and Old Tom were talking about for so long.
"I'll tell you, but you have to swear to the secret," she had said. "And we have to go out to the Old Village so I can tell the story properly." That was all it took. Five of them set out late that afternoon: Natalie, Alfred, Ryan, Ryan's brother Jason, who had been allowed to come on condition that he brought his Scout knife with all the attachments (just in case), and, of course, Miranda, who was beginning to have second thoughts.
It wasn't hard to get to the Old Village; you just walked east out of Arcane on Bard Street until you got there. It was the fact that none of them had ever gone there just for the sake of going that made it such an adventure. Now, loaded up with a canteen borrowed from Mr. Tilden and a bag of cookies donated by Alfred's mother in exchange for a promise to be back before sundown, they were three-quarters of a mile from the crumbling center of the Old Village and beginning to pass the remains of the outlying houses.
"I don't know why you couldn't just tell the story where we were," Miranda huffed, looking uncomfortably at a pile of crumbled stone steps leading up to a collapsed porch with no house attached. From hidden, shady nooks the cicadas chattered, tides of sound swelling and receding. Everything shimmered, hazy in the heat.
"Anyone know what this town was called, anyway?" Ryan asked, stopping to lift a battered sign with ancient, flaking paint that had nothing coherent to say.
"Old Village," Jason said.
"That's what we call it," Ryan said patiently. "What did it
used
to be called? Was it called Arcane, too, before it ... before it ... got deserted?"
"I know," Natalie said from the front of the caravan, walking between the parallel tracks from Doc Fitzwater's Winton. "Mama told me all about it once. Want me to tell you?" she asked innocently, glancing over her shoulder.
Of course they did. Annie Minks's stories were legend, and Natalie loved telling them.
"It was a French trading post at first. I forget what they called it, or maybe Mama didn't know. Then later the Americans built a mill on the river"âNatalie nodded at a mass of stone bricks a short distance away on what must once have been a riverbed but had long since gone dryâ"and it grew up into a town: Trader's Mill, after the old trading post and the new mill."
They stopped amid the wrecked foundations and half-fallen porches on either side of the road to rest in the shade of a slender maple tree that had climbed over long years through a little stretch of stone wall. A quiet wind rustled past, turning the leaves belly-up and silver. Natalie and her friends listened to the noises of bugs and breeze as they passed around the canteen and ate a handful of broken cookies each.
"So what happened to it?" Alfred asked, passing Natalie the cookie bag.
"Mama said it was sometime before the War Between the States." Tall things, parts of old buildings, cast lengthening shadows up ahead. "She said it's an old mystery that was never solved. Nobody really knows exactly what happened."
"What do you mean, nobody knows?" Miranda demanded, swatting at a pair of big buffalo gnats buzzing around her head.
"I mean, nobody knows," Natalie snapped. "Do
you
know? Go ask your dad if you don't believe me; see what he says. Ask Mr. Tilden. Ask anybody."
"So how does your mother know?"
This won some raised eyebrows and glancing back and forth from Ryan and Alfred and Jason. Natalie's mother's knowledge of Arcane and the strange things that went on in it was not to be questioned, least of all by Miranda Porter.
"A diary," Natalie retorted. "The man who wrote it was my mother's great-grandfather or something. She still has it. He was a judge."
The boys sat back on their heels with looks of awe. It even shut Miranda up, but only for a minute out of respect for the undeniable niftiness of an ancient diary. "It's a whole town," she argued after a decent pause. "Whole towns don't just go empty and
"I'll tell you, but you have to swear to the secret," she had said. "And we have to go out to the Old Village so I can tell the story properly." That was all it took. Five of them set out late that afternoon: Natalie, Alfred, Ryan, Ryan's brother Jason, who had been allowed to come on condition that he brought his Scout knife with all the attachments (just in case), and, of course, Miranda, who was beginning to have second thoughts.
It wasn't hard to get to the Old Village; you just walked east out of Arcane on Bard Street until you got there. It was the fact that none of them had ever gone there just for the sake of going that made it such an adventure. Now, loaded up with a canteen borrowed from Mr. Tilden and a bag of cookies donated by Alfred's mother in exchange for a promise to be back before sundown, they were three-quarters of a mile from the crumbling center of the Old Village and beginning to pass the remains of the outlying houses.
"I don't know why you couldn't just tell the story where we were," Miranda huffed, looking uncomfortably at a pile of crumbled stone steps leading up to a collapsed porch with no house attached. From hidden, shady nooks the cicadas chattered, tides of sound swelling and receding. Everything shimmered, hazy in the heat.
"Anyone know what this town was called, anyway?" Ryan asked, stopping to lift a battered sign with ancient, flaking paint that had nothing coherent to say.
"Old Village," Jason said.
"That's what we call it," Ryan said patiently. "What did it
used
to be called? Was it called Arcane, too, before it ... before it ... got deserted?"
"I know," Natalie said from the front of the caravan, walking between the parallel tracks from Doc Fitzwater's Winton. "Mama told me all about it once. Want me to tell you?" she asked innocently, glancing over her shoulder.
Of course they did. Annie Minks's stories were legend, and Natalie loved telling them.
"It was a French trading post at first. I forget what they called it, or maybe Mama didn't know. Then later the Americans built a mill on the river"âNatalie nodded at a mass of stone bricks a short distance away on what must once have been a riverbed but had long since gone dryâ"and it grew up into a town: Trader's Mill, after the old trading post and the new mill."
They stopped amid the wrecked foundations and half-fallen porches on either side of the road to rest in the shade of a slender maple tree that had climbed over long years through a little stretch of stone wall. A quiet wind rustled past, turning the leaves belly-up and silver. Natalie and her friends listened to the noises of bugs and breeze as they passed around the canteen and ate a handful of broken cookies each.
"So what happened to it?" Alfred asked, passing Natalie the cookie bag.
"Mama said it was sometime before the War Between the States." Tall things, parts of old buildings, cast lengthening shadows up ahead. "She said it's an old mystery that was never solved. Nobody really knows exactly what happened."
"What do you mean, nobody knows?" Miranda demanded, swatting at a pair of big buffalo gnats buzzing around her head.
"I mean, nobody knows," Natalie snapped. "Do
you
know? Go ask your dad if you don't believe me; see what he says. Ask Mr. Tilden. Ask anybody."
"So how does your mother know?"
This won some raised eyebrows and glancing back and forth from Ryan and Alfred and Jason. Natalie's mother's knowledge of Arcane and the strange things that went on in it was not to be questioned, least of all by Miranda Porter.
"A diary," Natalie retorted. "The man who wrote it was my mother's great-grandfather or something. She still has it. He was a judge."
The boys sat back on their heels with looks of awe. It even shut Miranda up, but only for a minute out of respect for the undeniable niftiness of an ancient diary. "It's a whole town," she argued after a decent pause. "Whole towns don't just go empty and
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