Knavery: A Ripple Novel (Ripple Series Book 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  “You’re not telling me everything,” said Katrin.

  “And we’re wasting time,” Georg responded. “Time Hanna and Michel and Leopold may not have. So write a letter telling Pfeffer and Martina they can trust me now. And put something in there that only Martina would know, so that she knows it’s you.”

  Katrin’s eyes glinted with victory. “She is alive, then.”

  Georg looked away, exasperated to have given so much away.

  “Bring me some paper,” said Katrin, imperious once more.

  Georg held out his phone. “You can type it in here.”

  “No. I don’t want you to read it.”

  Georg bristled, but Katrin didn’t notice his response. A soft smile had bloomed across her face.

  “Bring me an envelope, too,” she said. “I want the letter sealed.”

  Georg was close to rolling his eyes. As if a sealed envelope could keep him from reading the contents of her letter.

  “And promise you won’t read it,” said Katrin.

  “Very well,” lied Georg. “I promise.”

  He retrieved the items and brought them back to Katrin’s chamber. When he returned, Katrin was sitting on the floor beside Hanna, saying, “Wake up,” in all the languages the children had been taught as part of their Angel Corps education.

  “Any luck?” asked Georg.

  “Does she look awake to you?” Katrin replied curtly.

  She took the paper and pen and composed a very short message. “No looking!” she said as she sealed the envelope. “You wouldn’t like it anyway,” she added, drily.

  “I’d better go,” said Georg, taking the envelope. “It will take over an hour to get to Las Abuelitas.” As soon as he’d said it, he cursed himself for giving away one of his chief secrets: the location of Martina and the others.

  But Katrin wasn’t in a position to vanish on her own. Georg felt a tug of guilt. He’d stolen a small amount of a serum marked as an antidote to Neuroprine. He ought to have offered it to Katrin, but he wanted her to rely on him. To see him as her savior. No, she didn’t need her ability back yet. And besides, what good would it do her if she wasn’t planning to leave without her foster siblings, anyway?

  Ten minutes later, Georg had restored Hanna and Katrin to their respective invisible slumbers. At Katrin’s suggestion, he left her awake before placing her back into invisibility. Once he was alone in the hall outside her room, he tore open the envelope and read the message.

  Dearest Martina,

  I write to tell you I’m not dead. Well, obviously. I couldn’t very well write to tell you if I was dead, now could I? Anyway, I know you’ll want proof it’s me, so here’s your proof: when we were little, we used to make fun of Georg by calling him “Ge-raffe” behind his back. You know, that wasn’t so clever, really. I’m sure we could have done better if we’d set our minds to it. Anyway, please do everything in your power to help Ge-raffe to free Hanna, Michel, and Leopold, the siblings with whom I was placed after I was taken away from you all. You won’t have heard this, but I grew up thinking you were all dead. Yet another of dear Uncle Fritzi’s lies. Anyway, Hanna and Michel and Leopold comforted me greatly when I was growing up, thinking I’d lost all of you. I couldn’t have survived without them. Hanna especially.

  It feels like too much to hope I’ll see you again. But I am hoping anyway.

  With all my love,

  Kathmandu

  (Now, that was a clever nickname, eh, Martinique?)

  Georg grunted and placed the letter in a fresh envelope, sealing it carefully. The letter stirred memories of the years when Katrin had played the two of them—Georg and Martina—against one another, amused by their antipathies. It had hurt. It had hurt because he was soft, then. He wouldn’t let it hurt him now. Softness was just weakness in disguise.

  He tucked the envelope in a pocket and began the race against the clock to reach Las Abuelitas, California and return to San Francisco before Fritz did.

  18

  JUMPING ON LEAF PILES

  Skandor exited the building after Georg’s dismissal with half a mind to return and visit Katrin. He hadn’t managed to see her yet, judging it too risky to visit when Georg and Gottlieb were there. And they were always there.

  So should he just say “to Niflheim with it” and to talk to her anyway? He hesitated, on the point of turning back. He went as far as ducking into a deep doorway to turn invisible. But there was something in the way Georg had looked at him—as though he knew Skandor was up to something. Did Georg suspect him? Skandor strolled invisibly around the block, replaying all of the interactions he’d had with the claw-fingered nephew.

  San Francisco was still dark, the towering buildings black against the grey morning sky. It was Columbus Day weekend. There had been talk, once, of Skandor coming home for the long weekend. He had accepted a Monday holiday shift—minus the holiday overtime pay—but there was still enough time for him to board a bus invisibly and surprise his parents with a call from the bus station.

  Midgard Adventure! Camp would be empty of campers, now, the October leaves spilled in red and gold glory along the empty paths from cabins to campfire to pond. Lake Oslo would be rimed with ice in the early mornings before the weak autumn sun melted it away. A piercing longing filled him: home.

  Well, that was unexpected. He didn’t even like his home. How many times had he rolled his eyes at the weeping campers as they piled in mini-vans and busses to go back down to the Valley or Los Angeles or the Bay Area. How he’d envied them. They got to leave; he was stuck.

  But now he thought it might be very nice to breathe in that cold Midgard air. How he missed the caramel scent of the sugar pines. By now, of course, the flowing pine sap wouldn’t be fragrant anymore. The air back home would be tinged instead with the autumn scent of tender perennials slowly composting as the cold nights killed what was above ground. There would only be the sharp scent of cedar, pine, and fir—a land of Christmas trees, green the year round. Was he homesick?

  No.

  And he wasn’t going home.

  Even if Katrin hadn’t entered into the equation, going home now would be like admitting his parents had been right: that there was no place like Camp Midgard. But Katrin was part of the equation now. As was the existence of other cloakers. And Skandor’s confusion about what it meant to use his gift. He’d come to San Francisco to discover his destiny, but all he’d found were bigger and bigger questions.

  He heard the rumble of a muscle car and turned to see a Maserati Gran Turismo rumbling alongside the trolley tracks. Now, that was a ride. Skandor hopped invisibly onto the hood of the sports car, catching a unique perspective of San Francisco’s rollercoaster streets. As the car idled at a red light, the motor was so loud it reminded him of the last time Fritz Gottlieb had ordered his helicopter to land on the building’s roof. And then Skandor’s cloaked heart seized with a horrible realization.

  The guard Skandor had relieved last night had mentioned the helicopter had been called over. And it hadn’t returned—not on Skandor’s shift, anyway—which meant Gottlieb was gone. And if Gottlieb was gone, Georg might be planning to use the opportunity to spring Katrin free.

  Maybe he’d already done so.

  What had Skandor been thinking, leaving the building today? Something in his invisible heart compressed, as though a winter snowpack was burying him alive. He raced back to the Geneses building, gliding like a skater on ice.

  At last the tall stone building stood before him. Still invisible, he soared upward to the breach in the perimeter on the fourth floor. Then he raced down to see if Georg was still in the security office.

  He wasn’t.

  Mr. Samson, the day shift guard, sat in the office alone, mining for gold in his left nostril. Skandor turned aside in disgust. As he did so, he noticed the monitors on the tenth floor had been disabled.

  Georg! Georg must be planning to steal away with Katrin this weekend: today—now!

  Skandor panicked. Wou
ld he be too late? But even as he raced to the tenth floor, a quiet voice asked what right he had to interfere, anyway? Wasn’t Georg making sure Katrin would be safe? Wasn’t that what Skandor wanted?

  It certainly wasn’t all he wanted.

  Besides, he didn’t trust Georg. You simply didn’t let dragons “rescue” people.

  Skandor arrived at the top floor, heading for Katrin’s chamber, praying she’d still be there. He nearly tumbled headlong through Georg, who was standing in the hallway beside Katrin’s room, reading a letter.

  Katrin was nowhere to be seen. Skandor paused in the hall and then, curious, he looked over Georg’s shoulder to read the letter. It was signed “Kathmandu,” but Skandor thought the writer sounded an awful lot like Katrin.

  Georg refolded the letter, placing it in a fresh envelope, writing “To Martina” on the outside.

  Skandor felt a pulse of indignation that Georg—or Ge-raffe—was reading the correspondence when it clearly had not been written to him or by him, seeing as it referred to him with a childhood nickname. Skandor could have suggested a few better names.

  Now Georg was examining a map on his smart phone, so Skandor examined it, too. Georg was going somewhere called Las Abuel—click! The phone snapped to black and Georg muttered, “Time to go.”

  Turning away from Katrin’s door, Georg headed for the stairwell with the faulty cameras.

  Georg was traveling without Katrin? Skandor followed Georg just long enough to make sure he was really heading downstairs. He was. Georg was really leaving. And Dr. Gottlieb was already gone! Skandor burst into a run, heading back to the chamber where Katrin rested. He would talk to Katrin right now and work out a way to rescue her before anyone knew she was gone.

  In under a minute, Skandor had entered her room, grabbed her invisible body, and pulled her back to full alertness.

  “Oh,” she said, “I wondered if I would ever see you again.”

  “Here I am,” replied Skandor. And then his face fell. “Oh. I forgot something. Wait right here.”

  “Um, okay,” replied Katrin. “Lack of other options, and all.”

  Skandor grinned and disappeared. He raced to his monitoring office where Mr. Samson was still … doing unpleasant things. Skandor grabbed invisibly for the equally invisible tin of cookies he’d hoisted and left in mid-air several weeks earlier because it had amused him to think of the container of pepparkakors hovering invisibly in the office.

  A moment later he appeared in Katrin’s room. She was doing calisthenics. Her skin glowed rosy and the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead made her look more like a warrior-alf than ever. He was smitten. He was in deep. He was supposed to do something and he couldn’t remember what it was. And then he saw the tin of cookies.

  “These are for you,” he said, holding out the tin.

  She stopped moving and stared at Skandor. “You brought me … cookies?”

  “They’re pepparkakor. Spice cookies. They’re really good with coffee.” His face fell. “I forgot coffee. Should I get you some coffee, too?”

  Katrin’s laughter filled the room like sunshine after a Sierra thundershower. “No, thank you. No one’s ever brought me cookies before. I think if you brought coffee, I might pass out from shock.”

  Skandor grinned. “I thought we could have a visit. And my grandmother says you can’t visit someone without bringing something.”

  “A very sensible woman,” said Katrin. Having wrenched the lid from the tin, she picked up one of the cookies.

  They were heart-shaped. Skandor felt his own heart skip a beat. His face flushed red.

  “I didn’t mean anything by the hearts,” he stammered. “I should have bought the plain round ones. Sorry.”

  Katrin just smiled and took a second cookie. “They’re delicious.”

  “I mean, you’re very pretty, and—” Skandor broke off. He couldn’t think of the rest of the words to go with the “and.” His neck and chest burned.

  “It’s fine,” said Katrin, “I love them. You could bring me cookies in the shape of someone giving me the finger and I’d eat them.”

  Skandor hooted with laughter. “They should make cookies like that.”

  “They really should,” agreed Katrin. “I would send some to Uncle Fritzi.” Katrin held the tin out, offering Skandor the cookies.

  He accepted.

  “I don’t mean anything by the hearts,” she said. “Some dweeb gave them to me.”

  Skandor laughed out loud, sending crumbs flying out of his mouth.

  Katrin groaned and brushed crumbs off her shirt. “Disgusting! Your grandmother clearly neglected to teach you proper manners.”

  Skandor decided he was just going to have to get used to his face being red. “Oma tried,” he muttered. “Listen. I didn’t come just to bring you cookies.”

  One of Katrin’s brows arched high.

  Skandor stared and swallowed hard. She was remarkably beautiful. Golden-haired Sif herself couldn’t have been lovelier. Taking another cookie, he tried to focus his attention on it, instead.

  “I came here to see if you had that rescue plan worked out yet.”

  He glanced up at Katrin. She was frowning.

  “Skandor, you really don’t want to be dragged into all this with Fritz and Georg. Trust me.”

  “I’m not worried about them,” he said, stuffing another cookie in his mouth.

  “I’m leaving with Georg,” she said.

  Skandor nearly swallowed his cookie whole. “Now I’m worried,” he managed to choke out.

  Katrin’s mouth pulled into half a smile which tugged the corners of her eyes. Her beautiful grey eyes. Skandor looked away.

  “You shouldn’t trust him,” he said quietly. His eyes flicked back to her face. It was too much work to look anywhere else.

  “Georg?” She rolled her eyes. “What’s he done now?”

  “He read your letter. I saw him a few minutes ago.”

  “He was reading it?” Katrin’s eyes narrowed. She was angry.

  “Yup,” said Skandor. What was it to him if she was angry at Georg? Georg was a pig who deserved to wallow in flaming mud in Niflheim for reading Katrin’s private correspondence. Skandor wasn’t sure “flaming mud” was an actual thing, and anyway, in Niflheim it might be frozen mud, as Muspelheim was the proper place for anything flaming.

  “The little beast!” said Katrin. She pursed her mouth and then she muttered, “Not that I’m surprised. Georg was always a … a pig.”

  Skandor looked up. “I was thinking that, myself,” he said.

  Katrin had risen and was now pacing back and forth in the tiny room. “I told him he wasn’t to read it. He watched me seal it in an envelope.”

  “I watched him unseal the envelope,” said Skandor. He didn’t mind Katrin’s anger; when her eyes flashed fire like that, she looked like brave Freyja.

  “Do you know,” said Katrin, “I’m almost ready to take off with you now, just so I can tell Georg what he can do with his rescue plan!”

  “Okay,” said Skandor. “I’m ready. Just say the word. Oh, and I have a plan for your, um, is she a sister? Hanna?”

  At the mention of Hanna, all the fight seemed to leak out of Katrin like when they collapsed Camp Midgard’s bounce house at summer’s end.

  “Oh, Skandor, I can’t go with you.” She sat and picked at the crumbs on her lap. “We don’t know how to awaken Hanna. My password doesn’t work on her. That’s why Georg left with that letter—to try to find someone who knows what the original password was for Hanna. Well, the password for all of us Angel Corps survivors.”

  “Angel Corps?” asked Skandor, his eyes wide. “You’re part of that group that made thousands of people get sick?”

  Katrin’s voice was flat as she spoke. “I’m part of the group that made thousands of people die, not just get sick.”

  Skandor didn’t think it would help to explain that he’d meant “get sick and die.”

  “I can’t imagine what that m
ust have been like for you,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I mean, I knew it was Geneses that was behind that effort, and I didn’t have a problem accepting a position with them, obviously—”

  “Can we talk about something else?” asked Katrin, her face lined with pain.

  “Oh—of course. I’m sorry. What would you like to talk about?”

  “Anything,” she said. She looked badly in need of distraction. “Tell me about that … Scandia-camp of yours.”

  Skandor beamed, delighted she’d remembered. “What do you want to know?”

  “What would you be doing there right now?” asked Katrin.

  “Jumping from the lodge roof onto ginormous leaf piles,” Skandor replied, grinning. He broke his cookie up into smaller and smaller bits.

  “That sounds like a great job! Why did you leave?”

  “Oh,” said Skandor. “I misunderstood your question. Camp Midgard is done for the summer. Jumping on leaf piles wasn’t what I did for work.”

  “That’s too bad. It sounds like fun.”

  Skandor nodded. “You should see our leaf piles—they’re terrifying. Whole villages could disappear inside, never to be heard from again.”

  Katrin giggled and took another cookie. “Okay, so if it were summer, what would you be doing right now?”

  Skandor shrugged and brushed crumbs off his pants. He was going to have to clean that before he left. Unless Katrin left with him. Which was still a possibility. He imagined the headlines scrolling across the bottom of his grandma’s television: Girl kidnapped—crumbs the only clue as to her whereabouts!

  “You’d be….” Katrin left the sentence unfinished, gesturing with her hand for him to finish.

  “Oh. Sorry,” said Skandor. “Probably washing a hundred and twenty knives, forks, spoons, plates, and cups from breakfast.”

  “Wow. That sounds glamorous.”

  “Or snaking a toilet. I swear the girls have contests to see how fast they can clog what I spent two hours un-clogging.”

  “How old did you say these girls are?”

  “Middle school, pretty much. Ten to fourteen.”

  “Ah, ripe for their first crush on the handsome maintenance man.” Katrin’s eyebrows waggled.