Ever since I’d arrived at the Academy, I’d been dreaming about Dad. It was as though being in the place where he’d spent so much time had returned my memories of him to me, memories that had been pushed down during all these months of his absence. My dreams were strange, partly things that had actually happened, partly nightmares about Dad being taken away or disappearing under the surface of a river. It was all starting to get mixed up in my mind, the real world and the dream world, and it made it hard for me to concentrate in class or in the library.
That night, I dreamed that I was chasing Dad along a steep, winding mountain path. The light was strange, an oddly bright moon lighting the way like a huge torch in the sky. I kept yelling at him to slow down, but he didn’t seem to hear me.
I was chasing him when I passed a bush covered with little blue flowers. They were familiar, and I studied them for a minute before I resumed my chase. But Dad was gone. I could just barely make out his footprints on the path, and it seemed to me that if I looked at them too long, they also disappeared.
I heard a bird call, and when I looked up to find Pucci, everything was murky, and I felt as though I was swimming through black water.
Caw! Pucci cried overhead as I awoke, my room still dark. Caw!
Zander and I had a small bunk room at the back of Base Cabin 6, the biggest of the boys’ cabins at the Academy. The rooms were tiny, with a set of bunk beds, a few hooks on the wall for jackets and gear, and space against the wall for our trunks. I slept on the bottom bunk, and it took me a minute to get my bearings. It must have been Pucci outside the open window that woke me from the dream because now I could hear him chortling out on the sill.
I lay there, looking up at the underside of Zander’s bunk, the details of the dream coming back. Something about the flowers bothered me. And then I realized what it was: I knew those flowers. They grew on the side of Mt. Arnoz, along the path to the Mountaineering Hut, where we had all of our climbing and mountaineering and alpine survival lessons. They’d been transplanted from Deloia around the time the Mountaineering Hut was built—I’d heard Sukey refer to them as Deloian Starflowers—and they had thrived in the mountains, spreading all over the face of Mt. Arnoz and along the hiking trails.
But then my mind turned to the little silver key and the flowers carved into its head. It had to be a sign from Dad. The mystery of the key had something to do with the Starflowers. What was it Raleigh had said, that Dad often disappeared up near the Mountaineering Hut?
For a few minutes, I considered waking Zander, but rejected the thought. Too risky. I dressed quickly in black training clothes, slipping out of the cabin into the darkness. There was a big, almost-full moon in the sky, and once I was out of the trees that shaded the cabins, I could see pretty well by its light. I kept to the woods next to the main path and listened for the agents who patrolled the grounds of the Academy at night.
Right at the beginning of the school year, there had been a boy named Frederick Carley who had been expelled for being out of his cabin at night. Sukey said that she’d heard he’d been going to visit his girlfriend. Apparently the agents didn’t have any sympathy for young love.
I knew I was taking a huge risk, but I told myself that Frederick Carley hadn’t had what I had: Pucci.
I whistled very softly and heard him whistle back. He’d stay high overhead, looking for danger, and alert me if anyone was near.
I made my way slowly past the Longhouse and the main campus buildings, watching through the trees and listening for agents, before starting up the winding web of trails that covered Mt. Arnoz. I was still learning the trails, but I’d already spent a lot of time at the Mountaineering Hut, so I knew the way, even in the near-darkness. The night air was chilly, and I was glad I’d worn a sweater under my vest and put on my flannel-lined trousers.
I hiked for twenty minutes or so before I saw the peaked roof of the Mountaineering Hut ahead on the trail. It was actually a fairly large, hexagonal structure, used for classes and equipment storage, and it even had a bunk room in case someone got stranded up there in the snow. Everyone just called it the Hut. The big classroom on the second floor had 360-degree views of the mountains. The lockers—including the one that had been Dad’s—were on the first floor. I waited until I was past its looming shadow before I turned on my vestlight, shining it on the starflower bushes that grew along the slope. The path was well used and easy to follow, but I assumed that any hidden doors or secret compartments weren’t going to be right on the path, so I made my way up the steep grade through the bushes, inspecting the ground carefully. I got the key out of my vest pocket, ready to open whatever door I was going to find.
I stopped and listened. I couldn’t hear anything but the wind moving through the trees and a bird calling somewhere up the slope.
I tried not to be nervous. Pucci was watching. Surely the agents didn’t come all the way up here. But then something moved in the trees. A squirrel. It had to be a squirrel. It moved again. A deer, maybe. I stopped and listened, my heart pounding, then started walking again. The wind had come up, and it whistled through the trees with an eerie hushing sound. I still had Dad’s key ready in my hand, and I held it out in front of me, as though I could use it as a weapon if I needed one.
I’d gone about a hundred yards when I thought I heard footfalls on the path behind me. My heart pounding, I turned to scan the path with my vestlight, but no one was there. The wind moved through the trees and against the side of the mountain again. I shivered and started to run. I couldn’t see Pucci above me, couldn’t hear him.
And then there was a rush of air behind me, and I felt cold metal go over my mouth, and a familiar voice whispered in my ear, “Don’t scream.” Strong arms dragged me into the woods on the side of the path and then dropped me onto the ground.
“Sorry about that,” the voice whispered. “It was the only way.”
It was the Explorer with the Clockwork Hand.