“Here we go, toots. Boat’s waiting.”
Mikey’s voice dragged her out of the past and into the present.
He carried her bags over to the boat, where the skipper took them and helped Lucy aboard. He settled her in a chair with some hot coffee. She was the lone passenger on the small blue-and-white ferry.
While she still had a few minutes, she checked her phone. Theresa had replied to her text with lots of love, hugs, and well-wishes. Mrs. Bailey replied with a text that Christopher was glad she’d made it safely. That was it.
She put her phone away before she did something pointless like trying to call Christopher and telling him the news about Hugo Reese. All those wild, strange, mesmerizing paintings of the fictional animals that lived on Clock Island or the ghosts that haunted it or the train that stopped on it—though how a train could make it out to an island, the Mastermind could never fully explain…Hugo made those. Christopher loved the pictures almost as much as he loved the stories.
Lucy knew she ought to stay inside the cabin with her hot coffee. She couldn’t sit still, though. Careful of her land legs, she got out of her seat and went to the door. She pushed it open and went to the railing, clinging tightly to it as the ferry bobbed in the water and sputtered and churned its way to the island.
Breathing deeply, she brought the ocean breeze into her lungs. She couldn’t believe how much she missed cold spring nights and the sweet salt air of the Atlantic Ocean. If it were a perfume, she’d buy a bottle and wear it every day. If only Christopher was with her. He dreamed of living by the ocean and swimming with sharks, and they were out here in the water, right under her nose. Sand tiger sharks. Blue sharks. No hammerheads, sadly, but there were great whites, which would certainly impress him. Oh, she’d have to warn him not to feed the seagulls and never pet the seals, but he would love it here. This would be his heaven.
She felt thirteen again, scared to death but excited beyond words. Was she excited about meeting Jack Masterson again? Of course. He was one of her idols. Maybe the one idol who had yet to disappoint her. But more than anything, this was her chance, her one chance, to make something happen for her and Christopher. If she won.
There was the catch. If.
The dark sky lightened. The engine changed pitch. The boat slowed.
Up ahead, not too far away, was a house—a big beautiful Victorian house covered in climbing ivy with strange towers that looked down over the beach and the dock and the water.
Her heart pounded like the beat of a drum.
There it was. Clock Island.
In her head, she heard a mechanical voice speaking.
Tick-tock. Welcome to the Clock.
She was back.
Riddles and Games and Other Strange Things
He was there, but Astrid couldn’t see him. All she saw was the outline of a face in the shadows by the fire. The Mastermind.
“Sir? Mister, um,” Astrid began, and Max coughed. “I mean, Master Mastermind. My brother and I were hoping we could maybe get a wish?”
“A wish?” said the voice from the shadows. “Do I look like a genie to you?”
“Maybe?” Astrid said. “I don’t know what a genie looks like, so maybe a genie looks like you.”
He said nothing to that, but she saw the shadow that was his face almost smile.
“Master Mastermind?” Max said. His voice was shaking. “Our dad had to move away, far away, for a job. We really miss him. If he could get a job in town, he could come back. We sort of wish for that—”
“Tell me what flies but has no wings,” said the man in the shadows. “And you’ll have your answer.”
Max looked up at Astrid, but she didn’t know the answer. Wildly, she looked around the room, trying to get her brain to work, to see if the solution was hiding somewhere. The room was so quiet she could hear the beating of her heart. It sounded like a clock ticking.
A clock ticking?
“Time,” she said. “Time flies and has no wings.”
“In time, if you’re patient, your father will come back to your home.”
Max tugged Astrid’s sleeve. “Come on. I knew this wouldn’t work. Let’s go home.”
He turned to leave, but Astrid stayed standing where she was.
“I don’t want to wait. We miss Dad now. Haven’t you ever missed anybody? When they’re gone, a day feels like a million years.”
Again, the Mastermind was quiet for a long, long time. In fact, he was quiet for so long that time could have grown wings and learned to fly while she waited for him to speak again.
“Will you be brave?” he asked. “Only brave children get their wishes.”
Astrid was scared, terrified even. But she lifted her chin and said, “Yes. I’ll be brave.”
And Max took her hand and said, “I will too. If I have to.”
The Mastermind laughed a laugh that was scarier than any scream.
“Oh, you’ll have to.”
—From The House on Clock Island, Clock Island Book One, by Jack Masterson, 1990
Chapter Ten
The boat slowed down even more as it neared the long wooden dock. The headlights of the ferry lit up the pier. A man stood at the end. Lucy couldn’t make out his face, but it wasn’t Jack Masterson. This guy looked too young and too tall. He stood with his hands in the pockets of a dark-colored peacoat facing the night wind as if the cold couldn’t touch him. And when the ferry skipper tossed the rope to him, he caught it quickly and tied the boat to the dock with hands that knew what they were doing.
She moved to the front of the ferry, arms tight around herself to fend off the cool evening air. The man on the dock offered his hand to help her out of the boat. She concentrated on not falling as she took the big step up and off.
“Bags?” the man on the dock said. The skipper handed them over and told Lucy a quick good-night.
The man looked her up and down. “Typical Californian. No coat?”
English accent. Sounded familiar. Could it be? But where was the rock star hair?
“No coat,” she said, feeling sheepish. She’d talked herself out of buying a winter coat, telling herself she probably wouldn’t need it for such a short trip. Turned out she did. “I’m okay. I have a sweater in my bag.”
“Here. Put this on.” He handed her a man’s flannel-lined winter jacket that he’d brought with him as if expecting her to be stupid about her clothes. She did as she was told, grateful for the warmth as she wrapped the oversized coat around her. It smelled, she noticed, like the ocean.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of winter clothes these days.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’m sure you’re not used to being somewhere that isn’t actively on fire.”
“Offensive,” Lucy said, tongue in cheek. “Not inaccurate, but still offensive.”
He almost smiled. Maybe. But he didn’t.
“This way,” the man said and started down the pier toward the house, her suitcase wheels making a dut-dut-dut sound as they rolled over the planks. She had to half jog to keep up with his long strides.