The Unwanteds (11 page)

Alex was quite fond of the cool darkness under the thick canopy of trees, and he was pleased to find a sparkling brook running through the jungle. There was one briny river back in Quill that the Necessaries used for transporting equipment to
broken-down vehicles stranded around the community, and for delivering milk and eggs to the marketplace on large wooden rafts. But the stream here in Artimé was clear and cold, and Alex could see schools of fish now and then. On this particular boring Saturday he trekked alongside it to see where it led, and found himself, after a good deal of walking, within earshot of the gentle waves lapping the seashore in a sort of lagoon he’d never seen before. As he parted the bushes to make his way out of the jungle and onto the beach, he stopped abruptly, for there, floating in the water, was a large white boat glinting in the sunlight. He’d seen pictures of boats in his art books, but he’d never seen a real one before.

“Wow,” he whispered, looking at the gleaming golden seats and shiny chrome that ran around its perimeter. “You could fit a dozen or fifteen people on that thing.”

If he could have safely ventured out in the water to climb aboard, he would have, but Mr. Today had warned them that, like any large body of water, this sea contained carnivorous creatures like sharks, and so he’d advised the students to swim only in the protected waters of the cove near the mansion.

Not quite depressed enough, or desperate enough, to lose
a leg over it, Alex merely admired the boat from the shore. It didn’t appear to be inhabited, and when the soft waves eased the port side of the boat toward him, he saw the craft’s name painted in sleek letters on the side.
CLAIRE
, it read.

“That’s curious,” Alex said, louder than before.

“Curious. Curious. Curious,” three platyprots echoed from the trees above.

Alex looked up. “Whose is it?”

The platyprots looked this way and that, and shrugged. “Whose is it?” they said to one another, before collapsing in fits of giggles.

Alex, feeling overly sensitive and wondering if the creatures were mocking him, decided it was best for him to walk away in silence. He emerged from the jungle, surprised to see no one at all walking about the grounds. Had he missed a special dinner, or a meeting? He shrugged, not really caring. He was getting used to being left out. Slowly he followed the shoreline back to the mansion and slipped inside the enormous front entrance.

The winged cheetah growled angrily. “Why arrren’t you in yourrr rrroom?”

Alex stepped back in fright, for the statue had never
addressed him personally before in his comings and goings. “I—I—I was out for a walk, is all!”

Florence, the other statue, fired off a heated look at Simber. “Alex,” she said, and Alex startled again and whirled around to face her. He’d never heard her speak before. “We are under lockdown. Did you forget about the governors’ semiannual inspection today?”

“What? What? I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Your blackboard has been informing you for weeks! And your warrior instructor gave out the warning and the instructions yesterday,” Florence said.

“I … don’t have a warrior instructor,” Alex said, and he was surprised to feel hot tears springing to his eyes. He blinked them away rapidly.

“Ah,” said Florence. Her eyes narrowed. “So. You’re the one.”

Simber hissed sharply at Florence.

“What one?” Alex was deeply confused now, and no longer knew what anyone was talking about.

“Just go to yourrr rrroom. Don’t come out until yourrr blackboarrrd tells you to.” The enormous stone cheetah turned
his face away in disgust, which only made Alex feel worse, having still no idea why these two were so angry with him.

“Go,” said Florence. “Before I let him eat you.”

Alex needed no further encouragement. He raced to the top of the stairs as fast as he could go and shot down the hallway to his room. He was halfway there before he realized that at the top of the stairs he had caught sight of a hallway that he could have sworn hadn’t been there the previous day. But now was not the time to check it out.

He slipped into his room, unshushed the volume on his blackboard, and sank into the overstuffed chair, still heaving from his wild sprint up the marble staircase. “Clive,” he said to the blackboard, “what’s going on around here?”

Clive surfaced with a scowl and “ahemmed” several times to make sure his voice was truly back. “Oh, so now you want to talk. You shush me for weeks, ignore my messages to you, and now that you’ve likely messed everything up, you ask for help. Well, I’m not inclined to give it. Besides, it’s too late. Here comes Marcus, and boy, are you in trouble. Ahem!”

Clive’s features melted flat once again, and the screen brightened to show Mr. Today’s face. He looked weary and
angry, so far unlike the usual kind and humorous mage Alex knew, that for a moment Alex thought it might be someone else. The man’s white hair stood up more wildly than ever, as if he’d tried recently to pull it out.

“Thank you, Clive,” Mr. Today said in a defeated voice. “But all is well. No need to panic. They’re gone.”

Alex sat up in his chair at the sight of Mr. Today, feeling an impending sense of doom. He hadn’t seen the mage in weeks, for Alex had ceased attending the Sunday chats on the lawn.

Mr. Today looked at Alex for a long moment before he spoke.

Alex swallowed hard, waiting.

“Alex,” the mage said wearily, “please. Just …” He searched for the right words. “I don’t ask much of you. Just try to respect my few requests. And pay attention. Please. I’m disabling Clive’s shush button until further notice. It would be wise for you to catch up on what you’ve missed these past weeks, so you’ll know what danger you put us all in.”

“Mr. Today, I’m sorry—I didn’t understand—”

Mr. Today sighed. “When the governors come, Alex, I use a very complex spell that hides Artimé, so that this place looks
just like it did when you first arrived. As Artimé grows, and as I grow older, it becomes harder for me to hold that spell flawlessly and still appear to be the man they expect me to be. It takes a lot of concentration, and I need everyone in the mansion and remaining quite still during these times. Please, Alex, I know it’s inevitable, but I’m not … quite … ready.…” He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Listen, Alex. I’m counting on you—please don’t fail me. Good night.”

Alex stared openmouthed as the mage disappeared from the blackboard. And something deep inside of him, deeper than he thought anything could ever be, quivered and broke into tiny pins that stuck hard into his gut.

B
y morning all of Artimé knew that Alex Stowe was the one who had almost gotten them discovered and killed. Of course, if Alex or anyone was anywhere inside the world of Artimé, he probably wouldn’t have been detected by the governors, who merely saw the same desolate scene that the Unwanteds had seen when they first trudged through the black iron gate six months before. But Mr. Today was not usually one to take chances when it came to protecting his world, and it had been the standard protocol during all the biannual governor inspections since the beginning of Artimé to place all the
citizens on lockdown inside their magically hidden rooms.

Mr. Today, despite his creativity, was a man of order, and he liked for everyone to be in their proper places and not roaming about. For what if the spell broke? What if a chaotic fight broke out in the lounge or in the theater, or what if a student wandered off and was attacked in the jungle, and Mr. Today was unavailable to handle the situation? No, it was safest for him to know and be assured that each person and domesticated creature was secured in his appropriate place during that stressful half-day visit.

All the people and creatures that did follow the instructions would of course be very upset with the one who didn’t. And so, when word got out that it was Alex Stowe who had seemingly defied their dear and faithful leader, and that it was Alex Stowe who had put them all in danger, well … almost no one could muster up an ounce of pity for him.

Meghan, though she had been furious early on, tried to swallow her anger when she talked to Alex at lunch. And Lani sent him pitying glances from her soulful blue eyes. But by then Alex was so utterly mortified by all the other harsh looks and pointing fingers and whispers hidden by cupped hands that he
weaseled his way out of the dining room the first chance he got and closed himself in his room for the rest of the day, skipping his private lesson with Ms. Octavia, as well as Actors’ Studio with Mr. Appleblossom, even though it meant missing his star performance in
Perseus! Perseus!

Alex went into his bedroom, shut the door so he could partially block out Clive’s endless yapping, and curled up on the bed, pinching his eyes shut to stop the headache that stabbed at him.

In and out he breathed, wishing with all his might that he could just go back to Quill, where he wouldn’t have expectations or dreams or hopes or imagination or responsibilities at all. He could just be. Not have everyone angry with him. Not be the only one who didn’t succeed. In Quill he’d be surrounded by people whose idea of success was getting up every day and picking corn or fixing the rusty, uncreative boxlike buses and Quillitary tanks, preparing endlessly, mindlessly, for a day that would never come. Indeed Alex felt like he’d become an Unwanted all over again.

He thought about his brother, which hurt even more. “Aaron would understand. Aaron would be there for me,”
he said, as if he were challenging anyone to deny it. “I just wish … at least … he knew I was alive.”

His inner Alex didn’t respond.

Eventually Alex fell into a fitful sleep. What he didn’t know was that while he slept, a secret meeting of adults occurred in a very large office at the end of a mostly invisible hall way nearby.

Mr. Today’s Office

M
r. Today rose from behind his desk when the two ladies arrived. “Hello, Claire, Octavia,” he said.

Octavia shook Mr. Today’s hand with a lithe tentacle of her own, and Claire placed a kiss on the man’s cheek. “You’re looking a bit less harried this evening,” Claire said.

The old mage tugged absently at his whimsical hair. “The scare is over for now,” he said, but his voice was grim. “But it doesn’t change the situation. It was a very close call, and I’m not sure how many more times I can sustain the visits before
the governors begin to suspect something. I could have sworn I saw a ripple along the edge of the Lake of Oil when Alex was out wandering.” He ran his fingers over his hair now, trying to smooth it down. “Octavia, what’s the latest?”

Octavia gripped the arms of a chair and slid up to the seat. Her tentacles moved about softly, one rubbing thoughtfully along the top of her long alligator snout, another adjusting her spectacles, and others dangling all around the edge of the chair like a flouncy skirt, wavering gently as if they were floating in water. “Well, Marcus. You know how I feel. The boy’s growing desperate—I can see it in his drawings. He’s completely brilliant, and should have been in Magical Warrior Training months ago. He skipped his private lesson today, you know.…” She clicked her tongue against her enormous teeth and shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing at all by holding him back.”

“Claire?”

Claire sighed. “I am growing less sure of that myself every day now. Gunnar spotted him deep in the jungle before the governors arrived, and tracked him along the stream all the way to the shore, where the boat rests. Alex is spending all his
time alone—and frankly, I don’t blame him. Everyone’s angry with him, and he feels bad now that he’s the only one not in magical training. It’s only making matters worse.”

Mr. Today shook his head and sank back in his chair. “Oh, oh, oh,” he said quietly, “what to do? I am afraid that if Alex starts training, he will use his magic to find his brother. The powerful connection between twins … It’s a huge risk we don’t need right now, especially now that Aaron is in Justine’s good graces and under her watchful eye.” He pressed his two forefingers to his lips and closed his eyes, thinking hard. For several minutes he remained quite still. When he opened his eyes, they were moist. “How I wish I could have convinced Justine to eliminate both twins, but she wouldn’t have it,” he said. “The Wanted twin, not one infraction. Not even a hint of one. If Alex wasn’t able to tempt Aaron into drawing in the dirt, I’m not sure Aaron would’ve been much use here, but at least we wouldn’t have this potential problem on our hands.”