The Hidden Boy Read online

  Granny Delphine raised her eyebrows. “He was Maize Ledbetter’s teacher when she was just a child. Maize herself is almost a hundred years old now.”

  Bea frowned. It seemed a strange sort of answer. “Doesn’t anyone know for sure?” she said.

  “He disappeared many years ago,” said her grandmother. “Not even the Pearlseeds know what became of him, but I suspect he had a good reason for that.”

  “What is a Pearlseed?” asked Bea.

  “You know how a pearl is formed, I suppose?” said Granny Delphine.

  “A bit of grit gets into an oyster, and the pearl forms around it.”

  “Precisely so. The grit irritates the oyster, and in protecting itself the oyster creates a thing of beauty.”

  “So a Pearlseed is an irritant.”

  “In a sense, yes. Sometimes it’s necessary for people to be an irritant to society so that something more valuable might be born.”

  “Are you a Pearlseed?” asked Bea, but Granny Delphine put her finger to her lips and dropped her voice again.

  “If you had learned anything from my introduction to Mumbo Jumbo you would know that your dinner is ready and your mother is almost within earshot,” she said. “We will speak more about this later.”

  “But—,” said Bea.

  “No buts,” said her grandmother firmly. She stopped at the edge of the path and pointed to a large white flower shaped like an inverted bell. “Three hours’ rain,” she said.

  “How can you tell?” said Phoebe.

  Granny Delphine flicked the flower, which sprinkled the surrounding leaves with a shower of water. “Any more than three hours and it would have tipped over and emptied itself out. Any less and it would not have been full.”

  “Maybe it did tip over, but it rained for six hours,” said Bea.

  “That’s very good,” said Granny Delphine. Bea felt herself flush with her grandmother’s rare compliment. “But the ground would have been softer when we arrived,” added Granny Delphine. “You’ll find it was three.”

  As they approached the Millers’ house they were met by an unexpected sight. The clearing was once again surrounded by people, but this time they were not trying to clamber up to the windows. Instead they formed a straggling line that stretched right around the house and disappeared among the trees. At the head of the line a man was sitting on a wooden stool. He was stripped to the waist, and Ma was perched on a bench behind him, frowning with concentration as she worked. Her buzzing needle flew back and forth with astonishing speed, tattooing across the man’s back a lush forest that grew and curled and blossomed with color even as they watched. On the bench beside Ma sat Clockwork Gabby, whom Ma evidently had remembered to wind up. Gabby’s eyes were fixed on the tattoo, and she handed Ma inks, tissues and needles with the speed and precision of a robot on an assembly line.

  The people at the head of the line were bunched up around them, transfixed by the spreading riot of color, while those farther back craned just to catch a glimpse, but Ma seemed unaware of their presence. Bea could see that her mother was lost in the world that she was creating, and so contented did she look that Bea tiptoed around behind her for fear of bringing her back to reality. There were thick vines growing up the man’s back and curling around his shoulders. Oranges and grapes, plumegranates and other less familiar fruit dangled from the vines. Tiny animals and glittering dragonflies sprang from the tip of the needle. It was certainly mesmerizing to watch, and when the tattoo was finally completed Bea had no idea how much time had passed.

  “That will hurt for a few days and itch for a few more,” said Ma as she soaped her hands in a basin. She fitted a new tip to the needle. “Wash with warm water, and don’t take a bath till the itching stops. Next!”

  Bea felt a light touch on her arm. It was Mrs. Miller, silent for once. She smiled and put her finger to her lips. Bea felt suddenly tired as she followed her up the ladder to the verandah. Phoebe was already there, perched on the edge of a chair and working her way through a bowl of thick stew. Willow was slumped in the other chair, staring ahead with dull eyes. As Bea sat down she remembered with a chill the words of the bald man at the Quorum as he listed the people who had been afflicted by the Ledbetter clan—Little Erika Spivey. Jim Hooker. The Miller girl… It was no wonder the Millers refused to mention the Ledbetters in front of their daughter.

  She ate in silence the dinner that Mrs. Miller put before her, while Ma worked on tirelessly in the clearing below. The people in line showed no sign of giving up, waiting patiently for the opportunity to have themselves decorated with pictures of such surpassing beauty, and Mrs. Miller set up a circle of lamps around them as the light faded. Willow rose from her chair and drifted like a ghost into her room, and shortly afterward the verandah began to shake as Pa climbed the ladder. “Still up, eh, girls?” he said. He forced a smile onto his face, and Bea could see at once that he had heard nothing hopeful in his search. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of beer, which he uncapped with his teeth.

  “Do you think Ma will work all night?” asked Bea.

  Pa nodded. “There’s a lot going on in her head right now,” he said, “and it has to come out somehow.” He took a long draft of beer and wiped the back of his mouth with a sigh. “It’s been a long time,” he said.

  Bea sank back into the soft cushions of the cane chair. She thought about going to bed, but before she could summon the energy to get up she felt herself slipping away into sleep. The buzzing of the tattoo machine wound through her dreams like an echo of childhood, while above her in the corner bedroom Willow Miller sat propped up by pillows, twisting a corner of her nightgown between her fingers and waiting for the dawn.

  Sneaking

  Bea Flint awoke to the sound of birds chattering in the trees. Someone had put a blanket over her in the night. She was stiff from sleeping curled up in the chair, and when she tried to open her eyes they felt gummy. She caught a glimpse of Mrs. Miller, sitting in a chair at the balcony’s edge and stitching something. Bea closed her eyes again quickly. The sun was already high, but still it felt too early for talking. She pictured Theo waiting for her where the thin wavy trees were, and felt the weight of his absence at once like a cold stone in the pit of her stomach.

  She tried to distract herself by listening to the birdsong that surrounded her. There was a colony of small birds in the Millers’ own tree. She could hear the chip-chip-cheeep of a hundred small chicks, their beaks open to the sky as they yelled for their breakfast, and the chatter of their parents as they squabbled over who should provide it. There was another larger bird there too. He sang a longer song that ran out like a telephone wire toward a neighboring tree. He was answered by another, maybe a hundred paces away toward the falls. As her ears followed that sound, Bea became aware again of the network of bees that loosely tied the countryside together, and from the purposeful paths of the bees she learned that the line of villagers had gone and her mother was no longer in the clearing. She felt she was beginning to grasp the idea of Mumbo Jumbo, and she remembered what her grandmother had said: You are the one who can find Theo. She sat up at once and opened her eyes.

  “I’ve made you both some sandwiches,” said Mrs. Miller quietly. She smiled at her. “Of course, you can have breakfast here if you like, but I expect you’ll want to set off exploring as soon as you can.”

  Bea rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. Mrs. Miller had resumed her sewing, and there was a pile of sandwiches on the table, neatly wrapped in waxed paper. “Have you been there all night?” asked Bea.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” said Mrs. Miller, “and you both looked so comfortable there I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Thank you,” said Bea. She looked at Phoebe on the chair beside hers, tucked up in another blanket and still fast asleep. She poked her with her toe.

  Phoebe sprang to life like a jack-in-the-box. “Let’s go!” she said.

  They set off along the path, warmed by two mugs of steaming hot
chocolate that Mrs. Miller had insisted on making for them. They had told her that they would return to the hills where they had been the previous day, but once they were out of sight of the house they doubled back to visit Arkadi. Phoebe trailed a stick on the ground and said thoughtfully, “He can’t be the one Granny Delphine was talking about. He’d have to be a hundred and forty at least.”

  “What age would you say he is?” asked Bea. She had made a small opening in the zipper of the backpack and was feeding almonds to Nails as they walked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” said Phoebe. “Forty? Sixty? He can’t be a hundred and forty. Nobody’s that old.”

  “Maybe,” said Bea, “but how many…” She paused. She had heard something odd to her right. There were so many sounds among the trees that she could not tell what it was. Some tiny sound, so faint that it was almost no sound at all. That was it! No sound at all. She resumed talking, but her ears tuned in like satellite dishes. She could almost feel them swiveling. “How many people do you know named Arkadi?”

  “None,” said Phoebe. “I don’t know any other Phoebes either, but that doesn’t mean I’m a hundred and forty.”

  Bea lowered her voice. “Don’t look around,” she said, “but Granny Delphine was right. Someone is following us.”

  “One of the Ledbetters?” whispered Phoebe.

  “Must be.”

  “Is it the same one who was spying on us when we went back to the falls?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bea. “I can’t see him.”

  “You heard him, right?” said Phoebe. She was starting to get used to her friend’s unusual hearing.

  “Sort of. It’s more that I can’t hear him.”

  “Then how do you know he’s there?”

  “You know how sneaky the Ledbetters are,” said Bea quietly. “They’re so good at creeping up on people that they don’t make a sound.”

  “Are you going to start making sense soon?” said Phoebe.

  Bea laughed. “There are bees and crickets and shrews and all sorts of creatures in the undergrowth,” she explained. “They’re moving around all the time, but when a Ledbetter passes they freeze until he’s gone. It’s like a patch of silence moving through the trees.” She felt a wave of delight at her newfound skill. “It’s a dead giveaway!” she whispered.

  “We’ll have to lose him,” said Phoebe. “Otherwise we’ll lead him straight to Arkadi.”

  “That won’t be easy,” said Bea.

  “We’ll split up.”

  “He’ll still follow me,” said Bea. “Maize will have told him to stick with me.”

  “Where is he now?” said Phoebe.

  Bea tuned herself in to the silence. “About twenty feet to the right of the path, and ten paces behind us. What are you—”

  “Meet you at the falls,” whispered Phoebe. She stopped in her tracks. “Was that a sausageberry tree back there?” she said in a loud voice, and in an instant she was gone, charging straight through the trees toward the sneaking silence. Bea caught a glimpse of the spy as he tried to slip out of Phoebe’s path. It was a Ledbetter, all right; there was no mistaking that broad blank face. It looked like the boy who had fallen into the thornbush at the Millers’ house, the boy whom Maize had called Ike. Like all his clan he seemed to be wrapped for a blizzard.

  Bea quickly stepped out of sight to the left of the path. She lost herself among the trees, keeping low for the protection of the ferns and bushes. When she judged she had gone far enough she stopped, crouched down, and listened. The sounds of the forest assembled themselves around her, but she could hear nothing out of place. She smiled. She could see the little hut among the trees, and she made her way toward it.

  She moved as quietly as she could, trying to be as stealthy as their pursuer, but she soon learned just how difficult that was. The birds called her position cheerfully to one another. Small animals scurried through dried leaves to avoid her, and twigs snapped beneath her feet. Just as they always do in stories, she thought. It must take a lifetime of sneaking around to be that good at it.

  Arkadi sat with his back to her. He was peeling some sort of yellow fruit and humming to himself. Bea held her breath and tiptoed even more carefully.

  “I finished the doggie,” said Arkadi. He put the fruit down carefully on a leaf and turned around. He produced the carving from his overalls pocket. “Do you like it?”

  Bea let her breath out with a whoosh. “It’s not a doggie,” she said, slightly irritated. “It’s a meerkat.” She looked closely at the carving. It was incredibly detailed. It stood with its nose in the air, and it was so lifelike that she could almost see it twitch. “It’s very good!” she said.

  Arkadi beamed. “I like making things,” he said. “Did you bring sandwiches?”

  Bea put the backpack on the ground and unzipped the front pocket. She found it impossible to remain annoyed with Arkadi. “I don’t know what’s in them,” she said.

  Arkadi unwrapped a sandwich and took an enormous bite. “Fwhere’s your ffriend?” he said through stuffed cheeks.

  “Someone was following us, so Phoebe went the other way to distract him.”

  Arkadi nodded. “Big eyes, all wrapped up,” he said. “I’ve seen him.”

  “Do you think he saw you?” asked Bea.

  Arkadi shook his head. “I’m good at hiding.”

  “Because of Mumbo Jumbo?” said Bea. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

  “Don’t know about any of that stuff,” said Arkadi, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m always getting in trouble. That’s why I’m good at hiding.”

  “My granny says Mumbo Jumbo was founded by a man named Arkadi,” said Bea.

  “I heard that too,” said Arkadi. “Are there any more sandwiches?”

  Bea gave him another. She rushed her next question out before she could feel too foolish to ask it.

  “Are you the same Arkadi?”

  Arkadi did not laugh. His face remained as open as before.

  “It was a popular name when I was little,” he said. “Every Tom, Dick and Harry was called Arkadi.”

  Bea heard a sound behind her and turned quickly around. Phoebe was coming through the trees, scratched and smiling. “I lost him,” she said.

  Bea turned back, but Arkadi had vanished. The meerkat carving stood on the log where he had sat a moment before, an inquisitive little figure in blond wood. The hut yawned open, as though it had been empty for years. Bea looked over Phoebe’s shoulder. She could see no movement among the trees, but she shook her head. “I don’t think you did,” she whispered.

  Books

  “I didn’t really get a proper answer,” said Bea. “He just said that Arkadi was a popular name; then you turned up and he disappeared before I could ask him any more.” They sat on the mossy rock near Cambio Falls. Here in the water’s roar they could talk without fear of being overheard, while Nails sniffed around in the grass, stopping now and then to tug a worm from the soft earth.

  “Sorry,” said Phoebe. “Do you think he’s gone like…like Theo?”

  Bea shook her head. “He’s just good at hiding. He must have known the Ledbetter spy was still behind you.”

  “How can we go looking for Theo with that Ledbetter creep following us?” said Phoebe. “If we did find Theo they would know straightaway.”

  Bea scuffed the grass with her toe. “I don’t see the point in going back to the copses to look for him anyway. We’re never going to find him just by wandering around aimlessly.” She wanted more than anything to take out the Squeak Jar and speak to Theo, but she was afraid that the sight of the jar might provide some clue that their stalker could bring to Maize Ledbetter. They had eaten the remaining sandwiches sometime earlier, and waited around in the faint hope that the Ledbetter boy would get bored and leave. Bea pictured Maize Ledbetter’s menacing stare, and she knew that it was not likely.

  “Granny Delphine thinks you can find him,” said Phoebe.

  “She means by usin
g Mumbo Jumbo, but I’m not even sure what that is. It might take years to learn.”

  “If Arkadi was the real Arkadi I bet he could help you,” said Phoebe.

  “If he was the real Arkadi he wouldn’t admit to it. Otherwise why would he be hiding? Besides, we can’t even go back and find him. Not as long as we have the creep on our tail.”

  “Is he still there?”

  Bea nodded. Even in the roar of the falls she could still sense the odd patch of silence that betrayed the Ledbetter boy’s presence.

  “Why do you think they wear all those scarves and gloves?” said Phoebe.

  “I keep wondering that. Maybe they’re always cold.”

  Phoebe was quiet for a minute; then she said, “There must be someone we could ask about Arkadi.”

  “I don’t see how we can ask anyone without giving him away, and I don’t really want to do that. What if he is just a harmless simpleton?”

  “We could tell Bontoc. It was probably him who locked Arkadi into the Blue Moon Mobile in the first place.”

  “I haven’t seen Bontoc since the night we arrived.”

  “We could try his office in the library. At least the Ledbetter spy won’t be able to follow us in there without being seen.”

  “I don’t know what time the library…,” began Bea; then a sudden thought struck her. “Of course! Bell Hoot Library. They’re sure to have a book on Arkadi, since he founded the place.” She jumped up and hastily packed the backpack. “We can look him up and see what he looked like.”

  They walked quickly back in the direction of the library. Bea tried to ignore the uncomfortable patch of silence that followed them at a short distance, but they spoke in whispers nonetheless. The library was cool inside. The floor was polished wood and the tall bookcases formed a bewildering maze. Just inside the door was a wooden desk, and on it a brass sign engraved with the word Sssssssh! The librarian was none other than Miss Hopkins, the typewriter lady from Captain Bontoc’s office. She was rearranging cards in a dark green box.