“Are you going to do it?” Kate asked.
I kept hearing Whitey’s voice in my head.
“Seven days.”
I figured at least two of those seven days had already passed so I changed the voice in my head to say, “Five days.”
I had no time to waste. I walked to the center of the massive room and up to one of the wicked-looking plants growing out of the ground. I looked at the stone in my hand and made a wish. I knew it wasn’t a wishing stone, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I bent over and placed the rock on the soil.
I stood up and turned to look at Kate.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, more, I think, out of complete uncertainty than boredom.
I looked back at the stone. It sank slowly into the soil a couple of inches, and the plant beside it was still. I gazed directly at the small plant and did what I knew I had to do.
“Grow,” I commanded it.
Almost instantly the plant began to shiver. Its leaves shook, and a small black shoot shot out of the middle like a serpent’s tongue. It twisted up then arched itself down into the dirt. Two seconds later it popped up next to the stone and quickly wrapped itself around it. The stone glowed for a moment as the shoot thickened and covered the entire rock. The plant settled and seemed to exhale.
“Creepy,” Wyatt whispered. “What now?”
“We wait.”
We walked away from the plant, and all three of us took some time looking through crates and then checking out the cave. Eventually we all ended up in the train.
“This train could work again,” I said excitedly.
“There are trees growing in the track,” Kate reminded us.
“Still, we could at least start it up.”
Wyatt agreed with me, but Kate never saw the logic. By the time we left the cave, the sun was just beginning to slide down. The sunset was as spectacular as any I had ever seen above Kingsplot, and it almost seemed that for that moment nothing could go wrong.
It’s funny how moments like that don’t last very long.
Illustration from page 22 of The Grim Knot
CHAPTER 12
Life Is Pretty Real
I’m not a complete fool. I mean I know I was wrong for blowing up that weather balloon and destroying the shop shed. Yet for some reason, I expected more of a welcome return when I stepped off of the school bus and onto the Callowbrow campus for the first time since the incident. After I had killed the dragons, everyone had treated me like a hero. Now, they all just ignored me, except for one of the older boys who nailed me on the side of my head with a donut.
“Just ignore him,” Kate said as we both walked to the front doors. “He’s just mad that he has to take ballroom dance now instead of shop.”
“I don’t blame him,” I said while wiping frosting off of my face. “I’d wanna beat myself up too.”
We walked through the front doors and split up. A short girl who was a couple of years younger than me stuck her tongue out and stared at me as I put things into my locker.
I finally said. “Your tongue’s going to dry out.”
“You broke my finger,” she replied angrily.
“Sorry.”
“A part of the shed you blew up hit my finger and broke it.”
“Still sorry,” I added.
“I can’t make it go straight,” she complained, holding up her right hand to show me that her middle finger was in a splint. “I have to write with my left hand.”
“I’m no longer sorry,” I told her, closing my locker and walking away.
First period was Professor Squall’s class. He was an older guy with thick hair and bushy eyebrows, one of which was higher than the other and gave him a look of constant suspicion. He had a tiny button nose and was wearing a tweed jacket. He and I were a lot friendlier ever since I had found out that he was once engaged to Francine, the woman who had raised me.
“Beck,” he said coldly as he came into class. “Glad to see you’re feeling well. There’s a lot of work you’ll need to catch up on. What say we meet after class?”
I tried to look excited.
Wyatt came in and took a seat next to me. “Finally,” he said. “This looks right. It’s been pretty boring here without you.”
“Thanks,” I said sincerely, happy that someone was being nice to me. “Everyone’s pretty upset with me.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Whatever, wait ’til that new dragon you planted grows,” he whispered. “Then they’ll really hate you.”
Professor Squall taught us about simple machinery. He went on and on about ropes and mechanisms and how pulling something one way can lift and pull things another way. He then assigned us a bunch of homework and challenged us to make our own pulley or simple machine. He excused everybody except me.
“Beck,” he said loudly. “Remember, I need to see you.”
“Good luck,” Wyatt laughed, grabbing his books and slipping out.
As soon as everyone was gone, Professor Squall walked up the stairs and told me to follow. I did so, and soon we were in his office with the door closed.
“Have a seat, Beck.”
I sat down in a wooden chair in front of his messy desk. He sat down in a padded leather one behind it.
“Simple machinery is fascinating, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Can’t wait to make my own pulley,” I replied.
“Excellent. You know I was tempted to come and visit you in the hospital,” he smiled.
“Tempted?” I asked, thinking it was a weird word to use.
“Let’s just say I didn’t want to bump into your father.”
I laughed. “There was no chance of that happening.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I answered.
“Still a little scraped up, I see.”
The wounds from the plant attack were almost gone, but there were still some traces of them on my arms and forehead. “Just a little.”
“The school’s asked me to talk with you,” he said uncomfortably. “There are more than a few people concerned about things.”
“I forget, how many is a few?”
Professor Squall didn’t laugh.
“You know tearing apart the shed was not a good idea,” he said sternly.
“For the record, I didn’t mean to tear it apart,” I argued. “I thought it was just a big ball. I’m really sorry.”
“That almost sounds sincere,” he replied.
I wanted to get mad at him for not taking me seriously, but I knew that it was my own fault that I had such a rotten reputation.
“Beck, you’ve acted foolishly,” Professor Squall said. “Your family still has a tremendous amount of pull around here. It’s no secret how much wealth your father has, despite the amount of land he had to sell off and restitution he had to make to fix what happened. You can’t afford to mess up any further. Do you understand?”
“Some things,” I answered honestly.
Professor Squall sighed. “Please keep your nose clean.”
I was suddenly self-conscious about my nostrils.
“There’s a limit to what people can tolerate,” he added. “One more strike and you might very well find yourself in water that’s too hot to swim in.”
“Like a hot tub?”
“Beck,” he scolded.
“I’ll be careful,” I said wiping at my nose.
“Just act like a normal boy,” he suggested. “I understand what it feels like to rebel, but find a better outlet—play stickball, whistle at girls . . . I don’t know, chew gum in the bathroom.”
He really didn’t know what it was like to be a rebel.
“Is that it?” I asked as the bell rang for the next hour.
“One more thing,” he said. “A man was by to see you.”
“A white man?” I asked excitedly.
Professor Squall looked confused. “I suppose he was white.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked a lot of questions about you. I think he wants to write an article about how you are now.”
“Oh,” I said disappointed. “Was he a reporter?”
Professor Squall nodded.
“That’s not the white man I was talking about,” I sighed. “If that reporter comes around again, don’t tell him anything.”
“Of course,” Professor Squall said. “Besides, I already told him everything I knew.”
I put my head in my hands.
“Just be careful,” he continued. “Reporters have a way of taking what you say and twisting it around.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you told him everything.” My neck was burning. “Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
“I don’t believe this.”
“You should. This is real life, Beck,” he whispered fiercely. “There’s no more playing around. Do you understand?”
I shook my head. “Got it.”
“Go on,” Professor Squall said. “I’ll write you a slip to excuse the tardy.”
“Good,” I smiled. “Because I think I’m going to go chew some gum in the bathroom.”
“Did you not hear a word I said?” he asked.
“But, you told me to whistle at girls and stuff.”
“You are hopeless,” he grumbled as he scribbled out a tardy slip for my next class, “absolutely hopeless.”
I stood up, walked off, and wished that I lived in a world where the things adults said made sense to me.
Illustration from page 25 of The Grim Knot
CHAPTER 13
Father to Son
Kate and I checked on the stone almost every day. My legs were getting much stronger due to climbing so many stairs. We had thoroughly investigated the two big caverns, but we had not opened the tunnel door back up. Occasionally a swarm of moths would come in through the moss opening, but never enough to worry us.
I don’t know what it was, but for some reason I loved cleaning the cavern. It was torture for me to have to make my bed back in the manor, but in the cavern I was constantly polishing the train, organizing boxes, and straightening things up. I loved to climb up on the platform that was over the train and look down through the steel grates. I liked looking directly into the smokestack and walking the length of the engine from above.
The stone I had planted had completely disappeared into a leafy cocoon and the cocoon was growing bigger every day.
Kate, Wyatt, and I had debated over whether Whitey had meant the stone would hatch in seven days or if he meant that it had needed to be planted in seven days. But after eight days and it still hadn’t hatched we figured he meant planted. We liked to sit around the cocoon and listen to it gurgle while talking about how we had saved the world by planting it in time.
“I guess we avoided a catastrophe,” I said proudly.
“Maybe,” Kate said. “I’m more worried about the catastrophe that will happen when it hatches.”
“So what was it like?” Wyatt asked. “I mean you guys took care of those dragons before they messed up Kingsplot.”
“Those were kind of cool days,” I admitted. “I never had too many friends back home so it was nice to just hang out with Kate and Milo and witness dragons growing up.”
“It was pretty weird and unbelievable,” Kate added. “Almost surreal.”
“And you never suspected Milo wasn’t Milo?”
“Nope,” Kate and I said in unison.
“You had names for the dragons, didn’t you?” Wyatt asked.
We both nodded.
“So what about this one?” he asked. “It’s a girl, right? So, we should probably think up a name.”
We were all silent for a moment as we thought.
“I like the name Kara,” Wyatt suggested.
We both just stared at him.
“What?” he said insecurely.
“Like the Kara at our school?” I asked.
“There’s a Kara at our school?”
“Yeah, you know, the one you’re always talking about,” Kate reminded him. “The one you sent a present to on her birthday.”
“Her name’s Kara?” Wyatt questioned innocently.
“You have it written all over your folders,” I reminded him.
“And you made that song up,” Kate added. “What was it called, ‘Kara Time’?”
Wyatt was good and red in the face now. “Oh yeah, I remember now. I think her name is Kara.”
“You’re so pathetic,” I said.
“So, then what would you name it?” Wyatt asked.
“How about ‘Kate’?” I suggested.
Kate shook her head. “I can’t believe I like you.”
“What? I’ve always thought that was a great name,” I said defensively. “It means pure.”
“How do you know what it means?” she asked.
“I might have accidentally looked it up.”
“And you say I’m pathetic?” Wyatt argued.
I thought Kate was going to make fun of me some more but instead she leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder. I’m pretty confident I will never understand girls.
As we exited the cave, I took a moment to stand on the top of the stone stairway and look out from between the trees. Clouds were spreading over the blue sky making it look like Mother Nature was pulling up a big white comforter. I could see way down into the valley where Kingsplot sat surrounded by blue lakes and deep green trees. I gazed at the manor. The copper dome on top looked gold under the new clouds. I couldn’t see too clearly because of the distance, but I thought I saw a shadow moving around in the dome.
“I think my dad’s back,” I said excitedly. “Look.”
Wyatt looked around confused.
“No, down on top of the manor.”
I didn’t wait around to see if they understood me. Instead I started down the stairs as fast as I could. I needed to talk to my dad.
“What’re you doing?” Kate asked as she jogged down the stairs behind me.
“I gotta talk to my dad,” I huffed. “Have Wyatt take you home.”
“I don’t need anyone to take me home,” she said bothered and considerably less out of breath than me.
Kate passed me on the stairs and took off. I tried to keep up, but I wanted her to feel good about herself so I let her get way out in front of me. When I reached the bottom of the stone stairs she was so far ahead of me that I could no longer see her. I felt bad, but at least Wyatt was still behind me.
I took a few moments to rest near the scratchy bush, allowing Wyatt to catch up to me. His breathing was way more labored than mine.
“What the heck,” he gasped. “Why couldn’t you have found a secret cave with an escalator?”
The two of us half-jogged and half-walked as fast as we could to the back of the garage house. From there Wyatt took off, and I ran to the manor. Millie was in the kitchen humming and making some sort of pastry.
“Is that strudel?” I asked happily.
Millie nodded—strudel was my father’s favorite dessert.
“So he’s home?”
“Up where he should be,” Millie smiled. “He rang me earlier.”
I took the seven flights of stairs as quickly as I could. By the time I got to the door leading into the dome I was exhausted. I knocked, pushed open the door, and climbed in. My father was looking through his telescope toward the valley.
“Dad!”
“Beck,” he said, without looking away from the telescope. “It was such a clear day. I could see the large cathedral down in Kingsplot, but the clouds are back now.”
“That’s lovely,” I said, annoyed. “Where were you?”
“Not important,” he replied, finally turning from the telescope.
“I’ve needed to talk to you,” I informed him. “I don’t know if you remember this, but you have a son.”
Aeron shifted and looked me directly in the eyes. His face looked tire
d and drawn. He tried to smile and then waved as if that would have to do for now.
“Sorry,” he said exhaling. “I still have no idea how to act like a father.”
“Or a normal person,” I helped him. “Normal people don’t hide themselves away and then leave a note when they take off for days without giving more information.”
“Which one of us is the dad?” my father asked. “You might be a loose bolt, but sometimes you amaze me.”
There was a compliment in there somewhere, and I liked it.
“That man came back,” I told him.
“Who came back?” my dad asked anxiously.
“Whitey,” I clarified. “Did you know there are secret passages in the manor?”
“What are you talking about?”
I told my father everything I could possibly remember about Mr. Ashen. I told him about the secret passageway and the slide and the painting that looked out.
“Just like in the movies,” I said excitedly.
I told him about how I only had seven days and how the trees had been picking on me. I went into depth about finding the railroad tracks that led right into the garage house, and I gave him the lowdown on the cave.
“So that’s why I hate moths now,” I said.
“I suppose I don’t blame you,” my father replied. I could see from the storm in his eyes that he was trying to digest all the things I had just told him.
“I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted. “You were gone and Whitey was so insistent that I acted quickly.”
My father just stood there.
“Do you know him?” I asked. “Should we trust him?”