Astrid recognized her mother’s voice. She’d know it anywhere, though it sounded strange. She realized she’d never heard her mother terrified before. Of course she was terrified. Astrid and Max had disappeared from the house last night. How did their mother know they were on Clock Island?
“What do we do?” Astrid asked the Mastermind. He stood in the shadow cast by a mighty suit of armor so that it looked like the shadow around him was his armor. She’d been on Clock Island all night, and she still hadn’t seen his face. Maybe she never would.
“If you were her, what would you want your children to do?” The Mastermind’s voice was gentle, gentler than she’d ever heard it before.
Max answered before Astrid could.
“She wants to find us,” Max said. “Maybe we should tell her where we are.”
He looked toward the shadow, but the shadow said nothing.
“We can’t. She’ll kill us,” Astrid rasped to Max.
“We can’t hide here forever,” Max said. He met her eyes. “Right?”
“Max? Astrid? Where are you?” They could see their mother on the beach, her hair and coat being whipped madly by the wind and the rain. She must be cold out there, cold and scared. “Astrid!”
It hurt to hear her voice like that, hurt to see her so scared.
“I’m scared,” Astrid said.
“Because you’ll get into trouble?” the Mastermind asked.
“Because she’ll ask us why we ran away,” she said. “Then we’ll have to tell her.”
“Tell her what?” The Mastermind had a way of asking questions that made you think he already knew the answer, even before you knew.
“Tell her we want to have Dad back, even if it means moving away,” Max said. “They decided Dad would leave for his new job, and we’d stay behind so we wouldn’t have to change schools. But if we tell her we want to be with Dad more than we want to stay…”
“Then we’ll move,” Astrid said. And that was what she was most afraid of…leaving everything behind, starting over. A new life in a new town with new friends—or maybe no friends. What was scarier than that?
Staying, she realized. Staying here without their dad. That was the only thing scarier.
Astrid grabbed Max by the hand and said, “Let’s go.”
They ran together out the front door, forgetting even to tell the Mastermind goodbye.
“Mom!” she shouted. “Mom, we’re here!”
—FromThe House on Clock Island,Clock Island Book One, by Jack Masterson, 1990
Chapter Twenty
Hugo left the library,following Jack. Lucy waited a while, but he never came back. Back to the guesthouse, she supposed. Could she follow him? Yes. But what would she say?I forgot to tell you but thanks for the shoes. By the way, if I’m getting the riddle right, that means your wife dumped you for another man. Tell me all about it.
That might not go over well.
Something knocked loudly against the house, kicked by the wind. All three of the contestants were jolted by the sudden noise. Jack hadn’t been kidding about the coming storm.
“Maine is crazy,” Andre said, his dark eyes trained on the window and the churning ocean in the distance. “Sounds like a hurricane.”
“Just a bad storm,” Lucy said, hoping it wouldn’t turn into a nor’easter.
“I hate storms,” Melanie said, shivering as she glanced at the window, then shook her head. She gave a little scoffing laugh. “Wonder if Jack arranged this to make me face my fear of storms.”
Andre looked at her. “Thought you said you were only afraid of losing your bookstore.”
“If you want to know the truth, I’m afraid of proving my ex-husband right by losing my bookstore. He told me during the divorce that I’dnever make it work. I hate to think he was right, that I didn’t know what I was doing.”
