House of Secrets (39 page)

Will suddenly got angry, despite how heartbroken and grieving the Walkers were in front of him. “That’s rubbish! I can picture ’em! I remember crystal clear!”

“Are you sure?” Brendan asked.

“Well, Pa had a . . . he was bald, wasn’t he? No, he had gray hair . . . or was it auburn? And Mum had . . . blue eyes . . . no, wait . . . ”

Will tried to look tough, but he was crumbling inside. It was true. The place where his parents were supposed to be in his mind, where he’d
seen
them before, or thought he had—because who doesn’t have
parents
?—that place was blurry and slithering.

“Well, who needs ’em anyway?” Will yelled. But then he saw the Walkers: They did. They needed their parents more than anything. And they were never getting them back.

He sat down with them. They all stayed in this position for a long time. They stayed quiet as Tranquebar announced the first sight of Tinz, which turned out to be a golden dome on its biggest church. They stayed quiet as they watched the town grow—at a rate so slow that it almost felt like they were traveling backward—from a tiny speck into a busy port that filled their vision. They stayed quiet as they saw the wooden homes, taverns, marketplaces, and docks. The smoke rising from chimneys. The horses blocking lines of sight along narrow streets.

As they made their final approach, the pirates furled the sails and discussed which adult establishments they would hit first. The Walkers and Will watched them drop anchor, pile into smaller boats, and row ashore, whooping and hollering. Then Cordelia finally said, “We should go. The fact that our parents are gone doesn’t change what they would want from us. They would want us to live. To succeed. To—”

“To get revenge against the Wind Witch,” Brendan said in a cool, calm voice. His sisters had never heard him sound so determined.

E
leanor couldn’t believe she had made it to land. Even after she got off the
Moray
and into the small rowboat that ferried them to a dock under Tranquebar’s supervision, and after she got off that dock and onto the beach, it still felt like the ground beneath her feet was moving with the push and pull of the waves. It was almost a different kind of seasickness. She lay down.

“What are you doing?” Brendan asked.

“Making a sand angel,” Eleanor said. “Remember? Dad used to show us how to do this on beach vacations.”

Brendan smiled—and a minute later he was on the ground with Eleanor, making sand angels and acquiring sand boogers. Every time he laughed, he thought about how he was fighting the Wind Witch. Maybe she had killed his parents, but she hadn’t killed him. Not yet.

Meanwhile, Tranquebar was hanging around. He had covered for Will when the captain and his mates were in obvious distress on the
Moray
and he stayed close now. “The trading partners will be here in two hours, Captain,” he told Will. “They’ll want to meet you . . . if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I am,” Will said flatly.

“And what about you, Mate Cordelia? Do you want to go to town?” Tranquebar gestured to the thrumming town of Tinz. Greasy smoke came out of the buildings.

“I’ll stay with Will,” Cordelia said, drawing close to him. She wanted to be close to anyone right now. Anyone who understood what she was going through.

For ten minutes the Walkers and Will stayed on the picturesque beach, trapped in beautiful weather and dark thoughts. Then Brendan got restless.

“I can’t sit around all day thinking about what we just learned,” he announced. “I’m going exploring in the town.”

“Me too!” said Eleanor.

“We shouldn’t split up,” said Cordelia. “That town could be dangerous.”

“Oh, come on, Deal . . . when has that ever stopped us?” Eleanor said. Then she stopped and yelled,
“Horse!”

The Walkers all looked. In the distance, a horse with a man on its back traipsed past the beach—a beautiful palomino with sheer, slick muscles.

Eleanor took off running. “Hey! Wait! Sir! Hold on! Can I see your horse?”

“I’ll keep an eye on her!” Brendan yelled back to Cordelia.

Will put his hand on Cordelia’s. “Let them go. We’re the oldest. We’ve got to stay here and take care of this trading-partner business so we can keep moving. If it’s revenge you want.”

It is.
And I’ll never be satisfied until I have it.

Brendan caught up with Eleanor in town, next to a bakery, as she stared up at the horse. It was ridden by a tall man who looked down at Eleanor with concern.

“Miss, are you all right?”

“Oh yes,” said Eleanor. “Your horse . . . she’s beautiful! I always wanted a horse like that! Do you think I can ride her?”

“Have you ever been on a horse, little one?”

“Once,” said Eleanor. “At a carnival. No, wait . . . I think that was a pony. But it doesn’t matter; I’m not afraid. Not if I ride with you.”

The man smiled. “How can I say no? Do you know how to climb on?”

“Hold on a minute, dude—” Brendan said, but the man was already leaning down and offering Eleanor one of his long arms. She got on the horse behind him.

“Nell, are you sure this is a good idea? You don’t know—”

“I’m Jacques,” the horse rider said proudly, “and this is Majesty. I’m her trainer. I raised her.”

“I’m Brendan, and if you try to hurt my sister, I’ll come after you,” Brendan said, narrowing his eyes.

Something in Jacques’s face changed. “Wait . . . are you . . . are you from the
Moray
?”

“That’s right,” said Eleanor. “We’ve just been on a journey full of horrors.”

“Please,” Jacques said, bowing his head to Brendan, “do not harm me, powerful brother. I will take good care of your sister, give her a riding lesson, and return her to you and your leader, Shaman Tranquebar.”

“
Shaman
Tranquebar?” Brendan laughed. “He’s not a shaman. He’s a first mate—”

“Our town has known Shaman Tranquebar for many years, Master Brendan. We have known him and loved him. Now if you’ll excuse me.” And Jacques was off, with Eleanor whooping behind him, into the winding lanes that threaded the town.

Weird,
Brendan thought,
but it’s nice being called Master.

Brendan kept walking, eager to see what the town had to offer, trying not to think about his dead parents. He was careful to avoid the pirates from the
Moray
, who clogged any street where a tavern was located, laughing and vomiting matter-of-factly in the gutter.

Brendan came across a sweet shop. The windows were stacked with ridiculously oversize, mouth-watering caramel apples. Brendan hurriedly went inside and approached the elderly shopkeeper.

“Excuse me, sir, do you think I could trade something—maybe one of these gold doubloons—for one of those apples in the window?”

“Are you from the
Moray
?” asked the suddenly frightened man.

“Well, yes—”

“And you’re friends with Shaman Tranquebar?”

Brendan shrugged. “I guess you could call us acquaintances—”

“Any friend of Shaman Tranquebar is entitled to all the apples in my store! Take as many as you like, son! Free of charge!”

“Okay . . . sure,” Brendan said, “but one will be just fine.” He grabbed the biggest apple he could find. “Thanks, Mister.”

Two minutes later, Brendan munched the apple suspiciously as he approached a shop. The front window was filled with amazing weapons of all varieties: gigantic axes, obscenely sharp knives, and swords that would make the characters in
The Hobbit
drool. Brendan was about to enter . . . but on seeing him,
this
shopkeeper locked the door and scuttled beneath the counter like a squirrel. Every now and then, the shopkeeper’s head would peer above the countertop.

“I can see you!” Brendan said. Then he turned and walked away, throwing his apple into the gutter. It had tasted perfect . . .
maybe too perfect
. Brendan suddenly thought the people in this town were under an enchantment spell, or they knew something they weren’t telling. He knew how fast secrets spread at school, how if you opened your ears you could literally hear them zinging through the halls. It felt like that here, like Brendan was the last one to know what the deal was. . . .

And then he got to an open-air market and forgot all about it.

Because he saw her.

Celene. The girl Brendan had read about in
Savage Warriors
. That seemed like ages ago, but it had to be Celene; she fit the description perfectly. She was about Brendan’s height, with short brown hair and a tiny nose that poked up, but not like a pig—like she was curious. She had smart, sparkling eyes that were purple, just like the book said, and Brendan got a good look at them—because from the stand where she was picking out fruit, Celene was staring right at him.

Brendan didn’t hesitate. He felt like he already knew her.
And besides,
he thought,
what’s the worst that can happen? My parents are dead, I’m trapped in a mystical world . . . what is she gonna do? Not laugh at my jokes? Big deal!

“Hey,” Brendan said as he approached Celene.

“Hello,” Celene responded. She kept picking up fruit as she spoke to him, looking at it closely and putting it back in front of the merchant, who watched her and Brendan with wary eyes. Not a single fruit got put in her canvas bag.

“None of them seem up to your standards. What’s your criteria?” Brendan asked, happy for once to use one of Cordelia’s words.

“Physical perfection,” Celene said, holding up an orange and putting it back.

Brendan looked at himself. He didn’t exactly scream “physical perfection,” but he refused to be psyched out.
If I think I look bad, who’s going to think I look good?

“I’m Brendan Walker,” he said as confidently as he could.

“Celene,” the girl answered. “And I know who you are, Brendan.”

“You do?”
Wait a minute . . . I’m supposed to know who
she
is. I
do
know who she is! What’s going on?

Celene came to a lemon that she actually seemed to like. She gave it to the merchant, who put it on a hanging scale . . . but as Brendan watched, the merchant slipped a folded note onto the scale at the same time.

Brendan stared at the merchant—and realized that he was a little too built, with too-good posture, to
just
be a merchant. This man must be part of the secret group that Brendan had read about in
Savage Warriors
. . . .

The Resistance. An army of freedom fighters who opposed the evil queen that Slayne served, Queen Daphne. Celene was part of the Resistance—one of the secret fighters, with a hard look on her face. As she paid for the lemon with copper coins, she pocketed the note. Brendan figured he better not mention the Resistance immediately.

“A lot of people in this town seem to know me,” he managed. “Why is that? They’ve never met me.”

“Your reputation precedes you,” Celene said.

“That’s probably a good thing, right? Unless it’s a bad reputation. I don’t feel like I’ve done enough bad stuff to have a bad reputation. I mean, once I taped together all the silly straws in the kitchen cabinets to make a minipipe that took water from the sink to my sister’s room, and I kind of flooded the house and destroyed her laptop, but—”
Stop, Bren; what’re you doing?
“But that was like, years ago, and I’m a lot more mature now.”

“How many years ago?” Celene asked.

“Mmmmm . . . one,” Brendan admitted. They were walking together now. Celene laughed. Her smile showed all her teeth. Brendan remembered from
Savage Warriors
that one of her top teeth was crooked, and sure enough, there it was. He had to make her really smile to see it.

Celene came to a stall that sold fish and octopus. Brendan saw the tentacled creatures stretched out on boards with their arms pressed together like they were wearing skirts. The smell was horrible, and as he gagged, he almost didn’t notice: Celene slipped the note out of her pocket and gave it to the fishmonger. He had the same look as the first merchant, like he was just doing his job while he had something much more important on his mind.