Chapter 9
The send-off dinner leaves my skin sticky with grease and a borrowed serving dress reeking of beef. Mr. Sanders would’ve preferred salmon, but Gilly’s nets came back empty again. I scrape a plate of bones into the hearth pot, then give it a good stir.
I am anxious to clean up before meeting Koa at the Peace Rock at eight p.m. The big clock already reads seven thirty.
“Girls, pick over the oats,” Cookie orders, fatigue slurring her speech.
Our aprons are stained, and Dora’s eye has started to twitch. Even Cookie’s mobcap sags unevenly to one side of her head.
“But we just finished feeding a hundred people,” Dora whines. “Can’t we just do eggs tomorrow?”
“I wish we could do eggs too, but the chickens aren’t doing their job.
” Cookie screws her face closer to Dora’s.
“Why? ’Cause we’re eating them instead of the salmon.
The land tells us when it needs a rest, and Nowhere’s needed a rest for a long time.
May the mourners have the good sense to leave tomorrow.
” Cookie slams a cupboard closed. “When I come back, I want to see your pans.” She disappears out the door.
Only Flossie moves, dragging a bag of oats to the table with her stringy arms. I don’t want to miss Koa, but he will wait for me, given the crowd we’ve served. One final chore for Nowhere.
I plunge my hands into the grain mountain, feeling for stones. The oats feel grubby and cool in my fists. Cleaned oats go into pans set before us. Dora sulks across the table from Flossie and me, flicking pebbles with her eyes instead of her hands.
Her sulk sags into despair. “What will become of us? What will become of me?” She clutches her fists tight to her chest.
“We shall all carry on,” I say evenly, wishing she would work faster, or just work.
“Maybe I’ll go marry that fat gasbag Bert Wimby. He’s old and probably needs me to change his diapers, but maybe he’ll kick the bucket soon.” She sniffs.
If Bert Wimby is relying on her to change his diapers, then good luck to him.
Dora gags if she sees a chicken’s poopy bottom.
A worried look has grown on Flossie’s face, and her lips have disappeared into her tiny mouth.
The kerchief that usually holds back her hair has fallen to her neck, and her crown braid has gone frizzy.
“Mr. Sanders was a sensible sort,” I say, rolling a sharp stone against the pads of my fingers. “He will have named a capable heir and ensured that his employees are taken care of.”
Dora’s eyes roll back. “Sure.” She looks pointedly at Flossie, whose nimble fingers move like spider legs. “You might have to go back to nursing your crippled brother.”
Flossie’s cheeks tighten, but she keeps on sorting. At the sound of Cookie’s heavy footsteps, Dora grabs at Flossie’s pan, as if to pass it off as hers. But Flossie pulls it from Dora’s reach.
Cookie bustles in, glancing at our piles. Dora’s contains the least amount of cleaned oats. “Dora, you’re on honey duty this month. Monday mornings, don’t forget.”
“What are you smiling about?” Dora snaps at me. No one wants honey duty, which involves helping the bee farmer and his wife harvest from the bee boxes without getting stung.
“Me? I wouldn’t dare.” I stifle my petty amusement. Who knows? Perhaps one day I will come to miss her sass.
Something cool settles over me. I will not have a chaperone to Seattle.
But it is a modern age. With men off to war, women have shown themselves to be just as capable as men.
They are getting jobs as railway guards, even police officers.
Surely I can get myself a hundred miles to Seattle unmolested.
A dark figure appears at the entryway. Mrs. Bonefat, the housekeeper, surveys the room with her customary raptor’s gaze, and spines straighten.
Cookie glances up from her aspic pan. “Need something?”
Mrs. Bonefat grimaces. Though the cook reports to the housekeeper, Cookie regards Mrs. Bonefat as an equal, something Mrs. Bonefat resents but does not complain of. The only thing those two have in common is a dislike of stairs, one due to sciatica, the other because of bad knees.
“Lucy’s presence is required in the library.”
Me? Faces turn my direction and a drumming sets up in my ears.
“What for?” Cookie grumbles.
“Perhaps people enjoy her witty conversation,” Mrs. Bonefat says dryly, and Dora snickers. “I am not privy to such details.”
Cookie rolls her eyes at me, then jerks her head toward Mrs. Bonefat.
I reluctantly rise, wiping my dusty hands on a cloth.
I already knew that some men, including the Brain Trust, had gone to the library to discuss business matters, as the maids took up cheese boards for them earlier.
Perhaps Miss Jack is too tired to take notation and I am being called to fill in.
It is already well past eight. Koa will wait if I am late, but for how long? I shouldn’t have stayed to help with the oats.
Mrs. Bonefat ascends one of the two staircases that hug the round walls of the reception room, hiding her pain as she mounts. I pull myself up the polished banister, head buzzing. Why must they polish banisters when glossiness is only good for a twisted ankle?
Soon we cross the balcony that overlooks the reception room, the noise of men jabbing at my ears.
Beyond a fearsome display of glassy-eyed salmon mounted on the opposite stairwell wall, I catch sight of the high-ceilinged library.
Sveyn and Boots command the room, attended to by our head footman, Yates.
At our entry the conversation dries up. For the second time, I am held up for inspection by the wizards, none of whom seem happy to see me.
The hulking Sveyn makes a series of grunts, lifting his eye patch to better glare at me with his weak eye, which was injured by a flying wood chip.
Boots glances up from his glass, unfazed at seeing me twice in one day, though he has always been good at hiding behind those muttonchops.
Sveyn must touch and interact with the world to make sense of it; Boots is an observer who keeps his hands and feet to himself.
My collar tightens. Do they know about my pilfered picture of Shadow and Scull? Perhaps, after Shimmelfen, they have started searching the rooms of departing employees. Perhaps they found it in my closet.
“Ah, here you are,” comes a voice from the far side of the room. I recognize his shock of white hair immediately. It is the lawyer, Mr. Cosmos. He stands next to a writing desk occupied by the secretary, Miss Jack.
“Lucy.” Father Pinnyhorne greets me from the couch he shares with our thoughtful groundskeeper, Mr. Kagaoka, who idly flips through a book on gardening.
From the corner comes a bright peal of piano notes. The heir apparent, Nash, throws me a curious expression. A star-shaped gardenia blooms at the lapel of his mourning suit.
“Good evening, sirs,” I squeak, hearing the library doors close heavily behind me. Mrs. Bonefat has disappeared, taking Yates with her.
If I am to be accused, must everyone stand in witness? Seems rather extreme, but perhaps Mr. Sanders’s death has pulled everything out of proportion. The smell of cheese from a sideboard stirs my insides.
“Everyone, please have a seat.” Mr. Cosmos brings a leather portfolio to a pair of wide chairs opposite two sofas set in an L shape. Sveyn and Boots seat themselves on one wing, while Nash joins the priest and the groundskeeper on the other. Miss Jack remains at her desk, pen suspended.
I take a chair at a corner table by storm-gray curtains that drape like sails. Daniel and I used to hide in these curtains when we were young. I wish he were here to cut the gloom. He’d point his nose to the chandelier and say, It’s not the best ceiling I’ve ever seen, but it’s up there.
Mr. Cosmos beckons me. “Lucy, come closer. This chair is available.” He indicates the throne next to him. “And comfortable, I might add.”
“Be quick about it, girl,” snaps Sveyn when I hesitate.
Tugging at my dress, which has begun to stick to my legs, I try to make it to the chair without falling. I am definitely in trouble.
The chair whuffs out a sigh as I lower myself into it, as if it too disapproves of me. Perhaps I should own up now, before the lawyer lays out the accusations, hoping for a lesser sentence. I could plead ignorance. “I am an ignorant girl—” I begin.
“Mr. Sanders—” Mr. Cosmos says at the same time, lifting an envelope. “Er, what was that, Lucy?”
Nash flips his gaze to the coffered ceilings.
“Nothing, sir. Pardon.”
“Very well. As I was saying, Mr. Sanders wrote a letter to be opened in the presence of all the individuals here upon the event of his death.” Mr. Cosmos looks at each of us in turn: Sveyn, sprawled with a boozy flush to his face; Boots, still as a steamer trunk; Father Pinnyhorne, bowing his head, hands clasped; Mr. Kagaoka, dark eyes soft but alert above a pressed suit I’ve rarely seen him wear.
At the end of the couch, Nash stares out the long windows, as if wishing to be somewhere else.
Last, Mr. Cosmos’s eyes land on me, barnacled to my chair.
It occurs to me that perhaps in this letter Mr. Sanders provided for the continuation of the unfinished Wilds of Orcas Island.
Perhaps that is where I come in. I try to stop grimacing, keeping my gaze fixed on a black raven figurine on the coffee table.
When Mr. Cosmos is satisfied that the correct amount of gravity has been achieved, he settles reading glasses on the tip of his nose.
He unfolds the page: “ ‘Trusted advisors. I have instructed Mr. Cosmos to read this letter to you before unsealing my will, knowing you may be surprised by the contents thereof, but assuring you they are to the benefit of all. I wish you all fair weather and following seas. Dakon Sanders.’ ”
My stomach drops, the way it sometimes does when looking over an especially high cliff. I suddenly get the feeling that more is at stake than Wilds of Orcas Island. Does it have to do with my parents? Is that why I’m here?
The men cast around wondering glances. Miss Jack makes quick scratches with her pencil.
Mr. Cosmos sets the page aside and producers a heavier parchment, its wax seal like a splotch of blood. Last Will and Testament of Dakon Sanders is scrawled across the front.
With one smooth motion Mr. Cosmos breaks the seal.
“ ‘Clause one. I, Dakon Sanders, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath my assets as follows on two conditions: one, that if any person attempts to contest this agreement, such person shall forfeit his share in full; and two, that payment depends upon the recipient residing in Nowhere and continuing his duties for the heir to be named in clause two, for one year from this reading.
“ ‘Thus, to each member of my Brain Trust—Mr. Sveyn Olsgaard and Mr. Leroy “Boots” Williams—and to Mr. Kenji Kagaoka, my groundskeeper, and to my secretary, Miss Evelena Jack, I leave one percent nontransferable interest in the business of Sanders Ships International, with the first dividend to be paid at year’s end.’ ”
“Ownership?” cries Sveyn, slapping Boots on the back. “How extraordinary.”
“That’s a good hundred thousand dollars at present value.” Boots falls back on the couch, eyes glazing as if envisioning what that could buy him. He raises his tumbler. “To Mr. Sanders.”
“Hear, hear!” calls Sveyn.
Mr. Kagaoka’s thin brows squeeze together, and he lifts his glass of water. Father Pinnyhorne watches Sveyn and Boots get to their feet and dance around, his face amused. Miss Jack sits frozen, mouth ajar, while Nash stares into his folded hands, his dense brows pressed flat.
A hundred thousand dollars must be enough to buy one’s own island and never work another day.
Though, with the exception of Mr. Kagaoka, who would probably like to retire with his family in a garden of his own, I doubt Sveyn or Boots would ever put up their feet.
Mr. Sanders employed men of unbridled industry like himself.
And Miss Jack? She is a diligent worker, like the others, but wealthy women are not expected to work.
Sveyn settles back into his chair. “Continue, Mr. Cosmos.”
Mr. Cosmos shakes out his paper. “ ‘Clause two. As for the rest of the estate, including all my assets in the business known as Sanders Ships International, miscellaneous cash accounts and investments, and of course my thousand-acre property known as Nowhere and all structures therein, currently valued in total at ten million dollars…’ ”
My breath catches. Ten million? Hearing it spoken aloud is like feeling the jolt of the church bells when you’re standing under them. Mr. Cosmos takes in all the faces, taut as a pack of wolves facing a full moon, save Nash, still bowed. The lawyer lowers his paper. His sunken eyes find mine.
“ ‘… I leave the entirety to Lucy. May the nest ever prosper under her watchful guard.’ ”