“Looking for me? What do you mean? I don’t know you.” The girl stepped away, framed by the back of the counter. She gazed at him inquiringly. For a few seconds he was too amazed to speak. “And where’d you get the name Chip? Chip off the old block, maybe?”
He felt himself blushing. “My real name is Charles,” he told her. “But my father’s a computer guy — microchips and all that. Most people like the name.”
She shrugged her shoulders. Her chic outfit — a crocheted, grapefruit-pink cotton top and khaki drawstring cargo pants — seemed to make a mockery of the dingy confines of the tackle shop. And her words betrayed a slight accent — French or German — which, together with her lofty manner, raised her several notches above the girl-cool Chip was used to, even in the rich Rockcliffe types he sometimes met at parties.
“I… I think I saw you yesterday. On the lake. Near the island we’re staying on — Freya’s Island. I just wondered if you might want to go for a boat ride or something. I’d really like to talk to you.”
The girl gave him a haughty look. “Why would I want to talk to you? Je préférerais rester seule, merci— I’d rather be alone!”
Chip shrivelled. But what could he tell her? That he’d been reading Gwynn’s diary on the sly? That he thought she might be related to the old man? That he needed her help to deal with Gwynn’s haunted house?
He gulped and continued. “I don’t know. I thought you might know stuff about the lake. We just got here and I’m not sure what’s going on. We’re renting… Well, not exactly renting, but we’re allowed to use this house. It’s an okay house — in some ways. But it belongs to the old guy I mentioned, only we haven’t seen him yet and he seems to be a bit strange. The house is pretty strange, too. With statues and a painted ceiling, with swords and stuff like the Round Table, and a taped welcoming message with a warning, and carved symbols in the tower, and —”
“God! You do babble,” she interrupted. “If you would shut up for a minute, I might be able to tell you something.”
He noticed that she had a throaty, husky voice. That voice, and with an accent to boot. And her looks! The guys at school would be rolling on the floor.
“The ‘old guy’ you’re referring to is my grandfather. I’m sure he has a good reason for offering you the house to stay in. I’m Sabrina Gwynn. I spent many weeks in the house once — Freya’s house, as we call it — and I can’t say I love it, even though Freya was my grandmother. But it’s a pretty house. As for telling you about the lake, I can’t, since I just came here a few weeks ago from Switzerland. I go to school there. My boyfriend is in Paris and I’m expecting a call from him this morning. Lawson lets me use his telephone sometimes. I don’t always want to bother Grandfather. He’s not very well right now. So, if you don’t mind…”
She began to duck around him. Chip stepped back.
Lee appeared, framed in the outer shop door.
“Are you coming, Chip?” she called out. “We heading back to that dreary, smelly cottage again, looking for that dreary… Oh, that girl came in here, did she? Excuse me! I’m just trying to collect my brother.”
“That’s all right. He’s collectible,” Sabrina called to her. She smiled wryly at Chip, then sidestepped him and made her way into the office.
“Could you do me a favour?” Chip asked, following her. He pulled out of his pocket the crumpled paper with his careful copies of the tower inscriptions, folded it over, grabbed a pen from the desk, and scribbled “Dr. Sinclair” on the outside and underneath it wrote, “Can you help me figure this out?” He printed his name, then he handed the paper to Sabrina, who glanced at it, and tossed it on the desk.
“If he comes in while I’m here I’ll mention it,” she promised.
“I forgot to tell you about the white horse,” he said.
Sabrina seemed to freeze where she stood. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“No… I’ve got to go,” he said. “My family’s waiting for me. I wish we could meet sometime… Bye!”
She murmured something. When he turned at the inner doorway she was still watching him.
He negotiated the outer room’s various obstacles and greeted Lee, who shook her head and gave him a scornful look. They strolled along together toward the car.
“Boy! You lucked in,” Lee said. “Did you see her outfit? It wasn’t from Wal-Mart, I can tell you. J.Crew at least. And that voice! I’m surprised she wasted it on you. Who in heck is she? She’s absolutely gorgeous.”
“Yeah. She’s Dr. Gwynn’s granddaughter. But don’t worry. She’s got a boyfriend in Paris.”
“Several at least, I would guess. But this isn’t Paris, so maybe she’ll let you carry her tennis racket. At least until those Queen’s boys spot her.”
“Oh, shut up! She just might be able to help us solve the mystery.”
“What mystery is that?”
“Oh, everything. The weird cabin and house, the freaky night noises, the screwy characters running around.”
“The mystery’s all in your mind, brother. Jump into the car and dial up some Beethoven on your iPod.”
Chip had no intention of listening to Beethoven or anything else just then. The SUV took off along the lake road toward the seedy cabin, but Chip hardly noticed. His mind and senses were full of Sabrina, so much so that he felt almost guilty when his mother spoke to him.
“Did you talk to that girl who went into the shop, Chip? I saw her arrive on her bicycle. She seemed very suave — and very pretty.”
“You know who it is, Mum? It’s Dr. Gwynn’s granddaughter,” Lee informed her.
Mr. Mallory turned in his seat. “Holy cow! Why didn’t you bring her over? I’ve got a few questions for the young lady! Did she explain what’s going on?”
“He was too hypnotized by her beauty to ask her anything,” Lee announced. “He offered to lay down his T-shirt at the doorway so that she could step over the threshold without getting her Ferra Giacomos dirty, but she didn’t go for it.”
“Stop taunting your brother, Lee. Chip, what did the girl say?”
“She said her grandfather’s not well, that she didn’t know much about the house, that she’s just got in from Switzerland.”
“That she’s got a boyfriend in Paris,” Lee added. “Well, you’ll just have to invite her over, son,” Mrs. Mallory said. “That shouldn’t be a chore, from the looks of her.”
Chip shifted in his seat. “I don’t know if she’ll come. She wasn’t very friendly.”
“I see.”
A few minutes later they turned in on the dirt road that led to the cottage.
“Uh oh — there’s Rachel Stone’s black pickup,” Mr. Mallory said. “I hope there’s nothing wrong.”
Mr. Mallory pulled the SUV in behind the truck. The family scrambled out. Chip and Lee hurried to the door. Inside, they met Rachel, coming from the kitchen to greet them. Through the doorway they could see Cal Froats hunched over the kitchen table, staring at the floor.
“This place seems even worse after the island,” Lee said, holding her nose.
Rachel gave her a scornful look. “Not good enough for you? Well, that’s what the old man figured.”
“Where’s May?” Chip asked.
“There’s your answer,” Cal told them. The whole family, crowded near the doorway, now saw the other side of the kitchen and the hallway that led to the sitting room.
Broken dishes littered the floor, along with a smashed Coke bottle, scraps of food, a piece of torn clothing, and one cheap running shoe.
“My goodness — what’s going on here?” Mrs. Mallory exclaimed.
“She’s been took,” Cal told them. “’Twas like that when we come here, and I knew she’d been took. Only question is, who did the taking?”
“It’s those farmer guys, Dad,” Chip said. “We should go over and get her back.”
“Could be them,” Cal said, in his slow-spoken country drawl. “Wouldn’t much surprise me. They got a real grudge against her and the shanty folk. On the other hand, it could be that fella she calls her uncle. One’s as likely as the other.”
“This is stupid,” Lee put in. “Why don’t we just call the police and then go back to the island? We’re going to get in big trouble otherwise.”
“There’s some truth in that,” her mother said. “But no matter what you think, my dear, we do have some responsibility for poor May. John, I think we should go to the shanty village and see if she’s there. Then, depending on what we find, head straight for the Children’s Aid office in Kingston and consult with them. We can call the police from there, or even better, they can call the police. As for going over to face those Dobermans, Chip, it’s just not a good idea.”
“Tear you to pieces as soon as look at you,” Cal explained.
“Anne, you’ve got the sensible plan, as usual,” Mr. Mallory said. “This mess may mean nothing, but we shouldn’t be the ones to decide. But before we go, I need a few answers from our friends here. I don’t like the way we’re being kept in the dark about everything.”
Rachel turned away, looking very grim, but said nothing. Cal shifted his feet and stared at the floor.
“My son just met a young girl who said she was Dr. Gwynn’s granddaughter. You two must know her. You’re taking care of Gwynn’s house. What is she doing here, and where are her parents, for example? Why didn’t she deal with us in the first place?”
Rachel and Cal looked at each other. There was a moment of silence, then Cal spoke. “Well, it don’t do no harm to tell you, I suppose. Folks around here don’t have a good notion of Dr. Gwynn — told you that already. Think he’s likely mixed up in things he shouldn’t be. His wife Freya was from over there — Sweden or some place — and she died when they came back from that place the doctor was digging around in, and collecting them weird statues and things. Her daughter — that’s the mother of the gal you saw — didn’t stick around after that. She went off, or was sent away, and we never saw her again. But her daughter, the old man’s granddaughter, she comes back for a visit now and then. She ain’t very old neither — maybe 16 or 17 — but she’s quite the lady.”
“Thinks too much of herself, if you ask me,” Rachel added. “A right spoiled young miss.”
“After the daughter left, Dr. Gwynn got strange, like. Wouldn’t let anyone go near the island. If you ask me, he brought more than them statues back from them old countries.”
“What did he bring?” Chip asked eagerly.
“I can’t really say no more about it. You know, if Dr. Gwynn got wind of me talking like this he’d fire me. Dr. Gwynn ain’t been drinking the milk of kindness all these years. He’s a right cold-hearted man. A fair one, and a very smart one, but right cold. And how’s a fella like me to find another job as good as this one?”
“But Dr. Gwynn’s sick, or so we’re told,” Mrs. Mallory said. “What’s going to happen when he dies?”
“The young girl, she’ll need somebody. She’ll likely be gallivantin’ all over the place. She’ll need us, all right, Cal and me, unless she sells it all, and then we’ll try to get connected with the new folks,” Rachel told them.
“Now Rachel, I understand that your position is a little tricky, that you need to protect your job,” Mr. Mallory said, “but we need to know something else. We’ve been told that Mrs. Jackson has been dead for a couple of years. So who owns this cottage now? And how did Dr. Gwynn find out that we were here? And why did he invite us to move? And how is it that your voice sounds exactly like the voice I heard on the telephone, which I thought was the voice of Mrs. Jackson?”
Rachel looked at him. Her body seemed to go rigid, her face turned pale.
“Well, go ahead,” Cal urged her. “You can tell him one or two things, anyway.”
The woman looked around from one to another of the Mallorys.
“All right, but if you let on to the old man I’ve been saying anything, there’ll be trouble. Yes, it was my voice on the phone that rented you the cottage. And it was my voice on the tape as well, as I already told you. It wasn’t my idea to fool you — I just did what the old man wanted. Margaret Jackson, God rest her soul, has been dead these two years. It’s Dr. Gwynn who owns this cottage. And it was Peter Bascombe who told me you’d come here. Peter told me that the boy here had seen the white horse. So I thought I’d best tell Dr. Gwynn. I reckon that’s when he got the notion of inviting you over to the island.”
Mr. Mallory gazed around, very excited and a little triumphant. “Well, I’ll be! Dr. Gwynn, the white horse, and a free stay on Freya’s Island. Now we’re getting somewhere!”
“Look!” his mother added quickly. “I think we have every right to talk to Dr. Gwynn about all this. Maybe we can approach him through his granddaughter, or through Lawson. But right now we have something more urgent to deal with. We’ve got to find May as soon as possible. If we don’t, we’ll be leaving her at the mercy of whoever did all this!”
She waved her hand at the broken crockery, the torn piece of clothing, the scattered bits of food. Chip took a deep breath and suddenly knew what he had to do.