“What kind of faerie do you think it was?”
Jared shrugged. “I wish we had the book so I could look it up.”
“You don’t remember anything that could shape-shift like that?”
“I don’t know.” Jared rubbed his face.
“Look, I told Mom it wasn’t your fault. You’ll just have to explain.”
Jared gave a short laugh. “Yeah, like I can tell her what happened.”
“I could say that kid stole something from Mallory’s bag.” When Jared didn’t respond, Simon tried again. “I could pretend I did it. We could switch shirts and everything.”
Jared just shook his head.
Finally their mother emerged from the vice principal’s office. She looked tired.
“I’m sorry,” Jared said.
He was surprised by the calm tone of her voice. “I don’t want to talk about it, Jared. Get your sister and let’s just go.”
Jared nodded and followed Simon, looking back just in time to see their mother sink down in the chair he’d vacated. What was she thinking? Why wasn’t she yelling? He found himself wishing that she was mad—at least that he would understand. Her quiet sadness was more frightening. It was like this was all she expected of him.
Simon and Jared walked through the school, stopping to ask fencing team members if they’d seen Mallory. None of them had. They even stopped Chris-the-captain. He looked uncomfortable when they asked about Mallory, but he shook his head. The gymnasium was empty, the only sounds the echo of their steps on the glossy wood floor. The black mat had been rolled up, and everything from the meet had been put away.
Finally a girl with long, brown hair told them she’d seen Mallory crying in the girls’ bathroom.
Simon shook his head. “Mallory? Crying? But she won.”
The girl shrugged. “I asked her if she was okay, but she said she was fine.”
“You think that was really her?” Simon asked as they walked toward the restroom.
“You mean, was something impersonating her? Why would a faerie turn into Mallory and then cry in a girls’ bathroom?”
“I don’t know,” said Simon. “I’d cry if I had to turn into Mallory.”
Jared snorted. “So, you want to go in there and look for her?”
“I’m not going into the girls’ room,” Simon said. “Besides, you’re already in so much trouble, there’s no way you can get into more.”
“I can always get into more trouble,” Jared said with a sigh. He pushed open the door. It looked surprisingly like the boys’ room, except there were no urinals.
“Mallory?” he called. No answer. He peered under the stalls but didn’t see any feet. He pushed open one of the doors gingerly. Even though there was no one in there, he felt weird, jumpy and embarrassed. After a moment he darted back out into the hall.
“She’s not in there?” Simon said.
“It’s empty.” Jared glanced past the line of lockers, hoping no one had seen him.
“Maybe she went to the office looking for us,” Simon said. “I don’t see her anywhere.”
A feeling of dread uncoiled in the pit of Jared’s stomach. After the vice principal had caught him, he hadn’t really thought about anything but how much trouble he was in. But that thing was still running around the school. He remembered how the creature had looked through Mallory’s bag at the match.
“Mallory?”
“What if she went outside?” Jared said, hoping that they could still find her before it did. “She could have gone out to see if we were waiting by the car.”
“We could look.” Simon shrugged. Jared could tell he wasn’t convinced, but they walked outside anyway.
The sky had already deepened to purples and golds. In the dimming light they walked past the track and the baseball field.
“I don’t see her,” Simon said.
Jared nodded. His stomach churned with nervousness. Where is she? he wondered.
“Hey,” Simon said. “What’s that?” He walked a few feet and leaned down to pick up something shining in the grass.
“Mallory’s fencing medal,” Jared said. “And look.”
On the grass large chunks of rock formed a circle around the medal. Jared knelt down beside the largest stone. Engraved deeply in the rock was a word: TRADE.
“Stones,” Simon said. “Like from the quarry.”
Jared looked up, surprised. “Remember the map we found? It said dwarves live in the quarry—but I don’t think dwarves can shape-shift.”
“Mallory could still be inside with Mom. She could be in the office waiting for us.”
Jared wanted to believe it. “Then why is her medal out here?”
“Maybe she dropped it. Maybe this is a trap.” Simon started walking back toward the school. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back and see if she’s with Mom.”
Jared nodded numbly.
When they got back inside, they found their mother in the school entrance, talking into her cell phone. Her back was to them, and she was alone.
Although their mother was speaking softly, her voice traveled easily to where they crouched. “Yeah, I thought things were getting better too. But, you know, Jared never admitted to what happened when we first moved here . . . and well, this is going to sound strange, but Mallory and Simon are so protective of him.”
Jared froze, both dreading what she was going to say and unable to make himself do anything to stop her from continuing.
“No, no. They deny he ever did any of those things. And they’re keeping something from me. I can tell by the way they stop talking when they come into a room, the way they cover for one another, especially for Jared. You should have heard Simon tonight, making up excuses for his brother pulling a knife on that little boy.” Here she made a choked noise and began crying.
“I just don’t know if I can handle him anymore. He is so angry, Richard. Maybe he should go and stay with you for a while.”
Jared froze.
Dad. She was talking to their dad.
Simon jabbed Jared in the arm. “Come on. Mallory’s not here.”
Jared turned dazedly and followed his brother out the door. He could not have said how he felt at that moment—except maybe hollow.
SEEM TO TRICK HEN TOOK PEN
Chapter Three
IN WHICH Simon Solves a Riddle
What are we going to do?” Simon asked as they walked back down the hallway.
“They have her,” Jared said softly. He had to blot out what he’d just heard, blot everything from his mind except Mallory. “They want to trade her for the Guide.”
“But we don’t have it.”
“Shhh!” Jared said. He had an idea, but he didn’t want to say it aloud, out in the open air. “Come on.”
Jared went to his locker and got a towel from his gym bag. He picked out a textbook—Advanced Mathematics—that was about the same size as the Guide and folded it in the cloth.
“What are you doing?”
“Here,” he whispered, shoving the wrapped package at Simon. He grabbed his backpack from the locker. “Thimbletack fooled us with this trick. Maybe we can fool whoever took Mallory.”
Simon nodded once. “Okay, I think Mom has a flashlight in the car.”
They clamored over a chain-link fence at the edge of the schoolyard and crossed the highway. The other side of the road was overgrown with weeds. It was hard to walk in the dark, and the flashlight gave off only a faint narrow light.
They climbed over a large pile of rocks, some covered in slick moss, others cracked in parts. As they went, Jared couldn’t stop replaying what he’d overheard. He thought about the awful things that his mother believed and the even more-awful things she was likely to believe now that he’d disappeared. No matter what he did, he wound up in deeper and deeper trouble. What if he were expelled? What if she were to send him out to live with his dad, who wouldn’t want him?
“Jared, look,” said Simon. They had come to the edge of the old quar
ry.
The rock had been mined jaggedly; chunks of stone stuck out like ledges along the nearly thirty-foot drop to the uneven valley below. Scrubby bits of grass grew along the walls from thick veins of dirt. The highway ran over the top of the cavern, elevated on a thick stone bridge.
“It’s weird to mine rocks, isn’t it?” Simon asked. “I mean, they’re just rocks.
“Probably granite,” he continued when Jared didn’t answer. Simon wrapped his thin jacket tighter around himself.
Jared shone his flashlight along the walls, catching a streak of rust and a blush of ochre in the beam. He had no idea what kind of stone it was.
Simon shrugged. “So, uh, how are we going to get down there?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, if you know so much?” Jared snapped.
“We could . . . ,” Simon started, but he trailed off and Jared felt bad.
“Let’s just try to climb down,” said Jared, pointing. “We can jump to that ledge and then try to get to another one.”
“That’s pretty far down. We should get a rope or something.”
“That’s pretty far down.”
“We don’t have time,” Jared said. “Here, hold the light.”
Thrusting the metal cylinder into his twin’s hands, Jared sat on the edge of the cliff. Without the flashlight, when he looked down, he saw only the deep darkness below. Taking a breath, he scooted off, letting himself drop to a stone shelf he could not see.
Turning, he started to stand. Light shone in his eyes, blinding him. He stumbled and fell forward.
“Are you all right?” Simon called.
Jared shaded his face and tried to keep calm. “Yeah. Come on. Your turn.”
He heard the crunching of dirt above him as Simon got into position. Quickly Jared moved out of the way, feeling ahead of him for an edge he only dimly remembered. Simon landed heavily beside him with a yelp.
The flashlight tumbled from Simon’s hands and fell into the darkness, hitting the valley floor hard, bouncing once and then lying still, illuminating a thin path of scrub and stone.
“How could you be so dumb!” Jared felt his temper like it was a living thing inside him, growing by the minute. Only shouting seemed to keep it from overwhelming him. “Why didn’t you throw it down to me? How are we going to climb down in the dark? What if Mallory’s in danger? What if she dies because you were such a moron?”
Simon’s head came up, his eyes shining with tears, but Jared was as shocked as his brother.
“I didn’t mean it, Simon,” he said hastily.
Simon nodded, but turned his face away from Jared.
“I think there’s another ledge there. See that shape?”
Simon still didn’t say anything.
“I’ll go first,” Jared said. He took a deep breath and dropped into the blackness. He hit the second ledge hard—it must have been farther down than he’d thought. His breath was knocked out of him, and his hands and knees were on fire. Slowly he pushed himself upright. His jeans were ripped widely over one knee, and his arm had a cut that started to bleed sluggishly. But from there it was only a short hop down to the quarry floor.
“Jared?” Simon’s voice came faintly from where he was still sitting on the top ledge.
“I’m here,” Jared called. “Don’t move. I’ll get the light.”
He crawled over to grab the flashlight and turned it toward his brother, searching out ledges where Simon could step or niches he could grab. Slowly Simon climbed his way to the ground. But as he waited, Jared noticed echoing sounds, a distant thrum and a pounding that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Shining the flashlight around the quarry, he saw more jagged rock with faint traces of drill lines. He now wondered how they were ever going to get out. But before he had time to worry about that, the light flashed on an overhang of rock on the wall. As the light passed over the stone, a mottled pattern of fungi gave off a dim bluish glow.
“Bioluminescence,” Simon said.
“Huh?” Jared took a step closer.
“When something makes its own light.”
By the weak glow, Jared saw that a rectangle of stone under the ledge had been carved with a pattern of intertwining grooves. Looking at the center of the rock, he could make out the tops of letters hewn into the stone. He turned the flashlight directly on them.
SEEM TO TRICK HEN TOOK PEN
“A riddle,” said Jared.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Simon.
“Who cares about that? How do we solve it?” They didn’t have time to stand around now. They were almost inside, almost to Mallory.
“You solved the one back at the house,” said Simon, sitting down with his back to his brother. “You figure it out.”
Jared took a deep breath. “Look, I’m really sorry about what I said before. You have to help,” Jared pleaded. “Everyone knows you’re smarter than I am.”
Simon sighed. “I don’t understand the riddle either. A hen is a girl chicken, right? And a pen could be the place where they keep chickens. I don’t know about the rest.”
Jared looked at the words again. He couldn’t seem to concentrate. What trick could a chicken perform? Maybe they were supposed to offer eggs at the entrance? Did the Guide say anything about chickens and faeries? He wished he had the book now. . . .
“Hey, wait a minute,” Simon said, turning around and kneeling up. “Give me that light.”
Jared handed over the flashlight and watched as Simon scratched out the message in the thin dirt with his finger. Then he started scratching out certain letters and writing them above in a different pattern.
MITES OPEN THREE TOCK KON
“What are you doing?” Jared sat down beside his twin.
“I think you have to rearrange the letters to get the real message. Like those puzzles in the paper that Mom is always doing.” Simon inscribed a third phrase in the dust.
KNOCK THREE TIMES TO OPEN
“Wow,” said Jared. He couldn’t believe that Simon had figured it out. He never would have solved it.
Simon grinned. “Easy,” he said, walking up to the door and knocking three times on the hard stone face.
Just then the ground shifted underneath them, and both twins fell into the chasm that opened beneath their feet.
“What have we here? Prisoners!”
Chapter Four
IN WHICH the Twins Discover a Tree Unlike Any Other
They tumbled down into a net of woven metal. Yelping and kicking, Jared tried to stand, but he couldn’t seem to get a foothold. Abruptly he stopped struggling and got elbowed in the ear by his brother.
“Simon, stop! Look!”
Glowing fungi covered the walls in patches, illuminating the faces of three small men with skin as gray as stone. Their clothes were drab and sewn from rough fabrics, but their silver bracelets, crafted in the shape of serpents, were so intricate that they seemed to slither around the men’s thin arms; their collars were woven with golden threads beaten so fine that they might have been cloth; and their jeweled rings were so lovely that each of their dirty fingers gleamed.
“What have we here? Prisoners!” said one with a voice like gravel. “Seldom have we any live prisoners.”
“Dwarves,” Jared whispered to his brother.
“They don’t seem very ‘hi-ho, hi-ho,’ ” Simon whispered back.
The second dwarf rubbed several strands of Jared’s hair between his fingers and turned to the one who had spoken. “Not very extraordinary, are they? The black of their tresses is dull and plain. Their skin is neither smooth nor pale as marble. I find them ill made. We could do far better.”
Jared scowled, not sure what the dwarf meant. Again, he wished for the Guide. He remembered only that dwarves were great craftspeople, and the iron that hurt other faeries didn’t bother them. His knife would have been useless, even if it hadn’t been confiscated.
“We’re here for our sister,” Jared said. �
�We want to trade.”
One of them chuckled, but Jared wasn’t sure which. With a creak another dwarf positioned a silvery cage beneath the netting.
“The Korting said you would come. He is very eager to meet you.”
“Is he like the dwarf king or something?” Simon asked.
The dwarves did not answer. One pulled on a carved handle and the net opened. Both boys fell heavily into the cage. Jared’s hands and knees felt raw all over again. He slammed his fist against the metal floor.
Jared and Simon were silent as they were wheeled through caverns with cold air and wet walls. They could hear the sounds of hammers, louder and more distinct now that they were underground, and the roaring of what might have been a great fire. Overhead in the gloom, patches of dim phosphorescence showed the tips of large stalactites, hanging above them like a forest of icicles.
They passed through a grotto where bats shrieked from above, and the floor was dark and rank with their droppings. Jared tried to contain a shiver. The deeper they went, the colder the cavern became. Sometimes Jared saw shadows shift in the gloom and heard an erratic tapping.
As they moved through a narrow corridor, past dripping columns, Jared breathed in the damp, mineral scent with relief after the stink of the bats. The next chamber seemed to be filled with dusty piles of metal objects. A golden rat with sapphire eyes darted out of a malachite goblet and watched them pass. A silver rabbit lay on its side, a winding key around its neck, while a single bud of a platinum lily opened, then closed, then opened again. Simon looked at the metal rat with longing.
Then they moved into a large cavern where they saw dwarves carving statues of other dwarves into the granite walls. The sudden brightness of the lantern light stung Jared’s eyes, but as he passed the dwarves, he thought he saw one of the carving’s arms move.
The Ironwood Tree Page 2
