“I have no idea,” Olberg said. “As far as I can tell, you’ve been a fine student so this must be a personal matter. If I had authority to protest the matter, I would. But I don’t, so here we are.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Tommy asked. His checks flushed, and shame overwhelmed him. He tried to reassure himself that his father was wrong, not him. But suddenly his future seemed like a scary black void.
“A guard is waiting outside to take you to the ferry,” Olberg told him. “You are to return to your family’s estate in Aeren. At least that’s what it says in the message.”
Tommy stared at Olberg. “And do what?”
“I don’t know, Thomas,” Olberg said with genuine sympathy in his voice.
“I’m not guilty of anything,” Tommy said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Like I said, I can’t choose to ignore this,” Olberg said. “I have no recourse or appeal since the Chamber no longer exists.”
Tommy blinked quickly, but tears pooled in his eyes. Horrified that Olberg might notice, he turned away slightly in his chair. He wanted to run away and lose himself in the city, but there was a guard in the hall and one waiting for him downstairs.
“Take a minute, Thomas,” Olberg said quietly. “Get your wits about you. It’s a lot to deal with.”
Blinking quickly, Tommy’s eyes darted along the portraits on the wall in front of him. There were few splashes of bright color among the mainly dark masculine colors depicting the former headmasters and professors of this renowned institution—where he was no longer welcome. A daub of purple caught his eye and he turned toward it. The painting showed a tall, thin man with prominent cheekbones above a red beard. In the painting, he was wearing a bowler hat and a shiny purple vest. He looked oddly familiar … particularly the purple vest. Not many Zunftmen would be seen in such a thing.
“Headmaster, who is that?” he asked, pointing to the man in the painting.
“Oh, that’s Toulson Hywel. It was painted a few weeks before he was kidnapped. I don’t suppose there’s much chance he’s alive now.”
If the man in the purple vest was Toulson Hywel, then the former chief administrator had been on Miller’s Road the day of the August Rising. Tommy had seen him near the entrance to the Harrow Trailhead. According to Ellie, Hywel had been visiting his father that very same day. Hywel had been in his father’s forest with two guards, but why?
“I’m ready to go,” Tommy said loudly. “Now.”
“Go where?” Olberg asked, obviously surprised at Tommy’s change of demeanor.
“Now, to Aeren. You said there’s a guard who will take me to the ferry?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Olberg said. “Your father said to tell you that your things will be shipped to you presently.”
Tommy didn’t care about his books and papers. He wanted to return to Aeren, climb up the ridge to Miller’s Road, and figure out what secrets were lurking in the forest. The guard led him out of the administration building and toward the main entrance. As they were passing Tauber Hall, the main door opened and Ellie walked outside. She was laden with heavy tote bags, the last of her possessions that she was going to take to Norde. It suddenly occurred to Tommy that Ellie was heading to the port, too, and he had an idea. He broke away from the guard and ran over to her.
“Hey!” the guard protested.
“Tommy!” Ellie said in surprise. She was even more surprised when he threw his arms around her and put his lips close to her ear.
“I’ve been expelled, too,” he whispered. “Take the ferry to Aeren instead of Norde. Hire a coach to take you to Shore Manor a few miles north along the coast. I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning. Do you have money? Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Ellie said. “I can, and I will. But why, Tommy?”
“I think I know where to find Hywel,” Tommy said.
29
IT WAS EARLY the next morning when the hired driver dropped Tommy and a single suitcase at the desolate Shore Manor. As the carriage rolled away, he stood on the dead grass in front of the bleak house, too exhausted to be angry. He remembered walking with Bern past this very spot on the day of the fire in Port Kenney. He felt sadness for Bern because he knew his brother would never change—he would never be able to see what life was truly like for the cottagers. But he also mourned the people that he’d seen in the shrine and even the August Five, who had lashed out when they felt they had no other option. Back in Sevenna, the buildings destroyed in the Night of a Hundred Fires were probably still smoldering while Colston celebrated his destructive triumph over the cottagers. Tommy picked up his suitcase and tried to squelch his growing sense of despair.
When the carriage was out of sight, he began to search for Ellie. His escort had shadowed him during the ferry ride back to Aeren, so he didn’t have a chance to look for her on the boat. Throngs of people disembarked at Black Rock, and she was nowhere to be seen. She could have easily blended in with the crowd—or maybe she hadn’t come at all. Tommy headed toward the back entrance. Olberg had told Tommy that the groundskeeper would leave the door inside the kitchen garden unlocked for him. With the sound of the crashing waves echoing against the façade of the manor house, he ducked inside the garden gate.
When he entered, he expected to find a dark, cold house. Instead, there was Ellie, curled up in a rocking chair in front of the blazing fire.
“Ellie!” he said happily. “You made it.”
“I was on the same ferry as you,” she said. “But you were still with the guard. Did he come with you? What is going on?”
“My father expelled me for inappropriate behavior,” Tommy explained. “Basically, my brother betrayed me, and my father thinks I’m a lousy Zunftson.”
“Better to be a lousy Zunftson than a dutiful one,” Ellie said. “What did you mean about Hywel?”
“After you told me that Hywel was here on the day of the Rising, I remembered something,” Tommy said. “There were two people in my father’s library when Bern and I were leaving for a hike on the ridge. And then after the Rising, there was a man up in the forest. It was Hywel.”
“How could you have forgotten that?” Ellie asked.
“At the time, I didn’t know it was Hywel,” Tommy said. “I had no idea what he looked like. It wasn’t until I recognized his portrait in Olberg’s office yesterday that I put it together. He was a tall, thin man wearing a purple silk vest.”
“Oh, that’s him, for sure,” Ellie said. “He always wore colored vests to annoy the conservative Zunftmen. But what was he doing in the forest? Did you talk to him?”
“No, he was with two soldiers,” Tommy said. “I thought they trying to find me after the explosion in Port Kenney. But now I wonder if they were taking him somewhere. He wasn’t with them by choice at all.”
“Your father kidnapped him,” Ellie said with resignation. “That’s what I’ve been afraid of. He took him and blamed the cottagers.”
“Maybe,” Tommy said. “We don’t know for sure.”
“Do you think they killed him?” Ellie said. “His body is rotting somewhere out there?”
It was such a grisly thought that Tommy didn’t want to answer. “I remember exactly where I saw him at the entrance to Harrow Trailhead. I want to go up there, but maybe you should stay here.”
“No way,” Ellie said firmly. “I’m coming, too.”
“We might not find anything,” Tommy said. “There’s a lot of forest up there.”
“We have to try,” Ellie said.
They paused only long enough to stuff water jugs and volt-cell lanterns into a backpack. Then they headed outside. He led Ellie along the gravel road away from the manor. The trees had lost their autumn glory and their branches were bare. They hurried toward the ridge, which loomed like an imposing black wall against the morning sky. Both of them felt a sense of urgency that didn’t make sense—wherever Hywel was, he’d been there for months. Tommy thought Ellie might have trouble hiking in her long dress, but she tied
the skirt in a knot at knee level and climbed as quickly as he did.
“I keep seeing houses through the trees,” Ellie said when they were about halfway up the ridge. “Who lives here?”
“There’s a cottager community,” Tommy said. “I’m not sure how many people exactly. We were pretty isolated from them.”
“Maybe we should visit them,” Ellie said. “Someone might have seen Hywel.”
“Sure, we can try,” Tommy said. “Our former housekeeper, Mrs. Trueblood, probably lives along this ridge. She had kin all along here. I’d like to try to find her.”
“Do you think she knows something?” Ellie asked.
“No, she was in the manor on the morning of the Rising,” Tommy said.
“Then she might have seen Hywel in the manor herself,” Ellie said.
“But we already know he was there, right?” Tommy said. “That doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s why he was up on this ridge that’s the question.”
By the time they reached Miller’s Road on top of the ridge, it was nearly midday. They didn’t have to go far to get to the Harrow Trailhead and the exact spot where Tommy had seen the rover and Hywel walk into the woods. They searched the road and the bushes along the trailhead.
“Maybe this is stupid,” Ellie said. “It’s not like the answer will be written in the dirt or carved in a tree.”
“They were headed down Harrow Trail,” Tommy said. “We could follow the path.”
“How did Hywel seem at the time?” Ellie asked. “Was he upset?”
“He was in front of the soldiers, but they didn’t have their weapons out,” Tommy told her. “I assumed he was leading the search for the rebels. There was no indication that they were forcing him to go into the woods.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Ellie said. “He goes to see your father, and then willingly takes a stroll into the woods with some soldiers?”
As they stared into the twilight world under the dense trees, Tommy realized he smelled peat smoke. They retraced their steps along the road until they could see black smoke rising above the trees to the north of them.
“Do you see that?” Tommy said. “I think that’s the cottage where I left the injured girl, Emilie.”
“How do you know her name?” Ellie asked.
“I ran into her in Sevenna,” Tommy said. “She was working at a cabaret that my brother dragged me to.”
“So she was all right?” Ellie asked. “That must have been a relief.”
“I’m glad she recovered,” Tommy said. “She was kind of a strange girl, though.”
“You didn’t like her?” Ellie said.
“It wasn’t that,” Tommy said. “She was really intense. She was interrogating me rather than having a conversation.”
“Well, you are the son of the chief administrator,” Ellie pointed out.
Tommy didn’t want to tell Ellie about the shrine—not at that moment anyway. And he didn’t want to tell her how unsafe he’d felt that night. Or that Emilie had lied about Mrs. Trueblood. It was better to focus on their search for Mr. Hywel.
“Maybe I’ll change my name,” Tommy said. “My father’s probably going to disown me now.”
“We can be orphans together,” Ellie said. Her brow was furrowed and she glanced nervously up and down the road.
“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked.
Ellie gazed into the darkness under the trees. “I’m getting the creeps thinking about Hywel’s corpse up here. What do you think we should do?”
“Take the trail and see what’s there,” he said. “I know it seems futile—”
“But let’s do it anyway,” Ellie said.
They walked quietly down the trail, scanning the trees. The branches rustled in the brisk wind, and the weak sunlight provided barely enough visibility to avoid the roots and rocks along the path. Mounds of dead leaves and small hillocks of earth dotted the forest, and each one could be a grave. They padded along in the dim light for about half a mile without speaking.
“What’s that?” Ellie said, grabbing his arm and pointing off to the left of the trail. Through a gap in the trees, he could see the edge of a roof.
“Maybe another cottage?” he said.
“Let’s go talk to them,” she said. “We’re not going to find anything like this.”
They left the trail and headed toward the structure, but it turned out to be a deserted, ramshackle cottage. Half the roof had caved in and the shutters were hanging from their hinges. They picked their way through fallen timbers and rubbish to the other side of the structure. The door was missing.
“Do you want to go inside?” Tommy asked.
“It would be easier to hide a body in there than dig a hole,” Ellie said frankly.
They peered inside the ruined cottage. The roof over that half of the house was still intact, and it was too dark to see very clearly. Ellie slid off her pack and dug out a volt-cell lantern. She flicked it on and shone the beam of light across the threshold. Something metallic glinted in the far corner behind some old boards. Carefully, they crossed the room to see what might have been left by the previous tenants.
The glint came from the corner of a crate partially covered by a tarp. While Ellie held the lantern, Tommy tugged off the tarp. Underneath, there was a stack of metal shipping crates emblazoned with the Zunft symbol.
“Smugglers?” Tommy asked.
“Or the Zunft has been here recently,” Ellie said.
“Maybe someone took these from Port Kenney after the Rising,” Tommy said.
“What is this?” Ellie asked. She crouched down and held the lantern closer to the floor. There were boot prints in the dust. Near the wall, someone had discarded the butts of their cigars and reets.
“Someone must have been here a long time for such a large pile to accumulate,” Ellie said.
“Did Hywel smoke reets?” Tommy asked.
“No, he hated the smell of them,” Ellie said. “And why would he stay in here against his will? There’s not even a door.”
“Can I see the lantern?” Tommy asked.
Tommy crept along the edge of the room with Ellie close behind him. He carried the lantern into the darkest part of the room where a section of the floor had been swept clean of dust and other debris. Near the wall, there was a notch cut into the floor. They crouched down and set the lantern next to the wall. Inside the notch, there was a shiny padlock attached to a metal hook. Now that they were looking closely at the floor, they could see the edges of a trapdoor.
“There must be a cellar beneath us,” Ellie said.
“And someone doesn’t want us down there,” Tommy said. “There was an old shovel outside. I’ll use it to smash the lock.”
Tommy handed Ellie the lantern and rushed back outside. He scanned the woods for signs of life, but nothing moved except the trees blowing in the wind. If this was a smugglers’ shack, they weren’t using it now. He grabbed the rusty shovel that lay on the ground near the door. When he came back inside, Ellie looked scared.
“I thought I heard something down there,” she said.
“Maybe rats?” Tommy said.
“Or my vivid imagination,” Ellie said.
Ellie stepped back as he slammed the shovel against the padlock until the metal hook broke off. Then he reached down and yanked up the trapdoor. The cellar below was utterly dark. The air wafting up smelled rotten. Neither of them moved for a long moment, unsure of what to do next. Ellie crouched near the edge and held the lantern over the hole. Now, they could see an old wooden ladder leading down into the cellar. Tommy heard a faint noise from below. A rustle, a scratch, and then another rustle.
“Please help me,” said a voice from the darkness.
The feeble plea made Tommy jump, and Ellie was so startled that she nearly fell into the hole. Tommy grabbed her elbow to steady her, and the jarring motion on her arm made her drop the lantern into the cellar. Remarkably, it landed on soft dirt and didn’t shatter. The light flickered for a moment an
d then regained its strength. The words had been muffled but unmistakable. Someone was down there in that unforgiving darkness, and he was begging for help.
“I’ll go see,” Tommy said. He swung himself onto the ladder and climbed down quickly. The air was stifling, and Tommy had to stoop because of the low ceiling, which was matted with cobwebs. His eyes darted around the cellar and he found it hard to breathe inside the enclosed space. Seeing no one, he had to fight the urge to scurry up the ladder when he heard a groan. A ragged figure hunched in the shadowy corner behind the ladder. It was a tall man with long red hair and a scraggly beard.
“There’s someone here,” he warned Ellie, who had reached the bottom rung of the ladder.
Ellie picked the lantern up from where it had fallen and shone it on the man. “Mr. Hywel!” she cried. “It’s him, Tommy! It’s Mr. Hywel.”
The former chief administrator was dangerously thin and his skin was chalky beneath his ratty hair. His eyes seemed out of focus, and when he talked, it was like he didn’t know they were there.
“Amy? Is that you?” Mr. Hywel whispered.
“Does he mean Ellie?” Tommy asked.
“Amy was his wife,” Ellie said. “He’s confused about where he is.”
“Come on, Mr. Hywel,” Tommy said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Amy? Where did you put my violin?”
“Who did this to you?” Ellie asked.
“The Zunft!” Hywel exclaimed.
“The Zunft kept you prisoner?” Tommy asked.
“Shore,” Hywel whispered. “The man with two faces…”
“Did he say Shore?” Ellie asked. “Are you talking about Colston Shore?”
“He can’t have survived for months without someone feeding him,” Ellie said.
“He hasn’t been eating much,” Tommy said. The man was a sack of bones.
“Still, he couldn’t have survived here alone,” Ellie insisted.
Hywel muttered insensibly under his breath while Ellie and Tommy tried to maneuver him toward the ladder. Tommy’s mind was racing. Mr. Hywel had been missing since August. It was now November. Someone must have been watching over him, they might be coming back at any moment. They had to get Hywel away from here immediately. But where should they go?
The August 5 Page 23
