Colin was walking downstairs toward the kitchen when he suddenly realized that he had never asked his mother any of the questions he’d planned to ask. He also realized that going to Cresta Sol dairy farm for the evening tomorrow had nothing to do with the Carrillos at all, except that they provided a useful excuse: it was his mother who wanted him gone. He had no idea what she planned to do, but he was certain she didn’t want to do it in front of him.
Thunder boomed again, and outside the window a flash briefly turned the sky white. Lightning, and not very far away.
Another son would have felt disturbed by his mother’s secrecy, and might even have marched back upstairs to argue about it, but Colin Needle was used to being inconvenient, to being kept in the dark, and he was also used to doing what Patience Needle wanted him to do, or at least appearing to do so.
He would go to the Carrillos-but nothing on earth, not even his beautiful, cold, clever mother, could make him enjoy himself.
Chapter 13
The more Tyler thought, the angrier he got.
“What’s with this place? Are they all crazy?” He was having so much trouble paying attention to what he was doing that he dropped his flashlight. The batteries he had been loading popped out and rolled across the floor. “That Kingaree’s a slavery guy? What if he’d tried to kill you? They never tell us anything about anything-we always have to find out for ourselves!”
“They’re all from the past, Tyler! They don’t belong here and they’d be in trouble if people found out they were here. Of course they keep secrets.”
Tyler scowled: he’d thought Lucinda was getting better about pretending things were fine when they obviously weren’t. “I don’t care if they’re from Magic Happy Land, Luce-t hey invited us! Dropped us into the middle of all this and didn’t warn us about any of this dangerous crazy stuff-dragons! Billionaires with helicopters and guns! Crazy… slave-whippers from the Civil War days! And now Gideon’s gone, so we’re the only people in this whole place who even legally exist. ” For perhaps the first time ever, Tyler was beginning to wonder if they really did belong at Ordinary Farm. As if to emphasize this thought, thunder boomed in the nearby hills.
Then he thought of Colin and his creepy mother again and his heart filled with anger. “No, it’s not us who don’t belong here…!” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.” He had been planning to go back out and look for Gideon until the evening meal, but instead he put down the flashlight and stood. “Come on. Maybe this Kingaree guy you met really does have something to do with Gideon disappearing-and if he does, I know who might have some answers.”
The women in the kitchen were just starting supper. Tyler noted the good smells with approval, but he was in too much of a hurry to appreciate them properly. However, a little bit of something to take along might not be a bad idea, he thought…
“He is upstairs,” Pema told them. “In Gideon’s study.”
“Meanwhile, if you touch that bacon, Junge, you will be beaten,” Sarah warned him. Defeated, Tyler led Lucinda up the stairs.
Caesar looked up from dusting. With Gideon Goldring now missing for almost a week it was hard to know how much cleaning of his study was really necessary, but Caesar regarded it as his personal job to take care of both Gideon and his rooms, and it seemed he would continue doing it whether Gideon was around or not.
“Hello, children,” he said. “Are you looking for something?”
“For you, Caesar. Could we ask you some questions?”
The old man laughed, showing very white teeth. “I suppose you can.” They were not his own teeth: Mr. Walkwell had found them for him in a church jumble sale in Standard Valley, and although they didn’t fit tremendously well, Caesar was very proud of them. He had lost most of his own at a young age.
Weird we know that about him, but didn’t know he was a runaway slave, Tyler thought. “Did you hear that Lucinda met Jackson Kingaree? He came up to her in town and introduced himself.”
Caesar’s expression grew more distant, but he kept his smile. “Oh, I heard, yes. Terrible thing.”
“We want to know more. About Kingaree. We think he might have something to do with Gideon’s disappearance.”
Caesar looked at Tyler for a long second more, then turned away from them to dust a spotless shelf. “I can’t talk now, children. Too busy.” His voice hitched. “I’m just too sad about Mister Gideon.”
“Just talk to us, Caesar-please!”
“Tyler, leave him alone!” Lucinda whispered, but he ignored her.
“Nobody tells us anything around here. What happened?” Tyler was doing his best to keep calm, but he was tired of everyone avoiding his questions. “Please, Caesar. Did Gideon make a deal with Kingaree? And if he did, why did Kingaree leave the farm?”
Caesar turned suddenly. His smile was gone and his face looked as stern and hard as a wooden mask. “Why did Kingaree leave? Because he’s a devil, that’s why. Because like the Good Book says, the devil needs the whole world to roam in, to go back and forth doing his mischief.”
“Ragnar told me… ” Lucinda obviously did not want to say it-as if it were a dirty word. “He said you were Kingaree’s… slave… ”
“That ain’t true!” Caesar shook his head. “But it ain’t Ragnar’s fault-he’s from far, far back and don’t know any better. Yes, I was a slave once in South Carolina, but to a better man than Jackson Kingaree. Still, don’t nobody want to be a slave even for a kind master. I earned my freedom and went North to live in Pennsylvania. Then one day I was at the market in Charlesville and Kingaree and his gang of slave-chasers snatched me up like I was nothing but an animal, even though I was in free territory and a free man. He was going to carry me quick over the border to Maryland… it was a slave state then… Oh, sweet God…!”
Lightning whitewashed the sky above the mountains outside the window-a summer storm was on its way; thunder followed moments later. Tyler saw that Caesar was shaking so hard that his long, lean body was swaying like a windblown tree. The old man felt for the chair-Gideon’s empty chair-and sat down. “I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “I didn’t mean … ”
“You didn’t know any better either, son. You children don’t know nothing about how things were in my day, ’less they teach it to you in school. But back then you had to know because it was the way of the world-what everyone tell you. ‘Never tease a strange dog. Don’t look white folk in the eye, especially white women. Watch out for the slave-catchers.’ ” He laughed, but it was a cracked, unhappy sound. “Yes, that devil Kingaree took me. Then when his wagon lost a wheel and when I wouldn’t walk in chains to Baltimore, he beat me. I said he might as well kill me right there because I wasn’t ever going back to the south. He damn near did.” He looked at Lucinda. “I beg pardon for my salty language, Miss.”
Lucinda only shook her head. She was pale and Tyler thought she looked like she was close to crying.
“I got away from him, though,” Caesar said. “The Lord was bound to keep me free, and He made sure those shackles were just a little too big for me. After a while, I got out of ‘em.’ He lifted his arms and pulled back his sleeves. Both wrists were badly scarred, covered with streaky gray bumps. ‘I got away into the woods just before we come to the Susquehanna ferry. Kingaree and his dogs and men, they come after me. They were shootin’ too. One way or another, they weren’t going to let me go home again.” He took a shaky breath. “But then Mister Gideon come out of nowhere, just like the Lord’s angel. Asked me if I wanted to get away from all this. Don’t take much to guess I said yes.” Caesar laughed; it was shaky but less bitter this time.
“What was Gideon doing there?” asked Tyler.
“Looking for a Thunderbird, that’s what he told me later.” Caesar shrugged. “At the time, I wasn’t asking nothing-those dogs and all were right behind me. So Mister Gideon took out this strange thing looked half like a trumpet, half like the insides of a fancy pocket watch. He waved it around and started fiddling with it. Just then, Kingaree’s biggest dog come charging out of the trees with Kingaree right behind. Mister Gideon made some kind of big, sparky, burning hole in the air and tugged me through it. Stretched me like nothing you’d ever seen-like string through a knothole!”