I laughed and got him another. "Sorry it's weak. I don't brew my own ale. Jack?"
"No, I'm good. So, about that statue, Granddad?"
"I wasn'tinsidethe statue, Iwasthe statue," Jed said mildly, staring at his beer bottle. "And like I said, they took me out sometimes. I kept my mouth shut and listened, and you'd be surprised how little discretion they have about telling each other secrets in front of a mere human. It's rather like how you'd tell secrets in front of your cat, Tess."
"They consider us to be about as weak as pets," Jack said grimly. "Some of them got a real shock during the war."
I didn't want to ask, at least now, because we had to keep our focus on the dagger and the current danger, but one day I was going to drag some stories out of Jack.
"So, no help from Atlantis?" I summed up, moving on.
"We're welcome to come stay in the palace for as long as we want, but no help in dealing with the queen," Jack said.
Staying in the palace … I shook my head to dislodge the Beauty and the Beast fantasies that immediately started playing—Jack wouldnotappreciate being cast as either the Beastorthe Beauty—and tried to think of what we could do next.
"I think it's time we take Jed, who is clearly very sensitive to the object, or at least the object's case, which is as close as we've got, on an inch-by-inch—or mile-by-mile—search of Dead End. If he gets vibes from anyplace, we would at least have a place to focus our search, right? It's still Monday, but that Friday deadline is going to be here so fast—"
My phone rang, interrupting me. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced down.
"It's Shelley. Excuse me, guys."
Before I could start stressing about whether I should have called Jack's granddad a "guy," I pushed away from the table and answered the phone, wandering out on the back porch to talk.
"Hey, kiddo. How are you? I'm sorry I haven't been in touch today, it's—"
"Tess! TESS! Can you believe it? I'm in an actual JAIL CELL doing my homework!"
"Why are you in jail?"
"Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike are planning the evacuation with Sheriff Susan, and there's an enormous map of Dead End here with pushpins. I tried to help with the pushpins, but after I made a flower in the corner where your shop is, they told me to go do my homework. Guess what?"
And she was off. If Molly was a fast talker, Shelley held conversations at the speed of light. She could spend an hour telling me about the plot of a thirty-minute TV show she'd watched. It was fascinating, funny, and adorable, but—sometimes, like now—a little exhausting.
I sat down in a chair, leaned back, and listened with half my mind, murmuring things at the relatively few pauses, and busied the other half of my mind with trying to think of how we could find that stupid dagger.
"—and then we got to see the DRESS REHEARSAL! Of MACBETH! In the HIGH SCHOOL! And is Mr. Washington really a SNAKE SHIFTER? Only Zane said he was, and Zane doesn't lie, and anyway, the boy who played Macbeth is TOTALLY CUTE, and he had this AWESOME SWORD with REAL JEWELS, and the Macbeth guy WINKED at me when I asked for his autograph, and do you think I can FRAME my NOTEBOOK, because—"
Wait.
What?
"Shelley, honey," I said, cutting into a discussion about how she'd save the autographed notebook cover "for, like, a billion years." "Did you say a sword with real jewels?"
"Yes! And Mr. Washington got REALLY MAD when the Macbeth boy dropped it. He yelled at him REALLY LOUD. His name is Trevor. Don't you think Trevor is a dreamy name?"
"I—Mr. Washington's name is Trevor?"
"NO, silly! The Macbeth boy! And he—"
"Yes, it's a dreamy name." Although why a nine-year-old was already thinking boys were dreamy, I didn't understand; hadn't it been at least twelve for me and Molly?
I shook off the irrelevant worry about Shelley and boys to think about later.
"Tell me more about this sword."
25
Tess
