CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Henry’s eyes were shut, and he expected, once he opened them, to find himself in another place. Instead, he ran into the back of the cupboard. He squirmed his way out and sat on the floor, confused and rubbing his head.

It was the middle of the night, he was in Grandfather’s bedroom, and Henrietta was missing. Henry examined the shoe and the broken gold-rimmed glasses. He was not the Henry who would have sat there two weeks ago. He didn’t once tell himself that Henrietta was probably down in the kitchen or in the bathroom. He knew she had gone through the cupboard, and he thought that someone else, someone he may have seen, had gone with her. Or taken her.

Henry was worried, and his heart was trying to fly in his chest. He was worrying that he wouldn’t figure out how to follow Henrietta through the cupboard before she got hurt, and that he might not be able to get her back before her parents woke up.

He got onto his hands and knees and felt his way back into the cupboard. There was nothing inside but a funny smell and the solid back. Henry climbed out and began pulling at various books on the shelves around the cupboard, hoping one would trigger a mechanism and open the back. None of them did. He pushed on every bit of wood that looked secretive, and still nothing happened.

Henry walked to the door. He didn’t want to leave the room, but he needed to find the journal Henrietta had been reading. He went as quietly as he could to his room. Once there, he moved the old journal and rifled through his blanket, shoved aside his posters, and then dropped to the floor to look under his bed. There it was—open, face down, some of the pages bending. He pulled the journal out without looking at it and hurried back downstairs. He sat on the floor beside the cupboard and looked at the first page. His eyes struggled with the handwriting but began to adjust after several lines. He skimmed over it as quickly as he could.


To Frank and Dorothy,

I have written all that I know about the cupboards in this book. In my other journal, there are some helpful things that I will not repeat here for the sake of time, as I would prefer to have finished this before I am dead, though I may not. The doctors would bury me now, and my body seems to agree, as it already turns to dust. Here also, I intend to be as honest as I have always been deceptive, though honesty will no doubt damage your memory of me.

The cupboards were first assembled by my father, and the process was the work of his life. I have, after struggling through his papers, assembled the stories behind each of his acquisitions and his choice of this place for his house. The cupboards’ functions vary a great deal, shifting because of grains, origins, etc. Some allow the passage of light, some of sound, and some remain as dark and silent as tombs.

Of course, the house was designed after his studies and was meant, for many reasons, to culminate in the cupboards. There are things he did not discover until much later and things he would have changed, like the location of the primary entrance (he could never get one to work on the same wall as the cupboards, or even the same floor), but he never had the energy to attempt a second house design. I have restructured and rebuilt the house as much as I was able and opened the last of the cupboards.

I will attempt to explain how things function as they are. I do this not because I would recommend that you exploit your access to these places, but because my father ran great risks and was damaged in many ways for the entirety of his life as a result of his experiments, studies, and exploration. He left me to undergo the same process, making the same discoveries, though I was able to avoid much through a careful reading of his notes. While I would not recommend you attempt any exploration, neither can I tell you not to without hypocrisy, something you may be surprised to hear, as hypocrisy was at times natural to me. I understand that the cupboards cannot remain hidden forever and can hardly expect that you have forgotten them, as memories such as the ones you formed as children are not easily struck from the mind’s page. You will rediscover the cupboards, and you will find it necessary to explore them. This is written so that you may avoid harm, such as is possible in such undertakings, but particularly the mistakes made by my father and myself.


Henry turned the page, glanced at it, and then, impatient, flipped to the middle somewhere and began reading again.


I cannot explain it, and though he was first and foremost a mathematician, he was never able to come up with a stable formula for the passage of time in a cupboard relative to the passage of time here. His journals are littered with attempts. He found that time passed differently through each of them, at varying and apparently inconsistent rates. This by itself accounts for much of my father’s sickness, or so he thought. For myself, as I so early chose only one to pass through, I did not experience nearly the temporal upheaval that he did. And, of course, after my first experience, I never traveled without the rope, which I have always left coiled beneath the bed. It is not necessary for one with magic, but it was woven “elsewhere” and aids the mind of the weaker traveler.


Henry stood up and walked over to the bed. Beneath it was a pile of brown rope with one end tied to the bed leg. He sat on the edge of the bed, flipped toward the back of the book, and found the page Henrietta had shown him—a list of the cupboards, each one next to a compass-lock combination. He flipped back a couple of pages.


Of course, many combinations lead nowhere. They might, if additional cupboards were found and aligned, but they do not now. When the locks are set to any of these empty combinations, the back of the main cupboard will be as solid as any other. Nothing could pass through it, because it terminates in our own space. The benefit of this, as I quickly learned, was that no thing could pass through from the other direction, either. I could go nowhere, but I also would not wake to find myself sharing a room with a noble-hog, as happened to me twice. Before I set the compass locks permanently to what would become my second place, I would never sleep unless the locks were set to an empty combination and the back of my cupboard was solid. This, of course, does not prevent things from entering the cupboards in the attic. But they would need to be very small and also strong enough to force the door open from the inside (the most startling variation on this was the boy Henry).


Henry coughed and read the line again. There he was, a simple parenthetical, an offhand comment. His eyes flew back over the words and hurried on, hoping for some kind of elaboration.


Once I had permanently set the combination with plaster, I would still frequently wedge the door shut when I was not using it. I have copied all the combinations for the cupboards in the next pages. When one of their combinations has been set, you will find no back to my cupboard. The back is still there, as is the wall that supports it, but the cupboard meets with another place before it meets with the wall.


Henry sat very still. There were no answers to the questions flooding his mind, but he had found the mechanism of the cupboards. He did not know how it worked or why, but he believed that it would.

It was very late. He wanted to read both journals from front to back to front. He wanted to know exactly who he was and where he came from. But Henrietta had disappeared. He had no time.

Henry knew what he had to do next. He was going to go upstairs and guess which cupboard Henrietta had gone through. Then he was going to crawl through a small door in his dead grandfather’s bedroom. He might be crawling home and not know it. He might crawl into some place worse than Endor.

He felt strange leaving his grandfather’s room. He didn’t shut the door, because Henrietta still had the key. He didn’t turn the light off, because he didn’t want to come back to a dark room. When he reached the attic, he sat down on his bed and stared at the compass locks. If he understood what the journal had been saying, the combination that he set would determine which cupboard, or place, he would go to when he crawled through the larger cupboard downstairs. Henrietta had turned a knob before they heard the thumping, so the combination must have let something through. Henrietta had gone downstairs to turn the light off and shut the door to Grandfather’s room. Whatever it was must have taken her back through the cupboard.

“Or she followed it,” he muttered out loud.

And then Henry had turned the knobs again while he was waiting, after she’d gone downstairs. That’s why the cupboard was closed.

Henry’s chin crept toward his chest. He felt his jaw tense. His eyes watered a bit and then shut completely as he yawned, a long, sprawling yawn. He wasn’t tired. He certainly wasn’t bored. He was nervous, more nervous than he had ever been. He yawned again. He took slow, deep breaths, but they weren’t enough. His body kept yawning, his hands were cold, and his spine prickled. At least he wasn’t panicking or throwing up. Yet.

He stood up to look at the compass locks and hoped that the combination for the cupboard Henrietta had gone through would be fairly close to the one the knobs were set to now. He looked at the strange figures around the two knobs, then looked at his grandfather’s journal. He found a combination four figures off from the knob on the left and two from the one on the right. He checked the number of the cupboard and found it on his wall. It was a normal-looking brown one. Its name tag said “Tempore.”

Before Henry set the combination, he made sure he had his knife. He pulled his backpack out from under the bed and tucked both of Grandfather’s journals inside it. He slid his arms through the straps and turned to the compass locks.

With a deep breath, he carefully twisted the knobs.

In Grandfather’s room, he shut the door most of the way and stared at the still-open cupboard. He went to the bed and pulled out the rope. He figured that the rope was supposed to be tied to the bed leg, so he just held the loose end. Then he turned off the light.

Henry stood in the dark for a moment to let his eyes adjust, then he got down on his knees in front of the small door. His knife was in one hand and the rope in the other. He didn’t fit very well with his backpack on, but he dropped to his belly and squirmed in.

A loud ticking surrounded him. The smell of a wood fire.

Henry worked his way farther in, and the ticking grew louder. He could see a room now, but firelight was reflecting off something in front of him.

He was behind glass.

Henry pushed on it and felt it bend. He tried to look above himself, but he was squeezed in too tight to turn. So he just pushed his head up. The top of the cupboard was gone. He put his forehead on the glass and tried to pull his legs in behind him. They came a little ways, so he moved his head higher and tried to work his way closer to vertical. The ticking was very loud now, though he wasn’t paying much attention to it.

He bumped his head on something heavy. Something else chopped at the back of his scalp. He yelped and tried to drop back down but only banged his head again. Noise filled the small space—rattling and bonging as chimes shook and met each other above his head.

I’m in a clock, Henry thought.

Something was moving in the room. It had stepped in front of the fire. Henry froze. It was walking toward him. Henry heard a voice on the other side of the glass. It was a boy’s voice.

“What are you doing?” it said.

“Um…,” Henry said, and tried to shift his weight.

“Why are you in the clock?”

Henry grunted. “I’m stuck.”

“Where’s the rest of you?”

“It’s stuck, too.”

The boy laughed. “But how did you get in there? How do you fit?”

“I don’t.” Henry heard a click, the glass pressing against his face moved, and his head fell forward. He levered himself with his elbows and squirmed out onto the floor. Then he looked up at a skinny, white-faced boy. He noticed first that the boy’s lips were large and second that his pants were pulled very high, up to his ribs. The legs only reached the middle of his shins.

“They always leave the key in it,” the boy said. “You would have been locked in if they didn’t. How did you get in there?”

Henry looked back at the clock. It was a grandfather clock, big but not enormous. The pendulum had already forgotten it had clipped Henry’s head and was swinging steadily. The weights were still shifting and bumping into each other.

“I came through from the other side,” Henry said.

“Is it a secret room?”

“No. I don’t really know how it works.”

“A tunnel?”

“No. The back of the clock just connects to somewhere else.”

“Is it magic?”

Henry wasn’t listening. He was looking around the room. The fireplace was wide, built from smooth stone, and a low, bulging couch and matching chairs squatted in front of it. One wall looked like it might be entirely windows but was covered with heavy purple curtains.

“Is it night?” Henry asked, sitting up.

“No,” the boy said. “Just winter.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not allowed to open the drapes. They’re supposed to keep the room warmer. I’ve been in here all day. They don’t let me out, usually.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Well, Annabee mostly. She brings me my meals, though. Most times. I’m going to have her sacked when I’ve grown.”

“Has a girl come through here?” Henry asked. He already knew the answer.

“Through the clock?”

“Yeah.”

“Today?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d said yesterday. You’re the first one ever to come through the clock that I know of.”

Henry clicked his tongue and looked around. “I bet my grandfather did.”

“Was he a wizard?”

“No. I don’t know what he was. He called this place Tempore in his journal.”

“We call it Hutchins.”

Henry looked at the smaller boy. “I have to go now. I need to find my cousin. I don’t know where she went.”

“Might she come through the clock?”

Henry looked at the small clock cabinet. “I don’t think so. Anyway, I have to go.” He stepped back to the clock and looked in. The rope hung out the bottom.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked.

Henry didn’t look back. “Henry,” he said.

“Mine’s Richard. What’s your surname?”

Henry thought about this for a moment.

“York,” he said.

“Henry York? Is your father the admiral?”

“No,” Henry said. “I don’t know who my father is.”

“Oh.” Richard stepped just beside Henry. “Mine’s dead. That’s why the others all have to look after me.”

“Sorry.”

“My mother’s run off.” The boy bent over and looked in the clock. “My surname is Leeds, though I’m going to change it.”

“Sorry,” Henry said again. “I really have to go.”

“Right.”

Henry got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the clock. There was a back to it. Henry’s head pushed against it, and he went nowhere. He sat back up and took a deep breath to prevent panic. Richard watched as Henry closed his eyes, reached into the clock, gripped the rope with his left hand, and felt his way along it. To Richard’s eyes, Henry was crawling through solid wood. His shoulders disappeared as the backpack seemed to catch on something. Henry’s legs lowered themselves, and the pack vanished, followed by Henry’s legs and feet. Then the rope vanished as well.

Henry ran up the attic stairs, no longer trying to dodge the creaks and squeals of the old treads. He pulled the journal out of his backpack and dropped onto his bed in front of the compass locks.

“Faster this time,” he whispered to himself, flipping to the back of the journal, looking for the combinations. When he found them, he scanned the list and glanced up at the compass locks. The closest combination belonged to another small door, though made of a darker wood than Tempore’s. The name tag, in Henrietta’s handwriting, said “Carnassus.”

Henry set the compass locks and hurried back down to Grandfather’s room with his backpack on and his knife in his hand. He was very careful not to close the door all the way behind him. He didn’t want to be locked in.

“You would take the key with you, wouldn’t you, Henrietta?” Panic was knocking somewhere in Henry’s mind, and he was trying to ward it off with irritation.

“After stealing it from my drawer. Sock drawers are not public property.”

Nervous again and blowing out long breaths, he walked straight to the cupboard, grabbed the end of the rope, did not notice that the cupboard door was open when he had left it shut, and crawled in.

He didn’t know what he would be crawling into, so he inched his face along, waiting for something to become visible. That something was a stone floor, cold beneath his hands.

Stone walls stood close to him on both sides. A wooden arch joined the two sides, an arch filled with a heavy black curtain. Henry pulled himself to his knees and glanced around. The whole space was about the size of a closet. The walls weren’t more than four feet apart, the curtain about six feet from the back. The only light was coming in above and beneath the curtain. It was a cold white light, but bright enough.

Henry stood up, stepped toward the curtain, and tried to look around it. It was piled up against the stone walls on both sides, so he hooked one edge with his finger and eased it back far enough for his eye.

He saw the moon. At first, that’s all he saw. Its large white face filled a window high on a wall. He did not know that the window, which was actually more of a light well, had been built to cast its light—on one day of the year and in the night’s middle—upon the dark curtain in front of him. He did not realize, at least for a moment, that the moon lit the black curtain and very little else. He drew the curtain farther back and looked around the room.

A huge gong rolled through the chamber, vibrating Henry’s bones. Something bumped him from behind. He jumped, stepped on his own foot, twisted, and fell out through the curtain and onto the floor. He’d dropped his knife.

“That way,” an old voice said, “has been closed for many years.”

The gong’s echoes were still dying. Henry didn’t say anything. He didn’t stand up. He looked around for the voice, running his hands over the stone for his knife.

“Name yourself,” the voice said.

Henry didn’t respond. His hand closed on the knife handle. Turning to where he thought the voice was coming from, he pushed off the ground and stood up. He gripped his small defense tight.

“Name yourself,” the voice said again.

This time, Henry answered. “I can’t,” he said.

The old voice laughed and said something Henry couldn’t understand. The sounds made his blood tingle and his cheeks hot.

Suddenly the room woke. Torches and trays burst into flame all around the walls.

Henry blinked. The room was an oval. At one end, steps led down into a hall. At the other sat a black polished dais. It was all square, cut with hard lines and no curves. On it, carved from the same stone, was a square-edged chair with arms but no back. A wrinkled bundle of cloth sat upon it.

Black curtains hung at intervals all around the walls in arches like the one Henry had come through. Between them, stands that looked like they should hold fake ferns instead held the trays of flame.

“If you choose to pick at words,” the voice said, “what is it that others named you?”

“York,” Henry said.

“This is not a room for lies.” The bundle on the dais took shape, straightening, growing, and then leaning forward. An old man wrapped in black cloth stared at Henry. A long white beard grew off the tip of his chin, and a thick neck stood out behind it. His hair was pulled tight to his skull. Except for his head, the man was small. His eyes were fixed on Henry’s face. “Your name is not York,” he said softly.

Henry shifted his feet. “My father is Phillip Louis York,” he said.

“Your father was never called York. I have seen him here before. No other ever came unbidden.” The man held a smooth shaft of wood in his left hand. His right hung over the arm of his chair into a bowl. He lifted up something white and moving, pinched between his fingers. Then he put it in his mouth and smiled.

Henry clenched his fists. “Did you take my cousin? I’m looking for her.”

The old man laughed. “Is she missing? Are you missing? Will she come to look for you? Or will it be your father? How is it that you found the way?”

“I don’t know which way it was,” Henry said. “There are lots of them.”

The man pointed his staff at Henry. “You do not know of many ways. You cannot. You are too young. The magic would collapse you.”

“I do,” Henry said, and felt around his memory, trying to see the list from his grandfather’s journal. “I know the way to Tempore. I have been there tonight. I know the way to…Mistra, to Badon Hill, and to Byzanthamum. I know the way to Arizona.” The man leaned even farther forward, his eyes hooded.

Henry grabbed for more, hoping the stranger wouldn’t know the difference. “And Boston, Florida, Kansas, Vermont, Mexico, Africa, and New York.” The man still looked at him, stiff and expressionless.

“I know the way to Endor,” Henry said, and saw surprise register on the old man’s face.

“Did your father tell you these names?”

“My grandfather wrote of them.”

“Tell me, what is this place called? I do not think many know that.”

“Carnassus,” Henry said.

The old man sat very still before he spoke again. “Where did your grandfather write these things?”

“In a book I have,” Henry said. “At home,” he lied.

“Where is home?”

Henry didn’t want to say Kansas again.

“Henry,” he said.

“Henry?”

“It is a place called Henry.”

“And you came from Henry to this place. How long did it take you?”

“Not long. I should go back now. I still need to find my cousin.”

The man sat back, lifted more from the bowl, and chewed slowly. “I did not think you would come. I believed the door was lost and would never reopen, despite the old words. And I have others to content me. But now that you have come, I cannot let you leave.”

“I need to find my cousin.”

“She is not here.”

Henry stepped back toward the black curtain.

“Doors can shut on both sides,” the man said. “You will not find it open.”

Henry pulled back the curtain. Richard stood just inside looking terrified.

“Sorry I bumped you,” Richard whispered.

Henry didn’t know what to say. He had been planning on diving through and running straight up to the compass locks before he could be followed. But he couldn’t leave Richard behind. He looked down at the floor and saw the rope.

“Go back right now,” he said. And he shut the curtain.

“The way is closed?” the old man asked. “You will be allowed to leave when we have talked more about your book. I will not keep you long. I do not want your father returning.” The man laughed. “It is strange that I did not know of all his sons. Of course, to have only six would have been a grief to him. I should have known there would be a seventh.”

“I’m an only child,” Henry said. But he didn’t really know anymore. Not after what he’d read. He heard footsteps and looked back at the hall. Two men were climbing the steps, both holding staffs. Henry let his knife fall open and gripped it tight behind his leg. They walked toward him with extended arms and began a low chant.

Heaviness drifted over Henry like a lazy breeze. They came closer and repeated the process. It felt heavier this time, but also seemed to pass right through him. They stopped in front of him, and one of them pulled a long knife out of his robe and waved it, muttering. The other one reached for Henry.

Henry brought his little blade around hard. The two men jumped back. The man with the knife tripped and fell over. Henry hit the other one in the head, but with his fist more than the knife. Then he dove behind the curtain and was grateful to find Richard gone. He scrambled to his knees and crawled as quickly as he could, one hand on the rope, back to Grandfather’s bedroom. Once there, he rolled out on the floor, jerked the rope through, and shut the door. Richard stood beside him, his mouth open.

“Be very quiet,” Henry said, and handed him the knife. “Don’t let anyone through. I’ll be right back.” Henry ran out of the room on his toes and straight up his stairs. Once he’d set the compass locks to an empty combination, he tiptoed as quickly as he could back downstairs. Richard was waiting for him, looking moon-pale.

“A hand pushed the door open, and I kicked it.” Richard pointed. “I shut the door again.”

Henry squatted down, opened the cupboard slowly, and looked inside. The hand sat by itself near the back. There wasn’t any arm.

“Oh no,” Henry said.

“What?” Richard asked, and bent over to look.

Henry took a deep breath. “I cut his hand off.”

“How?”

“When I switched the cupboard.”

Richard looked at him. “What are you going to do with it?”

Henry thought for a moment. “I think I should give it back.”

“Well, it’s not your fault.”

“I know,” Henry said, “but I don’t want to have to go bury it in the backyard or something. Maybe they could put it back on. Listen. You sit down here, and I’ll go switch the cupboard back. I’ll only leave it there a second. As soon as you can’t see the back of the cupboard, push the hand through with your foot, okay? It’ll only be a second, so go fast.”

“Hold, uh, hold on, are you sure?” Richard asked.

“Yeah. Get ready.” Henry left the room again and creaked his way back up the stairs. He was sure he would probably wake somebody up, but he didn’t care right now. He took a deep breath in front of the cupboards, then set the knobs back to Carnassus. He counted to two, turned the knobs again, and went back downstairs. He didn’t hear any yelling, so he thought it had probably worked.

“That was disgusting,” Richard said.

“Did it work?”

“Yes, but you nicked the tip off my boot.” Henry looked down at Richard’s delicate leather shoe. At the very end, a slice had taken about an eighth of an inch off the toe. He looked back at Richard.

“Why did you follow me? You have to go back.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Henry said, “because nobody here knows that I can go to other places, and my cousin is missing, and I have to find her tonight. She could be in big trouble, and even if she isn’t, we’ll still get into trouble.”

“I’ll look for her with you.” Richard reached up and pulled nervously at his thick lower lip.

Henry shook his head. “You have to go back.”

“I don’t see why,” Richard said, and went over and sat on the bed. “Who sleeps in here?”

“Nobody asked you to come,” Henry said.

“Nobody asked you to come into my clock. I could have left you in there, you know. Who sleeps in here?”

“It was my grandfather’s room.” Henry crossed his arms. “He’s dead. Nobody sleeps in here now.”

“Then I’ll stay in here.” Richard smiled. “You don’t have to tell your parents.”

“It’s my aunt and uncle’s house.”

“You don’t have to tell them.”

“No,” said Henry.

Richard sniffed. “Well, at least let me look for your cousin,” he said. “I’ll go back at the end of the night.”

Henry stared at the boy’s pasty face.

“I don’t get to do anything,” Richard said. “And I’m staying even if you say I can’t.”

Henry sighed. “Okay.” He pointed at the skinny boy. “But you have to do what I say.”

“Fine,” Richard said, and grinned. Henry didn’t like his teeth.

“Okay. C’mon, then,” Henry said. “We have to go upstairs and pick our next place. Be quiet. Everyone else is asleep. And don’t close the door.” Henry left the room and went to the stairs without looking back. He heard Richard trip slightly on the torn carpet, but he ignored it. In his room, he pulled the journal out of his backpack and looked for the next close combination. When he found it, he almost laughed. He hoped he would find Henrietta there, and if he did, he knew he would have trouble bringing her back. He was going to take Richard to Badon Hill.

Henry set the combination and told Richard not to ask any questions, and not to touch the doors, and not to make so much noise with his feet.

Richard tried very hard not to ask any questions as he stood in the strange bedroom and watched Henry crawl through the cupboard. And he did very well, though he followed much closer than Henry had told him to and kept reaching out to make sure that Henry’s feet were still there.

At the back of the cupboard, Henry felt himself going up. He felt earth under his closed fists, and then he felt grass. He dragged the rope along with him and squeezed out of the tree and into the air. The sky was enormous and lower than any sky he had seen. He looked back at the tree. The trunk hulked, but the crack didn’t look large enough to crawl through. Then he saw Richard’s head and blinking eyes emerge from the wood, and he laughed. He was actually on Badon Hill. The sun was bright, though low, and the breeze-blown grass stroked the sides of the tall gray stone and just hid the bones that Henry knew were there. Then something jumped up and scrambled onto the rock, in front of the sun. Henry had to squint to make it out.

“Blake!” he said, and laughed even more. “Richard, she’s here. She has to be. Come on!”

Richard was still blinking, but he could see the cat and the sky and the grass and the tops of huge, wind-lazy trees, and it was all beautiful. Henry was bigger than he was, so he didn’t want to cry in front of him. He stood up and closed his eyes. “I like it here,” he said.

Henry was standing on the stone, holding Blake. Richard tried to climb up beside him but couldn’t quite make it. Henry reached down and gave him a pull.

The two of them stood and looked out over the woods.

“There’s a lot more of the mountain than I thought,” Henry said. “And a funny smell.”

Blake jumped out of his arms and off the rock.

“It’s the sea,” Richard said. He pointed to a blue expanse partially hidden by the treetops. “I’ve smelled it once before. You can see the water over there. We’re very high. Is it an island?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “But we should go. Henrietta’s got a head start on us.”

Henry got off the rock and almost tripped on the cat. Blake stood at his feet and stared blankly at him. Then the cat ran, as much as Blake ever ran, over to the crack in the tree and disappeared, only to reemerge and stare at Henry again. Then he ran back to the crack.

“The cat wants to go back,” Richard said.

“We’ll go back in a bit, Blake. We’ve got to find Henrietta first.” Henry turned and began walking down the slope to an old broken wall. Richard followed him. Blake passed them both, leapt onto the rubble of the wall, and arched his back, hissing at Henry.

“Stop it, Blake,” Henry said. He put his hand on the wall to jump over but pulled it back quickly, bleeding. Blake crouched, quietly now, but he had left four deep claw tracks across the back of Henry’s hand.

“Blake!” Henry yelled. “Fine! Shoo! Go home or whatever, but we’ve got to find Henrietta.” He pressed his cut hand to his lips.

Richard shifted nervously next to Henry. “Perhaps she’s not here,” he said.

“If the cat’s here, she’s here,” Henry said. “Easy enough.”

“Is it possible that the cat may have followed us?” Richard asked.

Henry sighed. He couldn’t be irritated. Frustration turned to despair. Richard could be right, and if Richard was right, then Henrietta might be lost forever. He turned to Blake. “I wish you were a dog,” he said. “Where’s Henrietta?” He whistled. “Find Henrietta!”

Blake looked insulted, but he hopped off the wall with his gray tail in the air and began walking back to the tree.

Henry pulled in as much of the Badon air as he could manage and listened to the breeze roll and toss too many leaves to count. The air moved gently, but the sound of its leaf passage was strong and constant, like many waters. It felt right on his face. He could smell the moss and the soft earth and sunshine. His bones tingled with—with—he didn’t know what. Magic? Memory? He couldn’t keep his eyes in one place. They kept chasing motion—motion they couldn’t quite catch. They were trying to watch the wind.

This is where I want to be, Henry thought. Why can’t you be here, Henrietta? I’m sure you’re someplace awful.

Henry turned and saw Richard’s skinny legs kicking their way through the crack in the tree. Blake was already gone. He sighed again and dragged his toes as he walked.