The Clockwork Ghost

by Laura Ruby

  Theo could have told him that the only person who could persuade Tess not to worry wasn’t a person at all, but the very large cat they had just taken away.

  Tess put her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Soon after, Tess went up to her bed. Aunt Esther slammed pots and pans around the kitchen, her lips stitched tight in disapproval. Lance cowered in the corner. Theo and Jaime picked at the lasagna, but couldn’t eat much. They finally gave up, wrapped the pan in foil, and put it in the fridge for a time they weren’t feeling so sick. Jaime told Theo he had to get home, and Aunt Esther said she would walk him to the train station.

  “If I don’t get some air I might spontaneously combust,” she announced.

  Before they, too, disappeared out the front door, Jaime said, “Tell Tess I said good-bye.”

  “I will,” Theo said.

  “Tell her . . .” He seemed about to say something more, but didn’t.

  “Tomorrow,” Theo said. “You’ll see her tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” said Jaime.

  And then they were out the door.

  Theo’s dad came home. He’d heard what happened and went upstairs to check on Tess while Theo cleaned the kitchen. Theo left a plate with a square of lasagna for his dad on the table, but when his dad came back downstairs, he didn’t seem to have much of an appetite, either. He helped Theo with the dishes, and then the two of them watched TV for a while, avoiding all the news reports of a giant cat, likely a machine disguised as an animal, terrorizing innocent blond ladies in Brooklyn.

  Theo lasted another hour and then he went to bed. Somehow, he fell asleep. He was awakened by Tess’s soft cries, too much like the cries of a lost kitten. He crawled out of his bed and knelt next to hers. Her eyes twitched under her lids, and her limbs thrashed as if she were trying to run. He caught hold of one of her hands and whispered, “It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” even though it wasn’t, and he wasn’t sure how they were going to fix it. He talked to her and squeezed her hand until her thrashing slowed, then stopped.

  Without letting go, Theo shifted so that he was sitting against her bed, head resting on the mattress. He held his sister’s hand all through the night, till the sky split against the rising sun, black and gold as Nine’s fur.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Nine

  Miriam Biedermann had not lied to her children. The men who loaded Nine into their van and drove her to the large, dank facility in Manhattan were gentle with her. They did not yank on her harness or yell. They talked to her in low, soothing voices. The cage they put her in was clean, with a comfortable bed in one corner and a bowl full of water.

  But a cage was still a cage, something Nine knew well. When she was only a kitten, and just another number, Nine had spent most of her time in one.

  She hadn’t minded the cage, not back then. She had been small enough that the expanse of the enclosure seemed vast as any universe. Eyes and ears closed, barely able to walk, she nosed along the padded bottom of the cage, trying and failing to find its edges. All she could be certain of were the smells: the papery scent of the padding beneath her paws; the sharp tang of the metal bars; the musk of her brothers and sisters, each one distinct; and the smell of her mother, milky and strong.

  As she and her siblings grew, so did the size of the cage. With their eyes and ears open, the kittens wrestled and chased, leaped and pounced, napped in a giant, twitching heap. Occasionally, a gloved hand would open the cage and one of the kittens would be lifted out despite Mother’s loud protests. Once outside the cage, the kittens were weighed and measured. Mouths were pried open so that teeth could be checked. Needles. Too many needles. Other indignities that Nine didn’t like to recall.

  What she did recall: She was always the hardest to catch.

  No matter how quick the hand that reached in to grab her, she was quicker. It was a game, her favorite, evading the gloved hand. She charged around the cage, banking off the sides, darting and dodging, using the backs of her siblings for stairs. It often took two and three pairs of hands to corral her. Once caught, she hissed and wriggled, twisted and slipped, leading her captors on a merry chase around the other cages in the facility.

  There were many cages. Sometimes the musk of the creatures in the cages was familiar; sometimes it was puzzling and strange. Sometimes the creatures were friendly, meowing and yipping and howling their approval, and sometimes they were hostile, trying to stick snouts bristling with teeth through the bars to snap at her as she raced by. She was too fast for them all.

  That was how her early life went: She played with her siblings and nuzzled her mother and evaded capture as best she could. And then, one by one, her siblings were taken and never returned. There were nine, eight, then seven, six, five, four, three, two. One day, while she was sedated, they took her mother.

  And Nine was alone in the cage.

  Like she was now.

  She didn’t have to nose along the bottom of this particular cage to find its boundaries; she had enough room to take five steps but no more. The smells of this place were too numerous to absorb: so much rage and sadness, desperation and despair. She didn’t touch the food the men offered her, though they offered it kindly. She was too busy testing the limits of the lock on her cage door. She leaned against it, pawed it, bit it. Was disappointed when it held. Was more disappointed when one of the men, not so kindly, reinforced the lock by wrapping it with wire.

  This would not do.

  She didn’t understand how or why she had ended up here, but she knew that whatever the reason, it was a tragic mistake. She had a family and a job. She could not stay trapped in this prison for the lost and the abandoned and the stolen. She waited until dark, when the men left these wailing creatures to endure the lonely night in whatever way they could, and used a claw to tease open the knot of wire. She grasped the wire between her teeth and patiently unwound it from the lock. Then she turned her attention to the lock itself. It wasn’t a complicated contraption. It was merely a lever on the outside of the cage. She worked one paw between the metal bars and lifted the lever as she leaned on the door. It opened with a barely audible creak. Well, barely audible to humans, but the other creatures heard it well enough. As Nine sauntered down the empty hallway, past cage after cage, the creatures muttered and sang, howled and growled, mewled and cried. She wanted to help them; she didn’t have time to help them. She steeled herself against their plaintive wails and headed straight for the large swinging door at the very end of the hallway, the door to freedom.

  But just before Nine reached the door, it swung open, a long shadow looming behind it. Nine’s nails scratched for purchase as she scrambled backward and raced back down the hallway. The long shadow followed her, footsteps eerily quiet on the cement floor. At the sight of the intruder, the other animals grew frantic, the air filling with the rattling of their cages, the sounds of their barks and mewls and shrieks. Nine found herself on the opposite side of the building, a brick wall in front of her, cages to her left and right.

  No way out.

  Nine turned around and lowered her head, gathering herself to spring.

  The woman stopped just a few feet from Nine, smiling, unafraid. She crouched to meet Nine’s eyes and smiled wider when Nine answered her steady gaze with a warning growl.

  “Well, well, well,” the woman murmured. “Just the kitty I was looking for.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jaime

  The morning after the twins’ mom took Nine away, Jaime woke up far too early with a strange, hot pressure in his head, like someone was squeezing his brain from the inside.

  He got up and tried to shake off the feeling, and when that didn’t work, he massaged his temples. He was distracted from the pain by his hamster-hogs, Napoleon and Tyrone, both girls, who began sniffing around their cage for breakfast. He opened the top of the cage, grabbed their food bowl, and poured some fresh kibble. As usual, Napoleon ran over and munched, but Tyrone, much pickier, took one sniff of the kibble and cha
rged over to her wheel. She jumped on and ran as fast as she could, squeaking her displeasure with the kibble, with Jaime, with a heartless universe that had saddled her with an unfeeling, selfish owner who did not serve adequate food.

  “Okay, okay,” Jaime huffed, shuffling to the kitchen to find some bit of fruit to please her. It was only when he returned with a couple of cubes of watermelon and watched Tyrone run that he recognized the source of the pain in his head: He was angry. So angry he could have sprinted ten miles on a Jaime-sized exercise wheel, if someone had invented such a thing.

  Jaime was not an angry person. He was chill, he took things in stride, like his mother before him. He liked that about himself. As a baby, he was so calm and quiet that his parents took to poking him in his crib every hour to make sure he was still alive (or so Mima said). But that guard chasing Cricket, that woman faking her bite, Detective Biedermann taking Nine away from Tess, her own daughter, ate at him.

  It just wasn’t right.

  It wasn’t right when he got dressed; it wasn’t right when he sat at the breakfast table, dully shoveling Mima’s eggs into his mouth; and it wasn’t right when he lied to Mima, telling her that he was fine, and that Tess would be fine, that Detective Biedermann would get Nine back.

  An hour later, he left for the twins’ house, the headache still squeezing his skull. He glared at the security guard on duty, even though it wasn’t the same one who had chased Cricket, earning a confused “Good morning?” from the poor guy. It made Jaime feel guilty, but not guilty enough to apologize. Which wasn’t like him, either. This quest to solve the Old York Cipher was not only taking over his life, it was turning him into a whole different person. Or maybe he would have turned into a whole different person anyway, he couldn’t be sure.

  What he was sure of: They had to get Nine back, and immediately, as in today. And at the moment, he didn’t care who he had to glare at to make it happen.

  Oddly, this thought cheered him a little, and on the Underway ride out to Queens, the hot pain in his head cooled, receded. By the time he arrived at the twins’ house, he felt almost as chill as he normally did, as he used to, before all of this Cipher stuff happened. Though it was still quite early, Aunt Esther seemed pleased to see him, and so did Mr. Biedermann, who was at the kitchen table eating a bagel.

  “Ah, Jaime,” said Mr. Biedermann. “How’s your morning been?”

  “As good as yours, probably,” said Jaime. “Any news about Nine?”

  Aunt Esther harrumphed and banged a mug on the counter. Mr. Biedermann frowned at her back. “No, not yet. But my wife is working on it.”

  Aunt Esther grabbed a handful of silverware and jammed them into a drawer. “She could work a little faster.”

  “It’s been twelve hours, Esther.”

  Aunt Esther sniffed. “Like I said.”

  Mr. Biedermann closed his eyes as if taking a moment to pray for patience, then opened them again. He ate the last bite of bagel and got up. “I have to be off to work. Feel free to have a bagel, Jaime, or anything else you want. The twins are already up and should be downstairs in a few minutes.” Before he left, he placed a hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “I’m always glad to see you, but I’m especially glad today. Tess is going to need a friend.”

  Jaime didn’t know what to say, so said nothing. He nodded instead. It was enough for Mr. Biedermann, who gathered a stack of file folders and headed out of the kitchen. As he walked, his pocket started ringing. Literally ringing, like the bell between classes at school. Mr. Biedermann fumbled with his folders and his phone. “Hello?” he said.

  Then he stopped in his tracks.

  “What? Well, where is she?”

  Pause.

  Mr. Biedermann stiffened, and his voice did, too. “And why are you asking me this?”

  Another pause.

  “My daughter has been home all night. Crying, I might add. She is utterly devastated. A little girl, utterly devastated.”

  Pause. A quick glance over his shoulder at Aunt Esther.

  “No one from this house has been anywhere near that place. And I don’t appreciate your accusations. I’m calling my wife. Also? You better send some people out to look for her, because if you don’t . . .” Mr. Biedermann turned off the phone, came back to the table, dropped the phone and his files on top.

  Aunt Esther said, “What is it, Lawrence?”

  “Nine,” said Mr. Biedermann.

  “What about Nine?” said a voice from the doorway.

  Tess. Her eyes red. Still in a nightgown. Theo right behind her.

  “Honey,” said Mr. Biedermann. “Why don’t you sit—”

  “What about Nine?” Tess repeated.

  Mr. Biedermann took a deep breath, then said, “She’s missing.”

  Theo put a hand on Tess’s shoulder. But if they expected Tess to collapse, to scream, they were surprised. Because she did none of those things. Tess blinked, then a slow grin spread across her face.

  “Tess?” said Mr. Biedermann.

  “She got away,” said Tess. “She’ll come home now.”

  “Tess.”

  “She’s always been good at that. Escaping. And hiding. Like that time when she was a kitten and she got out of the apartment. She ended up in Mr. Perlmutter’s cereal cabinet. She ate all his Wheaties.”

  “Tess—” Mr. Biedermann began again.

  “And that time she decided to ride the dumbwaiter. She was gone for hours. I was so worried. But I was worried for nothing! I’m always worried for nothing!”

  “Honey.”

  “Remember, Dad? Remember how she likes to escape? How she likes to hide?”

  Mr. Biedermann pressed his lips together. Then he said, “I remember.”

  “She got away,” Tess said firmly. “She’ll come home.”

  “Tess, are you—”

  “I’m fine, Dad,” Tess said.

  “But—”

  “Honestly. I’m fine.”

  Jaime didn’t think she was fine. He didn’t think anything was fine. But Mr. Biedermann picked up the cell. “Well. I’m going to let your mother know what happened.”

  “If she doesn’t already,” Theo said.

  “Yes. Well. I’ll call her anyway,” said Mr. Biedermann. He scooped up the phone and the files. He seemed about to say something else, but decided against it. They heard the front door slam as he left.

  Jaime and Theo looked at Tess. She put her hands on her hips, her eyes and her smile overbright. “So. What’s for breakfast?”

  Tess kept it up all morning, the smiling. All through breakfast—slowly munching her way through a bagel. While she bounced down the stairs wearing jean shorts and a Wonder Woman T-shirt. During the Underway ride to Manhattan, to the place where they’d taken Nine. Through their search of the surrounding blocks, hoping to find Nine hiding in an alley or napping in a doorway.

  And she kept it up all the way back to Aunt Esther’s, all through their lunch of empanadas from a joint down the street. It was like a wall, Tess’s brightness, a spell she encased herself in, a safe place where she was Not Worried About Anything and Nine was Most Certainly Just Fine and On Her Way Home Right Now. Every once in a while, Theo would touch Tess’s arm or her fingers the way Nine used to nudge—to reassure her, to bring her out of herself, or to tell her to take as long as she needed. Early that morning, Jaime had been so sure that he, that they, could bring Nine home; he was at a loss now that Nine had decided to free herself. But he couldn’t help but worry that Nine hadn’t done any such thing. That she’d been taken. That the woman who had accused the cat of attacking her might have had something to do with it. That Nine wasn’t coming home, not without assistance. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Not yet. Instead, he drew sketches of Nine: unlocking a cage; slipping between the bars; sliding under a cracked window; vanishing into the night. He drew dozens of variations and showed the pictures to Tess. With each variation, she smiled her bright smile and squeezed his wrist as if he were actually
doing something, as if there were something to thank him for.

  Aunt Esther seemed out of sorts herself, deflated somehow, like a magician robbed of magic. She announced that she was off to the market and that she would leave them a plate of Fig Newtons. At Tess’s answering grin, Aunt Esther harrumphed again, added another stack of cookies to the plate before she, too, left.

  Theo fetched the metal puzzle from his room upstairs and brought it down to the living room, where they went through the motions of examining it under a magnifying glass. The surface was studded with the occasional stone here or there—a red one, a blue one, but there were far more empty settings than stones.

  “There are a lot missing,” said Theo.

  “We can solve it,” said Tess, smiling, smiling, smiling.

  “Maybe,” said Theo, careful not to mention what he normally would—that is, that the puzzle would be very difficult to solve with a few stones missing, let alone most of them. But Theo, being Theo, tried anyway. And then Jaime took a turn. Tess, surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, worked at it the longest, until she, too, gave up. She passed the cube back to Theo and peeked out the front windows, just in case Nine was home and wanted to get in the house.

  Jaime watched her look left and right, watched her shoulders sink just the slightest bit when she didn’t see the cat, when she sat back down on the couch. “Maybe we’re not supposed to solve it,” Jaime said. “Maybe we’re supposed to take it apart.”

  “That’s interesting,” Theo said, actually sounding intrigued by something other than Tess or Nine for the first time that day. “Maybe we can build something else out of it.”

  “Good idea,” Tess said, smiling. Jaime wished she would stop that. It was starting to freak him out.

  Theo fetched a small tool kit, and they went to work on the puzzle with a screwdriver. Then with a hammer and chisel. But if they were supposed to take it apart and build something else with it, it was going to be a challenge. Not one of the tiny cubes budged even a millimeter.