He took her to the mirror at the washstand and swept the flashlight over it. At first it looked like nothing more than an ordinary mirror, reflecting Tyler and his light, Lucinda, and the room. After a while, though, it still looked like that.
“I don’t get it,” his sister said.
“It was different last time.” Tyler was embarrassed. He could hear the upset in his own voice and didn’t like it-too much like a little kid. “I could see me, but I was different -different clothes and stuff. It wasn’t the same me. And the light in the room was different, too, like a different time of day. I’m not lying, Lucinda!”
“I believe you,” she said, surprising him. “We’ve seen unicorns and a dragon, so why couldn’t there be a haunted mirror?”
Tyler let out a breath. He hadn’t expected to be believed. Suddenly he felt so much lighter he almost thought he could float up into the air like Zaza. “Good. Anyway, it’s also where I found this piece of paper-on the floor here. We should look through the drawers.”
Most of the washstand drawers were empty, but in the bottom right drawer they found an old-fashioned pen, the kind you dipped into a bottle of ink. Part of the length had been chewed off by something, and the bottom of the drawer was broken so that they could see down to the darkness under the dresser. Tyler was just pushing it closed again when Lucinda grabbed his arm and pointed. A shred of yellowed paper was caught in the jagged edge of the drawer’s broken bottom. Tyler’s heart began to beat more quickly. It was only a tatter the size of a fingernail clipping, but when he pulled it out and held it up next to the page with the writing, the paper was the exact same color.
They tried to move the washstand away from the wall, but it was either much heavier than it looked or had been bolted to the wall, perhaps to keep the heavy mirror on top from tipping the whole thing over. Tyler got down on his hands and knees and began probing the hole at the bottom of the drawer with the ruined pen. Something was still in there. He poked at it until sweat ran down into his eyes and dripped onto the dusty floor, then finally had the idea of poking it out toward the front where he could get a grip on it and gently ease the whole thing out.
Lucinda leaned in as he held it up. It was a leather-bound notebook, full of pages just like the one he’d found on his bed. The whole thing had been badly chewed by mice or some other scavengers, so that many of the pages were little more than tangled curls of paper. Still, a quick riffle through the pages showed lots of writing-the mice hadn’t ruined it all.
“Look at the cover,” he said. The chipped remnants of what had once been gold paint read: ty of O avi M. T nker, Esq.
He felt a ripple of excitement so strong he shivered. “It’s really his-and we’ve got it. But we can’t tell anybody.”
Lucinda nodded, her eyes wide.
Outside, Zaza was waiting, perched on the top of Great-great-great-whatever Octavio’s picture, peering down at them as though not quite trusting that whatever came out of the retiring room was going to be the same as whatever went in. Lucinda stared at the painting.
“What’s that thing in his hand?” she asked. “I’ve never seen one of those before. Is it some musical thing?”
“I don’t know.” Tyler really looked at the golden thing for the first time. Besides the long, trumpetlike tubes, it was made up of an overlapping series of jagged-edged circles and points, as if old Octavio had just taken out the workings of some large clock and screwed them together in some random order. Then Tyler noticed that in his other hand Octavio held a black velvet bag, and suddenly he realized that it was meant to hold the shiny device.
“Like the picture was about that thing as much as about him,” he said quietly, but Lucinda heard him and nodded as if she had been thinking the same thought.
They were halfway back to the house when Zaza suddenly leaped off Tyler’s shoulder and flapped into the air, making strange, shrill noises more like a bird than a monkey-like the sound the jays made at home when something got too close to their nests.
The big black squirrel again, or another just like it, crouched silently on the branch of a tree. Zaza darted upward and flew at the squirrel, but it didn’t flinch, nor did the pale yellow eyes even blink. There was definitely something wrong about the creature, but except for its size and eye color Tyler couldn’t have said what. It watched calmly, unmoving, as Zaza flew at it, chittering loudly, once, twice, three times. Then the winged monkey gave up and flitted away between the trees. Tyler and Lucinda began walking toward the house again.
“What was that?” His sister’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“A squirrel,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. After all, only a baby would be afraid of a squirrel.
“Then why does it have eyes like a goat?” she demanded.
“Yellow, with that little sideways slot? Squirrels don’t have eyes like that.”
“ Tyler Jenkins! ” someone shouted.
He pulled up, looking around. “Who’s that?”
“It’s Mrs. Needle!”
“Maybe she needs you for something.”
“She’s calling you, Tyler!”
She was right, of course, but he wished she wasn’t. “Shoot,” he said. “Now what? Here, you take the book. Go. Hide it in your room.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s too big to go in my pocket, Lucinda, and I don’t want her to know we found it!”
She looked at him, ready to argue, then Mrs. Needle called again from somewhere just ahead. For someone so soft-spoken, the woman could sure put some edge in her voice.
Lucinda abruptly grabbed the book, hid it inside her pants, and then doubled back around the corner of the building. She vanished just as Mrs. Needle appeared from the other direction, dressed in black as usual, a look of irritation on her pale face.
“Tyler Jenkins, I’m very disappointed in you,” she said. “You should know better than to go exploring old buildings without permission. Some of them are dangerous.”
He did his best to look calm and innocent. “What do you mean?”
“The library, Tyler. It hasn’t been maintained for years.” Mrs. Needle took his wrist in her cold fingers and began to lead him back toward the house. “You should not be in there by yourself. Something could… fall on you. You could be badly hurt.” She didn’t sound like she’d regret it very much.
Tyler let himself be marched across a patch of open ground, relieved that at least his sister had gotten away with the book. But how had Mrs. Needle known they were in the library? He and Lucinda hadn’t turned on any lights!
He looked up. The black squirrel was perched on the edge of the roof, squat and black as a loaf of burned bread. Only the pale eyes had color, the unblinking stare that Lucinda had described so well.
Eyes like a goat.
Chapter 14
F rom her window Lucinda saw Tyler walking past below, on his way to the henhouse with a bucket of soapy water, a brush, and an expression of extreme annoyance. Mrs. Needle had obviously put him to work and it didn’t look like he would be back any time soon. She felt that she ought to lock the door and start looking through the old mouse-chewed notebook they’d found, but it was too hot and stuffy-just the thought of it made her feel sleepy.
She knew Tyler would be furious with her if she didn’t at least hide the notebook, though, so she lifted her mattress and slid it in on top of the lumpy boxspring, then went downstairs.
She peered into the kitchen. Sarah and Pema were cleaning the counters.
“Come in,” the cook said when she saw Lucinda. “Have some lemonade.” Sarah took a pitcher out of the refrigerator while Lucinda got herself a glass. “I hear you are going to eine Feier!” she said as Lucinda drank.