The Rambling Page 10

  Sinclair’s eyes caught a flicker of torchlight and brightened a little, and it was as if some kind of joy crept into his face right then.

  “Parsnit was our game. It was the cards, the magic of the cards. It was how we made our living, running the tables from the smallest tavern all the way to Baudelaire Quatro’s Place. You have heard of Mr. Quatro, have you not?”

  “A little,” I said. “He runs the most famous Parsnit hall in the swamp.”

  “Indeed, child.” Sinclair’s eyes grew wide and he stared me deep in my own. “Though the hall has changed significantly, as has Mr. Quatro himself. Your father would not recognize the place were he to lay eyes upon it, so much has it changed. You would be wise not to meddle with Mr. Quatro. Even Marina fears magic such as that, gruesome it is, unwholesome. As am I! Yes, as am I!”

  Sinclair snatched a fresh femur bone from the cave floor and split it over his knee and began to gnaw the marrow out from the center. He spat out a chunk of gristle and spoke.

  “We played the game well, and the game sustained us. Often we weren’t above hijacking a trader’s longboat, or raiding some wayward boat fool enough to wind its way into our lands, all of it was ours, everything that touched the swamp waters. Those were happy times, I recall.” He shuddered, the bone shard slipping from his fingers. “Famous times, yes. My days in the light, those were.”

  “Then how did you become, well . . . ,” said Tally.

  “Times changed, they always do, they always will. Time is disobedient to us, children, we are time’s plaything, we are all shaped by it. Changed we are, diminished.”

  I heard bats flutter above us, their chirp and call. I wondered what all lived down here, in Sinclair’s caves. I wondered where they all led to, all the secret tunnels and passageways, how many places in the swamp he could reach, how he could appear probably anywhere.

  “But this is not my tale, no, not truly,” said Sinclair. “It is Little Bobby Felix’s story, and what he became. Who he became. Do you remember Bobby Felix, child? He was the weakest of us, the smallest, but he was one of ours. Our friend. And we shared all we had with him.”

  “He was the short fella, right?” I said. “I think I remember him.”

  “Yes, the boy remembers,” said Sinclair. “A gentle soul, so I thought, for a time. And yet little Bobby Felix wasn’t content being Bobby Felix, the weakest of us, the least mighty. He started collecting, gathering little magics. Totems, he called them, each one carrying with it some strange power. The pinky finger of a child saint, a stolen lock of hair from a Dolly Witch, the left fang of the last of the spider-folk.”

  Tally flinched backward and I held her hand tight.

  “I thought they were all gone, spider-folk. Very valuable you are, coveted, especially by the likes of Bobby Felix. He sought such trifles out, such magical trinkets, and other things: forbidden books, the scrolls written in bark on the oldest trees in the swamp, the whispered mysteries of the bird songs, the code hidden in the lightning bugs’ blink. Power was what he wanted, and power he got. He cut his own left hand off, little Bobby Felix did, and he had it dried and shrunk. He kept it in a jar, he did, and it still moved, it stayed alive, I saw it twitching on a shelf one night, saw it with my own eyes. In its place he fixed a hand of iron, of clockwork.

  “I remember the night he showed his new metal fist to us first. Little Bobby Felix strode into your father’s house with that hand, wicked magic it was, and ghastly. The great witch Marina fumed, she screamed and hollered and cursed him. But your mother—a mighty witch in her own right, though of a different sort than Marina—she knew, she understood. She stayed quiet, Samantha Annie, and afraid.”

  There was no way. My mom, a witch? Was it even possible?

  “Bobby Felix began to change soon after that. He’d disappear weeks on end, come back with some other piece of magic, some mystical tattoo snaking around his little arm. It wasn’t long before Bobby Felix found himself a partner. A woman named Drusilla Fey, a dreaded witch. Pretty she was, silver-haired, could have been twenty, could have been two hundred years old, how would we know? Sneaky, duplicitous, and yet she played the lady. Proper, mincing around our Parsnit halls as if the floors would dirty her shoes. Yes, she’d play the lady prim and proper until her fingernails came out, until she wanted blood. You ever meet her, you’ll understand right quick, children. Your mother, Buddy, she hated Drusilla Fey, and even Marina was made nervous by her. But Bobby Felix was happy, very happy, perhaps for the first time.”

  “But why wasn’t Pop worried?” I said. “Wasn’t anybody trying to stop him?”

  “Your father was preoccupied, yes he was. He had other things on his mind,” said Sinclair. “Namely you, and your mother. Your birth changed things. Your father became distracted, he withdrew from us, he couldn’t see what was coming. It’s just little Bobby Felix, your father would say. Nothing to worry about him. Let him have his fun. Glad he found someone for himself. Nothing to fear.”

  Sinclair leaned in close to me, flinching at the fire.

  “You will find, child,” he said, “that your father was wrong. He was wrong about so many things. We were thieves, we were hustlers all of us, but we had a code, a sense of honor. Only Bobby Felix did not care for rules. Bobby Felix had no code, and on that your father did not reckon. So much magic surrounding Bobby Felix, the strings of fate strumming a song only he could decipher. We should have stopped him, for we did not hate Bobby Felix, no, not at all. Loved him, we loved Bobby Felix, every last one of us. Loved him wrong, we did, but yes, we loved him, in our own way.”

  “I . . . I understand that,” said Tally. “I know just what that means.”

  “He was our brother,” said Sinclair. “And we failed him. And your father, child, your father failed us all.”

  “But how?” I said. “Is that why Mom left Pop? Is that why we had to flee the swamp?”

  Sinclair looked at me, eyes black and sad, just an opal shimmer in the darkness.

  “To answer that, we must come to the last night, the hexed night, and I am loath to tell it. It was five years back, and it became apparent that Bobby Felix could no longer be ignored. Your father called us to a secret meeting, because as much as we were all friends, there wasn’t any doubt he was our leader. He couldn’t help himself but to lead, do you understand? We all had our part.”

  I did understand. I understood that all too well. I’d been following Pop’s lead my whole life.

  “The lanterns in our secret room went dark, the candles whisked out. Magic was afoot, fearsome dreadful magic. The door swung open and there stood Bobby Felix, much changed. Behind him walked Drusilla Fey, chanting a hex, and Marina was pinned against the wall. Bobby Felix had two lackeys with him, two hangers-on that we wouldn’t let near us, so vile they were, Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo. They followed Drusilla Fey, and they were armed. Cecily Bob held his knife to me and Mr. Hugo grabbed your mother. Your father was free, but what could he do with a knife at his wife’s throat?”

  I couldn’t believe it, someone threatening my mom like that. It made me so mad I wanted blood. How could Pop’s friend do something like that?

  “So what happened?” I said.

  “Boss Authority—for that’s what Bobby Felix would now be called—challenged your father to a Parsnit duel.”

  “And Pop whooped him square and good, right?”

  “No, child,” said Sinclair. “You are much mistaken. Your father lost. And in losing, he doomed us all.” Sinclair twitched, his neck muscles flared, his head flinched backward. “Look at me. Look at what I’ve become. Look at what your father made me.”

  Sinclair let out a scream and fell down onto the cave floor. He covered his face with his hands and cowered back from the torchlight.

  “You must leave,” he moaned. “Please. Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo are gone now, and you can hide in the trees until you are safe. But you must leave this place, now.”

  “Why?” I said. “I still don’t know what happened.”

/>   “Blood has been spilled in this swamp,” he said. “There lies a new body for me.”

  “Is it Pop’s?” I said. “Is Pop okay?”

  “Make for Baudelaire Quatro’s Place,” said Sinclair. “That’s where your father’s headed, I wager. He should go straight to Marina’s, but he won’t, no matter who counsels him. He wouldn’t listen even if I told him, not even if it was old Sinclair. You will learn, child, that your father never listens.”

  “But is it Pop’s blood that got spilled? Is Pop all right?”

  Sinclair gnashed his teeth at us, snapping like a dog, his body twitching all over.

  “There are bodies gathering,” he said. “A feast for the vultures, a feast for me, a feast. The water trickles red. There will be skulls, yes, skulls and leg bones for my collection.”

  “Please just tell me this,” I said. “I know Pop lost, but what did he wager?”

  “Swim through the pool at the mouth of the cave.” Sinclair’s voice went deep, low, and ugly. “Take a deep breath, mind you children, and swim with all your might.” Sinclair growled at me. In the darkness his eyes glowed red. “Hurry! Hurry! Before I grow too hungry. Before I can’t stop myself.”

  I felt Tally’s furry palm on my arm. “Let’s go, Buddy.”

  Me and Tally made it to the pool where we first got drug in. Tally dove first and I followed. I swam and I swam until I could see a little flicker of light up ahead. That was it, the sunshine, the sky. It had to be morning by now, I could see the surface of the water, I was almost there. And then something caught my ankle.

  It was a vine maybe, some branch of a long-sunk tree snagged right on my trousers. I kicked as hard as I could, but I couldn’t break free.

  My lungs were burning, and my muscles ached and I was swimming with all my might, but it wasn’t doing a lick of good. That daylight was so close I could almost feel it, I could almost feel the sun beating down on my wet skin. But I wasn’t ever gonna get there, no sir.

  The simple fact of it was I was drowning. Let me tell you, the first thing that surprises you about drowning is how easy it would be to give up, how much your body just wants to shut down and let it go, how easy it can feel to drift down to the bottom and die, right then and there, how you start to want to die, how bad it hurts to hold that air in, how impossibly far away that daylight feels.

  I looked up and saw a bug-eyed creature glaring down at me. I nearly screamed, my mouth sucking in water. But no, it was Tally, it was only Tally. She grabbed my hand and tugged and I kicked and my lungs burned and my vision got spotty, and I just about gave up hope. But Tally wasn’t going to let me die. Not no way, not no how. That’s a true friend for you. That’s the kind of friend that only comes around once or twice in your whole lifetime, and that’s a fact. Good old Tally gave my arm a yank so hard it ripped me free from whatever had snagged my leg and Tally pulled me up to the surface, to the good old swamp air, to the morning light burning bright and hot right on my noggin, God bless it.

  I was always more of a moonlight kid, to tell you the truth. I liked the nighttime better—the cool air, the hoot owls and tree frogs, the starshine and the moon so big and gorgeous above me that I wanted to rear back and howl like a wolf at it. But by golly, sometimes the sunshine is the only thing that’ll do the trick. Sometimes you got to remember that if it weren’t for the sunshine, the moon would just be a dark dead rock up there, nothing else to it. It’s the light, you know. The light is everything.

  We were up in the sweaty swamp air, sucking in breaths, tired arms treading water. The skiff was still there, floating around in circles, the hull bouncing soft off some cypress knees. Tally climbed in first, and she helped me in afterward.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You saved my life. Again.”

  “I can tell you one thing, I don’t ever want to go back down to that cave.” She spat into the water. “Buddy boy, you think we can make it a full day without somebody trying to kill us?”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “You and me both.”

  We curled up in that boat, the both of us wet and exhausted, the bright hot sun pouring through the trees and warming our bodies. We were hidden in the entrance to the Creepy’s cave, safe there I knew, even if old Sinclair was scary, even if he’d gone through something more horrible than I could imagine. Truth be told, I hated what he’d said to me about Pop, about how Pop was wrong about things, how he never told the truth. That somehow Pop had doomed him, had doomed the whole swamp. What was I supposed to think about that? How was I supposed to feel about my long-lost pop, my hero, the person I loved most in the world? But I loved what he said about Mom, that she was a witch. Was that what she was doing, up late at night in her kitchen? Was she conjuring things? I knew why she kept quiet about it in general—most towns, even dinky places like Collardsville, aren’t safe for witches—but why hadn’t she told me? My brain was tired and it was too much for me to think about. The sun warming me, the call of birds off hunting for grub. The whole thing made me tired, it did.

  There wasn’t any time to sleep though, not yet. We still had my pop to find. We still had to hunt out a cure for Tally.

  “Come on,” I said, taking up the oars. “We’re off for Baudelaire Quatro’s Place.”

  “At least the day’s nice,” said Tally. A dragonfly circled her head twice and buzzed off. “At least we don’t have to do all our searching in darkness, like usual.”

  Then came the rumble.

  Behind us, coming up from the east, was the crackle and groan of black storm clouds creeping up on us. Lightning flickered in the far-off distance. Far-off, but not that far, and galloping mighty and mean toward us.

  “Man,” said Tally.

  “Yep,” I said.

  I rowed faster.

  13

  IT ONLY TOOK AN HOUR or so to find Baudelaire Quatro’s Place. We saw the top of it looming over the trees and made a beeline straight there. Well, as much of a beeline as a fella can make in a swamp.

  When we first saw it I thought my brain had gone buggy. I don’t know what I expected, but it sure wasn’t this. The trees gave way to an open space about a quarter of a mile wide, where the water was deeper and there wasn’t a sandbar in sight. Set deep back in this kind of swamp lagoon, Baudelaire Quatro’s Place was a giant wooden building, about eighty feet tall, shaped perfect like a bald human head. I mean that. There were ears on it and everything, even a slightly bent nose, like it had somehow gotten broken in a fight. The eyes were two windows of blue stained glass that seemed lit from inside, and there were double doors right where the mouth would be, and a gaping mouth it was. The head was laid out on a sort of bobbing boardwalk or pier around it, like it had been cut off and was sitting on a plate. It was a floating island of a head that looked like it could rise with the floodwaters and land on soft mud just fine during a drought. It seemed built to survive everything, like the world could end altogether and no one there would hardly notice.

  “I heard legends about this place,” said Tally, “but I never really believed it was real.”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  I didn’t know how the thing floated—if it was magic, or just designed all smart by some wacky boat genius—but there it stood, a huge buoy bobbing a little out in the water. A fleet of small boats were tied to a kind of low-lying pier portion, all drifting and bumping into each other a little. Slim canoes and patched-looking dinghies banged into rich folks’ yachts, swamp-useless but drifting awful pretty out there. It was clear Baudelaire Quatro’s was for folks of all types—provided they could play Parsnit, of course.

  “Shoot, Buddy, I don’t know about this,” said Tally.

  The storm was still a little ways off yet, growling and rumbling, warning us that it was headed this way.

  “I think maybe we got to try it,” I said. “It’s the last Parsnit house that doesn’t belong to Boss Authority, right? We’ll be safe there. Besides, there’s a witch for every Parsnit duel. Somebody’s bound to be able
to help you out.”

  Tally sighed. “Well, let’s get if we’re getting.”

  I rowed us over to the head, where the entrance was, and Tally roped us to the deck. We climbed a little ladder to a sort of boardwalk. Two big wooden doors stood shut tight, right where the wide-open mouth was, and nobody sat watch. That was odd, it sure was, but what could me or Tally do about it?

  “You in there, Pop?” I asked the head.

  Nobody answered.

  I took a deep breath and grabbed the iron door handle and pulled with all my might. The door opened into a small room, a kind of reception area, like maybe what you’d see at an inn. Tally whistled. This place was nice. I mean it had a thick red carpet for my muddy old feet and a chandelier full of crystals dangling down over our heads, casting the room and its bright blue wallpaper with sparkles. It was easily the fanciest place I’d ever been in my life. A tiny man stood behind a counter, his back to a door-sized vault, big and metal like at a bank. He wore a black suit and had thin white hair. He was bent over some notebooks scribbling away with a big feather quill. There was a door on the right side of the room and a chair for sitting. A wooden placard on the desk said “Concierge.”

  “Can I help you?” said the scribbling man, not bothering to look up at us.

  “We’re looking for someone,” I said.

  “And you think this ‘someone’ is currently on the premises of Baudelaire Quatro’s Place, is that correct?”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “It is not company policy to bandy about the identity of any of our guests, no matter who they be or where they came from or what they may or may not have done. Is that clear?”

  “You got a guest book?” I said.

  “Of course we have a guest book,” he said.

  “Can I see it?”

  The concierge looked up at us, the light turning his glasses into little silver coins.

  “No,” he said.

  He went back to scribbling.

  That made me mad.

  I said, “Now listen here—”