Far Far Away (33 page)

“Yeah, so did I. All I remember is driving down the highway with Mr. Blix, heading for the airport, eating these amazing homemade sweet-potato chips of his, and then I got thirsty and drank this strawberry stuff he’d brought along. That’s the last I remember. When I woke up, I was here.”

“Where’s here, though?” Ginger asked. “Is this an old bomb shelter or something?”

“More like an underground motel room with bars,” Frank Bailey said. “You’ll see when the light comes up.”

“When’s that?”

“Whenever it does. You lose track of time.”

All of them were silent for a moment or two. Then Jeremy said, “He did the same thing with us—salty pretzels and stuff, then strawberry nectar.”

“Laced with something brain-numbing,” Ginger said.

“It’s not all bad here,” Frank Bailey said. “The food’s good. And there’s a bathroom that has hot water and soap and stuff. Mine does, anyhow. Sten makes the food and brings it in. He’s the only person you ever see.”

“So he drugs us and puts us in his underground motel room—what does he get out of it?”

“Not sure,” Frank Bailey said. He paused, and then, as if embarrassed, he said, “It’s like he wants you to be his friend or something.”

Ginger’s voice filled with alarm. “What do you mean? What kind of friend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe
friend
isn’t the right word. It’s more that he just wants you to hang out with him.”

“Sounds kind of creepy,” Ginger said.

Frank Bailey’s voice was low: “I wouldn’t say creepy, exactly.
It changes. Sometimes he’s in a good mood, sometimes he’s not. Sometimes it’s like you’ve disappointed him, but you don’t know why. At least that’s how it is with me.”

“What exactly happens when he comes in?” Jeremy asked.

“He brings food and sometimes clean clothes. In the morning, he leaves right away, but after supper he’ll usually stay and talk. There’s a space between your rooms and mine and there’s a rocking chair he sits in.”

“Our
rooms
?”

“Yeah,” Frank Bailey said. “There are two rooms over there. I mean, they’re cells, actually. They’re separated by bars and they’re a little smaller than mine. They’ve always been empty before.”

“What is he going to do with us?”

“No idea.” He paused. “I don’t think anything really bad, though.”

“Why not?” Ginger asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just that I don’t believe Mr. Blix would ever do anything really bad to us.”

Another short silence, and then Jeremy said, “You said he tells stories—what kind of stories?”

“Anything. Sweden comes up a lot, and his childhood, but it can be anything. He just likes it if you’re polite and listen.” They fell quiet for a time, and then Frank Bailey said, “It’s so weird here. When the light’s on, it’s not so bad, but when the place gets dark …”

I detected the shuffle of feet. In the darkness Ginger could be heard exploring her cell. “There are iron bars,” she said. “Concrete wall … and another room.”

“Bathroom,” Frank Bailey said.

“Small wooden table,” Ginger said. She seemed to be feeling her way. “Plastic vase or something … one wooden chair … concrete floor.” Then: “Okay, end of tour. Back on my bed.” She paused. “This headache is like total annihilation.”

“I had one, too,” Frank Bailey said. “Must be from the knockout potion.”

After a while, Jeremy said, “What if he’s the one responsible for all these missing kids and stuff?”

Nobody said anything.

He said, “Most of those kids never show up again, do they?”

Silence. Silence and darkest darkness.

Jeremy said, “Are we out in the woods near his cabin someplace?”

I wondered suddenly if he was talking to me. I said,
You are in the basement of his house behind the bakery
.

“So you’re here,” Jeremy said. He sounded relieved. “And you won’t leave?”

Yes, I am here, and no, I will not leave
.

“So
who’s
here?” Ginger asked. “And
who
won’t leave?”

“Oh,” Jeremy said. “You. So you’re here. But I knew you were, didn’t I, so I don’t know why I said it. I guess I’m still not thinking right.” He let a moment pass. “But I would just love someone to tell us how Sten got us here.”

He gave you the potion. Then he wrapped you up and brought you to town. While you lay in the back of his van, he ate heartily in the café and chatted with your father and Jenny Applegarth as if nothing was wrong. And then he brought you to the garage of his house and slid you down the spiraling chute and carted you through a swinging wall in the third storeroom and put you in this darkness that is beyond
even my penetration. He is the Finder of Occasions, Jeremy. The villain whom it was my duty to see but did not see
.

Again it was quiet.

“It’s okay,” Jeremy said in a small voice. Then slightly louder, “Everything will be okay.”

The darkness and silence again settled over them. “When?” Ginger said.

“When what?”

“When will everything be okay?”

At longest last, after what seemed an unending night, the blackness began to lighten. It was not the rising of the sun, but it suggested it. From the darkness, forms materialized. In their separate chambers, Jeremy and Ginger could finally see each other lying on narrow cots along opposite walls and separated by an iron-barred partition. They wore the stiff, disheveled looks of hospital patients.

Their bed coverings were a deep blue, the bars of their cells had been painted Swedish red, and the stone floors were painted pastel yellow. A vase stood on a small antique table in the middle of each room. For a prison, the effect was strangely cheerful. Cut within each cell door was a very much smaller door with a fixed shelf just below it on each side. This, I supposed, was where food might be left.

Frank Bailey sat staring through the bars from within his own cell on the opposite side of the chamber. At first glance, he seemed little altered. Though his fingernails and hair had grown long, his clothes were clean, and his face was round. Fearfulness, however, had made a home in his eyes. His cell was similar to Jeremy’s and Ginger’s, though somewhat larger, and the vase on his table was filled with a bouquet of blue irises.

“Wow, Frank,” Ginger said. “You get flowers?”

“Yeah. Mr. Blix brings them every couple of days. I think they’re from his garden.” He shrugged. “It’s weird, but you kind of begin to look forward to it.”

Between Frank Bailey’s large cell and the smaller ones of Jeremy and Ginger, an open area had been made homey by a rocking chair and a braided oval rug in reds and yellows. Behind the rocking chair hung a comforting painting of a family staring into a fire while, out of doors, snow gathered on the windowpanes.

“So that rocking chair is where he sits and tells stories?” Ginger asked.

Frank Bailey nodded. He was about to say something more, but he suddenly cocked his head.

I had heard it, too: the locking mechanism, and now the groaning wall.

“Shh,” Frank Bailey said. “It’s him. And don’t forget to play nice.”

The baker entered, pushing a cloth-covered cart before him and looking as he had always looked—portly, cheery, hearty, and harmless.

“Hallå!”
he said. “Is it not a great day to be alive?”

Ginger and Jeremy said nothing, but Frank Bailey smiled and said, “Yes, Mr. Blix, it is.”

“Yes, yes, a great day, indeed,” the baker said with a cheerful laugh. “And, for my dear young newcomers, be assured that the service here is excellent!”

“Where is here?” Ginger said, but the baker acted as if he had not heard. Behind him, Frank Bailey frantically gestured to Ginger to be quiet, but she paid him no mind.

“What are we doing here?” she demanded in a cold voice.

The baker, humming to himself, did not answer. Instead, with a flourish, he pulled the white cloth from the cart to reveal an array of food—breakfast pastries, grains, cream, coffee, lemon and raspberry cuts. On the lower shelf lay three bouquets of irises in three different colors—the yellow of ripe lemons, the blue of delft china, and the red of port wine. “There,” he said with a hearty smile. “Did I not tell you the room service is superb?”

He began to set the food onto the ledge outside each cell, along with the flowers. “You new visitors are probably a little done in by your strange travels, but after a bite of food, you’ll feel much better.”

Still, the small metal door kept any of them from touching the dishes.

“Where are we?” Ginger asked again, her tone more insistent.

The baker took several deep breaths and then sat down in the blue rocking chair. He patted his white beard with his short,
plump fingers. “Remember when you told me you’d like to go to the Far Far Away?” His eyes twinkled. “Well, your wish has come true! You are in the Far Far Away!”

It was quiet for a moment, and then he chuckled and pushed himself up. “Yes, yes,” he said. “A great day to be alive.” He crossed the room and depressed a button on the wall that immediately released the locks on the small doors beside the food.

Frank Bailey quickly reached through to grab a croissant, but neither Ginger nor Jeremy moved.

At Frank Bailey’s cell, the baker accepted the old flowers that the boy nudged through, as well as a sack full of clothes, which he raised for the others to view.

“You see? Your lodgings even come with laundry service,” he said. Then, noting that Jeremy and Ginger had not yet touched their food, his voice turned fatherly. “Oh, now, my dear children. You have to eat.” His round cheeks plumpened as he smiled. “You need to eat and to thrive.”

He piled the clothes and flowers onto the cart and began to wheel it away.

“I don’t think I’m going to be doing any
thriving
here,” Ginger said.

The baker, pretending not to hear, kept pushing the cart forward.

In his cell across the room, Frank Bailey was again gesturing for Ginger to quiet herself, but she would not.

“Where are you going?”
she shouted at the baker.

He stopped then and turned to look at her. His expression was benign. “I’ll be back. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to spending time with all of you. But I have duties, too.
The bakery.” He smiled. “Appearances.” He winked and began again to leave.

Ginger’s voice rose even higher. “If anything happens to us here—”

Now the baker, as if weary, turned slowly around. “Please, dear child, you must understand. I hope very much that nothing will happen to you here. But if it does”—again his face bulged with his fulsome smile—
“no one will ever know.”

This time, when he pushed his cart away, Ginger said nothing.

I followed the baker to the end of the corridor, where he tapped several numbers on a keypad to swing the wall open. He nudged the cart through, let his fingers dance on another keypad, and as the wall swung shut, he stared directly through me.

Oh, to be mortal! I thought. To carry a cudgel and to own the arm to swing it!

But I am only a ghost. My sole weapon had been vigilance, and then, on a fateful Sunday in the woods, when I had most needed it, I mislaid it.

The wall groaned closed and, with a solid
clack
, locked shut.