The Lost Girl

by Anne Ursu

  “Okay.”

  Iris turned to go, and her mom stopped her.

  “Wait. Iris.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Iris swallowed.

  No.

  “I’m okay.”

  When she got upstairs she knocked softly on Lark’s door, waited a moment, and then went in.

  Lark was there, fast asleep, sprawled under a pile of blankets and stuffed animals, hair spread over the pillows like a troll doll, feet sticking out from under the covers. Iris tiptoed over and clicked on the bedside lamp, though really she didn’t have to tiptoe. Lark slept like she’d been cursed by a poisoned apple and pricked by a spindle at the same time. Not even a meddling prince could wake her up.

  The dollhouse stood with the Lark doll in the bedroom and the wolf in the closet. And the rest of the family in a pile on the floor, including the Iris doll.

  Separated.

  Lark had made other changes today, and was now apparently remaking the other second floor room back into a baby’s room. Slowly, Lark seemed to be changing the house back to the way it once was, a normal dollhouse. The dollhouse of a girl who wouldn’t put a campfire on the moon.

  But, Iris realized, the baby’s room wasn’t really normal, not anymore.

  Because the baby was still missing.

  She looked back at Lark. There was no sign of Esmeralda, who was usually tucked into Lark’s arms somewhere, so Iris crept back to her own room and got Bunny, and then tucked him into bed with Lark.

  In the morning, Iris woke to Lark sitting on the foot of her bed, Bunny on her lap. This happened—often during the night one of them floated to the other’s room due to general sister gravity and just hung out until the other one woke up.

  “I’m sorry,” Iris said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Esmeralda’s gone.

  Iris sat up.

  “Yes, I’ve looked everywhere,” Lark added quickly.

  “I wasn’t—I . . . What happened?”

  “I came home yesterday and she was gone. Why is someone taking all of my things? Is someone messing with me? I don’t understand.” Her voice broke. “Everything’s disappearing.”

  What could Iris say? Lark was right. Everything was disappearing.

  “Well, if someone’s taking my stuff, at least I’ll be home to see it now,” she said after a while. “Mom says I can stay home today.”

  “Good,” Iris said softly.

  “She’s going to meet with Principal Peter and Dr. Brockenbrough and the ogre and they’re going to come up with a plan,” Lark mumbled, eyes on the bunny. “Maybe one where I never have to show my face in school again.”

  “Lark.”

  Her head popped up, and her eyes met Iris’s. “I can’t go back there! I can’t ever go back. How could I? It was humiliating.”

  Iris looked down at the bed, her face hot.

  It was all her fault.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Well

  When Iris got off the school bus that afternoon, she did not even glance at the library. Mr. Green had said he could help her and Lark, and she needed help. She needed something. And it seemed like there were even more crows around, like they’d been slowly invading and soon the people would just give up and leave the neighborhood to them.

  So she darted into Treasure Hunters, crows chattering at her the whole way.

  When she got inside the shop was empty, save for Duchess, who was perched on one of the tables, tall and regal. Her head swiveled at the sound of the chimes, and she regarded Iris with her big green eyes.

  “Meow.”

  Now, cats make all sorts of noises—some trill, some chirp, some squawk, and some let out a sound that is rather like a bark. But Duchess definitely meowed, a high-pitched, bell-like me-ow, clear as anything, as if this cat was the one who spoke for all cats, past and future, and catkind definitively meowed.

  Are you paying attention?

  “Yes?” Iris said, for it seemed the sort of meow that required a response.

  You’re not paying attention.

  “Where’s Mr. Green?” Iris asked.

  The cat meowed again, then jumped off the spindly-legged table, stuck her tail straight up, and strolled right past Iris, assiduously brushing her legs on the way past.

  And then she walked right up to the entrance to the back room, gave Iris one last meow, and disappeared behind the curtain.

  Fine. I’ll help. Follow me.

  Iris paused for a moment. Everything was so confusing today. Everything was so confusing every day. She wished she were sensible. If she were sensible she would know what to do.

  Maybe something was wrong with Mr. Green; maybe he needed help. There were stories like this, of dogs who summoned nearby strangers when their owners were hurt. Though Iris had never actually heard of a cat doing this.

  Still. Duchess was calling for her. So she went. Carefully, she made her way to the curtain, and stepped through.

  Then, for once in her life, Iris was astonished.

  There had been clues all along, if Iris had been paying attention to them. George’s insistence on magic. Duchess’s movements. The strange aura of the shop as a whole. But Iris hadn’t been paying attention, and even if she had been, she longed so much for a rational world that she would have irrationally disregarded any evidence to the contrary. People are like that.

  The Green manor was attached to the back of the shop (as it is, every time, though the house itself grows a little each time it moves). It was unquestionably the same house, though: opulent, ostentatious, grandiose—the house of a man who wants to show the world how extremely wealthy he is and expects the world to revere him for it.

  The house was impossible.

  And yet it was true.

  Iris stood on a shiny marble-tiled floor in front of the thick red curtain. Above her, two stories of arch-lined balconies supported a vast ceiling painted with some kind of fresco of a bunch of half-dressed people having a banquet. Every piece of the building’s structure was ornately detailed, from the carved columns to the reliefs on the walls to the gilt edging of the ceiling. Way across the hall a vast red-carpeted staircase spilled down from the second floor.

  Iris took a step forward, gawking. The hall itself was the size of her entire school building, lined with a series of arches, behind which she could see more vast rooms. And the hall was packed with stuff: imposing marble statues, a massive grand piano, weird modern sculptures, a whole wall of clocks, a towering oak organ thing that seemed to have stringed instruments attached, a giant stuffed bear, lamps and shelves and chairs and ottomans, a dinosaur skeleton, and display case after display case filled with treasures—one of china figurines, another of tea sets, another of small animal figurines, another filled with sparkling jewelry.

  It looked like a museum where no one had bothered to declutter in a century.

  Duchess appeared in front of Iris and gazed at her, as if to say, See?

  Iris was frozen there, a statue herself. But a kind of statue that was all wrong, broken. The kind of statue people looked at and felt that there must have been something very strange about the person who sculpted it, to make something that looked so confused, so disrupted.

  “Miss Maguire!” exclaimed Mr. George Green, appearing on one of the balconies, book in hand. “Did Duchess invite you? That naughty cat.”

  Iris did not move.

  “Well, that certainly saves us a difficult conversation, anyway. Though,” he added, looking pointedly at the cat, “I do prefer making my own decisions, Duchess. Wait right there.”

  Mr. Green disappeared behind a doorway. He did not have to worry about Iris going anywhere—she was a statue, and the thing about statues is that they do not move.

  Soon he was pattering down the big staircase toward Iris, arms wide and welcoming.

  “The Green Château,” he proclaimed. “Bienvenue!”

  “How—” Iris squeaked.

  He cocked his he
ad. “Why, magic, of course!”

  Iris took a step back.

  “I told you I had magic. You kept saying it was science.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t play coy with me. A sensible girl like yourself knows how the world really works. I would expect other girls to be ‘oh my goodness gracious magic oh my goodness gracious!’—you know how girls are—but you’re not, are you?”

  She was. Whatever he was saying, she was definitely that. And no, she did not know how girls were, not at all, but that was a secondary problem.

  “I don’t understand,” she breathed. “What is all of this?”

  His mouth slowly spread into a grin. “This,” he said, voice hushed, “this is treasure. I have here the world’s most priceless collection of the most prestigious antiques and collectibles. Rocks from the moon, Wedgwood china, Qianlong jade, Fabergé eggs, Stradivarius violins, Tiffany lamps, Ming dynasty vases, The tooth of a hundred-thousand-year-old elephant, Chippendale furniture. You will not find a finer collection anywhere.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And I have a number of, how would you say it, unique items,” he said. “Items that on their own would be the pride and joy of any museum, really any city. And maybe they once were,” he added with a showy wink.

  Iris gaped at the glut of treasures around her, at the impossible mansion. Her whole body was buzzing with questions, so many she might buzz her way into bits. But first and most important was:

  “How . . . ,” she sputtered, throwing her arms up to indicate everything around her.

  Mr. Green tapped his fingers on his mouth. “I told you there was power for you, if you wanted it. I told you I could help you. Allow me to show you something,” he said. With a gesture to her, he strode toward the archway to her right.

  Duchess glided over to Iris and brushed against her legs, and then followed him, glancing at Iris to make sure she was coming.

  So Iris followed, gaping at everything, awash in wonder and fear. Duchess suddenly darted to the left and through another doorway, and the door opened a little to reveal a whole room filled with glass-covered shelves of small porcelain dolls. There must have been hundreds, maybe thousands, standing side by side on the shelf gazing blankly off into the distance with their perpetually open eyes. They were all the same size—about eight inches high—but all different, as far as Iris could see: a world’s array of skin tones and hair colors, and a jumble of hairstyles and hats and big floofy dresses with layers of crinoline, as though all the dolls in the whole kingdom had dressed themselves up for the ball.

  “Meow,” said Duchess, standing in the doorway to the doll room. You should pay attention to this. But Mr. Green was motioning her forward.

  “This,” he said, holding his arms out, “is the gallery.”

  Gallery was certainly the appropriate word. The walls were covered with paintings in all kinds of styles, from somber Renaissance portraits to bright abstract splatterings, so many paintings you could barely see wall at all, or really notice any of the paintings for the fact of all the paintings.

  “You will note some of the most prized paintings in the Western world, of course. I have a Vermeer,” he said meaningfully. “You know which one. The Picasso. Modigliani. Degas sketches. Van Gogh. We’re working on expanding our contemporary collection and have recently made an exciting acquisition. But we can discuss that later.”

  There were doorways on either side of the gallery. One had a large plaque that read Office. But Mr. Green had stopped in front of the other one, which had a sign on it that read Employees Only.

  With great ceremony, he took the giant ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the door, then flung it open.

  There was a glow coming from the room, or perhaps it was a sparkle, or a glimmer.

  Mr. Green stepped back and motioned to the doorway. “Magic,” he said.

  Iris could not help it: she floated toward the room.

  “Not too close!” Mr. Green exclaimed. “Be careful!”

  From behind, Duchess yowled at her. Stop!

  Iris stopped herself. And it was a good thing: the room at the other side of the doorway was not a room at all, but some kind of shaft. Inside was a bucket hanging on a large crank, and whatever was below emitted the strange shimmer.

  “It’s a . . . well?”

  “Certainly. One needs a way to access the magic. Wells are very efficient, actually.”

  “That’s—”

  “The magic, yes.”

  The magic.

  Iris shook her head slightly as if to clear it. It was a well of magic. Magic was a thing, something you could scoop up like water.

  She took another step forward and crouched down, peering into the well. It was hard to make out the substance below: it wasn’t like water; it wasn’t like goo. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be no thing at all—just a shimmer, like the light around a full moon. And—

  Iris.

  It was like a hand tugging at her chest, so gently she barely knew it was happening. But it was happening, and it was good, and it was warm and safe.

  Iris.

  Iris, it’s all right. Iris, I can help you. Iris, everything is in order; everything makes sense. There are rules to the universe. Everything is under your control.

  I can help you. I can help you keep your sister safe. I can make people listen to you. I can keep the nightmares away. I can help you know who you are. I can give you power.

  Everything will be all right.

  The hand tugged, and Iris exhaled, and if she just relaxed and let the hand pull her forward—

  Then, the yowl of a cat, and hands on her back, pulling her backward—not gently at all. “Stop! Stay back!”

  Iris started. She was on the cool marble floor. The tugging had stopped, the connection broken, and she was cold and alone and powerless. Mr. Green was standing over her, his pale face looking slightly green. “I shouldn’t have let you get so close,” he sputtered. “I’m so sorry. I forgot what it’s like at first.”

  Iris wrapped her arms around herself, trying to get warm. She could not stop shivering.

  “Do you know what would happen to you if you fell in there?”

  “No . . .” Her voice sounded thin and broken.

  “Bad things.” he said. “You would not survive a second. You should be more careful, young lady. You know what they say: ‘Curiosity killed the girl.’”

  Iris pushed herself backward. “. . . I think that’s ‘the cat’?” she said weakly. “‘Curiosity killed the cat.’”

  “Hmmmpf. Well. Let this be a lesson to you. Don’t go opening strange doors, and when magic in a well starts calling to you, run in the other direction.”

  “All right.”

  “You should know better.”

  “All right.”

  Iris pressed her back against the wall, shivering. He was so loud all of a sudden. And everything was so strange.

  “Well”—he clapped his hands together—“that is the answer to your question. That is a well of magic, and that is how I have built my palace.”

  Iris shifted so she was hugging her legs, and took a deep breath. And another. “How do you have a well of magic?” she asked carefully. “Do you make it?”

  That’s right. Breathe, Iris. Clear your head. Ask questions.

  “Make magic? I wish we could. Magic is not something you can make; it is something you can use. You are aware that some locations are sources of underground water and oil, yes? Well, some places are sources of magic. All one needs to do is dig a well. This is my innovation.”

  “There’s a source of magic in . . . Minneapolis?”

  She could do this. She could gather herself in this impossible place. She could figure out what was going on. She could handle the impossible if she just asked the right questions.

  “Cities tend to spring up around them. You’ll find an undercurrent of magic in many a major metropolitan area. Or at least, you could, once. I have used up quite a few of
them, of course.”

  “You’ve used it up?” Iris looked at the shimmering doorway. Magic did not seem like a thing you should be able to use up. “I don’t understand. What do you use it for?”

  He opened up his arms and indicated everything around him. “Why, this, of course! I use it to make a home for myself commensurate with my status. I am a man with access to tremendous power; I must look the part.”

  “And . . . you just really like art?”

  “Oh, you know. All the best people possess major works of art. And I, I have the most art. The best art. And not just art. I have the rarest and most valuable collectibles and artifacts—books, manuscripts, stamps, old coins, weapons, fossils, musical instruments, furniture, decorative silver, vases. So much creativity, so much artistry. So valuable! I am the envy of every collector in the world.”

  “But . . . why do you need a store if you have all of this?”

  “Oh, I enjoy antiques and collectibles myself, and do so love conversing with my fellow aficionados. The store is a bit of a hobby of mine, a way of networking face-to-face, though it is in the online communities where I can trade in my more high-end goods.”

  “Magic has a cost.”

  He cocked his head. “What did you say?”

  “Magic has a cost. What’s the cost?”

  “Perhaps magic has a cost for other people. But not for me.”

  Iris felt her face scrunch up. She did not understand. “What about Alice? Shouldn’t you be using magic to find her? To help her?”

  His eyes widened. “Of course, Miss Maguire. That is my primary objective. Alice is my greatest loss, my greatest prize. Alice is my treasure, you understand. That is why I am here. Our family must stay near magic. If she is alive, she is near a magic source, somewhere.”

  “But . . . you said she just disappeared. Couldn’t that have been magic?”

  He looked aghast.

  “Alice was not allowed to touch the magic. She would not have known how to use it properly.”

  Something was wrong, something was strange—even stranger than everything that was happening right now.

  And then it hit her.

  “You’re the thief. The museum thief. You took the cherry and the spoon.”