The Secrets of the Pied Piper 1 Read online

  “Wait,” said Max. “Did you just say the Peddler?”

  “Yes,” said Lukas. “He doesn’t go by any other name. Why, have you heard of him?”

  The story of the Piper and the Peddler was the lost fairy tale their father had been after, the one listed in the earliest version of the Grimm collection. Surely it wasn’t just coincidence, but Max didn’t know how to explain it to these children, much less what it meant. Most of all, Max hadn’t decided yet if she could trust them.

  “No,” said Max. “I…I just thought you said something else. Forget it. Keep going.”

  Carter gave Max a look. Her little brother had always been too good at sniffing out lies, even little ones. Thankfully he didn’t say anything.

  “The Peddler travels the land still,” said Lukas. “You might have seen his road outside the village. That magic road is what keeps at least some of the wildness at bay. They say that the magicians were two of the most powerful beings on the Summer Isle, along with the Princess of the Elves, but we’ve never even seen her. She never leaves her castle on the other side of the isle.”

  At the mention of the Princess, Emilie scowled, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “Something happened between the two magicians,” continued Lukas. “Some kind of battle, and it happened right after we arrived.”

  “So you think they fought because of what the Piper did to you all?” asked Max. “Because he kidnapped you?”

  “The Peddler sometimes visits New Hamelin, and I’ve asked him that myself,” said Lukas. “But he’s an old man, and he refuses to answer most of my questions—he pretends he can’t hear me. All that I’ve been able to get out of him is that the magicians did fight, and the Piper lost. I think the Princess of the Elves helped the Peddler, but I’m not sure. After the battle, the Piper was locked away in a secret prison, and the Princess retreated to her castle. Evil spread. The Winter Moons came more often. The rats appeared and began plaguing the isle.”

  “The rats don’t grow crops, and they don’t keep livestock,” said Emilie. “They take what they need from others and spoil the rest.”

  Rat creatures. Kobolds and elves. A magician who stole children away to a twisted, magic fairyland where children never grew up but nightmares became reality. Max remembered what Mrs. Amsel had said about the original villagers of Hamelin, about the things in the forest they’d feared—the dark magic of the world, she’d called it. It looked like they’d been right after all.

  Of course, none of this answered the questions foremost on Max’s mind. “If the Piper is locked up, then how did he bring us here?” asked Max. “And why? And how do we get home again?”

  “I was hoping you could tell us,” said Lukas. “We haven’t seen the Piper since the night he stole us away. No one has.”

  “And you haven’t tried to find another way home?”

  Lukas stared at her, a slow smile creeping across his face. Max exchanged a worried glance with Carter. Lukas was starting to freak them both out.

  “Thanks to you,” Lukas said, “I think we just have.”

  “That’s enough,” said Emilie, cutting Lukas off. “They are two children, that is all. Two more children in a village full of children.”

  “You don’t know that, Emilie,” said Lukas.

  “We won’t talk about it now,” said Emilie. “They’ve had enough for one day, surely.”

  “Wait,” said Max. “Whatever it is, I want to talk about it! You can’t just order us around.”

  Lukas looked like he wanted to say more, but Emilie rapped her knuckles against the table. “We will speak no more of it today!” she said, glaring at Max. “There are too many interested in you already.” With this, Emilie shot a glance at the window where she’d scared off the crows, then to Lukas, who reluctantly nodded.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “In the meantime, Max and Carter are welcome in New Hamelin,” Emilie continued. “You will be given a cottage of your own, food to eat and chores to do. To survive, we work hard, but survive we do. I hope that you can come to think of this place as home.”

  Emilie adjusted her shawl and looked directly at Max. “But remember that your ways are not our ways. You must follow our rules, even if they seem strange to you. And know,” she added with a warning look, “that I am always watching you.”

  With that warning, Emilie finally sat down in her chair and cried out in shock as a long, sputtering sound, much like a fart, escaped from beneath her seat cushion.

  Emilie asked Lukas to show Max and Carter to the cottage that would be their new home. They were to be given Leon’s house, which was small for two people but safely situated near the center of the village and nicely upwind of the pigpens. The cottage had remained empty in memory of New Hamelin’s former captain, but it was time that it be put to use again—space couldn’t be wasted in the little walled village. But first, Lukas wanted to show Max and Carter something else. Something secret.

  “There, I think that’s far enough,” he said once they’d gotten out of sight of the village square.

  “Far enough for what?” asked Max.

  “Far enough that Emilie won’t see what I’m about to do,” answered Lukas. “Come on.” Then he turned and began leading them in the opposite direction, through the twisting streets of New Hamelin, and he didn’t stop until they’d reached the front gate. Children stopped and stared as he led Max and Carter through the village, but Lukas didn’t slow down. While the Elder Girl had no real authority to tell the Elder Boy what to do, Lukas had yet to find the courage to stand up to Emilie. That was about to change.

  When Lukas ordered the guards to open the front gate, it earned him even more stares, but they obeyed. Two boys put their shoulders against the massive log that served as the gate’s giant dead bolt. It had been greased with pig fat so that it could be easily slid in and out of place, and once it was unbolted, a third guard cranked the winch that swung the gate open wide. Outside, an expansive field of grass and flowers stretched onward, butting up against the border of the Shimmering Forest. The Peddler’s Road disappeared into those trees, continuing its long journey across the isle. Lukas strode past Max and Carter, who were looking concerned, and planted himself outside the gate. A warm summer breeze stirred the grass in the fields, causing it to ripple like waves. It was a welcome change from the biting winter winds of the night before.

  “I remember when I was little,” began Lukas, “a man, who must have been my father, used to tell me stories about the woods outside our old village. Don’t stray from the path, he’d say, or else the elves will steal you away. And don’t leave the milk uncovered or the kobolds will bathe in it and cause it to spoil. He told me the church bell rang at dawn to frighten away the night’s wicked spirits and the iron horseshoes we hung above our door would keep the goblins out. My father’s stories.”

  Lukas drew his sword and considered it. Such an ugly thing, and not something he’d ever wanted. Although Marc had first wielded it, Leon had held it the longest, and Leon had been Lukas’s friend. The sword of the Eldest Boy would always be Leon’s, no matter what anyone else said. Lukas drove the sword’s point into the soft earth.

  “Those stories were full of monsters, and they were frightening, but fascinating, too, you understand? Full of magic. On the rare occasions that he did allow me to go with him into the woods, to pick mushrooms or collect kindling, my heart would beat so fast I thought that every elf and ogre within miles had to be able to hear it. But I never saw one. Not one. The stories weren’t real, you see, until I came here.”

  “Lukas,” said Max, still inside the gate with Carter, “what are we doing here?” She looked at him suspiciously, as if she expected him to pull her and her brother outside, then run back in and close the gate behind them. Lukas tried to reassure her with a smile.

  “I want to explain,” he said, coming back inside the open gate. “Because in this place, elves are real. Ogres wander the woods, and kobolds are mischievous and botherso
me at the best of times. Just like the stories said. We mostly stay inside our walls, except for the scouts. We try to avoid other folk here on the Summer Isle. It’s too easy to get lost out there in all the magic.”

  Lukas plucked his sword back out of the dirt and held it up to the sun, pointing at the road. The blade was a dull black that refused to reflect the light at all. Such an ugly thing.

  “The Peddler’s Road crosses from one edge of the isle to the other, and the Peddler walks it, trading with anyone he meets.”

  “He’s one of the magicians you and Emilie were talking about,” said Carter.

  Lukas nodded. “On his first visit to our village, many, many years ago, he gave Marc this sword. Traded it for a song, or so the story goes.”

  “What does this Peddler guy have to do with us?” said Max, peering out at the road and the distant woods. “Do you plan on trading us in for two more-useful lost children?”

  Lukas laughed. Emilie had already taken a dislike to Max’s humor, but Lukas appreciated it. She wasn’t like the other girls in New Hamelin. She wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Neither was her brother, for that matter, which was why Lukas knew they were special.

  “Everyone in New Hamelin has traded with the Peddler at one time or another,” said Lukas. “Some have been happier with their trades than others.” Lukas removed a leather scroll case from his belt and opened it up. “This is what he gave to me.”

  “Cool,” said Carter. “A map.”

  It was a map indeed. A map that Lukas had memorized years ago. It wasn’t impressive to look at, just a rough drawing of the Summer Isle, and not even drawn to scale. Finn said that the island reminded him of a butterfly, but Lukas had always thought it looked more like a flower. New Hamelin was clearly labeled between the northern mountains and the Shimmering Forest. The Great River nearly cut the land in two before splitting into the smaller Western Fork and Eastern Fork, and then those continued on until they emptied into the sea. How many countless hours had Lukas spent staring at this map until he knew every ink stroke by heart?

  Winding through the isle was a thin dotted line.

  “Is that…,” asked Max.

  “Yes, that is the Peddler’s Road. I was told this map was drawn by human hands, or close enough, and I believe it. The rats certainly didn’t make it, and the kobolds have no use for such things. Books, maps and writing of any kind are all pointless in their eyes. They don’t even like art, unless it’s a picture of one of them.”

  Carter held out his hands, and Lukas laid the map gently across them so the boy could get a better look. Max peered over her brother’s shoulder, and Lukas watched their faces as they studied it. Would he see something in their expressions? A special recognition or understanding of what it really meant? Or would that be too easy?

  “The Peddler promised me that this map was special,” said Lukas. “Because it once belonged to a witch who could see the future. The Peddler told me that it was difficult to come by, but that it was worth it because this map came with a prophecy: Only when the last son of Hamelin appears and the Black Tower found will the Piper’s prison open and the children return safe and sound.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Carter.

  Lukas looked at Carter. The boy really did remind Lukas of Timm, and it wasn’t because of his leg. It was because Timm had been a brave boy, too, though he would never have admitted it. It was funny how Lukas could remember his old friend so clearly, yet he couldn’t even picture his own parents’ faces.

  “I think it means that the last son of Hamelin will lead us home,” said Lukas after a moment. “And here you are.”

  “But Carter’s not a son of Hamelin,” said Max. “We’re from New York City.”

  “But you came to us from Hamelin,” said Lukas. “The Piper led you two here for a reason.”

  “Well,” said Carter. “Led might be the wrong word. Kidnapped, maybe.”

  “There’s something else,” said Lukas, and he pointed to the northeastern corner of the map, at the hills on the other side of the Great River. Nestled in those hills was a black tower. Even now, just seeing it made Lukas’s heart race.

  “Oh, come on,” said Max, squinting down at the tiny drawing. “Look, if the Peddler’s going to mention a black tower in his so-called prophecy, then of course he’d draw a little black tower on the map he’s trying to sell you.”

  “No,” said Lukas. His excitement was rising, and his hands were shaking. He felt like he was going to trip over his words if he didn’t get them out fast enough. “You don’t understand, that tower wasn’t there yesterday morning!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Max.

  “I’ve had this map for ages,” said Lukas. “I look at it every day, and there was no tower on this map until the day you two appeared.”

  “Whoa,” said Carter.

  “The tower has been found,” said Lukas. “All we need to do is follow the Peddler’s Road and it’ll take us there! See?”

  Lukas traced the little dotted line through the forests, across the river and clear to the other side of the isle. The road went all the way to the eastern coast.

  “But it doesn’t go all the way,” said Carter, pointing at it. “We’d have to leave the road at this Deep Forest here and head north.”

  “Across the Dark Moors, yes,” said Lukas. That part of the journey was worrisome, but it was no use dwelling on it now. Not yet, and not in front of Max and her brother. “But it would be easy travel until then.”

  “Wait,” said Max. “Why didn’t Emilie mention any of this?”

  Lukas sighed. “Because she’s spent a long time building us a home that we can be safe in. She doesn’t like the idea of anyone leaving it. Not without a very good reason.”

  “And this isn’t a good reason?” asked Carter. “What’s Emilie’s problem, anyway?”

  Lukas shrugged. It was easy to dislike Emilie, partly because the girl worked hard to keep others at a distance. But what Carter and his sister didn’t understand, what they might never understand, was that for all these years Emilie had been the one person who’d kept the village together, who’d held them when they had nightmares and told them stories when they couldn’t sleep. She’d been more than just the Eldest Girl—she’d been New Hamelin’s mother. It was hard for her to let go.

  “But do you trust this Peddler person?” asked Max. “How do you know you can believe him?”

  “Two days ago, I wasn’t sure I did believe,” said Lukas. “What if everything the Peddler told me was just a story? But then you two showed up, and I was reminded of something I had almost forgotten.”

  “What?” asked Carter.

  “Here on the Summer Isle, stories are real!” Lukas smiled broadly and clapped Max and Carter on their shoulders. “So, what do you say? Are you up for an adventure?”

  “It’s not fair that you get to decide,” said Carter. “You won’t even talk about it!”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” said Max. “That rat creature came from out there, and so we not going out there where there are more of them. Discussion over.”

  Max turned her back on her brother and busied herself with making up their beds, such as they were. The beds here in New Hamelin were thin, stitched mattresses stuffed with some kind of moss that felt like cotton, and the blankets were woven of coarse wool. And though Lukas had promised that they were upwind of the pigs, there was still a distinct smell of manure at this end of the village. Still, the cottage was comfortable enough, if spare. With nothing else to do but argue with her brother, Max had made and remade her own bed at least four times over the last half hour.

  Carter was upset, but he would get over it. Actually, Max found she didn’t much care if he did get over it, as there was no way they were going with Lukas on this silly quest, no matter how Carter felt about it. She wouldn’t drag her little brother through monster-infested woods just because of a tiny black tower on a map.

  “Then how do we get
home?” asked Carter, plopping himself onto the bed Max had just made. “If we can’t go with Lukas, then how do we get home?”

  “I don’t know yet,” admitted Max. “But running off right now isn’t the answer. Carter, we don’t even know what’s out there! Every time I turn around I keep hoping we’ll wake up and be back home. I still don’t know what’s going on.”

  “It’s like Lukas and Emilie said—we’re in a magic land,” said Carter. “Didn’t you ever wonder where the Pied Piper of Hamelin took all those children? Well, now we know.”

  Max stared at her brother. “And you believe all that? This place doesn’t make any sense. Rat creatures and a village full of children who never grew up…”

  “Max,” said Carter. “It’s a magic land.”

  “There’s no such thing as magic!” said Max.

  “Why do you have such a hard time believing in this?” said Carter. “Look around you! It’s just like one of Dad’s stories.”

  “Exactly! And that’s all they are—stories. I don’t care what Lukas says. Stories aren’t real. Not here, not anywhere.”

  “But the map—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more about it!” snapped Max.

  “You’re not Mom.”

  “Nope,” said Max, taking a deep breath. “And, believe me, this is turning out to be the worst babysitting job in the history of babysitting jobs, but I’m older, and that puts me in charge. Deal with it.”

  Carter fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. From the sound of his breathing—quick, in and out through his nose—Max could tell that he was still angry with her, probably more so now that she’d played the older-sister card on him. If he wanted to punish her with the silent treatment, he could go right ahead, but there weren’t any parents around to tell her she had to stay in the same room with him.

  “I’m going for a walk,” said Max, to which Carter said nothing. When she walked out, the door gave a satisfying slam. She’d made a good exit, at least.