Pieces and Players

by Blue Balliett

  Suddenly Zoomy tilted his head. “Hear that?” he asked.

  The others held their breath. “Yes,” breathed Early. “It’s not the radio; more like a faraway party!”

  The faintest laughter and the irregular tinkle of glasses … the scrape of chairs, and now the plink of a harpsichord … a woman singing, or was it just the sigh of wind through a broken window?

  “She had concerts here, you know,” Petra whispered. “She loved classical music.”

  Calder turned and dug in Eagle’s backpack. He pulled out the new Ouija board box and opened it up. “Let’s set it up while Eagle’s looking for the old one,” he hissed excitedly. “What if that sound of music is, you know, coming from the Vermeer painting? Could mean it’s someplace nearby!”

  The kids placed the board flat on the mosaic, over Medusa’s head. They pulled out the small pointer and placed it on top.

  Instantly, a gust of wind lifted the board, swirling it overhead like an autumn leaf. Mouths open, four of the five kids watched it sail through the moonlight and land with a splash in the biggest of the fountains, at the feet of the marble woman dancing. Pish! The small pointer landed seconds later on one of the gravel paths.

  “Yikes,” squeaked Calder. “Mistake!”

  Tommy lifted his head. “Sorry,” he whispered quickly. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he added, turning his head in all directions.

  “Yeah, me, too. That was rude of us,” Petra added, her voice shaky.

  “We just wanted to join in,” Early whispered.

  “Hodilly-hum,” Zoomy breathed. “And sorry to the thirty-one lions around here.”

  The place became deadly quiet — no distant chatter or music, nothing but the fountain’s subdued burble on the other side of the courtyard, the faint hum of the radio and an occasional nervous swallowing sound from one of the kids.

  “Everyone’s waiting,” Petra whispered. No one asked her what she meant.

  Before they’d had a chance to retrieve the pieces of the Ouija set, they heard the heavy clump of boots and a man’s voice saying, “Off I go, John. Back in a jiffy.” A dancing circle of light was headed their way.

  * * *

  In the scramble to move, the five realized they were still clipped to one another.

  How stupid could we be? Calder thought as they stumbled to their feet. He grabbed at the backpack.

  The Ouija board! In plain sight! Petra almost groaned aloud as she bumped along between her friends.

  There wasn’t time to do anything but hide in a big heap, so they squashed themselves beneath the fern that was supposed to shelter Zoomy alone.

  If the moment wasn’t so frightening, it would have been beyond embarrassing. Noses were mashed into knees, hair got snarled in zippers, feet landed behind ears, rear ends met bellies, and hands had to hide wherever possible. Each one of the kids could only hope they’d become invisible, and tried not to twitch or even breathe.

  The guard was humming, his feet moving slowly and heavily around the perimeter of the courtyard.

  Don’t look in the middle, don’t look, Early pleaded silently.

  Wish I hadn’t eaten that dilly bean, Tommy couldn’t help thinking. If I do something rude, the girls will think I’m disgusting forever.

  Mrs. Farmer, Zoomy thought. Mrs. Farmer! Pleeeeeeease help us!

  Instantly, the guard slapped his face, growling, “Ow, what was that? Insects in this gol-darn garden already? It’s barely spring!” He sped up, practically trotting away from the courtyard and toward the stairs to the second floor, muttering, “Ow! Never heard of a bee that stings in the dark!”

  As soon as the guard was out of sight, the five crept out of the shadows and hurried to unclip themselves, too shaken to laugh.

  “I hope Eagle hears him coming,” Early said.

  “Plenty of places up there to hide,” Calder said, hurrying over to the fountain and fishing out the soggy Ouija board. He stuffed it into the backpack.

  Petra retrieved the pointer. “I can’t believe he didn’t see us — or these,” she whispered.

  “Mrs. Farmer helped,” Zoomy murmured comfortably, as if commenting on the weather.

  “Oh,” breathed Tommy. “Oh.”

  The five waited in silence for the man to return, hoping they’d only hear one set of feet coming down the stairs. If the guard spotted Eagle, the game was up.

  After what felt like an eternity, they heard the clump-clump of the guard’s boots returning and a tuneless whistling.

  Tommy leaped into the huge stone sarcophagus. Zoomy re-hugged the pot beneath the giant fern; Calder squashed himself into a bed of flowers and hoped he wouldn’t sneeze. Petra crouched in some vines on the far side of the fountain, and Early wedged herself between the base of the stone seat and some tall planters, hoping nothing with wings and legs would join her.

  Pausing at the foot of the stairs, the guard shone his light across the courtyard and then suddenly dropped the flashlight with a curse.

  “Another sting!” he burst out. “Must be my aftershave.” The kids heard him grunt as he leaned over to pick up the now-broken flashlight, which rattled harmlessly. The man hurried toward the distant light of the security room, calling, “Jack, you there? I’m not doin’ that again tonight! Not if they promised me double!” The door to the room closed with a thud, cutting off the faint hum of the radio.

  The five crept out of hiding and resettled around Medusa, doing a silent fist bump. Waiting in the sweet-smelling dark with Mrs. Farmer and the moon now felt perfect.

  Soon they heard the faint sound of Eagle’s breathing as he hurried back down the stairs.

  * * *

  The wooden board was beautiful. Much heavier than the new version, it had the familiar double-arc of the alphabet, and beneath that, 1 to 9, then 0. YES and NO each had a corner at the top, and at the bottom, in the center, the simple GOOD BYE.

  After catching up on the news and fishing his boots out of the backpack, Eagle crouched behind the group.

  “Okay, you experts — and I mean that! — everyone’s fingertips rest lightly on the pointer, or planchette, as she would have called it.” A generous, heart-shaped piece of wood with a glass window in the center, the planchette was smooth to the touch.

  “Lightly, lightly,” Eagle cautioned. “This isn’t something to lean on. Now. I believe eyes remain closed while the pointer is moving, and the first questions are usually Yes and No ones. And keep your voices really low, even though the security room door is shut. Ideas?” He looked around at the kids.

  “Let’s ask if the stolen art is in Chicago,” Calder whispered. The others nodded.

  “Go ahead.” Eagle pulled a small notebook and pen out of his pocket. “Ask.”

  Calder did, and the five closed their eyes, fingers ready.

  Instantly, the planchette began to move. It scooted across the board and stopped.

  “You can look now,” Eagle said.

  “Whoa! It’s Yes, and right in the center!” Early marveled.

  “Is it here, hidden in this building?” Tommy blurted. The planchette flew across the board to the NO.

  A garble of disappointed ohs followed.

  “You didn’t really think —” Eagle began as Petra cut across him.

  “Mrs. Farmer, does F-A spell a word?”

  “Right.” Eagle nodded, and everyone got back in position and closed their eyes. This time, the pointer traveled a shorter distance and stopped.

  “It’s the F,” Eagle said, sounding more surprised than they’d ever heard him. “I think you’re getting a message. Keep going!” The kids heard the scritch of his pen as he began taking notes.

  At the end of a few minutes, the planchette stopped its spelling and the kids sat back, shaking their arms and fingers.

  “Wow,” Eagle breathed. “You have F-I-N and then either D or E, I couldn’t tell. After that, A-R-T-S. Then a 6.”

  “But,” Early began, “that’s just ‘find arts’ or ‘fine arts,’ and both ar
e so obvious! Plus a six, which could mean us. That doesn’t tell us a thing!”

  “The six could also mean the trustees,” Calder said slowly. “Remember when they said they’d been fighting about whether to do an ‘event’ at the museum themselves, to get attention?”

  Eagle sat back, his face hard to read in the play of shadows. “Odd, that D or E thing — it stopped right on top of one and then the other. Almost as if it couldn’t make up its mind.”

  “Those’re your initials,” Calder announced.

  “Oh,” Eagle said. “Huh.”

  “Maybe you should ask the next question,” Early suggested.

  “I’m not sure she’ll talk to an adult,” Eagle said. “But, well, okay. Back in position, guys. Here we go: Will this message help to find your stolen art?”

  Instantly the planchette shot across the board, so quickly that Zoomy’s fingers fell off it. Everyone opened their eyes.

  The answer was Yes.

  “Whoa, you guys!” Petra called out. “It’s happening! She’s helping us!”

  “You mean, helping us again,” Zoomy said. “We would’ve been goners if she hadn’t stung the guard and broken his flashlight.”

  Eagle laughed, a low chuckle. “Your turn, Zoomy.”

  Zoomy was quiet for a moment, his face lifted at an angle that turned his glasses into mirrors, a greenhouse with a tiny moon on each eye.

  “The people in the art. Are they alive like you’re alive?”

  The pointer jumped into action, and there was a murmur of “whoa” and “yikes” as the kids hurried to keep their fingers in place.

  Eagle, leaning forward, read the letters. “A-L-I-V-E-N-O-T-A-L-O-N-E.”

  “They’re alive and not alone!” Early beamed at the darkness. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Farmer!”

  “This means our dreams were real — and the art knows we’re looking,” Petra marveled. “I knew it, I knew it!”

  “Think that means they’re in a crowd of other pieces of art? Like the ‘faces’ thing? Or just that they’re together?” Calder asked. “Or wait — maybe it means they’re alive and not alone because of us.”

  “I think it means ghosts are real,” Tommy muttered.

  “I think it means we never see all if we’re alive, like she says in her Truth book, and that keeps us looking and finding.” Early paused.

  Zoomy said instantly, “Exactly, like when you pick crops, you have to peek under and around. And the not-alone part could be when you share what you find.”

  “I always liked Mrs. Farmer’s ideas about not being alone, too,” Eagle said, looking up at the floors of dark windows.

  “Do you have your own copy of the red book?” Petra asked.

  “I’m a careful reader,” he said evenly. “Hate to say it, but we have to stop now in order to get by the guards outside. I’m going to ask whether we can borrow her Ouija equipment.”

  The answer, again, was a swift Yes, followed by a Good Bye.

  “That’s it.” Eagle reached over and whisked the old board and planchette into his backpack next to the soggy set. “We need to get going, before someone figures out you’re not where you’re supposed to be. But first let’s thank her for welcoming us.”

  The kids did, realizing how comfortable they’d become in this dark web of fountains, ferns, and ancient things.

  Early suddenly had a clear flash of the Rembrandt painting with the man and woman, and felt she was ready — ready to do whatever it took to rescue the art stolen from Mrs. Farmer’s home. Ready to protect the people in all of these paintings, plus the brass eagle and Ku. Ready to keep them safe, the ones waiting calmly as well as the ones in the storm.

  She felt powerful, and that felt good.

  “I don’t want to leave,” Tommy said.

  Zoomy nodded. “Yeah, we could have a great campout in here.”

  As the six stepped out of the basement door and back into the yard, congratulating one another quietly on a job well done, all gasped.

  No!

  A blinding spotlight snapped on in their faces, its circular beam a violent echo of the round and distant moon.

  “You’re under arrest,” boomed a deep voice. The five kids and the man with the backpack found themselves surrounded by police.

  When in trouble, people feel bad for many reasons and in many ways, and feeling bad with friends is different from feeling bad inside a family. Trust stretches and sometimes breaks within both groups, and explanations can’t always be public. Humiliation and disappointment turn to anger, and uncertainty becomes suspicion. It would have been impossible to say which person, from within the four decades represented in the police station that night, felt the worst.

  A dog walker had spotted a window opening and then closing on the top floor of the Farmer that night and alerted the police, who had then phoned the guards at the Farmer. They, in turn, had called for reinforcements and an extra patrol unit, despite rumors about a faulty window lock. One mentioned a “difficulty” that night in the courtyard but refused to provide details, adding a general sense of urgency and panic. The external patrol and the backup team had been about to unlock the basement door when it opened on its own, releasing the kids and Eagle.

  Parents scowled and scolded. Gam looked sad, which made Zoomy look sadder. The other kids grew quiet but defensive. Ms. Hussey was deathly pale. Eagle, oddly, was the only one who didn’t look upset.

  He was booked by the police for trespassing and theft of the Ouija board, and then released on bail by Mrs. Sharpe, who had been driven to the police station by Ms. Hussey. Armed with her lion’s head cane, the old woman appeared in a long nightgown covered by her elegant red coat. Early’s dad, who didn’t have a car, was picked up by Petra’s mom, who also picked up Tommy’s mom and Gam.

  The antique Ouija board and planchette were slipped into a box labeled EVIDENCE, with a promise from the police that they’d be returned to the Farmer as soon as possible.

  That night, beneath a dented moon, the five kids lay awake thinking, their questions floating out across Hyde Park.

  Did they really have to stop this investigation? They’d promised the police, but how could they abandon Mrs. Farmer? And what about the stolen art? What if it was counting on them? Hadn’t that art, after all, reached out to each of the kids, each painting in its own way? Didn’t that prove the power of Sarah Chase Farmer’s ideas?

  They hadn’t talked about a ghost while in the police station, especially after the detective had accused them of doing “nonsense voodoo” in there. But it wasn’t voodoo and it wasn’t nonsense, any more than Mrs. Farmer’s writing about art was nonsense. It was rude to even question how real she was, wasn’t it? They’d never behave like the rich trustees who’d ignored Ms. Hussey’s hand on that first visit to the museum, when she’d held it out to steady anyone who needed it. Hadn’t Mrs. Farmer held out her hand to them tonight? How could they turn away?

  Everyone was in the deeps now, and didn’t that make things clearer? A ghost had interacted with the living, that much was obvious, and Mrs. Farmer had definitely had something to say. But maybe they’d gotten her confused. Maybe they should have asked her where the art was, instead of asking what her great-nephew had tried so hard to say before he died. Would a ghost know what someone else in her family was thinking?

  Oh, no, a horrible thought — what if Eagle had somehow made up the messages he recorded in that dark courtyard? After all, the kids couldn’t really see the center of the planchette each time it stopped. And what if Eagle had opened that window on the top floor and a draft had made the Ouija board and pointer fly off? What if he’d played a soft recording to make them think they were hearing ghostly sounds? What if … and if so, why?

  What could the message mean? If you wrote it out, it would look like this:

  FIND (or FINE) ARTS 6. Of course they were trying to find the fine arts! And why the 6? Was it the six of them in that building, the six trustees, or yet another six? F was the sixth letter in the alpha
bet … But why would the dying man, Mr. Chase, spell out F and then A if he was trying to communicate two complete words? It didn’t make sense. He should have said F-I. Wouldn’t F-A be the start of a single word, and not the first letters of two words?

  In one house in Hyde Park that night, a cat curled on the sofa between an old person and someone much younger. They sat up late, talking.

  When they finally headed to bed, the cat meowed, stretched, and followed one of the two upstairs. There he sharpened his claws happily on an old quilt covered with musicians and instruments. Rip! He popped threads, and then circled twice before settling down.

  * * *

  Gam’s cell phone rang before Zoomy was even awake.

  “A good-bye tea?” she asked. “Well, perhaps … Yes, I’m glad you caught us before we headed home … Not at all, this has been an amazing experience for my grandson … Two o’clock then, we’ll be out front.”

  Next, phones rang in four households in the neighborhood, disturbing spoons lifted over cold cereal and dishes piled around sinks.

  “I see … chaperoned …”

  “Well, I’m still concerned, but …”

  “As long as that Eagle fellow doesn’t go …”

  The invitation and the responses that followed made the morning light a little less gloomy to the five kids. Perhaps it was possible for five thirteen-year-olds to move past the humiliation and shock of being hauled off to the police station in the middle of the night. This humiliation had an extra sting — no police had wanted to hear what the kids believed were game-changing messages. They’d tried, but no one official had listened.

  Although the five had been grounded and weren’t allowed to meet before Mrs. Sharpe picked them up in a limousine hours later, they were allowed to use their cell phones, and they did. Soon the world began to feel a little less unfair and heartless; tea with Mrs. Sharpe and Ms. Hussey would mean, of course, tea plus a sharing of ideas. Having a chance to talk about what had just happened in the Farmer meant not giving up on the investigation — at least, not yet.