Unwritten Books 1 - Unwritten Girl (12 page)

Nicholas and Eleanor greeted everybody with warm handshakes. When they were all introduced, Nicholas gave the Mystery Man a sour look. “You said we’d have a real mystery.”

“Wasn’t that a mystery?” asked the Mystery Man. “Didn’t you find the missing necklace?”

“You call that a mystery?” said Eleanor. “We want something more serious!”

“More exciting!” said Nicholas.

“With bodies!” said Eleanor.

“What do you mean?” asked Rosemary.

“We didn’t solve a murder, prevent blackmail, foil burglars, or anything,” said Nicholas. “We haven’t had a real mystery. We never have real mysteries!”

“But what about the Dashenberg Diamond?” asked Rosemary. “You solved the Mystery of the Wailing Catacombs!”

“A racoon with an eye for shiny things! A lost cat in an empty crypt!” said Eleanor.

“Still mysteries,” said the Mystery Man. “You find a question and, through research and investigation, you answer it. Archeologists are among the best detectives in the world, and they lead quiet lives — most of them.”

“And what of life’s mysteries?” said Puck. “Who are we and how came we to be here? Solving those questions will bring you no fame.”

“We know we can solve mysteries,” said Eleanor sourly. “We’ve solved twenty-three cases, but we want excitement too! We want a thriller! We want bodies!”

“Why would you want such a thing?” asked Puck.

“We get all the boring stuff because we’re children,” said Nicholas.

“Everybody else has bodies,” said Eleanor. “Look.” She motioned them to the next compartment.

Rosemary looked in through the glass partition. She covered her mouth.

Inside, a body lay in the centre of the compartment, laced with stab wounds, some glancing, some deep. His
dead eyes stared and his mouth lolled open. Around him, four people shifted in their seats as a bald, roundheaded detective fiddled with his handkerchief before launching into his theory of how the murder happened.

“We can solve mysteries as well as the grown-ups,” said Eleanor. She cast a glance inside. “If you want my opinion on this one, all of them did it. But do we get asked? No. And why? Because we don’t have foreign accents or smoke pipes, and why should we? We’re from Kennebunkport and our parents won’t let us take up smoking!”

“It’s a filthy habit anyway,” said Nicholas.

“All of them did do it,” said Rosemary under her breath.

“What?” Everybody looked at her.

“Well, yes,” said Eleanor. “If you look at the wounds, you will see that the knife blows came from different angles, some left-handed, some right. Of course most people would think there was only one murderer, but once you get past that, you will see that they might all have killed him together —”

“They did,” said Rosemary. “They hated him. He did bad things to them. They wanted revenge, and they got it.” She shivered.

The others stared at her.

“Yes,” said the Mystery Man finally. “Most interesting, Rosemary.” He took her hand gently. “Come
have a look at this.” He led her to the next compartment. Rosemary looked inside and gasped.

Two women in Edwardian dresses sat in the compartment. One woman, pale-skinned and dark-haired, was clearly upset. She was being questioned by a police officer in an old-style London uniform. A man in a deerstalker hat lounged in the corner, watching everything but saying nothing.

The other woman, with darker skin and flaming red hair, was dead. Blood trickled down from a hole just above her right temple. The left part of her head was —

Rosemary’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned away from the compartment window.

Nicholas peered in, frowning. “The policeman’s on the wrong track. He’s accusing her of the murder. Just because you see the one suspect doesn’t mean that no more exist.”

“The dead woman killed herself.” Rosemary’s voice shook. “She thought the other woman was having an affair with her husband. She’s trying to frame the other woman for a murder! She tied a gun to a rock or something so she could shoot herself in the head and it would fly out the window.”

Eleanor looked into the compartment. “Good theory! The other woman would have to be pretty stupid to leave herself as the only suspect.”

The man in the deerstalker hat raised his head and looked at Rosemary. She drew her arms around herself and quaked.

“What’s going on?” Peter whispered to Puck. “She couldn’t figure out the Mystery Man, but she’s solved every mystery she’s looked at. How does she know all this?”

Puck grinned. “It’s a mystery!”

“Yes, I said there was a mystery in every compartment,” said the Mystery Man. “Even yours. Rosemary is that mystery.”

“Rosemary, what’s wrong?” said Nicholas. “You’re as white as a sheet!”

“Have you thought about taking up sleuthing?” asked Eleanor. “Assuming the Mystery Man considers you old enough for bodies, of course.”

“Stop it!” Rosemary burst into tears. “Don’t you care about these people? Don’t you have any idea how they suffered?”

Peter frowned. “Rosemary, they’re just characters!”

“There is nothing ‘just’ about being a character!” Rosemary yelled. “Characters are born, they grow old, they fall in love, and they die! We are born, we grow old, we fall in love, and we die! What’s the difference?”

“B-but Rosemary,” said Peter, “they’re not people!”

“To me they are! I can
feel
them!”

Puck took Rosemary’s hand gently and pulled her away from the compartment. “I have always wondered
why Rosemary could not finish most of her books,” he said. “And now I know. Sage Rosemary, how did you forgive me for turning Bottom’s head into that of an ass?”

Rosemary smiled wanly. “He
was
an ass,” she said. “And I knew that it wasn’t going to be permanent.”

“No one gets hurt in
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
,” said Peter. “In a couple of years we’ll have
Romeo and Juliet
. I think that’s going to be a problem. But I don’t understand; if Rosemary hates to see these characters suffer, why are they attacking her?”

“Just get me out of here,” Rosemary muttered. “Please?”

The Mystery Man nodded, his transparent hat brim shimmering the air. “She can’t stay on this train. It would be too much for her.”

“Come on,” said Peter, taking her by the shoulders and leading her back to their compartment. There, he slid open the door.

Rosemary stepped inside, looked up, and screamed.

A girl’s body dangled from the ceiling. “Oh, my God!” Peter pulled Rosemary out into the corridor. “Puck! There’s a body in our compartment!”

Nicholas and Eleanor perked up. “A body in their compartment?” They glanced at each other and broke into grins. “There’s a body in their compartment!” They rushed forward, but stopped short at the compartment door. They looked up and went pale.

Nicholas fainted. Gagging, Eleanor ran for the bathroom, holding her mouth closed.

Peter and Puck stared up at a girl very like Rosemary, her head lolling above a noose. She swung gently in time to the clickity-clack of the wheels over the rails.

Rosemary covered her eyes. She leaned against the opposite wall.

The Mystery Man stepped inside the compartment, looking up at the body. “This isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Look!” Peter inched past the dangling feet and peered out the window.

Puck followed him in. “Peter, what do you see?”

Peter was glued to the window. “That Zeppelin is back.”

Behind their backs, the hanging corpse raised its head and glared at Rosemary through its horn-rimmed glasses.

“You’re next,” the dead girl mouthed.

Puck pointed. “Wait. That shadow, by our own; that does not belong to the skyship.”

Peter craned his neck up. “There’s another Zeppelin.”

The window shattered inward. Peter scrambled back. A grapple slid into the compartment, grabbing at the air like a three-fingered claw.

The train shook. The door slid closed.

The man in the deerstalker hat leapt into the passageway and grabbed Rosemary from behind.

The hanging girl grabbed the noose, loosened it, and jumped on Peter, knocking him to the compartment floor.

Rosemary struggled, yelling, but her attacker wrestled her down and pressed his forearm to her throat. His clothes were wet and heavy. She choked. Her eyes widened as he pulled a double-hypodermic needle from his pocket, a murder weapon whose mark had masqueraded as a snakebite. The twin tips dripped with poison.

“Let her go!” Eleanor ran back from the bathroom and jumped on the man’s back. He struggled and elbowed the girl, hard. Rosemary punched desperately. Her right arm, still blackened from its dip in the Sea of Ink, landed solidly in the man’s stomach. He grunted. His grip slacked.

Nicholas, staggering up, tried to shove open the compartment door.

Inside, Puck and the Mystery Man pulled the flailing girl off of Peter.

The man in the deerstalker hat knocked Eleanor off him and dragged Rosemary to her feet. He held her from behind and pressed the hypodermic to her throat as Puck, Peter, and the Mystery Man poured out of the compartment.

“Do not move!” he shouted, his voice rich and British. “We are taking her! We shall have our revenge!”

The girl with the horn-rimmed glasses stepped to the door of the compartment. “Now!”

The man in the deerstalker hat shoved Rosemary into a window. It caved in. Rosemary screamed as a grapple caught her blackened arm in its metal teeth.

Peter and Puck rushed forward, grabbing at the metal jaws, but they held fast. The man in the deerstalker hat moved to stop them, but the Mystery Man surged forward and blocked him like a wave of water. “Get off my train!” he shouted. They fought. The Mystery Man swept him back into the compartment.

The hook pulled back, dragging Rosemary towards the broken window.

“No!” Rosemary yelled. She flailed. The grapple holding her arm hit the wall and sprang open. She fell away and lay on the floor, moaning. Peter grabbed her arm to check for injuries. She wasn’t even bleeding.

The Mystery Man emerged from the compartment, locking its door.

“How fast are these Zeppelins?” Peter gasped.

“As fast as the story requires,” said the Mystery Man.

The grapple made another swing, but checked itself. The train pulled ahead. Peter could see the bulk of the Zeppelin above them edging into view. “Why are they hanging back?”

“We’ve entered a range of mountains and there’s a tunnel ahead,” said the Mystery Man.

“Tunnel?” said Peter. He peered out the hole in the side of the train as Puck helped Rosemary to her feet.

“Puck, I’ve got an idea!”

“I hope it’s a good idea,” said Eleanor. She held the door shut against the shouting and fists of the girl with the horn-rimmed glasses.

“We’ve got to get off this train,” said Peter. “If we don’t, the Zeppelins will keep following us and pick us off.”

“But if you stop the train, we’ll be sitting ducks,” said Nicholas.

“Not the whole train,” said Peter. “Just the last car.”

“And use us as decoys!” exclaimed Eleanor. “Oh, how exciting!”

“You two” — the Mystery Man pointed at Nicholas and Eleanor — “hold these characters here. The rest of you, follow me!”

Pushing Rosemary ahead of them, Peter and Puck dashed along the corridors to the rear of the car. They pulled open the door to the next car and ran through that and through the one after that until they reached the end of the train.

At the entrance to the last car, they halted.

“We need to clear this car,” said the Mystery Man. “Fast.”

“I saw the murderer!” Peter shouted. “He went that way!” He pointed.

Heads poked out of the doors of the compartments. At the sight of Peter pointing, they stampeded into the
corridor. Puck and Rosemary barely managed to duck away in time.

The Mystery Man took out a key and opened a panel. “Once you lose the Zeppelins, try to follow the train. We were heading towards the next setting.”

“But then the Zeppelins will be between us and it,” said Rosemary. “How do we get past them?”

“Let me deal with that,” said Puck. “Your business is with the challenges.”

The car plunged into darkness as they entered the tunnel. Puck moved Peter and Rosemary into the car, while the Mystery Man held back.

“Challenges are never easy, Rosemary. But it is from challenges that heroes are born.” In the dying light, the Mystery Man pulled a lever. There was a rush of escaping air, and then the last car pulled back from the rest of the train, slowing steadily.

“Good luck, Miss Watson,” said the Mystery Man. “You will save your brother, Theo.” Then, bending the light from the corridor, he tipped his hat to them and waved.

Then the train pulled into the distance as the final car rolled to a stop.

“What now?” asked Rosemary.

“We walk,” said Puck.

FALLING ACTION

“
Y
ou heard the Wise Woman,” said Marjorie, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses further up on her nose. “Anything is possible if we put our minds to it.”

“Including jumping about the universe at a whim?” said John. “What do you take me for?”

“Just hold hands,” Marjorie ordered.

“This is silly,” said John, as Marjorie took Andrew’s and John’s hands into her own.

“Shh,” said Andrew. “It can’t hurt to try.”

“You just like holding my sister’s hand!”

There was a rushing of air. The world around them changed. Then there was a moment’s stunned silence.

“Marjorie,” said John, barely holding his voice steady.

“Oh dear,” squeaked Marjorie. “It really does work!”

***

“Rosemary, are you okay?”

Rosemary snapped out of her daydream. “Yeah.”

They trudged through the darkness of the tunnel, Rosemary stepping from tie to tie while Peter scuffed the rocks between the rails. As they came to the tunnel mouth, they crept close to the walls, keeping an eye on the sky, but there were no Zeppelins in view.

“I don’t like this.” Rosemary shivered. “They knew we were on that train.”