Spellbound: The Books of Elsewhere Page 14

  “You mean . . .” Olive began. “But I don’t snore!”

  Leopold gave her a long, significant look.

  Olive pulled her knees close to her chest. The night was chilly. The whole world had turned gray in the darkness: the grass, the trees, her own hands. Only Leopold’s eyes kept their bright green color.

  “You didn’t give up on me,” Olive whispered. “You followed me, just in case. You stopped me before I really got hurt. You were still trying to help me, even though I did something awful to you.” A choking feeling squeezed her throat, but Olive struggled on. “Thank you, Leopold.”

  Leopold looked a bit embarrassed. He blinked and glanced away, pretending to scan the sky until he could get his face back under strict control. Then he patted Olive’s foot with his soft black paw. “There, there, miss,” he said gruffly.

  Olive wiped her face on her sleeve and snuffled.

  “Well,” said Leopold, making up for this show of emotion by puffing out his chest even farther than usual, “we should get you back to safety. Hup to it.” He got to his feet with a little swagger. “Follow me, miss. We’ll climb in through a window, and I’ll have you down in no time.”

  Feeling very wobbly and jelly-kneed, Olive stood up. But she hadn’t taken a single step before something glinting in the darkness far below caught her eye. She stopped, looking hard.

  On the ground, near the garden shed, a shovel was standing straight up in a mound of dirt. Its metal handle shone in the light from the streetlamp. Beside the shovel was a hole, its empty mouth filled with shadows.

  Olive’s knees locked. She staggered, catching herself just in time to keep from toppling over the edge of the roof.

  “Leopold,” she choked, “who dug up the painting?”

  Leopold looked back at her, his green eyes wide and bright in the darkness. “Why, you did, miss.”

  20

  “BUT I DON’T remember digging up anything!” Olive cried.

  They were standing beside the hole in the backyard, having slipped in through an upstairs window and raced down through the sleeping house. Just as Olive had already known it would be, the forest painting—with Annabelle trapped inside it—was gone.

  “Keep your voice low, miss,” said Leopold, glancing around.

  “What did I do with it after I dug it up?” Olive whispered desperately. “Did you see?”

  Leopold gave his head a short shake. “Negative, I’m afraid. I was watching through a window, and I only got there in time to see you pull up the painting and vanish through the lilac hedge. By the time I got outdoors, you had disappeared.”

  Olive plunked to the ground and hid her face in her arms. “Oh, Leopold . . .” she moaned. The pieces were falling into place, and Olive did not like the picture they formed. The search for the book had made her fight with Morton. The book had made her hurt the cats, and forced them to turn against her. It had made her avoid her parents. It had come between her and Rutherford. It had caused her to walk in her sleep, dig up the painting, and leave it who-knows-where. If Leopold hadn’t stopped her, it would have guided her right over the edge of the roof.

  It had tricked her, trying to make her believe that she belonged there, that she could use the magic in its pages, that she could be one of the McMartins and still be herself.

  And, with this realization, the silvery mist in Olive’s mind burned away. Beneath it was the truth. It had been there all along. The book, like the house, was trying to get rid of her. And once Olive was out of the way, it would be very easy to bring someone else back. All it would take was . . .

  Olive clutched at the front of her pajamas. The spectacles were gone.

  She let out a little shriek.

  “Shh!” hissed Leopold, moving into a crouch.

  Olive froze.

  A low crackling noise drifted out of the shadows nearby, then stopped. Olive and Leopold waited, scanning the canopy of trees that spread thickly above them.

  “Perhaps it was just a squirrel,” said Leopold.

  Snap. A twig broke, sending its sharp report out through the night.

  “Are squirrels nocturnal?” Olive squeaked.

  Leopold didn’t answer. He gave the trees a long, squinty look. “Don’t be alarmed, miss,” he whispered, positioning himself protectively in front of her, “but I believe we’re being watched.”

  Olive’s heart leaped into high gear. “I’m not sure there’s anything more alarming than the words ‘Don’t be alarmed,’” she whispered back, wriggling even closer to the cat. Leopold didn’t answer. His bright green eyes tilted slowly upward.

  A sudden, wild rustling came from the branches just above Olive’s head. Olive froze, holding her breath. Leopold hissed. There was the loud crack of a branch breaking, followed by a muffled yowl, and then a ball of tree limbs and multicolored fur was plummeting toward the ground in front of them. At the last minute, it flipped itself over, landing on all fours in a small explosion of leaves and fresh black paint.

  Olive and Leopold leaned closer. In the middle of a pile of leafy detritus, a cat crouched on the ground. From beneath a black trickle of paint and a lopsided beret of leaves, his wild green eyes ricocheted from Olive to Leopold and back again.

  “Harvey!” Olive exclaimed.

  The cat’s wide eyes grew even wider. “You didn’t see me!” he screeched. Then he bolted away toward the lilac hedge.

  Olive and Leopold stood still for a few moments, staring after the rapidly vanishing cat.

  “Is he being a spy, or is he still mad at me?” Olive asked at last.

  Leopold tilted his head to one side. “It’s hard to say,” he answered slowly. “You never really know with Harvey.”

  “Is . . .” Olive began, finding the question harder to get out than she had expected. “. . . Is Horatio still mad at me?”

  “Oh-HO, yes,” said Leopold.

  “Leopold,” said Olive as the feeling of horror that had been briefly brushed away settled over her again, “the spectacles are gone too.”

  Leopold’s eyes darted to her face.

  “If the same person who has the painting also has the spectacles . . .” Olive couldn’t go on. The next words were too horrible. She had wasted her chance to let Morton out of his painting, even temporarily. Now whoever had the spectacles could let out someone else.

  Olive closed her eyes and tried to think. Maybe it was because she was far away from the book, or maybe it was because the house had already gotten what it wanted from her, but suddenly all the threads of ideas in Olive’s mind rearranged themselves into a strong, sparkling web. She thought of the photograph of Morton and his family, and of the familiar face of the neat, chilly-looking girl. She thought of the same girl in the scrapbook up in the attic, in the picture labeled Annabelle and Lucinda, aged 14. She thought about the strange skin of Mrs. Nivens’s hand. She thought of what the porter in the painting had said, about the cold, tidy woman who had climbed inside and waited and waited . . .

  Olive’s whole body jerked as though she’d gotten an electric shock. She whirled away from the painting’s empty hole and raced toward the hedge.

  “Miss!” hissed Leopold, bounding after her. “What are you doing?”

  “I think I know who has them,” Olive hissed back over her shoulder. She was already pushing apart the lilac branches when something to her right gave a loud rustle.

  “Psst,” said a voice from the bushes.

  Together, Leopold and Olive slunk closer. A soft crinkling sound came from within the hedge, and as Leopold and Olive stared, a messy, black-streaked ball crept toward them, its bright green eyes wide with excitement.

  “Are we alone?” the ball whispered in a faint British accent.

  “Negative,” answered Leopold, as though this was obvious. “We’re together.”

  “It’s me—Agent 1-800,” the ball hissed. “I have information. Valuable information. I’ve been slipping back and forth through enemy lines like a thumb in a game of cat’s cradle. I�
�ve been gathering secrets like a gardener in a danger-patch. I’ve been—”

  “Oh, Agent 1-800,” said Olive, sprawling flat on her stomach to get closer to the cat’s paint-streaked face, “I have really missed you.”

  Harvey looked at her for a moment. Something in his eyes softened slightly. “I was never far away,” he said with a jaunty toss of his head. Several ferns, stuck to the black paint above his ear, also tossed jauntily. “I’ve been watching you all along. You never even knew I was there.”

  “Well,” objected Olive, “just a few minutes ago, when you—”

  “Exactly!” Harvey crowed obliviously. “You never had any idea. That’s why they call me the greatest spy of them all!”

  “I thought they called you Agent 1-800,” said Leopold.

  “They call me both,” said Harvey, starting to look testy, “because I’m . . .” Here he broke off, glaring from one of them to the other. “See here, do you want this information or not?”

  “We do,” said Olive quickly.

  Harvey gave a solemn nod. “Here it is, then. Top secret. Highly classified. For your ears only. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Prepackaged for your convenience. Understood?”

  Leopold only looked confused, but Olive nodded hard enough for both of them.

  “The bread is in the breadbox,” Harvey whispered, his eyes bright pinpoints in the darkness. “If you get my drift.”

  “I don’t,” said Olive.

  “The pickle is in the jar.” He stared at Olive, waiting for a sign of comprehension. “The bat is in the cave. The wax is in the ear.”

  Olive was tempted, not for the first time, to grab Harvey and see if she could shake something that made sense out of him. “Do you mean, the painting is in Mrs. Nivens’s house?”

  Harvey let an aggravated breath out through his nose. Then, grudgingly, he gave a small nod.

  Olive leaped to her feet and thrust the lilac bushes apart. “I knew it. I’m going to get it back.”

  “Miss!” Leopold protested. “It’s too dangerous!”

  “Proceed with caution, Agent Olive!” Harvey slunk through the trunks of the lilac bushes, his eyes honed on Olive as she ventured onto the grass.

  A faint tinge of blue light was beginning to creep up from the horizon, giving Mrs. Nivens’s gray house a ghostly glow, but there was at least an hour before dawn. Olive scanned the windows, but she couldn’t see anything through the glass—no movement, no chilly face staring back out. Crouching low, Olive slunk past the neat beds of roses. Their thorns snagged on her pajamas.

  Hopping over a petunia border, she pressed her back against the side of the tall gray house, where she couldn’t be seen from the street or through the windows. Olive spread her arms, flattening herself tight to the wall. She tried to imagine herself sliding across the wooden clapboard as placidly as a starfish, but her hands were shaking and her knees wobbled, and her breath came out of her nose in whiffling little puffs.

  A rock suddenly rolled beneath her bare foot, dragging Olive’s leg out from under her. She wobbled and caught herself before she could fall over backward, but the click of the rock reverberated in her head like a gunshot. A few moments passed with Olive pressed against the side of the house, rattling with adrenaline. With a delicate, tiptoeing step, Olive edged beneath the side windows. Then she turned and inched her way up until her nose was level with the window ledge.

  In the dim light, Olive could just make out the interior of Mrs. Nivens’s living room. Everything in the room was white: white carpet, white couch, white lace doilies everywhere, just waiting for someone to bumble along and stain them. But other than the whiteness, there was nothing odd about this room. There were no books, as far as Olive could see. The objects displayed in shiny glass cases looked a lot more breakable than interesting: little porcelain dolls with droopy eyes, crystal eggs, miniature vases without flowers. Mrs. Nivens wasn’t there. And there were no paintings or spectacles to be seen. But coming from somewhere on the other side of the house, perhaps slipping through the gap beneath a closed door, was a thin golden trickle of light.

  Olive dropped back down, half crouching, half crawling around to the other side of Mrs. Nivens’s house.

  “Miss!” hissed Leopold’s voice from a nearby rosebush.

  “Agent Olive, what are you doing?” whispered Harvey, blinking out at her from the thorny branches.

  “Stay there and keep watch,” Olive whispered back. “If I don’t come back in ten minutes . . .” She glanced up at the towering gray house. “I don’t know. But I have to get the spectacles.”

  “Come back, miss!” Leopold called. But Olive was already darting around the corner.

  She had to wriggle behind a row of hydrangeas to get close to these windows. As she crouched there, panting a little, she listened for footsteps or squeaking doors, but the tall wooden house was quiet. Olive wrapped her fingers over the sill and pulled herself up onto her tiptoes.

  The curtains in this room were closed. Through the tiny, half-inch gap between them, Olive could see a band of golden light. Someone inside the room moved, and a rippling shadow passed over the curtains, but Olive couldn’t tell who the shadow belonged to, whether it was Mrs. Nivens, or . . . someone else.

  Think, she told herself. If you’re right, and you do see Mrs. Nivens with the spectacles, or the painting, or even (she had to swallow hard) Annabelle McMartin, what are you going to do about it?

  Well, she answered herself, I’m going to stay hidden. First, I’ll steal the spectacles back without them seeing me. If I’m lucky, and Annabelle’s still in the painting, then I’ll steal that back too. And if Annabelle isn’t in the painting . . .

  Olive shook her head. She’d deal with that possibility if she had to. The important thing was not to be seen. Annabelle had already tried to kill her once, and that was before Olive had destroyed the last existing image of Annabelle’s grandfather and buried Annabelle under a pile of compost. If Mrs. Nivens and Ms. McMartin—or Lucinda and Annabelle—saw her, there was no telling what they would do.

  Cautiously, quietly, Olive pulled herself higher and pressed her nose against the pane. She was so intent on watching the inside of the room that she couldn’t see or hear anything outside of it. She didn’t hear the soft steps on the grass, or the gentle rustling of the hydrangea leaves. She didn’t notice that she was no longer alone until a cool, smooth hand had wrapped itself firmly around her wrist.

  21

  “COME WITH ME, right now,” Mrs. Dewey said into Olive’s ear. Her voice was soft, but something in it managed to knock every argument out of Olive’s head. Holding tight to Olive’s wrist, Mrs. Dewey turned

  Holding tight to Olive’s wrist, Mrs. Dewey turned and marched away from Mrs. Nivens’s house so quickly that Olive had to jog to keep up. She stumbled behind Mrs. Dewey’s wide, bathrobe-swaddled backside across the dark lawns, around a clump of trees, and up to the front door of Mrs. Dewey’s house.

  Olive had never been inside Mrs. Dewey’s house before. Now she was too terrified to take a good look around, and besides, Mrs. Dewey was still dragging her along at such a fast pace that all Olive could see was a blur of leaves and flowers and green fronds uncurling from pots on every surface.

  Mrs. Dewey plunked Olive down at the kitchen table and began making clattering noises on the stove. Olive sat in a daze, staring at the yellow checkered tablecloth, and wondered if Mrs. Dewey was getting ready to eat her. It was Olive’s understanding, thanks to many books of fairy tales, that this often happened to nosy children. And Mrs. Dewey ate large portions of something, that was for sure.

  Or maybe Mrs. Dewey had an even worse punishment in mind. Yes . . . at any minute, she might pick up the phone and tell Mrs. Nivens, “Do you know what that weird little girl from next door was doing now? Would you like to come over here and deal with her yourself?”

  Olive’s mind wanted to make a break for it—hop up from the table, bolt out the front door, and run until it was safe underneath h
er own bed. Her body, on the other hand, was determined not to do anything. Every muscle had turned to terrified jelly. Even her bones felt floppy. Olive had learned from a nature documentary that some frightened animals do amazing things to save themselves. They squirt ink, or give off a terrible smell, or puff up into a spiky basketball twenty times their usual size, while other animals—opossums and similar slow, furry creatures—play dead. Olive fell into the opossum category.

  She had slumped so far into her chair by the time Mrs. Dewey set a cup in front of her that she almost knocked the cup over with her nose.

  “It’s only cocoa,” Mrs. Dewey said when Olive looked up in surprise. “And I made some for you too, so you might as well come in here,” she snapped toward the doorway, where one lens of Rutherford’s smudged glasses was peering not-very-sneakily into the room.

  Rutherford, in a set of extremely wrinkled pajamas, sidled across the kitchen to pour his own cocoa. His curly brown hair, which was even more mussed and rumpled than usual, stood up on his head like some large, asymmetrical sea creature. He sat down beside Olive at the kitchen table. They exchanged a short, shy glance.

  Mrs. Dewey sighed, settling herself across from Olive with a flowery pink cup and saucer. “I know what you’re about to do, Olive,” she began. “But listen to what I tell you. You need to be careful. Don’t go anywhere near Mrs. Nivens’s house unless you absolutely have to. And if you have to . . .” She paused. “. . . then be prepared.” Her eyes swiveled to Rutherford. “That goes for you too, Sir Talks-A-Lot.”

  Olive gulped, still too jelly-like to move. “Why?” she croaked.

  “I think you already know why.” Mrs. Dewey gave her a significant look, tapped her tiny teaspoon against the rim of the cup, and took a delicate sip. “Do you know why I moved to this house?” she asked, after a short pause. “This particular house, on this particular street?”