“John’s here?” said Rough Ricky, which was exactly what Gentleman Jack had said when I told him about Lord John.
I explained about the trial and Lord John’s idea about the Fair.
The fire burned; Rough Ricky burned. “The story about the Fair is good but too risky. Breaking a man out of jail is unpredictable, but a trial is even more unpredictable. Gold is one hundred percent predictable. There must be some gold at the Judge’s house.”
I told him about the coins and the inkwell.
“Not piffles like that,” said Rough Ricky. Rough Ricky’s face couldn’t frown, but his voice could frown. “Where’s the Judge’s safe?”
I said I’d never seen a safe in the cottage. But I knew there was a big door at the bank that led into a vault of valuable things.
“Not a bank,” said Rough Ricky. “There’s too much security in a bank.”
The shadows of the willow branches crept along the ground. Willow was to make a chair; white oak was to make a dog. Now the shadows were bleeding into one another. Soon there would be no shadows, which would mean the sun was gone.
There came a howl, then a long answering howl. The shadows were gathering, the wolves were gathering.
“If I stay any later,” I said, “the Judge will ask where I went.”
“Quick, then,” said Rough Ricky. “What doors do they keep unlatched?”
“What doors?” I said. “Where?”
“Pay attention!” said Rough Ricky. “At the Judge’s house.”
Rough Ricky, in the Judge’s house? He didn’t belong there.
“He can be there if he wants,” said the dagger.
But I couldn’t imagine him there. Anyway, it was too dangerous. He could easily be caught.
“Rough Ricky likes taking chances,” said the dagger. “He likes it as much as gold.”
“The doors are all bolted,” I said. “The windows are all latched. You couldn’t creep in, even if you were a mouse.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Rough Ricky always wanted to do things people told him he couldn’t do.
“I can be a mouse,” said Rough Ricky. “And I can be a snake and eat the mouse. Tell me about the bolts and latches.”
I told him about the doors and bolts. I told him where my room was, in the attic, at the top of the indigo tree.
“But I could meet you back here,” I said. Then Rough Ricky wouldn’t be taking a chance.
“Keep your window cracked,” said Rough Ricky. “Don’t worry; I’ll get in.”
That wasn’t why I was worried.
“Then why are you worried?” said the dagger.
It was just that I didn’t like to be startled. I didn’t want to be startled awake when Rough Ricky crept in.
“You’ll have to sleep with one eye open,” said the dagger.
What if I disobeyed Rough Ricky and kept the window closed? I’d disobeyed Gentleman Jack by not destroying Grandmother’s photograph, and I didn’t even feel bad.
“You will,” said the dagger. “When Gentleman Jack finds out.”
I tried to remember the song the boy had been whistling. Bits of the tune lingered in my memory. I remembered the sad spaces where the word Mother fit and where the word Father fit. I remembered the sad space where the words Milk and Honey fit. It was stuck in my head from the Before Time.
I remembered the spaces more than I remembered the notes. Did I know it but didn’t know I knew it? Maybe the memory was folded away, wrapped in lavender. But where would the memory be? I had no wardrobe, not like Magda, filled with a whiteness of memories. I didn’t know where to look.
“Anyway,” said the dagger, “you don’t want to look.”
Embrace your joys, I thought. The dagger wouldn’t understand. The tune and the words were a joy. Embrace your joys, so you do not estrange them.
First I would remember the spaces and then I would remember the words.
IT WAS THEN I STOPPED SLEEPING.
“You’re sleeping with one eye open,” said the dagger.
But you can’t really sleep with one eye open. It was dreadful waiting for Rough Ricky. I knew how it would happen. I’d be jerked out of sleep but not quite into wakefulness. The smell of burning would fold itself into my mind. I might dream I was running from a fire.
Rough Ricky didn’t come the first night. I sat in the rocking chair, looking into the dollhouse. The pocket watch hung on the library wall. I wished I could wind it and make it tick. Grandmother’s face and the watch’s face were looking at each other; Grandmother wouldn’t want her face to look at a face that was dead. When I got to Netherby Scar, she’d help me fix it.
But I’d brought the dolls to life and I’d made them happy. The cradle in Isaac’s dollhouse room had had no blanket. But Mrs. del Salto gave me a scrap of flannel, white with blue stars. I cut it into a blanket, a little bigger than the cradle so I could make a fringe all around. The mother and father dolls stood looking into the cradle. If china lips could smile, they’d be smiling.
I’d filled up Magda’s dollhouse wardrobe. It’s easy to fill a wardrobe that’s one-twelfth the size of a human wardrobe. Mrs. del Salto’s sewing box was always stuffed with fabrics: sheer organzas and tulles, heavier wools and satins, and even a square of damask. It was mostly gray with silver swirls, but the other side was mostly silver with gray swirls.
Now I’d recognize Grandmother’s tablecloth. I knew so many fabrics now.
But not silk. I was saving silk for Grandmother.
Magda’s dollhouse wardrobe was a burst of whiteness. It was the inside of an almond. I’d made the dollhouse match up with the human house.
Rough Ricky didn’t come the second night.
What if he did something that changed Day Zero again? If he rescued Gentleman Jack from jail, then Gentleman Jack wouldn’t go to trial and I wouldn’t need to tell my story about the Fair on May sixth. What if Rough Ricky rescued him tomorrow? Then I’d have almost no time to get the dolls’ baby.
“You can’t get it anyway,” said the dagger. “You don’t have any money.”
I said the task rhyme inside my head:
One is for Oakheart,
Two’s for a collar.
Three’s for a sister,
Four’s for a brother.
“We can’t wait to get our baby,” said the father doll.
“What if something happens?” I said. “What if I have to leave Blue Roses before I get the baby?”
“You can’t leave before you bring our baby,” said the mother doll. “It’s the third task.”
“But three tasks are too many tasks,” I said. “Two is the right number of tasks.”
“The third task is the most important task,” said the mother doll. “Our hearts will break if we don’t get our baby.”
The dolls’ faces were always the same; china can’t move. But I heard the disapproval in the mother doll’s voice. If she had a human face, she’d be pressing her lips together and little vertical lines would appear beside her mouth.
“You have to leave when Gentleman Jack says,” said the dagger.
“But Rough Ricky—” I said. Rough Ricky would have something to say about when we left. I thought of the heat of him, how his hand pressed my lips into my teeth, how my heart went dribbling down my ribs. Rough Ricky was alive and present and burning and dangerous. Gentleman Jack was alive but in jail.
I rocked the cradle with my finger. Willow was for rocking chairs and cradles. That was because willow was bendy and swingy and filled with wind.
The dolls were alive. They couldn’t press their lips together, but they could speak.
“The dolls aren’t alive,” said the dagger.
“You can’t press your lips together,” I said. “What if you’re the one that’s not alive?”
“Carbon and iron are extremely alive,” said the dagger.
“You will not leave,” said the father doll. “The Indigo Heart is a magnet. It attracts the people it wants to attract. It ke
eps the people it wants to keep.”
The baby doll didn’t matter; magnets didn’t matter. I was going to leave on May sixth, or sooner if Rough Ricky broke Gentleman Jack out of jail. I’d take the dagger. I’d take the pocket watch to Netherby Scar and get it fixed. Then I’d wind it and make it come alive.
I’d take the inkwell and the coins. When the time came, I’d creep down the indigo tree and find my way to Rough Ricky’s little camp, below the belt line of Blue Roses. I hoped Rough Ricky would be waiting for me. If not, I’d follow the railroad tracks to Netherby Scar.
Why had I told the dolls I might have to leave? They weren’t what was important.
Rough Ricky didn’t come the third night. But the Judge came knocking at my door, rap-rap-rap. Why did people knock like that? They never knocked just once.
“May I?” said the Judge.
The door had a latch to keep it from swinging open. It was a spring latch, which meant that when you let go of the knob, it would spring out and keep the door in place. And it had a bolt, which meant that even if you turned the knob, you wouldn’t be able to get in. But you didn’t need a latch or a bolt with the Judge. There was something inside him that was just like a latch or a bolt. The Judge wouldn’t open the door unless you let him.
“You may.” I tasted the words. They were strong as latches and bolts. They would open the door and let the Judge in.
Now the door was open. Now the lamp from the landing sent a slant of light across the floor. Now the reflection of the Judge’s face appeared beside mine in the window. Beyond were the branches of the indigo tree. Beyond them were the stars.
As we looked out into the night, one of them moved.
“A falling star,” said the Judge.
“Why do they do that sometimes?” I said. “Unstick themselves from the sky and fall?”
“Like the Blue Rose,” said the Judge, “who fell to earth to lead us to the Indigo Heart.”
The Judge switched off the electric candle. The window gripped tight at our reflections. “You can see the stars better with no other lights.”
He told me all about stars. “The stars look small, but most of them are bigger than our earth. And the stars themselves are part of bigger groups of stars, and those groups are part of even bigger groups.” The Judge explained about solar systems and galaxies. He said our galaxy is called the Milky Way and has billions of stars.
He pointed out the constellations. Scorpius, which means scorpion; Taurus, which means bull; Ursa Major, which means great bear.
“Where are the Seven Sisters?” I said.
“As it gets to be spring,” said the Judge, “they rise later and later. It’s too early in the evening to see them yet.”
“So the Blue Rose is a star?” I said. “And she’s also a person?”
“She’s ineffable,” said the Judge, and before I could ask, he explained that Ineffable was when you couldn’t describe something.
It was funny to have a word for describing something you couldn’t describe.
There were worlds within worlds. The worlds could get bigger, like solar systems being inside of galaxies. Or the worlds could get smaller, like the cottage; and the dollhouse inside the cottage; and inside the dollhouse, a dollhouse of the dollhouse. Or like the Blue Rose. She could be big as a star. She could be small as a seed. She could be both those things and still be who she was.
I said this aloud, and the Judge said that was like the Indigo Heart. The Indigo Heart was the center of the world, and Blue Roses was the center of the Indigo Heart, and the Shrine, where the Blue Rose had made roses grow in the snow, was the center of Blue Roses.
“I would like to be able to see things that are very small,” I said.
“I can help you with that,” said the Judge.
On the eighth night, the Judge gave me a magnifying glass.
Here’s what a magnifying glass looks like: it’s a circle of glass in a brass frame. Here’s what a magnifying glass does: it makes small things look big. The Judge held it by its handle, which was white and glowed.
“Mother of pearl,” said the dagger. “Valuable.”
The Judge drew an envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket. “Look at the stamp.” It was identical to the orange stamp in the library. The one with the picture of the man with the old-fashioned hair.
The magnifying glass was heavier than it looked. I held it over the stamp, and suddenly the stamp was huge. I saw every detail.
I saw the man’s profile, his high collar. I saw that the stamp was made of orange dots and lines on a white background. I saw that the picture was formed by those dots and lines, depending on whether there were lots of them or hardly any.
The magnifying glass held a whole new world. No wonder it was heavy.
The Judge got all the way to the other side of the door, then poked his head in again. “You may keep the magnifying glass,” he said. Then he was gone before I could say Thank You, which I wasn’t particularly good at remembering anyway.
I stood there holding the magnifying glass. I stood there holding the heaviness of another world.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Rough Ricky. About how one night I would wake up, smelling fire, and Rough Ricky would be there. Rough Ricky could get into buttercream cottage. He was not like the Judge, who was filled with latches and bolts. Not actual latches and bolts, of course. Just the idea of them.
Rough Ricky did not believe in latches and bolts. They couldn’t stop him.
That night I dreamed about Netherby Scar. I dreamed I was looking for Grandmother’s house, but I couldn’t find it because there were no street signs. Then I was looking for the magnifying glass, because if I had it, I’d be able to see the street signs. And then I thought that if I’d been able to find the magnifying glass, maybe the magnifying glass would have helped me find its own self. But that was too confusing, and, for that to work, time would have to run backward and forward, as it did with the Blue Rose.
Anyway, you can never find things in dreams.
“What did I say about sleeping with one eye open?” said Rough Ricky.
I was still half dreaming when I sat upright, my heart flapping around like a beached fish. But there was nothing to be afraid of. I’d been dreaming I was lost, and now I was awake and I wasn’t lost. But dream fragments still lingered. Why was it so frightening that I’d lost the magnifying glass?
“Tell me about the gold,” said Rough Ricky. He made me come fully awake. There was the heat of him, the smell of charred flesh. That was like the real Rough Ricky, not a dream. He sat on the bed beside me, which made my side of the bed go up. That was like a real person, not a dream. He leaned over me so he could speak quietly. That was like a real person, not a dream.
“We need the gold,” he said.
But I’d already told him about the gold, which was that there wasn’t any. Not in buttercream cottage, anyway.
“Of course there’s gold,” said Rough Ricky. “Gentleman Jack’s reliable source knows the Judge has a substantial share in a gold mine.”
“He keeps it in a bank,” I said. Rough Ricky didn’t know the Judge the way I did. He didn’t know that the Judge was careful, and that he was filled with locks and bolts, and that he’d keep his money in a place like a bank that was also filled with locks and bolts.
Needle-sharp barks came from the dollhouse. Oakheart had heard Rough Ricky. Or maybe Oakheart smelled the fire on him. “Danger! Danger!” said his barks. Usually the dolls didn’t pay much attention to the human-size world.
“Where’s the safe!” Rough Ricky’s voice got hotter.
There was no safe.
“He’s hiding it.” Rough Ricky’s voice leapt and licked. “We’ll creep about the house and you’ll show me all the Judge’s special spots.” In the moonlight, his face was a scrumble of scars. He paused, put up a finger, which meant, Quiet!
From the other side of the door came the faintest of clicks. Rough Ricky’s finger, which had said Quiet, tu
rned sideways and made itself into a revolver.
I nodded. Yes, the Judge did have a revolver.
For all his scars, Rough Ricky could move fast. He was out the window before the door smashed open. The Judge leapt forward, but all that was left of Rough Ricky was a burst of breaking glass and singeing.
The Judge wheeled round, pushed past Mrs. del Salto, who stood in the doorway. I hardly recognized her. For one thing, it was she, not the Judge, who was holding the revolver. She must be the one who’d made the click. It had been the click of the revolver’s hammer. It meant the revolver had been getting ready to shoot.
“A knife is quiet.” The dagger didn’t like my thinking of the revolver. “A knife doesn’t click.”
The revolver shone silver in her hand. There was scrollwork down the muzzle and a golden eagle on the backstrap. She was hard to recognize, with a revolver in her hand. Also, she wore a white nightdress, which made her even harder to recognize. If I’d ever thought about it, I’d have assumed she wore black to bed. Black was her color, not white.
The Judge wasn’t going to catch Rough Ricky. Rough Ricky had a head start; Rough Ricky had lots of practice running; Rough Ricky knew how to fade into the night. Rough Ricky had left so fast, he’d broken the window.
“You sound as though you wish the Judge could catch him,” said the dagger.
“I don’t sound like anything.” Of course I didn’t want the Judge to catch him. “Thoughts don’t have sounds.”
“That’s what you think,” said the dagger.
If Rough Ricky were caught, there’d be no one to tell me what to do, except Gentleman Jack, and what if I couldn’t get Gentleman Jack out of jail?
The wind through the window smelled of spring and wet indigo. Beneath was the tang of the oil the Judge used to clean his revolver. Did he clean it every day? Had he been waiting for Rough Ricky, sleeping with one hand on the ivory handle, sleeping with one eye open?
The smell of coffee came wafting upstairs. Mrs. del Salto and I looked at each other. We both knew: the Judge hadn’t caught Rough Ricky, or else he wouldn’t be making coffee. Mrs. del Salto laid the revolver on the floor, pointing the muzzle toward a corner. Now she couldn’t shoot someone by accident. “I’ll ask Marcus to make it safe again,” she said. She didn’t know as much about guns as Flora did.
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