The Stone Key (The Novel Adventures of Nimrod Vale Book 2) Read online

We followed the smell of Chinese food into the kitchen where Holly was setting out plates beside her wok. “Pepper! Are you joining us for dinner?”

  “That’s the plan,” she answered.

  As happy as I was (yes, I said happy) to have my friend back, I couldn’t wait to finish eating to take her upstairs to Grandpa’s study. Plus, it was uncomfortable having Aunt Holly grinning at us like a Cheshire cat. It was weird.

  As soon as the last bite was eaten, I cleared the table of plates and silverware. Before I could start cleaning the dishes, Aunt Holly said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take over.”

  I had no problem walking away from my chores, not while more important things were at stake. I gestured for Pepper to follow, and we headed upstairs. We went past my room to the door that led up to the attic. I flipped the light switch, leapt up the stairs and settled at Grandpa’s desk. Pepper’s footfalls thumped behind me.

  “So, what’s up?” she asked from the padded chair, a few feet away from me.

  I swiveled in my seat with the story I’d written held in my hands. I lifted up the last page, its words unimportant. The illustrated tree was the focus of my curiosity. My pointer finger rested on the drawing. “Where did this come from?”

  “Oh,” she said. “The day I went into the story—I was bored waiting for you, so I started doodling. By the time I’d finished my drawing, I decided to go in and help the people out. You know the rest.”

  She was so casual about it, I couldn’t keep from getting frustrated. Did she not get that this was an important detail? “You never told me about the drawing.”

  She shrugged. “Sorry.”

  I shook my head and said, “I’m not mad. It just would’ve been good to know that you added to the story.”

  Pepper frowned at me, which looked kind of funny while she had on her aviator hat. Her eyes were clear and clean of eye makeup when she leaned forward and blinked. “But, I didn’t add to your story.”

  “What if you did?” I asked. “I tried adding more to it after I’d written The End. I couldn’t. Not with words. But, you did with your picture, somehow. What if your tree helped in some way?”

  A snort preceded laughter.

  “I’m serious.” I tried to look the part, which only made Pepper laugh harder.

  In between gasps, she whispered, “There’s no way my doodles saved the world you created. The only thing that helped the princess and the tree was your plan. You thought us out of the situation—it was good old-fashioned brain power.”

  Now, I’m not the sort of person who you might guess believes in magic; but considering that I recently discovered my grandpa’s fountain pen has fantastical powers which bring words to life, it’s not a stretch to imagine that a picture could somehow make things all right. It was easier to believe in that than, let’s say, myself.

  Looking at Pepper’s face, squished up with tears pouring down her cheeks, I muttered, “It wasn’t just me—we were a team, helping each other. I guess things wouldn’t have worked out without us being there, but I think your picture gave us…I don’t know, luck or something.”

  It had been twice in one day I’d referenced luck which was totally out of character. Pepper must have realized the same thing. Her amusement dissolved when she heard me say the “L” word.

  “Whoa.” She held up her finger and pinched her eyes shut. “Did your gloom and doom parts break? How will you function anymore?”

  “Ha, ha. I’m serious.”

  Pepper dropped the theatrics to stare at me. It made me uncomfortable with her focused so intently, so I avoided eye contact, glancing around the room. Anywhere but at her.

  She said matter-of-factly, “So, what if my picture helped in some way? Why are you so stuck on luck?”

  I rubbed my thumb against my palm, tracing its lines. Sometimes it felt like we were from different planets. “It can mean all the difference.”

  “I’m not sure I believe in luck,” she said and slumped back into the chair, her hat tilting forward.

  “I do. When you don’t have it, you notice how important it is.”

  Pepper sighed and waved her hand in the air. “Whatever. We can agree to disagree. Earlier you said you went into one of your grandpa’s stories. Is that why you’re wearing those leather pants? What’s up with that—I thought you were going to wait for me?”

  I know Pepper well, but in that moment, she stunned me. What do you say to that? I’m sorry, but you blew me off, so I decided to look for my grandpa myself? That wouldn’t go over well, even though she’d told me we couldn’t be friends anymore. I’d realized that many seconds had gone by, and I could only imagine that my face reflected the horror I felt. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, which was likely, knowing me. By saying nothing I was failing too.

  “I’m just giving you a hard time. You’re going to be on your own soon anyhow.” The old Pepper dissolved into a girl-version of me. Her voice was lifeless by the end of the sentence. There was no sign of the laughter she’d been filled with minutes earlier.

  I wanted to make her feel better, but didn’t know how. “You didn’t miss out on anything too exciting. It was just some fairy tale town without a fairy tale ending.”

  “What do you mean?” Her aviator hat had slipped over her eyes, so I could only see her nose and mouth coming out from underneath.

  “I tried to find out if Grandpa had been there, but couldn’t find anything more than a street sign and a grumpy historian who wouldn’t help me look at their city records. The old record keeper was too busy packing to try, so that was a dead end.”

  Pepper’s fingers lifted the hat back into position to reveal curious eyes. “Packing?”

  “Yeah, the water supply’s drying up, so they’re relocating the city somewhere else so they can survive.”

  Her hands gripped the armrests of the chair tight. “Nothing can be done to stop it from happening?”

  I thought back to everything I’d been told. “Well, Bardrick seemed to think there could be a journal of information with the aqueduct’s building records and information about the source of the spring. That somehow there was a way to solve the problem, but I don’t see how…”

  The highly focused expression on Pepper’s face made me pause. I’d seen it before. It had led to her entering my story without me, determined to save the people of my imaginary world. Without hesitation I looked over my shoulder for the golden pen. Pepper’s eyes combed past me, then settled on it too. I didn’t waste a moment—I leaned over to pick it up.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said.

  “I highly doubt that,” she answered. “You’re only a boy.”

  “Only?” I defended myself. “You want to go help them.”

  Pepper’s eyes lifted up and to the side. “Okay, so you’ve scraped the edge of my thoughts. But think about it, Nimrod. If you help them find the answer to their problem, then that guy won’t be busy packing, and you’ll be able to look and see if your grandpa ever went there.”

  I gripped the pen tight in my hand. “You make it sound so simple, but you and I both know that it’s not. It won’t be easy or smooth.”

  “Sounds like you want a guarantee…or maybe some luck on your side?”

  “Pepper,” I grumbled under my breath. Why did she always have to push so hard? If I said red, she’d say yellow. If I said tomato, she’d say watermelon.

  “Tell me all about it,” she said impatiently.

  “What?”

  Pepper snorted. “Your visit into your grandpa’s story, genius. If I’m going to come up with an illustration to add to the ending of the book, then I’ll need to know everything.”

  I knew the only easy way through all of this was to cooperate and to just tell her what she wanted to know. So, I leaned back in the swivel chair and began to tell her all about my first visit to Crystal Springs. She appeared extremely curious when I got to the point where I met Obo and Kyrah. I admitted that it wasn’t my only visit into the world. Pepper
grew quiet and her eyes narrowed. I tried to ignore her souring mood while I detailed the events that led to my meeting Bardrick. When I was done, she started in with her questions.

  “So, the only reason everyone’s being forced from the city is because of the Crystal Springs? Because they don’t have enough water?”

  “If I understood everything right, yeah. The water flow slowed way down,” I answered.

  She held out her hand. “I’d like to see what your grandpa wrote.”

  “Why?” My eyes combed over the leather-bound book that was sitting open on the rolltop desk.

  “If you won’t go in to help the people without some magical guarantee, then I’ll have to draw you a happy ending like last time.” She waved her fingers impatiently at me, then said, “Even though I know that’s not why it all worked out.”

  The thought of good luck on my side eased my anxiety. “What were you thinking of drawing?”

  “The Crystal Falls, of course,” she said while rolling her eyes. “Hand it over.”

  I groaned while I took the book off the desk and set it in her awaiting hands. She leafed through its pages and stopped on the last page where it read, The End.

  “Give me the pen.” She extended her arm again, and I reluctantly placed it in her grasp.

  She immediately got to work, hunched over the pages of the story. Her brows knitted together while she gazed with intense focus at the paper. The nib of the pen scratched over the surface, leaving a trail of black ink in its wake. As I watched, the scene began to take shape.

  “Does this look right?” she murmured and looked up at me.

  I never would have been able to do what she was able to. The sketch of the mountain looked almost the same as the view I’d seen from the citadel, except for the water pouring from the drop-off. Pepper made it look easy. “That’s pretty close to it. Except, I didn’t see any water falling, since they’ve damned it.”

  She got back to work and I couldn’t help but ask, “So what’s your plan? You’re going to draw a picture of the waterfall and then what?”

  Without stopping, she answered, “I’m doing my part making sure your silly luck is on your side—next step’s up to you. You’re the one who figured how to get us out of the last jam. I imagine we’d need to start with finding the journal Bardrick told you about?”

  A sense of unease settled in my stomach, and I knew it wasn’t from Aunt Holly’s stir fry. If she was going to push me into going back to Crystal Springs, then she was right. We would need something to guide us to the town’s water source. Not only did Kyrah believe there was record of it on Obo’s shelves, but so did Bardrick. The old record keeper hadn’t struck me as strong or quick, but I was the last person to use violence to get anything I wanted. The power of persuasion hadn’t worked with him, so that only left one thing I could think of—and that was the very reason I was so unhappy.

  I groaned and would have stamped my foot on the floor if I’d been standing. Thankfully I wasn’t, because Pepper’s eyes focused on me and the beginning of my temper tantrum. “What if we get caught? There are soldiers there. I don’t want to wind up in another dungeon—I won’t be happy.”

  “As unhappy as the people in Crystal Springs? Since they’re losing their homes ‘n all.”

  “Is it just me who remembers the cops being called when Aunt Holly couldn’t find us?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes and continued to work on her illustration. “Should I add a bird in the sky or something?”

  I couldn’t answer her. Instead, I stood up to pace the room. It was still early, not even seven o’clock. The walk into the city could be shortened if we had the energy to jog part of the way. If we went straight to the Hall of Records, kept our search to a minimum and hurried back, there was a chance we could get Pepper home by eight thirty. That was just based on wishful thinking. So many things could go wrong and we’d be stuck, arrested or worse, unable to return by our bedtime.

  We wouldn’t be able to just walk in during the day to grab it. It made sense to sneak in with the cover of night, but there was one fact I was having a hard time getting around. Electronics wouldn’t make it through the portal. I hadn’t tried to bring in a flashlight before, but I wasn’t about to assume it would work. There was no way I’d go into the story without having a way to see in the dark. Especially since I’d be the fool to fall into a pit, twist my ankle, or walk straight into a guard.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, thinking of something. “I had to go through the citadel to get to the Hall of Records. What if it’s all closed up at night? We won’t be able to get in.”

  “Bardrick will help,” she answered matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, will he?” I challenged her. I suspected she was right, but I hated how easy she always made things sound when they never were. “We’ll need a light.”

  I paced across the attic and found myself in front of the series of bookshelves I’d emptied the other day. Mounds of my grandpa’s things scattered the floor. Among all of it an old plastic flashlight had rolled into the corner. I reached down to pick it up. My finger fumbled over the switch, flipping it on. A beam of light hit the bookshelves, creating long, distorted shadows.

  “Do you know if you can take that in without it breaking?” Pepper asked from a couple feet away, making me jump. I hadn’t heard her get up and was surprised to find her beside me.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered and glanced at the shelf again. “There’s only one way to find out. So, what if Bardrick’s able to get us to the Hall of Records and the door’s locked? Maybe we just need to plan this out a little more. Think about it a little longer before we do anything stupid.”

  “What about these?” Pepper asked and reached down to grab the ring of keys from one of the piles on the floor. “Maybe one of these will work.”

  There were at least twenty altogether. Some were old and made of blackened iron, others shone silvery or golden in the dim light. Beside them was a dark leather case. She picked it up before I could pocket the flashlight and stop her.

  “This is perfect!” Pepper said with her eyes wide. “I’ve seen lock picks used in the movies. We can go anywhere now.”

  I snorted. “I’ve never used a lock pick in my life. I don’t see that happening.”

  She slipped out a worn, folded piece of paper that hid behind the narrow tools and handed it to me. The paper crinkled at my touch as I opened it up. I read the instructions aloud. They optimistically informed us we’d be able to pick a lock “in no time at all.” I couldn’t believe anyone would believe such a massive lie.

  Pepper slapped my shoulder and said, “They say it’s easy, so we should be able to figure it out. Ready?”

  “For what?” I felt as if I’d swallowed a heavy rock that was now sinking into my stomach. I knew what she meant, and the comfort I’d experienced thinking about having luck on my side had almost completely disappeared.

  Pepper raised an eyebrow at me. She leaned over to pick up my backpack, which was laying on the floor. She brushed all of the keys into it, then grabbed the lock-picking kit from my hands and thrust it against my chest. I grabbed it reflexively with a cough.

  When she was done loading my backpack with items, she handed it to me. I stood there like the gawky idiot I am, just watching in silence, trying to think my way out of the situation. Pepper didn’t understand the word no. If I had the guts to tell her I wasn’t going, she’d take off without me, and I couldn’t let that happen. It was a slow acceptance, realizing I was going to burglarize Frederick Stone’s journal in the next hour. Or try to, more like.

  Pepper pulled my sweatshirt off the swivel chair and slipped it over her head, careful to keep her aviator hat in place. Then, she leaned down to pick up Grandpa’s story and pen. “No time like the present. I don’t have all night.”

  I let out a shaky sigh before slipping the backpack over my shoulder. I gripped the flashlight tight. My palms were sweaty. I’d never done anything like this before. The best way
through it was forward and fast. If we could get to the Hall of Records, try all the keys and tools, we’d leave as quickly as possible. If we got in or not, I would be in my own bed by the end of the night.

  I thought of Pepper’s illustration on the last page of the story. It was my insurance policy against bad things happening to us. If it worked the way I thought it would, then no matter how little we’d planned, we’d wind up on top. We would get the book and find the solution to Crystal Springs’ water problem.

  Pepper held her hand out to me. I walked across the room to stand beside her. She looped her arm through mine, then held up the pen so I could see the Latin etched along its length.

  “Say it together?” she asked.

  I shrugged and gave a nod.

  “Ars imitatur vita.”

  Thieves by Night

  The blinding light was followed by darkness. Heat radiated through my hand, and I adjusted the plastic shaft of the flashlight between my fingers. I couldn’t see anything. I could, however, feel Pepper’s arm linked through mine. Our raspy breaths layered with the gentle sound of moving water. I knew from experience we were standing near the reservoir.

  “Does the flashlight work?” Pepper asked.

  My hands felt for the switch, but the plastic was hot to the touch. When my finger moved it forward, nothing happened. “No,” I answered her. “Maybe we should go back.”

  “Hold on.”

  After we stood unmoving for a minute, waiting for our eyes to adjust in the dark, I was able to make out the sheen of moonlight glimmering off the surface of the water. It was then I began to notice a soft glow that traced around the edge of the lake. Even around us, standing amongst bushes, patches of light radiated from the rocks on the ground. Her arm dropped away from mine and both of us squatted down to take a closer look.

  Pepper breathed out and whispered, “It’s so pretty.”

  “I didn’t see that last time,” I muttered, looking at what appeared to be green phosphorescent moss growing on the stones.

  “This is why visiting worlds at night is jelly.”