Come on, he thought. Don’t chicken out now. Mr. Peregrine sent the portal for a reason, probably something to do with the missing boy. And if the blood was anything to go by, it had cost him something in the process.
With that, Darwen lay down on the carpet, pushed his arms in, and then crawled through the oven door headfirst.
It was no better inside. Darwen could smell the metal in the air, and his hands and knees were quickly coated with dust. The only light came from Darwen’s bedroom, and his body was blocking most of that out. Darwen tried to adjust his position but only succeeded in whacking his head on the side, which rang like a gong. He considered climbing back out, but he pushed the thought away and started to crawl forward, half on his hands and knees, half slithering on his belly.
The darkness thickened, and after a few yards Darwen could see nothing in front of him at all. He glanced backward through his legs and saw the little square of light that was his bedroom glowing like a distant television in the night. He continued on, slower now, feeling in front of him, his heart beginning to pound. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.
And then, without warning, the floor of the passage sloped steeply down, and he began to slide. For a second he tried to stop himself, but it was no good, and he was soon hurtling down.
Faster and faster he went. The chute banked suddenly to the right, then to the left. It leveled out for a moment and then dropped more steeply than ever, so that Darwen cried out as he careened through the pipe. He rolled, felt the metal wall burn his elbow, and tucked his arms in tight, shutting his eyes. Twice more the tube switched direction, turned him over, and gave a burst of head-spinning speed. Then the roof was gone, and he could feel light and air as he shot across a polished metal platform on his back, slowed, rotating, and stopped.
Darwen opened his eyes and looked up.
Above him was a sparkling dome of brass inlaid with copper and braced with polished chestnut-colored wood. From the center of the dome ran a glass tube filled with pulsing golden light flecked with amber and pinpricks of white, like stars or diamonds. The tube came down into the heart of a vast and elegant machine, and, recalling things Mr. Peregrine had told him before, Darwen knew where he was: inside the Great Apparatus.
Above him the tube ran up to the heart of the hall where Silbrica’s Guardians sat in perpetual council. It had been dying the last time Darwen had seen it—the energy purplish with spots of crimson, whole areas burned black like spent embers. But this was how it should be: bright, like sunrise, but soft and full of life.
Despite the discomfort of his journey, Darwen found himself basking in the glow from above and smiling. It was like being inside a thousand clocks. All around the chamber were brass cogs and dials, some small as watch parts, some big as houses. Some spun freely, others seemed quite still, and all were linked so that however different they were, they were clearly parts of a whole. There were flywheels and sprockets, levels and ratchets, levers, switches, springs, cranks, and a hundred other machine parts for which he had no name. Everything shone, and the air was full of a soft but steady ticking under which was a distant hum, like wordless notes sung in harmony.
The room was circular with the golden energy from above flowing down into the machine at its center. From there a hundred pipes ran like the spokes of a great wheel to a rim composed entirely and unmistakably of portals, all framed in varnished wood and set with controls like those Darwen had first seen on the wooded hill where the fairylike dellfey Moth lived. They had the same elegance but were all slightly different in shape and in the pattern of their wood grain, and as Darwen studied their bases, which were swollen and fluted like something between a column and a tree, an idea struck him.
They’re growing, he thought.
Their roots spread beneath his feet. The machine fueled the gates, but the gates were also alive, drawing sustenance from Silbrica itself.
They were numbered simply from one to one hundred. Darwen checked the paper—the one Mr. Peregrine had given him—in his pocket and walked around the outside until he came to number sixty-four. Then, just to be sure he would be able to get back out, he revisited the chute. He discovered that the entire pipe rotated and that the top side had steps built into it. Satisfied, he returned to the portal and began the process of opening the gate. First he pulled a lever, then he turned a dial, and finally he pushed a button and waited as, with a great pneumatic hiss, the empty frame of the gateway shimmered into pearly brilliance.
Darwen paused, enjoying the moment. Then he stepped in.
On the other side of the gate, Darwen stood and stared. He had expected that Mr. Peregrine’s instructions would have brought him back to the crystal waterfall where he had seen that monstrous tentacled creature grab the boy, but this was somewhere entirely different. Why had Mr. Peregrine brought him here? He was in a forest of what he thought was a kind of bamboo, though it was taller than any he had ever seen, its stems as thick as tree trunks, its tops reaching forty or fifty feet into the night sky. Every trunk was smooth and slender, like a tall gray column, and overhead each sprouted slim, silvery leaves that rustled like foil in the breeze. The gate he had come through was fashioned out of the same bamboo, and all around him was more of the same. There was a clearing that housed a familiar, ornate fountain containing what looked like tiny birdhouses in which greenish lights glowed and flickered. One of the lights was coming toward him.
“Moth!” exclaimed Darwen.
And so it was.
If the dellfey hadn’t been so small, he would have hugged her. She looked healthy, her mechanical wings immaculately reforged, showing no trace of the scorching and oil stains that had been there when he had last seen her. Her face was a mask of delight.
“You found me!” she exclaimed. “The dellfeys feared we would not see you again after all the terrible things that Greyling did. We thought you would never return to Silbrica!”
“I was always going to come back,” said Darwen. “I just couldn’t find a way.”
“Do you like my new home?” she said.
“It’s beautiful,” Darwen said. “Yes. You won’t go back to the old forest?”
“That locus has to grow,” she said, shaking her head.
“So?”
“If we went there,” she said, “we would grow too.”
“You mean we’d get taller?”
“No,” she said, her face a mixture of exasperation and dread, “we would get old.”
“What?” said Darwen. “Why?”
“Remember the damage the scrobblers did, the trees they killed? A new forest has to grow.”
“I don’t understand,” said Darwen. “So it’s growing. Why would that make us get older?”
“Because that locus has been reset,” Moth exclaimed. “The Great Apparatus has been adjusted so the forest can regrow.”
“That was the machine with all the gates that I just came through?” said Darwen. “It can control the passage of time?”
Moth frowned and tipped her head to one side. “In a way,” she said. “They can make it run faster in some loci. Time is passing quickly in the forest now so that the trees can reclaim the locus.” Moth made a bobbing motion in the air, and her wings flickered with coppery light. “You look like you have something to ask me?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Darwen. “I was in another locus. But then I found a way back into my world, and there was a boy, and then . . . I don’t know, something took him, right in front of me. I was just standing there and this huge tentacle thing had a hold of him and it dragged him through a portal and I threw stones but there was nothing I could do to stop it and then it came after me and all I could do was run and . . . I left him.”
As Darwen spoke, he felt his skin prickle. His eyes were wide, and his heart was racing.
“I just left him,” he said again
, horrified. “He was alone but I couldn’t do anything.” He blinked and cleared his throat. “So now I have to find him.”
“No,” she said, and she had become quite still. “You must leave.”
“What do you think it was?” Darwen asked. There was something about the dellfey’s manner that spoke of things she didn’t want to say.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There are many strange beasts in Silbrica’s wilder places.”
“Yeah, you said. Scrobblers and flittercrakes and shades and gnashers. I know. This wasn’t like any of them. It was huge and—”
“There are hobstrils, Darwen Arkwright,” said Moth, “and drifters and other monsters whose names I have not told you before, some so terrible that we do not speak of them.”
“Come on, Moth,” begged Darwen. “You know something.” He had seen a look of horrified recognition in her face when he had said “tentacles,” a flicker of terror in her eyes as clear and desperate as a scream, which she had then banished completely.
“I cannot talk about that which you wish to know,” the dellfey insisted, and her tiny hands shook. “You must go. Now.”
With Moth being so pointedly unhelpful, Darwen felt an even greater need to get Mr. Peregrine, Alex, and Rich in the same room together. But Christmas was a tough time to get people to drop their plans, and it wasn’t until the following Saturday that they were able to meet at a local bowling alley, which was almost as odd to Darwen as Silbrican bamboo forests.
“We have to rent shoes?” he asked, pulling a sour face.
“Hey, when you have a puppy eating her way through your wardrobe, renting shoes looks like a pretty good option.” Alex shrugged. “Anyway, it was your idea.”
“I wanted somewhere we could get away from my aunt and meet with Mr. Peregrine,” said Darwen. “She thinks it’s odd that he’s friends with us.”
“Ohhhh,” said Alex wisely, watching Mr. Peregrine as he inspected a selection of bowling balls a few lanes away. “Gotcha. Still, at least he’s a teacher now and not just some guy who sent you an oven door.”
“Are you sure these are right?” Mr. Peregrine demanded of one of the attendants. “They seem very heavy.”
Alex met Darwen’s anxious eyes and smirked.
Rich was a superb bowler, throwing strike after strike, much to Alex’s irritation. Having never bowled in En-gland, Darwen was hopeless, but Mr. Peregrine was worse, cheerfully throwing one gutter ball after another and then watching keenly as if they might just pop out at the last second and hit all the pins. After a couple of games in which Rich systematically wiped the floor with them, Darwen gave up.
“So, Mr. Peregrine,” he said, grinning. “You’re a teacher.”
“Astonishing, isn’t it?” said Mr. Peregrine, beaming. “I have always rather liked the idea of being a teacher, but having to actually know things is proving more of a challenge than I had anticipated. And that school! So strange that some of the teachers seem determined to crush the spirits of those placed in their charge, don’t you think?”
Darwen thought of Mr. Sumners, the math teacher, and nodded his agreement. For a silent moment he stood next to Mr. Peregrine, watching Alex abandon the bowling with a shout of frustration, and he couldn’t help smiling. Whatever difficulties lay ahead, he would be with his friends and with Mr. Peregrine. It was going to be a good semester.
“So we’re going to Costa Rica to find the boy I saw kidnapped,” Darwen said as Rich and Alex joined them. “Somehow, and it looks like we’ll be doing this without Moth’s help, we need to find where he was taken from, then we can cross over to Silbrica using whatever portal that thing pulled him through.”
“And into its tentacled embrace,” said Alex, dropping her bowling ball so heavily onto the floor that a big man with tattoos shot her an accusatory look. Alex turned to him and said, “Hey, how ya doing?”—holding his gaze until he shrugged and looked away.
“We may not need to actually follow the boy to the other side,” said Mr. Peregrine delicately. “Our primary goal is not so much to bring him back as to identify his point of entry.”
“What do you mean?” asked Darwen.
“There are ancient creatures in Silbrica, and there are points, as you know,” said Mr. Peregrine, “where the fabric separating their world from ours is fragile. Sometimes hunting beasts stray through the barrier. I was able to pass along what you saw, so the Guardians are now aware of the breach. They want us to find it and close it. That is our mission.”
“But we have to get him back!” said Darwen.
“If the creature that you saw is, as I suspect, merely an animal,” said Mr. Peregrine, “albeit a large and powerful one, I’m afraid it will be too late to save the boy. The incident took place two weeks ago. If a child was taken by a bear or a lion, you would not expect to find the child alive after that time. In all likelihood—”
“No,” said Darwen, cutting him off. “That’s not good enough. I’ll go through the oven door tonight and see if I can find Moth again. I might be able to persuade her to—”
“Oven door?” Mr. Peregrine echoed vaguely.
“The portal you sent me. Thanks for that, by the way. Too bad it’s too big to take with us.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Peregrine. His face was blank, as if he had forgotten what they were talking about. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Yes, of course. You are most welcome. Now . . . where are we going again?”
“Costa Rica,” said Rich, flashing Darwen a pained look.
“Quite,” said Mr. Peregrine. “I keep wanting to say Ecuador or Paraguay, but I think that’s just because I like the sound of the names.” He patted Darwen on the shoulder. “Well,” he concluded, “it is time I should be going. Classes to prepare!”
He winked. When the old man had left them, Darwen turned to the others, frowning.
“Is it just me, or does it sound like the Guardians aren’t completely grasping the situation?”
“Enter the Peregrine Pact,” said Rich.
“Right,” said Darwen. “Alex, you should poke around online. See if you can find anything about kids going missing in Costa Rica on the day I was there, December 14.”
“Why me?”
“Your Spanish is better than mine,” he said.
“There are mollusks whose Spanish is better than yours,” she said.
“And Rich?” said Darwen.
“Boss?”
“Go into research mode,” said Darwen. “The more we know about the stone spheres and about plants and animals that live in Costa Rica, the better chance we have of tracking things that don’t belong.”
“And what are you going to be doing, oh great commander?” asked Alex.
“I’m going to see what I can find out from the other side,” he said. “Moth knows something, and even if she won’t tell me, I can use the Great Apparatus to get me to every corner of Silbrica. If that kid is being held somewhere, I’ll find him.”
“When do we get to visit Silbrica again?” asked Rich.
“Soon,” said Darwen. “I promise.”
“Your job sounds a lot cooler than ours,” Rich grumbled.
“That’s ’cause he’s the mirroculist,” said Alex.
Darwen gave her a quick look, but she just shrugged.
“Okay,” she said, standing and gathering together four heavily loaded bags. “I’m outta here. Got some gifts to return. I can’t decide if my mother doesn’t know me at all or if she does and wishes I was someone else.”
For the next three nights, Darwen returned to Silbrica through the oven door and traced his way back to the rainbow falls, but he found only the shattered remains of the crystal gate. Worse, the gate that connected him to Moth’s bamboo grove wasn’t working. He pulled the lever, turned the dial, and pushed the button repeatedly, but
nothing happened. It worried him.
Feeling slightly guilty about not bringing Rich and Alex along, Darwen sampled portal after portal looking for anything that might lead to the missing boy. He appeared among palm tree hedges in deserts of curiously red sand. He explored meadows of pink flowers that closed up, as if embarrassed, as he came near them. He trekked across great green ice flows that sparkled like emeralds, and he watched a shaggy yak-like beast using its spiral horn to forage for roots. Only once did he find a locus resembling a jungle, a place the tentacled monster might call home, but it was so dark there, the air so thick with strange scents and noises, that he made it only a few yards from the portal before deciding that unless he returned home, he was going to wind up lost or eaten.
There were, of course, things other than Silbrica to worry about. The holidays were ending, and school was around the corner. From time to time the weather threatened to delay the start of classes, and while there was no more snow, they did get a significant ice storm, something Darwen had never seen before. Trees and power lines looked encased in glass, and everything strained under the weight of all that frozen water. They were without power for an afternoon, but then—just when it seemed that the first school day would have to be cancelled—the sun came out, and Atlanta’s beleaguered road crews and utility workers got a break.
“I’ve checked all the hotlines,” said Honoria brightly, “and we’re all systems go for school tomorrow. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep.”
“Great,” said Darwen, meaning it. He wasn’t looking forward to classes or to dealing with the likes of Nathan Cloten, but delaying the start of school could jeopardize the trip, and that just wasn’t acceptable. Darwen had a mission.
That night he crawled through the oven door and shot down the chute to the Great Apparatus. Mr. Peregrine hadn’t had an answer for him about how they would get into Silbrica from Costa Rica. What if they never found a working portal? This might be one of the last chances he would have to explore the problem of the kidnapped boy from the Silbrican side. Steeling himself, Darwen returned to the only jungle locus he had been able to find.
Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck Page 4