Lucinda's Secret Read online

  Jared glanced over at the painting of Arthur hanging on the wall. He didn’t even look nice to Jared anymore. The Arthur in the painting was thin-lipped with a crease between his brows that Jared now figured was annoyance. He was probably thinking about leaving his family even then.

  Jared’s vision blurred and his eyes burned. It was stupid to cry over someone he’d never met, but he couldn’t help it.

  He didn’t even look nice.

  “Did you sketch this?” Simon called from the desk.

  Jared wiped his face against his sleeve, hoping his twin didn’t notice the tears. “Just toss it.”

  “No,” Simon said. “It’s good. It really looks like Dad.”

  Learning to draw had been another stupid idea. All it had done was get him in trouble at school for doodling instead of working. He walked to the desk and tore the drawing in half, crumpling it in his fists. “Just toss it!”

  “Guys,” Mallory said. “Come here.”

  Mallory held several rolled-up sheets of paper and two long, metal tubes. “Look.” She knelt down and began unrolling pages on the floor.

  The boys crouched around. There, sketched in pencils and painted in watercolors, was a map of their neighborhood. Some places didn’t look quite right—there were more houses and more roads now—but there were a lot of places they still recognized. The notes, however, were a surprise.

  There was a thin circle surrounding a stretch of forest behind their house, with letters printed inside the circle. “TROLL HUNTING TERRITORY,” Simon read.

  Mallory groaned. “If only we’d had this before!”

  Along a stretch of road near an old quarry, DWARVES? was written, while a tree not far from the house was clearly marked SPRITES. The strangest thing, however, was a note on the edge of the hills, close to their house. It looked like it had been written hastily, as the handwriting was sloppy. It read, “September 14th. Five o’clock. Bring the remains of the book.”

  The boys crouched around.

  “What do you think it’s about?” Simon asked.

  “Could ‘the book’ mean the field guide?” Jared wondered aloud.

  Mallory shook her head. “Could be, but the Guide was still here.”

  They looked at each other for a moment in silence.

  “When did Arthur disappear?” Jared finally asked.

  Simon shrugged. “Probably only Aunt Lucy would remember.”

  “So either he went to the meeting and never came back,” Mallory said, “or he took off and never went to the meeting at all.”

  “We have to show this to Aunt Lucinda!” Jared said.

  His sister shook her head. “It doesn’t prove anything. It’ll just make her more upset.”

  “But maybe he didn’t mean to leave,” Jared said with a scowl. “Don’t you think she deserves to know that?”

  “Let’s go and look ourselves,” Simon said. “We can follow the map and see where it leads. Maybe there’ll be some clue about what really happened.”

  Jared hesitated. He wanted to go. He had been on the verge of suggesting it himself when Simon had spoken. Yet now he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if it was some kind of a trap.

  “Following this map would be really, really dumb,” said Mallory. “Especially if we think something might have happened to him out there.”

  “That map is so old, Mallory,” Simon said. “What could happen?”

  “Famous last words,” Mallory said, but she traced the hills on the map thoughtfully with her fingers.

  “It’s the only way we will ever find out anything,” said Jared.

  Mallory sighed. “I guess we could take a look. As long as it’s daytime. But the first weird thing we see, we go back. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Jared said with a smile.

  Simon started to roll up the map. “Agreed,” he said.

  A summer breeze blew across the hill.

  Chapter Five

  IN WHICH There Are Many Riddles and Few Answers

  To Jared’s surprise, their mother agreed to let them go for a short walk. She blamed their constant squabbling on being cooped up inside but, with a single stern look at Jared, made all three promise to be back before dark. Mallory grabbed her fencing sword, Jared got his backpack and a new notebook, and Simon brought a butterfly net from the library.

  “What is that for?” Mallory asked as they crossed Dulac Drive, following the map.

  “To catch things,” Simon said, without looking at her directly.

  “What kind of things? Don’t you have enough animals?”

  Simon shrugged.

  “You bring home one new creature and I’m feeding it to Byron.”

  “Hey,” Jared said, interrupting them. “Which direction?”

  Simon studied the map, then pointed.

  Simon, Mallory, and Jared made their way up the steep hillside. Trees were sparse, their trunks growing on a slant between patches of grass and moss-covered boulders. For a long while they just climbed, not really talking. Jared thought that this might be a nice place to bring his sketchbook sometime—but then he remembered that he’d given up on drawing.

  Near the top of the hill the land leveled out and the trees grew thicker. Simon turned around suddenly and started leading them back down the hill.

  “Where are we going?” Jared asked.

  Simon waved the map at him. “This is the way,” he said.

  Mallory nodded as though she didn’t think it was unusual that they were retracing their steps.

  “Are you sure?” Jared asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m sure,” Simon said.

  Right then a summer breeze blew across the hill, and Jared thought he heard a chorus of laughter from beneath their feet. He stumbled and almost fell.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Simon asked, looking around nervously.

  Jared shrugged. He was sure he had heard something, but now there was only silence.

  A little bit down the path Simon changed direction again. He started walking back up and to the right. Mallory followed amiably.

  “Where are we heading now?” Jared asked. They were going up again, toward the top of the first hill, which was good—but they had been traveling at such an angle that Jared didn’t think they could be anywhere close to the meeting spot on the map.

  “I know what I’m doing,” said Simon. Mallory followed without question, which bothered Jared almost as much as the zigzag pattern Simon was taking. He wished he had the Guide. He tried to go through the pages in his mind, looking for some explanation. He recalled something about people losing their way, even really close to home. . . .

  Jared began to poke the grass he stepped on with his shoe. One tall weed scuttled to the side.

  “Stray sod!” He thought of the entry in the Guide. Suddenly it made sense that only he had noticed they were going in the wrong direction. “Simon! Mallory! Turn your shirts inside out like mine!”

  “No,” Simon said. “I know the way. Why do you always have to boss me around?”

  “It’s a faerie trick!” Jared yelled.

  “Forget it. You follow me for a change!”

  “Just do it, Simon!”

  “No! Didn’t you hear me? No!”

  Jared tackled his brother, causing both of them to land on the grass. Jared tried to rip off his brother’s sweater, but Simon was hugging his arms to his sides.

  “Stop it, both of you!” Mallory pushed them apart. Then, to Jared’s surprise, she sat down on Simon and tugged off his sweater. He immediately noticed that she’d already turned her own inside out.

  A strange expression came over Simon’s face as his inside-out sweater was shoved back over his head. “Wow. Where are we?”

  A peal of laughter rang out from above their heads.

  “Most don’t make it this far—or this near, depending,” said a creature perched in the tree. It had the body of a monkey with short, blackish brown speckled fur and a long tail that c
urled around the branch on which it sat. A thick ruff of fur surrounded its neck, but its face was rabbity, with long ears and whiskers.

  “Depending on what?” Jared asked. He wasn’t sure if he should be amused or afraid.

  Suddenly the creature swung his head upside down so that its ears brushed its belly and its chin pointed toward the sky. “Clever is as clever does.”

  Jared jumped.

  Mallory swung her rapier out in front of her. “Stay where you are!”

  “Goodness, a beast with a sword,” it hissed. Swinging its head right-ways-round again, it blinked twice. “I wonder if it’s mad. Swords haven’t been the fashion for ages!”

  “Most don’t make it this far.”

  “We’re not beasts,” said Jared defensively.

  “What are you then?” asked the creature.

  “I’m a boy,” said Jared. “And, well, that’s my sister. A girl.”

  “That’s no girl,” it said. “Where’s her dress?”

  “Dresses haven’t been the fashion for ages,” Mallory said with a smirk.

  “We answered your questions,” Jared said. “Now answer ours. What are you?”

  “The Black Dog of the Night,” declared the creature proudly, before its head spun around once more, peering at them with one eye open. “An ass or perhaps merely a sprite.”

  “What does that mean?” demanded Mallory. “It’s just stupid.”

  “I think it’s a phooka!” said Jared. “Yes, I remember now. They’re shape shifters.”

  “Are they dangerous?” asked Simon.

  “Very!” said the phooka, nodding vigorously.

  “I’m not sure,” Jared said, under his breath. Then, clearing his throat, he addressed the creature. “We were looking for some trace of our great-uncle.”

  “You’ve lost your uncle! How careless.”

  Jared sighed and tried to decide if the phooka was as crazy as it seemed. “Well, he’s been gone a long time, actually. Close to seventy years. We’re just hoping to find out what happened to him.”

  “Anyone can live that long—all they have to do is keep from dying. But I understand that humans live much longer in captivity than they do in the wild.”

  “What?” Jared asked.

  “When looking for something,” said the phooka, “one ought to be sure one wants to find it.”

  “Oh, never mind!” Mallory said. “Let’s just keep going.”

  “Let’s at least ask it what’s in the valley up ahead,” said Simon.

  Mallory rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, like it’s going to start making sense.”

  Simon ignored her. “Can you please tell us what’s up ahead? We were following this map until we got turned around by the moving grass.”

  “If grass can move,” said the phooka, “then a boy could find himself rooted in place.”

  “Please, please, just stop encouraging it,” said Mallory.

  “Elves,” said the phooka, eyeing Mallory as though affronted. “Shall I be direct when I direct you into the direct path of the elves?”

  “What do they want?” asked Jared.

  “They have what you want and they want what you have,” said the phooka.

  Mallory groaned audibly.

  “We said we’d turn back when things got weird.” Mallory pointed at the phooka with her rapier. “And that thing is about as weird as it gets.”

  “But not bad.” Jared looked toward the hills. “Let’s go on a little farther.”

  “I don’t know,” Mallory said. “What about those grass things and us getting lost?”

  “The phooka said that the elves have what we want!”

  Simon nodded. “We’re really close, Mal.”

  Mallory sighed. “I don’t like this, but I’d rather we were the ones sneaking up on them.”

  They started walking down the hill, away from the road.

  “Wait! Come back,” called the phooka. “There is something I must tell you.”

  They turned back.

  “What is it?” Jared asked.

  “Bonny nonny bonny,” said the phooka with precision.

  “Is that what you wanted to tell us?”

  “No, not at all,” said the phooka.

  “Well, what then?” Jared demanded.

  “What an author doesn’t know could fill a book,” said the phooka. With that, his body toed its way up the tree until it was gone.

  They stopped in a meadow.

  The three children made their way slowly down the other side of the hill. As the trees thickened once more, they noticed how quiet the woods had become. No birds sang in the trees. There seemed to be only the rustle of grass and the snap of twigs under their feet.

  They stopped in a meadow ringed by trees. At the center a single, tall thorn tree stood, surrounded by fat white-and-red toadstools.

  “Uh,” Jared said.

  “Right. Weird. Let’s get out of here,” Mallory said.

  But as they turned, the trees wove together, branches entwining with other branches, lacing into a fence of foliage that reached down to the earthen floor of the glade.

  “Oh, crap,” said Mallory.

  Three beings stepped out.

  Chapter Six

  IN WHICH Jared Fulfills the Phooka’s Prediction

  Across the grove the branches parted and three beings stepped out from the trees. They were about Mallory’s size, with freckled skin browned by sunlight. The first was a woman with apple green eyes and a green sheen across her shoulders and at her temples. Leaves were tangled in her tousled hair. The second was a man with what looked like small horns along his brow. His skin was flushed a deeper green than the woman’s skin and he held a gnarled staff in his hands. The third elf had thick, red hair woven with red berries and two large seedpods that stuck up on either side of his head. His skin was brown, speckled with red at his throat.

  “These are elves?” Simon asked.

  “No one has followed this path for a long time,” said the green-eyed elf as though no one had spoken. She held her head high, like one accustomed to being obeyed. “All who might have stumbled into this grove have been led astray. But here they are. How curious.”

  “The grass,” Jared whispered to his brother.

  “They must have it,” the red-haired elf declared to his companions. “How else would they come this way? How else would they discover the means to stay on the path?” He turned to the three children. “I am Lorengorm. We would bargain with you.”

  “For what?” Jared asked, hoping his voice wouldn’t shake. The elves were beautiful, but the only emotion he could read on their faces was a strange hunger that unnerved him.

  “You want your freedom,” said the elf with what had looked like horns. Jared realized that they were actually leaves. “We want Arthur’s book.”

  “Freedom from what?” Mallory asked.

  The leaf-horned elf indicated the border of trees with one hand and smiled an unkind smile. “We will guest you until you tire of our hospitality.”

  “Arthur didn’t give you the book. Why should we?” Jared hoped they couldn’t tell that he was guessing.

  The leaf-horned elf sniffed. “We have long known that mankind is brutal. Once, at least, humans were ignorant. Now we would keep knowledge of our existence from you to protect ourselves.”

  “You cannot be trusted. You cleave the forests.” Lorengorm scowled and his eyes flashed. “Poison the rivers, hunt the griffins from the skies and the serpents from the seas. Imagine what you could do if you knew all of our weaknesses.”

  “But we never did any of those things!” said Simon.

  “And no one even believes in faeries,” Jared said. He thought of Lucinda. “No one sane, anyway.”

  Lorengorm’s laugh sounded hollow. “There are few enough faeries left to believe in. We make our homes in the sparse forests left to us. Soon even those will be gone.”

  The green-eyed elf lifted one hand toward the woven wall of branches. “Let me show you
.”

  Jared noticed all types of faeries, sitting in the circle of trees, peering through the gaps in the wood. Their black eyes glittered, their wings buzzed, and their mouths moved, but none entered the grove. It felt like a trial, with the elves acting as both judge and jury. Then a few branches untwined and something else stepped through.

  It was white and the size of a deer. Its fur was ivory and its long mane hung in tangles. The horn that jutted from its forehead was twisted to an end that looked sharp. It lifted its wet nose and scented the air. As it approached them the valley went quiet. Even the creature’s own steps were noiseless. It didn’t look at all tame.

  Mallory stepped toward it, tilting her head slightly and extending her hand.

  “Mallory,” Jared warned. “Don’t . . .”

  But she was beyond hearing, stretching out her fingers to pet the creature’s flank. It stayed completely still, and Jared was afraid to even breathe as Mallory stroked the unicorn’s side, then tangled her hand in its mane. As she did, the bone horn touched her forehead and her eyes closed. Then her whole body began to tremble.

  “Mallory!” Jared said.

  Beneath the lids Mallory’s eyes darted back and forth, as though she were dreaming. Then she staggered to her knees.

  Jared ran forward to grab her. Simon was only a step behind him. When Jared touched Mallory, he was drawn into the vision.

  Everything soundless.

  Knots of blackberry bushes. Men on horseback. Lean dogs with red tongues. A glimmer of white, and a unicorn bursts through the glade, legs already dark with mud. Arrows fly, burying themselves in white flesh. The unicorn bellows and goes down in a cloud of leaves. Dog teeth rip skin. A man with a knife hacks the horn from the head while the unicorn is still moving.