“Master Mastermind?” Max said. His voice was shaking. “Our dad had to move away, far away, for a job. We really miss him. If he could get a job in town, he could come back. We sort of wish for that—”
“Tell me what flies but has no wings,” said the man in the shadows. “And you’ll have your answer.”
Max looked up at Astrid, but she didn’t know the answer. Wildly, she looked around the room, trying to get her brain to work, to see if the solution was hiding somewhere. The room was so quiet she could hear the beating of her heart. It sounded like a clock ticking.
A clock ticking?
“Time,” she said. “Time flies and has no wings.”
“In time, if you’re patient, your father will come back to your home.”
Max tugged Astrid’s sleeve. “Come on. I knew this wouldn’t work. Let’s go home.”
He turned to leave, but Astrid stayed standing where she was.
“I don’t want to wait. We miss Dad now. Haven’t you ever missed anybody? When they’re gone, a day feels like a million years.”
Again, the Mastermind was quiet for a long, long time. In fact, he was quiet for so long that time could have grown wings and learned to fly while she waited for him to speak again.
“Will you be brave?” he asked. “Only brave children get their wishes.”
Astrid was scared, terrified even. But she lifted her chin and said, “Yes. I’ll be brave.”
And Max took her hand and said, “I will too. If I have to.”
The Mastermind laughed a laugh that was scarier than any scream.
“Oh, you’ll have to.”
—From The House on Clock Island, Clock Island Book One, by Jack Masterson, 1990
Chapter Ten
The boat slowed down even more as it neared the long wooden dock. The headlights of the ferry lit up the pier. A man stood at the end. Lucy couldn’t make out his face, but it wasn’t Jack Masterson. This guy looked too young and too tall. He stood with his hands in the pockets of a dark-colored peacoat facing the night wind as if the cold couldn’t touch him. And when the ferry skipper tossed the rope to him, he caught it quickly and tied the boat to the dock with hands that knew what they were doing.
She moved to the front of the ferry, arms tight around herself to fend off the cool evening air. The man on the dock offered his hand to help her out of the boat. She concentrated on not falling as she took the big step up and off.
“Bags?” the man on the dock said. The skipper handed them over and told Lucy a quick good-night.
The man looked her up and down. “Typical Californian. No coat?”
English accent. Sounded familiar. Could it be? But where was the rock star hair?
“No coat,” she said, feeling sheepish. She’d talked herself out of buying a winter coat, telling herself she probably wouldn’t need it for such a short trip. Turned out she did. “I’m okay. I have a sweater in my bag.”
“Here. Put this on.” He handed her a man’s flannel-lined winter jacket that he’d brought with him as if expecting her to be stupid about her clothes. She did as she was told, grateful for the warmth as she wrapped the oversized coat around her. It smelled, she noticed, like the ocean.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of winter clothes these days.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’m sure you’re not used to being somewhere that isn’t actively on fire.”
“Offensive,” Lucy said, tongue in cheek. “Not inaccurate, but still offensive.”
He almost smiled. Maybe. But he didn’t.
“This way,” the man said and started down the pier toward the house, her suitcase wheels making a dut-dut-dut sound as they rolled over the planks. She had to half jog to keep up with his long strides.
“You’re Hugo Reese, right?”
He stopped abruptly and looked at her with thinly concealed annoyance. “Unfortunately. Come on. Jack’s waiting.”
Same Hugo she remembered, even if he didn’t look quite so punk anymore. Midthirties, strong jaw, intelligent and intense blue eyes behind a pair of black-framed glasses. He wore a navy-blue peacoat, the collar open to show his very nice-looking neck. She’d thought he was gorgeous when she was thirteen. Now she’d say he was handsome, very handsome, despite the ferocious scowl. Almost distinguished. More professor than rock star these days. She decided she liked the upgrade.
She followed him, wondering how much he remembered from her last visit here. Probably nothing. He was a young man but certainly an adult back then while she’d been thirteen, the most impressionable of ages. She remembered every single word he spoke to her.
She’d been standing in the entryway to the house, the social worker’s hand on her shoulder as she told Mr. Masterson goodbye. Jack Masterson gently told her that she would have to go back home, that he hated to make her go, but it was against the law for him to keep the kids who showed up on his doorstep. He wished he could, truly and with all his heart. She could be Thurl Ravenscroft’s butler. Maybe when she was older, he said.
Hugo had been sitting on the stairs behind him. As the social worker escorted her out of the house, she heard him say to Jack, “Stop making promises you can’t keep. You’re going to get somebody killed one of these days, old man.”
That made her furious back then. Now that she was twenty-six, she had to admit Hugo had a point. Lucy could have gotten herself killed running away from home because a world-famous author made an offhand joke in a letter about needing a sidekick.
But she never forgot what Jack Masterson said in reply. “Hugo, always be quiet when a heart is breaking.”
Hugo had scoffed. “Yours or hers?” he’d asked.
That was the last time she’d seen Hugo Reese.
“Something wrong?” Hugo asked her. Had she been staring at him? Oops. Lucy was glad the cold crisp air had already turned her face red.
“We met before,” she said. “I was just wondering if you remembered.”
“I remember.” He didn’t sound happy about it. Okay, so not a good memory but still better than being forgotten.
“You look different.”
“It’s called aging. Thank you for pointing it out.” Then he turned away from her and said, “Come on. Everyone’s waiting.”
They reached the cobblestone walkway and followed it to the front door, the same cobblestone walkway Lucy had taken years ago.
She stopped in her tracks and looked up at the house. Every light in every window glowed like Christmas. A metal clock hung over the grand arched double doors, just like she remembered. Already Lucy felt welcome, warm, like this was where she belonged, though she knew she didn’t.
“Coming?” Hugo asked.
“Yes, sorry.” They headed forward. “I am sorry, you know.”
His brow furrowed in that fierce scowl she remembered so well. “For what?”
“I don’t know if you remember, but you yelled at me for putting myself in danger by running away. Back then, it never occurred to me how much trouble I could have gotten Jack Masterson into by showing up on his doorstep. It was stupid and dangerous and could have hurt his career if it had gotten out that he was, I don’t know, luring girls to his house.”