“Oh, shush,” she said, swatting his arm and resuming her loud applause.
In the Egyptian Gallery of Peniel, most of the Brethren stood in a semicircle, Abbot Athanasius at the center. Will stared at the empty display case in the middle of the room, his mouth agape. Tuthy the mummy was still beneath glass. But in the display beside it, the staff was gone—gold covering and all.
“How could it have simply disappeared?” Abbot Athanasius intoned, rubbing his forearms as if he had a chill. His haunted blue eyes fell on each face before him. “There was no forced entry. The locks are still intact and the alarm did not sound.”
“It had to be one of us—someone in the house,” said Baldwin, who pushed a younger brother aside to pass to the center of the room. “If I may, Abbot?”
Athanasius nodded.
Baldwin laced his stubby fingers together across his firm midsection, striding before the empty glass case. His great beak of a nose appeared to be pointing at the bare pillow under glass. “Bartimaeus, when I walked through the gallery last night, you and Will were here. Was the staff in its case when you left the room?”
“Sure it was.” Bartimaeus seemed guarded. “Will was scrubbin’ the cases and—You saw the staff, didn’t ya, Will?”
“Yes, sir. When I cleaned the glass, it was there. It was locked up.” Will pointed to the locks on the edge of the rectangular display.
Baldwin lifted his head as if trying to look down at the boy with another pair of eyes situated in his nostrils. “And what time did you leave, William?”
“Around five-thirty. I had to go to my brother’s karate meet and—”
“The doors were secure when you left? Surely the alarm was engaged.” Baldwin ignored Will, his thick head turning suddenly. “Correct, Bartimaeus?”
Bart worked his bottom lip, staring at the floor. “So I um…I told Will…”
“You told Will what? Spit it out, Bartimaeus,” Baldwin barked.
Will wanted to say something, but the air was so tense and Baldwin so aggressive that he thought it best to keep quiet.
“I went to see the abbot and Lucille about…another matter—”
Baldwin cut him off. “So the boy remained here alone with the staff. Hmmm.” He shot the abbot a look, then tapped the top of the display. “William. You were cleaning the cases?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But how could you have touched the cases with the alarms engaged?”
“See, that’s what I was trying to tell ya,” Bartimaeus interjected, leaning forward on his crutches. “I turned the alarms off so Will could do his cleaning, but he put them back on when he was done. He had the code.”
Baldwin raised a threatening finger at Will. “Is that true? Did you reset the alarms?”
Will’s hazel eyes were like saucers. He started rocking back and forth. “I might have forgotten.”
“You might have forgotten? Hahahaha.” Baldwin’s deep laughter mocked the boy. “A priceless treasure of antiquity is missing and he ‘might have forgotten’ to put the alarm on. Isn’t that convenient?”
“I was in a hurry. I didn’t want to be late for my brother’s match. It just slipped my mind,” Will tried to explain.
“Vicar,” Valens said, sliding beside Will, his chin down near his chest. “I’m certain he didn’t do it intentionally and Will did follow the abbot’s instructions. The cases are awfully clean.” He winked at Will.
“Cleaning cases does not require cleaning them out.” Baldwin smacked the edge of the empty glass box with his palms. “Where is the staff, William?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were the last person to see it and you forgot to engage the alarm. Once more: Where is the staff?”
“He didn’t take it, Baldwin,” Aunt Lucille said loudly. She stepped in front of Will. “He may have been careless, but he is not a thief. What reason would he have for taking the staff?”
“Since when does he need a reason?” Ugo Pagani asked. The chubby brother tightened the rope at his abundant waist. “He snatched the relic of St. Thomas from the Undercroft. Maybe his fingers were getting a little itchy again,” he deadpanned in pure Brooklynese, leaning against a wall of the gallery.
Will blushed and looked to Aunt Lucille.
“I am feeling a leetle eechy myself.” It was the combustible Spanish brother, Pedro Montaigu. He was muscular and compact with dark green eyes. Hands flailing, he hurried into the next gallery like a squirrel with its tail on fire. “I have had enough of theese. Interrogate the others. I was at the chapter meeting last night, Veecar. As were many others. I have not so much as seen the staff in months.” He waggled a finger at Bartimaeus and Will. “They are to blame. All theese is cutting into my training session—if you will excuse.” He stalked out without another word.
“I was at the chapter meeting, too, and I’ve got herbs to cut and lunch to start,” Ugo said, following Pedro’s lead. He shuffled in the direction of the sarcophagus-lined adjoining gallery. “If you’re looking for the staff burglar, my money would be on the kid. He’s the only one besides Bart who knows the alarm code. Gotta be him or Bart. Sorry, guys.” He shrugged and headed to the next gallery.
A quarrel broke out with some brothers arguing for Will’s guilt, others warning of a rush to judgment.
“Brothers, peace. Be still!” Athanasius roared. He pinched at his bearded chin as if some calming agent were hidden there. “Baldwin and I will consider all the evidence, and we may speak with each of you further. We don’t know when the staff was stolen. It might have been after the chapter meeting. It could have happened anytime between five-thirty last night and this morning when Valens discovered it missing. This is no time for disunity, Brothers.”
Tobias Shen barged into the room, a grin on his face. “I was locking up the doors and shooing the public from Bethel Hall. Look who I found prowling about.” He stepped aside to reveal Cami, Andrew, Simon, and Max Meriwether, who brought up the rear in his wheelchair.
“Are we interrupting something?” Andrew asked in a small voice, eyeing the angry faces all around.
“Your timing’s actually pretty good,” Will said.
Simon took in the new faces and walked over to Will, a rigid smile in place. “Who are these strange men?” he whispered.
“My strange friends here at the museum—nothing like you guys.”
“We need to tell you something—privately,” Cami said, taking Will by the arm. “Max has been having intense dreams. You’re in them.”
“Don’t even tell me that.” Will exhaled.
The Brethren wandered into other galleries and paired off down the main hallway. Only Bartimaeus, Aunt Lucille, Tobias Shen, Baldwin, and the abbot remained.
Bart’s crutches carried him between Abbot Athanasius and Lucille. Clearly preoccupied, he stared off into the distance. “That staff is still here. I can feel its presence. Somebody—one of the Brethren—has hidden it. But it’s not gone. Not yet anyway.”
“Baldwin, conduct a thorough search and report back to me,” the abbot ordered. “Search every room of Peniel.”
“Does William Wilder have a room here?” Baldwin asked seriously. After checking Aunt Lucille’s icy expression, he decided to leave without another word.
In a razor-edged whisper, Aunt Lucille confided to Athanasius, Tobias, and Bart, “Should the staff fall into the wrong hands, none of us can predict the potential harm or the consequences.” Her attention drifted to Will and his friends across the room. “We simply have to find it.”
Huddled in the corner of the Egyptian Gallery, the kids briefed Will on Max’s dream: the raven, the blood, the feathers, all of it.
“Where have you seen ravens in Perilous Falls?” Will kept asking his friends. “What is this raven? Is it a real raven?”
Max shook his head against the leather pillow of his wheelchair. “I don’t know, but it takes something you want. You keep yelling, ‘Give it back. Give it back.’ Then you chase after it. Your aunt
was very sad, crying and very sad.”
“My aunt Lucille?!” Will tapped the brim of his great-grandfather’s pith helmet against his kneecaps. “Does the raven take a staff in your dream?”
“A staff?” Cami asked, her eyes turning to the display behind her. Seeing it was empty, she refocused on Will. “Where’s the staff?”
“Beats me. It’s gone. They just found out this morning.”
“Who’d want an old stick?” Andrew asked, scratching at his neck.
Simon ripped the glasses from his nose, gawking at the vacant case. “The Staff of Moses is gone?!” he blurted way too loudly.
Will’s head whirled. Max had accurately foreseen the black raven’s feathers fluttering in the halls of Peniel and now “something” had been taken. Before the “blood” and “darkness” made an appearance, Will had to try to stop it. But how? He wasn’t sure which of the Brethren could be trusted. And where was this raven? Could it be one of the seven rising demons mentioned in the prophecy? Will was so confused, he wasn’t sure who he could share any of this with.
It was time for action. He flipped the pith helmet onto his head. “Meet me in front of Peniel. We’ve got to make a plan.”
“Can I at least look at the mummy first?” Simon pleaded.
Will rolled his eyes and kept walking. He offered a preoccupied wave to Aunt Lucille and the other adults and exited the Egyptian Gallery. One by one, without so much as a goodbye, his friends silently followed Will in a straight line, as if on their way to a bank heist.
The abbot noted the peculiar departure. He, Aunt Lucille, Tobias, and Bart had been closely monitoring the kids’ conversation from a distance. “Tobias,” he said as Max rolled out of sight.
“Yes, Abbot.”
“Trail Will and those young people. He shouldn’t have told them about the robbery. Observe what they do over the next few days.”
“They’re only kids, Athanasius,” Lucille said.
“Kids haven’t time for staffs or ravens or blood,” Athanasius said in a hush. “Those that do must be watched.” He locked eyes with Lucille. “And protected.”
Rushing into the sunlit courtyard outside Peniel, Will’s four friends raced to catch him.
“Could you slow up a minute? What’s the rush, Will-man?” Andrew sputtered, grabbing Will by the back of his shirt.
“Keep moving,” Will said, tucking the back of his shirt into his pants. He peered around the edge of Bethel Hall. “Let’s go to Twenty-Five Numbers.”
Will and his four friends slipped past the wrought-iron gates surrounding Peniel and crossed the street into Azal Alley.
“William, why all the cloak-and-dagger?” Cami asked at his back.
“We need to talk where we won’t be heard. Bad stuff is happening. I’ll explain inside.”
A neon sign blinked 25 NUMBERS ARCADE. Kids were streaming in and out of the blacked-out glass door.
“Why are we going in here?” Simon complained. “I won’t be able to hear myself think.”
“That could be a nice change of pace for you,” Will said, holding the door open. “Thank me later.”
An enormous room of glowing, dinging, gyrating games and attractions hypnotized the kids plugging quarters into them. Will and his friends maneuvered past the machines, sliding into a bright yellow booth in a corner. Max rolled his wheelchair sideways along the table so he could listen. Will leaned in, as did his friends.
“As you’ve seen, the Staff of Moses is gone,” Will said, his eyes ablaze.
A big knowing smile split Simon’s face. “Where are you hiding it? Is it at your house? Is it in your bag?”
“No, it is not in my bag. I didn’t take it. The Brethren—the guys at the museum—think I took it, but I didn’t. Honest.”
Cami sat back against the slick cushion and gave Will a sidelong glance that could have frozen a small body of water.
“I’m telling you, Cami, I don’t have it,” Will said, removing his battered helmet.
She bent over the table, placing her elbows on the Formica. “If you don’t have it, then you must know where it is. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have dragged us to the loudest spot in Perilous Falls.”
“I don’t know where it is,” Will cried. “But we do need to find it.”
“We need to find it?” Andrew crossed his muscled arms. “This doesn’t involve an Undercroft or any riverboat captains, does it?”
“Quiet, moron,” Simon told Andrew. Bouncing in his seat, he asked Will, “What do you need us to do?”
“When I heard Max’s dream, things started clicking.” Will toyed with the pelican medallion on the front of his pith helmet. “Whatever this raven is, it must have taken the staff. I mean, that can’t just be a coincidence, right, Max? And if the raven brings blood and darkness to Perilous Falls, shouldn’t we try to stop it—him—whatever it is?”
“Yes,” Max said. “Will has to try to stop the raven. We can help. But Will has to try to stop it.”
Cami drummed her hands on the tabletop. “Hold on a second, Hardy Boys. Who do the guys in the black robes at the museum think took the staff? They don’t have any leads?”
“They believe it’s somebody on the inside. The locks on the display case were unbroken and then I forgot to put the alarm on—”
“You forgot?” Simon blurted out, practically crawling halfway over the tabletop. “How do you forget a thing like that? So the robbery is kind of your fault.”
Cami slowly flipped the end of her ponytail with her index finger. “Why do you assume the raven has the staff, Will?”
In his mind’s eye, Will flashed back to the black shiny feathers he had seen choking the hallway in front of the Egyptian Gallery the day before.
“Just a hunch, I guess.” Will shrugged. “You know, instinct.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not telling us something?” Cami always could see right through him.
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re just not trusting enough.”
“I was trusting enough to bring my brother out here to share his dream with you. But let’s forget that for a second.” Cami’s expressive hands were slicing the air now. “How do we find this raven when we don’t even know what it is?” She turned her green eyes to everyone around the table. “Anybody? Where would a raven be?”
Andrew blankly stared at her. “Ravens? Ravens? Except for a couple of peacocks, the zoo doesn’t have any birds, so that’s no good,” he said.
“Keep thinking,” Will said. “If we can find the raven, we can find the staff. Max, it’s a big black bird in your dream, right?”
“Yep,” Max said.
“We should go to Bobbit’s Bestiary,” Simon offered. “Mr. Bobbit’ll know where we can find ravens. He sells all these exotic birds and things. He sold us a macaw when I was a kid. My mother took it when she left.” There was a sudden faraway look in his eyes and the table fell quiet.
Will squeezed Simon’s arm for a second; then he broke the silence. “Bobbit’s works for me, pal. Let’s go.”
Simon shook his head at Will. “Sorry, speedy. Mr. Bobbit is closed on weekends. He won’t open again until Monday.”
“Okay, then, first thing Monday morning, we meet at Bobbit’s place,” Will said. Everyone but Max nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a plan.”
Andrew lightly elbowed Will. “I get why you want to find the raven with the creepy dream and all. But why are you so excited about this Moses stick? Unless the raven hits somebody with it, how much trouble can an old museum piece cause?”
“Plenty,” Will said, slipping his helmet on. “If the wrong person gets hold of that staff, you’ll be begging for the return of those croc monsters.”
Returning to Rapids Lane, Will found Marin in the shade, playing on the front lawn of their home. The little girl knelt with her back to him. She’s probably playing with her dolls or digging up the garden again, he thought.
“Hey, Marin,” he casually said, heading for the front door.
&nbs
p; “Hiya,” she muttered without turning around.
Curiosity getting the best of him, Will peeked over Marin’s shoulder. She was arranging what he thought at first were small stuffed animals. Until he took a closer look.
“Why are you touching those things?” he asked. “Leave them alone.”
“Shhhh,” Marin said, meeting his eye. “I’m going to help them.”
“Marin, they’re dead.” Lined up in front of her, on the edge of the garden, were two lifeless birds and a deceased squirrel. “They carry disease, you know. Go inside and wash your hands.”
Leo dropped from the thick oak branch overhead, giving Will a start. “Since we came out, I’ve been telling her not to touch those things. She doesn’t listen—just doesn’t listen.” Leo brushed his hands on his pants leg and confided to Will, “We need to talk about my light trick.”
Will squarely faced Leo. “You shouldn’t talk about it, especially outside.”
“You’ve got to admit it’s a little cool that we all have our own things,” Leo said, nodding.
“What things?”
“You know…Marin has her screaming and healing powers. You see demons. And now I light up. Do you think we’re supposed to work together?”
“It’s not called ‘lighting up,’ ” Will whispered, pulling Leo closer by his sleeve. “It’s called igniting. And people who spread light are Candors.”
“How do you know?” Leo whispered back.
“Aunt Lucille showed me a book that our great-grandfather wrote. He knew some Candors.”
“He did? So what can candoring do?”
Will put an arm around his brother. “Ask Aunt Lucille, she’ll tell you everything. But stop talking about it—and don’t try to ignite. You could hurt yourself. When you use these special gifts, Leo, sometimes it draws the attention of bad…beings and—”
“YEEEAH!” Marin screamed. A small pigeon, very much alive, flew out of her hands and fluttered up to a tree branch above them.
Leo and Will watched slack-jawed as she picked up the second dead bird. “What are you doing?!” Will asked her, checking that no one was watching from across the street. “Put the bird down, Marin.”
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