Kepler’s Dream Read Free Page A

outside.
    There was Violet Von Stern in a long white nightgown, her skin like ash, her blue eyes fearful. She stood tall and upright, but her face was droopy and haunted.
    At her feet, her dog Hildy (Brunhilda, for long) was yapping away and turning around in mad circles. Someone must have let Lou out of my bedroom, because he came and jumped up on me and gave me a big licky greeting.
    â€œElla,” my grandmother said weakly, and reached her hands out. It was only the second time she had ever touched me. “Are you all right?”
    â€œI’m fine, Grandmother. Are you?”
    â€œWhat on earth is going on?” A gray-blond man in a purple bathrobe came out of the Haitian Room blinking, his eyes bloodshot. This was Abercrombie, Our Honored Guest. One of the last people I felt like seeing. “Violet, are you all right?” He didn’t ask about me, I noticed.
    â€œChristopher.”
My grandmother said his name as if to remind herself who he was. She was pulling herself back together. “There seems to be some sort of disturbance.” A remark for the Department of Understatement, if you asked me.
    The telephone rang in the kitchen, and my grandmother went to answer it. “Hello? Yes, this is Violet Von Stern.” On the phone she repeated her remark about the disturbance. “Yes, you had better send someone around immediately. Thank you.” She hung up. The alarm finally stopped.
    I heard a scuffle outside. The front door opened again, and in came Miguel, his arm wrapped around Rosie.
    â€œMrs. V,” he said in a hoarse voice. He looked spooked, too. “Are you all right?”
    In his hands he held a rifle.
    â€œGood heavens, Miguel,” my grandmother replied, folding her arms across her nightgown. “Please, let me find a bathrobe. Wait there.” She disappeared to her mysterious chamber. Tiny Hildy stood in the bedroom doorway looking important, guarding her mistress. She growled, which would have been funny under different circumstances. She was about half a foot tall. I tried to catch Miguel’s eye, but he wasn’t looking at me. Neither was Rosie.
    â€œAll right.” My grandmother returned in a long golden robe and elegant flats, her hair brushed, lipstick on, even. She looked like a goddess, the kind you’d see on Halloween. “
We
are all accounted for, at least. Now—Miguel.” She cleared her throat,
Ahem
. “Why are you holding that gun?”
    He snapped the thing in two, as if it were a stick, so it hung broken-looking in his hands. “I saw someone out by the Library …” Miguel’s voice was nervous. “I wasn’t going to hurt them. I was just trying … trying to warn them.”
    My grandmother raised her eyebrows.
“And?”
she asked impatiently. “Did you see who it was? Or what the person was doing?”
    He looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure, Mrs. V. He—or they, there might have been more than one—got away.”
    â€œMaybe someone was trying to get into the Library,” I piped up. “There’s a lot of valuable stuff—I mean,
things
—in there.”
    Miguel gave me a strange look, as if I’d said something I shouldn’t have.
    â€œKepler’s
Dream,
” Our Honored Pest said in a hushed, dramatic tone. He was talking about a book—the one that meant more to my grandmother, it sometimes seemed, than me and my dad put together.
    â€œYou’re right.” With an air of determination, the GM buttoned up her robe. “We had better take a look.”
    â€œViolet, do you really think that’s wise?” Christopher Abercrombie asked. “Shouldn’t you wait for the police?”
    My grandmother dismissed the question with a wave of her jeweled hand. “Be good enough to accompany me there, Miguel, would you?”
    â€œSure, Mrs. V. Of course.” He stroked Rosie’s hair reassuringly and told her