The Fire Chronicle (7 page)

“Emma!” Kate shouted. “It’s us! We’re here!”

She found the keyhole by touch, and a moment later, the door was open and Emma, the youngest of the family, their little sister, was in her arms.

“You’re okay?” Kate asked. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine! But did you hear the scream?”

“I know.” And Kate stepped into the office, motioning for Michael to follow her and shut the door.

Miss Crumley’s office was a small, round room with four windows spread out evenly from the door. There was a desk, two chairs, a steel filing cabinet, and, propped against the wall, a chipped wooden wardrobe.

“Kate!”

Emma was at one of the windows; Michael and Kate rushed over as lightning shuddered across the sky. Far below them, three figures had emerged from the woods and were moving across the asphalt yard toward the orphanage. The children recognized the Screechers’ jerky gait. All three of the creatures held naked swords.

Kate quickly told them her plan. She would have the
Atlas
take them to Cambridge Falls. If they left, the other children at the orphanage would be safe.

“Hurry,” Kate said. “Take—”

Just then the window shattered, and a half-decayed gray-green hand reached in and seized Kate by the arm. Emma screamed and
grabbed Kate’s other arm, the one that was holding the
Atlas
. Through the broken window, Michael could see the black shape of the Screecher as it clung to the wall of the tower.

“Michael!” Emma shouted. “Help me!”

Michael jumped forward, hugged Kate around the waist, and began pulling her away from the window. Gusts of rain blew into the office. For a moment, Michael thought they were gaining ground; then he looked and saw that the creature was still gripping Kate’s arm and had actually begun to crawl into the room.

“Stop!” Kate said. “You’re just pulling it in! Let me go!”

“What?” Michael’s face was still buried in her side. “No! You—”

“Let go! I know what I’m doing! Now! Do it!”

There was such command in her voice that Michael and Emma both released her. The Screecher had half its body inside the room, its fingers digging into the flesh of Kate’s forearm. A deep hiss gurgled from its throat. Michael saw his sister work several fingers between the pages of the
Atlas
, and he realized what she was going to do.

Kate looked at Michael and their eyes met.

“Remember,” she said, “whatever happens, take care of Emma.”

“But—”

“Remember your promise.”

And then she and the creature both vanished.

“Kate!” Emma cried. “Where’d she go?”

“She … she took it into the past,” Michael gasped. “Like she did with the Countess. She took it into the past to get rid of it.”

His heart was hammering in his chest. He placed a hand on the desk to steady himself.

“So why didn’t she come back?” Emma’s face was wet, whether from rain, or tears, or both, Michael didn’t know. “She should’ve come back right away!”

Emma was right. If the
Atlas
had worked as it should have, and Kate had left the Screecher in the past, then she should’ve returned to the exact moment she’d left. So where was she?

The cry of a Screecher echoed up the tower, and they heard boots pounding on the stairs, growing closer and louder. The children backed away from the door.

Michael heard Emma shout his name.

What was he supposed to do? What could he do?

Then the door flew open, revealing the dark, ragged form of a Screecher, and at that same moment, a pair of hands seized the children from behind.

“And here we are.”

They stepped out into a narrow alley. Crumbling stone walls bounded them on either side and ran down to an empty square. Behind them, the alley ended in a high stone wall, in the middle of which was the wooden door they’d come through. Raising his eyes above the wall, Michael could see a grove of olive trees climbing up the hill. The sky was a perfect deep blue, and the air was hot and dry and silent. Michael glanced at his sister; Emma was taking in their new surroundings and appeared unhurt. That, at least, was something.

Michael turned to the man beside them.

He was tall and thin, with unruly white hair, a rather shabby tweed suit, and a dark green tie that looked as if it had recently escaped a fire. The stem of an old pipe poked from the pocket of
his jacket, and he wore a pair of bent and patched tortoiseshell glasses. He was exactly as Michael remembered.

Straightening his own glasses, Michael coughed and put out his hand.

“Thank you, sir. You saved our lives.”

Dr. Stanislaus Pym took the boy’s hand and shook it.

“Of course,” said the wizard. “You’re most welcome.”

As the Screecher had crashed through the door of Miss Crumley’s office, Michael had felt a hand on his shoulder and had whipped his head around, thinking that another of the
morum cadi
had snuck up behind them and the end had come. But the hand on his shoulder, like the hand on Emma’s shoulder, had not belonged to a Screecher. To his complete surprise, Michael had seen the wizard, Stanislaus Pym, leaning toward them out of the wardrobe, and before Michael could utter a word, he and his sister had been yanked inside and the door had slammed shut. Michael had found himself in darkness, crushed between the side of the wardrobe and the wizard’s elbow. His nostrils had been filled with the smell of Dr. Pym’s tobacco and the moist, cabbagey odor of Miss Crumley’s shoes. Out in the office, the Screecher was heard tossing aside chairs as it leapt toward them; then Dr. Pym had murmured, “One more turn,” there had been a sharp click, and just as Michael had been certain that a sword was going to come splintering through the wardrobe wall, Dr. Pym had pushed open the door and both the Screecher and Miss Crumley’s office had vanished, replaced by stone walls and blue sky and silence.

“Would you two stop shaking hands?!” Emma shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”

Michael released the wizard’s hand. “I was just being polite.”

“Dr. Pym!” Emma’s voice was high and desperate. “You have to go back! You have to find Kate! She—”

“Used the
Atlas
. I know. Tell me exactly what happened.”

As quickly as they could, Michael and Emma told him about the storm, about being trapped in the tower, how the Screecher had grabbed Kate, how Kate and the creature had both disappeared.…

“She must’ve tried to take it into the past,” Michael said, and he told the wizard—who, due to his abrupt departure from Cambridge Falls eight months earlier, was still in the dark regarding certain events—how the Countess had reappeared on Christmas Eve and how Kate had discovered that she could use the Atlas without a photograph, how she had taken the witch deep into the past and abandoned her.

“I’m sure she did the same thing with the Screecher,” Michael said. “Only she didn’t come back.”

“So you gotta find her!” Emma cried. “Hurry!”

“Yes, of course,” said the wizard. “Now, if you go straight ahead, on the other side of the square is a café. Wait for me there.”

“But, Dr. Pym,” Michael had to ask, “where are we?”

“Italy,” came the answer.

And with that, the wizard turned and stepped toward the wooden door through which they had come. Michael was confused. Where was Miss Crumley’s wardrobe? How were they suddenly in Italy? Where was Dr. Pym going? Then he saw the wizard take an ornate gold key from his pocket, slide it into the lock, step across to the other side of the wall, and shut the door
behind him. There was the same distinct
click
as before. Curious, Michael walked over, listened for a moment, then opened the door.

A goat stared back at him.

“He’ll find her.” Emma hadn’t moved, but she was hugging herself as if she might fall apart at any moment. “Dr. Pym will find her.”

Michael said nothing.

Together, they walked silently down the alley. When they got to the square, Michael saw they were on the side of a hill and that the town was of no size whatsoever. A church loomed on their left. A white dog loped past. Across the square stood the café. It had a red awning and two empty tables out front.

A curtain of colored beads hung over the door, and the children passed through them into a well-lit, tile-floored room, with rough rock walls like the inside of a cave. The café was half filled with older men and women, and there was a woman with gray-black hair pulled into a bun who wore a faded green dress under a white apron. She was shorter than either Michael or Emma, and she moved about like a gnat, buzzing here and there, depositing bottles of wine and water, picking up dishes. Spotting the children, she herded them to a table, speaking in rapid Italian, and, without being asked, brought over two glasses and a bottle of fizzy lemonade.

“It’ll be okay,” Michael said. “It’s Kate, remember?”

Emma didn’t respond. Her face was tense with worry. But she reached out and took hold of Michael’s hand.

The children sat there for nearly an hour, their lemonade
bubbling softly before them. Groups of men and women drifted into the café. The men were lean and hard-faced and wore ancient dark suits, white shirts, and old black hats; they looked like men who’d been outside their entire lives. The women were dark-haired and dark-eyed and had hands worn thick by work. The tiny woman in the apron bullied them all. Pushing them into chairs. Bringing them food and wine they hadn’t ordered. And Michael could see that the men and women loved it; the more the tiny woman bullied, the more laughter and conversation filled the restaurant.

The place was a good place, Michael thought. A refuge. And he understood why the wizard had sent them here.

Emma leapt to her feet, and Michael turned to see Dr. Pym stepping through the curtain of beads at the door.

Michael felt his heart twist upon itself. The wizard was alone.

Dr. Pym lowered himself into a chair.

“Well, you’ll be relieved to know that the
morum cadi
have quit the orphanage, and neither your Miss Crumley nor the other children were harmed.”

“And?” Emma cried. “Where’s Kate? You said you’d find her!”

Conversation around them stopped; the old men and women looked over.

The wizard sighed. “I did not find her. I am sorry.”

Michael gripped the wooden leg of the table and took several slow, deep breaths.

“So maybe you didn’t look hard enough!” Emma’s voice was now the only sound in the restaurant. “Maybe she’s not at the orphanage! You gotta keep looking! We’ll go with you! Come on!”

She began to pull the wizard out of his chair.

“Emma.” The old man’s voice was quiet and calm. “Katherine has not returned to the present. Not to Baltimore or anywhere else—”

“You don’t know that—”

“Yes, I do. Now please sit down. You’re attracting attention.”

Emma grudgingly released his arm and threw herself into her chair. The talk at the other tables resumed. The tiny woman buzzed over, set a glass of red wine before the wizard, and darted away.

“We must look at the situation logically.” Dr. Pym kept his voice low. “Let us say that Katherine did indeed use the Atlas to travel into the past and dispose of that foul creature. Why did she not return immediately? Perhaps something or someone prevented her—”

Emma struck the table with her fist. “So we’ve gotta help her! That’s what I’m saying! We’ve gotta do something!”

“She’s right,” Michael said. “We need to come up with a plan! We—”

“But the point you must both understand”—the wizard leaned forward—“is that if your sister is trapped in the past, then there is absolutely nothing that you or I or anyone else can do about it. She is beyond our reach. That is a fact, and you must accept it.”

Michael and Emma opened their mouths to argue, but nothing came out. The hard finality of the wizard’s statement, the cold, precise way it was delivered, had robbed them of speech.

“However,” and with this Dr. Pym reassumed his normal, grandfatherly air, “I do not think that is what happened. Your
sister is one of the most remarkable individuals I have ever met—which, considering how long I have been alive, is saying quite a bit. No matter the obstacles, if there is a way for her to return to you, she will find it.”

“So …” Emma’s eyes were welling with tears, and she’d clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. “… Why didn’t she?”

The wizard smiled. “My dear, who’s to say she hasn’t?”

“You! You just said—”

“Aha!” Michael exclaimed.

Both Dr. Pym and Emma looked at him.

“You know what I’m going to say?” the wizard asked.

“Well … not exactly,” Michael admitted. “But it just felt like … Sorry.”

“Allow me to explain about the nature of time.” The old man dipped his finger into his wineglass and dabbed a string of watery red spots across the tabletop. “You must not imagine that time is a road unspooling before us. Rather, all time—past, present, and future—already exists. Say we are here.” He pointed to a dot in the middle of the line. “And your sister was here in the past; then she chose to skip over us and land here, in the future.” He brought his finger down further along the line. “In that case, we just have to go forward, and we will eventually meet her.”