Jo shook off the effects of the drug as quickly as she could as she followed Mason through the swamp. She had no idea how she was going to get Mason through the Door—it wasn’t as if Jo was stronger than her father’s ex-girlfriend. But she was going to do everything she could to catch the woman who attempted to murder her father to prison, once and for all.
The bugs buzzed around her head and the swamp gases smelled awful, and Jo decided that once the day was over and she had made it home, she was never going to a swamp again. They were too wet, too humid, too buggy, too smelly. She felt a little bit of laughter bubble up inside her, and she pushed it back. There was no way she was going to let the skap take over her mind again.
Mason hadn’t left the trail yet, so Jo followed her at a distance, wondering if she even knew how to get back to the Door at all, or if she was just running aimlessly, hoping that she would eventually arrive. Finally, when Mason had run by both of the spots where Jo would have climbed off the trail to get to the Door, she called out, “Hey! Do you know where you’re going?”
“Shut up!” Mason yelled back.
“I’m just saying, if you’re trying to go back to Pomegranate City, you missed the route.”
“How would you know?” Mason spit back.
“I’ve been here before? That’s how?” Jo rolled her eyes. Mason was kind of thick.
Mason slowed a little and a moment later Jo caught up to her.
“I want to go home,” Mason said, looking stressed. “I don’t like it here. I don’t want to be here. I miss not being in a swamp, I miss my friends, I miss my house, and I want to start over without you or your dad, on my own—and not here!”
“I can help with that,” Jo said, shrugging.
“How do I know you’re not going to lure me out into the wilderness and dump me?” Mason asked, frowning.
Jo shrugged. “Because I want to go home too.” She found, to her surprise, that it was true. It wasn’t just that she wanted to be out of this swamp, it was that she wanted to be home. She missed her favorite coffee shops and her friends from school, she missed her dad’s house (that was now blown up) and she missed the way Pomegranate City smelled, the hustle and bustle, the lights and the busyness. “I want to go home too,” she repeated.
“Alright,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”
Jo led her back to the spot on the trail that ended closest to the Door, and jumped into the water. Mason followed her, and they spent the next ten minutes slogging through the mud. Jo was tired of being wet, tired of being muddy, tired of being eaten by bugs, and just tired in general. She would be happy to get home.
The Door appeared in the swamp before them, and Jo sighed gratefully. She would be glad to be back on solid ground. She stepped through with Mason on her heels.
“Aw fudge lizards,” Mason muttered. “I forgot about the cops.”
A round of cheers went up as the officers from the raid ran forward to slap cuffs on Mason. Jo quickly found herself besieged by scientists, all asking her a thousand questions. Only one question stood out to her from the bunch. It was John, his eyes wide and worried.
“Where’s Quin?” he asked. “Please tell me—where’s Quin?”
She grinned tiredly at him. “He’s chasing down my dad,” she replied, and then gestured towards the couch. “Do you all mind if I sit down?”
“Please!” John exclaimed. “Out of the way, out of the way!” He guided her to the couch, waving the police officers that surrounded the Doors back. Officer Reynolds came to sit down on the coffee table facing her.
“Quin got the whole thing on the hover cam,” Jo told her. “Mason confessed to everything.” She was so exhausted she could barely muster up the energy to put on her confident face, but she tried, and gave Officer Reynolds a little smile.
“What about Quin?” John asked again fiddling with his tie. It looked like it had orange spiders all over it. “The last thing I told him was that he was too stupid to be my friend.” He put his face dramatically into his hands and moaned, “I’m a horrible person!”
“He chased after Nash,” Jo said, “but they ran in the opposite direction of the Door, so I don’t know how long it will take. And don’t worry, Quin didn’t take it to heart. He was actually talking about coming back to apologize to you when he ran off after Nash.”
“Apologize?” John looked up from his hands. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
Jo gave a small tired smile. “It’s a long story,” she said.
“If you don’t mind,” Officer Reynolds said, “what exactly did Mason confess to?”
“She tried to kill my dad,” Jo replied simply.
“And she just… admitted it? Why?”
“We were kind of, well, drugged,” Jo said, “I think? But it was by accident. Nobody did it to us on purpose.”
At that moment, a noisy group of scientists burst into the room carrying computer equipment, boxes of tools, and a variety of other things that Jo didn’t recognize. They chattered excitedly, and the noise in the room went from a quiet murmur to a loud babble.
“Jo, Officer Reynolds,” John said, “why don’t you come back to the Globe with me? I have Mavis Oliphant in a conference room there, and she claims to know something about the Doors. We can talk with her while we wait for Quin to get back.”
“That would be wonderful,” Officer Reynolds said. “Is that okay with you, Jo?”
Jo looked at Mason who was being spoken to by another police officer. “She’s not going to get away again, right?” Jo asked. “Because I’ll chase her down again if I have to. I’ll shoot her in the knees.”
“I think we’ve got it handled,” Officer Reynolds said kindly.
“Okay then,” Jo stood up slowly from the couch, still dripping, and followed John through the third Door.
The Door Room was much quieter this time. A few scientists still buzzed about, but the general commotion had significantly decreased. It was after hours, and the room felt much larger and more echoey than before.
Jo followed John across the floor, looking about curiously. Every single one of these Doors led to another place, another world, with different people and different plants, different animals and a different sky. It was really incredible to think about. She could go anywhere, just by popping through, and come back one, two, three minutes later. To see worlds in a blink of an eye, to explore the universe in a heartbeat—it was amazing.
John pushed open the door to conference room DR-2B, and Mavis sat there drinking a cup of tea, a tiny, old, wrinkly lady in a big chair.
“There you are,” Mavis said, smiling a timid smile. “I thought you had gone and forgotten me.”
“Of course not, Ms. Oliphant,” John said kindly, sitting next to her. “This is Officer Reynolds. She is investigating Andrew Nash’s operation.”
“Hello there,” Mavis said, giving a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”
“John tells me you have some information for us,” Officer Reynolds asked. “Mind if I record the conversation?”
“Oh well, I suppose not,” Mavis replied, sighing. “I’m a bit old to get in too much trouble, I suppose.”
“Go ahead,” Officer Reynolds said.
“Well, there’s not that much to tell,” Mavis said. “But I guess you could say that I owed Nasty Nash some money—he loaned me for fixing my porch, you understand—and I paid it back with family heirlooms. But I didn’t really think about it, you know? And then I started to remember, remember that maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe those heirlooms would be best forgotten. So I came to my dear friend, Quin—where is he?—to ask for help, but it seems like it might be a rather busy day for him.”
“What were these family heirlooms?” Officer Reynolds asked.
“Why, Doors, of course,” Mavis said. “I know they were illegal to have, so I thought maybe I should give them up, give them away, but I had forgotten, forgotten the rules, you see. And I had found them in an old trunk where I also found my old, old diary, from the year my father died, you understand, and I remember he said to me, ‘Mavis, keep these Doors safe,’ and I wrote it in my journal too, I wrote, ‘Mavis, keep these Doors safe.’”
“Did you write anything else in your journal?” John asked. “About where the Doors came from? Or why your father wanted you to keep them safe?”
“Well, yes,” Mavis said, “I have the journal right here, if you’d like to see it. Please don’t read the whole thing, but if you look on the 5th of February, it will tell you.”
John opened the book to the bookmarked page and read aloud:
“I think Father is going to die soon. Today he gave me three Door cylinders and told me that under no circumstances should I part with these Doors. He told me to protect them, for they could be the undoing of everyone, including me. He said, ‘Mavis, keep these Doors safe.’ He told me that two of the Doors had been given to him as an inheritance when his uncle, Lake Oliphant, disappeared, presumed dead, and that the other I shouldn’t like to know the reasons why. But I don’t much care. What is a Door to me? I can’t use them and I can’t sell them and I can’t give them away—so I suppose I shall stash them in a trunk until my dying day. But dear future Mavis, if you’re reading this, just remember, keep them safe.”
“Please, stop reading there,” Mavis said. “The next account gets a little…” she grinned, “…personal.”
John closed the book. “Lake Oliphant? Which two Doors are his?”
“If I had to guess,” Jo said, “the swamp and the lab.”
“The lab?” John’s face perked up.
She nodded. “You’ll have to have Quin take you there.”
“If you don’t mind,” John asked, “who exactly was your father?”
“Oh, you might remember him,” Mavis said, waving a hand in the air. “Cares Oliphant. He had a motto—Cares Cares!”
“I remember him!” John said. “He was running for the office of Administrative Chair but had to drop out because he grew ill. That was shortly before he passed, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Mavis said.
“Mavis,” Officer Reynolds asked. “May I ask you a personal question?”
“Please, dear,” Mavis replied, turning to face the police officer.
“Is it possible that you personally were involved in gambling at Nash’s establishment?”
Mavis shook her head and tsked. “Now honey, someone as old as me would be mighty foolish to be getting involved in that.”
Jo kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to get Mavis in trouble, though she knew that Mavis’ inclination for gambling was pretty severe. She had lost a lot of money when she frequented Nash’s secret events.
“We know you have,” John cut in. “Quin meets up with you to get locations for illegal—” John slapped a hand over his mouth. He had inadvertently outed Quin.
“What did you say?” Officer Reynolds asked. She stared John down. “Did you imply that Quin Black has something to do with Nash’s illegal gambling and hasn’t brought the information to the police?”
Jo gulped. She didn’t want Quin to get in trouble—not since he had saved her and offered to help rat out Mason then spilled his soul to her at the contentment house—and since she had told him everything, too! She swallowed and put on her confident face, the best version that she could muster, and added a soothing tone to her voice.
“No, no,” Jo cut in. “What John was saying is that Quin has tried to get Mavis to leak Nasty Nash’s locations, but Mavis is a closed book. Which my dad always appreciated, you understand. But Mavis has—occasionally—showed up to some of our events. For a drink and to mingle, you understand. Not to play.”
“And you would know this how?” Officer Reynolds asked. “Are you now confessing?”
“All I will admit to,” Jo said cautiously—she didn’t want to get herself in trouble either, “was that until I became of age, my father occasionally asked me to sit in and watch his guests. Keep an eye out for, well, any illegal activity. To keep things aboveboard.”
She could tell Officer Reynolds didn’t believe a word of it. “I see. So Mavis, you have occasionally visited Nasty Nash’s establishment—but done nothing illegal—and Quin has tried to get the times and locations from you, but you refused.”
“Oh yes, yes,” Mavis agreed hastily, “that seems like it could all make sense.”
Jo shook her head. Mavis was not good at this.
“Okay,” Officer Reynolds said, shaking her head and sighing. “Here’s the thing. I’m not trying to catch you, Mavis, or even you, Jo. I only need evidence to put Nasty Nash away. I know you both have some, and I am especially interested to hear what you know, Jo.”
“That’s a tall order,” Jo said, crossing her arms, “asking me to betray my own dad like that. Assuming I know anything at all. Why would I do that?” She sniffed in pretend derision. The truth was, two hours ago, she would have gladly ratted out her father. But since his confessions in the house of contentment—he really did love and care about her—she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Officer Reynolds stood up and leaned forward, almost nose to nose with Jo. It was an intimidation tactic, one that Jo recognized, and she wouldn’t let it work on her. She straightened her back and strengthened her resolve. After all the lizard’s innards she had been through today, she wasn’t about to let one police officer intimidate her into confessing the illegal things she had done, which by the way, had nothing to do with the situation at hand!
“Now see here,” Officer Reynolds said. “If you are in any way impeding an investigation—”
She was interrupted as the door to the conference room burst open. In the doorway, Quin stood with the hover cam by his shoulder, dripping with sweat and tightly gripping Nash’s arm. Nash looked around the room and saw Officer Reynolds staring down Jo. His eyes opened in mild panic. Jo hardly had time to process his facial expression when he blurted out, “It was me! Whatever Jo was confessing to, it was me!”
Jo raised her eyebrows and her jaw dropped. She blinked in shock, unable to maintain the confident demeanor she had been working so hard on. It was true. Her dad did love her after all, like he had said in the contentment house. Or maybe his visit to Nalada had really changed him. Either way, it made her love her dad a little bit more.