The Swallow (13 page)

I could hear movement downstairs—Mother in the bathroom, probably. High time I was getting dressed. Reluctantly, I tucked the box out of sight under the chair. Then I climbed down the ladder to begin my day.

THE LIBRARY

Polly

Of course the Parliament Street Library is just about my favorite place in the whole world. A building full of books! What’s not to love? There’s a big old counter at the front where you check your books out, and then it opens up into this huge room, with windows all along one side looking out over Gerrard Street. In front of the windows are four long wooden tables with benches along each side. The tabletops are about a foot thick and so are the legs. I wouldn’t want to have to move one of them. That’s where you sit to read your books and fill out your cards for the ones you’re taking home.

On the other side are floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books, and in between are rows of bookshelves. In the farthest corner from the door there is a fireplace,
AND
armchairs. I’ve never actually seen a fire there, but it doesn’t take much to imagine one.

I went right to the fireplace and plonked myself down in a chair. This corner was hidden from the librarian at the front desk by the bookshelves, and it was quiet now. Strictly speaking, this was the adults’ section of the library, but Mrs. Gardner, the librarian, didn’t mind, and she let me take out grown-up
books whenever I wanted. She liked me because I was there at least twice a week, and I took out lots of books and always brought them back on time. I liked to talk to her about them sometimes. She knew so much about books. I think I might want to be a librarian when I grow up, so I can spend all my time with books.

The children’s section was way over on the other side of the library, through a door beside the counter. It was cozy too, with low tables and small chairs and lots of great books, but it was always full of noisy little kids.

Today Mrs. Gardner didn’t even look up when I came in. She was busy checking out books for a mother with three little kids in tow.

Rose was late. She got off school way before me so I thought she’d beat me there. After a while I started to get bored, so I headed over to the children’s section to see if there were any Philomena Faraday books I hadn’t read yet.

The door to the children’s room had a big window in it. I was just about to push the door open when I saw something inside that made me freeze. Mark and Matthew, heads bent over a book at the table in the center of the room. I backed up slowly and then scuttled back to the fireplace. Whew. Close call. The last thing I needed was them bugging me some more about Rose.

I must have just missed her as I walked across the library, because there she was, perched on the edge of one of the armchairs, in her dark cloak with the hood thrown back over her
shoulders and her hair wild and everywhere. She looked like someone from another time, as if she had just stepped off a windy moor.

“Hey, Rose!” I said, bouncing up to her and grinning. She looked up. Her eyes were so dark. Dark and troubled. If anything, the shadows underneath them were even darker today.

“Hey, Polly,” she replied with a wan little smile. “Sorry I’m late! I was … um … looking for something at home.”

“No problem, but I think I should warn you, the Horrors are here.”

She stood up and peered behind me.

“Where?”

“In the children’s section. Don’t worry, they probably won’t come out here. Mrs. Gardner’s been keeping a close eye on them ever since they built book towers and then knocked them over …”

“Oh. Okay. If you think it’s safe.”

She sat down in the chair but kept glancing over her shoulder, as if she thought they would jump out of the bookshelves at any moment.

“Why are you so worried about them, anyway?” I asked curiously.

“They make me nervous,” she replied, examining her nails suddenly. “They call me Ghost Girl. I don’t like that.”

Hmmm. Something there. She wasn’t going tell me, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell her what they’d said to me that morning. I thought it better just to leave it for the moment.

“So, what’s new?” I said, settling into a chair and putting my feet up on the low table. Mrs. Gardner wouldn’t like that, but then Mrs. Gardner couldn’t see me from the front desk. “What were you looking for that made you late?”

Rose smiled.

“You’re going to love this, Polly,” she said. “A key. A key to a secret box I found in my grandmother’s room this morning.”

Rose

I hadn’t spent a lot of time at this library. My mother had brought me one Saturday after we moved in last summer and introduced me to the librarian so I could get access to the adult books. I’d been back a few times. I did like the quiet, secluded little corner by the fireplace. There were ghosts in the library, of course, but they were strangely contented, for ghosts, and I didn’t mind them. Sometimes I wondered if they oozed out of the books. Today there was a little boy in dark wool knickerbockers and a big cap who looked kind of hungry and shy. Something familiar about him. A character from Dickens? Or maybe a Parliament Street urchin from a hundred years ago? A young woman in an old-fashioned, long red dress stood gazing out the window, and a man in a black coat sat at a table, his work-worn hands turning the pages of a book with pictures.

They didn’t bother me. What was bugging me was the thought of the twins just thirty yards away. If they saw me with Polly they might come after me again. I didn’t want her to hear
them accusing me of hurting her and putting her in danger. I felt bad enough about that already.

“Tell me about the box,” said Polly breathlessly, pulling her feet off the table and sitting up straight. “What do you think is in it? Where do you think the key is? Did it belong to Winnifred? Do you think it has a secret compartment?”

“The whole box is a secret compartment until I figure out how to get it open,” I replied. “I looked through my grandmother’s dresser drawers, in her jewelry box, in my parents’ bedroom, all through the drawers in the kitchen. I couldn’t find a key that fit.”

“It’s got to be somewhere,” said Polly. “Maybe she kept it in a hidden drawer in her dresser, or under a loose floorboard in her room, or inside a false book—”

“I could try the study …” I said doubtfully.

Polly jumped to her feet. “Come on, let’s go look right now!” she said, shrugging on her coat and then pulling me along by the arm.

I grinned, in spite of myself. Ever-enthusiastic Polly, always ready to leap into the next adventure.

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t want you—”

“Not so fast,” said a squeaky voice behind her.

“You’re not going anywhere!” said another.

Polly whirled and there were the Horrors, blocking our way and looking as fierce as two grubby eight-year-old boys can when they’re dressed in snowsuits and flap-eared caps. One of them was clutching a book and the other was pointing his finger at me.

THE DRUNKEN GHOSTS

Polly

Before I could open my mouth to tell them to get lost, a tall figure swept out from among the bookshelves and came to rest between me and the Horrors. It was Mrs. Gardner. She stood with her back to me and her hands on her hips.

“
WHAT
did I tell you about ever setting foot in the grown-ups’ library again?” she demanded in a surprisingly loud voice.

The twins cowered. It brought joy to my heart to see them like that.

“We were just—” spluttered Matthew.

“We were only—” gasped Mark.

“
OUT
!” thundered Mrs. Gardner, advancing on them. “You’ve checked out your book so now you have no more business in this library. I’m going to phone your mother. You made a promise never to come into this section and …”

While she continued to lecture them fiercely, her back still to me, I beckoned to Rose and mouthed at her,
COME ON, ROSE, LET
’
S GO
!

She grabbed her coat and we slipped away. Soon we were heading up Parliament Street, past the scuzzy storefronts,
Woolworth’s, Woman’s Bakery … I looked longingly at the heaps of fresh buns, cookies and tarts in the window of the bakery, but Rose dragged me past it.

“The key, remember?” she said.

We turned down Winchester, crossing the street so we wouldn’t have to walk past the Winchester Hotel. Rose moved quickly, casting nervous glances over her shoulder.

“Ghosts?” I inquired.

“Mmm,” she replied. “You don’t want to know what just came out of the hotel behind that guy with the filthy coat …”

Eeek.

Rose

What I saw coming out of the Winchester Hotel behind the tottering, boozy man in the long dirty coat was actually just another staggering drunk in a filthy coat, but both he and his coat hailed from a time when Victoria was Queen of England. Drunken ghosts didn’t bother me much, but Winchester Street, lined with ancient, ramshackle rooming houses, had the distinct aura of a place where any number of questionable ghosts could appear at any moment.

Our way home led past the cemetery, but I knew a way to avoid it. I ducked down a side street and led Polly through a couple of back alleys that brought us to the corner of Sumach and Amelia. Our street was quiet. No ghosts. We stopped in front of Polly’s house.

“You’re not coming in with me,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. I can’t predict what the Door Jumper will do.”

“But—” Polly began.

“
NO
!” I said. “I told you this morning. We’re not risking it.”

“But I want to be there if you find the key. I want to see what’s in the box,” she pleaded. “Come on, Rose!”

“Polly—”

She clutched my arm. “Promise you won’t open it without me, Rose. Promise!”

I tried to shake her off but she held firm.

“Oh, all right,” I said finally. “Let’s meet up in the attic after supper and I’ll let you know if I’ve found the key. Then we can figure out where and when we can open it.”

“Okay, but no peeking!” She flashed me a huge grin and ran into her house.

THE HIDDEN DOOR

Polly

After supper I slipped quietly up to my room. It was the twins’ turn to help with the dishes, so all they could do was give me dirty looks as they cleared the table. I shut my bedroom door carefully, climbed up the ladder to the luggage loft and hoisted myself through the trapdoor into the attic.

I called out for Rose but there was no answer, so I curled up under the blanket and waited. You’d think if she’d found the blasted key she’d have come up right away so we could open the box. But maybe one of her parents had come home, or she had to practice the piano or something.

It was pretty boring sitting there. I flicked the flashlight around but the beam was so weak that I couldn’t see much. Then I got up and started tapping the wall between the two attics. Don’t know why. Except people always tapped walls in books and that’s how they found secret passages.

I didn’t discover anything except that a few spiders had lived there in years gone by. Sticky bits of spiderweb clung to my hand. I took a step back, turning the light up to the very top of the wall near the roof.