BreadCrumb Trail (The Yellow Hoods, #2): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (27 page)

Elly jumped with joy. “
Lala!
But—I saw you thrown through the air when Richelle shot you!” she said, as tears of joy rolled down. She pounced on Tee and hugged her tightly.

Tee winced as Elly rocked her back and forth with an emotional hug. “Elly… you’re…
crushing
me…
ugh
—dying,” Tee joked.

“Sorry,” said Elly, backing off, and wiping her tears.

“Wait—if
you’re
fine,” said Richy, “then Anna could be fine, too, right?”

Tee looked back across the battlefield. “Maybe—but they took Anna.”

“What happened?” asked Egelina-Marie.

Tee looked back at the coach as it pulled away. “That unusual, huge pistol of Richelle’s shoots air. When it hit me, I felt like a leaf in the wind. The pistol connects to something on her back, hidden under her cloak. I saw it just as she spun around to shoot me.”

“Whoa,” said Richy. “An
air
gun. Wait… so Richelle came here
not
intending to kill us?”

The Yellow Hoods and Franklin looked at each other.

“She also had wooden paddles to block my blows. If she’d used a sword or anything else—” said Tee, bothered by what it meant.

“Don’t say it!” yelled Elly, shoving Tee.

Franklin shook his head. “Bad guys who came but didn’t want us dead? I don’t get it.”

“Tee,” said Mounira, meekly, “I’m—I’m glad you’re safe, but—”

“Mounira—nice cloak!” interrupted Tee. “Where did you get it?”

She looked at Christina. “She gave it to me. I’ll—I’ll take it off now.”

Richy gently took Mounira’s hand. “
No way
are you taking that off! You flew that…
thing
, and you hit the crazy bad guy with it. That’s
crazy
awesome. You’re one of us now.”

Mounira blushed. “Thanks—but, Tee, I’ve
got
to tell you something.”

“You look worried. What’s wrong?” Tee asked.

“Marcus Pieman took your grandfather! Marcus—he’s the leader of the Fare. I was hiding in the house and heard it all. I—I didn’t do anything except listen… I’m sorry,” said Mounira, looking at the ground.

Tee suppressed her immediate feeling of surprise as she absorbed the mix of emotions on Mounira’s face. “Hey,” she said, lifting Mounira’s chin, “you got his
name
. That will help us find him, and get my Grandpapa back. If they’d captured you too, then we’d know nothing. We
will
get him back.”

“Count us in,” said Bakon, as he and his brothers staggered over, shaking off the lingering effects of the Hound’s shock-gloves. Their faces and hair were mud-covered.

“Don’t get too close to me looking like
that
,” said Egelina-Marie to Bakon, causing him to blush.

Franklin turned to Christina. “Um… silly question—and please don’t misunderstand it as a lack of appreciation for you saving us—but whom might you be, then?”

Mounira answered, proud of her new big-sister figure. “This is Christina Creangle. She’s the genius that made us fly!” 

Christina laughed. “Well, there’s more to it than that, but let’s just say—”

Suddenly, they heard four gunshots from across the battlefield.

“Who’s shooting?” asked Bore, looking around annoyed.

“
Get down!
” said Squeals, pulling Bore to the wet, muddy ground.

“Over there—near where the coach was—more soldiers,” said Bakon. “Eg, can you see if they’re Fare?”

Egelina-Marie crouched and looked, “They
aren’t
Fare… and they aren’t Frelish, either. There are about a dozen men. I’m guessing they were firing at the departing coach and Fare soldiers. I’m stumped on where they’re from and what they’re doing here.”

Mounira started breathing quickly. “We’re being invaded—just like home,” she whispered.

Franklin still couldn’t believe that the little eleven-year-old, one-armed girl had helped save the day. “Mounira—” he started, but then paused; he hadn’t done anything like this before. “It’s going to be okay. They’ll figure out what we need to do,” he said, gesturing to the team around them.

“Eg—was it?” said Christina, making her way over to the trees. “I think we need to split up and meet back at Nikolas’ place. Do you know the downstairs room at his house?”

“Agreed—but
what
downstairs room?” replied Egelina-Marie. She was collecting the pistols from the fallen guardsmen and handing them out to the Cochon brothers and Christina.

“Guys, they’re coming!” said Richy.

The group quickly moved into the trees, pulling the sail-carts and leading the horses along.

“Give me a minute,” said Egelina-Marie. She held out a pistol, took aim, fired one shot, dropped the pistol, and then used her spare similarly. Two soldiers, a hundred yards away, fell dead.

“Wow,” said Christina. “Impressive.”

“A shame they aren’t repeating pistols or at least have extra ammunition… Seems Anna hired the cheap guys,” said Eg, shaking her head.

Richy looked to Christina. “I’ll go with them,” he said. “Monsieur Klaus showed us that room once, a couple of months ago. It’s where we’re supposed to go if things ever go badly.”

“Great,” said Christina. “We’ll meet you there in six hours.”

“Bakon, boys—you good with that?” asked Egelina-Marie. The Cochon brothers nodded.

“Elly, you okay?” said Tee. Elly didn’t respond but sported a goofy grin. Tee followed Elly’s gaze and found she was staring at Christina. Tee gave Elly a quick elbow to the ribs.

Elly gave Tee a frown.

Tee’s face then fell. “
Pierre!
We can’t leave his body out there. We
can’t.
”

Bakon nodded. “Agreed. We need to give him a proper resting place. I also have some frustration I need to let out”— Bakon cracked his knuckles —“and I think these soldiers may be willing to help me with that.”

“Okay—we’ll take care of Pierre. You guys go,” said Egelina-Marie. “Those soldiers will be on top of us shortly.”

Richy excitedly said, “We can use the tree-bridges to get around them. But—” he turned to Bakon, “I need
you
to promise me something.”

“What, kid?” said Bakon, confused, while keeping an eye out for the soldiers who were finishing up checking their two fallen comrades.

“I need you to take me back to the Ginger Lady’s house today.
Promise
me,” said Richy, grabbing Bakon’s shoulder, making Bakon look him in the eyes. For the first time, Bakon saw the kind of pain in Richy’s eyes that Bakon had thought no one else could ever understand.

“We misfits stick together, kid. I promise,” said Bakon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Ginger Secrets

Bakon pushed the front door to the Ginger Lady’s rotten house; the door fell off its rusted hinges and to the ground. Bakon peeked inside, and then shook his head. He wasn’t sure Richy would be able to handle it. The kid had been through a lot today, and now he wanted to do this? 

Only hours had passed since they’d battled the Fare, dealt with the foreign soldiers, and retrieved Pierre’s body. After finding a memorable, peaceful place near a stream in the forest—a place where they could properly say goodbye to Pierre—they had tried talking Richy out of coming here, but he’d insisted.

Bakon looked back to Richy. “I think—”

“
No
—we’re going in,” insisted Richy, again. His voice trembled, and his eyes were watery. Since learning about his connection to this place, Richy had been having nightmares. He’d grown up hearing scary tales about the Ginger house and the Ginger Lady. Like any child, he’d reached an age where he saw the tales for what they were supposed to be—a story to warn children. Yet, once he’d heard he was one of those children, the stories took on new meaning.

“I… I have to get rid of these nightmares,” said Richy. “I can’t hold it all in anymore.”

Bakon bit his lip and just nodded in understanding. He stepped into the house carefully. “Man, this place stinks!” he exclaimed, covering his mouth and nose with his shirt. “Be careful—I think somebody went to the bathroom right there.
Geez.
”

Steeling himself, Richy walked in. He flinched each time the wooden floorboards creaked.

Bakon checked the bedrooms and returned. “Nothing in there except a bed in one, and rotten straw mattresses in the other. The stairs to the second floor are all broken and boarded up.”

“There’s no upstairs in my nightmares—they’re mostly in here, in this room,” said Richy. “There’s something here—I
know
there is.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Bakon, softly. Bakon walked around, staring in disbelief at the rotten furniture. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Doors were missing from some of the kitchen cupboards, while some hung from broken hinges.

Richy squatted down and touched the floor with a shaking hand. He gazed around, taking in every emotionally prickly detail. “I recognize that window,” he said, standing and taking a step towards it. “In one of my dreams, I saw something—I don’t know what—but then the monsters in the shadows got angry and I screamed myself awake.”

Bakon scanned around. “I can’t see anything that stands out.” Looking back at Richy, he could see the boy might be starting to lose it.

“Why was I here?
Why?
” said Richy, tears dropping. “Why? Why?—”

“Hey!” said Bakon, snapping his fingers to get Richy’s attention. “Kid, trust me—I have all the sympathy in the world for you, and you’re an amazing kid, but we
don’t
have time for a meltdown. So pull it together!
You can do this.
Okay?”

Richy gazed back, seemingly only half there.

Bakon stomped in frustration, cracking some of the floorboards. “It’s just—I’m—I’m no good at this!” he yelled, stomping again even harder. Bakon wished he could explain to Richy his
own
nightmares, how he and his brothers had been abandoned as children, but he just couldn’t find the words. He hated situations like this—they made him feel helpless, like the day he and his brothers had been abandoned. He couldn’t take seeing his own pain reflected back at him in Richy’s eyes. He wanted to rip that feeling apart.

“What’s that?” said Richy, pointing at something showing through a broken floorboard under Bakon’s feet. 

Bakon got on all fours and quickly removed the broken pieces of floor, revealing some large books. He picked one up carefully and opened it. He took a minute to scan a couple of pages. “I don’t believe it. These are accounting ledgers.”

“Accounting… for
what?
” said Richy, trying to look, though Bakon wouldn’t let him.

“Of…
kids,
” said Bakon. He closed the ledger. “Richy, the people who care for you up in Minette—
they
are your parents; your family. Whatever happened in the past is in the past.”

Richy’s hands stopped shaking. His eyes shifted from fear, to anger. “Those people in Minette? They
aren’t
my parents. They don’t even
want
me. Each of them thought the
other
would take me when they split up. What kinds of parents think that? They aren’t my family!”

Bakon’s hands were open, as if he was trying to catch something that he couldn’t see. “Look… I don’t know what to say about
them
, but I know that Tee, Elly, and the others—even me and my brothers—
we’re
your family too. All this stuff here—” said Bakon, gesturing to the ledgers, “—is just going to eat away at you if you let it.”

“
I need to know,
” implored Richy, looking Bakon in the eyes.

“
Okay,
okay. Sit down,” said Bakon, opening the ledger and showing it to Richy.

Richy looked at the page, but it didn’t make sense. “How can you read this?” he asked.

Bakon gave him a sad smile. “You know how the Klaus family took us in when we were young… and helped us? At least—as much as we’d let them?”

“Yeah,” said Richy. “I heard that you, Squeals, and Bore were found in town, near the market. You were just seven or eight.”

“Seven. Anyway, we never made it easy on them, but they didn’t mind,” said Bakon. “One of the amazing things about Isabella was that she made sure we got lessons, like her own kids. We didn’t have to do all the same ones, but one that Isabella insisted I finish was accounting. I never thought I’d understand it, but she never let me give up—she somehow knew I could finish it, if only I’d keep at it.”

The two spent the next half hour breaking up more floorboards, pulling out journals, and leafing through them independently—after Bakon had showed Richy what to look for.

“I think—” said Richy, getting choked up and closing the ledger he was holding, “I think I’m in this one. I can’t look.”

Bakon put down the ledger he was holding and took Richy’s. “Let me have a look.”

Richy started pacing about nervously.

Bakon took his time to digest the entries and notes, flipping back and forth to confirm his understanding. He watched Richy pace, and wondered how he’d take it. Would he hold on to the world he knew, or would he abandon it to hunt down the past?

Richy locked his fear-filled eyes on Bakon.

“Come here, kid,” said Bakon. Richy plunked himself down and let out a big breath. He fidgeted with his hands. Bakon held open the ledger between them.

“Right here, it shows that you were bought. There are some interesting notes I’ll get to in a minute, but from everything else we’ve seen, the Ginger Lady didn’t
buy
children. She
sold
children,
received
children, and
stole
them—but you’re the only one she appears to have bought… ever.”

“Why?” asked Richy. “That makes no sense.”

Bakon shrugged. “I can’t find
why
she bought you, or to whom she was planning on selling you. I
do
know that you were here, and for two months. That was when, according to the notes, her second house—wait… you said you remembered
this
house?”