Angel of the Battlefield (4 page)

Maisie hesitated, peeking again into The Treasure Chest. That vase had been broken less than an hour ago. Now it stood in The Treasure Chest, put back together. Except for one piece. And that piece was in Maisie's pocket.
Off-limits?
Maisie grinned. She would figure out a way to get inside that room. Soon.

Breaking In

For some reason, Maisie and Felix both thought the tour was a way to show them around their new home. But as soon as it was over, the Woman in Pink said, “If you ever want to come back in the cottage proper, your mother just has to make an appointment.”

“An appointment?” Maisie said.

The Woman in Pink smiled nervously. She had a smear of pink lipstick on her front teeth, and the buttons on her pink suit jacket pulled in awkward directions. “Your family stays right upstairs in the family quarters. Like your great-aunt did for so long.”

Despite a childhood in Elm Medona with tea parties in the gazebo and croquet games on the rolling lawn, Great-Aunt Maisie had spent practically her whole adult life stuck up on the third floor. Once a year, she visited them in New York City and insisted on taking them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she went to the Temple of Dendur and murmured about King Tut like he was an old friend. Or she brought them to the Museum of Modern Art where she stood in front of Van Gogh's painting, muttering
Vincent, Vincent.

Felix thought she was sad, but Maisie thought she was a little crazy.
Just because I'm named after her doesn't mean I have to like her,
Maisie had told him.

“Your great-aunt certainly led an interesting life,” the Woman in Pink said, and something in the way she said it made Maisie suspicious.

“How interesting can it be to be locked upstairs?” Maisie said.

Felix looked up. “Like prisoners,” he said.

“Not at all,” the Woman in Pink said, fiddling with her scarf. “Like guests.”

Maisie watched her fiddling.

“What exactly went on in The Treasure Chest?” Maisie asked. “Do you think Phinneas Pickworth is haunting it? Haunting the whole house maybe?”

“No, no. There are so many stories about Elm Medona. Why, some people believe that your great-aunt and her brother, Thorne—” She stopped abruptly.

“That they what?” Maisie asked.

The Woman in Pink sighed. “Such lucky children,” she said. “Living among history.”

Felix thought about Bleecker Street Playground, where he and Maisie had played together forever, and the long corridor in their apartment building where they rode their bikes on rainy days. He did not feel lucky at all. He just felt homesick.

“Off with you now,” the Woman in Pink said, shooing them away like they were nothing more than flies.

She opened a door in the Dining Room that led to the narrow servants' stairway and their apartment.

“Thank you for the tour,” Felix remembered to say.

The Woman in Pink wiggled her fingers at them, then closed the door firmly.

Maisie and Felix stood at the bottom of the stairs for a few moments and pondered the rules of their new “home.” They weren't allowed to play on the lawn until the last tour ended—and then only if an event wasn't scheduled for that night. There was also a big calendar of mansion events that hung over their kitchen table. It was the only thing their mother had had time to hang up.

“I hate it here,” Maisie said.

“So do I,” Felix said.

“Nothing to do,” Maisie said, starting up the stairs.

“Nowhere to go,” Felix added, following her.

Maisie and Felix stepped into the family quarters with its plain furniture and paneled walls.

She touched that shard of porcelain again. Usually, she and Felix didn't keep secrets from each other. But what if she showed it to him and he made her march right back to the Woman in Pink and give it to her? What if he lectured her on right and wrong the way he sometimes did? No, Maisie decided. She would keep it to herself. For now.

In New York, Maisie and Felix had slept in the same room divided by a scrim that their mother had kept from her actress days—
a struggling actress,
she always said now that she'd put acting behind her. A
scrim
was a drop curtain that looked opaque in some lights and transparent in others. They had fun playing with the lamps in their bedroom, rearranging them and turning them on and off for effect. But here they each had proper bedrooms that were blandly identical.

Felix lay in bed trying to read, but the noises the house made were too distracting. It creaked. It sighed. It moaned. All he could think of were the things the Woman in Pink had hinted at: ghosts, and worse.

“You awake?” Maisie called from across the hall.

“Yes,” Felix said. He put down his book and put on his glasses.

“Can I come in?” Maisie said.

She didn't wait for an answer. She just walked in with her curly hair all tangled and her face with crease marks from the waffle pattern on her blanket. The rain had cooled things down, and Maisie wore her favorite Mets polar fleece vest and flannel pajama bottoms. Felix shivered beneath the thin blanket in his faded madras shorts and yellow T-shirt that said
CARMINE STREET POOL
. He wished he'd bothered to rummage through the warmer clothes still packed in boxes.

Maisie flopped down on the empty bed across from Felix.

“Mom must be having fun, huh?” she asked. “It's almost ten.”

Felix shrugged.

After their mother had moved into her office on Thames Street that day, the other lawyers had insisted she go out to dinner with them at Café Zelda's.
You don't mind, do you?
she'd asked them when she'd called. In the background they could hear the sounds of people laughing.
No, no,
they'd insisted, even though they'd wanted her home with them.

“This house,” Felix said as Maisie settled into the other twin bed.

“Noisy,” Maisie said. She missed the noise on Bethune Street, the traffic, the late night sounds of people leaving nearby restaurants, and even the early morning garbage and delivery trucks. But the noises here were different, all creaky and shuddering.

“Scary,” Felix said.

Maisie sighed. “Prison.”

“Prison,” Felix agreed.

Maisie brightened. “Hey,” she said. “Let's break out.”

“Huh?”

“Or should I say, break
in
?” Maisie said, laughing.

“Break
in
?” Felix said, afraid he understood exactly what she meant.

“Why not?” Maisie said, excited.

“Because we're not allowed, that's why,” Felix said, hating what a goody-two-shoes he sounded like.

But it was true—his sister liked to break rules, and he liked to follow them. When he listened to her and they got caught, his good intentions did him no good. Like the time their parents had forbidden them from taking home the classroom guinea pig, Jelly Bean, over Christmas break in second grade, and Maisie had convinced him they could hide Jelly Bean in their room and no one would notice. Their mother had noticed all right and had screamed, terrified:
I said no
rodents in this house
! And I meant no
rodents
!

“Our relatives built this monstrosity, right? It's technically ours, isn't it?”

“Mom said no,” Felix said, knowing it was too late. Maisie was already standing, and her eyes were twinkling. That picture of Great-Aunt Maisie flashed through Felix's mind. His sister would not be happy if he pointed out their resemblance, but he saw it as clear as anything.

“We know the doors are all locked,” she said, pacing, her face scrunched up with concentration. “But there must be another way in.”

Maisie stopped pacing, a wicked look of glee in her eyes and a satisfied grin on her face. “Or I could lower you down the dumbwaiter, and you could unlock one of the doors for me and let me in.”

“No way,” Felix said. “You know I'm afraid of heights. Why don't I lower
you
down the dumb dumbwaiter?”

“Because you're smaller than me. You'll fit better.” Maisie loved that she was seven minutes older and almost three inches taller than Felix.

“That thing hasn't been used in a million years. What if it doesn't work and I get trapped in there? Or worse?”

“The Gilded Age,” Maisie said, imitating the Woman in Pink's trill, “was from 1865 to 1901. So it's only, like, a hundred years old.”

“Great,” Felix said, following his sister to the kitchen despite his better judgment.

Maisie opened the narrow door and peered inside.

“Looks safe,” she said.

Felix tried to decide what he was more frightened of: getting into the thing, traveling down three flights in it, or running through the big, empty mansion at night to let his sister in.

“Maisie?” he said, taking one tentative step inside. “Do you think kids did this a hundred years ago?”

“Definitely,” she said. “I bet Great-Aunt Maisie did it!”

She gave him a shove, and he stumbled all the way in. The air was stale, reminding Felix of the smell in their apartment in New York after his father smoked one of his forbidden cigars. That comforted him a little, but he still didn't move his foot enough to let Maisie close the door. Felix looked around. The walls were the yellow of fancy mustard, with long cracks here and there and lots of peeling paint. The floor had black-and-gray squares with scuff marks on them.

“Bon voyage,” Maisie said cheerfully, catching him off guard and pushing the door shut.

“Hey!” Felix said, pulling his foot in fast, but she was already pressing the button and sending the dumbwaiter—and Felix—downward. The dumbwaiter groaned, then began its slow descent.

He was relieved it was not too tight in there. Plenty of room for a cart of food, he supposed. Felix tried to imagine the fancy breakfasts that had ridden in the thing. Maybe croissants and pain au chocolat like their father used to bring home on Saturday mornings. The now-familiar ache for the past filled him, and Felix wrapped his arms around himself.

Slightly short of breath, he tried to pretend he was somewhere more interesting than a narrow dumbwaiter in an old mansion. But it didn't help. He was right here, and it was dark and airless and scary.

“Maisie?” he called.

To his surprise, her voice came to him as clear as anything. “We're going straight to that room with all the stuff in it.”

“The Treasure Chest?” he yelled back to her.

This time she didn't answer. Despite how stuffy it was in the dumbwaiter, goose bumps traveled up Felix's arms. Would this thing ever reach the bottom?

Right then, the dumbwaiter stopped with a small
thud
. Felix opened his eyes. Out the small window on the door he saw nothing but the shaft. He hadn't landed. He was stuck somewhere in the middle. He remembered how his parents forbade them from playing in elevators with their friends who lived in high-rises.
Elevators look innocent enough,
his mother had told him,
but do you know how many kids get hurt goofing around in them?
Now here he was in something even creakier than an elevator. At least elevators had those inspection stickers in them. He was certain no one had inspected this thing lately. Possibly ever.

“Maisie?” he called again.

She still didn't answer. He didn't like being in here, and he didn't like his sister taking off before he even reached the bottom. How would she know which door he opened for her if she'd gone somewhere? Felix shivered. What if he was stuck in here for hours?

Suddenly the dumbwaiter jerked sharply, paused, then hiccupped back to life.

Felix didn't realize he had been holding his breath until he started moving again. If he made it out of here, he was going to tell his sister that he would never listen to her stupid ideas again.

Finally the dumbwaiter landed, more gently than Felix had expected. He pushed the door open with trembling, sweaty hands.

When he peered out, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He blinked and stared out. He was in the large Kitchen with the wooden cabinets filled with fancy china and deep sinks and copper pots and pans. The Woman in Pink had told them that the walls were covered with white subway tiles like the ones in the 14th Street subway station near their old apartment. That had sent a shot of nostalgia through Felix then. Now they gleamed eerily in the one dim light that was turned on.