The Perilous Journey (22 page)

They needed to be patient, Reynie reminded himself, despite the feeling that a Ten Man might burst through the door any moment. They mustn’t put too much pressure on Sticky. When he was flustered, Sticky was capable of becoming very agitated and confused. He was less susceptible to such states these days, but the possibility still existed. It had long been a source of embarrassment for him.

Even as he was contemplating this, though, Reynie noticed a subtle shift in Sticky’s demeanor. At first it was difficult to place. Sticky, marking a spot in the journal with his finger, had begun to examine the other papers. “Letters,” he said, glancing up at the others. He studied the topmost letter with great seriousness, then set it aside and returned to the journal, first adjusting his spectacles with a casual, scholarly, almost absent gesture. Almost absent, but not entirely. And now Reynie understood: Sticky was feeling his importance.

It was clear to Reynie that Sticky had been struggling with his ego ever since they met up again at Kate’s farm, and Reynie was inclined to forgive his fits of vanity. The boys had been through a great deal together, and Reynie thought he knew Sticky’s heart as well as anyone’s — knew, in fact, that it was nobler and braver than most. Sticky was a skittish and fearful child, yet he always ended up doing the right thing, no matter how frightening it was. In Reynie’s opinion, this made Sticky one of the bravest people he’d ever met. If he occasionally acted like a peacock, it was not such a grave offense, and at any rate Sticky could generally count on Kate and Constance to pluck his feathers.

Sticky soon finished his reading. He pursed his lips and removed his spectacles, evidently deep in thought. Staring into an unseen distance, he polished the spectacles, put them on again, and with a deep, thoughtful breath began rubbing his chin in exactly the same way Reynie often did. Reynie felt suddenly seized with irritation — so much for forgiveness — but he held his tongue, determined not to rattle Sticky out of thinking clearly.

Constance, however, climbed down out of her chair (her arms were too short to reach Sticky from where she sat), stepped over to him, and swatted his hand with all her might. She struck the hand Sticky was using to rub his chin, and the sting of her blow as well as his startlement caused Sticky to jerk the hand up and away, knocking loose his spectacles. Kate reached out, quick as a wink, and caught them — and with the other hand she caught Constance, who was rearing back for another swat.

“Get over yourself!” Constance hissed as Sticky blinked at her in blurry-eyed alarm. “Stop looking for glory and give us the story!”

Sticky’s face turned sullen. “I was trying to think of how to explain it in English,” he said, taking his spectacles from Kate. “You can’t just hit people when you’re dissatisfied, Constance.”

“Watch me!” Constance said, trying to writhe free of Kate’s grip.

“Constance,” Reynie said sharply. He jerked his head toward the librarian’s desk, where Sophie had risen from her chair and was staring at the children with concern. He waved at Sophie. “It’s okay. Sorry. We’re fine.” And when Sophie, doubtful, sat down again, he murmured, “You two can fight all you want later. Right now let’s just get through this, okay?”

Sticky and Constance glared at each other, but eventually they nodded, and Constance climbed back up into her chair. After Sticky had taken a moment to regain his composure (but only a moment this time, and without any puffery), he told them what he’d learned: the journal had belonged to Mr. Benedict’s mother, Anki Benedict, while the letters were from her sister in America — Mr. Benedict’s aunt — and from a fellow scientist, a close friend of Mr. Benedict’s parents named Han de Reizeger.

“What I’ve read explains a lot,” Sticky said. “For one thing, the Benedicts weren’t expecting twins. Anki makes several references to the ‘baby’ coming — one baby, not two — and that if it was a boy they would name him Nicolaas.” Sticky pointed out the name in the journal. “Obviously the aunt changed the spelling later.”

“Obviously,” said Constance in a mocking tone.

Sticky twitched but made no response to this. “There are no entries after the birth,” he said, “which explains why the museum didn’t know about a twin. Only Mr. Benedict was contacted about these papers, though obviously Mr. Curtain has found out about them.” (He stiffened, anticipating another mocking remark, but this time Constance refrained.) “Those Ten Men may not have gotten their hands on the journal, but somehow Mr. Curtain knows what Mr. Benedict discovered in it, which is that their parents may have found a cure for narcolepsy —”

“Really?” cried Reynie and Kate together.

“It’s possible,” Sticky said, “but not certain. There’s a rare plant —”

“A rare plant!” Kate exclaimed.

“You mean like the ‘rare plant’ Mr. Curtain mentioned in his letter?” asked Constance.

Sticky pressed his lips together tightly. It is difficult to explain anything when one is constantly interrupted, and yet Sticky felt he couldn’t say so without being accused of haughtiness.

Reynie came to his rescue. “Sorry, we need to let you finish, don’t we? Go ahead, Sticky.” The girls, following Reynie’s lead, assumed attentive expressions.

“Okay,” Sticky said. “Let me back up a little. Apparently Mr. Benedict’s parents had narcolepsy. Not just one of them. Both of them.” Sticky turned to a passage in the journal. “Anki writes here that despite having grown up feeling cursed, she and her husband now feel blessed, because it was their shared condition — and their scientific interest in it — that led them to meet.

“She goes on quite a bit about how well they work together, with each of them always on the alert for the other, since they rarely fall asleep at the same moment. And I have to say, they were both pretty amazingly brilliant. They were planning several impressive research projects — all they lacked was the money to get started — and they’d already published a few papers on narcolepsy. But those papers had nothing to do with this rare plant. The plant doesn’t enter the picture until near the end of the journal — near the end of their lives, I suppose — when they received this letter.”

Handling them with care, Sticky set aside three sheets of paper from the bundle (the last of which, Reynie had already noticed, had a rectangular space cut out of its middle). “This letter is from their scientist friend, Han de Reizeger. He wrote to tell them that he’d found living specimens of
translucidus somniferum
— otherwise known as duskwort — previously believed extinct.”

Sticky hesitated. “I… I can tell you a little bit about that plant, if you’re interested. I mean I’ve read about it before.”

“Of course we’re interested, you lunkhead!” Kate said, laughing. “Are you kidding? That plant’s the key to this whole business!”

“Well, it’s just that sometimes…” Sticky shrugged. “All right. Ahem. Duskwort appears in a few ancient texts, but only a few. It was supposed to be extremely powerful — the slightest taste of it could put people to sleep — and was often considered the stuff of legend. There’s an old Norse tale about a party of Vikings storming into a village on a foggy afternoon, only to discover every single inhabitant asleep. Not in their beds, either, but on the ground, against walls, slumped over worktables — everywhere.

“The Vikings were so unnerved that they didn’t touch anything. They just walked through the village, staring at all the sleepers. On the far side of the village they found a boy lying next to a smoldering cookfire, clutching a tiny fragment of duskwort. Evidently he’d thrown some into the coals, and the smoke it produced had put everyone in the village to sleep, even though it must have been only the faintest wisp of smoke. Can you imagine?”

“Holy smokes!” Kate said, glancing around to see if the others caught her little joke. They didn’t, though, and she had to admit it wasn’t worth repeating, so she only added, “That’s some powerful plant.”

“Powerful but fragile,” Sticky said. “Duskwort only grows in certain unique conditions, and if it’s removed from its native environment, it disintegrates. I know this from the journal. The Benedicts had found some specimens the year before — Anki doesn’t say where — and taken one back to their lab to study. It quickly turned to dust, but not before they felt pretty confident it could cure narcolepsy, or at least eliminate the worst symptoms. The duskwort would just need to be mixed with certain other chemicals — common chemicals any scientist could easily obtain.”

“And they knew where to find more of it,” Reynie said. “But they never created the cure. So what went wrong?”

“Unfortunately they were in for a disappointing shock,” said Sticky. “They went back and retrieved another specimen, only to discover that this second plant wasn’t duskwort at all — it was just a clever mimic. It looked exactly like duskwort and lived in exactly the same conditions, but its most important chemical properties were different. In other words, it was useless. Worse than useless, actually, because it was much hardier and more aggressive, which explained why duskwort was so rare — if it even existed anymore, now that they’d accidentally destroyed the only known specimen. They believed this mimic plant — Anki calls it ‘thwart-wort’ in the journal — took over the duskwort’s habitat, killing off all the duskwort in the process. The Benedicts went back and scoured the place where they’d found the duskwort, but no luck. Nothing but thwart-wort.”

“So how could they be sure their friend — this Han guy — had found
real
duskwort?” asked Constance.

“The Benedicts had shown him their research,” Sticky said. “So Han knew what to look for. He used a microscope to study the plants right where he found them. He expected it all to be thwart-wort, and some of it was, but mostly it was duskwort. Lots and lots of duskwort, in fact.”

Reynie wrinkled his brow. Something had been bothering him during Sticky’s account, but he hadn’t been able to lay his finger on it until just now. If the Benedicts had truly found duskwort, wouldn’t it have been the scientific discovery of the century? Why, then, hadn’t they published papers about it? Why hadn’t they even announced it to the press?

“So what does duskwort look like, anyway?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know,” Sticky said.

Constance gave an incredulous laugh. “You don’t know? But I thought you knew everything! I find that awfully hard to believe, George Washington!”

“I don’t care what you
believe,
” Sticky growled. “I really don’t know.”

“Calm down, everyone,” said Reynie with another anxious wave at Sophie. “Constance, he’s telling the truth. I know you’re upset, but if you calm down and look at him, you’ll know it.”

(Constance was already looking at Sticky, but she was glowering, and glowering tends to obscure one’s vision of deeper things. She did her best to relax, and sure enough, she saw the truth in Sticky’s defiant, angry expression. He really
didn’t
know.)

“It finally makes sense to me,” Reynie said. “The fact that Anki doesn’t specifically mention where they found the first specimen. The fact that the Benedicts didn’t announce what they’d found, even though it was an amazing discovery. The fact that these papers were hidden away. It all adds up. They were keeping it a secret.”

“Not just the Benedicts,” Sticky said with a sullen look at Constance. “Botanical historians have always considered duskwort one of the great mysteries. In the few ancient texts that refer to it, someone has always removed any description of what the plant looks like or where it’s found.”

“Just as the Benedicts did with Han’s letter,” Reynie said, pointing to the space cut out of one page. “I assume it’s his description of the duskwort that’s missing, am I right?”

Sticky nodded.

“But why keep it a secret?” Kate asked. “If it’s so important —”

“Think about it,” Reynie said, looking grave. “Only a smidgen of this plant put an entire village to sleep. So what do you think would happen if it fell into the wrong hands? Like you said, Kate, this is one powerful plant. Nobody has ever wanted the wrong person to find it.”

“The Benedicts knew, though,” said Sticky. “And they only shared the information with their most trusted friend. Han sent them maps, by the way, but the maps aren’t here. I assume the Benedicts destroyed them, too.”

“Maps of what?” Kate asked.

“Of the island where Han found the duskwort. He sent one map that showed where the island was located and another of the island itself — including the exact location of the duskwort. He describes the island a bit in the letter, but he doesn’t name it or say anything that would pinpoint the place. Otherwise I’m sure the Benedicts would have cut that part out, too. The island could be anywhere in the world.”

“And Mr. Curtain wants to find out where it is,” Constance said. “And he thinks Mr. Benedict knows. Or at least that someone ‘extremely close’ to Mr. Benedict knows. Isn’t that what his letter said?”

“More or less,” Reynie said. “And you know what? Now that I think about it, Mr. Benedict really
might
know where it is. If he does, then the question is whether he made it to the island or not. We’ll have to see —”

“Reynie,” Kate interrupted, “how could Mr. Benedict possibly know where the island is? The maps are gone!”

Reynie was about to explain when the library door opened and the bald, bandaged man they’d seen in the courtyard entered the room. The man glanced at them without interest and went to the librarian’s desk, where he engaged in a murmured conversation with Sophie. Suddenly he whipped his head around to stare at them with bulbous eyes. He hastened to their table, followed by an anxious Sophie.

“I am Mr. Schuyler,” the man said in curt English. “And who, may I ask, are you?”

“Students,” Sophie said, coming up. “They are exchange students, Mr. Schuyler.”

Mr. Schuyler gestured with his pipe toward the journal and the letters. “Why are you looking at these?”

“They heard about the trouble,” Sophie interjected. “They were simply curious. They are
children,
Mr. Schuyler.”

Mr. Schuyler seemed to consider this declaration with suspicion. At length, however, he grunted, gnawed on the stem of his pipe, and said, “I suppose I can tell you a few things, then. It
is
a rather interesting story.” He pulled out a chair, forcing Sophie to step back to avoid having her knees knocked, and sat heavily in it. “Where shall I begin?”