"I’ve got to keep my records straight, though," Adi went on from ahead. "The house is paid for, but I’ve still got to work at the bank so no one gets suspicious."
She noticed that he wasn’t listening, and stopped and glanced at him.
"Oh, you’ve noticed the paintings," she said.
"They look so real," he replied.
She nodded. "That’s the best thing about gnome art. It seems to capture the best of everything."
"A gnome did this?" Bran asked, looking over his shoulder. She nodded again.
"You like drawing too, don’t you?"
"Well, it’s nothing like this," Bran replied, still looking at it. "Mine are just pencil sketches."
"It sure makes our paintings seem so harsh, doesn’t it?" Adi asked, sighing a bit. "Well, go on, you can touch it if you’d like."
At her prompting, Bran reached forward to touch the surface of one, a slowly moving stream next to a cottage with a wide, sweeping roof. However, the second that his fingertips touched the surface of the painting, they sunk into it, and suddenly something chilled the ends of his fingers. He drew back in fright, and little drops of liquid flew behind him like he had splashed wet paint.
"I’m sorry!" he said, shaking his hand. "I think I put a hole in it!"
It was then that he noticed that Adi was laughing.
"What’s funny?" he asked, baffled.
"No, Bran, I’m sorry," Adi said. "I should have warned you. Gnome art is
different.
"
She touched the painting, and just as Bran’s had, her fingers sank in through the canvas as well, and from the stream in the picture a smooth trickle of water began to rush down Adi’s hand, dripping into a puddle on the floor.
"See?" she said, drawing back. "That’s the magic in it."
She slid her fingers into the grassy area, where they were dried. It left the grass in the painting matted and dewy, though nothing underneath the surface seemed to have moved.
"Well, come along," she said. "We’ve got a lot to do."
She turned and left Bran standing there, his eyes wide. He reached forward to feel the grass, and it felt just as if it was there before him. He curiously touched the bright sun in the picture, but immediately jerked his hand away, because it almost scalded his fingers.
All the walls going up the staircase and the balcony were filled with more pictures of oceans and forests and waterfalls, some so vivid and inviting that if Adi hadn’t been walking so fast, Bran might have spent hours touching them and feeling inside. Adi led him down a hall from the balcony, which was lined on both sides with more bookshelves. There was a small slap of thunder outside, and both of them glanced through the glass.
"Looks like rain is coming," Bran said, but Adi didn’t reply. She came to a door and pushed it open. It revealed a large and wide room with dark wood floors and a high ceiling with thick trim around the edges. There was a massive fireplace in the center of the opposite wall, and yet again, more stuffed bookshelves going all the way around. A gigantic chair was in front of the fireplace with its back to Bran, and there was a fire crackling beyond it and a soft lamp in the corner, though in this room the windows were uncovered and let in gray light.
"Go ahead and look through those books while I’m checking on things," Adi said. "And say hello if he wakes up: he might find you something interesting."
"Who’s
he?
" Bran asked, but Adi had already disappeared through a door on the side. Bran stood very still, and instantly the room seemed frighteningly empty. He leaned forward to look through the doorway Adi had passed through, but she was gone. There was a crash of thunder outside the windows. Bran took a deep breath, looking back to the bookshelves.
"Look through the books," Bran repeated. "He might find you something interesting."
Bran wondered who the
he
was and if
he
was even around. Bran looked through the room, but there wasn’t anyone else there. He shrugged. He would have preferred going back down the hall to look at the paintings, but he decided to follow Adi’s instructions. He started to read the titles on one of the shelves.
Most of them were novels, like
Harriet Travels to Wumpidun
by Tracey Titus or
Mayonnaise Goes with Everything
by Sylvia Splinindad. He even saw a couple of Rosie’s favorites by Christine Rocco—but, he noticed, absolutely none on magic.
He knew that Adi probably wouldn’t have kept them out in the open, though he was a bit let down that there wasn’t much interesting in that room to look at. He turned, and all of a sudden his eye caught something in the chair in front of the fireplace. It gave him a start. It appeared to be a pile of blankets spread out on the chair, covering something small and lumpy underneath. The blankets went up the thick back of the chair, like a small tent, and at the top, something pointed poked out by an inch.
It was very odd, to say the least, so Bran started to shift nervously in its direction. He thought it might be a cat or some other pet, hiding under the blankets, as he saw no feet poking out the bottom to signify there was a person there. As he got closer to it, though, something else across the room gave a loud thump, and immediately shifted his attention upward.
"Hello?" Bran whispered.
No one answered. Bran tried to get a better look in the direction he had heard the sound. At first, he saw nothing; then he saw a shadow move on the wall. Bran started and jumped backward. But no one was there.
"I can’t see you," Bran said. Still, the shadow moved, as if there was a tall, invisible person casting it, though the light was obviously not from the lamp or the window.
As Bran stared at it, he noticed that the feet of the shadow were not touching the floor, and in fact, the shadow seemed to be pointing to a huge nail tacked to the wall, where the shape of
its foot was, almost as if the nail was holding it there. It gestured furiously in the nail’s direction.
"You’re stuck?" Bran said, trying to make himself speak. The shadow nodded profusely. Bran gulped. The shadow moved its hands up to its head, as if running its hands through its hair.
"I see," Bran stammered. "You want me…to help you…take the nail off."
The shadow nodded. Bran looked over his shoulder, hoping Adi might appear. She was gone. There came a tapping noise as the shadow tried to get Bran’s attention by drumming the wall.
"All right then," Bran said, stepping forward hesitantly. Where his own shadow brushed with that of the one on the wall, instead of being dark, the part where they crossed went light. He was cautious nearing the shadow, unsure exactly of what he was doing. The hand pointed at the nail.
"I’ll get it," Bran said. The nail was sticking out considerably, but it wouldn’t budge.
"It’s stuck," Bran said.
The shadow pointed again. There was a hammer on one of the shelves, just out of its reach. Bran grabbed it, and started to bend the nail out.
"Funny how you’d get stuck here," Bran remarked, feeling a bit silly. The shadow nodded remorsefully. Bran bent the nail head, wiggling it out. "But then again, it’s even stranger that—"
But before he could finish, the nail was loose. Suddenly, the shadow’s foot flew forward, launching the nail right at Bran’s face and kicking him to the floor with a crash.
"NO!" a shout exploded from next to Bran, but it was already too late. Quick as a flash, the shadow leapt through the air, dashing across the room toward the door.
"Catch him, quick!" the new voice screamed, and there was a flash of motion, so quick Bran hadn’t a chance to see it, and something leapt from where the blankets on the chair had been, jumping at the door and slamming it closed a second before the shadow reached it.
"Don’t just stand there! Stop the cotch!" the voice said. Bran leapt toward the shadow, but it scaled the ceiling, tripping over the blades of the ceiling fan. It fell, tumbling across the bookshelf and sending books crashing as it whizzed across the room again, toppling the chair.
"GRAB him!" the voice roared, and Bran jumped, falling on top of a shadowy foot just as it was about to reach the window. The shadow toppled over, knocking against the wall.
"The nail! The nail!" the voice said. Luckily, the nail had fallen right next to Bran, so while holding the struggling shadow down he got the nail and started to pound it furiously with the hammer. The shadow struggled but was already stuck to the floor.
"Oh, oh, almost got away, we were
so
close to our dooms," the voice next to Bran said, and he was breathing just as hard. Bran, finally realizing that there was someone else in the room, looked at who was next to him, and nearly jumped through the roof.
The thing that had been sitting covered under the blankets had not been a cat, but was in fact a man with a bushy white beard and scruffy clothes. However, he was not exactly a man, for he was only about two feet tall, and on the top of his head he wore a long, red, felt conical hat.
It was a gnome.
He
was a gnome.
Chapter 20
The Gnome in the Home
Bran gasped and Fell backward, pushing away from the little man; the gnome did the exact same, until they were staring at each other from across the room, each with wide eyes. Then, after staring at Bran for a second, the gnome crossed his arms angrily.
"You idiot!" the gnome said, now unafraid. "Coming in here while I was trying to sleep, releasing the cotch it took me
hours
to apprehend from his dubious thievery."
The gnome pointed an accusing finger at the cotch, who only crossed his arms in return. "I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about," Bran stammered, inching farther away. "Of course you don’t," the gnome said. "You just barge on in here, pulling nails out of the walls. Look at all this junk!"
The gnome kicked a box out from under the chair in which he had previously been napping. It rattled with bunches of metal items.
"I’m the one having to sort through all this mess," the gnome said, shuffling its contents about. "Keys and pens and jewelry and pocket watches—"
"Hey," Bran said, stepping forward. "I’ve seen that watch before! And those keys!"
It was Sewey’s pocket watch, still as shiny as when Sewey had lost it, and bunches of house and car keys with key rings Bran recognized.
"Good for you," the gnome snorted, kicking the box back under the chair. "There’s probably hundreds of things from that old cotch cache we dug up over on Hodsbury Street. This little villain’s been plaguing the town for weeks." The gnome sniffed. He had skin that was all wrinkled and light. His eyebrows were bushy and thick, just like his beard. He turned to face Bran. "I’m guessing you’re the Hambric Adi’s been telling me about. I was expecting her to bring you sometime. Call me Polland."
The gnome did not offer his hand, but only scuttled around the chair to hop back onto it, pushing the blankets around to make an enormous cushion. Bran could only stare as Polland moved about, as if everything was normal with a gnome in a house. Polland looked up and opened his eyes really wide to show that Bran was staring at him.
"Something wrong?" he grumbled. "You do know how to make one uncomfortable."
"I’m sorry," Bran said. "It’s just I’ve never seen a real live gnome before."
"A real live gnome?" Polland echoed. "Maybe we should start a zoo and put me in it, then."
"No, not like that," Bran said, but Polland cut him off.
"I will have you know, young fellow," he said, "that there are garden gnomes, house gnomes, clock gnomes, kitchen gnomes, factory gnomes, Western gnomes, Southern gnomes, birdhouse gnomes, Husky gnomes, and all sorts of gnomes. We are a very proud race."
"I can see that," Bran said. Polland huffed indignantly. "I," he proclaimed, "am an
Eastern
Ridwell gnome.
"
"Well, I’d say it’s nice to meet you," Bran replied.
Polland twisted his face up a bit, and looked a little embarrassed that he was so grumpy to his guest. He finally waved his hand. "Go make yourself useful," he said. "Open those drapes some more so I can see the rain, and maybe it’ll make some of my grump disappear."
Bran was still taken aback, so he did as he said. The room filled with a flash of lightning from outside. When he turned back, Polland had removed the cover from the food tray on the small table beside him. Underneath, there was a plate with some cheese, bread, butter, and a knife resting beside it.
"Oh well," Polland said, taking off his glasses. "I can’t say I blame you, being in these parts. All those ideas being put into your head. It’s a sad thing I can’t even step foot outside." Polland nodded grimly. "See, it isn’t
you
I’m mad at, just makes me grumpy with these laws where I can’t enjoy a good rain on a decent park bench."
"You have to stay here and never come out?" Bran asked.
"Yes, sadly," Polland replied.
"Then why don’t you move?" Bran asked. "Go someplace where you’re free?"
"I can’t," Polland said, staring into the fireplace sadly. "Adi needs someone here who can speak Gnomish to those poor fellows we break out of the jails, and I’m the only gnome who’s missing enough good sense to do it."
"So that’s why you’re both here," Bran realized. "You’re the ones who help them escape!"
"So we are," Polland said. "It’s such a sad thing: our sacred land, owned by Duncelanders."
"Is that why gnomes keep coming through?" Bran said. Polland nodded again.
"It’s the Sevvenyears," he explained. "An old, honored religious custom. This place used to be our land, before Droselmeyer Dunce ran us off. Every seventh year in our lives, we journey from far and wide to the sacred Givvyng Tree. Now, we’ve got to sneak about in the dark."
"That sounds awfully brave of all of you," Bran observed. "Dangerous too."
"Ah, but Bran," Polland said wistfully. "If you could only sit at the top of the Givvyng Tree—they say it’s magic that makes it grow so big, magic that draws us to it. But perhaps it isn’t magic at all, but echoes of the faith of thousands of gnomes who have journeyed there for centuries." He shook his head. "It’s every bit worth the danger."