The Second Spy: The Books of Elsewhere: Volume 3 (17 page)

“She’s been up there,” said a voice—a low, whispering voice—from far beneath.

Olive inched along the wall beside the open trapdoor, trying not to think of the spiders and webs and sucked-dry bodies of bugs that might be scattered there, and lay down on the chilly basement floor, bringing her ears as close to the hole as she dared.

The voice that spoke next was deep and gravelly: Leopold. “I simply can’t believe that she would—”

“You
can’t
believe it? After the way she manipulated
you?” the other, whispering voice interrupted. Now Olive recognized it. It was Horatio’s. “Is your memory that short?”

They must be near the foot of the ladder under the trapdoor, Olive realized. Their voices were close by, but muted and echoing, like sounds made inside of a deep well. She craned over the hole.

A third voice was speaking. At first, Olive couldn’t make out what it said, but then she caught the words
double agent
spoken in a crisp British accent. So Harvey was down there too.

She’s been up there
. Did Horatio mean Annabelle?
She
had certainly manipulated Leopold—and Horatio, and Harvey—in her time. But
double agent?
There was nothing
double
about Annabelle. Her agenda was perfectly clear. Could he mean Ms. Teedlebaum? No, that wouldn’t make sense…Ms. Teedlebaum had never even seen the cats, as far as Olive knew. But who else could they be talking about?

Horatio’s irritated whisper trailed up through the hole again. “…What would it take to make you believe…”

“Simply don’t see why she would—” Leopold’s voice ended with another incomprehensible mutter.

“I can assure you that she
has
been up there.” Harvey was speaking again. “I observed her myself, from my base of operations. Much as it saddens me to think
that one of our own has become a traitor to the cause, it would not be the first time…”

“No,” said Leopold’s voice, soft but clear. “No.”

The word echoed in Olive’s head.
No.

“You refuse to believe us?” said Horatio’s voice. “I’ll show you.”

There was some softer, lower mumbling. The ladder gave a faint creak. Olive squirmed away from the trapdoor and pressed herself tight against the basement wall, futilely attempting not to think about the things with many legs that might be crawling from the stones into her hair. She held her breath and kept still.

Horatio and Leopold climbed one after the other through the open trapdoor. Neither one seemed to notice the carpet of pale blue light still glowing on the staircase. Olive pushed her shoulder blades against the gravestones of the wall, trying not to move, not even to blink. The two cats padded silently across the basement floor toward the stairs. Then Horatio halted. He turned to stare into the shadows, right where Olive was sitting. Leopold’s eyes swiveled in the same direction. Olive held as still as she had ever held in her life. She pretended that her skin had turned to plastic and that she couldn’t feel the cold against her back, or the itchy grittiness under her palms, or the air that was starting to burn in her lungs. She stared straight back at the cats.

“Does she think that we can’t see her?” Leopold asked Horatio.

“That would be my guess,” said Horatio dryly. “Take a breath, Olive. You look like you’re about to give yourself brain damage.”

Olive took a gulp of air.

“Ordinarily, I would reprimand you for eavesdropping,” Horatio went on, “but as it happens, this is rather convenient. Come with us, Olive. I have something to show both of you.”

Wavering to her feet, Olive followed the two cats up the rickety staircase. Neither of them paid any notice to the ribbon of light, sometimes trotting on its blue path, sometimes darting off of it, as though they didn’t see it at all—and of course, Olive realized, this was because they
couldn’t
see it. Horatio led the way up the stairs, now and then glancing back to check on the other two. Leopold stayed behind him, right in front of Olive, but he did not turn around. He didn’t speak either.

“What about Harvey?” Olive asked as they stepped through the basement door. “Isn’t he coming?”

“
Harvey
does not require convincing,” said Horatio, with a short, hard glance at Leopold.

The pathway of light crossed the kitchen and trailed into the hall, just as it had when Olive followed it to the basement. Olive veered away from the path and
dug a flashlight from the kitchen drawers, just in case. “You two can see in the dark, but I need some help,” she explained.

Horatio gave an irritated huff before turning and leading the way forward.

They continued along the glowing ribbon of light. Horatio climbed the stairs and turned to the right, trotting past Olive’s bedroom. Olive noticed that the light no longer ended at her bedroom door. Instead, it continued down the hall, lengthening as she tiptoed along its width, almost as though it too, were following Horatio’s silent footsteps.

Moving faster now, Horatio and the ribbon of light raced past the lavender bedroom and the blue bedroom, making for the pink room. A prickly sense of foreboding moved from the tips of Olive’s fingers up the length of her arms.

“Are we going into the attic?” she asked. But the cats didn’t answer.

By the time she reached the painting of the ancient city, the light was already there, glowing in the surface of the canvas. Neither cat offered her his tail. Olive fumbled to put on the spectacles as Horatio gave Leopold a commanding nod, and the black cat leaped through the frame.

“After you, Olive,” Horatio murmured. “I insist.”

Olive plunged through the canvas with Horatio
pressed watchfully against her leg, tripping over the bottom of the frame and almost falling face-first through the attic door. The cat raced up the steps into the shadows.

But for the glowing blue ribbon leading her up the stairs, the darkness in the attic was smothering. What little moonlight slipped through the small round window was all that kept the walls from disappearing into solid blackness. Olive flicked on the flashlight, slashing its beam across the room. She gave a little jump when she spotted another light shining back at her, but this turned out to be a reflection from the cluster of mirrors. Still, if Olive’s heart had been beating at high speed before, now it kicked up to a drum roll.

Both cats had darted away into the shadows. Olive hesitated at the top of the stairs, testing the darkness with the flashlight while the rivulet of magical blue light lapped at her bare feet. For a moment, the light seemed to condense, making itself brighter…and then it reached out one radiant blue beam that unrolled across the attic floor like a skein of silk.

Olive followed the path of light as it wound between the attic’s usual oddities—the miniature cannon, the skeletal hat racks—until it stopped beneath the ghostly shape of the cloth-draped easel. There, the light gave a final flare before sinking slowly into darkness.

The flashlight wavered in Olive’s hand. Her racing heart jerked to a halt.

Wait a minute…

The cloth that covered the painting had been moved. Olive was sure of it. Where before it had hung in even ripples all the way to the floor, now it looked slightly lopsided, as though someone had tossed it hurriedly into place. She ventured closer to the easel. Two paintbrushes, their bristles still damp, stuck out from behind the cloth, on the easel’s shelf. A smudge of brown paint stained the fabric—a smudge that Olive was positive hadn’t been there before.

Horatio and Leopold slipped out of the darkness and seated themselves in front of the easel.

“Olive,” Horatio commanded, “uncover the painting.”

Olive gripped the flashlight in her left fist. Her right hand shook as she reached out for the drop cloth. Then, with one quick motion, as though she were pulling off an especially large and bloody bandage, Olive ripped the cloth aside.

Aldous McMartin stared back at her from the easel.

Olive stopped breathing.

It was easy to recognize him. His face had burned itself into her brain when she’d found his photograph in the lavender room’s dresser months ago. Now, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted that very same photograph sitting on the easel’s shelf, removed from its old-fashioned folder and propped amid a collection of brushes and fresh splatters of paint.

With or without the photograph, she would have known that face: that rigid, carved-looking face, with its jutting cheekbones and square jaw and eyes that burned like fires in two deep, dark pits. A pair of arms, now complete, ran down to the long, bony hands that Olive had wrestled for the spellbook. The top of his head was missing, so he had no hair, and one of his shoulders was only a murky outline, but it was clear that this portrait was only a few hours—perhaps less—from completion. And, as Olive stood staring, unable to breathe, the portrait shifted. Aldous McMartin’s burning eyes locked with hers. His fingers, long and bony, twitched on the pages of the open scrapbook. And then he started to smile.

Olive yanked the spectacles off of her face with such force that their ribbon gouged into her neck. She nearly lost her grip on the flashlight, fumbling it so that its beam raced back and forth across the portrait, gleaming on the glossy streaks of fresh paint. Aldous’s eyes seemed to glimmer, as though he was watching her, even now.

“You see, Leopold?” said Horatio’s voice from the darkness behind her. “I told you that she was working against us.”

20

O
LIVE WHIRLED AROUND. Shakily, she aimed the flashlight at the cats. Its beam flared in Leopold’s bright green eyes, like a match touching a wick. Horatio dodged the light. He edged to one side, staring hard at Olive as he spoke.

“This is what she’s been up to,” he said softly. “Didn’t I tell you, Leopold? Do you believe me now?”

Leopold’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t speak.

“What?”
gasped Olive, whose mind was racing like a mixer in a bowl full of batter, spattering droplets everywhere.

“It was
you
who dug the hole in the backyard, to get the paint-making materials without us knowing,” said Horatio.

“No it wasn’t!” Olive argued.

But Horatio went on, circling her in the shadows. “It was
you
who reassembled the instructions and took the jars.”

“Well—yes, but—”

“It was
you
who mixed the paints. Harvey saw you.”

Nothing but air came out of Olive’s mouth now. She turned, trying to catch Horatio in the flashlight’s beam, but he slipped out of its path again. “I—” she stammered. “But I—I didn’t—”

“That’s why Harvey remained in the basement, guarding the lower room,” said Horatio. “
He
didn’t need any more proof of what you’d done.”

Leopold shifted uncomfortably. His eyes remained fixed on Olive.

“Leopold,” Olive began, “you can search my room if you want to. I don’t have the paints or the instructions for making them anymore. I told Horatio to take them away, because I’m never going to use them again, and—”

“
Told
me to take them away?” repeated Horatio. “I
found
them in your room only yesterday. I proceeded to destroy them before you could use them for your dangerous purposes.”

Olive’s mouth fell open. “Horatio! That’s not true! I swear, Leopold,” Olive pleaded. “I’m not the one who—”

“Do you deny that you used Aldous’s paints to create a portrait?” Leopold demanded, in a voice that was even lower and gruffer than usual.

“No—but I—I just— Honestly, I didn’t do
this
one, I was just trying—”

“She was trying to bring Aldous back,” said Horatio’s voice. Olive slashed at the darkness with the flashlight again, but Horatio remained invisible. “Now she needs him to teach her what she can’t master on her own. She wants just what Lucinda Nivens once wanted, just what Annabelle herself once wanted. Didn’t she prove as much with the spellbook? She wants to be his apprentice. She wants his power.”

“I DO NOT!” Olive exclaimed. “I don’t want to be like him!
I didn’t do this!
”

Horatio slunk to the edge of the light, standing just over Leopold’s shoulder. “She’s a danger to all of us,” he murmured in Leopold’s ear. Horatio stepped forward, nudging Leopold closer to Olive. “Perhaps we should put her into the painting with her master.”

Olive took an involuntary step backward and felt her shoulder bump the canvas. She jerked her arm away.

The cats crept closer.

“First, you must give us the spectacles, Olive,” Horatio continued. “You are obviously
not
to be trusted.”

Olive gulped. The flashlight wavered in her hand, sending a flickering glow over the two cats. Horatio ducked out of the beam once again. “No,” Olive said, her voice shaking. “And don’t come any closer. I’ll scream. My parents will hear.”

“They might hear you, but they won’t be able to reach you,” said Horatio, gliding nearer.

Olive trained the flashlight on his face. Horatio’s green eyes narrowed. He stopped moving. In the split second before he turned away, Olive noticed something funny about the shade of his eyes, which weren’t quite as bright as they used to be. And his fur…