by Richard Due
“Never underestimate the ingenuity of Mr. Phixit,” said Lily, repeating one of Ebb’s mantras.
Jasper smiled. “I suppose—”
Lily gasped and ran to the far side of the room. “Jasper! Come look!”
In the far corner, covered in dust, stood an old dress mannequin made of yellowed canvas, empty of clothes. Draped around its neck was a necklace with an elaborate pendant.
Jasper’s mouth dropped open. “Ebb’s necklace!”
Lily and Jasper had seen it many times, always around Uncle Ebb’s neck, but they had never seen what dangled from it. That had always remained hidden, no more than a lump under his clothing.
Lily delicately fingered the necklace’s thick chain.
“Why is it here?” asked Jasper.
Lily lifted it off the mannequin’s shoulders and examined it in the light. The pendant was made of an outer ring and an inner disk. Connecting the two were a dozen thin tines, evenly spaced like the spokes of a wheel or the hours on a clock.
“What’s that? In the center?”
Lily flipped over the pendant, examining both sides as best she could in the thin veil of light. The tines grasped only the very edge of the coin, allowing both sides to be easily viewed.
“I think it’s a coin, a gold coin.”
Lily fitted the pendant into the palm of her hand. There was a fob on the outer ring, perfectly placed for her thumb to open or close it. Mounted on either side of the outer ring was a crab-claw-shaped set of pincers made to clamp down on the coin front and back.
“Why would it need these pincers?” Lily said. “When it’s already held in place by these tines?”
“Don’t fool with it,” warned Jasper.
Opposite the fob was a long, curved lever, shaped to look as though it were part of the outer ring of the pendant itself. It had a neat little catch, such as you might find on a bracelet to keep it from opening by accident.
Without thinking, Lily undid the little catch and pulled the lever. It swung open easily, and the tines retracted into the outer ring with a neat click. Now the pincers alone were holding the coin in place.
“What are you doing?” hissed Jasper.
Lily swung the lever back, and the silver tines shot back out of the outer ring and re-clasped the coin, much to Jasper’s relief.
“Why is Ebb without his necklace?” mused Lily.
Jasper shrugged.
His sister’s eyes brightened. “Let’s take it home!”
Jasper took half a step backward, his palms upraised before him. “No way! Lily, Mom and Dad will want to see that.”
Lily pressed the necklace tight against her chest. “Oh, come on. Just for a few days. Please? We can show it to them later. We can give it to them—tomorrow!”
“I—no—” Jasper hesitated, “Dad will want to see it. I’m sure of it. It might be important.”
Lily knew he was right. Still . . . Mom or Dad would take it.
“What if I just drew it? Please? Let me draw it! I’ll do it in one night. We can give it to them in the morning—first thing! Please?”
“You’ll show it to them in the morning?” asked Jasper, dubious. His sister nodded fervently. “First thing?”
“Promise! Real promise!” Lily began carefully coiling the necklace.
“I . . . I don’t know, Lily.”
“Just one night.” She stuffed it into her jacket pocket. “Uncle Ebb’s been gone for so very, very long. What difference could one night make?”
“Just one night?” Jasper relented.
Lily smiled. “Just one.” Then she pointed to the nearest globe. “So, what do you make of these?”
“I was thinking . . . there are nine of them,” said Jasper.
“Nine moons make a realm,” Lily whispered.
“Exactly.” Jasper grinned and tapped the glass of the center globe. “‘Pearl of Dik Dek in oceans deep.’”
“‘Mer-made all for the taking,’” said Lily, completing the line.
“Dik Dek is all ocean!” said Jasper.
Jasper and Lily peered at the script. There were two short words that might have been Dik Dek at the very top, with smaller writing below.
“We should search all the paintings for more script,” said Lily, “see what tales they’re connected to. It might give us a clue.”
“I agree, but why would Ebb make these terrariums?” Jasper wondered aloud. “And why would he hide them away like this?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think terrarium is the best word for them.”
Jasper gave Lily a quizzical look.
“What then?”
“They’re for moons. How about . . . lunariums?”
“Lunariums!” laughed Jasper. “That’s perfect. That’s exactly what they are.”
They peered through all the lunariums, looking for any kind of clue but finding none. Eventually, Jasper rose. “Mom and Dad won’t be busy forever. And we still need to visit Mr. Phixit.”
“You more than me,” said Lily, smirking at her brother’s anxious face.
Jasper took a deep breath. “Do you think he’s fixed it?”
“He better have, or Dad’s going to kill you.”
Chapter Three
Mr. Phixit
Uncle Ebb’s workshop, which occupied the entire third floor, was a giant windowless room filled with aisles of parts, cannibalized and half-finished inventions, and junk—lots and lots of junk. The staircase emptied right into the middle of it. The walls gave off a dark blue light, as though these reefs were deep under the sea. The electrimals that lived here were also different: large-mouthed, bulbous-eyed, with long dangling spines. They moved slowly, gliding along the walls like miniature deep-sea dirigibles.
Mr. Phixit sat directly in front of the landing. He consisted of two arms mounted to the sides of what looked like a tall dresser with exactly ninety-nine drawers. A sizable worktable was attached to the front of the dresser, and Mr. Phixit could raise and lower it to reach all his drawers. The worktable was ringed by all manner of tools that Mr. Phixit could easily grasp and use. At one time or another, Lily had looked through most of the drawers, which held nuts and bolts, wire, solder, batteries, screwdrivers, wrenches, and many other items for which she had no name.
On the corner of the worktable was an old, beaten-up keyboard with a tiny black-and-white video screen. By default, Mr. Phixit kept his table in a lowered position, so that a person standing in front of him could easily use the keyboard and read the tiny screen.
Jasper tapped the keyboard’s space bar, and it fell off, clattering to the floor.
Lines of text rapidly scrolled across the video screen, stopping to display Job 247ab6 in progress and Parts Needed, followed by a long list of odd parts. The message Parts Missing blinked at them.
In the center of the worktable sat Job 247ab6.
“What do you suppose it is?” asked Lily.
Jasper reattached the space bar to Mr. Phixit’s keyboard and began rummaging through several low-rimmed boxes labeled Fixable, Unfixable, and Finished.
“I can assure you I have no idea.”
Jasper fished something shiny out of the Finished box.
“Yes! Dad’s pocket watch!” he yelled, pumping a fist high into the air.
Lily laughed. “You’re lucky he hasn’t noticed it missing.”
“It was an accident!” said Jasper, his face turning a deep shade of red.
Lily emptied the contents of her pockets onto the edge of the worktable. Cupping her hands, she pushed the little pile next to Job 247ab6 and typed Parts arrival for Job 247ab6. The space bar fell off again, along with the letters R and J.
Little spotlights on Mr. Phixit’s two arms winked to life. His arms swun
g down noisily, and four tiny video cameras, mounted in pairs on each arm, scanned the worktable and the items from Lily’s pockets. He poked and prodded the pile with his thin metal fingers. One by one, the items under the heading Parts Needed vanished from the tiny video screen. A second after the last item winked off the screen, Mr. Phixit began opening and closing drawers, pulling out various objects, and laying them on the worktable. He rearranged the items Lily had brought and set to work on the strange object that was Job 247ab6.
“Poor Mr. Phixit. It would be so much easier if we could just talk to him.”
Jasper raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one, Lil.”
Lily picked up the space bar and carefully tapped it into place, followed by the letters R and J. That done, she gingerly typed: “New Job: replace keyboard with upgrade.”
Jasper laughed. “That ought to confuse him.”
Lily tenderly patted one of Mr. Phixit’s arms. “Shut up, Jasper. Mr. Phixit has been very good to us. It’s only fair that we try and take care of him every once in a while.”
Jasper shrugged. “Okay, but you’re paying for the new keyboard out of your pocket. I don’t see why you don’t just tell him to glue his keys back on better.”
“I’ll get whatever parts he wants. As long as they don’t cost too much,” she added, sounding unsure.
They both knew that Mr. Phixit wouldn’t look at the keyboard job until he’d finished as much of Job 247ab6 as he could, given the parts he currently had on hand. Once he’d reached a roadblock, or finished, he’d get started on whatever was next on his internal docket.
“He might not even want a new keyboard. He’ll just tell us what he needs . . . and we’ll get it for him. Just like always.”
“All right,” said Jasper, glancing at his dad’s watch. “We better check in with Mom and Dad.”
Seemingly oblivious, Mr. Phixit continued his work as Lily and Jasper descended the stairwell, headed for the study off the great hall.
Their parents’ mood was unchanged.
“Get into trouble, you two?” asked their father. Jasper was sure Tay knew they’d been up to no good, if not what they were up to in particular. Lily, however, could tell that her father was fishing, and before Jasper could stammer an answer, she stepped in.
“We didn’t break anything, if that’s what you mean.” She gave her father a playful nudge as she walked out the door.
On the walk home, Lily couldn’t stop thinking about drawing the necklace. After almost a mile of silence, Linnea draped her arm over Lily’s shoulder and squeezed. “How’s your work for the website coming along?” she asked.
Lily pulled her eyes away from her brother. “The web designers keep trying to jazz it up, and I keep telling them it should look as much like the print catalog as possible.”
“Well, maybe it’s time for Treling to move into the modern era,” said Linnea. Lily and Tay rolled their eyes.
“But the fonts and layout are already super-hip-archaic old-school.”
“What about the sketches?” asked Linnea.
“The old artwork is fine!”
“Yours are better. I want to see finished product by the end of the week.”
“So,” began Jasper, “this summer . . . do I get to work on the bigger equipment and work in the Wa—”
“No!” interrupted both parents at the same moment.
Treling was a substantial tree farm with orderly nursery rows and greenhouses, but on its northern border lay a great expanse of forest known simply as The Wald. Jasper and Lily never worked within The Wald, where the big trees grew. The rill, a meandering and unpredictable stream, separated farm from forest. The only easy way in or out was the old stone bridge next to Gwen and Myrddin’s small cabin, a spirited walk north from Stonewood, the farmhouse where Lily and Jasper lived.
“But with the website coming online, we’ll be busier than ever before. And with Ebb not—” Linnea shot Jasper a hard look. He changed his approach. “Gwen and Myrddin are old. How can the four of you expect to run Treling without more help from us?”
“Ebb will be back,” said Linnea. “Until then, I’ll teach you more about how the machinery works.”
“But I already know how it works. And I have some ideas for improvements. If I spent more time with Mr. Phixit, I could make some smaller-scale prototypes to test—”
“Mr. Phixit has enough to do without you making up tasks for him,” said Tay.
“Like what?”
Giving Jasper a knowing look, Tay tapped his wrist and patted his pocket.
The rest of the walk proceeded in silence, all the way to the kitchen door, the highest-traffic spot in any farmhouse.
Stonewood wasn’t on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania, and it wasn’t the first house built on the property—that honor went to Gwen and Myrddin’s cabin. Nor was it the largest house, which was Ebb’s mansion, but it was an old farmhouse, built at a time when settlers hewed wood in much the same way as ancient Egyptians carved stone. Part of the home had once been an attached barn, a feature that in seventeenth-century Pennsylvania allowed for easier care of the livestock during hard winters. But the old barn, which included a stone foundation and huge, exposed wooden beams overhead, had long ago been converted to living space for the family.
After dinner there were dishes to wash, followed by make-up homework that Lily hoped would boost her borderline grade in algebra. And then there was Treling’s website. Lily’s mother had given her the job of overseeing its design, but not the power to make the final decisions. Where Lily wanted flipping pages, the original woodblock artwork, and all the original handset fonts, Linnea wanted something . . . different. But what that different was, Lily had yet to decipher or concede to.
Lily trudged up to her room, sat down at her desk, and called her friend Isla Gorpmarch. Isla had been Lily’s best friend since kindergarten, and she was brilliant. Lily wanted to run some ideas past her. But Isla didn’t answer. Lily waited until the beep, held the phone in both hands in front of her face, and screamed as if she were being murdered. She shrieked, “Website! Website! It’s killing me!”
Lily tossed the phone onto the litter that was her desk. She picked up her current sketchbook and hesitated. She slid her hand into her pocket, letting her fingers tangle in the cool metal links of Uncle Ebb’s necklace. But the necklace would have to wait.
She opened to the sketchbook’s first page. She had drawn Stonewood at an angle to show off the old barn. Above the house was a large rectangle around the words: Treling Tree Nursery. Under that it said: Est. 1701.
Below the house, she had written in a flowing hand: Treling (pronounced “trelling“) is proud to present its 304th catalog. Inside you will find an extensive line of shrubs, plants, and flowers, all renowned for their extreme hardiness. In addition, Treling offers a full selection of mature trees: trees to be delivered and planted on time, as specified, and always at the price originally quoted. If called upon, we at Treling can—in a single night—transform a flat, barren field, where previously the largest structure had been an impoverished ant colony, into a park of towering majestic trees, complete with birds. Hardy trees. Trees to last many lifetimes.
Lily’s eyes drifted to her phone. No Isla to save her this night. Resigned, Lily picked up a pencil and turned to her sketches for the website’s index page, where a person could browse by tree or shrub size, by color, or by season. Even if she did manage to please her mother, there was nothing she could add that would make her father like it. The passage of time had little to no effect on his tastes.
Flipping back to the first page, she added more details and shading to the house. She spent about an hour crafting a spiderweb on the porch railing that no one would ever notice. But that was okay: she would know it was there.
At the ear
liest respectable hour, Lily went downstairs to find her parents and say good night. Returning to her room, she locked the door.
Once back in her chair, she placed the necklace on a stack of books, then turned on a small lamp and tilted it very low. From a box on a shelf she withdrew a pad of her best paper, then sharpened six pencils to varying degrees of sharpness. Starting in the upper right corner of the pad, she drew a sampling of links from the necklace. Below it, she outlined a square and inside drew two links very large to capture the micro fish-scale pattern that adorned each one. Once that was done, she sketched in the rest of the chain without much detail until she got to where it attached to the pendant. She flipped to a new page and sketched the outer ring, copying the smallest details that wound and tangled on its surface, mostly plant and sea animal motifs.
The coin had been minted with daring precision and bore even more detail than the outer ring that held it. Twice Lily added more books to the pile to move the coin closer to her eye. Tilting the top book helped some with glare, but the coin tended to slip off at unexpected moments. In the end, she wound the chain around her left forearm from elbow to wrist and held the coin nearly to her face as she sketched every detail she could make out. Lily was used to sketching small details of plants, leaves, and seeds; she was well-practiced, fast, and precise. Still, there was an impossible amount of detail impressed upon every surface of the necklace, pendant, and coin.
The rim of the coin was covered with an intricate vine and leaf motif, reminiscent of Celtic patterns, but it was not a design she recognized. Then came an inner ring of evenly spaced circles, each with a corresponding symbol. Holding the coin at just the right angle revealed the shapes of continents and oceans. Lily picked up the magnifying glass she used for plant specimens.
They were worlds, and there was enough detail in them to fill a separate page for each. Far too much detail to draw in one night. Lily knew she would have to make choices. She put down the magnifying glass and sketched only the barest details of each individual world’s geography.