The Water and the Wild Read online

  “Why didn’t my parents choose to live here?”

  “Why,” said Mr. Ingle, “your father was human, and Limn had begun to take its toll on his health. It was only natural that he moved back to his own kind. Eloise practically forced him back into Earth. She thought it would save his life. She was wrong, poor dear.”

  “My parents really are dead, then?” Lottie whispered.

  Mr. Ingle looked ashamed of himself, like he had just told a terrible joke. Still, he nodded. “They really are. Didn’t you know?”

  “I knew,” said Lottie. “I just—well, Mr. Ingle, do you ever like to pretend that things aren’t quite the way you’ve been told they are?”

  Mr. Ingle shook his head.

  After a long silence, Lottie said, “I guess that was very stupid of me.”

  “No, not stupid,” said Mr. Ingle, patting Lottie’s arm. “But they are dead. You mustn’t deceive yourself about that any longer.”

  Lottie looked down at her genga, which was roosting on her knee. He breathed deeply, his dark body glinting in the lamplight with every rise and fall of his tiny chest. Lottie measured her own breaths by the genga’s. She was working up the courage to ask something.

  “How did they die?”

  “Aaah,” Mr. Ingle sighed. “The Plague took your mother, same as it took all the other Fiskes.”

  “The Plague?”

  Mr. Ingle lowered his eyes, his walnut face producing still more wrinkles. “The Plague struck all of Albion Isle some years before you were born. Our island has long suffered from pestilences, but this was the worst of them all. Many Southerlies died, and Northerlies too. Plants withered and trees rotted. The disease took ahold of the will o’ the wisps in a strange manner, changing in ways it did not with sprites; it torments them still. Fiskes were particularly susceptible. No one knows why, though some think it was because their keen had grown so weak. They no longer had their former abilities.”

  “What abilities?”

  “Didn’t Moritasgus tell you?” Mr. Ingle shook his head. “Each of them possessed a renowned ability to command. Mab the Great, the very first queen of Albion Isle, was a Fiske. But then—no one knows why—the Fiskes began to lose their abilities. Their keen grew weaker and weaker, until a Fiske king abdicated. He thought it best for the island, but everything went to ruin after that. Up sprung the Northerly and Southerly Courts and all types of mayhem. That was generations ago.”

  “I don’t have any—special abilities,” said Lottie.

  “Yes, it would seem that human halflings don’t have keens,” said Mr. Ingle. “Though you’re very rare, you know. Your mother herself wanted nothing to do with politics, but she was strong. She had a marvelous heart. Moritasgus and I were very good friends with your mother and her family, growing up. When she grew sick, she entrusted us both with the task of caring for you and your father in Earth. Then your father died of his own illness, and you were taken away. We thought we had lost you. But Moritasgus did not stop searching, and he found you at last in New Kemble. Just before your sixth birthday, I believe it was.”

  “Yes,” Lottie whispered, and found she had begun to cry. “That was just when it was. That was when I found the copper box.”

  Mr. Ingle looked very frightened to be in a room with a crying girl.

  “I think,” he said, “you’d better get some rest, don’t you? You’re leaving first thing in the morning, and it won’t be an easy trip if you’re avoiding the main roads.”

  “So,” said Lottie, “my mother was a sprite and my father was a human. Is that why Mr. Grissom is after me? Because I’m a halfling? Does the Southerly King not like humans or something?”

  Mr. Ingle shook his head. “The king doesn’t like Fiskes. These are hopeless times for many sprites, and there are wishful stories about a Fiske returning to take the throne.”

  Lottie’s genga exhaled a low, mournful whistle.

  “But that’s ridiculous! I don’t want his stupid throne.”

  Mr. Ingle leaned forward, his voice suddenly hushed. “Listen closely, Charlotte, for this is important advice: once you arrive at the Southerly Court, the two Wilfer children must make a formal petition to the king to save their father. That is how things are done. You, however, should stay out of sight. Don’t show your face to the king. Don’t even breathe the name Fiske.

  “As for that Fife boy,” Mr. Ingle added, “it’d be smarter if he stayed out of this matter entirely. Marked Northerlies like him are neither wanted nor welcome in the Southerly Court.”

  Lottie’s brow creased. “I don’t think there’s a chance of him staying out of the matter.”

  Mr. Ingle smiled. “No, I don’t think so, either. That boy reeks of a thirst for adventure. Your mother smelled the same.”

  Lottie liked Mr. Ingle, but all this talk about people’s scents was a little unsettling.

  “Now,” Mr. Ingle said, “time for bed.”

  There was still so much more that Lottie wanted to know, a press of questions she hadn’t even formulated yet. But Eliot came first, and Lottie was not fool enough to think she could walk a day’s journey without sleep. She sighed and nodded.

  Gingerly, she scooted her palm across her leg, toward her genga. The bird stooped to inspect Lottie’s fingers. Then he gave a merry hop back onto her hand.

  Lottie looked nervously at Mr. Ingle. “Am I really supposed to just put him in my pocket?”

  “He’s in no danger,” Mr. Ingle said. “Gengas don’t breathe like we do. In fact, I imagine he’s quite eager to be close to you after so long a separation.”

  Lottie gave the bird an apologetic look. Then she closed her eyes and, in one swift movement, she tucked him into her coat pocket. She removed her hand. Then she glanced down. Her pocket rustled, and a happy little chirp emerged.

  “That’s going to take some getting used to,” she said.

  “You’ll catch on soon enough.”

  Mr. Ingle rose to his feet. He opened the door and ushered Lottie past him into the hallway.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ingle,” said Lottie. “Thanks for telling me things. Especially, you know, things about them.”

  “Don’t thank me for sharing memories,” Mr. Ingle tutted, shutting the door to a mere crack. “These days, it’s memory that keeps me alive.”

  “Mr. Ingle?”

  “Hm?”

  “What are good names for a genga?”

  “Your mother named your genga when she named you.” Mr. Ingle’s wrinkled smile was visible even through the crack in the door. “She named him Trouble.”

  In the hallway, Lottie could hear the voices but not the words of the others, who had all gone into the boys’ room and shut the door behind them to have their “deliciously secret” conversation. The murmur was only occasionally broken by sharp yells from Adelaide or Fife, which Lottie assumed were directed at each other.

  Lottie creaked down the hall to the only open doorway, the bedroom set aside for her and Adelaide. It was a bare and dusty room, no bigger than Mrs. Yates’ garden shed. A tiny bed was shoved in the corner.

  Adelaide’s frilly jacket was draped on the bedpost, and as Lottie passed it, she saw peeking from one pocket the faintest of red glints. She stopped and looked again. Yes, a red glint. An anxious red glint. It was Mr. Wilfer’s medicine. Lottie glanced toward the bedroom door. No one there. She snuck out the vial marked Otherwise Incurable.

  One ingredient missing. Just one final ingredient to add. That was what Mr. Wilfer had said. And now Mr. Wilfer was gone—had been taken—and no matter what Mr. Ingle said, Lottie knew now that she was partly to blame. Being a Fiske meant something in this world, and while not the nasty things it had meant back at Kemble School, something still unpleasant and dangerous here. Had Fiskes like her really ruled this island, ages and ages ago? Lottie closed her eyes and tried to picture her mother’s face—the freckled, laughing one from the photograph. She pictured her mother here in this strange world, perfectly at home. She pictured her with
dancing eyes as she named a little black bird Trouble. She pictured her mother dying of a horrible plague, embraced in her father’s arms. These were not pictures she had ever allowed herself to imagine when her copper box was open. They were nothing like the stories she had made up and told Eliot. These were far more vivid and more terrible altogether.

  “There she is!”

  Lottie’s opened her eyes to find Adelaide, Oliver, and Fife all peering in at her from the doorway. Adelaide looked enraged.

  “She’s trying to steal it again!” Adelaide said, storming across the room and snatching the vial from Lottie. “I told you two, didn’t I?”

  “For the love of Oberon,” Fife said, “calm down. She was just looking at it, Ada.”

  “I was just looking at it,” said Lottie.

  “With your eyes shut?” Adelaide snapped. “Don’t touch it again. It’s Wilfer property, which means that Oliver or I carry it. Not. You.”

  Lottie glared but said nothing.

  “You and Mr. Ingle done with your top-secret talk?” said Fife.

  “It’s not a secret,” said Lottie. “I think you all know everything anyway. You know, about how I’m a halfling?”

  “Whoo! Thank Oberon, you’ve finally figured it out,” Fife said, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “We thought we were going to have to sit you down and explain where you came from.”

  “Did Mr. Ingle tell you about the Fiskes?” Oliver asked.

  Lottie nodded. “I know why the king wants me. Those things the messenger said at Iris Gate, they were about me, weren’t they? I’m the public enemy. You’re aiding and abetting me.”

  There was a strange silence in the room, one in which Lottie felt like she was standing outside a conversation and trying to break in. But no one was talking. They were just staring, all staring at each other and not at Lottie. She tried to catch Fife’s eye, attempt a smile at Oliver. She had thought, after all, that the three of them were beginning to get along. She wasn’t so sure anymore. At last, Fife spoke.

  “Glad it was a good chat,” he said.

  Lottie nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m sure that we’ll save Mr. Wilfer. All we have to do is make that petition, and Mr. Wilfer is going to be safe, and Eliot’s going to be better. It’s like I can just feel it now. Maybe,” she ventured, “maybe it’s the sprite in me, huh?”

  “Maybe,” Oliver said softly, his eyes turning a deep, thoughtful green.

  “Maybe,” agreed Fife. “But right now, the sprite in me says it’s time to get some sleep.”

  Once, in her English class at Kemble School, Lottie had heard Mr. Kidd say that misery acquainted a man with strange bedfellows. She had never been entirely sure of what that meant, but now, as a scowling Adelaide climbed into a tiny bed with her, Lottie decided that this was precisely what Mr. Kidd had been talking about. When Adelaide’s cold toes touched Lottie’s feet, she knew that something had to be done, or it was going to be a long, cold-footed night.

  “Adelaide . . . ?” Lottie ventured.

  Adelaide sniffed. That was promising. Either that, or Adelaide had dust allergies.

  “Look, about what happened downstairs. I know you don’t like me very much and you don’t want me to come along, but I really do want to help you rescue your dad.”

  Another sniff.

  Lottie sighed. “Is this because you think I’m too unrefined and snoopy, or whatever?”

  Adelaide shrugged. “Oh, most people are unrefined. Fife, for example, is one of the worst. You see how he treats me. He’s always making fun of me, even when he doesn’t say a word. It’s always been like that, ever since we were little. He and Oliver would go off on adventures in the fens and woods—”

  “And they wouldn’t invite you?” guessed Lottie.

  “No, that’s just it! They did. I refused to go. Imagine, getting muddy and mixing with will o’ the wisps and sometimes even, they said, Northerlies. I’m sure those sort are acceptable in their own way, but . . . well! Really! Fife would torment me about it. He called me Prissy Miss Priss, the Superior.”

  Lottie turned off the bedside lamp to hide her smile, but a tiny giggle still slipped out.

  “What?” demanded Adelaide. “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Lottie. It wouldn’t be a good idea to tell Adelaide that she thought Fife’s title for her fit perfectly.

  “Go ahead, take Fife’s side,” huffed Adelaide. “I can see how he’d appeal to you. I bet your Eliot is just like him.”

  “Eliot isn’t like anyone I know. He’s just Eliot. And even if he isn’t refined, he knows how to live. That’s why I’m not about to let him die.”

  “Is that so,” Adelaide said flatly. “He must be important enough, for you to want to go through all this danger.”

  “Yes,” Lottie said. “Eliot is important enough.”

  Adelaide sank down into her pillow. To her shock, Lottie saw in the moonlight that there were tears clinging to Adelaide’s eyelashes.

  “I wish,” said Adelaide, “someone cared about me that much.”

  Lottie tried to think of something to say. This was why social calls with Mrs. Yates’ stuffy friends always ended so poorly at Thirsby Square. Lottie could ask a few decent questions like “Where did you buy your atrocious hat?” or “Is your psychotic old cat finally dead?” but she could never think of good answers. Once, when asked most politely by Mrs. Kirkeby what her favorite pastime was, Lottie had replied, “The Renaissance,” at which a mortified Mrs. Yates had explained to Lottie that “pastime” and “past time” were two different things. Now what had started out as a simple conversation had turned into something more serious, and Lottie was at a loss as to what to do.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Adelaide said, guessing Lottie’s thoughts. “I already know the problem. No one wants to be my friend. I’m too spoiled and snotty. Then you come along, and the others like you because you’re new and exciting. You don’t even have to work at it.”

  “What?” Lottie laughed in disbelief. “Just follow me around back in New Kemble. No one wants me there. I stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Really?” Adelaide sounded hopeful.

  Lottie nodded. “Eliot is the only friend I’ve got.”

  “So,” Adelaide said, frowning, “why do you want to go back there?”

  Lottie thought about this. “I guess,” she said at last, “that even one friend is enough reason.”

  The girls were silent for a long moment. A gust of cold air rattled through the rotting slats of their window. Lottie’s teeth chattered.

  “Lottie?” whispered Adelaide. “Maybe I was a little harsh back there on the road.”

  Lottie squinted at Adelaide’s blotchy face in the moonlight.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I were in your shoes,” Lottie confessed. “I mean, it’s been a rotten day for you, to have your father kidnapped and to be kicked out of your own house. So it’s okay. I forgive you.”

  Adelaide stiffened. “That wasn’t an apology.”

  Before Lottie could reply, a sudden, sharp pounding of wood made the girls jump.

  “Open up!” shouted a muffled voice from six floors below. “Open in the name of the Southerly Court!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wandlebury Wood

  LOTTIE AND ADELAIDE scrambled out of bed and into the hallway. Oliver and Fife were already there, and Mr. Ingle was starting to descend the rickety staircase, which squealed with every step that the innkeeper took. When he reached the first landing, Mr. Ingle looked up and shooed the four of them back.

  “Go to my room!” he ordered. “Closet. Trapdoor. Adelaide, I’m giving you permission to eavesdrop.”

  Lottie hurried with the others to Mr. Ingle’s room. A closet door stood ajar in the corner. Fife flung it open wide.

  “A trapdoor! What an inn!” he said. “You first, eh, Oliver?”

  Oliver crouched inside the empty closet and tugged at something on the floor. There was a thud, and dust swir
led across the floor as the trapdoor flew back. A moment later, Oliver had disappeared through the floorboards. Fife and Adelaide followed, leaving Lottie to stare down into the gaping square hole. She wasn’t particularly ready to jump into an unknown abyss, especially in a dead house like this one.

  “Nothing to be scared of!” Fife called. “It’s just a tiny room. Solid floor underfoot.”

  “Come on!” insisted Adelaide’s voice from below. Her pale hand reached up and tugged on Lottie’s foot.

  “And shut the door after you!” said Fife.

  This, Lottie reminded herself, was for Eliot. She and Eliot had climbed in and out of ye ol’ porthole in his bedroom ceiling plenty of times; she convinced herself that this was just the same. She grabbed the knotted rope attached to the trapdoor, hoped there wouldn’t be cockroaches waiting at the bottom, and jumped down.

  She had sealed them up in utter darkness, save for the light of Oliver’s eyes, which were glowing yellow like a cat’s.

  “He wants us to eavesdrop?” said Lottie. “How is anyone supposed to eavesdrop in here?” The only thing that she could hear well was her own unsteady breathing.

  “Not just anyone,” whispered Oliver. “Adelaide.”

  “What can you make out so far, Ada?” Fife whispered.

  “Shhh!” said Adelaide. “One doesn’t just tune through half a dozen flights of wood. Hang on, I’m getting something now. Mr. Ingle’s opening the front door.”

  “What else?” said Oliver. His eyes now glowed a luminescent green.

  “He’s opening the door,” Adelaide said in a tight voice. “It’s the Southerly Guard.”

  “How many?”

  “Two, by the sound of it. Yes. There are two of them. Ugh. One of them’s got a nasty cold, too. I wish he’d blow his nose already.”