Torn

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  In a different mood Jonah would have felt as if he had to say, sarcastically, Good job, Sherlock, figuring that out!—just to keep Katherine from acting too proud of her detective skills. But now he only said, carefully, “Okay.” He thought for a moment, and then added, “But you didn’t just stand there, reading over his shoulder?”

  “No,” Katherine said. “That was when people started screaming on the deck, and I came up here, and there was that native standing here, talking about how he’d never seen the river before, and then you started talking to him, too—”

  “I know, I know, I remember all that,” Jonah said impatiently.

  Since neither he nor Katherine had a candle or a lamp, Jonah couldn’t see anything around them. Still, Jonah couldn’t help sweeping his gaze all around the deck, trying to keep an eye out for—what? Prickett bringing Wydowse’s body up on deck, to toss him overboard? Some other horror or danger that Jonah couldn’t even imagine?

  “So then, after that, I went back belowdecks again, and Wydowse was slumped over his writing, like this.” She pantomimed someone having a stroke or a heart attack, and falling forward, sprawled across a desktop.

  “His face and his arms were covering his papers, and he’d spilled his ink—I set it upright, because the ink was getting in his hair,” Katherine said. “And I could tell he’d just collapsed, just then, because there wasn’t that much ink out yet. … Jonah, what would you have done then?”

  This question caught Jonah off guard. He’d actually been thinking, Whoa. Kind of glad it was Katherine who had to deal with all that, not me. Makes being stuck in the stocks seem not so bad.

  “I don’t know,” Jonah said slowly. “I guess I would have tried to figure out how to get Wydowse some help. Without blowing my cover or making people think the ship was haunted, or anything like that.”

  “That’s what I thought!” Katherine said, hitting him on the arm in her excitement.

  “So what did you do?” Jonah asked.

  “Well, there were other people below the deck, just not right by Wydowse. And the way his desk was angled—it could have taken hours before anyone noticed he’d collapsed,” Katherine said. “So I stood right beside him and I made this noise, trying to sound like an old man in pain. ‘Please help me! I—glug …’ I actually had to do that, like, three or four times before anyone noticed.”

  “Smart,” Jonah admitted grudgingly.

  “So some of the other sailors came over, and they tucked Wydowse into bed—well, into his hammock,” Katherine said. “And one of them suggested giving him some broth, and the others said, ‘No, we’ll not waste broth on a man who’s just going to die anyway’—and it was awful, it was just like JB was talking about back at the beginning, about how they’re all being so selfish with their food!”

  Is it selfishness, when there’s not enough food to go around? Jonah wondered.

  “So I was going to get some broth for Wydowse myself, just to serve them right!” Katherine said indignantly. “But—there were always people clustered around, so I couldn’t.”

  “What was Prickett saying?” Jonah asked.

  “He wasn’t there then,” Katherine said. “I came upstairs to ask you what you thought we should do, but there were people all around you, too.”

  “I would have said, ‘Read the papers on the desk!’” Jonah said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “Oh, I thought of that,” Katherine said. “When they moved Wydowse to his hammock, I looked right away, but the papers were turned facedown, like he’d just flipped the last one over to write on the back.”

  “Then you could have picked them up!” Jonah said, barely managing to resist adding an insult like, What are you, stupid?

  “There were people around, remember?” Katherine asked. “You think they needed to see papers floating through the air?”

  Oh, yeah….

  Jonah was glad he’d resisted calling his sister stupid.

  “But I kept waiting and waiting for the right moment,” Katherine said. “Because people were starting to drift away—it’s not like any of them could do anything to help Wydowse. But then he started talking.”

  “Talking?” Jonah repeated.

  “Yeah, like, babbling,” Katherine said. “He kept saying, ‘It makes no sense,’ and ‘John Cabot’s map couldn’t have survived out here for more than a hundred years,’ and—”

  “Wait—he was talking about John Cabot’s map?” Jonah interrupted. “But—that was in the book, with the picture of Andrea and John White!”

  “It was?” Katherine asked. “I don’t remember seeing—”

  “Not the original picture,” Jonah said. “The one Staffe showed me … oh, finish your story, and then I’ll tell mine.”

  Katherine looked puzzled, but shook her head and went back to talking.

  “Someone must have gone to get Prickett, because he came in and said, ‘Let’s leave the poor man in peace,’” she said. “And then—” Katherine’s voice turned hollow, as if she had to force herself to continue. “Then Prickett pretended to leave with everyone else. I saw him walk out! Then all the lights went out belowdecks, and Wydowse did seem to settle down. He was just, like, whimpering, every few minutes. And I was going to just grab the papers and tiptoe away, but then I heard Prickett’s voice, whispering to Wydowse, ‘I can’t have you talking like that. You’re too smart. You’ve guessed too much.’”

  She spoke the same way Prickett must have: in a low voice, with a threatening growl that no one could have heard more than a few feet away. She was too good at the imitation. Jonah started shivering, and couldn’t stop.

  “And then Prickett must have suffocated Wydowse, or poisoned him, or something,” Katherine said.

  “But you didn’t see what he did?” Jonah asked.

  “It was pitch-black!” Katherine said. “I could barely make out shadows! But Prickett stood over Wydowse for a long time, and then I heard him tiptoeing away, and right away I went over to see why Wydowse wasn’t talking anymore at all. And, and—”

  “You’ve seen dead bodies before,” Jonah said, and he meant it in a comforting way.

  “But I’d never touched one!” Katherine protested. “I could feel his skin getting cold!”

  Jonah did not want to dwell on this.

  “Okay, okay, Katherine,” he said in his most soothing voice. “I know this is really awful, but you have to go back down there and get those papers from the desk. They’re probably, like, evidence against Prickett, and—”

  “I’m not stupid,” Katherine said. “I didn’t panic or anything! I picked up those papers on my way out of the room! Here!”

  She thrust something into Jonah’s hand. For a moment Jonah needed to steady himself: They’re just papers. Okay, they were written by a man who was murdered a few minutes ago, but all you’re holding is paper. You didn’t have to touch the dead guy. You just need to think clearly….

  “Light,” he said out loud, trying to sound normal. “We’re going to need a candle or a lantern and, oh, I guess, something to light it with—”

  “Or perhaps something to burn those with?” a deep voice said.

  And a second later Jonah wasn’t holding any papers. They’d been snatched straight from his hand.

  “No!” Jonah cried. Instantly a hand clapped across his mouth. Jonah tried to bite down on the fingers, but then there was an arm clutching his head.

  And squeezing.

  “You make another sound, and I can dream up worse punishments than the stocks,” the voice whispered in his ear.

  Jonah was almost certain it was Prickett, but in the darkness he was confused. He heard something different in the voice than he’d heard looking into the man’s face.

  Jonah heard a scratching noise—flint, perhaps?—then a candle sparked to life, enclosed in a metal holder that looked strangely familiar.

  Oh, yeah, Jonah thought. It looks like the twin to our Elucidator.

  The candle flared, and Jonah could see P
rickett’s scarred, weather-beaten face. He lost track of whatever he’d thought he heard in Prickett’s voice before.

  “Silence. Agreed?” Prickett said.

  Behind Prickett, Jonah could see Katherine, pointing to her mouth, open wide, then flaring her hands out—then raising them, questioningly. This time Jonah could understand exactly what she was saying: I could scream, right now, and he couldn’t stop me! He couldn’t even see me! Should I scream or not?

  Jonah shook his head, ever so slightly.

  “Silence,” he whispered in agreement.

  Katherine, you’re our secret weapon, he thought at his sister, hoping she could figure that out, too. Don’t give away that you’re here unless you really need to. Let’s figure out what’s going on first.

  Prickett pulled his hand back, though he kept it cupped, ready to slap over Jonah’s mouth again at any moment if he had to.

  “Smart boy,” Prickett said. “You know no one’s going to believe some crazy story told by a boy in the stocks. Certainly not when he maligns the man who saved the ship’s captain from almost-certain death this morning.”

  He was holding the papers slightly off to the side. Jonah saw Katherine reach for them, but it was uncanny—Prickett chose that exact moment to move them over in front of his face.

  “Now, Wydowse—everyone might believe Wydowse,” Prickett mused, looking down at the papers. “As long as his writing’s more lucid than his talking’s been, these past few hours.”

  “You—,” Jonah began, and caught himself. What he’d wanted to do was shout, You killed him! But even if he hadn’t just agreed to be silent, it didn’t seem like a good idea to remind Prickett he was capable of murder. Not when the deck was so dark and deserted. Not when Jonah was trapped in the stocks.

  Jonah remembered the axe the sailor with the rope had left by the mast.

  It would be so easy for Prickett to kill me, Jonah thought, hiding a shiver. And Katherine couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t even grab the papers away from him.

  Prickett was still studying the papers.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he said. “Such awful accusations Wydowse makes. …” He looked up again at Jonah. “And how is it that you got those papers, when you’ve been trapped in the stocks all day? Who gave them to you?”

  Jonah opened his mouth. Did he want to lie, and cast blame on someone who’d done nothing? Did he want to try to clear someone’s name? Even if he said, It wasn’t Staffe! that would just make it sound as if Staffe were guilty.

  “Never mind. I wouldn’t expect a reprobate like you to answer me honestly,” Prickett said. “You got them from someone. I’ll find him out, whoever he is.”

  Jonah glared at Prickett. But in the dim candlelight Prickett probably couldn’t even see his face.

  “My informants tell me that Wydowse left hidden testimony all over the ship,” Prickett continued in a leisurely tone. “The other ship’s boy, Nicholas Symmes—poor thing, like so many others on this ship he can’t even read—he admitted that he hid papers up in the top for Wydowse.”

  Numbly, Jonah remembered that “top” was what people on the ship called the crow’s nest.

  Prickett kept talking.

  “Symmes didn’t even know what he was hiding. But to truly silence Wydowse, perhaps I should destroy those papers when I destroy these? Don’t you agree?” Prickett leered triumphantly at Jonah. “Oh, that’s right—I’ve silenced you as well.”

  The leer turned into a smirk, as Prickett’s eyebrows darted upward.

  That expression—he looks like somebody, and it’s not Billy Rivoli back home, Jonah thought.

  It was crazy, thinking about how Prickett looked at a time like this.

  “Don’t!” Jonah choked out. “You can’t—”

  “What? Are you going to stop me?” Prickett asked.

  He laughed and whirled around, heading toward the rigging that led to the crow’s nest.

  “I’ll stop him!” Katherine hissed, racing behind him.

  “No, Katherine—not alone! Set me free! I’m coming with you!” Jonah called after her.

  For a moment Jonah thought Katherine would ignore him. She kept running. But then she half turned in the darkness.

  “People will know,” she said, still poised to run. “I can’t get you out without leaving evidence—”

  “That doesn’t matter!” Jonah hissed. “Quick! The axe!”

  Katherine looked around. There was so little light—would she have to waste a lot of time groping around just trying to find the axe? No—she had it. She picked it up and swung it at the lock holding the stocks together. Jonah heard the wood splintering.

  “Didn’t quite work … one more time,” Katherine whispered.

  Prickett’s candle was so far away now that Jonah couldn’t even see Katherine swinging the axe. It was too dark. But he felt the vibration in the wood when the axe hit. And then Katherine was lifting the top part of the stocks off his neck and wrists.

  “Come on!” Katherine whispered.

  Both of them took off running.

  Jonah’s legs were stiff after spending so many hours in the stocks. Katherine reached the bottom of the rigging far ahead of him.

  “Wait!” he called to her. “We’ll go up together!”

  “But Prickett’s getting away!” Katherine called over her shoulder, as she started climbing.

  She was right. They could see Prickett’s progress easily, since he was carrying the candle. He was several yards above them, and the light kept swinging steadily upward.

  Is he holding it in his teeth? Jonah wondered. Does he have it tied to his arm somehow?

  Jonah was annoyed with his brain, that it would worry about such unnecessary details at a time like this. What he really needed to do was concentrate on bringing his sore muscles back to life, coordinating his arms and legs into top climbing form. He needed to go fast, to catch up with Katherine, to catch up with Prickett.

  He grabbed the bottom of the rigging with his right hand and tried to pull himself up. His arms wobbled.

  Okay, he thought. Spending the whole day in the stocks made my arm muscles feel terrible too.

  He shook out his arms and tried again. It didn’t help that the rigging was so cold and wet. He’d warned Henry Hudson about the ropes being icy hours ago, when the sun was still up. Probably they really were by now.

  Jonah’s fingers turned numb so quickly that he couldn’t tell if there was ice on the ropes or not.

  Slow and steady, his brain advised him. You start trying to go fast, you’ll fall.

  How was it that Prickett wasn’t falling, going so fast, so far ahead?

  Jonah’s mind supplied him with an image of the man plummeting straight down to the deck, screaming all the way.

  And then Jonah froze, because his mind started seeing himself fall, rather than Prickett.

  If I get much higher—it’d be high enough to kill me when I hit the deck, Jonah thought.

  But he had to stop Prickett from burning those papers!

  Jonah’s muscles still refused to move. Above him Prickett and Katherine were getting farther and farther ahead.

  So I’m going to leave Katherine to deal with a murderer all by herself? Jonah wondered.

  That got his arms and legs working again. His fingers were still numb, his muscles were still stiff, but he fell into a rhythm. He picked up speed. He lost track of how much farther it was to the crow’s nest. In some ways it was easier to climb in the darkness—he couldn’t see the deck receding below him. All he had to focus on was the light bobbing above him. He was actually closing in on it now. He was closing in on—

  He ran into Katherine’s foot.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “Shh,” she whispered back. “We’re close enough he could hear us.”

  Not with the wind, Jonah thought. Because it was eerie—Jonah could barely feel the wind around him, but he could hear it shrieking like a horrible storm. Maybe it was just because of the altitude t
hey’d reached.

  No, don’t think that, Jonah told himself.

  He heard a thump above them, and the light stopped rising.

  “He’s in the crow’s nest now!” Jonah hissed at Katherine. “Go grab those papers from him—try to do it so he just thinks they blew away in the wind!”

  Katherine started climbing faster, closer and closer to Prickett and the crow’s nest and the light. Prickett had hung the candleholder on some sort of hook high on the mast, so the light shone down through the gaps in the crow’s nest. It glowed right through Katherine.

  Good thing she’s translucent, Jonah thought. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

  He wanted to call out some kind of warning to his sister—something like, Don’t let him see you!—but that was ridiculous, because of course she was completely invisible to Prickett. He and everyone else who truly belonged in 1611 had looked straight through her hundreds of times that day.

  “Careful,” Jonah whispered anyway.

  Prickett chose that moment to lean out slightly over the railing of the crow’s nest, looking down. But of course he couldn’t have heard Jonah, because of the wind; he couldn’t see Jonah, because the light was so dim.

  Jonah stopped climbing.

  I’ll only go on up to the crow’s nest if Katherine needs me, he thought. If she can’t get the papers, can’t make it look like they’ve flown off into the wind …

  Katherine was at the top of the rigging now, at the place where she’d have to flip over into the crow’s nest.

  Then grab the papers; then hide them in your clothes; then start climbing back down, Jonah thought, as if he could direct his sister’s actions by telepathy.

  He was so focused on what she was going to do, what was supposed to happen, that he almost couldn’t make sense of what his eyes told him was happening right that moment:

  Katherine’s hand slipped.

  She teetered over backward, and Jonah actually screamed, “No! Grab on!” Because nothing else mattered in that moment but Katherine being safe, Katherine holding on, Katherine not falling. …