The Explorers’ Gate (7 page)

“Good evening, Nikki. Been off exploring?”

So much for calm, breathing, and serenity.

When a bronze bust starts talking to you—trust me—it's extremely freaky. Especially since I didn't know whose side he was on—the Krolls or the Lorkuses.

I didn't stick around to chitchat.

I whipped off my magic hat and flew from the curb. Then I jay-walked like crazy across Central Park West, raced past the New York Historical Society building, made it to the service entrance for 14 West 77th, pushed open the gateway, and hurried down the steps to the narrow concrete corridor to our apartment.

When I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I expected to find my father fast asleep on the couch, his final can of beer resting on his stomach.

Instead, I saw him sitting on the floor. Sobbing. His cheeks were streaked with tears.

“Where were you?”

“At a friend's house. Up at 85
^th
Street.”

My father looked down to his lap where he had an old photo album freckled with the brown edges of ancient tape.

Dozens of photographs were strewn across the floor. The TV was glowing behind him. The eleven o'clock news gave his head a quivering halo.

“They fell out,” he said, pointing at the scattered pictures. “I opened the book and they all fell out.” His fingers fluttered through the air.

He sounded so sad.

I leaned over and picked up some pictures off the floor.

My mom and dad in Central Park in a rowboat. Mom and Dad on Bow Bridge. Mom posing next to the obelisk called Cleopatra's Needle. Mom riding a horse along the bridle path. Mom sniffing flowers in the Conservatory Garden.

Dozens of pictures had tumbled across the living room floor.

All of them showed my mom, happy in Central Park.

“This is the day we met,” said my father, holding a picture in his trembling hand. “I was playing softball down near the Sheep Meadow. The Heckscher Ballfields. It was like a dream. Your mother walked out of the forest, all dressed in white. She flashed me a smile, made me miss an easy pitch.” Now a smile made its way across my father's face. He swiped it away with the back of his hand. “Don't ever fall in love, Nikki. It's not worth it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hauled himself up off the floor, found his balance and a beer can. He swirled it around. Heard some liquid swish. Took a swig.

“There's only one way to make sure your heart doesn't get broken, Nikki. Keep it locked up tight.”

“Yes, sir.”

He shambled out of the room.

Something on the TV screen caught my eye.

“A wave of violence rocks Central Park,” said the female reporter. “At least three dozen people were arrested tonight as they attempted to topple the statue of a Civil War soldier off its pedestal near West 68
^th
Street.”

The TV cut to a shot of a heroic bronze sculpture with thick ropes looped around its green neck.

Then David Drake's famous bald head filled the frame.

“This is what happens when we, the people, lose control of our public spaces,” he said. “The government has clearly shown it cannot manage the park as well as a private entrepreneur could!”

The reporter came back on screen. “As you know, David Drake has recently proposed building a luxury hotel inside Central Park. As a precedent, he cites the visionary parks commissioner who, in 1934, allowed the famous Tavern on the Green restaurant, a private enterprise, to take over the building originally constructed to be a barn for the sheep grazing across the street in the Sheep Meadow. If Mr. Drake's luxury hotel in the heart of Central Park becomes a reality, perhaps we'll see more late-night security and less of this.”

The scene shifted to a blaze raging in a trash barrel while wild-eyed guys danced around it like the stars of a History Channel special about cavemen discovering fire.

As the camera swished across the faces, I recognized one.

It was hard not to.

He had a spiky mohawk hairdo and an angry scar running down the side of his face.

And even though I couldn't see it, I was pretty sure he had an extremely nasty knife hidden in the pocket of his baggy leather coat.

I couldn't sleep, so I Googled.

I didn't understand a phrase Grandpa Vanderdonk had used when talking to his vegetable sprayer: “Garrett shall attend the reading of the rules to be given by the Witte Wief of the Pond at dawn.”

Witte Wief
.

Who the heck was she?

I was pretty sure it was a
she
because, later, Grandpa had told Garrett, “The Wise Woman of the Pond will act as High Commissioner of the Quest.”

So whom exactly was Garrett supposed to meet at 5:46 a.m.? (I had already Googled the sunrise time.)

Well, in Dutch mythology, Witte Wieven were spirits of deceased “wise women.” While alive, these Witte Wieven were herbalists and healers. After death, their spirits lingered on earth to help mankind and kabouters, appearing as a hazy mist near burial mounds and swamps.

I was so confused by all I had seen, I could totally use a wise woman. And, if I couldn't communicate with the wisest woman I have ever known (my mom who, come to think of it, loved herbal tea), I'd settle for a Witte Wief since, so far, all the other so-called mythological creatures in Central Park had turned out to be pretty real.

The Pond is a body of water tucked into the southeast corner of the park, right near the entrance at Fifth Avenue and 59
^th
Street. It's sunk a couple stories below street level and walled in by thick shrubbery and trees that shield it from the city less than one block away.

Before the park landscapers had worked their magic, the manmade “lake of irregular shape” was a swamp—the kind of damp, misty place where wispy Witte Wieven would definitely love to hang out.

The Pond was also about a mile and a half from my apartment, so it would take me about half an hour to walk it. That meant I'd have to leave home long before the sun came up.

I set an alarm for 5 a.m. and forced myself to sleep.

I woke up five minutes before the alarm went off. I always do that when I have to get up super early.

My father was, as usual, fast asleep. Some Sundays, he doesn't crawl out of bed until the middle of the afternoon. Sunday is his day off. No tenants are allowed to bug him about burnt-out light bulbs or clogged toilets.

I tugged on my red knit cap and headed out the door. The sky was inky black but alive with sparkling stars.

I decided not to go into the park via the Explorers' Gate. That talking statue of Humboldt was still there, probably keeping one bronze eye aimed in my direction. So I stayed on the far side of Central Park West all the way down to 69
^th
Street. Garrett wouldn't know I'd be spying on him, so I thought it'd be smart to cut across the Heckscher Ballfields, work my way through Driprock Arch, circle around the Wollman Skating Rink, and take up a secluded listening post on Gapstow Bridge.

As I made my way past Umpire Rock, I thought I heard something metal clunking in the darkness behind me. When I whipped around to see if someone (or something) was following me, the clanking stopped. When I moved forward, the creaky clinking started up again.

So I decided to run the rest of the way and hoped the statue tailing me was one of the slower ones, like the bust of Humboldt.

Somebody without legs.

The arching Gapstow Bridge, with its stone sidewalls to hide behind, was a perfect surveillance post.

To the south, I could see the skyscrapers of Midtown. To the west, a rugged, wooded bluff, part of the Hallett Nature Sanctuary.

In the faint light creeping across the lawn, I could also see Garrett Vanderdonk down near the lakeshore. Yawning. He was scratching his ears (and other things people scratch when they're sleepy and don't think anybody's watching).

Soon, Brent Slicktenhorst strolled down a pathway and joined Garrett.

Both boys were wearing red hats. Brent's was pointier. Made him look like a preppy garden gnome.

The sky to the east, behind the stacks of apartment buildings lining Fifth Avenue, started turning orange. Dawn had arrived, right on schedule.

A whirlwind of white mist swirled up from a stand of reeds. The delicate haze took on the shape of a glowing woman. Cloud white and ghostly translucent, she was as ethereal as an upright snow angel.

“Welcome, sons of the Netherlands. My sisters and I send you condolences on the death of your king, Kroll the Second.”

Garrett took one step forward. Cleared his throat. “We thank you,” he said in the stilted voice most guys use when the teacher makes them stand up in class to recite poetry. “We are now ready to receive your words of wisdom, oh wise one.”

“Hear me, sons of New Amsterdam! Over the next three nights, your two teams shall compete in three different contests. Tonight, we will test the sons' knowledge of their fathers' traditions. The two claimants to the crown shall compete upon the bowling green.

“Tomorrow night, one human child from each team shall face off in a battle of courage and strength to see which prince possesses the fiercest defenders from the mortal realm.

“Points shall be awarded in both of these first two contests. The team with the highest score shall be given a head start for the final round—the Crown Quest itself!

“On Tuesday night, both teams shall assemble at the Bethesda Terrace starting line to demonstrate their knowledge of the kingdom your princes would rule.

“The objective of this final competition is quite simple: Be the first team to find the Kabouter Crown, which we shall hide somewhere within the kabouter kingdom. The first team to find the crown and bring it back to the starting line safely shall see its prince crowned the new king of Central Park!”

“Cool,” said Brent—which isn't exactly how I'd address a mystical being.

Then, again, I wouldn't be chewing gum, either.

“The sun rises,” the wise woman said as her gauzy form faded away. “When next it sets, let the competition commence!”

With that, the Witte Wief and all the mist hugging the surface of the Pond vanished.

“Your boy is gonna lose tonight,” I heard Brent snort at Garrett. “Then, it's you and me, bro.”

“I guess.”

“What? You're gonna send in the girl?”

“Nikki? Nah. She's our team leader for round three. Who've you got to crack the clues and find the crown?”

“A super-secret weapon.”

“Who?”

“I can't tell you, dummy. It's a secret.”

The two boys went their separate ways.

Suddenly, I heard a pair of wooden clogs clomping against stone. Someone was walking up my bridge.

“Hello, Miss Van Wyck.”

It was Loki.
Without
his pony.

“Am I to understand that you have joined the Vanderdonks and will be assisting Kroll's descendant in his quest for the kabouter crown?” asked Loki as he stroked his tiny red beard.

“I guess.”

“Oh, I see. Your participation is uncertain?”

“Well, no. I said I would help them out. So I sort of have to.”

“I see. But you wish you could back out?”

“Not exactly …”

“Oh, I understand how you feel! This whole thing is frightfully silly. Preposterous, actually. I don't even
want
the blasted crown! Too much responsibility.”

“Um, excuse me—but I think the contest is between the two princes. The son of Kroll versus the son of Lorkus.”

“That's right, dear. Lorkus was my daddy.”

“You're kidding.”

Loki sighed. “I wish I was. Frankly, I'm far too lazy to contemplate being a king.”

“So, call it off!”

Loki's cheeks flushed so red they matched his hair and hat.

“I-I-I'm afraid to,” he stammered, biting back tears.

“Why?”

“People will say mean things about me.”

I nodded. I could relate.

“They'll say, ‘He's a quitter—just like Lorkus, his loser of a father.' I suppose you know that my daddy was older than his brother when they held the last Crown Quest, thirty years ago?”

“So I've heard.”

“He should've become king! But, halfway through the third round, the treasure hunt, he threw up his arms and said, ‘This is too hard!' And so, my father lost the crown
his
father had worn all through the 1960s and '70s.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Those were good times. My grandfather's reign was Central Park's finest years!”

Since Loki was sniffling, it would have been rude for me to contradict him. But if you study the history of Central Park, you'll discover that the place was a nasty
nightmare
in the '60s and '70s. Graffiti was scrawled everywhere. All the grass had turned to dirt. Bridges were crumbling. Central Park was nothing but a scary haven for muggers and drug addicts.

I could tell Loki needed somebody to listen to his sad tale and I was pretty good at listening, so, together, we ambled up an asphalt footpath toward the Wollman Skating Rink.

“Oh, the shame of it all. The shame!”

“I'm sorry. For you and your whole family.”

“There's only me, now, dear. My mother died of terminal public humiliation not long after my father quit the Crown Quest.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yes. Because you understand what it means to lose a mother at a tender young age. You and I, Miss Van Wyck, we have both been forged in the cruel crucible of loss.”

I nodded.

“I wonder …” said Loki. “No. I hesitate to even ask.”

“What?”

“Will you help me, Nikki?”

“Help you do what?”

Loki steeled himself. “Concede defeat. This bickering between brothers, this civil war amongst the statues—it must be made to cease immediately!”