by Geoff Rodkey
After we passed the beach, the road quickly turned steep as it followed the rising cliff toward South Point. In maybe twenty trips to Sunrise, we’d only come this far once, on a balmy Savior’s Day when Dad took us on a two-mile hike to see the view from the point. Two-thirds of the way there, we’d passed a wide road snaking up into the wooded hills, fronted by a gate, a sentry box, and a pair of garrison soldiers who stood frozen in place, staring straight ahead as we passed. Back then, I’d had fun fantasizing about the secrets they were protecting behind that gate—the top three being a castle of gold, a prison for magic elves with a taste for violent crime, and the world’s largest jelly bread loaf—and I could feel my blood stir up when we turned off the main road and the sentries opened the gate to admit us.
The road turned even steeper, the woods on either side thick with trees. Occasionally, a road branched off, and as we passed one of them, I caught a glimpse of what looked like the corner of a building a quarter mile distant at the top of a hill.
A mile farther, we turned up a side road into a thick woods. The road wound sharply before the woods suddenly gave way to a massive, perfectly groomed lawn. It sloped upward for several hundred yards before it flattened onto a hilltop crowned by a gleaming yellow mansion that, had it been a little smaller, could’ve passed for the golden castle in my fantasy.
When we reached the drive in front of the massive columned doors, a woman appeared. She was tall, blond, and clad in a blue dress so elegant that at first I figured she must be headed to a ball, or maybe a wedding. She came out to greet us, trailed by a handful of servants.
“Welcome back, darling!” She kissed Pembroke on the lips before turning to us with a big smile. “And you must be the Mastersons!”
“Indeed they are.” Pembroke led her by the arm to my father, and she held out a slender hand to him. “Hoke Masterson, my wife, Edith.”
“Pleased to meet ye.” Dad took her hand but didn’t know what to do with it. He started to lift it up like he was going to kiss the back of it, but then must have lost faith in the idea, because he quickly dropped it with a pained look.
“The pleasure is mine! And these are…?”
“Oh. Yeh. This is Adonis. Me oldest.” I think Adonis probably tried to smile, but he only managed to smirk.
“Venus, me daughter.” Venus gave a flouncing sort of curtsy.
“Percy, the children’s tutor.” Percy bowed as far as his belly would let him.
“And, aah, that’s Egbert.” Dad muttered, his voice trailing off. I did my best to bow, although I’m not sure it looked like a bow so much as a chicken pecking at feed.
None of us had much practice with manners. But Edith Pembroke smiled at us like we were the royal family. “We’re so thrilled to have you! I do apologize, but the messenger Roger sent to tell us of your visit only just arrived, so your rooms aren’t quite ready. Perhaps in the meantime we could enjoy a drink on the veranda? Our daughter Millicent’s just finishing her lessons. She might like to show the children around.”
She turned to the house and called out, “Millicent!” in an almost musical tone.
Nobody answered. Mrs. Pembroke called out again. “Milli-cent?!” It was still musical, but this time there was an edge of threat to it.
“Coming, Mother…,” came a voice from inside, every bit as musical, but in a way that seemed to be making fun of Mrs. Pembroke.
Then she stepped into the sunlight, and I went weak all over.
Millicent Pembroke had a thick mane of honey-gold hair and long, sleek limbs that swung, careless but smooth, as she walked toward us. There was something dangerous about the way she moved—it reminded me of certain pirates back on Deadweather, the ones who called the shots, who had a wicked smile that said it was all great fun for them and might be for you too, so long as you didn’t cross them, and if you did, what happened next would be quick and brutal.
The rest of her didn’t remind me of a pirate at all. Other than Venus, I’d practically never seen a girl near my own age, and the few I had laid eyes on—in or around the shops on Heavenly Road—looked prim, and curt, and no fun at all. Millicent was dressed like them, in a blue-and-white checked dress, but somehow it hung differently on her, like her wearing it had turned the dress into something not at all prim, and a little wild.
Seeing us, she cocked her head with an amused smile. “Oh, hel-lo. I’m Millicent. Do you play croquet?”
My brain had suddenly gone thick and slow, and I was still sorting out the words of her question when Adonis blurted out, “Yeh! Definitely.”
“All the time,” chirped Venus.
“I’m mad for it. Let’s have a go!” She turned and loped across the lawn toward the side of the house. My brother and sister ran after her, and I followed like I was in a trance.
MILLICENT LED US to the backyard, where a croquet game was set up—or what I guessed was one. I’d never so much as seen a croquet ball, let alone wickets and mallets and posts, and I’d only heard of the game from a book I’d read, Quimby Goes to College.
I was sure Venus and Adonis were even more ignorant than I was. But they both pretended to know exactly what they were doing, copying Millicent as she picked up a mallet and ball from a rack.
“Girls against boys. No swearing when you lose. That’s the wrong mallet.”
“Nah, it ain’t.” Adonis stuck his chest out like he was running the game.
“Yes, it is. That or the ball—they’ve got to match. Look, here—” She snatched Adonis’s ball from his hands and replaced it with another before he could complain. Then she handed mallets and color-matched balls to Venus and me.
She put her ball in front of the stake and whacked it through a pair of wickets.
“Bonus!” She hit the ball two more times, sending it through another wicket, then hit it a fourth time before turning to Adonis. “You’re next.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Adonis put his ball near where she’d started and cracked it hard, hitting it around the wickets and most of the way to her ball.
“That was stupid. You trying to play spoiler? Here, your turn.”
She pointed at Venus. As my sister tried to copy what she’d done, Millicent looked at me and Adonis.
“So you’re from Deadweather? Are you pirates?”
“Not all o’ Deadweather’s pirates,” Adonis informed her.
“Well, who else would live there?”
“Us. Me dad’s a rich plantation owner. And I’m ’is inheritance—means I get it all someday. Makes me rich, too.”
“Well, good for you. Must be smashing. His turn.” She pointed to me.
I’d been debating whether to correct Adonis—if Dad was rich, I didn’t know what rich meant—but the thought of talking made me nervous, so I was grateful for the distraction. I put my ball down and managed to hit it through the first two wickets.
“Bonus! Twice more.”
“Why’s he get to go again?”
“You play all the time, so I don’t need to answer that, do I? Or do you play alternate rules? That would explain a lot. Does the loser actually win in your version? Say, what’s your name?”
“Wot? Adonis.” Adonis was having a hard time keeping up his I’m-in-charge act under Millicent’s flood of words. She turned to Venus.
“And what do they call you?”
“Venus. I’m rich, too. I’ve almost got a pony. And I have LOADS of dresses. They’re all made special for me.”
By a legless pirate, I thought to myself.
“Mm. Well, the one you’ve got on certainly looks special.”
As Venus stared at her, trying to decide whether it was a compliment or an insult, Millicent turned to me.
“You don’t talk much, do you? What’s your name?”
I tried to answer, but my brain was still thick and sluggish. Finally, Adonis answered for me with a sneer.
“He’s Egbert.”
“I’m Egbert,” I repeated, sounding like a fool.
Mi
llicent screwed up her face. “Why?”
The question hit my brain like a rod thrown into a spoked wheel, shutting it down completely. As I gaped at her like an idiot, she laughed and pointed to my siblings.
“I mean, look—he’s Adonis, she’s Venus. Why aren’t you Apollo? Or Mars?”
Venus looked confused. “Why would he be?”
“Yeh, why?” Adonis wanted to know.
“Don’t you get it?”
Her eyes went to each of us in turn as she shook her head, like it was funny but sad to her how hopeless we were. My heart started to thump with fear at the idea she might lump me in with my brother and sister. Their brains hadn’t just shut down like mine—they’d never been running in the first place. But to Millicent, the results were the same: we all looked equally stupid.
I gulped hard, somehow willing my brain to lurch into gear and move my tongue.
“It’s like… why isn’t… our dad named Jupiter?”
“Exactly!” She wheeled back to me. “You get it. Why don’t they?”
I shrugged. “I read books.”
Her face lit up. “I love books! What’s your favorite?”
“Basingstroke.” It was such an easy question even my half-busted brain could handle it.
“Oh, that’s a great one! The bit with the lion’s genius! Who’s your favorite character?”
This was harder. I thought for a moment. “I guess it should be James… but it’s not—it’s more Cecil.”
“Right on! Because he’s such a laugh!”
“Yeah!” My brain was chugging to life now. “It’s like, he really wants to be good, but he just keeps getting in his own way. Saying the exactly wrong thing—”
“Like at that dinner with the countess!”
Venus and Adonis were staring dumbly at each other, like Millicent and I had started speaking a foreign language. This should have warned me to back off, because they were at their worst when they felt threatened. But Millicent was nodding and smiling, and I couldn’t help myself.
“Or when they’re on the road to Hexton, and they meet that soldier, and—”
“He killed our mother!” Venus heaved the words like a giant rock that thudded at my feet.
Millicent looked bewildered. “What?”
My face went hot. “It’s not true!”
“Yeh, it is!” Adonis chimed in. “Killed her this very day. Thirteen years ago.”
“I didn’t! It’s just—she—” I suddenly felt quivery and weak, like my stomach was a whirlpool sucking up all the energy in my body. But Millicent was staring at me, and I had to get the words out.
“I was just being born. And she died in the middle. Having me. Wasn’t my fault.”
“Yes it was! You’re a murderer!” Venus was baring her teeth like a wild animal.
“I was a baby! All I did was get born!”
“Yer evil,” Adonis hissed.
“I’m not!”
I turned my head away from the others, because I could feel tears starting to build in my eyes, and I didn’t want any of them to see that.
It was quiet for a moment as we all hung on Millicent’s reaction, like she was the judge who would either hang me or set me free. Finally, she spoke up in a quiet voice.
“That’s not murder. It’s just something that happens.”
I turned back to look at her. She was staring at me. Not smiling, but not unkind, either. As the whirlpool in my stomach slowed, her eyes narrowed.
“Wait—if it happened while she was having you… doesn’t that make today your birthday?”
As I nodded, Pembroke came around the corner, clapping his hands for our attention.
“Millicent! I thought I’d treat our guests to a balloon ride. What do you think?”
“Oh, brilliant, Daddy! They’ll love it!”
FLOATING AWAY
I thought I knew what a balloon was. One of the worst novels in Percy’s collection was called The Savages of Urluk, about a wandering tribe of cavemen. Somewhere in it, the tribe hunts down a mountain ram, and after they eat most of it raw, the father rips out a section of the ram’s intestine and ties the ends of it together, making a balloon for his kid to play with.
Pembroke’s balloon was a whole other thing, and not only because it was made of red silk and not intestines. It was as big as a house—just the opening at its base, a tiny part of the whole, was thirty feet in diameter. Four servants were pumping air into it using a pair of giant bellows the size of draft horses. They’d been working them pretty hard for most of an hour, and the balloon was starting to take shape, expanding across Pembroke’s lower lawn like some humongous, flabby monster.
A few feet away, more servants were tending a good-sized fire over which they’d straddled a tall, four-legged metal frame. Fixed to the top of the frame was the open end of a long cylinder made of canvas stretched over barrel hoops that snaked across the lawn into the open end of the balloon, sending a steady stream of hot, smoky air inside along with what the bellows were pumping.
Finally, there was the basket—made of wicker, four feet high, six feet long, and half again as wide. The top of the basket was attached by slack ropes to the mouth of the balloon. At the bottom corners of the basket, much longer ropes snaked across the lawn in four long tails that each disappeared into a coil of rope next to a heavy stake driven into the ground.
According to Millicent and Pembroke, what was going to happen was that we were all going to get into the basket, and the balloon was going to rise up and take us into the air like birds. But none of us really believed it, and although Millicent and Pembroke were selling us pretty hard on the idea, I couldn’t help suspecting they were playing some kind of elaborate practical joke on us.
Judging by the look on his face, so did Dad. And it didn’t help matters that Pembroke couldn’t explain to him how the whole thing worked.
“The smoke is critical. As I understand it, smoke contains certain properties, possibly electrical, that propel it upward. When the quantity of smoke in the balloon is sufficient, it rises in the air, held aloft until… whatever it is… sort of… dissipates.”
Seeing this explanation fall over dead, Pembroke turned to Percy for help.
“Mr. Percy, you’re a man of learning. Can you explain the science behind this?”
Percy cocked his eye doubtfully. Any interest he had in impressing Pembroke must have been outweighed by the fact that Dad paid his wages.
“Only birds fly,” he said.
“Then you’ll all be birds in no time,” said Pembroke with a grin. A moment later, the balloon, which until now had been expanding out as much as up, started to waft skyward with real purpose.
The basket’s upper ropes stirred awake, pulled up by the force of the giant mass.
“Quickly! Into the basket!” Pembroke opened a little door in the side and beckoned us in. We climbed aboard, suspicious but game.
“Aren’t ye coming?” Dad asked Pembroke.
“Love to. But there’s a weight limit. Even the five of you might be too much. Besides, it’s old hat for Millicent and myself.”
“I’ve been up at least a dozen times,” said Millicent. “It’s smashing! You won’t believe the view! You can see all the way to Blisstown!”
The balloon was fully expanded now, and the servants at the bellows picked up the canvas cylinder, holding it over their heads to direct the smoke up into the balloon. Pembroke clapped enthusiastically as the ropes snapped taut against their stays.
There was a short lurch, and the ropes creaked—but that was it. I looked up. The balloon loomed directly over us, swaying like it was unsure of itself.
Pembroke urged his servants to stoke the fire, and the column of smoke rising into the balloon thickened. But our basket stayed earthbound.
“Blast! It’s too much weight.” Pembroke stewed a moment, his look darkening. He seemed almost angry, as if the balloon’s failure to launch was a personal insult.
Finally, he sighed and ste
pped forward to reopen the basket door. “Mr. Percy, would you be so kind as to step off? We’ll take you on the next go-round.”
Percy shrugged and stepped off, losing his balance and falling over when the balloon suddenly jerked upward.
Pembroke slammed the door and jumped back as we rose into the air. I sucked in my breath as I felt a brief, intense thrill— flying! We were flying!—that quickly leaked away when I realized the balloon had stopped rising ten feet off the ground.
We hovered there, coughing as we peered down at Pembroke through the thick smoke the servants kept directing past us into the balloon.
“Blast!” He really looked angry now, so much so that I wanted to call out and reassure him that even if we were only ten feet in the air, it was ten feet farther than we’d ever flown.
Millicent stepped over to join him, her perfect face gazing up at us through the dirty haze. She met my eye, and I looked away quickly.
Then Adonis had a brilliant idea. “Dad!” he barked. “It’s still too heavy! Let’s throw Egbert over.”
I started to protest, but suddenly realized that if they were in the air and I was on the ground, I’d be with Millicent and not them. In an instant, the chance to fly seemed worth skipping.
“Don’t bother,” I said as I vaulted over the side.
I hit the ground at an angle, falling over as pain shot up one ankle. But it was only pain. I jumped to my feet, and my heart sank when I saw Millicent looking at me not with pleasure but anger.
Fortunately, she was angry for me, not at me. As Pembroke watched the balloon shoot into the sky, the four coils of rope whirring as the basket played out its tethers, Millicent tugged his arm, then pointed to me.
“But, Dad, it’s his birthday!”
“I don’t mind,” I said quickly. “Really. I’m not much for heights.”
“Are you sure?” Millicent asked. “We can do another.”
“Either way. It’s all right.”
“But it’s your birthday!”
“It’s okay. Really.”
