The Poe Estate (10 page)

Adolphus T. Feathertop, Factor-at-Large

E
ven though Cole's presence kept the girls from giving me a hard time about my pants, the high water situation was dire. I got my birthday money out of its hiding place—an old cocoa box—and asked Dad to take me to the shopping center in East Harbor.

“Sure, but I have to swing by a couple of house sales this afternoon,” said Dad. “We'll stop there after.”

“Okay.” Maybe I might even find some decent clothes for cheap at the house sales.

The first house was a washout—just a lot of baby clothes and car seats—but the second looked promising. An elderly widow had died, and her niece was selling everything: furniture, linens, kitchen stuff, clothing. Some of the furniture had been in the family for generations; judging from the hall tree and the breakfront, they'd been pretty well off in the 1880s. And the old lady had taken good care of her clothes. There were even a few pairs of jeans in a style I remembered Grandma O'Dare wearing.

I fingered a green wool dress trimmed in yellow. It came with a matching jacket with big, cheerful yellow buttons. Hannah and Becky were going to make fun of me no matter what
I wore, so why not try something fun?

Then I remembered Kitty. If Hannah and Becky gave me a hard time, what would
she
do? Maybe something worse than making them sprain their ankles, even. I put the dress back.

“That was a favorite of Aunt Catherine's,” said the widow's niece. “I have such a vivid image of her wearing it at Thanksgiving, with a little corsage of yellow chrysanthemums. It would look nice on you. It matches your hair. You have the height for it, too.”

“I like it, but I wouldn't have anywhere to wear it. Definitely not to school,” I said.

“No, I guess not. It's too formal for you young people.” She held out a shoebox full of glittery brooches. “Do you like costume jewelry? Aunt Catherine had quite a bit. I know it's popular with girls nowadays.”

Not at my school, but it seemed rude to say so. “Thanks.” I poked around in the box politely. I wasn't really interested in costume jewelry, but I did know that some pieces could be pretty valuable. I wasn't sure I would be able to tell which were which, though. I found a big purple plastic daisy pin that I kind of liked and an iridescent rhinestone earring that Kitty would have loved. As I rummaged through the box looking for its mate, I felt a jolt so cold and evil that I stopped breathing.

I snatched my hand away and stared at the box in horror. My first impulse was to drop it and run. But then I smelled dense, chocolaty-sulfuric pipe smoke that I recognized at once. The little man who'd tried to buy my broom—was
he
here?

Without any help from me, my mind started leaping to all sorts of conclusions. The fancy-dressed pipe smoker was after whatever horror was hiding among the jewelry, it decided. And letting him get his hands on it would be a bad idea.

The widow's niece was looking at me funny. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yes, sorry. I'm fine. I just stabbed myself with a pin.” I needed to find whatever had given me that cold horror, but I couldn't seem to make myself reach inside the box again. Instead, I said, “Your aunt had great taste in jewelry. I'd like to buy the whole box.”

The niece beamed at me. “I'm so glad! Aunt Catherine would love to know her collection has found a good home. Shall we say forty dollars? There's some good pieces in there. Some Trifari, I think.”

I counted my money. “I only have thirty-seven,” I said. “Plus some change.”

“That's fine—you can give me thirty-five. I know Aunt Catherine would have liked you to have it.”

I handed her the crumpled bills. “Thank you.”

The sulfurous smoke got louder, and a man came into the room. I was right—it was the guy from the flea market. This time he was wearing a navy-blue suit with thin red pinstripes and the same red hat as last time, the one with a feather in it. “Excuse me, may I see that box?” He reached for it.

I snatched it back. “I'm sorry, I just bought it.”

He turned to the widow's niece. “How much did she pay? I'll give you double.”

“I'm sorry, but it's sold,” she said.

“Triple, then.”

“I just told you, it's sold. And I would appreciate it if you didn't smoke in my aunt's house. It's disrespectful.”

He turned to me. “Will you take a hundred dollars?”

“No,” I said. “It's not for sale.”

“Five hundred.”

“Do you even know what's inside?” I asked.

“Do you?”

I'll admit I was tempted. Five hundred dollars might not get us our house back, but it would buy a lot of jeans. But the cold touch of whatever had brushed my hand was still coursing down my spine. “I'm keeping it,” I told him firmly.

He took a deep breath of smoke and released it.

“If you won't put out your pipe, I'm going to have to ask you to leave,” said the widow's niece.

He took a step toward me, drawing on his pipe, his eyes flaring like the lit tobacco. I felt panic rising. What was he going to do? Where was Kitty? I scrabbled in my pocket for her whistle. There! I brought it to my lips and blew.

Kitty arrived in a dark gust of wind that sent a stack of magazines slithering to the floor and dimmed the spark in the man's pipe. She hovered a few feet up and loomed over him, her red hair writhing like snakes of flame. I'd never seen her look so impressive, so threatening. She even scared
me
.

But the scariest thing was, the man could
see
her.

Nobody ever sees Kitty—nobody except me. But the pipe-smoking clotheshorse did. He cringed, sheltering his pipe behind his hands. His face and posture seemed to crumple. Then he pulled himself together and stood up straight. He handed me a card. “If you change your mind,” he said and swept out.

Kitty swept after him like an avenging orange cloud.

“I wonder what that was about,” said the woman.

She couldn't mean Kitty, could she? But no—she sounded too calm. Way calmer than I was.

I took a deep breath—the remains of the smoke made me cough—and looked at the card. It read
Adolphus T. Feathertop, Factor-at-Large
and gave a phone number and an email address.

I went to the door to catch my breath and make sure he was gone. I looked up and down the street. No sign of the man, or of my sister. I went back inside.

“Did that man know your aunt? Maybe he saw her wearing a valuable brooch or something?” I asked.

“I guess that's possible. Aunt Catherine set store by her jewelry.”

I felt bad, making the widow's niece pass up all that money from Adolphus T. Feathertop. It's not like I actually wanted any of the jewelry. “If I find out any of this is worth a lot, I could bring it back,” I offered.

“No, don't do that,” she said. “A bargain is a bargain. I would far rather you have Aunt Catherine's treasures than that rude man.”

“Well, thank you. That's very nice of you.”

Dad came back from loading the hall tree into the truck.
Good antique hall trees always sell fast in Brooklyn, which is long on Victorian brownstones and short on coat closets. “Ready, Sukie? Let's go get you your new jeans,” he said.

“Change of plans,” I said. “I just spent all my money.” I held up the box, lifting the lid so he could see inside.

“Jewelry? Really? Well, your money, your choice,” said Dad. He gave the widow's niece a raised-eyebrows “Girls!” look that I found deeply unfair.

She glanced at my legs. “You do seem to have outgrown your slacks. Wait there.” She bustled out of the room and came back with an armload of grandmother jeans, with a few pairs of woolen trousers thrown in. “These should fit. You're just about Aunt Catherine's height, maybe a bit slimmer, but you can always take them in.”

What was I going to do with grandmother pants? But she had been so nice. I thanked her and followed Dad out to the truck, sniffing for sulfur. To my relief, the wind had blown away every trace of Adolphus T. Feathertop.

• • •

When we got home, I took my shoebox of jewelry up to my room, poured it out on my bed, and began to put the pieces back in the box one by one. Maybe I could sell them online. If only Cousin Hepzibah had an Internet connection.

Some of the pieces were elegant, some garish, but none gave me that cold jolt of horror when I touched them. I set aside a few nice ones: the purple enamel daisy; the earrings that reminded me of Kitty; a delicate, lacy metal bracelet I thought Amanda would like; and a blue-green rhinestone necklace the same color as a sweater of Lola's.

Would I be bribing the Pereiras to be my friends? Did that make me a bad person? But wasn't all friendship an exchange anyway—would it be so wrong for the exchange to involve jewelry? The nice lady had been so certain her aunt Catherine would have liked the idea of me wearing her treasures. Surely she would like it even better if three of us wore them.

I reached for another brooch. As I touched it, the cold feeling swept over me like a breaking wave, pulling me under and pelting me with pebbles of stinging terror. I sank to my knees, gasping. It took everything I had to make myself open my hand and look at it rather than hurl it as far away as possible.

It was a small clasp made of onyx inlaid with gold, in a style that was popular at the end of the nineteenth century. I'd seen hundreds of pieces like that at flea markets, black stone with gold initials. In old photos, ladies wore them to hold their collars together and men used them as tie clips.

The only odd thing about the clasp was the letter itself, which was definitely not from our alphabet. It didn't look Greek or Russian, either. Not Arabic or Hebrew, not Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Thai. Definitely not Egyptian. It looked—well, it looked foreign. Beyond foreign. Inhuman.

I didn't want to hold it. I didn't want it in my room. I didn't want it in my
life
.

Shuddering, I dropped it into a plastic bag, zipped the bag shut, and folded it up in paper. I tucked it into an empty mint tin, clicked the tin shut, started to put it in my pocket, then stopped. I zipped it into my backpack instead.

Kitty was back. She didn't like the thing. She didn't want me to keep it. She thought I should fly my broomstick far out
over the ocean and toss it.

I imagined the relief I would feel as it left my hand, the splash it would make. I imagined it vanishing into the water. I imagined the currents dragging it back and forth, through seaweed and schools of fish, washing it up on a beach. I imagined someone finding it: Adolphus T. Feathertop, or—worse—some kid my age. I imagined a kid opening the box, unfolding the sodden paper, unzipping the plastic, and pinning the clasp to their jacket.

I couldn't imagine what would happen next.

Something bad.

I needed help. I dug out Elizabeth Rew's card with the address of the New-York Circulating Material Repository. I put on my parka, grabbed my backpack with the clasp in it, took the Hawthorne broom up to the widow's walk, swung my leg over, and launched myself out into the air, swiveling toward the sea and heading down the coast.

The New-York Circulating Material Repository

T
he ride to New York City took a lot longer than I expected, mostly because I hadn't thought it through. North Harbor is a couple of hundred miles from Manhattan as the crow flies. As it happened, a crow took off from one of the chimneys and flew out ahead of me, and I actually considered following it before deciding that would be insane. So I took Andre's advice from earlier and hugged the coast.

Following all the bends along the shore—all the coves and nubbles and promontories—added distance to my trip. Clinging to the broomstick with hands and knees, I urged it to go faster, faster! I outstripped crows and seagulls. Mist stung my cheeks and soaked through my scarf. Kitty hated it. This was far, far more dangerous than riding a bike without training wheels. She tried to help by blowing the air backward from my face, but that just whipped my hair around, stinging my ears. My legs were aching and everything chafed.

Then I saw a helicopter ahead of me, and I panicked. I gave the broom a storm of mixed messages: Up! Down! Forward—no, back! But most of all,
go
!
Get past it!

The broomstick hung for a moment, as if paralyzed. The helicopter came hurtling toward me. It seemed to be blowing
up like a balloon. Then something intangible snapped, and the broomstick broke loose into some unknown dimension. Everything vanished: the helicopter, the sharp mist, the seagulls, the coast. My sister. I was alone in dark, blank, racing silence.

I gasped and pulled up on the broom's end. The broom flapped impatiently, as if irritated at being interrupted by someone who clearly had no idea what she was doing.

“Take me back,” I shouted. My voice sounded dim and flat in the emptiness. “Go back to the coast!”

The broom didn't respond.

“Broom! Come
on
!”

The broom made a reluctant turn—I felt the motion, but I couldn't tell the direction—and gave a swishing shudder, as if it were sweeping stars along the infinite stone wall at the end of the universe. It made a rough, sparking sound. Then I felt the air catch around my arms and legs, and the wind came back, slicing at my forehead. I blinked away tears and saw the coast below me again, laid out like a map. The helicopter was gone, as was Connecticut. I saw Manhattan ahead of me. We were almost there.

I flew slowly forward and let myself down in Central Park, choosing a wooded area that looked empty. Nobody saw me land. I staggered off the broomstick, straightening my shaking
legs. I made my way out of the park near the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walked quickly through well-kept streets to the address on Elizabeth's card.

• • •

The New-York Circulating Material Repository was a townhouse at the end of a row of similar-looking houses. It had marble stairs, double doors, and a brass plaque.

Kitty found me as I was walking up the steps. She was furious. What had I done back there? Where had I disappeared to when that helicopter had shown up? Did I have any idea how fast helicopters go? What if I hadn't made it out of the way in time?

“I'm fine, Kitty,” I said. “I don't think the broom wanted to get caught in those propellers any more than I did.”

She was still blasting me with fury as I pulled open the heavy doors.

Inside was a surprisingly big room with a tall ceiling and a marble floor. A girl about my age was sitting at a desk, reading a book. She glanced up, smiled, then went back to her book.

I walked over to the desk. “Can I help you?” she asked in a friendly voice.

“Um, yeah, I hope so.”

“First time here?”

I nodded. “I was hoping to see Dr. Rew. Is she here?”

“Yes, I think so. Is she expecting you?”

“I doubt it.” Though who really knew what someone like that expected. “If she's busy, I could talk to Andre Merritt.”

She raised one eyebrow, then lifted the receiver of an
old-fashioned dial telephone like the one in my tower room. “Elizabeth? You have visitors downstairs, asking for you and Andre. . . . No, a girl and . . . I'm not sure. Right, hang on.” She held the mouthpiece away from her and asked, “Your name?”

“Sukie O'Dare.”

She nodded, then told the telephone, “She says she's Sukie O'Dare. . . . Okay, good.” She hung up the receiver. “Take the elevator up to four. Someone will meet you there. Do you want to leave that here?” She pointed to my broomstick.

“No, thanks, I'd rather keep it with me.”

“That's fine. Elevator's that way.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

As the elevator doors shut behind me and Kitty, I realized the girl behind the desk had referred to us in the plural.

• • •

The elevator opened onto a landing with white walls, tile floors, and Andre Merritt. He was even taller than I remembered. “What's up, Sukie?” He nodded down at me.

I stepped out and stood there awkwardly with my broomstick and my ghost sister. “Hi, Andre.”

“Laila downstairs said you want to see Libbet? Come on, I'll take you to her office.” He held a door for me and strode off down a hallway. I followed him, and Kitty skimmed along on the wall beside us like a movie of herself being projected from a moving film projector. Andre kept glancing at the wall and frowning, but he didn't seem to actually see her.

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” he asked, nodding
at my broom.

“One of the things.”

“Did you change your mind about selling it?”

“No! I just—I was hoping you could tell me more about it. The broom and something else I brought.”

“Cool, okay. Here.” We stopped in front of a narrow, arched door made of dark wood. A brass plaque read
Elizabeth Rew, Acquisitions
. Andre knocked.

“Come in,” called Elizabeth.

He opened the door a crack and squeezed himself through. “Come in, Sukie,” he said when I hesitated, pulling the door open a millimeter more and snaking an arm out to take my elbow.

Turning sideways and sucking in my breath, I eased myself in after him.

The tiny room was shaped like a bud vase: round, narrow, and very tall, tapering toward a distant domed skylight. A single shelf crammed with objects spiraled around the walls all the way up, with little round windows scattered here and there among the objects on the shelf. A pulley and a rope ladder dangled from an iron bar just under the skylight.

Elizabeth sat behind a desk piled with objects and teetering towers of papers. Other piles on the floor blocked the door, preventing it from opening all the way—not that there was room for it to open anyway, with Andre and me taking up all the remaining floor space.

“Welcome, welcome, Sukie,” Elizabeth said. “Please, sit down.”

I looked around for a chair, but there were none. Where
would they even fit?

Andre laughed, reached behind me, and did something to a spot on the wall. A narrow section unfolded down into a cushioned seat. He unfolded one for himself too and sat down, his knees bumping up against Elizabeth's desk.

I unzipped my parka and unwound my scarf.

“Here, you can put those . . .” Elizabeth looked around. There really was nowhere to put them.

“That's okay. I can hold them,” I said, tucking my backpack behind my legs, draping my coat over my knees, and leaning the broom against the spiral shelf. “This is quite a room!”

Elizabeth laughed. “Yeah, well, they didn't have a proper office for me when I got promoted, so they had to get creative. This used to be a chimney. So. What brings you here today?”