When it came to eavesdropping, Gretchen considered herself an expert. She’d listened in on her father’s meetings since she was a little girl. There was a perfect spot for it—in the family library, the room adjacent to Mayor Whipple’s office, in the narrow slip of wall between two mahogany bookshelves. There, Gretchen pressed the drinking glass to the wall and her ear to the glass, and listened.
When she’d been much smaller—seven or eight—Gretchen had eavesdropped for the fun of it. Back then, the secrets themselves did not interest her. They were usually about council reports and campaigns and other political matters, conversations between her father and old, boring men—members of the city council and occasionally a lawyer or a judge, who spoke in jabbering legalese Gretchen could not understand.
But the older Gretchen got, the more she understood. Sometimes, even now, she found the secrets boring—talk of new traffic lights and building codes. But there were interesting topics, too—talk of allowing certain people out of jail on good behavior, or of paying the editor of the Boone Herald to print a particular headline.
Gretchen had always liked the thrill, the intrigue. But—thrilling as it was—she hadn’t liked what she’d heard the Tuesday before, about Essie Hasting. Since then, she’d listened at this wall every night, hoping her father might talk of it more, and leave some hint as to what he’d meant when he’d told the sheriff and coroner that Death killed Essie for reasons of his own. So far, she’d been out of luck. It was back to tax cuts and demolition permits and the regular rigmarole of town affairs.
But, Gretchen reminded herself, real-life mysteries weren’t always glamorous. She was sure Sherlock Holmes had lots of boring days. And it would take more than a week of building code discussions to deter Gretchen Whipple.
Tonight, her father’s office was quiet. Gretchen listened for a minute, and another. There was rustling—the clank of metal and the thud of something heavy. Then, more silence. Gretchen sighed, impatient. She could endure the mundane, yes, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.
Another minute passed, and then her father spoke. His words came out in an even patter, as though Mayor Whipple was quoting a poem. He was murmuring too low for Gretchen to make out the words themselves. Still, she waited, and at last she heard words she could understand.
“What do you want from me?”
Her father was speaking at a normal volume now, louder than a normal volume. It sounded like he was talking to someone on the phone.
“I know the terms,” Mayor Whipple went on. “I’m not interfering. I’ve done nothing. Less than nothing. I called everyone off your scent, what more do you want?”
Questions and possibilities sparked in Gretchen’s head. Was someone blackmailing her father? Was—
“What do you think you’re doing, you little snoop?”
“AAAH!”
Gretchen lost hold of the glass, and it landed on the carpet with a soft thump. She turned and looked up at Asa and tried to spit out an excuse.
“I’m not—that’s not—I don’t really—”
An excuse was not coming. It didn’t matter, really.
“Listening in on Dad?” Asa asked, grinning that awful grin.
It would be very silly to insist that she wasn’t.
“I wasn’t.” Gretchen immediately felt very silly.
Asa picked up the fallen glass. “Private business is private.”
“Easy for you to say. You get to know everything, do everything. Dad’s told you all the family secrets.”
“You seem to think that’s a good thing.”
“It is! And you all don’t tell me anything, so I have to figure it out for myself. Just because I’m the secondborn doesn’t mean I’m not smart. I could do the same things as you; I know it. I could summon, too!”
Asa gripped the glass, the veins of his hand bulging. “You don’t know what you’re after. Summoning, Rites—they aren’t what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“‘Dad,’” said Asa, in a high-pitched imitation of Gretchen’s voice. “‘What if we can learn from the Vickeries? Why can’t we all get along?’”
“That’s not how I sound.”
“But it’s what you asked. You believe all that crap about us using the Rites for the good of Boone Ridge. But that’s not what they’re for. That’s not what Dad uses them for. Believe me, you don’t want to know the real family business.”
“I do, though.”
“Well, I’m not talking about it.”
“You’re the one who brought it up!”
Asa said nothing, only tapped the base of the drinking glass. Gretchen decided on another approach.
“Asa?” she said, very soft. “Have you ever done it? Summoned with a Rite?”
Asa did not look surprised by the question. He didn’t look angry, or particularly anything. “Why do you care?”
“I just want answers, that’s all. I’ve got to get them someplace. And it’s not like I can touch the Book of Rites.”
She’d done it now. She’d said the words: Book of Rites.
They were a matter of feet from it as they spoke. On a bronze pedestal, beneath one of the library’s tall, stained-glass windows, there rested a locked glass case, and within that case sat an open book. Its title was gold leaf, its pages brittle, its illustrations sepia. It was the Book of Rites, the oldest book the Whipple family owned. The book with which they summoned. The book that, according to their father, had made the Whipple family what it was today.
Asa looked Gretchen straight in the eye. “Maybe you don’t think so now but you’re lucky you’re secondborn. Stay away from that book, if you know what’s good for you. Stay away from all of it.”
Gretchen opened her mouth, but Asa was gone, having taken with him her tried-and-true eavesdropping glass. Still, Gretchen returned to the wall and pressed her ear close, trying to hear. She listened, waited, for minutes. There was not even a hint of sound. Whatever conversation her father had been having was over now, and Gretchen was left alone, with no secrets gained and a dozen new suspicions.
“How long has she been out there?”
“An hour, maybe? I don’t know.”
“Why is she sweeping?”
Lee looked at his mother and made a queasy face. “She may have mentioned manual labor?”
It was Saturday, the morning after Gretchen Whipple’s surprise appearance at Poplar House, and she was back. She was in the conservatory and, of all things, she was sweeping the floor. Every so often, she would duck her mouth into the crook of her arm and cough, then look around as though expecting someone to show up. In fact, Lee had accidentally discovered Gretchen’s presence, when he’d headed to the conservatory to do some reading for school. He’d frozen in place at the sight of her, then run into the parlor to alert Judith. Now they stood watching her through the back door.
Judith had been angry enough the day before, when she’d learned about the conservatory window. She’d been angrier still to learn that a Whipple had done it.
“I don’t know what Archibald is about, sending his youngest child to vandalize our property,” she’d said. “We’ve kept ourselves at a mutually agreeable distance all this time. There’s no need for him to be such a malicious coward, as though he wanted to start something. As though we’d stoop to the level of Hatfields and McCoys!”
Lee winced. Of course he knew about the Hatfields and McCoys—two feuding families of old who lived farther east. Most ordinary people knew about that feud, but very few knew the real reason for it—that the Hatfields were summoners and the McCoys apprentices. The way Judith told the story, the McCoys had of course been in the right.
Lee didn’t have the heart to tell his mother that Gretchen’s vandalism wasn’t Mayor Whipple’s fault but Lee’s own. Gretchen was after him, and he was starting to suspect she wasn’t going to give up until he agreed to help her with her ridiculous mystery—which, he had a feeling, would only entangle their fa
milies all the more.
“I’ve no idea what that child is up to,” Judith said now, “but she must leave immediately. Go and tell her.”
“But she won’t! You don’t know how stubborn she is.”
“And how do you know that?” His mother fixed him with narrowed, probing eyes.
Lee swallowed and shrugged. “She goes to my school is all. I see her around.”
“If this continues, I’ll have no choice but to go into town and speak to Mayor Whipple in person. It’s simply—”
“No!” Lee blurted, turning very red. “Don’t talk to Mayor Whipple. Don’t . . . start a fight or anything. I’ll—I’ll take care of it.”
And with that, determined not to become yet another McCoy, Lee headed out to the porch. The door clattered behind him, and Gretchen whirled around, brandishing her plastic broom like a softball bat. Lee shielded his face.
“Whoa, whoa! It’s just me!”
“Sheesh!” said Gretchen. “I’m not going to hit you.”
“You sure look like it!”
Gretchen seemed to notice the aggressive position of her broom then, and lowered it. “Sorry. I was starting to think no one was home.”
“We’re almost always home.”
“Oh, so you guys saw me out here, toiling away for my misdeed, and just decided to be rude.”
“If anyone’s being rude,” said Lee, “it’s you. You weren’t supposed to come back here.”
“I see the window’s patched up.” Gretchen motioned with her broom to the plywood-covered hole. It hadn’t taken Judith too long to devise a temporary repair, and the glassworker was supposed to come on Monday. “Still think I broke it on purpose?” she asked, looking strangely pleased.
“Who knows.” Lee shrugged. “Felix definitely thinks so.”
“Well, he’s smart. I did.” She swept a little more, then stopped to give Lee a hard stare. “Does Felix live here?”
“Uh. Well.” Lee tried to conjure a plausible lie, but all that came out was “I guess so.”
“What do you mean, you ‘guess so’? Either he does or he doesn’t. Is he visiting from out of town, or what?”
“None of your business.” Lee didn’t like how he sounded. He wasn’t normally mean. Was it just Gretchen who brought the mean out? Because she was a Whipple?
“Gosh, you’re snippy,” she said. “And to think, I’m cleaning your dirty floor.”
“No one asked you to clean it. You were told to stay away.”
“I’m not very good with rules. Anyway, I wouldn’t have had to come back if you’d given me the right answer the first time.”
“I did give you an answer,” Lee said.
“Not the right one. And then you ran away. Really fast, I might add. You’re, like, abnormally fast. Has anyone told you that?”
“Yeah,” Lee muttered.
“Well, aren’t we proud! Just because you’ve sat at the orange table a few times doesn’t mean you’ve got the right to be all high and mighty.”
“Just leave, would you?” Lee cried, exasperated. “My brother and I don’t want anything to do with your stupid murder mystery!”
Gretchen’s eyes got big, and she shrieked, “HA!”
“W-what?”
“Your brother?” she said. “Your brother?!”
Lee felt his face go hot.
“What?” he said. “I meant—”
“So he is your brother! You really don’t look a thing alike, though. And how come he doesn’t come to school? How come I never see him around? Are your parents trying to hide him away? Is it because of—” Gretchen grew solemn and whispered, “Is it because of his eye?”
“What about my eye?”
Lee had been so panicked about slipping up he hadn’t noticed Felix standing at the east-end door.
Gretchen, too, was so startled that she dropped her broom. “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. Hello.”
Felix remained behind the screen.
“I was born half blind,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No, no! Of course not.” Gretchen suddenly looked out of sorts. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong. I didn’t even know before, at the bonfire, I swear I didn’t, or I wouldn’t have—”
“Looked ready to puke at the sight of me? Sure. I get it.”
“I’m half deaf!” Lee blurted. He didn’t know how else to make up for the mess he’d created.
Gretchen turned on him with a curious expression. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He tapped his left ear. “Since birth. It’s part of the Agreement.”
“What Agreement?”
“Lee,” said Felix, warningly. “Shut up.”
Lee wondered if he should just go out into the wood, dig a hole, and hide there until Gretchen left. She had an awful way of making him say things he shouldn’t.
“What Agreement?” Gretchen pressed excitedly. “Agreement with whom? About what?”
“That’s none of your business,” said Felix, pushing into the conservatory, arms crossed.
“I can keep a secret!” Gretchen pleaded. “I swear, I wouldn’t tell anyone. I don’t have any friends to tell secrets to!”
“It’s not—”
But here, Lee stopped short. There was a cold breeze blowing against his unhearing ear—a breath, and words slipped out upon it.
“She is not wanted here.”
Felix had raised his eyepatch and was staring behind Lee, at something Lee could not see but Felix could, and something that Felix could not hear but Lee could.
Death was standing in the conservatory.
“What Agreement?” Gretchen asked again. “Did your parents make a deal with the devil, or what?”
“Gretchen,” said Felix, “you need to go.”
“She could disappear so easily,” whispered lips at Lee’s ear. “A mere snuff or a snip, a wrong gust of the wind, and her wick would be out. If she snoops around places she should not go, such a premature end might be her fate.”
Felix looked at Lee. “What is he saying?”
“What’s who saying?” Gretchen looked between the brothers. “You two are starting to creep me out.”
“Little girls should not be investigating deaths. What happened in Hickory Park is my business. Mine alone.”
“Felix is right,” said Lee, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “You need to go. Now.”
“Come on, just say you’ll help me! Then I’ll go.”
Lee could hear Death moving away from him and closer to Gretchen. Felix had gone white in the face.
“Such a shame to do away with a candle that tall and bright. And a summoner, too. What a pity.”
“Please, Gretchen, leave,” Lee pleaded.
Suddenly, Gretchen cried out and fell backward against the conservatory door. Its latch gave way, and she tumbled down the steps.
Felix shouted, and Lee followed after him down to where Gretchen lay, still and silent on the frosted ground. She did not stir. She did not speak. Her eyes were closed.
“What did you do?” Felix shouted at the air.
But a low voice on the porch steps said, “Consider that a warning,” and Lee felt cold air move across the back of his neck. Death was gone.
Gretchen’s eyes fluttered open. “Ow.” Slowly, she sat up, rubbing her right elbow. “Owww. I think I broke something.”
The brothers sighed, relieved.
Then Felix said, “It’s your own fault for coming here.”
Lee nudged him. “She’s actually hurt.” He turned to Gretchen. “If you’ve broken something, our dad should look at you. Do you, uh, think you can walk?”
Gretchen made a face, but she nodded, and with Lee’s help she got to her feet, leaning against him as he helped her up the conservatory steps.
Felix followed, wary. “This . . . this isn’t a good idea. Death doesn’t want her here. He said he wants her to leave.”
“But she’s not a trespasser anymore,” said Lee. “She�
��s a patient. Death can’t harm her for that. Now come on.”
As he helped Gretchen, step by step, to the east-end door, Lee began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Felix asked.
“I don’t know.”
None of this was funny at all, really. It was just that Lee couldn’t help but think this was exactly the sort of thing Gretchen had wanted to happen.
“A sprained elbow.”
That was Vince Vickery’s professional medical conclusion, but from the way Gretchen moaned and groaned, Felix would have guessed she’d been torn into a hundred thousand pieces.
“Shouldn’t there be a preacher present?” she whimpered from the examination table. “Aren’t I supposed to get my last rites?”
“You’re not going to die,” said Felix. “Stop being dramatic.”
“Well don’t you have a fine bedside manner?” Gretchen whined. “Why can’t Lee be in here? He’d be nicer at least.”
“Dad . . . banned him from the examination room. He got into the herbs one time and mixed them all up, trying to make his own medicine. It took Dad forever to sort them back out.”
Felix was rather impressed with his lie under pressure.
Gretchen, however, was not. “What if your dad’s wrong and I’ve been torn up inside? What if my spleen has, like, exploded? What if I hit my head so hard that something is loose up there?”
“It didn’t, and it isn’t. My dad is never wrong.”
That was true enough. Vince was never wrong, because Death was never wrong. He had followed them into the examination room and, while Vince checked Gretchen over for injuries, had stood behind her head. When Death stood at the head of the table, there was nothing to worry about. It was when he stood at the foot that the outcome was unalterable: the patient would die.
And even though it was only a sprain, and even though Death was on the good end of the table today, Felix felt a prickling all along his arms. Death had made it clear he did not want Gretchen to visit again. Even now, his ice-blue eyes were glazed with malice. He looked contemptuously at Gretchen, smoothing the lapels of his black jacket, even though his three-piece suit was never the least bit disheveled.
The House in Poplar Wood Page 7
