Larry continued. “After a while, I put the whole thing out of my head and gave the padlock key to the police. I told them I had locked the door to the third floor, that the balcony was dangerous and in need of repair.”
Fairday clearly remembered the anticipation she had felt when her father had popped open the padlock. And when they saw the dilapidated balcony, Fairday didn’t hesitate to promise she would stay off it as her father defined the word intimidating: someone or something filling you with fear. He had sure nailed that one.
The sunlight was diminishing, and darkness crept in around them. Elongated shadows shifted across the room as the day was muted by the impending evening. Fairday had been so caught up in the story she hadn’t even noticed the fading light. She suddenly realized she had been squinting. Marcus seemed to read her mind and walked over to switch on the lamp. Soft yellow light flooded the room, lifting the hazy fuzziness, and Fairday relaxed her eyes as the scene came back into focus.
Larry picked up a crate and carried it over to Ruby. Once he was settled, he looked into Ruby’s eyes and in a consoling voice said, “So you see, Miss Begonia, it was never my intention to trap you—I was trying to lock up the third floor so no one else would suffer the same fate as your father. I certainly had no idea I was sealing your fate. I am truly sorry that you’ve been stuck up here, alone for…oh, what has it been now?” He paused. “I would say it must be about fifty-six years. That is, until Miss Morrow came along.”
“Fifty-seven years, actually. Fifty-seven long, painful, mind-numbing years,” Ruby answered sourly.
Fairday couldn’t even begin to fathom what it would feel like to be trapped alone for all those years. What would she do all day? She always wished for more time to read, but certainly not like that! How terrible it must have been for Ruby! Her heart ached at the notion as she considered the disheveled woman strapped to the chair in front of her.
“What happened to you?” Lizzy asked gently. All eyes and ears locked on Ruby Begonia, anticipating her answer.
The bitter wall that seemed to surround Ruby began to crumble away as she spoke in a faraway voice. “My time is running out as we speak,” she said sadly.
“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.
“Every second I spend on this side of the house brings me closer to my death. When the red sand in the hourglass you found runs out, I will die.”
“Is that why you never tried to escape?” Lizzy asked.
“I did try, for many years. But each time I had to keep the hourglass in mind. I never got very far.”
Still listening, Fairday took the hourglass out of her DMS pack and placed it on the table. The sand was falling slowly, and there were less than a handful of grains left to drop.
“Does the sand only move when you’re on this side of the house?” Fairday asked. Her mind flashed back to when she and Lizzy had witnessed the hourglass start working. She suddenly knew who had been outside the tent. That’s why the sand started falling! Ruby was in my room! A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. Glancing at Lizzy, she could tell by the look on her face that her friend was coming to the same conclusion.
“Yes, and that’s what really kept me a prisoner of this house,” Ruby said. Turning to Larry, she sighed deeply. “I’m sorry for blaming you all these years. It wasn’t your fault. You just did what any good person would have done.”
“I’m still confused. How is your life tied to the grains of sand in the hourglass?” Larry asked.
Ruby opened her mouth to answer, but Fairday interrupted. “Um, excuse me, but don’t we need to get you back to the other side, like right now?”
“No, my dear, don’t worry. I now know that time spent with others is more valuable than an eternity alone,” Ruby said.
Fairday let Ruby’s words sink in and couldn’t help but wonder if she would be as calm if she knew her time was almost up. She wasn’t sure, but she knew she definitely wouldn’t want to spend forever by herself.
“Is the hourglass the reason you went missing?” Marcus asked.
“No, other events took place on my wedding day that led me to this fate,” Ruby answered wearily.
“What did happen on the day of your wedding?” Larry asked. “There were so many people in attendance. It seemed unbelievable that you were never found, that not a single soul had any clue as to what might have happened to you.”
“My wedding, ha! As if I ever wanted to get married! That would have just been another endless imprisonment—trapped in this town forever,” Ruby said.
“You never wanted to get married? What about Gilford Pomfrey?” Lizzy asked.
Fairday shot her an impressed look, amazed that her friend had remembered the groom’s name from the newspaper article.
“No, I did not want to marry Gilford,” she said. “The meaningless lifestyle that came neatly packaged with his marriage proposal was not what I wanted. My greatest desire was to travel the world.” She sighed deeply, casting her eyes downward. “Growing up in high society can be very dreary, not to mention very, very lonely.”
Ruby snapped her head up and stared blankly into the room. Her dark eyes were distant, and the tone of her voice quickly turned icy as she continued. “It was my father who wanted me to marry Gilford. He demanded it of me. He told me it was for my own safety. I had no way out! I couldn’t just run away. Where would I go? What would I do? I felt…trapped.”
Marcus looked puzzled. “But you were going to marry him, right?” he said. “On that day, if whatever happened hadn’t happened, you would have gone through with it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I would have married Gilford. For what it’s worth, I always wanted to make my father proud.” Shaking her head, she went on. “I was prepared to hand myself over, even though my greatest desire was just to be free—free of Gilford, free of my father and this house, free of my mundane life.”
Larry muffled a cough and then said, “But you never showed that to anyone. You always seemed happy. I interviewed the wedding photographer for the news article. He told me you had been looking forward to getting married.”
“Yes, I was having my photograph taken for my father. I wanted him to have a memory of me, just as I was, before I became Mrs. Gilford Pomfrey.”
“We know you had your picture taken in this very room. In fact, you were sitting in the same striped chair,” Fairday said.
“That’s true, though it was over there.” Ruby lifted a long finger and pointed to the corner of the room opposite the door.
Fairday exchanged a look with Lizzy and understood exactly what she was talking about. It was Lizzy who asked the question that had been formulating in Fairday’s brain. “What were you pointing to in the picture?”
Keeping her eyes on Lizzy, Ruby began retelling the story of the day she disappeared. “I saw my diary in your backpack, so I assume you know about the gypsy. It was Eldrich I was pointing at when the photographer snapped the portrait. I saw her standing in the doorway watching me. He said something, and my gaze shot away from her for a second. When I looked back, she was gone. I had no idea what that woman was doing at my wedding. Certainly, my father wouldn’t have invited her. I was distracted as the photographer packed up his equipment and bid me farewell.”
“So what was she doing there?” Marcus asked.
“After the photographer left, she reappeared from out of nowhere. In her slithering voice, she formally introduced herself and said, ‘I’ve an offer for you, something to think through.’ Then, lifting the hem of her dress, she revealed the bejeweled high-heeled sneakers.
“I was captivated by their brilliance. I had seen them as a young girl and didn’t think I’d ever see them again. I hardly noticed as she lowered herself onto my bed, smoothing out the coverlet with her long fingers, and beckoned for me to come closer.”
Fairday was biting her nails as Ruby described the scene. She could envision the eerie bedroom—the flickering candles on the vanity, the red velvet coverlet.
S
uddenly, Ruby bellowed, “Oh, why did I listen to her? Why did I ever agree to her offer?”
“What was it? What did you agree to?” Marcus asked.
“She said she had something for me. Something my father wanted me to have. ‘I would not be offering you this fabled prize if you were not the apple of your father’s eye.’ Those were her exact words. Well, I had to know what was so important, so I asked why she had come. ‘Let me show you,’ she said in a mischievous voice. I remember the innocent tilt of her head and the secret way she smiled at me. In an instant she was gliding out of the room and onto the balcony. I followed right behind her, rapt with excitement.
“With a wink of her eye, she leaped over the railing. Before I knew what hit me, I realized she was flying! It was unbelievable! She soared through the clouds, flipping and spinning gracefully before anyone outside noticed. I remember her whizzing by and then landing next to me. ‘How?’ I asked.
“Eldrich held out a foot and wiggled it. ‘The sneakers have the power to fly. They are the reason I can soar through the sky.’ Her voice was dripping with venom, but I couldn’t hear it! I was blinded by the high-heeled sneakers and what they could do for me. It was my way out. I had to have them. I wanted them to be mine.”
Fairday, Lizzy, and Marcus shot each other incredulous looks. “The sneakers can make you fly?” The words came out of Fairday’s mouth first.
“Oh yes, they can fly,” Ruby said. “And, my dear, they can do much more than just that.”
Lizzy was shaking her curls, muttering, “I just don’t believe it.”
Larry’s expression was unreadable as he asked Ruby in a serious voice, “What was her offer?”
“Why, Eldrich offered me the high-heeled sneakers, of course,” Ruby said bitterly, twirling the ribbons faster and faster.
“But did the gypsy want anything for them?” Marcus asked.
“Of course she wanted something,” Ruby replied. “Eldrich told me I could have the sneakers for what she called a trade of sorts.”
“A trade?” Fairday repeated. She couldn’t imagine anything she owned that would be a good enough swap for flying, bejeweled sneakers. I mean, really, what’s cooler than that!
“Yes, a trade,” Ruby said. “Eldrich explained that in exchange for the sneakers, she would acquire my natural gifts. Well, I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew I wanted the shoes. I was bewitched! I didn’t pay any real attention to what was said. ‘For the shoes, I bid you farewell. They are yours, use them well. Now to claim what must be mine, your beauty and song I take this time.’ ”
Fairday thought about the terms of the trade. Would she give up her beauty and song in exchange for sneakers that could make you fly? Well, she wasn’t exactly a supermodel and currently had zero musical talent. What would be the harm? The choice seemed so obvious. But on second thought, maybe those terms should be taken more seriously.
“Once they were in my possession, my skin started to crawl, and my insides felt like they had turned to sour milk. I ignored it. I didn’t care. I was going to fly! I could almost feel the wind in my hair as I bent down to put the sneakers on. But just as quickly, I realized they didn’t fit. I pushed and squeezed, but they were much too small. As you can well see.” Ruby nodded down at her swollen feet.
“I was incensed! My prospects of flying began to disappear as it dawned on me that the shoes would never fit! What had I just agreed to? I yelled at her, but she just stood there grinning at me heartlessly. ‘You agreed to my terms,’ Eldrich said. ‘The shoes you possess—a trade is a trade, no more, no less.’ I ran to the mirror to check my reflection. My hair was duller and my skin began to turn ashen. ‘The debt that was owed has now been repaid,’ she laughed. ‘The score has been settled because of your trade. I took what you gave in exchange for those shoes. Consider yourself lucky that I allowed you to choose.’ Eldrich was changing as well. Her wrinkled skin was smoother, and her hair was no longer a tangled mat. I pleaded with her, but by that time, she had transformed into a beautiful woman, and I had become this.” Ruby’s head lolled back as she bellowed, “I became a monster!”
“You’re not a monster,” Lizzy said with softness in her voice.
“Eldrich reminded me of the key. That I could choose to go through the mirror to the other side. I knew what she was talking about. As you know from my diary, I had hidden the key long ago. My father never knew I’d found it.”
“So when Eldrich reminded you about the key, was she suggesting you would stay forever as you were before you made the trade?” Lizzy asked.
“Yes,” Ruby said. “But there was a string attached. I would remain young on the other side, with all the time in the world. However, should I choose to come back, my time here would be limited by the sands in the hourglass.”
Larry said, “So that’s the choice you made—to stay forever as you were but to live only as a reflection.”
Nodding, she said, “My mind was settled. I couldn’t possibly let anyone see me in this hideous state! I was prepared to go through the mirror, but before I entered, Eldrich heeded a final warning: ‘If on the other side is where you dwell, you will remain the self you know so well. But should you choose to leave that place, you will die with this face.’ And hearing her words, I knew if I ever came out, this is how I would appear until the sand ran out.”
Fairday shivered. How horrible, she thought. Flicking her eyes at the hourglass, she watched another red grain fall. Would she have made the same choice and hidden for all those years? “But you could have told your father what had happened. I mean, he wouldn’t have thrown you out or anything just because you weren’t beautiful anymore, would he?” She knew in her heart that her father would never have cared about what she looked like; he would have just wanted her to be safe.
Lizzy’s brain seemed to be percolating as she asked, “But your dad knew how the brass key worked, right? You wrote that he wore it around his neck, until he threw it at Eldrich and lost it.”
“Yes!” Ruby exclaimed, bolting upright in her seat. “I knew he understood the magic. The gypsy had created the blueprints for him. I planned to reveal myself through the mirror when I was ready. Then I could explain what happened before he had to see me like…like this.”
“But how come you weren’t able to communicate with him where you were? Thurston Begonia wasted away in this house—he never came out, never spoke to anyone,” Larry questioned.
“It was all part of the enchantment. Later on, I realized my father couldn’t see or hear me. Eldrich also warned me that in twenty years, on the day the magic lifted, I would weep while I watched the willow claim him.”
Fairday’s mind skipped to the warning written on the back of the photo as she asked, “Was that why you wrote on the back of the picture? Were you trying to tell him something about the tree?”
Ruby looked sad, sighing deeply before she said, “Yes, I tried to warn him. True to Eldrich’s words, exactly twenty years after we had been living side by side, in two separate worlds, my father could finally see me.”
“What, were you like standing right next to him or something?” Marcus interrupted.
“In a way,” Ruby said. “As it just so happened that the day the enchantment lifted, my father was in this room, sitting in this same chair, looking at my picture. He did that often.”
“The one in the oval frame?” Lizzy asked.
“Correct. I had sneaked over and taken a copy of that picture so I could use the magic to watch my father, which made me feel closer to him. On that day, I was looking through it.” Ruby sighed.
“Your dad knew you were always nearby, right?” Fairday asked, remembering the letter they had found.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why when the curse lifted, he instantly realized I was there. Suddenly, I recalled Eldrich’s warning. I had no idea what was going to happen, only that it had something to do with the willow tree. In my haste, I tried signaling him through the picture, flashing my eyes toward the
mirror.” Her voice rose steadily as she went on. “I knew I couldn’t use the wardrobe. He would never have recognized me—I would have scared him half to death if I popped out looking like this. Besides, I knew he understood how to use the brass key. My father found it after I went missing, and always had it with him. I yelled out that he was in danger, and the house’s magic imprinted my words on the back of the picture. When I saw what was happening, I hoped he’d turn it over before he used the key to open the door.”
“I guess he didn’t notice the ‘beware the tree’ part,” Fairday said quietly.
“No. As soon as he saw my image move, he bolted out of the chair. I flew out of my room just as he opened the balcony door and turned to face the mirror.” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes as she whispered, “And then he saw me.”
A heavy gloom seemed to descend over them as Ruby continued. “His eyes lit up as they looked into mine. But before I could say anything, a bluish glow began to fill the room. The branches from the willow were coming in through the balcony. I watched him as he fought for his life. I had to call for help, so I went through the mirror. He didn’t notice as I swept past and raced down the stairs.” Tears began to flow freely down her gaunt face.
“The anonymous phone call to the police!” Larry blurted out. “Detectives were baffled by it for ages. No one could ever figure out who had called!”
“Yes, it was me,” Ruby replied. “After I notified the police, I hurried back up the spiral staircase to help him. But when he saw me, he froze. I had forgotten what I looked like and called out to him. In his moment of shock, a branch grabbed hold of him.” The torment in her voice seemed endless as she whispered, “My picture was still clenched in his hand as he fell. I heard his scream cut short, and I knew he was dead.”
“Wow,” Marcus whispered. “Someone needs to cut down that tree.”
The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow Page 16