The Wishing Game(59)

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!”

—From The 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’d never make it work. I hate to think he was right, that I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Lucy’s heart clenched at Melanie’s confession. “When I met you,” Lucy said, “I assumed you had this perfect life. You seem like you have everything together.”

“I have nothing together except my outfit,” Melanie said.

“Truth is,” Andre said as he got up to stand in front of the dying fire, “the thing I’m most afraid of is telling the truth to my son. He knows his granddaddy is sick, but we haven’t told him he’s not going to make it if he doesn’t get a kidney transplant soon. They’re best friends.”

“You’re not a match?” Melanie asked.

Andre shook his head. “Dad’s got a rare blood type. It’s been a nightmare.”

“Maybe you don’t want to tell your son,” Melanie said, “because you don’t want to make it real yet for you either.”

Andre nodded but said nothing.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Lucy said. “But pretty jealous you and your son have such a good relationship with him. I would have killed for that.”

“I keep forgetting how lucky we are to have each other,” he said. “Thank you for reminding me of that.” He smiled. “God, I miss the things I was afraid of as a kid. I’d kill to be scared of ghosts and closet monsters again, and not my dad dying before he sees his grandson grow up.”

“And spiders,” Melanie said. “And rats. Real rats are so much less scary than the rat I married.”

“Come on now. What about you, Lucy Lou?” Andre said. “We ponied up. What’s your real fear?”

“I don’t think I have just one,” she admitted as she mindlessly spun the dregs of her hot chocolate in the bottom of her mug. “I mean, take your pick. Seeing my ex-boyfriend again. Or worse, letting him see how little I’ve done with my life. Never getting to do the one thing I really want to do with my life. Finding out the reason my parents and my sister didn’t love me is that there’s nothing to love about me. And trust me, I know how pathetic that sounds, but no matter how old you get, no matter how many times you tell yourself it was them and not you, you never really persuade yourself that it wasn’t you.”