Darcy raised his eyebrows.
“The chronicle is not just an ordinary book, and I think Gina knew that. From the things she wrote in the weeks before she went missing, it sounds as if she knew what the chronicle was capable of, and she was acting on that knowledge. The book … the book has special powers, you see,” I stammered. “It can make things happen. But it’s dangerous, too—I realize that now. I was naïve to think otherwise.” Then I told him everything, right from the beginning, about the lion, the math exam, my dad’s prize, my fears about the faun. Darcy listened to me in silence. When I’d finished, he said: “I can’t say I believe it, Emma. Magic! Magic doesn’t exist.”
I nodded. “Of course you don’t believe it. Even I still think it’s completely ludicrous.” I sighed. “I thought I was so grown up. And here I am telling you, hand on heart, that I believe in magic. And a faun. And possibly a fairy queen. Sorry, but I…”
Darcy shot me a warning glance and put a finger to his lips. I fell silent immediately. Now I heard it, too: voices, from downstairs.
Shit.
There was a clattering sound. Footsteps on the stairs. A man and woman talking.
With one quick movement Darcy was at the door, listening through the gap.
The woman laughed at something the man had said.
I tiptoed over to where Darcy was standing. What were we going to do now? What were Frederick’s parents doing back already? I looked at my watch. It was only twenty to seven.
Frederick’s dad hummed to himself as he crossed the hallway, a door creaked on its hinges, and a moment later we heard him turn on the shower. From the other end of the flat came the clink of saucepans and cutlery. Okay, so they weren’t coming into Frederick’s room. They were both occupied, for the moment. I nodded to Darcy, who pushed down on the door handle very, very gently. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him into the hallway.
We crept silently across the threadbare carpet. The shower was running and the radio was on in the kitchen. But still I held my breath as we tiptoed toward the front door. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving—a shadow. I jumped. Darcy ducked behind a narrow cabinet and pulled me with him onto the floor. I pressed my back into the wall behind me and felt tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
Frederick’s mom came hurrying past us and opened the door to a little pantry. She was tall and bony, and made me think of a crow in a flowery apron. She stood for what felt like an eternity in front of a shelf of preserves before finally selecting a jar. My heart was pounding. This was only postponing the inevitable. When she turned around she was going to look right at us, and then …
We shrank even farther into the shadow of the cabinet. My heart was beating so loudly that it seemed a miracle she hadn’t heard it yet. But she was too close for us to risk leaving our hiding place. Damn it! What we were doing might not exactly be a robbery, but it certainly counted as trespassing. My dad would not be happy. In fact, I wasn’t sure his nerves could stand it if the Larbachs decided to call the police and Darcy and I were brought back to the castle in a police car.
The shower stopped running.
Frederick’s mom picked up a jar of cherries in brandy, closed the pantry door, and turned around, still reading the label. She walked past us without looking up, and went back into the kitchen.
I was about to let out my breath when the bathroom door opened, directly opposite our hiding place. It opened slowly, because Frederick’s dad was still drying himself as he stepped out into the hallway, and a cloud of hot, steamy air drifted toward us. He hadn’t seen us yet. He finished drying his neck and stepped back into the bathroom to hang up the towel.
It was now or never!
At the same moment, Darcy and I leaped to our feet. This was our chance. We burst through the door into the stairwell and ran headlong down the stairs. We made a lot more noise than we would have liked, but by this point we didn’t care: All we wanted was to get out of there. We rushed through the storage room, across the back garden, and out onto the street. From there we ran all the way back through the village to where the car was parked. Only then did we come to a halt.
Only then did Darcy let go of my hand.
We collapsed into the Mini, gasping for breath.
“That was close,” I said at last. My heart was still hammering so hard, it felt as if it might burst. We’d snuck into someone else’s house and nearly been caught. We’d committed a crime! The adrenaline coursed through my veins. But we’d escaped! We’d pulled it off! I suddenly felt wonderfully light.
Darcy looked at me. “Yes.” He grinned. The twinkle in his eye made him look much younger than usual. “We did a pretty good job. Maybe we should turn professional.”
“Professional housebreakers?” I asked, and now I found myself grinning, too. “Sounds cool.”
“I reckon we’ve got what it takes. How about we try a bank robbery next?”
“Or a roast dinner?”
Darcy glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Oh, crap!” he exclaimed.
Then he started the engine.
September 1794
“I have found the one who loves me for who I really am,” the faun told the little fairy. “You must help me take off this cloak, so that I can show my beloved my true face.”
The fairy fluttered up into the air and buzzed around the faun’s head for a moment.
Then she started to laugh.
14
Darcy and I arrived at Miss Whitfield’s cottage about five minutes late.
“Well, you both look very chipper, I must say,” she said as she let us in. “And it’s a good thing, too—your dad could do with a bit of cheering up, Emma.”
My dad was already in the living room, where Miss Whitfield had set up a small table; he had his head in his hands and was staring gloomily at the wall. The cheering effect of our afternoon sorting out the medicine cabinet seemed to have worn off, I thought as I sat down next to him. Miss Whitfield seated herself at the head of the table and removed the silver covers from an array of plates and bowls, all full of piping hot food.
“Do help yourselves,” she urged.
I unfolded my white linen napkin and arranged it on my lap. What was the etiquette for an informal dinner again? Did you have to do things in a certain order? Did you have to offer a dish to the other guests before serving yourself?
“Come along now, don’t be shy,” said Miss Whitfield as I was pondering these questions. “We don’t want it to go cold!”
Fair enough. I helped myself to vegetables and gravy. Yorkshire pudding wasn’t really my thing, but the rest of the food was delicious. I hadn’t realized until now how starving I was after a day of swimming, clearing out my dad’s medicine cabinet and, of course, breaking into the Larbachs’ house. Crime certainly did give you an appetite.
“So you two met up before dinner, did you?” Miss Whitfield inquired as I shoveled a second helping of beef onto my plate. “What did you get up to?”
“We just went for a little walk down to the village,” said Darcy. “And by the way, Miss Whitfield, I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention anything else about my stay here to my mother. I’m sure my parents aren’t particularly happy that I’ve come here without telling them.”
“I’m sorry I gave the game away,” said Miss Whitfield. “And I do understand that you want to find out what happened to your sister. I respect that.”
“Thank you,” said Darcy.
“Could you pass me the green beans, Emma?” said my dad, and I handed him the bowl.
“Have you been able to find anything out? Any new information? Something the police overlooked, perhaps?” Miss Whitfield asked.
Darcy and I exchanged a glance. We silently agreed not to mention our suspicions about Frederick for the time being.
“Not really,” Darcy replied. “I’m still going through Gina’s old school stuff. But Emma recently found an old diary of Gina’s.” He shrugged. “We’re hoping that m
ight tell us something.”
Miss Whitfield smiled. “Yes, it might—young girls confide all sorts of things in their diaries. They did in my day, anyway. I hope it will prove useful.” She turned to my dad. “Can I interest you in a little more roast beef, Rasmus?”
“No, thank you,” said my dad. “I have to watch my cholesterol. And I must say, I don’t feel very well all of a sudden. I feel as though my throat’s swelling up. And my tongue feels so heavy.”
I sighed. “Have a drink of water then,” I said. My dad, when he spent too long poring over the instruction leaflets for his various medicines, had a tendency to start suffering from imaginary side effects: This evening was clearly no exception. He’d probably convinced himself he was having some sort of allergic reaction. “Take a deep breath, and…”
But I got no further, because at that moment Dad passed out.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward. I only just managed to grab him by the shoulders before he fell face-first into his plate of food.
“Oh my goodness!” cried Miss Whitfield.
Darcy already had his phone out. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Yes, quick!” I bit my lip. Dad hung limply in my arms. Why did it have to be the school nurse’s day off today, of all days?
Together we maneuvered my dad onto a little sofa by the window. I put a cushion under his head and two more under his feet. Was it his blood pressure? How small he looked, lying there motionless with his eyes closed, his skin pale, and his hair straggly. Dad felt ill most of the time, of course, but his ailments were usually imaginary, and it was a shock to see him like this. For the first time in all these years there was genuinely something wrong with him.
This situation was new to me, and I was completely at a loss as to how to deal with it. What was Dad suffering from? An allergic reaction? Epilepsy? A heart attack? How did you put someone into the recovery position again? Shit, I had no idea! Might it even have been one of my entries in the chronicle that had caused this? Had I done this to Dad?
My mouth went dry, and the blood pounded in my ears.
Darcy paced up and down the room while we waited; he kept going to the window to look for the ambulance. Miss Whitfield held Dad’s hand, and I stroked his cheek and checked every few seconds that he was still breathing.
“Wake up,” I whispered. I vowed to myself that I would never be careless with the chronicle again. “Please wake up.”
And then, after a few minutes, Dad’s eyelids twitched. They fluttered open; he blinked and peered at me as if he was returning from somewhere very far away. “What happened?” he mumbled.
“You collapsed,” I whispered, choking on a sob. “It was so sudden. It was awful!” A tear slipped out of the corner of my eye and rolled down my cheek. “How do you feel now? Can you breathe?”
He seemed to ponder this for a moment, then nodded.
“You gave us quite a shock!” said Miss Whitfield.
When the paramedics arrived a few minutes later, they couldn’t find any indication of Dad having suffered an allergic reaction, an epileptic fit, or a heart attack. They said he must have become dehydrated and had a dizzy spell. In all the commotion about his prize, he simply hadn’t had enough to drink (which meant that his collapse was mainly my fault; man, I felt so guilty). So the paramedics put him on a drip, and as the fluid flowed into his veins the color gradually returned to his face. Soon he was able to sit up again.
I put my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. If anything had happened to him I would never have forgiven myself. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered into his shirt, as he stroked my hair with a trembling hand. “My poor little Emma,” he whispered. “My poor little Emma. I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“How about a nice strong cup of Earl Grey?” Miss Whitfield suggested.
After we had drunk our tea my dad got up to leave, saying he was tired and wanted to go to bed. At first I wanted to go with him and keep watch by his bedside overnight, just in case, but Darcy and Miss Whitfield persuaded me not to. After all, the paramedics had assured us that there was nothing to worry about, and that Dad just needed to make sure he kept drinking lots of water.
Later that evening, as I headed back to my bedroom, I was still feeling guilty about Dad’s fainting fit. I certainly wasn’t in the mood for a conversation with Frederick Larbach. But Frederick Larbach was the very person I happened to run into—sneaking around on the girls’ corridor again! He just couldn’t help himself.
“Hey, Emma!” Frederick smiled his crooked smile. He looked perfectly normal. His ponytail looked normal, his gardening overalls looked normal. But this was the guy whose house I’d just broken into, whose bedroom I’d searched; this was the guy I suspected of having been the last person to see Gina de Winter alive, of having stolen a boat, rowed her out into the middle of the Rhine, and then …
“H-hey,” I stammered. Do murderers look normal? Come on, Emma, keep it together. “I thought Mrs. Bröder-Strauchhaus had banned you from the castle. Because of last night,” I said, in what I hoped was a chatty tone.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The news has gotten out, then.”
“What did you think would happen?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Now you’re pissed off with me.”
“You think I’m pissed off?” This seemed so absurd, what with everything else that was happening, that I almost had to laugh. I wasn’t “pissed off” with Frederick. I had way more important things to worry about.
He lowered his eyes. “Well, I did flirt with you a bit, and I thought you’d noticed and you—”
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t interested.”
He sniffed. “Okay.”
“Or rather, I stopped being interested quite a while ago,” I corrected myself. Why did I feel the need to justify myself to somebody who’d led me on like that, who’d made me think he liked me when in fact he already had a girlfriend? Somebody who, I was fairly sure, had committed an unspeakable crime four years ago? I pushed past him.
“Good night,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. But Frederick hurried after me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “What were you and Darcy doing this evening? What did you find out? You have to tell me, Emma, do you understand me?” All trace of the crooked smile had vanished.
I bit my lower lip. “Nothing,” I said, looking at the floor.
Frederick scoffed. “I’ll find out, anyway,” he said, “with or without your help. So do us both a favor and tell me what Darcy de Winter is up to. Tell me!” He shook me so hard that my head jerked back and forth. Fear shot through me. Had he been this rough with Gina?
“You’re hurting me,” I hissed, and I had a sudden urge to run, to get away from him. It wasn’t far to my room. But Frederick held me in a viselike grip.
“If you don’t let go of me right now, I’m going to scream. I’m going to scream at the top of my voice,” I threatened. If he was caught here again it would cost him his job, at the very least.
Frederick loosened his grip. Furiously, I wrenched myself free and strode off without a word.
“If you start spreading rumors about me, you’ll regret it,” he murmured from behind me. “You have no proof of any of this bullshit. Darcy has nothing on me. Nothing at all.”
I didn’t wait to hear any more but ran off down the corridor, threw open my bedroom door, and slammed it shut behind me. Then I leaned back against it and took several deep breaths, waiting for the pounding of my heart to subside.
“Just five more minutes,” muttered Hannah. She was sitting at her desk, where she’d dozed off over her homework (English poetry). Now she stretched and yawned widely. “I should probably go to bed,” she murmured. Only then did she catch sight of my face. “Has something happened? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Something like that,” I said. “My dad fainted, and then I had a bit of a run-in with Frederick.” To say nothing o
f my and Darcy’s narrow escape from the Larbachs’ house. I sighed. All in all it had been a pretty rough day.
* * *
But the rough day gave way to an even rougher night. For a long time I couldn’t get to sleep, and I tossed and turned fretfully. There was too much going on in my head, too many questions gnawing at me. The chronicle, the stories about the faun, my dad’s collapse, the secret tunnels, Gina’s poems, Darcy’s search for clues, Frederick’s strange behavior … They all seemed to be related somehow, but I just couldn’t see how. I couldn’t help feeling I’d overlooked something important. Something that was right under my nose.
No—enough now. I had to stop letting my imagination run away with me, otherwise I really would end up going mad. Just like the lord of Stolzenburg. So I forced myself to stop going over and over everything in my mind; I even resisted the urge to pick up the chronicle and start looking back at the things I’d written to see how they’d turned out. Instead I focused on counting sheep, with my headphones plugged into my phone and the music turned up so loud that it drowned out the voices in my head.
It must have worked, because some time later I woke up with a jolt.
There was somebody standing over my bed, looking down at me.
It was somebody I never would have expected to see here. Well—obviously I wouldn’t have expected to see anyone here, in my bedroom, at this time of night, except perhaps the paper dragonfly from the dream I’d just been having. I blinked, and suddenly I was wide awake.
It was dark—it must have been the middle of the night. The sound of quiet snoring issued from Hannah’s bed.
But I hadn’t been imagining things—there really was a figure standing by my bed.
“Emma,” Miss Whitfield whispered. “Where’s the book?”
I sat up. “Wh-what?” I stammered. “What are you doing here?”
The Forgotten Book Page 20