by Mez Blume
“Lookin’ for me are ye, darlin’?”
I turned to run, but his hand caught my arm and wrenched me back. Imogen grabbed hold of my free hand and yanked while I tried to free my other hand; but with every pull, his gorilla-like grip only tightened all the more.
“You can have my purse,” she shouted. “Whatever you want, just let her go!”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Your purse?” He laughed again. “If I’d wanted your purse, I’d ‘a had it an ‘undred times by now. It’s your ‘eads I’m after.”
“Our heads?” Imogen screeched. I felt tears pouring down my face from the pain in my arm. Suddenly, he jerked it, bringing me close to his leering face and rotten breath, “Tha’s right. You got a bounty on your ‘eads. A very ‘andsome bounty.”
I leaned away from the putrid breath, and, at the same time, heard a loud, echoing crack! The leer dropped from Wix’s face. He looked confused. His grip loosened. He swayed on the spot, and, next second, his eyes rolled up just before he stumbled over into a stack of crates, knocking them over.
Standing there, his walking stick braced in both hands, was Captain Nemo. His dog Alpheus was at his side, lips pulled back and teeth bared at Wix beneath the pile of crates.
“Quickly.” Nemo lowered his stick and beckoned us to follow him.
I cast one glance at the pile under which Wix was buried and heard a terrible, rasping breath beneath them as they began to move. A hand rose up between the boxes, throwing one off to reveal a face that could freeze the sun.
That was enough to make me follow after Nemo who limped, as hastily as I think he could go, towards the canal where the Bella Ramona was moored, her chimney smoking in readiness.
He straddled the gap between boat and land, and held out his hand to us. “Come quickly. I’m no match for that monster.” His voice was urgent.
I hesitated. We were trapped between two dangers. I had only a second to decide which was worse.
“You’ll be safe. I promise,” he said earnestly, reaching out his hand to me as if he understood my dilemma.
A mighty “Argh!” bellowed from behind. With a rush of fear, I took the outstretched hand and leapt into the barge.
Within seconds, Nemo was drawing up the rope and pushing the Bella Ramona off from her mooring, and not a second too soon. Wix skidded up to the edge of the canal, teeth bared and chest heaving with anger.
Imogen grabbed my hand. We had escaped one pursuer, but only to put ourselves at the mercy of another. For better or for worse, we were prisoners aboard the Bella Ramona now.
20
Mr. Wix’s Master
The Captain steered in silence from the outer deck. Neither Imogen nor I spoke. Even Billy Bones seemed to realise it was no time for banter and kept his chatter to the occasional “Shiver me timbers!”
I stood by the portal window and glanced over my shoulder at Imogen. She sat in the armchair in front of the wood stove. Alpheus’s chin rested on her knees, and she stroked his slick black head in a sort of trance. I wondered if she was in shock.
I turned back to the window, looking out for signs of where the Captain was taking us… wondering if Wix would be able to follow… if anyone would be able to find us again.
It was some time before we reached a place where the canal forked, and Captain Nemo turned the Bella Ramona down a stretch of canal that branched off the main course. Soon, the London buildings gave way to pastures, and bare tree limbs hung out over the water. There were other houseboats moored there. Captain Nemo moored up alongside a row of them. It was as good a hiding place as any for a long boat.
Alpheus lifted his head at the sound of his master’s footsteps and cane clunking down the steps and into the cabin. Some clattering noises followed in the back room, and Alph left Imogen to go and investigate. She pulled her feet up under her in the chair and shivered. I went over to sit on the rug beside her.
In a minute, Alph and Captain Nemo appeared in the doorway, Nemo struggling to balance a kettle and several mugs on a tea tray in one hand. I stared at him. Though he stooped under the boat’s low ceiling, he was tall. My eyes travelled to his cane, then to his crippled leg. His right foot turned inward.
I got up to help him with the tea tray. Taking it from his hand, my eye caught sight of the ring on his smallest finger, the one he’d played with constantly when we last were aboard the Bella Ramona.
With a quick intake of breath, I looked up to find his stern eyes piercing into mine.
“You… you’re Gabriel Webb.”
I heard Imogen gasp and stir in her chair. I kept his gaze, waiting for his answer.
After a pause, his eyes dropped. “I was once. But I’ve been nobody for many years now.” Then, pushing past me, he limped across the hearth rug, lowering himself with a grunt onto a stool in the corner behind the wood stove where he rubbed his leg as if it were in pain.
I set the tray down on the little tea table. “So this was all a trap. Wix chased us here so that we’d have no choice but to take your help. Although…” I recalled the blow with which he’d sent Wix tumbling and felt suddenly uncertain. “Why would you knock out your own hitman?”
“Why indeed, Miss Watson?” He smiled painfully. “If the evidence doesn’t fit your assumption, you must assume that your assumption is incorrect.”
I looked to Imogen who appeared not to understand him any better than I did.
“In other words,” he said, seeing our looks of confusion, “you are quite wrong in thinking that I am associated in any way with Tobias Wix. Just as I was wrong to believe that you were.”
I was completely taken aback. “Us? Associated with him?”
“Only now, in light of what happened back there, do I see that I was mistaken,” he continued. “It seems we both of us misjudged the other. We might turn out to be on the same side after all.”
Imogen seemed suddenly to awaken from her shock. “And just what side is that?” she demanded. “Last time we saw you, you tried to kidnap us. You’re no better than Wix.”
“Ah yes. I am sorry for that.” His apology sounded genuine. “You see, as I’ve said, I suspected then that you had been sent to spy on me by the same person who sent Wix to break into my barge some weeks ago.”
“Who would do that?” I asked.
“Can you not guess, Miss Watson? Think. What was the name I told you the first time we met?”
“Phineas? But he’s your brother…” This new picture was so unexpected, I couldn’t make sense of it. “Phineas sent Wix after us?”
He nodded with a bitter smile. “Wix is no more than a vulture waiting to gobble up the scraps that Phineas leaves behind.”
“But I don’t understand why Phineas would send him after us.”
Imogen clasped her hand over her mouth. “Wix said something about a… a bounty on our heads.” She looked sick.
“For the same reason he sent Wix after me,” Gabriel answered. “I can only presume Phineas has reason to believe you know something you should not?”
I caught his eye and quickly looked away.
“Something,” he persisted, “that might put Phineas and the world he’s built for himself at risk. It isn’t safe to know too much, Miss Watson. Ignorance is bliss, or haven’t you heard?”
My head felt all in a muddle. Could Gabriel Webb be trusted? It was all beginning to make sense, what he said about Phineas, yet I still sensed that he wanted something out of me, just as he’d wanted those sketches. I was determined not to tell him anything about Ramona until I knew exactly what he was after… and why.
“There are some things I need to know,” I said. “Like why you didn’t tell us Phineas was your brother. Or why your barge is really called Bella Ramona. Or why you’ve been in hiding all this time, and–”
“Are these truly things you need to know, Miss Watson?” He interrupted. “We shall see. But just now you’re aboard my ship, at my mercy, so if you don’t mind, I shall be asking the questions.”
I glanced at Imogen who was making a great effort to keep her mouth shut while glaring at our rescuer with a mutinous look in her eye.
“You may drink your tea,” he said with a sly smile, as if he found our mistrust amusing. His calmness infuriated me. I felt I was playing a game of cards with someone who knows he has the upper hand.
I poured a mugful of tea and handed it to Imogen, then poured myself one and took a sip.
Satisfied, he began. “First question. How did you come by that sketchbook?”
“I told you,” I said. “It was a gift from Ramona. She’s a relation–”
“It’s a lie.” He smiled as if he’d caught me in a corner. “Ramona has no family. They all died of yellow fever. Only she and her grandmother survived, and her grandmother died and left her on her own when she was just a girl.”
I glared at him, angry but hungry to know more. “How do you know that?”
He raised his finger. “My turn to ask the questions, Miss Watson, remember? Now, if you’re not Ramona’s relation, what is she to you?”
I opened my mouth, but closed it again. If I told him the truth, he was sure to think I was lying. So I threw the question back. “Why do you want to know? What’s she to you?”
“I’m asking–”
“I know. You’re asking the questions.” I could see he was getting impatient, but so was I. We weren’t getting anywhere like this. “Look,” I said. “I just want to find her… to help her. How do I know you’re her friend? You could be her enemy? I’m not telling you any more until you tell me what you know about her.”
His cool, calm demeanour was slipping away; he looked as though he were bottling something up. I expected him to refuse, or even shout. But instead, he let out whatever he’d been bottling up in a rush of breath until his head hung and his shoulders sagged. “I want to find her too.”
Whatever I’d expected, I hadn’t expected that. Since yesterday, I had been so sure that Gabriel Webb would be the key to Ramona, that if we found Gabriel – the man behind the mysterious magic painting – we would find her.
“Then you have no idea where she is either?” I asked, feeling like a bowling pin must feel when it’s struck over.
He shook his head wearily.
“But what about your painting? On the Steps of St. Paul’s? It was…” I caught Imogen’s eye and realised I’d said too much? I had almost given away that we knew all about the painting’s magic; and hadn’t Gabriel just warned me, it was dangerous to know too much.
“What about that painting?” No doubt about it, his suspicions were raised.
“Well…” There was no way out of it now. “It was painted with Ramona’s paints, wasn’t it?”
His eyes narrowed beneath his thick, black furrowed eyebrows. “How could you know that?”
Imogen let out an exasperated sigh. “You might as well just tell him, Katie. We’re already his prisoners. It’s not as if we have anything to lose.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I decided to take the risk all the same. I set my teacup down and pushed myself up to my knees. “Mr. Webb, it was your painting that…”– I struggled for the right words – “that brought Imogen and me here.”
He studied me for a moment before answering. “The truth is, Miss Watson, I did not paint it. Ramona did. That is, she and her grandmother painted it together when Ramona was only twelve years old.”
“But the auctioneer said you showed it at the Royal Academy–”
“That is because the Academy would not permit the true artist, a poor Cherokee girl, to exhibit. I intended to show the work as my own, and when the public received it with the admiration it was due, to expose Ramona as the true artist.”
“That explains it,” I said.
“Explains what?” He leaned forward and spoke slowly, giving weight to each word. “Where precisely have you come from?”
Imogen and I exchanged a look. We were defeated. It was time to come clean. “You were right,” I said. “I’m not Ramona’s cousin. But I wasn’t lying when I said I was her relation. Ramona is my… my great-grandmother.”
His face was unreadable. He searched my face as if trying to find something he had lost. When at last he spoke, his voice rose only just above a whisper. “Ramona had a child?”
I nodded. “A daughter. Ka-Ti.”
“And,” he stroked his beard nervously, “and Ka-Ti’s father?”
“His name is Jim Weaver. He’s a fur trader in America.”
“And is he… a good man?”
I couldn’t believe it. Gabriel’s eyes were actually welling up.
“Very good,” I assured him. Something occurred to me for the first time as I looked into his face. “You remind me of him a little,” I said, and looked away as he wiped the first tear to fall down his cheek. Could it be that Gabriel had loved Ramona? That she had broken his heart?
I poured another mug of tea and offered it to him. “They miss her,” I said gently. “Jim and Ka-Ti. They want her back. That’s why we need to find her. To tell her they want her to come home. So if you know anything, anything at all that could help us…”
He looked up from his cup of tea, his face glistening, but set and determined. “I would do anything for her. I’ll tell you all I know. It’s a story known to only three people. Myself, Ramona and Phineas.”
21
Gabriel’s Story
“When Ramona was only a baby, disease broke out in her village. All their loved ones were stricken down, but her grandmother fled with the little girl in hopes that she would be spared. Her grandmother, you see, had a rare gift. She was a painter. And in her younger days, her paintings had taken her across time and oceans. She painted a picture, and she and the little girl stepped through it. They travelled this way for years, place to place, time to time, selling their paintings and pigments.
“Then one day, when Ramona was a mere twelve years old, time ran out on her grandmother. She died, and Ramona was left to fend for herself. But her grandmother had foreseen the inevitable and had made arrangements. She gave her a book of sketches in which she had begun to paint the places and people Ramona could turn to… a way of retracing the trail they had blazed through time so that Ramona could find her way home, and always have help to turn to along the way.
“On one of their travels, they had met a young painter with two young boys. The younger of these was just a little older than Ramona, and the two had liked each other very much. So Ramona searched through her sketches and found the painting her grandmother had done of that painter’s family in the year 1845.
“Next thing the young painter knew, a little girl with long black curtains of hair was standing at his door. Her grandmother had helped the man in hard times and sold him the paints that had made him his fortune; so, out of gratitude, he took the girl in.
“The younger son was delighted to have her for a companion. She had shown him kindness as no other child had ever done. He wasn’t like other children, you see. He was born with a deformity. A club foot.”
“You’re the younger son? You grew up with Ramona?” I interrupted.
He nodded.
“Then so did Phineas.”
“Yes, but as children, Phineas had very little to do with either of us. He was someone to look up to from a distance. He was older, handsome, talented, impressive. My mother’s favourite son. I knew I could never compete. And I didn’t care. I was Ramona’s favourite, and that was enough for me. We were thick as thieves as children. When I became morose and hated myself because of my disability, Ramona could always cheer me with tales of her adventures with her grandmother. Of course, I believed them to be all made up, but I thought them wonderful all the same.
“Then we would look at her grandmother’s sketches. There was one she liked especially… a grassy meadow backdropped by a wood. It was wild and otherworldly, but oh, so peaceful.
“‘This is home.’ She would say. ‘Elisi’– for that is what she called her grandmother – ‘Elisi painted
this when she was just a girl,’ she would say. ‘I’m going back there someday, to the year 1810.’
“And, of course, I would argue with her. ‘It isn’t your home. This is your home. And besides, you can’t go back in time.’
“‘Maybe I can,’ she would argue back in her headstrong way.
“There was no winning an argument with Ramona. I would always concede in the end. ‘Then take me with you when you go,’ I would say, thinking it was all just a game… or a dream. Never imagining she really meant to go.
“But something always troubled me about Ramona’s stories of far-off places in distant times. Oh, they were wonderful. But they were far too real. And the pictures she would paint in her grandmother’s book, they too looked more like memories than fancies… as if she’d seen these things with her own eyes.
“As the years went by, the more I learned from my tutors and history books, the more I’d find I already knew from Ramona’s stories and pictures. But how could she know so much? She was only a girl who had never been taught so much as to read. And yet…
“So one day, I asked her. I think she had longed to tell me the truth for years, had tried to tell me in subtle ways, though I had been too dense to understand. She told me her grandmother had given her a gift. The gift of paint. Her grandmother’s paints were special. They had the power to grant the beholder the deepest desire of his heart. And what was more, she could paint doorways to the past.
“‘Show me,’ I told her, and pointed to her favourite picture. The meadow beside the forest. ‘Take me there.’”
Gabriel paused. There was a faraway look in his eyes.
“And did she?” I asked.
His eyes slowly focused on mine. He smiled and nodded. “Everything changed for me that day,” he said, the smile faltering. “When we were in that other place, I knew that nothing in the world mattered to me but her. That I loved her.
