by Tad Williams
Or a palace, he thought a moment later as he stepped through into a library. More like a palace.
It really was like some fabulous scene in a movie: Tyler grew dizzy just looking up and around. The walls were covered with bookshelves, from the dusty carpets almost to the roof. There was no second floor, just a high ceiling and all those big windows letting the afternoon sunlight stream in. Plenty of daylight still remained, but the old-fashioned electrical lights he’d seen everywhere around the farm hung all around the big room as well, high in the rafters and also on long wires over clusters of overstuffed chairs and sofas. Tyler had the thrilling sense that the farmhouse really was a palace, or even an entire lost ancient city-everywhere you went you found something crazy and wonderful. He had never imagined that there could be so many books in one place-this was a palace of books, an empire of books.
It’s too bad they wasted all this space on ’em, Tyler thought. It could have been a totally sweet game room.
Books, after all, were pretty boring, and he usually did his best to avoid them. It was because his mother was always going on about how kids who read were better than the ones who didn’t-better than game-playing idiots like her own son, she meant. But Tyler knew better. GameBoss and TV were so much more interesting than almost any book-especially this kind, the old kind that surrounded him now, most of which didn’t even have pictures.
But still, he had to admit the place itself was pretty cool.
He walked a little way down the broad central aisle until he was beneath the spot where the roof bulged up into a dome. The dome had little windows of its own, and it was painted on the inside with all kinds of weird things-animals and trees and strange letters he couldn’t read. He walked back and forth beneath, calling out and listening to his voice echo back from the high ceiling and the dome.
Outside, the sun went behind a cloud. The room darkened and Tyler suddenly didn’t like the place quite as much. He began turning on lights, climbing onto chairs to reach some of the big switches on the walls, sneezing as dust puffed up from the chair cushions. Not all of the switches worked, but golden light blossomed from enough of the lamps that the library began to look cozy and welcoming again. Tyler began brushing dust off the sofas. He felt a bit like Goldilocks as he tried them out. When he found one he liked, he lay down completely and put his dirty sneakers up onto the upholstery, then put his hands behind his head and looked around, master of an entire building.
A guy could get used to this, he thought. Then he found himself face-to-face with a pair of staring eyes.
Tyler yelled and leaped to his feet. A moment later he laughed at himself, although his heart was still beating fast. “You dork!” he said out loud. What had spooked him was only a stupid old painting looking down at him from the wall, lit now by one of the electric bulbs so that the man’s glaring eyes seemed almost alive.
It wasn’t Gideon-the man in the picture was about the same age but his clothes were really, really old-fashioned, a long coat with a high white collar, and his face was a different shape from Gideon’s too. What about the guy who’d built the farmhouse? What had they said his name was-Octavio something? Yes, that was it, Octavio Tinker. This must be him, Tyler decided. The person responsible for this whole crazy place.
The man in the picture did look a bit like a mad scientist. His dark gray hair stuck out over his ears like little wings, and his mustache curled up at the ends like something out of a cartoon. Tyler could imagine him twirling them between his fingertips and saying, “And now-tremble before my death ray!”
But he didn’t look completely like a villain. A dog sat comfortably at his feet, some small black and white breed that Tyler didn’t recognize, and Octavio held an object in his hand that looked mysterious but not particularly ominous-a striking concoction of golden metal, brown wood, and glass lenses.
Tyler stood up and walked toward the picture, squinting at the thing in the man’s hand, but he couldn’t make much of it-it looked like something out of a kid’s story, some kind of magic seeing-device.
Probably just an old-fashioned microscope, Tyler decided at last. Back in the past they probably thought that was the coolest invention ever. Man, they would have freaked out if they saw a GameBoss!
What was interesting, though, was the way that the man in the picture stared out so intently, not at the viewer, as Tyler had first thought, but at something beyond. Tyler turned, wondering if some other portrait might be staring back from that wall behind him, but instead he saw only a very simple dark door set in the wall between two sets of tall bookshelves.
As Tyler walked toward the door he felt a little tingle on his neck, as though old Octavio might be climbing down out of the frame behind him. He knew that was totally silly, but he looked anyway. The mustached scientist was still in his painting, staring out with solemn amusement.
An old brass key with a loop of yarn dangling from it was already in the keyhole, as though someone had unlocked the door only moments earlier. Tyler opened the door slowly, half expecting to find a dead body (or a half-dead murderous zombie or something else that would be in a scary movie). Instead he found himself in a fairly ordinary old bedroom-a retiring room off of the library-with a four-poster bed and a large washstand. He took a few steps inside and stopped. There was very little dust in here, and the air seemed different from in the library just a few feet away-close and tight in his throat.
The washstand had an old marble sink and a jug for water. Behind the basin, mahogany columns framed a huge mirror. Tyler moved to the front of the sink, drawn by something he could not at first put his finger on-then he saw it: the room reflected in the mirror was not exactly the same as the one he was standing in. Here, where Tyler stood, the light had disappeared from the window high on one wall, across from the bed. But in the mirror of the washstand the light of the reflected room was stronger, and he could see that the sky outside the window was still early-afternoon blue.
A chill went up and down his back, and his scalp tingled.
He moved closer to the mirror, but was distracted suddenly by something on the floor, peeking out from under neath the washstand. Tyler reached down and picked it up. It was a tattered old piece of paper, its edges shredded and stained. What remained was covered with somebody’s skinny, old-fashioned handwriting. It was too dark in the bedroom to read it. He clutched it tightly, then looked up again. The light in the mirror still seemed different. He reached out his hand to touch the mirror and his reflection reached out too.
The Tyler reflected in the mirror was wearing a watch-the diver’s watch his father had given him for his twelfth birthday, with all the dials and things he’d never figured out how to use.
But he had left the watch on the table in his room-there was nothing on his own wrist but freckles.
His blood roaring in his ears, Tyler lifted his other arm. The mirror Tyler did the same, perfectly synchronized. Tyler here and now held the scrap of paper in that hand; the hand of the reflection was empty.
He stared openmouthed at the mirror, and as he did so he saw something else. Someone in a dark, hooded cloak was standing in the reflected doorway behind him, watching him.
This time Tyler shouted aloud with surprise and terror, a ragged noise that echoed flatly in the small room. When he whirled around no one was there. He dashed out of the haunted room into the library aisle and stopped, listening for footsteps, listening for any evidence that whatever he had seen through that washstand mirror was, in fact, here with him now, pursuing him. Something with clawed fingers grabbed at the back of his neck.
When his shrieks finally died down and no werewolf or vampire had seized him, Tyler climbed back onto his feet-he had been lying on the floor with his hands over his head-and discovered a very frightened Zaza clinging to the nearest bookcase, staring at him with eyes so wide it seemed certain she’d never seen a boy having a total wuss-out fit before.
“So that was you, huh?” Tyler tried to laugh, for the monkey’s benefit if n
o one else’s. “Old Banana Breath. Should have known. Land on a guy’s neck… ”
But, of course, unless the winged monkey also had a hooded cloak she liked to wear, it still didn’t explain the person he’d seen in the reflection.
Tyler was shivering now. He’d had quite enough of the library. He turned off the lights as quickly as he could and hurried outside.
Zaza followed him, although none of her fluttering circles brought her too close, and she kept looking at him worriedly, as if he might start screaming and thrashing again at any moment.
The flying monkey left him outside the doorway leading to the kitchen. Tyler could hear people talking in the dining room, but he didn’t go in. He hurried through the kitchen, pocketing a few bits of fruit for the monkey in case she came back to his window again, then made his way upstairs. He found their hallway so quickly and easily this time he didn’t even realize he was there until he saw the familiar carpet. He left the fruit in his room and knocked on Lucinda’s door, but she didn’t answer. He certainly wasn’t going to wait. His sister was probably downstairs already and Tyler was getting hungrier by the second.
He almost ran directly into Colin Needle downstairs, who stepped without warning into the dining room doorway like he was trying to block Tyler’s entrance.
“What are you doing?” Tyler demanded. “I nearly knocked you over.”
“Oh, sorry.” Colin didn’t sound like he meant it. “I see you’re finding your way around.”
“Yeah,” said Tyler, trying to push past him, but Colin moved back into his path.
“By the way, I noticed that you were in the library.”
Suspicion made Tyler’s skin prickle. “How do you know that?”
“Because you turned on most of the lights, stupid. Even in daytime I could see that from my window. Nobody’s been in there for years so I knew it must be you. We’ve all seen how the famously daring Master Jenkins likes to go out and stick his nose into things.”
“Just get out of my way,” Tyler told him, pushing him, but Colin wasn’t ready to move yet.
“And I saw you making friends with the monkey,” the older boy observed. “How sweet.”
“What if I did? She’s not your monkey, is she?”
“Lord, no!” Colin sounded like a little old man instead of a teenager. “My mother hates that animal. I was just going to warn you not to bring it around her.” He gave Tyler an odd, sudden smirk-he looked like he had a secret he was itching to tell. “Well, toodle-oo!”
Tyler watched him go, nettled. That had been a deliberate attempt to get under his skin. But why? Why should Colin care what Tyler did?
As he pushed through into the dining room, he suddenly recalled something he’d forgotten in the last hour’s excitement and confusion. That weird trick mirror above the washstand had startled him so badly that he’d left behind the ancient piece of paper he’d found there-the one with the scratchy writing.
Well, it would just have to stay there, Tyler decided. He was hungry now-no, starving. And besides, he couldn’t see himself going back into the haunted library any time soon.
Chapter 11
Standard Issue
T yler seemed very revved up, bouncing on the edge of the bed. “Lucinda, get up. We’re going into town!”
Lucinda’s head felt as heavy as a balloon full of wet sand. The morning sun was streaming through the window, and she could hear a jay squawking somewhere outside. She vaguely remembered finding the Grace Parlor, as she thought of it, then Mrs. Needle giving her a cup of tea, but not much else that had happened after that. She realized she must have slept all evening and all night.
“Luce, wake up now! We’re going into town.”
“Huh?” Her tongue felt like it was coated in peanut butter gone bad.
“Come on, you’ve been sleeping since yesterday afternoon. Hours and hours-you missed dinner. So, c’mon, Luce, get up!”
He had the grace to look a little shame-faced.
Lucinda tried to sit up, which was no easy thing with her brother going boing, boing, boing on the edge of the bed. She had a clean bandage on her hand, and the cuts beneath didn’t hurt too badly at all. “Okay,” she mumbled, pushing herself out of bed. “Just let me put my shoes on.” She frowned at herself in the mirror. “And comb my hair.”
Tyler rolled his eyes but got out of her way. “Just don’t take forever. Man, you should see all the awesome stuff there is on this farm, Luce. I spent a few hours doing the rounds with Ragnar-you know, the guy with the beard?”
“Stop bouncing or wait outside, will you?”
“I like Ragnar. But, man, I hate that Colin guy.”
“Would you quit obsessing about Colin? What did he ever do to you?”
“Why? Do you like him or something?” Tyler stopped in the doorway and stared at her with horror. “Oh, perfect-my sister has a crush on the evil henchman.”
“Tyler! He’s not an evil anything. Just shut up. My head hurts.”
“Come on, Luce!” Now he was jumping up and down in the hall.
“ Okay! I’ll be right there!” She slammed the bedroom door shut on him, which punished no one but herself.
Normally that would have been enough for them to stay silent with each other for hours, but Tyler kept trying to talk to her as they sat on the wagon in the hot sun. At first it just made her more irritated, but after a while it occurred to her that for once Tyler was actually trying to communicate. It was like someone had stolen her little brother and substituted some kind of pod boy.
“There’s been so much stuff going on!” he said. “I tried to wake you up before we went out this morning, but you were totally snoring. It was so cool! Ragnar let me feed the griffins. They’re little. There isn’t a mom or dad. They’re, like, birds-they have eagle beaks, but they have bodies like something else. Ragnar said people used to say they were part lion, but really it’s just that they’re kind of yellow like a lion and they have this kind of weird fluffy fur on the back end where the feathers stop-”
“So why won’t anyone tell us where they come from? What’s the big secret?”
Mr. Walkwell half turned in his seat, as though he was going to say something, but instead he just flicked the reins and muttered to the horse.
“I know,” Tyler said quietly. “I asked Ragnar that. He just says it’s up to Uncle Gideon. But it has to be some kind of DNA thing, because otherwise why would they have baby griffins but no mother?”
“How should I know?”
“And there’s other stuff I found out too.” He was whispering now. “I’ll tell you later. The house is haunted.”
Which was just what Lucinda and her headache didn’t really want to hear.
Standard Valley was not a town in the sense Lucinda thought of the word. It only had a couple of main roads and one main shopping district-if you could call a gas station, a feed and hardware store, a bank, a grocery store, and a coffee shop, all in a row across from the train station, by any name as fancy as “shopping district.” Lucinda found it depressing, but at least the sun had gone behind a swirl of dark clouds, making the day much darker. It was still unpleasantly hot but the glare was gone, and she thought she could even smell something like rain in the air.
As the horse-drawn wagon clopped into the center of town, a few men standing around a truck parked next to the gas station looked up. One of them-a gray-haired man with a big belly and a baseball cap pushed far back on his head-grinned and gave a kind of salute, then shouted, “I see you’re still driving last year’s model!”
To Lucinda’s surprise, Mr. Walkwell shouted back, “At least when this one backfires all I am smelling is hay!” And then he actually smiled. It took her a few seconds to figure out that not only had secretive, grumpy Mr. Walkwell acted like he knew the man, he had even made a joke.
“Who’s that guy?” she asked.
“Hartman,” said Mr. Walkwell. “He owns the gas station. I have met worse men in this world than him.” Which meant
he sort of liked him, as far as Lucinda could tell.
“Look!” said Tyler as they rolled to a stop in front of the feed and hardware store. “A hitching post! Just like in a cowboy movie!”
Lucinda, sipping the last from a bottle of water, was more interested in the idea of getting hold of some lip gloss and maybe some sunblock. Her lips were already dry and cracked after only a couple of days, and she could just see surviving the summer and returning to school only to have the other girls make fun of her because of her farmer tan and ruined lips.
They spent a boring half hour in the general store. Lucinda found her skin-care products and Tyler, for some reason, bought a flashlight and a ton of batteries. Mr. Walkwell put in an order for some supplies-apparently the feed and hardware store and grocery store were run by the same people. As he limped around looking at things, the few other customers nodded at Mr. Walkwell as if they knew him. The heavyset woman behind the counter smiled at the children and asked them their names as they paid for their goods.
“You staying for the summer?” she asked. “Oh, you’ll have fun. It’s nice for city kids to spend some time on a farm. See how things really work!” Lucinda wanted to laugh, but of course she didn’t. If this woman only knew! “Are you having a good time so far?” The stout woman was really looking at them, Lucinda realized. “They don’t get many visitors on that Tinker farm…”
Suddenly Mr. Walkwell was there, hands resting heavily on the children’s shoulders. “We must go now,” he said. “Much work to do.”
Lucinda could tell the woman would have liked to ask more questions. In fact, she noticed most of the other customers in the store had been listening too.
“You must not talk to strangers,” Mr. Walkwell said as they stepped outside. “Time to go back.”
“Ragnar said we could get a milkshake,” Tyler protested. The sky was dark and the air was close-Lucinda could feel a few tiny drops of rain. “Because he said I did good work this morning.”