Max stepped away. “Can you read that?” he asked, scanning the strange letters and symbols.
David nodded. “Sumerian,” he said casually as he pulled the art-history books from his backpack. “You can go to bed, Max…. I’m okay.”
Max lay awake in his bed for a long time while David’s scratchy pen and small voice could be heard faintly on the lower level. He watched Andromeda, staring at the grouping of stars and trying to count how long it would be until her outline twinkled with slender golden threads.
When he awoke, he peered over the balcony to see David sprawled across the table below amid a sea of parchment and flickering candle stumps. Hurrying downstairs, Max shook his roommate awake. David yawned and glanced down at a small puddle of drool that had stained one of the grimoires’ pages.
“That’s a shame,” he murmured sleepily.
“David,” said Max, snapping his fingers under David’s nose. “Are you okay?”
David blinked several times. Suddenly, he clutched Max’s arm; his small grip was fierce.
“Max! The stolen paintings aren’t clues to finding Astaroth. They’re Astaroth himself—or at least one of them is!”
David’s face trembled with exhilaration and fear at his discovery.
“Astaroth is imprisoned inside a painting!”
13
FIBS AND A FIDDLE
The ogre walked ahead, carrying a lantern in the twilight and stopping periodically to wait as Max, David, and Connor hurried to match his long strides. Snow was falling, and the sky was darkening to slate.
The door to the Sanctuary was open. A number of students and charges had crowded near the porch of the Warming Lodge, where a bonfire blazed in a large circle cleared of snow. Nolan sat on an upturned crate on the porch, cradling a fiddle and surrounded by students sipping from mugs and thermoses. Max saw a cloud of steam billow from the Lodge’s doorway and caught a glimpse of YaYa’s eyes glowing white from the shadows.
“Bob!” exclaimed Nolan. “We don’t get to see you too often out here. What’s the occasion?”
“Afternoon,” said Bob with a nod. “Bob takes young ones across the dunes to see Mr. Morrow. The house is far and little ones know not the way.”
“Ah,” said Nolan. “Well, Byron sure will appreciate that. I hope he’s on the mend—he’s been sick for weeks now! Give him my best and get on back to have some hot chocolate when you’re through. I’ll be taking requests a bit longer.”
Bob nodded and skirted the bonfire, leaving the Warming Lodge behind. Max picked his way among the seated students, waving at Cynthia and Lucia, who huddled together. On Lucia’s lap, swaddled in a shaggy blanket, was Kettlemouth, who blinked his bulbous eyes and wriggled his red skin in a full-body shiver.
To Max’s surprise, Julie Teller turned around to beam at him, the firelight dancing upon her pretty blue eyes and faded freckles.
“Hi,” she said with a smile. “Haven’t seen much of you since the break, and here we are in February!”
“Oh, I’ve been trying to study more this semester,” Max said, fiddling with a zipper on his coat. He was thankful that Sarah was not there. It had taken two weeks for Sarah to speak to him after Halloween, and while they had resumed their friendship, she became sullen whenever she saw Julie speak to Max.
“Well, let me know if you need any help,” she said. “Anything but Languages. I’m hopeless at them!”
Max merely reddened and nodded mutely, ignoring Connor’s exasperated face. A quick, cheery tune got a number of students clapping, and Julie turned to watch Nolan, whose fingers and bow danced on the fiddle strings. Connor and Max hurried after Bob and David just as Tweedy began to correct Omar’s mistimed attempts to clap along.
“Hey, wait up!” a voice called from behind them.
Max turned to see Cynthia stepping carefully through the snow. She was pulling on her mittens with her teeth by the time she reached them.
“I want to go see Mr. Morrow, too,” she said. “Been meaning to before, but, you know.”
They ran to catch up with Bob’s lantern as it bobbed up ahead. When they reached the edge of the sand mounds, Bob and David were waiting for them. The ogre’s coat shielded David from sudden blasts of gritty snow. Cupping his hands over his ears, Max struggled to hear Bob over the wind’s howl as they resumed walking.
“Stay close to me, little ones,” he cautioned.
What appeared to be little ripples in the distance were in fact towering dunes some fifteen or twenty feet high. Max and the others panted as they clambered up one face and slid down the other side. Thirty minutes seemed like hours; even Bob had to stop and catch his breath from time to time.
“Why does Morrow live all the way out here?” moaned Connor, shielding his face from another gust. “No wonder he doesn’t come to class in this weather!”
“He doesn’t walk this way,” said David. “I think he takes another way—a secret way. This campus is full of them. You can catch them if you know how to look.”
Connor whistled through his teeth and pressed David for details that were not forthcoming. Max glanced at his roommate, thinking of the night David had vanished to fetch the grimoires, just barely evading Cooper. David never mentioned the incident, and Max had let it be, embarrassed that he had been spying.
As they reached the crest of yet another dune, Bob suddenly put up his hand and motioned for them to be still. A heavy sniffing sound could be heard.
To his horror, Max saw several pairs of luminous green eyes looking up at them from below.
“Bob—” Max hissed as Cynthia clung to him and they backed away.
“Shhh!” commanded Bob, swinging the lantern around and peering down at the eyes below.
The children huddled in terrified silence for several moments while Bob stood as still as a stone, staring down at the base of the dune. Suddenly, there was a low whine that rose above the wind.
Whatever they were had gone.
“We get going,” rumbled Bob. “Not far now.”
“Bob,” said Connor, shivering and clinging to the ogre’s side, “what were those?”
“Bob knows not,” he muttered. “Many wild charges live outside the clearing.”
“What do you mean ‘wild charges’?” asked David, his voice almost lost to the wind.
Bob stooped low to answer.
“Charges whose keepers have gone away—charges that live off on their own. Some may have forgotten that people ever cared for them.”
“Are they dangerous?” asked Cynthia, shuddering and looking around.
Bob shrugged. “They are wild,” he said, hefting the heavy thermos like a weapon and leading them toward the next dune.
Max caught the comforting smell of a fireplace even before he scrambled up the final dune and saw the cottage. Situated near the edge of a dark wood thick with fir trees, its walls were made of mortared stone crossed with timbers and surrounded by a low picket fence. Bright yellow lights peeked from behind its curtained windows. Eager to leave the wild charges and wintry conditions behind, Max and the others ran downhill toward the cottage.
“Stop!” Bob’s voice echoed on the wind, bringing them to a stumbling halt. “Wait for Bob,” he wheezed, stepping sideways down the dune and using the lantern to light the easiest way. “Little children anxious for walls and warmth. Makes little children foolish—think they are now safe and become blind to dangers.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Connor, rubbing his arms and casting a longing look at the warm cottage.
A slight frown crept across Bob’s craggy features. “Before Bob became cook, Bob was ogre….”
The ogre knocked on the cottage’s red door; a thick sheet of snow slid off the roof and crashed into the garden. The children huddled together for warmth, their backs to Bob as their eyes scanned the forest and dunes. Bob knocked again.
“Instructor Morrow?” Bob inquired delicately. “It is Bob and some students.”
No sound came from the cottage.
“We brought soup for you,” Bob purred. “Soooouuuuup!”