Felix placed the eyepatch back on his right eye. He had seen enough.
Minutes earlier, Vince had left the room with a handful of canisters, all filled with herbs. It was not difficult to boil a broth that soothed sprains—Felix knew the recipe by heart. But Vince had ordered him to remain in the examination room to keep Gretchen company.
Maybe it was punishment, Felix reflected, for letting Gretchen back on their property. But, he thought bitterly, it wasn’t his fault. Gretchen had a will so strong that Death himself had had to intervene.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Felix told Gretchen. “Now you know not to come poking around the house anymore. It isn’t safe.”
“Isn’t safe?” Gretchen snorted. “You bet it isn’t, with rickety stairs like that. Come to think of it, I could sue.”
“Only you won’t,” Felix said, “because you don’t want your dad finding out about any of this.”
There. He had won this argument for sure.
“Fine,” said Gretchen. “Maybe I won’t sue. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep bothering you. I’ll come back to this house every day until the last Saturday of all eternity, until Lee agrees to help me. You’re going to have to do more than sprain my elbow to keep me away.”
“I didn’t sprain your elbow. And it’s against the law to bother people like that. There’s such a thing as private property.”
“So! I won’t trespass. I’ll just hide out in the wood and sing ‘Rocky Top’ at the top of my lungs, for hours straight.”
Felix did not doubt that Gretchen would do just that. He wondered if maybe she wasn’t winning the argument after all. He flipped up his eyepatch again to find that Death was no longer in the room. Most likely he was attending one of his many out-of-house appointments. Appointments that did not require a doctor’s medicine or care. Appointments that only ever meant death.
Felix slid the eyepatch back in place and then, before Gretchen could make another threat, he ran to the kitchen, where his father was stooped over a boiling pot on the stovetop.
“Can’t you finish any sooner?” Felix begged. “She’s driving me crazy.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let her back here.”
Now that Vince was out of Gretchen’s presence—he was always calm and collected with his patients—he sounded severe.
“I didn’t let her anywhere! She came back all on her own.”
“She’s upset Death.”
“I know,” Felix said miserably. “Lee said Death called it a ‘warning.’”
“Then you’d better see to it that she stays away. Even if her motives are innocent—which I seriously doubt, given her parentage—she can’t be hanging around.”
Felix ignored the uneasy feeling in his gut. “Don’t Whipples make their own deals with Death, though?” he asked. “Rites?”
The word tasted sour on his tongue. His father had taught him many years ago about Rites—the spells summoners performed to communicate with the Shades.
“It’s clear Gretchen’s father has made deals with him over the years,” said Vince. “Perhaps even his son has, by now. But Gretchen’s too young for that yet.”
“But Death wouldn’t . . . you know, kill her?”
Vince looked up sharply. “You know as well as I: Death can only take lives at their appointed time.”
“I know, I know,” Felix mumbled.
He really did know. He’d witnessed enough deaths in his thirteen years. And the truth was, not all of those deaths had been bad. Some were even peaceful. Some patients, old and worn by decades, passed on with accepting smiles, loved ones holding their hands.
Felix knew this was how Death worked—taking lives only when their time had come.
Still, he could not shake the image of Death’s angered eyes, just before he pushed Gretchen down the conservatory stairs. He’d looked . . . murderous. As though this were not a matter of appointed times, but of something far more personal.
“Here.” Vince handed Felix a clay bowl, hot with freshly boiled broth, and then placed a hand on his shoulder.
“She can’t return to this house,” he said. “You must make sure of that.”
Felix nodded. He cupped the bowl in his gloved hands and carried it back to the examination room, prepared to face Gretchen once more.
“Okay,” he said, walking in. “You’ve got to drink it all down, or—”
Felix stopped short. He looked around.
Gretchen was gone.
She had escaped through the window.
Gretchen had had her fill of sitting in that cold room, arguing with an impossible boy named Felix when she’d really only come there for an impossible boy named Lee. So she’d seized her chance and left.
Her right arm was throbbing like the bass in one of Asa’s heavy metal songs, but that was nothing Gretchen couldn’t endure with a little teeth-gritting. So she gritted her teeth especially hard and tumbled out the window and into the conservatory, bonking her injured elbow into an unexpected object.
“Ow,” said the object, which turned out to be Lee.
“What’re you standing outside the window for?” Gretchen asked him. “That’s super creeperly of you.”
“Ow,” Lee said again, rubbing at his jaw.
“Felix says you’re not allowed in there. That true?”
Lee nodded dismissively and pointed at Gretchen’s elbow. “What’s wrong with it?”
“A sprain. But your dad doesn’t know a thing about treating one. He’s in the other room making some kind of soup, when all I really need is a cold compress.”
“He’s not a normal doctor. He’s holistic. Anyway—”
“So what’s this Agreement thing?”
Lee looked at Gretchen as though she’d spoken at a register far too high for him to hear. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Yes, you do. I’m smart, Lee Vickery. I see things. You can’t fool me. Whatever this Agreement is, it means you can’t see your dad, doesn’t it? You can’t even set foot in your dad’s side of the house. Which probably means Felix can’t visit your side of the house. Is that it?”
Lee looked like he was going to be sick, but said nothing.
“Fine,” Gretchen huffed. “All I was gonna do was offer to help you with your problem, because clearly you don’t like this Agreement and you can’t handle it yourself. I could’ve told you stuff about the Shades. Stuff only summoners know. I could’ve even shown you the Book of Rites. But fine, I’ll go. For good.”
Gretchen pushed past Lee and flung open the conservatory door, clomping down the stairs. Maybe she’d gone too far this time. Bringing up the Agreement—the thing the Vickery brothers were so obviously not supposed to talk about—had seemed like a smart idea. Bait that Lee would bite. But it might have been a stupid approach after all.
And Gretchen certainly hadn’t meant to say anything about the Book of Rites. The words had simply come tumbling out, before she could catch and shove them back inside her, where they belonged. So maybe, after all, it was better to leave and come up with another—
“Gretchen, wait! Wait, wait!”
Gretchen had forgotten how fast Lee was. He’d caught up with her before the third “wait.”
“Hang on,” he puffed, rounding in front of her. “You’d show me the Book of Rites?”
Gretchen winced inwardly, but said, “Sure.”
Lee’s eyes got round. “Isn’t that top secret?”
“Well, I’m a Whipple. Duh. So I know how to get hold of it.”
Gretchen was fairly certain this was a lie, but she wasn’t absolutely certain. She knew where the Book of Rites was, but the getting hold of it was trickier. Only her father had that key.
“But—” sputtered Lee. “Aren’t there rules against me seeing it?”
Gretchen shrugged. “What my family doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”
“I guess not.” Lee lowered his voice to a whisper, as though they were not in a deserted wood but a crowde
d room, and in danger of being overheard. “Is that true? Do you really know things about the Shades?”
“Sure,” said Gretchen, blushing but not knowing why. “And I know a whole lot about Rites. Do you?”
Lee shook his head.
“See,” said Gretchen. “I know all kinds of things. And I could share them with you. If you help me in return, that is.”
“So . . . you want to make a deal.”
Gretchen frowned. “I’d call it quid pro quo. You do something for me, I’ll do something for you.”
“The Rites,” Lee said. “Do you think there’s one that could break the Agreement?”
Gretchen decided she should be at least a little honest. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Especially since I don’t know exactly what your stupid Agreement is. But . . . we could find out.”
“If I help you.” Lee was quiet. He looked over his shoulder, again as though someone might be listening in. He was quiet a while longer. Finally, he said, “I’ll do it.”
Gretchen raised her eyebrows. “You will?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though I’m a Whipple?”
“Don’t make me take it back.”
At last, Gretchen let herself believe him. A grin stretched wide across her face. “That’s a promise, Lee Vickery. Understand? You’ve just made me a promise.”
“Fine. But that means you’ve made me a promise, too. I get to see the Book of Rites.”
“Sure,” said Gretchen. “That’s what I said.”
Now there was only the small matter of turning her fairly-certain-lie into reality. But Gretchen could worry about that later.
“Hey! Hey! Lee, what is she doing?”
Gretchen sighed. For once, things had been going perfectly, so of course Felix would ruin it. He was running out to join them, and Gretchen noted with satisfaction that he was much slower than Lee.
“I was just leaving,” she said. “And Lee has finally . . . rightly . . . wisely agreed to help me. So everything is dandy, thanks.”
“You forgot your medicine.” Felix held out a bowl filled with murky brown liquid.
Gretchen stared at the broth in disgust. There were crumbled-up bits of plant floating on the surface. She made a teeny retching sound and waved the bowl away. “Keep your magic potion. My elbow doesn’t even hurt that much.”
“Could’ve fooled me earlier, calling for a preacher,” said Felix, smirking.
“Meet me Monday after school,” Gretchen told Lee, ignoring Felix entirely. “On the home-side bleachers of the rec field.”
“The home-side bleachers. Got it.”
“What’s going on?” asked Felix.
Gretchen was pleased by how upset he looked. “None of your business,” she said cordially. “See you then, Lee.”
Gretchen wouldn’t get lost this time. She’d paid close attention to her surroundings, and it would be easier to remember the way back the second time around. She would be home before lunch, and if Gram asked about her elbow, she’d say she hurt it practicing softball.
Now, everything was definitely going according to plan.
It was a half-hour walk back to Avenue B, so Gretchen had plenty of thinking time, and plenty to think over. It was bad enough blurting out anything about the Book of Rites, but now she’d as good as promised Lee access to the book. Could she really help him break whatever strange Agreement ruled the house in Poplar Wood? And what exactly was the Agreement? She might have guessed some of it, but she suspected it was more than just a spell over the house. And who had ever heard of that—a house divided in two?
Gretchen thought back to what had happened in the conservatory. Neither brother had been close enough to push her down the steps, and she certainly hadn’t lost her balance; Gretchen had excellent posture and equilibrium—Gram Whipple had made sure of that. Gretchen had been pushed. She’d felt the cold pressure on her shoulders just before she teetered and fell.
“Is that what a Shade feels like?” Gretchen said aloud. “They said Death didn’t want me there. Was it . . . Death who pushed me?”
Gretchen didn’t like this conclusion at all. She would much rather have imagined she’d been pushed by an invisible vampire, or even the vengeful ghost of an ax murderer. To be pushed by Death himself . . .
“But it’s the only rational explanation,” Gretchen said to leafless trees. “Though I don’t know if ‘rational’ is the best word for it. I’m sure most rational people don’t believe in Shades, considering they can’t see them. Still, if it was Death, then he’s a badly behaved Shade. He’s supposed to be taking lives at their appointed time, not pushing people down stairs. So if that was Death, he isn’t acting right, and Essie Hasting is dead, and Dad said Death killed her . . . something’s wrong about this whole thing.”
The trees did not reply.
“Or maybe I’m overthinking it.”
Gretchen kept walking for some time. Minutes passed, then more minutes still, and the trees began to thin. Just as sounds of distant traffic reached her ears, Gretchen caught sight of something up ahead, standing directly in her path. She slowed to a stop and squinted.
A fox.
A solitary fox, small and suave. Its ears were perked like twin mountain peaks, and its fur was gray and speckled. Gretchen took a few steps closer, but the fox didn’t move. It was staring straight at her with bright yellow eyes.
“Hey there, little guy,” Gretchen said, taking one step closer, and another.
The gray fox vanished.
It didn’t scamper away. It simply disappeared, as though it had been nothing but the beam of a flashlight, now switched off. Gretchen rubbed at her eyes and came to the place where the fox had stood. She toed the moldering leaves, and there, underfoot, was a small, perfectly round piece of coal. She scooped it up.
“I thought you were a fox,” she said to the coal, feeling stupid. “I swear you were a fox a minute ago.”
But of course, she received no reply, and without thinking through what she would do with such a souvenir, Gretchen slipped the coal into her coat pocket and walked on.
Lee sat on the highest row of the home-side bleachers. It was misting on the field, wet enough to turn the bleachers slick but not so hard that Lee felt he had a right to use an umbrella. Instead, he’d pulled snug the toggles of his jacket hood, crossed his arms over his knees, and waited for Gretchen, who was late.
It had been on a day much like this one—gray and wet—that he and Felix had tried to break the Agreement. Nearly two years had passed since then. Two years for Lee to grow taller and ganglier, and a little wiser, too. He saw now how silly an attempt it had been. How could two eleven-year-old boys have possibly outsmarted Shades? Shades! Who were immortal and powerful and not human at all. Shades! Who could change the workings of your mind and the beatings of your heart.
Still, Lee had convinced Felix to run away with him into Poplar Wood and remain hidden there until Death and Memory read their note:
Break the Agreement, or you never see us again.
That year, in sixth-grade history, Lee’s teacher had taught the class about leverage. Leverage, said Mr. Babbitt, was something in your favor. Something you could offer or withhold, to get what you wanted. For instance, the American colonists’ leverage against King George and parliament was their buying power. If they didn’t buy the tea and stamps and other highly taxed items the British sent their way, then King George would have to listen to their grievances, so that they would buy things again and he would get his money.
At the time, Lee thought this was a brilliant idea. He and Felix had leverage, after all. They’d lived their whole lives with Death and Memory, training to take over their parents’ practice. It was difficult work to find new apprentices. Death and Memory both knew this, and one way or other they meant to get the Vickery brothers to sign their own contracts. But Death and Memory would have no chance of apprentices if Felix and Lee ran away. Their very existence was leverage.
What Lee d
id not take into account was that King George did not listen to the grievances of the American colonists. He sent his troops instead.
Lee and Felix had only been able to make it two days in the wood, in their makeshift tent, before a cold front blew in, and they were shaking from chill and hungry for cooked food and frightened by the wolfish howls in the wood. They trudged back to Poplar House, hoping their disappearance had at least shaken the Shades.
The only ones shaken were Vince and Judith Vickery. Nothing else had changed. Death and Memory were unaffected and the Agreement remained as much in place as ever. Worse yet, there was punishment in store for the boys. Lee still shuddered when he thought of his time at Forgetful Pond—a moonless night, alone with dozens of memories, most of them Bad Things and all of them unwanted. And Felix, as with everything about his situation, had it far worse. Death locked him in the cellar, with no food or water, for a full day and night—alone, with nothing but Death’s burning candles for company.
Leverage, Lee had decided, was the stupidest concept there ever was, and it belonged only in a history classroom.
And yet.
Though Lee did not speak of the Agreement, he thought of it all the time. He considered it as he lay awake in bed, listening as Memory moved through the house, humming her sad and wordless songs. Once Lee refused his contract, he might live a life as a track star, burning up the Olympics, or as a famous writer or a high school teacher or a dad to fifteen kids, but he would never see his father, and his parents would never again see each other. That was simply the way it had to be.
And yet.
From the time he was little, Lee had known about the Whipples. Self-serving, his mother called them. Without principle. Summoners were opportunists who used the Shades for personal gain. They saw Death and Memory and Passion as powers to be shackled and bent to human will, rather than beings that humans could learn from and work with. And the summoners, from their high social standing and ivory towers, looked down on the common apprentices and treated them like the unworthy ones. All this, Lee knew.
The House in Poplar Wood Page 8
