The Accidental Keyhand Read online

  She turned to Dorrie. “I’d like you and Marcus and Ebba to go to your rooms as quickly as possible, get cleaned up and changed—your own clothes will do—then come back here. Bring the star book, please.”

  Dorrie could feel her heart sinking, down, down, like an anchor into a bottomless sea.

  Only Savi, mouthing, “It’ll be all right,” kept that anchor from pulling her completely under.

  Francesco pushed himself off Hypatia’s desk, his triumphant eyes on Dorrie. He smoothed his moustache. “Mr. Gormly can escort them.” He strode out the door.

  Savi’s sword hand twitched, his eyes ablaze. He took a step forward as if he meant to hurry after Francesco and then looked back at Dorrie. He seemed to come to a difficult decision and turned his back on Francesco. “I’ll go ring the emergency bell.”

  CHAPTER 20

  SEEING STARS

  Walking through the deserted library, Dorrie shot Mr. Gormly an angry look.

  Mr. Gormly looked sheepish. He scratched his head. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t look at me that way. I told ’em about that funny business for your own good. Best to have it all out in the open. You could get hurt going out on your own like that. Hypatia will stand by you.”

  Dorrie stared straight ahead and said nothing. Mr. Gormly led them through the Gymnasium and into the room that contained the Roman bath. Dorrie looked up at the hole that led back into the Passaic Public Library. The flickering blue light around its edge seemed to be flashing out a message: “Game Over. Game Over. Game Over.” It seemed to overpower the gas lamp’s warm glow. Again, Dorrie saw them pushing the wall at the back of the mop closet and discovering the little secret room for the first time. The dust-covered furniture, the little paintings, the books, and the strange floor with its network of lines connecting circles and triangles and—Dorrie stopped short, her throat almost closing as she remembered. And one star. In the middle of the room. The dust around it brushed away.

  “Wait!” she called out to the others, a few steps ahead. “That star! The one the people who captured Kash were looking for? I think I might know where it is!”

  The others stared at her, mouths open.

  “I think it was stuck in the floor of the little room!” she cried, pointing at the hole. “Before it exploded.”

  Mr. Gormly’s eyes went wide. His eyes darted around the Gymnasium. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “No. We’ve got to go back to Hypatia’s office and tell her!”

  Mr. Gormly rubbed his chin, looking troubled. “It’s a long way back. If you’re right, I hate to think of it sitting out there on its own when we could just snatch it back for the Lybrariad.”

  “Let’s get it,” cried Marcus.

  Ebba’s eyes widened. “But we promised Hypatia!”

  Dorrie’s heart pounded. If they could get the star back, perhaps it would tip the balance in favor of Dorrie and Marcus getting to become apprentices, after all. “I’ll just stick my head through and see if I can reach it!”

  Mr. Gormly looked around it. “I guess it’d be safe enough with me here.”

  Dorrie and Mr. Gormly quickly climbed the stairs. Dorrie took a deep breath and reached toward the hole with one fingertip. It felt hot but passable. Suddenly, Dorrie felt herself grabbed from behind. Something hard and cold pressed was against the side of her neck. In another moment, Mr. Gormly’s hand had covered her mouth. He spun her to face Marcus and Ebba where halfway up the stairs they stood gaping with raw, uncomprehending fear.

  “Now,” said Mr. Gormly, smiling wolfishly. “Sorry to be so boorish about this, but I think I’d like that star for myself. Not to mention a horse to gallop away on.”

  “Let her go!” shouted Marcus, bounding farther up the stairs with Ebba behind him, Moe clinging to her shoulder. They only stopped when Dorrie cried out as Mr. Gormly pressed the cold knife harder against her neck. Marcus’s eyes found Dorrie’s. His fists curled and uncurled, his face full of fear and rage.

  “If you try to hinder me in any way, I assure you that I’m more than willing to cut Dorrie’s pretty little neck and use you to get to Passaic, so no attempts at heroics.”

  “Help!” Dorrie shouted with all her might.

  Mr. Gormly shook her like a rag doll. “And definitely no more of that.” He thrust his chin at Marcus. “You first. I need all the Passaic keyhands.” Marcus’s jaw worked wildly as he slowly made his way to the hole. “Don’t worry,” said Mr. Gormly. “We’ll be simply the best of friends on the other side. You’ll see.”

  “Why should they believe that?” cried Ebba, edging up another stair.

  “Don’t come any closer,” said Mr. Gormly, shoving at Ebba with a foot. With an angry hiss, Moe leaped from her shoulder at Mr. Gormly’s face. Mr. Gormly roared and batted at Moe, sending him flying through the air.

  “Moe!” shouted Ebba, hurling herself at the rough banister with outstretched arms as the mongoose sailed over it. He plummeted into the water, landing with a splash.

  “Move!” growled Mr. Gormly, pressing Marcus and Dorrie forward.

  “You better not hurt Dorrie, or I’ll kill you!” Marcus shouted, as, wincing at the heat, he backed up the rest of the stairs and into the little five-sided room.

  Mr. Gormly grinned at Dorrie. “Your turn, missy!”

  She and Ebba turned petrified eyes on one another, and then unable to think of what else to do, Dorrie began to climb. The hole felt unbearably hot, like scalding bathwater. She hurried through into the Passaic Public Library, feeling half boiled alive, with Mr. Gormly hanging tight to her arm.

  Without letting go of Dorrie, Mr. Gormly began to sweep his feet this way and that across the ruined floor of the little gaslit room, sending the broken bits of parquet clattering. Suddenly, he crowed and kicked at something in a mound of debris. It was a thick, little five-armed gray star. When he let go of Dorrie to snatch it up, she dived for the protection of Marcus’s arms. Mr. Gormly didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he began to plant loud enthusiastic kisses on the star. In between kisses he praised himself. “Oh, you clever, clever man! You canny, cunning, artful, wonderful dodger!”

  Suddenly, Dorrie wanted to know very badly what Mr. Gormly knew that they didn’t. “What is it?” she blurted out.

  “This?” Mr. Gormly said, clasping the star against his chest and grinning so that there really wasn’t any face left on either end of his smile. “This?” he repeated, holding the star out on his palm. It shined dully as though made of pencil lead.

  Something chilly and unpleasant slithered through Dorrie. As she had suspected, the star was indeed the same shape and size as the space cut out in the book she’d brought from Passaic.

  “This is my future, my front-row ticket, my place at the table of my choosing,” crowed Mr. Gormly. “This is butlers, and a carriage and eight, and a sea of champagne. This, my little friends, is additional and staggering proof of the bottomless fountain of my intelligence.”

  During his speech, Dorrie had begun to edge toward the hole, pulling Marcus along with her. They needed help. They had to stop him. If they could just get back down the stairs with a head start.

  “I have what I want, and you’re no worse for the wear. I told you we’d be the best of friends on this side,” sang Mr. Gormly as he did a little jig. “It’s about time I got to visit a new village. Three years in Petrarch’s Library were three years too many.”

  “Now!” Dorrie shouted. Holding tightly to one another, Dorrie and Marcus tried to sprint down the stairs, but only succeeded in falling into a tangled heap. Dorrie felt hard floor beneath her knees. She was resting on an invisible barrier. Far below, she could see Ebba racing along the edge of the bath. With a cry, Dorrie tried to reach toward her, only to bash her knuckles on what felt like rough, invisible stone.

  “Oh, good,” said Mr. Gormly, watching Dorrie cradle her hand. “I w
as worried your special little power might be a problem.” He yawned and tucked his dagger into his belt alongside his sword. “Use a new archway while it’s too warm and fresh, and you’ll lock yourself right out of Petrarch’s Library.” He tapped his head. “A little nugget of knowledge you pick up doing internal security.”

  Dorrie stared at him with a burning, desperate hatred as she remembered the words of caution that Mistress Wu had shared about that so many weeks ago.

  “Now thankfully, you won’t be able to return,” He looked around the little room, his gaze stopping on the door to the mop closet. “And of course, without you, no one inside Petrarch’s Library can get out. So that’s that.”

  “That’s that!” shouted Marcus, sounding outraged. “They’re going to think we’re traitors and ran away or something!”

  “Well, to be fair, I think they already do think you’re traitors,” said Mr. Gormly, stepping over a pile of broken bits of wood.

  “I was going to kiss Egeria after the play!” Marcus roared.

  “Wasn’t going to happen, chappy,” said Mr. Gormly. “Look on the bright side. I won’t have a bunch of barmy lybrarians chasing around after me as I search for my perfect customer.”

  “Perfect customer for what?” said Dorrie, already knowing the answer.

  Mr. Gormly smiled and held the little star up in the palm of his hand. “It’s sure to be horribly tricky to make, full of many difficult-to-find ingredients, and wonderfully powerful. I’m betting someone will give me the prettiest of pennies for it. Maybe that friend of your auntie’s. That Mr. Biggs fellow.”

  “Why would he want it?” cried Dorrie.

  Mr. Gormly rolled his eyes disbelievingly. “Why would he—? Put the pieces together, girl. You set it on the ground and, pop, there’s a rabbit hole into the heart of Petrarch’s Library. That should make someone very giddy with desire, which will make this—” He cuddled the star close. “Nearly priceless!”

  “You’d just give it to him?” Dorrie sputtered.

  “Well, only if he paid a sufficiently exorbitant amount of money for it,” said Mr. Gormly.

  “After the lybrarians saved you!” Dorrie cried.

  “Well, it’s not like they meant to,” said Mr. Gormly indignantly. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Though I admit it was nice to get away from the rats.”

  “Rats are a thousand percent nicer than you,” said Marcus.

  “Anyway,” said Mr. Gormly. “I’ll be off now. Take a little look around, see the sights, taste the vittles, squeeze the wenches. Thank you again for holding open the door.”

  Marcus blocked the door to the mop closet, outraged, his fists curled. “What if we try to stop you?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t recommend trying to get in my way by yourselves,” said Mr. Gormly in a friendly voice, his hand brushing against the knife in his belt. “You can try telling someone I abducted you at knifepoint from the hidden lair of a tribe of warrior librarians and see what that gets you.” Mr. Gormly pushed Marcus to one side and swung the door to the mop closet wide open.

  Dorrie felt like weeping. “You can’t sell that star! You can’t! In the wrong hands it could destroy everything the lybrarians have created. The world could go back to being a place you wouldn’t even want to live in!”

  Suddenly, they all heard someone unlocking the staff-room door on the other side of the mop closet. Dorrie and Marcus froze.

  “Suit yourself,” Mr. Gormly said placidly. “Must run.” He patted his breeches. “I feel the need for a new set of clothes coming on.”

  He stepped through the doorway into the mop closet and collided with Amanda, who was hurrying into the closet from the staff room.

  “Oh!” she said, her mouth hanging open in surprise.

  “Oh!” Mr. Gormly said in his wolfish way. Without another word, he swung her down into an embrace, kissed her full on the lips, and plucked the key she held out of her hand. “I’m an adaptable sort,” he said, setting the speechless Amanda back on her feet and making for the exit.

  Dorrie and Marcus crowded into the mop closet as Mr. Gormly disappeared through the staff-room door.

  “We’ve got to stop him!” Dorrie said, stumbling over buckets and cans of paint. “He’s going to destroy the Lybrariad!”

  “The what?” said Amanda, as Dorrie ran for the door.

  “Lybrarians from all over the place, all over time!” said Marcus, grabbing a plunger and leaping after her. “Seriously dangerous, endangered lybrarians.”

  “But good dangerous,” added Dorrie.

  “Petrarch’s Library!” cried Amanda, clasping her hands together. “Is it real?”

  “Yes!” said Dorrie. “And that guy who kissed you has this star thing—it’s like a key to the lybrarians’ hideout—and he’s going to sell it to the lybrarians’ enemies!”

  Amanda paled, her eyes growing large. “We have to stop him. We have to get that star back.”

  In that moment, the truth about Great-Aunt Alice came crashing in on Dorrie. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Great-Aunt Alice wasn’t working with Mr. Biggs.” She tugged on the doorknob furiously. “Mr. Biggs came looking for Great-Aunt Alice because he thought she had the star!” she kicked at the door. “He’s locked it!”

  As Amanda pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket, Dorrie heard a familiar whispery sound. She looked down at her chiton and then at Marcus’s. They were disappearing.

  Marcus dived for the coatrack, and tossed Dorrie a trench coat. For a moment he vacillated between an enormous down parka and the eye-popping flowered raincoat. He took the parka.

  “You have to warn Great-Aunt Alice!” cried Dorrie, as Amanda unlocked the door. “We’ll find the star!”

  Marcus yanked the door open, and they burst through it pell-mell.

  Dorrie dodged something hairy on the floor. A moment later, Mr. Scuggans burst out from between two bookcases with a great, bald expanse visible on the top of his head and a flapping poster wrapped around his middle. “Where will a book take you today?” it proclaimed in rainbow letters. Dorrie and Marcus skidded to a stop. The parts of Mr. Scuggans that Dorrie could see didn’t have a stitch of clothing on them.

  “Help! Police!” he shouted, disappearing down another aisle.

  “Mr. Gormly,” murmured Dorrie fiercely, running for the door. Her mind reeled. Outside, the Pen and Sword Festival was still going strong. She and Marcus ran to the railing of the library’s porch and, breathing hard, looked up and down the street.

  “There!” Dorrie shouted, pointing into the park. Wearing Mr. Scuggans’s khakis and yellow button-down shirt, Mr. Gormly was turning a water fountain off and on, looking delighted. Dorrie and Marcus scrambled down the steps in pursuit. A large herd of people in monk’s robe costumes followed and obscured him from view.

  Marcus surveyed the crowds in the park. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

  “Stop Star Wars-ing!” snapped Dorrie. “This is serious.”

  “That’s how I do serious,” said Marcus.

  The traffic stopped, and Dorrie caught a glimpse of Mr. Kornberger at the wheel of the bookmobile. He waved happily as she and Marcus shot across the street.

  Inside the park, Dorrie saw Mr. Gormly sauntering toward a tent. “There he is!”

  Dorrie and Marcus plunged into the crowd. Beyond where the blacksmith banged mightily on a piece of armor, Mr. Gormly paused at a tent displaying slingshots, pouches, and leather shoes with upturned toes. Dorrie and Marcus watched him trail his fingers along a table and then disappear down the little alley between two tents.

  Putting on a burst of speed, Dorrie found her path blocked by a pudgy man hung with cameras, his hands full of steaming turkey legs. Dodging him, she caught one of the blacksmith’s iron racks with her foot. Hoes and shovels and a collection of blades clatte
red to the ground.

  “Sorry,” Dorrie called back over her shoulder as she and Marcus reached the tents between which Mr. Gormly had disappeared.

  Breathing hard, they squeezed through, and poked their heads around the back of a tent. Mr. Gormly was strolling away along a hedge as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He stopped and carefully slipped the star into a pouch, hung it around his neck, and tucked it inside his shirt.

  “He just stole that pouch!” whispered Dorrie.

  “What can we do besides follow him?” said Marcus. “He’s got a knife and a sword!”

  “Sacre bleu!” spat Dorrie. She didn’t think they were going to be able to talk Mr. Gormly into giving up the star.

  “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back!” called Dorrie, sprinting back the way they’d come.

  The little crowd around the blacksmith’s area had begun to melt away, and the blacksmith had picked up all the things that Dorrie had accidentally knocked over. As Dorrie watched, the blacksmith stepped over to a nearby tent full of looms. Dorrie’s fingers twitched. She’d be borrowing, not stealing. A trench coat had its uses.

  Two minutes later, Dorrie plunked herself down beside Marcus and pulled something vaguely rapier-like out from inside her trench coat. “Here,” she said, holding an orange-sized iron ball out to Marcus.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?” complained Marcus, his hair limp with sweat, the voluminous parka halfway unzipped. “I’m an ax-thrower.”

  “I didn’t see any axes!”

  “I don’t think you even looked,” sniffed Marcus, finally taking the iron ball.

  “Where is he?”

  Marcus pointed to the open part of the park, where crowds had gathered around the enormous circle of straw bales. Mr. Gormly had stopped beneath an immense oak tree that stood between two bales on the far side of the circle. All his attention seemed focused on a plump woman with a garland of flowers in her curly brown hair.