The Case of the Vanishing Boy (15 page)

14

ELYSIUM

For a moment, as he tried to rise, it seemed he would never make it, and that in an incredible second of bad luck they had lost their chance at freedom. At the same instant he heard a sudden shout from the house—it seemed to come from the porch—and realized they had been discovered already.

“Run!” he told Ginny. “Get down in the woods! Hurry!”

Instead she caught his hand and jerked him to his feet. “Come on!” she gasped. “You can do it!”

He had to do it, if only for her sake. On this rocky, uneven ground, full of obstacles that her curious sight might be unable to detect, he realized she would be speedily overtaken unless he led the way and somehow found a hiding place.

All in one motion he swept up the wadded cot cover and flung it over his shoulders. Then he seized the hatchet with one hand and her arm with the other and started for the trees. With every step, blinding pain shot through his ankle. Somehow he put the pain aside by concentrating on the chess moves ahead.

He'd intended the spread from the cot to give them some protection against the rain, but now the color of it suggested a better use. It had a green-and-brown floral pattern that ought to blend well with the low foliage around them. Why not use it as camouflage?

If he could just find the right place to hide …

He could hear voices somewhere behind them, but when he glanced back he could see no one because of the dense growth of trees and the patches of shrubbery. Pausing a moment behind the thick trunk of an oak, he peered hurriedly about, then drew Ginny toward a low patch of shrubs on their right. It looked like a tangle of young cedars.

“Get down and crawl in under them,” he ordered.

She slipped quickly out of sight. He followed her, and carefully drew the green-and-brown spread in around them so that it covered them both.

He heard Helga's voice directing the search. The woods, all at once, seemed full of people, running, calling to each other, crashing through the underbrush. Helga's voice came nearer. He made out her hurrying footsteps as she approached the thicket. She stopped. Someone else, running slower, paused beside her, breathing heavily.

“Can you see them?” she asked.

“Not in this rain.” It was Big Doc's voice, gasping for air.

“She fooled us all,” Helga spat. “The little blonde witch! She's not only telepathic—she's a mind reader!”

“It is not the girl we must worry about,” the other panted. “She is not dangerous. The boy is.”

“You should have known that in the beginning,” Helga snapped.

“How could I? He didn't know it himself.”

“You read the book, Leopold. You knew the blood he has in him. You should have taken into account his potential.”

“I can say the same for you. You should have taken into account the girl's potential.”

“Oh, stop arguing with me! We've got to catch them.”

“We'll catch them, my dear. They cannot possibly get away. Everyone's been alerted. The rain makes it difficult, but if we miss them before dark, we'll get them in the morning.”

“We'd better! If they learn where they are—”

“They'll learn nothing in the dark. We'll close in on them at daylight, and there's no way they can escape us. You know that.”

“If you are wrong, Kiev will have our heads. How do you intend to handle the boy?”

“Gently, my dear. Gently. They've all been cautioned to take the girl first. He'll do as he is told then, but if he is stubborn, we'll use gas. I would not care to face anyone of the Aragon strain when—”

“Stop talking and let's get after them! Take that path, Leopold. I'll go to the right …”

Jan had forgotten his foot. He did not remember it until all sounds of the searchers died away and he tried to move. He decided it was better to lie still.

“How do you feel?” Ginny asked worriedly.

“Good enough. I'll be able to hobble when the time comes. But I think we'd better stay right here till dark. I just hope the rain isn't too much for you.”

“Oh, I'm all right. Pops says it doesn't hurt you to stay soaking wet for a long time as long as you don't get cold. I'm not cold yet. I'm just wet … and sort of hungry. I could even enjoy one of those awful cheese sandwiches.”

“So could I. But we'd better stop thinking about food till tomorrow. Right now I'm wondering which way to go when we leave here.”

“I'll show you. There's a path ahead, and it leads to some sort of shelter. I picked it out of Helga's mind. Only there was something very important I couldn't quite get …”

“How do you mean?”

“About catching us in the morning. They seemed to think it would be easy.”

“It would be easy if we were fenced in, like at the other place.”

“Well, I sort of got the feeling that we were enclosed.”

“Then we must be.”

“Oh, dear! Then we've got to find the fence, and somehow get to the other side of it—before daylight.”

“Right. We'll dig under it. Don't forget I've got the hatchet. And there don't seem to be any outside lights around, so we'll have plenty of time to dig.” He puzzled over their predicament, and added, “I—I just wish we knew what sort of place this is. Somehow it doesn't make sense. I mean, why would there be lights and a high fence close around the big house where we were, but none here? The two places are certainly connected.”

“Maybe,” said Ginny, “it's all part of a big estate. There are some whoppers around, even bigger than Pops'. And that big old house where we were, that's probably what they called the Center. That would sort of explain the lights and the high fence and the charged wire on top …”

They speculated about it while the gloom deepened into twilight. Once Jan said, “How did Big Doc learn about my being of the Aragon strain? They told me about the book when I was back at the library.”

“That's easy. He knew who your folks were.”

“But my folks are dead.”

“Are you sure, Jan?”

“Of course I'm sure! I—I—”

“What is it?”

“I almost had it. It slipped out of my mind.”

“It's strange, but a lot of little things are coming back to you. I think touching that live wire did it. It must have opened some channels that Matilda closed. Is it dark yet?”

“Just about.”

“Then it ought to be safe for us to start looking for that fence. But first I ought to have a stick. I'll find a limb or something, and you cut it for me. Then we'd better tear this cot cover in half. It's awfully tough, but if you'll start the edge with the hatchet, maybe we can tear it.”

“What's the idea?”

“It'll give each of us a half to wear. I know it's soaking wet, but we're wet too, and it'll help to hold in our body heat so we won't get chilled. Then, if we keep on the move …”

The drizzling rain was still falling when they started in search of the fence, and the darkness was absolute. He might have been the blind one as he clung to her hand and hobbled along a half step behind her, the hatchet in his belt while he leaned on a stick he had been forced to cut for himself. His foot had swelled and now every step was torture.

“Pain,” he suddenly remembered his father saying that last time, “is a devilish annoyance you can sidestep. The trick is to think of something else, something so interesting that it takes up all your mind. Then pain vanishes …”

Pain didn't vanish by any means, but the thinking helped, and he certainly had plenty to think about. He was so occupied with his curious chain of thought that he hardly noticed it when they began walking on a gravel path. It was only when Ginny stopped, and they went up a short flight of steps into a place away from the rain, that he came out of his mental canyon.

“Where are we?”

“Why—why, it's the craziest place!” she exclaimed. “It's a sort of tea house. An Oriental one, I mean, with cute little red-and-black tables and chairs, and Japanese lanterns and things.… What's a tea house doing out here in the middle of these thick woods?”

“I don't know, and I don't like it. Let's get out of here!”

“But Jan, there's a kitchen over there behind a screen, and I can see a refrigerator. I'll bet it's got something in it we could eat. Jan, I'm
starving!
”

“Then keep on starving! Let's get away from here. This place could be a trap. If they came and found us now when neither of us can move very fast …”

“Maybe you're right,” she said meekly. “They've been here already, 'cause I can make out their wet footprints on the floor. That Helga may get a notion to sneak back.”

She tugged him around and out through the entrance and back into the rain. After a few minutes she left the gravel path they were on and drew him into the woods.

“Where are you going?” he asked, stumbling along blindly behind her on the uneven ground.

“To the fence,” she said. “I'm just following my nose, but if we are surrounded by a fence we can't miss it. Anyhow, I thought we ought to get off the path. Look behind you.”

Far behind, vague in the rain and almost hidden by the trees, he could make out dim lights in the area of the tea house. Helga and company had returned.

Gracias a Dios!”
he murmured.

“What did you say?”

“Thanks to God—that was the way my mother always put it when she was thankful.”

“I knew your mother was Spanish. What was her name?”

“Teresa.”

“And your father's was Raoul. What was his last name?”

“Riggs. No—it couldn't be. Riggs is dead.”

“How do you know that?”

“I—I—I can't remember.”

“But I'm sure you will.… think I see the fence ahead.”

How she could distinguish anything in this utter blackness was beyond him. Even when the steel mesh of the fence was inches from his nose he would not have known it was there save by touching it.

The lower edge, he was relieved to find, was not buried more than an inch or two. But when he tried to dig under it, he found the ground stony and hard, the dense clay scarcely softened by the rain. They wasted some time searching for an easier place to dig, and finally came back to where they had started. Only the fear of an electrified wire prevented Jan from trying to go over the top. He had all but forgotten his foot.

Their progress with the hatchet was heartbreakingly slow. Jan began to worry if they would get through by daylight. Once, while resting his tired hands, he asked, “Did you tell Otis about the tea house?”

“Tried to,” Ginny panted, taking a turn with the hatchet. “But I was too late. He'd folded up again. I was hoping Pops would know about it. I'm sure we're on somebody's estate, and Pops has been on most of the big places in this part of the country …”

The hole deepened and began to accumulate water in the bottom. The worst part was digging out the other side, for it meant getting down on one's knees in the muddy hole, chopping upward with the hatchet, and finally raking out the debris in the form of mud with their hands.

Time passed and they worked silently, mechanically, but a little more desperately, shivering now with cold and fatigue. The rain finally stopped, though Jan was not aware of it in his battle with the mud. A subtle change came over the blackness. With a sudden shock he realized he could see. Daylight—and possible discovery—was almost upon them.

“I think we can squeeze under it,” he said. “I'll go first, and then pull you through.”

It took some squirming, but somehow they made it, taking most of the mud with them to the other side. Here they dropped their cot-cover capes, heavy with mud, and set off as fast as they could through a surprisingly park-like woods. Jan's first concern was to get as far away as possible from the danger area of the fence. And somewhere ahead, surely there would be houses, people to help them, a telephone.

Ginny noticed the picket fence before he did. Too weary for speech, she pointed to it. Then he made out the neat cottage behind it, and in the distance the winding lane with more cottages half-hidden by well-tended shrubbery. At the moment it seemed almost too good to be true.

Ignoring his throbbing foot, he dropped his stick, caught Ginny's hand and began hobbling toward the first cottage as if it were a changeable mirage that might suddenly vanish unless he got to it in time. It was not yet sunrise.

Just as they reached the fence, two tall, elderly and impeccably dressed gentlemen in cutaway coats and striped trousers came down the cottage steps, canes under their arms, and headed for the gate. White-haired, with long horsey faces, they might have been diplomats on their way to an embassy meeting. At the gate they paused to pull on gloves, but instantly froze and white eyebrows climbed at the sight of their visitors, soaked through and spattered with mud from head to toe.

“I say, Roderick old boy,” drawled one, in a voice that was definitely English, “d'you see what I see?”

“I am not at all sure what you see, brother Reginald,” drawled the other. “I never am. What do you
think
you see?”

“It is quite beyond me. Quite.” White eyebrows climbed higher and eyes sharp and curious as a lizard's fastened on Jan. “I say, m'lad. Where are you from, and what do you want?”

Jan had been struggling for speech since he reached the fence, not sure whether he was in his right mind or merely seeing double. After their ordeal in the rain, everything had taken on a nightmarish quality.

Then he realized he was looking at twins. “I—we—we've just dug our way under the fence,” he gasped. “We—”

“If you're from the other side of the fence,” interrupted the second twin, “you must return immediately. You are not allowed here. It is strictly forbidden.”