Jonathan woke to a burning pain in his left side and a shooting pain in his shoulder, but also the aching soreness of strained muscles. He felt as if he’d smashed into concrete from a great height. When he tried to move his left arm, he found it was in a cast, and the cast was in a sling. He was wearing pajamas with cat images all over them. Cats at play and cats at rest. Calico cats, tuxedo cats, black cats.
Well, that would at least indicate he wasn’t in the hands of the enemy.
Birdsong. Everywhere around him, it seemed, and so at first he thought he was back in Dr. Lambshead’s mansion with the bird-children. Had it all been a terrible dream?
Except the bed felt different, a bit saggy, and the air felt different, too. That expectant, hushed quality before a thunderstorm, charged and humid.
The birdsong was familiar. Red-bellied woodpeckers, cardinals, thrashers, mockingbirds, wrens, and the burry chirrup of the summer tanagers he loved so much … and, too, there were other sounds that served as clues this couldn’t be the mansion, nor Prague, either.
For one, he could swear he could hear the energetic, clumsy sound of armadillos digging somewhere down below.
Down below?
He tried to open his eyes, gasped, cried out. His head was like a bucketful of nails and the act of trying to open his eyes had made the pail fall over. He waited a moment for nausea to pass, tentatively tried again. His right eye opened proper, revealing a high wooden ceiling above him, with skylights. But he couldn’t quite open his left eye. Felt with his right arm, found a numbness there, and a puffiness, and a gauze bandage wrapped partway around his head. But he was fairly sure an eye resided within its proper orbit. So perhaps soon he would be able to open it. Something absurd about his relief that it was only one eye he couldn’t open.
Which was another way of admitting he’d expected to be dead.
He looked around with his good eye. He was in a small, bungalowlike room. On a double bed with a nightstand and a closet. A confusing tangle of flowers and herblike plants crowded the nightstand. He rather thought he saw some weeds or more herbs peeking out of the bottom of the closet door. Curious.
The hardwood floors were pine. A few feet beyond the bed, huge window-doors led out onto a small wooden deck painted gray. All around outside were trees—glorious, familiar trees. Live oaks, water oaks, magnolia trees, cypress trees, and … it was overwhelming.
He was back in Florida, no doubt about it, and alive. He’d made it out of Aurora, somehow.
Stiffly, weight on his good arm, he rose from the bed. Felt dizzy, felt old.
Unexpected, there came a weight on the bed beside him. A small weight—and a familiar face staring up at him, cheerful. Dr. Lambshead’s pocketknife! Not lost at all. It must have stayed by his side after he lost consciousness.
A sudden pang, an upwelling of tears. Good old magic pocketknife. Old pal. He would need to treat the pocketknife better. To understand more about all the magical things. So he didn’t take them for granted.
He knew he wasn’t fighting back tears because of a pocketknife, but there it was. He felt eviscerated, hollowed out. Like anything could set him off.
Sat on the edge of the bed for a while, then gathered up the pocketknife, which in seeming delight lived up to its name and scurried into his pants pocket.
Then Jonathan shuffled to the window-doors, slid aside the screen door that kept out the mosquitoes, and went out onto the deck … there to look upon a heavily wooded ravine with a small clearing at the bottom and a dry creek bed, the area beyond the creek covered in pine straw and loam, in which stood elderberry bushes and an intricate bird feeder station.
There were, indeed, earth pigs snuffling around for grubs in the clearing and, gravitating to the bird feeder, dozens and dozens of birds. He dubbed the armadillos Cutie and Patootie. But he already knew them, or their parents, had called them an assortment of nicknames.
He caught his balance against the deck railing, appreciated the solid feel of cedar under his hand, soft but hard, rough but smooth. Something to hold on to for more than his balance.
For he knew the bird feeder. He knew the ravine. Just, from the other side, the westernmost bungalow and its dilapidated deck a postage-stamp-sized mirage from his vantage.
The little house he’d grown up in. The deck, falling apart, that he’d stood upon so many times, staring out at the many trees. Wondering who lived in the peculiar place that almost looked like a tree house across the ravine.
And now, Jonathan supposed, he would find out.
Oh, Sarah, even exile wouldn’t be simple, straightforward, would it? No easy aftermath.
No, of course not.
It was all enough to make his head spin, and not from his injuries or whatever medicine he’d been given.
There were wildflowers without human faces down below, and he laughed with joy to see so many familiar friends: the delicacy of beardtongue, the reliance of Silphium sunflowers, the hardy, tall salt bush and the straggling butterfly weed, swamp hibiscus, and swampier milkweed. With the armadillos, armored intruders but bumblers too earnest and endearing to begrudge them their garden excavations, barreling through, making a riotous mess.
“Hello, chum,” a voice said from behind Jonathan.
He turned slow, with care. There, in the doorway, sat his dear friend, in a decidedly non-offensive wheelchair.
“Rack!”
Rack smiled. “In the flesh. It got worse, before it got better, after we were separated, but here we are.”
But the “we” rang false and any relief Jonathan might have felt at seeing him, so fit and dressed so proper and Floridian in shorts he must feel were a fashion disaster and a linen shirt he must find very plain, was tempered by the sight of Tee-Tee on Rack’s shoulder. Rack taking care of Tee-Tee. Now there was a laugh. But he wasn’t laughing.
Rack’s gaze was tempered, too, even as Jonathan asked the question to which he knew the answer.
“Danny?” Felt numb, woozy again.
Rack shook his head, looked away. “Missing. We don’t know where. Crowley?”
“Mamoud?” Hoping, perversely, that maybe they were missing together. Have at least that hope of helping each other.
“Made it to Prague, helping lead the resistance, last we heard.”
“We?” Jonathan asked.
Rack hesitated. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than dead.”
Rack nodded. “Very well. Then there’s someone upstairs you should talk to—alone—rather sooner than later. The person who rescued you. And me.”
Upstairs, even higher in the canopy, was yet another deck that looked out over the vines and trees and more birdsong here, too. The armadillos were little gray oblong dots below, snuffling and snorting.
The top floor of the house, with cathedral ceilings of cedar, lined with long, wide windows. So much light came in, the hardwood floors shone with it. The peculiar asymmetrical living room couch shone, too. The surreal art on the walls spoke to Jonathan in a specific way, as if he had helped choose it.
Around the corner, the kitchen and the dining room table, with more amazing windows. A small woman in a dress covered in flowers stood next to the dining room table. She had dark brown hair, startling eyes, a small nose, and he couldn’t tell how old she was. Perhaps it was a quality of the eyes, which had a directness, an odd clarity, and how she looked right at you and did not look away. She could have been anywhere from her late thirties to fifties. Later, he could not even remember what color her eyes had been.
But he remembered her from the memory the Voice had given back to him while falling. The topiary, the odd tent, Dr. Lambshead taking him on a stroll … where? Aurora? So, a member of the Order.
Yet something about her was much more familiar than that. A silhouette, ducking into a hedge. Not Alice. Not Alice at all.
“You were the person I saw when I arrived at Dr. Lambshead’s mansion!” It felt so good to have figured that out, even if it seemed like the littlest thing now, after everything else.
“Yes, I was. And I am also the one who found you in the forests outside Prague, badly injured, and brought you here.”
“With a stop at the hospital first, I gather,” Jonathan said.
“Yes. Rather important. Although I have some healing skills myself.”
“The plants on the nightstand.”
“Exactly.”
“Forgive me getting to the point,” Jonathan said, “but what is this place? Right across from my old digs. That cannot be coincidence.”
“This place is where the Order kept watch over you, Jonathan. By Sarah’s orders,” Kristýna said.
“You were across the ravine the whole time.”
“Part of the time, yes. Other people other times. Members of the Order.”
“And who are you? And why were you spying on me at the mansion?”
She hesitated. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down.”
“Just tell me.”
“Well, Jonathan … I’m your grandmother. Dr. Lambshead’s former wife.”
“But she died in a car crash!”
“Yes, that was the easiest way to disappear. It was a very dangerous time.”
His grandmother.
The room was swimming and the trees were on the inside, not the outside, and the armadillos were up on their hind legs, dancing in a circle with him. He felt quite faint and overcome, and he would have fainted if not for Kristýna shoving a glass of water into his hands. A long drink helped.
She sat opposite him at the dining room table, quiet but watchful, as he recovered.
“Why?” he asked, after a minute. “Why in the blazes have you hidden yourself from me my whole life?”
“It was too dangerous.”
“You said that. And now?”
Kristýna leaned forward, would have taken his hand in hers, but he put it down at his side. Which made his broken arm hurt. He winced. She leaned back again, regarding him. He couldn’t read her expression to save his life.
“It’s changed, Jonathan. It’s changed so much. Still dangerous, but less point in hiding it. Everyone knows you’re alive.”
“So I guess I’m in it whether I want to be or not.”
She shook her head. “No. You still have a choice. You’ve been badly injured, suffered a trauma. You can live here, away from it all, if you like. No one will find you here for years and years.”
“And yet, eventually, they will. And meanwhile, my friend Danny’s out there, without even Tee-Tee to help her.”
“Listen to me,” his grandmother said, and there was force to her voice, cutting through his nattering on. “You can have a normal life. You can, if you want. And no one should tell you otherwise.”
“I wonder what a normal life would look like now.”
He fell silent and she said nothing and clouds took away the sunlight and filled the room with shade. The greenery outside. The sighing of the trees. The whisper of needles from the tall pines. There, on a branch, a nuthatch, doing silly nuthatch things. Hard not to love a nuthatch. He could be so happy here, work in the garden, feed the birds.
It made him sad, though. All of it made him sad. The beauty here, the violence out there. The fact his grandmother, sitting across from him, was a stranger. That he did not feel as if he could reach out to her, embrace her. Even call her Grandmother.
“What do you want to ask me, Jonathan?” Kristýna asked finally. “I cannot stand this silence. You may think this has been easy for me. It hasn’t. I can tolerate it if you dislike me, if you dislike the choices I’ve had to make. But this silence … I can’t.”
“Don’t take it personally,” he said. “I need time.”
“Then ask me questions. Let me help by giving you the comfort of answers.”
“All right, then,” he said, looking her in the eye. Which took a deep and abiding effort, because she would always have a strength of personality that was hard to look upon direct.
“All right, then,” she echoed, a thin smile across her mouth. And now he saw the age lines and he saw the age and he saw sacrifice and he saw … he saw that she was his grandmother. He felt it, for the first time.
“Is Dr. Lambshead alive? Did he survive Wretch’s attack?”
“Your grandfather? Yes. He’s still safely hidden at the Institute.”
Jonathan let out a deep sigh of relief. “There’s that, then. And the Wobble? Did we lose it? Do we know?”
“It is lost.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was. It felt a bit like a body blow, after all they’d been through. He tried not to think about what it meant that they didn’t know where Danny was, but also knew she didn’t have the Wobble.
His grandmother shrugged. “The Wobble was a good plan, solid. One of the better things Thwack came up with in his later years, to be honest. We plan to get it back, if possible, and continue with our initial plan. But if it’s off the table, we go on to the next thing.”
“And what is the next thing?”
“For you? Go back to Poxforth with Rack. At least, for a while.”
“But we have to go after Danny!”
“We don’t know exactly where your friend is, Jonathan. And she is in the middle of a war zone, in a situation rapidly escalating. Let those more expert at these things do their work.”
“I can’t leave her there. Rack can’t.”
“You didn’t let me finish, which I think is a harbinger of things to come … Jonathan, the headmaster at Poxforth is not himself.”
“Yes—he’s dead, in fact.”
“Perhaps. It’s not as straightforward as that. Things at Poxforth are … very strange. Also at Porthfox. It will benefit the Order more for you to be back at the academy, figuring this out.”
“After everything that happened?” Bitter. “To be sidelined at Poxforth.”
“Not sidelined. Helping. Learning more about your magic. Learning to control it. And investigating a mystery that we need to know the answers to. While you also study more about the Order. There is so much to tell you. To brief you on. Now that I can.”
“You’ll teach me? You’ll explain my … powers?”
“As best as I’m able. It’s better than plunging you back into this kind of war that’s coming.”
“What kind?”
“The kind played by fools who think it’s a game. It isn’t a game. Millions could die.”
“Like my mother. Did she die because of this game?”
“My daughter lives on in you. You have her eyes. You are like her. In so many ways. You don’t even know.”
Were those eyes glistening now, with tears? It must be a trick of the light.
“And my father?” The lurch and dislocation of those three words. But he had to know. She had to know.
She hesitated. “The truth may be difficult for you.”
He erupted at that, half out of his seat. “Do you think I care? Everything’s difficult. Everything. Just tell me!”
“I’m not that—”
“Out with it!”
“Fair enough. Your father is … Stimply. He’s your father. And I know that may be a lot to take in. But it’s true.”
Jonathan sat down, stunned. Everything was swimming, like he was having a stroke. Silly, disorganized Stimply.
Stimply.
“But he’s … he’s … ridiculous.”
“Jonathan!” Kristýna’s eyes flashed. She seemed genuinely angry. “Stimply is one of the bravest men I know! He risks his life for the Order every day.”
Stimply. His father.
“How … why …”
“He’s a better man than he seems.”
“But he’s a fool!”
“He’s a muddled man. A complicated man. A haunted man. But he’s not a fool. There’s just a lot on him. He’s much harried at the moment, by our enemies. He risked his life to call you all those times, because he loves you.”
No all-powerful father to rescue him. No, instead he had … Stimply.
“I’ll take your word for it. He could’ve told me anytime.” Trying to compose himself.
“No, he couldn’t have. Too dangerous for him and for you. No one must know he’s your father. Ever.”
“Ever.”
Kristýna relented. “Or at least until the situation changes—drastically.”
Stimply.
He’d been talking to his father for over a year. About stupid things. About silly things. About things that didn’t matter. Or did matter. All those sounds in the background. All those frenetic, terrible sounds, while Stimply tried to keep his calm. While his father tried to keep his calm.
Jonathan began to weep. Just put his head in his hands and bawled.
“Jonathan! It’s not that bad. As I said, Stimply—”
He raised his head, wiped his nose, tried to stanch the tears. “No, no, you don’t understand. It’s okay. It really is. I just … I just realized, you know—I have a family again. I have a grandfather, I have a grandmother. I have a father.”
He reached out his good hand and took Kristýna’s in his.
“Grandma,” he said, trying it out.
It felt good. But it still felt odd, too.
Later, Jonathan returned to his room, to the balcony, spent. They would have dinner soon, him and his grandma and Rack and Tee-Tee. They would sit down at the dining room table, and his grandmother would serve him dinner. How miraculous. How unreal.
Everything receded over time. Pain. Loss. Even without Dr. Lambshead resurrected, he had a whole mansion filled with the man’s history and belongings. It was almost more real than the man himself.
But Sarah. He had her stories; he would now have her mother’s stories about her. But it was harder and harder to conjure up her face. Was that a good thing? Should he let it happen or fight it? Would he still be his mother’s son? What would be left of her? In the end, he’d only ever cared about what she wanted for him—a mother who had given him a fake name, who had hidden him from his own family. Had wanted him out of sight. For his whole life? Or only until he could decide for himself?
The nasal pulsing croak of gray tree frogs from the pine trees. A light rain coming down now, and he let it fall down on him. Such a relief. That wet, soaked, humid jungle. He would hate to leave this place, but the memory of it, in his heart, would sustain him through whatever came next.
Jonathan would never be Dr. Lambshead, the eccentric public figure to whom action had come so effortless, who had, before, seemed so decisive and extraordinarily gifted … at everything. He was too much his mother’s son, and thankful for that.
But Sarah hadn’t sat on the sidelines, and he found he didn’t want to sit on the sidelines either. Not really. A rising emotion he could not identify overtook him, like the swell of orchestral music. Neither anger nor sadness, but determination. Perhaps this place made him more himself than before, or he’d just experienced so much in such a short amount of time.
All Jonathan knew was that he’d be damned if someone else, no matter how wise, made his decisions for him. If his path led to Poxforth, or even back to Prague on Aurora, that would be his choice. His alone.
“Are you there, Voice?” he asked, out loud.
I am, Jonathan. I am here. Always.
“Good. I’m going to need you.”
He was going to need everyone and everything.
There was a Golden Sphere to be captured, by hook or by crook, a deranged dictator to unseat, and a mystery within the Order to solve.