BreadCrumb Trail (The Yellow Hoods, #2): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (14 page)

Marcus frowned, disappointed. “You sound like Abe used to. It would be
easier
, yes, in the sense that we wouldn’t have to worry about things like dining arrangements, or letting them get some fresh air. In terms of everything else, it would be far more complicated. I’m surprised at you, Richelle. I would have thought you could see that by now.”

“Is that all?” asked Richelle, dismissively.

“Yes, thank you,” said Marcus, wandering over to the window and looking down the four stories at the majestic grounds below. “I do so love the early spring flowers—so filled with hope, opportunity, and color.”

Marcus opened the sealed letter and started to read the update from the Hound.

A minute later, Marcus called out, “Richelle!” He was rubbing his stubbly chin again in thought.

Richelle ran back up and looked at her grandfather quizzically. “Yes?”

The gentler grandfather figure she’d been talking to minutes ago had been replaced with the brilliant strategist. His brown eye sparkled and his presence now filled the room.

Marcus smiled devilishly, holding the letter tightly. “It seems we have an unexpected opportunity. The Hound has been offered a deal—by another leader of the Tub.” He flicked the letter on the back of his right hand, making a snapping sound. “Apparently, the Hound is one to take initiative. He followed up on some rumors and met up with the Tub leader at an inn called The Pointy Stick.”

Richelle shook her head. “Who names an inn that?” She wasn’t interested in the possibility of any deal, but was very keen to know they were on the heels of a second leader of the Tub.

Marcus laughed. “Well, The Pointy Stick may be our new favorite spot in Freland. The Hound needs to know what I think about the opportunity. I’ll come up with something on the way. I think that, merely by having discussed such a prospect, the Tub must be a lot weaker than we’d thought. This accelerates things.”

“With whom is the proposed deal?” asked Richelle, intensely curious.

Marcus grinned, folding the letter and putting it in his breast pocket. “Prepare a coach. It seems I’m heading all the way to Minette immediately after my exercises and a quick breakfast.”

Richelle didn’t like that he wouldn’t share the information, but she knew why. She would do the same, in his shoes. “Fine, but I’m coming with you,” she said firmly. “It could be a trap.”

Marcus thought for a moment. He’d wanted to have her here, to lead, but she had a point. She was one of his best warriors, and she had agents in the area—which could prove useful. Even though he didn’t completely trust her motivations, it was a sound idea.

“Fine. On our way, we can discuss how we want to handle this,” said Marcus, tapping his breast pocket.

Turning to go but then turning back, Richelle asked, “Should I inform Simon?”

Marcus winced and held on to the battlefield table, in thought. He looked about the room, in silence. “Blast, you have a good point. We have too many games in play. We must simplify.”

Richelle giggled. “Why do things related to Simon always get complicated? Mister Stimple makes things so difficult.”

Marcus rolled his eyes and sighed. Simon
had
always been one to make things needlessly difficult. “You know, he’s gone by the last name of St. Malo for more than a decade now,” he reminded Richelle for the millionth time.

She scoffed. “You can call a rose a rock, but it doesn’t make it so.”

“No, but it would reduce its value,” quipped Marcus.

Laughing, Richelle proposed an idea. “I’ll prepare a letter on your behalf that will,
accidentally
, go by slow messenger to Simon. He should get it when you are already in Minette.”

Marcus smiled. “Excellent. Now, I must pack.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Initiation

It was late March by the time the Yellow Hoods decided to bring Mounira up to see the treehouse. Tee, Elly, and Richy hadn’t been up themselves since early December, having focused instead on helping Mounira deal with her recovery, and helping locals in need. This was the first time they’d taken Mounira out on their sail-carts on anything seeming like official Yellow Hoods business.

“So, how does this work, exactly?” asked Mounira, pointing at the wooden handlebar, pulley, and rope system that would lead up the mountain to the treehouse.

Richy stepped forward, his bright blue eyes shining in the late morning sun. “Well, this is the mechanism for going up the mountain. You hold on to the wooden bar with both hands, and then kick this lever here at the bottom of the tree. The weights start to come down, and you’re pulled up. In summer, you can kind of run and jump up the mountain—it’s a lot of fun. It’s almost like flying. Coming down the mountain, you glide about ten feet above the ground.”

“Oh, neat,” said Mounira. She eyed the bar. “
Both
hands?” she said, looking back to Richy.

“Um,” he said, embarrassed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine,” said Elly, hiding a smile.

Mounira had been spending a lot of time at Tee’s house, with Tee one-on-one, and with Tee’s parents. More than once, Tee had dropped by Elly’s house with Mounira and found Elly to be in a foul mood. Today, though, things seemed to be different.

Tee pointed to the weights. “The coolest part is that after you’ve gone up, or come down, the system resets itself. It takes about a minute or two.”

“Huh,” said Mounira, looking at the well-hidden metal foot pedal. “So the pedal releases…
oh
, I see it. Clever. Did you guys make this?”

Richy scratched his head. “Actually, we don’t know who made it. We thought maybe Tee’s grandfather did, but too many things didn’t add up. The only thing we know is that somebody’s supporting us in being the Yellow Hoods. They made these cloaks, and our shock-sticks, too.”

“Interesting,” said Mounira, shaking her head in disbelief. “So, you blindly trust these things from someone you don’t know, who is spying on you? Huh. I wouldn’t.”

Everyone was silent. Tee, Elly, and Richy hadn’t really thought about it in quite a while. They’d discovered everything before they’d encountered LeLoup, and they’d taken it for granted that everything was innocent and well-meaning. They were kids who’d discovered treasure. Now, though, Mounira had a point.

Mounira had a habit of asking a ton of sharp questions. The others weren’t sure if it was a cultural difference, or something else, but it was hard to take sometimes. Maybe, they thought, she was just trying to fit in too hard, or maybe she felt a bit insecure because she was a couple of years younger than them.

“Well, ah, moving on,” said Richy, “we discovered—well, Tee discovered—the up-the-mountain and down-the-mountain network of pulleys and ropes a while ago. There are five going up, and four going down.”

“What does that mean?” asked Mounira. “
Five
going up?”

Elly sighed and raised her hand, volunteering for the taxing job of answering yet another question. “Each one takes you up part-way. See that area up there? It’s a plateau. This part takes you up to that flat part of the mountain, and then stops. The next one is only a couple of yards away from where this one drops you off. There’s also one a couple of yards the other way, for coming back down.”

Mounira nodded, having imagined a mental model of how this likely worked. “So, it’s probably done like that so you wouldn’t slide all the way back down if something went wrong—or else slide all the way down the mountain too fast…?”

“Um,” said Richy, scratching his head and smiling,“I hadn’t thought about that. It makes sense, though.”

“One more question,” said Mounira, tapping her chin as she gazed up the mountain.

“Go ahead,” said Tee, trying not to sound tired of the non-stop questions.

Mounira crouched down and placed her hand on the remaining inches of snow. “Have you tried wearing skis to go up the mountain, while holding the wooden bar?”

Richy was ready to answer just about any question—except that one. His mouth agape, he stopped and looked to Elly and Tee. They were all impressed with the idea.

Elly answered. “Actually, no. Had we thought about that, we could’ve tried going up weeks ago. Honestly, we’ve only tried to let it drag us up through the snow, but that has… problems, so we waited for the snow to mostly melt. With skis though, I think we really
could
ride on top of the snow. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that.”

Richy chuckled. “I think it’s too much fun being dragged up and nearly falling off. But, if we had another LeLoup situation, I’d be all for using some skis.”

“You know,” said Tee, “that makes me think of using a board with wheels on it, in summertime.”

“I was thinking the same,” said Mounira. “The weights would be able to pull you faster, like a current pushing you in a stream.”

“Huh,” said Tee, looking at Mounira differently. “Your dad isn’t an inventor, is he?”

“No,” said Mounira. “Nobody in my family is.”

Tee folded her arms. “Did you learn about science from anyone, or from books?”

“No,” answered Mounira, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just—I don’t know… hanging around you guys, I’m seeing things I never noticed before.”

“Oh,” said Tee. She remembered her granddad, Sam Baker, telling her once that, while there were geniuses like Nikolas, there were plenty of other kinds, too. Tee wasn’t sure Mounira was a genius, but she had definitely underestimated her young friend.

“I wonder… if you made the wheels—” started Mounira.

Richy snapped his fingers and completed her thought, “—shallow enough, then you could have wheels and skis on the same board?”

“Yes!” said Mounira.

“Hmm,” said Richy, bending down to look at the sail-carts for a moment. “It wouldn’t work for the sail-carts, though. The wheels and skis would need to be on opposite sides; otherwise, uneven terrain could cause the sail-cart to get stuck.”

“I’ve got some paper and a quill,” said Elly, removing her backpack. “But I don’t have any ink.”

Mounira jumped up, excited. “I have some ashes! In my pack!” She grabbed at the leather satchel she had on her belt.

“You have
what
?” asked Elly. Richy and Tee were curious, too.

“Ashes,” said Mounira. “Where I come from, we use ash for lots of different things. Sometimes, for writing. We just need to melt some of the snow for water, and mix it carefully.”

“Cool,” said Richy, picking up some snow. “I’ll make water.”

“Great!” said Elly, reaching into her backpack.

“Wait!” yelled Tee, her hands outstretched, and getting everyone’s attention.

“Is this a
La la
moment—because I’m not seeing it,” said Richy wryly, teasing Tee.

Tee gave him a friendly glare. “No. Don’t you think this would make more sense to do at the
top
of the mountain, at our three-floor
treehouse
, where we have a
table
? Not here in the snow?”

Elly, Richy, and Mounira each wore their own version of a boy-do-I-feel-silly expression.

“I don’t hear any yeses!” said Tee, stepping forward, playing up her role. “You know, times like this remind me of when I was young—”

Elly immediately threw her hands up. “Stop! I surrender. I give in. Please!” she joked. “Please—stop impersonating my mother!” Elly fell to her knees and then dramatically flopped over in the snow. “
Can’t. Take. It.
Losing my will to live! Mommy?”

For minutes, everyone roared in laughter. It was rare that Elly did anything that silly, and only with people she completely trusted.

After a few more minutes of joking around, Richy grabbed the wooden bar and headed up first. He dashed and jumped his way up to the plateau.

Mounira was to go next. She grabbed the handlebar with her one hand and looked nervously at Tee and Elly. She wasn’t quite sure how—or if—this was going to work, but she was determined to have no special treatment.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t tie you to it, or something?” asked Elly, innocently.

“I’ll be fine,” said Mounira, uncertain. “I can do anything you can do.”

Tee wasn’t convinced, but wasn’t going to play a big-sister card to overrule Mounira. “Okay, well, worst case, you’ll come barreling back down as a huge, angry snowball. We’ll
probably
be able to stop you from rolling all the way down the mountain,” she said.

“Yeah,
probably
,” added Elly. “Ready?” Elly asked Mounira, and then immediately kicked the foot pedal.

“
Aaahhh!
” yelled Mounira as she held on for all she was worth, running up at first, and then snowplowing and spinning the rest of the way up to the plateau.

“Huh! And here I thought you’d accepted her,” said Tee, giggling.

“No,” said Elly, smiling evilly. “But I’m not jealous anymore.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A Ginger Offer

“Mother, we have returned,” said Hans while opening the old wooden door, nearly taking it off its hinges. The once-majestic two-story home had long ago fallen into horrible disrepair.

Saul sighed and dropped his head. His shoulder-length, light brown hair briefly covered his face. “I bet the wood’s rotted through.
Everything
is.” Coming home always drained him.

They only seemed to notice what the house was really like whenever they returned to it. The smell of ginger lingered from years gone by, back from when Mother used to bake regularly. They’d learned in their teens how she used to lace all the goodies with
the Ginger
, a special mix of herbs to make children docile, passive, and even forgetful. Mother had told them she’d never used it on them.

Gretel took their red hooded cloaks and hung them up. She removed thin strips of leather from her hair and shook loose her mid-back-length platinum blond hair. She tucked the thin strips into a small pouch on her belt.

She looked at the fine cloaks that they had been given just months before. A long time ago, they’d had nice things. It was comforting to have something nice again. They wore those cloaks every time they left the house, like a uniform.