The Floating Island (13 page)

The lamplighters were busy lighting the oil streetlamps, climbing ladders that rested against the poles with a long tallow candle in one hand, when he returned to the main section of Kingston. Ven noticed how different the city looked in the dark. There was still a lot of foot traffic, as people made their ways home, or stopped by taverns for supper, but the shops were either closed or closing, and there were many shadows cast by the streetlamps.

He decided to cut through an alley to get to the Sailors’ Rest more quickly. He was only a few streets away when someone grabbed him from behind by the shoulder.

Ven felt the air rush from his lungs as he was slammed up against a brick wall in the alley.

A face he had seen before appeared over his. The eyes were red and gleaming angrily. The stench of rum filled Ven’s nostrils. He blinked, trying to remember where he had seen the face. Then it came to him. It had been glaring down at him from the deck of the
Serelinda,
the same anger twisting it into a mask of hate.

It was Mr. Whiting, the passenger Oliver had turned away from the boat to the Floating Island.

“You’re a brave young man, walking alone in the alleyways of a port city after dark,” Whiting said angrily. “Or maybe you’re just foolish.”

Ven tried to twist his arm free of the man’s grasp, but it was no use. He stared back into Whiting’s dark eyes, the way he had seen his brother Luther do, but his heart was pounding too hard to be convincing.

“Listen to me, you Nain brat,” Mr. Whiting hissed. “You cost me what may have been my only chance to visit the Floating Island. And that loss cannot be measured, do you understand?” Ven nodded. “You can never make up for that loss.” His face twisted. “But you will pay for it, mark my words. You will pay.”

“Ven?” Char’s voice rang out in the cobblestone alley, a street or so away. “Ven, where are you?”

Mr. Whiting’s eyes narrowed. “You had best hide, boy,” he said softly. “Dogs are fond of Nain meat. And I own a
lot
of dogs.”

He stepped aside, then melted back into the dark shadows of the alley.

A moment later, Char appeared around a corner.

“Ven! There you are. I got us some room on the floor at the Rest,” he said. He looked at Ven oddly. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Ven said, trying to sound calm, though he was trembling and confused. “Let’s get out of here.”

He followed Char the rest of the way to the inn for sailors. Both boys kept their heads low and their eyes on the floor as they passed tables of grizzled men, many missing legs or eyes, as Char had said. Ven did not recognize anyone from the
Serelinda,
and the realization made him nervous. He and Char found a corner near the fire in the main room of the Rest, pulled thin blankets from their duf–fles, and settled down to an uneasy sleep.

His dreams were plagued by Fire Pirates and shadows that lurked in alleyways.

Somehow he was certain that he had not seen the worst of what remained hidden yet.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, AFTER A LOUD AND SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN THE
Sailors’ Rest, Ven and Char walked to the south gate of town, looking for a ride to the Crossroads Inn.

When they got to the gate, there was no one there except the gate guard and the town crier, who was polishing his bell.

“Oliver said it was only three miles or so,” Ven said, looking down the road. “We could walk.”

“Let’s wait for a little while,” Char grumbled. “My feet hurt.”

“Were you born in Kingston, Char?” Ven asked while they waited.

Char shrugged. “Dunno. I’ve been passed around a lot. Only been here once that I remember. Never been to this inn before, but I hear it’s the place kids without parents go.”

A few minutes later the crier began ringing his bell, announcing the morning’s news. The sleepy streets seemed to waken. Shopkeepers opened their doors, fish and flower sellers appeared with carts, and the children of the city hurried from door to door, laughing.

“A merchant or farmer should show up soon, and then maybe we can catch a ride in his wagon,” Char said.

As if by magic, the boys heard a clopping sound coming down the street. A wagon came into sight, driven by a man with a thick beard. It was filled with spools of wire.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Char said.

Ven nodded, then turned back to watching the wakening city. He saw a group of women greet each other at the well as they drew water up in the bucket, and townspeople begin to visit the store fronts.

“Her-aaaaa-chhoooOO!”

Ven leaped straight up in the air at the harsh, violent sneeze behind his ear. He turned quickly around to see a young girl with dirty blond hair wiping her nose.

Her hand had been in his pocket.

Ven reached out and grabbed her arm as she turned to run. “HEY!” he shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The girl twisted her wrist, broke free of his grasp, and ran away down the street. Once she got out of reach, she turned and thumbed her nose at him, then hurried around the corner out of sight.

“Ugh,” Ven said. The back of his neck was wet.

Grimacing in disgust, he brushed the snot off of his shoulders and back, then took off his cap and shook it. The albatross feather fluttered in the wind.

“Well, well,” he said to himself, running his finger over the feather, “the thief must have had her nose tickled. I guess the luck from the albatross is still with me. It saved my wallet.”

“Ven!” Char shouted from down the street. “Hurry! I’ve got us a ride!”

Ven put his hat back on and jogged over to the gate, where Char was standing beside the wire wagon.

As he approached, he saw the bearded man’s face change.

“Not him,” the man said quickly to Char. “There’s no room for him.”

Ven froze in the street. Char looked at Ven, then back at the driver.

“Whaddaya mean?” he demanded. “I told you I had a friend.”

The driver’s expression turned sour. “There’s room for one. You can ride, but not him. Get in.”

Char’s face held a similarly sour expression. “All right then,” he said. “He can ride, and I’ll wait.”

“Char—” Ven started to say, but the driver angrily snapped the reins, and the wagon started away without them.

“That’s all right—I’d rather walk,” Char shouted after the wagon. “Somethin’ stinks
bad
in that wagon.”

“Hope the demons at the inn get ya,” the driver shouted back. “Nain scum.”

The boys stood in silence for a moment in the dust from the wagon wheels.

“Demons?” Ven asked finally.

Char shrugged. “The sailors in the Rest are afraid to go to that inn,” he said. “They think it’s haunted. But you know sailors. They think
everything’s
haunted. They’re very superstitious.”

“Well, they aren’t the only ones who think that about the inn,” Ven said. “The captain didn’t want us to go there in the dark.” His scalp started to itch.

They watched as the wagon drove out of sight. “You didn’t need to do that, by the way,” Ven said quietly after a moment. “You should have taken the ride—your feet hurt.”

“Not as much as my conscience would have if I’d ridden with that snob while you waited,” Char said.

Ven shrugged. “My father says you have to ignore that sort of thing,” he said, watching the human population of the city mill around in the streets. “When you’re of a different race, people distrust you because they are afraid. If you don’t give them reason to dislike you, it becomes their problem, not yours.”

Char looked both doubtful and disgusted. “I dunno. Seems ta me that his fear means sore feet for you an’ me. That makes it
our
problem. Come on. We may as well get started. If we leave now we might make the inn by noon-meal.”

They started down the dusty road heading south. Just beyond the ivy-covered gates it was cobbled like the streets of Kingston, but once it got away from the city the road became little more than a dirt path, with deep ruts carved by wagon wheels over time.

After a little while they heard another wagon approaching, this one pulled by two red-brown horses. The wagon was piled high with summer squash, and as it came near to them it slowed. The driver, an older man with gray hair, waved them over.

“You on your way to the inn?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Char answered.

“Well, hop in, boys, and I’ll drop you there,” the old man said. Ven looked at him questioningly, and the driver nodded and pointed toward the wagon bed. “Hurry, now.”

Ven and Char scrambled to the back of the wagon and climbed aboard. The driver whistled to the horses. The wagon gave a lurch, and then began to roll down the road again.

In the back amid the squash a thin girl with a sharp face, pointy chin, and dirty blond hair was sitting. She scowled at the boys, thumbed her nose at Ven, crossed her arms, and settled down more comfortably in the vegetables.

It was the pickpocket.

Ven coughed, then leaned closer to the driver. “Uh, sir,” he said, “did you know there’s a—a girl back here?”

The old man chuckled. “That’s no girl, lad, that’s Ida. She’s a wildcat. Don’t get too close, now—she’s got claws.”

“Ida?” Char asked. “You got a last name?”

“No.” The girl sneered.

“Ida No,” Ven said. “That’s precious.”

“Shut up,” Ida said. She hurled a squash at Ven and hit him in the forehead.

The boys looked at each other and exhaled deeply.

After a short while a white building appeared in the distance. As the wagon got closer they could see it was a large inn with a tall stone fence around it and iron gates in front. The stone from which it was built had been whitewashed so that it shone brightly against the green fields and trees, many of which were white-trunked birches. All the flowers blooming in the gardens were white as well. The lawn was perfect and green. It was beautiful, and fancy, and not very welcoming at all.

A sign out front read:

The White Fern Inn

“Is this the inn at the crossroads?” Ven asked the driver.

The old man shook his head. “No, we have a ways to go still. This here’s the White Fern. You could never afford to stay there, lad. And even if you had all the money in the world, they still wouldn’t take you—no children allowed.”

“Hmph. Probably just as well,” Char said. “Who’d want to stay in an all-white place anyway? You’d go bonkers tryin’ to keep from getting everything dirty.”

Ven said nothing, but continued to look down the road, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye.

A little farther down the road on the same side as the inn was a large pen. He could hear the sound of barking from a long distance away. As they got closer he could see that it was coming from a dog compound.

Ven looked at Char, whose eyes were wide as saucers. Inside the huge pen were dozens of dogs, all black as the night, with thick shoulders and necks, barking angrily as the wagon passed. The driver clicked to the horses to make them pick up the pace, which they did willingly, passing by the noisy compound as quickly as they could.

“What—what is that?” Ven asked the man nervously.

“Mr. Whiting’s guard dogs,” the driver answered, slowing the cart down as the barking faded away in the distance.

“Mr. Whiting?” Ven’s face went suddenly pale.

“Yes, he owns the White Fern. Raises killer dogs and sells them to people who have places they want guarded. I suggest you stay far away from there.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Char muttered.

Ven noticed that the girl’s face had turned the color of milk, too, but she merely pulled an apple out of her pocket and began to munch on it.

The three children sat silently among the squash in the back of the bumping wagon until at last on the other side of the road a small cemetery came into sight. The road widened, then came to a point where it crossed with another road that ran north to south.

And there, at the far corner to the north past the crossroads, was an inn.

The building was larger than the White Fern, but not as fancy. It had two wings, both with two stories, and was built of stone with a thatched grass roof. An enormous chimney rose from the center of the two wings. Behind the inn, two smaller buildings could be seen, one round, one rectangular, each about a hundred yards away from the main building. A small girl kneeled outside one of them, tending a bed of brightly blooming yellow flowers.

A large green sign stood out near the road, painted with gold letters and a strange symbol that looked like a circle with a spiral inside. The sign read:

The Crossroads Inn

“All right, lads and—er, Ida. This is it, out you go,” said the driver pleasantly. He climbed down from the wagon and patted the horse, then grabbed a bushel basket and made his way to the door, which was standing open. “Good morning, Trudy, love,” he called into the doorway. “Got some nice squash fer ya.”

Out of the doorway came a small, stout woman with red hair that was turning gray near her ears. Her face was lined, her eyes tired, but her cheeks were rosy. Even though she looked a bit pale and haggard, Ven saw something in her that seemed strong and reassuring, something that reminded him of his own mother.

“Mornin’, Jeremy,” she said, drying her hands on her apron. “Will you take it ’round back for me?”

“Of course, darlin’,” said the old man. “Bye the bye, I brought you some new guests.” He nodded at the boys and Ida.

The woman walked closer to the wagon. “Well, well, Ida, back so soon? Did the constable send you?”

The girl nodded curtly.

“All right, then,” said the red-haired woman, “but if so much as a spoon disappears from my inn this time, I will reach down your throat and dig around inside until I find it, do you understand?”

Ida nodded again, then strolled into the inn. The woman turned to the boys.

“And who might you fine gentlemen be?”

“Ven Polypheme, Mrs. Snodgrass,” Ven said, putting out his hand. “Captain Oliver of the
Serelinda
told me to come see you.” His voice faltered. “He, um, said to tell you that you would be happy to put us up.”

The red-haired woman shook his hand. “Oh, he did, did he?” she said with mock severity. “Well, now, wasn’t that nice of him? He’s very free with offering my hospitality. Next time I see that Oliver Snodgrass I shall have to remember to thank him with the toe of my shoe in his backside.”

“Oliver—Snodgrass?” Ven asked, amazed. “The captain is your husband?”

“Ah, he neglected to mention that, did he?” said Trudy, pulling herself up straight and trying to look stern. “Yes indeed, I am the legendary wife of the great Captain Snodgrass. I hear there are stories about me from here to the edge of the Seventh Sea.”

“Yes, ma’am,” whispered Char. “There surely are.”

“And who might you be?” Mrs. Snodgrass asked. “Oh, wait! I do remember you. You’re the mate of the
Serelinda
’s cook, are you not?”

“I’m Ch-ch-ch—ch-ch-ch. Char. Yes, ma’am.”

Trudy’s face softened. “Well, then, Char, you surely have suffered enough; that cook’s the grumpiest sailor that ever drew breath. Get your things, come inside, and we’ll find you boys something to eat.”

She led them into the inn, which was warm and inviting inside.