Claire stared at him. “Why in the world don’t you repair the place?”
“According to our parents,” said Nicholas, “a home isn’t truly grand and noble unless it’s coming apart at the seams. It’s led to some rather adventurous dinner parties. They say the queen herself was nearly crushed by a plummeting turret.”
“I definitely prefer Jasper’s bungalow,” Charlie whispered to Hilary as they passed through the great stone entranceway. “It may not be grand or noble, but at least it stays upright most of the time.”
The only member of their party who truly seemed to appreciate Feathering Keep was the gargoyle. “These stones are even older than I am,” he said, bowing to an imposing slab of rock that stood guard along the entranceway. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. My sympathies about the moss.”
They wound through the keep’s cavernous halls and emerged at last into a high-ceilinged room that looked vast enough to accommodate Miss Greyson’s entire floating bookshop. The walls, however, were lined not with books but with oil paintings of old-fashioned men and women; Hilary guessed from the abundance of frilled and ruffled clothes in the portraits that these must be previous generations of Featherings. Clouds scudded over the holes in the roof as Nicholas walked to the drafty hearth and picked up a long golden poker that had been resting against the wall. “We’d like a cozy fire, please,” he said, holding the poker with both hands. “In the fireplace, if you don’t mind. Nothing too dangerous.” In an instant, flames sprang up around the logs in the fireplace, and Nicholas wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
“That was an impressive bit of magic,” Hilary said. “You must have been very well trained.”
“It helps,” said Nicholas, “to have a chunk of magic as large as that poker. And for that you can thank Great-Great-Grandfather Feathering, who was the stingiest man in Augusta.” He pointed to one of the oil paintings, where a cruel-looking gentleman glared down at everyone who dared to pass beneath his frame. “He didn’t use magic much, from what I’ve heard, but he was extremely fond of hoarding it.” Nicholas shrugged. “Magic,” he said to the poker, “could you bring us a few warm blankets for our guests as well? It’s the least we can do to make up for swamping them.”
Hilary raised her eyebrows as a towering stack of blankets appeared in front of Nicholas. He didn’t even seem terribly tired. “Don’t mind him,” Alice said to Hilary, handing her an exquisitely soft blue blanket. “He can’t help showing off for every visitor who passes through.” She wrapped a fluffy pink rug around the gargoyle. “But why are you passing through? Are you off on a swashbuckling adventure? Have you found another treasure trove?”
“Actually,” said Hilary, “we’re searching for someone. The Enchantress of the Northlands, to be precise.”
Nicholas settled himself next to the gargoyle in front of the fire. “That’s awfully kind of you,” he said. “I wasn’t aware pirates usually did that sort of thing.”
“Er, they usually don’t,” said Hilary. “I suppose you might call this a special mission.”
“I’m afraid the Enchantress isn’t here,” said Alice, flopping down on the pile of blankets. “And it’s lucky for her that she’s not. Mother and Father don’t think much of her, and if she came for a visit, they’d probably try to squash her under an unsteady bit of the keep.”
“Alice!” said Nicholas.
“Well, it’s true.” Alice kicked off her pirate boots.
“All right,” said Nicholas, “perhaps it is. Mother and Father say it’s awfully distracting to have an Enchantress looking over your shoulder whenever you use a bit of magic.” He shrugged. “Personally, I think it’s a good deal more distracting to live in a house that might tumble down on you at any moment.”
“I agree,” said Charlie, eyeing a crumbling chunk of roof with suspicion.
Hilary studied Nicholas as he tucked the fluffy pink rug around the gargoyle’s wings. It seemed terribly unlikely that he was truly going to marry a girl like Philomena; she must have made up the entire tale to distract the pirates from her villainy. And, most annoyingly, her plan had succeeded, for they’d wasted nearly a week fixing up the Squeaker and sailing to Feathering Keep. “Blast that Philomena,” Hilary muttered into her blanket.
Nicholas looked up. “What did you say?”
“Oh!” said Hilary. “It’s nothing. But”—she supposed it wouldn’t do any harm to ask—“Nicholas, by any chance, do you know a young lady named Philomena Tilbury?”
Nicholas was suddenly overtaken by a fit of coughs.
“Miss Tilbury!” Alice crowed. “Nicholas is very fond of Miss Tilbury. I’m not, though,” she added. “She reminds me of a jellyfish—the sort that stings. She’s disgustingly sweet whenever she’s with Nicholas, but as soon as he leaves, her tentacles come out.” Alice wiggled her fingers. “And soon enough I’ll be stuck with a jellyfish for a sister.”
“Alice!” The most eligible gentleman in Augusta suddenly looked very bashful indeed. “It’s not funny!” he said as Alice dissolved in giggles. He sat up a bit straighter and poked at the fire. “As a matter of fact,” he said to Hilary, “I do have the pleasure of knowing Miss Tilbury. As my sister so rudely revealed, we’re planning to marry.”
Charlie wrinkled his brow. “And you like her?”
Nicholas smiled and rested his chin on his hand, as though thinking about Philomena was an activity he truly enjoyed. “Tremendously,” he said. “I suppose she can be a bit prickly, Alice, but if you’d been raised in a family as stern as hers, you’d be prickly too. In fact, I admire her resilience.”
“But mostly,” said Alice, “he admires her hair.”
Nicholas nodded. “Her hair is very golden, isn’t it?”
The gargoyle snorted into his rug. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have choked on a spider.”
“Do you know Philomena then, Pirate Westfield?” Nicholas asked. “Or . . .” He frowned. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the Enchantress business, does it?”
“I’m afraid it does,” said Hilary. She was rather shaken by the rapturous look that passed across Nicholas’s face whenever he said Philomena’s name, but she couldn’t let herself be distracted by such horrors; she had to press on. “We think Philomena may be mixed up in Miss Pimm’s disappearance, and we were hoping you could tell us where she was last Friday evening.”
“But she was with me!” cried Nicholas at once. “We dined together that very day! I remember particularly, because Philomena’s hair is especially golden on Fridays—though Tuesdays suit her nearly as well.”
Alice nodded. “I remember it too,” she said, “because someone made me sail him all the way to Pemberton to see Miss Tilbury, and then he didn’t even bother to invite me to dinner.”
A log in the fireplace crumbled to embers, and Hilary felt as though her hopes of finding Miss Pimm were crumbling right along with it. If Philomena and Nicholas had truly been dining together all evening, Philomena couldn’t have slipped away to kidnap Miss Pimm—and if she hadn’t, then who had? “So much for Philomena’s villainy, then,” she said, drawing her blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “I suppose we’re back to where we began.”
Claire sighed dramatically. “Which is to say, nowhere at all.”
“But you’re not!” cried Alice. “You haven’t asked me yet if I know anything about the Enchantress’s disappearance, have you?”
Hilary stared at her. “Do you know something, then?”
“She doesn’t—Ow!” Nicholas broke off as Alice jabbed him with her elbow.
“Actually,” she said, “I do. And thank you very much for asking, Terror. No one else has, you know—and Nicholas says I’m not allowed to tell the queen’s inspectors what I saw.”
“That’s because I don’t want you to bother them with your silly tales,” Nicholas said, rubbing his side in the spot where it had met Alice’s elbow. “I’m sorry, Pirate Westfield. Alice has a particular knack for imagining things.”
>
“But I’m not imagining things!” said Alice. “I’m sure Hilary will believe me, even if you don’t.” She leaned forward and grasped Hilary’s hands.
“Miss Pimm,” she said in a whisper, “was captured by the ghost ship.”
Hilary sighed. No wonder Nicholas hadn’t let Alice take her story to the inspectors. Everyone knew that ghosts resided only in the pages of chilling gothic tales. Alice looked so earnest, however, that Hilary couldn’t bear to disappoint her. “That sounds . . . rather unusual,” she said at last, “but a good pirate must consider every possibility. Perhaps you’d better tell me what you saw.”
“As long as it’s not too scary,” the gargoyle added.
Alice gave Nicholas a triumphant smile. “I’ll start from the beginning, then,” she said. “It all happened last Friday, around six o’clock in the evening. My darling brother had just abandoned me after I’d spent ages sailing him all the way to Pemberton in the Calamity because he’s too stingy to take the train. I was floating about near Pemberton Bay, bored to tears, and I thought I’d do a bit of exploring.”
“You mean you got lost,” said Nicholas.
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “Pirates never get lost,” she said, “and it wasn’t my fault that my navigator had gone off to stare at a young lady’s hair all evening. Anyway, I was exploring, when the Calamity passed into a cove I’d never seen before. There were leaves and vines hanging all around it, a bit like a curtain, so it was hard to spot. But as I sailed through the curtain, a terrible chill came over me”—she paused to look around the room—“and I realized I wasn’t alone.”
The gargoyle wriggled out of his rug and hopped into Hilary’s lap.
“Who else was there?” Claire asked in a whisper.
“Why, the ghost ship, of course!” said Alice. “It was hidden away behind the leaves and vines, you see, and it was black and gray, like an enormous shadow. It made a terrible creaking noise in the wind, and its torches were all aglow—but there was nobody on board.”
A twig snapped in the fireplace, and everyone jumped.
“It’s a good thing I’m a pirate,” said Alice, “or I would have been terrified. I sailed the Calamity back to Pemberton Bay as quickly as I could, and the ghost ship was thoughtful enough not to follow me. When Nicholas had finally finished his dinner, I sailed the Calamity back to the little cove so I could show him the ship. But it was gone.”
Claire drew in her breath, and even Hilary shivered despite herself.
Charlie looked up from sharpening the creases in his pirate hat. “Are you sure it was a ghost ship?” he asked Alice.
“Of course,” she said. “Only ghosts would sail about in such a spine-tingling way. I did think at first that I might have imagined the whole thing, but we heard the next day that the Enchantress had gone missing from Pemberton, and I knew at once that the ghost ship must have gotten her. It’s the only possible explanation.”
“You didn’t see the Enchantress board the ship, though?” Hilary asked.
“Well—no.” Alice stuck out her lower lip. “I suppose I didn’t. But don’t you think it’s odd that a ghost ship appeared on the very night she vanished?”
“It is odd,” Hilary said, doing her best to be kind. Her visit to the Featherings was turning out to be entirely disappointing, and she had less of an idea than ever about who the Mutineers might be, but there was no need to disappoint Alice as well. “Thank you,” she said, “for telling us your story. Perhaps it will do us some good.”
Nicholas patted the gargoyle’s wings. “I think we could all do with a more cheerful tale,” he said. “Pirate Westfield, would you tell us how you found the Enchantress’s treasure? That must have been a thrilling adventure.”
“Oh, it was!” said the gargoyle happily. “Go ahead, Hilary. Tell them how I saved the kingdom.”
Just then, however, a bear’s ferocious growl echoed through Feathering Keep, and Nicholas leaped to his feet. “That’s the door knocker,” he explained on his way out of the room. “Grandmother Feathering enchanted it on a whim one day. It’s amusing enough, but it does tend to discourage guests.”
A few moments later, Nicholas returned to the great hall, looking concerned. “I’m sorry, Pirate Westfield,” he said, “but there’s someone here to see you, and he seems rather grumpy about it. He says his name is Twigget.”
“Twigget?” Hilary pushed herself to her feet and tucked the gargoyle back into her bag. “Oh, blast it all, that’s Captain Blacktooth’s mate. I can’t imagine what he wants with me now.”
“We’ll just have to tell him to go away,” said Charlie, standing up and following Hilary out of the hall.
“That’s right,” Claire said as she hurried along behind them. “If he wants to see you, he must go about it properly and send you a note requesting the pleasure of your company.”
“I’m afraid pirates aren’t terribly concerned with propriety,” said Hilary. She tugged open the creaky front door to reveal Mr. Twigget in his tattered striped shirt, staring up at the towers of Feathering Keep as though he feared they would come tumbling down around him at any moment. Hilary rather wished they would.
“Hello, Mr. Twigget,” she said, doing her best to sound bold and daring. “I heard you wanted to see me.”
Mr. Twigget cleared his throat. “Aye, Miss Westfield. It’s taken me a good bit o’ time to find you. ’Tis a lucky thing I spotted your ship tied up down below. The captain won’t be pleased if we’re late.”
“I don’t know what you might be late for,” said Hilary, “but I’m quite sure I haven’t been invited to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
But Mr. Twigget put a calloused hand on Hilary’s shoulder. “Sorry, miss,” he said in a low voice, “but Captain Blacktooth’s waitin’ for you down at the Salty Biscuit, and the longer I take bringin’ you there, the darker his mood will get. It’s a good hour’s walk as it is, so if you want to keep your pirate credentials, you’d better come with me.”
Charlie drew his sword. “I don’t care for anyone dragging my captain away,” he said, “no matter whom they work for. Should I run this washed-up pirate through, Hilary?”
Mr. Twigget’s bony fingers dug ever so slightly into Hilary’s shoulder. He didn’t seem inclined to hurt her, but she had no doubt at all that he could. Captain Blacktooth employed only the most fearsome pirates in the kingdom, after all. “No,” Hilary said, “I don’t think it would be wise to run anyone through. The Featherings have been such kind hosts; it would be a shame to make a mess on their front path.”
At this, Mr. Twigget’s fingers relaxed significantly.
“Then we’ll come with you!” said Claire. “I should like to give that Captain Blacktooth my most devastating stare.”
“And I’ll give him a bit more than that,” said Charlie, patting his sword.
But Mr. Twigget shook his head. “The young miss is to go alone,” he said.
Truthfully, Hilary felt rather relieved about this. It would have been much nicer to have her crewmates by her side as she faced Captain Blacktooth, of course, but she couldn’t let Charlie smudge his reputation if he wanted to be the Scourge of the Northlands, and it was perfectly clear that Blacktooth already cared very little for Claire. “If you two could sail the Squeaker to Queensport Harbor,” Hilary said to them, “the gargoyle and I will meet you there as soon as we can. And please give my apologies to the Featherings.”
The sleeves of Claire’s cardigan had unraveled so far that they barely covered her elbows. “Oh, Hilary,” she said, “are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“Quite sure.” Hilary shot her the bravest smile she could summon. “Now, if you’ll unhand me, Mr. Twigget, you’ll find there’s no need to drag me into Queensport like a prisoner. I believe Captain Blacktooth and I have a lot to talk about.”
* * *
THE VERY NEARLY HONORABLE LEAGUE OF PIRATES
Servin’ the High Seas for 153 Years
THE RENEGADE
/> CABIN OF THE PRESIDENT
NOTICE OF UNPIRATICAL BEHAVIOR
Pirate Westfield:
I have received your response to my letter, and I am gravely concerned. We must speak at once.
As Mr. Twigget has doubtlessly told you before handing you this note, I have arranged for us to meet at my favorite Queensport groggery, the Salty Biscuit. Come without delay, and come alone. Mr. Twigget will know the way.
I suppose I should mention that this is your
[ ] first warning [ ] second warning [x] third warning
Arr!
Captain Rupert Blacktooth
President, VNHLP
* * *
CHAPTER NINE
MR. TWIGGET LED Hilary through the thin, shadowy streets surrounding Queensport Harbor where neither Admiral Westfield nor Miss Greyson had ever permitted Hilary to go. As she squashed past sailors and fishmongers in the narrow lanes, hurrying around corners to keep from losing sight of Mr. Twigget, she felt rather as though she were being digested by a sea monster. She was starting to believe, however, that being caught up in a sea monster’s jaws would be a more pleasant pastime than meeting Captain Blacktooth. Matching Twigget’s pace was proving to be uncomfortable enough in its own right, and when he slowed to a stop at last, Hilary leaned over to catch her breath.
“We’ve got no time for lazin’ about,” said Mr. Twigget. “The captain’s due back on Gunpowder Island soon, and he’s eager to start loadin’ the ship, so you’d better stand at attention.” He rapped his knuckles against a heavy wooden door set into the stone wall beside them. Over the door hung an iron sign shaped like a square of hardtack.
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