The After-Room

by Maile Meloy; Illustrated by Ian Schoenherr

  There was blood on the cobblestones, Janie’s blood. It would be on the car, too. Should he go find the car? It had a broken windshield; it would be easy to find. But what then? Maybe the count would give him some more money and the driver would go to jail. It wouldn’t help Janie. It wouldn’t help Primo.

  Salvatore Rocco, on the other hand, wanted the book. And Sal Rocco could be a useful friend. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was rich, he was powerful, he was respected. It could take a long time to earn his gratitude and protection—unless you had something he wanted badly.

  If Sal Rocco’s men found Primo and took the satchel away from him, which was likely to happen any moment, that would do Primo no good. The giant himself might come. Primo was fascinated by the giant, and a little afraid. What had that man eaten, as a little boy, to grow so big? Not glue soup, that was certain.

  Primo had a nagging feeling that he owed the foreigners his loyalty, but why? He barely knew them. They had left him here, protecting their precious book, all by himself, against someone as powerful as Salvatore Rocco. What did they expect? They could hardly blame him if the giant came and took it away.

  The far better thing was to find Sal Rocco and offer the book as a gift. Here, I took this for you. I think you were looking for it. Your men couldn’t find it, no—they searched the apartment. They looked everywhere. So maybe you need some new men, perhaps? A small assistant can be as useful as a big one. He can get in small places, pass unnoticed.

  He and the giant could be a team.

  Primo looked once more at the bloodstained cobblestones. He saw Janie again in his mind, flying through the air like one of his sister’s dolls. A person wasn’t supposed to fly through the air like that. A blow could come from any corner, at any time, and you wouldn’t see it coming. You had to protect yourself as well as you could.

  Primo blinked away the image of the flying girl, hoisted the strap higher on his shoulder, and turned and ran.

  Chapter 57

  Mutiny

  It was dark night when little Ming directed the pirates to a meaningless point in the canal, far from where the bomb had sunk. She was very convincing, detailing in her high, piping voice the method she had used to mark the place in her mind. Her father had taught her how to take bearings, with two pairs of landmarks lined up in two different directions.

  “The tall tree and that tower,” she said, pointing her small hand in one direction. “And the buoy there and the triangle rock. Where the two lines crossed is where he dropped it.” She lied with a practiced smoothness, better than any adult.

  The pirates had an old-fashioned hard-hat diving suit for salvage work. A diver climbed into heavy wool clothes, and then into an oiled canvas suit and lead shoes. He put a round metal helmet over his head, with a thick hose attached to a compressor with a diesel engine on the deck. Then they lowered him down on a tether. The whole operation seemed dangerous, and Jin Lo watched the boy disappear into the water with apprehension. She knew, and Ming knew, that there was nothing down there. And three boats anchored and rafted together—the pirates’ boat, the circus barge, and Ned Maddox’s little boat—were bound to draw attention. Soon word would make its way up and down the canal, and people would want to know what they were looking for.

  Ned Maddox and the others were still locked in the hold, but Huang P’ei-mei had commandeered Jin Lo as a sort of assistant. The pirate queen seemed to think that another woman in charge of a boat was to be trusted, at least in a subservient role, and she sent Jin Lo to raid the barge’s galley for food and drink for her crew.

  Jin Lo made another pot of tea, and took it out on deck.

  She offered it to the pirate queen first, but Huang P’ei-mei scowled at the teapot. “Dirty water,” she said. “I never drink the stuff.”

  So Jin Lo carried it away to the two skinny teenagers manning the noisy compressor that sent air down to the diver below. They were grateful—it had grown cold on deck, and they didn’t even complain that the tea smelled like mold. They clutched the hot tin cups to warm their hands, and sipped.

  “Tea is hard to find,” one said.

  “It’s good and hot,” said the other.

  “It’s dangerous to look for this bomb,” Jin Lo said, under the noise of the diesel engine.

  The young pirates glanced to where their leader stood looking over the rail, out of earshot, then sipped and looked back at Jin Lo, ready to hear what she had to say.

  “You have a good life, a good business,” she said. “Why take the risk with this bomb?”

  “Huang P’ei-mei says it will make us rich,” one of the boys said.

  “It will only bring the U.S. Navy down on you,” she said. “You will spend your lives in prison. You’re too young for that.”

  The boys looked concerned.

  “We should abandon the search,” Jin Lo said.

  They nodded.

  Three more of the pirates came over, drawn by the sight of the steaming cups. She poured the hot tea, and waited long enough to see the first two explain the situation for her, spreading dissent.

  Then she carried the teapot and the tray of cups to the hold where Ned Maddox and the circus family had been locked up. Two older pirates were guarding it, their faces weathered by sun and salt water, their hands rough as claws from hauling ropes. One had a thin white beard and a scar on his forehead. The other was missing an ear.

  Jin Lo sat beside the men on a locker and poured them some tea. “How long have you sailed with Huang P’ei-mei?” she asked.

  “Nearly thirty years,” one said.

  “That’s a long time,” Jin Lo said.

  The men nodded their wary agreement and slurped some tea.

  “I fear the power has corrupted her mind,” Jin Lo said.

  The earless pirate glanced around for eavesdroppers. “She’s gone mad,” he whispered. “She was so close with that Englishman, and now she’s going to kill him.”

  “Is she?” Jin Lo asked.

  The earless man nodded.

  “Do you fear you might be next?” Jin Lo asked.

  He hesitated, then nodded again, solemnly.

  “Why is she taking this risk, with the American bomb?” Jin Lo asked.

  “She wants more money,” the bearded man said.

  “To retire from the sea,” the other said. “To buy a farm, and raise vegetables and pigs.”

  “And what will happen to you?” Jin Lo asked. “Her followers?”

  “Pfft,” the bearded man said. “Left to scatter and starve.”

  “We could continue without her,” the other said hopefully.

  The bearded man shook his head. “Everyone is afraid of Huang P’ei-mei,” he said. “They know she is ruthless, and so they stay away. We have many enemies and rivals. If she goes to raise pigs, those enemies will come after us.”

  The earless man sipped his tea and eyed Jin Lo with growing interest. “Not if we had a new leader,” he said. “A woman. Then no one would know we had lost Madame Huang.”

  Jin Lo was aware of a strange sensation in her chest. It was not ambition—she did not want to be a pirate queen. And she knew these men were drugged, their minds searching for someone to follow. But still she felt an odd surge of pride that they might choose her to be their leader, and obey her orders even after the tea’s effects had worn off. She started to say that she did not want to be a pirate, but she stopped herself. Replacing Huang P’ei-mei might be an efficient strategy.

  “I’ll take some tea to the others,” she said.

  She stood with her tray, and felt the pirates’ appraising eyes on her. She tried to look seamanlike, balancing the tray of cups on one arm. But halfway down a dark passageway she nearly tripped over Danby, tied up like a forgotten package. The tin cups clattered to the floor.

  “Set me free!” he hissed.

  “You killed
my friend,” she said.

  “I wasn’t even there!”

  “You forced the apothecary to do a terrible thing. You threatened his son’s life. This is how he died.”

  “They made their own choices,” he said.

  She was too angry and exasperated to answer. She picked up the cups.

  “Give me that stuff that makes you a bird!” Danby said.

  “There is no stuff.”

  “Stop playing dumb!” he said. “I know you can do it. I grabbed Janie Scott’s scarf as she changed into a robin. I need what was in that bottle.”

  “I do not care what you need.”

  “That woman’s going to kill me!” he said.

  “She won’t be in power much longer,” Jin Lo said.

  “Then her men will kill me!” he said. “They’ve always suspected and disliked me.”

  “You made your own choices,” she said.

  “Please,” Danby begged. “All I want is a quiet life. I’m sorry about the apothecary. I’m sorry about everything. Just let me fly away, and I’ll disappear. I give you my word.”

  Jin Lo looked at her battered old enemy, his cheeks hollow and worn, and tried to find mercy in her heart. “You don’t know what kind of bird you will be,” she said. “You might be too small to fly to safety.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do I seem like a canary to you? A goldfinch?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “I’ll take the chance.”

  She heard the anchor come up with a clanking of chain, and felt the barge begin to move, sluggishly.

  “Please!” Danby said. “There isn’t much time! They will throw me to the sharks, in little pieces!”

  Jin Lo thought of the kind apothecary. He might have been able to forgive this man. But she could not. She had a mutiny to supervise. She felt the barge bump against the side of the canal.

  Jin Lo ran out on deck, and saw Huang P’ei-mei being carried off the barge by two of the pirates. They were gentle with her. Her face was contorted with fury.

  “Let me go!” she screamed. “I have given you my life!”

  “It’s all right, Madame,” one of the pirates said, in a coaxing voice. “You can do what you want now.”

  “How dare you presume to know what I want?”

  “You can raise vegetables and pigs,” he said.

  Huang P’ei-mei spotted Jin Lo on the deck of the barge. “You are behind this!” she cried, spitting with rage. “You want to replace me!”

  “You don’t want to be a farmer?” Jin Lo asked.

  “Not—yet!” the pirate queen said.

  “Sometimes we are afraid of our destiny,” Jin Lo said. “We need a little push.”

  “I don’t want a push!”

  “I’m sorry, Madame.”

  The barge pulled away, and left Huang P’ei-mei standing on the side of the canal in the dark, screaming for them to come back. But they all knew the pirate queen was resourceful. She would land on her feet.

  Jin Lo told the pirate at the wheel to steer the barge south for the open sea, and was watching the slow rotation when a voice cried, “The Englishman!”

  Jin Lo turned.

  Danby was standing on deck brandishing something small as a weapon, keeping the pirates at bay. In the lamplight, she could see that his skinny wrists were rubbed red where he must have worked the ropes free. Then Jin Lo recognized the thing in his hand. It was an amber vial of the avian elixir, and it was empty. How had he found it in her supplies? His pale face looked a little green, and the whites of his eyes were yellow. Had he swallowed the liquids at random?

  “I found it!” he said to Jin Lo. “I feel it starting!”

  “Seize him!” one of the pirates shouted.

  One of them grabbed Danby from behind and locked an arm around his neck.

  But then Danby began to shrink. His tall, thin body contracted, and his shoulders narrowed, and his skull shrank and slipped from beneath the pirate’s crooked elbow. His captor jumped back in surprise. Danby’s eyes grew smaller and darker, until they were black buttons. His long, straight nose lengthened into a curved beak. His white forelock spread down his face and chest in a cascade of snowy down, and black glossy feathers sprouted from his shoulders and head.

  His arms became wings, but they hung at his sides. They weren’t wings that would carry him into the sky. He lifted them to peer at each one. They were more like flippers.

  Danby had always looked like a man who was comfortable in black tie, and as a bird he wore an elegant tuxedo. He gazed down at his smooth white belly and his long flat feet. It was not a body designed for flying. The pirates stared in astonishment.

  “Catch the bird!” one of them cried.

  The penguin looked up at Jin Lo with his shiny black eyes, as if for advice or explanation, but she was as surprised as he was. The pirates stepped forward again—uncertain how, exactly, to seize a creature they had never encountered before—and he waddled to the rail of the boat. As the pirates lunged, he dived under the rail, disappearing into the canal. Jin Lo could see the bubble trail he left, and the path of his sleek body through the dark water. Then he was gone, swimming effortlessly, headed for the open sea.

  There was a shocked silence. One of the men muttered, “Sharks’ll get him.”

  Jin Lo wondered if that was true. They were a long way from native penguin grounds. But sharks and seals were travelers, and would know what looked like dinner. Still, maybe Danby would climb ashore somewhere on the mainland, and disappear into China. He was a survivor. He had done it before.

  “Did you do that to him?” one of the pirates asked Jin Lo, with wonder.

  “She’s a witch,” another whispered.

  “As long as she’s our witch,” a third said.

  Chapter 58

  The Quintessence

  Everything hurts,” Janie said, in a tiny voice.

  “You’re alive!” Benjamin said. He didn’t know if he was crying or laughing, or both. Mrs. Scott, standing next to him, was definitely crying, making a strange animal-like noise as she sobbed.

  Janie moaned and closed her eyes.

  “May I come in?” Count Vili asked. He was standing at the door in his rumpled linen suit, with a young man beside him.

  Janie turned her eyes to them. “Osman!” she said weakly.

  Benjamin recognized the cook from the Malayan island where Janie had been held captive. Osman had helped them escape—Benjamin’s father had known he would, based only on seeing the garden Osman had planted. He had looked at the garden and looked into Osman’s soul. That made the young cook seem like a living connection to Benjamin’s father, here in the world. He was slight, with warm brown skin and a shy smile.

  “Hello!” he said. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “Osman has been working as my chef, at my house in Luxembourg,” Vili said. “He came on the train, bringing me this.” He uncorked a small amber bottle and the sweet smell of the Quintessence filled the room.

  Benjamin’s chest ached at the smell, it evoked his father so clearly. “You have a whole bottle?”

  “The last,” Vili said. “I sent for it on a hunch. The situation seemed dangerous.”

  “What situation?” Janie’s mother demanded. “What danger? We trusted you!”

  “I apologize and will explain,” Vili said. “May I?”

  Mrs. Scott stepped back, awed by his composure.

  “Would you help me, Benjamin?” Vili asked. He gently lifted the blood-soaked bandage on Janie’s head. Together they poured a little of the Quintessence onto the star-shaped contusion. Benjamin winced to see it.

  Then Mr. Scott burst into the room. “I found a doctor who speaks English!” He was followed by a confused-looking man in a white coat and wire-rimmed glasses. “This is Dr. Patel!”

 
“But I’m not a trauma physician,” Dr. Patel said in a clipped accent. “I’m a dermatologist!”

  The two men stared at the strange scene at Janie’s bedside: the portly count in his rumpled white suit lowering Janie to the pillow, Benjamin holding the amber bottle, Mrs. Scott watching them, wringing her hands, and Osman standing by.

  “What are you doing?” Mr. Scott cried.

  “May I examine her?” the dermatologist asked. He moved to Janie’s bed and carefully unwrapped the bandage from her forehead. Her hair was so strangely short, unevenly chopped. But where a moment ago there had been a scary contusion the size of a child’s fist, there was now a small red mark. Dr. Patel looked at the bloody bandage in his hand, then around at the watchers. “When was the accident?” he asked.

  “A few hours ago,” Mr. Scott said.

  “I’m okay, really,” Janie said.

  Dr. Patel looked at the chart hanging on her bed, then peered again at Janie’s forehead. “You say the patient was thrown over a car? The head wound is described as severe, life-threatening.”

  “These Italian doctors gave up on her!” Mr. Scott said. “They left her for dead!”

  “I’ve never seen a wound heal like this,” Dr. Patel said, touching her skin gently. “I will have to study it further.”

  Benjamin caught Vili’s eye. “Um—that won’t be possible,” he said.

  “Why not?” Mrs. Scott asked.

  “She’s leaving the hospital,” Benjamin said.

  “What?” Mr. Scott said.

  “No, no,” Dr. Patel said.

  “We’ll go get a cab,” Vili said, and he and Osman left the room.

  Janie’s mother seemed to be in shock. Benjamin thought she might need a doctor more than Janie did, at this point, and he helped her to a chair.

  “You must stay!” Dr. Patel said. “I will write a paper on this marvelous recovery. And the patient must remain under observation, of course. Because you see, this chart says that she was dead.”

  They all turned to look at Janie, who was pushing away the hospital sheets. She didn’t look like she’d been flung over the top of a Renault. She had pink cheeks and a distracted air, in her white hospital gown. The red mark on her forehead looked like she might have bumped her head in the night. She spotted a lock of hair on the floor and reached up for the exposed back of her neck. “My hair,” she said, with wonder.