…!”
The old man wasn’t having it. “No! I said I want to talk, boy! I want answers!”
“No, you need to see this… ” Colin couldn’t get the buckle open. “My… my mother figured out where this was-she sent me out to get it…!”
“No way-no way!” screamed Tyler Jenkins, rushing forward. He grabbed the backpack and tried to yank it from Colin’s hands. “You total liar! You followed me-I found it!”
“Tyler! Colin! Oh, for goodness sake,” said Gideon, for the moment more irritated than furious, “will someone just stop these two and their cursed wrangling? I need people to start talking sense around here! Ragnar?”
But even as the big Norseman stepped up and reached for the backpack that held the Continuascope, his hand so big and his arm so strong that Colin knew he could take it away easily even if Colin held on with both his own, Gideon Goldring made a strange noise. Ragnar stopped, staring, the backpack forgotten for the moment. Everybody else in the room was staring, too.
Gideon Goldring had opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out but a weird rasping. He tried to suck in more air and only made a horrible, thwarted noise in his throat. Gideon opened his mouth wide as if to scream, but still nothing would come. He turned bright red, then his face began to darken into an even more frightening color, gray-blue as a bruise, and he suddenly crumpled to the floor.
“Oh, no!” Lucinda Jenkins shouted over the cries of the others in the room. “He’s having a heart attack! We have to get him to a hospital!”
Ragnar let go of Colin’s backpack and in a moment was kneeling by Gideon’s side. The old man was still struggling, but his movements were growing weaker every moment. He kicked his legs feebly, bending and straightening like a fish yanked from the water.
“He can’t get his breath!” Tyler shouted. “Call an ambulance!”
“It’ll take forever for them to get out here,” said Lucinda, her face white with shock and horror. “Is there a helicopter or something-a medical helicopter?”
“Ragnar, take him!” cried Simos Walkwell from his couch. “Take him in that terrible machine and drive him to the town! Swiftly!”
“If he’s having a heart attack,” Tyler said, “he needs help now! We should take him over to the Carrillos’… ”
Suddenly Mrs. Needle was standing beside Ragnar and Gideon, whose hands and head were the only things that still moved, although it was little more than twitching. “It is not his heart, you fools,” she said in a voice hard and clear as glass. “And the cure is very simple.”
“What are you talking about, witch?” Ragnar looked as though he would be happy to tear her head off with his bare hands.
“Quiet, Norseman. Get back and I will help him.” When Ragnar didn’t move, she stared at him, then looked around the room. “Fools. Do you really want Gideon to die instead of letting me cure him?”
Mr. Walkwell’s voice cut through the sudden hush. “Let her try to heal him, Ragnar. You go and bring the car around to the front door.”
Mrs. Needle smirked. “No car will be needed.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a tiny glass vial as black as her skirt. She unstopped it, then let a couple of drops fall into Gideon’s open, gasping mouth.
“What are you doing to him…?” Lucinda demanded, but Colin’s mother ignored her, staring at Gideon as though the old man lying on the floor fighting for a breath was the most interesting thing she had ever seen. Colin clutched his backpack tight, suddenly more frightened than he’d ever been in his life.
A moment later the agonized, stretched lines of Gideon Goldring’s face began to ease. The blood-bruise color receded almost as quickly as it had come, and a few moments later the harsh gasping abruptly stopped as well. Gideon’s mouth closed and then opened again so he could suck in a long draught of air. It very quickly became clear he was breathing easily again.
“Gott wird gepriesen!” murmured Sarah. “Praise to God!”
“You poisoned him!” Lucinda Jenkins accused Colin’s mother, frightened and angry in equal measure. This time Colin didn’t move or say anything because he had been thinking much the same thing himself. “You poisoned him just so you could give him the antidote!”
Mrs. Needle actually smiled, though it was not a pleasant expression. “Oh, nonsense, child. This is a problem Gideon developed this summer when he was recovering from his illness… ”
“You mean the fungus spores that you dosed him with?” Tyler demanded. “That illness?”
Colin’s mother kept her smile but the rest of her face was as stiff as a mask. “You really should learn to respect your elders, Tyler and Lucinda Jenkins. Your rudeness is going to get you into serious trouble someday.” As Ragnar helped Gideon back to his bed, she turned slowly toward Mr. Walkwell, as if he were the judge for whom she was making her case. “These children may spout any madness they please, but I’m sure you understand, Simos. You are Gideon’s oldest friend here. You understand that he has this very serious condition, that I and I alone have the medicine to cure it-or to keep it at bay entirely. So which will it be, Simos? Would you have a needless war between us, or will we all pull together to keep Gideon well-and take care of this farm for the dear, dear Jenkins children, who will inherit it someday.” Her smile abruptly pulled into a line thin as a knife-slash. “If they live that long, of course. Life is uncertain even in this brave new world.”
Mr. Walkwell stared at her, his face a study in sorrow, anger, and weariness.
“Don’t do it!” Tyler Jenkins said, as if he sensed what was coming. “We’ll take Gideon to a hospital! Don’t let her have her way!”
“Nobody is having their way, child,” said Colin’s mother, but she still kept her eyes fixed on Mr. Walkwell. “We are making… a compromise. Doing what is best for all parties. And Gideon will agree, I promise you.” She looked over to Gideon. He was conscious again, but like a frightened child, he did not look up to meet her gaze. “Yes, dear Gideon has always understood where his best interests lie.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Well, Simos? Is it to be peace between us?”
Ragnar stepped away from Gideon and stood over her, looking down with his hands knotted into broad fists. Each one of his arms looked almost as wide as Colin’s slender mother. “Just tell me what you wish, Simos,” the Norseman said through clenched teeth. “I will stand by you.”
Mr. Walkwell slowly shook his head. “I must think of Gideon-and the farm,” he said. “So we will have peace.” He looked from Colin’s mother to Colin himself, and his eyes suddenly seemed so dark that Colin gasped. “But remember, we will have peace only as long as Gideon and these two children remain healthy.”
Mrs. Needle laughed. “As you say, Simos-peace. For now. Come along, Colin.”
Colin Needle had been about to give up the Continuascope to save his mother, but now he didn’t even want to go with her. His prize was still hidden in the backpack, still his secret, safe from all others. He would hide it again, even from his mother. What else did he have that was truly his?
“Colin, I’m waiting.”
He didn’t want to follow his mother, but he did, because that was what he had always done. But after today how could anything ever be the same? He needed to think about that, Colin realized as he trudged up the stairs. He needed to think about that very, very carefully.
Chapter 45
“O kay, I admit it,” said Tyler as the horse pulled the wagon up the long driveway toward the Carrillos’ house. “I don’t get exactly what happened yesterday. Did we win or did we lose?”
Ragnar snorted. “He is changing his will for you. It is happening, and that is very fortunate for you.”
“I know, I know. But didn’t Mrs. Needle just get away with it again? Am I stupid or something? She’s a witch! I thought that the bad guys were supposed to get punished.”