“I…I…,” Penelope ventured, but nothing more dared escape her mouth.
“Dool you know lat happens to little hirls who tlespass on my ploperty?” The man waved the chain saw to and fro and reached into his pocket.
“Please…please don’t hurt me,” Penelope stammered. “My name is Penelope March and I live on Broken Branch Lane. I…Your dog was in danger….”
She looked to Wolfknuckle, hoping he could somehow explain the situation to this madman. But the dog was watching the scene curiously, as though nothing like this had ever happened and he was interested to see how it would play out.
The man’s face softened. He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out something pink and gruesome—false teeth?—and slid them into his mouth with a loud suck. “Ah, much better,” he said. “My utmost apologies. I’m always a bit testy without the old choppers. Now, tell me, what are you chattering about? What in blazes was your arm doing in my foyer?”
“Wolfknuckle,” Penelope said. “He ran into the street and nearly got hit by a car.”
“Wolfknuckle? Who is this Wolfknuckle? Your imaginary friend? I most certainly hope so, because as far as imaginary friend names go, that may be the best I’ve ever heard.”
“No! Your dog. Him.”
The old man looked at his dog. “Wolfknuckle? Wolfknuckle!” He erupted into hearty peals of laughter. “I’ve never heard such a misnomer. That yellow-bellied mutt faints at the mere mention of blood. His name is Henry. But I’ll have to start calling him by his new name.”
As Wolfknuckle/Henry hung his enormous head and slunk away in shame, the old man took off his goggles. “I,” he said with an exaggerated bow, “am Ore9n Buzzardstock. O-R-E-9-N. The nine is silent. What did you say your name was?”
“Penelope. March.”
“Pleased to meet you, Penelope March.” He extended the chain saw as if it were his hand.
Penelope did not shake the chain saw. She had finally noticed the peculiar surroundings into which she had been pulled. Just beyond the foyer was a giant ice gallery—a colorful wonderland teeming with elevated nooks and lofts and upside-down forts. Long twisting slides morphed into tunnels, which gave way to ladders and sideways staircases curlicuing at impossible angles. Some led to balconies. Others led directly to the ceiling. Others led to nowhere at all.
Among them, sculpted with obvious care, were dozens of bizarre moments frozen in ice and time. A grizzly bear in a barber’s chair, getting his fur trimmed and reading a newspaper. A romantic scene between an elf and a slice of Swiss cheese. A tuxedoed gentleman with three chins playing three violins. Each sculpture was so detailed and realistic that Penelope felt oddly shy, as though she were in a crowded room rather than alone with a stranger. This was the work of a madman. Or a genius. Both, maybe.
“How did you do all this?”
“The lost art of ice sculpture,” Buzzardstock said. “My father, Alex5ei Buzzardstock, taught me. Magnificent artist, Alex5ei. His father, Dmit3ri Leonov Buzzardstock, taught him. Ice is all we Buzzardstocks know, really. Here.” He handed Penelope a chisel. “Take off your gloves and give it a try.”
The tool was razor-sharp and heavy in her hands, and she wondered what kind of man would hand a weapon to a child he had just met. Or any other child.
“Don’t be timid,” he said, gesturing at a block of ice sitting on a worktable. “Give it a go.”
Penelope took a tentative poke at the ice, spraying slivers of frost here and there. She tried again, and a chunk chipped off in a perfect straight line.
“Well now,” Buzzardstock said. “It appears you’re a natural.”
Penelope blushed. “How do you make the colors?”
“Oh, a variety of ways. I add special dyes. Gels. The blood of children.”
Penelope gripped the chisel tighter.
Buzzardstock giggled. “I’ve heard the stories. I’m a vampire. I’m a reincarnated demon child. I’m an opium-addled zombie cannibal. I’m half man, half cobra, half biscuit, which makes me a hundred percent creature, fifty percent pastry, and a mathematical impossibility, to boot. That’s my favorite!”
Penelope giggled and looked around the room. “This is…”
“Do you like it? Oh, even if you don’t, please say you do. I’ve grown quite needy in my old age.”
“I think it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Buzzardstock beamed. “Ah, a child with taste. Not like the pea-headed hooligans who throw turnips at my windows. Oh, how I despise turnips, their bulbous taproot and the revolting insult masquerading as flavor contained in their foul, acrid flesh. Don’t much like the kids either.”
Penelope ran her fingers along a sculpted pool table. The balls were little ice pomegranates and hand grenades, and reaching from each corner pocket was a decrepit hand. “How long have you been doing this?”
“The better part of thirty-one years.” Buzzardstock sighed. “Who knows how long it will last? Time is tighter than my portly dog’s collar. But that’s the beauty of ice sculpture: fleeting magnificence remains the most poignant magnificence.”
Penelope didn’t understand what he meant.
“I feel that I owe you a favor,” Buzzardstock said. “What with your saving my dog—what was it, Bloodbutter?—from certain disaster. Come to my kitchen for conversation and ale. No, wait. Perhaps you’re too young for ale. Conversation, then.”
“I should be getting home,” she said. “I have a lot of homework.”
“Homework?” Buzzardstock scoffed. “What does one learn from homework besides spelling words and multiplication tables and other pointless nonsense?”
This comment stung Penelope, though she wasn’t sure why, considering she also thought homework was a waste of time.
Buzzardstock bit his chapped lip and arranged what was left of his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t get many visitors here. School and homework are terribly important, if for no reason than they teach you about the strange ways of adults who resent your youth and wish nothing more than to end it as quickly as possible. Why don’t you come back when you have more time? I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“I’d like that.”
“Wonderful! If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll return shortly and show you out.” Buzzardstock scurried down a corridor that seemed to go on forever, his little work boots squeaking out a choppy drumbeat on the floor.
I’m alone, Penelope thought. In the Ice House. What a weird afternoon.
She saw a flyer on the ice coffee table. Penelope smoothed it out and read the large Gothic print:
TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
GLACIER COVE IS DOOMED!
A tingle scurried up her neck. The message was frightening enough on its own, but something about the lettering, which looked ancient and authoritative, chilled her bones. Before she could read the small print, Penelope saw something else on the table, cradled in a nest of crinkled aluminum foil.
A cookie.
It might’ve been chocolate chip or oatmeal. With its dull color and surface of lumps and craters, it looked more like the moon than any cookie she had ever seen. As she glanced around the room at the sculptures and thought of the man who had created them—the same man who had most likely baked this cookie—her responsible side took charge. She couldn’t possibly…
Stella Wanamaker’s thick accent tumbled into Penelope’s head: A stranger has entered your life….Do not trust this stranger.
On cue, Penelope’s stomach spoke up with a yawning growl. She was so hungry. The thought of another meal of turnip stew angered her belly. What could one bite hurt? Buzzardstock would never notice.
She reached for the aluminum, her fingers inches away—
“Thank you once again for saving my hapless canine,” brayed Buzzardstock, who had reappeared. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but now I must resume my work. Pleased to meet you, Penelope March, and I eagerly await your return.” He extended his wrinkled hand to Pen
elope, who had pulled hers far from the cookie.
With that, Ore9n Buzzardstock slid the goggles over his eyes, cranked up the chain saw, and returned to work on his latest sculpture, which appeared to be a team of penguins in military uniforms bowling against a team of rhinoceri—and winning, based on the smug looks on the penguins’ faces.
Penelope grabbed the cookie and ran home.
It wasn’t until she made it back to her room on Broken Branch Lane, dripping with cold sweat, that she noticed she had forgotten her gloves.
“If you don’t eat it, I will.”
“Oh no, you won’t.”
“One bite.”
“No bites.”
“A crumb?”
“No crumbs, Miles.”
“Come on, Pen!”
“No.”
Miles and Penelope stood in line behind dozens of kids lugging makeshift sleds. Most had garbage can lids or ratty old plastic seats. One girl hoisted a laundry basket over her head. All had climbed the same slippery ice ladder to the top of Ivory Shelf, Glacier Cove’s peak. To get back down, they had three paths: Body Bag Glades (long, winding), Nose Dive (short, steep), or Satan’s Elevator (fast, pants-wetting terrifying). Penelope had never collected enough nerve to try Satan’s Elevator, and judging by the screams of kids who had, she never would.
Miles reached for Penelope’s pocket. She slapped his hand away. “Don’t. Touch. The cookie.” Penelope tightened her grip on the foil package.
“Why’d you take it if you’re not going to eat it?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Come on. It’s just a cookie.”
“It’s my cookie. I’ll decide what to do with it.”
“I think I might have to make a scene, then.”
“Miles, don’t—”
“ATTENTION, IVORY SHELF! MY SISTER, PENELOPE MARCH, HAS GONE CUCKOO!”
A few kids laughed, but most ignored the outburst. Miles March was always yelling random things or humming along with a tune no one else heard, never worrying—or even noticing—whether anyone heard him.
“Thanks a lot.” Penelope peeked over the sea of hats and scarves snaking around the Ivory Shelf. “What are we doing here? I hate the Shelf. My hands are freezing.”
“Hey, Cohen! Keep the line moving!” Miles hollered.
Cohen shuffled forward. “Yeah, keep your lips moving, March.”
Miles turned to Penelope. “Tell me again.”
“Which part?”
“Every part.”
For the third time, Penelope recounted all she could remember about the strange afternoon. The dog, the sculptures, the flyer, Buzzardstock’s false teeth, everything. She described her eerie encounter with Stella Wanamaker and how the old woman had said a stranger would enter her life and he couldn’t be trusted. Each time she repeated the details, it felt more like a dream. The only proof was in her coat pocket, folded up in aluminum foil.
“I want to see the Ice House,” Miles said. “When you go back to get your gloves, I’m coming too.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
Penelope shook her head. “I think we should tell Dad.”
Miles groaned. Their father was not the kind of man who would encourage his children to eat a cookie baked by a stranger with green hair and a chain saw, much less spend time in such a man’s home.
“Don’t tell Dad.” Miles crept closer to the front of the line. “If we tell Dad, he’ll say no, and that’ll be that.”
Penelope knew her brother was right. She had an anxious feeling about Buzzardstock that she couldn’t explain. Though he seemed harmless enough, and she certainly did not want to kiss the Ice House and its mysteries goodbye, something was not right about him.
“Fine, I won’t tell.” Penelope set down her sled at the top of Body Bag Glades. That was when she turned and saw Coral Wanamaker behind them in line, alone, holding a worn square of cardboard and staring right at Penelope. Penelope waved, more in shock at seeing Coral than anything else.
Coral waved back, but instead of moving her hand, she moved the rest of her body and kept her hand still. It was as though she had never waved at anyone in her life and wasn’t sure how.
“Here we go,” said Miles, oblivious. He trundled over to Satan’s Elevator and pretzeled his lanky body onto his sled. “So, what about the Ice House?”
Penelope snapped back to attention. “I’ll think about it.”
They launched their bodies down their separate paths, adding to the chorus of noise on the mountain.
—
Think about the Ice House Penelope did. She spent hours tossing and turning in her hammock that night, listening to the snow swirl outside.
Miles had been sleeping in his handcuffs lately and waking up periodically to thrash and scrape himself free. Tonight he lay fast asleep, arms pinned behind his back.
As quietly as she could, Penelope reached into her coat pocket, feeling the creased aluminum. Before she could pull the package out, a noise echoed from the kitchen.
Penelope crept into the kitchen to find her father slumped in his chair, his beefy fingers clutching an empty glass. His head lay on the table, a puddle of foamy purple drool spooling from his mouth.
Penelope sighed. What little money their family had, her father earned as a turnip icer, the most thankless job on Glacier Cove. Basically, it involved chipping away at the ice until he could pull up the turnips miraculously growing underneath. Backbreaking work, even on a good day. Most of his paycheck went toward buying food for his children and himself, which meant more turnips.
But Russell March also bought bottles of Purple Lightning. A foul alcohol made from a mixture of fermented turnips and other repulsive rubbish, Purple Lightning turned him into someone else entirely. And that someone was not a person Penelope wanted to know. While he would never hurt Penelope or Miles, he had once punched a kitchen cabinet in a rage. The hole left by his fist was still there; in fact, it was one of Miles’s favorite places to leave notes for Penelope: a constant reminder of their father’s unpredictability.
Tonight, after making sure he was breathing, Penelope wiped the drool from her father’s face, put a pillow under his head, and gently removed his boots. She allowed herself a moment to resent him before kissing his sweaty head. “I love you, Dad,” she whispered.
“I love you, Angela,” he garbled.
Penelope hadn’t heard him speak her mother’s name out loud in years. To hear it now pricked her heart. Suddenly, the thought of returning to her hammock saddened her, as did the certainty that her father would not remember this in the morning. He would be distant and drive off in his dented car to work in the turnip fields. So she sat down on the living room couch and pulled the foil package from her pocket.
In the dark, it looked like any other cookie, lumpy and heavy. Maybe one bite—
No, a voice in her head said. This is a bad idea. Don’t do it.
Yes, another voice said. This is a great idea. Do it!
No.
Yes.
No!
Would you shut up?
No, you shut up!
Eventually the two voices began interrupting each other and screaming in Penelope’s head so loudly she was certain that Miles would hear them from the next room. There was only one way to shut them out. She picked up the first book she could find and read until her eyes stung.
Breakfast the next day was like any other, with all three Marches working on their bowls of Turnip Flakes in their usual spots. If Russell March had any recollection of the night before, he didn’t show it. The only hints of the evening’s activities were his bloodshot eyes and an empty bottle peeking from the garbage can.
“You plow this morning?” their father grunted.
“Whole south side,” Miles said between mouthfuls. “What a waste of time. It’s snowing again.”
“No honest work is a waste of time.”
Miles snorted. “Only someone who has
n’t driven a snowplow in twenty-five years would say that.” Glacier Cove’s kids took Plower’s Ed in fifth grade. If they passed their test, they were expected to pilot the town’s snowplows for at least a year, starting at the age of eleven, often rising at three a.m. to clear the streets before the rest of the town woke up. Adults considered plowing an honor and a rite of passage. Of course, the kids hated it. No child in his or her right mind continued to plow once they turned twelve. Penelope had struggled through Plower’s Ed, done her year, and promptly thrown away her license.
“It should’ve only taken an hour, but the blade is duller than a butter knife,” Miles said. “And I think the clutch is leaking hydraulic fluid again.”
“You tell Mr. Pisciotta?” Russell asked.
“Yeah. I don’t think he can hear me through all that earwax.”
“Dad,” Penelope said. “Do you know Ore9n Buzzardstock?”
Miles dropped his spoon in his bowl, unleashing a tsunami of milk.
“The old man with the green hair? In that ridiculous house?” Russell asked. “He went to school with Grandpa Bennett. Odd fella.”
“Odd how?”
“Oh, I don’t know. One time—this was long before you were born—he took off his clothes in the middle of a blizzard and climbed the Bank Tower Building, naked, and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself. Wasn’t even his birthday. Didn’t look especially happy, either.”
Penelope giggled. She had no doubt that Buzzardstock had done exactly that. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“Dangerous? Don’t imagine so. People like him, they’re in their own world. Not so interested in the rest of us. What’s this all about?”
“I don’t know. I walk past that house every day and wonder.”
Miles tried to catch Penelope’s eye, but she refused to meet his stare. Their father didn’t notice the exchange. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
“Dad,” Penelope said.
Russell gave his daughter a dead look. What now?
“Do you ever get tired of turnips? Just…I don’t know…wish there was something else out there?”
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