Greenglass House (37 page)

And there she was again, right in front of him, as if she'd been there all along. Her arms were crossed over the Cloak of Golden Indiscernibility. “Meddy's fine. I'm used to it.”

So she was . . . a ghost. He dropped to a seat on one of the crates. He felt dizzy, suddenly.

Well, for starters, Sirin would have to be invisible to all the non-player characters—meaning everyone but you.

“You weren't just pretending to be invisible, were you?” Milo asked when his heart slowed back down to a reasonable speed. “Nobody else
could
see you, could they? Not ever. Not the whole time.”

She shook her head apologetically. “No.”

“They couldn't hear you either? And you just let me go around acting like you were there? I must've looked like I was some kind of crazy person, talking to myself,” Milo grumbled.

“I think only people I show myself to can hear me. But I'm sure you looked less crazy than some of the other nutters here,” she offered. “If that's any consolation.”

“There's a memorial to you carved into one of the benches in the garden,” Milo said. “Is that why you didn't want me to go? Not because it was a waste of time, but because I might have figured out the truth if I'd found it?”

“It's my headstone,” she said simply. “Not just a memorial. I suppose they thought, with what had happened with my dad, it was better to keep my grave secret. Hidden. And it isn't that I didn't want you to know the truth, but I thought it might . . . distract you. Maybe even scare you.”

“I'm not scared!”

“But I can see how the unexpected upsets you,” she said gently. “And you were so upset every time your space was invaded: your room, your floor, the inn itself when all these guests started arriving. I really couldn't imagine how you'd feel about
me.
And
I thought it was a waste of time,” she added gruffly, sounding (thankfully) a bit more like Meddy again. “That much is true.”

Milo nodded. There was a lump in his throat and he felt the stirrings of panic start to swirl in his middle. She was right—suddenly, his own home felt like an alien place.

He looked at his friend. She still looked the same. “What should I call you?” he asked helplessly.

She thought for a moment. “Meddy. We can't have you wasting time trying to figure out who I am when you talk to me. Okay?” There was a hopeful note to her voice. “And 'cause I'm the same person I've been all along, Milo.”

He nodded again. The sickness twisting his stomach didn't let up. “My parents,” he whispered. “He . . . he has a gun.”

Addie—
Meddy,
he thought firmly—shook her head. “Mr. Vinge doesn't want your parents. He doesn't want Fenster. He wants something he thinks my dad or someone else came back to hide. If we can find it, we can get rid of him and no one will get hurt.”

“Somebody could've been hurt already,” Milo protested. Then he brightened. “Meddy, if you're a—a—if nobody else can see you, can't you . . . I don't know, sneak up on him and take the gun or something?” He scratched his head. “Could you even do that? Take something from . . . from . . .”

“Someone living? Sure. You've handed me things. But taking Mr. Vinge's gun . . .” She shook her head. “I thought about that, but I don't have any magical powers that I know of that would help me get a gun away from him. The only difference between if
I
grab for the gun and if
you
grab for the gun is that no one can see me, so maybe I'd have surprise on my side.”

“Surprise might be enough!”

“I don't think so. Would you know how to wrestle a gun away from an adult? 'Cause I wouldn't. Plus, he's probably used to guns, and I'm not. Anything could go wrong. Those other guys could have guns too. Someone could get really badly hurt. Or killed.”

She fell silent, and Milo remembered that Doc Holystone hadn't just been
captured
that day so many years ago. “Did you see it?” he asked.

“You mean, when . . . ?” Meddy shook her head and looked down at her feet. “No. I only saw Mr. Vinge try to arrest him.”

She sat next to Milo on the crate and they were silent for a moment.

“He came home late that night,” she said at last. “He came from the cliff. There was no railcar then; there wasn't even a proper stair. It was a set of hidden toeholds, that's all. If you knew where they were, you could make your way up, but there was no railing, and it had been raining, so I'm sure it was slippery on top of being a difficult climb to begin with.” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “He'd probably been running for hours before that. Running, climbing over rocks, taking the best route he could find to come home fast without being followed.”

Milo patted her shoulder awkwardly.

“I like to think he was coming to get me,” she went on quietly. “That we were going to run away to sea until things cooled off for him. Really he was probably just coming to say goodbye, and to tell me where to go to be safe. He must've known that having found him, the D. and M. agents wouldn't stop until they
caught
him. He wouldn't have wanted to put me in harm's way, even if it meant we'd have to be apart.”

“Where was your mom?”

“Died when I was little.”

“So you were all alone here, when he was away?”

“Not usually. We had Mrs. Gallick for a cook and her nephew to keep the house up.” Meddy smiled sadly. “She used to think she was in charge when Dad was gone. I let her believe it because she and Paul—that was her nephew—played Odd Trails with me. That night, though—that night I was by myself. It was unusual, but it happened once in a while.”

“How could he have left without you, then?” Milo demanded, indignant. “What if something happened to him? You'd really be alone. You'd be—”

Meddy raised her eyes and looked at him evenly. “An orphan? Like you?”

“Well, yes!” But the second the words were out, he regretted them.

“You're not an orphan, Milo,” she said, sounding a little irritated.

“No, I'm not,” he mumbled.

“You have a family. You have
two,
even if one of them is a mystery. And how do you know that the first of those families, the one you were born into, didn't do exactly the same thing my dad did, which was to do the best thing they could figure out to do for you, and which for some reason happened to mean you couldn't be together?” Now she sounded angry. “And by the way, it didn't exactly turn out badly for you, did it?”

Milo shook his head and put his hands over his ears. “I know, I know, I know! Stop, okay?”

“It turned out
great
for you,” Meddy snapped, pointing at the world on the other side of the attic door. “You're here, with two people you love and who love you. I—” She stopped, swallowed. “I
died.
”

I died.

“The bell at the bottom of the hill was there,” she continued, the sharp tone leaching out of her voice. “He rang it before he started up the cliff, I think to wake me up. I climbed out onto the fire escape to watch for him. And from the fire escape—”

“You can see that part of the woods,” Milo finished. “Where he'd come into view if he came up the cliff.”

“I was watching when he appeared. I waved. He didn't see me—he should've known to look for me there, I thought, but he was looking the wrong way. He was looking across the grounds at the front of the house—”

“Toward the hill road?”

“Yes. Because that's where Mr. Vinge was waiting. I couldn't see him, but I saw my dad see him. He turned back toward the cliff and disappeared into the woods. A minute later, there was Mr. Vinge—a younger Mr. Vinge, about the same age as my dad—running for the woods. Then he disappeared into the trees too. I was so scared. I held my breath. And Mr. Vinge came out again. Without my dad.”

Milo held his breath too.

“Another man, not as fast a sprinter, I guess, crossed the lawn toward Mr. Vinge at the tree line,” Meddy continued in a voice that was nearly emotionless except for an occasional little shake. “I leaned out as far as I could to try and hear what they said. Mr. Vinge was lighting a cigarette.” She licked her lips. “And I . . . I knew then that my dad had fallen. He'd lost his footing, and he was lying at the bottom of the cliff. And Mr. Vinge had seen him fall and knew he was dead. Because if he hadn't seen, if he didn't know for sure, he would've followed. And the other man reached him, and Mr. Vinge blew cigarette smoke at the sky, and he opened his mouth to say something, and I leaned even farther . . . I thought—I hoped—that maybe I was wrong, that maybe he would say
He got away,
or
We'll get him next time
. . . I leaned out to try and hear his words and I . . . and . . .”

Milo watched her with wide eyes. “You fell?”

She nodded silently.

“And you died.”

She nodded again.

They sat side by side without saying another word for a long moment. Milo tried to imagine the moment she was describing and felt a thick lump form in his throat. “I'm sorry.”

“Time goes by strangely for me.” She looked around the attic. “I don't know if I've ever haunted this house before, or if I did, for how long. I remember snippets of the time between . . . between when I fell and a couple of days ago when I met you. I remember people repairing things, replacing things, loud noises. I remember a man hanging the ship chandelier in your dining room, for instance. I remember when you and your grandfather and your dad built the track for the
Whilforber Whirlwind.
I remember seeing Fenster Plum a few times after your parents moved here, although I certainly saw him plenty with Dad before, so I might be remembering wrong. I remember the time your mom told the story about, at least, when he saw me on the fire escape, but I don't recall how long ago it was. Time goes by strangely.

“Things looked . . . new . . . to me when I came into the house this time,” she continued after another moment. “Everything looks new, even what I know was here before.” She fingered the sleeve of the yellow robe. “Like this robe. Like that door, where you found the Lansdegown keys. They must have been around when I was alive, but they're still new to me.”

“What made you come back?”

“I had to.” Meddy frowned. “Mr. Vinge arrived. I knew something was wrong in the house, but I didn't know it was him. It takes time for me to figure things out. It's like remembering the middle past, the part after I died, but before this. I can get to it, but it takes time. When he came back . . . and one by one the rest of them arrived, I could feel the
seeking
in the house. Everyone was seeking something here. But”—she waved a hand—“they're all looking for different things. I could feel the searching, and I could feel the wrongness. I couldn't find the place where the two . . .” She frowned and laid one palm over the other.

“Where they overlapped.”

“Yes.” She scratched her head. “And I couldn't figure it out on my own, because I couldn't talk to them. Well, I suppose I could have, but I didn't want to. I didn't trust any of them. I needed help, and I decided on you. I came up with the game. I thought maybe we could find the thing, the reason for the seeking, before the wrongness got too strong.”

Milo nodded.

“And you were so good at it,” Meddy continued, peering into his face. “You figured all this stuff out. You were so good at being a blackjack, and you figured out the answer to every puzzle we came up against. You found the Lansdegown keys, you found the roamer relic thing . . . I know you can find what Mr. Vinge is looking for.” Her voice took on a more pleading tone. “I know you can, Milo, and I can't do it without your help. If we can manage it, we can get rid of Mr. Vinge. This is all he wants.”

“And you're willing to give it to him?” Milo asked dubiously.

“I hate the idea,” Meddy said miserably, “but I don't know what else we can do.”

Something was nagging at him. “Meddy?” It felt strange, using a name he now knew wasn't hers, but her face brightened immediately when he did. “You said when your dad came back, to get you or to say goodbye, he didn't make it all the way to the house.” He felt his face flush as he realized what he'd just said. “I mean . . . he didn't actually come into the house.”

“I know what you meant,” she said softly. “Yes, that's true.”

“Then why does Mr. Vinge think he hid a weapon here?”

She snorted. “Fenster was right. Dad never touched weapons. The customs people made that story up, so Mr. Vinge must know there's no secret weapon to be found. Either he's after the same thing Dr. Gowervine is and he just doesn't want to admit it, or he's convinced himself that things happened differently that night than they actually did and thinks Dad managed to hide
something
before he died. But if there's something,
anything,
hidden here, if we can find it, I bet that'll be enough to get rid of Mr. Vinge. I bet he doesn't know exactly what he's looking for either.”

Milo shook her by the shoulder. “Think, Meddy! Even though it's hard. Think! What might it be?”

“No, no, no,” she protested, “I don't know anything about it, whatever it is.
If
it is. If Dad had really hidden something here at some point, he wouldn't have told me. He didn't tell me details—that was supposed to keep me safe. I didn't even know about the watermarked paper. No,” she said, shaking her head. “It wouldn't have been Dad. It must've been afterward. After my . . . after I . . . Someone must have come back afterward. Skellansen, if Dr. Gowervine is right, or someone he sent.”

She got to her feet. “Listen, I'm going downstairs to check on things. Cross your fingers. Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe they ganged up on him and kicked him out and the problem is gone. But you'd better start thinking about what clues we have, just in case.” She hesitated. “You know, Negret's parents aren't down there. Maybe Negret would find it easier to focus than Milo. Just a thought.”