Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy (9 page)

“Oh, darling, fairy tales are for beginners,” her mother would reply.

When she woke the next morning, Ophelia sat up and took the long gold key and the greenish plain key and held them in the palm of her hand. She looked out the window at the half-dark city, where the snow was falling.

What will you do?
her mother asked her.

“Shoo,” said Ophelia.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Alice, who was seated in front of the dressing table mirror, admiring her reflection.

“No one.”

Alice placed a snow-white beret on her head and smiled at herself.

“Where did you get that hat from?” asked Ophelia.

“Miss Kaminski gave it to me.”

“Why does Miss Kaminski keep giving you stuff?”

“Because she is very nice and very charming and absolutely fashionable.”

Ophelia performed an exaggerated eye roll.
Very nice, very charming, absolutely fashionable
, she mimicked silently as she got dressed. She remembered how Miss Kaminski had pinched her through her coat last night. That wasn’t very nice or very charming. Remembering, she looked at the wound on her arm, the long, thin scratch left behind by the snow leopard. She touched it gently with her fingertip. It ached and burned.

In the hotel suite lounge, Mr. Whittard was seated at the table with a pile of spreadsheets, his hair standing up on his head, his glasses perched on his forehead.

“Look at this,” he said, pointing to a line of words when
Alice and Ophelia came out for breakfast. “I’m up to Teutonic long swords. I found one with a complete breastplate in a cardboard box. Can you believe that? Rare as hen’s teeth.”

Alice stared through him with her immaculately made-up eyes.

“I’m looking for a sword, actually,” said Ophelia.

“Really, O,” said Mr. Whittard. “What type of sword?”

“It’s a very plain sword with a wooden hilt and a marking of a closed eye,” said Ophelia. “And it’s very magical.”

“That’s lovely, darling,” said Mr. Whittard.

“It belonged to a boy, and it was taken off him, and he needs it to defeat the Snow Queen.”

“Really?” said Mr. Whittard, but Ophelia could tell he wasn’t listening anymore. That was what happened to her father when he was with swords.

“Miss Kaminski’s showing me more dresses and jewels today,” said Alice. “She said I might even be able to have my portrait painted by the museum artist.”

“Well, that will keep you out of trouble,” said Mr. Whittard. “But, Ophelia, you are staying with me today. Absolutely no wandering off. I don’t want a repeat of yesterday’s performance.”

“Daddy,” said Ophelia. She had so much she needed to do. “Please. I promise I won’t get into any trouble.”

Mr. Whittard looked at his youngest daughter, with her pale face and her ragged braids and her smudgy glasses. How much trouble could she possibly cause?

“No,” said Mr. Whittard. “You’re staying with me, and that is that.”

It was terrible news. She had a fresh tin of sardines in front of her, and now she couldn’t eat them. She slipped the unopened tin into her pocket, crossed her arms, and ignored everybody.

The best thing that can possibly be done in terrible situations is to look for the facts. That was Ophelia’s maxim. As she walked through the frozen streets with her father and Alice, she organized the facts.

The facts were:

She wondered if boys from elsewhere were
Homo sapiens
. And wizards too. What family did they belong to? And what about Snow Queens? Where did they come from, and how did they reproduce? Was there a classification of magical things just as there was a classification of living things? Just asking these questions made her feel better.

“What on earth are you mumbling about?” asked Alice.

“None of your business,” said Ophelia.

But to find the sword? She needed data, and she needed a grid to conduct her search. They walked across the square, past the giant Christmas tree and the ice-skating rink. She
took the museum map from her pocket. Her plan was to take the map and shade in every room where there was a chance of a sword. Of course, her first stop would be
Battle: The Greatest Exhibition of Swords in the History of the World
. She would be able to look there while she was with her father But she could also try
Napoleonic Wars, Colonial Expansion, Chinese Empires, Egyptian Artifacts 3000–2000 BC
. There were also
Life on the Frontier, Men’s Clothing Through Time, Japanese Ceremonial Dress
, and
History of the Incas
.

She knew her father would grow tired of his plan to keep her with him. He’d be too busy. All she needed to do was ask too many questions. When she had her chance, and she knew she would have one, she would race to the boy’s room and release him, and together they could search these rooms.

When they arrived in the foyer, they unwound their scarves. Ophelia saw a huge sign had been erected. It said:

It made Ophelia’s stomach sink. Her stomach sank exactly the way it did when it was Lucy Coutts’s turn to pick the medicine-ball teams.

They walked across the great, glittering wedding mosaic floor, and their footsteps echoed.

“What are you looking so worried about, O?” asked her father, turning back to her and taking her gently by the shoulders.

“Nothing,” said Ophelia. How could she possibly tell him?

“Aren’t you enjoying the holiday?” he asked, but before Ophelia could answer, he continued. “Just think, you and Alice could go to the winter markets this afternoon. Maybe you could find a small Christmas tree. I know how hard things have been, but we have to make the most of our time here.”

That was as close as her father ever came to mentioning their mother. He could not, would not, speak her name or mention their sadness.

“You could go ice-skating again,” he said.

“I guess,” said Ophelia.

“Remember, portrait painting,” said Alice, pointing to her face.

In the sword workroom Alice assumed her position on the old throne, looking very bored, while Ophelia sat beside her father at his worktable. She picked a light blue pencil and began to shade her map.

“What are you up to, then, Ophelia?” her father asked.

“I’m devising a plan for a large-scale search for that ancient and magical sword.”

“Well, you’ll have to stop your games for a moment, because we have to go to the sword exhibition hall now,” said Mr. Whittard. “I’m going to do some work on the conquistadors.”

“Good,” said Ophelia. “That’s exactly where I need to go.”

The sword exhibition hall was on the main floor and bitterly cold. Exactly the same stinging cold as on the seventh floor and the sixth floor.

“Why is there no heating?” said Ophelia.

“I know, I know,” muttered her father. “I tried to discuss it with Miss Kaminski yesterday but didn’t get very far.”

Their breaths billowed in front of them. In the exhibition hall the windows were covered in heavy velvet curtains, and all the lights were turned down low. The exhibition mannequins were covered in white sheets of plastic. There were hundreds of them. All standing in their places, from “Iron Age” to “Bayonets of World War I.” She could see the outlines of them. They were all holding swords.

“A little creepy, isn’t it, O?” said Mr. Whittard.

“Mummy would have liked it,” whispered Ophelia.

“Yes,” said Mr. Whittard. He wouldn’t look at Ophelia. “Yes, she would have.”

He finished what he was doing and ruffled Ophelia’s bangs as he passed. He would change the subject now. She knew it. It was what he always did. He couldn’t talk about it at all.

“Come on, then, work to be done,” he said.

There were swords in glass cabinets, swords hanging in glinting lines on the walls, swords on pallets ready to be unloaded. There was a raised dais, and a large empty glass case stood in the middle of the room.

“Now,
that
is where Miss Kaminski’s pride and joy is going to go,” said her father. “She really is being very mysterious about it.”

Mr. Whittard went to work on the conquistadors, placing the information panel and fiddling with the interactive screen. Ophelia went to work searching for the magical sword. She started with “Bronze Age.” She lifted up the plastic on the
mannequins and examined the swords. They were nothing like the sword that had belonged to the boy.

She wished she had remembered her gloves. She was always forgetting her gloves nowadays. She stuck her freezing hands in her pockets and felt the map, the puffer, and the keys. The keys made her feel guilty and proud at the same time. It was very confusing.

She moved between the displays. The mannequins were dressed according to their era. There were cavemen and crusaders, gladiators and Gallic warriors. There were Knights Templar, Teutonic soldiers, samurai, and Saracens. She peeked beneath the plastic carefully and examined each sword. The mannequins’ hands were very white and very real. If she raised the sheet high enough, she could catch a glimpse of their faces, half in shadow. Each had the same large, ice-blue, staring doll eyes.

“Be careful with them,” said Mr. Whittard. “They’re all in exact positions.”

“I will be,” said Ophelia.

“I’ve just forgotten some passwords for this computer here,” said Mr. Whittard. “Will you be okay for ten minutes while I run back?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I won’t be long.”

“I’m fine.”

When he was gone, Ophelia checked “Iron Age,” “Mesopotamians,” “Egyptians,” and “Syrians.” She checked “Greeks” and “Spartans.” She hurried through “Viking Sword Masters”
and “Boer Wars.” She walked quickly, casting her eyes over every sword in the tall glass cabinets. There were long swords, short swords, elaborate swords, and plain swords. There were shining swords and crumbling swords half eaten away by time. But there was none that looked like the boy’s sword. All she had left to look at were “Medieval Knights” and “Conquistadors.”

Without the small sounds of her father’s tinkering, it was deathly, horribly silent.

“I’m all right, but …,” said Ophelia, and she took a squirt on her puffer.

She tried to think of boys’ names beginning with
D
to take her mind off the silence. Darius, Donald, Damien. Dale, Derek, Daniel. Deon, Dalton, Dougal. Darren, David. Something about
David
felt right. The hairs on her arms prickled. She would have to say that name to the boy and see if he felt anything.

There were two medieval knights in the display, with a large stuffed white horse. She lifted the plastic on the first of the knights. She looked up at his face. She sprang backward, her heart beating so hard that it nearly leapt out her chest.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Ophelia. “That knight did not just blink.”

She took a step back toward the display. She lifted the plastic again to be sure. She made herself stare at the mannequin. The knight’s eyelids didn’t move at all. He was a perfectly normal mannequin. She lowered the sheet and tried to control her breathing.

She checked the next knight, and he was also perfectly normal. Just a perfectly normal, unblinking mannequin.

“Good,” Ophelia said aloud at exactly the same time something touched her on the shoulder.

When she turned, there was nothing there. Nothing at all. Except the first knight who had blinked was standing in a different position—she was sure of it. Before, he had been facing the other way. What was that noise? She spun around. She had heard plastic rustling.

She moved into the center of the room, onto the raised dais, away from all the mannequins, her legs quivering. She knew she should run, but fear had sucked the air from her lungs. She wished her father would come back. Surely he would be back soon. She made a small squeaking sound.

She tried to think of what she should do.

Think, Ophelia, she thought. Think.

She thought of her mother’s horror books and how there were always things creeping up behind the heroes or heroines. What if my mother were writing this scene right now? she thought. What if I were the heroine? What would she have me do?

She decided very quickly what it would be. She decided to shout very loud.

Ophelia shouted, “I am not afraid of you!”

She shouted it as loud as she could. Her voice reverberated in the still room.

“I am not afraid of you,” Ophelia whispered this time. She turned in a full circle, pointing at all the displays. “So you can
stop it. Stop it right now. Anything you might do is all in my imagination.”

She marched up to the Spanish conquistadors and lifted up the plastic. They were nothing but mannequins holding on to swords. As soon as her back was turned, she heard the rustling of plastic again.

She had one more mannequin to look at, and she would be finished. She lifted the last piece of plastic. A Spanish conquistador was holding a very shiny silver cutlass. She looked up at his face just to make sure. The conquistador had a long, flowing black mustache but the same doll eyes as the rest. She was looking at his eyes when he grabbed her arm.