“Were you eavesdropping…?”
“N-no!” Tyler stammered. She was a small, slender woman-smaller than Tyler now that he had grown a bit- but she still frightened him very badly. “No! I just came to… to look for my sister… ” He swallowed. Better to act like he hadn’t heard anything. “Is Lucinda here?”
“Perhaps she is doing something useful,” Mrs. Needle said, her emotions now completely disguised again. “As Colin has been doing-which is why I brought him his lunch.” She smiled. It looked like the last thing a small, furry creature might see before it got swallowed. “I didn’t know you were coming, Tyler, otherwise I would have brought you something as well.” She turned and called over her shoulder, “Don’t work too hard, Colin, dear!” She swung back to Tyler. “I wish he’d get out more,” she said with almost convincing sweetness. “Perhaps the two of you could have a game of catch.” She showed her tight smile once more, then stepped past him and out the library door, leaving behind a hint of chill and the scent of something flowery.
A game of catch? With Colin Needle? That was such a bizarre thought Tyler wondered if the witch was trying to psych him out somehow. Yeah, or maybe we could shoot some marbles together…!
Inside the library Colin looked up from the encyclopedia table, which was cluttered with books and notebooks and his laptop computer. In fact, it looked like the older boy was staking a claim here-like he thought it was his library now. It was all Tyler could do not to sweep all his stuff off onto the floor.
“Research, huh?” he said. “Yeah? Research on what?”
“None of your business.” Colin’s eyebrow rose. “And what are you doing here, Jenkins? I wouldn’t have thought you were much of a reader.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t?” It was true, but he was never going to admit it now. He didn’t even want to tell Colin Needle he’d come looking for Lucinda-that just made it seem even more like the skinny jerk belonged here and he didn’t. Tyler strolled past the table, trying to sneak a look at the books spread out there, but Colin leaned over, covering them with his arms.
“Do you mind?” the dark-haired boy said in his best adult manner. “I’m working, Jenkins. Can’t you go play somewhere else?”
“Actually, I’ve got things to do here, Needle. But I’ll try not to disturb you.”
Tyler wandered around in the stacks for a while but he couldn’t concentrate. Colin and his mother must have been talking about the same thing Lucinda had overhead. Mrs. Needle had said, “Is that what you want, Colin? To be a servant to the Jenkins children in your own home?” Tyler had to admit the idea amused him-Colin dressed up like a butler, scuttling around at Tyler’s every order-but did she really think that’s how it would be?
For a moment, and only for a moment, he even felt sorry for Colin Needle. What must it be like, to have a mother who thought that way, acted that way…?
Yeah, but his mother doesn’t follow him around all the time forcing him to be a creep, Tyler decided. He does most of that all by himself.
Tyler sauntered over to the huge painting of Octavio Tinker. The mad scientist’s expression was as maddeningly amused and secretive as ever. As always, the founder of Ordinary Farm seemed to be staring at the retiring room door across from his portrait. Tyler hadn’t been near the magical washstand mirror since this summer’s visit had begun and suddenly he wanted very much to see it again. He looked around to see if Colin was paying attention but the pale boy was bent over his books once more. Tyler casually walked across to the retiring room and stepped in, wondering if he would again see a world different from his own reflected in the washstand mirror, but instead he saw… nothing.
The mirror was gone.
In fact, the entire piece of furniture was gone: all that remained in the retiring room was the dusty bed and an angular shadow on the wallpaper that showed where the washstand and its magic mirror had stood.
Tyler felt like he had been punched in the stomach by a heavyweight fighter. It took him a full minute or more to calm down enough to walk back out into the library. “So what happened to that sink in there?” He asked as casually as he could, but he could hear a quiver in his voice.
Colin barely looked up. “What sink?”
“In that room. Across from the picture of Octavio. There used to be a sink there.”
Colin made a face-the great man interrupted by small minds. “My mother took it over to her room. She said it was an antique and it should be taken care of better.”
It was all Tyler could do to bite his lip and stay silent. Mrs. Needle has the mirror. The mirror that led the way to Grace. She must know the truth! Or at least she must know there was something special about it-he didn’t believe that “antique” story for a second.
Tyler was so angry and frightened by this news that all he could think of now was to get back outside into the open air. The washstand mirror had been taken by the witch and Colin Needle was squatting in the library like a bandit. It was all bad, impossibly bad.
“Tired of books already?” Colin said as Tyler went by. “Off to play?”
“Shut up.” He shouldered the door open.
“That’s just like you, Jenkins,” the older boy said. “You don’t try to understand this place at all, you just mess about with things. You don’t understand the true genius of someone like Octavio Tinker. You wouldn’t know a Continuascope if you saw one. But I would-I’ve been learning all about them. In fact, I might just make one… ”
With that horrifying threat echoing in his ears, Tyler let the door fall shut.
Zaza came down to accompany him, sporting and fluttering, clearly pleased to be with him again no matter how downhearted Tyler himself might feel, how listlessly he might trudge back toward the farmhouse. But when they got to a certain point she leaped up, spread her wings, and disappeared without a backward glance. When he turned from watching her fly the first thing he saw was the distant glitter of the old greenhouse, flashing its underwater colors in the afternoon sun.
Chapter 9
Lucinda was beginning to appreciate traveling by horse cart-the only wheeled vehicle Mr. Walkwell would ever use. Rattling along through the open air made her feel so vital, so connected-as if nature itself was flowing through her. Mr. Walkwell, horns and goat-legs hidden once more for the trip into town, held the reins loose but taut, almost talking to the horse Culpepper through the leather straps.
When he saw her watching the old man gifted her with a quick, careful smile, something she hadn’t seen much. The sunlight was golden, the day, not too hot, and the air filled with the smells of eucalyptus and warm yellow dust. Things even seemed to be going well at the farm this year-why wasn’t Mr. Walkwell happier?
“Is everything all right, Lucinda?” asked Colin Needle. “You seem very quiet.”
That sounded like sincere interest, which surprised her a little. “I’m fine. Just enjoying the ride. Do you think it’s going to rain?”
Colin looked up at the bruise-gray sky. “Maybe. Gideon says there hasn’t been weather like this since 1983- they had floods then! But it won’t rain anywhere near that hard this summer, I don’t think.”
1983 was well before Lucinda had been born. She was impressed. “Have there really been a lot of storms here this year?”
Colin smiled. “Oh, yes-thunder, lightning. The week before you came it was almost like being in a war-boom, crack, boom! Sarah said the world might be ending!” He laughed and Lucinda found herself laughing with him. They both fell silent again, but this time it was a comfortable silence.
When they reached downtown Standard Valley (such as it was) Mr. Walkwell tied Culpepper and the cart to a hitching post outside the store. Colin stood up. “I have to go over to Rosie’s for something. Shall I meet you somewhere?”
The old man looked up, squinted, and said, “You can do what you wish, Master Needle. Just be back here in an hour.”
“Where are you going?” Lucinda asked, then immediately regretted it. Surely secretive Colin Needle wouldn’t take kindly to being quizzed about his plans. But to her surprise Colin only grinned.
