by Dale Peck
“But, but,” Susan stammered, “how can you know it’s really him?”
Uncle Farley shrugged. “I can’t see how it couldn’t be him. He knows all there is to know about Drift House, and he seems to get an enormous amount of work done in no time at all, just like Miss Applethwaite—”
“Have you seen her?” Charles interrupted.
“No, no sign of her, though the dumbwaiter still works as splendidly as ever. Crumpet, Susan?”
Susan reached for the steaming buttered muffin.
Uncle Farley helped himself to a crumpet as well. “My guess is that taking Drift House onto the Sea of Time unleashed some sort of, I don’t know, energy or force or something. This is obviously not standard physics we’re talking about. It’s more akin to—”
“Magic?” Charles suggested.
Uncle Farley nodded sheepishly at his nephew. “We’re men of science, Charles. I prefer to think of it as something undiscovered, or unexplained. Perhaps they’ll name it after you one day—the Charles Force.”
Last fall Susan had grown used to the fact that Charles and Uncle Farley shared certain interests she did not. But still, she felt it best to nip this “men of science” and “Charles Force” stuff in the bud.
“Ahem. The important question is, does this mean Mr. Zenubian has to come with us when we go on”—she dropped her voice—“the Sea of Time?”
Uncle Farley tried to suppress a grin. “And what makes you think we’ll be making any visits to the Sea of Time? Our last trip nearly ended in disaster.”
“Uncle Farley!” Charles and Susan said at the same time. Charles went on, “Why, if you try to stop us, I’ll lock you in your bedroom and take the house out myself. I—I’ll unleash the Charles Force on you!”
Charles’s voice was so forceful that the conversation came to a brief, sharp stop. Stroking the bag in his lap, Charles tried to make a joke of it all.
“Avast ye maties,” he said in his best imitation of a pirate accent. “I’ll make ye walk the plank, I will.”
Susan looked at Charles funny, then grabbed her uncle’s knee.
“Where should we go, Uncle Farley?” Susan said.
“When?” Charles threw in. He felt a tingle on his legs from Mario’s book and said, “Can we go—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, children,” Uncle Farley interrupted Charles. “It’s very late, and here I am spoiling your dinner with savories. Let’s get you settled and properly fed, and in the morning we can map out a few plans. Remember, we have all summer.”
Susan, remembering a comment Pierre Marin had made when they left him on the Island of the Past, said, “We have all the time in the world.”
Charles frowned. He’d remembered the same comment, and had wanted to say it himself.
Uncle Farley, seeing the charged look pass between brother and sister, stood up abruptly.
“All right then. What shall we have for dinner?”
“Spaghetti,” Susan said immediately.
“Hamburgers,” Charles said at exactly the same time.
Uncle Farley smiled wanly at his niece and nephew.
“I think we’d better have both.”
FIVE
Caught in the Act
When Charles awakened the following morning, he glanced over instinctively to see if Murray was still asleep. But the other bed was empty—Murray was still in New York. Charles wondered what had made his brother so afraid of Drift House that he’d deliberately given himself chicken pox. Suddenly it occurred to him that a clue leading to the answer might be contained in Mario’s book. And Susan and Uncle Farley were in bed as well! This was his chance to look at it privately.
Jumping out of bed, he dashed toward his dresser. He stopped dead in his tracks after only two steps.
The backpack wasn’t there.
“Nooooooooooo!”
Charles’s cry of despair preceded him as he ran down the hall toward Susan’s room. “You can’t look at it without me! You can’t! You can’t!”
But instead of finding Susan curled up with the book, Charles found her still asleep. The most incriminating thing in her arms—Charles had to squint, because he’d forgotten his glasses—was her doll, Victor Win-Win.
Susan started upright. Then, seeing it was only Charles, she relaxed. As nonchalantly as she could, she slipped Victor Win-Win under the blanket.
“Whatever are you going on about, Charles?”
“The book! It’s not in my room. I thought you must have taken it, but…”
As Charles’s voice faded away, Susan’s attention sharpened. The children looked at each other with the same thought in their heads.
“Mr. Zenubian!”
Charles dashed toward the stairs, Susan running after him. As he ran past Uncle Farley’s bedroom, the door opened and the disheveled head of their uncle appeared.
“Here now. What’s all the commo—”
“The book, the book!” was all Charles had time to say as he trampled down the stairs.
“He’s taken the book!” Susan threw in, galloping after her brother.
“What book?” Uncle Farley said, knotting his robe and looking about for his left slipper (which, as it happened, was on his right foot). “Who’s taken it?”
The children were too preoccupied to answer. First Charles and then Susan bounded into the music room. Susan nearly knocked her brother down, because Charles had pulled up short at the sight of the tall, dirty (and slightly blurry) figure attempting to stuff the oilskin package into Charles’s backpack.
From somewhere down in his belly, a deep voice rumbled out of Charles: “Drop it!”
His right hand had gone to his left hip, as if reaching for a sword, and somewhat sheepishly, he pretended to scratch an itch.
“Mr. Zenubian!” Susan said behind him. “What were you doing with Charles’s bag?”
“Er, what?” Mr. Zenubian looked down at the backpack in his left hand, the package in his right, as if surprised to see them. “Why, I, uh, I was just unpacking it. Part of my duties.”
It was true that someone (or, in Drift House’s case, something) had unpacked the children’s things yesterday, just as it—er, he, or she—had done last September. But Susan had always assumed Miss Applethwaite attended to those kinds of tasks.
Taking advantage of the children’s momentary silence, Mr. Zenubian stood up straight. A note of wounded pride crept into his voice. Roughly shoving the oilskin package into the backpack, he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be taking this up to your room now.”
“No!” Charles said, and he leapt forward and took hold of the backpack. “I’ll do it!”
Just then Uncle Farley shuffled into the room. His left slipper was on the proper foot, but his right foot was bare, and his toes curled away from the chilly floorboards.
“All right now. What could possibly be worth making so much noise over at this—” His voice broke off when he saw Charles and Mr. Zenubian holding opposite sides of Charles’s backpack. Charles was blinking up at the caretaker with a frightened but determined look on his face, and Mr. Zenubian was looking down at Charles with something that was not quite a snarl curling up one side of his mouth.
Behind his glasses, Uncle Farley’s sleepy eyes suddenly came into sharp focus. “What is going on here?”
For the first time in his life, Charles wished Susan could be her usual blabbermouth self and come up with a good explanation for what they were doing. But Susan was beginning to suspect she’d followed Charles under an incorrect assumption, and held her tongue.
“Well, ah,” Charles said finally, “when I woke up my backpack wasn’t in my room. And when I came down here I found Mr. Zenubian going through it, and—”
“Going through it?” The caretaker cut Charles off. “Putting away things you spoiled children is too lazy to put away yourself is more like it.”
“Please, Mr. Zenubian,” Uncle Farley said. “There’s no need to add insult to injury. Now then, Cha
rles. Are you sure you brought your bag up to your room last night? I seem to recall you setting it on that table when you came in yesterday evening.”
Charles racked his brain, but couldn’t remember. But he would never have left something as valuable as Mario’s book just lying around. Would he? Did he?
“Well, um, I think I, I mean, I’m not exactly sure—”
“I’m afraid it was here all night, Charles.”
Everyone started at this new voice, whose minuscule speaker now stepped out from behind a chair.
“President Wilson!” Susan said—a little guiltily, because she was realizing she’d never asked after his whereabouts the night before.
The century-old parrot scratched the side of his red cheek with one foot, but before he could say something, Mr. Zenubian exclaimed,
“See! ‘Twas here all night! And the boy’s accusing me of thievery when all I was doing was trying to put it away!”
“Charles’s bag was here all night,” President Wilson said, “but you were hardly trying to put it away. You looked at that book for a good half hour, and when you heard Charles coming, you hastened to cover your tracks. That’s not ‘thievery.’ But it is sneaky.”
“Sneaky! This from a bird what was spying on me?”
“I won’t apologize for it. Farley is a trusting man, but I find your sudden appearance perplexing, and your failure to offer a satisfactory explanation makes me suspicious.”
“Please,” Uncle Farley cut in. “It’s very early. No one’s even had breakfast yet. Why don’t we have a bite to eat and then we can discuss this civilly?”
“Pah! You and your ‘bites to eat.’ I’ll not be eating anything—or doing another stitch of work for that matter—until bird and boy both offer me apologies!”
“And I’ll not apologize,” President Wilson retorted, “until you can explain why you were poring over Charles’s book with such interest.”
Uncle Farley turned to Charles. “What book is this everyone keeps referring to?”
“Mar—” Charles began, but Susan cut him off.
“It’s just some old book Charles got,” she said, glowering at her brother.
Throughout this conversation Charles and Mr. Zenubian had been holding on to Charles’s backpack, which contained the book in question. But now the bigger man suddenly pushed it away. Charles stumbled backward and nearly fell.
“And what would I be wanting with Mario’s old book anyway?” Mr. Zenubian said. “I just noticed it had some pretty pictures in it is all.”
At this comment, even a man as diplomatic as Uncle Farley looked at Mr. Zenubian a little skeptically. The latter man looked as though he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and yesterday’s dirt besides. He didn’t give the impression of a man drawn to “pretty pictures” at all.
“I’ve offered you free rein of the library and my study, and you’ve never taken me up on it before. What was so interesting about this particular book?”
Mr. Zenubian looked at his audience like a cornered animal. He crouched down slightly, and began to back away. “I’ll not be accused by the likes of you!”
“No one wants to accuse you of anything, Mr. Zenubian,” Uncle Farley said. “But your actions are often mysterious. All we ask is that you tell us what’s going on.”
“I told you! It was just the pictures that caught my eye.”
“Inside the backpack? Wrapped up in… is that oilskin?”
“It seemed to me,” President Wilson added, “that you knew what you were looking for before you even opened Charles’s bag.”
“Enough! I tell you I won’t be treated this way. I quit!”
The caretaker’s words hung in the air for a moment. Then, pivoting on his heel, he marched heavily to the French windows and strode outside. He slammed the window so hard behind him that it bounced open again, rattling the glass. It was only after he was gone that Susan and Charles noticed the weather beyond the open door.
It was raining.
SIX
The Drawing Room
The open French window creaked on its hinges. A hint of breeze carried the smell of wet into the room. Outside, a steady rain was falling, and wisps of fog snaked over the great lawn down to the Bay of Eternity, pink hued in the light of the rising sun. For a long time no one moved.
The first time Susan and Charles had come to stay with their uncle, they had awakened to a blanketing fog and rain that swept Drift House onto the Sea of Time, an adventure from which they had narrowly escaped with their lives. During that first voyage, the Oakenfelds had defeated the mermaid Queen Octavia and, with the help of Pierre Marin, the man who had originally built Drift House, repaired the two radios that piloted the house through space and time. The children and their uncle had returned from that voyage with the assurance from Pierre Marin that Drift House could never again be taken onto the Sea of Time without its occupants’ permission.
Right?
The sight of the rain held Charles and Susan transfixed. It was nothing like that first deluge, which was so thick not a glimpse of land had been visible. The children could see the patio wall, the lawn, scattered trees, the Bay of Eternity in the distance. But still… What if…?
Uncle Farley cleared his throat. “What am I thinking? The damp is going to throw the harpsichord out of tune.”
He hurried to the open window with a one-slippered shuffle. The latch settled into its groove with a definite click.
“Uncle Farley,” Susan said when her uncle had turned back to the room. “You don’t think …” She let her voice trail off, and nodded at the rain.
Uncle Farley laughed, the first easy moment since the ugly scene with Mr. Zenubian.
“It’s just rain, dear Susan. I’m afraid it’s been a wet spring up here. Nothing to worry about other than mud and mosquitoes. Now then, Charles. What is this book of yours that’s causing so much commotion?”
“It’s not Charles’s!” Susan cut in before her brother could answer. “It’s both of ours.”
Charles glared at his sister—he’d been going to say the same thing, but Susan made it seem like he was some kind of hog, or even a thief.
“We think Mar—” Charles broke off, suddenly remembering that Uncle Farley didn’t know about Murray’s older version. “I mean, someone delivered it to our apartment in New York. Murray thinks it came from the Sea of Time.” That seemed safe enough.
“Really?” Uncle Farley’s eyes lit up. He joined Charles on the sofa. President Wilson hopped on the sofa’s back, and Susan had to content herself with looking over the boys’ shoulders.
Charles pulled back the oilskin. The book had a presence in the room like another person. It filled everyone’s nose with the rich warm smell of leather, a drier tang of old paper. The gilt letters seemed to wink in the early-morning murk, whereas the deeply impressed grooves below the title seemed to suck up what little light there was.
“The Lost Cities,” Uncle Farley read and, as Susan had done in New York, he ran his finger over the letters and the seven hollow lines beneath them. Charles watched his face closely, but Uncle Farley didn’t give any sign that he felt the tingle Charles felt through his pajamas. The book was warm on his lap, like a baby or a puppy, but the feeling was more than physical. Charles knew—he just knew—the book was speaking to him alone.
Uncle Farley reached for the upper right corner of the cover.
“You know what, Uncle Farley?” Charles was startled by the sound of own voice. “Let’s wait to look at this till we’ve gotten dressed and, um, had breakfast. I know it sounds funny, but I don’t feel right looking at this in my pajamas. And, um”—he blinked rapidly, to draw attention to his eyes—“I need my glasses.”
Never one to turn down a meal, Uncle Farley said, “Good point, Charles.” He held up his one bare foot with a chuckle. “I commend your sense of decorum.”
They left the book in the music room as they went upstairs. Charles didn’t want to let it out of his sight, of course,
but the look Susan flashed him said she wasn’t going to let him alone with it. Uncle Farley asked President Wilson to “sit watch” over the book. The parrot seemed to take Uncle Farley’s request literally. He hopped onto the oilskin as though it were a nest, and murmuring something about having been “up all night,” promptly went to sleep.
Later, during breakfast, Uncle Farley seemed distracted, getting up from the table several times and walking to the windows. At first Susan and Charles wondered if he were worried about the weather, despite what he’d said earlier. But the rising sun burned away the clouds, and lent further proof that the rain was entirely normal. Then, before he’d cleaned his plate, Uncle Farley suddenly muttered, “Excuse me,” and hurried out of the room. A moment later, a faint voice trickled into the room:
“Oh. My. Word.”
The same lightbulb went off over Susan and Charles’s heads.
“The drawing room!”
“What? What?” President Wilson started from sleep with a flurry of feathers. “Where is the scoundrel? I’ll scratch his eyes out!”
“Guard the book!” Susan called to the parrot as she hurried out of the room.
“I am not a serv—” But the children were already gone.
From the hallway the children could see strange lights pulsing through the drawing room door. When they actually entered the room, they pulled up short. The room’s walls were undulating in a way they’d never seen before: here an iceberg, there a wall of water, here a snowcapped mountain, there a massive sandy pyramid. It was like being in a movie theater with screens on all four walls. There were desert expanses on one side and solid clots of forest on another, wide stretches of dark open water over here and endless, empty expanses of blue sky over there. Strange houses with grass growing on their roofs alternated with cities of pale buildings that looked like they were made from dried mud. Something was on fire here, and clouds of smoke seemed to sting the children’s eyes, while over there an almost perfectly circular island sank beneath the sea.