Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
We returned to my car. Duke stood by my side, staring at Medda’s house while I buckled Koshka into his carrier.
“I really hope Medda was kidding when she said someone was going to die before this story is over. Pops is eighty-two, you know,” I said, unable to imagine life without my grandfather.
No mother, no father, no grandmother, and Duke would have to leave by midnight.
I didn’t want to be the only character in this story. I petted Koshka. At least I had him.
“It’s not your grandfather,” Duke said as I stood up and turned to face him.
“How do you know?”
He lowered his voice, then nodded toward the cottage. “Medda was talking about herself.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“I may not know writers, but I know cat people,” he said. “She lost her cat months ago and hasn’t adopted another one? She knows she doesn’t have long and doesn’t want to leave a cat without a home.”
“Maybe she’s not ready.”
“She said she’d never gone so long without a cat. Her fingers were swollen, and I could smell her tea. Ours was Irish breakfast. Hers was lemon and honey. Classic treatment for a cough. Those book piles had little sticky papers on them—”
“Post-it notes?”
“She’s sorting her books to give them away. And boxes of manuscripts for a university. She’s preparing her papers to donate. And one of the books on her desk was a Last Will and Testament preparation kit. It also had those sticky notes in it.”
“And she told me to tell Pops to come see her in a hurry. Oh, I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“I’m sorry, love. I can’t help but notice these things.”
“You’re a detective. You detect.” I let out a long breath. “Like she said, things aren’t what they seem.”
“Things seem hopeless,” Duke said, looking at me. “So let’s hope she’s right.”
“Let’s go home. I want to put the book somewhere safe,” I said, patting my bag just to reassure myself it was still there. “Other than the safe, I mean. Maybe I should keep it with me? What do you think?”
Duke started around the back of the car to the passenger side but stopped, staring at the trunk. He didn’t answer.
“Duke?”
“Medda said something would jump out at us, give us a brand-new idea,” Duke said, studying my license plate for some reason. “Rainy, what does that mean?”
My car was fifty years old, and with my vintage car came a vintage license plate. Back in the day, all Oregon cars were given dark blue license plates with yellow printing and the state motto.
And what is the state motto of Oregon?
Pacific Wonderland.
There it was, right in front of me.
“That’s it!” I said. “We’re in Wonderland already. That’s what people call the Pacific Northwest.”
“This entire state is Wonderland?” Duke asked, looking around.
“We were told the answer was staring us in the face, right? Well, here it is, staring us in the face, the state of Oregon.”
“It is, my love, but it’s quite a large area. A hare could be anywhere—”
“Get in the car,” I said. “Hurry!”
“Where are we going?”
“Pilcrow House. I need to check something.”
We raced—okay, no we didn’t race, but we definitely chugged up the hill to my house.
Inside the library, I grabbed a photograph of me with my grandfather off his desk.
“Here,” I said, shoving it into Duke’s hands. “My grandma took this picture of me and Pops there when I was a kid.”
It was the picture of Pops and me standing in the wide-open mouth of a storybook wicked witch, pretending to scream in terror. Two real witches pretending to be afraid of a fictional witch.
“Aww,” Duke said, smiling. “Weren’t you a rather odd-looking small child…”
I grabbed the photo back from him. “Not my fault my head grew before the rest of my body. This,” I said, tapping the glass over the picture, “is a park somewhere east of here.”
“I assume,” Duke said, “were it west of here, it would be in the ocean.”
“I don’t remember the name, but I remember this park had tons of exhibits of different fairy tales and storybooks. I think I remember seeing the Mad Tea Party scene from Alice in Wonderland. ”
I put the photograph down and dug out my phone.
Smartphones weren’t to be trusted with Book Witch business, as Dr. Fanshawe always stressed.
Our enemies were numerous, and they were technologically savvy.
Our main tools were analog—print books, landlines, magic, and the ability to concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes at a time.
But all Book Witches had smartphones. Even magical beings need to google sometimes.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, my heart racing with excitement. “This is it. The Enchanted Forest Park. Right off I-5. Has an attraction called Storybook Lane with these life-size exhibits of famous children’s storybook characters. Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, Miss Muffet…”
I showed him the pictures on the park’s website. It seemed like every fairy tale, every famous kids’ story got an exhibit on Storybook Lane.
“The Mad Tea Party,” I said, spotting a photo of a brightly painted tableau. “That’s the March Hare.”
“Do you think this is it?” Duke asked.
“You meet informants all over Chicago. Fancy restaurants, dark alleys, speakeasies. Why not meet our informant at a park?”
“It’s definitely a lead worth following. Shall we go?”
“Yes! No,” I said, reading the park’s hours online. “The schedule online says it’s already closed for the season. Oh, and no animals except service animals allowed.”
“Rainy, I’m the Duke of Chicago, remember?
I’ve hopped trains, streetcars, hot-air balloons, and airships.
I’ve broken into bank vaults, hotel suites, the mayor’s office, and even the governor’s mansion in pursuit of justice.
I can get us into one little park, and I could do it with my eyes closed. ”
“You’re very handsome when you’re being you. Let’s hit it.”
—
Luckily, breaking into the enchanted forest ended up not being that difficult. Built on the side of a hill and nestled among trees, it wasn’t much more than a rather grandiose roadside attraction.
As we drove inland, the hard rain turned to a light drizzle, and by the time we parked on a private side road, even the drizzle had turned to a faint mist. Duke and I, both in hiking pants, boots, and raincoats, trudged through the brush and trees until we reached the wooden fence at the edge of the park.
“All right,” Duke finally said. “I don’t see any security guards anywhere. I think the coast is clear. Up and over.”
He gave me a boost over the wooden fence, then he followed right behind me.
We walked a bit, getting our bearings. Everywhere we looked, we saw closed attractions—a haunted house, miniature storybook cottages, even a roller coaster. “Shall we split up?” he asked.
The park, as I’d read online, was about twenty acres. Not big but with all the trees and winding paths, I knew I’d get lost immediately. “Let’s stick together for now.”
“Very well,” he said, “but if we get separated for any reason, let’s meet at the carousel.” He pointed to the merry-go-round a few yards away.
“It’s called a merry-go-round.”
“Then we’ll meet at the bloody merry-go-round.”
I grinned. Annoying Duke was one of my favorite pastimes that didn’t involve reading.
“Hope we’re alone,” I said as he scanned our surroundings again.
“Fingers and toes crossed there’s no security on duty. But if so, let me do the talking.”
“Let you do the talking? Are we sure about that?” I asked.
He thought it over for a second, then his eyes lit up. “Give us your ring.”
“My ring? The ring you gave me?”
“That one.”
“But I never take it off.”
“It’s for the greater good, love.”
It felt like going naked to take the forget-me-not ring off my finger, but I gave it to him anyway.
“What are you going to do with my ring?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Now let’s go.”
We crept around corners, snuck past Wild West shacks, pausing only at a park map.
“Storybook Lane is down here,” he said, pointing to a bend in the path.
The park was either the work of a truly dedicated artist or a madman or…both. Probably both. But the best kind of madman, who loved stories enough to create a monument to them. Everywhere we looked, we found life-size sculptures made of concrete painted in bright colors.
The Three Little Pigs fended off the Big Bad Wolf.
Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet (whatever a tuffet is) as a spider with a weirdly human face crept down behind her.
Snow White had her seven captors—I mean, “dwarfs.”
“This place is…” I said, my voice trailing off.
Duke nodded. “It certainly is.”
“Enough said?”
“Enough said.”
On a warm summer’s day, the park would’ve been charming, but breaking into it on a cloudy day in October when we were the only souls walking the winding paths…it was positively unnerving. Almost as bad as Wonderland.
In my peripheral vision, I saw movement, then heard a rustle of leaves.
Duke and I ducked into a dark artificial cave, which turned out to be the mine where the seven dwarfs dug up colorful jewels.
“Security guard?” I said to Duke as he peeked out.
“Better. And worse.” He pointed down the walkway.
An elk. A massive male elk with antlers tall enough to scrape the bottom branches of the trees. He walked the path as if he owned it and perhaps he did. This forest had been home to his kind far longer than it was home to ours.
We watched in awe as he ambled past us to the wooden fence, effortlessly leapt over it, and disappeared into his true forest.
A magnificent beast, three times the size of even the biggest deer I’d ever seen.
“Wow,” I breathed. “Glad we left Koshka at home. He’d try to ride him.”
“You don’t see that in Chicago every day,” Duke said. “Come along.”
As fast as we could, we made our way down Storybook Lane.
“There,” Duke said, pointing to the Wonderland exhibit.
We ran to the Mad Tea Party, made of concrete and painted garish colors, which were chipped and fading.
“Yeah, that’s the March Hare,” I said, leaning against the exhibit fence. “Now what?”
“We didn’t think that far ahead,” Duke answered.
For a moment, we both stared at the scene—the table, the teacups, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse.
What were we waiting for? Like Duke said, we hadn’t really thought this far ahead, obsessed as we were with finding the right March Hare.
But now that we’d found what was certainly the only March Hare in all of Oregon… what did we do?
“I’m going to do something stupid,” I said.
“Full steam ahead.”
“Hello!” I shouted. Shouted? Bellowed? One of those I did. “This is Rainy March, and I’m looking for the March Hare! You there, Hare?”
Duke winced and covered his ears. I was probably bellowing more than shouting now that I think back.
He lowered his hands from his ears. “Anything?”
“No answer.”
“My turn to do something stupid now,” he said.
“Go for it.”
He went over the barrier fence with a quick, athletic leap.
Inside, Duke walked around the statues, peering over and under the table, examining every inch of the exhibit.
“Nothing,” he said. “No notes. No sign anyone’s been here recently. Dead end.”
He stopped and stared into the face of the March Hare statue. It looked like every other statue. Cute. Whimsical. Brightly painted concrete. Empty eyes that held no secrets.
“Wrong March Hare again?” I asked.
“Perhaps so, love. Still…” He stood up and looked around. “Any chance there’s another hare around here? Or even a rabbit?”
“Maybe? I have to confess I don’t exactly know the difference between a rabbit and a hare. Color? Size?”
“They’re different species entirely,” Duke said. “Easiest way to tell them apart is that rabbits are charming and hares are slightly terrifying. They’re also larger, have longer ears, longer bodies, and stronger back legs.”
If it sounds like Duke was reading from a book, he probably was in his mind. This was another of his fictional detective superpowers—the ability to remember obscure facts and recall them on command.
“Do they come in white?” I asked.
“Arctic hares do. Hares with albinism…”
“Follow me.”
We jogged back up Storybook Lane and took the path to the merry-go-round.
“Is this a hare?” I asked, standing next to the large white creature with the long, long ears and—
“Very troubled eyes,” Duke said. “Thousand-yard stare. Perhaps he served in the Great War.”
“It looks mad as a March Hare, but the question is…is it the March Hare?”
I patted it on the nose.
It said nothing. It did nothing. It offered us no answers.
“Guess not,” I said.
Duke leaned back against a small pony and crossed his arms. “I’m afraid I’m out of ideas. Shall we go?”
I hated to leave without trying everything.
“Maybe if I rode it? If I’m on the hare, then it’s Rainy March’s hare…And you could follow it? I’m grasping at straws.”
“Why not try?” he asked.
Duke went to the controls while I slung my leg over the hare’s saddle.
I screamed.
“Rainy! You all right?”
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just…it’s wet. I have a wet butt. A cold wet butt, and I don’t like it.”
Duke put his hand on his heart. “I thought you’d been electrocuted.”
And that’s when we heard the man’s voice shouting.
“Don’t move!”