The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [66]
“Hurry, follow me,” Jed whispered urgently. He crossed the room and pulled aside a set of closed curtains. My chin dropped at what I saw: a wall of cages holding animals like in a pet store. A horned owl sat still as a statue, except it slowly moved its head to follow the motions we made. A Doberman on the bottom row sat frozen like a statue except its skinny tail, which it wagged like crazy when it saw us. All of the animals had wires and tubes hooked up to them, and monitors flashing numbers behind their cages.
“Isn’t that one of Ma’s chickens?” Barbie said, pointing to what looked like one of Celery’s aunties.
We both looked accusingly at Jed. The bald spots in his beard reddened. “I’ll explain all that later. No time now. C‘mon, it’s the next bed.”
Jed closed that curtain and hurried to yank the next curtain aside. And this time I froze with the shock. A cold feeling drained down my neck all the way to my feet.
“Pa!”
He was in a hospital bed tipped like a teeter-totter with his head up, his arms still out to the sides like a cheerleader, and his feet poking the sheet at the same angle we’d first spotted his shoes that night outside Jed’s castle. The only thing that moved was his eyes. They flitted around rapidly when he saw us, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“It’s a hard life, isn’t it Pa,” said Jed.
“What happened to him?” I didn’t laugh at Jed’s joke that time. My lower lip wouldn’t stop quivering. I took a few small steps toward Pa, my hand out.
“Pa’s suffering from adrium poisoning, just like in my legs.” Jed spoke very fast, in a hushed voice. “The adrium has spread through his entire body. He’s almost completely paralyzed.”
“How did he get here?” Barbie asked. Exactly what I wanted to know.
“Long story,” Jed said. “Tell you later.”
“He’s like the chickens,” I said. “What happened to him? And them? And you?”
Jed peeked out around the curtain before answering in a whisper. “Stan hasn’t figured it out yet, but I have, and I’m not telling him or he won’t be able to resist getting his hands on our property. He has connections—and if Ma won’t sell out willingly, he’ll get the courts to force her. Seb, Barbie, we have to work together. I’ll tell you what I know, but you two need to use your brains and be careful what you say. Can you do that?”
He was shaking me by the shoulder now.
“Jeez! I know how to keep my mouth shut.” I bit my lips shut to prove it.
“All right. See, there are microscopic particles of adrium left in the waste slag after extraction from the ores. Those particles want to get back to an adrium vein. It’s like a magnetic force, and very, very powerful. What Stan doesn’t realize is that we have the mother lode on our land. A pure adrium vein. All that leachate water from the gore fights its way onto our property because it’s attracted there. Pa got poisoned because he spent the night passed out in a leachate puddle in the yard.”
Huh? I didn’t get much of that, but Barbie nodded as he spoke, like she’d already figured it all out too. She said, “And the chickens also soaked up that leachate stuff when they went into their hidey-hole, right?”
“Right. There’s a lot more to it, but we don’t have time to dawdle. Quick, Seb—how did you get rid of that contaminated dough you ate?”
But I was still trying to figure out his explanation. “What’s the adrium got to do with Ma and Pa getting into a fight? Do you know how much money Boots offered to buy—”
Barbie reached out and pinched my lips shut. “It happened in the tunnel behind our henhouse. Sebby heaved up the dough in the big cavern near the wall where you left us the warning letter. He had a petrified, I mean adrified, chicken stuck to him—long story—and the chicken was cured too. All the stuff, the adrium, just flew right out into the walls. That cavern looks like living jewelry when you wear the magic glasses.”
“I get it! Back to the mother lode . . .” Jed huffed