“Like some kind of test?” Peter said.
“The word ‘test’ makes me think of school.” The professor shuddered slightly. “But suffice to say, you passed with flying colors. I should note that we put some very thorny locks on that carriage, ones that have baffled scholars for centuries. I am pleased to see they were no match for your talents.”
Peter was confused. “You wanted me to steal the eyes?”
“Of course, my child! I made them just for you . . . and let me say it was no small effort.”
Just for him. Peter took the box into his lap and opened it. He ran his fingers over the contents.
“Three sets of eyes: gold, onyx, and emerald.” There was a hint of pride in the old man’s voice. “Hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of removing the gold pair from your sockets while you were asleep—couldn’t run the risk of you disappearing on us, could we?”
Peter still didn’t understand. “Professor, I don’t think the eyes work. When I put the gold ones in, I couldn’t see a thing.” He touched the bandage around his head, imagining what it would be like to never need it again.
“They worked fine, thank you very much. I daresay they’re the reason you’re sitting here right now.” He read confusion on the boy’s face. “Peter, these are no ordinary eyes. These are Fantastic Eyes.”
The words sent a tremor along Peter’s spine. “What does that mean?” he said.
“It means they do fantastic things, of course! Those gold ones, for example, instantly transported you to the last place they beheld: my island. That was my rather clever way of getting you here.”
“What if I put them back in again?”
The professor considered this, stroking his beard. “Well, the last place you had them out was in this very room, so I suppose they’d take you here. I should warn you, though. This particular pair can get you in a lot of trouble if you’re not careful—so don’t go putting them in unless you really mean it.”
Peter was having trouble keeping up. Every answer the old man gave only made him want to ask another question. “So, you’re telling me it was the eyes that made me appear in the water?”
“The Troublesome Lake,” the professor corrected. “I couldn’t think of a softer place for you to land. I assumed you could swim, seeing as how you grew up in a port town. Evidently I was mistaken. Sorry about that—I hadn’t expected the Troublesome Lake to be quite so . . . troublesome.” Professor Cake, like most brilliant men, couldn’t resist a good play on words from time to time.
Peter’s next question—one of dozens—was interrupted by a shout from outside. “Gentlemen, your supper is getting cold!” It was Mr. Pound, leaning from a rope-bridge, wearing a smoldered apron. “I should add that if you don’t join us immediately, Sir Tode has threatened to eat your portions!”
“I said no such thing,” the knight protested, licking what smelled like pancake batter from his mustache.
Peter jumped to his feet. “Sir Tode!” All this talk about Fantastic Eyes had made him completely forget about his fellow traveler. “I’m surprised you didn’t get marauded without me,” he said, smiling.
“Very funny! If I recall, you were the one afraid of being left alone out there. It would have been cruel of me to abandon a helpless blind boy.”
“The same helpless blind boy who saved you from drowning?”
Sir Tode gave a low growl. “Perhaps I should have stuffed you into that sack?”
“You’d have to catch me first!” Peter was not expecting his challenge to be taken up literally, but no sooner had he spoken than the knight pounced from the rope-bridge and knocked him to the floor. Mulled tea splashed all over the tree house, and within seconds the two of them were wrestling across the deck, trading insults, jabs, and gibes.
Mr. Pound joined Professor Cake, who was watching the fight with keen interest. “You probably hoped they might be getting on a bit better, eh, sir?” he said.
The old man chuckled. “Heavens no, Mr. Pound. This is far preferable. I don’t think I could have planned it better myself.”
Being wise, Professor Cake knew that any relationship not beginning with a punch or two would most assuredly fade over time: it is a well-known fact that brawling begets friendship. Already Peter and Sir Tode were planting seeds of mutual respect that might one day blossom into something far greater—a friendship to rival the stuff of legends.
The evenings on that island were happy ones for Peter, perhaps the first in his life. He was clothed, fed, and cared for in a way he had never before known. He kept the box of Fantastic Eyes with him at all times. The boy was tempted more than once to try them on, but he resisted for fear that they might spirit him away from this blissful place.
Most nights, Mr. Pound tended to dinner and the garden while the professor whittled the hours away in his workshop, a rickety turret stacked to the eaves with books and empty glass bottles. Meanwhile, Peter and Sir Tode were given free rein to explore every last inch of the grounds. The pair spent countless hours catching insects and digging in the mushroom orchard—all the while becoming more and more dependent on each other. Each time Peter encountered something that smelled, sounded, or tasted strange, he would ask Sir Tode to describe it.
“It appears to be a large painting draped over some poles like a tent,” the knight remarked upon finding one such artifact just off the path.
“A painting of what?” Peter asked.
“Stars and planets, mostly. With little lines and numerals going back and forth across the whole thing. Hello, I think there’s something moving underneath . . .” The knight pushed his snout between the cobalt folds.
“Ah! I see you’ve found my Gazing Mat!” Professor Cake looked up from the nearby stable, where he was feeding tomato soup to his zebras. “A wonderful trinket. It helps me keep an eye on things. Be careful poking around there—you might never get back out.”
Sir Tode scoffed. “Nonsense. It’s just a harmless—Ahhh!” He suddenly leapt away from the mat, tripping backward and tumbling into a shallow stream. “I—I thought I saw . . . something,” he muttered, shaking himself dry.
The professor approached and offered him a towel. “I don’t doubt it. There are all sorts of ‘somethings’ in that canvas. And if I look close enough,” he said, turning to Peter, “I can even see the port town where you grew up. The shops you burgled. The basement you slept in.”
It took a moment for Peter to understand the meaning of the man’s words. “You’ve been watching me?” he said.
“You and many others,” the professor said, moving past the stables. “Walk with me, child. It is time we speak of why I brought you here.”
Professor Cake led Peter down a path that followed the shoreline. Gentle waves lapped against the boy’s bare feet, mixing salt into the cinnamon air. “These waters, they don’t smell like the ocean back home,” he said.
The old man smiled to himself, clearly impressed by the observation. “That’s because it isn’t the ocean back home.” He steered Peter in the direction of a small inlet. “Your port waters are up ahead there, just a few yards past the pear brambles.” Peter concentrated, and he could indeed detect a change in the breeze—something about it really did smell familiar. “The fact is, at this isle meet all the waters of the world, many of them from seas far beyond the reach of your ships,” the professor explained.
Peter wondered if these distant seas led to the magical lands that the Haberdasher had described in his patter.
“The world is filled with uncharted waters,” the professor said, perceiving the question. “And the farther out you sail, the deeper and more enchanted they become.”
“Enchanted waters? Is that where Sir Tode comes from?” Peter asked. He could hear the knight off in the meadow, battling a swarm of fireflies. (“Give up now, you infernal sprites!”)
Professor Cake listened with him and chuckled. “I understand why you’d think that. But no, Sir Tode is from your world . . . only not as it stands today. He w
as born back when your shores were riddled with possibilities—dragons, hags, whatnot. That was before reason took hold.” His voice became sadder. “Now Sir Tode is all that remains. A relic of a bygone age.”
The old man turned from the shore and led Peter inland. They walked along a stream that—like countless others—flowed toward the center of the island. “No matter its birthplace, every sea in the world eventually dies here: at the Troublesome Lake.”
The two of them were now standing at the grassy edge of the basin. Over the rush of water Peter could hear the gentle tink-tinking of innumerable bottles. The sound filled the air with a soft, almost mournful song. “Professor?” he said after a moment. “Why do you call it the Troublesome Lake?”
“Because every one of those bottles is filled with troubles. When people need rescue—be it from starvation or madness or heartbreak—they often seal a note in a bottle and cast it out to sea in the hope that someone will find it and help them.”
“Does it work?”
“Rarely, I’m afraid. Usually the bottles float for years, arriving here long after they can do any good.” The professor took a long butterfly net propped against a nearby tree and reached down into the basin. He fished out a bottle from the water and read the message inside:
Shipwrecked. Dying of thirst.
Please send water at once.
The old man sighed, removing his spectacles. “Poor fellow. He’s probably a pile of dust by now.” He observed a moment of silence for the thirsty man.
“That must be hard,” Peter said. “Hearing all those troubles and not being able to help.”
“It is. But every person, both great and small, is asked to do difficult things—and this is the difficult thing that I must do.” He dabbed his wizened eyes with a handkerchief and replaced his spectacles. “Yet occasionally I come across a message where there’s still time. When that happens, I do my best to help. That’s why I called you here, Peter Nimble.”
The boy feared that Professor Cake had him confused with someone else. “But I didn’t write a note,” he said. “I don’t even know how to write.”
The old man reached into his vest pocket and removed a small green bottle. Inside was a tiny scrap of paper. “A while back, I came across a very special message, written by someone in great need.”
“Can you help whoever wrote it?” Peter said.
The professor leaned down and pressed the bottle into Peter’s hand. “I just did.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE VANISHED KINGDOM
Mr. Pound hummed over the stove, mulling a fresh pot of sweet tea. Peter sat at the table behind him, deep in thought. He had encountered so much in recent days—magical eyes, enchanted knights, and now this. The boy didn’t yet trust Professor Cake, but this was one of the only times in his life that an adult had treated him with true kindness, and that alone was enough to make him listen. Still, he was afraid of what might be waiting inside the tiny bottle.
“Oh, uncork the thing, already!” Sir Tode, who sat beside him, took the bottle in his teeth. With some struggling, he removed the stopper and shook the message free. “It appears to be a riddle of some sort,” he said, smoothing out the paper with two hooves.
“Can you read it to me?” Peter asked.
Sir Tode squinted at the faded scrawl:
Kings aplenty, princes few,
The ravens scattered and seas withdrew.
Only a stranger may bring relief,
But darkness will reign, unless he’s—
“Oh, blast,” he said. “The last bit’s smudged. I can’t make it out.”
Mr. Pound appeared behind them to refill their mugs. “The notes we get usually don’t rhyme so well. This one must have been written by a poet, or a troubadour. When the professor found it, he thought of you immediately, Peter.”
“Whatever it is, it sounds terribly exciting,” the knight said.
“And terribly confusing,” the boy added.
“Right on both counts!” Professor Cake creaked down the workshop stairs. He pulled an armchair next to Peter and joined them at the table. “The second line of that note leads me to believe that this bottle came from the Vanished Kingdom.”
“The what?” Peter said.
Professor Cake leaned back in his chair and lit the bowl of his briar pipe. “Many years ago, there was a land surrounded by ancient seas. The soil was dry and unforgiving, but also full of magic. It is said that the people there lived in harmony with the beasts, who could think and speak like men. Together they constructed a spectacular palace—a walled paradise of unparalleled beauty. It took them years to build. And then, on the eve of its completion, the whole place . . . vanished. Disappeared completely.” He leaned back, tamping the ash in his pipe.
Peter and Sir Tode waited for more information, but none came. “That’s it?” the knight said, somewhat frustrated. “That’s the whole story?”
“It’s as much as I know,” Professor Cake answered. “Of course, disappearing lands aren’t all that uncommon—my own island, for example, is fairly well hidden—but the real question is why did the kingdom vanish, and what’s happened to it since?”
Peter was confused at hearing two adults discuss impossible things as though they were everyday occurrences. “Don’t you think there’s a simpler explanation?” he said, thinking of a rule he had once overheard about how the easiest explanation was usually the right one. “Maybe the sailors just got turned around? Or someone marked the kingdom down wrong on the map?”
“Do not confuse simple with simpleminded,” the professor said. “A boy your age should know better than to consider anything impossible.” He rose from his seat and went to the cupboard. Inside he found a long roll of paper, which he brought back to the table and unrolled for Peter. “I had Mr. Pound purchase this map while visiting your hometown,” he said, placing a mug on each corner to keep it from curling up. “It contains every speck of land your mapmakers have ever seen.”
Peter lowered his head over the parchment, taking in its musty odor. “I know this map,” he said with a trace of a grin. “I stole it from the town museum last month, and Mr. Seamus sold it to Uncle Knick-Knack’s Pawn Shop.” He placed his fingers on the map, feeling where the ink had formed tiny ridges on its surface. Peter could trace the various seas and rivers that divided the land. Having the whole world reduced to a few squiggly lines made him sad, somehow. He stopped at a speck of ink near the middle of the page. “That’s my port, isn’t it?” he said softly.
“It is,” the professor answered. “Only made smaller in every way. Maps have a way of doing that.” He took the boy’s hands in his own and moved them to the far edge of the paper. “What do you feel now?”
Peter ran his fingers over the smooth surface. “I don’t feel anything,” he said. “It’s blank.”
“Not blank. Undiscovered. Out there lie wonders beyond anything your merchants and sailors have ever dreamed of. Impossible worlds waiting to be explored.”
These words filled Peter with a sharp longing, like the feeling that came over him every time he found a lock. The map was telling him where he couldn’t go—and Peter wanted to prove it wrong. “So you think the message came from somewhere out there?” he said. “Is that where the Vanished Kingdom is?”
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” Professor Cake said.
Peter took the note from inside, turning it over in his fingers. “What about the rest of the riddle? All that stuff about kings, and darkness, and . . . ravens?”
The old man lowered his pipe, releasing its smoke in a perfect globe. “Those things are for you to discover. All I know is that the author of this message needs someone to seek them out and save them. I think that person is you.”
“A real, live quest,” Sir Tode said, his voice full of yearning. “Just like the old days.”
Much as Peter wanted to share the knight’s enthusiasm, he couldn’t. “Why would they need me?” he said to the professor. “Shouldn’t you g
o help them? Or Mr. Pound?”
“Mr. Pound will be detained on other business. As for myself, I’m not much for travel. I’m afraid it has to be you, Peter.”
“But I’m just a kid,” he insisted. “I’m small. And I’m blind—”
Professor Cake cut him off. “Not anymore you aren’t.” He reached over and scratched Sir Tode behind his horsy ears. “Sir Tode will be your eyes. That is, of course, if he’s willing to join you on your quest?”
The knight nearly fell from his stool. “Me?” he said, hardly daring to believe it. “Well . . . if you need someone, I suppose I might be persuaded.”
“Then we’re settled,” the professor said.
Peter stood up from the table. “Nothing’s settled!” he said with surprising force. He could feel a kind of anger building within him—the kind born from shame. The old man remained still and waited for him to finish. “You said it yourself, Professor, the person who wrote that note needs a hero—someone noble and good.” He slumped back into his seat. “I’m just a criminal.”
“So what if you are?” the professor replied flatly. “How many well-behaved boys would have made it this far? Would they have broken into that carriage? Would they have battled that gang of bullies? Yes, you’ve broken a few laws, but there’s one law to which you’ve always remained true.” Peter heard this and somehow knew exactly what the man was talking about—it was that stirring inside him that had made him help the zebra. Professor Cake went on, “In my experience, heroes are no more good than you or I. And though occasionally noble, they are just as often cunning, resourceful, and a little brash. Who better fits that description than the great Peter Nimble?”
Now, just because you and I are well aware that Peter Nimble was a great thief does not mean that Peter himself knew. Being raised by someone as nasty as Mr. Seamus, he had never actually received a compliment in his lifetime—unless you count being called a “great nuisance” or “the world’s biggest maggot” as compliments. For Peter, being told he was anything more than nothing was something of a shock.