Unthank smiled. “This guy, this guy who wants me to build that cog there is gonna get me into the Impassable Wilderness. Not only get me in there, but he’s gonna give me the run of the place. As far as I can tell. And then: no more sad machine shop, no more whining kids, no more complaining parents. It’s going to be wine and roses, champagne on tap. Good times, metaphorically speaking.”

Desdemona tried a smile. “And film studio? What of film studio?”

“Pah! Dessie, baby, you’re going to be queen of this place. You won’t need to make those silly movies anymore. Condescending directors, overprivileged producers. Who needs ’em? And dirty old Los Angeles? That’s not good enough for you, baby. In the Impassable Wilderness, you’re going to be too busy eating caviar from a palm leaf. Or something like that.”

The music was still going; Desdemona ground their dance steps to a halt. “Silly movies? Condescending directors? Dirty Los Angeles? Joffrey, this is lifeblood to me.”

“Listen, I—”

“No, you listen here of me. I could care less of Impassable Wilderness. It is nothing. It is just dirt. And trees. I have, for these years, listened to your shoutings about getting into this place because I think it is your hobby, and every man should have hobby. Boris Nudnink, great Ukraine actor, he had hobby: building replica of Soviet-era memorial statues with Legos. It is silly, yes? But who are we to judge? It does him some good. This is how I see your Impassable Wilderness. Sputnik statue in Lego. But I go along and I carry transponder units and I make sure girls and boys do not run away. This is what I do for your hobby.”

Unthank had fallen silent; he listened to the barrage with the obedience of a lapdog. The music carried on in the background.

Desdemona continued, “All in the hope that one day you will be good on promise, promise you made thirteen years ago when first I meet you. Desdemona, you say, one day I’ll leave this machine-part making behind, and we will live to Los Angeles. I will make movie studio there, and together we will make great movies, great American movies. Like Scorsese and Tarantino and Bay. I will produce and you will star, you say. In Los Angeles. Not Portland. Not this Industrial Waste. And not Impassable Wilderness. This is the promise you make.”

“I know, honey, but I just think—”

“No, that is your problem. You do not think. Only for yourself.”

And with that, she pivoted on her heels and strode from the room, leaving a drifting wake of lavender perfume behind her.

Betty Wells was singing longingly about a west Texas gaucho when Joffrey Unthank, pulling the needle from the platter, cut her off midsentence. The speakers issued a little skrick. Stuffing his hands in his chinos pockets, he strolled over to his desk and, standing before it, began looking down at the Cog’s schematic. Like a composer tapping out the music of his written notation without touching an instrument, Joffrey allowed the schematic to come to life in his mind: The little gears rotated around the axis in a fluid, silent motion, setting the blue-gray writing into a flurry around the rotating cog. He’d already forgotten what Desdemona had said to him; his mind was deeply in the world of parts mechanics, where no trivial distraction could hope to divert him from his task.

When Elsie, Rachel,

and Martha descended from the trees and approached the milling crowd of children in the house’s yard, a kind of quiet fell over the kids. It was a quiet of resignation, of surrender. They saw the yellow tags on the three girls’ ears; there was no need for explanation as to why they were there. For Martha, the faces of the children were like a flood of old memories: There was plump Carl Rehnquist, shaking dust from a rug. And Cynthia Schmidt, red-haired and pimply; she was carrying wood from a pile and stacking it neatly near the house. Dale Turner, always quiet as a mouse, was reading a book on the porch while two little girls, Louise Embersol and Sattie Keenan, looked over his shoulder. The children all murmured hello to the newcomers as they walked, trancelike, into the yard before turning back to their tasks.

The three girls crested a small hillock and found themselves looking down into the trough of a narrow vale, where lay nestled a quaint wooden cottage.

The house itself seemed to be as old as the hills themselves; it was mostly made of rough-hewn logs, lain one on top of the other, sitting on top of a foundation of river stones. The wood had been deeply stained by time and weather. The sloped roof, cedar shingles under a layer of bright snow, crested at a high gable that boasted a copper rooster weather vane, its ancient patina a beaten green. A wide porch gave shelter to a few benches and a washtub.

As if mute, the three girls said nothing as they approached the house. Finally, Martha broke the silence: She saw a boy walk out of the front door of the cottage, carrying a bucket of what looked to be kitchen scraps. “Michael!” she shouted. The boy, dark skinned and sporting a red bandanna around his neck, smiled broadly to see her.

“Martha!” he replied. He set down the bucket. Martha ran to meet him; they gave each other an enormous hug before pulling apart.

“How did you—” sputtered Martha. “What did you—”

The boy was about to answer when the dale was suddenly alive with the barking of dogs; the stampeding herd, which had so eluded the three girls, came galloping down the slope and into the yard. As soon as it came in contact with the laboring children, the pack splintered as the children were forced to drop the instruments of their chores to meet the demands of the happily barking and slobbering canines. The pug who Elsie had briefly pet came running up to her leg; she knelt down and started scratching the underside of his neck, and he let his tongue loll from the side of his mouth with pleasure. Rachel cringed and held her hands defensively to her chest.

“What’s going on here?” Martha asked the boy, Michael. A golden retriever was in the process of lying on his side near them, and Michael had dutifully taken up petting his tawny fur.

“This is where we live now, Martha,” said the boy.

“What? This whole time?”

“This whole time,” confirmed Michael.

“But you were made Unadoptable, like, three years ago!”

“Has it been so long?” asked the boy, musingly, as he patted the retriever’s belly.

“Do you live here, in this cottage?”

“We all do, Martha. We all live here. This is our home.”

Martha remained mystified. “Did you, like, build it?”

“No, we found it,” said Michael. He looked at Elsie and Rachel warmly. “Just like you have. And I see you’ve brought some friends with you.”

Tags: Colin Meloy Wildwood Chronicles Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net