The Eye of Midnight Page 2

  The far side of the library was all windows, which would have made it a cheerful room if the rain had not still been pelting down steadily outside. A leather chair was turned toward a cold hearth and grate, and Maxine flopped down here with her legs slung over one arm and her head on the other. For a while she labored over her book, but it had already been too long a day for stories of British soldiering. Her thoughts drifted off—back to her little black terrier, Baron, who would have been on the chair beside her if she were home; back to her mother’s face, pale and gaunt the morning Maxine had boarded the train out of Chicago.

  She turned to the window and watched the raindrops, beading and running, wandering aimlessly down the glass like the drowsy visions in her head.

  The doorbell chimed, waking Maxine with a start. She heard noises in the entry hall—the front door opening and closing and then a shout.

  “Ahoy! Anybody home?”

  Maxine sat up straight in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “In here,” she called tentatively.

  A moment later the double doors to the library burst open with a bang.

  “Hello,” said a boy who looked to be close to her own age. “I figured you must have shown up already. The cabdriver told me this was his second trip out here today.”

  He was as thin as a soda straw, with blond hair and enthusiastic blue eyes, and short trousers that showed a pair of skinned knees.

  “Do you remember me?” he asked, shaking himself like a waterlogged dog.

  “Not really,” said Maxine, which was mostly the truth, though she knew perfectly well whom she was looking at.

  “That’s okay. You’re Max, right?”

  “Maxine,” she replied coolly.

  “I’m your cousin William,” said the boy. “William Battersea. Your family came down from Chicago to visit us in Kansas City a few years ago. You had less freckles back then, though.” He squinted at her closely. “Maybe they’re multiplying,” he added with concern.

  Maxine struggled mightily to resist the urge to look at the end of her nose. She considered her freckles to be impolite material for conversation. Not that she was particularly concerned with her cousin’s opinion of her looks, of course. Generally speaking, when she glanced in the mirror, the girl she saw staring back struck her as perfectly ordinary—shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, limbs and features all roughly where they were expected to be. Nothing to make babies cry or cause pedestrians to cross the street shuddering, certainly, just nothing likely to make anyone notice at all. Except the freckles. People always mentioned her freckles, as if they were the most important thing about her. It was a tiresome topic she had come to despise, and as a result, she had taken to wearing the color red as a kind of misdirection—a single scarlet embellishment on any given day, like the silk ribbon she wore now in her hair. Something that stood out. Something impossible to ignore.

  She was about to say a word or two about the rudeness of commenting on other people’s appearances, but William was already galloping on.

  “It’s a swell old house, isn’t it?” he said, craning his neck to take in the expansive library.

  “I guess so,” she replied. “It’s certainly…big.”

  “Yeah, and mysterious, too. Think of the fun we’ll have this summer exploring all the dark corners and secret rooms.”

  Maxine frowned with disapproval. “I’m sure we don’t have permission to go poking around in every—”

  “Say, you don’t suppose this old place is full of hants, do you?” interrupted William.

  “Hants?”

  “You know, spooks, ghosts, murdered people whose souls can have no rest and all that.”

  “I think that’s perfectly morbid,” she said, and she was on the verge of changing the subject when William beat her to it.

  “Have you seen Grandpa yet?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Really?” said William. “How about a housekeeper or butler or something?”

  “Nope. I just let myself in.”

  “That’s a little funny, don’t you think?” said William, scratching an eyebrow. “I hope Grandpa’s all right. I mean, I hope he’s not soft in the head, as long as we’re stuck with him for the summer and all. My folks seemed sort of worried about packing me off to stay here while they were traveling. Mom says he was always a strange old bird, even before Grandma died.”

  Maxine was lost in reflection for a moment, trying to recapture something from the past. “He used to bounce me on his knee when I was little and pretend I was riding Man o’ War in the Derby. It made me laugh—” She stopped short. She hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, and she glanced at William, expecting to catch him sniggering at her, but he only nodded in a thoroughly genuine sort of way.

  “You still remember all that?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, cocking her head self-consciously. “It’s a story I heard from my father. I can’t really even picture what Grandpa looks like.”

  “It’s kind of odd, isn’t it?” said William. “Meeting your grandpa for the first time, like a perfect stranger?”

  “I don’t know,” Maxine replied. “No odder than meeting your own cousin, I guess.”

  Which is how William Battersea and Maxine Campbell made each other’s acquaintance on a rainy day in New Jersey in 1929. Because they shared the same grandfather and had both just finished the seventh grade, they might have expected to have a fair amount in common. But as the conversation rambled on, they began to suspect that their respective apples had fallen on opposite sides of the Battersea family tree and had apparently rolled down the hill into entirely different counties.

  “You know, if we’re going to be here all summer,” said William at length, “we probably ought to come up with some nicknames for each other.”

  “Nicknames?” replied Maxine, using the most patient tone she could manage.

  “Sure. Something I can call you that’s short for Maxine.”

  “I guess I didn’t realize it needed shortening.”

  “You don’t care much for Max, right?” he said, squinting at her like an artist studying a bowl of fruit. “How about I call you M? Like the letter, you know?”

  “If you must,” she said tartly. “If you think Maxine is likely to overtax your brain.”

  William stared at the ceiling, contemplating the daunting prospect of using multiple syllables to address his cousin for the whole summer.

  “Well,” he said, “if you don’t like it, maybe we could think of something else. What do they call you at school?”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, teachers, classmates…friends…”

  Maxine ignored the question and turned toward the window.

  “You have friends, right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, watching the rain patter on the trees outside. “I’m absolutely rolling in them. I mean, does it really matter?”

  “Personally, I wouldn’t have any use for school if I didn’t have friends there.”

  Maxine glanced at William, wondering if he expected a response. “The truth is,” she said at last, “the kids at school aren’t much interested in me, and I’m not much interested in them. And what difference does it make anyway? The boys are all oafs, and the girls are a pack of silly geese.”

  “Well, that pretty much covers everyone,” said William with a smirk, “but at least nobody can accuse you of playing favorites.” He paused. “You know what you are? You’re a mis—a misslethroat!” he said, snapping his fingers.

  “A what?”

  “You know, a sourpuss, a—a mankind hater.”

  “It’s misanthrope, dumbbell, and no I’m not. It’s just that I think they’re all so childish. I watch their playground games and their popularity contests, and the whole thing makes me yawn. There must be about a million ways I’d rather spend my time.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as anything. Making real decisions. Meeting important people. Whatever it is grown-ups
do.”

  “Oh, I see. You want to be grown-up,” said William with a serious nod. “What’s your big hurry?”

  “For one thing,” Maxine said, “when you’re an adult, people ask your opinion. And when you give it, they listen.”

  “People don’t care about your opinions?”

  Maxine snorted delicately.

  “Not even your family?”

  “I’m the baby,” she said. “Nobody cares what the baby thinks. My sister, Anne, spends her life in front of the bathroom mirror, and Remy’s off to college in the fall and everyone acts like he wrote the book. And ever since my mom got sick, Dad’s been too busy fussing over her to pay any attention to me. My mother was the only one who ever really thought I was worth listening to.”

  William cocked his head and bent at the waist to meet her downward gaze. “I think you’re worth listening to, M.”

  Maxine raised her eyes from the floor and glanced at him to see if he was serious.

  “And as near as I can tell,” he added playfully, “you’re already grown-up.”

  Maxine managed a dour smile and paused to look her cousin over more carefully. He gave the distinct impression of a puppy in the park—tail wagging constantly, nose poking under every unexplored stone, eyes always watching for a game or a tease. The general effect was a pleasant one.

  “So if we’re going to have nicknames,” she said, “I guess I’ll have to start calling you Will.”

  “Naw, dumbbell is fine, thanks,” he replied, and he gave her arm a pinch.

  Outside, the dreary day had surrendered feebly to night, and the windows in the library turned to dark mirrors. William had prowled off in hopes of finding some clue to Grandpa’s whereabouts and maybe something to eat as well, leaving Maxine to potter listlessly about the empty room.

  Her eye landed on the spine of a thick, leather-bound book lying on the mantel above the fireplace, and she mounted the hearth for a closer look at the gilt cover—a beautiful maiden kneeling on a silk cushion before the throne of a brooding sultan—but the pages inside were covered in strange, swooping characters, and she could make no sense of them. She closed the book in disappointment and was just stepping down from the hearth when she noticed a curious symbol carved on the front of the stone mantelpiece: a solitary zero inscribed within an embellished medallion—the identical twin of the emblem she had seen above the doorbell.

  “Wadja lookigat?” said an unintelligible voice by her ear.

  Maxine jumped. Behind her, William’s greasy lips and bulging cheeks hovered over her shoulder. “I found something to eat,” he said with a hard swallow, raising a half-gnawed turkey leg.

  “So I see,” said Maxine with a look of thinly veiled disgust. “Do you want to make yourself sick? That’s probably spoiled, you know.”

  “The ice in the icebox hasn’t all melted, so it can’t be over three or four days old.”

  “Three or four days? How long has Grandpa been gone, anyhow?” fretted Maxine. “I mean, honestly, Will, there must be some mistake. Maybe he forgot we were coming.”

  “Aw, you worry too much,” he said. “Have a bite of turkey.”

  Maxine frowned and pushed his hand away.

  “Do you think he even wants us here?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when our parents asked Grandpa if he would take us for the summer, well, he really couldn’t say no, could he? Not with my mom being so sick and all…”

  William wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I thought it was Grandpa who suggested the whole thing.”

  “Really?” she said. “Why would he? He’s never shown any interest in us before.”

  “No, I guess he hasn’t,” said William.

  “So what are we supposed to do now? Clean out his icebox, sit in his easy chair, go upstairs and find a bed? It’s like ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’ ”

  William snorted, but his attention had drifted to something else.

  “Hold this,” he said, handing her his turkey leg.

  “What are you doing?” asked Maxine. She watched as he tugged on one of the blackened andirons in the fireplace.

  “Looking for the hidden lever,” he said, scanning the room. “The entrance to the secret room is almost always in the library. All you have to do is find the lever.” He braced himself against a section of the bookshelves and put his back into it, but the shelves refused to budge.

  “You’ve been spending too much time at the movies,” said Maxine. “This is just a disagreeable old house. We’re more likely to die of boredom this summer than anything else.”

  “Says you. Old places like this always have a trapdoor or an underground passageway—someplace where Grandpa keeps his pirate treasure and dead bodies.”

  He pulled hard on a brass candleholder attached to the wall, and it came off in his hands with a shower of crumbling plaster.

  “Will! What on earth? Are you trying to get us in trouble our first night here?”

  William shrugged and tucked the candleholder behind the drapes. “Maybe it’s not in the library after all. Let’s go check the rest of the house.”

  He rattled out of the library and down the main hall, tapping on every knothole and peering behind every picture frame along the way. Maxine sighed and followed along halfheartedly. They paused at the old grandfather clock, but just as William began to open the glass case, the doorbell rang.

  The cousins both turned sharply and stared at the front door.

  “Maybe it’s Grandpa,” whispered Maxine.

  “Why would he have to ring his own doorbell?” replied William, and without giving his cousin a chance to reply, he trotted to the door and opened it wide.

  A dark, rawboned man stood on the front step. He wore plus fours and high boots, and his beard was long and matted. His eyes darted furtively as he scanned the moonlit drive, and then he turned to face the open door. Seeing the children, he frowned with dismay.

  “I was expecting Colonel Battersea,” he said.

  “Can we help you, mister?” asked William.

  The man made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and held it to his chest, watching the children for a response. Maxine and William stared back blankly.

  The stranger’s brow knit with concern, and he glanced back over both his shoulders. “I have a telegram,” he said, his voice low. “It’s vital that this reach him.” He handed them a sealed envelope. “You’ll make sure he gets it?”

  “Of course,” said Maxine. “May I tell him whom it’s from?” She blinked at him expectantly, but the man turned without a word and hurried down the steps.

  “Well, that was odd,” said Maxine. She closed the door and glanced at the envelope, then leaned it against Caesar’s bust on the pedestal beside the staircase. “He seemed awful jumpy about something, didn’t he?”

  “Say what?” mumbled William, looking the old clock up and down again, as if he had forgotten the strange visitor entirely.

  Maxine groaned. “You’re still thinking about your secret door, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Notice anything unusual?” he asked, rapping on the sides of the case.

  “Besides the fact that it’s the biggest clock I’ve ever seen? No.”

  The clock really was gigantic. It was taller than a grown man and as wide as a cart horse.

  “Look behind it,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she replied as she walked around it. “There’s no gap. It’s sort of…attached to the wall.”

  “There’s something else,” he said, pressing his ear to the cabinet. “Have a look at the side table.”

  She glanced at the table beside the clock. An empty vase and a black telephone flanked an old Royal typewriter. In front of it, a silver letter opener stood fixed in a block of cork. Maxine wiggled the blade free and tested the point with her finger.

  “Is it Grandpa’s murder weapon, do you think?” she said, holding it delicately between her thumb and forefinger with a
look of mock horror.

  “Very funny. I mean the typewriter. Why would he keep it in the front hallway? Shouldn’t it be in the study or something? And why is there a wire coming out of it?”

  Maxine bent and looked under the table. A cord snaked down the table leg from the back of the typewriter and disappeared into the wall beside the clock.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” said William. “Like maybe the typewriter can send out some kind of electrical signal.”

  Maxine frowned skeptically, but William stepped up to the typewriter and cracked his knuckles like a piano maestro.

  “O-P-E-N S-E-S-A-M-E,” he muttered as the ebony keys clattered beneath his fingers. He stopped and stared at the grandfather clock expectantly, but nothing happened.

  “B-A-T-T-E-R-S-E-A,” he said, trying again.

  The clock seemed indifferent to his advances, and William’s brow twisted in frustration, but he continued to peck away with admirable tenacity.

  “Knock yourself out,” said Maxine. “There’s nothing here. No revolving bookshelves or scandalous letters or bodies stuffed in the walls.” She turned away and had just made up her mind to wander back to the library when she froze in her tracks. Her gaze had landed on a familiar symbol engraved on the letter opener in her hand—the same strange symbol she had seen on the doorbell and the mantelpiece. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned back toward the clock.

  “Slide over,” she said with a nudge. William obliged, retreating to the blue mosaic fountain, where he sat down on the lip of the stone basin beneath his cousin’s hanging coat. Maxine squinted at the typewriter, shook her head, and pressed the number zero.

  From somewhere inside the walls, the cousins heard the faint squeal of metal on metal.

  The skin on Maxine’s arms prickled like a cucumber, and her eyes shot to the tall case beside the stairs, but the old clock’s even tick continued without pause.

  Then, from a spot just above William’s head, there came a mechanical clunk.

  He raised his eyes slowly and craned his neck backward until he was looking at the coat hooks directly above him. While he watched, the blue mosaic swung inward on unseen hinges.