by Ann Hood
Bitsy’s eyes were red and her cheeks were wet with tears. But her face looked mad enough to knock Maisie over.
“You!” Bitsy said. “You . . . nothing! You no-talent, no-friend, scene-stealer!”
“What?” Maisie said, bewildered.
Bitsy stormed off, and slowly Maisie became aware that every single person was staring at her.
“What?” she said again.
From the crowd, Jim Duncan emerged with a big, silly grin on his face.
“John Proctor,” he said, holding his hand out to Maisie. “Pleased to meet you, Abigail Williams.”
“What?” Maisie said for a third time.
“You got the part!” Felix shrieked. “You’re Abigail!”
The next thing she knew, Felix and Jim Duncan and the Ziff twins and almost everybody else were hugging Maisie.
They were congratulating her and gushing about her audition, their faces all happy and excited.
But all Maisie could do was think: I got the part, I got the part, I got the part while she tried not to throw up.
CHAPTER 2
AMY PICKWORTH
Once Great-Uncle Thorne discovered that the Ziff twins were descendants of Amy Pickworth, he started to change his mind about some things. First, he changed his mind about Maisie and Felix and their mother moving back upstairs to the servants’ quarters. Pickworths belong in Elm Medona! he announced, and they all unpacked everything they had just packed up and settled back into their old rooms. Then he changed his mind about The Treasure Chest. He unsealed it and kept it unsealed. Pickworths have a gift, a responsibility, a calling! he decided. Then he changed his mind about the Ziff twins. Pickworths need to stick together!
Added to his excitement about finding new Pickworths was the excitement about his upcoming wedding to Penelope Merriweather. And, of course, Maisie and Felix’s father’s wedding to Agatha the Great. It was hard not to feel excited, too, Felix thought. But Maisie was not excited. She was mad.
Maisie was going to be a junior bridesmaid, not once but twice. This would be fine, maybe even thrilling, except for the fact that Felix was going to be a best man. Twice. And on the importance scale for weddings, best man was much higher than junior bridesmaid.
“Can’t I be a real bridesmaid?” Maisie asked her father.
“I don’t really know how this all works,” he admitted. “But Agatha said junior bridesmaid, which I think just refers to your age. Maybe you can’t be a full-blown bridesmaid until you’re old enough to vote?”
“That,” Maisie said, “is ridiculous.”
“Can’t I be a real bridesmaid?” Maisie asked Great-Uncle Thorne that night at supper.
“No,” he answered, his mouth full of moules, which were actually mussels. But he insisted on calling them by their French name.
“Maybe you’ll think about it?” Maisie said.
She took a mussel out of its shell with the special little fork that was used for just this purpose, and stared at it. Yellow and slimy with some blue around the edges. She put it back in its shiny black shell and waited.
“There’s nothing to think about,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “Read your Emily Post.”
“My what?” Maisie asked.
Across the table, Felix plopped mussels into his mouth. How could someone who did not like eggs or mayonnaise or anything normal eat these disgusting blobs? Maisie looked away.
“Etiquette, my dear girl,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, tossing his empty shell into the sterling silver bowl with the interlocking Ps engraved in it. “Eleven-year-olds—”
“I’m twelve,” Maisie corrected him.
“Children,” he said, dipping a fresh mussel into the broth beneath the pile of moules, “are junior bridesmaids.”
“But then how can Felix be your best man?” Maisie persisted.
Great-Uncle Thorne sighed dramatically.
“Number one,” he said, holding up his liver-spotted hand and raising one finger, “all of my friends are dead. Number two, I rather like the lad. He’ll be a fine best man.”
“Merci,” Felix said, chewing a moule.
“What?” Maisie said. “You speak French now?”
“Geez,” Felix said, “everyone can say thank you in French.”
Great-Uncle Thorne gently placed his special mussel-plucking fork onto the edge of his bowl.
“You really are an unpleasant young woman,” he said. “Penelope has gone to great lengths to get you the most lovely moiré silk for your junior bridesmaid dress, and all you can do is complain. Complain and demand and scowl.”
With that, he resumed eating.
Maisie watched him chew. He chewed like an old man, she decided, which of course he was.
“It’s rude to stare at someone who is eating,” Great-Uncle Thorne said without even looking at her.
“I wish I could just fly away from here,” Maisie announced, even though she didn’t really wish that because then she wouldn’t get to be the lead in The Crucible.
“If you do,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, “please wait until after the wedding.”
Her mother was no help at all. Even though she had been the instigator of the divorce, now that Maisie’s father was getting married, she acted like he had no right to do that.
“Um,” Maisie had reminded her mother, “didn’t you want the dumb divorce in the first place?”
“It’s one thing to want a divorce and to get a divorce and to actually be happier divorced, and it’s another thing to realize that your husband is going to marry another woman,” her mother had said, which made no sense at all to Maisie.
“Ex-husband,” Maisie had said.
“I know,” her mother had agreed with a sigh. “I guess it’s just the reality of the situation.”
Maisie had chalked this up to one of those weird adult things she didn’t understand.
Earlier, Maisie had asked her mother’s opinion of what a junior bridesmaid’s duties were. Did she think they were different than a bridesmaid’s duties? Did junior bridesmaids get to walk down the aisle with grown-up men? Or was there some kind of junior-male thing as well? She imagined someone younger, shorter, in every way more junior than herself. Would she have to hold his arm? Sit with him? Dance with him?
“I really don’t want to discuss your father’s wedding, if that’s okay with you, Maisie,” her mother had said primly.
“Well, then can we discuss this in terms of Great-Uncle Thorne’s wedding, where I am also a junior bridesmaid?” Maisie demanded.
“I have a brief to write,” her mother had said, picking up her briefcase and heading upstairs, which wasn’t an answer; it was an excuse.
As if he’d read her mind, Great-Uncle Thorne said, “Where is your mother? Out with that Fishbaum fellow?”
“She’s working,” Felix said.
“All of a sudden the reality of her divorcing Dad has hit her, and she does not want to talk about it,” Maisie said.
Great-Uncle Thorne looked perplexed.
“I think all the wedding planning is wearing on her,” Felix added.
“Ah,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, nodding. “Ditto Penelope.”
He ate more mussels.
“I’ve done some research,” he said after he rang the bell for the table to be cleared.
“On?” Maisie asked.
“Your friends. Your . . . what’s their surname? Zinger?”
“Ziff,” Felix said.
“Yes, them. The Ziff twins. Amy Pickworth’s descendants.”
He paused.
Maisie and Felix waited.
“As you know, we always assumed that Amy Pickworth met her demise in the Congo.”
They nodded.
“She and Phinneas had gone there to acquire artifacts for The Treasure Chest,” Great-Uncle Thorne continued. �
�According to my father, they spent the night in a hut with some natives, and in the morning she had vanished. He claims that he searched for her along the river and in the jungle, but not even a trace turned up. Except . . .”
He paused again and began fumbling in his pocket.
“Except?” Maisie asked eagerly.
“Except for this,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, and finally removed from his pocket a piece of heavy vellum paper with two words written on it in faded black ink:
gone black A O
“‘Gone black’,” Felix read out loud. “‘A O’.”
“What does that mean?” Maisie asked.
“We assumed of course that it meant they killed her. ‘Gone black’ standing in for imminent death. ‘A O’ her initials. Amy Olivia.”
“How sad,” Felix said softly.
Maisie shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said, thinking out loud. “She had time to write a farewell note? These natives are . . . I don’t know . . . throwing spears at her or getting ready to eat her or shrink her head and she has time to write that note in that fancy handwriting?”
Great-Uncle Thorne looked at her, impressed. “Bravo. You have to be right. Amy Pickworth wrote that note with care, I’d say. Under duress, even excellent penmanship would waver.”
Felix picked up the note and began to read it silently, his lips moving as he did.
“But what else could it mean?” Maisie wondered.
“I think your brother there is about to tell us,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
“It’s an anagram, isn’t it?” Felix said.
“Spoken like a true Pickworth!” Great-Uncle Thorne said with obvious pride.
Maisie took the note from her brother and stared at the letters there. Almost immediately, they seemed to reshape themselves, revealing their meaning to her.
“‘Go back alone’,” Maisie read.
She looked at Great-Uncle Thorne and said the words again: “‘Go back alone’.”
“Amy Pickworth stayed in that jungle intentionally,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. His great white brows furrowed. “The question I have is why?”
As much as Maisie wanted more duties as a junior bridesmaid, Felix wanted fewer duties as a best man. Just yesterday, Great-Uncle Thorne had handed him a dusty book that looked like no one had opened in about a million years. When Great-Uncle Thorne cracked the spine, the first pages crumbled. Undeterred, he’d carefully turned the brittle pages until he found what he was looking for.
“Here,” he told Felix, sliding the book across the table.
There, under the heading, DUTIES OF A BEST MAN, a list stretched. There were duties for planning the wedding and duties during the rehearsal and duties the night before the wedding and before the ceremony and during the ceremony and even at the reception.
“I have to throw you a bachelor party?” Felix said.
Great-Uncle Thorne grinned and nodded.
“I’m only twelve,” Felix reminded him.
“Irrelevant!” Great-Uncle Thorne said dismissively.
Felix scanned the never-ending list of duties.
“Arrange accommodations for out-of-town groomsmen?” Felix read.
“The Viking Hotel is always nice,” Great-Uncle Thorne offered.
When Felix showed Maisie the list the next night after dinner, she was dismissive, too.
“There won’t be any groomsmen,” she told Felix. “He doesn’t have any friends or relatives except you.”
“Dad does,” Felix said.
“Junior bridesmaids just walk down the aisle,” Maisie said. “Probably in an ugly dress.”
“I have to organize the wedding toasts,” Felix said. “The bride’s father gives the first one—”
“Penelope Merriweather’s father died on the Titanic,” Maisie reminded him. “And Gramps died before we were even born.”
“Then I give the second toast,” Felix continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Then who should come next?”
Maisie brightened. “I’ll give the toast after you.”
“Really?” Felix said, checking at least that one duty off his list.
“I’d better get started,” Maisie said, her mind already swirling with quotes she could use. Her teacher, Mrs. Witherspoon, had taught them that every good speech starts with a quote.
She began to jot down the ones she knew offhand. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country . . . Four score and seven years ago . . . Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears . . .
“What?” Felix asked her.
Maisie glanced up at her brother.
“What do you mean ‘what’?” she asked him.
“Your eyebrows are all crinkled like something’s wrong,” he said.
Maisie sighed. “I don’t know the first thing about love,” she said. “I’m going to have get a book of love poems. Who writes love poems?”
“Um,” Felix said.
“Exactly.”
The next morning, their mother did not emerge from her bedroom. Aiofe reported that she was working at home.
“‘Do not disturb,’” Aiofe announced as she refilled Maisie’s hot cocoa. “That’s what she said.”
“I don’t think Mom has worked at home since we moved here—” Felix began.
“Ever,” Maisie interrupted.
“Should we call the doctor?” Felix asked, worried.
Just then Great-Uncle Thorne walked in to the dining room.
“She’ll be fine once the hubbub dies down,” he said. “Why, Penelope won’t even take a stroll with me this morning.” He shook his head. “A real shame, too, because the Pickworth peonies have all bloomed.” Great-Uncle Thorne gave a small, satisfied smile. “Just in time for the wedding, too.”
“Won’t Penelope want the Merriweather roses for the wedding?” Maisie asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “Have you seen our peonies this year? They are truly magnificent.”
He took his seat at the head of the table, flicked a linen napkin open and tucked it into his collar.
“Mmmm,” he said, reaching for the silver serving tray. “Shirred eggs.”
“I don’t understand why Mom is so mad about Dad getting married,” Felix wondered out loud. “She’s got Bruce Fishbaum.”
“It’s complicated,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “Every one of Phinneas Pickworth’s ex-wives got angry when he married a new woman.”
“How many times did he get married?” Maisie asked him.
Great-Uncle Thorne waved his bony hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. He always loved our mother, Ariane, above all others.”
His eyes stayed on Aiofe, following her as she made sure everyone had what they needed before she left to get fresh coffee.
Once she was gone, Great-Uncle Thorne leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “Get those Ziff twins over here. I’m sending you all on a mission.”
Felix groaned. How could he possibly do even one more thing?
But Maisie was intrigued. “What kind of mission?” she asked.
Great-Uncle Thorne cocked his head, listening to be sure Aiofe wasn’t approaching before he spoke.
“Upstairs,” he said, “in The Treasure Chest, there’s something that will bring you to the Congo—”
“And Amy Pickworth!” Maisie said, excited.
Great-Uncle Thorne nodded solemnly. “And Amy Pickworth. I want you to find it and go there immediately.”
“What’s the object?” Felix asked.
Aiofe’s footsteps neared.
“I don’t know for certain,” Great-Uncle Thorne admitted. “I only know they went to find Dr. Livingstone.”
Maisie and Felix glanced at each other and s
hrugged.
“My sister was right,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “You two know nothing about anything at all.”
Aiofe walked in with more coffee and cocoa.
“After school,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, leveling his gaze on Maisie and then Felix. “Meet me in the Library. And bring those Ziff twins.”
CHAPTER 3
THE MISSION
Maisie’s teacher, Mrs. Witherspoon, clapped her hands for attention.
“People!” she said. Then louder: “People!”
Maisie caught Hadley’s eye and the two of them smirked.
“Today we are starting a new unit,” Mrs. Witherspoon announced when the noise died down.
Still looking at Maisie, Hadley crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
“Miss Ziff?” Mrs. Witherspoon said. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh no,” Hadley said sweetly. “I can’t wait to hear about it.”
Mrs. Witherspoon studied Hadley’s face for a moment before she continued.
“The new unit is on aviation,” she said, pulling the large world map down over the blackboard.
Inwardly, Maisie groaned. Aviation? she thought. Seriously?
“. . . Charles Lindbergh . . . ,” Mrs. Witherspoon was saying.
Surely there would be a report of some kind, Maisie thought. Mrs. Witherspoon loved reports and oral presentations.
“. . . the Space Age . . . ,” Mrs. Witherspoon was saying. “Your topic for your report can span the centuries!”
A smile crept over Maisie’s face. The Aviatrix Room! Right in Elm Medona. Her mother’s bedroom was the Aviatrix Room. It had real airplane wings suspended from the ceiling and an entire cabinet of early aviation mementos. My room is sepia, her mother had complained when they’d first moved into the mansion from the servant’s quarters. Maisie hadn’t known what “sepia” was until her mother threw open the door to the Aviatrix Room and said: Look! Sepia walls and draperies and . . . everything! Sepia was brown. The brown of old photographs and maps. And the Aviatrix Room was indeed sepia. Except the ceiling, which was the most beautiful blue Maisie had ever seen. The way those airplane wings were suspended from that ceiling, it actually looked as if a plane was disappearing into the sky.
