The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse

“Like the iceberg?” Archer asked hesitantly.

Grandpa Helmsley leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “What have you heard, Archer?”

“Lots of things.”

“People do love to talk.” Grandma Helmsley shook her head in disgust. “Especially when they’ve not the slightest idea what they’re talking about. Makes them feel clever.”

“They’re saying you wanted the iceberg to happen,” Archer explained. “They’re saying you wanted to vanish. They’re saying you went—” He stopped, not wanting to tell his grandparents the part about them being unhinged. But it was clear they already knew.

Grandpa Helmsley reddened liked a stubbed toe. “It’s complete rubbish, Archer. You mustn’t believe a word of it.”

“So what happened? How did you survive the iceberg?”

“Well,” Grandpa Helmsley said, running his fingers through his beard. “While I can promise we were on an iceberg, Archer, it wasn’t for two years. It was more like, three days. Give or take.”

“Three days? So where were you all this—”

Archer fell silent. His mother had suddenly appeared, standing frozen by the kitchen door, staring at his grandparents’ backs the way one typically stares at ghosts. Grandma and Grandpa Helmsley spun around.

“HELENA!”

It was only one word, but even that seemed too much for her. She tried to respond, but instead glugged like a jug of water held upside down. And she went on glugging until eventually, she glugged, “You’re dead!”

To be fair, it probably wasn’t what she’d planned on saying.

“I’m dead?” Grandpa Helmsley repeated, winking at Archer as he glanced himself over. “Well, I do wish someone had told me sooner. That’s the sort of thing people like to know. It’s odd, though. I don’t feel dead. Do you feel dead, Rachel?”

Mrs. Helmsley flushed. “That’s not what I… I didn’t mean to… I apologize if I—”

“Now, don’t you apologize, Helena,” Grandma Helmsley said, giving Grandpa Helmsley an eye that said many things. “Ralph’s having a bit of fun with you, is all. It’s as much a shock to us as it is to you.”

Archer wasn’t sure if that was possible. He’d never seen anyone look more shocked than his mother did. And he guessed her shock would not quickly vanish.

Everyone got to their feet when Mr. Helmsley entered. Archer’s father looked like a toothpick next to his grandfather.

“Still as spindly as ever,” Grandpa Helmsley said, clamping his giant hands on Mr. Helmsley’s skinny shoulders. “I told you all that sitting around a law office was no good. It’s never too late to change course! The order may have openings!”

“You might need a good lawyer,” Mr. Helmsley replied with a smile.

“Isn’t that what you’d call a conflict of interest?”

Mrs. Helmsley had been inching her way toward the dining room and finally escaped.

Grandma Helmsley smothered Archer’s father in a hug and then fixed his hair. “It’s been quite an ordeal, Richard.”

“Icebergs often are,” he replied, ushering them back to the table. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“Archer!” Mrs. Helmsley called. “Please come here immediately. I need help… reorganizing the silverware drawers!”

Archer looked to his grandfather, wanting to join them at the table to find out what was going on.

“Don’t you worry, Archer,” Grandpa Helmsley assured him. “We’re not going anywhere.”

♦ DRIP, DRIP, DRIP ♦

“I’m going to repeat what I said yesterday,” Mrs. Helmsley said when Archer stepped into the dining room. Her hands were trembling. “It’s very important that you spend more time outside. You should know there are certain accusations against your grandparents. I’m not sure what to believe, but I’m worried they’re not entirely… sane. Less so than usual, I mean.”

Mrs. Helmsley shut the silverware drawer, which looked exactly as it had when she’d opened it, and led him to a closet filled with cleaning supplies. “I need to see for myself, and you need to keep yourself busy.” She handed him a feather duster.

“What am I dusting?” Archer asked.

Mrs. Helmsley inspected the spotless dining room but, like Archer, saw nothing.

“The curtains! Dust the curtains!”

Archer grumbled as he went to the window. Do people even dust curtains? He raised the duster, but paused and peered through a slit between the fabric panels. A truck was idling outside his house. He squinted at the driver. Is that the crooked man?

Before the tiger incident, he, Oliver, and Adélaïde had visited a dilapidated expedition supply shop called Strait of Magellan. The crooked man was the nasty owner of the shop—a man who’d made lots of money betting that Archer’s grandparents were dead.

“What’s he doing outside my house?” Archer mumbled, and tilted his head to read the insignia on the side of the truck. “The Society… Barrow’s Bay… Rosewood.”

Was that the Society? The one his grandfather was once president of?

Archer opened the curtain wide, hoping to get a better look, but the truck squealed off down Willow Street.

That was the first stranger to lurk outside Helmsley House, but it wasn’t the last. No more than an hour later, reporters began incessantly knocking on the front door. It was like the constant drip of a leaky faucet.

“Only a moment of their time!” a reporter pleaded. “A glimpse of the insanity within—”

Mrs. Helmsley slammed the door in his face. That was the sixth knock of the morning.

“Do you have any idea where our trunks are, Archer?” Grandpa Helmsley asked, straining to see behind a couch in the sitting room. “A friend said he’d brought them home.”

“I used one when I went to Raven Wood,” Archer answered. “The rest are down in the cellar. In a hole.”

“In a hole! Who would put our—”

Mrs. Helmsley stormed into the room and shrieked. Two reporters had managed to climb the facade and were taking pictures through the windows. She nearly yanked the curtain from the rod as she wrenched it shut.

“It’s a deluge!” she cried, eyeing Archer’s grandparents as she marched off. “We’re all going to drown unless you speak to someone!”

Archer couldn’t believe it, but for what had to be the first time in his life, he actually agreed with his mother. His grandparents still hadn’t explained the iceberg to him. And while he wasn’t sure what they’d told his parents, it clearly wasn’t enough to satisfy.

“Why won’t you say something?” he asked.

“Telling the truth is not always easy,” Grandma Helmsley replied. “Telling the truth can make you sound unhinged.”

“And that’s exactly what he wants,” Grandpa Helmsley muttered, peeking through the curtain at the horde of reporters gathered outside. “I’ll bet he’s having a good laugh right now.”