Cover
Title Page
Chapter One: ANTS, LEADERS, & COFFEE GROUNDS
Chapter Two: A STANDOFF, LOST PUDDING, & A PUDDLE
Chapter Three: MAN TO MAN, THINGS UNSAID, & THE DARK
Chapter Four: STONES, BONES, & SECRETS
Chapter Five: BRAINS, BRAWN, & INTUITION
Chapter Six: SIGNS, SUITCASES, & PHOTOS
Chapter Seven: LOCKS, A DIARY, & TALKING FURNITURE
Chapter Eight: DIARIES, SECRETS, & DOLLS
Chapter Nine: ADVICE, THE STARS, & A TICKET
Chapter Ten: A BUS, TIM, & SMALL TALK
Chapter Eleven: MR. TOMMY, THE HERO’S JOURNEY, & A COADJUTOR
Chapter Twelve: JIM, HORSES, & MORE RIDDLES
Chapter Thirteen: PATCHES, PAWS, & A LATE-NIGHT SWIM
Chapter Fourteen: TRANSFORMATION, DETERIORATION, & REFLECTION
Chapter Fifteen: ME, HIM, & US
Chapter Sixteen: SOLITUDE, HEAD GAMES, & THINKING SMALL
Chapter Seventeen: TINY, NAKED, & ALONE
Chapter Eighteen: AN OLD BOOK, THE SUBCONSCIOUS, & DIGGING
Chapter Nineteen: INTERROGATION, INFILTRATION, & EAVESDROPPING
Chapter Twenty: EVERETT, ASKELL, & IMAGAMI
Chapter Twenty-One: THE SWAP, THE DRIVE, & AN OPEN BOOK
Chapter Twenty-Two: FEAR, FOLLY, & FREEDOM
Chapter Twenty-Three: ASKELL, THE PROFESSOR, & THE EMPORIUM
Chapter Twenty-Four: RUST, LIGHTNING, & CLAWS
Chapter Twenty-Five: FAMILIES, TOWNSFOLK, & FRIENDS
Chapter Twenty-Six: EPILOGUE
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Copyright
Back Cover
The ants crept across the walls. They moved in single-file lines parallel to each other. It was like they knew exactly where they wanted to go, and why.
That’s why I admired them. Well, I admired them for more reasons than that, but I have never been someone who understands things clearly. More often than not, I know them intuitively. Unfortunately, most people don’t put much stock in my gut feelings. Maybe that’s the reason I’ll have to repeat my previous school year. To be fair, the seventy-one days I spent fishing at the stream instead of attending class might have contributed to that outcome. But I never liked books very much — that is, until the Lilys arrived in town. But then gain, things were never easy for me.
There are many things we all believe to be true that actually aren’t. Even things written in books. But now isn’t the right time to talk about them.
About books, I mean. And soon you’ll see why.
I was having one of the best summers of my life. Or at least it had been until my brother, Doug, ruined everything.
In Applecross, the town in northern Scotland where I lived, no one could remember such weather. We had eight consecutive days of sun without the slightest drizzle. Even the mosquitoes seemed stunned, arriving at nightfall and buzzing softly only at sea level. The ants, however, seemed completely indifferent to the weird weather. Their job was to stock up for winter, and they shuffled in single file along the cracks in the floor. They seemed to know where they were going, but how?
I still hadn’t figured it out, but I was conducting a scientific experiment. I’d already tried crushing the first ant in the line twice. I figured that eliminating the leader of their mysterious campaign would throw them into chaos. But after a moment of understandable confusion, the unfortunate leader’s second-in-command stepped up and took its place at the front of the line. And the others marched onward as if nothing had happened.
“See, Patches?” I told my trusty dog. “They can all be leaders. And when one leads, the rest follow.”
He wagged his tail and tried to lick my face with his usual enthusiasm. He was a strong, stubborn mutt with furry ears and a rocket-shaped tail. He belonged to a mongrel breed that nonetheless kept the same distinct features across generations. Patches was actually the fourth dog named Patches to live at the McPhee home.
Speaking of which, perhaps I should mention that the person writing the story of that summer — which now seems so long ago — is still me, Finley McPhee. And yes, it’s still Finley with an “F.”
Anyway, I was furious that evening. You may think it’s creepy to stay shut up in your room killing ants, but I had a good reason for doing so: better the ants than my brother.
My mom must have entered my room quietly, or maybe I’d been concentrating so hard that I didn’t hear her come in. When she spoke, I was so startled that I scampered back against the wall and almost swallowed my tongue.
“Good heavens!” Mom exclaimed, recoiling. The two of us broke into laughter. “I just came in to ask you what you want for dinner,” she added.
“I’ve got ants in my room,” I said, figuring I should explain why I was lying on the ground.
“It’s a sign,” she said. I squinted at her. “Ants go where there’s something to eat. I’d say there’s some leftover food under your bed.”
Under my bed was the box with the false bottom, where I kept my most precious things that I didn’t want my brother to see. It contained two messages I had found in bottles that came from the sea, a Borderpassing coin I’d found in my pocket, two weird pieces of iron, and five or six oddly shaped rocks. They were all cataloged with their own detailed labels. In short: nothing ants would want to eat.
My mom knelt down next to me and patted my hand. Patches wagged his tail in front of her face and circled a few times before climbing into her lap.
Mom pointed at the column of ants on the wood floor. “If you don’t want them to go under your bed, you should get some coffee,” she said.
“Why will the ants go away if I get some coffee?” I asked.
My mom smiled. “You have to build a barrier of mint, cinnamon, or coffee grounds on the floor,” she explained. “And to be extra safe, you should make a second one with lemon juice.”
I looked at her, considering it. “Really?”
She nodded. “Really. They don’t like strong odors.”
We sat there a little longer, watching them without speaking. It was a nice moment — one of those times when you want to say lots of things but don’t for fear of ruining it.
“Is everything okay, Finley?” she asked me. “It seems like you’re in a morose mood.”
“Everything’s fine,” I said
Well, lots of things were fine. But not all of them.
Hi, there, Viper,” my big brother greeted me upon his return.
I thought Doug looked like an overgrown doll, but I didn’t say anything. He pulled his boots out of the mosquito netting and entered barefoot. He peeked into the kitchen to see what mom was cooking.
“Do I have time to take a shower?” he asked, chipper as a squirrel.
I kept staring at him while he whistled and generally acted as if nothing had happened. He climbed up the stairs and stopped when I blocked his path.
“What’s that in your hands?” he asked me, continuing his infuriating nice-guy act. I had a fistful of mint leaves, cinnamon, and coffee beans in my hands. I barely stopped myself from rubbing them in his face.
“We have to talk,” I hissed.
Doug snorted. “Go ahead. I’m listening, Viper.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
Doug shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish. Sorry about this whole business. I know you’re still upset.”
“I’m not upse
t,” I said. “I’m furious. And I want my key back.”
“It’s my key now,” Doug said.
“Only because I gave it to you,” I said.
“If it was so important, you should have held onto it,” Doug said.
“We had an agreement, Doug!” I snarled. “I only lent it to you. And you kept it!”
His face took on the expression of a deer in headlights. Then he crossed his arms. How could I get that colossal empty head of his to understand?
Doug tried to move around, but I stayed in his face.
“Oh, cut it out,” he said. “If you want that key, you can take it back whenever you wish.”
“No, I can’t!” I said.
And that right there was the whole point. If Doug didn’t give me back the key voluntarily, it would return to him even if I stole it back. It was a magical object, with its own rules and stipulations — just like everything else that was sold or repaired at the Enchanted Emporium.
Doug’s empty smile seemed downright evil. I would have punched him right then and there, but Mom checked in on us.
“Everything okay, boys?” Mom intervened from downstairs.
“Sure, everything’s fine!” Doug answered for both of us. He stuck his hands under my armpits and easily lifted me off the ground. “There’s just this insect on the stairs,” he added, staring me right in the eyes.
He deflected my kick and tossed me onto the stairs. Relying on my agility, I landed mostly gracefully in a crouched position. I petted Patches and sighed. “Good guys always lose because they refuse to break the rules,” I told him.
* * *
At dinner, my father was in an exceptionally good mood. Apparently things had improved at the farm after a period when the sheep had been making life difficult for him. He told us about a livestock show he wanted to participate in, and asked Doug and me if we wanted to go with him. (I replied with a grunt.) He added that there was also a dog breeding competition. My mom laughed, joking that we should sign up Patches.
I didn’t find anything funny. All the laughter just managed to irritate me even more. No one in the house seemed to realize how much I was suffering.
But in reality, I think they were forcing themselves to be more cheerful than usual in the hopes that it’d make me feel better. It was well intentioned but completely useless. I asked to be excused before dinner was over.
I walked out the front door and jumped on my bicycle with the invisible seat. As a surprise, my mom had made tapioca pudding with blueberries for dessert, which is my favorite. Assuming I’d already left, she spoke to my dad in a way that sounded worried and sad. “He’s not going to the Lily’s house again, is he?” she asked. I leaned against the wall next to the kitchen window to listen.
“I don’t know,” Dad said, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to Reverend Prospero tomorrow,” he added, as if that was the obvious solution to all my problems.
They kept talking. My mom said she was convinced I was angry because of the family that had recently come to town, the Lilys. Locan, an odd shopkeeper of ancient items, and Aiby, his young daughter. Together they ran the strange, red-walled Enchanted Emporium. My father, however, had gotten it into his head that my discontent was due to the jobs the reverend of Applecross was assigning me that summer.
They were both wrong.
“I’ll go speak to him myself,” Doug said before our parents could ask him if he knew anything. Then he ate his dessert as well as mine.
I pedaled like mad to get to my beach. Not that it was really mine, but I felt like it was. It was a cove just below a bend in the coastal road. You could see all the houses of Applecross lined up in rows from there. It was a steep pebble beach where sea currents often brought in long bundles of dark algae. And it was secluded due to the swarms of mosquitoes that made it unappealing to tourists and summer campers.
That beach was where I had found my first message in a bottle. And from that beach, in the purple evening light, you could see the little reef with the wooden tower where I kissed Aiby the first time.
And maybe the last time, too.
I left my bicycle on the side of the road and raced up to the highest point along the cliff. The wind seized me with its mysterious force. My shirt flapped at my ribs. I spread my arms and vented all the rage I’d been nursing in one furious roar.
I screamed at the wind, the sea and the islands that rose from it, the cliff, the pebbles, the mosquitoes, even the seaweed. My long, horrible howl left Patches mute.
I felt much better: exhausted and trembling, but relieved.
I let the wind move me down to the water’s edge. I searched for a flat stone and threw it across the waves, skipping it in the direction of the several islands that dotted the bay.
I felt betrayed. By Doug, and by Aiby, too. The key we were fighting over was my key to the shop, the Enchanted Emporium. There were four keys in all: one for the shopkeeper, one for the seeker, one for the repairperson, and one for the defender.
I had parted with the defender key in order to set a trap for Semueld Askell, the man who had wanted to destroy the Enchanted Emporium. The trap worked: Askell was dead. Well, not exactly dead. He’d been turned into a pillar of salt. Either way, I’d risked everything and I’d succeeded.
Except for one tiny little detail: Doug didn’t want to give the key back to me because he liked Aiby and wanted an excuse to be around her more.
And Aiby, well …
Patches barked. I turned around to see Doug standing on the slope, silhouetted against the sky. He leaned over my bike and pretended to inspect it. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over to me.
Without speaking, he reached down and grabbed a few pebbles. He rolled them between his fingers, then handed me a flat white one. It was the kind of stone he had a knack for finding — the perfect one for skipping across the waves.
“Listen, Viper,” he began. “I’m sorry for all that’s happened between us.”
“You know perfectly well how to fix it,” I said.
“You’re right,” he admitted. He thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out a wooden puppet wrapped in a sheet of tissue paper. A note was written on it: Angelica, for Finley.
“Aiby told me to give you this,” he said. “It’s been two days since you’ve seen them.”
“Why do you care?” I said.
Splish-splash.
Doug rested the puppet against a rock. Why would Aiby want me to have a doll? I wondered.
“You don’t need the scorpion key to visit them,” Doug said. The heads of all four keys were shaped like animals — yet another mysterious aspect of the Enchanted Emporium.
“For that matter, neither do you,” I reminded him.
I threw the stone. It skipped seven times.
Splish-splash.
Doug looked for another stone without thinking about it. “You’re perfectly right,” he said, rummaging through the pebbles. “But I need the key to go to the meeting.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What meeting?” I said, but I’d already guessed the answer before I’d even finished asking.
Doug turned red. “How about this, bro,” he said. “Let’s make a gentleman’s agreement.”
“We’d have to agree on something first, Doug,” I snarled. “What meeting?”
He didn’t answer my question. “I’m keeping the key for three,” he said. I figured he meant three more days — over the weekend. “Then I’ll give it back to you. I swear.”
Doug found a second, perfectly flat rock and passed it to me. I squeezed it so hard that my fingers felt like they would break.
“What meeting are you talking about, Doug?” I said, pushing him.
He turned away from me, facing the direction he’d come from. “Three days and then it’s all yours, okay?” he said.
Spl
ish-splash.
I knew Mr. Lily had sent a letter to the other magic shopkeepers around the world, asking them to take a stand on Semueld Askell and his attacks. My guess was: the Lilys must’ve received the other families’ replies.
“Is it the meeting of the seven families, Doug?” I said. “Is it finally set up?”
Doug started walking away. “Three days,” he repeated.
“At least tell me what they said!” I growled.
“Who?” Doug asked.
“What do you mean, who?” I said. “The Lilys! What did they say about me attending?”
He stopped. “What do you want them to say, Viper?” he said. “That the meeting of the families is impossible without you?”
Doug’s words cut me deeply. He realized it, but it was too late to take back what he had said. I wasn’t needed at the Enchanted Emporium.
Splish-splash.
I turned my back and stared at the sea stubbornly.
“Listen, Finley,” he said. “Aiby—”
“Don’t talk to me about her!” I shrieked.
“But I’m going to,” Doug said. “When I asked you if you liked Aiby Lily, you said, ‘Me? That girl? No way!’”
I clenched my fists. I had said that, it was true. But I’d lied, of course.
“Is that true or not?” Doug asked.
I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say it to him. “I like Patches,” I muttered.
The Thief of Mirrors: 4 (Enchanted Emporium) Page 1
