Andre exhaled heavily. “Maybe my mom was right. Maybe running away to Clock Island was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
The four decided to work together since no points were at stake. They all left the house to explore the island, looking for this mysterious king.
They started at theWelcome ashore at foursign and worked counterclockwise past Puffin Rock at Three O’Clock, the One O’Clock Picnic Spot…
They tossed out idea after idea.
The king of Clock Island?
Was Jack the king of Clock Island? He didn’t wear a crown. What were they going to do? Cut the crown of his head off?
“I could do that,” Dustin said, grinning. “Done it before.”
“Let’s maybe not cut Jack’s head off quite yet,” Andre said. “Keep your eyes out for a statue or sculpture or something.”
Suddenly Melanie stopped in the center of the path and snapped her fingers.“The King of Clock Island?It’s one of the book titles.”
“No,” Lucy said. “The full title isThe Lost King of Clock Island. But…”
She remembered reading that book to Christopher the last night he stayed with her. He’d picked it out because he liked the cover. A boy king rode a black horse through a cursed forest of evil grinning trees. He wore a golden crown on his head of black hair. Black hair just like his, which was probably why he’d chosen it.
“Hugo’s paintings are all over the house,” Lucy said. “Maybe one of the cover paintings? Does anybody remember seeing a painting of a boy on a horse riding in a forest?”
Andre snapped his fingers. “End of the hall by my room. Let’s go.”
They made their way back to the house, walking faster than when they’d left. The morning was warming. Lucy was grateful. She’d felt guilty after calling Hugo a “spoiled brat” last night, so guilty she couldn’t bring herself to put on the coat he’d lent her.
But it seemed she couldn’t escape him. They got back to the house and climbed the stairs. Down one hall, then up another short set of stairs. They reached the painting hanging over an antique butler table with an ancient black Royal typewriter atop it. A piece of paper was rolled into the typewriter. The wordsFound me!were typed at the top.
Melanie carefully unspooled the paper from the typewriter.
On the back, it said,The next game will begin at one at two.
Andre shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I miss the real world.”
“One O’Clock is the picnic spot,” Lucy said. “I guess we’ll meet there at two this afternoon?”
Jack stuck his head out of a door at the opposite end of the hallway.He whispered, “Yeeesssss,” in a spooky voice before disappearing again.
Well, they had their orders. Melanie, Andre, and Dustin left the hallway and went back downstairs.
“When I was a kid,” Melanie said as she walked away, “I never understood why Dorothy wanted to leave Oz and go home to Kansas. Now I get it.”
They all laughed. All of them but Lucy. She stayed behind, studying the painting, the boy on the horse fleeing the dark forest. A beautiful painting, one of Hugo’s best. No, she would have happily stayed in Oz forever. And on Clock Island too. If only she could.
—
On Clock Island, agirl with soft brown hair and a long wooden spoon fed freshly caught stars to the Man in the Moon.
These were the things that got Hugo out of bed in the morning. He liked where this painting was going—the strangeness of it, the wistfulness. Was this the cover for Jack’s new book? No way to tell, but Hugo was enjoying watching the image in his mind come to life on his canvas. It had the feel of a Remedios Varo painting. In Hugo’s opinion, it was never too soon for children to learn theirABCs and their female Spanish-Mexican surrealists.
Hugo had been up and painting for hours. At five o’clock that morning, he’d woken from a night of a thousand dreams about Davey, all demanding Hugo paint them.
In one dream, they were kids again. Hugo was sitting in a chair by Davey’s bed, reading him stories while sharks swam past the window and birds perched on the footboard. Somewhere in the dream, Lucy Hart came into the room, smiled, and said it was her turn to read to him.And the book she read Davey had this image on the cover—the Man in the Moon, the spoon, the stars, and the girl who looked a little like a young Lucy Hart.
Hugo never tried to analyze the strange images his brain threw at him. He left the symbology and theorizing to the art critics. He dreamed. He imagined. He painted. Don’t ask him what anything meant. None of his business. All that mattered was that his dream had been a good one, one he wanted to stay in when he woke up. Davey was alive again for a night, and the book that Lucy read to his lost brother was a book Hugo wanted to hold in his hands.
Davey…God, he missed that kid. Even now, so many years later, Hugo caught himself whispering into the silence, “Where are you, Davey? Where did you go?”
