Once he got in, Lucy said, “What’s your name? I forgot to ask.”
He gave her a look like he was trying not to smile. “Mike. Mikey, if you likey,” he said with a wink. Clearly, this was a joke he made a few thousand times a day.
“Thanks for the lift, Mikey.”
She pulled her sweater tight around her and stared out the window at the passing streetlights. A few things looked familiar, but most of it passed by in a blur. She took a shuddering breath. She was back. She swore she’d never come home, but here she was.
“You okay, kid? Don’t be scared. Jack’s a good guy.”
She didn’t want to unload onto her poor driver her love-hate relationship with her home state. She loved Maine. Everything else—her parents, her sister, her ex-boyfriend, all here in town—she could do without for all eternity.
“Just nervous about the game,” she said.
“Sit back. I got the heated seats turned on. And don’t you worry. I been sizing up your competition. You’ll be all right.”
It took about twenty minutes from the airport to the ferry terminal, where a boat would be waiting to take her out to Clock Island. Lucy nervously lobbed questions at Mikey for the entire drive. She learned that she was the last one to arrive, the one and only West Coaster playing the game.
“I’m not very good at games,” Lucy said.
“I don’t think Jack’s gonna make you kids play football or nothing like that. It’ll be fun. Don’t freak yourself out.”
“Too late. I’m freaking out.”
Mikey chuckled, then waved his hand. “Don’t freak out, kid. It’ll be fine. The other contestants are nice. Jack’s nice. Hugo’s even nice when you get past his, you know, personality.”
“Wait, you mean Hugo Reese? The illustrator?”
Hugo Reese wasn’t just the illustrator of the Clock Island books, he was her favorite living artist. And she’d met him before. He had been at the house when she’d run away.
“He lives on the island too,” Mikey said. “Somebody has to keep an eye on Jack. He’s a nice guy. A grouch, but don’t buy the act.”
“Oh, I remember. Except I bought the act.” She laughed.
“You know our Hugo?”
“Know him? No. But he, ah…kept me occupied while Mr. Masterson called the cops on me.”
She hadn’t told Christopher that part, but, of course, that’s what happened. You don’t get to show up at the front door of a world-famous author without getting the cops called on you. Yeah, Jack Masterson gave her tea and cookies and let her pet his raven, but he couldn’t keep her. Some wishes came true, and some wishes didn’t, and the I want to live on a magical island with my favorite author and be his sidekick was one of the wishes that never came true.
After showing her the flying writing desk, Jack had excused himself, promising her a nice surprise. He returned with a young man in tow.
Lucy still remembered what he looked like. Impossible to forget those electric blue eyes scowling, the messy rock star hair, and, of course, his tattoos.
He had a full sleeve of tattoos on each arm. Colorful swirls of red and black and green and gold and blue. Not rainbows. Not stripes. Just colors. Like his body was a palette. He was more paint than man.
“Lucy Hart, meet Hugo Reese,” Jack had said. “Hugo Reese, this is Lucy Hart. Hugo’s a painter. He’s going to be the new illustrator for my books. And Lucy’s come to be my new sidekick. Would you mind showing her how to draw the Mastermind’s house? She’ll need to know that.”
Did she believe that? Did she fall for it? Did she genuinely believe that Jack Masterson was going to let her stay in his house? Be his sidekick? His daughter? His friend? She’d wanted to believe it, so she held out her shaking hand to Hugo Reese.
Hugo only looked at her hand, then at Jack Masterson. “Have you gone soft in the head, old man?” His accent was British. Not fancy British like a prince, more like punk rock British.
Jack Masterson tapped the top of his head. “Hard as a rock.”
Hugo rolled his eyes so dramatically that Lucy imagined he could see inside his own skull.
“Take your time,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”
They were alone then, she and Hugo Reese. He made her incredibly nervous and not because he was scowling, not because he was the new illustrator of the Clock Island books, but because he was the best-looking guy she’d ever met. Usually she didn’t pay too much attention to boys, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Lucy Hart, eh?” he said.
She was suddenly very very very nervous. There were cute boys at her school. But Hugo wasn’t a boy. He was a man. A really really really handsome man.
“You ran away from home? To here? Do you know how incredibly stupid that is? You could have been killed. Did your parents drop you on your head?”
Lucy was taken aback by his anger. She’d expected him to be as nice as Jack.
“Maybe,” she said, on the verge of tears. “They don’t care about me, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Hugo looked away. “Sorry. My brother’s about your age. I’d have kittens if he ran away from home.”
Have kittens? She liked that expression. “But Jack said—”
“I don’t care what Jack said. You nearly gave him a heart attack showing up at his front door.”
Lucy giggled. Hugo glared.
“Sorry, sorry. Just…my last name’s Hart. I thought you were making a pun. Hart attack.” Lucy looked at the floor, then back at him again. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes softened. The storm of his anger had passed. She wasn’t used to getting chewed out by, well, anyone, much less sexy punk artist guys. It was actually kind of nice that he seemed to care about her safety so much.
“All right, sit down,” he said. “And pay attention. Drawing is a skill like driving or roller-skating. You aren’t born knowing how to do it. You have to learn it, and if you want to learn it, you can learn it. But if you don’t want to learn, don’t waste my time.”
Nobody ever told her that before, that things like art could be learned. She assumed she didn’t draw because she couldn’t draw, and here was an actual artist saying she could learn? Wild. Lucy sat down, paid attention, and did everything Hugo Reese told her to do. She screwed up. She started over. She tried and tried again. And thirty minutes later, she had a passable drawing of a spooky-looking house covered in ivy and weird windows like watching eyes.
Not just any house…the house on Clock Island.
When she was done with her drawing, Hugo Reese took a long look at it and said, “Not bad, Hart Attack. Keep it up.”
She hadn’t kept it up, but she never forgot that drawing lesson he gave her or how much she liked being called Hart Attack in that funny way by the best-looking guy she’d ever seen.
Safe to say, she was a little in love with him by the time the lesson was over. And it was over way too soon. Thirty minutes or so later, the office door opened again. She’d looked up, smiling, expecting to see Jack Masterson. Instead, it was a police officer in uniform followed by a woman who said she was a social worker. They were there to take her home.