The lack of response didn’t faze Alice. Her smile was still wide when she turned toward me. “Mail managed to get here before all the chaos, and these came for you.” She handed me two envelopes. “Your snack is out on the back patio.”
She winked at me, which made it seem like she was up to something. I even heard her say, “Adorable,” from inside the kitchen, but I was too tired to question, so I wandered to the French doors. Through the glass, I saw a trifold room partition standing in the middle of the small space. It had a light wood frame with pink lacy curtains that were getting soaked in the May drizzle. I found Sherlock on the other side of the curtain, staring at his tablet under a giant umbrella in one of two deck chairs that looked almost exactly like the ones for hire at Regent’s Park. Between the chairs, one of the little tables from what was now Alice’s room held two sandwiches, two packets of crisps, and two bottles of fizzy water.
“Why?” I asked, gesturing around us. I actually had quite a few questions, like why he wasn’t at school and why all this stuff was out here, and why there was so much food when we’d only just eaten porridge an hour or so ago. But in the end “Why?” seemed to embody all of that in a word.
Lock glanced up from his tablet to where I stood in the rain and, without a word, reached out to pull me under the umbrella. He didn’t answer at first, and his cheeks went slightly pink as he quickly went back to reading his tablet. “I know you hate being stuck in the house.”
I pressed my lips together and bit down on them to keep from smiling, which only made Lock furiously swipe through pages of something on the screen. I sat down and traded my mobile and letters for one of the bottles of water. “How did you get in?”
“Pretended to be grocery delivery.”
I twisted the top off and waited for the bubbles to settle before I asked, “By actually delivering groceries?”
Lock nodded and read with a diligence notable even for him, but I watched as the soft pink skirting his cheeks darkened to a nice rose color.
I should have left him alone or at least said thank you, but it was so much more fun to torment him. “Alice thinks you’re adorable.”
“Yes. She said.”
I took a long drink to suppress my next smile when he scowled toward the French doors and Alice beyond, I was sure. But then my phone rang and the name that flashed across the screen stole away all my amusement. He was supposed to send a text.
“What?” I answered.
DS Day got right to the point. “Tomorrow at seven a.m.”
I glanced at Lock and said, “I’ll be there.” I frowned a little at the slight rise in Sherlock’s brow—a sure indicator that he was going to ask questions I didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll pick you up, so don’t be late.”
I hung up and dropped my phone onto the table, then waited for the inevitable interrogation.
“Who was that?”
I paused to consider lying but thought better of it. “Detective Day.”
“Are you going to see him, then?”
I knew he meant my dad, but I feigned ignorance. “Yes, he’s coming to the house tomorrow.”
Lock stared down at the screen. “For what?”
“More questions from Mallory, I suppose. He’s taking me to the station.”
A lie and a truth, but Lock didn’t comment on either. I picked up one of the letters and ripped it open, expecting something from the school or maybe a letter from my grandmother, full of gossip about the village where she lives and pretense that she didn’t know what was happening to us. Instead, I found a white card with the words THANK YOU embossed in silver across the front. I opened it and the entire inside was covered, corner to corner, with a highly detailed drawing. A drawing of me.
Only it wasn’t quite me. The girl in the picture was wearing an elaborate medieval-looking gown and had long, flowing hair that was braided and curled down her back. She stood at the edge of a body of water of some sort, with a giant willow tree behind her, and held a sword out in front of her that she seemed to be passing along, hilt-first, to a dark, scaly hand that jutted out of the lake.
The scene was framed by tree trunks and branches that wove together to form an oval frame, and in the foreground, peeking around the trees to watch the woman, was a man, dressed much more modern, in jeans and a T-shirt. He had dark hair and a balding patch at his crown. The illustration showed only the back of his head and body, but the back pockets of his jeans bulged out like they both had wallets in them. A rubbish bin was to his right, like the bins at the park, and he held what looked like an aluminum can in his right hand. To his left stood a woman in full period dress, complete with ornate side hair buns and tiara, who was leaning in to whisper in his ear.
The picture was as beautiful as it was eerie. It was so intricate, I thought at first it had been printed onto the card, but when I moved my thumb, I realized I had smudged the lines a bit. The scene had been drawn onto the card. In pencil. Someone had created an odd, fantasy version of me, throwing my father’s sword into the Regent’s Park lake while someone looked on. Perhaps the artist had drawn himself?