The Dark Hills Divide

  “Storm’s coming,” I observed. Grayson rose from his work and stood beside me, leaning hard against the wall as the wind parted his meager head of hair. We saw Pervis coming from the direction of Renny Lodge. He approached us slowly, shirt flapping uncontrollably at his sides, the wind directly in his face in great gusts.

  “We’ll make it by midnight. Just finishing things up now,” he yelled through the wind. He looked beaten but alert, alternately watching the guards at the near tower and the work on the ground.

  An hour short of midnight, we finished the work. No streetlamps were fired; only a blush of soft moonlight remained on the town square. Families hunkered down in their homes as tired men milled around the completed work with anticipation. The kitchen staff prepared kettles of soup and fresh loaves of bread, and people formed a line outside Renny Lodge. At the door they took a bowl and a spoon, then my father poured the soup and handed each person a small loaf of bread. Inside, tables were set in the smoking room, and a great fire raged in the fireplace.

  There was a strange aura that hung over the room as we sat elbow to elbow sipping from our bowls, listening to the wind buffet the shutters that had been closed over the windows. It was a harrowing sound, as though the convicts were pounding to get in and tear the place apart. A few sips into our late dinner all the townspeople went back outside clutching lumps of bread, too skittish to sit inside making chitchat over bowls of broth.

  Only Father and I remained.

  “You’ve been working hard,” Father said.

  “I don’t mind,” I replied.

  “I think it’s time for you to go, Alexa. I want you sealed up tight in your room, door locked, until this thing is over. No more running around,” he said. The thought of what was coming scared me and I was happy to obey his request. We hugged, and then I retreated to my room and locked the door behind me.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE PAPER STORM

  It was ten minutes to midnight when I arrived at my open window, door locked behind me, a thick wind tossing my hair. I hadn’t been paying any attention, but clouds were rolling in. Storm clouds. Within a few moments, the moon was gone, and the unlit town of Bridewell below was as black as The Dark Hills had ever been. I could not differentiate between the inside and the outside of the wall, and for a brief moment it seemed as though the wall itself were a myth, and Bridewell was open, sprawling into the hills uncontained. But the clouds continued to move, and part of the moon cast its revealing light against the ivy-covered wall. As quickly as the wall had disappeared, it was back in all its awful glory.

  I was holding Warvold’s favorite old book, Myths and Legends in the Land of Elyon, the one I’d gotten from Grayson. After my visit outside the wall, its title was newly intriguing. I had never thought of our land as Elyon’s land. Elyon was just what we called it, nothing more. Flipping through its ragged pages was somehow comforting, and I began to think about having Grayson repair it so it would stop falling to pieces every time I picked it up. While I was lost in my thoughts, the clouds once again moved over the moon, and the blackness of the unlit night returned. Gusts of wind continued to blow; the first drops of rain pelted my hands on the sill, and I closed the book to protect it.

  “Alexa!”

  I jumped back from the window, lost my balance, and fell to the floor, all the while clutching the precious old book.

  “Well, I guess that’s one for me.” It was Murphy climbing through the open window. His presence was a bad sign.

  “Why are you here, Murphy? I need you to stay on the lookout,” I said, getting back on my feet.

  “That’s just it, Alexa. I left an hour ago to check in with Yipes, and when I returned, it had been opened.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” I asked. It appeared that my fears had come to pass.

  “I’m positive. The chair was put back, but I marked the footings on the floor, and they no longer match up.” Murphy was staring at me wide-eyed. “Either someone’s got in through the secret door or someone’s got out. I can’t be sure which.”

  A gust of wind slammed through the window and racked the shutters back and forth against the wall. Wind rushed into the room and blew Warvold’s book clean out of my hand, bursting the spine loose anew and blowing pages all over the room.

  “Oh no!” I cried. Some of the pages were sucked out the window as the wind changed directions; the rest were flying around the room in a blizzard of paper. I ran to the window and grabbed the shutters to close them. The rain was coming harder now and the handles on the shutters were slick. I saw pages from Warvold’s book dancing on the wind outside. One was caught in the ivy clutches of the wall, another was stuck to the wet sill, and still another fluttered over the divide and out into the dark night beyond my sight. I grabbed the page stuck to the sill and threw it behind me, then secured the shutters and turned to face the room.

  It was worse than I thought possible. Pages were everywhere, and Murphy was dragging an empty spine across the floor by his teeth for my inspection. The book was forever destroyed.

  “This is terrible, Murphy. We’ll never get it back together, no matter how hard we try.”

  He dropped the spine on my feet and looked up at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I sat down with my back against the wall, and Murphy hopped up on my lap. I picked up what was left of the book and opened it up. Not a single page remained. The spine was not only empty of pages, but torn at the stitching on the inside cover, revealing the inner board beneath the fabric. It had always been this way, at least ever since the book came into my possession. But with the pages gone the fault was more obvious and accessible. I ran my fingers along the edge absently. Then I tucked my finger under the fabric and felt along the board. It was a mindless gesture, and when I felt a ridge where one should not have been, I ignored it. Then I realized the ridge felt more like paper than board or fabric, and I looked closely at the broken cover. Something was inside. Something secret.

  I looked at Murphy with astonishment, then ripped the fabric off the cover and revealed a folded piece of paper. I set the mangled book aside and unfolded the treasure, my hands trembling with anticipation. It was one page, torn from Warvold’s journal. The date and time of the entry indicated the night of his arrival in Bridewell for the summer meetings, probably between dinner and the stroll with me from which he never returned.

  As the shutters buckled back and forth in opposition to the wind, I read the entry aloud to Murphy.

  I have wondered ever since Renny was taken from me if Sebastian is real. My arrival back in Bridewell makes me wonder more than ever. Were Renny’s suspicions imagined? “He’s not quite right,” she would say upon our arrival. And who is this Sebastian anyway? Is he anything more than a mere legend heard in whispers? To tell the rest of them I must be utterly sure.

  Grayson — I’m getting old and mischief follows me everywhere. If I am dead when you go to repair my favorite book (I know you won’t be able to help yourself), you’ll surely find this note. If events surrounding my death seem suspicious, read page 194. Otherwise, burn the book immediately and go about your day in peace.

  W.

  “Why did Grayson have to give me the book? For all we know, page 194 is flying around outside somewhere!” I yelled. Murphy scrambled off my lap and began sifting through pages on the floor while I checked the ones that had landed on my bed. Five minutes into our search we were still looking, and all the pages in sight were piled in a heap in the corner of the room. It seemed likely that one of the pages outside, probably the one long gone over the wall, was the page we were looking for.

  “Alexa!” came a muffled cry from under my bed, and a moment later Murphy came out, pushing page 194 along the floor with his nose. I reached down and picked it up.

  A moment later, with water pooling on my windowsill and dripping into the room, we huddled together in the corner near the pages we had piled up and I read page 194 aloud to Murphy.

  Immediatel
y, we knew who Sebastian was, and Murphy said what we were both thinking:

  “We have to catch him.”

  CHAPTER 25

  A TIGHT SPOT

  I unlocked my door and ran down the hall with Murphy close behind. When we arrived at the landing on the second floor, I stopped and gazed out the window toward the center of town where a shard of moonlight cut through the night. The rain began coming down in sheets, and the moon disappeared again behind ominous clouds, this time for the duration of the storm. I lost sight of the town square.

  I would need a weapon, so I went to the smoking room and took the iron poker from where it stood next to the great fireplace. Then I motioned Murphy in the direction of the library. On the way out of the smoking room I picked up a lamp from the table, lit it, and trimmed it so the flame was low.

  We passed through the kitchen, went up the creaking steps, and stood at the landing in front of the library doors. As I suspected, the doors had been locked from the inside, and the bookcase remained firmly backed against the wall in front of the cat door.

  “I wonder if Sam and Pepper are still in there, watching for intruders,” I said.

  “If they are, then they’re hiding,” Murphy replied. He hadn’t seen them while he watched for activity in the library. We began to wonder if they might have jumped out the open window by the chair, but it was a long way down. Murphy could hold on and descend a twenty-foot wall, but the cats would have to free-fall to the ground. No cat would willingly leap out a window that high.

  The sound of thunderclaps and driving rain magnified the sinister darkness of Renny Lodge. I crouched down by the cat door and swung it toward me into the hall, inspecting the weight and size of the bookcase blocking the way. Already, there was almost enough room for Murphy to squeeze through, so I turned and put my foot through the small door against the bookcase. I pushed, just a little at first, then as hard as I could, but it would not budge. I held the door open with my hand, pulled my foot back, and waited for the next thunderclap. When it came, I thrust the flat of my heel into the bookcase. This produced a shooting pain up my leg, and the shelf remained in the exact same spot.

  We sat motionless for a moment, and then without warning, Murphy moved quickly past my foot and sideways through the little door. He struggled mightily to squeeze into the small space as I spun around to where I could see.

  He spoke in a muffled whisper I could hardly understand.

  “Awfully tight in here. Can you push me through?”

  I put my hand next to his furry side and started pushing. The wood against the back of the bookcase was slick, and his fur was soft, but the stone wall was rough. The coarseness of the wall combined with the slippery fur and wood made him twist as he went. I pushed; Murphy spun, alternately facing the stone wall, the exit, the bookcase, and me. It was hard not to laugh as I imagined his poor little face squashed against the wall, nose all flattened out, followed by a dazed look as he rotated free in my direction. I moved him as far as I could, but when my elbow reached the edge of the cat door, I could push no further, and Murphy had yet to reach the edge of the bookshelf.

  He was stuck.

  “Alexa?” he whispered.

  “Yes?” I answered, the subtle beginnings of hysteria in my voice.

  “Cat,” he said.

  And then I heard Sam’s menacing laugh fill the library.

  “How sad for you, Murphy — stuck in such an uncompromising position. And no one to save you,” said Sam.

  The time for quiet deliberation had passed, and I threw my body full force into the library door over and over again trying to get in.

  “It’s no use, Alexa. He’s finished, Bridewell is finished, and Sebastian has escaped undiscovered and unharmed. You have failed at every turn.” This time it was Pepper, standing behind the door, taunting me.

  I spun the fire poker in my hand and examined it, thinking of all that had gone wrong, and believing for a moment that I was defeated.

  The cats were inspecting the bookcase, enjoying their little moment, continuing to taunt and jab as they decided who would rip into Murphy’s flesh with a bare claw and yank him out.

  “I think you should do the honors,” joked Sam.

  For no particular reason, I leaned against the library door, and continued examining the fire poker. It was a solid metal device with a sharp tip.

  “I almost wish I could let you in, Alexa. This is going to be quite a sight to behold,” said Pepper.

  I quietly moved to the cat door and opened it.

  “Enough of this. Get him out,” said Sam.

  I jammed the fire poker under the bookcase as hard as I could, and I lifted the handle up off the floor with all my strength. The bookcase tilted out slowly, then faster, then it was crashing into another shelf in front of it, spraying books everywhere. I could hear shelves falling like dominoes out into the library, pounding the floor with books.

  When all the shelves in the row had been toppled, I waited to hear the cats going after Murphy, but all I heard were random books slipping off tipped shelves and popping on the floor like giant raindrops at the end of a storm.

  Then I heard a magical sound. The lock on the library door creaked, and I watched as it slowly turned and snapped open. I carefully turned the handle and pushed the door open a few inches.

  “Close call,” said Murphy. He had already jumped down from the doorknob, and he was standing at my feet.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  Murphy motioned me in and I followed him into the library. In the dim light it looked as though nine or ten shelves had tumbled over. Hanging out from under one of them were two lifeless cat tails.

  “Oh my,” I said. Murphy climbed over a bookshelf and started in the direction of the chair and the secret tunnel. I followed him into the dark recesses of the library.

  CHAPTER 26

  SEBASTIAN

  The shutters had not been closed and water was everywhere. Books, shelves, and the old chair — all were soaking wet. Rain continued to pour into the space as I pulled the chair back and revealed the secret entry. I removed the silver key from my pocket, unlocked the small door, and swung it open. A gust of wind blew it shut again with a bang, and I worried over who might have heard from down below in the darkness.

  I reopened the door and held it tighter this time. The lamp that had hung on the ladder was gone, and I hung mine where it had been.

  “Ready?” I asked Murphy. He nodded, and I picked him up and put him in my pack along with the fire poker. I descended the ladder as I had done before. When we arrived at the bottom, I released Murphy and set him on the dirt floor.

  To my surprise, five of the boards that once lined the wall behind the ladder were strewn about the floor at my feet. Where the boards had been, the opening to a threatening dark corridor remained, staring at us like a giant black eye. I stepped through the opening and Murphy followed.

  The brown walls reflected weak light from my lamp, and I had the creepy sense that Sebastian could jump out from a hiding spot at any moment and attack me. I turned the lamp down, just enough to see in front of me, and began running the length of the tunnel. After a while it turned and widened, and then I saw light flickering in the distance. I stopped and turned my lamp as low as I could and set it aside; then I sent Murphy ahead to scout the situation. He returned breathless and agitated.

  “We’ve reached the main tunnel,” he said. “It shoots off in two directions, one back toward Bridewell by another route, and one out toward The Dark Hills. There’s a torch lit at the corner. What do you want to do?”

  Without answering I began running toward the flickering light as fast as I could. When I arrived at the torch I removed it from its holder and rammed it into the dirt floor until it was out. “What are you doing, Alexa?” yelled Murphy.

  “Quiet down — you’ll give us away,” I whispered. I pulled a piece of paper from my sack and held it down to the light. It was a crude copy of the map of the tunnels, something I?
??d thought I might find a use for after relinquishing the original.

  “He would have tried to find his men, which means he would have taken this tunnel here.” I pointed out a long, twisting black line that started from the hub we were standing at. My finger followed along the map as I spoke. “After that, he would intersect with this tunnel and drop down under Bridewell here. If our plan works, he will encounter a dirt wall near the end. The only way back out is through the hub we’re standing at.” I paused a moment and looked at Murphy.

  “He’s separated from his men and looking for a way out. He knows he won’t make it before the passage is blocked,” he concluded.

  We sat motionless in the dark, the dim light from my lamp covered between my back and the wall of the cave. We waited quietly, which was difficult for Murphy. He kept flipping and flopping as he continued whispering. “What if we’re too late?”

  Before I could respond, we both saw a flicker of light coming from out of the darkness. It was moving fast. I hunched down at the edge of the adjoining tunnel and pulled the fire poker from my pack. The light bounced brighter and brighter off the walls, and then the shadow of a man came into view. I could hear his labored breathing and his steps as he moved across the dirt floor. Thunder clapped from outside in a muffled tone, and I peeked around the corner to see how close he was. Only about ten yards off, Sebastian had slowed to a brisk walk. I slipped back into the darkness, and as he passed in front of me I swung the fire poker with all my might, hitting him square on the bone of his lower leg. He screamed in pain and threw his lamp to the ground, hopping on one leg over to the side of the tunnel with his back to me, holding himself up with one hand. I’d broken the skin at the bone, and blood began to stream down his leg.