Nine

They listened for the rattlebird—if that was what it was—but heard nothing more. They clustered together on the floor at the foot of the bed and dropped their voices to whispers.

“We need to make a plan,” Eleanor said.

“We need to know what we’re up against,” Pip replied. “And what the January Society is up to. We should go back to my house. I’ve got tons of spy gear.”

“I don’t know. The answer’s got to be in the book,” Eleanor said. “We should read every story. And look at the pictures, too. There are clues in there, I know it.”

“Maybe we should—” Otto began, but then there was a knock on the door. They all jumped guiltily, and Eleanor shoved the book under the bed just before the door opened and Ben stuck his head in.

“Oh, hello,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised to find them there, though Jenny must have told him where they were. Ben was a burly man with a bushy beard and hair that was going a bit thin on top even though he wasn’t very old. He was a writer, but that didn’t pay very well, so he also worked construction in town and did odd jobs. A lot of odd jobs now, since they were trying to save up for the baby.

“Hi, Uncle Ben,” she said. “These are—”

“Pip and Otto,” he said, pointing finger guns at each of them in turn. “I got the skinny from your aunt. Anyhoo, dinner’s ready if you’re hungry.”

“Dinner? But it’s only—” Eleanor jumped as the clock in the hall chimed out the hour. Six o’clock. She’d lost track of time.

“Clearly you’re having too much fun,” Ben said. “You can fuel up, and then, Pip, your mom’s coming to pick you up.”

“My mom?” Pip said, voice a squeak.

“Unless I talked to an imposter,” he said with a chuckle, then wrinkled his forehead when none of them so much as cracked a smile. “Anyway, food’s downstairs.”

Pip looked at each of them. Eleanor raised her shoulder in a half shrug. What could they do? And Otto was right—they didn’t have proof that Pip’s mom was evil, or that the January Society was anything other than a charity organization. But still . . .

“Uncle Ben, could Otto and Pip spend the night?”

“Oh. Um.” He scratched his chin. “Leaping ahead in my expected parental decision-making by a decade or so here, but let’s see.” He thought it over, then shook his head. “Nope, can’t do it. School night.”

“But—”

“Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “But let’s make a plan for Friday?”

Eleanor sighed. There was no way to explain so that he would understand. “Friday would be great.”

Ben clapped his hands together. “Fantastic. Now scurry on down those stairs. Wait too long, and I might eat your share.”

He turned and ambled down the hall, whistling.

“How did your mom even know we were here?” Otto asked Pip.

“She must have installed another one of those tracker apps on my phone,” Pip said. It could have been evil. Or it could have just been helicopter parenting. The three of them trudged downstairs.

Jenny had made pasta, which mostly meant thawing the sauce that Ben had made a few nights before. Jenny didn’t do much cooking, since she couldn’t reach the back burners anymore.

“So. You three already seem thick as thieves,” Jenny said while they ate. Ashford House had a dining room, but the table was so huge you couldn’t even reach across it to pass the butter, so they always ate in the kitchen. “What were you up to upstairs?”

Otto’s eyes widened a little, nervousness radiating from him, but Eleanor answered immediately. “Homework,” she said.

“I hope they’re not loading you up with too much right away,” Ben said.

“No, but there’s a lot of catching up to do so I know what’s going on,” Eleanor lied smoothly. Pip gave her an impressed look. Otto stared intently at his pasta.

“It’s good that you have help, then,” Jenny said. She smiled at Pip and Otto, who did their best to look virtuous. “So, Pip, you’re Delilah’s daughter?”

“You know her?” Pip said.

“Sort of,” Jenny said. “She was more my sister’s friend than mine. There’s a big age gap between us. But I knew she had a kid Eleanor’s age. I’m so glad that you three are spending time together.” She didn’t sound just glad—she was beaming. She’d been so worried that Eleanor would have trouble starting at a new school this late in the year.

Whatever Pip’s suspicions about her parents, Jenny and Ben had nothing to do with what was going on. Eleanor was sure of it. And she was sure that they would help, if they could. However clever three twelve-year-olds might be, they needed adult help.

“Aunt Jenny,” she said cautiously, not wanting to plunge in too quickly. “Was there always a clock in the hall outside my room?”

Otto widened his eyes at her. Pip shook her head in tiny, quick movements. Ben and Jenny glanced at each other, faintly puzzled. “Clock?” Ben asked.

Eleanor’s mouth was dry, her nerves buzzing, but she forced herself to sound only mildly curious. “Yeah. An old grandfather clock. Very fancy,” Eleanor said. Pip was slicing her hand over her throat in a “stop now” gesture, leaning back so Jenny and Ben couldn’t see.

“Are you sure?” Jenny asked.

“I could show you,” Eleanor said, though she wasn’t honestly sure she could.

“No, wait. A clock. Yeah,” Ben said, nodding slowly. “Sure. It’s . . . It was your dad’s, wasn’t it?” he asked Jenny.

“Right,” Jenny said, as if it was coming back to her. “Old family heirloom. Gosh. I can’t believe I forgot it’s up there. I must walk past it all the time to get to the upstairs bedrooms. Although I haven’t spent much time on the third floor lately.” She laughed a little and patted her belly.

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it?” Eleanor pressed. “The way it runs backward?”

“It—what? Runs backward?” Jenny asked. Her brow was furrowed.

“The clock outside my room,” Eleanor went on. Otto and Pip had looks of absolute horror on their faces.

“That’s right. We were just talking about that,” Jenny said.

Ben looked confused. “Yeah, we were. Weren’t we? I totally forgot.”

“Well,” Jenny said. “Well—I—that is strange.” She was frowning and shaking her head in this odd little motion, wagging to and fro, to and fro. Ben stared down at his plate with a big frown half hidden by his beard.

Pip clanged her fork loudly against her plate. “This is delicious!” she declared. “I’m getting seconds. Ms. Barton, do you want more?”

“Oh! No thank you, dear,” Jenny said, snapping back to cheerfulness. “There’s not much room for my stomach these days. The little devil’s really throwing out her elbows.”

They didn’t talk about the clock or much of anything else for the rest of the meal. Otto volunteered the three of them for dish duty, which Jenny was more than happy to put in their hands so she could go lie down again while Ben finished putting together the crib upstairs. With running water to help cover their voices, they leaned in together over the soapy sink.

“You can’t tell people about the wrong things,” Pip whispered.

“They aren’t evil. They could help us,” Eleanor said.

“They can’t,” Otto said solemnly.

“They acted so weird. Why did Aunt Jenny freak out like that? She was shaking,” Eleanor said.

“Because she’s not used to the wrong things. Her brain’s learned not to see them, if it ever saw them at all,” Otto said. “That’s part of why you never, ever tell people about the wrong things. If they’re not like us, they can get really strange. Hurt themselves, even.”

“I tried to show my therapist that there was a door in his ceiling and he had a seizure,” Pip said matter-of-factly. Eleanor flushed. She didn’t know anyone her age who had a therapist, other than herself. But Pip said it like it wasn’t anything unusual.

Her mother hated psychologists and psychiatrists, but now Eleanor wondered if that was because she was afraid—afraid of what they might do if they found out about the things her mother saw. The things she saw, too.

Pip went on. “Mostly, people just forget right after. But if you really want to get them to see without hurting them, you have to hint at it. Kind of trick them into seeing out of the corners of their eyes and build up to it. But it’s usually not a good idea. And even if you manage it, they don’t remember for very long.”

“We’ve done lots of experiments.” Otto nodded.

“But then someone decided it was unethical to test human subjects without board oversight,” Pip said with a roll of her eyes. “Like there’s a wrong things science board.”

Pip’s phone buzzed, and they all jumped. Pip pulled it out of her pocket. It had to be a brand-new phone—it was the latest model, which hadn’t been out long at all—but a crack already ran down the center of the screen. She had a text from a number listed as MOMBEAST: Three-minute warning.

“I guess that’s it,” Pip said.

“It’s okay,” Otto said. “We can talk more tomorrow. Figure all this out.”

“I’ll read the book tonight,” Eleanor said. “Cover to cover.” It wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Staying up late to read was the one thing that was always worth getting into trouble for.

“But what does the book have to do with us?” Otto asked. “What does it have to do with here? I don’t think we’re going to find everything we need in the book.”

“The wrong things happen more in Eden Eld. And we’re all here,” Eleanor said. “I think we need to know more about the town. The poem said ‘a bargain struck in days of yore.’ So we should look at the history of Eden Eld.”

“We can look in the town archive,” Otto said, as if he’d just declared that they would be going to a candy store. “It’s stored in the Academy library. We don’t even have to leave school grounds.”

“Perfect,” Eleanor said. They looked at Pip expectantly.

“I suppose research is a good idea,” she admitted. “But at some point we’re going to need to actually do something. We have to know what we’re going to do if we can’t find the answers in time.”

Just then, the doorbell rang.