How long the chorale filled the air with joy and life, Theodore didn’t know. Nor did he care. All he knew was that he never wanted the song of worship to end. Though his bowed head knew he was unworthy to hear it, though his quaking legs knew he was unworthy to stand in this place, his chest yet swelled, desiring the Maker he dared not seek. Perhaps staying away from the Lord’s house had been a mistake. Perhaps...
The bells tolled the chorale’s finale, and the last soaring note was carried away by a spring breeze. All that remained in its wake was a jarring hush. Theodore righted himself, running a palm over his face and through his hair. The unrelenting nightmares were corroding his faculties, his senses. That’s all that swell in his chest had been. Exhaustion and emotion. That’s all it could be. Nothing had changed, and he shouldn’t expect otherwise.
Turning on the heel of his leather boot, Theodore retrieved his fallen crutch. “You might’ve warned me about the carillonneur, Miss Stanton. Unless, of course, the plan was to startle me right off the tower.”
Sequestered on the opposite end of the viewing platform, Miss Stanton kept to the shadows, clinging to the tower wall, and disregarded his quip.
Come on, woman. Don’t make of me a fearsome hobgoblin.Just tell me what I did to offend.“How did you know when the carillonneur’s performance would take place? Did Drosselmeyer mention it in the clue that led us here?”
Miss Stanton remained mute.
All right, he’d had about enough of this rot. The time had come to surmount the blasted wall between them. But how to go about it? He rubbed a hand along his beard. Casual air with a dash of humor, perhaps? His tried-and-true tools had yet to succeed with Miss Stanton, but perhaps they could gauge the height and breadth of said wall. Ascertain if it hadbeen constructed with a drawbridge or if he’d have to scale the thing with his bare hands.
He approached Miss Stanton, reclined against the tower, and put both hands in his overcoat’s outer pockets. “Where do you think Drosselmeyer will have us go next? Any particular destination you’re hoping to see? I’d fancy Paris myself, but then again, I’ve always been a romantic sort of fellow. You know, I once composed a poem about my unrivaled affection for raspberry trifle.”
Miss Stanton’s posture went rigid, hardening more than the bricks at her back.
Right-oh. Humor was a bad move, a very bad move indeed. Theodore tugged at his shirt collar. No sign of a drawbridge. Perhaps he needed a more direct approach. Like the battering ram of complete honesty.
“I know you’re angry with me, Miss Stanton. And I can’t say that I fault you for it. By all rights, you ought to be the inheritor of your grandfather’s pocket watch. I tried to tell Drosselmeyer as much when he presented it to me, but he was rather ... focused. I only intended to keep the watch safe until he came back, and that is still my intent. The moment we catch the dear old codger, the watch will be returned. You have my word on that.”
The slope of Miss Stanton’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
Better, much better. Now that the wall was teetering, he might be able to knock it down by employing one final tactic of biblical proportions. The trumpet blast of absurdity.
“So ... what’s your favorite color?”
She finally looked at him, then, in perplexed perusal, as if to discern how his brain had fallen out of his head.
“There you are, Miss Stanton. I was beginning to think you’d gone deaf.”
Her intense gray eyes sharpened into blades of steel.
By jove, but they were stunning. Captivating, really. Was it a wonder he’d missed the company of such eyes, however menacing? “Now that I have your attention, would you care to explain how exactly I came to be transformed into a hobgoblin at Citizens’ Hall? Was it the matter of the watch only, or did I commit some other trespass? If so, I should very much like to be made aware of my offending actions.”
Miss Stanton’s right eyebrow arched. “If you’re so unaware of your own actions, perhaps you’re equally oblivious to the fact that you’ve been a hobgoblin all along.”
“Or ... perhaps it was not I who transformed, but yourself. For prior to entering Citizens’ Hall, you always parried the hobgoblin with quick-footed swordplay instead of cowering from him in the shadows of lofty towers.”
“I never cower, sir. No matter the circumstances, I always stand strong, on my own.” Her voice wavered as though she were reassuring herself rather than stating a fact.
All on her own, aye? “I’m glad to hear it, Miss Stanton, for I would not see you cower before anyone. Least of all a mischievous hobgoblin. Although ... I must say, I find it odd that you should always stand on your own when you’ve four people and one God standing at the ready to lend you support.”
Miss Stanton’s arched brow slipped, and for just a moment revealed a softness in the planes of her face that he never knew they possessed. But all too soon, tension pulled taut the sharp angles of her jaw and cheekbones. She moved to the railing. “‘As the birds are to the sky, so are bells to the city of Amsterdam.’ That is a quote fromAn Englishman’s Comprehensive Guide to Amsterdam, the same book that also recounts how the Westertoren carillonneur performs every Tuesday. That, to answer your question, is how I knew when the performance would take place.”
Now that she was speaking to him again, he wasn’t aboutto let her stop. “And you knew to come to the Westertoren because...”
“Grand’s clue said to find the place where ‘an imperial crown rests atop Amsterdam’s loftiest spire and leans in deference to the King of Kings.’”
“‘Leans in deference’ . . . is that some sort of metaphor?”
“No, in this case, the phrase is factually applicable. According to the guidebook, Westertoren is eighty-five centimeters out of plumb. The tower literally leans before the church.”
House of the King of Kings. “Your grandfather is a clever—”
Chimes sprang from the watch in Theodore’s pocket. As he produced the timepiece, the Westertoren clock marked the top of the hour with the tolling of bells, drowning out the watch’s delicate dings. Miss Stanton furrowed her brow, no doubt fearing the clock would prevent Drosselmeyer’s invention from responding to the watch’s call.
Just when Theodore was starting to think that fear justified, the bells fulfilled their purpose and their tolls faded into stillness. But the pocket watch chimed on. For it was not designed to merely proclaim the hour, but moreover, to summon ingenuity out of hiding.
