Knavery: A Ripple Novel (Ripple Series Book 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  “Waldhart de Rochefort is no friend to me, Martina.”

  Martina was staring at his fingers. He was fidgeting again. Georg shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his shoes.

  “I’m no friend to you either, Georg, not after the way you let Hansel die,” snapped his sister.

  Georg felt the words like a blow to his gut. His loss was a fresh gash, cruelly sown with grains of salt.

  Martina continued. “But if Katrin is alive, I’m willing to declare a truce.”

  Georg nodded curtly, turning his mind from the loss of Hansel. Now was the time to think of what he could gain, not what he’d already lost.

  “You’d better be telling the truth, Georg,” said Martina, shaking her head. Then she turned to the door. “Come on.”

  “Will Pfeffer be there, too?”

  Martina frowned and released a sigh of exasperation. “Yes. And Sam and Will and Mickie and, oh, everyone.”

  Georg hesitated. “The last time Pfeffer saw me—”

  “You behaved like an idiot. Like a criminal. What were you thinking, Georg?” She shook her head. “No. You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know what you were thinking. But if you want to help Katrin, you’d better prove it. Come with me and tell the others.”

  “You won’t let them … inject me with Neuroplex?”

  In response, Martina rolled her eyes. “Mon Dieu, Georg. I’d like to shoot you with Neuroplex, myself. But, no. I won’t let them take away your ability to vanish. You can come alongside me, invisibly, while we establish that. Then, come solid when you’re satisfied you’re safe.”

  “Can’t you ask them from here?” asked Georg. “I thought you could all communicate with one another using thoughts,” said Georg.

  “We can. But if I do that, how will you know what I actually said?” asked Martina, drily. “I assumed you would prefer the arrangements were discussed aloud, so you could listen in without getting a migraine.”

  “Yes,” replied Georg. “Yes, of course I would prefer that. That’s very … decent of you, Martina.”

  She grunted a low harrumph and instructed Georg to follow her in his invisible form.

  Which he did. An enormous sense of relief washed over him as he vanished from sight.

  Everything was going very well.

  20

  THAT WASN’T A KISS

  Skandor and Katrin were still talking, four hours later. The tin of cookies was empty and crumbs were spilled everywhere. It was the crumbs that were responsible for what happened next.

  “It would be bad if Uncle Fritz came back and saw this mess,” said Katrin.

  “He does have the personality of an extreme neat-nik,” agreed Skandor.

  “A … what?”

  “At camp, it’s what we call someone who obsesses over a tidy cabin.”

  “You’ve been saying ‘we’ an awful lot,” said Katrin. “Are you missing home?”

  Skandor frowned and used one hand to push the crumbs together. “I don’t know. The last two or three years, I hated being there. The pranks were all that got me through. Those and knowing it would all be over at the end of each summer.”

  “Hmm,” said Katrin.

  Skandor continued brushing crumbs over the smooth linoleum floor.

  “Come on,” said Katrin. “We need to find a dustpan or something.” She was standing, hands on hips, looking ready for anything.

  “Now you’re the one saying ‘we.’”

  “Yes,” replied Katrin. “I think it’s about time I got out of this stupid little room. I can’t think of anything more fun than hunting down cleaning supplies. Can you?”

  Skandor heard the sarcasm in her voice and smiled. “Nope.”

  “Let’s go,” she said, holding her arms out in front of her. “Take me.”

  Skandor felt his skin warming. He would very much like to take Katrin in his arms and vanish with her, but there was a more obvious solution.

  “Um, the door,” he said, indicating it with a tilt of his head.

  “We can’t get out that way,” said Katrin. “But it’s adorable that you think Uncle Fritz would leave me in a room that wasn’t locked.”

  “Oh,” said Skandor, embarrassed he hadn’t thought of this. And more than a little pleased that he would have to hold Katrin in his arms. He reached his hands around her small waist. It wasn’t at all like hugging Oma, the only person he still allowed to hug him. Katrin smelled better, for one thing. He couldn’t decide what the smell was. Uncle Fritz probably didn’t buy her perfume or even nicely scented shampoo and conditioner.

  “Hello?” said Katrin, interrupting his thoughts. “Are we going somewhere or not?”

  “Sorry,” said Skandor. He pulled his arms just a little tighter, enjoying the thrill of holding her for a split second before they were both invisible. Insubstantially, they passed through the wall of the chamber and out into the hall and down the unmonitored stairwell. And then, when they’d made it all the way inside a janitor’s closet on the eighth floor, Skandor brought them both solid. Automatic lights flicked on.

  “Oh,” cried Katrin, releasing her hold on Skandor. “Room fresheners!” She grabbed one from the shelf and sniffed at the package. “Mmm, vanilla! I’ll have to suggest that to Uncle Fritz. He’s making some skin care product and he brings it by to ask my opinion on the scents.”

  “Dr. Gottlieb is getting in the skin care business?” Skandor asked, skeptical.

  “Who knows what he’s up to?” shrugged Katrin. “Here’s a whisk broom. Where’s the dust pan?”

  “No one ever puts cleaning supplies back where they’re supposed to be,” said Skandor. “Trust me.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Katrin. “Here it is. Right next to toilet bowl cleaner. Because a dust pan is so helpful when you’re scrubbing the toilet.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Skandor. “Back to your room to tidy up?”

  Katrin’s eyes flickered to one side.

  “I mean, we don’t have to go back,” said Skandor. “Not right away.”

  “No, we should,” said Katrin. “Just let me breathe in a few more breaths of ‘Warm Vanilla Musk’ first.”

  Skandor shook his head. “Do people not know what ‘musk’ actually is? It’s disgusting.”

  “No. Disgusting is Uncle Fritz’s ‘Attar of Roses’ scent that he brought me two weeks ago. Well, he didn’t bring it. It sort of came along with him and I told him what I thought of his stinky new cologne, and then he started bringing things by for me to judge.”

  “That is just … weird.”

  “You’re telling me,” replied Katrin. “But he rewards me for helping him. With visits from Hanna.” She shrugged. “So I figure it’s worth it.”

  “I suppose so,” said Skandor. Now he understood why Katrin smelled so good.

  Katrin placed the room freshener back on the shelf and picked up the whisk broom. “Let’s go clean up,” she said. Skandor didn’t think she sounded very enthusiastic.

  “Okay, here’s what I think we should do,” said Skandor. “First, we go back to your room and sweep up all the incriminating evidence of my nefarious presence.”

  Katrin laughed.

  “And then,” continued Skandor, “we go hang out on the roof for awhile. When Fritz left, he took his helicopter. Therefore, it follows he’ll return that way. And the helicopter has to land on the roof, so we’ll have plenty of time to get you back where you belong.”

  Katrin nodded.

  “I mean, you do not belong there. At all.”

  Katrin smiled and leaned over and planted a kiss on Skandor’s extremely surprised cheek. “You’re sweet,” she said. “Shall we?” She held her arms out in readiness for another invisible journey.

  Skandor’s cheek burned where she’d kissed him. His brain felt as though it had been switched to the “off” position. He couldn’t form words or move or do anything for a count of three while Katrin stood there with her arms held wide, waiting.

  “You kis
sed me,” he said at last.

  “That wasn’t a kiss,” she said. “That was … a peck on the cheek.”

  Skandor felt a smile blooming across his face. “Well, anytime you want to show me a kiss, you just say the word.” He placed his arms around her waist once again, inhaling the subtle, sweet scent that clung to her hair and skin, and sighing very quietly, he cloaked them both into their invisible forms.

  Once they’d cleaned every last crumb, Skandor picked up the cookie tin and vanished with it. When he returned half a second later, he told Katrin what he’d done.

  “I stuck it in your wall, half-in, half-out,” he said. “So, even though you can’t see it, you’ll know it’s there.”

  “And Uncle Fritzi won’t!” Katrin laughed gleefully and brought her hands together. “How wonderful!”

  “I used to do that a lot, with stuff campers brought with them that they weren’t supposed to.”

  “Like drugs?” asked Katrin.

  “Worse,” said Skandor, his expression grim. “Potato chips and candy bars.”

  A sound like “pffft” escaped Katrin’s lips. The same lips that had just planted a not-kiss on Skandor’s cheek.

  “Are you staring at my mouth?” asked Katrin.

  “It’s a very nice mouth,” replied Skandor, shrugging slightly. Her lips were full and wide and red and—

  “Roof,” said Katrin. “Now. And stop staring at my lips like you’re going to eat them for dinner.”

  “Oh,” said Skandor. “We sort of missed lunch. It’ll be dinner soon. Do you want to have a picnic on the roof?”

  Katrin’s eyes lit up. “Yes, please!”

  Within five minutes, Skandor had gathered a pizza he’d hidden invisibly in the coffee room, an inexplicable wool blanket folded neatly by the kitchen towels, and Katrin, of course. He whisked all of these things downstairs, through the perimeter breach on the fourth floor, and back up to the roof of the Geneses Corporation building.

  A moment later they were solid again. San Francisco winked and blinked at them, the lights a cheerful orange. “Like a thousand little campfires,” said Skandor.

  “Like gemstones,” said Katrin. She sighed happily and reached for a slice of cold sausage and mushroom pizza.

  They ate in silence, enjoying the warmth of the October evening.

  “So,” said Katrin, the first to finish her food, “how many of those campers have you kissed? Just, approximate numbers. You can round off, if you like.”

  Skandor laughed.

  “What?” asked Katrin. Then she frowned. “You do like girls, don’t you? I’m making an assumption based on you staring at me like I’m worth staring at.”

  “Oh, you’re worth staring at. And, yes, I like girls. But, no, I’ve never kissed any campers.”

  “Never? A big strong Nordic god like you? Please.” She stretched the last word into three syllables.

  Skandor smiled and shook his head. “You can’t go around kissing campers. It’s about the only rule my parents gave me at camp. Well, that and no lighting things on fire.”

  “And you listened?”

  Skandor shrugged. “It’s not good for business if word gets out the maintenance boy is off in the woods making out with the campers.”

  “Oh,” said Katrin. “I didn’t think of that. What a waste of opportunity.”

  Skandor laughed softly. Then, just as softly, he said, “I kissed a girl once. At a school dance.”

  “That sounds romantic.”

  “It wasn’t, actually. She had something on her lips that tasted like orange soda and I kept smelling it for, like, two days.”

  Katrin’s laughter rang out over the roof. “See? What things smell like is important. Just like I tell Uncle Fritz.”

  Skandor frowned and closed the now-empty pizza box. “You know, I keep thinking about that ‘smell-testing’ thing you said you were doing. It doesn’t make much sense, honestly. If Fritz wants feedback, why not hire a … perfumer? Why does he need the opinion of his niece?”

  “I’m not Fritz Gottlieb’s niece,” said Katrin, her voice crisp.

  “You’re not?”

  “Technically, no. My father wasn’t Girard Helmann, according to Fritz. Fritz says that’s why I was removed from my first family. He was ordered to kill me, but he didn’t, being a fan of genetic diversity.” She laughed briefly. “Bet he’s sorry now that he let that slip.”

  Skandor paused, confused as to why Fritz would be sorry. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was whether or not Georg knew. “Have you told Georg?”

  Katrin’s brows drew together. “I don’t think I have, actually.”

  Good, thought Skandor.

  “Georg and I always have plenty of other things to talk about. Well, to argue about.”

  Skandor felt a smile tug at one side of his face.

  Katrin looked over at him through her dark lashes. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You’ve heard me call him ‘Uncle Fritz.’ I’m just … unspeakably glad I’m not actually blood-related to Dr. Gottlieb.”

  “No kidding,” agreed Skandor.

  “But back to your skin care question,” continued Katrin, “I don’t understand it any more than you do. I think he is using the hand lotion for something besides … hand lotion. I mean, he’ll apply it on my skin for me to ‘smell,’ and then he comes back later and does a blood draw.”

  “Okay, that sounds suspicious.”

  “I don’t know—maybe it isn’t. Uncle Fritzi loves him a good blood draw.” Katrin shook her head, dislodging several strands of hair. Skandor wanted to tuck them back behind her ear.

  “Seriously,” said Katrin, “if Fritz just sold Geneses and made a living as a phlebotomist, I bet he’d be a lot less grumpy.”

  “A whatomist?”

  “Phlebotomist. Someone who is trained to draw blood.”

  “I don’t suppose he ever tells you the results of the blood draws?”

  Katrin shook her head. “Nope.”

  “You know,” said Skandor, “we could snoop around his office and see if we can find anything interesting.”

  A hopeful look spread across Katrin’s face. “Do you think he might have all his passwords written down somewhere?”

  Skandor’s brows pulled together. “I don’t think we should get our hopes up.”

  “I hate it when people say that. What they really mean is, ‘When what you want doesn’t happen, you’ll be sad,’ but honestly, you’ll be sad either way—‘hopes up’ or not. I think you might as well be hopeful.”

  Skandor smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s get our hopes up. Uncle Fritz’s secrets await!”

  Katrin held her arms out, ready for Skandor to cloak her. But this time, right before they disappeared, she whispered, “For luck,” and kissed him on the mouth.

  As Skandor vanished, he thought to himself, This is what butter feels like when it hits the camp kitchen griddle.

  21

  COMPLEX SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS

  Martina maintained silence throughout Georg’s explanation of his sudden reappearance in Las Abuelitas. She said nothing while he apologized for taking a hostage and for shooting Chrétien on his last visit. He apologized for shooting Pfeffer with a dart gun the time before that. And for trying to steal Helmann’s journals the time before that.

  Whatever Georg was up to, he wasn’t holding anything back on the contrition front. All the while, Martina kept silent, avoiding eye-rolls and meaningful sighs. Those who knew her best probably assumed she was exercising self-control to a remarkable degree. But she had a different reason for her lack of intrusive behavior: she didn’t want to miss anything.

  Was Georg telling the truth? Or was he telling lies, embroidering them with distracting threads of truth? She was certain he was after something—but was it something other than what he claimed? Had he been sent by Fritz as a spy?

  As she listened and watched and considered, she became convinced of one thing: Georg was holding back information. There were hesitat
ions in his speech. His eyes frequently darted to the side at such times, to check if she was watching him. He kept his hands tucked away, as if aware they might give him away.

  But it seemed Georg had told the truth about one thing: Uncle Fritz was presently absent from Geneses; Dr. Pfeffer was able to confirm Dr. Fritz Gottlieb’s presence at a medical conference in Fresno, exactly as Georg claimed.

  “It’s the only reason I was able to get away,” said Georg, his eyes flickering briefly to meet Martina’s.

  Chrétien cleared his throat and spoke to Georg. “It is not necessary for you to continue the … counting from within your mind.”

  Martina’s brows shot up. What was Chrétien doing? The less Georg knew about controlling his thoughts, the better.

  “Mademoiselle,” replied Chrétien, as if quite aware of her concerns, “my cousin Georg has demonstrated a willingness to trust us by coming here. Is it not appropriate that we make a similar demonstration of our own willingness to trust?”

  Scowling, Martina refused to answer. She noted that Sam, Will and Mickie were exchanging concerned glances, but none of them tried to stop Chrétien. Pfeffer paced quietly in the background, his eyes on the ground.

  “I don’t understand,” said Georg.

  “Martina,” said Chrétien, “would you like to explain it to him?”

  She would like to say that Hell would freeze over before she’d explain it to Georg. Instead, she murmured that Chrétien would do a better job.

  Chrétien turned to Georg. “If I understand correctly, you are of the belief that the only way to prevent thoughts you wish to keep to yourself from being overheard is to mask them behind such things as counting or music. Is this correct?”

  Georg nodded.

  Martina sank into her chair. This was a mistake, giving Georg more information.

  “Well,” continued Chrétien, “it is not, in fact, necessary. If you wish to keep your thoughts from being overheard, it is enough to intend to keep them from being overheard.”

  Georg looked suspicious—Martina recognized that look.

  Georg spoke. “Martina told us—me and Hansel—that we’d be overheard without something else going on in our heads.”