CHAPTER TWELVE
Henrietta had hurried down the attic stairs but did not find her father on the landing. The light was not on beneath the bathroom door. Grandfather’s door was still open, and its light was still on. Either her father had thumped in her parents’ bedroom and not yet come out, had thumped in her parents’ bedroom and wasn’t coming out at all, or had already come out, seen the light on in Grandfather’s bedroom, and gone in to look around for an explanation.
Henrietta ran on tiptoe across the landing to the partially open door. She looked through the crack and saw him step out of view. Her heart sank. She knew that her chances of ever being allowed to keep Grandfather’s journals and key had just disappeared. But she was a bold girl, so she braced herself for the necessary conversation. Putting a smile on her face and squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the room.
She didn’t say anything. Her mouth fell open, but not in any useful way. She was looking at the back of a small, old—if the white hair drifting out over his ears told the truth—mostly bald man. He was wearing the type of jacket she associated with old men. It was brown plaid and had badly sewn patches on the elbows. He was looking at the bookshelf, fiddling with the spines of the older-looking books, and muttering something under his breath.
There is no known protocol for how young girls ought to behave when discovering small older men puttering around in an already mysterious bedroom. Henrietta did her best.
“Excuse me,” she said softly.
Knocking several books to the floor, the old man spun around. His face was small for his head, and he was holding one lens of a broken pair of glasses up to his left eye. He stared at Henrietta for a moment. She tried to smile. Then he dove to the floor more quickly than Henrietta would have thought possible. Henrietta started to ask him if he was all right, but he opened the cupboard door at the base of the bookshelf and began slithering in.
“Hey, wait,” she said. “I just want to talk to you.” She jumped over and grabbed his foot. He kicked her in the stomach, and she pulled his shoe off. She gulped air and sat down hard on the floor, watching the old man’s feet disappear into the cupboard.
Henrietta hesitated. Another magic cupboard, and in her grandfather’s room. An old man. Her chance for answers had crawled away. Henrietta dropped to the floor and felt her way into the darkness. As her feet disappeared, Blake entered the room. He, more than Henrietta, was aware of the risks he took, though his cat-mind did not assess them. He ran straight into the cupboard at a speed only one of the local coyotes had seen and Dotty wouldn’t have thought possible. He could see Henrietta’s feet, and then he could not. The wooden back of the cupboard flicked into place, then disappeared again. Blake hit the darkness and felt the ground rise before emerging into long grass and sunshine. He did not need to look around to know that Henrietta was somewhere else. He turned and tried to push himself back down through the crack in the tree to the cupboard.
The way had shut behind him.
Blake was a wise cat, and he did not waste time worrying. He didn’t know how. He walked to the stone, leapt onto it, and stretched out in the sun.
Henrietta froze. The music of violins, cellos, and a strange-sounding piano—like its strings were being plucked rather than hammered—came through the walls around her, filling the small, dark space where she crouched. And voices, laughing voices.
She was still in a cupboard, a cupboard wider and deeper than Grandfather’s. She sneezed. A cupboard full of dust and cobwebs and, if she could believe her hands, lots of dry mouse droppings. She pulled her knees up under her, hunching over with her back against the low ceiling, and felt around for the door. Two feet in front of her and a little to one side, she found it.
Henrietta only meant to open it a crack, but the door swung open easily when she touched it and left her blinking at all the light and the noise.
She looked out into an enormous ballroom with black-beamed vaulted ceilings more than fifty feet above a gleaming floor of inlaid wood. Huge paned windows arched nearly to the ceiling between smooth columns and bright frescoes. A small orchestra played from a balcony at one end of the hall, and the floor swirled with dancers. Full dresses of every one of the world’s colors spun on beautiful women no taller than Henrietta. The hair on the women was piled high and wrapped with strands of bright beads. The men all wore their hair, which was almost universally black, pulled tight and braided down their backs. They wore trousers with wide legs down to the ankles and short coats with sleeves that flared and stopped at the elbow.
Henrietta forgot the little man. She forgot Kansas. She sat, unable to move, with her mouth open and her eyes wide. She watched older men and women walk alongside the walls, eating and laughing. She watched the musicians. She stared at the ceiling and floor, at the columns and windows and frescoes.
It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
As her eyes ran over the dancers one more time, they stopped on one figure, a figure that she recognized. His back was to her, he was bald, and he was wearing a plaid jacket with big patches on the elbows. He was walking carefully through the dancers with only one shoe, watching his feet and setting each one down gently before he put his weight on it. None of the dancers seemed to notice him at all.
Henrietta pulled herself forward and stuck her head out the small door to see if anyone was near her. As she did, the color faded and the music stopped. The people disappeared. Only one figure remained, that of the strange old man in the jacket, picking his way carefully across a floor pocked with holes and rot.
Henrietta squeezed through the door, fell off a small ledge, and landed on the rough floor. Above her were the burnt and charred timbers of collapsed vaults, and a gray sky. The walls were black and gray with soot, the frescoes hidden, and the windows gaped shattered mouths.
“What happened?” Henrietta yelled. “Where did everything go?”
“Ha!” the little man laughed bitterly. Wood cracked beneath his foot and he pulled back.
Henrietta stood up to follow him. “Please tell me,” she said. The floor was solid near the wall. She started walking carefully and quickly. It was like climbing through the lofts of some of the older barns, the ones that leaned sideways and were missing roofs or walls. “Tell me,” she said again.
The little man turned around. “Look what you’ve done already—you’ve mussed everything. I’m no better off now than I was.”
Henrietta stopped. “I didn’t do this. I can’t have. I just followed you.”
The man glared at her. “If you mean destroying one of the world’s great palaces, one of the world’s great cities, then no. That was done by bigger fools than you. You made me lose my glasses.”
“I’m sorry,” Henrietta said. “I just wanted to talk to you. We could go back through and get them.”
“Not likely,” the man said. But he turned around and began walking back. “And you took my shoe.”
“Well, you were trying to run off.”
When the man reached her, he stopped and looked her up and down.
“I’m Henrietta,” she said.
“I know.” He walked past her, back toward the cupboard, which was built into an enormous hutch, and he slid in with his legs sticking out. After a moment, he slid back out.
“Fate is no lady,” the old man said. “It’s closed right back up, and here we both are. You’ll want to sit in that cupboard, never leave even for a moment, and wait for it to open. Likely take me a year, but now I’ll be leaving to find what home I may still have.” He bent over, took off his one shoe, and stuck it in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t wearing any socks. Then he turned to walk off.
“Do you mean I’m stuck?” Henrietta asked. “Wait. Hold on. I want to talk to you.”
The man faced her. “Are you going to pull on my leg?”
“Are you going to kick me?” she asked.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Do you know how the cupboards work?”
The man shrugged. “Why do you need to know? Just fiddle about with them and see what happens. It will be good for everyone.”
Henrietta took a deep breath, trying not to be annoyed. “Just tell me enough to get back when I need to.”
“You’ll not get back unless whoever’s been spinning those knobs notices you’re gone and is somehow able to locate where his norths were when you rode through on my feet. There’s nothing you can do except spend your days leaning on the back of that cupboard, waiting. Oh, I’ve spent weeks doing just that in much nastier places, and the last few days as well—thanks to your meddling. When it opens, it won’t be for long. You won’t want to miss it. And get all your limbs through quickly. Now, I don’t want to keep you. Goodbye.”
Henrietta grabbed his coat and pulled him back. His caterpillar eyebrows came together, and he sputtered before he spoke.
“Never,” he said, “have I encountered a small girl so inclined to grab an old man. Now, little girl, unhand.”
“I’m as tall as you are,” Henrietta said.
The old man’s face turned red and his ears purple. He stepped toward Henrietta, looking straight into her eyes. She let go of his coat.
“Could you just tell me what happened to everything?” she asked. “What is this place? Where did everyone go?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Don’t you know?” Henrietta asked.
“Of course I know. It was a lifetime ago, but if you climb back in that hutch you can see me dancing, though I mostly ate sausages that night.” He turned and pointed to the far end of the empty hall. “Over there. You wouldn’t recognize me. I was a bit of a devil.”
“A devil?”
“Apollonian. Handsome. Extremely good-looking.”
Henrietta laughed. “What happened?”
“The stars fell, the moon went out, the earth shook—however you want to put it. Everything ended for the FitzFaeren in one night. But this hutch remembers. Wood remembers most things.”
Henrietta looked back at the cupboard. “Where did all the people go?”
“Well,” the little man said, “most died. I traveled and became a librarian.”
“Why were you in my grandfather’s room? What were you doing? My cousin saw you, didn’t he?”
“Your cousin! The little weakling boy? Yes, he has eyes that can see. But I’ve had enough questions. The sun is setting, and I want to be far from this place before the light fades. In the dark, this place that was once alive tries to wake its memories. I have seen it try before, and I do not want to see it again.”
“You mean it’s haunted?” Henrietta asked. “I don’t want to stay if it’s haunted.”
The man laughed. “If you ever want to see your home again, you will stay and wait. Do you have the second sight?”
Henrietta shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then it may not be as bad for you.”
The little man moved down the long hutch, opening the larger doors until he found the one he wanted.
“What are you doing?” Henrietta asked.
“Leaving.”
“How? Is that another magic cupboard?”
The man laughed and climbed through the small door, curling up to fit. “This is a dumbwaiter. From the middle of the room, I could see that the stairs have collapsed in the years since my last visit. Now goodbye to you and your questions.”
Henrietta watched him pull a tight little rope from the back corner and then, accompanied by the high-pitched squealing of ancient pulleys, he descended out of view. She leaned in to watch him go, but he was already hidden from any light.
“You didn’t tell me your name!” she yelled down the shaft.
“Ack! Don’t shout! It’s loud in here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ask the sprites tonight.” His voice rattled up at her through the shaft. He was almost down. Henrietta reached in and clenched the two little squealing ropes. They burned her hand, but they both stopped moving.
The old man’s voice rose in anger. “Horrid little girl! Let go at once!”
Henrietta laughed and leaned back out of the echo. “Tell me your name.”
She heard the man sigh. “Eli,” he said.
“Eli what?”
“Eli FitzFaeren.”
“Why were you in my grandfather’s room?”
“I was living there.”
“Why?”
“He was a friend. And a fool like his father before him and all his descendants. Now let go of the rope before I lay a curse on you.”
“What really happened here?” Henrietta asked. “How did everyone die?”
Suddenly the rope glowed orange and went hot in her hand. She yelped and put her hand to her mouth. The pulley squealed as the rope rattled around it. Eli’s yell poured out of the shaft as he fell. With a crack, the pulley ripped out of woodwork somewhere inside, and Henrietta watched it fall past the opening. The crash at the bottom filled the whole hall.
When everything was quiet, Henrietta stuck her head back in. She could hear groaning. “Are you okay?” she asked. The groaning turned into cursing.
“You!” the little man finally yelled. “You are as bad as your grandfather!” He went back to muttering.
“It was nice meeting you,” Henrietta said.
Laughter echoed through the hall. “Surely you can’t mean it. Enjoy your evening in the Lesser Hall of FitzFaeren. Enjoy it, but do not eat anything, and more importantly, do not let anything eat you!”
Henrietta listened to him leave. When his footsteps and muttering had faded, she stood, chewing her lip, and turned to explore.
Richard and Blake sat on Henry’s bed and looked around the attic room.
“This is where you live?” Richard asked. “It’s filthy.”
“I didn’t like your room, either,” Henry muttered. He was scanning Grandfather’s journal and glancing up at the compass locks. “I don’t know. There aren’t really any more close combinations.” He picked one, set the knobs, and sat down beside Richard. “This is the last one. If she’s not here, then I’m waking up Uncle Frank.”
Richard shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “We can ask your uncle if I can stay.”
“C’mon,” Henry said, and the two of them snuck downstairs one last time.
Henry sat on the floor and stared at the cupboard. He was tired and he was nervous, and he was yawning again because he was both. He could die in one of these places. He shouldn’t be doing this. Henrietta could die in one of them, too. He should wake up Uncle Frank.
“I will,” he said out loud. “After this one. If I don’t die. If we don’t die.”
“What?” Richard asked.
Henry didn’t say anything. He was crawling through the cupboard. Richard watched.
Lying in bed, Frank told Dotty not to worry about the thumping or the trips on the stairs. Yes, he knew Henry was up, and probably the girls, too.
“The boy’s white grass,” he said. “Like when you leave a board in the yard. You pick it up after a coupla weeks or days even, and the grass underneath is all white and yellow. No sunshine. Only, Henry’s been under a board in the yard for longer than a coupla days.”
“The girls sound like they’re up, too,” Dotty said. “They’re not getting any sleep.”
“They’ll recover,” Frank said, and he slept.
When he woke, it wasn’t because of any noise. He just felt a little funny. The sun wasn’t up, but the sky was bright with the dawn. Dotty was asleep next to him.
Frank pulled himself out of bed and wandered, yawning, into the hall. He put his hand on the knob of the bathroom door and stopped. There was light coming into the hall from Grandfather’s room. The door was partially open. Frank stared. He couldn’t believe it. He stepped toward it, put out his hand, and pushed.
The door swung open easily. The curtains were open, and the room was light. There were flowers in a vase and some things on the floor, but Frank didn’t notice. He was looking at the bed. A skinny boy with pants up to his ribs was sprawled on his back, asleep. He’d taken off some strange little boots, and his feet were bare. He had enormous chapped lips.
Frank walked to the bed and stood over the scrawny sleeper, examining his face. He coughed, and the boy’s eyes popped wide open.
“Henry’s in the cupboard,” Richard said. “I opted to sit this one out. Would it be inconvenient for me to stay?”