Prince of Air (3 page)

Felix looked around the table. In the flickering candlelight, his family's faces glowed. Even Great-Aunt Maisie and Great-Uncle Thorne, seated at opposite ends and still not speaking to each other, looked younger and kinder. Best of all, Great-Uncle Thorne had shown him what he'd found in that rolltop desk: all of Samuel Santiago's magic tricks. Silk handkerchiefs, a top hat with a false bottom, a fake thumb, a magic wand, several decks of cards, and handwritten notes on dozens of tricks. Before they'd come downstairs for dinner, Great-Uncle Thorne had taught him the card trick he'd shown him in the bathroom.

“That's so easy!” Felix had said.

“Young man, all magic is easy. It requires practice, sleight of hand, and a willing audience.”

Felix waited until the dinner dishes had been cleared away and everyone had finished their chocolate mousse before he stood and produced the cards Great-Uncle Thorne had given him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Felix said, imitating Thorne's authoritative tone of voice, “may I have your attention, please?”

“What in the world?” Great-Aunt Maisie muttered.

But Maisie beamed up at her brother, and their mother smiled at him, amused.

“Here I have an ordinary deck of cards,” he began, holding it out for them to see. “Agreed?”

Maisie clapped her hands in excitement. “Oh! A card trick? I love card tricks.”

Felix thought he saw Great-Aunt Maisie's eyes cloud in anger. But why would she be mad? It was only a card trick.

“Young lady,” he said to Maisie, “would you be so kind as to shuffle the cards for me?”

“My pleasure,” Maisie said eagerly as she took the deck. She shuffled, showing off the bridge several times.

“Thorne,” Great-Aunt Maisie said in a warning tone.

Felix looked at Great-Uncle Thorne, but he was ignoring her, so Felix did, too.

“I am going to place this deck of cards in my pocket,” Felix said, taking the deck from his sister. “But first, please examine the pocket to be certain it is empty.”

Great-Aunt Maisie got to her feet. She clutched the edge of the dining room table.

“Thorne!” she said again.

Nervously, Felix continued. “Empty,” he said. “Agreed?”

But no one was listening. All eyes were on Great-Aunt Maisie now.

“Thorne Pickworth,” she said, her eyes steely and staring across the long distance of the enormous table, straight at her brother.

“You know,” she said, her voice rising with every syllable, “that there is no magic allowed in Elm Medona as long as I am here!”

“Maisie,” Thorne began.

“No magic!” she shouted.

With that, she walked over to Felix and knocked the cards from his hand. They scattered everywhere—across the table and onto the floor.

Great-Aunt Maisie stormed out of the room, pausing only at the door leading out to point at Great-Uncle Thorne and shout again:

“No magic!”

“
Pssssst
.”

Maisie and Felix both looked up from their homework, but neither of them saw anyone. Maisie was writing sentences using this week's twenty spelling words. She liked to make up ridiculous sentences to annoy her teacher Mrs. Witherspoon.

“Listen to this one,” she said. “The
optimist eluded
the
pessimist
through positive thinking.” She tapped her pen happily on her paper. “Bingo,” she said. “Three words in one sentence.”

“
Pssssst
,” they heard again.

This time Maisie jumped up and went to peer out the door. They did their homework in the Library now, an enormous room with a vaulted ceiling with the Muses painted on it and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were so high ladders leaned across them to help reach the books.

Felix peeked over the top of the bloodred leather chair where he sat.

But Maisie just shrugged and sat back down in the matching chair across from him.

“Back to figuring out what
x
is,” Felix said, chewing the tip of his pencil. He always chewed on his pencils when he did math, which he hated.

“Let's switch,” Maisie said. “You write my sentences, and I'll do your math.”

“
Pssssst
!”

From behind the enormous sofa that Phinneas Pickworth had brought back from Morocco, Great-Aunt Maisie poked out her head.

“What are you doing?” Maisie demanded.

“I don't want that cur to see me,” she hissed.

Maisie grinned. “That was one of my vocabulary words last week. It's a dated insult.”

“It is
not
dated,” Great-Aunt Maisie said, insulted. “It's an unpleasant person, and it fits Thorne to a tee.”

“Do you really need to hide from him?” Felix said.

“I'm not exactly hiding,” Great-Aunt Maisie said. “I just don't want him to come with us.”

Maisie and Felix looked at each other and then back at their great-great-aunt.

“Us?” Maisie said.

“I have to finish my homework,” Felix said. Unlike his sister, Felix loved his teacher Miss Landers. He would never make up ridiculous sentences or not do his homework or disappoint her in any way.

Great-Aunt Maisie disappeared behind the sofa again.

“Meet me in The Treasure Chest at nine thirty,” she whispered.

The ship's clock that Phinneas Pickworth had acquired from the
SS Lorraine
read 9:15. The
SS Lorraine
had sunk off the coast of Prince Edward Island in 1892 during a hurricane, and Phinneas Pickworth had spent a fortune finding it and having it recovered—all because the ship's figurehead had been carved to look like his wife, Ariane. That figurehead stood in one corner of the Library, a wooden face made pale by years under the ocean with faded, yellow waves of hair spilling down her back. Felix thought the figurehead was creepy, but Maisie liked it. “
Who wouldn't like to be on the bow of a ship?”
Maisie had said. To which Felix replied easily, “
Me.”

“There is no way I'll find
x
in all these problems in fifteen minutes,” Felix said.

“But aren't you curious about what she wants?”

Felix shook his head. “Not in the least.”

“Well I am,” Maisie said.

She got up and paced up and down the floor, which had a herringbone pattern called parquet.

“If I can use
predicament
,
exaggerate
, and
loathe
in one sentence, I'll be done,” she said.

“Shhh,” Felix said.

He began to read his next problem:
The sixth grade collected four more than twice the soup labels that the fifth grade collected—

“Aha!” Maisie said, stopping right in front of Felix.

When he ignored her, she leaned her face close to his and said loudly, “Aha!”

“If
x
represents the number of soup labels,” he mumbled.

“I am
loathe
to
exaggerate
my
predicament
because my brother, Felix, won't help me, anyway!” Maisie said triumphantly.

Felix sighed.

“Nine twenty-five,” Maisie said. “Let's go.”

“I have no idea which expression shows how many soup labels the sixth grade collected,” Felix told her. “And I have five more problems after I figure that one out.”

Maisie closed his math book and tugged his hand, pulling him to his feet.

“Do you think she's going to time travel?” Maisie said, her eyes bright with excitement.

“No,” Felix said.

He had a pit in his stomach, the kind he got whenever his homework wasn't done and time seemed to pass too quickly. The kind he got whenever he let Maisie talk him into something he knew he shouldn't do.

“But why else would she want to go to The Treasure Chest?” Maisie asked.

Felix shrugged. “If she wanted to time travel, she wouldn't need us, would she?”

But Maisie hadn't waited for him to answer her. She was already walking out of the Library. As usual, Felix had to hurry to follow her.

Maisie and Felix walked across the Grand Ballroom and up the Grand Staircase, past the photograph of Great-Aunt Maisie when she was their age. Great-Uncle Thorne had stuck his face in the way just as the camera clicked, so his face appeared slightly distorted in the corner. Felix always paused at that picture. Sometimes it made him feel sad to see the young girl in it and then think about how old she had grown. Sometimes it made him smile, as if he and that girl shared a secret. Tonight, though, he shook his head at that young girl. What was Great-Aunt Maisie up to?

The wall hiding the secret staircase that led up to The Treasure Chest was closed tight. Just as Felix arrived at it, Maisie pressed her hands to it, and it opened.

“Maybe she's not there,” Felix said hopefully.

“Of course she's up there,” Maisie said. “She just didn't want Great-Uncle Thorne to see.”

Felix followed Maisie up the stairs.

Sure enough, the red velvet rope that usually hung across the door to The Treasure Chest was unhooked.

Great-Aunt Maisie stood in the very center of the room. If Maisie or Felix had expected to find her overjoyed to be back in The Treasure Chest where she had time traveled herself as a young girl, they were wrong. She looked about as angry as they'd ever seen her.

“Finally!” she said.

“We—” Maisie began, but Great-Aunt Maisie waved her hands to stop her from speaking.

“There isn't much time,” she said. “Thorne might figure out where I am and show up at any minute.”

“Honestly, Great-Aunt Maisie,” Felix said, “no one's around. Mom is at work and—”

“Do you think I haven't planned this perfectly so that of course your mother is at work? Thorne went to a lecture on Egyptology at The Rosewood Library that goes until ten
PM
.”

“If you knew he was at the lecture, why were you creeping around downstairs?” Maisie asked.

“Because I just confirmed for certain that he was there,” Great-Aunt Maisie snapped. “I thought he said he was going there as a decoy.”

“But—”

“Enough! Let's get to work,” Great-Aunt Maisie said.

That was when Felix noticed that she was holding a pair of handcuffs.

“What are those for?” he blurted, imagining her handcuffing him and Maisie together and locking them up here. Maybe forever.

“What do you think they're for?” Great-Aunt Maisie said angrily. “Come here.”

Maisie stepped forward.

“Not you, you nitwit,” Great-Aunt Maisie said. “I need Felix.”

Felix gulped. “No, no, that's all right. If Maisie would rather do it, that's fine.” Even as he said it, he wondered what
it
was.

“No!” Great-Aunt Maisie bellowed. “It has to be you.”

“Really, I—” Felix stammered.

“Take hold of these handcuffs this instant,” Great-Aunt Maisie ordered.

Maisie gave him a little push toward their aunt. Holding his breath, Felix stepped closer, closed his eyes, and put his hand on the metal handcuffs. For a moment, it felt like the entire room held its breath.

Felix opened his eyes.

Great-Aunt Maisie stood holding the other end of the handcuffs, a look of utter disappointment on her face.

“It can't be!” she said, stomping her foot.

She glared at Felix as if he'd done something wrong.

“Are you holding on good and tight?”

Felix nodded. His heart pounded against his ribs. Was Great-Aunt Maisie trying to go back in time with him? Why? And where?

“Drat!” she shouted in frustration. “What am I missing?”

“Great-Aunt Maisie?” Maisie said. “Do you want to time travel?”

“Thorne and I used to both hold the object. It was that easy,” she said, ignoring Maisie.

“Maybe if I held on, too?” Maisie said.

Great-Aunt Maisie looked at her as if she just noticed that she was in the room.

“Hmmm,” she said, considering the idea.

“Maybe you need to be a kid,” Felix said.

“Maybe you need a girl and a boy,” Maisie said.

“Wait!” Felix said. “You need the shard! Yours is missing.”

“I know that it's missing,” Great-Aunt Maisie said dismissively. “I have yours.”

She reached into her pocket and showed them a shard.

“You stole our shard?” Maisie said.

“I did not. Technically, it's mine. The entire house and everything in it is mine.”

“Well,” Maisie said. “Yours and Great-Uncle Thorne's.”

“Hmph,” Great-Aunt Maisie said, and turned her attention back to the handcuffs.

“No offense, Great-Aunt Maisie,” Felix said nervously, “but I don't want to time travel with you. Or with anybody right now. I just want to do my math homework and go to bed.”

Great-Aunt Maisie stared at him, hard.

“Actually,” she said finally, “I don't really care what you want. The time has come for me to go back there, and go back there I shall.”

“Where's there?” Maisie asked her.

Again Great-Aunt Maisie ignored her.

“I always assumed it took two. A girl and a boy. Your point about age can't be ignored, obviously. Thorne and I stopped when he stole the shard when we were sixteen years old. Sixteen is still so young,” she added wistfully. “Isn't it?”

Maisie and Felix both knew that was the kind of question that did not require an answer. A
rhetorical
question, which was a vocabulary word from back in January.

“We all know you two can do it. But we don't know if you can take me along. If we three hold the object, and you two go without me, that won't do, will it?”

Another rhetorical question.

Great-Aunt Maisie's brow was creased with concentration.

Finally, she said, “Oh dear.”

Maisie and Felix waited.

“I believe I need Thorne in order for it to work,” she said.

“And Thorne refuses to do it,” Great-Uncle Thorne bellowed from the doorway.

He walked in The Treasure Chest, his silk top hat still on his head and a fresh white flower in the buttonhole of his tuxedo jacket.

Great-Uncle Thorne's walking stick had a miniature solid-gold replica of Elm Medona on top of it. He held the stick by that and pointed it at each of them, from Maisie to Felix to Great-Aunt Maisie, his shaggy white eyebrows lowered above his brilliant blue eyes.

“Now,” he said, “suppose you all tell me exactly what is going on here.”

The walking stick was pointed at Great-Aunt Maisie.

“Starting with you, my darling sister.”

“As if you didn't know,
darling
brother,” Great-Aunt Maisie said. And with that, she turned and walked out.