The Magician's Dream (Oona Crate Mystery: book 3) (11 page)

And then it was over. She swallowed and wiped her face with a napkin.

“This is the clear winner,” Mary Shusher said, her voice trembling with emotion.

“The undeniable winner,” agreed Hector Grimsbee, whose tear-streaked face had more color in it than Oona had ever seen before.

“Samuligan, you won!” Oona exclaimed.

In a grand sweeping gesture, the faerie removed his hat and took a bow, clearly pleased with himself.

“Wait a minute!” Isadora shouted. “You haven’t tasted the rest of ours. You have to taste
all
of our dishes before you declare a winner. That’s the rule!”

Mary sighed and looked at Chef Rude.

“It is the rule,” the chef said with a shrug, and he pulled a fork from his pocket to taste Samuligan’s dish for himself. As expected, the chef burst into tears of utter joy.

“Very well,” said Mary, who did not seem pleased at all to have to taste anything else after having tasted such perfection, and beckoned Isadora forward.

Isadora placed her dish before them, and as she did so, Oona’s heart leapt into her throat. She gasped, shaking her head as if she were not seeing right.

Isadora’s plating technique was beautiful; the way the entrée sat just off center but was balanced by an artful display of sauce liberally dribbled around the plate’s edge. But it was neither the sauce nor the chicken that inspired Oona’s reaction. It was the thin red ribbon that Isadora had used as decoration on top of the chicken that caused Oona to lose her breath. More specifically, it was the knot that Isadora had chosen to use. Not just any knot. It was
the
knot. The one Oona had been searching for.

It was the Rose Knot.

“Oh, dear,” said Mary Shusher, picking up the knotted ribbon between her thumb and pointer finger. “I’m afraid that inedible garnish is a real no-no. The reason for this is that someone might try to eat it, and then—”

“Shush, Mary!” Oona said forcefully, and then turned to Isadora. “Where did you learn to tie this knot?”

Isadora looked as if she were confused. But Oona’s heart was thrumming. She did not think that Isadora Iree was one of the Rose Thieves—she was too young—but whoever had taught that knot to Isadora just might be a suspect, not only for stealing the Faerie Carbuncle, but also for the murder of Oona’s father.

Isadora shook her head and shrugged. “I found it in a book.”

“A book?” Oona asked urgently. “What book?”

“A book I checked out of the library,” Isadora said. “But I’ve already turned it back in.”

Oona jumped to her feet. “The public library? What was it called? What section was it in?”

Isadora’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why, just look at it,” she said, pointing at the knot, which was still being held between Mary Shusher’s fingers. “It is a work of art. Where else would I have found it but in the art section?”

The Art of Abraham McGillicuddy

The following morning Oona was awake and waiting at the museum front entrance before nine o’clock, Deacon on her shoulder. Her plan was to get an early start on finding the art book Isadora had returned to the library and still have time to attend the political rally that afternoon.

At ten till nine, Mrs. Shusher, the librarian, and her daughter, Mary, walked up the stone steps and stopped in front of the large wooden door. Mary gave Oona a nervous look, as if afraid that Oona might tell her mother about Mary’s secret life as a food critic.

The librarian raised an eyebrow at Oona and said: “I’m afraid, my dear, that Adler Iree is not in today. He has a test at the Magicians Legal Alliance, and so he has the day off from the library.”

“Oh, I see,” Oona said, her face going quite red. “I’m here to do research, actually.”

The librarian gave Oona a skeptical look and was just about to say something when the daytime guard opened the door.

“Hello, Mrs. Shusher,” he said.

“Good morning, Victor,” she replied and stepped over the threshold into the museum. Mary gave Oona a fleeting glance and followed her mother inside.

When Oona started to follow them in, the guard put up a hand to stop her. “Sorry, but the museum and the library open at nine o’clock. You’ll have to wait outside for a few minutes.”

“Oh, I see,” Oona said, but as the guard began to close the door, she added: “What time do you change shifts from the night shift to the day shift?”

The guard peered at her for a long moment. “No offense intended, miss, but Inspector White told me you’d probably be back, asking more questions. And he said I don’t need to answer any of ’em.”

Oona shrugged, as if it did not matter. “Yes, of course he did. Inspector White thinks you can’t decide for yourself who to talk to.”

“Huh?”

“And maybe he’s right not to trust you. Maybe you’re a suspect, and he thinks that you’ll accidentally let something slip to me . . . and I will solve the case before him.”

The guard frowned. “Me, a suspect? But I’m the one who found Elbert tied up. I cut him loose. Why would I have anything to do with it?”

“Elbert?” Oona asked. “That’s the night watchman’s name?” She had a vague recollection of the guard having told her this before.

“That’s right,” the guard said. He sounded indignant. “Elbert Hackelsmith. And I don’t care what the inspector thinks, I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Of course you don’t,” Oona said. “Now what time did you say you usually switch from the night shift to the day shift?”

This time the guard did not hesitate. “Seven o’clock every morning.”

“And that’s what time you found the night watchman, Elbert Hackelsmith, on Tuesday morning?”

“That’s right,” said Victor the guard. “Found him lying there on the floor all tied up. Mr. Glump, the curator, came in a few minutes later. Told me to fetch the police, so I did, lickety-split. Took the constables nearly two hours to find what was missing.”

“The Faerie Carbuncle,” Oona said. Again she experienced that uneasy feeling at the thought of the potential power the magical gemstone could bestow its owner. She reminded herself that the spell to activate it was long lost, but still, this did not make her feel much better.

“Yeah. The glass case was broken and everything,” said Victor. “The thieves didn’t take anything else.”

Oona looked past the guard, trying to get a look at the clock in the entryway. “Is it time to open?”

The guard turned. “Oh, look there. So it is.”

He stepped aside and let Oona inside.

“Thank you, Victor,” she said, and headed upstairs toward the library.

The guard watched her go, shaking his head as if realizing that she had just tricked him into giving her information he had not intended on giving.

“I never was a suspect, was I?” he called after her.

“How should I know?” Oona said. “Inspector White is quite good at accusing innocent people.”

She glanced back to see the guard’s expression turn from irritation back to concern.

“That was clever of you,” Deacon said as they ascended the steps. “Yet I don’t see the significance of it. What does it tell us?”

“I don’t know,” Oona said. “But it’s good information to have. It gives us a time frame. The victim, Mr. Elbert Hackelsmith, was attacked at around nine o’clock in the evening and then found at seven o’clock the next morning.” Again she thought of how the name Hackelsmith was somehow familiar. “By the way, what do we know about the night watchman?”

Deacon paused, as if searching for the correct data. After a moment he said: “According to the
Dark Street Who’s Who
, Elbert Hackelsmith is the night watchman for the Museum of Magical History and has been for nearly ten years. It is his only job on record. He is single and lives alone. He is the son of Wendell and Wanda Hackelsmith, both prominent undertakers.”

Oona pushed through the library door. “What else?”

“Nothing factual. There is a rumor that his parents, the Hackelsmiths, were vampires. But this is unproven, and likely something people say because the Hackelsmiths worked with the dead for a living.” Deacon began to chuckle, as if he had just made an amusing joke.

Oona gave him a disapproving glance, and then all at once it came to her . . . where she had heard that name before. Of course, the Hackelsmiths had been the undertakers who had handled the funeral arrangements not only for Oona’s father but also for her mother and baby sister.

She came to a sudden halt, thinking how small the world of Dark Street was.

“Are you lost?” came a familiar voice. It was Mary Shusher, who was pushing a cart full of books toward the far end of the room.

“Oh no,” Oona said, but then, reconsidering, she added: “Actually, yes. Can you point me in the direction of the art section?”

Mary pointed toward a wall of books close to the reference desk and then came to a stop. She looked as if she were about to say something. She considered Oona for a moment and then in a hushed tone said: “Thank you for not telling my mother about my secret. Maybe one day she will understand.” She gestured toward the cart full of books. “But until then, it’s a life of shelving books, I’m afraid. By the way, now that I’ve had time really to think about it, that food your faerie served us last night . . . I know I ate it, and loved it, but I can’t actually seem to remember doing so. It’s like I ate it in a dream. Isn’t that strange?”

Oona nodded. “You know, I had a similar feeling this morning. I figured it must have been the faerie ingredients and magical technique that somehow wiped it clean from my memory. I asked Samuligan about it, and he said he did it on purpose . . . to be kind.”

“Kind?” asked Mary, clearly perplexed.

Oona had had the same reaction earlier that morning.

Yes, kind,
Samuligan had said.
If I had not done so, then every meal from this time forward would be compared to that one . . . and no meal would ever be able to compete. You might have even stopped eating all together because all other food would seem boring, dull, and gray. By adding an ingredient of forgetfulness, your next meal will now be judged on its own merit . . . as it should be.

Oona had marveled at this, astonished that the faerie had had such forethought. Samuligan was truly a master of magic.

But when Oona recounted the conversation to Mary, the assistant librarian frowned at the cart of books. “Yes . . . or perhaps the meal was not as good as I thought it was. I just don’t know.” She shook her head in earnest confusion. “Well, I really should get back to work. Good day.”

The two of them parted company, Mary rolling her cart in one direction and Oona and Deacon venturing in the other. The art section turned out to be one of the largest sections in the library. The two of them began scanning the shelves for the name of the book Isadora had told Oona about the previous night. Because of the alphabetical system of organization, Oona found the book in no time.

“This is it,” she said excitedly and hurried to a nearby table. She set the book down and stared for a moment at the cloth cover:
Knots: The Art of Abraham McGillicuddy.

Opening to a random page, she discovered a full-page illustration of one of the most unusual knots she had ever seen. It looked like a dog’s head, with long droopy ears and sad eyes. She was not surprised to read that the name of this particular knot was the Sad Dog Knot. The opposite page displayed several much smaller illustrations that showed the various steps that were needed in order to achieve the knot using a single piece of rope. Tiny arrows showed which end of the rope slipped into which loop.

“Extraordinary,” Deacon said from her shoulder. He leaned forward to get a better look.

“
Quite
extraordinary,” Oona said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She turned the page to find an equally fascinating knot known as the Pharaoh’s Pyramid, in which the rope formed a perfect four-sided pyramid. The slim book was filled with page after page of unusual knots, all of which were dazzling to the eye even in the illustrations. Oona could only imagine that they would be even more spectacular when actually tied in a piece of rope.

And then she found it, the page containing the Rose Knot. There it was, illustrated in its complex glory. Deacon let out a short gasp, and Oona placed a hand to her mouth. She found the image to be wondrous and yet ominous at the same time. The knot was so complicated that the instructional illustrations filled not only the entire neighboring page, but took up the two following pages as well.

Oona was impressed that Isadora had been able to accomplish it the previous night. It started her thinking. “You know, Deacon, if this book was part of the public library’s collection, then anyone would have been able to check it out. Anyone could have learned to tie these knots.”

“Look in the front to see who else has checked it out,” Deacon suggested.

Oona did so. A card had been stuck to the inside front cover with the words
property of dark street public library
printed at the top. Below this were lines where anyone who had checked the book out would need to sign their name. There was only one name: Isadora Iree.

Oona ran a hand through her long black hair, shaking her head. “It seems that Isadora is the only one who has ever checked this book out. And the date is from last week. But look at how old this book appears to be. Strange that no one has ever checked it out before.”

“Perhaps it is newly acquired,” Deacon reasoned.

Just then, Mary Shusher was returning to the reference desk with her cart. Oona carried the book to the counter and opened it to the inside cover. She pointed to the card.

“I was wondering, Mary, if Isadora Iree is really the only person who has ever checked this book out?”

Mary glanced at the card but was already shaking her head. “Not likely. That is part of a very old collection of art books. In fact, I know I have shelved it before, back at the old library.”

Oona tapped her finger on Isadora’s name. “Then how come she is the only one who signed it out?”

“Because those cards are new,” Mary said. “We got rid of the old cards when we moved to the new library because my mother wanted to start the system over fresh. Every book got a new card.”

“Oh,” Oona said, shoulders sinking slightly, but then all at once she brightened. “Do you remember who checked it out from the old library?”

Mary shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I’m sorry.”

Oona nodded. “Well, would you mind checking it out to me? I should like to take it home.”

Mary removed the name card from the front of the book and handed Oona a fountain pen.

“Sign your name here.”

Oona did so, and Mary dropped the card into a file box before placing another card into the book, this one printed with the due date.

Oona thanked Mary and headed toward the exit. With the book tucked beneath one arm, Oona pushed through the library door and nearly ran right into Mary’s father on the steps that led down to the museum.

“Ho-ho! Watch where you’re going there, miss!” Mr. Shusher said.

The two of them did a little dance, trying to get around each other.

Perhaps it was because Oona was so frustrated with not finding any real clue as to who the thieves were that she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out: “What is it that you are hiding, Mr. Shusher?”

Mr. Shusher came to an abrupt halt. “I beg your pardon?”

His highly lined face scowled, and his eyes squinted at her from beneath the brim of his bowler hat.

“Be careful,” Deacon whispered in her ear.

Oona ignored him. “Yesterday, Mr. Shusher, I overheard you say to your wife that you had hidden something. What was it?”

Mr. Shusher continued to stare at her for a long moment, his face a mask of anger. Finally, he stepped toward her and began cracking his knuckles. Oona could not tell if it was just a nervous habit of his, or if he was trying to be threatening. Either way, it was quite unnerving.