House of Secrets (28 page)

E
leanor was convinced that her legs had been burned to flaky ashes like the inside of her dad’s Weber grill. She’d be forced to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair! But then she remembered:
There aren’t any wheelchairs in Kristoff House! You’re going straight to Captain Sangray’s to get vivified!

Before Eleanor could imagine the scenario in more detail, a wave of water rushed into the dumbwaiter shaft, propelled by the blast outside the metal door. Eleanor sputtered and spat, touching her calves . . . and the ash was gone.

“Are you okay?” Brendan asked.

“Yes!” She had tiny red splotches on her skin, and it felt like she’d been playing too close to a campfire, but she didn’t need a wheelchair.

“Then climb!” ordered Brendan. “Will and Penelope, here we come!”

Eleanor winced and clambered over Brendan’s shoulders. As she wormed her way up the shaft, the pirates swarmed into the room.

“Eh, then! What’s this, a room full o’ wine?”

“We’ve gone to heaven, mate!”

“Who’s got the corkscrew, then?”

“Who needs one? Just bite the top off!”

“This is pinot noir! I’ll not be ruinin’ it with little bits and bobs of glass particles! No, we need a proper corkscrew!”

“I’m chewin’ off the top! Now leggo—
ow
!”

Brendan paused in his climb and smiled as the pirates degenerated into wine-crazed beasts, fighting and splashing and cursing.

“Look here, what’s this, then? 1899?” asked the pirate named Scurve. “This is grog wot’s from the
future
!”

“Yez be lyin’!” said dolphin-faced Gilliam. “It says nothing o’ the sort!”

“How would you know, Gilliam? You can’t read!”

“Quiet, all of you!”
ordered Captain Sangray. The wine cellar went completely silent. Brendan froze inside the dumbwaiter shaft. “Scurve is right! These vintages are labeled with dates that haven’t happened yet! What’d I tell you about witchcraft? This entire house is cursed! You aren’t to open a single bottle, understand?”

The pirates looked at one another, waiting for someone to respond. Gilliam did.

“But Cap’n Sangray, begging your pardon, yez told us we could take any provisions we found on this vessel.”

“Did I? Gilliam, your memory is so astute! Can you remember anything else I told you today?”

Brendan grimaced. He could hear the menace in Captain Sangray’s voice, but apparently Gilliam couldn’t.

“Yez said to shoot the ankle biters to wound, Cap’n. . . .”

“That’s right . . . anything else? Do you recall anything about a dolphin tattoo?”

“Oh! Right! I’s to have it covered up . . . no, wait, yez are gonna remove it . . . wait, Cap’n! No! Not now, oh no, at least let me drink some wi
-iiiiiii
—”

Brendan climbed the shaft as fast as he could while Gilliam’s voice became a high-pitched scream. The only thing higher was Captain Sangray’s hysterical laughter.

“Move, guys!” Brendan hissed when he ran into his sisters. “Sangray’s doing something horrible down there!”

Cordelia and Eleanor were perched at the entrance to the upstairs hall. “We can’t,” whispered Cordelia. “Stump!”

Brendan saw the diminutive pirate guarding the hall. “So? He’s like four and a half feet tall! We can take him!”

“No way. He’s got a gun. He’s cleaning it.”

“That’s perfect! Now’s the time!”

Brendan shoved his head into Eleanor’s backside, which really hurt his injured ear. Eleanor yelped and pushed Cordelia, who tumbled out of the dumbwaiter shaft into the hall.

“Ankle biter!”
yelled Stump.

He fired at Cordelia, who leaped to the side. The bullet streaked into the dumbwaiter shaft, burying itself in the bricks above Eleanor, raining down dust. Brendan had to hold his breath, bite his tongue, use every bit of his inner strength to keep from sneezing.

“Cap’n Sangray! I got one of ’em!”
Stump called. He pointed another gun at Cordelia’s head. She backed against the wall and raised her hands.

“Where are your friends, missy?”

“Behind you,” Cordelia said. She wasn’t kidding: Eleanor was creeping out of the shaft right behind Stump.

“You think I’m gonna fall for that?”

“You’re right,” said Cordelia. “How silly of me.”

Eleanor eased herself to the floor. She was looking for a weapon—but the only thing she saw was a souvenir paperweight from her father’s hospital. It was a black hexagonal lump about half the size of a Coke can. Eleanor reached for it as Cordelia kept Stump distracted. “In fact, I bet you never fell for a stupid trick like that in your entire pirate career. Obviously you’re very intelligent. . . .”

Stump scrunched his eyebrows. He’d been called many things in his life, but
intelligent
wasn’t one of them. Suddenly he didn’t trust Cordelia. He turned his head slightly—and saw Eleanor!

Cordelia screamed. Eleanor slid the paperweight across the floor between Stump’s legs. Stump fired at Eleanor, but the shot went high, cleaving her hair. Cordelia grabbed the paperweight and raised it above her head. Stump cursed and drew his cutlass to finish off Eleanor—

And his chin shot up as Cordelia struck the top of his skull.

Stump crumpled to the floor. Cordelia dropped the paperweight. Eleanor caught her breath. Brendan climbed out of the dumbwaiter shaft.

“Are you okay? Do you need help? Oh.”

“You’re a little late,” said Cordelia.

“Wow, you did awesome! I mean, girl power, right?”

“Shut up, Bren!” Cordelia shoved him. “You almost got us killed!”

“I’m sorry,” Brendan said, “but I knew you’d handle yourselves.”

“Should we keep his gun?” Eleanor asked, nodding to one of Stump’s pistols. The pirate was out cold.

“Wouldn’t be much use,” said Brendan. “I saw this Discovery Channel thing about pirates. The guns they used were single-shot flintlocks. You have to reload them between each shot, and they mess up if there’s moisture in the air. That’s why they carry so many.”

“What about his sword?” Eleanor asked.

“
That
we can use to help Will and Penelope,” Brendan said. “We’re going to need something to save them from the pirate ship.” He reached for the cutlass—but Stump’s body started to stir.

The Walkers took off down the hall. By the time Stump groggily got to his feet, they were in the attic, staring out the window, trying to figure out how to get to the
Moray
.

T
he mighty ship was towing Kristoff House with huge ropes. The ropes were attached to the house’s roof on one side and the ship’s stern on the other. At the stern, the Walkers saw the
Moray
’s rear cabin, with stained-glass windows featuring goats and howling men.

“Sangray must be taking us somewhere horrible,” Eleanor said.

“Not if we rescue Will and get him back his Webley,” said Brendan. “He could take out these pirates no problem.” Brendan sounded confident, but his face quickly went from hopeful to terrified as he heard the pirates themselves downstairs.

They were charging toward the attic.
“Shoot to disfigure!”

“That was Captain Sangray,” Eleanor said. “We
can’t
let him get us!”

“What are we going to do, go back in the water?” Brendan asked.

“Maybe we don’t have to,” said Cordelia. She stepped onto the windowsill as the pirates’ rough hands appeared around the hole in the attic floor.

“This way!” “Aye!” “Arrrgh!”

Cordelia grabbed the molding that ran above the window. She pressed her feet against the inside of the frame, swung her legs over the top, and pulled herself onto the shingled roof. She didn’t make it look easy, exactly, but even she was impressed at what adrenaline could make you do.

“How do you expect me to—” Eleanor started, but Brendan grabbed her and leaned out the window while holding her. Cordelia took her wrists and pulled her up. Then Brendan hoisted himself onto the roof, his butt disappearing over the top of the window just as the pirates fanned out across the attic.

“Where’d they go?”

“Out the window, Cap’n!”

The Walkers scrambled to the peak of the roof, squinting in the punishing sun, their feet slipping and sliding on the shingles. They were desperate for a place to hide, trying to stay low so none of the pirates on the
Moray
could spot them. Cordelia noticed a large, six-sided cone of shingles at the corner of Kristoff House. It was the ornamental peak that crowned the bay window in the upstairs hall.

“We can hide behind that.”

“What?” Brendan asked. “There’s nowhere to stand! We’ll fall—”

“Ringrose, pull me up!” called a pirate below them, and Brendan reconsidered. He and his siblings slid down the roof, stopped themselves on the gutter that hung over the sparkling waves, and shuffled their feet sideways to edge to the cone of shingles.

They pressed their backs against three of its six sections and held on as the wind tugged their clothes. Brendan’s bloody shirt, still wrapped around his head as a bandage, whipped into Cordelia’s face.

“Bren! Would you control that thing?”

“I’m trying not to fall in the ocean—”

“Hold on,” Cordelia said, “I have an idea.” She ripped the shirt off Brendan and let the wind sling it out to sea.

“I need that!”

“No you don’t! You stopped bleeding!”

“Why’d you throw it in the water—?”

“I’ve got a plan. When the—” began Cordelia.

“Shhhh!”
hissed Eleanor. “Pirates!”

The pirates had reached the top of the roof. Brendan peeked. He first saw Tranquebar, the pirate with the eye patch who had spotted him before. Tranquebar was old, with a pockmarked face. Next to him, casting a long shadow, was a man who had to be Captain Sangray.

Brendan stifled a gasp. Sangray looked like a wrestler, but not one of the new ones who were all body-shaved and clean-cut: one of the crazy retro ones like the Undertaker. He was six feet six, with one strong leg perched on either side of the roof’s peak; he wore leather breeches and a gold-fringed vest . . . and he sported the wildest beard Brendan had ever seen. It extended down a foot from his chin, jet black and tapered to two points, but it didn’t really end there, because the points were woven in with two leather straps that reached his belt and attached to crescent-shaped blades.

“Holy . . . Captain Sangray’s got knives attached to his
beard
!” Brendan said.

Eleanor inched forward for a look.

“Guys, careful, we’re gonna get caught . . . ,” warned Cordelia.

But it was too late. Next to Captain Sangray, sharp-eyed Tranquebar pointed toward the cone the Walkers were hiding behind.

“Look at that, Cap’n! Three of them.”

B
rendan gritted his teeth and tried to imagine how he would fight Captain Sangray—he didn’t think he stood a chance against those razor-sharp beard blades. But instead of rushing down the roof to catch the Walkers, Sangray asked, “What are you talking about, Tranquebar?”

“Sharks!” said the first mate. “Three fins whipping around in the water, tearing at something!”

Cordelia looked. Far behind the house, the ocean frothed around a trio of sleek, blue-gray predators that were fighting over . . .

“Your shirt, Bren! They’re going after the blood!” Cordelia said. “My plan worked!”

“What plan?”

“Shh.
Listen.”

Tranquebar pulled out a spyglass and held it up. After getting a good look at the sharks, he rose on the balls of his feet to whisper in his captain’s ear. “Cap’n, the sharks have the ankle biter’s shirt!”

“Are you certain?” asked Sangray curiously.

“Has mine eye ever let you down, Cap’n? It’s the shirt that brat was wearing.”

Sangray considered this, then mumbled, “Bet the shirt’s all that’s left of them.” His beard was shaped by oil, which glinted in the sun. His calculating eyes darted from the ocean to his men, who were fumbling around on the roof, complaining that they weren’t allowed to drink the wine, asking one another how it was that they’d been given the slip by a bunch of children. . . .