The Jewel and the Key (22 page)

She turned another page of Emma Mae's book and stopped short. “Hey! Mrs. Powell! I think I found something.”

“What is it?” Becky and Whaley crowded around to look.

It was a photo of one wing of the foyer. They could see a molded ceiling with diamonds carved into it. A mirror covered the wall behind an elegant-looking bar strangely lacking in bottles. A woman—not beautiful, but compelling, with her strong, squarish face, high cheekbones, and short, wavy hair—leaned back against it, surrounded by a lively crowd who seemed to be toasting her with cups of coffee. She was clearly the leading lady who had just made her entrance into the bar following the performance. On the bottom of the photo, someone had written
Katharine Cornell and road company at the Jewel in
The Barretts of Wimpole Street,
1933.

Mrs. Powell whooped. “Fab-u-lous! That's exactly what we need. Katharine Cornell, no less.” Addie promised herself that the first thing she'd do when she got home was look up Katharine Cornell in
A History of the Theater.
“Let me see.” Mrs. Powell took the scrapbook out of Addie's hands and thumbed through it.

“Anything else?”

Mrs. Powell turned the last page. “Bah, humbug. Nothing.”

“What about in one of these drawers?” Whaley asked. “I mean, I can't believe there isn't
anything.”

He went over to the desk.

Addie leaped up off the floor and rushed over to him as he pulled open the top drawer. “Wait a second! Whaley!”

Too late. He had the enlistment papers in his hand. For a second he just stared at them in confusion. Then he straightened, folded them up, and slapped them hard against the desk. “Well, well. Looky here.”

“Whaley! Listen! I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into.”

He glared at her, shoving the papers into the inside pocket of his jacket. She had never seen him this angry. ‘And
you
know better?”

She swallowed. “No...” But she didn't mean it.

Whaley could hear it in her voice. The moment prickled between them.

Then he turned and stormed out.

Addie stared out the doorway at the cobwebs swaying in the wake of his departure, and her self-control crumbled. She blinked her eyes, trying to stop the tears, but they dribbled out anyway, and she swiped them away furiously.

Mrs. Powell looked at her in dismay. “What was
that
about?”

So Addie told her.

The street was lined with mud-brick houses that had been there for centuries. Their doors were closed, their windows shuttered. Vines spilled from hidden roof gardens, and the scent of flowers hung heavy in the air. Addie followed the road as it twisted this way and that. More like a labyrinth than a city. She couldn't see beyond the next turn.

Was it an address she was seeking, that she had lost? Or a person?

The sky overhead was pitiless, the heat of the sun drilling into her skin. She clung to the shadows. Now the ground was rising steeply below her feet, and ahead, she finally saw a shop with open doors. She stopped in front of it. Dusty wooden bins, which must normally have been full of food, lined the walls. Only a few papery onions and some withered peppers were left. The cash register sat open and empty.

Above the shop, on the second-floor balcony, two men in strange uniforms sat at a table. Behind them, a door stood ajar, and a light from within silhouetted their bodies. Rolls of fabric hung off the backs of their helmets to protect their necks from the sun. Their fingers traced lines on a map, and Addie knew they were officers in a long-ago war. Their words were secret. They would give her no information. As she turned away and walked past the shop, she heard a voice.

“Miss!”

She spun around, but no one was there.

“Miss!”

She looked down and saw a cellar window, its shutter broken and hanging, and behind it, in the shadows, a girl in a headscarf, beckoning frantically. “You can't stay in the street!”

From inside the building, Addie heard the crackle of a television and words she didn't understand.

“Come inside with us,” the girl said. Somewhere in the cellar a child began to cry.

“Just a second!” Addie ran back to the empty store. Jagged green light cut across the sky and was gone. She looked up again at the balcony, searching for the officers. Maybe they could help. Or at least tell her what was happening. But the light was off. The men had disappeared. And she heard a sound she didn't recognize—the sound of some mechanical beast coming from the labyrinth of twisting streets.

Bullets sprayed against a wall.

She dashed inside the empty store and snatched some onions and peppers, then rushed back into the street.

“Down here!” the girl called. Addie found the door leading to her cellar and tumbled into the dark, clutching the vegetables in her hands.

Children cowered along the walls. The grownups were crowded around a television, and Addie saw the same images on the screen that she and Whaley had seen a few days ago at the Brown Bear. The girl took the vegetables from her. “A guest gift,” the girl said, and Addie felt ashamed.

The sounds of the mechanical monster drew closer, so close the children all rushed to the window to stare. It seemed to Addie that their noses nearly touched the caterpillar treads of the tank. Walkie-talkies crackled. Behind the tank, soldiers advanced—modern soldiers, in camouflage, guns at the ready. The smell of unwashed bodies made her choke.

Suddenly one of the children grabbed a sad, wrinkled pepper and flung it into their midst, screaming with rage. Shrieks broke out as the soldiers spun about, raising their guns and pointing them straight into the cellar. The roar of machine gun fire filled her ears.

Addie jerked awake. She was curled into a tight ball at the bottom of her bed, her hands pressing against the side of her head, adrenaline pumping through her body.

Even when her heart stopped thumping, there was no way she could get back to sleep.

She threw on her fleece and clogs, went downstairs, and opened the back door. The cold air shocked her, but she made herself go out and circle around to the front of the bookshop to pick up the newspaper. Down the street she saw a light on at the back of the People's Grocery—Almaz's parents were stocking for the day. Then she turned to examine the progress Dad and Whaley had made on Victrola Books. The glazier had replaced the glass in one window, and they had cleared away the wood Whaley had hammered on to cover it. But the other window was still boarded up—something had been wrong with the frame. Whaley was going to fix it—what a relief it was that Dad had found repairs for him to do.

She breathed in shakily. A few repairs ... how long would that take? A day or two? So what? It wouldn't keep him here. He had his enlistment papers back now. He could fill them out any time.

They'd been half filled out already.

More than anything, she wanted to stop him. She didn't need horrific dreams to tell her what she already knew—that war was hideous, not glorious. That Whaley might come back broken, missing an arm or a leg. With PTSD. Or not at all.

But she'd thought about it a lot. She'd been wrong to steal his papers. What if he had torn up her script for
Peer Gynt
because he knew she wouldn't get a part? He might have been right, but she wouldn't have thanked him for it. If he was determined to go, she probably couldn't—and maybe sh ouldn't—stop him.

She just wished there was
something
she could do. Some way to make things better.

She took the rubber band off and unrolled the newspaper. A small item caught her eye:
Traffic delays are expected on major downtown arterials due to anti-war march. Use alternate routes.

That's right,
she thought.

Dad told her there would be demonstrations all across the country. San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, New York—the protests would spread from the East Coast to out here on the west. How could the government ignore that? Wasn't that what had stopped the Vietnam War? Mrs. T. had been part of that. She had always told Addie that it was the people out in the streets who had forced the war to end.
What if protesters could force the government to pull the troops out?
After all, like Dad and Mrs. T. said, people knew that the last war had been a mistake. It might not be as hard to persuade the government that this one was as well. Then it wouldn't matter if Whaley joined up or not.

She hurried around to the back of the house, went in, and ran up to the living room, flicking on the lights and cranking the thermostat. The furnace in the back of the bookstore growled, and a breath of warm air wafted from the vent by her feet.

All week, she'd heard people arguing over the war, defending the war, shrugging their shoulders and saying,
What can we do? It's started.

Well, she wasn't going to shrug her shoulders.

She picked up the phone and called Almaz.

The old VW van was crammed with people and loaded with boxes of books from an estate sale. Dad was in front with Whaley; Zack was on Addie's lap engrossed in a graphic novel; Almaz was trying to keep Whaley's djembe drum from falling off her own lap; and Mrs. T. was squeezed in by the window with her crutches. Whaley was going to drop all of them off at Volunteer Park, where the rally was already under way.

Now and then Addie exchanged a look with Almaz and they both smiled nervously. For the first time, she was going to a demonstration, and even though she was excited, she couldn't help remembering the huge gash on Frida's head. That had happened at some sort of rally, hadn't it? At least Almaz was going with her. Of course, Dad was going too, and Mrs. Turner. But that didn't ease her feelings as much as having Almaz there. It had been such a relief to go to her house this morning and tell her about Whaley trying to join the army and what she'd decided to do about it. She wished she could have spilled everything—all the strangeness and terror of what had happened to her in the Jewel.

But of course she couldn't.

“I can't push on him anymore,” she'd told Almaz. “He's really mad at me, and I guess he has a right to be.”

Almaz had laughed incredulously. “Of course he has! What were you thinking, stealing his papers? But going to the demo is good. After all, Whaley isn't the only guy—or girl—whos going to get swept up in this. If you think the war is worth stopping, then it's worth showing up to say so.” She'd thought for a moment then said, “I'll go, too.”

The fact that Almaz wanted to come along made it easier to convince Dad to let her go. He'd wanted her to stay home with Zack but finally agreed he would take all of them as long as they kept track of Zack at all times.

“Drop us by the south entrance, near the water tower,” Mrs. Turner directed as the van rattled over potholes. They were fairly near the Powells' house now, Addie thought. Just over a few blocks.... She forced herself to put it out of her mind and peered over Zack's shoulder as they approached the park, taking in the crumbling stone walls and tall trees and hints of movement behind the dense foliage.
The angel is just over there....
“We'll join up with the march as soon as people start coming out of the gates,” Mrs. T. was saying.

Whaley grunted—he hadn't been very happy with the role of driver, though Addie wasn't sure if it was because he disagreed with the protest or because he was so annoyed with her that he didn't even want to be in the same vehicle. He drove on until they could see the top of the water tower through the trees, and then he squeaked the van into an illegal parking space. Dad jumped out and slid the door open.

Zack just continued reading his book. “Zack!” Addie shoved him. “Get off me! I'm squashed!”

He stuck out his tongue and bounced fiercely. Addie shoved again, not hard enough to spill him onto the sidewalk, but strongly enough.

“Get a move on, Zack!” Almaz urged. “I can't get out of here until Addie moves her regal behind!”

“Regal behind!” Zack cackled. But he put the book down and hopped out.

“How'd it get promoted to royalty?” Addie jumped out after him.

The sunlight was golden, and the air throbbed with voices; someone was talking over a loudspeaker. Through the trees, Addie caught glimpses of the crowd inside the park, and banners rippling in the wind. Magnolia blossoms shivered on their branches, and the sweet scent of wisteria washed over her. The breeze was cool, snapping with energy, and Addie suddenly felt like she was snapping with energy, too.

Whaley jumped down from the driver's seat and came over to the sidewalk. He'd been icy all morning, but as he watched Almaz struggling to strap on the drum, he thawed. “Hey, Almaz,” he stage-whispered. “How about you ditch these clowns and come jam with me and Rico? I know you can wallop that thing.”

Almaz tilted her head as if considering the invitation. “You'll have to do better than that to woo me away from here. Candlelit dinner, roses ...” But she couldn't help a pleased smile.

Zack pretended to barf.

“You don't want Whaley cooking you any candlelit dinner,” Addie pointed out, “unless you want to eat the candles.”

Whaley pointedly ignored her, and she looked away to hide her quick hurt.
I know I was wrong,
she felt like blurting out.
Please stop being so angry!

“No dinners of candles or otherwise,” her dad cut in. “Whaley's minding the shop.”

The noise of the crowd swelled, and Addie distinctly heard a clatter of feet. The march was beginning.

“Are you going to be okay, Mrs. T.?” Whaley asked.

Mrs. Turner waved a crutch gamely. “Don't think a little sprain is going to stop me.”

“All right. But call me if your ankle hurts too much. I'll come pick you up.”

Addie bit her lip as she watched him slam the van door and start the engine. The first marchers burst out of Volunteer Park and began to pour onto the sidewalk and into the street. Whaley lurched the van out of the parking spot. Angry guitar riffs blasted from his radio.