The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls (28 page)

TWO DAYS LATER, VICTORIA, LAWRENCE, JACQUELINE,
Donovan, and Caroline huddled together at the fireplace in the girls’ dorm. Victoria had led the boys over from their own dorm. It was late, and pitch black. The moon was barely a sliver.

It felt strange to talk; Mrs. Cavendish had made them stay silent for two days straight. If anyone had talked, unless they were called upon, if anyone had laughed or coughed or cleared their throat too loudly, they were hit and whipped and slapped. All of them bore the welts and scratches to prove it, even Victoria. “No one wants to hear you,” Mrs. Cavendish had shrieked after Lawrence had coughed during supper just that very night. “No one, no one!” She had hit
him across the face. The Home had shifted and groaned, and Mrs. Cavendish had paled and hissed at them all, “Eat your food, eat your meat,” her eyes wild.

Now they whispered together in a little knot. It was strange how thrilling it felt just to whisper. Just that little action felt like a triumph.

“So, let me get this straight,” said Lawrence, ticking off points on his fingers. “If you don’t get out of here by the time you’re thirteen, Mrs. Cavendish chops you up and feeds the other kids with you.”

Caroline hid her face. Donovan covered his mouth like he wanted to vomit. Jacqueline couldn’t stop shaking. Victoria allowed herself to do none of this. Someone had to keep her head. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

“Right,” she said.

“And then she turns what’s left of you into a gofer, to help her run everything.”

“Right.”

“And anyone who tries to help, like Professor Alban or Mr. Tibbalt’s friend, that Vivian lady—”

“Vivian Goodfellow,” said Jacqueline.

“Yes, her. Any grown-ups like them who try to help get swallowed up by the gardens, which Mr. Alice tends.”

Victoria exhaled. “Right. I mean, unless anyone thinks I’m wrong?”

There was a heavy silence. Caroline started to cry into Jacqueline’s sleeve. Donovan mumbled, “No,” and wiped his clammy forehead.

“Well, now that that’s all cleared up,” said Victoria, “we’ve got to do something. I mean, we can’t sit around and let her chop us up into gofers, can we?” She started pacing. “We can’t let her use us like that—cut us up and make us too afraid to stop her.”

“And what about those puppets you and Lawrence saw?” said Donovan. “What are those all about?”

Victoria had been thinking about that. She had pictured the puppet cottage in her mind a hundred times and pictured Mrs. Cavendish tying strings and setting them here and there, just
so
. When one wasn’t allowed to talk for two days straight, it was very easy to think and gather one’s thoughts. Victoria smirked.
You didn’t plan on that, did you, Mrs. Cavendish?
she thought.

“Here’s what I think,” Victoria said, leaning in close. “You know how everyone forgets you once you’re here? And people don’t care enough to come find you? And people act so strange, like your parents, Lawrence, and mine, too, and Mr. Waxman and the professors at the Academy. . . .”

“And my sister, Jill,” added Jacqueline.

Caroline sniffled. “My big brother, Adam. He was acting like he hated me. But he had always called me his ‘little goober’ before.
Before
.” She sniffled again.

Everyone nodded. Everyone remembered how it had been, just
before
. Victoria imagined her parents smiling coldly at her, how they had stayed in their bedroom, how they had not come when she called for them, that day the bugs took her away.

“Right, so,” she continued, “I think that’s how she makes everyone act that way, how she gets everyone to do what she wants. How else could everyone
really
forget about us like that? Simple: She controls her puppets, and her puppets control the town.”

“But—but—” Donovan spluttered a bit. “
How?
How is that possible?”

Victoria remembered back to what Mr. Tibbalt had said: “There are magic tricks, like pick-a-card and white rabbits, and then there are other tricks. Nasty ones. I’d guess that’s what Mrs. Cavendish is all about. But I surely don’t want to find out.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how she does it. What matters is how we’re going to stop her.”

“Lawrence’s birthday is tomorrow,” whispered Jacqueline, out of the blue.

Another silence fell. Donovan solemnly clapped Lawrence on the back.

“Yes, well, we’re not going to think about that, are we?” said Victoria, although it was, as a matter of fact, all she could think about. She couldn’t stop imagining a Lawrence gofer with a streak of gray in its greasy, matted hair.

“Instead, we’re going to focus on this—I’ve got a plan,” Victoria said.

“You do?” Caroline said, sniffling.

Victoria kept herself from wrinkling her nose at the sight of Caroline’s messy face. Instead, she wiped it with her sleeve and patted Caroline’s shoulder and tried to smile. She would not think about Caroline snot on her sleeve; there were more important things.

“Of course I do,” she said briskly.

Lawrence tried to smile, too, but it looked a bit sick. Victoria wondered if he was also imagining a Lawrence gofer. “Vicky always has a plan up her sleeve.”

Victoria flushed with pleasure and tossed her curls without really thinking about it. This was good. This felt like school, taking charge of group projects and doling out assignments. She could do this. She straightened her dirty pajamas.

“Yes, I do,” she said, “and this one should work, but everyone has to help.”

“Everyone?” Caroline squeaked.

“Yes. But don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

“But how do you know?”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Because my plans always work. Now listen. . . .”

As Victoria whispered instructions, other children crept up to listen—a couple of the girls, and also three boys Lawrence recruited from next door. By the time they all gathered at the fireplace to leave, they were a dozen.

“You’re sure Peter’s still asleep?” Lawrence said to the boys.

“Didn’t even move when I tripped in the dark,” said one of them.

Victoria was worried about that. Out of everyone, Peter would be the likeliest to go find Mrs. Cavendish and ruin the plan. But it was a risk they would have to take.

Victoria crawled in first, Lawrence just behind her, everyone else behind them. (“Stop
grabbing
me, Caroline,” Jacqueline snapped.)

“Well,” said Victoria, coming to a halt, “that’s new.”

A black door with a dark, curving handle stood in front of them, far back in the fireplace’s shadows. She hadn’t even had to hum or whisper to the Home for help.

“A door,” whispered Lawrence. “Well, that’s awfully convenient, isn’t it? What if it’s a trap?”

“It could be,” said Victoria, but then she saw that the handle was a knobby little tree limb, and the hinges were, too. They reminded her of Professor Alban’s dried-up face and arms, and she smiled sadly. “But we can’t turn back now. Come on.”

She reached for the handle. Two beady-eyed roaches fluttered up from the handle and burrowed into the wall. Caroline shrieked.

Just remember the plan
, Victoria thought. She turned the handle. The door creaked, like something old and rusted opening its mouth for a yawn. Beyond the threshold stood the gallery.

“Well, at least it put us out in the right place this time,” said Victoria, trying to smile.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be out there with you as soon as I can,” whispered Lawrence, peering over her shoulder. “We’ll cut them all free.”

Victoria nodded, but she was beginning to feel the first hints of panic. “But what if cutting all the puppets loose doesn’t do anything? What if Mrs. Cavendish just gets angrier and we’re all trapped here just the same?”

“We’ll run for it, or else we’ll fight her. We can’t just sit here till we’re all gofers, can we? We’ve got to at least try.” Lawrence squeezed her hand. “It’s a good plan, Vicky. No
one else has ever had the guts to try anything like this. No one has ever even had the guts to go outside, like you did.” He squeezed her hand again. He stepped a little closer, and his face got all funny, with a small, wobbly almost-smile.

Victoria looked away, her throat full. If anything were to happen to the others because of her—if anything were to happen to Lawrence . . .

“Your collar’s all messy,” she said, clucking her tongue and refusing to meet his eyes. She fixed it and turned. “Well, let’s go.”

Victoria drew herself up as tall as she could. Then she whispered, “Go!”

Everyone scattered. Some went to the left, some to the right, some up the first staircase around the corner, some up the second. Victoria watched Lawrence till he disappeared down the gallery. Once he was gone, she was alone.

It didn’t feel as nice as it used to.

Victoria balled her fists and crept forward into the gallery. Was it her imagination, or were the gallery walls closing in on her? She paused to listen and look around, holding her breath. Once she focused hard enough, she could feel it—little ripples beneath her bare feet, and a slow, low rumbling from the ceilings, the banisters of the nearby staircases, the
hallway behind her. The walls
were
closing in, and then opening back up and then moving closer again.

Then everything went quiet. Victoria inched toward the nearest wall and raised a finger to poke it.

“Hello?” she whispered. No one and nothing answered. The wall felt normal enough. She waited a little longer and then scolded herself and made herself focus on the plan. Being the one in charge helped her feel more like herself again, like the old Victoria who would never believe that walls could move or mirrors could talk. It was a nice feeling, a familiar, strong feeling, but she didn’t let it come back all the way; walls
could
move here, and mirrors
could
talk; she had to be ready for anything.

In the gallery, Victoria heard the other children whooping from upstairs in the classrooms and throughout the hallways. They shattered windows, smashed paintings, and ripped curtains off the walls. A drop of blue fell on Victoria’s foot as she raced through the dark gallery. Jacqueline and Caroline were flinging paint balls down from the Classroom of Art. Two of the new boys stampeded through the dining room, knocking over chairs and screaming as loudly as they could. Hopefully, this would be a good enough distraction, and Victoria could sneak out without anyone stopping her.

But, despite the noise, everything else was quiet. Victoria saw no gofers come out of hiding to attack them, no Mr. Alice with his rake. No Mrs. Cavendish with her smiling fingers. Even the birdies were quiet, Victoria noticed, glancing up at the high, pointed ceilings. Here and there, she saw a nervous flutter of feathers and a shiny black eye, but the birdies stayed put in their painted trees.

But are they painted?
Victoria wondered. Above her, the trees waved and rustled as though their branches were real, but they didn’t sound like normal trees. When the leaves brushed against each other, a faint rattling noise, all clicky and sharp, floated down to where Victoria had paused beneath a darkened lamp.

From upstairs, one of the boys let out an earsplitting cheer. A smash of glass followed that, and then, far down the gallery, something dark, thin, and leggy fell from the ceiling.

She ran for the terrace doors, but a dark shape stepped in front of her. She jumped back, too frightened to scream. It was Peter, staring at her with a lean, hard look on his face. He smiled.

“I followed you,” he whispered. He nervously pulled at his sleeves. “I did, I followed you, through the fireplace.”

Victoria opened and closed her mouth, too shocked to speak.

“Mr. Alice,” Peter shouted suddenly. “There are kids out of bed!”

As Victoria burst out onto the terrace, Peter kept yelling for Mr. Alice and ran back into the Home. Victoria could barely hear him, though, her heart was pounding so much.

In the dark gardens, without any lights on, it was hard to find the puppet cottage. Everywhere Victoria turned was a tree or a tangle of bush. The wind pushed her this way and that way, the beginnings of a storm.

From her right came a scratching noise:
Skritch skritch.

Victoria spun around and gulped. “You don’t scare me, Mrs. Cavendish.”

The
skritch
turned to a whine. A wet, whiskered nose poked into the moonlight.

“Gallagher!” Victoria ran to him and put out her hand, but he wasn’t in the mood for kisses. His fur stood up everywhere, and his tail wagged uncertainly. His ears pricked toward what he’d been scratching on—the door of the puppet cottage.

“Oh, what a good doggie,” she said. She scooped Gallagher up into her arms and put her hand on the door latch. Gallagher started growling, which gave Victoria goose bumps. The door stood a little ajar, which made Victoria pause, but then she gritted her teeth and slipped inside. She
had to try. She could not give up, not with everyone else crashing around the Home so she could do what she needed to do, not with Lawrence’s birthday so close.

Victoria opened the door and fumbled for a light switch. There wasn’t one, but there was a table, and a lamp and matches. She put Gallagher down and grumbled, “I hate matches. Very imprecise.” It took a while to light because her hands were so shaky, but when it was lit, and she turned around and looked—

—she saw all the people of Belleville hanging from the ceiling, in that same puppet forest from days before. The police chief and his officers, her professors, Mr. Waxman, Dr. Hardwick, Mr. and Mrs. Prewitt . . . and near the center, dangling happily by silver strings, her parents. One bald head, one copper head, two bright smiles.

“Mother,” Victoria whispered. “Father.” She balled her hands into fists and stepped into the grinning, puppet-filled lamplight.

All around her, shining wooden faces stared at her, too many to count.