Greenglass House (27 page)

At the stairs, Negret hesitated. With the flashlight still off, he squatted on the top step and waited, listening for Dr. Gowervine's telltale wheeze or Georgie's quiet but not silent footfalls.

And waited, listening for the swish of Mrs. Hereward's dressing gown, or the creak of Mr. Vinge's gaunt old bones.

And waited, knowing if it was Clem, he'd better not blink because there'd be nothing to hear at all.

And waited. And waited.

Nobody came out. Still, Negret waited. It was only when he felt himself swaying and realized he was about to fall asleep right there in the stairwell that he decided to give up the watch. He stood and nearly fell over again as both of his legs burst into pins and needles. The trip downstairs was not quite as soundless as the trip up.

Back in his own room, he relit the lamp and watched the blue flame dance. Did all this activity mean that in the morning someone was going to discover something else missing? Would the thief really try again, even after being thwarted yesterday? Or had he perhaps just gone back for the same things he'd taken before: a bag and a notebook connected to the house and a watch that wasn't? Why those things in the first place? What would Negret's blackjack father have to say?

He fell asleep without coming up with any answers.

 

ten

Christmas Eve dawned frigid. Milo woke up under three extra blankets. He rolled over and blearily looked at his clock. Seven a.m. The lantern was on his desk, extinguished. Whichever parent had finally come in with the blankets must've doused it after all, which meant that in addition to the lecture about running off that his mom was saving up for him, he was likely in for another one about not falling asleep next to an open flame.

Next to the lantern was his flashlight. The events of his late-night excursion came flooding back. Somebody—somebody other than him—had been sneaking around.

Outside, the sky was blue, but when he got out of bed and crossed the room to his window, he could see a bank of steel gray sliding across the sky from the west. More snow coming.

He crawled partway under his bed and felt around until he found the spiral notepad in which he and Meddy had written their notes the day before. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he flipped to the page with Dr. Gowervine's name, and across the top he wrote:
Looking for vidimus for stained-glass window. Possibly linked to stolen bag and notebook. Probably in Clem's room to look at enameled window.
Then he turned to the list of clues and added:
Someone sneaking around night before Christmas Eve. Thief at work again?
And then, after a moment's staring at the brass lamp:
Possible that lantern from Emporium is a roamer relic? Small flame symbol scratched underneath. Lantern stitched on gate on Mrs. H's bag?

A knock sounded on the door. He got to his feet and shoved the notepad under his pillow.

Meddy stood in the hallway with a small, rectangular package wrapped in gold foil paper. “Merry merry,” she said, holding it up. “This was on the floor outside your door.”

Milo grinned as he took the box. “Mom and Dad always leave a present out for me to open on Christmas Eve morning.”

He carried it back to his bed with Meddy following. They sat, and before he allowed himself to so much as untie the bow, he filled her in on the evening's events, from the discovery of the flame symbol on the lamp to the mysterious creeper on the third floor.

“What are we still doing here, then?” she protested, shoving him off the bed. “Let's get downstairs and find out what's missing! Get moving! Now!”

“Okay, okay.” He grabbed his escaladeur shoes and his rucksack, paused to put his flashlight in the bag and the keys in his pocket, and with his Christmas Eve present tucked under one arm, headed for the door.

“Not gonna put on real clothes?” she asked, eyeing him skeptically.

“Nope.” Christmas Eve, like Christmas Day, was traditionally a pajamas-all-day occasion in the Pine family. The guests were just going to have to deal.

Considering it was probably another post-burglary morning, the first floor was surprisingly quiet. Well, not quiet, exactly—but nobody was howling about thieves. Not yet, anyway.

Mrs. Caraway and Lizzie were sitting on either side of the dining table. Lizzie was only identifiable by the top of her blond head; her face was buried in her arms and her shoulders were shaking. At first Milo thought she was crying, until he saw Mrs. Caraway's face. She was definitely trying not to laugh.

Her eyes met Milo's. He must've looked puzzled, because she winked and gave a tiny nod toward the kitchen. And in the kitchen: shenanigans. Shenanigans in the form of Fenster Plum and Mrs. Hereward attempting to bake a cake.

“But . . . the power,” Milo protested.

Mrs. Caraway shook her head. “The stove and the oven run on gas. They work just fine.”

Both Mrs. Hereward and Fenster were wearing aprons that belonged to Mrs. Pine. Mrs. Hereward had chosen one with pink and white polka dots, the kind that hung around your neck and tied at your waist. Fenster's was the sort that covered only the lower half and looked like the front of a skirt. It was purple with a white lace ruffle all the way around it and a pocket that was embroidered with a lavender-colored flower.

“Fenster, dear,” Mrs. Hereward was saying with exaggerated patience, “I promise you, one really does need to actually measure the ingredients when baking. Please stop throwing handfuls of things into the bowl.”

“It looks like it needs more cinnamon,” Fenster replied cheerfully. “I was just adding a pinch.”

“A pinch is
called
a pinch because it's what you can pinch between your fingers, my dear.”

“But that's barely anything!”

“That's exactly right. Also, that isn't cinnamon. It's pepper. Please put it down
immediately.
”

“Maybe it needs pepper,” Fenster grumbled.

“It does not. I refer you to the recipe.”

Brandon's muffled voice called from the living room. “Somebody make 'em stop.”

Milo followed the sound to a pile of blankets on the sofa. “Did you sleep down here?” Milo asked the blankets.

“I did. Couldn't bring myself to climb the stairs. Oy, Milo?” One bleary eye appeared from under a hem. “Could you manage to sneak into the war zone over there and extract a cup of coffee with a bit of milk? You ought to find the milk in one of the coolers. Mrs. Whatsername might know which one if she's already had to find it for the . . . ahem . . . cake.”

“I'll try.” Milo dropped his bag, shoes, and present on the floor next to the sofa and made his way into the kitchen.

“Mornin', Milo,” Fenster crowed. “We're making Miss Georgie a cheer-you-up cake, see if we aren't!”

“It rather remains to be seen whether it will turn out to be a
cake,
” Mrs. Hereward said darkly. She reached across the counter, plucked a tin out of Fenster's hand, and returned it to the cabinet he'd just taken it from. “Thank you.”

Milo edged his way around the counter where they were assembling the ingredients and found a metal coffeepot keeping warm on a little camp stove. The coolers Brandon had mentioned were lined up against one wall. “Mrs. Hereward, do you know which of these has milk?”

“The blue one, I think, Milo dear.”

Brandon had emerged from his blankets and was adding logs to the fire when Milo returned with his mug. “Much appreciated.”

“You guys were up late last night, huh?”

“Yep, and your mum and dad stayed up later than Fenster and I. No idea what time they finally turned in.” He stirred the coals and gave Milo a half grin. “I heard you've had a fairly eventful holiday so far, kid.”

“And it just keeps coming.” He lowered his voice. “I heard somebody sneaking around last night while you guys were still doing stuff down here. I expected something else to have been stolen, but maybe I was wrong.”

Brandon shrugged. “Who knows? Still a lot of people who haven't gotten up yet. Plenty of time for today to go wrong.” Just at that moment, the metallic sound of a stainless mixing bowl hitting the floor rang out, followed by some swearing from Fenster and a martyred sigh from Mrs. Hereward. “And it begins.” Brandon took a long gulp of coffee. “Do us a favor, Milo. When your dad gets up, let him know I went out to get an early start.”

“On the generator?”

“Yep. Hoping things'll look better in daylight. Also I figure if Fenster sets the house on fire, I'm safer in the genny shed.” He clapped Milo on the shoulder and went to the foyer to start pulling on his cold-weather gear.

“Looks like no news until the rest of them get up.” Meddy had been sitting quietly behind the tree. “You forgot your present, you know,” she added.

“Oh, man!” He retrieved it from next to his rucksack and went to sit beside the tree on the hearth. Poor tree. Most of the Pines' Christmas customs were unaffected by the power failure, with the fire and all the candlelight and the stove still working to make sure there was no shortage of hot chocolate. All except for the tree, which looked sad and lonely without its lights.

But Milo had a shiny gold present to open, and presents trumped sad trees any day of the week.

He untied the bow and retied it carefully around one of the lower branches. Then he turned the box over and found a little envelope tucked into the seam where the edges of the paper came together. Inside was a card with a rocking horse on it, and inside the card was Mr. Pine's messy handwriting.

 

Merry Christmas Eve, Milo! We love you so much and we're so proud of how well you're handling all the unexpected stuff this year. We're also very proud of the excellent idea you had about the lantern. Maybe you can reuse this box when you wrap it up for Mrs. H.

Took me a little while to find this for you tonight. It never occurred to me that you might be interested. Enjoy!

Love, Dad.

 

Milo tore off the gold paper and slit the tape that held the box closed with his fingernail. Inside, a little blue velvet bag with a drawstring was nestled in silver tissue paper. He pulled it out, loosened the string, and turned it over above his palm. A metal figurine about the size of his thumb fell out into his hand.

Meddy leaned in for a closer look. “Wow. Your dad is
awesome.
”

“What is it?” Milo asked. The little figure had been painted in colors that had darkened with age: a brown tunic and dark brown pants piped in blue the same color as the bag. It crouched low in a posture Milo immediately thought of as
sneaky,
and it held two odd, short swords in its pinkish-brown hands.

“I bet you anything it's your dad's Odd Trails character,” Meddy said. “He told us he played a tiercer-signaler who used butterfly swords, just like these.” She touched the weapons in the figure's hands carefully. “He might even have painted this guy himself.”

“People play with little pieces like this?” Milo asked. Meddy hadn't said anything about figurines.

She nodded. “In tabletop games. Lots of people like to have player pieces like this. Helps them visualize where they are in relation to obstacles and enemies and stuff.”

“Wow.” Milo examined the little man's face closely. It didn't look anything like his dad, of course, but it definitely looked like a blackjack.

For just a moment, there it was: a twinge of remorse. He had made up a blackjack father in the game instead of simply imagining his real-world dad into the part.

I should just pretend it's Dad,
he thought. Then, with a pang that hurt as much as the guilt had, he pictured the key fob with the Chinese characters and the parent he'd invented to go with them.
Negret is different from Milo,
he told himself. This soothed his conscience a bit as he slid the figurine back into its velvet bag and tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of his rucksack. “I'm going to wrap up the lamp for Mrs. Hereward. Be right back.”

He gathered up the gold paper and went into the kitchen to find something to put the lamp oil in, doing his best to steer clear of the cake-baking insanity. A few minutes later, Milo was up in the study on the second floor carefully transferring the oil in the lamp to an empty vanilla extract bottle. Then he packed the lamp and the tinderbox and the bottle into the box, rewrapped it with the same gold paper, and carried it back downstairs.

In the kitchen the two aproned bakers were in the process of pouring batter into three cake pans. Meanwhile, Lizzie and her mother were watching wide-eyed from the dining room, and it looked as if it was taking every shred of their combined self-control to keep from swooping in and taking over. But at last Fenster managed to maneuver the pans into the oven and Mrs. Hereward twisted the dial on the tomato-shaped timer.