Map of the Passages: 3 (Enchanted Emporium)

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  Chapter One:

  SPARKS, TORCHES, & A BONFIRE

  Chapter Two:

  SIGNS, STONES, & THE NIGHT

  Chapter Three:

  DELAYS, WATCHES, & WAITING

  Chapter Four:

  WHISPERS, WORDS, & SCREAMS

  Chapter Five:

  THE COOK, THE SEAMSTRESS, & THE GIRL

  Chapter Six:

  FAMILIES, HOUSES, & OTHER WORLDS

  Chapter Seven:

  THE OTHER, THE OTHERS, & OURS

  Chapter Eight:

  THE CLIFF, THE BURNT FOREST, & A LITTLE GIRL

  Chapter Nine:

  THIEVES, SHIPWRECKS, & MURDERERS

  Chapter Ten:

  THE BOAT, THE REEF, & THE TOWER

  Chapter Eleven:

  CLIMBING, WAITING, & JUMPING

  Chapter Twelve:

  THE STREAM, THE MILL, & THE KEY

  Chapter Thirteen:

  A CLOISTER, AN APPLE TREE, & FIRE

  Chapter Fourteen:

  INTRUDERS, BUSYBODIES, & RUNNERS

  Chapter Fifteen:

  TENTS, HIDEOUTS, & TRAPS

  Chapter Sixteen:

  SEMUELD, FINLEY, & AIBY

  Chapter Seventeen:

  BOXES, TRUNKS, & CASKETS

  Chapter Eighteen:

  MISTAKES, CIRCUMSTANCES, & OPPORTUNITIES

  Chapter Nineteen:

  SECONDS, SECOND CHANCES, & A SECOND PLAN

  Chapter Twenty:

  MY BROTHER, HER BROTHER, & THE OTHERS

  Chapter Twenty-One:

  DAWN, MIDDAY, & EVENING

  Chapter Twenty-Two:

  THE DEFENDER, THE PILLAR OF SALT, & THE TWO KINGS

  Chapter Twenty-Three:

  LOVE, TRUST, & JEALOUSY

  My father, my brother, and I headed to old lady Cumai’s funeral. It was nearly dusk when we reached the top of the hill. Long clouds were shooting across the horizon like arrows without a target. Like the line of men emerging from the village, too. All of the men — and only the men.

  We were all dressed in black. Since I didn’t have any black clothing, my mom altered one of my grandfather’s suits to fit me. She made me stand with my arms and legs spread wide so she could measure me and stick pins in the fabric. She hemmed it with white thread as a test run before sewing the real hem. She said, “Be still, Finley!” at least a hundred times, and I tried to — I really did. But I’d never been any good at staying still. My nose suddenly itched. My knees creaked. My toes tingled. And I longed to jump, run, pedal, climb, throw a rock, or run away — anything but stand still. Even in school I was constantly restless. It’s probably the reason I failed the last semester.

  As my mom poked and prodded and pulled at my grandfather’s suit, I prayed that the agony of altering would be over soon. “It’s not my fault I can’t stay still,” I told her. “Patches keeps jumping on me.”

  Patches, my faithful adventuring companion (and scapegoat), looked up with his watery eyes from under the couch where he was resting. My mom tugged me away from him — and a little closer to the light.

  It had gone on like that for two hours. Me fidgeting, my mother scolding. But as I climbed to the top of the hill with my dad and my brother, I decided it was kind of cool that we were all dressed in black. There was something important and ancient about it.

  When we arrived at the top of the hill, Reverend Prospero had his back to the sea. He was muttering some psalm while two farmers stooped over the tein-eigin, a tool we would use to light the pyre. It was the first time I’d seen one. Well, the first time I’d seen one actually being used.

  The tein-eigin is a board made of new oak with a hole in the middle. You spin a drill into the hole, also made of oak, and it begins to shoot sparks.

  I watched the two men prepare the tool from behind my father’s back. He seemed larger than ever in his black jacket, like one of those heroes whose deeds you read about in books while the winter wind blows or the sea roars ominously in the background.

  Old lady Cumai had requested the bonfire on the hill for her funeral. She must have spoken about it with Reverend Prospero in person, or perhaps with Frankie del Latte? I couldn’t imagine either scenario. Cumai had always been a mystery to me, just like the old mill that had been her home (which looked nothing like a mill). She was an eccentric woman with large blue eyes and a long neck like a daisy stem. I said hello to her every once in a while when I went fishing, but I never really spoke to her in all my thirteen and a half years. Now I was sorry for that. It’s a terrible feeling to go to the funeral of someone whose voice you can’t even remember.

  I followed my father’s lead and stood in the circle around the unlit bonfire with the other men. “Did you check to make sure you don’t have any iron in your pockets?” my father asked me.

  I nodded. His mood was as black as his clothing. It wasn’t the first funeral we’d gone to together, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was without a doubt the strangest one.

  It was one of those typical Scottish moments. You couldn’t help using the word “magic” to describe the behavior of the men and our surroundings. The sea wind cut sharply across the top of the hill, shrieking as it rose along our backs below the rocky mountain peaks. The many islands in the bay stood out of the water like mysterious pyramids, seemingly waiting for something to happen. On the faces of the other men, I saw the same deep sadness that had caught hold of my father. Mr. McStay, Professor Everett, McBlack from Scary Villa —they all had a hard time looking at each other. Seamus Santangelo, the TV antenna installer, was also there. So was the Wild Thresher, and even Michael Fionnbhurd, the pub boy, whom I’d never before seen outside the pub. His pants were so short that his calves were bare, but there he was, next to the rest of us. Beside him were the baritones from the Island Choir and Jules the postman.

  Jules came over to greet us as soon as he saw me. He was holding his hat in his hands as if to apologize, yet again, for when he had almost run me over with his postal van.

  “Hello, Mr. Camas,” he whispered to my father. “Hey, kids.”

  “Hi, Jules,” Doug answered, patting Jules on the shoulder. “Got any mail for me?”

  My brother’s sense of humor was weird like that — cracking jokes at a funeral. But Jules smiled all the same. Then he looked at me uncertainly, the way someone does when they think they’re seeing a ghost.

  I shook Jules’s hand firmly to convince him that it was really me and that I hadn’t died in the accident on the coastal road. “I finally got around to writing a will,” I said to him.

  I’d meant it as a joke, but Jules’s eyes widened in astonishment. “You, too?”

  That’s when I realized the experience had affected Jules as much as me. I nodded, and Jules left to take his place at the pyre.

  The stack of wood in the center of our circle was a twelve-foot-tall pile of oak branches placed on a bunch of straw, broom, and heather. As I began to ask my father about the pyre, Reverend Prospero motioned for me to shut my mouth.

  We waited in silence for the sun to set.

  Time passed slowly. When the sun finally began to dip below the sea, a strange murmuring spread through the circle of men. They were watching two figures struggle up the stone path. The moment I recognized them, my heart jumped into my throat. It was Aiby Lily and her father, the owners of the Enchanted Emporium.

&
nbsp; I thought I saw Reverend Prospero mouth a silent prayer as Locan Lily limped closer, held up by his daughter with difficulty. The two made slow, painful progress due to the nasty gunshot wound Mr. Lily was still recovering from. Across the fire, Mr. McBlack turned even paler than normal — probably because he was the one who’d accidentally shot Mr. Lily.

  “What are you waiting for, you third-rate gentlemen!” Reverend Prospero boomed, pointing at Aiby and her father. “Do you really expect a little girl to carry Locan all the way up to the top by herself?”

  Doug was faster than I was — he ran over and offered his broad back as a support for Mr. Lily’s other arm. Mr. Everett did the same on the other side, taking Aiby’s position. They were the only two to leave their positions in the circle. The rest of the men shuffled their feet in the grass, barely hiding their annoyance at the latest arrivals.

  In my foolishness, I figured their irritation was just standard Scottish mistrust. But as my brother and Mr. Everett accompanied Locan to the bonfire, I realized there was something else annoying the other men. It wasn’t Mr. Lily who made them grit their teeth — it was Aiby. She was the only woman present at the funeral.

  What that meant, I didn’t know, but I knew there had to be a reason for the rule. I also knew I’d never find the courage to ask anyone about it because there would be no point. Scottish traditions are steeped in mystery.

  I gazed over at Aiby. She looked both proud and afraid at the same time — as if she somehow knew she’d violated an unwritten rule. Or a rule written in a dead language, though Aiby always insisted that no languages were dead.

  I looked out at the sea, which was turning into a melded quilt of colors. I never thought I’d see Aiby and her father at a Scottish funeral. To my embarrassment, I suppose I still sort of saw the Lilys as outsiders, too. As a matter of fact, none of us had taken the trouble to go to Reginald Bay to ask if the Lilys needed help after Locan had been shot. That is, except for Meb, the dressmaker.

  Aiby smiled at me as if she could read my mind. I dropped my gaze and blushed, which always happened to me when I was around her. Whenever she was near, I felt cloaked in a state of happy, awkward embarrassment that I didn’t know how to protect myself from. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my grandfather’s jacket.

  The sun had finally set. Reverend Prospero boomed, “Let us begin.”

  The men responsible for the fire began turning the drill in the hole. Soon, sizzling splinters spread into the air. The first scorching sparks set fire to the bunches of dried heather on the pile. Reverend Prospero watched in silence, his grim face following the sparks as they danced upon the air.

  I was wiggling my fingers in my pockets, unable to stay still, when I felt something in the lining of my jacket. I fingered the strange object and tried to free it by moving it slowly so that no one would notice. It was flat, round, and small like a coin. Inch by inch I managed to push it out of a hole in the pocket that it must have originally gotten in through.

  I examined it in the glare of the fire. It really was a coin. An ancient one. How long had my grandfather owned this jacket? I flipped the coin between my fingers. There was a head on each side of the coin: a man’s face on one side, a woman’s face on the other.

  “Uh-oh,” I whispered. There was one thing that my father had warned me about this evening: make absolutely sure not to have even the smallest metal object with us. Not a key nor a coin — nothing at all. He’d told me it was extremely important. Another one of those traditions steeped in mystery, I guess. And so I’d put all my keys into my secret box beneath my bed where I keep all my precious things.

  I bit my lip, worried without knowing why. One of the branches of dried heather caught fire, so McStay lifted it above his head in order to slip it underneath the bonfire. Pretending to cough from the smoke, I used the distraction to take one, two, three quick steps back, leaving the circle of men. I turned abruptly and threw the strange coin toward the sea with all my strength. I didn’t hear it fall due to the flames crackling behind me.

  A yellow flame had spread among the dry branches. It rose rapidly, like a cloak of light. I rejoined the circle, inching closer until the flames tickled my cheeks.

  Then Mr. Everett pointed at the horizon and said, “Look.” Bonfires had been lit on several of the other islands in the bay. Counting ours, there were seven in all.

  Inspired by a vague sense of unity, we stood tall and silent, relishing the warmth of the crackling fire. Then, after the flames had died down and the stacked-up pieces of wood had collapsed inward, all the men in the circle picked up a stone from the ground. One by one, the men placed the stones around the embers.

  My father handed stones to me and my brother. “Put them in front of your feet at the edge of the fire and memorize the point of the circle where you are now.”

  My stone was yellow and as sharp as a knife. I arranged it next to Doug’s and heard them click against each other. Aiby placed two stones since Mr. Lily couldn’t bend over to do it himself.

  Then we walked in a line, one by one, back toward the village. Only Reverend Prospero remained at the top of the hill. He made the sign of the cross in front of himself. Then, once he was fairly sure no one could see him, he made another gesture toward the sea: he intertwined his fingers over his heart, then stretched out his left hand as if he were greeting the night.

  Our little group set off slowly along the same path we’d come. We were headed to the Greenlock, the only pub in Applecross.

  As we walked along in single file, I tried to slip away from my dad so I could stroll alongside Aiby and her father. I kept walking slower, carefully retreating step by step toward the end of the line where they were. When I reached Mr. Everett and Seamus, I walked in stride with them a bit in order to listen to what they were saying about the starry sky. It seemed especially bright to me that night.

  Mr. Everett was a retired university professor who had withdrawn from the bustle of the city. He was a friendly person who spent most of his time smoking a pipe and chatting amiably. I didn’t think his Curious Traveler shop made much money, but that didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Do you know how to read the stars, Everett?” Seamus asked.

  “No, but I’d certainly like to learn,” Mr. Everett said.

  “I don’t know how to, either,” Seamus said. “I doubt I could even read their instruction manual.”

  “My mother knew how to read palms,” Mr. Everett said. “And she said that being able to read the lines in the palm was just like being able to read the stars.”

  Seamus nodded solemnly. “They’re the imprints of time,” he said.

  Mr. Everett smiled. “The handwriting of time,” he said. He noticed me at that point and sought my approval with a nod.

  But I looked away and I drew back sharply, practically landing in Aiby’s arms. “It’s important to learn how to read signs, don’t you agree?” she teased me. She knew how hard it was for me to learn any language, let alone enchanted ones.

  “I suppose,” I admitted, more amused than embarrassed. I quickly changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to see you at the funeral.”

  “Dad insisted,” Aiby said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Aiby shrugged. “Because he did.” Then she took me by the arm. “But tomorrow we need to speak to you and Meb,” she whispered, clinging to me. “We have some very bad news.”

  “What kind of bad news?” I asked.

  “It’s not the kind of thing you can talk about at a funeral,” Aiby said. “But I’ve never seen Dad this worried before.”

  I grunted. “Terrific,” I said. “What kind of danger are we going face this time around? Stone giants? Green Men who gamble for souls? Werewolf Sheep?”

  “I said we’d talk about it tomorrow. At the store,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.

  I noticed Reverend Prospero was bring
ing up the rear along with two fishermen.

  “I have to be at the church tomorrow morning at eight,” I reminded her. “For work.”

  “Meb is coming by at nine,” Aiby said. “Try to be there if you can, Finley.”

  “I don’t know if I can, Aiby,” I said.

  “Then come before going to see Prospero,” she added. “At six.”

  The mere idea of pedaling along the coastal road at six in the morning made me gag. I felt a shiver in my bones — the kind you get when you put your feet onto the cold floor an hour before dawn.

  I pointed to the brightly lit pub shining warmly at the end of the path. “Can’t we talk about it at the Greenlock?” I asked.

  Aiby shook her head. “We can’t stay. We have the Good Night Heels to take us back home, but unfortunately they’re only safe to use before midnight.”

  “I could go with you,” I offered.

  Aiby released my arm and smiled at me. “That’s nice of you, but it’s not necessary. But if you really want to do something for me . . .”

  I would’ve jumped off a cliff for her, but it didn’t seem necessary to tell her that. At this point, I had to admit to myself that I’d fallen in love with her. The thought had been bothering me for days now. I felt like a guy in one of those romance novels. You see, mine was an impossible love. Not only was Aiby six inches taller than me, but I also suspected she was two years older and liked my brother, Doug. Three simple clues that made me realize I was out of the running before the race had even begun. My brother was captain of the rugby team and had already explained to me several times that this impresses girls right away.

  “ . . . jump off a cliff?” I half-muttered in response. My thoughts were too jumbled to get them back in order.

  Aiby laughed and pulled an antique silver timepiece out of her pocket, complete with a chain. “Nothing as dramatic as that,” she said. “I just want you to always keep this with you.”

  I may have been naive, but I wasn’t completely foolish. Aiby and her father’s store was filled with magical objects, so I was pretty certain that this seemingly worn-out watch had some sort of mysterious power.