Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V Read Online Free

you find what you were looking for?” asked Alvin. “The address of the painter?”
    “No,” said Arthur bleakly.
    Alvin went to work on the bird, quickly as he could. It was more delicate than metal work, moving his doodlebug through the pathways of a living creature, making tiny alterations here and there. It helped him tohold the animal, to touch it while he worked on it. The blood in the brain was soon draining into the veins, and the damaged arteries were closed. The flesh healed rapidly under the tiny balls of lead, forcing them back out of the body. Even the ball lodged in the skull shrank, loosened, dropped out.
    The jay rustled its feathers, struggled in Alvin’s grasp. He let it loose.
    “They’ll just kill it anyway,” said Alvin.
    “So we’ll let it out,” said Arthur.
    Alvin sighed. “Then we’d be thieves, wouldn’t we?”
    “The window’s open,” said Arthur. “The blue jay can leave after the man comes in this morning. So he’ll think it escaped on its own.”
    “And how will we get the bird to do that?”
    Arthur looked at him like he was an idiot, then leaned close to the bluejay, which stood still on the worktable. Arthur whispered so softly that Alvin couldn’t hear the words. Then he whistled, several sharp birdlike sounds.
    The jay leapt into the air and flapped noisily around the room. Alvin ducked to avoid it.
    “He’s not going to hit you,” said Arthur, amused.
    “Let’s go,” said Alvin.
    He took Arthur through the back door. When he drew it closed, he stayed for just a moment longer, his fingers lingering on the knob, as he returned the pieces of the lock to their proper shape.
    “What are you doing here!” The taxidermist stood at the turn of the alley.
    “Hoping to find you in, sir,” said Alvin calmly, not taking his hand off the knob.
    “With your hand on the knob?” said the taxidermist, his voice icy with suspicion.
    “You didn’t answer to our knock,” said Alvin. “I thought you might be so hard at work you didn’t hear. All we want is to know where we might find the journeyman painter. The Frenchman. John-James.”
    “I know what you wanted,” said the taxidermist.
    “Stand away from the door before I call the constable.”
    Alvin and Arthur stepped back.
    “That’s not good enough,” said the taxidermist. “Skulking at back doors—how do I know you don’t plan to knock me over the head and steal from me as soon as I have the door unlocked?”
    “If that was our plan, sir,” said Alvin, “you’d already be lying on the ground and I’d have the key in my hand, wouldn’t I?”
    “So you
did
have it all thought out!”
    “Seems to me
you’re
the one who has plans for robbing,” said Alvin. “And then you accuse others of wanting to do what only you had thought of.”
    Angrily the man pulled out his key and slid it into the lock. He braced himself to twist hard, expecting the corroded metal to resist. So he visibly staggered when the key turned easily and the door slipped open silently.
    He might have stopped to examine the lock and the hinges, but at that moment the bluejay that had spent the night slowly dying on his worktable fluttered angrily in his face and flew out the door. “No!” the man shouted. “That’s Mr. Ridley’s trophy!”
    Arthur Stuart laughed. “Not much of a trophy,” he said. “Not if it won’t hold still.”
    The taxidermist stood in the doorway, looking for the bird. It was long gone. He then looked back and forth from Alvin to Arthur. “I know you had something to do with this,” he said. “I don’t know what or how, but you witched up that bird.”
    “No such thing,” said Alvin. “When I arrived here I had no idea you kept living birds inside. I thought you only dealt with dead ones.”
    “I do! That bird was dead!”
    “John-James,” said Alvin. “We want to see him before we leave town.”
    “Why should I help you?” said the taxidermist.
    “Because we asked,” said Alvin, “and it