The Wikkeling (15 page)

She went straight behind the bookcases, going far back into the dusty depths, where there were old dressers, tables, locked chests, stacked boxes, a record player, and many other fascinating antiques.

Encouraged by Rose's confidence, Henrietta and Gary ventured a little
further as well, and soon the three of them had amassed a considerable ball of cobwebs, which they deposited next to Mister Lady on the couch. As the children watched, the cat batted the ball lightly with one velvet paw, sending it rolling a few inches across the cushion, and then looked up at them. Henrietta thought its expression might have said,
This could have been a little bigger, but thanks.

“We should probably go back down,” said Henrietta, “in case my mom comes to check.”

She opened the trapdoor, and the three returned to her room. They heard Rose's father's voice from elsewhere in the house, and proceeded to the sitting room, where Henrietta's mother and he were conversing.

“We have instant lavender or instant peppermint,” Henrietta's mother said. Henrietta turned to Gary and Rose, and motioned for them to step back into the hall.

“They're
just
sitting down,” she whispered. “That's what they were saying when we left!”

“I don't get it,” said Gary.

“I don't think any time has passed,” Henrietta said.

T
ime passed—or didn't—happily for a few weeks after these many discoveries. Henrietta visited the attic twice each day: afternoons after school with Gary and Rose, and at night before bed, alone, when she changed Mister Lady's bandages. The wound was almost entirely healed, although for some reason it seemed reluctant to close completely.

Henrietta liked being in the attic at night. It reminded her of the evening she'd first discovered it, and she'd begun to enjoy being by herself. She found she could think more clearly, and she sometimes sat on the couch in silence with Mister Lady, not doing anything other than rolling the events of the day around in her head.

When the moon shone through the windows it brought a haunting glow to the little living room, the dusty bookshelves, and the deep interior. It was both eerie and beautiful.

Afternoons when school finished, Rose, Gary, and Henrietta went up together. They'd spend hours talking, looking out the windows, reading old books, playing
games, and studying. One afternoon Gary brought some of his most prized trash objects, which included a strip of fabric from an old chair that had an image of an acorn stitched on it, and a box from a brand of TV dinner that didn't exist anymore. Henrietta and Rose couldn't see exactly what Gary found so fascinating, but he spoke in low tones, saying, “Now
this
is of
particular
interest. . . .” before revealing a tan Styrofoam packing peanut. Henrietta began to wonder if maybe Gary really
should
let himself get Finished from school. If anyone would make a good garbage collector, it would be him.

Another afternoon, Rose surprised Henrietta and Gary when she arrived in the attic armed with linen thread, glue, a ruler, a razor, and a metal spike with a wooden handle, all of which she laid on the coffee table with great solemnity.

“What is all of this?” said Gary. “It looks dangerous. What's that?” He pointed to the spike.

“An awl,” said Rose. “These are for repairing books. Like the
Bestiary
.” She opened the front cover and showed Henrietta and Gary that the endpapers were partly unglued, and a tear had started down the hinge of the back cover.

“I didn't know books could be repaired,” said Gary. “Isn't it more sensible to just get a new one?”

“A new
Bestiary
?” said Rose.

“Oh, right,” said Gary. When it's irreplaceable, it makes sense to take care of it.

There followed a most illuminating conservation lecture in which Rose described the parts of a book, its materials, and common construction methods. Then she effected a simple repair of the
Bestiary
, much to the amazement of Henrietta and Gary. “My dad is better at it,” she said.

“Where did he learn?” said Henrietta.

“. . . Nowhere,” said Rose. Further questioning produced only silence.

Mister Lady grew increasingly active as days passed, often chasing after motes of dust in the main area. One afternoon Henrietta found a tuft of fur beside the couch, and concluded that the cat was also doing some hunting.

Through the windows, Henrietta, Gary, and Rose continued their fascination with the old world outside. Usually when they arrived they'd see the children coming home from school, but sometimes the two eras came unstuck from one another and they'd arrive to find midnight through the windows, or sunrise.

Whenever the sun was out, so were people, crossing the boulevard on errands, chatting on street-side benches, selling groceries and other goods from carts. One afternoon a whole picnic took place atop the gigantic stump, and thirty people ate and drank there. Occasionally, a car passed, strange and large, and people stopped what they were doing to look. Cars were a curiosity.

At sunset, a man would stroll the boulevard bearing a long metal stick with a flame at the end, lighting the streetlamps. A real flame burned in every one, flickering and casting wavering shadows along the trunks of the maple trees.

All three children spent considerable time reading up in the attic, even Gary. One of the things that had always kept him from reading was that he couldn't see
the point. Why read when you could learn from TV or the radio, or ask a computer, or your cell phone? But in the attic, reading was quite helpful.

One afternoon, while exploring behind the bookshelves, Gary happened upon a large glass jar full of thick, glaucous liquid. Floating in it was some kind of preserved creature. He carefully picked up the jar and carried it out past a pile of luggage, an old dresser, a sewing table, and the bookcases to the living room, where he placed it on the coffee table.

Henrietta jumped when she saw it. The thing looked like a gray bird, but it was covered in scales like a fish. It sloshed gently back and forth in the cloudy solution, which Gary's transport had agitated.

If Gary had seen something like this at school he would have taken a picture of it with his phone, and the phone would have told him what he was looking at. Or he could have spoken a few descriptive words, like “Part bird, part fish,” and his phone would have sorted some search results based on those keywords.

And, indeed, Gary did produce his phone with the intent of taking a picture . . . but the phone was dead. “It's broken,” he said, shaking it a little.

“That happened up here to me, too,” said Henrietta. She took out her own phone. The screen was blank.

“Rose, does yours work?” said Henrietta. Rose, over by the windows, was watching a group of children kick an empty can along the brick street.

“I don't have one,” she said.

“I forgot,” said Henrietta. “Why don't your parents get you one? What if there's an emergency?”

Rose shrugged. She came over to look at Henrietta's phone.

“It's like at my house,” said Rose.

“Your house?” said Henrietta.

Rose's mouth snapped shut so fast her teeth clicked.

“What is it, Rose?” said Gary, sensing her hesitation.

“Nothing.” Rose sat by the coffee table and looked into the glass jar at the strange preserved creature.

“Does your house have a lot of books in it?” said Henrietta. “Is that why you know how to repair them?”

Rose continued to look silently at the creature. At the end of its tail was a long, threateningly curved hook.

“Let's see if it's in the
Bestiary
.” She slid the book toward Gary. “Do you want to try it?”

“You know I can't,” he said, scowling.

“I didn't mean it like that,” said Henrietta. “I was just thinking—it doesn't matter how long it takes when we're up here. If you want to try.”

“I guess that's true,” said Gary. He brightened a little. The lack of time pressure made the situation seem a little more encouraging. He opened the Bestiary, and Henrietta and Rose sat on either side of him. Even Mister Lady approached to watch.

“This might be kind of hard,” said Henrietta, “since we don't know what it's called.”

“But there are pictures,” said Gary, flipping through the brittle old pages. “Let's just look for it.”

“I didn't think of that,” said Henrietta.

“Because you can read,” said Gary, smiling. It took a while, but they finally found an illustration that resembled the creature in the jar.

Henrietta read the title silently. She looked at Gary.

“Do you know how to sound things out?” she asked.

“A little,” said Gary.

“That's a Q,” said Rose, pointing at the first letter.

“Kw . . .” Gary said. “And the next letter is a
U
, then an
A
. . .
A
is like ‘apple,' right?”

“It depends,” said Henrietta.

“That's what I hate about reading!” said Gary, instantly exasperated. “It's like they make it hard on purpose.”

If the alphabet had been invented in the Addition, all
A
s would probably sound like the
A
in
apple
. In the Addition, streets ran on a grid, and the houses were identical. The “number one” at one restaurant was the same as the “number one” at every other restaurant, and it would only make sense to have an equally regular alphabet.