The Mapmaker and the Ghost (18 page)

Goldenrod let out a sigh of relief because, after all, this was the first acknowledgment that the ghost wasn't a complete figment of her own imagination. “Yes,” she said. “You have too, right?” Again, she carefully examined Cassandra to see if she could pick up on any reaction that might prove or disprove her whole witch theory.

Cassandra kept smiling, but shook her head rather sadly. “I've always wanted to. Especially since he's family and all. But only the person on the quest for the rose can see him, you know. It's part of the family legend.”

Her expression was so open and genuine that Goldenrod couldn't help but believe her. So Cassandra wasn't the reason that Meriwether was stuck in the forest after all. “How come you never went on the quest, then?” was her next logical question.

Cassandra sighed. “Well, I missed my chance fifty years ago when
I
was a young girl. I was in college, and my grandmother was the one who told me about the quest. Foolishly, I didn't quite believe her, and I went off on a tour of Europe with my shot-put/a cappella group instead. A youthful mistake.”

“But why couldn't you have just gone later? Why couldn't you go now?” Goldenrod asked. Clearly, after seeing all of the displays of the old lady's athletic prowess, she could no longer believe that a thing like arthritis would keep her from doing anything.

“My time has passed,” Cassandra said. “Since I refused the quest when it was first offered to me, I would never have been able to find that rosebush again, no matter how many extraordinary maps or compasses or directions I followed. It is simply the way of the quest.”

Cassandra cleared her throat. “When you came my way a few weeks ago, I just knew you were the one I was supposed to send on that quest. When Randall was younger, I had wondered if it could be him. But the truth is, he never would have been able to complete it. He would have been
like me and deemed it unimportant. But you, you immediately understood just how important it was. You
rose
to the occasion, Goldenrod, and I'm proud of you.” The old lady gave a mischievous smile.

Goldenrod beamed.

“All that being said,” the old lady continued, “it's possible that I may owe you an apology.”

“An apology?” Goldenrod asked.

“Yes. Even if I knew that you were the right person, I still should have considered the consequences. I guess maybe I've gotten a little too old to remember that there often isn't adventure without danger.”

Goldenrod chewed on that for a moment. “Don't apologize,” she finally said. “That's what I wanted … adventure.” She looked up at the old woman defiantly. “Now I just have to come up with a way to get the rose back.”

Cassandra smiled. “I have a feeling if there's anyone who can do that, it's you. But we should probably be getting back out there or they might think we're doing something truly outrageous in here. Like baking these muffins from scratch,” she said as she took another plastic crate of store-bought muffins from a cupboard and walked them out to the little greenhouse room.

Goldenrod followed her as she set them on the table. Birch and Randy weren't speaking to each other. Randy was still staring down at his chocolate milk, not looking
very pleased with himself, while Birch was carefully examining his surroundings.

“Birch, dear,” Cassandra asked kindly, “is there something bothering you?”

Birch jumped at being addressed. “Oh … no,” he said unconvincingly.

“Are you sure?” Cassandra encouraged.

Birch paused. “It's just … well, your house. It's a little … weird.” He seemed to blush as soon as he said it. But Goldenrod had to admit, she was just as curious as he was.

She looked eagerly over at Cassandra, who was smiling. “Yes, I suppose that's as good a word for it as any. Most of those things”—she waved nonchalantly in the direction of her dusty first floor—“they were presents from my son, Edward, Randall's father. We had a bit of a falling out when I decided to give up the mansions and fancy cars and all that other nonsense for a nice, quiet life with my garden. My son takes his revenge the way he deals with anything else in life—by throwing money at it. I imagine he thought he'd get me to change my ways if he made me feel as much like an old lady as possible.

“But I'm nobody if not a girl who likes to mess around with people's expectations.” She winked at Goldenrod. “After all, coming from a long line of explorers also means coming from a long line of people who don't really like to be told who to be. So I never go near that stuff, but
keep it around just the same. As a good reminder that I live my life the way I want.” Goldenrod saw the old lady peek slyly at her from the corner of her eye.

“Oh,” Birch said. He hesitated a moment and then continued quietly, “Actually, there is one more thing we wanted to ask you. Our mother's garden is destroyed and, well, we just don't think it's fair for Spitbubble and the rest of them to get away with it.”

“Oh, you don't, eh?” Cassandra gave a little smile.

“Nope. And we want to do something…,” Goldenrod said.

“I think,” Birch said slowly, “that we want to take them on.”

The old lady let out a short cackle. “Well, well … I must say, I think that's a splendid idea.”

“Only we're not sure exactly what to do,” Birch said.

“Don't worry. We'll figure it out together. Randall will help.”

Randy scowled into his cup, but for the next hour—with some prodding from his grandmother—he filled them in on all sorts of information that helped them formulate a plan.

A little bit later on, Goldenrod found herself alone at the edge of the forest once again. She had left Birch, Randy, and Cassandra to deal with some of the finer points of their plan while she conducted a different sort of business.

She carried a replacement backpack, although she had yet to replenish its missing supplies of notebooks, graph paper, and the like. There was a very strong possibility that she would have to make a quick getaway and carrying a lightened load would make that much easier.

When she reached the edge of the forest this time, she cased her surroundings carefully, looking around just like she and Charla had once practiced; it was very important that there would be no kidnappings today. Quickly, she slipped into the forest.

She moved as quietly as she possibly could, all the while
keeping very alert for any signs of Spitbubble or the Gross-Out Gang. Every now and then, when she was positive that there was no one around, she would call out, in as loud a whisper as she dared, “Meriwether!”

So far, she had gotten no response.

Finally, Goldenrod made it over to the little clearing where she had first seen the ghost. After remaining quiet for over five minutes, straining her ears to make sure there were no signs of other human beings, Goldenrod allowed herself to call his name a little louder.

There was still no response.

“I'm on a quest to reclaim the blue rose,” Goldenrod said in a firm, but quiet voice.

There was a brief second of silence and then, with a pop, Meriwether appeared in the center of the clearing. He gave a slight bow to Goldenrod, but she could see that he still looked a little grumpy. She wondered if he had been sulking the whole night through and marveled at how he had managed to ever get much done in his lifetime with that kind of attitude. Then again, she had to remind herself, two hundred years was an awful long time to be left to haunt one place, especially for an explorer, and if the blue rose wasn't properly discovered this time, that would be a whole other fifty years for him in tiny Pilmilton Woods. She should cut him some slack.

“Meriwether,” she began gently. “I have a plan.”

Meriwether eyed her a little suspiciously. “Do you?”

“Oh, yes. And I've met your great-great-great-great-great-grandniece and she thinks it just might work. It does, however, involve an experiment.” Goldenrod waited.

After a moment, Meriwether said, “Well … you have my attention.”

“Here's the thing. Didn't I sorta, by default, send Snotshot on the quest to find the blue rose?”

Meriwether's eyebrows knitted together slightly, but he managed to keep his voice politely steady when he responded with, “Yes, I believe you did.”

“So if she is on the quest, doesn't that mean that she'd be able to see you now?”

One of Meriwether's eyebrows unknitted itself and arched up instead. “I suppose it should.”

Goldenrod grinned. “Perfect. So the next part of the plan is, what exactly do you know about being a scary kind of ghost?”

Snotshot lay on the cot in her makeshift bedroom, staring at a poster she had drawn on the back of a large and yellowed piece of paper. The picture was of herself playing a red electric guitar while a huge audience lifted cell phones into the air. The back of the guy in the front row might have even been a happy, smiling version of her dad.

It was amazing how a space with crude stone walls, inexpertly decorated and almost claustrophobically small, could make her feel so amazing. Sure, sometimes she missed her large bedroom at home and its ridiculously comfortable bed. Sometimes she even missed her dad's goodnight hugs. But she didn't miss those nights when she could hear him tossing and turning—and sometimes even quietly crying—and she could do nothing about it. Whatever else the caves lacked, they provided a place where she felt in control. And that feeling was priceless.

She hung upside down from the side of her cot and swept aside the brown blanket she had purposely let drape off of the bed so that it brushed the floor. There, bathing the mattress springs above it in a faint blue glow, almost like it was made out of water, was the jar with the blue roses.

Last night, after she had been sure that everyone else was asleep, Snotshot had taken out the jar and placed it on the little table by her bed. She had to admit—only to herself of course—that the flowers had added a nice touch to her bedroom by somehow making it feel even homier. A little part of her would have liked to keep them.

But then she had had a fabulous dream about becoming a rich and famous flower-finder, and this morning she had woken up with the thought that as nice as the jar of flowers looked in her room, a brand-new, humongous television set would look even nicer. The dream had also convinced her
to trust that the girl had been right about the flowers' importance after all, which also meant that at some point very soon she was going to have to follow the rest of the girl's advice.

Take it to a botanist or scientist
, she had said. Snotshot would have to think long and hard about that one. She certainly couldn't think of any botanists off the top of her head, and as for scientists … well, the only one who came to mind was her chemistry teacher from last year whom she knew would at least remember her well. Unfortunately, the reason he would remember her involved an unassigned, extracurricular lab experiment that had left the teacher's desk drawers smelling like a mixture of rotten eggs and radishes for the better part of the year. And Mr. Elliot seemed like the type that might hold a grudge.

Then again, it would probably be best if Snotshot found someone who had nothing to do with her old life and, preferably, nothing to do with her new life either. After all, she neither wanted to go back to who she had been nor did she want to share whatever bounty might be coming her way with the rest of the kids. She might have to go out of town for a couple of days to find someone who could help. She wondered if botanists were listed on the Internet.

She was trying to come up with a clever way to ask Brains for some information on this when, suddenly, a voice that sounded like a howling wind rustling through dark
trees whispered right into her ear, “You must give it back.”

Her head snapped up at once. As the blood rushed to it, her vision whitened, and it took a few seconds for her eyes to focus enough to realize that what lay before them was one of the most terrifying visions she had ever seen.