The Midnight Market

by Beth McMullen

We do not wait for him to finish that sentence. I charge up the four stories to the starting platform, where I hook myself to a cable and step out on tippy, spinning blocks of wood. Of course, I immediately fall off and find myself dangling upside down from my harness and tether. The ground is very far away. Zeus sits on the platform railing and snickers. Bad bird. I lunge a few times for the tether but can’t get my hands on it. Jin laughs at my plight before realizing that it is his and Hannah’s responsibility to get me back on my feet.

  Jin hooks into the cable, takes a step, and is suddenly upside down beside me. To his credit, he muffles his shriek in the crook of his elbow. Eyes wide, he surveys the situation, noticing, too, that the ground is far away. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Fine,” he replies quickly. “Do you hang around here often?”

  “That’s the worst joke ever.” I grimace. “How do we get back up?” The blood rushes to my head, and I start to feel a little funny. Not funny enough to laugh at Jin’s joke but definitely dizzy.

  “Well, we for sure don’t want to ask Moose for help. Hey, Hannah! Any ideas?”

  Hannah balances perfectly on the treacherous blocks of wood above us, as if she is part monkey or mountain goat. “What do you guys think of this Helm stuff? And the Midnight Market? What the heck is that? Like a store for illegal magical objects?”

  She wants to have this conversation now? “I don’t know anything about a Midnight Market, but I do know what the Helm of Darkness is,” Jin says. He swings a little so he can get a better view of Hannah. “It’s also called the Cap of Invisibility, but that sounds way lame, doesn’t it? Anyway, it’s a helmet from Greek mythology that allows the wearer to become invisible. During the battle between the gods and the titans, the cyclopes sided with the gods and made them special weapons to help defeat the titans. The Helm of Darkness was made for Hades, god of the underworld. I’m starting to feel a little nauseous being upside down. Lola, how do you feel?”

  “Maybe we table the Helm lecture until we are right side up?” I suggest.

  Squatting down on the blocks, which does not seem humanly possible, a puzzled look on her face, Hannah does nothing to help us. “This Helm sounds serious. Tell me more.”

  “After the gods won the war,” Jin continues, as if this is no big deal, “Hades held on to the Helm. You can’t really blame him, right? Anyway, he’d occasionally lend it out to other gods and demigods when they had a need. For example, Perseus borrowed it to hunt Medusa. As he was invisible, her terrible gaze had no impact on him and he returned to the gods with her head in a bag.”

  “Gross and, Hannah, if you don’t help us, I’m going to scream,” I say. But she’s busy thinking. I can tell from the way her face scrunches up.

  “Ms. Pac-Man and friends are obviously gunning to uncover the location of this market place and the missing Helm,” she says, almost to herself. “They think if they do, they will get glory, heaps of praise, and possibly an invitation to join the Task Force.”

  “She doesn’t know anything,” Jin groans. “They haven’t actually figured anything out.”

  Hannah squints down at us, as if she has forgotten we are here. “Maybe not yet. But what if they do? We need to kick it into high gear and get the intel before anyone else does. She called us ding-dongs. Unacceptable! What do you guys think?”

  “I think we’d be in a better position to succeed and whatever,” I say through gritted teeth, “if we were, you know, not dangling upside down!”

  This seems to snap her back to reality. “Right. You guys are totally messing us up. Get back up here already.”

  “We… um… can’t,” Jin explains.

  “Well, try harder.” Is it me or does she sound a little like Moose? That’s scary but also motivating. I grab Jin’s harness and he grabs mine, and we use each other to get our hands on the ropes and begin the awkward process of hoisting ourselves back up to the unstable and thoroughly evil blocks of wood. Teamwork!

  By the time we are upright, I’m drenched in sweat and breathless. Jin glows red with exertion. But Hannah is twitchy with impatience. “Come on,” she says. “We have so much work to do. Get moving!” She daintily waltzes along the blocks to the far platform, like she was born to do it.

  Jin watches her, lips tight. “Why do I feel like everything just got more complicated?”

  Oh, it definitely has. But the whole point of coming here was to save our team and get reinstated as treasure hunters. And this is definitely a step in the right direction.

  Of course, there is always the possibility we make everything much worse.

  CHAPTER 15 STAR AND FISH HATCH A PLAN

  STAR: I’ve been thinking.

  FISH: Is this a new experience for you?

  STAR: Wow. You are grumpy.

  FISH: That is because it is ten degrees in July. Not exactly beach weather.

  STAR: Well, you are in Siberia, after all.

  FISH: I KNOW I AM IN SIBERIA.

  STAR: Okay! Okay! Sorry!

  FISH: Anyway, while I’ve been sitting around freezing to death, I’ve had an idea.

  STAR: Great! I love ideas!

  FISH: Yes. I know you do. They are an unusual experience for you.

  STAR: You are being mean again.

  FISH: Right. Sorry. Moving on. My idea. The Helm has been giving the Task Force fits for decades. You can’t have invisible people running around creating chaos. It’s bad for society. But the Helm has been stolen from the Task Force vault twice! It’s popular, I guess.

  STAR: Great idea!

  FISH: I haven’t gotten to the idea yet.

  STAR: Oh.

  FISH: Because the Helm is such a pain in the neck, the Task Force would be very grateful to the hunters who find it and bring it in. Very. Grateful. Do you see where I’m going with this?

  STAR: Yes! Actually, no. Can you explain?

  FISH: Wow. Okay. I’m proposing that if we go out and successfully hunt the Helm, we will be rewarded for our efforts.

  STAR: And?

  FISH: WE GET OUT OF SIBERIA!!!

  STAR: Oh! I get it now! We could ask for a posting in Maui! Or the Caribbean! Sand! Sun! Surfing!

  FISH: You surf?

  STAR: I might.

  FISH: No. We’d ask for Egypt. That’s where the action is.

  STAR: There is no surfing in Egypt.

  FISH: There are waves on the Mediterranean Sea.

  STAR: Big ones?

  FISH: Can you please focus?

  STAR: Sorry.

  FISH: So to be clear. I’m proposing we bust out of here and go after the Helm. If we succeed, there is glory and honor and prestige and reassignment to Egypt. If we fail, well, I don’t know what happens then.

  STAR: Sounds risky. Remember the story about Phoenix and Gryphon and not going rogue?

  FISH: That was a totally different situation!

  STAR: How? Phoenix was the best treasure hunter in the history of treasure hunting, and she went rogue and things got bad. And Gryphon was driven insane by Zeus’s lightning bolt!

  FISH: That was a rumor. A tall tale to scare the wits out of the newbies so they toe the line.

  STAR: Phoenix disappeared FOREVER! No one ever saw her again. That part is NOT a rumor.

  FISH: I never said treasure hunting was easy.

  STAR: I do not want to disappear FOREVER.

  FISH: Are you too chicken?

  STAR: Do NOT call me chicken.

  FISH: Are you?

  STAR: NO! I’m in. What is the plan?

  FISH: I’m working on it. Stay tuned.

  CHAPTER 16 GOING ROGUE IS A POOR CHOICE

  WE DO NOT EXCEL IN the ropes course. Nor do we successfully complete the water challenge. Or the animal-tracking exercises. Overall, I’d give us a D, with credit only for showing up and not drowning. Moose was purposely making our assignments much harder than the other teams’. And the scary part is he seemed to enjoy it. He is clearly on a mission to send us packing. Exhausted, we stagger toward dinner w
hile Zeus gleefully sings Taylor Swift songs until I’m close to strangling him.

  “Zeus!” I bark. “Mercy!”

  “Tsk-tsk-tsk,” he scolds, peering into Jin’s ear canals, hopeful to find hidden kale bits or something else delicious hidden in there. Jin gently smooths down a few ruffled feathers, and Zeus sighs with gratitude.

  The cafeteria, rustically charming with long bench tables, fluorescent lighting, and the tang of bleach, is buzzing. Just like in middle school, the campers have self-selected into small pockets of people and will end up sitting at the same tables with the same people until camp ends. Everyone whispers and plots over soggy fries and overcooked burgers.

  Ms. Pac-Man, Lanyards, and Rubber Band Boy eye us suspiciously as we line up for food.

  Other campers stare too, but I attribute that to Zeus, who loves an audience and is puffing out his chest and making a scene.

  “Stop it,” I warn. “Or I won’t visit the salad bar for you.” As sassy as Zeus gets, I still can hold a salad bowl easier than he can and he knows it. Jin wipes a small dusting of feathers from his shoulder.

  “I bet they are calling me Parrot Boy,” he mutters.

  “Better than losers,” Hannah comments.

  “Which is kind of what we are,” I point out. I circle around the kids from Cabin Six on my way to the salad bar to fetch Zeus his meal. Their heads are bent over a sheet of paper, and they whisper and gesture frantically. It looks like a flyer, an announcement for some sort of event.

  As I add lettuce and cucumber to the brown plastic bowl, I edge closer. Zeus doesn’t eat cheese, but if I lean into the salad bar and pretend to get some feta, I can catch a glimpse of a wrinkled and creased paper that appears to have traveled great distances in a sweaty pocket. The paper’s border is sparkly gold, and there is the edge of an embossed silver star.

  One of the kids at the table, wearing a Yankees baseball cap, taps the paper with his finger. “Definitely a clue to the location of the Midnight Market,” he whispers. This gets my attention. “That’s their logo. Or crest. Or coat of arms or whatever. Where did you find this? It’s, like, outrageous. It puts us way ahead of everyone else.”

  “Confidential sources,” another kid replies with a condescending tone.

  “You’re really not going to tell me?” Yankees asks.

  “Nope.”

  “Dude. Not cool.” Yankees shoves back from the table and bumps into me. Apparently, I have drifted away from the salad bar.

  “Can we help you?” he asks accusingly, as the “not cool” dude slides the flyer out of view.

  “Me? No. No way. Just here for the cucumbers.”

  “They are over there,” he says, eyebrow arched. “In the salad bar.”

  “Right! Of course. My bad!” I smile much too broadly as I head back to our table with Zeus’s meal. He immediately flings the feta out of the bowl onto the floor.

  “Yuck,” he says.

  “You are a naughty bird,” I reply. He doesn’t care. He’s up to his bird beak in veggies. “Hey, you guys. I think I saw something.”

  “Salad dressing?” Jin asks with a smirk.

  “No.” I explain about the paper that might be a clue to the location of the next Midnight Market.

  “This could really help us if we knew more,” Hannah says, drumming her fingers on the table. “Do you remember any more details?”

  As I rack my brain, something occurs to me. Say we, by some miracle, figure out a clue to the whereabouts of this Midnight Market everyone is suddenly obsessed with. And maybe that clue helps the Task Force secure the Helm. There is no way they let us take credit. There is no way they reward our good work by letting us back on the Task Force. The odds have been stacked against us since Dad got us in here in the first place.

  But there is another way.

  It’s big and I wonder if I should say it aloud because it feels like once I do, I won’t be able to take it back. Methodically, I chew my limp fries. Jin eyeballs me.

  “She’s thinking something,” he says to Hannah. “Right? Look at her face.”

  Hannah peers at me over her water glass. “Yup. Spill it.” My pulse kicks up a notch. I should really keep my mouth shut. “If you don’t, I’m going to demand Zeus sing Katy Perry next. Really loud.”

  “Okay!” I throw up my hands. “No singing. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea. It might be really bad.”

  “Let us decide that,” Jin says, leaning in so his white T-shirt dips in the ketchup.

  “Think about it,” I explain. “The word is out. Everyone here is trying to figure out the location of the Midnight Market so they can prove their worth. But…”

  “But?” asks Jin.

  “What have we got that they don’t?”

  Jin stops midchew. “A parrot?”

  “I don’t think that is what she means,” Hannah says. “Go on.”

  I gesture for a huddle, and our heads come together. “We’ve got experience. We’ve successfully treasure hunted before. We know how it’s done.”

  “Are you forgetting about Pegasus?” Jin asks.

  I scowl at him. “I was talking about the Stone of Istenanya.” When it was just us and our wits, and there was no outside help, and no one waiting on us to hurry up and succeed, or anything.

  Hannah takes a big swig of water and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “I think I know where you are going with this,” she says. “But I don’t know. I mean, what if it turns out like Pegasus?”

  There is that doubt again, the same ugly stuff that kept them from wanting to come to camp in the first place. However, I recognize that the stakes here are much higher and the list of rules we will potentially be breaking are much longer. “But I could be in. Maybe.”

  “In what?” Jin demands. “What am I missing? It’s like you’re speaking in code!”

  “Every team is looking for information to help the treasure hunters in the field find the Helm of Darkness,” I explain, fully aware that I’m about to pass the point of no return. “But what if we are the treasure hunters in the field? What happens if we find and secure the actual Helm?”

  Jin gasps. “Are you saying…?”

  “Yes. We go rogue.”

  I mean, how hard can it be?

  CHAPTER 17 SOMETIMES THE UNEXPECTED HAS BIG TEETH

  IT DOESN’T TAKE TOO LONG to convince Hannah to go rogue, after highlighting the strong possibility for adventure. But Jin is another matter. He is not fully down with my rationalization that no matter what we do, Star, Fish, Moose, and, most importantly, Lipstick will not let us succeed here. We need to go big. We need to be undeniable. Jin reminds us that Phoenix, whoever she was, vanished permanently after going rogue, as in never seen or heard from again. Hannah counters that we didn’t care about Phoenix. Finally, we resort to good old-fashioned peer pressure and tell Jin we are doing it, with or without him. Horrified at the idea of being left at Camp Timber Wolf alone with Moose, he caves immediately.

  But we cannot go on a treasure hunt if we have no idea where to start. Which is why we need to get a closer look at that document I spied during dinner. And that means we are about to break a lot, possibly all, of the Camp Timber Wolf rules by going on a nighttime reconnaissance mission. Oh, and we are bringing our parrot because every good recon mission needs a parrot, right? Besides, if we leave Zeus behind, he will pitch a fit, a loud one, and eventually someone will come to investigate and find us missing. Not good.

  “Zeus,” I say in my best Great-Aunt Irma voice. “You have to be completely silent. I know this is not your natural state or something you are good at, but everything depends on it.” I try to sound grave, but I think I fall short because Zeus rolls his glossy eyes at me. Fine. Time for the big guns. “If you behave, you can have a whole handful of kale bits, okay?”

  “Kale bits!” he squawks.

  “Be quiet,” Jin hisses.

  “Zeus loves Jin,” Zeus coos, snuggling into Jin’s neck. Oh boy. We’re pretty much doomed.

&
nbsp; But maybe not. We’ve done our homework. First, we took turns loitering in the window, watching for a night guard or any kind of security only to determine there is none. I guess when you are on an island, the concern that a camper might run away is pretty low. I mean, where would they go? Next, we mapped out a route to Cabin Six that keeps us off the main pathway. Check. And lastly, we did rock-paper-scissors to see who would actually infiltrate the cabin in question and find the flyer. Jin won, so we did it again and the assignment fell to me. Which is good because I have by far the most experience breaking into places where I am not supposed to be. When the clock strikes midnight, we are ready.

  It’s dark outside, the kind of dark that doesn’t happen in San Francisco. A heavy blanket of stars twinkles in the night sky. The looming pine trees look like shadowy giants in the light of a sliver of moon. Water laps the shore in the distance. Somewhere, an owl hoots.

  “It’s beautiful,” Hannah whispers. I nod in agreement, my head tilted up, eyes toward the heavens.

  “And it smells good,” Jin adds. The air is laced with cedar and a whiff of campfire. I pull my hoodie tighter against the slight nighttime chill.

  “Come on,” I say. “This way.” We creep along the sandy path, single file, giving our eyes time to adjust to the darkness. I keep track of the cabins so we don’t accidentally break into the wrong one. When Jin starts mumbling, I’m aggravated that I have to remind him that silence is crucial. “Jin, seriously?”

  “What?” he replies. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You’re muttering. Quit it.”

  “You are hearing things,” he shoots back. “I’m as silent as the grave.”

  “A grave with an undead person in it, maybe,” I reply.

  “Do you have rocks in your ears or something?” Jin responds.

  “You guys.” Hannah’s voice is about three octaves higher than normal and has a squeaky quality that I have never heard from her before. I might even label it “fear” except Hannah is not afraid of anything, which makes me, in turn, a little afraid. “There’s something on the path.”