Ephraim, Mallory, and Will walked three abreast down the sidewalk. “We’ll go to the Wylie Five and Dime first for supplies, and then we can go to the library,” Mallory suggested. “In case we need to do more research.”
Ephraim knew this was aimed at him—Mallory and Will had long since finished their research—but he didn’t mind. It was a beautiful fall day with a bright blue sky and the air not too cold yet. A group of younger kids played soccer in the field by the gazebo, and people strolled down Maine Street stopping to chat with one another. With the nodding and saying hello to everyone they passed, the three were making slow progress.
“My mom says she can’t believe this place hasn’t become a tourist destination like Bar Harbor or something,” said Ephraim.
“We like it this way,” Will said.
“Crystal Springs has never really liked outsiders,” Mallory said.
Ephraim wasn’t sure where this put him. He was new to town, but his family had the grandest house on the biggest hill in town. Still, both the Darlings and the Wylies had been there longer than the Appledores.
“My dad says there used to be a lot of trade and tourists, like with our store and the hotel, but now there are too many secrets in this town and people don’t trust each other anymore. It’s been getting worse and worse every generation since the fire.”
They walked past the bakery that spewed out heavenly smells. All three breathed in deeply. Ephraim stared at the elaborate cakes in the windows. “We could probably use a snack,” he said. “To fortify us.”
Will agreed. “I’d kill for a Needham right about now,” he said, rubbing his stomach.
“What’s a Needham?” Ephraim asked as he kicked a pebble and sent it skittering down the sidewalk.
“What’s a Needham?” Will asked. “What’s a Needham? Honestly, Ephraim, the amount of things you don’t know astounds me.”
“It’s a chocolate made with coconut and potatoes,” Mallory explained.
“Oh, come on. I’m not that gullible.”
“I’m afraid you are,” Will said. “But in this case she’s telling the truth. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He pushed open the door to the bakery, setting chimes ringing. Ephraim felt like he’d walked into a historical reenactment. The floors were wide pine slats, the counter marble, with a glass case. An older man behind the counter raised his hand in greeting. “Well, here’s something I never thought I’d live to see. An Appledore, a Wylie, and a Darling walking into my bakery together.”
“Hi, Mr. Small,” Mallory said.
Will slid onto a stool. “Ephraim has never had a Needham.”
“Never?” Mr. Small asked.
“They aren’t really made with potatoes, are they?”
“Sure are,” Mr. Small said as he brought three of the chocolate treats out of the case. He put one in front of each of them. “The first Needham is always on the house. For his friends, too.”
“Thanks, Mr. Small,” Mallory said. She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and fall onto the ground with a thunk. It was heavier than usual, weighed down by the silver-edged book that she’d found the night before. She had intended to show it to the boys first thing in the morning, but something kept stopping her. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to give Ephraim false hope, but part of her knew it was more about not letting herself believe.
Ephraim sniffed the Needham. “Potatoes?”
“This is Maine, son. You work with what you’ve got. Now go on, give it a try.” Mr. Small leaned on his elbows on the counter and watched as Ephraim took a small bite.
He couldn’t taste potatoes, only chocolate and coconut that seemed to fall apart in his mouth. “That’s amazing,” he said.
Mr. Small sat up and slapped the counter, a wide grin across his red face. “Amazing! In all my years at this bakery, you know I’ve never had one unsatisfied customer.”
Ephraim tried to savor the rest of the Needham, but ended up finishing it in two bites. He would have asked for another one, but Mallory stood up and said, “We’re off to the Five and Dime. We’ve got a project to do.”
“The Wylie Five and Dime?” Mr. Small mused, shaking his head. “As I live and breathe.”
“Thank you,” Ephraim said, wiping his lips on a small white napkin. “I’ll be back, that’s for sure.”
“I know you will.”
As the three left, Mr. Small watched them with a bemused expression.
“That was weird,” Ephraim said when they got outside.
“I thought you liked it,” Will replied.
“I did. I wasn’t talking about the Needham. I was talking about Mr. Small. He couldn’t quite believe that we were all there together.”
Will and Mallory exchanged a glance. Neither wanted to tell Ephraim that in their twelve years of being in the same town, seven years in the same class, they’d never had a real conversation until he’d arrived. Finally Mallory said, “There’s generations of bad blood.”
“We’re practically revolutionaries,” Will said, secretly hoping that news of this revolution wouldn’t make its way back to his father.
They crossed the street over to the Wylie Five and Dime. Mallory nodded her head to her great-uncle Edward and his friend Edwin—Edwin asleep as usual. “Hey, Uncle Eddie,” she said. She wasn’t really his niece—more like a cousin at many removes. But they were both of Darling heritage, so they considered themselves family.
“How’s my favorite niece?”
“All right,” she said. “We’re working on a school project and need to get some supplies.”
He stood up as if he were unfolding his body and pushed the door open for them. The bells jangled. They went over to a small display of school supplies.
“So how are we going to do this?” Will asked. He’d never been a fan of group projects, preferring to just do the work himself.
“Well, like Ephraim said, we’re trying to show how the stories could each be right, and how they fit together. So maybe we do a map and show each of their routes with dates.”
“But that would show that Cook got there first,” Will said. “Not that I mind, but—”
“But they might have gotten to different places. Isn’t that part of it? So we show who found what when. And we can have little parts of their journals and logbooks and stuff, too.”
“And newspapers,” Ephraim said. “I found a clipping in the house.”
“Perfect,” Mallory said as she reached for a piece of blue poster board.
“We’re going to need some glitter,” Will said. “For the ice.”
They gathered all the supplies they could think of and carried them back to the counter, where Marie, the shop clerk, and Uncle Edward were talking. Marie reached out and tousled Will’s hair. “Hey, Willy, what’s new?”
Will frowned. Ephraim gaped. He could not believe that someone had just touched Will’s head and lived to tell the tale.
“Ah, come on, Willy, you’re still my little cousin, even if you’re a giant now. How’s your dad?”
“He’s fine.” Marie and her family were another set of people on his dad’s list of those who had done him wrong. Generations before, a cousin in a different branch of the family had gotten the store, while his side of the family had gotten the house. Will’s dad was convinced they’d gotten a raw deal.
“You know you’re always welcome for Thanksgiving. Tell him that, will you?” She looked at Mallory and Ephraim. “It seems like it’s a time for forgiveness, I would say.”
“Sure,” Will said without conviction. Marie asked him to Thanksgiving every year. He had never been.
“Good.” She looked down at their stack of supplies. “Explorers project?”
“Yep. We’ve got Cook, Henson, and Peary, and we’re going to show all the sides of their stories,” Mallory explained.
“What about Ootah?” Uncle Edward asked.
“Who?” Mallory asked.
“Who?” Uncle Edward echoed. “You all have been working on this project for how long—same project I did when I was your age, by the way—and you don’t know who Ootah was?”
“Now, don’t go stirring up trouble,” Marie said.
Uncle Edward rubbed his hand through his hair. “Ootah was the Eskimo—”
“Inuit,” Marie corrected.
“The Inuit who went with Henson on that last jag. It was the two of them together that first stepped foot on the Pole, with Peary coming behind to plant the flag and claim it for his own. No party for Ootah, no parade. He stayed in Greenland when it was all over and now most folks don’t even know his name. How’s that for a how-do-you-do?”
The three children exchanged a glance.
Uncle Edward shook his head in disappointment. “Year after year I keep waiting for a student to do his research on poor old Ootah or any of the other three that went with them, but no one does.”
“You leave those kids alone, Edward,” Marie said. “You come in for your coffee?”
He gave them one last look, then turned and fixed himself a cup of free coffee. The children remained frozen, watching him until he went back outside.
Marie began ringing up their supplies. “Don’t worry about him. He just likes to stir up trouble. Anything else you need today?”
“No thanks, Marie. See ya,” Mallory said, and they left the store, saying good-bye to Edward and the still-dozing Edwin on the way out.
Will and Mallory led Ephraim to the library, a stone building guarded by a lion. They found a table toward the back, lit by a lamp with a stained-glass shade that cast a multicolored glow across their work.
Mallory spread out a map of the Arctic. “I thought we could start by marking their routes on the map. If we have dates we can put on, that would be better.”
“But Cook didn’t believe Peary’s dates, and Peary didn’t believe Cook’s,” Will said.
Ephraim tried to concentrate but he was thinking about the water again. He knew it was down there somewhere. Why else have all those tunnels if not to hide a secret? Will said they were carrying water up from the lake, but if that’s all they were doing, then they only needed one tunnel.
“Ephraim?” Mallory asked.
“What?”
“Ephraim, you aren’t paying attention at all! We’re trying to plan our project here.”
“I’ve been thinking about the tunnels,” Ephraim said.
“Of course you have,” Will said.
“I think we need to go back in. There’s something we’re missing. We’re looking at it from the wrong perspective.”
“We’re trying to find it.”
“You’re trying to find it,” Will said.
“It’s like what we’ve been talking about with who was first at the North Pole and how trying to figure that out gets in the way of what really matters. What I’m trying to say is, we are not explorers!” He looked around at them triumphantly.
“That’s your big revelation?” Will asked.
“I mean we’re looking for something that’s already been found.” He pointed to Mallory’s map. “It’s like we’re going to the North Pole, not discovering it.”
“Where are you going with this?” Mallory asked.
Ephraim wasn’t sure exactly where he was going. “We don’t need to think about it like explorers. We need to think about it like people who already found it. We don’t need to plan an expedition. We need a map. If someone found the water, where would they hide it?”
Will straightened his stack of note cards. “I’m really starting to like you, Ephraim, but I think you’re getting obsessed with the Fountain of Youth. I mean, that’s kind of in your blood as an Appledore, but, well, there’s nothing there. Take a clue from your ancestors: if there really was a Fountain of Youth here, someone would have found it a long time ago.”
Mallory sighed and reached down into her backpack. “I think there’s something I need to show you.”