She stopped again at a painting hanging over the back of the green velvet sofa. “I don’t remember that either.”
At a glance, it looked like an ordinary painting of the house they were standing in—the famous house on Clock Island—but if you looked twice, you saw that the windows were painted like eyes, and the grand double front doors resembled a weird laughing mouth.
“You don’t remember it because I hadn’t painted it yet.”
“You tried to teach me how to draw the house.”
“I did?”
“Probably not how you wanted to spend your afternoon, teaching a snot-nosed runaway how to draw while waiting on the cops to drag her away.”
“I happen to like teaching kids to draw.”
“Really?” She raised her eyebrows. He didn’t blame her for being skeptical. When he’d started working with Jack on the books, he’d been dragged all over the country on school visits. No one was more surprised than Hugo himself when he realized he enjoyed that part of the job.
“Really.”
“You live on the island too?” she asked.
“For the moment,” he said.
“I have never been so jealous of anyone in my life. Jack really should have let me be his sidekick.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You know how hard it is to get good Chinese takeaway on a private island?”
“Fair point, but I think I could trade takeout for piebald deer on my lawn, pet ravens, and flying writing desks.” She raised her hand in his direction. “Plus, this place has its own personal world-famous artist in residence.”
“I’m famous only to children under twelve.” This wasn’t true, but it sounded good.
Lucy looked out the dark bay window, though there was nothing to see but the lights on the dock. “What’s going to happen?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Hugo said. “He didn’t consult me.”
Something in his tone must have betrayed something he didn’t want to betray. “You’re worried about him.”
“He’s getting older, slowing down,” Hugo said. “Of course I’m worried about him.” When talking to the children—and the former children—who read his books, Jack’s number one rule was Don’t break the spell. Lucy was under the spell of Jack Masterson and Clock Island. Hugo wasn’t about to tell her that it wasn’t as wonderful as it looked, that the mysterious, mystical, magical Mastermind from the stories who could solve everyone’s problems and grant every child’s wish had been drinking himself into an early grave for the past six years.
She looked to the library. Voices murmured behind the closed doors.
“It’s safe to go in. It’s just a game,” Hugo said softly.
She shook her head. “Not to me.”
Hugo hesitated before speaking again. “I won one of his games, you know. It can be done, even by a fool like me.”
“You did? How?” She sat on the edge of the sofa. Hugo crossed his arms and leaned against the bookcase across from her. A bookcase haphazardly stuffed with rare first editions of legendary children’s books—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, The Hobbit, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens…Books worth a few million dollars displayed as casually as the magazines in a doctor’s waiting room.
“Jack never liked his old illustrator. The publisher hired him, not Jack. When his publisher decided to re-release the books with new covers, Jack held a fan art contest. Davey, my younger brother—he loved Jack’s books more than life. I’d draw him pictures from the stories all the time—the Storm Seller, the Black & White Hat Hotel, all those. Davey saw a story about the contest and demanded I send in my drawings. Never thought anything of it except I wanted to make him happy. Lo and behold—”
“You won.”
He raised his hands to say, guess so. “I won. The prize was supposedly five hundred dollars. That wasn’t the real prize. I won the chance to be the new illustrator.”
Lucy grinned. “I bet Davey reminds you that you owe him big-time every single day.”
“He did, yeah,” Hugo said. “He died a few years ago.”
She looked at him, her eyes full of tender sympathy. “Mr. Reese, I’m so—”
“Call me Hugo.”
“Hugo,” she said. “You can call me Lucy. Or Hart Attack, I guess. That’s what you called me back then.”
“Sounds like me. Classic ass back then.”
“Only back then?” she said with a grin.
“Offensive,” he said. “But not inaccurate.”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
Hugo wanted to say something, to keep chatting her up, but they were out of time. Every clock in the entire sitting room and library began to toll the hour.
“We should go in,” he said when the clocks were silent again. “Jack will show his face soon, I hope.”
“Once more into the breach.” She reached for the doorknob.
Before he could stop himself, he put his hand on the door, preventing her from opening it.
“Do you remember the name of the man who drove you here?” he asked and immediately regretted it.
“Mike. Mikey if you likey. Why?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
She put on a brave face and opened the door.
“Lucy,” he said, and she looked back at him. “Good luck.”
Chapter Twelve
Lucy’s hand shook with nerves as she pushed open the library door. When she stepped inside the library, three pairs of eyes turned her way, scrutinizing her, sizing her up. Her competition.
She smiled shyly as she made her way into the room. “Evening, fellow runaways,” she said, giving them a little wave. “I’m Lucy.”
“Hi, Lucy. I’m Melanie. It’s nice not to be the only girl here.” An Asian woman in her late thirties with a Canadian accent approached her and held out her hand to shake. She was tall and thin with long dark hair pulled into one of those perfectly sleek ponytails that Lucy had never been able to master. She wore a soft cream-colored sweater, cashmere from the look of it, slim dark jeans, and brown leather boots.
Lucy shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Melanie waved her hand at a handsome Black man standing by the sideboard in a dark blue suit. “This is Andre Watkins. Attorney from Atlanta.”
“How you doing, Lucy?” Andre took a step forward and shook her hand vigorously, like a politician. “You were great on TV. A real pro.”
“So were you,” Lucy said. “You nearly made Hoda fall out of her chair.”
“It’s what I do,” Andre said. Lucy could picture him running for governor of Georgia in a few years.
“Dustin,” said the other man in the room. “Welcome to the party.”
Lucy said her hellos. Dustin, she recalled, was the ER doctor. He looked like someone who hadn’t seen the sun for a long time. He was wearing jeans and a blazer, a crisp white button-down underneath. Everyone was better dressed than she was. Better dressed and older, and they seemed much more comfortable. She felt as if she’d shown up a day late at summer camp, and everyone had already made friends. It didn’t help that the library was so grand and imposing—dark wood and a massive fireplace, dark green wallpaper, and even one of those rolling library ladders.