The Poe Estate (17 page)

We went back to our books, and the room fell silent except for the swish of turning pages. Then Cole shouted, “Got it! This is it! It has to be!”

“What?” asked Elizabeth.

“‘
Sighted Land just after the first dogwatch, which proved indeed to be Broken Isle. Dropped anchor in Northern Cove
'—then a bunch of numbers—that must be the depth or something. Blah, blah, blah, more numbers . . . okay, here. ‘
We followed the Compass north to a ridge beneath the high hill, where we determined to secrete our Treasure beside that of Red Tom Tempest.
'”

“Let me see that,” said Andre. “You're right! Looks like you found it!”

“How do we get there, though? The coordinates are all messed up,” said Cole.

We all peered at the book. That volume was even harder to read than mine—apparently it had gotten soaked in a storm or something and the ink had run. The columns for longitude and latitude were completely illegible. “Oh, no!” I moaned.

“Don't worry,” said Andre. “We don't need coordinates. Sukie's got something better.”

Everybody turned and looked at me expectantly.

“I do?”

“Of course you do! Phinny's compass!”

• • •

When I told it to find Broken Isle, the compass went hot, the needle spinning madly. At last it bobbed to a stop, pointing at the door we'd come in by. “I think it wants us to go out.”

We all piled our logbooks back on the table, and Dr. Rust thanked the Spectral Librarian. He didn't seem to be around, but maybe he could hear us anyway. My sister often could, even when she wasn't exactly there.

Where
was
Kitty? I wondered. I'd barely seen her since we'd had that fight, the biggest one of our lives. Not just our lives, in fact—our whole time together, living and dead. Still, it wasn't like Kitty to leave me all alone, especially on such a potentially dangerous adventure. Maybe there was something about this place keeping her out? I remembered how Dr. Rust had ushered us into the Poe Annex by name. Maybe she couldn't pass through the portal uninvited?

As uneasy as I'd been feeling around Kitty these days, I felt uneasy without her, too. This was the first time in as long as I could remember that I couldn't feel her looking out for me. What if I got into trouble—what if I needed her? Would she be able to come if I blew the whistle?

I hoped I wouldn't have to find out.

The four others trooped after me as I followed the compass needle down unfamiliar corridors hung with portraits and plaques and through rooms full of books and maps. Unlike an ordinary compass, which always points north even if there's a wall in the way, this one seemed to know not just the right
general direction, but the best route to the exit.

“Where
is
this Broken Isle, actually?” asked Andre.

“What do you mean? You saw the logbook—we don't know. The writing was all messed up,” said Cole.

“Big-picture where, I mean. What part of the world?”

“Oh. The West Indies. That's where they were sailing in that part of the logbook,” said Cole.

“The Caribbean. Too bad. That means I can't use the seven-league boots—you have to touch the ground every seven leagues, so they're no good over open sea,” said Andre.

“Broomsticks?” Cole suggested.

“It's kind of far for that, but maybe,” Andre said.

“I left mine upstairs in Elizabeth's office,” I said. “But if we're going to go flying off over the sea, maybe we'd better take Cousin Hepzibah home first.”

“I don't think the compass wants to go back to the upstairs world,” Dr. Rust said. “It's taking us out the back way, toward the sea, not to the train.”

“The sea is neutral territory,” said Elizabeth, “and we don't have any fictional islands. So this Broken Isle isn't in the Poe Annex.”

“But, Libbet, then why's the compass pointing— Oh.” Andre stopped suddenly.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” asked Elizabeth.

“Jonathan Rigby,” said Andre. “I bet it's one of his islands.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly.

“Who's Jonathan Rigby?” I asked.

“You remember that guy we keep running up against, the
one who smokes a pipe?” said Elizabeth.

“Of course. Is that Jonathan Rigby? I thought he was called something else.”

“He is—that's Feathertop. Jonathan Rigby's his boss. Jonathan's a private collector, and his collections adjoin ours in this collection space.”

“You met him at the flea market that time,” said Andre.

“Oh, yeah, that guy. He really wanted to buy the Hawthorne broom,” I said.

“Yeah, he's not a bad guy, but he can get aggressive about his collection. That must be where the compass wants us to go—his collection. Jonathan's not going to be pleased if we start digging on his island, though,” said Elizabeth.

“Does he have to know?” asked Cole.

“Well, he's likely to find out. And then there's the issue of who has title to the treasure.”

“The treasure belongs to Spooky and Cousin Hepzibah,” said Cole. “Obviously! Windy's their ancestor.”

“Or to your family,” I said. “Phinny's yours.”

“We can split it,” said Cole, proving once again that Kitty was wrong about him being a jerk. Jerks don't offer to split pirate treasure.

“Rigby's definitely going to claim it if we find it on his island,” said Elizabeth.

“Cross that bridge later. Let's find it first,” said Andre. He pushed open the library doors.

“I'm going to leave you guys here, okay? I tend to get seasick,” said Dr. Rust. “Good luck! I hope you find it.”

The
Ariel
at Sea

W
e followed the sloping cobblestone streets down to the waterfront, where waves lapped against weathered wooden piers, rocking dinghies and sailboats and making little chuckling noises. Farther out, a forest of larger vessels rode at anchor, scribbling on the sky with their masts.

“Now what?” asked Cole.

“I think the compass wants us to find a boat,” I said. “Are any of these yours?”

“All of them,” said Andre. “Can y'all sail?”

“Not me,” I said.

“I can,” said Cole.

“Are we taking one of Phineas's ships?” I asked. “The
Pretty Polly
or the
Sandpiper
?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, “they're both too big for the four of us to handle.”

“How about the
Ariel
?” suggested Andre. “Out of
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
.”

Elizabeth shook her head at him, smiling. “You do love those Poe objects, don't you? In the book, the
Ariel
sinks.”

“In a storm—after a big ship runs them down! And the captain's drunk. The weather looks good right now, and you're not drunk, are you, Libbet? Anyway, the
Ariel
's the right size. Can you think of anything better?”

“No, I guess you're right. The
Ariel
it is.”

We walked along the uneven brick sidewalk to a gray pier that had barnacles growing up its log legs like ragged white socks. A smallish sailboat with a single mast strained against its rope. Andre pulled it closer and Elizabeth jumped on. “Come aboard, you two,” she said.

The three of them flew into a frenzy of activity: pulling on some ropes, letting others go slack, raising sails, rocking and tilting, and a whole lot of Andre yelling, “Starboard, Elizabeth! No,
starboard
! That's
port
!”

I kept my head down and tried to keep my feet away from the various ropes whipping around the deck. Soon enough we were skimming out to sea under puffy white clouds, the town blurring to a redbrick smudge behind us.

• • •

Sailing, I discovered, is a strangely peaceful way of going fast. On a sailboat, the wind is pushing you forward, which means it doesn't actually feel windy the way it does on, say, a flying carpet or a bike. On a bike, you're moving forward against air that whips your hair back. On a sailboat, you're going
with
the wind. Your hair sometimes even stays put. When you're out of sight of the land and there aren't any other ships around, just the wide, empty ocean, you feel as if you're standing still. You only find out how fast you're really going when you accidentally drop your left mitten over the side and see it zoom away behind
you, like a tiny drowning elf.

“Too bad about your mitten,” said Elizabeth.

“I wonder if Cousin Hepzibah has any of that red yarn left. Maybe she could knit me a new one.”

Of course, every so often one of your traveling companions will shout, “Coming about!” and the second companion—the one at the tiller—will answer, “Hard alee!” and the third will yank you down flat on your face and throw himself on top of you as the heavy wooden beam at the bottom of the sail sweeps across the deck. That part isn't quite so peaceful.

And then there are the squalls. Those aren't peaceful, either. The sky goes green-yellow-gray, the wind whips around and hurls stinging water up your nose, and your shipmates yell at you to haul on various lines, or at least get out from underfoot, you errant lubber!

Okay, so maybe sailing
isn't
such a peaceful way to travel fast.

After one of the squalls, the sun came out and twinkled on a sail. “Ship ahoy!” said Cole. Andre ducked downstairs into the main cabin and came back with a trumpet-shaped object and spyglass, which he held to his eye.

“Who is it?” asked Elizabeth.

“Hm . . . three masts, a tiller . . . lots of bone—got to be a whaler . . .”

All this time, the ship had been drawing closer. A figure came on deck, held its own trumpet to its mouth, and yelled. The words rolled clearly over the now-still water: “Hast seen the white whale?”

“Oh, it's the
Pequod
!” exclaimed Elizabeth. She took the
trumpet and yelled, “Very funny, Rachel. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Rachel can't hear you,” said Andre. “Wind's coming toward us.”

“You're right. Is it worth getting out the signal flags?” Elizabeth made big beckoning gestures with her arms at the other ship.

“Who is that?” Cole asked.

“My husband's cousin. She collects fictional Americana. That's her prized possession—the whaler from
Moby-Dick
.”

The two women lowered their speaking tubes and waited while the wind carried our ships closer together. The
Pequod
, I saw when it came near enough, was old and crusty and very strange, with the ropes wrapped around pins made from whale teeth and whalebones substituting for various wooden pieces. It had a large crew.

Rachel raised her speaking tube and hollered again. “Well, hast you? I mean, hast thou? Seen the white whale.”

“Of course not, silly!” Elizabeth hollered back. “We're not a whaler. And it's
your
whale! Keep looking.”

“Thanks, anyway,” hollered Rachel. “Hey, you should watch out.”

“What for?” hollered Elizabeth.

The ships edged closer and closer, until someone with extraordinary long arms—Andre, say—could almost touch the whalebones on the other ship. The crews on both ships moved the sails around (and I ducked); soon we were sailing alongside each other.

“Listen,” said Rachel—we were close enough together now
that she didn't need the trumpet—“we spoke to a ship's captain a few leagues back who told me Jonathan Rigby's looking for you. Something about you guys taking something he thinks belongs to him.”

“How would he know about that?” I asked.

“Seagulls, presumably,” said Rachel.

“Seagulls?”
I echoed.

“Yes, he has quite a colony of them, from various literary sources,” said Rachel. “His birds are surprisingly capable.”

They would have to be, if they could spy on us like that.

“You know where he's at?” asked Andre. “Or which ship he's sailing?”

“Could be anywhere by now. The captain didn't say.”

“Okay,” said Elizabeth. “Thanks for the heads-up. Good luck finding that whale.”

“A fair wind to you.”

“And to you,” said Elizabeth.

Our ships tacked apart, and the
Pequod
shrank quickly out of view.

“I'm not all that surprised Rigby's chasing us,” said Andre.

“Yeah,” said Elizabeth. “I bet that means we're on the right track.”

• • •

We sailed on for a long time, following the compass through blustery weather and still, sunny seas. We saw flying fish and phosphorescence, sharks and porpoises, the occasional sail and the occasional whale—though not the great white one Rachel was looking for.

In that strange world of nonlinear time, it was hard to tell
how long we had been sailing. Time didn't exactly pass, it just sort of
hovered
. I wondered if this was how the ghosts felt, suspended in time.

That made me miss Kitty. She would have enjoyed this trip when she was alive, with the swimming and sailing—although she wouldn't have wanted me to climb the rigging or swim behind the ship. I could imagine her worrying about sharks. It would have been useful to have her along as a ghost, though, to whip up the wind when it died down. She seemed very far away from me now.

When the sun or the moon came out for long enough, sometimes we would read—I'd brought along Cousin Hepzibah's copy of the unfinished novel our ancestors came from, and when I finished that, I read some Poe and Hawthorne stories I found in the cabin. Sometimes we got hungry, and one of us would cook up a meal in the galley, dried peas and salt pork and ship's biscuit. Sometimes we would pass suddenly from a patch of noon to a patch of night and take turns slinging up our hammocks in the cabin. We took turns at the tiller, too, steering the ship according to the haunted compass—all of us except Elizabeth, of course. I started to get good at sailing.

I wondered whether my parents were worrying about me. I wondered whether Kitty was worrying about me but decided not to worry about it. We weren't about to turn back, so there was nothing to do but go forward.

One morning, or at least in a point in time that felt like morning, Cole was practicing climbing up the single mast, against the orders of Andre, who considered himself the captain.

“Of course I'm the captain,” Andre explained. “It's the repository's ship, and Libbet can't be captain—not with her sense of direction. Get down.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Cole, ignoring him and climbing farther up.

“Come on, Cole. Get down from there. If you mess up the rigging, we'll be in it deep.”

“You just don't like anybody to be taller than you,” said Cole. He put the spyglass to his eye and shouted, “Land ho!”

“Cole, I mean it. Quit messing around,” said Andre.

“No, really. Land seriously ho.”

“You sure it's not just a cloud?” I asked.

“Nope, an island. Straight ahead. Right where your compass is pointing.”