Door Number One
Mr. Today left the office to accompany Ms. Morning and Eva Fathom to the new Necessary hallway where Eva would be staying, giving Alex a few moments alone to recover, at least physically. By the time Mr. Today and Ms. Morning returned, Alex’s frozen face had thawed and he’d coaxed himself into letting the sting go away. After all, it was true, wasn’t it? Alex just didn’t have the drive to become leader of Artimé. Was there something to be ashamed of because of that? Alex didn’t think so. He sighed deeply and tried to relax in his chair, prepared to find out what he was supposed to do to help Mr. Today and Ms. Morning.
But when they returned, Mr. Today didn’t sit. “Come with me,” he said instead, and he turned abruptly, walking back out the door. He hastened up the mostly secret hallway to one of the two doors on the opposite wall. He paused dramatically as Alex and Ms. Morning caught up to him. “This isn’t quite as exciting for Ms. Morning as she’s been in here a time or two. But it’s a fascinating place, and I think you’ll enjoy it, Alex. I call it . . . the Museum of Large.”
It was a door Alex had often wondered about’one of four doors in this part of the secret hallway that he’d never seen opened, nor anyone entering or exiting. He assumed the two doors on the same side of the hallway as Mr. Today’s office were his private living quarters, which made sense when Alex remembered that Mr. Today had once come in through the back wall of the office. But the two on the kitchenette side of the hallway had remained a mystery until now.
All negative feelings forgotten, Alex watched eagerly as Mr. Today touched the handle and uttered a spell. “Door number one.” The door swung open with a low creak and Mr. Today stepped aside.
Alex walked into the dimly lit room, squinting to see. His footsteps sounded louder than life, as if the room went on for quite a long way, and he could hear things whirring and clicking, and what was possibly a distant waterfall or a fountain.
Ms. Morning and Mr. Today entered behind him and closed the door, and just as Alex’s eyes began to adjust, Mr. Today commanded light to appear. In an instant, torchlike lamps that were attached to the walls lit up one by one, chasing around the perimeter of what seemed like an endless room . . . or cave . . . or . . . Alex didn’t know a name for it. He sucked in a breath as his eyes leaped from one large item to the next.
“Go on then, have a look around for a few minutes,” Mr. Today said, chuckling. “You might not want to touch anything unless you’re absolutely sure of what it is.” Ms. Morning smiled, nearly as eager as Alex. It looked like a place where you could visit a hundred times and still never see everything.
Alex looked to his left along the wall. The length of it as far as he could see was covered in tall shelves. Books overflowed from them, some carelessly so, and none looked like they were in any particular order. There were giant maps and an enormous marble ball with etchings on it and a ring around it, floating on a bubbling fountain. In a way this part of the Museum of Large resembled the Artimé library, but this seemed more massive yet more intimate at the same time.
“What are all these books about?” Alex was secretly delighted to see them in such disarray. It felt very homey despite the vastness of this room. “And how is it possible that this room just goes on forever? It seems like it would bump into one of the other mansion hallways.”
“The books’many of them penned by me’are about a lot of things. There are also duplicates of most of them in the library. As for the room size, it’s magic like the lounge or the theater. It takes up no real physical space, which is why it doesn’t encompass the entire upper level of the mansion.”
Something looming to Alex’s right caught his eye and made the boy turn toward it, away from the books. He gasped. Just dozens of steps away was an enormous statue of an elephant-like creature so large that it nearly touched the ceiling. Alex had seen a picture of elephants in the library, but this one was ridiculously huge and had two long, sharp tusks along with a smaller pair that gleamed. Alex looked at Mr. Today. “Is it alive?” he whispered.
Mr. Today put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “No. Sadly I had to pull the magic from old Tater many years ago. He’s a mastodon statue’a prehistoric sort of elephant that I’d seen a picture of once. I thought he’d be useful in moving things around, but I never did get his mind quite right in the creating process. He grew to this size in a matter of days and soon became violent with the domestic creatures. So I sent him to live in the jungle for a while, but it didn’t suit him, and he began to destroy it’uprooting trees and wandering back to the lawn, scaring everyone. He grew quite beyond what I’d ever intended, and he was becoming vastly uncomfortable in his own skin, so to speak. And try as I might, there was nothing I could do to change his disposition. I had made a mistake, and the rest of Artimé was suffering for it.”
Mr. Today reached out to pet the beast. He was only tall enough to reach the creature’s knee, so he patted that. “It was a hard day, but in the end Tater requested it’he was incredibly unhappy, I could tell. Once the magic was gone from him I couldn’t bear to destroy him completely, so he lives on in here as a little reminder. He was the last statue I made’I just couldn’t stand to go through that again, so I stopped creating them.”
Ms. Morning gave her father’s hand a squeeze. He looked at her, his eyes the tiniest bit shiny with regret.
But Alex didn’t notice the sentimental exchange’his gaze had already alighted on something new, and his jaw dropped. Standing near the middle of the room, beyond an old refurbished Quillitary vehicle and a gray shack that looked eerily familiar, was an enormous pirate ship, tilted slightly to its port side. It had three masts with beautiful yet ominous-looking sails, and a deep brown wooden hull that shone as if it had been polished endlessly. Magnetized, Alex moved toward it. When he got close, he put his hands on the hull, running his fingers along the smooth wood. And then he cocked his head and stood very quiet for a long moment.
He turned to Mr. Today. “Do you hear that?”
Mr. Today smiled and touched the hull. “Yes. I’m not sure what causes it.”
“It’s whispering, like it’s coming from inside the boat.”
Mr. Today nodded. “It’s done that all along. I’ve never been able to understand what they’re saying. Can you?”
Alex shook his head.
Ms. Morning, who had followed Alex, approached. “I think they’re speaking in a different language,” she said. “I’ve tried to understand it but admittedly without luck as well. I meant to ask Siggy about a book on languages.”
Alex looked puzzled. “Languages? You mean, not what we speak? Like animal language or something?”
Mr. Today smiled. “When I was a boy, people spoke different languages depending on where they lived. They may still do so, I don’t know. I hope to find out.”
Alex looked back at the ship. “So . . . what is it for? Did you make it?”
“No, I didn’t actually make this. It washed up on the beach one day a few years ago’does that sound accurate, Claire?”
Ms. Morning pressed her lips together, thinking. “Yes, not more than five years ago, for sure.”
Mr. Today went on. “There were two pirates inside, but they were already dead’there was nothing any of us could do to save them. They wore the strangest things around their necks. . . .” Mr. Today trailed off, remembering.
“But how did you get it up here in the . . . the Museum of Large?” He liked the name, though he didn’t really know what a museum was, other than this.
Mr. Today snapped back to the present. “What? Oh, just magic,” he said. “The transport spell’do you know it?”
Alex shook his head.
“No component necessary, just envision the item in the place you want it to go. Like this.” He pulled a candy platyprot from his robe, plucked a tiny piece of lint off of it, closed his eyes, and whispered, “Transport.”
The candy disappeared, and a moment later Alex felt something in his hand. He grinned and looked a
t the bright yellow candy, blew on it, and then popped the tasty treat into his mouth. “Cool,” he said.
The candy in his mouth said a muffled, “Cool. Cool. Cool.”
“It doesn’t work with humans or living creatures, only objects,” Mr. Today added. “Small things transport quite perfectly, but large things can be quite tricky to place properly, so if you’re very particular about where you want something big to end up, you’re better off moving it yourself.”
“Why did you put the ship up here?”
“I was afraid our creatures would get hurt or trapped if I left it on the beach. And it was a tremendous eyesore. It was such a rotted mess, I wasn’t sure it could be saved. But I’ve fixed it up now, good as new. This is where I do a lot of my thinking.”
Ms. Morning nodded. “I remember when this washed up’it was in terrible shape! You’ve done so much with it. Are you planning to take this on your journey? I assumed you’d use the white boat.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Mr. Today said. “With a little magic I could handle this ship on my own. I’d have to change out the pirate flags for something more friendly-looking, of course.”
Alex knew a little about pirates from Mr. Appleblossom, who had singlehandedly performed (in double-time) all the major roles of a pirate musical during Actors’ Studio several weeks before. “I think you would make a great pirate,” Alex said.
“Why, thank you, Alex,” Mr. Today said. And then his eyes opened wide as if he just thought of something. “Have you noticed the whale yet?”
“Where?” Alex looked all around.
“On the other side of the ship.” Mr. Today ushered Alex around the ship to where the skeleton of a whale stood on display, put together perfectly. “This is also not of my own creation. It’s a real whale that landed on the beach and got stuck many, many years ago, when I was alone here. I couldn’t use transport magic to get it back in the water because, like I said, that spell doesn’t work on living creatures.
“Frantic, I tried everything I could think of to no avail,” Mr. Today said with a sigh. “I guess magicians can’t fix everything’at least this one couldn’t, especially back in the early days.” He scratched his head. “I might have been able to do something if it had happened now, though my healing spells still aren’t very strong. Healing has never been one of my gifts.” His voice was sad as he looked over the skeleton. “I stayed with it until the end. It was a hard moment, and it remains a difficult memory. I felt very helpless. I’d like to think the whale didn’t blame me.” He walked around to the mouth of the skeleton. “So very sorry about that,” he said in a soft voice, as if the whale could hear him.
Alex, though sensitive of Mr. Today’s feelings, couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering. He stared hard through the whale skeleton at something strange on the other side. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing. He ran around the other side and saw a giant, jagged piece of lightweight material with some yellow lettering on the side. There was a fanlike object attached to the front of it.
Mr. Today followed. “Oh, this! It came out of the sky one day,” he said, a smile playing at his lips.
Alex stared at Mr. Today. “From the sky? Weird.”
“Yes, it was very strange. It started out much larger, or so I’m told’Jim saw it, as did Simber and a few others. It fell into the water, quite far over the ocean. This piece washed ashore a day or two later.”
Alex looked at Mr. Today, but he had no words to express his wonderment at all the unusual things this room contained. He looked around at everything’the enormous library, the ship, the mastodon statue, the whale skeleton, and the countless other things yet to be explored’and he asked as politely as he knew how, “Mr. Today, why do you keep all of this amazing stuff locked up in here? Don’t you think others would like to see it?”
Mr. Today smiled and thought a moment before answering. “It seems a bit selfish of me, doesn’t it? Indeed, it does. But these things are either too breakable or too big to display elsewhere, or they are my personal treasures. These items make up my existence, Alex. Much of my life was spent alone, and these things are witnesses to it. The library tells my story, the mastodon my mistakes, the ship my discoveries and my abilities to make old things new without magic, and the whale . . . my limitations, I suppose.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “There are many other things in here, but perhaps we’ve seen enough for today.”
Mr. Today motioned toward the door and the three began walking. “I wanted you to see this for a reason. If while I’m away you need to know something about my past, please do check the library here. You’ll find history, magic, and mistakes galore. Do you remember the spell to get in?”
Alex thought back. “Door number one?” he asked.
“That’s correct. And I needn’t remind you to keep that to yourself. These things are precious to me. They are my treasures. I know you’ll protect them and care for them, won’t you?”
Alex nodded vehemently as they exited the room and pulled the door closed. “I’ll protect them with my life,” he said. And he meant it.
Cohorts
Day after day Aaron Stowe packed his book bag full of food early in the morning, snuck out of the Haluki house, and made it to the palace gate by sunrise. Each day after the first, he made friends with a few hungry Wanteds and told them to return the same day the following week. Each afternoon when he was finished with his work near the palace, he went to the Favored Farm to collect more food.
On Monday of his second week, a figure was waiting for him. Once he realized it wasn’t someone out to harm him, Aaron smirked to himself’his plan was working. He approached and recognized the figure as the elderly woman he’d met his first day at the gate.
“Greetings,” Aaron said. “I’m glad to see you back. Have you a need for more food? I’ve brought you some like I promised.”
“Aaron Stowe’isn’t that your name?” the woman asked. She looked at him with an air of suspicion.
Aaron’s eyes flickered. “I can’t deny it. I was the assistant secretary to the High Priest Justine until her assassination. Then I was ousted from the palace despite my abilities to improve Quill, and now I struggle to get by like everyone. May I ask yours?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Gondoleery Rattrapp.” She emphasized the second syllable of her last name quite forcefully, so that it sounded like “ruh-TRAP.” “I’m one of the original founders of Quill,” she said importantly. “And a bitter enemy of Artimé.”
“Well met, Mrs. Rattrapp,” Aaron said, hiding his shock at her boldness of speech, and offering a hand. When Gondoleery held out her hand in return, Aaron took it and bowed over it as if she were the high priest, which left the woman speechless for a moment.
“Gondoleery, please,” she said when her voice returned to her.
Aaron smiled at her and rummaged through his bag. “Gondoleery, and you must call me Aaron. And now that we are friends, perhaps you’d like breakfast. I have some fresh fruit today and some peanuts.”
Gondoleery eagerly accepted the food, and at the sight of it, a handful of passing strangers, including a few more familiar faces, approached. Aaron reached into his bag methodically and doled out food items one at a time to keep the suspense high, but kept his attention focused on Gondoleery.
The old woman ate a few bites and then spoke. “I came to talk to you about what you said last week’about your ideas. I doubt you’ve heard, but that fink Marcus Today informed the six remaining founders of Quill that he stole our early memories from us decades ago. Now he’s supposedly sorry and he gave them back. So . . . I know everything.”
Aaron couldn’t hide his surprise. “What are you talking about?” The crowd around them grew.
Gondoleery continued. “Back when we all made our new society in Quill, we came from other places, all of us. Other islands, other communities.”
Aaron had to hold in his disbelief. Other islands?
“Justine and Marcus traveled around’they both
had long hair back then, and those ridiculous robes, which were actually more like ponchos . . .” She trailed off for a minute, lost in thought. “Anyway, they traveled around letting people know about the dangers of the world that would soon come to pass, and they offered us this wonderful opportunity for a safe and perfect society. I, being not quite twenty, jumped at the chance. What an adventure, I thought.” She scowled at her wrinkled hands. “And after some time here, while we built the protective wall around our society, Marcus Today enacted his insidious plan. He stole our memories and brainwashed us into believing that we were surrounded by enemies.”
Aaron, having lost all sense of decorum, could only stare. “He did that to you? Wait. Are you saying that he brainwashed the High Priest Justine as well?”
“He must have stolen her memory too,” said Gondoleery. “She would never have lied to us’she was a good woman. She was my leader, and Marcus Today has robbed us all.”
A fearful, thrilling sort of feeling pierced through Aaron’s stomach as he worked his mind quickly over this surprising statement. What could it all mean? Ah, but he knew it was ammunition he needed, and quite possibly his ticket to the palace. He needed to organize his thoughts and get his plan right from the first moment in order to build his team of followers.
As pressure built from the whispering group around them, Aaron thought for a moment longer. He composed himself, gazing off into the distance as if this weren’t the most important conversation of his entire life, one that his entire success hinged upon. And then he nodded slowly. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “This is what I have discovered as well. Mr. Today has fooled us all. Look around!” He made eye contact with each person surrounding him. “Look at us! We have been completely duped by Marcus Today since the beginning of Quill, fooled by a deranged man who lives in a mansion and eats all he wants, and never needs or wants for anything. He has handpicked his constituents over time, deceiving his own twin sister into believing she was the supreme ruler. And then he caused her death when she’and I’,” he added, “discovered his lies, so that these secrets would go to the grave with her.”