by N. D. Wilson
“What’s your name?”
“Ask the sprites tonight.” His voice rattled up at her through the shaft. He was almost down. Henrietta reached in and clenched the two little squealing ropes. They burned her hand, but they both stopped moving.
The old man’s voice rose in anger. “Horrid little girl! Let go at once!”
Henrietta laughed and leaned back out of the echo. “Tell me your name.”
She heard the man sigh. “Eli,” he said.
“Eli what?”
“Eli FitzFaeren.”
“Why were you in my grandfather’s room?”
“I was living there.”
“Why?”
“He was a friend. And a fool like his father before him and all his descendants. Now let go of the rope before I lay a curse on you.”
“What really happened here?” Henrietta asked. “How did everyone die?”
Suddenly the rope glowed orange and went hot in her hand. She yelped and put her hand to her mouth. The pulley squealed as the rope rattled around it. Eli’s yell poured out of the shaft as he fell. With a crack, the pulley ripped out of woodwork somewhere inside, and Henrietta watched it fall past the opening. The crash at the bottom filled the whole hall.
When everything was quiet, Henrietta stuck her head back in. She could hear groaning. “Are you okay?” she asked. The groaning turned into cursing.
“You!” the little man finally yelled. “You are as bad as your grandfather!” He went back to muttering.
“It was nice meeting you,” Henrietta said.
Laughter echoed through the hall. “Surely you can’t mean it. Enjoy your evening in the Lesser Hall of FitzFaeren. Enjoy it, but do not eat anything, and more importantly, do not let anything eat you!”
Henrietta listened to him leave. When his footsteps and muttering had faded, she stood, chewing her lip, and turned to explore.
Richard and Blake sat on Henry’s bed and looked around the attic room.
“This is where you live?” Richard asked. “It’s filthy.”
“I didn’t like your room, either,” Henry muttered. He was scanning Grandfather’s journal and glancing up at the compass locks. “I don’t know. There aren’t really any more close combinations.” He picked one, set the knobs, and sat down beside Richard. “This is the last one. If she’s not here, then I’m waking up Uncle Frank.”
Richard shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “We can ask your uncle if I can stay.”
“C’mon,” Henry said, and the two of them snuck downstairs one last time.
Henry sat on the floor and stared at the cupboard. He was tired and he was nervous, and he was yawning again because he was both. He could die in one of these places. He shouldn’t be doing this. Henrietta could die in one of them, too. He should wake up Uncle Frank.
“I will,” he said out loud. “After this one. If I don’t die. If we don’t die.”
“What?” Richard asked.
Henry didn’t say anything. He was crawling through the cupboard. Richard watched.
Lying in bed, Frank told Dotty not to worry about the thumping or the trips on the stairs. Yes, he knew Henry was up, and probably the girls, too.
“The boy’s white grass,” he said. “Like when you leave a board in the yard. You pick it up after a coupla weeks or days even, and the grass underneath is all white and yellow. No sunshine. Only, Henry’s been under a board in the yard for longer than a coupla days.”
“The girls sound like they’re up, too,” Dotty said. “They’re not getting any sleep.”
“They’ll recover,” Frank said, and he slept.
When he woke, it wasn’t because of any noise. He just felt a little funny. The sun wasn’t up, but the sky was bright with the dawn. Dotty was asleep next to him.
Frank pulled himself out of bed and wandered, yawning, into the hall. He put his hand on the knob of the bathroom door and stopped. There was light coming into the hall from Grandfather’s room. The door was partially open. Frank stared. He couldn’t believe it. He stepped toward it, put out his hand, and pushed.
The door swung open easily. The curtains were open, and the room was light. There were flowers in a vase and some things on the floor, but Frank didn’t notice. He was looking at the bed. A skinny boy with pants up to his ribs was sprawled on his back, asleep. He’d taken off some strange little boots, and his feet were bare. He had enormous chapped lips.
Frank walked to the bed and stood over the scrawny sleeper, examining his face. He coughed, and the boy’s eyes popped wide open.
“Henry’s in the cupboard,” Richard said. “I opted to sit this one out. Would it be inconvenient for me to stay?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Other men than Frank would have asked questions. They might have wondered who Richard was or why he was in the house. Frank walked to the cupboard, got down on his hands and knees, and eased himself in. Near the back, he stopped. There was a strange sucking sound accompanied by puffs of air. He let his eyes adjust to the dark cupboard and he stared, unblinking, at the back. It was flickering, sometimes there, sometimes not, dark with split seconds of light.
Frank backed out of the cupboard, stood, and left the room without even glancing at Richard. He went to the attic stairs and walked slowly up.
Henry’s doors were open. He looked into the room. A blanket and a wad of taped-together posters were on the floor. There was no plaster on the wall, only cupboard doors, just how Frank remembered it.
Anastasia was on Henry’s bed. She twisted around to look at Frank.
“Dad! Henry took the whole wall off, but look what he found. Have you seen these before? How do you open them?” She turned back around and spun one of the compass knobs. “I think you have to know the combinations.”
“Don’t touch those, Anastasia! Get off Henry’s bed.” Though she didn’t hear it often, Anastasia recognized the tone in her father’s voice. She let go of the knob and slid quickly off the bed.
“Where’s Henry?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know. We couldn’t find Henrietta, either. They were both out of bed last night, but Penny wouldn’t let me get up until it was light. She went to look for them in the barn. Who’s he?” Anastasia pointed. Frank turned around and found Richard behind him, looking into the room.
“What’s your name?” Frank asked.
“Richard Leeds,” Richard said.
“Anastasia, I need you to concentrate,” Frank said.
“Do you remember what combination those knobs were set to before you touched them?”
Anastasia shook her head. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked. “What did I do?”
Frank smiled. “Go downstairs. Richard and I need to talk. Come tell me if you find Henry or Henrietta.” Anastasia left for the stairs, and Frank put his hand on Richard’s shoulder, pulling him into Henry’s room. Richard fidgeted nervously with his hands and then reached up to pull on his lip.
Frank was still in his pajamas, and his hair was standing out from his head. The two of them sat down on Henry’s bed.
“What happened?” Frank asked.
“Henry crawled through a clock into my house, and I followed him back, but he didn’t know. Then we looked for Henrietta and couldn’t find her, though we found the cat. We went all sorts of places. Henry said he would attempt one more before waking Uncle Frank. I stayed back. Are you Uncle Frank?”
Frank nodded. He sat still for a moment and thought about what Richard had told him.
“Where do you live, Richard?”
“Hutchins,” Richard said.
Frank’s brow tightened. “Where’s Hutchins?”
“It’s in Britain,” Richard said. “Are we in Britain?”
Frank shook his head. “No. We’re in Kansas. What year is it in Hutchins?”
“Nineteen hundred eighty-nine. Queen Askew’s reign.”
“Wrong Britain.” Frank drew in a long breath. “I figured it’d be somethin’ like that. Are you tired, Richard?”
; “Yes.”
“You can sleep here for a while. I’ll be back in a bit. I might have to wake you up.”
Richard watched Frank leave and then flopped face down on Henry’s bed. He was asleep before Frank reached the bottom of the stairs.
Dotty stood on the landing in her bathrobe. Her arms were crossed, her hair wandered, and her eyes were worried.
“What’s going on, Frank?” she asked. “The room’s open.”
Frank stopped and took a deep breath. “Henry’s gone through the cupboards. Henrietta’s gone, too. She went first. He was looking for her.”
Dotty leaned back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She put one hand over her mouth and then both over her eyes.
“I’m sorry, love,” Frank said. “I should’ve stepped in. I just didn’t want to fence him.”
Dotty was very still.
“Dots, there’s a boy upstairs that Henry brought back from one of the cupboards. He’ll sleep for a while, but he’s gonna need somethin’ to eat.”
Dotty stood up and looked in Frank’s eyes. “Are you going after them?”
“I don’t see much choice.”
“Do you know which one they’re in?”
“No. Anastasia was fiddlin’ with the knobs when I went upstairs. I’ll be guessin’. It might take a while.”
Dotty clenched her jaw. “You belong here, Frank. You know that, don’t you? Remember what I said.”
Frank didn’t say anything. Dotty turned and walked back into their room.
In Grandfather’s room, Frank picked up the broken glasses and sat down on the floor. He pulled the rope out of the cupboard. The end was sliced cleanly. He stuck his arm into the small space and found a solid back. He thought for a moment and then went back up into Henry’s attic. Richard was snoring.
Frank tried to look around quietly at first, but after a few loud creaks and crumpling posters, he realized Richard would be nearly impossible to wake. He bent down and examined the wall of cupboards, saw that the bed leg was wedged against the black one, and stood up.
Back downstairs, he found Dotty at the dining room table, still covering her mouth. She was not crying, and Frank knew that she wouldn’t. Anastasia was standing in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, watching. She had asked her mother what was wrong but hadn’t been heard. Now she was waiting. Dotty looked up at Frank.
“Where is Henry?” Anastasia asked. “Is Henrietta with him?”
“Don’t know,” Frank said.
“Frank,” Dotty asked, “do you think they’ll be okay? I mean, really. Do you think you can even find them?”
Frank ran his hands through his hair and puffed his cheeks. “Honestly, Dots, I need to get lucky. I’m sure I can find them with enough time. It depends on how smart they’re being, or who they’ve run into. Some places, that would be easy. Some places, that would be hard.”
Frank sat down beside Dotty and set his fists on the table. “Anastasia,” he said. “Run get your sister. Your mother’s gonna explain things to you the best she can.”
Anastasia just stood there.
“Go,” Frank said. And she went. “Now,” he said to Dotty, “I’m gonna start. Don’t let the girls go upstairs unless you’re with them. If you need to leave the house, that’s fine.”
“You should tell the girls.”
“I don’t have the time. Sooner I get started, the better.” Frank kissed Dotty on the head and stood to go. He heard the back door burst open, and Penelope and Anastasia rushed into the room.
“I’ve got to go look for your sister and cousin,” Frank said. “Your mother will try to explain things to you. When she’s done, you make sure you do what she tells you.” He turned and walked upstairs.
Penelope and Anastasia sat very still and looked at their mother. She looked at them.
“What are you going to tell us?” Penelope asked.
“I’m not sure,” Dotty said.
“Where did Henry and Henrietta go?” Anastasia asked.
“I don’t know. That’s what your father is trying to figure out.”
They were all silent. Finally, Dotty took a deep breath and spoke.
“Well, I suppose your father will be a while, so I may as well try to tell it.” She reached up, pushed her hair behind her ears, and leaned onto the table. “I’ll tell you as much as I know.”
Both girls were listening, but Dotty stopped again. The girls held their breath, hoping she wouldn’t change her mind. Then Dotty began in earnest.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I was about your age, Penelope, walking home from school one day. It was the end of summertime, and school had just started. There were more people in Henry then, or it seemed like it, and they all loved baseball. There were lots of boys, and they had a system of teams picked, and each team had their own home field that they had claimed from some farmer. One of these fields used to be right out beside our house.”
Dotty twisted and untwisted her fingers. She wasn’t looking at her daughters. She was looking past years, sorting summers in her mind.
“On this day,” she continued, “when I got home, my father was standing in the front yard watching a game, and there was a boy with him. I didn’t want to have to meet the boy, so I snuck around to the back door and went inside.
“The boy was there for dinner, but he didn’t talk to me at all. He was older than I was, and he was lean and dark, with a bright smile and eyes that were always laughing. I’d never seen a boy sit up so straight or look right through you like he could, and he wasn’t at all afraid of Daddy. Your aunt Ursula flirted with him the whole time. Mama and I didn’t say much, and Daddy just kept telling us how well the boy could hit. He had a ring on his thumb, a big silver thing that people used to use to stamp wax—it had three starfish on it—and Ursula must have asked to see it at least a dozen times.
“The next day, when I was walking home, I saw the same boy playing in the park. I stopped to watch, and he really could hit. The day after that, I saw him at school. Everybody was talking about him—the grown-ups, too—but all the talk was about baseball and how he could help Henry High. An old couple, the Willises, let him move in with them.”
“What?” Penelope asked. “Really? Is that why…”
Dotty smiled at her. “Just wait. I’m going too slow already. It was almost a year before I ever really did talk to him. I was walking home again, and he caught up to me. He said he needed my help to get back to his home. He was from a town in another place, where they didn’t play baseball, and he needed to get back. He made me stop and sit down, and he told me a very strange story.
“The boys in his family were always sent off for a year to adventure before they could take their places in the town where he was from. Two of his brothers had gone to war and been killed. But his adventure had been different.
“My father had visited his town many times. He only went to their library, and at first, no one thought anything of it. But then some books, which were apparently important, began to disappear. Your grandfather was sent away, and the boy was sent to follow him.
“He followed my father all the way out of town and off the road, through hills and woods and finally into a hidden mountain valley. In the valley, swallowed by brush and vines, were the ruins of an old temple.
“The boy watched my father from a distance, watched him walk right up to a hole in the ruined wall and step through. He was gone. He waited for a while, but eventually the boy followed, and when he stepped through, something pushed him down onto his belly, and he crawled out into my parents’ bedroom.
“He went straight outside as quickly as he could and ran into my father drinking lemonade on the front porch. My father recognized him, so the boy asked him if he was a sorcerer and whether he had stolen the books from the library. My father laughed and told him that he was just an explorer and took him out in the yard to show him baseball.
“His year of adventure turned into a year of ba
seball in Henry.”
Anastasia couldn’t wait for the end. “Grandfather was magic?” she asked. “For real?”
Dotty sighed. “No. He wasn’t. But he’d found some. The boy told me that your grandfather could make a door in his bedroom lead to different places, and that he had to find a way to make it go back to his own town. Your grandfather told him that it wasn’t possible anymore. The ruined wall had collapsed on the other side and the doorway had closed. The boy didn’t believe my father, and he wanted me to help him.
“When my parents were out for dinner and Ursula was at a friend’s, he came over and we went into the bedroom and looked at the cupboard. It didn’t lead anywhere. So I took him up to my father’s little office closet in the attic, where Henry has been living. The double doors were locked, and I watched while the boy kicked them open. Then we went into Daddy’s closet and saw all the cupboards, along with books that your grandfather had taken. And there were some notes, naming the cupboards and explaining how the little doors worked. Any of them could be made to lead through the door in the downstairs bedroom.”
Dotty stopped and looked at the wide eyes on her daughters’ faces. “The boy didn’t recognize any of the names, so we went through and then came back and went through again. We did that until we went into a…very unfriendly place and someone tried to keep us. But your grandfather came, and managed to get us back through, and shut the cupboard behind us. He was very angry and told us that he was trying to find a way back and that he would help the boy when he did.
“Your grandfather never did. Or at least he said that he didn’t. In the end, he stopped using the cupboards. Things had begun coming through them from the other side, both in the attic and in his room. Unpleasant things. One day, he just stopped locking the attic room, and when I looked in, all the cupboard doors were gone. He had covered them all with plaster.
“So the boy stayed in Henry awhile and kept playing baseball, because he couldn’t ever go back.”
Upstairs, Frank traded his pajama bottoms for old green pants with pockets on the legs that he had found at a yard sale. He opened the top drawer of an aged white dresser and dug his hands through the piles of mismatched striped tube socks before pulling out a sheathed knife. Frank slid the blade out of the sheath and watched it catch the light. It had been given to him when he was very young, and it was the only knife in the house that he had never sharpened. It was the reason why he sharpened everything else.