The Reckless Rescue Read online

  Myrtle had rounded up the members of the board who were currently in the city to come and discuss the matter. Evie wasn’t so sure what there was to talk about. It was simple: They needed to rescue Sebastian. They needed to do it now. She had read somewhere that after two days, it was much less likely to find a missing person ever. Time wasn’t on their side.*2

  “What about the rest of the table?” asked Catherine Lind, animal expert and former member of the infamous explorer team the Filipendulous Five, as she added to the stack the white sheet she’d just pulled off a row of chairs.

  “We won’t need it,” replied Myrtle, placing her hands on her hips and looking off into the dark far end of the room.

  Evie wished there were windows to open, or some kind of natural light, but they were deep underneath the society building. The roots of the large tree that grew up through the central library of the building twisted along the ceiling and dove into the ground at inconvenient intervals. They created floor-to-ceiling pillars around which the large meeting table had to bend and turn. The table was so long that it vanished into the darkness. Evie assumed it, too, was draped in yet more white sheets to protect it from the dirt and soil. Lanterns along the opposite wall lit half of the room. It was all so dark and oppressive. And it added to Evie’s general sense of doom and fear.

  “I don’t understand why we can’t just go after him now,” said Evie again in frustration.

  “Because rushing into things at the beginning often ends up making things take longer in the end,” replied a melodious voice from behind her.

  Evie turned to see a tall man with a meticulously groomed goatee standing in the entrance. He walked inside, followed by two other members of the society: an elegant brown-haired woman in a flowing dress, and a short, stout man in a checkered suit. Evie didn’t know any of them, though she did think she might have seen the woman before, in the leather chair room. Their presence only made her more nervous.

  As they took their seats at the table, Catherine leaned in and whispered into Evie’s ear, “The members of the board of directors. They’ve always intimidated me.”

  Evie could see why. They all looked so stern. And as she sat down beside Catherine, she had the distinct impression they were judging her quite harshly. What they were judging her on, she had no idea. And considering they were the ones who had approved her moving into the society headquarters and being educated there, Evie found their attitude a little unfair, really. The pig made a soft snort beside her, and she scooped it up into her lap. She hugged it maybe a bit too closely, but it seemed to understand that its role was to take care of her and accepted the squeeze with grace and dignity.

  Myrtle sat herself at the head of the table. “Evie, meet Llewellyn Tracy, Lady Trill, and the Hopper. The four of us represent the board of directors for the Explorers Society, and we are now going to discuss what is to be done about Sebastian.”

  “And my grandfather,” added Evie quickly.

  Myrtle furrowed her brow at that.

  “Your grandfather? Myrtle, no one said anything about a grandfather,” said Lady Trill carefully.

  “Ah, well, yes,” said Myrtle awkwardly. It was the first time Evie had ever seen the Ice Queen less than composed.

  “He’s the reason all this is happening in the first place.” Evie looked at the confused expressions the members of the board were wearing, unique in their own special ways: Llewellyn Tracy narrowed his eyes and scratched his goatee; Lady Trill raised her eyebrows so high, they disappeared behind her bangs; and the Hopper bounced in his seat. “Um…didn’t Myrtle tell you when you agreed to take me in?” asked Evie. She was starting to get that fluttery feeling in her chest that happened when she was on the verge of becoming emotional.

  “Myrtle told us everything was taken care of and that you were an orphan who needed help and a proper education. We trust her, and we enjoy helping and properly educating people,” said Lady Trill.

  “Oh. Oh dear,” Evie said quietly to herself.

  “Does this have something to do with the Filipendulous Five?” asked the Hopper, stopping his bouncing for a moment and giving Myrtle a hard look. “Is that why she’s here?” He indicated Catherine as if she were a distasteful painting or an unpleasant smell.*3

  Myrtle sighed hard. Finally she conceded the point and admitted to the board that “the members of the Filipendulous Five are in danger. Someone is after their pieces of the map from their last expedition.” She didn’t explain further. From the expressions on the board members’ faces it seemed they were all too familiar with the story, or at least the part of it that ended with the Filipendulous Five causing a tsunami from deep below the ocean waves in their submarine, and all the destruction that ensued. It was harder to tell if the board members were aware of what the team had been after: the secret waterfall down in the Mariana Trench, the one that seemed to be some kind of fountain of youth. Evie felt that maybe she should just keep silent, not adding to Myrtle’s story. Catherine certainly didn’t speak up either.

  “That bloody map!” said the Hopper with so much ferocity that he fell off his chair. Quickly he clambered back onto it and looked at the others as if nothing had happened.

  “That’s why those men came here. That’s why Sebastian was kidnapped,” said Evie carefully.

  “Are you saying that the Filipendulous Five are responsible for the extreme damage that was done to society headquarters the other day? The damage that will take months to repair, and at quite a high expense?” asked Lady Trill slowly.

  “Uh,” replied Evie.

  “In a manner of speaking,” replied Myrtle, not looking very pleased.

  “Well…,” said Evie, thinking as fast as she could. The last thing she wanted was for the board to refuse to help rescue Sebastian and find her grandfather because of some evil men showing up and causing mass chaos in the society building.

  “Yes?” asked Lady Trill.

  “Well, I mean, sort of yes,” said Evie. “But also no. They would have come no matter what any of us or Catherine did. They wanted the map. And I don’t think it’s fair to place all the blame on the Filipendulous Five when they did everything the society asked them to do by hiding the map. Really, if we play the blame game, surely the society would have to take some of it.”

  There was a long silence as Evie collected herself. The pig snuggled more deeply into her arms.

  “And,” Evie said, starting up again, “whatever happened, I don’t think Sebastian deserves to just be left to his fate. He only wanted to help.” Her voice cracked on that last word. “None of this had anything to do with him, and now he’s in serious danger.” She had to stop now. She had to stop before she burst into tears.

  There was another silence. And then finally it was broken by someone other than Evie.

  “Poor lad,” said Llewellyn Tracy.

  Evie nodded. Poor lad indeed. Poor lovely, logical Sebastian with the photographic memory that could memorize a key to a map in a mere moment. And now he was all that remained of that key. And so they took him. And it was all her fault. She took in a deep breath and squeezed the pig even tighter.

  “We think these men are going after Benedict Barnes next,” said Catherine, finally speaking up. Evie understood why she’d kept quiet until now. It didn’t seem like anyone at the table was particularly fond of her. Except Evie, that is.

  “Oh, is that what you think?” sneered the Hopper.

  Catherine looked at him hard, as if she wanted to say something very particular to the man, but instead she turned her gaze to the others, leaned forward, and said, “Yes. He and I are the only remaining members who have a somewhat public profile, even if Benedict changed his last name. I myself know only Benedict’s address and Alistair’s post office box address. I have no idea where the others are, and, very likely, neither do these men.”

  “How can you b
e so sure they know where Benedict is?” said the Hopper, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “They know it the same way I know it,” interrupted Evie, tired of the Hopper’s attitude. “They went to the university to find him, and when they learned he wasn’t there, they found out where he was.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Lady Trill.

  “Our paths crossed while I was at the university campus myself.” Evie didn’t want to go into the details of her harrowing escape from Mr. K. It was all still too fresh—she flinched at the memory of jumping out of the bell tower.

  “So where is Benedict?” asked Lady Trill.

  “The Vertiginous Volcano,” replied Evie.

  There was a charged silence after she said the name. Evie didn’t understand why. The name didn’t seem all that scary. Sure, volcanoes could be very dangerous, but many people visited them, even active ones. It wasn’t like they were always erupting all over the place or anything.

  “He always did want to visit it,” said Llewellyn Tracy. “But that does make things difficult, doesn’t it?”

  “It does?” asked Evie.

  “The Vertiginous Volcano is a very tricky mountain. There is only one way to its base, located in the small town that is situated in the volcano’s shadow,” explained Catherine.

  “What’s so tricky about that?” asked Evie.

  “The town is hidden. There’s a secret entrance to it, and only a few people know of its whereabouts,” said Catherine.

  “Oh,” said Evie. She understood now the charged silence. Or at least, thought she did. To be fair, there were many reasons for a silence to be charged, but a secret entrance seemed as good as any.

  “The good news is that I know someone who can help,” said Catherine, speaking a little more loudly, almost as if she was making a pronouncement.

  “You do?” asked Myrtle. Everyone else around the table looked as shocked as the president.

  “Yes. Benedict worked for a time with a man named Thom Walker in Creaky Cove, Australia. He was a cartographer, responsible for mapping out some of the harder-to-reach areas of the rain forest in the northern parts of Australia. Thom was the one who told Benedict about the volcano originally, of its existence on Newish Isle, a small island country located a couple thousand miles east of the Queensland coastline. And I assume it was Thom who went with Benedict to Newish Isle and showed him the secret entrance to the town.” Catherine looked very sure of herself, and Evie was grateful. Her confidence made it seem all the more possible to do what they had to do. Not that Evie actually knew yet what they were going to do. But “had” and “going to” were two separate things. They had to rescue Sebastian. They had to warn Benedict about the dangerous men. They had to rescue her grandfather. How were they going to do any of that? That was still up in the air.

  “I see. So you’re going to find Benedict Barnes, are you?” said the Hopper.

  “Evie and I will, yes,” replied Catherine, looking over at Evie with a small smile that Evie returned.

  “You think it wise to bring a child with you on such an expedition?” asked Lady Trill. But it wasn’t a rhetorical question; she seemed sincerely curious about whether Catherine did find it wise or not.

  “I do. Evie and I have discussed it, and I think, considering the promise she made to Sebastian to rescue him and her need to find her grandfather, considering also how well she handled herself recently opposite these men—”

  Evie interrupted her. “And she couldn’t leave me behind anyway. I’d find a way to join her.”

  “It could be dangerous,” said Lady Trill.

  “It would be dangerous if I was a grown-up too, and yet that doesn’t seem to be an issue you have with Catherine.” Evie liked the logic there. Sebastian would have been proud.

  Sebastian.

  Every time she thought of him, her heart hurt.

  “So the two of you want to go to Australia to find this man, and then go to Newish Isle, find the town, and find Benedict. Which will in turn lead you to Sebastian. Which will for some reason lead you to this young lady’s grandfather,” said Llewellyn Tracy slowly, putting the pieces together.

  “Yes. We have to assume that those men are heading to the volcano as we speak. We have to assume that time is of the essence,” said Catherine.

  “But how will finding Sebastian help her grandfather?” asked Lady Trill, her eyebrows still hidden behind her bangs.

  Evie looked at Lady Trill with the same level of confusion with which Lady Trill was looking at her. It seemed pretty obvious, didn’t it? “Because they are all in danger—Sebastian, Benedict, and anyone who is with them—but my grandfather most of all. We don’t know why, but we know that his life is on the line. And the only way to find my grandfather is to find the others in the Filipendulous Five. My grandfather sent each of them a letter like the one Catherine got. When we put them all together, we’ll be able to figure out where he is.”

  “We think,” Catherine corrected her gently. “We don’t know for certain that they received letters, and we don’t know, even if they did, if the letters are a clue to finding him.”

  Evie looked at her for a moment. Catherine was right. It was just a guess that the letters would help her find her grandfather, but some guesses were better guesses than others. Some were more like hypotheses—guesses made after a lot of thinking and putting ideas together. Like when you guess that if you jump off a table, you’ll go downward. Wasn’t this one like that? Wasn’t it?

  “Yes,” Evie said firmly. “We think, but we’re pretty sure.”

  Catherine smiled. “We’re pretty sure.”

  Evie smiled too.

  “I don’t understand,” said the Hopper, annoyed. “Why does your grandfather have such a close relationship with the Filipendulous Five?”

  And that was when Evie finally understood the confused looks and strange questions. In all this, Evie and Catherine had neglected somehow to share one important connecting piece of information. She glanced at Myrtle, who was examining the surface of the boardroom table with the kind of fascination normally reserved for a newly uncovered fossil.

  It was up to Evie, then. She looked at the members of the board, and with her chin up proudly, she said, “My grandfather is Alistair Drake.”

  *1 Which is also how I describe the new duvet cover I just got for my bed.

  *2 Time wasn’t not on their side either. Time just generally likes to maintain a neutral opinion on most subjects.

  *3 Or a distasteful painting of an unpleasant smell.

  The problem with Sebastian’s planning a daring escape from a plane populated with dangerous men was the part where he was in a plane and it was populated with dangerous men. Also the part where he was up in the air with nowhere to escape to. Still, this didn’t stop Sebastian from thinking hard, trying to solve the puzzle.

  The solution, Sebastian pretty quickly realized, came in not being in the air. His best shot, he figured, was, once they’d landed and left the plane, somehow slipping out and away. But that was tricky because of the second part of the problem: the dangerous men.

  Sebastian sighed hard, so hard, in fact, that Mr. I looked at him with a slightly different expression.

  “I hate long flights,” explained Sebastian.

  Thud.

  Sebastian and Mr. I were both tossed violently about in their seats. Sebastian, shocked, glanced out the window. Darkness. Just black darkness of dark.

  Thud.

  “What’s going on?” asked Sebastian, looking at Mr. I—not that the man could answer even if he knew.

  The expression Mr. I wore on his face now was one Sebastian had not seen on him before. He had known the man to look menacing, and also menacing, and sometimes menacing, but he had never seen him worried before. Or…now that he looked more closely…frightened? This, in turn,
had the effect of making Sebastian even more frightened himself.

  “What’s going on?” asked Sebastian again, his voice shaking a little this time. Just as he did, the plane lurched up and then down so violently that he was certain that had he not been wearing his seat belt, he would have hit his head on the ceiling. Possibly even been thrown straight through it toward the heavens.

  The calming ding of the FASTEN SEAT BELTS light overhead sounded, completely unaware, it seemed, of the immediate situation. It felt almost more like a coincidence and less like a reaction to the outside turbulence: Oh, hey there, guys. I was thinking maybe you might want to fasten your seat belts. And also, what’s going on? Anything new or interesting?

  The plane lurched again.

  Sebastian’s insides lurched as well.

  Now, Sebastian was a very rational person and knew that, more often than not, not throwing up was a question of mind over matter. In this instance, though, the Don’t throw up, don’t throw up running through his head was not feeling as effective as it could have.

  Lurch!

  Don’t throw up, don’t throw up.

  “Good evening. This is your captain speaking.” The captain spoke in smooth, calm, even tones, almost as if she, like the little ding light, were oblivious to their situation. “We’ve hit a bit of turbulence, which is perfectly normal, no need for concern. Turbulence is a very common occurrence and something planes have been built for. Also, a bird flew into our right engine and that caused it to explode, so we’re down an engine and we’re going to have to make an emergency landing at Incheon International Airport.”

  “What?” asked Sebastian loudly.

  Mr. I’s grimace reflected a similar stunned response.

  “Okay,” said Mr. M, returning from the front and settling in across the aisle. He leaned toward Sebastian and Mr. I. “Look at me, Sebastian.”