Deacon shrugged. “Why do some children have an uncanny ability to play the piano, while their parents possess no musical skill whatsoever? What causes a brilliant ballet dancer to be born from simple country farmers, or a mighty warrior to be born amongst a horde of meek brothers and sisters? Again, no one knows. It is, perhaps, an unsolvable mystery.”
Oona disliked the idea of an unsolvable mystery. Currently, as she stood alone in the starlit confines of the inner garden, she turned her mind to a more solvable mystery: the attack on her uncle. But somehow it was the two incidents with Isadora, just before she and her brother had taken their leave of Pendulum House, that popped into Oona’s mind. Isadora was such an infuriatingly selfish girl, and troublesome to say the least. But Oona had not realized just how troublesome she truly was until the so-called fine young lady had smeared dirt across Oona’s face and then, shortly after that, nearly knocked her out with the coatrack.
The inspector had departed the house some minutes before, along with Constable Trout, Lamont John-Michael Arlington Fitch III, Sanora Crone, and that horrible Hector Grimsbee. Isadora had needed to use the bathroom before leaving, and so Oona, Samuligan, and Deacon had patiently waited for her, along with Adler, in the house entryway. Several times Adler’s and Oona’s own eyes had met, and each time the awkwardness of the silence was palpable. She had wanted to grab hold of his shabby cloak and shake him, make him swear that he’d had nothing to do with what had happened to her uncle. But she could not do that. Adler had been at the museum that day, and it could very well have been he who stole the dagger and used it to kill the Wizard.
Uncle Alexander is not dead, she tried to convince herself. He is in that tower, and first thing tomorrow, we will find a way to get him out!
“Perhaps I should go and see what is taking Isadora so long,” Oona had said, though truthfully she simply wanted to get away from the uncomfortable silence of the entryway. Thinking that she might use the bathroom herself after Isadora, Oona asked Deacon to wait in the entryway with Samuligan and Adler while she checked on Isadora. She crossed the circular antechamber and turned down the side hallway. When Oona got to the bathroom, however, she discovered that the door was open and the room was unoccupied.
“Isadora?” she called. Glancing up and down the hall, Oona noticed the doors to the inner courtyard standing wide open. She approached the doors slowly. “Isadora?” she called again. Again there was no answer. Her fists clinched.
She’d better not be out there in the garden, Oona thought, feeling quite angry at the idea. The inner garden was full of secret plants that only the Wizard and his apprentice were allowed to know existed. And Isadora most certainly was not yet the Wizard’s apprentice.
Oona stepped through the doorway and into the open air of the courtyard. The stars were bright, the night crisp. Oona saw movement near the far end of the garden. Her feet moved silently beneath her as she stepped from the brick patio to the dirt path that led through the various plants and hedges. The shadowy leaves of a dancing fern slid silently out of her way with a graceful, dancerlike fluidity, and when her foot crunched upon a fallen leaf, the sighing-lady grass masked the sound with its beautiful sighing lament.
No surprise to Oona, the movement she’d seen turned out to be that of a dress. A red-and-gold-striped dress, to be precise, that glinted prettily in the starlight. Isadora was bending down over an empty patch of soil.
Oona cleared her throat. “Ahem.”
Isadora jumped, nearly toppling forward and knocking over the low wooden sign sticking out of the dirt in front of her. She wheeled around, and Oona glanced down at the sign, which read: TURLOCK ROOT.
“Can I help you, Isadora?” Oona asked in what she hoped was her best patronizing voice.
Isadora looked around, blinking innocently, as if she were unsure of where she was or how she had gotten there. “Oh, I seem to have gotten lost on my way back to the entryway.”
Oona folded her arms and began tapping her foot. “Lost your way, have you? Well, I think it’s safe to assume that if you did not walk through the garden to get to the bathroom, then you would not need to walk through it to get back out.”
Isadora straightened up. “Well, there’s no need to get snippy. I simply took a wrong turn. Then I saw this sign here, and well, I thought I might …”
Oona looked down at Isadora’s hands and saw the dirt on them. “You thought you might dig up some turlock root?”
A memory floated to the surface of Oona’s mind: Isadora’s mother, Madame Iree, saying how much she would like to get her hands on a bit of turlock root so that she could make herself young enough to wear the glinting-cloth dress.
“Well, what if I was?” Isadora said defensively. “It was for Mother. She told me that this stuff grew only in Faerie, but look, here it is, right here.” She pointed to the sign.
Oona opened her mouth to tell Isadora that the reason it grew there in the secret garden was because Pendulum House was built on Faerie soil—that Pendulum House was the only place this side of the Glass Gates built on such enchanted ground—but she stopped herself. Isadora didn’t need to know such things, and probably wasn’t interested.
“Well, you can’t take any,” Oona said.
“Who is going to stop me?” Isadora asked, raising her chin defiantly, and then her eyes suddenly went wide.
“I would enjoy that pleasure,” said a voice from behind Oona. Oona turned to discover Samuligan standing behind her. He must have come to see what was taking so long. His toothy grin was a horror to behold in the starlight, and Oona found herself thankful that the grin was not directed at her.
Isadora pinched up her lips and said: “Fine. Mother wouldn’t want this stinky stuff anyway. It smells horrible, like you. Here, have a whiff.”
In three swift motions, Isadora reached out, wiped her filthy hand across Oona’s face, and then sidestepped Samuligan as she stormed off toward the courtyard doors. Oona was simply too stunned to say a word. She stood for a moment, blinking in surprise, unsure as to whether she should run and tackle the other girl, or simply let her go. It was infuriating, not to mention highly embarrassing. The dark soil ran from her cheek to her mouth like a hideous scar. Catching a whiff of the pungent soil, she spat on the ground, and wiped the sharp taste of dirt from her lips.
Samuligan had evidently decided to stay with Oona, rather than pursue Isadora, and for the moment she was glad for it, as the faerie servant handed her a handkerchief to wipe her face. Together, the two of them walked back across the courtyard, Oona hoping that by the time they made it to the front of the house the Iree twins would be gone. No such luck.
They found Deacon perched atop the entryway coatrack, with Isadora shouting at him. Adler was telling her to calm down, but she would have none of it. She whirled around, the red-and-gold stripes of her dress spiraling about her feet, and arrowed her finger at Oona.
“You stole my shawl!” Isadora announced.
Oona’s eyebrows nearly came together. “I what?”
Isadora pointed at the coatrack beside the broom closet. “Don’t play stupid with me. I hung my shawl on that rack when I came in this evening. It matches my dress perfectly. Now it’s gone.”
Oona looked at the coatrack. She remembered seeing the shawl earlier that evening, remembered placing it back on the rack herself after the rack had fallen on top of her when she’d tumbled from the closet. The only thing hanging on the rack now was a lone, black jacket. Where the shawl had gone, Oona had no idea.
Isadora fell into a fit. “Where’s my shawl!” She lashed out, kicking over a nearby umbrella stand, and then shoved the heel of her shoe hard against a footstool near the closet. Oona jumped out of the way to avoid being hit by the stool, and the umbrella stand toppled over, spilling two lacy white parasols to the floor, along with one pointy red umbrella that nearly poked Adler in the leg.
“Now see here, young lady!” Deacon said from the top of the coatrack. “Calm down!”
Bu
t Isadora was not ready to calm down. “I left it right here!” she shouted, and then grabbed hold of the jacket on the coatrack and yanked. Suddenly, the entire rack toppled over. Deacon leaped into the air, shrieking and batting his wings as the rack slammed to the ground.
“Where’s my shawl?” Isadora howled, kicking violently at the fallen rack.
“Isadora!” Adler shouted.
“Stay out of this, Adler,” she scolded.
“But Isadora, look,” Adler said. “There’s your shawl. Right there.”
Deacon landed on Oona’s shoulder as Adler pointed to where the rack had struck the floor. The shawl was lying on top of the jacket.
“Look,” Adler said, kneeling down to pick up the red-and-gold fabric. “See there, Isadora. Someone placed their jacket on top of your shawl. That’s why you didn’t see it. That’s all.” He handed the shawl to his sister before returning the coatrack to its upright position and hanging the jacket back upon its hook. “The inspector must’ve forgot to take his jacket with him when he left, that’s all.” He glanced at Oona, giving her a half smile. “He’d probably forget his own head if it weren’t connected to his neck, so he would.”
Oona did not return the smile, however. She was too shocked by Isadora’s behavior—indeed by all the events of the evening—to do anything but blink at him confoundedly. Looking at the inspector’s jacket on the hook, she could only think: Just what I need is for Inspector White to have some reason to return to the house tonight.
As the twins took their leave, stepping over the scattered parasols and umbrella on the floor, Isadora turned in the doorway, her shawl draped over her shoulders like a striped flag. For an instant it appeared she might be on the verge of apologizing for her behavior, but what she said was: “Don’t forget. You’re still supposed to find out who stole my mother’s dresses. They must be found before tomorrow night’s masquerade ball.”
Oona closed the door in the girl’s face.
Several hours later, Oona could still not believe that Isadora would be so ridiculous as to believe she, Oona, would put her energy into finding some silly missing dresses when the only thing that mattered was learning if her uncle was still alive … and discovering his attacker. But churning the slim evidence over in her mind, she knew that, so far, there was very little to go on. The thing that irritated her most was that she saw no reason for any of the applicants to want to harm her uncle. She had to find out more about them.
The fact that she’d seen Grimsbee disappear in front of the Museum of Magical History—the very place where the daggers had been stolen—haunted Oona’s thoughts like an insistent ghost. It didn’t prove that Grimsbee had done the job, but it was a start. Deacon insisted that the power to become invisible was magic long lost. But Oona had seen Grimsbee arguing with someone who was not there.
And then there was the fact that both Isadora Iree and Adler had been inside the museum earlier that day.
When her feet tired, Oona sat with her back against the tall glass tree in the center of the garden. The tree sprouted not limbs of wood, but branches of swirling glass. Crystal leaves sparkled like diamonds in the starlight. Her dislike of magic aside, Oona had always thought the tree was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She could spend hours just staring up at its crystalline beauty, watching the light prism through its limbs like a fantastic ice sculpture.
Tonight, however, the tree could not hold her attention. She stared, instead, vacantly across the garden at the barren splotch of dirt where she had caught Isadora digging for turlock root. Oona had once asked her uncle why he did not use the root to keep himself looking younger, and he had explained that the root not only made people look young, but made their minds young as well.
“I prefer wisdom to beauty,” he had told her. “And besides, I believe I grow rather more handsome the older I get.”
Poor Uncle Alexander. Why would someone wish to harm him? The thought that he might be dead was overwhelming, and as she sat there, beneath the limbs of the great tree made of glass, she began to feel quite numb. Uncle Alexander’s eyes seemed to hover before her, looking so disappointed in her for abandoning him. Why had she deserted him? She knew why, of course, but the guilt was like a knife in her side. She felt hollow, as if all of the blood had drained out from inside of her. Staring numbly at a naked patch of dirt, she thought of what lay beneath. It was like a mystery: always appearing one way, when beneath the surface lay something extraordinary.
And then her thoughts turned, as they so often did when she sat alone in the inner garden, to the accident—the terrible accident beneath the fig tree in Oswald Park. Both of them, her mother and her baby sister, Flora, had been gone in an instant. Oona knew that it was her own fault that it had happened, despite her uncle’s insistence that she was not to blame. If she had not conjured the spell, they would still be alive. She had meant only to show them what she could do, to delight them.
“Lux lucis admiratio!”
With the use of a fallen twig, she had shot sparks of light from its tip, as if from a magic wand. The sparks flew high, circling the great fig tree like shooting stars, changing colors as they spiraled around and around, faster and faster.
Her mother had smiled at the trick. Oona had only been ten years old at the time, but even then she had known that it was the first genuine smile she had seen upon her mother’s lips since the death of Oona’s father some five months before. Flora, who was not yet even one year old, began to giggle and clap in their mother’s arms—mother and baby resting on the lawn beneath the broad canopy of the tree—as the sparks shooting from Oona’s twig grew bigger, and brighter, and more plentiful … though what Oona had not realized then was that the dazzling lights were growing more and more powerful. The sparks grew so bright that they challenged even the sun, causing the shadow of the fig tree to shift and dance in the bright light of day. People stopped to watch the lights in wonder.
“See what I can do?” Oona had said.
“I see, Oona,” her mother had said. “It is—”
But her mother never finished her words. Whatever she was about to say Oona would never learn, for at that very moment the lights spun violently out of control, slamming into the tree with a burst of energy so strong that the tree simultaneously burst into flames and crashed over onto its side. It happened so quickly that her mother had no chance of getting out of the way. And just like that, her mother and sister were gone from her life. Gone, and never coming back.
It had been Uncle Alexander who had consoled her. It had been he who had assured her that they had not suffered. The tree had been enormous, as fig trees were likely to become. And when Inspector White had asked to question Oona, it had been the Wizard who had refused him, claiming that the act had been a magical one, which fell under his own authority. No one else had been injured—there was that much to be thankful for, at least—and the force from the blast against the tree had sent Oona flying several yards away, where she’d landed hard but unharmed on the open lawn.
Presently, as she leaned against the trunk of the tree of glass in the inner garden, the tears began to roll down Oona’s cheeks. The sadness she usually managed to keep at bay began to fill her chest, and as she stared upward into the night sky, she realized that the crystal leaves of the glass tree did not sparkle so much like diamonds as they did like tears. When the feeling finally passed, and she was done crying, Oona at last felt the tug of sleep, and forced herself to slump up the stairs to her room, where she fell fast asleep.
Oona sat up in bed, blinking against the early-morning light.
There was a knock at her door.
“Who’s there?” she asked in a groggy voice.
“It is I,” Samuligan replied from the other side of the door.
It was Samuligan’s voice rather than the knocking that startled Deacon into wakefulness. He spread his wings, rustling his feathers in a sumptuous morning stretch.
Oona groaned, wrestling her way back to consciousness. Un
tangling herself from her blankets, she quickly glanced down to make sure her nightgown was buttoned properly.
“You may come in,” she said, rubbing at her eyes.
The faerie servant entered the room, looking as tall and imposing as ever. His cowboy hat sat forward on his brow so that it was nearly impossible to see his eyes, and his boots clicked against the floor, an eerie, hollow sound, like someone knocking from inside a coffin. He held a red envelope in his long faerie fingers.
“I found this tied to the front gate,” he said.
Oona pushed herself up to receive it. The letter was simply addressed to: Occupants of Pendulum House, Number 19.
She slid the letter from the envelope. It felt crisp and expensive. Printed in bold, black letters at the top of the red paper were the words eviction notice.
Deacon dropped down from the bedpost to Oona’s shoulder and began to read aloud. “You have been served. All occupants of Pendulum House shall vacate the premises, along with their possessions. They have until 11:59 tonight, May 15, 1877, after which time, at precisely midnight, the pendulum will be stopped and the demolition of the house will begin. This in accordance with the new owner, the Nightshade Corporation.” Deacon paused before adding: “It is signed: Red Martin. President and Owner of the Nightshade Corporation.”
“An eviction notice?” Oona asked. “Is this some sort of awful joke?”
“I’m afraid not,” Samuligan said. He pointed to the top of the paper. “That is the official stamp and seal of the Dark Street Council. It appears to be a fully legal document.”
“How is this possible?” Oona asked. “Red Martin owns Pendulum House? I don’t understand.”
“Not only that,” Samuligan continued, “but he apparently intends to tear it down to make way for his new hotel and casino. Just have a look.”
He pointed out the window. Oona slid off the bed and peered through the glass, which overlooked the front yard. A man wearing a shabby bowler hat was pounding a large wooden sign into the overgrown rose beds.
The Wizard of Dark Street Page 11
