The Water and the Wild Page 11

  Lottie stared into the blackness, in the direction of Adelaide’s voice. How could Adelaide have possibly heard all of that? She had to be making it up.

  “What are they saying?” Fife asked.

  “Shut up!” snapped Adelaide. “Just let me listen!”

  Lottie tried unsuccessfully to adjust her eyes to the dark. She still couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder.

  “Oi, Lottie,” Fife whispered, “keeping tense like that leads to high blood pressure and heart complications. Don’t stress, hm? No way those Southerly rats will catch us.”

  Lottie’s shoulders relaxed. She hadn’t even realized they’d been squeezed up to her ears.

  “Th-th-thanks,” she whispered, nervous now only at the fact that Fife’s hand was still on her shoulder.

  “Mm-hm.” Fife’s hand lifted, and he rustled back into the dark.

  Adelaide spoke again. “The Guard says they’re searching every house in the city. They’re asking Mr. Ingle if he’s seen any suspicious characters. Mr. Ingle’s saying that he hasn’t. Hold on. Wait! He’s telling them that he thought he saw four children our age running to the fenland, northward. I think—I think they believe him. Yes! They sound excited now. They’re getting out their gengas to alert the rest of the Guard. They’re leaving.”

  Fife heaved a long sigh of relief. “Smart thinking. Though he didn’t have to call us children.”

  “No!” cried Adelaide. “Wait, wait! They’re coming back. They’ve got another question. They’re asking if he’s seen any wisps around.”

  Fife made a sputtering noise.

  “He’s saying he hasn’t,” Adelaide went on. “They’re warning against the dangers of wisps, they’re reminding him to report suspicious behavior. One of them keeps sniffing. I can’t tell if it’s Mr. Ingle or not.”

  “Now they’re leaving,” Adelaide said after another pause. “Yes. Mr. Ingle’s closing the door. He’s coming up the stairs. He’s running.”

  “The dangers of wisps?” Fife’s voice was low, like a growl. “What liars.”

  “Why’re you so angry, Fife?” whispered Adelaide. “It’s not like you’ve got the Plague or anything.”

  “What are you all talking about?” asked Lottie. “What are wisps?”

  “Mr. Ingle’s here,” said Adelaide.

  The trapdoor flew open, and Mr. Ingle leaned in, puffing uncontrollably.

  “Out! Out!” he cried. “You’re not safe. They suspect something. I could smell it on them.”

  Mr. Ingle pulled Adelaide out of the secret room first, followed by Lottie and Fife. Oliver then flung up his arms and struggled to hoist himself out on his own.

  “Oh!” said Lottie, bending to reach down. “Need help?”

  “No, no, no!” Adelaide shouted, pulling Lottie back. “What’re you, crazy? Don’t touch his hands!”

  Oliver looked up at Lottie with a strange stare, his eyes a saddened gray. She suddenly felt a sting on her left arm. She rubbed it away.

  “What makes you think they suspect something?” she asked Mr. Ingle.

  “Child, when you’ve braved as many winters as I, you can smell out distrust. Not only that, but one of those sprites has been trained to smell out wisps.”

  Mr. Ingle looked pointedly at Fife.

  “But Fife is a sprite like us,” said Lottie. Then, less certainly, “Isn’t he?”

  “Not quite,” muttered Adelaide.

  “Oh, come on, Ada,” Fife said. “Just say it. I’m a halfling. That’s why Ada hates me,” he continued, turning to Lottie. “It’s ’cause I don’t have a Wilfer family tree as tall as a redwood.”

  “Children,” said Mr. Ingle, “this is not the time to bicker.”

  “Mr. Ingle’s right,” said Oliver, who had gotten his footing and pulled himself out of the secret room and was talking in a tone of voice that Lottie had not heard him use before. Instead of poetic and breezy, it was hard, commanding. “There isn’t time to argue. If the Guard suspects something, then they’ll be back.”

  “Quiet, everyone!” Adelaide had closed her eyes, her face scrunched in concentration. After a long minute, her eyelids snapped back open. “Mr. Ingle’s right. They’re still talking out on the street. One of them smelled Fife. They know Mr. Ingle’s lied to them. Hang on. They’re coming back to search the house! To search the whole house.”

  “You must leave,” said Mr. Ingle. “Now.”

  “Come on,” said Adelaide, tugging Lottie out of the room.

  Far too much was happening and far too quickly for Lottie to make any sense of it. Back in the girls’ bedroom, Lottie laced up Eliot’s sneakers and tugged on her periwinkle coat. Adelaide was just about to shove the vial of Otherwise Incurable into her satchel when Lottie caught her wrist.

  “It won’t be safe like that! Not if we’re running and it’s bumping around in there. Here.” Lottie pulled her green scarf out from her coat pocket. “Wrap it in this. It should keep the glass from shattering.”

  Adelaide made a face at the scarf, but she grabbed it and did as Lottie had said.

  When the girls returned to Mr. Ingle’s room, Oliver and Fife were already gone, and Mr. Ingle was leaning over the trapdoor.

  “I’ve given the boys instructions,” he said. “This is the old servants’ corridor of the inn. Each secret room leads down to another trapdoor, you see, until you reach the back pantry. Then you must run, run, run toward Wandlebury Wood.”

  Lottie shook her head, bewildered.

  “The others will know the way, Charlotte,” Mr. Ingle reassured her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I have given them my best gas lamp for the journey.”

  A wall-shaking pounding tremored up all six floors of the inn.

  “INGLE!” boomed a voice below. “OPEN UP! Open in the name of the Southerly Court!”

  “Quickly,” said Mr. Ingle. “Through the door.”

  Adelaide nodded and slipped down into the secret room, hugging her satchel close to her chest.

  “What about you, Mr. Ingle?” asked Lottie. “What will they do to you?”

  “Don’t you worry yourself about that,” Mr. Ingle said. “I’ll distract them. I’ve seen worse times than these, and the ol’ nose always sniffs me through. More than that, I’ve got a nephew in high places who’s only a genga’s flight away. Now listen closely, because there’s one last thing I must tell you. These are words to help you should you ever need them on your journey. Remember the words Vesper Bells. Can you do that?”

  “Vesper Bells,” Lottie repeated, nodding. “But when should I say them?”

  “When there’s nothing left to say,” said Mr. Ingle. “When you need them most.”

  The pounding continued. Something fell and shattered a few floors below.

  “Do you have Trouble?” Mr. Ingle asked.

  Lottie felt in her pocket. Her knuckles brushed against a small, warm bundle. She nodded.

  “I’ll take very good care of him.”

  “Of course you will,” said Mr. Ingle. “He’s your genga.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Ingle,” Lottie said.

  “Goodbye, Charlotte. And don’t worry while you’re out there. There’s none more suited for danger than a Fiske.”

  With a nudge, Mr. Ingle sent Lottie down into the secret room and slammed the door shut.

  Once, back in Thirsby Square, when Lottie was eight years old, she had decided to run away from home. She had stuffed four oranges, two packages of cheese crackers, and a stockpile of chocolates into her then oversized periwinkle tweed coat and set off in the direction of the bus station. It had been a very emotional parting between her and the green apple tree. She had considered cutting off a branch as a memento, but she finally decided that this would be the equivalent of sawing off one of her own fingers, and therefore a final act of brutality, not love.

  Using all of her pocket money, Lottie had meant to catch the 5:25 bus to the harbor and then the 7:30 ferry to Boston, where she would make her li
ving as a street performer until a talent scout discovered her and put her on Broadway. (This was, of course, before Lottie and Eliot had met and concocted their own brilliant plan.)

  There was only one flaw in the scheme: Lottie had a horrible sense of direction. She had managed to get lost in the first five minutes of her escape, and Mrs. Yates’ cook had found Lottie curled up and sobbing on the steps of an abandoned cannery. Since then, Lottie had not cared for venturing off anywhere without clear direction. She had learned her way to the library, to school, and to the Barmy Badger, but if ever she had to bike somewhere else, she was sure to bring along a map and clear directions. Even then, she usually arrived some ten minutes late and on the verge of a bad spell.

  Now, as Lottie bounded after a fast-fleeing Oliver, Fife, and Adelaide through the back garden of Ingle Inn and onto a cobblestone road, that eight-year-old fear crept into her gut.

  “Where are we going?” she puffed.

  “To the Southerly Court, of course,” said Adelaide, grabbing Lottie’s arm and dragging her at a dizzying speed. “Now hush. I’m trying to listen to what’s going on back there.”

  Oliver ran ahead of them all, holding aloft Mr. Ingle’s best gas lamp to light their way through the dark of midnight. He led them around a corner, down an alley, and past two more bends of cobblestone roads and tall brick houses. Even though it would not have helped, Lottie wished that she could at least make out the names of the streets.

  “Anything else?” Oliver called back to Adelaide.

  Adelaide shook her head. “Poor Mr. Ingle. It sounds like they’re turning the place inside out.”

  “How can you hear all that?” Lottie asked, breathless.

  Adelaide ignored the question. “We’re running out of my range, Oliver,” she called instead. “Yes, I’ve lost them. I’ve lost them completely.”

  “There!” shouted Fife, pointing ahead to a green break in the brick houses. “There it is, Wandlebury Plaza! It’ll lead us straight to the wood.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Adelaide.

  “No, Ada, that was just for kicks,” Fife shot back a pinched smile. “Sure, I’m sure.”

  The plaza was little more than a well-trimmed square of hedges and rosebushes, but a statue of a fierce-faced, winged creature towered above them all, and in the plaza lamplight Lottie could make out the inscribed name KING OBERON I at the statue’s feet. He was far more intimidating than even Quincy Francis Eugene Wilfer, but he did not intimidate Lottie for long, because they were already pushing on through the plaza and into a shroud of trees behind it.

  “We’re going into the wood now,” Oliver whispered back to them, anxious blue eyes aglow. “So just keep close. Everyone all right?”

  Lottie nodded and then proceeded to trip over a tree root.

  “Hang in there, Lottie Fiske.” Fife laughed. “There’s a clearing a little ways up.”

  By “a little ways up,” it turned out Fife had meant a good hour’s worth of stumbling. No one spoke another word on the journey into the wood, and though Oliver eventually slowed his impossibly fast run to a brisk walk, the pace still wore Lottie down. By her twelfth stumble, she felt mindless, breathless, and chilled down to her toenails. What made it worse was that the others plowed on without tripping or gasping for air or even shivering.

  Branch, ditch, plod, plod, shiver, branch, root, ouch!, thistle . . . plod, plod. Lottie’s thoughts dulled, and her discomfort began mingling with her envy of the others’ ease. Adelaide had been right: Lottie was slowing them down. Maybe being sprites gave the others an advantage for navigating the dips and branches of the wood. Maybe being half human made Lottie just as inept in this world as she had been back in New Kemble.

  Lottie shiveringly yanked her foot out of a puddle of mud that Adelaide had gracefully hopped over and, at last, she cleared her throat. She had to insist on a rest. She just had to! As she opened her blue-lipped mouth, though, Lottie noticed that the trees were thinning out. The moonlight became steadier and steadier overhead until, in a minute’s time, they were finally in the clearing that Fife had promised. The grassy space was bordered on all sides by old ash trees, warped and tangled in the same way that Lottie’s hair looked on a particularly windy day.

  “If we were being followed,” Oliver said, “we would know it by now. Mr. Ingle must’ve been able to ward off the Guard.”

  “Do you think they hurt him?” Lottie wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer to her question.

  “Not a chance,” Fife said, licking his lower lip. “The Southerly Guard couldn’t arrest Mr. Ingle if they didn’t find us in his house. And they didn’t, because he saved our hides, Puck bless him.”

  Lottie felt a little better, though not entirely reassured. Then they all agreed to stop for the night. Oliver and Adelaide took it upon themselves to “scout the perimeters,” as Adelaide called it, and Lottie and Fife scrounged around for dry branches and brush to start a fire. When they met back up, Adelaide picked out the sturdiest branches that Lottie and Fife had collected and produced thin blankets and twine from her satchel.

  “For making tents,” she explained.

  After assembling the two tents, everyone agreed that they were hungry, since the flower-bulb soup that Mr. Ingle had served them earlier that night hadn’t been the most filling dish. They huddled around a small campfire that Oliver had started by using a matchbook from Adelaide’s pack.

  “Thought of everything, didn’t you, Ada?” said Fife.

  “Don’t call me Ada.” Then Adelaide dug into her satchel to produce some bread and sharp cheddar cheese. “Now you can thank me for thinking of everything.”

  Even Lottie had to admit, she was glad that Adelaide had spent those extra minutes filling her satchel in Iris Gate. They would’ve all been far hungrier and colder otherwise.

  “Watch this,” Fife said, spearing his piece of cheese with a sharp stick and singeing it in the fire. “It’s better toasted.”

  Adelaide glowered at Fife like he had just pronounced that meat was better eaten raw, and Lottie stifled a laugh into her hunk of bread. Oliver took an oversized bite of his cheese, swallowed, and spoke up.

  “Right,” he said, dusting bread crumbs off his hands and into the flames. “The next order of business is setting up a night watch. I think we should have a rotation, always someone on guard while the rest of us get some shut-eye.”

  They all agreed. Oliver offered to take first watch. Lottie jumped at the chance to volunteer second, relieved to be able to contribute something to a group in which she kept feeling outdone. Adelaide was to take the third watch and Fife the last.

  “You might have a little trouble waking me,” Fife told Adelaide. “I’m a very sound sleeper.”

  “No worries,” Adelaide said sweetly. “I’ll just kick your face till you come to.”

  That settled, Fife, Adelaide, and Lottie retired to their tents, leaving Oliver stationed on a log next to the campfire. Inside their tent, Lottie and Adelaide nestled into the extra blankets that Adelaide had packed. The blankets may have been dusty and moth-eaten, but they were warm, and Lottie was asleep in moments. Her last thought was of Eliot’s green sneakers, still on her feet.

  Lottie was home again. Or, rather, she was at the Barmy Badger. She and Eliot had climbed out of ye ol’ porthole and were sitting up on the rooftop facing the back garden, their heels propped in the leaf-clogged gutters. Eliot was eating a green apple, a treat that Lottie had brought over from Thirsby Square. When he was finished, Eliot tossed the apple core off the roof, where it landed in the thick underbrush below.

  “Careful,” Lottie warned him. “You might end up with an apple tree in your own backyard!”

  Eliot laughed. “Maybe then I’ll get my own magic box and birthday gifts.”

  Lottie giggled. Eliot looked better, much healthier than he had the last time she’d seen him. He even looked a little—younger.

  Then Lottie realized that she was dreaming, and not just dreaming, but rememberi
ng. It was a memory of last September, when she and Eliot had spent a whole Saturday eating themselves sick with apples atop his roof. It had been damp and windy that day, and the next Monday Eliot had missed school because of a cold he’d caught. He’d missed Tuesday, too, and Wednesday, and then the whole week, and it was then that Lottie had thought for the first time that Eliot might be very sick—permanently sick, broken.

  “Eliot,” she said now, though it was her memory-dream and not really her saying it, “just think. A few more years and we’ll be out of this place, in Boston, together.”

  “Taking the world by storm!” said Eliot, fist-bumping the air.

  “Lottie and Eliot.”

  “Eliot and Lottie.”

  “Unstoppable!” she cried.

  “Incurable,” said Eliot.

  Lottie froze.

  No, that word was not part of the memory. Not at all.

  “What did you say?” Lottie asked quietly.

  When Eliot turned to face her, the healthy gleam in his eyes had gone. He was no longer the Eliot from one year ago, but the Eliot from that last night in the Barmy Badger, when she’d stormed out on him without bothering to apologize.

  “Incurable,” Eliot repeated. “Only two, three weeks to live.”

  Lottie woke cold and rolled over to discover that Adelaide had stolen every spare scrap of blanket. She could not remember her dream, but whatever it had been had left Lottie with an achy, empty feeling, and the desire to move around. She poked her head out of the tent. The small campfire was dwindling. Oliver was hunched over it, facing the wood. A single bronze-colored curl was wrapped around his thumb, and he was twirling it slowly. Lottie checked her wristwatch and gasped. Oliver started at the sound. He smiled guiltily when he saw Lottie and dropped his hand from his hair. His eyes were a cautious shade of green.

  “You let me sleep through half of my watch!” she accused.

  “You need the sleep more than I do,” Oliver said, shrugging back toward the wood. “You’re still getting used to a new world.”