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town behind them. The trail ended at a badly maintained rock wall. Affixed to the wall was a piece of wood bearing a message scrawled in black paint.
    “What’s it say?” Emma asked.
    The wizard bent forward to translate. “It says, ‘Dear Moron’—oh my, what a beginning—‘you are about to enter private property. Trespassers will be shot, hanged, beaten with clubs, shot again; their eyeballs will be pecked out by crows, their livers roasted’—dear, this is disgusting, and it goes on for quite a while.…” He skipped to the bottom. “ ‘So turn around now, you blithering idiot. Sincerely, the Devil of Castel del Monte.’ ” Dr. Pym straightened up. “Not very inviting, is it? Well, come along.”
    And he climbed over the wall.
    Michael thought of asking whether it might not be wiser to call ahead, but Emma was already jumping down on the other side, and he hurried to follow. They had not gone ten yards past the wall when there was a
crack
, and something zipped through the branches above their heads. Michael and Emma fell to their stomachs.
    “Do you know”—Dr. Pym had stopped walking, but was otherwise standing perfectly straight—“I think he just shot at us.”
    “Really?” Emma said. She and Michael were flat on the ground. “You think?”
    Another
crack
, and a chunk of bark flew off a nearby tree.
    A voice shouted down something in Italian.
    “Oh, honestly,” Dr. Pym said, “this is ridiculous.” He called up the hill, “Hugo! Will you please stop shooting at us? It is extremely irritating!”
    There was a long moment of silence.
    Then the voice demanded, this time in English, “Who is that?”
    Keeping his head low, Michael peered up the slope. There was a small stone cottage just visible through the trees, but he couldn’t see where the man was hidden.
    “It’s Stanislaus Pym, Hugo! I would like to speak with you!”
    There was a harsh laugh. “Pym? You dunderhead! Couldn’t you read the sign? Trespassers will be shot! Now about-face and take your doddering carcass down the mountain before I do the world a favor and put a bullet through that oatmealy mishmash you call a brain! Ha!”
    “Hugo!” The wizard spoke as if to an unruly child. “Do you really think I’ve traveled this far just to go away? I’m coming up!”
    Michael thought he could hear the man muttering angrily.
    “Hugo!”
    There was a bellow of rage, and then, “So come up, why don’t you?! I always knew that respect for personal property was beyond your limited mental capacity!”
    And there was what sounded like someone furiously kicking a tree.
    Dr. Pym looked down at the children. “It’s safe now.”
    “Are you sure?” Michael asked.
    “Yeah,” Emma said. “Maybe you should go first.”
    “It’s fine. Trust me.”
    The children rose and brushed the dirt from their arms and legs. It was another fifty yards to the cottage, but the man didn’t appear till they were ten feet from the door, when he stepped from behind an overturned cart. His appearance was in every way striking. He had a short, wide body and a wide face. His clothes looked much worn and little washed. His hair and beard were wild and black and neither had been trimmed for some time. Thick brows obscured his eyes, but the message in them was clear: this man was ready to fight the world. He held a rifle in his left hand.
    “Stanislaus Pym,” the man sneered. “Isn’t it my lucky day? Surprised it only took you ten years to find me. You must’ve had help.”
    “You should not have disappeared, Hugo. It made things very difficult.”
    “And you should try not being such a great pompous carbuncle! But the world is not a perfect place.”
    Then he turned and pushed through the door of the cottage. Dr. Pym and Emma followed, Emma immediately pinching her nose against the smell. Michael came last, pausing just inside the door. Beside him was an old wood chest, and on the chest was a framed black-and-white photograph. In it were