The Accidental Keyhand Read online

  Dorrie huddled close to Ebba, the enormous clay vessel in her trembling arms becoming heavier by the moment. “What should we do?”

  “Stay together!” hissed Ebba, her wide dark eyes sucking in the details of the room with the power of two of the hungrier black holes in the universe.. “And hope we don’t run into any of the lybrarians.” A man with drooping eyes snapped his fingers at her. When she didn’t move, he snapped them again more insistently. Slowly, Ebba held her laden tray out to him. He rummaged for the grapes he wanted and stuffed them all in his mouth, talking to another man all the while.

  “He didn’t even say thank you,” said Ebba, as they forced themselves to move forward through the crowd in the direction Marcus had gone. “And no women here, of course. Typical ancient Athenian deal. Mathilde told me all about it.”

  Another man brayed at Ebba. “Olives! Over here!” Ebba gave Dorrie a pinched, helpless look and eased toward him with the tray. Dorrie was about to follow her when a man held out a black and red bowl with two little handles under her nose. She froze, staring at him blankly, until he jiggled the bowl. “Some wine if you please.”

  Dorrie slowly lifted her pitcher, glancing wildly around for Marcus. He was standing next to the cluster of musicians, head bouncing to the drummer’s rhythms. “I don’t believe him!” she murmured.

  “Any time, girl,” said the man. Dorrie tipped the pitcher up over his bowl, and before she could tip it back, an overflowing slosh of red wine poured onto the man’s hand and the floor.

  “You dunce!” said the man, passing the bowl to his other hand and shaking his arm. She tried to look as apologetic as possible.

  Dorrie heaved the jug of wine into a more secure bear hug and hurried off in search of Ebba. Coming around a group of men, she almost dropped it. Not far away stood a long-boned man with a purple cloak over his chiton, holding his hand up for attention. It was one of the other Athenian keyhands, Leandros. She dived behind the fronds of a potted plant.

  “Oh Mercury! I entreat you! Get our host on with his speech!” groaned a man sitting on a couch nearby. “And on with this blasted symposium.” He had a great globe of a forehead and a thick, black curling beard. “Socrates wants to be free to call the sun the moon and the moon the sun. And I say—prattle away! But laws are laws and he must be willing to take the consequences.”

  Marcus appeared beside her. “Nice guy, that drummer. We traded a few rhythms.”

  “You are impossible!” hissed Dorrie. She pulled him closer. “One of the Athenian keyhands is out there!”

  Ebba sidled up beside them. “I hope there’s a really nice room for women in this place,” she said, “and men better be serving the grapes. What do we do now?”

  Dorrie pointed Leandros out to her and checked to make sure no one was listening. “If the History of Histories page did get thrown away, maybe the trash is still around here somewhere.” She turned to Ebba. “I don’t suppose Mathilde happened to mention what ancient Athenians do with their trash?”

  Marcus tapped his foot to the music. “Well, I know it eventually gets dumped in a big pile about a mile outside of town.”

  Dorrie’s hopes shriveled. “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, I had to come up with an equivalent of the trash-compactor scene in Star Wars for Casanova’s play, so I asked him what the ancient Greeks did with their garbage.”

  Dorrie dropped her face into her hands. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “But maybe no one’s taken it there yet,” said Ebba, putting her tray down on a handy table.

  Dorrie raised her head. “At home, we put trash out on the curb. By the street. Near the front door.” She pushed the wine jug into Marcus’s arms. “Here. Just keep serving people so that old guy doesn’t come looking for us. And stay out of sight of Leandros. We’ll be right back.”

  In silent agreement, Dorrie and Ebba ducked and slipped their way back into the courtyard, just in time to watch a man with an enormous stomach waddle into it through a wide opening.

  “That sort of looks like a street out there, doesn’t it?” said Ebba, her voice giddy with new sensation, her eyes on the opening in the mud-colored brick courtyard wall. Dorrie nodded. Shoulder to shoulder with Ebba, she made her leaden legs move forward, her heart crashing about at the thought of moving even farther away from the safety of Petrarch’s Library.

  At the opening, they stood aside as three men entered laughing boisterously, and then ducked through. They found themselves in a narrow, crooked street lined for the most part with more two-story brick buildings, roofed with heavy-looking tiles. Great clay vessels stood against the walls beside various doorways, and a thin stream of dirty-looking water wended its way down the street’s middle.

  A mound of rubbish lay in front of the building across the street and in front of another building beside it. A strong wind carried the scent of rot and plugged-up toilets. Against the near wall, a few yards away from the entrance to the courtyard they’d exited, Dorrie caught sight of a half-circle of mud mixed with straw. A few bits of broken pottery and pomegranate peels poked out here and there.

  “Oh, no,” whispered Dorrie, running over to the spot. “If this was the trash, someone’s already taken it.”

  “Look,” said Ebba moving a bit of the straw with her foot. A piece of papery material lay in the mess. Just as Dorrie reached for it, the foul wind sent it flipping and flopping down the street.

  Dorrie and Ebba dashed after it, their sandals making slapping noises on the dirt. As they approached a corner, the wind died. “Hah!” shouted Dorrie, leaping, stretching out her leg, intent on coming down with her foot on the runaway piece of papyrus. Instead, she found herself crashing with great force into a person just turning the corner.

  She felt trapped and entangled for a moment before the person threw her off and she landed hard on her side. Something hard and shiny bounced into Dorrie’s lap. It was a little, stoppered silver bottle. Dorrie stared at it, blinking, frightened of it somehow. For a moment, she had the inside-out feeling that the little bottle knew her.

  The man snatched the bottle up as Ebba pounced on the piece of paper. Dorrie staggered to her feet. “I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. The tall man, his hair silvery, said nothing but regarded her with an air of withering accusation. Like everyone else Dorrie had so far seen in Athens, he wore a chiton, but he also wore a wide belt and an extra piece of cloth over one shoulder.

  In the dusk, his nails glowed clean and ghostly white, as though he never had to do anything with his hands except perhaps wave them through the air. He walked on, followed by a cadaverous man, his stringy hair blowing in the wind, carrying an enormous lizard wearing a jeweled collar.

  Dorrie shuddered and took firm hold of Ebba’s arm, in case she had any ideas about chasing after the men and trying to pet the crocodile thing. They scuttled back toward the house, trembling. At the entryway, breathing hard, they huddled and hurriedly smoothed out the piece of paper. Ebba read aloud. “Almonds, grape leaves, salted pork, anchovies...It’s just a shopping list.” Dorrie felt like weeping. “We have to get back and tell Hypatia what’s happened.”

  Dorrie and Ebba dashed through the courtyard and then plunged back into the crowded inner room to fetch Marcus. Something felt different. The music had become faster and wilder and louder. The old man was looking with great antagonism at the musicians. Some guests had stuck their fingers in their ears, while others had begun to dance wildly. The man who’d complained about the symposium looked positively wrathful. As Dorrie watched, he marched over to one of the drums and gave it a mighty kick. The musicians’ playing came to a dissonant halt.

  “Let that be the last anyone ever has to hear of Timotheus.”

  The drummer that Marcus had been talking to leaped to his feet. He had bits of leather and cloth braided into some of his long locks. “That’s my best drum! How dare you?”

  “H
ow dare you inspire this company to ill-bred wildness with your uncivilized rhythms!” raged the drum-kicker.

  “The only thing wrong with the rhythms is that they’re ones you haven’t heard before,” said Timotheus. “You old goat.”

  At that, the “old goat” launched himself at Timotheus, and they fell crashing into the other musicians. A great shouting and jangling rose up as the other musicians fell upon Timotheus’ attacker, and still more guests came to the aid of the man who’d kicked the drum. Seeing Marcus, Dorrie grabbed hold of him, and together with Ebba, they ducked and dived their way through the crowd toward the door—to the accompanying sound of breaking crockery and angry shouting—and then out into the courtyard.

  Marcus looked back at the mayhem. “You don’t think that’s the Timotheus of Miletus, that I read about in that book, do you? Because if it is… then I just…uh-oh.”

  Dorrie ducked as a wine bowl went sailing overhead.

  They piled into the little library room and Ebba slammed the door behind them. Not even bothering to check and see if the corridor was empty, Dorrie sprang for the archway, with the others in tow. They landed in a tangle on the corridor’s carpet. From his perch on the tattered couch, Moe greeted them with a luxurious yawn and turned over, all docile sweetness, his paws in the air. Ebba scooped him up.

  “Anybody could be reading that page right now.” Dorrie scrambled to her feet and began to sprint down the corridor. Hypatia has to know the page is really gone.”

  Dorrie sped up, summoning her courage. Telling Hypatia what she’d done would be much harder than facing any sword-wielding villain she could imagine. She flashed on her old problems in Passaic. They looked so tiny. A brother who was going to make her late for the Pen and Sword Festival? A sister who had poured a little bit of dirty water into Dorrie’s orange juice out of…a little silver bottle. Dorrie skidded to a halt, the others ploughing into her. “Now what,” demanded Marcus.

  Dorrie sucked in her breath. The bottle that had fallen into her lap in Athens was the twin of Miranda’s. But where had Miranda found hers? Dorrie had never seen it before. It had been such a crazy rush of a morning, with Mr. Scuggans calling and books falling and her boot missing and the doorbell ringing.

  A bolt of lightning seemed to fly right through Dorrie’s chest. She stared at her thumbnail.

  “Dorrie, what is it?” said Ebba. “What’s wrong?”

  “That man we saw on the street out in Athens. I’ve seen him before. In Passaic. He came to see Great-Aunt Alice.” Dorrie remembered now the way his gray hair seemed to absorb the sunlight and that he’d worn gloves on that warm June morning. Mr. Biggs he’d called himself. A feeling of horror stole cold and jagged through Dorrie. She shivered and closed her eyes, notions of past, present, and future sliding over each other, pieces of a puzzle grabbing at other pieces.

  “How?” said Marcus, staring at Dorrie. “He’d have to time-travel, and only the lybrarians…” His words trailed off, leaving an awful silence.

  “If he is time-traveling,” whispered Ebba, “is he a friend or an enemy, or someone who doesn’t even know about Petrarch’s Library?”

  “I don’t know, but he wasn’t very nice,” said Dorrie. She pictured the man again as he snatched the silver bottle from her lap. His fingernails had looked odd. Not pinkish, but white. A dull perfect white. The white of chalk or paint or…. “And I think he was wearing nail polish.” She turned frightened eyes on Marcus, feeling utterly sick now. “Great-Aunt Alice couldn’t be working against the Lybrariad, could she?”

  Marcus shrugged. “I don’t think she hated being a librarian that much.”

  Without another word, Dorrie spun and resumed her sprint towards Hypatia and the Celsus, her legs moving faster than she ever thought they could. “We have to tell Hypatia. About everything! Before something terrible happens.”

  ***

  Inside the main hall of the Celsus, neat stacks of paper lay on the tabletops in preparation for the next day’s scheduled Keyhand Council meeting. When they reached Hypatia’s office, chests heaving, Dorrie could hear voices rising and falling from inside. Feeling sick, she forced herself to travel the last few steps to the door, Marcus and Ebba beside her. She raised her hand to knock but hesitated as she heard Hypatia’s voice. “You’re absolutely sure about what you saw, Mr. Gormly?”

  “Yes,” Dorrie heard Mr. Gormly say. “They went through the Athens archway. At first I thought they must have had been with one of the keyhands, so I just went about my business, but then I got to thinking that it just didn’t make sense, and with things as they are, I ought to say something.”

  Dorrie’s heart sank. She gave Marcus and Ebba a despairing look.

  “How much more proof do you need that Dorothea and Marcus Barnes are mixed up in something dangerous to the Lybrariad?” barked Francesco. “The people who trailed Kash were asking everyone they came in contact with about a small gray star. Just the size that would fit in that book of the girl’s.”

  Dorrie inhaled sharply.

  “We shouldn’t have trusted them,” said Francesco.

  “You never did,” Dorrie heard Savi say. “But some of us still do. Being mixed up in something dangerous to the Lybrariad is not the same as intending us harm.”

  Francesco went on. “The people who captured Kash had black nails. Callamachus tells me several historians now mention ‘Blacknails’ in their books. Millie tells me that Ms. Barnes’s thumbnail is black as night and has been since the day she arrived.”

  The grim satisfaction in Francesco’s voice began to turn Dorrie’s fear into outrage.

  Dorrie knocked hard on the door. Heavy footsteps sounded, and Francesco jerked it open. Hypatia sat behind her desk. Mr. Gormly stood to one side of it and Savi to the other. Even in her shame, Dorrie couldn’t help but feel a stab of betrayal as she glanced at Mr. Gormly.

  Dorrie forced herself to walk through the doorway, Ebba and Marcus at her heels. “I did go through the archway,” said Dorrie, finding Hypatia’s eyes and then Savi’s. “Mr. Gormly is right. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  A tense silence filled the room. From the window, Dorrie could hear the shouts and cheers of the crowds watching the stone-tablet relay races. On Ebba’s shoulder, Moe dug around in her hair, chittering.

  Hypatia slowly tapped one finger gently on her desk. “May I see your hand?”

  Slowly, Dorrie extended it toward Hypatia. Hypatia turned it over gently so that the thumbnail showed. “It looks as though the aurochs stepped on it.”

  “I…I thought I bashed it sword-fighting.”

  Hypatia pressed gently at the base of Dorrie’s nail. “Does that hurt?”

  “No,” whispered Dorrie, wishing it did.

  Hypatia released Dorrie’s hand. “Did you realize before today that you could pass through the Athens archway?”

  Sick shame rolled through Dorrie, mixing its stickiness with the anger. “Yes,” she finally said, her voice a near-whisper. “It’s what I came to tell you about.”

  “Oh, ho, now she wants to tell us about it,” said Francesco, his eyes icy. “After she’s been caught red-handed.”

  “Dorrie didn’t even know that Mr. Gormly had seen us,” said Marcus.

  Ebba turned pleading eyes on Hypatia. “Dorrie came to tell you about it because she wanted you to know!”

  Hypatia leaned back in her chair. “Please don’t shout, Ebba.”

  “And return to the attics, at once,” added Francesco furiously.

  “No,” said Hypatia. “I think we’d better hear from all three of them.”

  “We can start,” said Francesco, “by having a very detailed discussion about what exactly you were doing in Athens.”

  It was an awful conversation. Dorrie told them everything. About Marcus accidentally tearing out the page from the History of Histories book, about accidentally s
tumbling into Athens and dropping the page there, about trying to get it back and failing. She told them about how she’d been afraid to tell the truth at first out of fear of being marooned, and then because she wanted to train in the sword, and finally because she’d wanted so badly to be a part of Petrarch’s Library. About how Ebba had encouraged her to tell the Lybrariad and how Dorrie hadn’t wanted to jeopardize her chances of becoming a real apprentice.

  Dorrie’s insistence that she cared about the Lybrariad and was beyond sorry about putting it in danger sounded hollow even in her own ears. Savi insisted to Hypatia that he could vouch for Dorrie’s best intentions, while Francesco accused her of outright lying about them.

  “I know what I did was wrong, but I wasn’t lying to hurt anyone,” Dorrie said, her chest tight with heartsickness, her eyes trained on Savi.

  Listening, Hypatia’s calm eyes had neither excused nor accused Dorrie and Marcus, but they seemed to contain deep disappointment. How terribly it had burned Dorrie to tell them about seeing Mr. Biggs and his disguised nails in Athens, and the fact that he had been in the Barnes’ own home as a guest of her Great-Aunt Alice.

  “Well, we know at least that the aunt is definitely working against us,” said Francesco. “We cannot afford to keep the question of the loyalty of these two young interlopers open.”

  “We must, until and unless we can’t,” said Savi.

  Francesco looked at his pocket watch. “Kash’s search team leaves in just a few minutes. I must go.”

  Savi’s jaw tightened.

  Francesco leaned on Hypatia’s desk and fixed her with his one good eye. “We have about forty-five minutes left to exercise…all of our options, if you know what I mean. After that we no longer will be able control the situation. I beg you, think of the Lybrariad’s security.”

  “I’ll need to gather as many keyhands as I can on this short notice,” said Hypatia. “We’ll need a formal decision.”