Maisie sighed. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m going back downstairs. I can’t waste another minute waiting for Great-Uncle Thorne to come back while Dad is downstairs maybe convincing Mom to marry him again.”
She delivered this while she walked across The Treasure Chest to the door. Suddenly, to Maisie, a whole world of possibility lay not in time travel here in this room like it used to, but downstairs with her parents. Maybe they were already making plans. Maybe they were in one of those kisses they used to do sometimes, when her father dipped her mother backward over his arm and bent over to kiss her. Maybe this entire year was like a bad dream of broken homes and broken hearts, a dream that was about to end.
Maisie stood in the doorway, bouncing up and down on her toes, ready to go.
“Coming?” she asked Felix.
Felix hesitated. “What about the Ziffs?” he asked, glancing around as if the the twins might be lurking behind a shelf, or about to drop in from the Congo all of a sudden.
“Great-Uncle Thorne can figure that out,” she said, only a little guiltily. “I mean, Mom and Dad are together downstairs. And there’s no Agatha—”
“Well, there is a Bruce Fishbaum,” Felix reminded her.
“How in the world could anyone choose Bruce Fishbaum over Dad?” Maisie shrieked.
Now Felix sighed. If he could explain the confusing way the human heart worked, he would. But he had no idea.
“Bruce Fishbaum has nautically themed clothes!” Maisie said. “He wears purple! A lot!”
Felix shrugged. “I just think—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Maisie said. “I’m going downstairs, where I’ll maybe even celebrate their reunion.”
With that, she left, making sure to stomp out so that Felix was absolutely sure she was fed up with him.
From the top of the stairs, Maisie heard the most beautiful sound she could imagine: the sound of her parents laughing together. She paused to take it in, her father’s husky chuckle and her mother’s tinkling-bell laugh, the one that she perfected doing summer-stock musicals.
Maisie breathed in the laughter and then ran down the stairs, following the sound through the Library and into the Cigar Room, which was little used now but once was where Phinneas Pickworth and his cronies would meet after dinner for cognac and cigars, retelling their great adventures.
The Cigar Room had striped wallpaper and a zebra-skin rug; the furniture was all heavy and ornate and made of teak by a craftsman in Indonesia. Despite all the time that had passed since Phinneas Pickworth was in the room, the smell of cigar smoke still lingered.
Maisie’s father sat perched on the corner of the long narrow table that held crystal decanters of cognacs and single-malt whiskeys, some of them still holding the amber liquids. Her mother looked up at him from the largest, most ornate chair, the one that looked like a throne. And she was smiling, a big toothy smile. When Maisie cleared her throat, neither of them even turned toward her.
“Hello?” Maisie said.
“Oh!” her mother said, color rushing to her cheeks. “Maisie.”
“That’s the one,” Maisie said. “What are you two up to?”
“Your father is just . . .” Her mother frowned. “He’s just making me laugh, that’s all.”
“The foibles of love,” her father said.
Maisie took this as hopeful.
“Wait until Mom tells you about Bruce Fishbaum,” she said wickedly. “He wears purple.”
“Maisie!” her mother said.
“He does,” Maisie insisted. “Also, his ties all have a nautical theme.”
Her father stifled a smile.
“Jake,” her mother said, getting up stiffly, “you were just about to leave, weren’t you?”
“I was,” he said, hopping down from the table. “But I’ll be at the Viking for a few days so I can see you two,” he said, pointing at Maisie.
The smell of dog overtook the faint aroma of cigars as James Ferocious wandered into the Cigar Room.
“Ugh!” Maisie’s mother groaned. “What are we going to do with this monstrosity?”
“Tell you what,” her father said, “I’ll come by first thing and take him to the vet and to a groomer for a bath.”
“Deal,” her mother said.
As she walked out past James Ferocious, she wrinkled her nose.
“How old is this dog?” she said. “He smells ancient.”
“Only a hundred years old,” Maisie said.
“Very funny, Maisie,” her mother said, shaking her head.
Upstairs in The Treasure Chest, Felix waited for Great-Uncle Thorne to return. He couldn’t help but start to worry—about the Ziff twins and the Fabergé egg that had mysteriously reappeared and about Maisie. One thing Felix felt fairly certain about was that their parents were not going to get married again. At least not to each other. But he could see that Maisie was already imagining it, already planning on all of them being a family again.