House of Secrets (13 page)

“T
hat wasn’t a woman,” said Cordelia. “That was my brother. Having a tantrum.”

“He thought you were a girl!” said Eleanor, laughing hysterically. “At least you woke him up.”

“It wasn’t a tantrum,” an embarrassed Brendan argued, trying to lower his voice a few octaves. Will shook the cobwebs out of his head and stared at his shoulder.

“What have you done to me?”

Even in the dark blue light, Will could see that he hadn’t been the recipient of the most expert medical care. He sniffed his shoulder. “And what’s that smell?”

“Truffle,” said Eleanor. “You can pick that off.”

Will started to, but then held off. “It actually makes a nice bandage. But
crikey
, it hurts. Do you have anything for the pain?”

Cordelia handed him two Aleve.

“What is this, ingestible morphine?”

“Sure.”

Will took the pills dry and checked that he still had his gun on his hip. Brendan looked at it enviously.

“Can you walk upstairs?” Cordelia said. “We really need to get some sleep.”

“I suppose so, given a bit of help.”

Cordelia put
The Fighting Ace
under her arm so she would have something to read. Then she and Brendan got under Will’s shoulders (Cordelia took the injured one) and eased him off the kitchen table. Will groaned and complained, but he could walk. Eleanor ran ahead to make sure there was nothing on the floor that would trip him. As they all mounted the spiral stairs, Brendan’s sneakers stuck to each step, their bottoms soaked with blood from the kitchen floor.

“Thank you,” Will said quietly. It was all he said before he entered the master bedroom and declared, “Now that’s what I call a bed!”

The king-size mattress with plush sheets and extra pillows did look very inviting, even though it was on the floor and the bed frame was broken around it. “Since I’m injured, I’ll take it,” said Will.

“Hey, hold on, we can all fit in that bed,” said Cordelia.

“Out of the question. Unseemly.”

“Where do you expect us to sleep, on the floor?”

“I’ve got an idea!” Eleanor scampered away and returned with the mattress from her bedroom and a fluffy Hello Kitty sleeping bag. “Will can take the mattress and Brendan can have the sleeping bag.”

They were too tired to argue. Will lay on Eleanor’s mattress at the foot of the bed. Brendan climbed into the too-small sleeping bag. Cordelia and Eleanor used the last of their energy to go through the upstairs rooms and open all the shutters, just in case the house traveled somewhere else at night and they had to get their bearings again in the morning. Then they got the big mattress, but not before Eleanor aimed a kick at the
RW
trunk. “That’s for tripping me before.”

“Don’t do that . . . ,” managed Cordelia. “Not the trunk’s fault . . . We actually need to open that. Tomorrow . . . for sure . . . ” Her head sank into the pillow. She was asleep before the air seeped out of it.

It would be tempting to say that night passed quietly in the primeval forest of Denver Kristoff’s fiction. In truth it was only the extreme fatigue of the Walkers and Will that prevented them from being woken up every five minutes from the sound of a giant unknown beast howling or an oversize dragonfly buzzing by the window. They all had dreams, although only Cordelia remembered hers—tunneling nightmares where the Wind Witch blew her down a corridor as blood sprayed from the walls. When she awoke in terror, gray dawn light sifted through the windows.

Cordelia hated waking up too early. She could never go back to sleep. It had happened to her at a slumber party last year. She’d had a bad dream and woken up in a sleeping bag in a room full of five girls, not daring to go to the bathroom or get a book because the others would ask her why she was up so early. And then one of them would say, “Why are you so
weird
?”

Luckily Cordelia had
The Fighting Ace
. She opened it and started reading—fast. She could speed-read with the best, and she had the added motivation of really wanting to know what happened to Will Draper. She read about aerial dogfights and backroom army dealings, but most disturbingly, she read about a woman named Penelope Hope. A woman who was older, more beautiful, and more mysterious than she.

As Cordelia neared the end of the book, she heard, “You’ve been busy this morning.”

She turned. Will was smiling at her.

“How’d you know I was up?”

“I’ve been listening to you turn pages for an hour. Woke up early. Can’t get any kip in here. What are you reading?”

“Nothing.” Cordelia hid
The Fighting Ace
. She didn’t want Will to know she’d been reading about him. But thanks to the book she knew that
kip
meant “sleep.” “How’s your shoulder?”

“Feels like a tiny man built a campfire on me. But you did a wonderful job, Miss Walker.”

“Call me Cordelia.”

“From
King Lear
. . . ”

“
Buffy
, actually. My mother loves it.”

Will draped a hand off his mattress, inches from Cordelia’s. “Have you ever read
King Lear
?”

“No, actually. I’ve read most Shakespeare, but not that.”

“American education. Tragic.”

Cordelia was glad her siblings weren’t awake to see her turn beet red. Getting called out on a lack of literary knowledge was the worst—and besides, what was Will doing with his hand? Was he just going to leave it there as if she hadn’t noticed? She totally noticed.

“Cordelia,” Will declared, “was King Lear’s youngest daughter. At the start of the play, when the king asks his less-fit daughters what they think of him, they give flowery speeches. But Cordelia tells the truth and gets banished.”

“I actually think I remember that—”

“You’re a lot like her. I can see it in your eyes.”

He took Cordelia’s hand so smoothly that she found it hard to pinpoint when it happened.

“You’re controlled by your emotions. Ruled by your heart.”

“Actually, I like to think I’m ruled by logic,” Cordelia said, pulling her hand away.

“Then why is your heart beating so fast?”

Cordelia glanced at Will’s fingers. He’d been taking her pulse. She rolled over on her side, holding her hand close to her face, and felt the sharp shape of
The Fighting Ace
under her pillow. Will was brave in the book. And bold. And he had a lot of girlfriends.

“You know, all of a sudden, I am actually tired,” Cordelia said. “I’m going to try and get some sleep before everybody wakes up.”

“I understand. By the way, what’s a Buffy?”

T
hey had Lunchables for breakfast. It wasn’t anyone’s first choice (except maybe Eleanor’s), but it was the last edible thing in the fridge; Slayne and his men had been alarmed by the bold packaging and had chosen to ignore it. Cordelia and Brendan pooled the snacks on a plate and arranged them into a passable spread of cold cuts and processed cheese. Will looked on with disdain. “What is this, wartime rations?”

“Nope, they’re for school,” Eleanor said, expertly constructing a cracker sandwich.

Will pulled out an eight-inch knife and stuck it into a piece of baloney.

Eleanor gasped. “That’s huge!”

“Just ignore it,” Cordelia said, rolling her eyes. “It’s his Sheffield bowie knife. He takes it with him everywhere.”

“How do you know that?” Will asked.

“Can I see it?” said Brendan.

“No,” Will and Cordelia said together. Then Cordelia explained to Will, “I saw your knife before.” Of course that was a lie; she had read about it in
The Fighting Ace
.

“So, when will you be helping me get back home?” Will asked. “I have a war to return to.”

“As we explained yesterday,” Cordelia said, “you’re a character in a book. So the war you have to get back to isn’t real.”

“Not real? It’s just as real as I am! Just as real as these . . . Lunchables!” Will nibbled baloney off his knife.

“It’s only real to you because it was written by Denver Kristoff,” Brendan said. “I hate to say it, but Cordelia’s right.”

“Listen here!” Will said. “If I’m a poncey character in a book, I demand to see the book! Are you hiding it somewhere? I have a right to know what happens to me . . . what if I die at the end?!”

“I don’t know where it is,” Cordelia said, lying again; the book was upstairs under her pillow. She didn’t want to give it to Will until she herself read if he lived or died. Which she planned to do as soon as breakfast was over.

Will sheathed his knife and approached her. “You’re lying. Men of the Royal Flying Corps don’t like being lied to. Where is it?”

“Hey! Hold on!” Brendan got between Will and his sister. “Are you threatening a woman? I expected more of someone who fought in the Great War.”

Will looked for a moment like he might punch Brendan—but then he stepped back, impressed with the compliment. Brendan knew that people who fought in World War I never called it World War I.

“Anyway, Will, it doesn’t matter
how
the book ends,” Brendan continued, “because you came here and met us. So now you have a different destiny.”

“I don’t want a different destiny. I want to go back.”

“I understand, but look. You saved our lives. We owe you. If you help us get home, we can . . . I dunno . . . take you with us! You can play
Red Dead Redemption
on a real TV instead of a little screen. I guarantee you it’s better than what you did for fun in prewar England.”

“Tormented sheep, mostly,” Will admitted.

“Thing is, we don’t have any idea how to
get
back,” Cordelia said.

“Maybe I can help,” said Will, “but I just want to make sure: where you come from, there’s still an
England
, yes?”

“Oh yeah,” said Cordelia.

“And you can take me there?”

“Sure. Coach tickets, deportation . . . we’ll find a way.”

“Excuse me?” Eleanor asked. “I’m sorry, but can you move, Will? The garbage is behind you.”

Will stepped aside. Eleanor opened the cabinet under the sink and threw the Lunchables packaging away. “I just want to tell you guys: except for the fighting and the giant knife, that was an awesome breakfast.”

The Walkers and Will had a moment to appreciate Eleanor’s words, and the fact that they were safe and warm and they didn’t have to go to school or war, but the moment didn’t last long.

A thunderous crack sounded outside the house.

It sounded like a tree splitting in two. And then, sure enough, there was a lengthy, groaning creak—Brendan tried to picture how long it would take one of those trees to reach the ground—and then a crash. A mass of branches and fernlike leaves slammed down outside the kitchen window. The tree bounced before settling, shaking all of Kristoff House.

“Who knocked that over?” asked a terrified Eleanor.

“I have no idea,” Will said, “but let’s find out, shall we?”

T
he last time the Walkers went outside, Brendan had made sure they had weapons. This time Will seemed weapon enough. He made quick, staggered movements down the front hallway, holding his arm at his side. He couldn’t move it freely yet, but Cordelia was just impressed that he was alive and awake.
Dad would be proud.