by Scott Mebus
“Sit with me. I feel better when you sit with me.”
And so they sat, side by side, staring out at the magical city glowing in the distance, as the paper girl danced along the shore, sending messages by pebble to all the dead ships in the bay.
An hour or so later, Fritz returned, riding out of the trees as quickly as he could. He pulled up in front of Rory and Soka as Bridget came running up.
“I found him,” Fritz said breathlessly. “I found your Unlucky Patroon.”
“That’s fantastic,” Rory said, leaping to his feet.
“Not quite.” Fritz stopped him. “He’s been captured by the British and no one knows where they’re holding him. He really is unlucky, poor guy. Come on, my friend will explain everything.”
Fritz led them through the trees into Staten Island. Rory was surprised by all the forests in the borough—it didn’t really feel like a part of the city at all. They passed an area with a few well-lit suburban streets and one typical downtown area with shops and the like, but then they plunged back into the woods. Soon they found themselves walking through a field of wheat, and Rory spied a farmhouse, much like the Stuyvesant homestead, sitting at the end of a country lane. Fritz led them up to the front door, where a short Dutchman with kind eyes waited for them.
“Rory, Bridget, Soka,” Fritz said. “May I introduce David de Vries, farmer, adventurer, and one of the original settlers of New Netherland.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Soka said, shaking De Vries’s hand warmly. “My people speak of you as a great friend.”
“It is true,” De Vries said, smiling at the compliment. “Adriaen Van der Donck and I were both great admirers of your people, and we tried to champion your cause, to no great success, unfortunately. But I still do what I can. Please, come in.”
De Vries led them into a warm living space with a merry fire burning in the hearth. He gestured for them to take seats on the hand-carved furniture, which was as comfortable as it was well-worn. De Vries disappeared into the kitchen, returning shortly with steaming cups of tea for all of them. He sat down by the fire and took a deep sip from his mug before speaking.
“I knew Adriaen was giving pages from his journal to various safekeepers around the boroughs. He and I were old friends, and though he never told me what was written in the journals, he let me know of their existence. I even thought of tracking them down myself, especially after his murder, but I can only travel from Staaten Eylandt to Mannahatta. My blood does not allow me to visit the other boroughs. And our Unlucky Patroon, as Fritz called him, refused to let me see his pages. Loyal fool. Ah well, it was probably for the best.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he wrote about the Agreement, and that he kept his writings secret. We who were around then decided it was best to hide the origins of our unbreakable rules. After all, it does sound better to say we’ve always belonged here than to have to admit that we bargained our way into staying. We like to think that we own this place, when really we’re still just renting. That’s all any of us will ever be—renters. The land will outlast us, as it has outlasted the Munsees and the ancient, extinct creatures from the days before man. Who will remember us after our mortals are gone? We will have to throw ourselves upon the mercy of the land, as the Munsees did. As we did all those years ago when we sent Adriaen and Kieft to bargain for our existence.”
“Who did Adriaen give his pages to?” Rory asked.
“To a man named Cornelis Melyn. He was the patroon, what the English would call a landlord, of Staaten Eylandt during the first days, and he was always a staunch opponent of Kieft’s. In fact, Cornelis was the one who stood up to Kieft after his war with the Munsees and demanded he be arrested for what he’d done. Instead, the new governor, Peter Stuyvesant, banished Cornelis for causing a ruckus.”
“But Peter is our friend!” Bridget cried, shocked.
“Stuyvesant was a hard man when he was alive,” De Vries said. “And not always popular. I know I had my disagreements with him. But people change. Even gods. Either way, it is more a testament to Cornelis’s bad luck that he got banished. That man just had the worst luck. Cornelis was always a friend to the Indians, but during Kieft’s war with the Munsees, some neighboring tribes got confused by whose farm was whose and burned Cornelis’s plantation to the ground by mistake. Bad luck. Then, as I said, Cornelis tried to do the right thing and have Kieft punished, and instead, he was banished by the new governor. To make things even worse, Cornelis had to travel back to Amsterdam with Kieft, who’d been recalled. What happened next? I bet you can guess—a storm blew up and sank their ship off the coast of Wales. Kieft died in the wreck, and Cornelis was washed ashore, barely alive. Somehow he made it back to the motherland, where he successfully lobbied to be allowed to return to New Amsterdam.”
“That doesn’t sound too unlucky,” Rory said.
“Just wait,” De Vries said wryly. “It gets better. He traveled all over the Netherlands, gathering people to go back with him to colonize Staaten Eylandt. They sailed here and founded a new patroonship. And it took hardly any time at all for Cornelis to push Stuyvesant over the edge again, causing Peter to arrest him for the second time.”
“He doesn’t sound like the brightest of men,” Soka noted.
“Oh no, he’s quite bright,” De Vries disagreed. “He just has no sense of how things work. He thinks things should be fair, regardless of all else. And life isn’t fair. To that point, while Cornelis was imprisoned the second time, another Indian uprising popped up, another group of young warriors became confused about whose homestead was whose, and Cornelis’s plantation was burned down . . . again.”
“Ouch!” Bridget said, wincing.
“He left soon after that, not to return until he became a god. And his luck hasn’t gotten much better. The British have been keeping an eye on me lately, since I’ve been stirring up some trouble to help our cause against Kieft. Last week, I was supposed to see certain friends of mine, but I didn’t want to lead the British to them, so I asked Cornelis to go check on them in my stead. And that was the day the British soldiers decided to raid the woods by my plantation. They took my friends and they took Cornelis. I haven’t heard one word about him since.”
“Why are the British doing raids?” Fritz asked.
“Admiral Howe’s orders,” De Vries replied. “He’s placed himself squarely on Kieft’s side. His redcoats have been scouring the island, looking for dissidents.”
“Who are your friends?” Rory asked. “More patroons?”
“Not quite,” De Vries said, his eyes dancing. He raised his voice, calling into the next room. “Perewyn! I think you can come in now. These are allies!”
They all turned as a man walked into the room. Soka was the first to gasp.
“You are of my people!” she cried. And it was true—Perewyn was an Indian. He was much older, with white hair tied up with eagle feathers and tattoos of many animals all over his arms and face. Many pouches crisscrossed his bare chest, and he leaned against a long staff of wood as he limped into the room.
“Not quite your people, young one,” Perewyn said, his voice deep and gravelly. “I am a Raritan. This was our island. Though your people and mine are close kin.”
“Perewyn is the pau wau of the Raritans,” De Vries explained. “It was the rest of his people who were captured along with Cornelis.”
“Why have we never heard of your people still inhabiting this island?” Fritz asked the old medicine man.
“We had enough strife during the early days of your colony,” Perewyn said. “We heard of your gods’ battles with the Munsees, and we wanted no part of it. We shed enough blood during our mortal wars with the Dutch. So we kept to the trees. That is how we avoided the Trap.” He looked at Soka, his face saddened by the memory. “Though I regret every day that we could do nothing for your poor people. Eventually, we made ourselves known to David, who has always been a friend to us. He agreed to keep our secret. He and Adriaen were very kind.”
“He did, and he agreed that there was no reason to involve the Raritan in any of our schemes against Kieft. They had suffered enough and deserved to live in peace. Which was what they were doing until Admiral Howe’s men stumbled upon them on the day I sent Cornelis out to visit them. And now they are all prisoners.”
“Did you try to find where they’re being held?” Fritz asked.
“Howe is watching me,” De Vries said, shaking his head. “He suspects that I was the one who was harboring the Raritan. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get close, but I can’t sneak by them.”
“We can help!” Bridget assured him. “We’re good at sneaking around!”
“If Howe is working for Kieft, then I’m sure he knows who we all are,” Fritz said.
“We have to try,” Rory said. “Cornelis has Adriaen’s journal pages.”
“I wish I could work my misdirection spell without it blowing up in my face,” Soka said, frustrated. “We could walk right inside.”
“I am not without my own powers, you know,” Perewyn said thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing. “David, I think I might have an idea. We could not do it because they were expecting to see us. But these three might, along with their roach friend, of course.” He nodded at Fritz. “Are you certain you would risk yourselves?”
“Of course,” Rory replied promptly. “What do you want to do?”
“It involves playing a little dress-up—”
“YES!” Bridget cried, hopping in place. “Who do we get to be? A French aristocrat? A gigantic puppy? Britney Spears?”
“I do not know who that is,” Perewyn said, smiling at the paper girl’s enthusiasm. “What you must ask yourself is: Do you look good in red?”
14
THE PERFECT DISGUISE
Peter Stuyvesant was not happy as he walked down the corridors of City Hall, the thump of his peg leg resounding through the halls. More gods were being murdered, no doubt by those knives being passed around like party favors. More and more gods were flocking to Roosevelt Island to join Kieft’s army. And still the council argued and wavered over what to do next. He’d tried giving them the verbal swift kick in the short pants, but they needed more than that. They needed someone to inspire them, to lead them. And as much as it pained him to say it, that person was not him.
This unpleasant thought still curdled in his brain when a minor god stepped up to him, begging a word.
“And who are you?” he asked the god.
“J. P. Morgan, God of Dividends,” the man replied, his face sour. “That’s the problem.”
“What are you talking about, man?” Peter asked, his patience nonexistent.
“You’ve never heard of me,”Morgan replied, frowning. “And yet, in my day, I was the most powerful force in banking the city had ever seen. I single-handedly stopped the world from falling into a depression. For this, I become God of Dividends? How am I not the God of Banking?”
“Tobias is the God of Banking,” Peter reminded him, annoyed that his time was being wasted with such frivolity. He began to clomp away, but the minor god ran after him.
“And who is he?” Morgan asked. “I have never heard of him. At first I assumed he had been a major force in the early days of the colony, but I can find no record of him. I don’t know how he became the God of Banking, but he should have receded when I came along. Become the God of Deposits or something. The duties change when others with a stronger pull on the mortals’ memories arrive, you know that. By all rights, I should be a major god. Something is wrong here!”
“Why are you telling me this now?” Peter asked, trying to move past the insistent god.
“You are not the first I’ve aired my grievance to,” Morgan assured him, his face red. He ticked off his fingers, one by one. “I told the Mayor, I told Greeley, then Hearst, hoping the newspapermen would try to dig something up. They all brushed me off. Now I’m telling you, because you seem to have some power around here. It’s true, I tell you. Something is not right with T. R. Tobias.”
Though Peter assumed the minor god was merely suffering from delusions of grandeur, he couldn’t shake the thought that maybe something was wrong with T. R. Tobias. He’d never heard of the man, either. No one seemed to. It was very strange. Just who was T. R. Tobias?
A buzzing drifted in through the open window nearby. It sounded liked a hummingbird. He heard shouts float up from outside and hobbled over to the window. At first, he didn’t know what was going on, but then he saw the pill-shaped spot in the sky, soaring toward midtown.
Great, he thought to himself, dismay flowing through him. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. He was back.
Soka sat with the Raritan medicine man on a bench behind the manor house, overlooking a small garden. David de Vries had ridden out at first light to scrounge up some redcoat uniforms, while Rory was taking a much-needed nap upstairs. Perewyn had asked her to join him outside for a moment, and now they sat side by side, looking out at the rows of tomato plants and peas.
“You are in training to be a pau wau, correct?” Perewyn asked.
“Yes,” Soka admitted. “My mother is the medicine woman for my people. I thought I was the one to follow her. Now I am not so sure.”
“Why? I can feel your connection to the land. It is very strong.”
“I don’t know about that,” Soka said, sighing. “I used to think so. But ever since I left my village, I’ve lost control. One moment I’m working magic I never dreamed I’d manage, and the next I’m unable to do the simplest of spells. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
“The land’s gifts are hard to predict,” Perewyn told her. “My powers have been waning over the last century—when I heard about the Trap, I blamed it on that atrocity. But the Trap is gone, now, and my powers remain weak. I had hoped to discover whether you had a similar experience, but I see now that something very different is happening to you. I am not surprised to hear that you’ve worked great magic. I can feel it in you. Your mother must be something to behold as well.”
“She’s ten times the pau wau I’ll ever be,” Soka said ruefully, kicking at the dirt. “I don’t know how I will ever take her place.”
“Is she going somewhere?” Perewyn asked, eyebrow raised. The question caught Soka off guard.
“Um . . . I guess not,” she said. “But I always assumed . . . ”
“We are not mortals,” Perewyn reminded her. “Death is in our past more than in our future. We may fade one day, but who knows when that will be. Our people are long gone, and yet we remain. Do you know how many Raritan were taken by the red-coated men?”
Soka shook her head. Perewyn held up a single hand with all fingers extended.
“Five,” he said. “That is all who remain of my tribe. Those five and I. And yet our people were once as numerous as the stars. From what I hear, the Munsees have many more than that. Why is that? You have been cut off from the land by the Trap, and yet your people did not dwindle, while we remained free, and now we are almost gone.”
Soka shook her head, unable to answer. Perewyn smiled ruefully.
“I have thought long on it. I have come to believe it is because we retreated from our duties. We hid in the trees and ignored the call of the land. We remain, you and I and all our people, not because we have mortals who remember us. We are here for a different purpose. My people ignored that fact, and we have suffered for it. You, on the other hand . . . I think you have a clearer idea than any of us what is required of you. Your mother may be pau wau to your people, but you are meant for something more.”
“What?” Soka asked, frustrated. “Didn’t you hear me? I can’t even work a simple spell. The one big spell I performed wasn’t even really me—” She cut herself off, mortified that she’d said so much. Perewyn nodded to himself, glancing at her.
“That rumble I felt earlier, that was you?”
Sok
a looked away, not liking how the white-haired medicine man’s gaze seemed to look right through her. “It wasn’t really me. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Then who was it?”
“There was a voice in my ear,” she confided, glancing around to make certain no one else heard. “It floated into me from all around. It was a woman’s voice. She asked why I needed her help. I told her I had to protect my . . . my friends. And she promised to help me. That’s when I exploded. It wasn’t even me doing it!”
She looked back to Perewyn to see his expression—he looked thoughtful, but not as surprised as she’d expected. Finally, he patted her shoulder. “I will watch you. You are a puzzle that can be solved. You will see. Come, I hear a horse approaching. David has returned.”
He stood up and walked back into the house. Soka watched him leave, more confused and frightened than ever before.
Rory stood in De Vries’s living room, dressed head to toe in a pilfered British redcoat uniform, watching Fritz struggle not to laugh.
“Those were the smallest uniforms you could find?” the battle roach asked De Vries, who shrugged apologetically.
“There are some tall soldiers on this island.”
Glancing at Soka and Bridget on either side of him, Rory could see that his uniform, though it was two or three sizes too large for him, at least fit him better than the others’. Soka’s jacket was far too big for her, and her pants had to be rolled up over her boots. But she’d pulled the belt in tight, and the result was that she actually looked kind of cute (though a little too womanly to be taken for a male soldier, he feared). Bridget, on the other hand . . .
“This is awesome!” Bridget cried, raising her arms above her head. Since half the length of the sleeve fell down over her hands, Rory wasn’t so sure he agreed. There was room in her jacket for three more Bridgets, and the gold-button-lined overcoat, which was meant to fall to a soldier’s knees, was so long it bunched up around her feet like a throw rug. Underneath, her pants billowed out above her stockings so far she looked like she was wearing a hoop dress. She’d already stuck on her tricornered hat, which covered her eyes so completely she had to push it back to see, peering out from under the rim like a turtle sneaking a look from inside its shell. Rory didn’t know how she could walk in that getup, let alone be taken seriously. But Bridget was practically bouncing from excitement.