The Perilous Journey (31 page)

“That figures,” said Kate, who was hardly surprised to learn that Mr. Curtain had an intimidating machine to carry him and his thugs around. He had terrorized the children at the Institute with his screeching, souped-up wheelchair, and the Salamander sounded rather like an oversized version of that wicked contraption.

“It came from that direction,” Milligan said, pointing northeast. “I imagine they landed in the bay but had to skirt the forest, which is too thick for the Salamander to pass through. Probably they drove the island perimeter, dropping off scouts along the way. Ten Men are good trackers. Mr. Benedict and Number Two would have had no chance of hiding and nowhere to run.” Milligan ground his heel into the Salamander track, angry at the thought of his friends being hunted.

“Where do you think they are?” asked Kate, who was feeling the same way. She imagined herself finding Mr. Curtain and pummeling him about the ears, though in reality she knew she was no match for him alone.

“I suspect they’re holed up in the mountains,” Milligan said. “We didn’t see the Salamander from the plane, so it’s probably hidden inside a gully or a cave.”

Sticky came over to tell them Constance was finishing the puzzle. It had only taken her a few minutes. They went back just as she was placing the last piece. Before them lay a map of the island, which must have been modeled after the one Mr. Benedict had taken from Han de Reizeger’s letter. Mr. Benedict had chosen to depict only certain parts of the island, and had done so simply but artfully, with a swath of upright arrows indicating the little forest, three swooping curves for the mountains, and a dense group of squares representing the village on the other side. A dotted line ran straight through the bottom of the middle mountain, ending at the village.

“What’s the dotted line, do you think?” asked Constance.

“Most likely a tunnel, given its placement,” said Milligan. He knelt and tapped his finger on the village. “This must be where you were to meet them, which makes it my next stop.”

“
Your
next stop?” Reynie said. “Not ours?”

Milligan stood. “You’ll stay here under cover of the forest. I’ve searched in all directions and seen no sign of anyone coming — and believe me, if we’d been spotted someone would definitely be coming — so here is where you’ll be safest. Just don’t use your flashlight, Kate, and keep quiet, all of you. Keep yourselves out of sight and your eyes and ears open. If I don’t return by —”

“Milligan!” Constance interrupted in a scolding tone. “You haven’t even seen the other
side
yet.”

“The other side?” Milligan hadn’t heard them discussing this part. “There’s more?”

“Give me a minute,” said Kate, reaching into her bucket. She took out her pencil-sized paintbrush and her bottle of extra-strength glue and quickly brushed the glue over the seams between puzzle pieces. “It takes about thirty-five seconds to set properly,” she said. No one doubted the number — everyone knew Kate would have counted to be sure — and indeed, when Kate lifted the puzzle thirty-five seconds later, its pieces held firmly together. “This way we can flip it back and forth if we need to,” she said, “without it falling all apart.”

Kate laid the map face-down onto the ground, revealing on its back a series of dashes and dots that were perfectly familiar to everyone.

“Wouldn’t you know it?” Reynie said, smiling.

Mr. Benedict had had them learn Morse code for their mission to the Institute, and they all could still read it. But because Sticky was the fastest translator, the others had always relied on him to handle their coded messages, and despite the time that had passed they resorted to their old habit and turned to him now. Sticky grinned — a little shyly and a little proudly — and translated the message:

Glad you are here. In the village find supplies and a clue, for we may be out when you arrive. The clue will lead you to us. Until soon. B.

“Another clue!” Kate cried triumphantly. “So you have to take us, Milligan. You know you do!”

To their surprise, Milligan looked relieved. “I’d rather keep you close as long as possible, anyway. Still, we can’t just assume the village is safe.” He considered a moment. “All right, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll cross the plain to the foot of the mountains. You’ll wait there until I scout out the tunnel and the village. If all’s clear, I’ll take you to the village and we can see about that clue. Once we’ve solved it, though, I’m bringing you back here. I want no arguments about that.”

The children agreed and prepared to set out right away, but Milligan said they would wait for it to get darker. The darker it was when they crossed that exposed plain, the better.

“We should also lose the map,” Milligan said. “Carrying it will slow us down, and I want to get across as fast as possible.”

“Constance and I will hide it,” said Reynie, noticing the sad look in the tiny girl’s eyes. He knew what she was thinking. The wind-chime map was another example of the trouble Mr. Benedict had taken on their behalf — another testament to his fondness for them — and it might well be his last, for there was no guarantee he’d left the next clue before his capture. Reynie suspected Constance might like another minute with the map, a suspicion confirmed when she didn’t grumble at him for volunteering her.

“Do you suppose we should bury it?” Constance asked as they moved a little deeper into the trees.

Reynie shook his head. Burying the map would seem too reminiscent of a funeral, he thought, and Constance might fall apart. “Let’s just cover it with spruce needles and twigs.”

Constance nodded enthusiastically. She seemed both grateful and relieved by the suggestion. She also seemed more like a three-year-old than Reynie had ever seen her — so vulnerable and hopeful and scared — and now it was his turn to be touched.

Before they had taken twenty paces, Kate caught up with them. “Milligan wants you to stay in sight,” she said. “I told him I doubted you intended to wander off and have a tea party, but he didn’t want to take any chances.”

“Tell him we’re going to the bay for a swim,” Constance said, rolling her eyes.

Kate snorted. “Funny! I
will
tell him that. Oh, I can already see his jaw twitching.” She turned and ran back to the forest edge.

“Kate sure is in a good mood,” Reynie reflected.

“I know,” said Constance, “and it’s very annoying.”

Indeed, Kate was feeling as buoyant and cheerful as she had in a long time. She found it thrilling to see her father do his job — even when it consisted only of watching the sky, as Milligan was doing now — and to be part of a rescue mission which, in her view, could do nothing but succeed.

“You know,” she said to Sticky as they waited, “hearing you translate that Morse code reminded me of our time at the Institute. I never could get over how fast you did that.” She chuckled. “I miss those days, don’t you? I mean, except for the terrible parts.”

Sticky grinned and nodded. He was inclined to feel nostalgic for any time other than this one (he much preferred having been frightened
then
to being frightened
now
), and Kate’s compliment had lifted his spirits. “I especially miss the way you’d drop down from the ceiling and scare the wits out of us.”

Kate laughed and gave him an affectionate rub on his bald head — only to jerk her hand back as if she’d pricked it on a thorn. “Youch! You’ve got some sharp stubble up there, pal!”

Sticky shrugged, still grinning. “Sorry. Hair grows, you know.”

“That’s what Milligan always says,” Kate muttered. “And he wonders why I never want to kiss his cheek.”

When Reynie and Constance had returned from their task, Milligan told everyone to get ready. It still wasn’t dark enough to satisfy him, but it wasn’t going to get any darker — a full moon was rising in the east and there were no clouds. And so, having again impressed upon them the need for both silence and speed, Milligan led the children out onto the plain. To limit their time in the open, they set off at a very brisk pace. For Milligan this amounted to a trot, but for the boys it was a sprint, and Milligan carried first one boy and then the other, trading off whenever the one running got too winded. Kate ran the whole distance with Constance on her back. It was a strenuous business indeed, and even if Milligan hadn’t forbidden conversation, Kate could never have managed a word.

For a time the mountains seemed to draw no closer, and when at last they did it seemed by inches rather than yards, but eventually, finally, the runners reached the place where the land began to rise skyward. The tunnel entrance lay at the bottom of the middlemost mountain, and they had no difficulty finding it. In the moonlight the round black opening was visible from some distance — it looked like a mouse hole at the base of a gigantic cupboard — and Milligan led them straight for it. When at last they came close (but not too close), he ordered them to stay put while he scouted ahead. The children dropped to the rocky ground — everyone but Constance was gasping for breath — and Milligan vanished into the blackness of the tunnel, his footsteps making scarcely a sound.

“All clear,” he said when he returned. “The tunnel’s narrow, so we’ll walk single-file. Here, Constance, I’ll carry you, and you can carry my flashlight.”

“But I don’t
want
to carry —”

“Never mind. I’ll carry it.”

Milligan marched ahead with Constance on his back and the others close behind. The rock walls and floor of the tunnel were damp and uneven, and it was indeed narrow. It appeared to have been carved by the passage of an ancient underground stream, though in places it had obviously been widened with chisels and hammers. Reynie imagined the villagers had used it as the quickest passage to the eastern part of the island. These mountains weren’t very big — in fact, for mountains they were rather modest — but it would still take hours to hike over them or go around. The tunnel, on the other hand, passed straight through on more or less level ground, and in twenty minutes Reynie was following Milligan out into open air.

They had emerged near the foot of the mountain, yet high enough on its slope to be afforded a good view of the western half of the island — or what would have been a good view had the moon risen over the mountains yet. Even in the gloom, however, they could make out the woodland just down the slope and to the right, and along its near edge the abandoned village — two rows of dilapidated buildings ranging along either side of a broad path. The village reminded Reynie of the frontier towns he’d seen in old Westerns, or at least the main street of such towns, for it had no side roads or outlying structures but was one long, straight shot that ended as abruptly as it began. Milligan scanned the buildings and the surrounding area with his spyglass. He listened carefully. Then he led the children down the slope into the village.

Milligan didn’t need to warn them to stay together. The old, rotting structures of the village would probably have seemed lonesome and sad in the daytime, but at night they seemed positively spectral. A great many leaned precariously to the east, buffeted as they had been by decades of westerly wind, and three or four had seen their roofs carried off by storms. The roofs all lay to the east of their former homes — vine-covered piles of disintegrating beams and rotten wood shingles.

Milligan and the children moved down the path, looking left and right but also at their feet, for the path — though it might once have passed for a road — was rutted and overgrown now and offered poor footing. In silence they passed building after building, all with dark windows and dark doorways.

About halfway down the path they came upon the village well. As with some of the buildings, the well’s roof had blown free in a storm — it lay off in a tangle of weeds, far from the barren posts that used to support it — and the rusty winch that was once suspended over the well’s mouth had fallen aside, still tethered to a forlorn wooden bucket with its bottom long since rotted out.

“What a shame,” Kate murmured, for it clearly used to be an excellent bucket.

At a word from Milligan, the group huddled together near the well to discuss what to do. There were no signs, no indications anywhere that a human had passed this way in years. If Mr. Benedict had left supplies as his message had promised, he hadn’t left any obvious means of locating them.

“Only half these buildings show any sign of being structurally sound,” Milligan observed. “The rest are on the verge of collapse. Mr. Benedict had to know Rhonda and I would never let you venture inside the dangerous ones, so we can rule those out.”

“That still leaves a lot of buildings,” Reynie said. “This could take a while.”

“Maybe the stuff isn’t in a building at all,” said Kate, leaning over the stone wall of the well. She pointed her flashlight into the darkness. Twenty feet down she saw a somewhat distorted version of herself, shining a flashlight back up. “Nope, only water. At least we won’t go thirsty if we can’t find the supplies. I don’t know about you all, but that run across the plain left me a bit dry.”

“Dehydrated,” Sticky said, his voice something of a croak.

Reynie nodded. “Parched.”

Milligan produced a flask from beneath his jacket and tossed it to Kate. “Three sips each,” he said. As the children shared the water, they continued discussing the best way to proceed, but no one could think of a more efficient strategy than simply to search every sturdy building until they got lucky. “I was afraid of that,” said Milligan, capping the flask. “Let’s go back and start at the east end. We’ll work our way around.”

The first building Milligan deemed safe to enter was a house, and they moved warily through its dark rooms, searching for clues. Judging from the number of old-fashioned, woven-rope beds in the loft, the place had once been home to a large family. Now it was home to bats and spiders, and its wooden floors were covered with the dust of decades. With a pang the children saw that Mr. Benedict and Number Two had been here — their footprints were in the dust all throughout the house — but they appeared only to have been looking around, for the house was clearly empty.