already!” said Steve. “Onward to snacks!”

  Tyler glared at him. “You do know that we have more important things to do right now than feed you, right?”

  “Says the man who doesn’t have to keep this magnificent physique of mine constantly fueled.” Steve patted his belly. “Your suggestion is considered and rejected.”

  Tyler couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll try to steal you something if we go past the kitchen.”

  “Where are we going now that we’re here, anyway?” Steve had settled in on the silo floor and was patting his pockets as if hoping he’d find a candy bar or something he’d missed. Tyler thought that was pretty unlikely since Steve had been doing the same thing every few minutes for the last several hours. “Because you never told me.”

  The reason Tyler hadn’t told him was that he hadn’t really thought about it much. His only real goal had been getting back onto Ordinary Farm. He needed to… no, scratch that, he absolutely had to stop Colin Needle from pulling off some kind of game-changing trick with the Continuascope, making everybody think that he was the one with all the answers. And of course, if Lucinda was right about all this spores-and-fungus business, Tyler knew he should probably try to do something about that too.

  Gideon. If Gideon was confused, then what was more likely to bring him back than to see his beloved Grace again?

  “We’re going to the house,” he told Steve, opening the door of the silo as thunder again crashed overhead. What he didn’t say, but could have, was that they were going right into the witch’s castle without even a bucket of water to throw on her.

  They had only taken a few steps when Steve suddenly let out a noise of surprise and disgust and scrambled back into the shelter of the silo’s front door. “Dude, I just stepped on something disgusting!” He trained his quivering flashlight beam at the muddy ground. “Ooh, it’s like a giant salamander. With two heads…!”

  Tyler looked at the confused creature, pale and shiny in the rain as it waddled away from the harsh glare of the flashlight, limping slightly. The false head in the rear appeared to watch them reproachfully as the animal hurried on. “It’s one of those things from the reptile barn,” he said. “Can’t remember the name-amphibunnies, something like that. Me and Lucinda always just call them ‘Buttheads’ because they have another head on their butts…”

  “Amphisbanae,” Steve said. “Wow. They’re real.”

  Tyler turned to look at his friend. “What are you talking about? How do you know that?”

  Steven Carrillo scowled. “Dude, I am only the best Dungeoneer in my school. I have run so many games that people just say, ‘We’re going to play some Steve today.’ Something flipped past his face, wiggling slightly, and he flinched back. ‘But I have no idea what that just was

  …!”

  “Flying snake.” Tyler watched it splash gently to the ground and wiggle away in the same direction as the two-headed lizard, apparently headed toward the far end of the farmhouse. As he watched, he noticed for the first time that quite a few crawling things were moving through the rain-spattered mud. “Whoa, why are all these snakes and things out? It’s like they all got out of the Reptile Barn… ” A sudden thought struck him. “We have to get going.” He grabbed Steve’s arm and shoved him off the steps of the silo and toward the distant house.

  “What are you doing…?” Steve was hopping and skipping over the mud in what would have been a very comical manner, but Tyler was not feeling very humorous at the moment. “You’ll make me step on these things.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Keep going.” He had just realized that if this parade of buttheads and flying snakes meant the Reptile Barn was open, they might be meeting up with the bigger reptiles any moment-not just basilisks and cockatrices, but dragons, too.

  They hurried across the open space between silo and house. The summer storm seemed to home in on them as though it had eyes-Tyler could have sworn the rain was harder wh
ere they were than anywhere else. Lightning cracked and this time he could see it, a shimmering, shivering bolt that zigzagged down from the sky on the far side of the house; for a moment the weird profile of Ordinary Farm jumped out against the glare like a theater set. In that instant of black house and white sky he saw something sliding across the heavens, a shape like one of the flying snakes but a hundred times bigger. “Okay, just run!” he shouted, yanking Steve so hard they both nearly fell.

  Twenty seconds later, slipping like skaters on bad ice, they reached the gravel driveway. They dug across it to the porch at the kitchen end of the house where Tyler pulled Steve into the ornamental bushes.

  “Ssshh,” he said, shaking his friend until he stopped groaning. “Shut up! You’ll get us killed!” The lightning flashed again, but to Tyler’s great relief there was no longer anything dragon-shaped in the sky. He looked back over his shoulder at the house. The lights were on in the dining room and kitchen areas, but all the curtains were drawn: there was no way to tell who might be working in there, if anyone. “We’ll go around to another door. Come on!”

  But even as they crept along beside the house, keeping the front garden hedge between themselves and the driveway, Tyler heard an unexpected sound, the rumble of car tires on the gravel. He stuck his head above the ragged hedge and saw a long, low black car, the kind you might see pull up in front of a Hollywood premiere, except Tyler was pretty certain no famous actors or actresses were going to be making an appearance here tonight.

  Steve popped up beside him. “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” He hesitated for a moment, but he couldn’t imagine anything good coming out of that car. Animals loose, strange visitors-what was going on here? “Just forget about it. We have to get inside fast.” Before something eats us, he thought but didn’t say.

  They crawled the rest of the way around the kitchen end of the house on hands and knees like commandos moving in on a well-defended enemy position. Thunder boomed like artillery.