“Zaza!” he shouted in delight when he realized who was gliding around him in wide circles. “Zaza, come here, you crazy monkey! I missed you!”
They had a long conversation. Tyler was the only one talking but Zaza contributed enthusiastically, mostly with ear-pinches and nose-nips. The little gray winged monkey was clearly happy to see him. He wondered why she had stayed away from him so long. Maybe she didn’t know where his room was this year.
As he reached the library Zaza jumped up into the air and flapped her way up to the roof where she settled and folded her finger-wings around her like a cloak, telling him as clearly as if she’d spoken it that she was going to wait outside while he finished whatever errand was taking him into the spooky old building.
Tyler walked through the open front door without knocking-he had as much right to be there as his sister, didn’t he?-but slowed within a few steps because he heard voices, and neither of them was Lucinda’s.
“Because, Colin, if you wait for Gideon to understand what’s best for the farm, you’re going to wait forever.” That was Mrs. Needle, her voice angry but also as cold and controlled as what came out of a soft-serve ice cream machine. “And we will have lost our home. Because Gideon Goldring is a fool.”
“That’s not fair, Mother,” Tyler heard Colin say. He wasn’t arguing with her, exactly, but he wasn’t agreeing with her, either, which was a point in his favor, Tyler thought. A very small point, but a point. “Gideon promised there would always be a place for us here … ”
“Yes! As servants! Is that what you want, Colin? To be a servant to the Jenkins children in your own home?”
Tyler had been backing toward the open door, but now a breeze pushed it closed behind him with a sudden and surprising bang.
“Who’s there?” An instant later Patience Needle had appeared from around the corner. “What are you doing here, Master Jenkins?” She had wiped the emotion from her voice, but her eyes looked like furious black pinpoints. “Were you eavesdropping…?”
“N-no!” Tyler stammered. She was a small, slender woman-smaller than Tyler now that he had grown a bit-but she still frightened him very badly. “No! I just came to… to look for my sister… ” He swallowed. Better to act like he hadn’t heard anything. “Is Lucinda here?”
“Perhaps she is doing something useful,” Mrs. Needle said, her emotions now completely disguised again. “As Colin has been doing-which is why I brought him his lunch.” She smiled. It looked like the last thing a small, furry creature might see before it got swallowed. “I didn’t know you were coming, Tyler, otherwise I would have brought you something as well.” She turned and called over her shoulder, “Don’t work too hard, Colin, dear!” She swung back to Tyler. “I wish he’d get out more,” she said with almost convincing sweetness. “Perhaps the two of you could have a game of catch.” She showed her tight smile once more, then stepped past him and out the library door, leaving behind a hint of chill and the scent of something flowery.
A game of catch? With Colin Needle? That was such a bizarre thought Tyler wondered if the witch was trying to psych him out somehow. Yeah, or maybe we could shoot some marbles together…!
Inside the library Colin looked up from the encyclopedia table, which was cluttered with books and notebooks and his laptop computer. In fact, it looked like the older boy was staking a claim here-like he thought it was his library now. It was all Tyler could do not to sweep all his stuff off onto the floor.
“Research, huh?” he said. “Yeah? Research on what?”
“None of your business.” Colin’s eyebrow rose. “And what are you doing here, Jenkins? I wouldn’t have thought you were much of a reader.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t?” It was true, but he was never going to admit it now. He didn’t even want to tell Colin Needle he’d come looking for Lucinda-that just made it seem even more like the skinny jerk belonged here and he didn’t. Tyler strolled past the table, trying to sneak a look at the books spread out there, but Colin leaned over, covering them with his arms.
“Do you mind?” the dark-haired boy said in his best adult manner. “I’m working, Jenkins. Can’t you go play somewhere else?”
“Actually, I’ve got things to do here, Needle. But I’ll try not to disturb you.”
Tyler wandered around in the stacks for a while but he couldn’t concentrate. Colin and his mother must have been talking about the same thing Lucinda had overhead. Mrs. Needle had said, “Is that what you want, Colin? To be a servant to the Jenkins children in your own home?” Tyler had to admit the idea amused him-Colin dressed up like a butler, scuttling around at Tyler’s every order-but did she really think that’s how it would be?
For a moment, and only for a moment, he even felt sorry for Colin Needle. What must it be like, to have a mother who thought that way, acted that way…?
Yeah, but his mother doesn’t follow him around all the time forcing him to be a creep, Tyler decided. He does most of that all by himself.
Tyler sauntered over to the huge painting of Octavio Tinker. The mad scientist’s expression was as maddeningly amused and secretive as ever. As always, the founder of Ordinary Farm seemed to be staring at the retiring room door across from his portrait. Tyler hadn’t been near the magical washstand mirror since this summer’s visit had begun and suddenly he wanted very much to see it again. He looked around to see if Colin was paying attention but the pale boy was bent over his books once more. Tyler casually walked across to the retiring room and stepped in, wondering if he would again see a world different from his own reflected in the washstand mirror, but instead he saw… nothing.
The mirror was gone.
In fact, the entire piece of furniture was gone: all that remained in the retiring room was the dusty bed and an angular shadow on the wallpaper that showed where the washstand and its magic mirror had stood.
Tyler felt like he had been punched in the stomach by a heavyweight fighter. It took him a full minute or more to calm down enough to walk back out into the library. “So what happened to that sink in there?” He asked as casually as he could, but he could hear a quiver in his voice.
Colin barely looked up. “What sink?”
“In that room. Across from the picture of Octavio. There used to be a sink there.”
Colin made a face-the great man interrupted by small minds. “My mother took it over to her room. She said it was an antique and it should be taken care of better.”
It was all Tyler could do to bite his lip and stay silent. Mrs. Needle has the mirror. The mirror that led the way to Grace. She must know the truth! Or at least she must know there was something special about it-he didn’t believe that “antique” story for a second.
Tyler was so angry and frightened by this news that all he could think of now was to get back outside into the open air. The washstand mirror had been taken by the witch and Colin Needle was squatting in the library like a bandit. It was all bad, impossibly bad.
“Tired of books already?” Colin said as Tyler went by. “Off to play?”
“Shut up.” He shouldered the door open.
“That’s just like you, Jenkins,” the older boy said. “You don’t try to understand this place at all, you just mess about with things. You don’t understand the true genius of someone like Octavio Tinker. You wouldn’t know a Continuascope if you saw one. But I would-I’ve been learning all about them. In fact, I might just make one… ”
With that horrifying threat echoing in his ears, Tyler let the door fall shut.
Zaza came down to accompany him, sporting and fluttering, clearly pleased to be with him again no matter how downhearted Tyler himself might feel, how listlessly he might trudge back toward the farmhouse. But when they got to a certain point she leaped up, spread her wings, and disappeared without a backward glance. When he turned from watching her fly the first thing he saw was the distant glitter of the old greenhouse, flashing its underwater colors in the afternoon sun.