CHAPTER FIVE
THOUGHT-FISHERS AND DISCOVERIES
Later that morning, Mr. Jacobsen stopped by to give the Douglasses a ride to the marketplace. He dropped them off at the herb booths, and Emma and the cousins watched June crutch away.
You could find just about anyone or anything at the marketplace, since people from both countryside and city collected there to buy, sell, and trade. Right next to the crazy nutters you could find a booth of fashionable table coverings, blue being the color of the day. And of course, on the other side of the small metropolis of a market were the candy booths, where the younger Douglasses always ended up.
Philippa immediately started stepping sideways, as if she couldn't control her feet, not
stopping until she had reached a booth full of chocolate.
Later, Emma would wonder why in the kingdom she chose those few seconds—following the cousins to the chocolate booth—to close her eyes to her surroundings. Perhaps she was imagining that she was a wealthy girl from a nearby estate, here to spend her extra fifty silver pieces. Or maybe she was a chocolates investigator, here to bring some hard news to the people that were charging too much for their goodies. Whether her imagination was working at the moment, she wouldn't remember, only that she wished she had been paying more attention. Philippa turned her for permission to buy some candy, and whatever Emma had been thinking disappeared when she realized what she had left at home. She clapped one hand over her mouth.
Leo threw his hands in the air. “You forgot your silver!”
Philippa's head drooped. "What's the point of coming when we can't buy anything?"
The answer came in the soft, almost hypnotic tones of a female voice:
"You might be able to make an exchange."
The children turned toward the voice as one. What a reasonable suggestion. . . Yes, there were things to exchange. . . But they recoiled when they saw the woman with bright, green eyelids and firegrass-red cheeks. Her claw-like fingernails grasped for the Douglasses' tunics. Her hair was oiled and dyed black, hanging in stringy tendrils.
Emma shook her head to clear it. "Exchange what?" she asked, backing away. "We don't have any goods."
The woman's lips slid over crooked, yellow teeth, and she offered a grimace that might
have been a smile on a different person. "There are other things to exchange. Penny for your thoughts," she whispered.
"What's a penny?" Philippa asked.
"Thought-fisher!" Leo shouted and tried to jump in front of the girls.
The woman flinched as if slapped. Her cheeks deepened in color, the flush spreading down her neck and under her turquoise shawl. "You don't know what you're saying, boy."
"Why would you be whispering if it wouldn't get you in trouble?" Emma demanded.
"Because we are near the city, where concoctions. . . and other things of the sort. . . are not appreciated. But such. . . cultured people as yourselves must know a little of the arts of cloakbaning." She barely whispered the last word and attempted the smile again.
"If you want to use a cloakbane to steal my thoughts, you'll have to knock me out and
force it down my throat!" Leo shouted.
The woman turned her dark eyes on Leo and extended her painted fingers toward him. He staggered forward a few steps, eyes unfocused, jaw slack, until a second stranger's voice said, "Leave them alone, you old fraud."
The woman turned toward the Douglass's rescuer, but instead of advancing on him as well, she hissed and shrank into her shawl. She pointed a bony claw at each of them, opened her mouth as if to say something, then changed her mind and fled.
"Take your thought-fishing somewhere else!" the rescuer called after her.
He happened to be a boy, perhaps a year older than Emma. He had liquid chocolate eyes and hair of almost the same shade. His skin was rosy from the chill and winter sun, and when he saw the Douglasses looking at him, he smiled.
Emma felt herself blush a little and had an odd compulsion to smooth her hair.
"Who are you?" Leo demanded, looking around for a big rock, just in case.
"Leo," Emma scolded. "Sorry," she said to the boy, "we just had a scare."
"From Jofna, yeah," the boy said.
"Who?" the Douglasses asked.
"Jofna. She tries to fool people into using cloakbanes. Just showed up a few weeks ago and tried that same thing on my brother. I'm Luke." He extended his hand to Emma.
"Hi, I'm Emma. Thanks a lot."
"I'm Philippa," the younger girl said. Her pudgy hand reached for Luke's lean one and squeezed it, leaving a sugary residue behind.
Emma pushed her other cousin forward.
"Leo," he said, eyes fixed on the dusty ground.
"You guys enjoying the marketplace?" Luke asked.
"Not really," Philippa said, then with an accusatory look at her cousin, added, "Emma forgot her silver."
"Oh. Well, that's okay. There’s plenty of free stuff to do in Applegate City."
Eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the foul Jofna, the Douglasses followed Luke to the end of town, where the marketplace road joined a wider avenue that rose up on a hill toward the city gates.
"Applegate City—toxic," Leo said.
"You've never been here before?" Luke asked.
"She has," Philippa said, pointing at her cousin.
"We have, too," Leo corrected. "Mom said we did, remember? When Dad was alive."
"I don't remember." Philippa shrugged. "I was really little."
"You'll like it," Luke assured them.
The stone walls that circled the city reached much higher than the children's heads, but even higher were the tops of the lush, green apple trees, just starting to blossom.
Philippa's mouth hung open.
"You're catching bugs," Leo said. "Fuzzywit," he added and ducked from his sister's fist.
"Come on, you two." Emma's dark eyebrows arched, warning them not to embarrass her.
"Of course," Philippa said, batting her eyelashes and looking down her nose, "you might run into someone you know!"
Brother and sister hooted with laughter. Emma sighed and rolled her eyes.
Luke cleared his throat. "So welcome to Applegate City, home to. . . oh, who am I fooling? I can't keep my eyes open for the city history lesson—why should I bore you?"
"Where do you go to school?" Philippa asked.
"Me and my brothers and sisters have our mom and a teacher who come to us."
"Your mom teaches you?" Leo asked. "And you get to do it at home? You're the luckiest kid ever!"
Luke shrugged. "Gets kind of boring. I kind of liked it better back when we went to a normal school."
"Where do you live?" Leo asked.
"Well, I, uh. . . we used to live in the country, but my dad died a few years ago, and here we are. Ah, see that park up there?" He pointed to the grassy, tree-filled area ahead. "The shortest way to the zabootherum fields and carousel and all the fun stuff is through there."
It only took a few minutes to travel through the preserve of trees, shrubs, and wildlife. On the other side, the park path widened into a bricked avenue, lined with brick and stone buildings, most with matching waist-high walls, a few with wooden fences. The grass and hedges were neatly trimmed. The people strolling down the stone walkways or driving carriages and wagons were dressed for work and recreation. Some women wore dresses unlike any the cousins had ever seen, tailored to fit them perfectly and decorated with lace.
Luke drew their attentions to a candle-making shop.
Philippa ran up to the window and eyed a candle that was swirled in red and white to a height of two feet. "Look! They're so colorful. We only get the ugly yellow kind at home."
"We don't use candles much," Luke said. "They have to be fancy for people to buy them."
"What do you mean?" Leo asked. He shifted his gaze to Emma, then back to Luke. "No
candles? How do you see in the dark?"
"Glow mites," Luke said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
"You mean glow mites actually work?"
"I told you," Emma muttered.
"Huh, I thought you were always joking. Toxic."
"You mean bugs?" Philippa asked. "That's not toxic at all."
"They're nice bugs," Luke assured her. "They eat stone, and they glow different colors, depending on the type."
"I've gotta get one of those," Leo said.
"Nuh-uh! Mama won't let you."
"You could probably get a candle, though," Luke suggested.
"Yeah, if I’d remembered my silver," Emma reminded them, "but I didn't."
"Oh. Well, I can't help on that one, but I know where we can get free lunch," Luke said and led them down the street.
The fancy buildings tapered away a few blocks later, and the street opened onto the Applegate City Apple Orchard. Just outside the orchard's gate was a stone cottage with a brown shingle roof and wisps of smoke curling out of the chimney.
"This is the orchard's restaurant," Luke explained. "I know the owner."
Indeed, Miss Ann, the proprietress fed them without charge, and so generous was she that Philippa broke her previous record of four slices of apple pie in one sitting.
Although the other three thought it a bad idea, considering how much she had eaten,
Philippa just had to ride the painted wooden animals on the city’s mechanical carousel after lunch. Emma sat on a wolf next to Philippa's lion and behind the boys’ twin sea serpents. After five trips, Philippa was woozy enough to agree (although with much grump) to go to the zabootherum fields and rest while everyone else played.
"Well," Luke backtracked when he saw that she might be difficult. "Maybe it’s not such a good idea. . . My brother Malcolm might get mad if he can’t play. . ."
"That's okay, we can go get him," Leo said.
"Oh. . . um," Luke faltered. "Well, see, the problem is, if Malcolm comes, all the others
will wanna come, too."
"'All the others'?" Leo joked. "How many of you can there be?"
"Well, there's Malcolm. He's a couple years younger than me. Then there's Peter and
David; they're even younger. And then the twins, Thomas and Tucker—they're just six. And that's just us boys. There's Anestra and Tabitha, too."
"Uh. . . How about you just don't tell Malcolm?" Leo suggested.
The zabootherum field was in much better condition than any of the fields in Sutton. The grass was thick and short. The hoops each player held were pine, and the nets were real zabooth-spider weavings.
The existence of zabooth-spiders was doubted by most village children, but watching the zabootherum balls glide through the air and rest in the nets with such ease proved their reality to the Douglasses. Leo's mouth was open so wide, he might have started drooling any second.
"Are they—" he stopped and shook himself. "They are real, aren't they?"
"What?" Luke asked.
"Zabooth-spiders."
"'Course they are."
While Leo quizzed Luke about the creatures that wove the nets, Emma watched the
nearest game. A ball flew through the air and smashed right through someone's net. When
detached, the delicate threads that made up the net wrapped themselves around the ball, and the player with the empty hoop chased it.
"What's he doing?" Philippa asked.
"He's got to get the net back to keep playing," Luke said.
"His net's not broken?"
"It doesn't break; it just comes off the hoop. The point is to get as many balls on your side as possible, and to do that, your nets can't come off, because you lose the balls. Besides, you lose a point every time a net comes off."
Philippa stared at the boy with the lost net, sneering, as if making a face would help her understand.
"See, there's two teams," Luke explained. "There can be up to six people on a team, but you can play with only two, if you have to. Each team has an untouchable, one at each end of the field. Then, the other players are in the middle. They're the zaboothers, but everyone calls them sneaks. There are six balls, thrown in one at a time by a referee. Each ball is thrown into the center, and the first team to net it tries to get it back to their untouchable—across the other teams' sneaks. If you get a ball to your untouchable, that's two points. No hands allowed, only nets."
"Uh-huh," Philippa said, as if she knew she was supposed to understand but still didn't.
Leo rolled his eyes. "Don’t you ever pay attention, Phil? When a sneak gets a ball to his
untouchable, he gets the ball back and puts it on his ball belt. Then the sneaks on the other team sneak around and try pull the balls out of the belts. If your ball is sneaked, you're out, but if you sneak a ball from the other team and someone on your team's out, you get that player back. Once a ball is sneaked, it goes back to the referee and can be used again. The untouchable is the only one who can't have a ball stolen. If he catches balls six times, he gets to keep the sixth, so it can't be put in play again."
"Watch and you'll get the idea," Luke said.
A boy on the field noticed them and waved. "Wanna play?" he called.
"Sure!" Leo dashed onto the field, but Philippa shook her head and took a step back.
"We'll watch," Emma said.
The girls sat in the tall grass that separated park from field. The boys were split up; Luke took a blue belt and Leo a red.
"Why is Leo holding a different net thing than Luke?" Philippa asked.
Leo's net sagged, looser than everyone else's, and there wasn't a long handle on the end but hand grips around the wooden circle. He was standing at one end of the field, opposite his fellow red teammates. One of the reds caught a ball and lobbed it toward Leo. The ball soared into his net, started to pass through, but the net held.
"Leo's the reds' untouchable," Emma said.
Philippa crossed her arms over her belly and frowned. "What's a untouchable again?" Emma didn't answer. Her eyes were wide, darting with the balls. Every time Leo or the other team's untouchable made a catch or a ball flew through someone's net, she pushed her palms against the ground as if she were about to spring up and join the game.
"I'm sick of watching," Philippa said after half an hour's play. "Can't we go?"
"I'd rather play, myself," Emma said.
Luke noticed them getting up, and the ball he was supposed to catch bounced away. "Where are you going?"
“Um, Philippa and I are going to walk around for a few minutes—”
“I’m done,” Leo said, storming off the field. “I’m can't catch anything today.”
“So,” Luke said, “what else did you want to see in Applegate City?”
"What I'm really interested in," Leo said, perking up a bit, "is the castle dungeons."
"Oh, they're no fun," Luke said quickly. "I've been there before. Really boring. If you like dungeons, we should go to the old jail."
Leo started to agree, but Philippa interrupted.
"I don't care about the nasty old dungeons; Emma says the kitchens are huge."
"You've been to the castle?" Luke asked, watching Emma closely.
"Yeah, I work there. Well, not now, but. . . I guess you'd say I'm on leave."
"Well, I’d hate to bore you,” he said, as if the castle was the last place he wanted to go. But before he could make another suggestion, he was interrupted by a high-pitched voice calling:
"Hey, Lu-uke!"
The voice belonged to a skinny girl with pale hair. She stood on the borderlines and gestured for him. "Mom wants to know if you'll be home for supper."
Luke nodded and cut his eyes toward Leo.
"Did you want to invite a friend?" the girl called, smacking loudly on popping gum.
Luke squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "No, Anestra. Just tell her I'll be there."
"You sure?" As helpful as his sister was trying to be, she didn't seem to notice Luke's discomfort and continued pestering him. "It'll be pink fish."
"Great."
"But you hate pink fish."
Luke threw his hands in the air. "I give up! What do you want?"
"Just tell me if you want to bring your friends to the castle or not. I've wasted my whole afternoon looking for you."
The Douglasses were silent. Then Leo asked, "Are you the prince?"
"Don't be silly," Emma said. "The king and queen didn't have any more kids after their first one died." Then to Luke, "Are you their nephew?"
Luke hung his head. "No, no relation to the royal family. We just live there. So. . . do you want to come with me?”
“Really?” Emma asked. She didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but it was the first time
all three of them had ever been invited to someone else’s home for dinner. I’ve made a friend, she realized and tried not to smile too broadly.
“Sure, but don’t judge me by the pink fish. Okay, Anestra!”
His elder sister was already quite a way ahead of them and waved back.
Emma knew all about pink fish because of her job. The queen was occasionally prescribed a diet of the stinking fish; their pink scales, the nurses said, would improve her health.
The fish itself was the fishiest fish ever. Not only did it smell overpoweringly of salt water and, well, fish, but it also smelled like dirty sheets someone had boiled and left sitting too
long afterward. Because it was very rare, it was always ordered in large quantities just in case
there wasn’t any available in the future.
The problem was, the queen no more than picked at it, so the rest of the castle had to suffer by dining on the leftover pungent seafood. The only advantage was that one of the head bakers always made several extra cakes when pink fish was served, just so they could eat something digestible.
“Why didn’t you tell us you lived in the castle?” Leo asked as they made their way. "That must be more toxic than all the zabooth-spiders and glow mites in the kingdom."
Luke shook his head. "It's a good deal—don't get me wrong—but it's kind of supposed to be secret. Anestra hasn't caught on yet. Whenever I leave, a guardian follows me. See, ever since my dad died, my mom's been protective of us. My dad used to be one the king's advisors, so the king was nice enough to let us come back. I've never seen you there before," he added to Emma.
"I'm only in the kitchens," she said. "I've never actually been in the rest of the castle."
"Oh, okay. Well, hopefully they'll let you in, but if not. . ." he shrugged, "sorry."
Instead of going through the main entrance—up the grand stone steps and through the thick, heart tree wood doors—Luke led them down a path that branched off to the right and through a grove of leafless trees. The path curved to the left, back to Heart Tree Castle, where there was a tall, vine-covered stone wall.
“Through here." Luke walked toward an archway, flanked by two guardians.
"Halt, please," one said, his large hand blocking the children.
"Well, sorry, guys," Luke said. "I'll see if—"
"Names, please," the guardian interrupted.
They stared at him for several seconds before Luke asked, "You'll let them in?"
"Names, please," the guardian repeated.
"Emma Douglass."
"Leo Douglass."
"Philippa. . . oh, Douglass."
The guardian nodded and walked under the archway and onto the castle grounds. A new guardian, this one in citizen’s clothes, walked up the path behind the children and took his place.
"See what I mean?" Luke whispered. "He's the one who's been following me all day."
The Douglasses stared at the guardian, wondering how they hadn't noticed him before.
It was only a couple of minutes before the first guardian returned with a girl. She had spiky, blonde hair and brown eyes that looked a lot like Luke's. When Emma saw the nervous look on Luke's face, she realized this girl was actually a very short woman—his mother.
“Hello,” she said and glanced around until she’d made eye contact with all three visitors. “I am Doloro Dagrun. Bill tells me Luke has guests, and you're all Douglasses. Am I right?”
"Yes," Emma said, wondering what kind of trouble they could possibly be in now.
"Then you must be here to see June."
Emma and the cousins looked at each other.
"You know our Mom?" Leo asked.
"She's here?" Emma added, wondering how her aunt could have crutched all that way.
For a moment, it seemed Doloro Dagrun was dismayed, but she quickly regained her composure. The little woman led the Douglasses, who kept exchanging puzzled glances and shrugs, through the archway and over a lawn that felt like walking on springy carpet. They traveled a path lined with heart trees to a round, glass room that stuck off the side of the castle.
"Uh, this is my home," Luke whispered.
"Yes," his mother said, overhearing, "and I am sorry you three cannot stay, but I must
take you somewhere else. Luke, please wait with your brothers and sisters." She led them past her other seven children—most of them boys and all of them staring—and through a living room with twenty-foot ceilings. They—minus Luke—climbed four marble steps (Leo and Philippa tripping, while they tried to take in the lavish suite at the same time), crossed under a wide archway, and into a dark hall. Ahead were double heart tree wood doors.
Once out of the Dagrun family’s suite, the castle seemed even more enormous, with people bustling about everywhere, including a guardian who started following them.
Doloro Dagrun led them across the hard stone floors, up and down numerous steps, and through maze-like corridors until she finally stopped outside a plain door.
“Stay right here,” she said. “I’ll only be a moment.”
The guardian crossed his arms over his chest and stared at them, daring them to disobey.
"Is she going to get Mom?" Leo asked the other two.
Emma shrugged; Philippa didn't appear to have heard and was examining a mural of a lavishly decorated dining room on the wall. After five minutes, when Leo was about to knock on the door, it opened, and out walked a woman in a blue nurse’s uniform.
“I am Nurse Mila,” she said. “I hear you haven't eaten yet. Can I get you something?"
“Why are we waiting out here?” Emma asked.
“Do you have anything other than that stinky fish?” Philippa added.
The nurse considered a moment before answering. “Missus Dagrun will be longer than she expected,” she finally said. “There might be something else in the kitchens—”
“There always is,” Emma said. “A cake, at least.” When the nurse opened her mouth to ask how she knew this, Emma added, “I work there.”
“Of course,” Nurse Mila said, although it sounded like she didn’t believe Emma one tiny bit. She studied them for several more seconds before nodding and leading them to the next door down the hall.
It was a waiting room of some kind and had seats strewn about for a couple dozen people. An inner door connected to the room Doloro had entered.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Nurse Mila warned, attempting to keep eye contact with all three of them. She left through the hall door and was soon back with half a zucchini cake and a pitcher of milk. “Now, this should hold you over.”
As the Douglasses ate, they tried to listen for voices in the next room, but whoever had built the castle had done it right; they couldn't hear more than faint whispers of voices. After another few minutes, the door opened, and Doloro Dagrun stuck her head in.
“Emma,” she said.
All three children stood.
“Just Emma, right now.”
Emma wondered why her cousins had to stay behind. As soon as she reached the door, Doloro grabbed her wrist, pulled her in, and shut the others out.
“Hello, Emma.” Sitting right in the middle of the room, twiddling her thumbs and looking altogether more nervous than Emma had ever seen her, was Aunt June.
“Hi, Aunt June. Um. . . what are you doing here?”
Emma had been trying to figure out why her aunt would be at the castle, and the fact that June and Luke's mother seemed to know each other bothered her. The first wild thought that came to her was that Doloro could be her mother, but then Emma realized she wouldn't have given up one child out of the middle of eight others.
June smiled, but her eyes reminded Emma of a very sad dog. She held an arm out to her niece, who approached and took it. June patted her hand.
"Emma, you're such a good girl. Your mother and father would be proud. That's why I'm here. I had to talk to your parents about the academy. . . and that other matter."
That made a little more sense. June and Emma's parents could meet at the castle because it was pretty central and easy to find—
"Emma," June said and smoothed her niece's bushy hair, "please sit down."
They died, Emma thought. They died, after all. She glanced at Nurse Mila with new understanding. Maybe, since Emma's mother had been sick, the trip to the castle had proved too rough for her. Before she could get used to that thought, June continued:
"Emma, your parents live right here in this castle. You've been working for them for the past two years.
"Your parents are the king and queen."