call him back or anything. Dad even went over to see him but Gideon wouldn’t even come out to that big old crazy gate he built. Have you seen that? Oh, right, you must have.”
Lucinda smiled, but her joy at seeing two of her friends had soured. Stillman back, and now this Kingaree hanging around. What next?
“Hello, you bad children,” Mr. Walkwell greeted the Carrillos, but without his usual sly good cheer. “Lucinda, we must go back. We have things to discuss with Gideon.”
“Tell him my father really needs to talk to him, Mr. Walkwell,” Carmen said. “Please. It’s important.”
The wiry old man looked overwhelmed in a way Lucinda had never seen before. “I will tell him, of course. But Gideon Goldring does what he wants, always. Come, Lucinda.”
“Bye, guys!” she shouted when she’d climbed aboard the wagon, next to silent Colin. “See you soon, I hope!”
“Come for the Fourth again!” yelled Carmen. “That was totally fun last year!”
To Lucinda’s surprise, Ragnar was waiting for them out by the new gate. The big Norseman did not smile as they came in, only held the gate open and waved the cart through, then closed it by hand afterward and secured it with a bolt.
“What’s wrong with the gate?” Colin asked. “It should open and close by itself.”
“The invisible lightning is gone,” Ragnar said. “Your mother turned it away, or off, whatever you say. Until we know what is happening.” He was clearly agitated. “Did Gideon go with you? Did he stay in town?”
Mr. Walkwell seemed as surprised by this as Lucinda. “No. Gideon was here when we left. He did not go with us.”
Lucinda was beginning to feel really frightened. She looked at Colin but he seemed as confused as she was. “What’s going on?”
“We cannot find him,” Ragnar said. “We have been looking everywhere since just after you left this morning. Everyone on the farm has been searching and we have looked in every place we can think, all through the house, the barns, the hills, the pens.” He shook his head. “But Gideon has disappeared. He is gone.”
Chapter 10
“… and he was so scary, Tyler!” Lucinda whispered. “Like
… like the devil or something!” His sister couldn’t stop talking about Kingaree, the mysterious Fault Line escapee, but although Tyler was impressed and even worried by her experience it seemed like the least of their problems just now.
The farm folk were assembled in what Tyler and Lucinda called the Snake Parlor-the big front room with the stained glass window of Adam and Eve being tricked in the Garden of Eden, the serpent running all around the sides of picture as if to draw a noose around them with its body. Tyler couldn’t help wondering whether gathering beneath a glowing picture of Satan was really the best choice at such a time.
The rain that had pattered on his window and the roof a short time ago was gone and already the day was growing unbearably hot again. Everyone was talking at once and everyone sounded frightened-and no surprise: Gideon was not just their protector but the only thing that connected most of these people to the present century. Tyler couldn’t even imagine what Sarah and the Mongolian Amigos and all the others must be feeling.
Mrs. Needle stood at the middle of the room frowning, her face hard as carved ivory. “You must all be quiet and listen now,” she announced. “Do you hear me? Silence!”
“Why? You are not Gideon!” cried Hoka, one of the Amigos. “You are not the master of the house!” His two silent companions looked impressed that he would talk back to Mrs. Needle but they also looked as if they wished he hadn’t done it.
Colin Needle had a strange look on his face too, Tyler thought-a bit green around the gills, as Tyler and Lucinda’s mom liked to say. Guilty conscience about something? Tyler wondered.
“Hush, all of you!” Mrs. Needle’s voice was sharper this time. “Don’t be foolish. Nobody is claiming to be the master here. But someone must take charge… ”
“Then it should be Simos,” said Ragnar loudly from the doorway. “Walkwell has been here longer than any of us. He has always been Gideon’s right hand.”
Mrs. Needle rolled her eyes in disgust. “This is not about who is in charge, it is about finding Gideon…!”
“Have you searched the whole house?” Tyler demanded. “It’s miles long! Why are we wasting time blabbing? Gideon could have fallen down somewhere where we can’t hear him calling…!”
A lot of the others murmured in agreement, but Mrs. Needle was not having it. “Of course we have searched the house, Master Jenkins, and since it is large and full of unused rooms we will continue to do so. Leave that chore to those who know the place-myself, Sarah and her kitchen help, and Caesar… ”
One of the “kitchen help” suddenly rose from her seat. It was the tall African girl Azinza, swaying like a tree in the wind.
“I saw Gideon in a dream!” she cried.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” hissed Patience Needle. “This is quite out of order. Sit down, you foolish girl…!” Mrs. Needle turned away from her, leaving Azinza open-mouthed. “Nobody has seen Gideon since supper yesterday. Caesar says his bed was not slept in. We will organize into groups. The women will search all through the house while the men… ”
“But I tell you I saw him!” cried Azinza. “I saw what happened to Mr. Gideon!”
Mrs. Needle turned on her with cold fury. “Enough of this foolishness…!”
“You have no right to stop her speaking,” said Ragnar, moving up beside Azinza. For a moment he and Mrs. Needle stared at each other and the pure hatred between them made the hairs stir and lift on Tyler’s neck. At last Mrs. Needle waved her hand in disgust and turned away. “Go on,” the big man told Azinza. “Tell what you saw, girl.”
“This is not foolishness,” she said, but she could not quite look Patience Needle in the eye. “My people used to come to me for my dreams. They called me goddess.” She shook her head angrily, her eyes still bright with tears. Tyler felt sorry for her. Gideon might have saved this young woman’s life, but he had also pulled her away from everything she knew and believed. “Last night, I had a strong, strong dream,” she began. “A telling dream like the kind I used to have back home. A great creature with many fingers-as many fingers as the apple tree outside has branches-held Mister Gideon. It hurt him and he fought against it, but he was not strong. And then he… he… ” Azinza’s face crumpled. “He began to melt away…!”
She tried to say more but could not. Weeping, she let little Pema help her to a chair. Babble and upset filled the room.
Mrs. Needle turned on Ragnar. “There! Are you happy to fill these frightened peoples’ heads with such nonsense?” Whatever order there had been a moment ago was gone. Everyone in the Snake Parlor was talking at the same time.
Lucinda sidled up. “I’m scared, Tyler,” she whispered. “Where could Gideon have gone?”
“I can think of a few places.” He was thinking about the washstand mirror and the shadowy world on the other side of it, but he wasn’t going to talk about it out loud: Lucinda was the only person in the house who knew. Still, could Gideon have got into it somehow? Did it have something to do with Mrs. Needle taking the washstand mirror out of the library?
What better place to hide someone you don’t want found? Tyler thought. Just knock them out and shove them through the mirror…!
The more he thought about, the more reasons he discovered that it might be true. But how could he tell the others when he’d been hiding something so important for over a year…?
His thoughts were interrupted as a sudden quiet fell on the room. Mr. Walkwell stood in the front doorway, his narrow, bearded face gray with dust.
“I have been down to the Fault Line,” the farm’s overseer announced. “The bad news is there is no sign of Gideon there-the lock is still on the outside, but I opened it and went down to look and found no recent marks or
