Bea Flint sat in her bed and stared at the wardrobe on the far wall. In the dim light of dawn the knotty wood made itself into pictures—a silhouette of a little man writing with a huge quill, and above it a face with a twisted mouth, which changed into a strange knobbly landscape when she looked at it for long enough. She had been staring at these patterns for hours and already she hated them. Several times her eyes had closed without her permission, and she had had to pinch herself to stay awake.
She reached into Theo’s backpack and took out the Squeak Jar. She placed it on her lap and looked at it for a while. She knew now how her mother had felt when she first listened for Theo’s voice at Cambio Falls. She wanted to put off for as long as possible the terrible moment when she might put her ear to the jar and hear nothing. The face in the wardrobe door leered at her, daring her to listen. She put the horn to her ear with a sinking feeling. “Theo?” she whispered. There was only silence. The jar felt cold and empty in her hand, and she knew with a terrible certainty that Theo’s voice had left it for good. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and replaced the jar carefully in the backpack.
Eventually her head nodded and she slipped straight into a dream. She was trapped in a blank room again, with Ike Ledbetter squatting before her. His stare was mildly accusing, as though she might have slapped him in the face on some occasion she could not quite remember. She tried to speak, but her mouth was bone-dry and her tongue would not move.
Eventually Ike spoke. “Give us the Hidden Boy,” he said.
Bea jerked awake. Her skin felt clammy. The light was the same as before, and in the other bed Phoebe slept peacefully, her breathing slow and shallow. Bea dressed quietly and crept down the stairs. She let herself out onto the verandah. The ladder crouched at the verandah’s edge like a sleeping insect. She could almost see the life in the ladder as it waited to open itself. She concentrated hard. “Ladder,” she said quietly. She was sure it was on the verge of unfolding. It was just waiting for her to really believe she could do it. “Ladder,” she said again.
There was an echo to her voice this time, and to her astonishment the ladder tipped itself smartly over the edge of the verandah and met the ground with a clack-clack-thump. Bea could not believe her eyes. She would have been impressed if she had even made it twitch. She had a sudden feeling she was being watched, and looked around quickly at the house.
Willow Miller was leaning out of her bedroom window. “Go on, then,” she said flatly.
Bea felt herself deflate as she realized where the echo had come from. “That was you,” she said.
“Of course,” said Willow. “Hurry up if you’re going. It’s cold hanging out of this window.”
Bea climbed swiftly down the ladder and stepped onto the dew-soaked grass.
“Ladder,” said Willow from the window, and the ladder creaked reluctantly back into place.
“Thanks, Willow,” said Bea.
Willow shrugged. “Good luck,” she said, and she closed the window.
Bea turned and ran lightly along the path in the direction of the falls. She dreaded passing beneath the blank gaze of the library’s windows, but she did not want to risk getting lost looking for an alternative route. She kept her eyes down and ran on, light-headed from lack of sleep. She plunged into the woods when she judged she was near Arkadi’s hut. Brambles scratched her legs, but she barely noticed. She could not detect Ike’s presence anywhere nearby. He probably doesn’t have to follow me anymore, she thought, and she wondered with a shiver if he could see any of her thoughts when she dreamed of him.
When she reached the hut she found the door standing open, and the hut looked empty. Her heart sank. “This is no time to be hiding,” she said aloud.
“I’m not hiding,” said Arkadi. “I’m washing.” He was stripped to the waist and half hidden by a broad tree trunk. In front of him was a battered basin filled with water.
“I need your help,” said Bea. She glanced at Arkadi’s skinny body and was about to look away when she noticed that he had a tattoo on his left shoulder blade. Arkadi met her eye and pulled on his grubby T-shirt, but not before she had seen what the tattoo depicted. It was old and the lines had softened with the years, but she could clearly see it was a meerkat, standing tall in a tuft of faded grass and looking out into the distance.
“You want something fixed?” said Arkadi.
“I want to find my brother,” said Bea. “I need to learn Mumbo Jumbo.”
“Just like that?” said Arkadi.
“I don’t have any time left,” said Bea. “I’m the only one who can find him.”
“I don’t know anything about Mumbo Jumbo,” said Arkadi.
“You didn’t know what a meerkat was either,” said Bea, “but there’s one tattooed on your shoulder. What did you ask the tattoo artist to draw—a doggie?”
Arkadi smiled. “You have a quick eye,” he said. “And a sharp tongue. You get both from your grandmother.”
Bea’s heart quickened. “You know Granny Delphine?”
“Used to,” said Arkadi, “a long time ago.”
“Then you are the real Arkadi,” said Bea. “Why are you hiding?”
“I have my reasons,” said Arkadi.
“But nobody here has seen you for years. Wouldn’t they be happy to know you’re alive?”
“Some would, no doubt.”
“Were you hiding all that time?”
Arkadi suddenly looked tired. “I was unavoidably detained,” he said.
“But you’re here now,” persisted Bea. “Why don’t you just—”
Arkadi interrupted her. “A river must flow from the mountain to the sea, but it never does so in a straight line. Why?”
Bea thought for a moment. “Because there are obstacles to go around.”
“Perhaps,” said Arkadi. “Did you bring sandwiches?”
“No,” said Bea. “I got up before anyone. I couldn’t sleep. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Not,” said Arkadi.
“Then I’ll have to report you to the Quorum,” said Bea. “They need your help with the Ledbetters anyway. What good is hiding in the woods?”
“You made a promise.”
“My little brother is missing. If I have to break a promise to find him then I will.”
Arkadi gazed at her steadily for a while. After three days in hiding his hair was no longer slicked neatly back. It stuck out in all directions, reminding her of one of Theo’s drawings with a scribble-fringed face. His eyes were calm, like the center of a storm. “Very well,” he said. “Where do we start?”
Bea sat down on the log where Arkadi had whittled the meerkat the previous day. She had come out without the backpack, without Nails. She had not eaten, but neither did she have any appetite, and she felt giddy from lack of sleep. “Theo disappeared on the crossing,” she said. “I was able to hear his voice from the Squeak Jar, but then I dropped it and the lid came off, and now I can’t hear him anymore.”
Arkadi winced. “That’s not good,” he said. “Did you get a chance to ask him where he was?”
“He said he was somewhere where the trees were thin and wavy. He’s with some people he calls the Tree People. He was about to tell me where it was, but…”
“But you dropped the Squeak Jar?”
Bea shook her head. “I was able to hear him when I was dreaming too, but my dream was interrupted.”
“Then you can ask him next time you’re asleep.”
“I can’t sleep anymore,” said Bea. Tears were starting at the corners of her eyes, and she blinked them back impatiently.
Arkadi clicked his tongue. “Ledbetter trouble, eh?” he said, as though he were talking of nothing more serious than a mosquito bite.
“How did you know?”
“Sounds like one of Maize’s tricks,” said Arkadi. “She was always knocking on people’s skulls, that child, though it used to be just a game.”
“She’s hardly a child,” said Bea. “She’s almost a hundred.”
Arkadi shook his head in puzzlement. For a moment he looked like the confused ice-cream mechanic again. “That long,” he muttered.
“It’s Ike Ledbetter who’s squatting in my dreams,” said Bea. “I think he’s her grandson. Or maybe her great-grandson.”
“Why don’t you ask him to leave?”
Bea looked at Arkadi to see if he was joking. “I wish I could,” she said.
“A wish is no good unless you can give it legs,” said Arkadi.
“That’s what Theo said,” said Bea in surprise. “What does it mean?”
“It means that you can just wish something would happen, or you can try to figure out how to make it happen. Both are wishes, but the one with legs is more likely to get where it’s going.”
“It’s not as simple as just asking him to leave,” said Bea. “There are people all over Bell Hoot with…with Ledbetter trouble. One girl died yesterday. I can’t make him leave. It’s like he’s glued to the floor.”
“Glued, eh?” said Arkadi thoughtfully. “Tell me, whose dream is it?”
“It’s mine,” said Bea. “At least, I think so.”
“Then everything in it is created by you,” said Arkadi.
“Not Ike Ledbetter,” said Bea.
“The Ike in your dream is,” said Arkadi, “and so is the glue.”
“That was just a phrase,” said Bea. “The glue isn’t real.”
“It’s as real as your dream. What do you suppose the glue is made of?”
Bea thought about this. She made herself picture her dream, and the immobile, blank-faced figure of Ike Ledbetter squatting before her. Arkadi was right: It was her dream, so what was it that made Ike impossible to remove? She remembered the feeling of her tongue sticking to her mouth, and her heart racing with fear. “Fear?” she said.
“That’s a good answer,” said Arkadi.
“Is it the right answer?”
“Maybe.”
Bea felt a surge of irritation. It didn’t sound like Arkadi was taking her situation seriously. “I thought you were supposed to be the master of Mumbo Jumbo,” she said.
“So they say,” said Arkadi mildly.
“Then why can’t you tell me if it’s the right answer?”
“Mumbo Jumbo isn’t about answers,” said Arkadi. “It’s about asking the right questions. Like this one: How can you overcome your fear of Ike Ledbetter?”
Bea thought about the creeping Ledbetter clan. The very sight of them filled her with dread, ever since she had first seen them surrounding the Millers’ house. She pictured them climbing silently toward the windows, and saw Ike tumble from the shoulders of the stocky man below him, and the momentary start of shock on his face as he fell into the thornbush. It was the only glimpse of weakness she had seen any Ledbetter show.
“I’ll have to find out what he’s afraid of?” she said.
“That’s the right question,” said Arkadi approvingly. He was silent for a while as he chewed on the end of a twig to make himself an impromptu toothbrush. “How is your mother holding up?” he asked presently.
“She took up tattooing again,” said Bea. “That’s what she used to do before Theo was born. She worked nonstop for two days until she’d tattooed everyone in sight. I think she was trying to distract herself.”
“No doubt,” said Arkadi. “Is that the only reason she did it?”
“What other reason would there be?”
“That’s also the right question,” said Arkadi. “What are the tattoos like?”
“I only saw one up close,” said Bea. “It was beautiful. There was a lot of forest, and things hidden in it.”
Arkadi raised his bushy eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Things hidden in the forest!” said Bea. It seemed so obvious now. “Granny Delphine said that Ma has a natural aptitude for Mumbo Jumbo, but that she was afraid to learn about it.”
“Natural aptitudes have a way of coming out,” said Arkadi. “I think a closer look at your mother’s tattoos might be very instructive, don’t you?”
Bea nodded. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Why did you pretend to be…” She searched for the right words.
“Not very bright?” suggested Arkadi.
“Yes.”
“I needed you to trust me,” said Arkadi. “It’s easier to trust someone if you don’t think they’re capable of deception.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you trust me now?”
Bea looked at Arkadi. His face seemed as open as ever. “I think so,” she said.
“Then let me give you one little piece of advice.” He leaned closer to her and dropped his voice. “Those Tree People that your brother talks about—it might be best not to mention them to anyone else.”
“Why?” said Bea. “Who are they?”
Arkadi straightened up. “No idea,” he said cheerfully. “Have you?”
“No,” said Bea.
“Then until we have a good reason to believe otherwise, we should leave them in peace, don’t you think?”
“They might have kidnapped Theo,” said Bea.
“Or they might have saved him,” said Arkadi.