Fablehaven: The Complete Series (28 page)

“Very well. I see no harm in a demonstration.”

“Give me your hand.”

“My hand?”

“I will massage a single hand. You will have to use your imagination to envision how this would feel across your entire body.”

He held out a hand. Grandma Sorenson took it and began working his palm with her thumbs. At first he tried to keep a straight face, but his mouth began to twitch, and his eyes began to roll. “How is that?” Grandma asked. “Too deep?”

His meager lips quivered. “Just right,” he purred.

Grandma continued expertly rubbing his palm and the back of his hand. He started licking his eyes compulsively. She finished with his fingers. “The demonstration is concluded,” she announced.

“Thirty minutes of that, you say, across my whole body?”

“The children will assist me,” Grandma said. “We will trade a service for a service.”

“But I could exchange my service for something more enduring! For treasure! A single massage is too fleeting.”

“The law of diminishing returns applies to massages, as it does to most things. The first is the best, and all you really need. Besides, you can always exchange your services for treasure. This may be your only chance to receive an expert massage.”

He held out his other hand. “One more example, to help me decide.”

“No more samples.”

“You offer just one massage? What if you stay on as my personal masseuse for twelve years?”

Grandma grew stern. “I am not petitioning you to look in that stone of yours multiple times for multiple purposes. I am requesting a single piece of information. A service for a service. That is my offer, lopsided in your favor. The massage takes thirty minutes, versus mere moments for you to peer into your stone.”

“But you need the information,” Nero reminded her. “I do not need a massage.”

“Satisfying needs is the burden of the poor. The wealthy and powerful can afford to indulge their wants and whims. If you pass on this opportunity, you will always wonder what you missed.”

“Don’t do it, Grandma,” Kendra said. “Just give him the treasure.”

Nero held up a finger. “This proposition is unorthodox, and against my better judgment, but the idea of a massage intrigues me, and I am rarely intrigued. However, thirty minutes is too short. Say . . . two hours.”

“Sixty minutes,” Grandma said flatly.

“Ninety,” Nero countered.

Grandma wrung her hands. She folded and unfolded her arms. She rubbed her brow.

“Ninety minutes is too long,” Kendra said. “You’ve never given Grandpa a massage longer than an hour!”

“Hold your tongue, child,” Grandma snapped.

“Ninety or no deal,” Nero said.

Grandma sighed in resignation. “All right . . . ninety minutes.”

“Very well, I accept. But if I do not approve of the entire massage, the deal is off.”

Grandma shook her head. “No caveats. A single ninety-minute massage in exchange for the location of Stan Sorenson. You will treasure the memory until the end of your days.”

Nero eyed Kendra and Seth before fixing Grandma with a shrewd gaze. “Agreed. How do we proceed?”

The best table Grandma could find was a fairly narrow stone shelf near the mouth of the cave. Nero stretched out on the shelf, and Grandma showed Kendra and Seth how to massage his legs and feet. She demonstrated how and where to use their knuckles and the heels of their hands.

“He’s very strong,” she said, grinding her knuckles against the bottom of his foot. “Lean into it as much as you want.” She set down his leg and stood beside his head. “The children have their instructions, Nero. The ninety minutes start now.”

Kendra hesitantly laid her hands on the troll’s bulging calf. Although they were not wet, the scales felt slimy. She had held a snake before, and the texture of Nero’s scaly skin was quite similar.

With Nero lying prone, Grandma went to work on the back of his neck and shoulders. She employed a variety of techniques—probing with her thumbs, rubbing with her palms, pressing with her fists, digging with her elbows. She ended up kneeling on the small of his back, careful to avoid the spikes along his spine, squeezing and kneading and applying pressure in diverse ways.

Nero was obviously in ecstasy. He purred and moaned in decadent satisfaction. A constant stream of drowsy compliments flowed from his lips. He languidly encouraged them to rub harder and deeper.

Kendra grew weary, and Grandma periodically demonstrated other techniques for her and Seth to employ. Kendra despised working on Nero’s feet the most, from the roughness of his cracked heels, to the smooth pads of his calluses, to the lumpy bunions on his toes. But she tried her best to follow Grandma’s tireless example. Besides assisting with his legs and feet, Grandma labored on his head, neck, shoulders, back, arms, hands, chest, and abdomen.

When they finally finished, Nero sat up with a euphoric smile. All the cunning had vanished from his bulbous eyes. He looked ready for the most satisfying nap of his life.

“Closer to a hundred minutes,” Grandma said. “But I wanted to do it right.”

“Thank you,” he said giddily. “I never imagined something like that.” He got to his feet, leaning against the wall of the cliff to steady himself. “You have amply earned your reward.”

“I’ve never felt anyone so full of knots and tension,” Grandma said.

“I feel loose now,” he said, swinging his arms. “I will be right back with the information you seek.” Nero ducked into the cave.

“I want to see his magic stone,” Seth mumbled.

“Wait patiently,” Grandma chided, wiping perspiration from her brow.

“You must be exhausted,” Kendra said.

“I’m not in very good condition,” Grandma admitted. “That took a lot out of me.” She lowered her voice. “But it sure beats barrels of treasure that we don’t have.”

Seth wandered over to the brink of the ledge and stared down into the ravine. Grandma took a seat on the shelf where they had administered the massage, and Kendra waited beside her.

Before long, Nero emerged. He still looked affable and relaxed, though not quite as loopy as before. “Stan is chained in the basement of the Forgotten Chapel.”

Grandma’s jaw tightened. “You’re sure?”

“It was a little tricky finding him and sneaking a good look, considering who else is confined there, but yes, I am certain.”

“He’s well?”

“He’s alive.”

“Lena was with him?”

“The naiad? Sure, I saw her too.”

“Was Muriel in the vicinity?”

“Muriel? Why would she . . . oh, that’s what that was! Ruth, the agreement was for a single piece of information. But no, I didn’t catch sight of her. I believe this concludes our arrangement.” He gestured toward the ladder. “If you will excuse me, I need to lie down.”

Chapter 15

The Far Side of the Attic

Grandma refused to talk while they were in the ravine. She wore a dour, thoughtful expression and hushed any attempts at conversation. Kendra waited until they were back on the path beside the covered bridge to try her question again.

“Grandma—” Kendra began.

“Not here,” Grandma admonished. “We must not discuss the situation out in the open.” She motioned for them to huddle close and continued in a hushed tone. “Let this suffice. We must go after your grandpa today. Tomorrow might be too late. We will return home immediately, get equipped, and go to the place where he is being held. I will reveal his exact whereabouts once we are indoors. Muriel may not yet know his location, and even if she does, I don’t want her to learn that we know.”

Grandma stopped whispering and hurried them along the path. “Sorry if I have been antisocial since leaving Nero,” she said after they had walked in silence for a couple of minutes. “I needed to devise a plan. You kids really did an exceptional job back there. Nobody should have to spend an afternoon rubbing a troll’s feet. Seth was heroic on the logs, and Kendra did some well-timed bluffing during the negotiations. You both surpassed my expectations.”

“I never knew you were a masseuse,” Kendra said.

“I learned from Lena. She has collected expert instruction from around the globe. If you ever get a chance to receive a massage from her, don’t turn it down.” Grandma tucked some errant strands of hair behind her ear. She became distant again for a moment, pursing her lips and staring remotely as she walked. “I have a few questions for you two, things we can talk about in the open. Have you met a man named Warren?”

“Warren?” Seth repeated.

“Handsome and quiet? White hair and skin? Dale’s brother.”

“No,” Kendra said.

“They might have brought him to the house on Midsummer Eve,” Grandma prodded.

“We were with Grandpa, Dale, and Lena until after sundown, but never saw anybody else,” Seth said.

“I never even heard him mentioned,” Kendra added.

“Me neither,” Seth agreed.

Grandma nodded. “He must have stayed at the cabin. Have you met Hugo?”

“Yeah!” Seth said. “He’s awesome. I wonder where he went?”

Grandma gave Seth a measuring glance. “I trust he has been attending to his chores in the barn.”

“I don’t think so,” Kendra said. “We had to milk the cow yesterday.”

“You milked Viola?” Grandma said, plainly astonished. “How?”

Kendra described how they had set up the ladders and slid down her teats. Seth added details about how milky they had gotten.

“Resourceful children!” Grandma said. “Stan had told you nothing about her?”

“We found her because she was mooing so loud,” Seth said. “She was shaking the whole barn.”

“It looked like her udder was going to explode,” Kendra said.

“Viola is our milch cow,” Grandma said. “Every preserve has such an animal, though not all are bovine. She is older than this preserve, which was founded in 1711. At that time, she was brought over from Europe by ship. Born from a milch cow on a preserve in the Pyrenees Mountains, she was about 100 years old when she made the voyage, and was already larger than an elephant. She has been here ever since, gradually gaining size each year.”

“Looks like she’s about to outgrow the barn,” Seth said.

“Her growth has slowed over the years, but yes, she may one day become too colossal for her current confines.”

“She provides the milk the fairies drink,” Kendra said.

“More than the fairies drink it. Her ancient breed is nourished and worshipped by all creatures of fairydom. They place daily enchantments on her food and make secret offerings to honor and strengthen her. In return, her milk functions as an ambrosia central to their survival. It is no wonder that cows are still considered sacred in certain parts of the world.”

“She must make tons of dung,” Seth said.

“Another blessing. Her manure is the finest fertilizer in the world, coaxing plants to mature much more quickly than usual and sometimes to reach incredible proportions. By the power of her dung we can reap multiple harvests from a field in a season, and many tropical plants flourish on this property that would otherwise perish. Did you kids happen to put milk out for the fairies?”

“No,” Seth said. “We spilled it all down the drain. We were mainly trying to calm down the cow.”

“No matter. The absence of milk might make the fairies a little ornery, but they’ll get over it. We’ll see they get some tomorrow at the latest.”

“So normally Hugo milks Viola,” Kendra surmised.

“Correct. It is a standing order, so there must be a reason he has not carried it out during the past couple of days. You have not seen him since Midsummer Eve?”

“No.”

“He was probably assigned to watch over Warren and the cabin until summoned. He should come if we call.”