Addison Cooke and the Ring of Destiny

by Jonathan W. Stokes

  “I’m not a gentleman,” said Molly. “I’m a gentlelady.”

  “Not that gentle,” said Addison, ruefully rubbing his arm. His first time seeing his sister for the winter holiday, and this was how she greeted him.

  Uncle Jasper sighed, weary lines showing on his forehead. “Molly Cooke, there are people who want you dead. Grown men twice your height, twice your weight, who’ve been fighting twice as long as you’ve been alive.”

  Molly lowered her head and nodded.

  “Here, I’ve got something for you.” Uncle Jasper handed her a small can marked PEPPER SPRAY. “It’s the same stuff as the tear gas police use to break up riots. It will make a grown man cry in pain. Keep it with you at all times.” He pointed to the trigger by the spray nozzle. “If you ever get in a pinch, pinch this button.”

  Addison unstrapped his protective mask. “When are you going to tell us why these people are after our family? We know we’re somehow related to the Knights Templar. We know there’s some secret prophecy that involves wiping out anyone unlucky enough to be born a Cooke. But who is Malazar? Why has he declared open season on us?”

  Molly joined in. “When are you going to tell us our family’s Templar history?”

  Uncle Jasper shut his eyes and swiveled his head from side to side. “When you come of age.”

  “What does that even mean?” asked Molly.

  “I can’t answer that,” said Uncle Jasper, “until you come of age.”

  Addison reached under his shirt and drew out the Templar medallion that had once belonged to his uncle Nigel. The bronze disk was embossed with the symbol of an eye in the center of a dazzling sun. Surrounding it were the Latin words for teamwork, knowledge, faith, perseverance, and courage: all the Templar virtues. “It’s funny,” said Addison. “I don’t see a word on here about keeping secrets.”

  Uncle Jasper folded his arms and sighed. “Just for that, you’ll be doing an extra hour of running tonight.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Addison’s muscles were sore when he went down for breakfast in the morning. The manor house had a dining room big enough to comfortably seat a college marching band, but Uncle Jasper found it cozier to eat in the kitchen.

  The uncle in question greeted Addison with a friendly wave of his toast and jam.

  Addison attempted a cheerful wave, but today was a day he’d been dreading for months.

  Molly was already dressed head to toe in black. She poured milk into her cereal. “Why are we even having a funeral? Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel have only been missing five months. They could still be out there.”

  Uncle Jasper took a sip of tea and set his cup down in the saucer. “It’s time, Molly. By declaring them dead I can wrap up their affairs. We can sell off their things; we can empty your New York apartment. And I can begin the process of legally adopting you.”

  Addison had watched his aunt and uncle be pushed off the cliff in Mongolia. He knew his uncle was doing the necessary thing. He just didn’t want to admit it. “What will you bury in their coffins?”

  “There won’t be any coffins,” said Uncle Jasper. “Only headstones. Like your parents.”

  Addison nodded.

  Molly ate her cereal in silence.

  On the other side of the house, the doorbell chimed. Uncle Jasper brightened. “Addison and Molly, I know this is a difficult day for you, so I do have one pleasant surprise . . .”

  Jennings appeared in the kitchen doorway in his immaculate suit and starched white gloves. “Pardon me, Addison and Molly. We have guests in the main hall for you. A Mr. Edward Chang and a Mr. Raj Bhandari.”

  Chapter Three

  The Merchant of Baghdad

  ADDISON FLEW TO THE front door as if blasted from a cannon. It was the first unfiltered happiness he had felt in many months, and it nearly overwhelmed him. He realized that he hadn’t had friends for a very long time. Addison clasped Eddie and Raj in a three-way hug.

  “Addison,” said Eddie, eyeing the grand staircase and the crystal chandelier above, “how did you talk your way into this castle?”

  “I didn’t have to trick anyone,” said Addison. “It’s my uncle Jasper’s.”

  “Does it have a dungeon?” asked Raj. “Or any hidden rooms?”

  Addison pursed his lips, unsure whether to mention the training facility. “There’s a hayloft in the stable. That’s sort of hidden.”

  “Awesome.”

  Addison took in his friends’ appearances. Eddie looked even taller and ganglier than he had the previous summer in Mongolia. It was as if someone had taken a regular-sized boy, laid him out on a baking sheet, and gone over him with a rolling pin.

  Raj looked more wiry and strong. His hair was wild and disheveled like a mad scientist’s, possibly from sleeping on the overnight flight from New York.

  Addison wondered if he appeared different to them as well. He ushered his friends through the foyer. “Thank you for coming here on your winter break. Jennings will get your suitcases, but I’ll show you to the kitchen. You must be starving after your flight.”

  Eddie nodded emphatically.

  “Eddie, there’s a piano in the great room you can practice on.” Addison pointed down the east wing hallway as they passed it.

  “I stopped taking piano lessons,” Eddie said quietly.

  Addison halted, turned, and gaped.

  “I’m in eighth grade now,” Eddie explained. “The pieces got way harder. I started getting stage fright at recitals. I’d sweat. My hands would shake. My teeth would chatter. It got so bad, my parents said it’d be okay if I took a break. The upside is, I’ve had way more time to practice my lock picking.”

  Eddie had discovered a real gift for lock picking during their adventure in Mongolia, and Addison was pleased Eddie was pursuing this talent. Still, it didn’t sit right with him that Eddie was abandoning music. Eddie loved piano and was phenomenal at it. “Eddie, when did your stage fright begin?”

  Eddie shrugged. “After everything that happened in Mongolia, I guess.”

  Addison led the way into the kitchen, shaking his head.

  “A lot changed after that trip,” said Raj. “I dropped out of Boy Scouts.”

  Now Addison had heard everything. “Impossible! Last time I saw you, you were on a bullet train to making Eagle Scout!”

  Raj looked sheepish. “When my mom heard what happened to your aunt and uncle, she made me drop out of Scouts. This survival stuff isn’t just fun and games: people can get hurt and die. She wants me to focus on school. I’m not even allowed to go to survival camp anymore. It’s a miracle she let me come visit you.”

  Jennings laid out an English breakfast, and Eddie and Raj demolished it. Molly joined the table and filled Eddie and Raj in on her past few months at the Wyckingham Swithy School for Girls. Addison didn’t get much speaking in during breakfast. He let the conversation bubble around him. He felt responsible for what had happened to his aunt and uncle. And now he could see that Mongolia had affected the lives of his two best friends as well. He felt, in other words, wretched.

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  The funeral was in the afternoon. Uncle Jasper led everyone to the family funeral plot near the wishing well in the orchard. The vicar from the local parish revved into a long speech about the importance of faith in times of adversity.

  Addison gazed at the desolate winter garden; the wisteria hanging from the trellis was withered and brown, the rose garden pruned to the nubs. He stared down at the granite headstones of his mother and father, set in the cold earth. He knew there was nothing buried there—his parents’ bodies had never been found. Now his aunt and uncle would have empty graves as well. Someday, Addison thought, archaeologists might try to dig up all these archaeologists, and they would find nothing.

  His eye wandered a
cross the headstones of all the old Cookes going back seven hundred years. The farthest grave belonged to Adam Cooke, who spent his fortune building Runnymede on the ruins of a Saxon castle in 1309. It must have been a hefty job, because he promptly died in 1310. Addison wondered at how little he truly knew about these men and women, their faded, ivy-grown headstones all marked by the family crest—two dragons supporting a Templar shield, and that simple motto: fides. Faith.

  Addison watched the vicar soldier on with his solemn speech. Eddie and Raj looked jet-lagged but hung their heads in respectful silence. Jennings the butler shed tears. Everybody loved Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel.

  Addison knew the earth rotated at about a thousand miles an hour. He reckoned that over the course of the funeral, the world spun seven hundred miles.

  He felt every mile of it.

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Afterward, a small gathering of Uncle Jasper’s friends and acquaintances drifted back to the house, where Jennings served tea and biscuits. Addison stayed behind in the garden, still gazing at the headstones. He pulled the medallion from his neck and turned it over in his hands, his thumb tracing the Latin words.

  After a few moments, he realized Uncle Jasper was still with him.

  “Archaeologists,” said Uncle Jasper. “We spend our lives digging things out of the ground, and in the end, that’s where we end up.”

  Addison shook his head. “Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel aren’t in the ground. Not here, anyway.”

  Uncle Jasper nodded.

  Addison took a deep breath. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to forget my mom and dad, so I can move on. Now I have to get to work forgetting Aunt D and Uncle N as well.”

  Uncle Jasper frowned. “You mustn’t forget them, Addison. Archaeologists honor the past. It teaches us about our present and future.”

  Addison blinked a few times, a lump in his throat like a cricket ball. “Digging through the past got my aunt and uncle killed. Whatever this prophecy is, it’s not worth it. I’ll give up archaeology if it means keeping everyone safe.”

  “Then you would let Malazar win?”

  Addison said nothing.

  “Archaeology is in your blood, Addison. You would turn your back on your calling?” Uncle Jasper knelt down by the headstones. He took a few of the fresh white lilies from Aunt Delia’s and Uncle Nigel’s grave markers and placed them on the graves of Addison’s parents. “Have you read W. Somerset Maugham? He lived not far from here.”

  “I mostly read nonfiction.”

  Uncle Jasper looked up at Addison. Even on this sad day he had a glint of humor in his cobalt-blue eyes. “A merchant in Baghdad sees Death beckoning to him in the marketplace. Terrified, the merchant flees to Samarra to hide. That night, he again meets Death in the street. Death says to the merchant, ‘I was surprised to see you in Baghdad this morning . . . since I had this appointment with you tonight in Samarra.’”

  Uncle Jasper rose to his feet and set a hand on Addison’s shoulder. “The harder you run from your destiny, Addison, the faster you will run right into it.” He patted Addison’s shoulder a few times, then turned and strolled along the gravel path, back toward the manor house.

  Addison fingered the medallion in his hands and stared at the headstones for a long time. Something in his life was going to need to change.

  Chapter Four

  The Secret Will

  THE FIRST THING NEXT morning, Uncle Jasper shuffled off to his lawyers’ offices in Twickenham to commence paperwork on becoming Addison and Molly’s legal guardian. He would be gone the entire day, he announced, donning his derby hat, and this had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Twickenham just happened to be across the river from the Moulsey Hurst horse racetrack.

  This left Addison and Molly with complete run of the estate for the day. They came downstairs to find Eddie watching Raj guzzle water directly from the kitchen tap.

  Addison observed the spectacle for a few moments in silence. “All right, I’ll bite,” he said finally. “Raj, what are you doing?”

  Raj came up for air, chin dripping. “Drinking lots of water can help you get over jet lag.”

  Molly squinted skeptically. “Is that a survival tip from Babatunde Okonjo?”

  She was familiar with Raj’s obsession with the famous survival author.

  “It’s just a theory I’m working on,” said Raj, panting for breath. “I might write my own survival book someday.”

  “I’ll try anything,” said Eddie, rubbing his tired eyes. He took over Raj’s position, slurping water from the tap.

  Jennings materialized in his usual way as if from thin air and offered Eddie and Raj water glasses.

  The conversation turned to forming a plan for the day. Raj, who had conceived a love for horses while in Mongolia, was dead set on visiting the stables. Addison, however, knew that Runnymede’s rickety old stable buildings were on the verge of collapse. They were unstable stables.

  Addison proposed discussing their plans in the sitting room.

  “What do you do in a sitting room?” asked Eddie.

  “Sit.” Addison shrugged.

  “You can do that in any room!”

  “It seems like a waste to sit in any old room,” Addison countered, “when you have a perfectly good sitting room that no one is sitting in.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Jennings obliged them by serving breakfast in the sitting room. Addison indulged himself in a tall glass of Arnold Palmer. His aunt Delia had always objected to him drinking that much sugar first thing in the morning, but after a semester of blood sausage and boiled tomatoes in the Dimpleforth dining hall, he felt he had earned a decent breakfast.

  Addison sifted through the assortment of London newspapers Jennings had arrayed on a silver tray.

  Jennings coughed politely. “A letter arrived for you and Molly in the post this morning.”

  “Really?” Addison set down his copy of The Daily Telegraph. He had never received mail at Runnymede before, owing to the fact that he and Molly were supposed to be in hiding.

  With one white-gloved hand, Jennings handed Addison a letter from the Law Offices of Pinfield & Hipwistle, Esquires. “With your aunt and uncle officially buried, sir, I believe you are receiving their will.”

  “Whoa,” said Eddie. “Your inheritance!”

  “I wonder if you’ll inherit the stables,” said Raj excitedly.

  Addison frowned and tore open the envelope. Inside were two letters: one from Aunt Delia and one from Uncle Nigel.

  Raj stared in awe. “A message from beyond the grave!”

  “What’s it say?” asked Molly.

  Addison cleared his throat and read the first letter aloud.

  London, January 3

  Dear Addison and Molly,

  If you are reading this, then your aunt and I have passed away. Hopefully from eating too much linguine while cruising the Mediterranean in a hundred-foot yacht. Or possibly from some sort of chocolate-related overdose at Trastevere Restaurant on 47th Street. Either way, I’m sorry we’re gone, and sorry we’ve entrusted you both with such a grave responsibility.

  Please take good care of your inheritance. You must stay strong and have faith. Always remember, it is our characters that determine our destiny. Your aunt and I love you both. We know you can handle this.

  Yours always,

  Uncle Nigel

  Addison was overwhelmed to read something written in his uncle’s hand, less than one day after planting his gravestone. Before Addison’s emotions ran away from him, Eddie and Raj pelted him with questions.

  “What’s the inheritance?” asked Eddie.

  “Yeah,” said Raj. “What’s the grave responsibility? How could he not explain that part?”

  “Read Aunt Del
ia’s letter,” said Molly. “Maybe she explains.”

  Addison still felt a bit rattled from reading Uncle Nigel’s letter. But he took a sip of his Arnold Palmer, steadied his voice, and read on . . .

  January 3

  Dear A & M,

  We are in the lawyer’s office as I scribble this, and they are charging us every fifteen minutes. So, well, sorry we died and all that. I’ll write something more thoughtful when we’re not on the lawyer’s clock. Your uncle Jasper insisted we should write up a proper will, but between flight delays and a long lecture at the museum, we haven’t the time today, so we’ll fix this later. Until then, Addison, don’t drink Arnold Palmers for breakfast. Molly, if he does, punch him on the arm.

  Cheers!

  Aunt D

  Molly punched Addison on the arm.

  “Ow!” Addison rubbed his twice-bruised upper arm and grimaced. He was pleased that Molly was getting so good at kung fu, but not when he was the target. He stared at Aunt Delia’s letter and chewed his lip. “This letter raises more questions than it answers.”

  “It doesn’t answer anything!” Eddie cried. “You call that a will? Why would your aunt and uncle go through all the trouble of paying lawyers just to send you those two flimsy letters? They didn’t seem to leave you anything.”

  “They must have,” said Molly. “Uncle Nigel says he left us a grave responsibility.”

  “That’s just what I’ve always wanted,” said Raj. And he seemed to really mean it.

  Eddie shook the envelope to see if they were missing anything.

  A single key clattered onto the table.

  “Neville Chamberlain!” Addison exclaimed. He had been made to memorize the names of British prime ministers while at Dimpleforth, and he liked to employ them in moments of shock, pain, or emotional distress.

  The four friends all leaned in so quickly, they would have clunked heads if the coffee table hadn’t been so large.