The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (25 page)

A squabble broke out in the house.
I heard a door slam and saw Beth running through the kitchen.

“I never get to do anything!” Beth
shouted. “I just want to go see him for a few minutes!”

“If Dirk wants to see you he can
fly up or take the flagpole,” Mr. Larue said. “We can all have a nice visit
together.”

“We don’t want to hang out with you!”
Beth yelled. She stomped upstairs. I heard another door slam and a tearful
shout of “
Parents stink
!”

I shook my head. There would be
plenty of time yet for Beth to make a mess of things with boys. It was very
easy to do. I only wished I’d had my parents around to protect me a little
longer.

A passing memory stole my grin
away. When I was Beth’s age I’d just lost my mother. Less than a year later, my
father was gone, too.
Stupid, stupid girl
, I thought, listening to Beth
stomping around upstairs. I was suddenly jealous of the Larues and the time
they had with each other. The thought of having a family of my own someday had
never really entered my mind, but for just a few seconds I wanted it more than
I’d ever wanted anything in my life.
A humble little house. A couple of
kids. A kitchen, a fireplace, a garden to grow pretty things in. A husband who
will cherish me even when my youth fades.

The bubble burst and I scolded
myself. It would be a miracle if I made it to twenty. I had grown accustomed to
guarding a whole kingdom. Between that and the family curse, there wasn’t any
place for my vain little fantasies. A family just didn’t fit into the picture.

Sounds of stifled laughter came
from a topiary behind me. The tops of two little blue heads were visible behind
it.

I yawned and pretended not to
notice. “Wow, something sure smells funny out here.”  I sniffed the air.
“Smells like…little girls!”

Alice and Harriet burst from their
hiding spot. Red-faced with laughter, they ran out and wrapped themselves
around my calves.

“We don’t smell funny!” Harriet
squealed.

I ruffled her curls. “Maybe not.
But you do look funny!”

“Huh-uh!” Alice said with a snort.
“You look funny. You’ve got no points on your ears!”

“Yeah, and your hair’s the color of
mud!” Harriet chimed enthusiastically.

“Girls!” Mrs. Larue shouted in
mortification. She rushed out and shook her finger at them. “You mind your
manners around our guest!”

“They’re not bothering me,” I said,
trying to keep a straight face.

Suddenly there came a thump on the
flagpole. We all turned to watch as the pulley grew taut with the weight of
something coming up from below.

Mrs. Larue wrinkled her nose.
“That’ll be Dirk, no doubt. The little hoodlum hasn’t got his wings yet.”

“Let’s toss out the dishwater on
him and pretend we didn’t know anyone was coming up!” Alice suggested.

“No, no, that wouldn’t be nice,” Mrs.
Larue said, fighting a grin.

A shape burst above the clouds and
came to a jerky halt at the top of the flagpole. It was pale and black and blue
and bloody all over. A ragged voice said, “Help.”

Mrs. Larue screamed.

 “
Bazzlejet!
” I said with a
gasp.

Mr. Larue came running out of the
house. He stopped halfway across the patio and stared wide-eyed at his battered
son.

Alice and Harriet had gone white. I
could tell by their trembling lips that it was not a sight they were ready to
handle. I leaned in close to Mrs. Larue and whispered, “Take the girls inside.
I’ll help with Bazzlejet.”

Mrs. Larue gave a mute nod and
shooed the girls into the house. Mr. Larue was already at work, pulling the
house along its tether to the flagpole. I climbed up on the rail to grab
Bazzlejet.

Both of his eyes were black. There
were bruises all over his face and there was a crust of dried blood under his
nose. His body was limp as a dead eel. I thought it miraculous that he’d
managed to hold onto the pulley until I saw that he’d tied one of his hands to
it with his bandana.

I unknotted the bandana and helped
Mr. Larue to lower Bazzlejet onto the patio floor.

“Son,” Mr. Larue said, squeezing
Bazzlejet’s wrist. “Son, can you hear me?”

Bazzlejet’s eyes were narrow amber
slits beneath their puffed up lids. “Cut it,” he rasped.

Mr. Larue and I looked at each
other in confusion.

“Cut what?” I asked.

Bazzlejet lifted a shaking finger
and pointed to the tether between the house and the flagpole.

Mr. Larue and I exchanged another
perplexed look.

“Do it now!” Bazzlejet said.

I took out my sword and went over
to the tether.

“That won’t work,” Mr. Larue said,
standing up. He flexed his fingers and pointed at the rope. An arc of lightning
flew from his fingertips, severing the tether in two.

Free of its leash, the house began
to drift easterly on the air currents.

Bazzlejet tried to say something
else but he coughed.

“Just sit tight,” Mr. Larue said.
“We’ll get you patched up. Then you can tell us what happened.”

A low table walked out onto the patio.
Bazzlejet’s mom was behind it with her green source crystal glowing. She
carried a blanket and pillow. The table stopped beside Bazzlejet. She spread
the blanket and pillow atop it and stepped aside so that Mr. Larue and I could
lift Bazzlejet into place.

Once Bazzlejet was secure, the
table walked into the sitting room.

Bazzlejet tried to say something
again but couldn’t get it out.

“What ill luck to have no
Channelers in the family!” his mom said with a sniffle. “How are we going to
fix him?”

“The old fashioned way,” Mr. Larue
said. He was ripping a sheet into strips to make bandages. “We’ll clean and
dress his wounds.”

“But look at him. He’s in pain!”
Mrs. Larue yelped.

Mr. Larue set his mouth grimly.
“There’s nothing we can do about that right now.”

Raspy sounds came from Bazzlejet’s
throat. I leaned down close to him to hear him better. It sounded like he was
saying “
Pops
.”

“I think he means you,” I said to
Mr. Larue.

“What is it, son?” Mr. Larue asked.

“
Props
!” Bazzlejet hissed.

Mr. Larue looked stumped. “Say that
again, son.”

Bazzlejet’s jaw was clenched and
he’d turned even paler. His injuries were getting the better of him. It pained
me to look at him. I was so used to seeing him grinning like a madman,
surrounded by all his silly contraptions.

Then it hit me. “Props! Does your
house have propellers?”

“Yes,” Mr. Larue said. “Just
installed last week. It was Bazzlejet’s doing, actually. I told him we didn’t
need—”

“How do you work them?” I asked,
springing to my feet.

“There’s a wheel on the observation
deck,” Mr. Larue said. Then he added, “They’ve never been tested!”

I was already running up the stairs
to the deck. The evening air was cool and crisp but the clouds had not yet
lifted. It was probably a good thing. If I picked up on Bazzlejet’s intentions
correctly, it was best to stay hidden from whoever was below.

It took me a moment to locate the
wheel. It was hidden behind a large planter filled with bell-shaped flowers.
Partially set into the deck, the wheel was like a winch on a sailing ship. The
design struck me as familiar. I slid out a pin that kept the wheel locked into
place. The pin was engraved with a stamp that said “J&W.”

The wheel slid free and I began to
turn it. There was a laborious creaking of wood and squeaky gears. At first it
was difficult to turn the wheel, but then a latch caught somewhere beneath it
and the wheel began to spin on its own.

I ran to the back of the
observation deck. Extending from the woodworks below was a long pole with three
blades on it. The blades unfolded like an umbrella and began to spin. They
buffeted the air with a loud WHUP, WHUP, WHUP sound.

The deck lurched beneath me. The
sounds of crashing dishes came from the kitchen. Flowerpots rattled and laundry
that had been drying placidly on a line in the garden started flapping like
banners gone insane.

The giant balloon groaned. I looked
for a steering wheel but I didn’t see anything that looked like one on the deck
so I went downstairs to ask Bazzlejet about it.

Alice and Harriet were in the
upstairs hallway with pillows tied to the tops of their heads. Some pictures
had fallen off the wall.

“Why’s the house moving?” Alice
asked.

“Is it a skyquake?” Harriet asked.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I
said. “The house is flying. Go to the window and look!”

The girls ran over to the nearest
window and pressed their faces against it. “Oh neat!”

When I got to the sitting room I
found Bazzlejet looking more alert thanks to the constant attention of his
mother. She fussed with his pillow, re-wrapped his bandages and swabbed his
face with a warm rag.

“Mom,” he croaked weakly, “You
don’t have to do that.”

“Son, who did this to you?” Mr.
Larue asked.

Bazzlejet was suddenly unable to speak
again. I detected something like guilt in his eyes.

“The propellers are working,” I
said. “How do we steer?”

“No rudder yet,” Bazzlejet said.

Startled and a little angry, I
exclaimed, “You mean we’ve got no way to control this thing?”

Bazzlejet coughed and moaned in
agony.

“Oh dear!” his mother exclaimed,
assaulting him with a rag. “Don’t worry, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

Mr. Larue raised an eyebrow at me.
Injuries were one thing, but Bazzlejet had a knack for milking the moment.

“Son,” Mr. Larue said, “I think
it’s time you told us what happened.”

“Oh, the pain!” Bazzlejet groaned.
“Everything’s going dark.”

“Heavens!” his mother said. “I
think we’re losing him!”

I knelt down by Bazzlejet’s ear and
whispered, “I don’t suppose your parents know about a certain redheaded nymph
named Rosa? Or your other persona as a female maid? If you pass out now, I’m
going to tell them all about it.”

Bazzlejet’s eyes flew open. “It was
the duke’s men. They did this to me. I barely escaped.”

“So you snuck back into Ivywild,” I
said.

Mrs. Larue gasped. Her husband
crossed his arms and made a stony face that reminded me of Commander Larue. I’d
received the same look many times.

“What kind of stunt were you trying
to pull?” Mr. Larue asked. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”

“Pyxis Charm,” Bazzlejet mumbled.

I wasn’t sure I heard him
correctly. “Say that again.”

“Pyxis Charm,” Bazzlejet said. “Othella
has the one from W.R.A.I.T.H. and Robyn has one. There should be a third one
somewhere in the castle.”

“I, um, sort of broke the third one,”
I said. “It happened during the Cian Varsha.”

Bazzlejet groaned. “Wish I’d known
that sooner.”

“Why do you need a Pyxis Charm?”
his father asked.

“To find Othella and Chloe and
Violet,” Bazzlejet said. “My orders are to protect Chloe. How can I protect her
if I don’t even know where she is?”

Something stirred in me. I gently
squeezed Bazzlejet’s hand. “You sweet, dumb boy. Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“You’ve done enough,” he said.

“They chased you, didn’t they?” Mr.
Larue asked. “Did they follow you to the house?”

Bazzlejet made a feeble attempt to
sit up. Unsuccessful, he huffed and lay back down. “I broke ahead of them. They
aren’t good flyers, but they’ll come looking for me here soon enough. That’s
why I made you cut it loose. At least this way it will take them longer to find
us.”

“But they
will
find us,” Mr.
Larue said darkly.

His wife shivered. “Oh dear. What
are we going to do, Jules?”

A thumping noise came from the
upstairs landing. Alice and Harriet were there, shoving each other for a place
closest to the sitting room. Realizing they’d been caught, they both assumed
looks of innocence.

“Is Bazzy gonna be okay?” Harriet
asked.

“I’ll be fine, baby sis,” Bazzlejet
said as loudly as he could manage. “Go up to your room. You two can be our
lookouts.”

“We need a way to steer this
thing,” I said.

“There are blueprints for a rudder in
my room,” Bazzlejet said. “They’re rolled up under the bed.”

Mrs. Larue chewed her lip. “But we
can’t keep running! We don’t have enough food or water. We’ll have to touch
down eventually and the duke has guards at every settlement between here and
North Embyre!”

I had been thinking the exact same
thing. I could tell by the uneasy way Mr. Larue cleared his throat that he was,
too. Before we could worry about that, though, we needed a way to steer the
house.

Without a word I slipped out of the
sitting room. Bazzlejet’s bedroom was tidy, kept clean every day by his mother.
I found the rolled up parchment under his bed. It was covered in diagrams
written in cheap, brown ink. I spotted the J&W stamp in one corner and
finally drew a connection. I filed it away to ask Bazzlejet about later.

I set to work deciphering the
blueprints. The materials for a rudder could be salvaged from other parts of
the house. All I needed was a few helping hands and time. The helping hands
were not a problem. It was the time issue that worried me. A shout from Alice
tripled that worry.

“There’s some big, dark bumps out
there!” the little girl exclaimed.

I went to the nearest window and
looked out into the twilight sky. The distant tops of mountains poked through
the clouds on the horizon.