The Order of Odd-Fish (23 page)

Ian’s voice was edged with revulsion. “And you’re saying that cathedral we saw—”

“It’s where the Silent Sisters are hiding. Yes.” Nora turned to Jo. “How
did
Audrey know about the cathedral? Do you think she might be connected with the Silent—”

Something inside Jo broke.

“No!” she snapped. “Why do you have to drag Audrey into it? Not everything has to be connected to your stupid Silent Sisters! Honestly, do you think about anything else?”

Nora’s glow faded sharply. She had been excited, animated, her hair flung back, eyes shining; now she shrank behind her tangle of hair and mumbled something apologetic.

Ian shot Jo a puzzled look. “I’m sure Jo didn’t mean…”

“I’m sorry, Nora,” said Jo. “I’m just exhausted.” But she just couldn’t take another word about the Silent Sisters. Worst of all was dragging Audrey into it. Audrey didn’t believe in the myths, and Jo clung to Audrey’s skepticism with something like faith.

Yet even Aunt Lily believed it now. And it couldn’t have been coincidence that Audrey had led her to the cathedral of the Silent Sisters. Jo had the helpless feeling of being manipulated, that the Belgian Prankster was pulling the strings of her life. Jo suspected her choices counted for nothing—that no matter what she did, the Belgian Prankster would get her.

Jo ground her teeth and quietly panicked as Nora and Ian argued over
Teenage Ichthala.
Nora scurried to the cabinet where she kept all the old episodes of the show and put one of the reels into the projector, to show how a certain episode supported her case. It was an old episode Jo had seen many times before; the show played on, Nora and Ian continued to quarrel, but Jo just felt exhausted, and let her eyelids droop.

Jo opened her eyes.

It was completely dark.

The show was over. Jo must have fallen asleep, and Nora and Ian left her in the secret room. Or perhaps Ian and Nora were asleep, too. But she couldn’t hear them. There was an electricity in the air, a faint buzzing in the darkness. Her skin felt prickly and cold.

“Ian?” whispered Jo. “Nora?”

No answer. She couldn’t see anything. But then she heard something in the darkness—a moist sucking sound. Nora or Ian snoring, or…Jo groped around. She couldn’t find them.

Something
else
in the room? Jo couldn’t find the light. She got up, held her hands out, and crept forward, eyes wide open in the blackness, looking for a wall to orient herself. The snuffling got louder. It was to the left—no, to the right—she couldn’t tell—in back of her—closer—

The projector switched itself on.

Jo turned around.

The Belgian Prankster glowed in the darkness.

An invisible fist gripped Jo. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream. Her eyes were fixed on the Belgian Prankster’s image, projected on the sheet. His gigantic purple nose was runny and engorged, a shapeless mass of skin and fat and veins.

“I’m coming,” whispered the Belgian Prankster.

Jo couldn’t close her eyes. The Belgian Prankster was slowly reaching up to his nose. Jo winced as she heard the flesh rip. The detached nose twitched in the Belgian Prankster’s hand. Where the Belgian Prankster’s nose should have been, there was now a black hole. Jo couldn’t see the Belgian Prankster’s eyes behind his ski goggles, but she felt them creep up her body.

Jo shuddered.

The Belgian Prankster reached up to the hole in his face and started pulling something long, pale, and scabby out. He grunted and strained as the thing inched out, further and further; finally his hands dropped to his side and he grinned.

A writhing stinger pointed straight at Jo.

Jo screamed, broke free, stumbled, crashed to the floor. The lights were on. The projector was still running, film flipping and flipping. The sheet had nothing on it, just a blank white glow.

Shakily Jo stood up and turned off the projector. It had been a nightmare. Still, she felt as though someone had sent electric shocks all through her. Her heart thudded. She tried to think about something, anything, other than the Belgian Prankster.

But it wasn’t the Belgian Prankster that scared her. It was that when she saw him, a hidden part of her had quickened. Something strange inside her had recognized him, and responded.

T
HE
next month it was Jo and Ian’s turn to groom the ostriches. About two dozen ostriches nested on the roof of the lodge, but they were semi-wild, and came and went as they pleased. Occasionally all the ostriches took off at once and flew out over the sea, banking and swooping raucously over the water, their armor glittering in the sun.

Grooming was nasty, smelly work, but it had to be done, or the ostriches would get embarrassed about their dirty plumage and refuse to fly. So every night that month Jo and Ian had to pluck out the ostriches’ ragged feathers, prune their talons, and rub oil into their leathery necks.

Jo loved the ostriches. She loved their proud, stupid eyes, their powerful wings, their ornate armor and colorful regalia. Now that she and Ian had finished their first quest, they were allowed to have ostriches of their own. Her ostrich was a fledgling named Ethelred, a little excitable and awkward, but just the right size for her. Jo loved clutching him as he sprinted off the roof and hurtled into the air, dipping and weaving between the buildings, flapping up into the sky and leaving the city far below.

She loved Ethelred all the more for his cranky personality. He always looked slightly offended, as if someone had just told a joke he didn’t understand but suspected was about him. If she didn’t ride Ethelred for a few of days, the next time he saw her, he would try to bite her. And he was reckless: Jo felt barely in control as Ethelred took her faster and faster over dangerous territory, flying over the sparkling, foamy sea, zigzagging through the maze of buildings of Eldritch City, or racing wild pterodactyls in the fens outside of town.

Flying Ethelred, Jo discovered little surprises scattered throughout the countryside. She flew far above rambling farmhouses and tidy fields of crops, and spied the occasional hermit’s hut or a half-collapsed castle. Once in the swampy forest, she thought she saw the Schwenk lurking in the trees, but by the time they wheeled back it was gone.

When it got too hot in the city, Jo, Ian, and Nora would climb on their ostriches, Audrey would hold on to Ian’s back, and they would fly out to a deserted beach where a river streamed out into the ocean, near a decaying mansion overgrown with weeds. They would spend all day swimming in the ocean, picnicking in the cool forest, and exploring the abandoned mansion. The ostriches ran around on the beach, chasing the crabs. Those days were close to perfect.

It also helped put out of Jo’s mind the specter of the Belgian Prankster.

Jo tried to think of the Belgian Prankster as somehow safely distant, as something she could keep at bay just by immersing herself in everyday life. But sometimes she caught herself daydreaming about him. She couldn’t understand why. She would see someone on the subway who for a split second looked like the Belgian Prankster. Or she would suddenly hear his name whispered in a crowd, and when she turned around she couldn’t figure out who had said it. Sometimes even certain smells overwhelmingly reminded her of the Belgian Prankster. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t help it. The more time passed, the more the ordinary world almost seemed like the thinnest piece of tissue, and the shadow of the Belgian Prankster was moving behind it.

The rainy season had started. It was a dim, drizzling morning, and a big thunderstorm was rapidly moving in. Jo was just returning to the lodge after riding Ethelred. These days she liked to wake up before dawn and fly with Ethelred before everyone else woke up, breathing the fresh morning air and watching the sun rise over the city.

Jo was soaked with sweat and rain, happily exhausted, when she landed on the roof of the lodge. She unfastened Ethelred’s armor, dried it, and put it away. Then she put fresh sand in Ethelred’s stall, toweled him off, and gave him some lizards to eat. Finally, ready to face the day, she started downstairs.

There was an emergency. Footsteps pounded up the staircase. Jo barely had time to step aside as Aunt Lily, Colonel Korsakov, and Sir Oliver rushed past, all carrying strange contraptions. Aunt Lily didn’t even notice her until Jo said, “Hey! What’s going on?”

Aunt Lily turned, startled. “Jo! I was looking all over the lodge for you!”

“I was flying Ethelred—”

Aunt Lily signaled the others to go ahead. Jo heard the peevish croak of ostriches waking up, their armor clanking as Korsakov and Sir Oliver got them ready.

“I’m leaving,” said Aunt Lily. “I have to leave right now.”

“But a storm’s coming. You can’t ride today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Aunt Lily. “The Belgian Prankster has made his move.”

Jo stumbled backward.
“What?”

“The Belgian Prankster is coming back to Eldritch City,” said Aunt Lily. “We have to stop him—me, Sir Oliver, Korsakov. Every minute counts.”

A gunshot went off in Jo’s stomach. “But…but you said I was safe from him here!”

“I was wrong,” said Aunt Lily. “We received new information just an hour ago. Nils—I mean, the Belgian Prankster—it’s much worse than we’d thought.”

“What are you going to do?” said Jo with rising panic.

“We’re going to try this.” Aunt Lily held up her contraption. Jo recognized it as the Inconvenience, but transformed by Aunt Lily’s tinkering, its components twisted and attached to new parts so that it was now a zigzagging pole stuck all over with prongs, wheels, and corkscrews, wrapped up in fur and blinking lights. It looked like a mess. “Theoretically, we can use this to turn the Inconvenience against the Belgian Prankster, maybe block him from getting to Eldritch City, or—”

“Theoretically?”
Jo looked at the jury-rigged thing with zero confidence. “But…when will you be back?”

Aunt Lily crouched down and took Jo’s hands. “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Maybe a few months. I don’t know. Maybe…”

The sentence hung unfinished in the air. Jo was startled to see that for the first time since they’d come to Eldritch City, Aunt Lily looked close to panic.

Jo said, “But why do
you
have to go? I need you here! Why isn’t anyone else helping?”

Aunt Lily seemed about to crack. “Nobody else knows, Jo. They know we’re going to stop the Belgian Prankster, but—”

“But what if the Belgian Prankster comes and…you’re not here?” said Jo wildly. “Nobody else knows except Sefino, and he’s useless! What can I do?”

Aunt Lily went very still. “Listen, Jo. If the Belgian Prankster somehow does manage to come back, whatever you do,
do not
go to him.”

Jo stared at Aunt Lily. “Go
to
him?”

“I’m serious. Don’t go to him, no matter what!”

“Why on earth do you think I would?” shouted Jo.

Sir Oliver and Colonel Korsakov were calling for Aunt Lily to hurry up. Aunt Lily looked like she wanted to say more. “I’m sorry, Jo. I wish I had time, but…”

Jo grabbed Aunt Lily’s arm. “Don’t leave me here! Let Sir Oliver and Korsakov go! I don’t know what I’ll do without you. What if people find out who I am? What if you—if—”

Aunt Lily took Jo in her arms and held her tight. But it was too quick; Jo tried to hold on to her, but before she knew it Aunt Lily had let her go and was running up the stairs. Jo stumbled after her, but by the time she made it up Aunt Lily had already mounted her ostrich and it was sprinting forward, off the roof and up into the air, joining Sir Oliver and Colonel Korsakov in the clouds. Jo watched helplessly as the three knights hurtled off into the dark morning, into the thick fog and spattering storm.

The rain pelted Jo. She was soaked and terrified and she didn’t know what to do. The only people she trusted to protect her were gone.

The sudden exit of Aunt Lily, Colonel Korsakov, and Sir Oliver was the talk of the lodge. Nobody knew why they had gone, other than that it had something to do with the Belgian Prankster. Jo was sick of thinking about it. She took a long shower, put on dry clothes, and went to find Ian. He brought up the subject, but when Jo didn’t reply, he knew enough to talk about something else.

The butlers weren’t around for some reason, so Jo and Ian rummaged through the kitchen to make breakfast for themselves. It was her first breakfast in Eldritch City without Aunt Lily; it didn’t feel right. They sat in the chairs by the fireplace, eating dry toast and drinking coffee, as the other knights and squires bustled around, getting ready for the day.

“Where are the butlers?” said Jo dully. “Shouldn’t Sefino be around somewhere?”

Ian took another bite of toast. “Daphne said the cockroaches went out on another bender last night. I doubt they’ll be back anytime soon.”

At that moment the front doors burst open and the cockroaches came roaring in. Their evening suits were wrinkled and sweaty, their ties stained or missing, and Petrucchio and Cicero were carrying a snoring, drooling Benvenuto. They were singing, but the words were slurred, and it mostly came out as nonsense.

“Give us a
Snitch
! Where’s a
Snitch
?” said Sefino, snatching a copy away from Jo and ripping it open to the society column. “Nothing…nothing…
nothing
!” he cried, throwing the paper back at her. “Not a
word
!”

“What’s wrong?” said Jo.

“Listen, Jo!” said Sefino fiercely. “Last night I broke
three
windows, fell down the
stairs,
got in a fight with a
beetle,
danced on
eight
separate tables, and drank things most people don’t even know
exist
! I threw Cicero out the window, ate enough caviar to kill a man, and, as a grand finale, set some curtains on fire! And still, NOTHING in the
Eldritch Snitch
!”

“You can’t be serious,” said Jo. “You’re upset because Chatterbox
isn’t
writing about you?”

“It’s all your fault, Jo,” said Sefino. “You and your meddling article!”

“You begged me to write it!”

“I
highly
doubt that,” snapped Sefino. “What are we going to be outraged about now? What about my notoriety? What if people stop talking about me? I’ll stop existing!”

Barrachio said, “Chatterbox said he won’t write about us again unless we do something newsworthy.”

“
Everything
I do is newsworthy!” shouted Sefino. “If I pick my nose, it should be on the front page! As it is, I’m knocking myself out here! I don’t know how many more nights like this I’ve got left in me!
What if he never writes about us again?
”

“I’m not vomiting onto any more debutantes until Chatterbox comes to his senses,” declared Belpo. “I mean, what does he want from us, blood?”

“I’ll give blood!” said Sefino. “I’ll open a vein and let it run until we’re back on the society page, where we belong!”

Jo said, “Why don’t you start your own newspaper? Then you could write about yourselves all you want.”

“Please, Jo,” said Sefino, rolling his eyes. “We’re trying to be serious here.”

The front door creaked open and Dugan peeked in. It looked as if he’d intended to make a discreet entrance, but with the butlers making a spectacle in the front room, Dugan became the unexpected center of attention.

Cicero rounded on Dugan unsteadily. “You! Where’ve you been the last three days?”

Dugan cringed at the questionable smells coming off Cicero and tried to shuffle past. “Nowhere,” he mumbled.

Cicero blocked him. “I demand to know where you scurry off to, squire!”

“None of your business!” said Dugan. “Sir Oliver doesn’t care where I go, so I don’t see why I have to answer to his butler!”

“Insolence! Insolence and impropriety!” slurred Cicero. “Sir Oliver will hear of this!”

Dame Isabel, Sir Alasdair, and Dame Delia had been watching this with amusement. Finally, Dame Isabel broke in, “But Sir Oliver just left on expedition. And doesn’t the Odd-Fish charter say that when a knight is on expedition, authority over the squire falls to his butler?”

“Sir Oliver’s…
gone
?” Cicero’s mouth hung open in a drooling grin. “You’re right, Dame Isabel! Ah, Dugan, I have you now! You are
grounded,
sir, for a week—no exceptions!”

Dugan looked like someone had hit him with a brick. He started to speak, but nothing came out except a strangled cough. His eyebrows squeezed together, his lips quivered, and he hurried from the room, mumbling about having to make some calls.

Jo and Ian were playing pool in the games room when Dugan came in and closed the door.

“Ian, you have to help me,” he said shakily.

“So you’re back,” said Ian. “Where
do
you go for days and days, Dugan? I’m curious, too.”

“Ian, please, listen to me,” said Dugan.

Ian returned to his shot. “I’m surprised you haven’t been kicked out of the Order yet.”

Dugan said sharply, “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be in the Order. So could you stop being a prig and listen?”

Ian started to shoot, wavered, and put the cue aside. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“There’s someplace I have to go tonight,” said Dugan. “I need you to go for me. Please.”

Ian looked irked. “Why should I?”

“Hear him out, Ian,” said Jo.