Choke: 2 (Pillage Trilogy (Pillogy)) (14 page)

“How do you know what it means?” she asked.

“I might have accidentally looked it up.”

“And you say I’m pathetic?” Wyatt argued.

I thought Kate was going to make fun of me some more but instead she leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder. I’m pretty confident I will never understand girls.

As we exited the cave, I took a moment to stand on the top of the stone stairway and look out from between the trees. Clouds were spreading over the blue sky making it look like Mother Nature was pulling up a big white comforter. I could see way down into the valley where Kingsplot sat surrounded by blue lakes and deep green trees. I gazed at the manor. The copper dome on top looked gold under the new clouds. I couldn’t see too clearly because of the distance, but I thought I saw a shadow moving around in the dome.

“I think my dad’s back,” I said excitedly. “Look.”

Wyatt looked around confused.

“No, down on top of the manor.”

I didn’t wait around to see if they understood me. Instead I started down the stairs as fast as I could. I needed to talk to my dad.

“What’re you doing?” Kate asked as she jogged down the stairs behind me.

“I gotta talk to my dad,” I huffed. “Have Wyatt take you home.”

“I don’t need anyone to take me home,” she said bothered and considerably less out of breath than me.

Kate passed me on the stairs and took off. I tried to keep up, but I wanted her to feel good about herself so I let her get way out in front of me. When I reached the bottom of the stone stairs she was so far ahead of me that I could no longer see her. I felt bad, but at least Wyatt was still behind me.

I took a few moments to rest near the scratchy bush, allowing Wyatt to catch up to me. His breathing was way more labored than mine.

“What the heck,” he gasped. “Why couldn’t you have found a secret cave with an escalator?”

The two of us half-jogged and half-walked as fast as we could to the back of the garage house. From there Wyatt took off, and I ran to the manor. Millie was in the kitchen humming and making some sort of pastry.

“Is that strudel?” I asked happily.

Millie nodded—strudel was my father’s favorite dessert.

“So he’s home?”

“Up where he should be,” Millie smiled. “He rang me earlier.”

I took the seven flights of stairs as quickly as I could. By the time I got to the door leading into the dome I was exhausted. I knocked, pushed open the door, and climbed in. My father was looking through his telescope toward the valley.

“Dad!”

“Beck,” he said, without looking away from the telescope. “It was such a clear day. I could see the large cathedral down in Kingsplot, but the clouds are back now.”

“That’s lovely,” I said, annoyed. “Where were you?”

“Not important,” he replied, finally turning from the telescope.

“I’ve needed to talk to you,” I informed him. “I don’t know if you remember this, but you have a son.”

Aeron shifted and looked me directly in the eyes. His face looked tired and drawn. He tried to smile and then waved as if that would have to do for now.

“Sorry,” he said exhaling. “I still have no idea how to act like a father.”

“Or a normal person,” I helped him. “Normal people don’t hide themselves away and then leave a note when they take off for days without giving more information.”

“Which one of us is the dad?” my father asked. “You might be a loose bolt, but sometimes you amaze me.”

There was a compliment in there somewhere, and I liked it.

“That man came back,” I told him.

“Who came back?” my dad asked anxiously.

“Whitey,” I clarified. “Did you know there are secret passages in the manor?”

“What are you talking about?”

I told my father everything I could possibly remember about Mr. Ashen. I told him about the secret passageway and the slide and the painting that looked out.

“Just like in the movies,” I said excitedly.

I told him about how I only had seven days and how the trees had been picking on me. I went into depth about finding the railroad tracks that led right into the garage house, and I gave him the lowdown on the cave.

“So that’s why I hate moths now,” I said.

“I suppose I don’t blame you,” my father replied. I could see from the storm in his eyes that he was trying to digest all the things I had just told him.

“I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted. “You were gone and Whitey was so insistent that I acted quickly.”

My father just stood there.

“Do you know him?” I asked. “Should we trust him?”

My father looked up. “Yes, I know him.”

“And?”

“Our family is mad,” my father said needlessly.

“That’s not comforting,” I complained.

“I shouldn’t have come back,” he said in a panic.

“What?”

“I was wrong to return,” he insisted. “I was wrong to come back. This is a mistake, Beck. I have to go.”

I was so flabbergasted I could barely be sarcastic. Somehow I managed. “You want me to help you pack?”

“Yes, grab that book,” he said, pointing at a large weathered atlas.

“No way,” I shouted. “I was joking. You can’t just go.”

“I must.”

“Why?”

“You don’t understand, Beck,” he said, flustered.

“I really don’t,” I replied. “Tell me what’s going on. What do I do?”

“I can’t help you here,” he told me. “There’s too much at stake.”

“So what do I do?”

He shrugged.

“I can’t believe it,” I moaned.

He didn’t seem to even hear me.

“I must go.” He grabbed his leather satchel and shoved the atlas into it. He then threw open the door to the stairs.

“You can’t run away,” I argued. “I need you.”

My father looked torn between the thoughts in his head and the instructions of his heart.

“It’s all I know,” he said with shame.

“What about the strudel?” I asked disgustedly.

My father turned to look at me. “Tell Millie I’m sorry.”

“Well, what about me?”

He looked me in the eyes again, and I could see that the storm was building. “I love you, Beck,” he said kindly, and with that he was gone.

I just stood there. I tried to recall every word my father had ever said to me in the past. I think one time he admitted that he liked me, and he may have said he wasn’t bothered that I was around, but, “I love you?” If he wasn’t so complexly flighty and confusing, I would have almost been touched.

I looked out the dome windows and watched the wind pick up. It had been quite some time since I had felt so alone. It started to rain and the fat drops beat down upon the copper dome like small, flat rocks.

I couldn’t believe it.

I climbed down the stairs and made my way to the kitchen. Millie was still there, but instead of humming she was grumbling.

“What happened?” she asked, her one crooked eye looking over my left shoulder. “He ran out of the manor.”

“I have no idea,” I replied. “We were talking and he freaked out.”

“Something’s not right,” she said sadly.

I couldn’t have agreed more—my stomach felt like it was going to implode. In fact I was so uncomfortable that it took everything I had to finish off three full helpings of strudel.

Lightning and thunder struck, and the new rain turned into a torrential downpour.

Illustration from page 27 of
The Grim Knot

CHAPTER 14

I was pretty used to it raining in the Hagen Valley. It didn’t rain that terribly often where I had come from, but here it was a rare day that didn’t include some sort of drizzle. We were currently, however, experiencing so much rain I was beginning to think that I should start building an ark.

The rain just wouldn’t let up.

Kingsplot was becoming a lake, and the mountains that surrounded us were experiencing incredible mudslides and flooding. Huge waterfalls were running off the sides of cliffs, and massive rivers surged over the banks.

Thanks to the rain, Kate was unable to come over at all. The only time I saw her was on the school bus and at lunch. Our school bus had actually gotten stuck twice because of the mud and rain. And just yesterday, the road leading from the mountains into Kingsplot had washed out. There was no longer any way for us to get to town. It was nice to have a break from school, but it also meant no Kate and no Wyatt and no fun.

I braved the rain once to go visit Kate, but it took me almost an hour and a half to trudge over the mushy, muddy ground. Plus, when I made it to her house, her mom and dad were both there, and Kate couldn’t use the excuse that she was going for a walk to get out. So I had to hike back, which took about two hours.

As difficult as it was to get to Kate’s, it was even more of a challenge to visit the cave. The forest was like a swamp and the water running down the stone stairway was so constant that moving up each stair was a major accomplishment. I had gotten up there only twice to check on the stone. The leafy cocoon was huge and throbbing when I last saw it. I figured I’d look in on it again once the clouds stopped ruining everything.

So for the most part I just stayed indoors, searching the manor for more hidden secrets and bugging Millie and Thomas and Wane. I did spend a little time in the basement. It was still buried, but the parts we had used previously were open. I couldn’t take the tunnels all the way to the conservatory because water had filled most of the passageway.

I did find a metal ladder hidden in a chimney of one of the large fireplaces in the middle of the manor. It was a fireplace that we never used, and when I climbed up the ladder it ended in a closet just below the top floor. It was obvious that there were a number of ways to get around the manor. It made me both excited and nervous. I figured if I could get around, then so could anyone else.

The secret passages were cool, but I could only waste so much time in them. That meant I found myself spending way too much time just sitting in the kitchen willing the rain to stop and talking to Millie.

“This stinks,” I said to Millie as I sat at the counter and
nibbled at a piece of pie she had given me.

“That’s the mold from all the rain,” she replied.

I almost smiled. “I mean it stinks to be trapped indoors.”

“Oh,” she said, sniffing dryly and rolling out some more dough.

“Has it ever rained like this before?” I asked.

“It always rains,” she informed me.

“I’m aware of that,” I said. “But it doesn’t always rain this hard.”

“True, I can’t remember such rain,” she mused. “I hope your father’s all right.”

“Me too.”

Millie cut the dough into circles and then placed them into pie tins. “Do you want to help me crimp them?” she asked.

I wanted nothing to do with crimping.

Wane came in and challenged me to a game of chess. I challenged her to find something less boring for me to do, and she failed. So, I halfheartedly played chess with her in one of the formal dining rooms. At first I could kind of tolerate it, but then it got so amazingly dull I felt forced to shake things up by spilling what I knew.

“Did you know that there are secret passages in this house?” I asked her.

“Check,” she replied.

“You did?”

“No,
check,
as in your king’s in trouble.”

“Is the king the one with the cross on top?”

Wane nodded.

“So you don’t know about the passages?” I asked again while moving my king to the left and out of immediate danger.

“I’ve discovered one or two passageways over the years as I have helped take care of this place,” she replied. “This manor’s full of surprises. I use a secret passageway to get up to the second floor.”

“What passageway is that?” I asked.

“You enter it through the large kitchen cabinets where the brooms are,” she whispered sounding secretive. “Check.”

“Oh yeah, I gotcha,” I winked.

“No,” she laughed. “The check part was for the game again.”

“Right,” I waved, moving one of my little pieces to the opposite corner of the board.

“You can’t do that,” she laughed.

I moved my piece back and shifted my king. “Why didn’t you tell me about the passageways?”

“It’s not like you need more things to distract you,” she answered.

“That’s true, but doesn’t that interest you, all the secret things here?”

Wane looked up from the board. “I learned years ago that this place is more amazing than I will ever know. Secret passages are great, but even greater things have happened here.”

“Have you seen the slides?”

Wane appeared confused.

“There are slides in some of the secret passages,” I explained.

She looked back at the chess board and shrugged. “Check.”

I moved my castle to block her pointy guy. “Does my father know about the passageways?”

“I’m not sure what your father knows,” she answered. “Until you came along, it was always an unwritten rule that we not talk about these things.”

“Is it written down now?” I joked.

“Check.”

I sacrificed one of my horses. “I don’t understand you,” I said honestly. “You and Millie and Thomas and Scott move about this place like it’s no big deal. Certainly all this stuff means something.”