“According to my aunt,” Hunter said, “Mackenzie disobeyed. He said he never felt right about going along with everything on the night of the kidnapping. He thought if he’d gone against Ellingham’s wishes and called the police right away, things might have turned out differently. When Ellingham wrote this codicil, he told Mackenzie to publicize it far and wide. Mackenzie always thought that Alice was dead, and even if she were alive, she would be safer if the stakes were lower, if the publicity had died down. If this challenge went out into the world, every con artist and hustler would land on top of them. And then when Ellingham died, Mackenzie felt he needed to protect his estate. He didn’t want the money to be stolen away—he wanted it to be used for good. So he made sure the codicil was locked up.”
“So there’s this magical piece of paper out there that no one knows about that says ‘Find Alice, win a prize!’”
“I’m not saying I believe it. I’m saying it’s what my aunt believes, and she swears Mackenzie told her about it.”
Stevie paused and thought about this for a moment.
“Someone would have to know,” Stevie said.
“She says people do know. The people on the board, who run Ellingham and the trust. And they can’t inherit. They all agree to keep things quiet so that they don’t get spammed by treasure hunters all the time. Can you imagine? It’s a shit-ton of money.”
Stevie could imagine. As it was, people had presented themselves as Alice many times, but all had failed to pass the sniff test. There were things about Alice that were kept secret that they didn’t know. The only people who had tried more recently failed DNA tests.
“So are you saying your aunt is doing this for money?” she said.
“I think at first she wanted to write a book, but yeah. Now she’s basically a dude with a metal detector looking for a lost city of gold.”
The idea of doing this for money left a bitter taste in Stevie’s mouth.
“I’m telling you this for a reason,” he said. “I don’t like how she’s using you. I don’t like how we’re here today. It’s why I wanted to give you my number. There’s something gross about all of this. She’s had contacts at the school before. You’re not even the first person she’s been talking to up there this year.”
“Who?” she said.
“I don’t know. I heard her talking to someone on the phone, someone who had to be here on the campus. She was being very secretive about it. And she mentioned your name.”
“What about me?” Stevie said.
“I couldn’t make much out. I caught your name, something about Ellingham, that’s it.”
“When was this?”
“It was earlier in the year because it was warmer and we had all the windows open. But school was definitely in session. Mid-September?”
“Do you think your aunt was talking to Hayes or Ellie?”
“I don’t know. She could have been.”
If Fenton had been in communication with Hayes or Ellie . . .
Hayes made more sense. It was Hayes who’d had the idea to make the video. Hayes wanted to go into the tunnel. Hayes and his half-baked ideas. Fenton wanted people who would scout for her. Had she gone to Hayes first, and then when Hayes died, come to Stevie? Was she second fiddle to Hayes?
She had to ignore that for a second, because the thought was too irritating. Maybe Fenton had somehow convinced Hayes that he could make a huge fortune if he just went tunneling.
There was a noise behind them, and Germaine Batt appeared, headphones on. From outside appearances, she was just walking by on her way somewhere, but that felt unlikely to Stevie. She had the bad feeling that Germaine had heard every word, and that Stevie had just repaid the favor she owed.
19
“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ATTRACTION AT DISNEY WORLD?” MUDGE asked as he removed the rubbery band of muscle and fat from around a cow eyeball.
“I’ve never been there,” Stevie said.
Stevie was standing a few feet away in her lab apron, gripping her coffee in her nitrile-gloved hands. Mudge worked on the dissection tray. The smell of formaldehyde swelled inside Stevie’s nose.
It had been five days since Ellie. That’s how Stevie thought of it. This was the post-Ellie period. The police had finished with Minerva House. Ellie’s things were no longer there, and the only area of interest was the entrance to the tunnel under the steps. They had put a rough bracket over the panel with a very serious-looking lock—not something that could be picked with a pin. There were also three crisscrossing bits of police tape.
Things had, in that way they do, ground back to normalcy. There had been news stories, of course. But the general conclusion was that the Hayes matter had now reached its natural end. The person responsible, having done a bad thing, had gotten herself killed while making another bad decision. There was press for a day, but then the news cycle snuffed out the story when something else came along a few hours later. Parents had been called and soothed. And Edward King had worked his magic again, assuring Stevie’s parents that Ellie had gotten exactly what was coming to her and there was no further need for concern.
And David . . . he was there. He did not do morning screaming meditation or sleep on the roof. He continued going to class, but he never spoke to Stevie, not once. It was like she did not exist.
Sometimes, though, he just smiled at her. Smiled like he knew something about what existed inside of her, a great cosmic joke that he would never tell.
Stevie hid in her room a lot, coming out only for food and class and sometimes she wouldn’t even bother with the food. She claimed to be studying, and Janelle would bring her containers back from the cafeteria.
“You probably think mine would be the Haunted Mansion,” Mudge continued. “It’s not. I like the Haunted Mansion, but my favorite is the Country Bear Jamboree.”
“Once you remove the external tissue,” Pix said from the front of the room, “you can go ahead and make the incision into the cornea.”
“The thing about it . . .” Mudge set down the dissection scissors and reached for the scalpel. “Is that it doesn’t change. Ever. It’s been there since the opening day and some people think it’s boring, but . . .”
He made the incision expertly, cutting across the eye. Liquid seeped out onto the dissection tray.
“. . . it’s actually completely metal. The one bear sings this song about blood on the saddle. You should go. It’s great. But if you’re talking rides . . .”
“The aqueous humor is the liquid you see,” Pix said. “It helps give shape to the cornea. Now, you’re going to want to go through the sclera . . .”
“Ride-wise,” Mudge said, “I mean, people talk about Space Mountain a lot, but that’s not Disney at its best. That’s some midcentury space age bullshit. The best ride is Dumbo.”
“And what is the sclera, Stevie?” said Pix, who had come up alongside them.
“The white of the eye?” Stevie replied.
“It’s the protective outer coating. Move in a little bit. Dissection is hard at first, but you get used to it. Think of the things you may have to see if you become a detective.”
These were perhaps the only words that could move her. Stevie took a single step closer to the tray. It was true that she might have to get used to dissections in her chosen career, but this was different. This was a giant eye, and it was looking at her from Mudge’s hand as he sliced it in half in the same way some people might slice an apple.
“How have you been doing?” Mudge asked.
“With . . .”
“Ellie’s death. You need to make sure you’re practicing good self-care.” Mudge set the scalpel down and looked through the dissection kit for a probe. “Just so you know, I’m here if you want to talk to me about anything.”
Stevie stared up at her tall, black-clad lab partner in his blue plastic apron and his rubber gloves. It was hard to read the expression in his eyes because of his purple snake-eye pupils.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Just offering. It’s important to make sure people know that you’re open to discussion.”
“You’re going to want to get the iris from between the cornea and the lens,” Pix said, circling the room.
Mudge held out the half an eyeball with a you want this? gesture. Stevie shook her head no. He set it down and continued working. The smell of formaldehyde stung the inside of Stevie’s nose, and it made her think of the smell in the tunnel.
Don’t think about that.
“How did she get down there?” Stevie said, out loud.
“Ellie?” Mudge said. “She was always like that. She liked looking for liminal spaces.”
“But I was down in that basement,” Stevie said. She didn’t really mean to talk to Mudge about this, but now that he had elicited her comment, it was coming out. “I don’t see how she could have found that opening. She must have been down there before.”
“You know,” he said, “there are miles and miles of tunnels under Disney World. They’re called utilidors. Walt Disney got upset when he saw a cowboy walking through Tomorrowland to get to Frontierland—this was in the California Disneyland. So in Florida he had all these tunnels built. So it’s a little like here. This is sort of like educational Disney World.”
Stevie had no idea what to say to that.
“Disney World is on a swamp,” Mudge went on. “Everything there has to be built up. So the tunnels are ground level. Disney World is actually built on raised ground, on an incline. People don’t even notice because it’s so gradual.”
Mudge triumphantly pulled a clear, squidgy thing out of the eye, about the size of a quarter. It looked a bit like a jellyfish.
“The lens,” he said.
He set it down on the tray.
“The lens,” she said.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she surreptitiously pulled it out. She had gotten an email. The name of the sender confused her for a moment—Ann Abbott. But then she remembered. The flour lady. The Jell-O and salad lady. She knocked the probe off the edge of the lab station so she could bend down for a moment to read:
Dear Stevie,
Thank you so much for your note! I’m sorry I took so long to respond. I am terrible with email. I am so pleased that you enjoyed Better Than Homemade! I didn’t even know copies of it were still around.
To answer your question, there is very little information I know of on Francis Crane. Most of the family fortune went to her older brother, who died sometime in the 1960s. There was some kind of argument within the family, I believe, which resulted in Francis largely being taken out of the will.
I did speak to someone else in the family when I was writing the book, and I seem to remember they said that Francis may have gone to France right before the war, and that she lived in Paris and had a daughter. I’ll see if I can find out more. You have me curious now.
How wonderful that you are at Ellingham Academy. It seems like a magical place!
Sincerely,
Ann Abbott
Well, it was something. The Francis trail wasn’t completely cold.
“Did you lose something?” Pix asked from the other side of the lab station. Mudge gave nothing away as he glanced down at Stevie. She slid the phone under her bag and reappeared with the probe.
“I’ll get you a fresh one,” Pix said, taking it. “Always use clean instruments, even in things like this. Work clean.”
Mudge continued with the incision.
“This here . . .” Mudge poked into the eye, showing her a bit of filmy substance. “The retina. Here’s where the nerve bundles attach. And anything that hits directly where the nerve bundle attaches is the blind spot. The one place where all the information goes in, you can’t actually see anything.”
He put his hands on his hips for a moment, then scratched behind his ear with his gloved hand.
“Some people,” he said, “want the Country Bear Jamboree to go. It’s not a ride. It doesn’t have a movie. But that’s not the point. I think if you get rid of the Country Bear Jamboree, you get rid of the heart and soul of Disney World. It’s not about the money. It’s about the bears.”
As they walked out of class, Stevie hoped that she might see David sitting there, as he had been that one day in his stupid sunglasses. But the bench was empty except for a bird. Her plan had been to go back to her room and sit in her warren of takeout containers and books until the heat death of the sun, or at least until she had a better idea.
She had a better idea. Or, at least, an idea. What had Mudge just said? “It’s not about the money?” The money. Fenton believed in the money. No one serious believed in the money. The money was fool’s gold, a rumor—the kind of thing flat-Earthers believed, or people who were convinced that the moon landing was fake. There was no Ellingham treasure to be had.
However. Fenton was serious. Maybe Fenton was a little off. Fenton had problems. But Fenton did know the material. She wouldn’t fall for that so easily.
And . . . Stevie found herself walking toward the Great House . . . something she had heard . . . what was it? Something about money. Somebody had just said something about money. Who was it? She flipped back through her mind, rewinding conversations. Money.
There. She found it. When Jenny Quinn approached their table in the cafeteria. She said the school was about to expand. Expansions cost money. Money could come from anywhere, of course. A donor. Maybe Edward King. But this sounded like a lot of money. Like, a major-inheritance-freed-up kind of money.
What if it was real? What if they were counting down to getting the Alice money? What if finding Alice was worth the fortune of a lifetime? Several lifetimes?
As this possibility spun in her brain, she noticed that Larry was coming out of the Great House and approaching in her direction. Then she realized he was walking right toward her, as if this was not an accident. His face was grave.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said to Stevie. “Walk with me a little.”
He was wearing his red-and-black-checked flannel coat over his uniform. He motioned for her to walk around the back path, the one that led to the empty playing fields and the trees that blocked the river. They were starting to shed leaves, leaving jagged holes in their curtain. Larry was silent until they were about halfway into the field.
“Today is my last day here,” he said.
Stevie stopped cold.
“What?”
“My office is packed. After this, I’m going home. I won’t be back on campus. They have someone else coming in.”
Stevie felt like she had just taken a blow to the stomach.
“Why?” she said.
“My job is to keep everyone here safe. Two dead. That’s not keeping people safe. Which is why I have to go.”
“You can’t do that,” Stevie said. “They can’t. This isn’t your decision, is it?”
“It’s the right one,” he said. “No matter who made it.”
“But this isn’t your fault,” she said. “What happened to Hayes, what happened to Ellie . . .”
“Happened on my watch. Now listen . . . don’t worry about me.”
“We can start a protest!” Stevie said. “We can organize . . .”
“Stevie,” he said. “Listen. I need you to pay attention.”
Stevie gulped and became quiet, huddled in her red vinyl coat.
“I want you to be careful,” he said. “Don’t go off on your own on any investigations. It’s over. Leave it.”
“Investigations?” she said.
“Not the Ellingham stuff. I mean with Hayes, Ellie, all of that.”
There was a steady, warning look in his eye.
“What do you mean?” she said. “They were . . .”
“Accidents,” he said.
The wind snapped around them, coming up into Stevie’s coat.
“You’re saying they weren’t,” she said.
“No. I’m just saying that . . .” For the first time, Stevie saw Larry lost for words. He
was reaching for a danger Stevie could not precisely see, but the form of it was faintly making itself known in the air, in the shade of the trees, and the changing temperatures. She had felt it several times, and now Larry was feeling it too.
“When you spoke at our orientation,” she said, “you said that people got stuck in tunnels before, sometimes for days. . . .”
“That never happened,” Larry said. “That’s just part of the pattern to get people to stay out of any hidden structures they might find, because we weren’t sure if there were any more out there. I want you to put my number into your phone. Now. Get your phone out.”
He waited until she produced her phone and added him.
“There’s no chance you’d go home, is there?” he said.
“Leave? Why? And no. But why? Tell me something.”
Larry paused for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said. “And that’s what bothers me. Let’s just say I have a bad feeling and I want you to have that number. I want you to use it anytime you want, no matter what. Doesn’t matter when.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose. She could see the traces of pain on his face as he looked around, probably for the last time.
“They can’t do this to you,” she said again.
“This isn’t about me. But if you want to do something, you need to promise me you’ll take care of yourself and do as I said. Leave it all alone.”
Stevie felt her eyes burning and watering. Sometimes the wind made this happen. This was not one of those times.
“You promise?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I promise.”
He nodded, and turned back in the direction of the Great House. Stevie’s brain continued ticking. The money issue and this development fused into one idea.
“Wait,” she called to him. “Can I ask you one favor? Can I get a ride?”
October 30, 1938, 1:00 p.m.
IT WAS FUNNY, REALLY, THAT THE RIDDLE HAD BEEN THE ANSWER.
The Vanishing Stair Page 21