Part 13 (1/2)

Zach stared at the plaque. He read through it again to be sure he understood it, his own dream echoing in his ears. If what he and Poppy had dreamed was true, if Eleanor was real, then Lukas Kerchner didn't kill his daughter. Her aunt must have caused Eleanor to fall off the roof, and Lukasa”who, murderer or not, was clearly supercrazya”must have found her body and decided that the only fitting tribute was to turn her into a doll made from his precious Orchid Ware.

A shudder ran through him. It felt like electricity sparking over his skin.

Upstairs, he heard a sound like someone calling outa”maybe calling a name. Miss Katherine must be in the library looking for them. Zach didn't have any more time to worry about Lukas Kerchner. He had to find the doll. He had to find Eleanor.

Quickly he walked into the first room they'd come into from the window. It was carpeted in blown paper, making the floor seem covered in fallen snow. There was no doll, though. Not on any of the filing cabinets or on the bookshelf on the far end or underneath the desks.

Crossing the hall, he went into another room, this one piled with boxes of books. He peered into each, but there was no sign of the Queen.

Then, not sure where else to look, he ducked into the girls' bathroom. He'd never been in the girls' room before, and there was something embarra.s.sing about it. He definitely didn't want to get caught there. Looking around, though, it wasn't that different from a boys' bathroom. The tile was pink, and there were no urinals on the wall, just a row of three stalls and a single sinka”but otherwise, it was identical. He walked toward the sinks and the mirror without much hope, until he noticed the metal trash can resting against one wall.

The Queen was there, lying inside the trash can, on a bed of wadded-up paper towels, her odd eyes staring up at Zach. He took a sudden, startled step back and met his own gaze in the mirror.

But even that was strange. Instead of his regular skin, he saw a face made from cracked white china with black holes where the eyes should have been. And when he opened his mouth to scream, his reflection stayed perfectly serene, lips motionless on what seemed almost like a mask.

Then he blinked and he was looking at his own face. Everything was normal, except that his heart was hammering against his chest.

He told himself that maybe Poppy had gotten up in the middle of the night and come down to use the bathroom. Maybe she'd been half-asleep and had left the Queen on a sink and the doll had fallen into the trash. It was a weird explanation, but he was going to a.s.sume that was what had happened. Otherwise, he was going to have to accept that she'd lured him to the bas.e.m.e.nt so he'd read her story. Maybe later he'd be okay with thinking about that, like once he was out in the suns.h.i.+ne again.

He was also going to a.s.sume that he'd freaked himself out and that's why he'd thought he saw something in the mirrora”something that clearly wasn't there.

Zach leaned down and carefully took the Queen out of the trash. Holding her to his chest, he started to runa”out the door and up the stairs, hitting the front door of the library with his shoulder and plunging out into the cold autumn day.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

ALICE WAS ALREADY WAITING ON THE SIDE OF THE library, squatted down and half-hidden behind a bush. She was about to say something when she spotted the Queen in his arms and jumped up.

”You did it,” she said in a half whisper. ”You found her!”

He nodded vigorously. ”Where's Poppy?”

But just as the words came out of his mouth, Poppy rounded the corner of the building, running toward them. He caught a glimpse of pink hair behind her. ”Go!” she shouted. ”Go! Go!”

They pelted down the street, racing through winding roads that led to Main. After a few blocks, Zach paused, panting. When he looked back over his shoulder, he didn't see Miss Katherine anymore. He wasn't sure the librarian's bright-yellow shoes with the bows were the kind that you could run in.

”We made it,” Zach said.

”You found the Queen.” Poppy smiled at him. She hadn't smiled like that since before he'd lied to her about William, since before they started the quest.

He found himself grinning back. ”I found something else, too. About her story. I think I know what she wanted us to find out.”

”Not now,” said Alice, shaking her head. ”We've got to keep moving. For all we know, the librarian might be calling the cops.”

”Do you still have the directions to the cemetery?” Zach asked Poppy.

Poppy nodded. ”But we aren't going to make it there on foot. Unlessa”” Then she took off again, racing up Main Street.

They ran after her. She stopped in front of the gaming store, where a few bikes rested, some chained to a nearby pole and two leaned against a wall. She eyed them speculatively.

”You can't be serious,” Zach said. ”We're just going toa””

Poppy picked one up and started to walk with it toward Alice. ”You pedal,” Poppy told her. ”I'll get on the handlebars. And I'll tell you where to go.”

Alice nodded, throwing her leg over the bike and steadying it.

”No worse than taking the boat,” Poppy said, climbing up onto the front of the bike. ”We'll bring them back. If we're fast enough, maybe whoever they belonged to won't even have finished their game yet.”

Shaking his head, he grabbed the other unlocked bike. Shoving the Queen inside his sweats.h.i.+rt, and with one arm holding the old, creepy doll in place, he mounted the seat and pedaled off after Poppy. They whizzed down the street, hair blowing behind them, his legs pumping harder and harder as they sped on.

”This way,” Poppy shouted against the wind, a flimsy piece of paper blowing in one hand, the other arm extended to indicate an upcoming left turn.

He felt the same elation he had aboard the little Sunfish: the certainty that they were going to make it and the pleasure that came from solving a problem that had only minutes before seemed insurmountable. Only now, looking back, did he realize how truly crazy their middle-of-the-night plan to find Eleanor Kerchner's grave had been. But here they were, within minutes of the cemetery. They might turn out to be the kind of people who finished quests after all.

At that thought, he felt something move inside his s.h.i.+rt.

Zach's bike wobbled, and he nearly crashed. He skidded to a halt instead, breathing raggedly. Alice zoomed ahead, down the street.

”Stop it,” he told the Queen firmly, not caring if he sounded like a lunatic. ”I get that you're excited. I get that we're really close to the end. And I even get that you like to freak me out. But I don't have my bike helmet, and you're made of some superthin Orchid Ware, so if we crash, we're both going to break. Okay?”

The doll didn't move, which didn't mean anything, since the squirming might just have been his imagination. He pushed off the road and started to pedal again just as Alice and Poppy rode onto the lawn of the Spring Grove Cemetery.

He followed them, dismounting and dropping his bike beside theirs on the soft gra.s.s near the entrance, wheels still spinning. The graveyard was a tidy meadow of trimmed hedges and orderly stones. They spread out over the hill that ran up against a wooded area. A path of white gravel veered along the side, barely wide enough for a car.

”Okay,” Alice said. ”Now what?”

”We look for a willow tree,” said Poppy. ”You know, one of the ones with the long branches and the leaves that hang down.”

”A weeping willow?” Zach put in.

Poppy nodded. ”I think so, but I think regular willows have leaves that hang down too, just not as far.”

”Okay,” Alice said. ”Depressed-looking trees. Got it. If it seems droopy and miserable at all, I'm calling you to confirm its willowy status.”

Zach unzipped his sweats.h.i.+rt and glanced toward Poppy. ”Hey. You want to go back to carrying Eleanor?”

Poppy smirked. ”How come? Does she make you nervous?”

Zach shrugged. ”I just thought that you'd want her, since you brought her all this way. But if you don'ta””

Poppy put out her hands. ”I do, coward.”

He handed over the Queen with great relief. Now when he looked at her, he couldn't help but believe she really was made from the bones of a dead girl. It made touching her shuddersome. He didn't care if Poppy teased him. He didn't want to carry the doll through the cemetery surrounded by dead people.

”Yell if you see anything,” said Alice. ”Like willow trees . . . or zombies.”

Zach forced a laugh as they walked through the quiet graveyard, past flowerpots and wreaths, past statues to fallen soldiers and memorial benches and a large expanse of gra.s.s dotted with bronze grave markers. They pa.s.sed fat oak trees, a smallish collection of pine trees, and something that Zach thought might be a locust tree, but which was definitely not a willow.