The Map (2 page)

“Yes, but given that you
’
ve been standing on his tail, I
’
d say he
’
s been extremely patient and understanding. See? Perspective!”

I looked down and jumped backward, off the gray-green tail, which whipped back behind the hulking figure. He grunted and shook his head, then tromped away down the road. The crowd parted as the buggane’s thudding footsteps neared, but closed just as quickly, swallowing the figure into the chaos of the crowd. I brought up a hand to straighten my hat and missed the brim twice before I realized I was shaking uncontrollably.

The girl with violet eyes was suddenly in front of me again.

“Hello, small child,” said Jackaby. “Friend of yours, Miss Rook?”

The girl beamed. “Sally!” She took the lid off of the glass jar and inched toward me.

I followed her eyes to the hem of my skirt, where a coal-black salamander with brilliant orange spots was clinging. “Sally?”

And then my dress was on fire.

Jackaby was quick to act, scooping the jar out of the girl’s hands and securing the salamander in one deft swipe. A kindly vendor leapt over and doused the flames with a bucket of slop before the fire had a chance to burn through the fabric and reach my legs. I stood in shock for a moment as the girl trotted merrily away with Sally. My nostrils twitched as the smell of singed fabric mingled with the briny stink of whatever had been in that bucket.

“So, what next?” Jackaby smiled. “Harpy Traders? Gnomish Spellmongers? Cake?”

“
Jackaby.
” I looked my employer directly in the eyes. “I think I
’
d like to go.”

His smile remained, but his eyes flickered from incomprehension to understanding, and then to disappointment. “Oh.” The grin drooped, made a halfhearted effort to return, then fell. “Oh. Yes, of course.”

He led the way past unfamiliar stalls and out the little wrought iron gate in silence. I felt the faint tingle as we crossed the threshold again. A glance back revealed only an empty lot behind us, but I felt as though I could almost look past the mirage now that I knew what really lay on the other side.

“I
’
m sorry, Jackaby,
” I said. “I didn
’
t mean to ruin your gift. I do appreciate the gesture, really. It
’
s all so fantastic and exciting. I want to go on grand adventures. It
’
s just . . . a bit much all at once.”

Jackaby nodded. “
I understand,
” he said. “One step at a time?”

I gave him a thankful smile. “One step at a time, yes.”

“I can do one step at a time.” He held out the end of a cracker.

We pulled together, and as the little paper tube crackled, the world flew apart and back together again. I very nearly managed to keep my footing this time, but toppled in the ensuing vertigo. Jackaby hoisted me to me feet.

“
Sir,
” I said, looking around. “This is not New Fiddleham.”

“
No indeed
. This”—my employer gave me an impish grin and pulled a familiar piece of paper from his bulky coat—“is step one.”

He handed the map to me. “You went back for it?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Guess what? We
’
re adventuring!”

* * *
The Pie

The map was very old and inexpertly drawn. In the water swam busty mermaids and serpentine sea creatures, and on land stalked beasts that might have been meant to look like tigers but had come out a bit more like stripy dachshunds. Forests of little lines and mountain ranges of upside-down
V
’
s gave contour to the page, and at every turn lurked stick-figure dangers. Skulls and crossbones were a major theme. The artist seemed to have tucked one in anywhere he had a spare inch of parchment. The words
Captain Farrell
’
s Treasure
were written in a swooping cursive in the top left, and in the lower right a monogram read
B.D.

“This looks like it was drawn by an eight-year-old,” I said.

“Never underestimate the wisdom and intuition of children.”

“This bit here looks like a duck with pointy teeth.”

Jackaby leaned in over my shoulder. “Charts are never purely literal. Cartography relies heavily on symbolism and suggestion.”

“What even is this? Is this a radish wearing a top hat?”

“I believe it
’
s a rutabaga, and that
’
s clearly a bowler. Perhaps I should be in charge of navigation.” Jackaby made a grab for the map, but I pulled it away and surveyed the landscape around me.

We stood at the top of a tall hill overlooking a fertile valley. Below us a stream curled away into the trees, and behind us the branches of a huge, old beech tree formed a nearly perfect dome. A little black-and-white bird flitted onto a nearby branch to stare at us. There were no roads or trails, no signs of civilization.

“Lovely bit of countryside,” Jackaby remarked. “Definitely New England. North of New Fiddleham? Possibly south?”

“You don
’
t even know where you
’
ve taken us?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why, you
’
re right—we
’
re hopelessly lost! If only we had a
map
!” he intoned in mock distress.

“Do you really want to try to navigate an amateur scribble toward some unlikely treasure? It
’
s probably nothing more than the fancy of a long-forgotten schoolboy. Who is Captain Farrell, anyway? I
’
ve never heard of any dread pirate Farrell.”

“Not a pirate, a British official,” Jackaby answered. “You
’
ve never heard the story? Farrell was a captain of the guard, charged with distributing wages to the British soldiers in Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century. His caravan was robbed by a single audacious highwayman who made off with the entire payroll without firing a single shot. A silver tongue can be even more effective than lead rounds. The man called himself the Bold Deceiver.”

“The Bold Deceiver? Wait, are you talking about ‘Whiskey in the Jar’? That
’
s not a true story; that
’
s a pub song!”

“Tell that to Patrick Fleming.”

“Who?”

“The man they hanged for the crime in 1650. Captain Farrell got his man, following the advice of a disloyal lady and a nosy barkeep, but he never did retrieve the money. The Bold Deceiver hid his stolen loot before Farrell’s men closed in. It
’
s still out there, somewhere.”

I looked at the faded, dirty paper, and back to Jackaby. My employer waggled his eyebrows at me. I contained a grin, not wanting to encourage his insufferable enthusiasm. “Just because a treasure exists
doesn
’
t mean this will lead us to it. Even if it is authentic, and I’m not saying it is, who’s to say the money hasn
’
t already been recovered?”

“Only one way to find out.” The eyebrows bounced again, wiggling that silly knit cap up and down with them, and I let a smile crack the surface.

“If you can just pop a party favor to take us wherever you want, why do we need to follow this at all? Why not just zip to the end?”

“Because, Miss Rook, that isn
’
t how this sort of thing works. I know you
’
re still fairly new to this, so trust me when I say that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about an adventure. One does not free the prince without kissing the frog, and there are consequences for cutting corners. The map goes out of its way to touch seven points before completion. Sevens are good. We start with number one.”

I scanned the map and found the start of the path. It was, in fact, at a depiction of a round tree beside a curvy line that could be the nearby stream. “I guess we’re right here . . . ,” I started.

“Now you
’
re cracking.”

“. . . but that would put us directly atop a giant pie with a key sticking out of it.” I held up the map so that Jackaby could see the drawing. “
I don’
t see any giant pastries about
, do you?
”

“Miss Rook, you deeply disappoint me. Come now, your keen eye for detail proved invaluable during our last case—well, somewhat valuable. Not entirely unhelpful. What would you look for if this were a crime scene?”

I thought for a moment. I would look for something out of place, something that didn
’
t belong.

“The bird,” I said at last, gesturing to the shape flitting about the beech tree. “That’s a magpie. I
’
ve seen them in Europe, but they’re not native to New England.”

Jackaby applauded. “Outstanding! I hadn
’
t even noticed the little fellow. I was hoping you might have spotted the bright, supernatural glow emanating from the nest, but I suppose pulsing golden light is a bit too obvious? You managed it your own way, all the same.”

“There is no golden light, Mr. Jackaby. Not for normal people.” Jackaby’s gift as a seer allows him to penetrate magical concealments, make impossible connections, and recognize the auras surrounding objects and people, particularly those with magical significance. I have the rather less unique ability to see the world the way it actually appears.

“No?” Jackaby tilted his head in mock sympathy. “It must be so dismal being you.”

“Only in present company,” I teased back. I tucked the map in the sash of my skirt and began looking for a branch or foothold. The tree was old, easily twenty feet around at the base, and the lowest limbs nearly as wide as I was, but I managed to hoist myself up onto the first branch and then the second.

“So, finding things by aura isn
’
t cutting corners?” I asked. “If we
’
re supposed to be doing this thing properly, then I imagine we were meant to figure out the map
’
s riddles. ‘Pie
’
and ‘magpie
’
are pretty obvious, now that I think about it.” I had nearly reached the nest. The little bird hopped around ahead of me, chattering and squawking, but it kept its distance.

“It isn
’
t cheating. It
’
s just using one
’
s eyes,” Jackaby called up. “But that
’
s rather good, about the pie. Fitting first task for the Bold Deceiver
’
s quest, the magpie.”

“How
’
s that?” I called down, being careful not to shift the branches too much as I positioned myself closer. Already the messy cluster of sticks was beginning to look rather shaken.

“Kleptoparasitism!”
Jackaby hollered cheerfully.
“Magpies are known for it. Other birds can be thieves as well, of course, but magpies have a reputation for admiring shiny trinkets. Not an unfit totem for a highwayman. If that
’
s our pie, what do you suppose the key signifies? The next clue? Perhaps a means to solve the subsequent clues, as in the key to the map?”

“That makes sense,” I said. I felt inside the nest. At the center, thin twigs and bits of straw wove a finely knit bowl, and my fingers closed around
cold metal.
“Or,” I said, tossing it down, “it means a key.”

* * *
The Garden

The next point on the map was eight or nine miles south, through forest. Jackaby conceded that as long as we touched on each essential point along the journey, it would be acceptable to use the party crackers in between. He slid out a glossy, blue-papered tube and we gave the ends a tug.

The world at the other end of the disorienting crackle was still green countryside, but this time there were signs of habitation. An old wooden fence lay just ahead of us, and a soft, dirt path led toward its gate and away. I could see no houses or barns nearby, but within the fence the earth had been tilled, and leafy stems were sprouting in careful rows.

“
I assume we
’
re here for the garden,” I said, and began toward it.

“
Wait,
” Jackaby clasped my shoulder so quickly my feet nearly slid out from under me on the soft earth.

“What is it?”

“The vegetables,” Jackaby said, with intensity. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t eat them.”

“I think I can manage to control myself.”

We drew nearer and examined the garden from over the weathered beams of the fence. The crops looked exceedingly healthy, all the plants at least two or three times larger than average. A trellis of simple timbers had been erected to support tomato vines, the fruits of which were as large as a man
’
s head and brilliant red. Not far off, deep-purple eggplants grew with such heft that if I jabbed a few stocks into them, they could pass for bagpipes. Beyond were cucumbers you could fit a saddle over and pumpkins you could hollow out and sleep in.

“What do you see?” I whispered.

“Danger. Desperation.” He peered at the produce with uncertainty. “And . . . vegetation.”

“Perhaps we should just move on to the next—,” I began.

“No.” He cut me off. “Every step is recorded for a purpose. Tell me, what do
you
see?”

I tried to look beyond the obvious. The plants were the glaring spectacle, so I pushed them to the back of my mind and saw . . . dirt. The soil was freshly watered and looked soft and—

“Footprints.” I traced them to the gate. “Several different sizes, too.”

Jackaby looked where I indicated. “It appears a great many people have entered this garden,” he said.

“Yes,” I scanned up and down the soft earth. “But no sign of any of them leaving again.”

I stepped hesitantly up to the gate. A rough hand had carved into the post:
TURN BAC
—a small pen knife still jabbed into the wood after the unfinished caution. The letters looked old and had long since worn to the same color as the wood around them. A hearty green bean vine had wound its way up the post and clung to the knife
’
s handle.

“Right. That
’
s not unsettling in the least,” I said. Jackaby plucked a set of colored lenses from his coat and gazed at the plants through each disc in turn,
humph
ing and
hmm
ing unhappily as he did. “So, where did they go?”

I looked out over the garden while he worked, tracing a line of footprints down a nearby aisle. The indentations led between rows of carrots and potatoes and then stopped, suddenly and entirely. In a mound of dirt, one hefty potato had been mostly unearthed, its scarf and cap sliding back to the ground. My mind lurched back. Scarf and cap? I looked again up the aisles. They were there, the tips of a worn pair of boots amid the rhubarb, a patched vest wrapped around a butternut squash, and broken spectacles at the base of a cabbage.

I whirled around as Jackaby leapt to his feet. “They didn
’
t go anywhere . . . ,” he began.

“The people
are
the vegetables!” I exclaimed.

“These vegetables are
people
!” Jackaby pronounced at the same time. We stared at each other. Jackaby scowled. “I
’
ve just used a seventeenth-century Scottish scrying stone to detect and confirm undeniable evidence of involuntary vegetative transfiguration. How did you . . . ?”

“I found a hat.”

“Your mind is both fascinating and infuriating, Miss Rook.”

“So what now?” I said. “If we go in we become ingredients for a salad. Why are we here?”

“We
’
re on a quest designed by a notorious thief,” said Jackaby. “So what would the Bold Deceiver do differently than those poor souls did?”

“
I don’
t know,” I admitted.

“This.” Jackaby stepped over the threshold, took a few long, confident steps, and plucked what must have been a five-pound turnip from the soil. He examined it closely and smiled in satisfaction.

“What are you doing?”

He looked around, then down at himself. He patted his chest experimentally, nodded, and then dropped the purloined root into his satchel.

“What were you thinking?” I burst as he sauntered back to my side of the fence.

“Miss Rook, what would entice you to steal from a garden as ominous and clearly unnatural as this one?”

“Nothing! That was insane!”

“Precisely. Those who did must have been absolutely desperate, deprived. In short, they were starving.”

“So?”

“So, if you were driven to theft out of dire hunger, what
’
s the first thing you would do with one of those ill-gotten
greens?
”

My stomach growled involuntarily at the thought.

“Right again. You would eat. But a man driven by the thrill of the theft itself would n
o
t. Those poor, decent folk took only what they needed, but the Bold Deceiver didn
’
t leave his map for their sort. He left it for someone like him.”

“The Bold Deceiver wanted us to steal a human vegetable?”

“Not human, but yes. He wanted us to steal one of the forbidden fruits, so to speak. Steal it, but not eat it. Brilliantly biblical. The sly snake is playing God and the Devil in one.”

I eyed the garden uneasily. “Perhaps it’s best that we move on?”