Every few steps, Pip hollered again. Sometimes she adjusted. Most of the time she kept marching ahead. It wasn’t until they’d been walking awhile that Eleanor could hear Otto’s voice, much thinner and weaker than Pip’s.
Finally they saw him. By now the gray had sorted itself into recognizable shapes: trees, vines, nubbly ground. Everything was still exactly the same shade of gray, and the shadows were weak, like the light was coming from every direction at once, which made it hard to see the edges of things. Otto trudged up to them. He’d ditched the robes and was holding the compass he’d taken from the house cupped in both hands.
“There you are,” Pip said. She threw her arms around him and held on tight. “You could get lost in your own bedroom, I swear.”
“That’s just because it’s so messy,” Otto said.
“That’s just because you’re always too busy learning things and doing experiments and making things to have time to clean up,” Pip said. “My room’s messy for no good reason.”
“Your room’s messy because you pick a new hobby every five days and then forget about it. And because it annoys your mother,” Otto said. They broke apart and grinned at each other, and then the grins faded. Pip scuffed her shoe in the dirt.
“Did any of them follow us through?” Eleanor asked.
“Ms. Foster was right behind me,” Otto said. “I felt her fingers on the back of my neck.” He turned his head. There were three raised lines, but with all of his skin turned to gray it was hard to make them out.
“Shouldn’t they have been sucked in anyway? If they broke the agreement?” Pip asked.
Eleanor shook her head. “It isn’t midnight yet. They still have time. We need to stay away from them. And find a way out of here. I don’t want to find out what happens if we’re here at the stroke of midnight.”
“Do you have any idea how to get out?” Pip asked. “Because I sure don’t.”
“I might,” Otto said. “Look.” He held out the compass. When he shifted around to face the same way as the needle, it lined up with the rose. “They didn’t take it away from me when they caught me. I don’t know if they noticed it.”
“Like a wrong thing,” Eleanor said.
“Or like the opposite—if they’re wrong, maybe this is a right thing,” Otto said. “Anyway, when there were a bunch of them around it would spin in circles. But when there was only one, it would point away from them. And when I was alone, it would point kind of toward Ashford House.”
“So it’s broken,” Pip said. “Compasses are always supposed to point north.”
“I don’t think this one does. I think it points to safety,” Otto said. “It’s like in ‘Jack and the Hungry House.’ The girl with backward hands uses the rose to show which ways are dangerous and which ways are safe. The petals mean safety.” He pointed to the rose at the top of the circle. “And the thorns are dangerous.” He pointed to the cluster of sharp vines at the bottom of the circle.
Eleanor couldn’t believe she had missed that. It had been in the story after all. And she’d given Otto such a hard time about the compass. “You were really smart to pick that up,” she said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to tell you what to do.”
“Oh, no, that’s excellent,” Otto said. “Pip and I are terrible at making decisions. We just bicker. Or neither one of us wants to pick and we don’t end up doing anything. You’re good at deciding things.”
Eleanor felt her cheeks get hot and was glad the gray would hide her blush. “Well, you’re really smart. And you know all kinds of things I don’t. So I should have listened to you.” She turned to Pip. “And Pip, you are so good at doing things. I could plan them all day, but you get them done.”
“Aw. I wasn’t feeling left out, but thanks,” Pip said. She stepped forward and pulled them both into a bone-crunching hug. “I’m glad you came back to Eden Eld, Eleanor. And I’m glad that we haven’t gotten sick of each other yet, Otto.”
“I mean. A little bit sick,” Otto said, and she stepped back and socked him in the arm. He grinned at her.
“Use your fancy compass, brainiac,” she told him.
He held it up. The compass needle meandered back and forth a moment, rather like a dog testing the wind. Then it snapped to attention, pointing off between the trees. “That way, I guess,” he said.
Off they went.
The trees gained texture as they walked, the gray dividing into dark and light, the shadows condensing as the light became less diffuse. At the same time, the three of them were getting flatter, their shadows vanishing. There was no difference at all between what Eleanor saw through the crystal and what she saw without it.
They had better find a way out of here soon.
“Look,” said Otto. He pointed among the trees. In a clearing in the woods stood a door. Eleanor whooped and surged forward—then stopped. It wasn’t the same door they’d come through. It was carved with intricate pictures: at the top, a crow spread its wings wide, vines trailed down the sides, and human figures, some of them with wings or horns or other strange things, adorned the center. The knob was silver and it seemed to shine with light reflected from somewhere else entirely.
And in the trees around it hung keys. They were long, though not as big as the one from the clock—maybe six inches from end to end. They were white as bone and the ends of each had a number on them—Roman numerals. I and II and III, all the way to X, XI, XII.
Twelve. Twelve keys, because there had been twelve thirteenth years, twelve sets of children put through the door. They were the thirteenth. The last.
Except they wouldn’t be the last, not if they got away. There would be more children born on Halloween—born today.
Aunt Jenny. She was in the hospital. She was having her baby, and in thirteen years that baby would be turning thirteen, and Mr. January would come for her. Eleanor’s throat closed up, thinking about that girl, thinking about Aunt Jenny, who would never even know what had happened to her, and Uncle Ben, too—would they look for their daughter? Would they have a funeral?
Would they forget?
“We have to find the way back,” Pip said, tugging on Eleanor’s sleeve.
“No,” Eleanor said.
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Otto pointed out.
“I mean that isn’t enough,” Eleanor replied. “We can save ourselves, but what if Mr. January tries it again? What about the kids who come after us?”
“Bartimaeus said that we had it right, though,” Pip said. Otto gave her a curious look, but she didn’t stop to explain. “The words of the bargain were the important thing.”
“Bartimaeus wanted us to save ourselves,” Eleanor said. “But that’s just so that he can pretend he made up for making the bargain in the first place. So he doesn’t have to feel guilty. He told us how to get away, not how to fix things. He’s a coward, and just because he knows a lot about the bargain and Mr. January doesn’t mean he knows what’s right. Thirteen years from now—”
“Thirteen years from now is someone else’s problem,” Pip said fiercely.
“That’s what Bartimaeus and the other founders figured, too. And . . .” Eleanor trailed off, like maybe if she didn’t say the next part out loud, it wouldn’t be true. But Pip’s eyes widened.
“Your aunt.”
Eleanor nodded. “If she gives birth today, that means the baby’s like us. She’ll be thirteen the next time Mr. January comes.”
Otto made a low, horrified sound. Pip blew out a long breath. “Okay. Then we have to stop things. Forever.”
“If that’s even possible,” Otto said.
“The story said it was,” Pip replied.
“But Bartimaeus wrote the story. And I don’t think he actually knows for sure,” Eleanor said.
“We’ll try anyway. We won’t let anything happen to your cousin,” Pip insisted.
&
nbsp; Otto chewed on his lip. “In ‘The Thirteenth Key,’ they at least stopped things from happening there, right? They didn’t stop Mr. January for good, but they did stop him from messing with the kingdom or taking any more joy. If ‘joy’ means the kids, then maybe we can stop him the same way.”
“They gathered up the keys and destroyed them,” Pip said. “Well. Here are the keys.” She gestured to the keys hanging from the branches before them.
“Gather them up,” Eleanor said firmly. She walked toward the nearest one. It hung on a gray ribbon, twisting slightly as if stirred by a breeze she couldn’t feel, turning the XI marked on it to and fro. She reached for it cautiously. As her fingers grew close, the air seemed to shiver, and then to whisper.
Who is she?
Where am I?
What’s happening?
Three voices. Two boys and a girl, she thought, though she couldn’t be sure. They were the eleventh—that would mean they disappeared twenty-six years ago. Her mother would have been a kid. Aunt Jenny would have been just a toddler. Did her mother know these children, know their names? Did she wonder where they’d gone?
Did she know?
Eleanor closed her hand around the key. The whispers went silent. She shuddered.
Pip and Otto stood nearby, each holding a key of their own. They all looked at each other with wide eyes. And then, wordlessly, they turned to the rest of the keys.
The older ones were fainter, the words more indistinct. But all of the voices were afraid. The newer ones seemed to be able to sense her—but they didn’t respond when she spoke to them.
Solemnly, they gathered the keys. Eleanor had five, Otto four, and Pip, who had climbed into the trees to get the ones that were higher up, had only three. Their whispering was silent now.
“We need to destroy them,” Eleanor said, but her voice trembled. It had been easier to think about before she heard the voices trapped within the keys.
“Do we break them? Or make a fire somehow and melt them down, or . . . ?” Pip trailed off.
“I think they’ll break more easily than that,” Eleanor said. She tucked four of the keys in her pocket and held the fifth, bracing her fingers as if she were snapping a stick in half. She could feel the give in the key. It was like a bone. And bones broke. She applied a bit more pressure—
Suddenly, Pip gasped, and grabbed Eleanor’s arm. “Look! There’s someone here.”
Eleanor’s head whipped up, the key dropping to her side. Pip’s fingers twitched in the air, but the January Society had taken both the poker and the walking stick from her when they’d grabbed her. They didn’t have any weapons at all—except the salt, which she suspected would only be useful against the cat.
Someone was indeed moving between the trees. They stumbled as they walked, propping themselves up on the trees, but they were getting closer and closer. “Be ready to run,” Eleanor said—and then the person got close enough, and her whole body tingled with a jolt like she’d been struck by lightning. “Mom?” she whispered.
Claire Barton pulled herself upright. Her hair was a snarl that fell to her shoulders. Her face had withered to sharp, gaunt angles, and her clothes were tattered and hung limp on her frame, but she was alive. She saw Eleanor, and she smiled. “Elle. You’re all right.”
“Mom!” Eleanor said, and she rushed forward. They fell against each other. Eleanor’s mother wrapped her arms around her, and Eleanor rested her head against her mother’s chest, fighting back sobs. “I thought you were gone. I thought you were—”
“Hush,” her mother said. She stroked Eleanor’s hair. “I’m so sorry. The January Society came for you. I tried to stop them, but they took me.”
“The fire—”
“It was an accident. I was trying to fight them. I know a few tricks, or I used to, but . . . I’m so sorry, Elle. I never meant to hurt you.” Her thin fingers combed through Eleanor’s hair, a soothing, gentle motion.
“We have to get out of here,” Eleanor said. She pulled away. “Mom, these are my friends.”
“You must be Pip and Otto,” her mother said, nodding. “The other two. Otto, I have to apologize to you, too. I tried to warn your parents, but I couldn’t make them remember. I should have tried harder.”
“It’s okay,” he mumbled.
“But I can start to make it up to you now,” Eleanor’s mother said. “Give me the keys. I know how to destroy them. Give me the keys, and I can take you home.”
“The January Society is still there,” Pip warned.
“I can hold them off while you get to safety,” Eleanor’s mother said gravely.
“No!” Eleanor said. “They’ll kill you!”
Eleanor’s mother laughed. “No, they won’t, or they would have already. Trust me, I’m better protected than the three of you. Besides, with the keys destroyed, they won’t have any reason to go after you.” She reached out a hand and smiled. “It’s okay. I’m here now. You’re safe.”
Eleanor took her mother’s hand. Her mother turned her hand to look at her palm and tsked at the bloody punctures where the cat-of-ashes had bitten her. “That nasty creature,” she said. “I’ll make it regret sinking its teeth into you.”
“It’s not that bad,” Eleanor said. “And besides—” She stopped. Nasty creature? But the cat-of-ashes liked her mother. She said her mother scratched her in the perfect spot, just behind her ear. It was why she’d helped. And what had the cat said about her mother? You’ll see her yet. But not tonight.
“It doesn’t matter,” her mother said smoothly. “Just give me the keys, and we can go.”
Eleanor’s stomach twisted. She glanced behind her mother’s feet and closed her right eye, peering through the crystal.
Her mother’s footprints were pointed the wrong way.
She drew back, clutching the keys against her chest.
“What is it? Elle, come on. We don’t have any time to waste,” said her mother who was not her mother.
“You aren’t her,” Eleanor said.
“What are you talking about? I’m your mother. You have no idea what I’ve been through to get to you,” her mother said, sounding irritated.
“Her footprints are wrong,” she said out loud to Otto and Pip, who drew up next to her, protective. “She’s one of them. The People Who Look Away.”
Twenty-Six
Eleanor’s mother looked shocked. And then she laughed. It was a low, rolling sound. Her image slipped and slid and ran, like raindrops bending the view through a window.
Mr. January produced his cane out of thin air and twirled it. The top of the cane was a two-headed silver dragon, the heads facing in opposite directions. He planted it in the dirt in front of him and leaned forward. “Again you exceed expectations,” he said. He sounded different now. Less jovial, more sharp. “Eleanor Barton. Daughter of a hedgewitch and a man who’s far too much trouble for his own health. It’s going to catch up with him, and it’s going to catch up with you as well one of these days. And perhaps that day is today.”
“Try anything and I’ll—” Pip said, balling up her fists, but he raised a placating hand.
“Now, now. That isn’t how this works, young Philippa. I’m not a man of violence, though on occasion my pets fill that role for me. I am a man of agreements and rules, and these rules were set long before you were born. The Society has failed to fulfill their agreement, and they will suffer the consequences. But their agreement and our rules are different beasts.”
As if on cue, his sisters stepped out from among the trees. Still distant, still facing away, but Eleanor could feel them watching.
“The Society needs to have pushed you through the door themselves; I myself don’t much care how you get here. However. However.” He held up a finger. “We cannot technically stop you from leaving. Not until midnight. So: find your way out, and we’ll leave you be.”
> “Forever?” Eleanor asked.
“Curious creature,” one of the sisters whispered, in a voice like dried leaves skittering over concrete.
“Full of questions,” said the other, in a voice like branches scraping together in the wind.
Mr. January merely shrugged. “A key’s no good if it won’t fit the lock, and after tonight you’ll be all the wrong shapes. I’m not saying I won’t find some other use for you three, but for now—for now, I’d have no reason to trouble you.” He drew a pocket watch from his vest pocket and frowned at it. “I would estimate you have . . . a quarter hour.”
“But it’s only been a few minutes,” Otto protested.
“The gray devours all sorts of things. Time being only one of them,” Mr. January said. “Children being another.” He grinned a wolfish grin. His lips stretched just a little bit too far, and there was something not quite right about his mouth. It seemed to go on too far, too deep.
One of the sisters sighed. “Now he’s playing with his food,” she whispered. Her head tipped toward her sister, conspiratorial, but they stayed at a distance.
“Such a shame if it all fell apart at the last minute,” the other whispered.
“So like him though,” the first replied.
“We never thought this would work,” the second finished.
Mr. January’s smile looked a bit fixed.
Eleanor swallowed. She turned to the others, beckoning them in close so they could whisper to each other. Mr. January waited at a distance with an air of indulgent politeness. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But in fairy tales, that’s the way it works. The bad guys have to keep their word,” Pip said. Eleanor nodded. It did feel right.
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