The Second Spy: The Books of Elsewhere: Volume 3 Page 7

  When the bus ground to a stop at the foot of Linden Street, Olive bolted up the aisle and hit the sidewalk at a run before Rutherford could make it to the steps.

  “Olive!” she heard him shouting after her. “Olive, wait! You’re making a mistake!”

  But Olive didn’t even give him a glance.

  She wasn’t making a mistake about Rutherford. He was the one making a mistake if he thought she’d listen to him now.

  Blinking away a few irritating tears, Olive slammed through the house’s heavy front door and locked it behind her.

  The silence within the old stone walls flooded over her like water. Her breath seemed suddenly, shockingly loud. For a moment, she thought she’d caught the sound of muffled footsteps, running across the floorboards above—but then she realized that this was just her own speeding heartbeat. Clutching the spectacles with one hand and her backpack with the other, Olive rushed up the stairs to her bedroom.

  With the jars of ingredients in her arms, she craned back out into the hall. Open doorways gaped at her. Picture frames gleamed in the afternoon light. Keeping watch for any glimmering green eyes, Olive darted back down the stairs and along the hallway to the kitchen.

  She arranged her materials on the scarred wooden countertop. Five mixing bowls. Five spoons. Five dusty jars. By a beam of sunlight that flickered with the shadows of windblown leaves, she skimmed the writing on the reassembled pages, matching recipes to ingredients.

  Black and white were easy to identify. According to what Olive had learned from the labels on crayons (and Olive could have earned a degree in crayons, with a minor in colored pencils), the shade of blue in the jar standing before her was Indigo. The yellow was plain old Yellow. The red in the jar must be Crimson. Olive bent down to study the thorny script.

  Crimson, it read. Two spoonfuls of dried and powdered blood (goat or cattle), mixed with the ground wings of ladybugs and the petals of one red rose, once the blossom has opened but not a single petal has fallen. Sprinkle with the herb Angel’s Tongue. Stir in a stream of fresh blood.

  Olive moved the red jar into a beam of sunlight, turning it around and around. As far as she could tell, its contents could be powdered blood and ladybug’s wings. Maybe the rose petals were already mixed in too. She unscrewed the crusty lid and took a cautious sniff. She smelled rust and dirt…and, underneath, something faintly sweet. She would just assume the petals were there—it made everything simpler. As for Angel’s Tongue… Olive had no idea what that would look like, so it could easily be in the jar as well. Besides, the instructions said it was an herb, so it couldn’t be too important. Mr. Dunwoody always added rosemary to his roast potatoes, but in Olive’s opinion, potatoes were just as delicious all by themselves.

  Stir in a stream of fresh blood…

  Where could she get fresh blood? Olive looked down at her own arms. The faint blue lines of her veins seemed to grow even fainter. Was she brave enough to take a knife from the drawer and—

  No. She definitely wasn’t.

  Olive let out a frustrated growl. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time. The cats could appear at any second. And if she didn’t want to lose her last human—or sort-of human—friend, she had to think of something…

  And then, in her mind, a wish collided with a memory like a firework touching a match. Olive skidded across the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door. A slab of beef, wrapped in grocery store plastic, sat there on its little foam tray. And the tray was pooled with blood. She scooped some red powder from the jar into the first mixing bowl, poured the blood from the meat over the powder, and stirred. Perfect.

  She moved on to the next recipe. Yellow called for the yolk of a robin’s egg. Olive didn’t have any robin’s eggs, so she used a regular egg from the refrigerator instead. A chicken’s egg yolk would be bigger than a robin’s egg yolk, anyway, which meant even more yellow paint. It couldn’t have worked out better if she’d planned it.

  She was still stirring the thick yellow concoction when a chilly feeling, like a fragment of melting ice, trickled slowly down her spine. The hairs on her neck began to prickle. Olive whipped around, looking in all directions.

  She was alone in the kitchen.

  But in the window above the old stone sink, where tendrils of ivy made a leafy curtain, she thought she caught the flash of movement. Had someone been watching her?

  Olive edged closer to the window. If someone had been there—a man or a woman, a painting, a cat, or a traitor in dirty glasses—that someone wasn’t there anymore. The ivy leaves twitched softly in the breeze.

  Racing now, Olive spun back to the counter. The white paint’s instructions called for milk from a black sheep. Well, Olive reasoned, milk from a black sheep couldn’t be too different from milk from a black-and-white cow. She grabbed the jug of two percent from the fridge and sloshed it into the bowl. She hustled along the row, making clever substitutions wherever necessary. Salt dried from a child’s tears? The salt that came in little paper packets at drive-thru restaurants should be fine. Water that hasn’t run through any pipe? The bottle in the refrigerator said “Spring Water.” That should be good enough.

  There. She was finished.

  Hands shaking, Olive piled the bowls of paint, the jars, and the instructions onto a big metal cookie sheet. With a last wary glance at the window, she hustled out of the kitchen, carrying her materials with her.

  Upstairs, Olive closed her bedroom door and double-checked to make sure that the latch had caught. Then she sat down on the bed, laying out her tools: the photograph of Morton’s family, a blank canvas from her art supply drawer, a handful of brushes, and the tray covered with fresh-made paints. As she picked up a pointed brush, she was struck by a new thought. If the painting of Morton’s parents turned out well, then she could use these paints to create something—or someone—else. And if that someone happened to be Rutherford…

  Then he wouldn’t leave her. He would stay here in this house forever, waiting for her, never changing, only able to come out of his painting when Olive felt like releasing him, just like—

  Morton’s round, pale face flashed across Olive’s mind.

  Olive’s stomach performed a sickening little twirl. No. She wasn’t going to use these paints as Aldous McMartin had used them. She was going to help people. That was all. With a steadying breath, Olive dipped her brush into the bowl of black paint and got to work.

  More than an hour had passed before her concentration was broken by a slamming door.

  “Hello!” called her father’s cheery voice from the bottom of the stairs. “Is there a sixth-grade student in this house who would like to request specific toppings on her third of a delivery pizza?”

  “Yes!” Olive shouted back. Covering the bowls of paint with a damp washcloth and setting her gummy brushes on the cookie sheet, Olive galloped down the stairs.

  “How was school today?” asked her mother, turning away from the cupboard as Olive skidded along the hall and through the kitchen door.

  “Okay,” said Olive, surreptitiously brushing a trail of salt off of the countertop and onto the floor. “But I have a lot of homework.”

  Mrs. Dunwoody’s face lit up. “Homework?” she repeated, setting three plates on the counter.

  “Anything we can help with?” asked Mr. Dunwoody eagerly.

  “It’s for art class,” said Olive.

  Her parents’ faces fell.

  “Well, sometimes art requires math too,” Mr. Dunwoody soldiered on. “There are issues of perspective and vanishing points and parallel lines…”

  “It’s a portrait, so there aren’t really any straight lines,” said Olive as her parents’ faces fell again. “And I can do it on my own. But thank you.” Then, before her mother could ask her to, Olive picked up the plates and a stack of napkins and went into the dining room to set the table.

  Mrs. Dunwoody smiled after her. “Who would have hypothesized that we would produce an artist?” she asked Mr. Dunwoody, under he
r breath.

  “It must have been a recessive trait.” Mr. Dunwoody smiled back. “I would classify it as a pleasant surprise.”

  But both Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody would have been far more surprised if they had known just what kind of artwork was waiting on their daughter’s bed, its streaks and spots of paint already beginning to dry.

  10

  OLIVE WOKE UP the next morning feeling fine. In fact, she felt better than fine. She felt as if her whole body had been filled with helium, and if she had jumped out of her bedroom window just then, she could have soared out over Linden Street, looking down at the tops of the green and golden trees while the soft autumn wind whipped through her hair.

  Under her breath, she practiced her best sickly moan. “Oooooh,” she groaned. “Oooooow.”

  Across the room, leaning against her vanity mirror, stood the half-finished portrait of Morton’s parents. Last night, Olive had wolfed down her third of the pizza and barreled back up the stairs before her parents had finished their first slice. She had labored over the painting for the rest of the evening, filling in the lines of old-fashioned clothes, shading arms and hands and necks and fingers until her father had tapped at her door and told her that it was fifty-three minutes past her bedtime. She had been so absorbed that she had nearly forgotten about her troubles with Rutherford. Even Annabelle had started to seem unimportant, like a hornet stuck safely on the other side of a closed screen door.

  All she needed was a few more hours to finish the portrait.

  Olive slid the spectacles out of her pajama collar and placed them on her nose. The figures in the painting shifted slightly, turning their featureless faces one way and then the other. Olive quickly tugged the spectacles off again—first, because the blank, moving faces were a bit creepy, and second, because she wanted to postpone the excitement of seeing Morton’s parents come back to life for good, at last. Of course, they wouldn’t be his real parents, Olive admitted to herself. She still hadn’t found the real versions, if they were anywhere to be found. But these parents would be something just as good—or maybe even better. If Olive had mixed the paints correctly, they would be just like Annabelle’s living portrait, complete with thoughts, personalities, and memories, but undying and unchanging. Just like Morton himself.

  Olive leaned back against the pillows, listening to the voices at the other end of the hall. Her parents were still in their own bedroom, getting ready for another day crammed with equations and solutions.

  She moaned again, loudly this time.

  “Mmmmoooooaaaah,” she groaned, holding her stomach. “Aaaaaaooooow.”

  The voices at the end of the hall stopped speaking. A moment later, Olive heard her mother’s footsteps tapping along the hall.

  There was a soft knock. “Olive?” said Mrs. Dunwoody. The door creaked open, and her mother’s face appeared in the gap. “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Olive mumbled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My stomach. And my head. I feel all achy,” Olive moaned, squinching her eyes shut. “Maybe it was that pizza.”

  “Well, you did eat it awfully quickly.” Mrs. Dunwoody sat down on the edge of the bed. She pressed her cool palm to Olive’s forehead, which felt nice even though Olive didn’t have a fever.

  “I don’t think…” said Olive, pretending to run out of breath, “…I don’t think…that I can make it…to school today.” She peeped through her eyelashes at Mrs. Dunwoody.

  Her mother nodded. “I’ll call the math department and let them know that I won’t be coming in. With this late notice, they’ll have to cancel my classes, but—”

  Olive’s eyes popped open. “No!” she said, much too healthily. “I mean…no…” she groaned, making her eyelids droop again. “You don’t have to do that. You should go to work. I’ll be fine here by myself. I just want to stay in bed and sleep.”

  Mrs. Dunwoody frowned. “I don’t want to leave you at home alone if you’re feeling sick.”

  “I think it’s just the pizza. Really. If I start feeling worse, I’ll call your office right away, I promise.”

  Mrs. Dunwoody’s frown remained firmly in place. “Wouldn’t you like me to call Mrs. Dewey and ask her to come over to stay with you?”

  “NO!” Olive nearly shouted. Then she flopped back on the pillows, hoping that she looked exhausted by the effort of nearly shouting. “I’ll be fine here,” she panted. “I just want to be by myself.” Beneath her lowered lashes, she glanced at the painting. Morton’s father’s head looked a little lopsided. She would have to fix that.

  Mrs. Dunwoody rose slowly to her feet. “Well…” she said reluctantly, “I’m done with my classes at noon on Fridays. I’ll come straight home afterward, which means I should be here by twelve eighteen.”

  Olive gave her mother a weak little smile. “Okay.”

  “But if you start feeling worse, you call me and Mrs. Dewey immediately. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Olive, closing her eyes.

  “Get some rest,” Mrs. Dunwoody whispered. “We’ll lock the doors. Don’t let anyone in.”

  A ripple of fear washed through Olive’s stomach, and for a split second, she actually did feel nauseous. “I won’t,” she whispered back.

  The bedroom door gave a click. Olive held still, clutching the covers, while downstairs, the coffee maker hissed and two briefcases thumped and finally the heavy front door banged shut. She waited until she heard the car rumble softly away down Linden Street.

  With a bounce, Olive sat up and kicked off the covers. She raced across the room to the canvas, too intent on the adventure ahead of her to remember to jump off of the mattress or to check under the bed. Her own smiling face glowed back at her from the vanity mirror. She checked the contents of the cookie sheet, still covered by the damp washcloth. The paints in their bowls looked thicker than they had yesterday, but they weren’t yet dry. Olive glanced at the clock beside her bed. She had just over five—no, four—hours until her mother would come home. She had to work fast.

  Olive darted back and forth between the vanity and the bedside table, arranging brushes, paints, and canvas. Then she hopped back on top of the bedspread and lifted the canvas into her lap. Olive mixed a batch of peachy-brown paint and settled down to work.

  She had straightened the man’s slightly crooked head and was just beginning to outline his nose when the hairs on her neck gave a little prickle. Olive felt a zing of worry shoot through her body.

  She was being watched.

  Slowly, she turned her head toward the bedroom door—the door she knew had been closed just moments before—and found herself staring into a single bright green eye. Where another bright green eye should have been, there was only a small leather eye patch. Captain Blackpaw had come to visit.

  As sneakily as she could manage, Olive tossed the damp cloth back over the contents of the cookie sheet. “Harvey!” she gasped. “You startled me.”

  “Aye,” the cat snarled proudly. “Any landlubber would be startled at the sight of the fearsome Captain Blackpaw.”

  “Mmm,” said Olive.

  “And what be ye doing abed so late on this fine Friday morning?” asked the cat, tilting his head.

  Olive sidestepped the question. “You know that it’s Friday?” she asked. Often, Harvey didn’t seem to be aware of what century it was, let alone what day of the week.

  “’Course I know that,” said Harvey. “’Tis Friday, the ninth of September, 1725.”

  Yes. There it was.

  Olive thought about telling Harvey that there was no school today, or that she had been grounded and forbidden to leave her own room, or that a band of marauding polar bears who only ate sixth graders had been spotted in the neighborhood. But in the end, she decided to stick with the lie that had worked once already. “I’m not feeling too good today,” she said. “I think I’m sick.” Then she added a small cough for good measure.

  Harvey’s uncovered eye widened. “Scur
vy?” he asked hopefully.

  Olive shook her head.

  “The itch? The pox?”

  “I think it’s just bad pizza.”

  Harvey looked confused.

  “Well…I’d better get back to resting,” said Olive, plumping her pillows in a hinting sort of way.

  “Indeed,” said Harvey. “If ye need me, raise the flag and fire the cannons.” He bounded back through the door with a piratical flourish, shouting, “Captain Blackpaw sets sail for the cove!” A moment later, the sound of running paws had receded down the hallway.

  Olive got up and closed the bedroom door again. Then she returned to work on the painting.

  She worked until the bowls of paint were nearly empty and her fingers were cramped from holding the brush. Her neck had a funny crick in it, and her face hurt, probably because she’d been smiling back at the people in the painting the entire time. But the portrait was finished. Gazing up at her from the canvas were two painted people in old-fashioned clothes, proudly displaying all the limbs, feet, and fingers that any two real people ought to have. Olive looked from the photograph to the painting yet again. Yes, she had done an awfully good job, if she did say so herself.

  She spent fifteen minutes pointing a hairdryer at the canvas, until the paint had gone from shiny and wet to less-shiny and dry. Olive reached out with the tip of her littlest finger and touched the canvas. No paint came off on her skin. The portrait was done.

  With a flood of excited bubbles fizzing through her fingertips, Olive settled the spectacles on her nose. Then she tilted the canvas up against her pillows, climbed onto her knees, and got ready to meet Morton’s parents for the very first time.

  11

  THE SURFACE of the canvas smooshed and dimpled around Olive’s face. To someone who had never pushed her face into a painting, this might have felt abnormal. To Olive, it not only felt normal, it felt delightful. It meant that her painting was working. She had done it right. As though she were diving through a doorway made of warm Jell-O, Olive squished her body into the canvas.