Greenglass House (32 page)

“Who'd go looking?”

“In this group? Who
wouldn't,
” Sirin retorted.

“I dunno, Milo. Listen, I have to take care of this. Try not to get yourself into any more trouble, and try to act normal, okay?”

Mr. Pine didn't seem concerned about the details. Negret could understand that. Customs agents were the archenemies of smugglers. The first worry, knowing there was a customs agent in the house, was that Fenster might get himself arrested. The second worry, he figured, had to be that the Pines themselves might get in trouble somehow. They'd said Fenster was a regular, after all.

“Okay.” He and Sirin watched Mr. Pine hurry down the hallway.

“You don't think it's Georgie, do you?” Sirin asked.

“No, I don't. I'm not sure who it is.” He grinned. “But I do think I know where Dr. Gowervine's bag might be. Come on.”

 

The second floor was still empty when Negret and Sirin slipped into the study, but he figured his parents would be there soon. He also figured they'd want him out of the room while they were talking about the customs papers because they wouldn't want to worry him. Which meant he had only a few minutes to find Dr. Gowervine's satchel.

Sirin looked around. “Why here?”

Negret shrugged. “'Cause it makes sense. With this many guests, Mom and Dad don't have time to hang out here and relax; they've got too much to do. So it would be easy for someone to slip in and out unnoticed. You start looking. I want to check and see if I'm right about the keys.”

His parents' innkeeper stuff had its own shelf in a cabinet below a glass-fronted bookcase. Everything looked as if it was in order: there was the cash box and the ledger, and there was the little pegboard that held the keys. It had three rows with four little hooks apiece, one hook for each guest room. Of course, only four keys hung there now.

Below the hooks was a wire tray that held the extra passkeys. There should have been two—since the closest locksmith was all the way down in the Harbors, the Pines kept plenty of spares—but there was only one.

“There's definitely a key missing,” he reported. “And I think we should keep the other one, just in case.” He tucked it into his rucksack. “Until I figure out those lockpicks, anyway.”

“Anything else in here the thief might've taken?” Sirin asked.

“Well, we never have much money in the cash box.” He peeked inside it just to be sure. There were a few small bills and some change, which was more or less all that was ever in it.

The ledger, which contained the names and visit dates of almost every guest, would probably be interesting to a customs agent. Negret took it from the cabinet and flipped it open. Familiar names marched down the pages—familiar, but almost entirely false. Fenster Plum, for instance, usually signed in as Plum Duff Collins. Even in the safety of Greenglass House, smugglers were a cautious bunch. If the customs agent (he still couldn't bring himself to believe it was Georgie) had gone through the ledger, he or she wouldn't have gotten much from it other than a bunch of made-up monikers.

He put the ledger back and closed the cabinet. “All right. Help me look around.”

“No need.” Sirin was standing with her face right up against the window. She pointed out. “Look.”

At first he couldn't see what she was talking about. Then, smooshing his face a bit more awkwardly against the glass and following the direction of her pointing finger, he spotted a brown lump out on the fire escape, half covered in fresh new snow. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I bet it is.” She reached for the locks, and together they slid the window open.

Negret clambered halfway out and managed to get one hand on the lump. He brushed away wet snow, got his fingers around the handle, and dragged it back into the study. It was definitely a satchel, although at the moment it was a patchy muddy color, stained with wet. It had red stitching and shining brass hardware, just as Dr. Gowervine had described.

“If we'd only looked, I bet we could've seen it from the fire escape we were banging on,” Negret said.

“I bet from upstairs all we'd have seen was the snow on top of it. Are we going to open it, or just turn it in?”

“I guess we should just give it back. But maybe, since we found it,” Negret reasoned, “we've earned a look at what the thief was after, right?”

Sirin nodded her approval and flipped up the latches. The satchel opened to reveal a flurry of papers and notebooks. One particular item caught Negret's eye. He reached in and withdrew a square black-and-white photograph.

There it was again, that funny thing about maps: how you couldn't mistake them for anything else. Even when they looked like nothing more than doodles on a foggy window. Or, more accurately, like a
photo
of doodles on a foggy window, which was exactly what Negret seemed to be holding.

The window had six panes all fogged up with condensation, and it took up most of the picture. There was a rectangular shape drawn at the bottom, cut in half by the line of metal separating the panes. The shape was surrounded on all sides by roughly triangular peaks that swooped up over it like mountains drawn by a little kid, and a single line ending in an arrow meandered through them to point at the right-hand side of the rectangle they surrounded.

“There's something weird about this,” Negret said, scratching his head. “I kind of feel like I almost recognize it. Like I almost know what it's a picture of.”

“What about all the rest of this stuff?” Sirin asked. “It would take us hours to go through all of his notes.”

Just then, two pairs of footsteps came rushing along the hallway. Negret got up and stuck his head out the study door just in time to make his mom nearly leap out of her shoes with fright. “We found it,” he whispered, and waved them in.

“This is ridiculous,” Mrs. Pine said, staring at the open satchel. “Well, I guess Dr. Gowervine'll be relieved, anyhow.” She and Mr. Pine exchanged a look. “Milo, you want to take it to him? Your dad and I need to chat.”

“Okay.” Reluctantly, he closed the bag.

“No messing around this time, though, okay? Just take it straight to him. He's freaking out.”

“One of the passkeys is missing too,” Negret added. “I have the last one. Just in case.”

Both of his parents immediately felt in their pockets and took out their own key rings. “Got mine,” Mrs. Pine said, looking at her husband. “You?” He nodded. “All right, I suppose.” She herded Negret out the study door. “If you see Brandon or Fenster come down before we do, think you can get them to come right up here without giving anything away?”

“Sure.”

The door closed gently behind the adventurers, and they started down the hallway toward the stairs. “You keep an eye on everybody,” Negret whispered to Sirin. “See how people react when we come in with the bag.”

The first floor went silent when they arrived. “Whoever keeps taking things,” Negret announced, “better knock it off. You are no match for our thing-finding skills.” And he held up the water-stained satchel with both hands.

“That's my—” Dr. Gowervine shoved out of his chair and dashed to where Negret stood. “Where on earth—Good grief.” He took it gingerly. “What happened to it?”

“The thief put it out on the fire escape,” Negret told him. “You better make sure everything's in there, I guess.”

The professor took the bag to the dining table, pulled handfuls of papers from it, and began to separate them into piles. “Er, thank you, Milo.”

“No problem.” He watched the sorting for a moment. Then he caught Sirin's eye and nodded toward the loveseat by the window as the rest of the guests, most of whom had come in to see what the fuss was about, returned to what they'd been doing.

Georgie sat at one of the little brunch tables by the dining room window, retaping the cigar box she must've opened to get at the photograph of the fourth-floor window. In the living room Clem and Owen were sitting very close together on the couch. One of her hands was tucked into his, and they were talking so intently that Negret thought they might not even have noticed him return the bag to Dr. Gowervine. Mrs. Hereward sat in one of the other chairs, knitting peacefully. Mr. Vinge settled back into his usual chair, and as Negret watched he picked up the book on his knee and went back to reading.

“Did anybody react?” he whispered to Sirin when they were hidden by the high seat back.

“Everybody looked up, but as soon as they saw the satchel, pretty much all of them went back to what they were doing. Except for Dr. Gowervine, of course.”

Negret eyed Mr. Vinge, and the book he'd been working his way through since the night he'd arrived. “A history of the Skidwrack and its environs,” he said thoughtfully. “Hey, Sirin? Now that we know why Georgie brought the chart with her and since her secret's out, do you think we need to keep the chart itself secret anymore?”

Sirin frowned. “Well, in general I'm for keeping secrets as long as possible,” she said reasonably. “After all, other people are still keeping them. Why?”

“I'm still curious about what it's meant to show.”

“Georgie said she checked it against everything around here, though.”

“Yeah, I know, but I'm thinking about what Clem said about the gate. How in two hundred years, the landscape could've changed. Erosion, weather, tides and floods . . . maybe our chart shows a part of the river as it was, not as it is.” Over in his chair, Mr. Vinge turned a page. “He's reading a history of the river and the land around it. I bet there are older maps in there. Maybe we can find a match.”

“Georgie knew the paper was old, though. If she's as good a researcher as she says, she probably checked old maps.”

“Not necessarily.” Negret shook his head. “Because remember, she said she could tell that parts of the chart were newer than the paper. What if the ship and the compass are new, but the waterway and the depths aren't?”

The scholiast considered this. “I wouldn't show it to him. But if you can get him to let you have a look at the book without telling him why, I don't see the harm.”

Just then, Mr. Vinge stretched his long legs, balanced the book open flat on the arm of his chair, and got creakily to his feet with his mug in one hand. Negret all but vaulted over the back of the loveseat. “Excuse me, Mr. Vinge?”

The old man pulled his glasses down toward the tip of his nose with one finger and looked at Negret over the top rim. “Yes, Milo?”

“If I promise not to lose your page or bend anything, could I take a look at your book?”

“At my book?” Mr. Vinge repeated, surprised. “Whatever for?”

“I heard you tell Mom it was about the Skidwrack,” Negret said, thinking fast. “We're doing a unit on the river in Social Studies. I thought maybe if I found some interesting facts to take back to school after the holidays I might get some extra credit.”

Mr. Vinge pushed his glasses back up and gave him a long, considering look through them. “Certainly, then. Please help yourself. I'll rest my eyes for a bit.” He took a few long steps and paused. “I've read several books on the history of the river,” he said. “If you have any questions about what you read, I may be able to answer them.”

“Thanks.” Negret made a beeline for the book, marked Mr. Vinge's place carefully with his index finger, and carried it back to the loveseat. For the next ten minutes, he and Sirin went down the index of illustrations, checking the chart against every picture in the book. None seemed to bear any resemblance to the blue and green shapes on the paper.

“How are you coming along?”

Negret and Sirin all but jumped out of their skins. Mr. Vinge stood behind the loveseat, peering mildly down at the two of them. Negret folded the chart up as nonchalantly as he could manage. “Fine, thanks. I guess you want your book back.”

“There's no hurry. Have you found any good facts for your classroom?”

“Well . . . ” Negret scratched his head. “Actually, I sort of got caught up looking at the pictures.” He closed the cover and held it out. “But I think I'm done. I might go outside now, before it gets too dark. Thanks, though.”

“Suit yourself.” Mr. Vinge took the book and turned back toward his chair. Then he paused and raised a finger in a gesture that made him look like a teacher about to give a lecture. “Here's a fact you might appreciate, since you're reading
The Raconteur's Commonplace Book,
” he said. “Once upon a time, cartographers wrote
hic sunt dracones
in the margins of their maps to indicate places that were dangerous or unexplored. It means
here be dragons.
But Nagspeake cartographers wrote
hic abundant sepiae,
which means
here are many seiche.
Have you gotten to the story in the book about the seiche, who come ashore but can only stay if each finds a human willing to take his place under the river?”

“Yeah.” Negret grinned. That had been a creepy one.

Mr. Vinge smiled back. He looked like he was out of practice at it, but the smile seemed genuine enough. “Does your secret chart there have a warning?”

Negret shook his head. “Wish it did. That would be cool.”

“Sometimes the warning wasn't written out. Sometimes it was just a picture of an otter.”

“Nope, no otters. Just an albatross. Ow,” Negret yelped as Sirin elbowed him. “No otters,” he repeated firmly, glaring at her.

“Ah, well.” Mr. Vinge adjusted his glasses again. He sounded a touch disappointed. “It must be a map of very safe waters, then.” And he went to fold himself back into his chair with
The Skidwrack: A Visual History
open on his knee.

Negret rubbed his rib cage. “Did you have to wallop me that hard?” he hissed.

“Just reminding you to stick to the plan,” she replied airily. “Keep our secrets, Negret. Where are you going?”