Eva hustled Jamie out of the shop and up the hill. One firm hand on his back maneuvered him past the library, general store, tavern, town hall, and various shops. Bloom, the blond boy, faded away pretty quickly, melting into the disassembling crowd somehow. Jamie didn’t even see him leave. People had dispersed into smaller groups and were still chatting among themselves. Bloom must have been in one of those.
Jamie wished he could have taken another cupcake with him.
Halfway up the hill, the businesses became houses. White and rainbow picket fences dotted the yards. Paint shone brightly in all sorts of colors on the houses’ exterior walls. Beyond the houses were woods on one side and a field on the other. Jamie could smell the clam flats of low tide. Eva kept mumbling as they walked.
“I can’t believe I just lost you like that … Way too easily distracted. My dad, he says, ‘Pay more attention, Eva … You have the attention span of an egret, Eva.’ I am not an egret! I am a hero girl … blah … blah …” She grumbled like this while adjusting her pigtails, only taking the occasional break in her ranting to urge Jamie forward.
“I know you’re trying to take everything in and all that baloney, but you are the slowest walker in the universe,” she told him as they scurried past the cemetery. “Seriously. Your legs are twice as long as mine.”
“I just—” Jamie stopped and stood still.
“What is it? You’re acting like a bigfoot that just saw a dragon.” Eva motioned for him to hurry along. He did. But as he walked, he felt a peculiar, prickly feeling that came with being watched. He shrugged it off.
Finally, after walking and walking and walking some more, Jamie and Eva reached Aquarius House, which was surrounded by a stone wall. A wooden gate opened the way to the actual house. Eleven wooden slats with gaps between them curved upward and framed the flagstone walkway to the large gray house’s circular porch. The gate swung open as they approached, and they walked down the path to a white staircase with eleven steps that led up to the porch where Annie threw her arms around the pair of them.
When Annie was done squeezing the life out of him, Miss Cornelia reached out her hand. “You are quite the surprise, Mr. Jamie Alexander. It is nice to meet you. I can see by the frosting on your cheek that you’ve been to Helena’s. I bet you’re still hungry, though. Are you?”
Her voice was kind but commanding. He didn’t know quite what to think of it. He shot a glance at Annie, who gave him the signal to say ‘yes.’ Whatever was happening to them, it seemed they were in it together. Jamie admitted he was hungry.
The old woman clapped her hands merrily. “Good! Good! Eva, thank you so much for retrieving them. You are quite the hero of a dwarf today, I would say. Your parents should be proud.”
Eva puffed up at the compliment.
“Yes, thank you for rescuing me, Eva.” Annie’s smile softened her face.
Jamie chimed in, “Yeah. Thanks, Eva.”
“Anytime you need rescuing, you ask for me, Eva Beryl-Axe. Got it? Good.” She straightened her pigtails and started to go. She stopped and then yelled over her shoulder. “Not Bloom. Me! I am much better at rescuing. He hasn’t saved anyone yet.”
The threesome all nodded vigorously and yelled good-bye to Eva’s small, broad back as it retreated down the hill.
“It’s a good-natured rivalry. I am positive Bloom will do a good deal of rescuing someday, once he has the chance. It is in his blood,” Miss Cornelia explained. “Now, welcome to your new home.”
“It feels oddly … It feels … familiar?” Annie’s voice rose on the last word. She chewed on the corner of her lip. “That makes no sense, does it?”
“Things don’t have to be understood to make sense,” Miss Cornelia answered cryptically. “Am I right, children?”
They didn’t know how else to answer, so they both said the same word. “Right.”
13
Aquarius House
The massive red door swung open, pulled by dozens of fairies or pixies, maybe? Annie didn’t know what to call the small, beautiful beings. Inside the foyer, a massive winding staircase seemed to be supported by nothing, and beneath it rested a gold fountain that looked like a South American waterfall and led to a pool filled with splashing fish. A tiger peeked through the branches of a wide-leaved tropical plant.
Jamie blinked the scene away with a shake of his head. Unreal. The air in the room hung humid against his skin and made him forget he was in New England.
“Can you swim in it?” Jamie asked, touching the water with his fingers.
“The mermaids do in the winter,” Miss Cornelia said. “If you glance beneath the surface you will see a couple of them swimming now.”
The merpeople glinted in the water. They were having tea. Jamie nudged Annie with his elbow.
“This is too cool for words,” he whispered.
Miss Cornelia led them across the marble checkerboard floor to a sitting room to the left and snapped on the light. If Annie and Jamie didn’t know better, they could have sworn they were back in the Maine woods. This room resembled an enchanted forest. An overhead light sent shafted rays down through branches of trees and ivy that covered the ceiling, which must have been twenty feet high. Along the walls, thin tree trunks grew, golden flowers and bright purple blossoms twining around the bark. A golden arrow aimed toward a four-leaf clover that was painted against the side of a prancing unicorn. Real clover seemed to lace around the animal.
Annie’s small hand reached out to touch the wall. The flowers and the tree trunks felt real. Jamie gasped as one of the flowers moved beneath Annie’s fingers.
“It’s a lovely room, isn’t it?” Miss Cornelia asked. “Quite a bit different from your last accommodations, if I do say so myself.”
Annie thought of the cramped trailer. A bird’s wings flapped above her. She craned her neck up to see. Is that a chickadee flitting through the branches? She remembered to breathe. The air filled her lungs with warmth and flowers.
“It’s lovely,” she said.
Miss Cornelia laughed, a low, musical sort of laugh. “Thank you. I enjoy it.”
Annie sat down on the couch, which appeared to be made of moss that was somehow stapled into the woodwork. She ran her hands over its softness. Through the door, she could see into the entryway. All sorts of colored lights flitted near the fountain, which really did seem more like a waterfall. She rubbed her eyes and looked at Jamie, who shrugged his shoulders, baffled.
“Are we outside or in?” Jamie asked.
Miss Cornelia laughed again and plopped down on the sofa beside Annie. “Why, in, of course. It’s far too cold to be out.”
Annie agreed, her eyes wide, and pulled a nearby quilt around her. The house was warm, but just the mention of outside chilled her. She seemed to have suddenly and completely lost her ability to speak.
Jamie hadn’t, though. “This house must be magical.”
“Of course it is!” Miss Cornelia said assuredly, pointing at Jamie with a long, bony finger. “Sound reasoning, Jamie. Sound reasoning indeed.”
Aquarius House was not what Annie had expected at all. None of it was. She had imagined her next life would be in another trailer or maybe an apartment over a Subway in downtown Ellsworth, right on High Street where she could hear the logging trucks and the tourists’ RVs roar by all year long; where she could listen to the people next door scream their hatred at each other; where she, Annie, could decide all the places where she would never live when she was a grown-up. No, this wasn’t the place she’d imagined, not at all. In fact, she figured she might actually be dreaming. She snuck her hand behind her back and gave herself a good pinch.
“Pinching never wakes you up,” Miss Cornelia said. “It has no effect on dreams whatsoever. Cold water is much more jarring and yields better results when one is attempting to rouse oneself from a dream. I could get a pitcher if you’d like, although then, of course, you’d have to change your clothes and we have yet to have dinner.”
Her eyes
twinkled mischievously.
Annie shook her head and doodled distractedly with her finger on the couch cushion. The thought of freezing water against her skin didn’t appeal much to her after the walk in the cold.
“I feel like I’m dreaming, too,” Jamie admitted.
“I can assure you this is no dream,” Miss Cornelia said, hands spread wide.
Annie bit her lip. She wanted to believe the fantastic room was real, but it didn’t seem likely. A fuzzy brown rabbit hopped behind a long green drape.
“Is that a … It’s just …” Annie couldn’t begin to explain.
“I think what Annie’s trying to say is that this is all …” Jamie paused as if searching about his brain for the proper words. “It’s a bit beyond our normal everyday experience.”
“Do you like it?” Miss Cornelia asked, slipping off the couch and rushing toward the drapes. Her rainbow-slipper-clad foot poked at a lump behind the fabric. The rabbit darted out quickly, and she caught it, pulling it to her chest. She brought it back toward Annie, and as she did, Annie glimpsed outside, beyond the curtain.
The early-evening gloom cast a shadow upon everything outside, but there in the window’s reflection, Annie saw something else. At first it seemed little more than an extra bit of darkness in the coming black. But as Annie scooted back on the couch, farther away, she could have sworn she spotted a man’s face in the glass—and not the sort of man she’d imagine her long-lost father to be, the kind who made breakfast in the morning, took her to gymnastics, held her hand when she crossed the street. No, this man’s face had a searing chill of ice and hatred. His eyes felt deathly cold. It was like his image was trapped in the window.
Miss Cornelia whirled around, plopped the bunny on the floor, and whipped the drapes shut, but Annie had already turned away from the window.
“He knows you’re here already. Oh, my … ,” Miss Cornelia said worriedly. She snapped her fingers, and all the drapes in the room flapped shut. “My word. Of course he does, what with all the mayor’s ridiculous carrying-on. I told him no big to-dos, but did he listen?”
Annie sat as still as she could. All her fears combined with words and gushed out of her mouth. “This is not real. Maybe Walden walloped me too hard on the head and I’ve got a concussion. That must be it. Or maybe I really am batty, like Mrs. Betsey said. She said it ran in the family. That was why I am in foster care.”
Embarrassed, Jamie stared at the floor.
Annie took a good gulp and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, I didn’t mean that. Oh. I’m sorry.”
Miss Cornelia gave her a kind smile.
“Do you know how to read?” she asked, ignoring Annie’s rant, and patted the girl’s hair.
Annie could smell the breath of her, like mint and red wine and something bitter and earthy underneath it all. It reminded her of the taste of dandelion roots. Dandelions were her favorite flowers because they could grow in anything.
“Yes, of course.” Annie loved to read anything and everything. In most of her foster homes there was always a TV Guide at least. She’d read that if there was nothing else. Most of the people who took her in didn’t have books. There were books at school, though.
Miss Cornelia continued purposefully. “What do all books have in common, Annie?”
“A plot?” Annie asked, flustered and rubbing her hands against her legs. Her lack of a good answer made her forget about the face in the window and even Jamie who was sitting next to her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Wait a sec. Words? They all have words.”
Miss Cornelia’s lips came together in a tight grimace as she sat again.
“Oh, no,” Annie said, scrunching up her face. Already she was messing up. Already, she wasn’t being who this new foster mother—or foster grandmother—was expecting her to be. She never was. Not ever. She thought about all her favorite books. Then the weight in her chest lifted.
“A hero!”
“That’s right,” Miss Cornelia said, and her thin lips parted to become a smile that resembled an upside-down rainbow. “Heroes are important. What do they do?”
Annie thought for a moment, but her brain didn’t seem to want to work at all. She startled when the bunny jumped into her lap and snuggled in. She reached down and touched its fur. The softness soothed her fingers and even her heart a little bit. She longed to pick the rabbit up and rub her face in the downiness of it. But no, she had to think.
“They save the day?”
Miss Cornelia stood up, and the entire room got a bit bigger when she did, as if the whole house had sighed in relief. And, just then, as the feeling of relief was about to take over, Miss Cornelia squatted down in front of Annie and leaned toward her.
“That’s true. They save the day. Is that all?”
The girl-wizard and her brainy dinosaur sidekick had defeated the evil dragon. The tiny rabbit had vanquished a pig-faced boy who tried to eat his way through town. A young boy became brave enough to face the evil ghost inside his closet.
“They become brave.”
“That’s right,” Miss Cornelia said with such force that her words seemed to solidify in the air. “They are brave. You said, ‘become brave,’ but in their hearts, they always were courageous. They just hadn’t let it out yet. Now, Annie, with all you’ve been through it seems to me that you should be quite ready.”
Annie sighed and stroked the rabbit’s fur. The bunny began to thump its leg, and then it quieted and nestled in. It didn’t shake at all like most of the rabbits Annie had met. I’m doing enough trembling for the both of us. I am so tired of trying to be brave. I’d like to just be happy for a while, happy and loved. Maybe that can really, actually happen here.
Each and every one of Miss Cornelia’s bones cracked as she stood up from where she squatted in front of Annie’s face. She rolled her neck and then pulled her shoulders back before she slowly stretched out one hand to Annie and another to Jamie, both of whom still sat on the couch, confusion filling their faces.
“Are you ready, Annie?” she asked. Her fingers wiggled. “Are you ready, Jamie?”
Annie took the hand in her own.
“Ready for what?” she whispered. Miss Cornelia’s hand felt warm and lovely, still so much better than she imagined.
“Ready to be brave.”
“To be brave,” Annie repeated, thinking again of the world outside full of people who pretended to love you just for money, of the monsters in the woods, of Jamie’s grandmother running after him with a fork, drooling. Haven’t we been brave already? Do we really have to be brave again?
Jamie scooted a little closer to Annie as Miss Cornelia dropped their hands. Jamie was already brave. Just living with his father and grandmother had made him that way, hadn’t it? Or had it made him even more timid, lacking confidence? He didn’t know. Could it have made him both brave and cowardly all at once? Does just surviving make you brave? He had no clue. He’d never actually thought about himself so much. It wasn’t fun. He coughed and answered the way he knew the strange old woman wanted him to answer. “We are ready.”
Annie whispered it, too. “We are ready to be brave.”
Jamie’s stomach lurched. He was worried that he had just lied.
Miss Cornelia fixed them in her stare. “What you need to understand is that this is a place of no return really. You can choose to stay here with us, or you can move on. If you leave, then we will find you homes, good homes, full of normal people and without any trolls. I can promise you that.”
Jamie grabbed Annie’s hand, mostly because it was shaking so much, and partially because he needed something to hold on to. Her ice-cold fingers seemed thin and fragile between his. He cleared his throat.
“Why would we want to leave?” he asked.
Annie peeked at him without turning her head. He thought she may have even nodded the slightest bit. She didn’t say anything, though. He wished she would. He didn’t like asking the question. It felt rude somehow.
“Why would you wa
nt to leave?” Miss Cornelia repeated. She raised an eyebrow and once it was lowered back into place, she leaned much closer and whispered, “I don’t see why you would ever want to leave. I know I don’t. There is no better home for me than Aurora. There never could be. But, yes, some do choose to leave and it’s a very viable option for the two of you.”
She straightened up, cocked her head, and her right ear seemed to twitch a bit. Jamie and Annie waited. Annie’s fingers tightened around Jamie’s, drawing strength.
“Ma’am, why would it be a viable option?” she asked.
Miss Cornelia’s light-blue eyes focused on Annie’s face, and she said, “Because it is dangerous to be here. It is always dangerous to be in a place of magic, and for the two of you—the danger is profound. If you choose to leave, you can live a normal life. I don’t believe it’s too late for you. We could wipe out your memory of this place and us. We have done that before. It isn’t the easiest of magic, but it can be done.”
“But if we stay?” Jamie prodded.
Miss Cornelia petted the head of the bunny in Annie’s lap. Her face crumpled for a moment as she stared at Annie, but then she regained her composure. She said simply, “Well, if you stay I shall do my very best to keep you safe, but the town is in peril, not just because of trolls such as Jamie’s grandmother, but from bigger, even more horrid things. It’s possible you might die in any number of horrible ways. That’s always the risk of a magic life. A magic death.”
Before either of them responded the doorbell rang. The sound of it scared Annie so much that she jerked, which startled the bunny. It hopped off and hid behind a Cupid statue in the room’s far corner. Jamie could almost swear that the statue blinked.
Moments after the doorbell sounded, a bunch of small, pastel tutu–wearing pixies flash-flew into the room, announc-ing in chirpy voices, “Company! You have company! Guests! We have guests!”
“Well, hold that thought a moment please, children.” Miss Cornelia pointedly glanced at each of them. “I must get the front door.”