House of Secrets

by Chris Columbus

  “Come here!” Sangray roared, trying to grab her. Eleanor gripped the two straps that hung from his beard and flipped over the top of his head like a parkour expert, taking hold of the leather just above the beard blades. She hit the floor and sank them into the pile of cooling tar. The blades stuck fast. Sangray tried to pull away, but he was trapped like a cockroach in maple syrup.

  “You—” he screamed at Eleanor, letting out a string of curses.

  “I know you are but what am I!”

  Eleanor scampered away. Sangray wanted terribly to shoot her, but he was stuck, so he aimed his gun at Will, lying by the trunk—

  But Will had already gotten what he wanted out of that trunk.

  His own gun.

  BLAM!

  The bullet from the Webley Mark Six hit Captain Sangray’s weapon, sending off a cascade of sparks. . . .

  And when the sparks hit the tar, it erupted in flames . . .

  Completely engulfing the captain.

  “Aiieeeeee!” Sangray screamed. He was suddenly flailing, his entire body sheathed in orange flame, trying to release himself from the fiery tar, trapped by the stuck daggers.

  “Put him out!” Cordelia yelled. “He’s going to set the whole ship on fire!” Brendan started looking for something he could use to douse the captain, but just then the flames ate through the straps that connected Sangray’s beard to the blades. Sangray was free.

  He lurched forward, grabbing for his enemies in a rage like the Cyclops in The Odyssey, his face a grotesque melting roar, his eyes dark pits behind fire—

  And then he crashed through the window and fell!

  Everyone ran to the edge of the cabin. For a shining second Captain Sangray was a meteor, screaming and smoking, his arms pinwheeling—

  And then he hit the ocean with a kssssssssssh.

  For a moment the Walkers had nothing to say. Then Brendan said, “Tonight those sharks are getting barbecue.”

  “Help me with Penelope!” Will yelled behind him. He had found a cask of water and used it to put out the burning tar; now he was standing over the maid, who was still chained to the table.

  “Is she okay?” Cordelia asked. Penelope’s condition made them all forget their moment of triumph. They rushed to Will.

  The pilot, who had tar flaking off his RFC uniform, pulled Sangray’s dagger out of Penelope. Her chest was a sunken pool of blood and tar. He scraped her neck clean and felt for a pulse with trembling fingers.

  “She’s alive!” he said. “We can save her!”

  The Walkers looked at one another. Penelope Hope wasn’t breathing or moving. When Brendan felt her arm, it was ice cold.

  “Wake up!” Will said, clutching Penelope’s shoulders. “I promised I’d take care of you!”

  “Will? I think you gotta let her go,” said Brendan. He was afraid to be near Penelope, but he swallowed his fear and closed her eyes. Her upper and lower eyelashes met with a tiny click.

  “No! Why? She’s alive! Feel!”

  Will guided Brendan’s hand to Penelope’s neck, but the only thing Brendan could feel was the pilot’s uncontrollable shaking.

  “She’s gone, Will,” said Cordelia. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “But it’s my fault,” Will said. “I should have protected her. I’m in the RFC, and she’s a civilian! What kind of man does that make me?”

  “A brave man. One who did everything he could,” said Cordelia.

  “But it wasn’t enough. And I doubt if I’ll ever meet anyone quite like Penelope again.”

  Cordelia quickly drew back and turned away, stung by Will’s words. But then she felt guilty for putting her feelings ahead of the harsh reality facing them all: a woman had just been murdered. Everything else seemed small.

  “Is something wrong, Cordelia?” Will asked.

  “No, nothing,” she said, continuing to look away. “I just feel . . . I feel so bad for Penelope.”

  “And she feels bad that you liked Penelope better than her,” said Eleanor.

  “Shut up, Nell!” shouted Cordelia. “That’s not true—”

  “Have some respect for the dead!” Will ordered. “No fighting!”

  Everyone got quiet. They all looked at Penelope’s lifeless body. Cordelia took a sheet from Sangray’s bunk. She gently covered Penelope with it. They observed a moment of silence, but really it was one moment in many, because they stayed silent as they set about bandaging their wounds. Eleanor’s shoulder was cut badly, but she could move her arm. Cordelia’s arm hurt from being twisted by Sangray—but there was nothing she could do about that. Brendan found a new shirt. It was much too large for him, but he stuffed it in his pants and decided to make the best of it.

  “Now what?” Eleanor asked.

  “We should bury Penelope,” Will said, “but not at sea. We’ll wait until we get ashore.”

  “And how do we stay alive until then?” Brendan asked.

  “Simple,” Will said. “Declare me captain of the Moray.”

  “Excuse me?” Cordelia asked. “Why do you get to be captain?”

  “Because we killed the old captain, and I’m the oldest. Plus I possess the English heritage these sailors will be looking for.”

  “Can’t the four of us be captain together?” Brendan asked.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” said Will, approaching Sangray’s wooden chest, “but it’s not as if I’m cutting you three out. You’ll all be my mates. And you’re entitled to any treasure we find, split equally among the four of us. One of the first things one does as a new pirate captain is take possession of all treasure aboard the ship.”

  Will opened the chest. Inside was a pile of gold doubloons, a cloth bag filled with emeralds, an ornate crown that looked as if it came from a South Sea island . . . and several rolled-up pieces of yellowed parchment.

  “There are some impressive coins and gems in here,” Will said.

  “Unless they can buy us a ticket back to San Francisco, they’re pretty useless,” said Brendan.

  “And what are these?” asked Will.

  He unfurled one of the parchment rolls. It was a scroll, with line after line of dense text.

  “Latin,” said Will.

  “I remember reading about these in the book,” said Eleanor. “These are secret spell scrolls, written by ancient warlocks, discovered on an island by Captain Sangray.”

  “How do they work?” asked Cordelia.

  “I didn’t get to that part,” said Eleanor. “Sorry.”

  “Lucky for us, I studied Latin first form,” said Will. He read the top of the scroll, where the text was biggest.

  “Terra ipsa fenerat viribus!”

  A stone wall appeared in front of them.

  It was as wide as the room, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. It was made of huge gray blocks sandwiched together. It looked like it would take a bulldozer to get through.

  “Holy—” Cordelia started, and she used some of that pirate vocabulary again.

  “It works!” said Eleanor.

  “So all you have to do to make the spell work is read the title?” Brendan asked.

  “It appears so.”

  “Sort of like instant-oatmeal spells,” said Eleanor.

  “That’s amazing,” said Cordelia. “What do the other spells do?”

  “Yeah, and why didn’t Sangray use these on us?” Brendan asked.

  “Perhaps he couldn’t understand Latin. But me . . . Terra ipsa fenerat viribus means ‘The land itself lends strength.’” Will unfurled a few more scrolls. “This one turns frogs into cows. . . . This spell makes hair grow on your head. . . .”

  “Anything in there that removes zits?” asked Brendan, touching the growing pimple on his chin.

  “Not yet,” said Will, unfurling more spells. “Hmmm, this could be useful. . . . This creates some sort of fireball—”

  “How are you going to make this wall go away?” Eleanor said. “We’re trapped in here now.”

  “There m
ust be a way to reverse the spell,” Will said, reading the smaller letters on the appropriate scroll. “Here we go . . . ” He went to the wall and uttered the spell in reverse: “Viribus fenerat ipsa terra!”

  The wall disappeared.

  Brendan moved to the treasure chest, pocketed some doubloons (you never know when those are going to come in handy), and started to pick up some of the scrolls. Will grabbed his hand to stop him.

  “What are you doing?” Brendan asked.

  “I’ll be taking these,” said Will.

  “But you said we could split the treasure,” said Eleanor.

  “The spell scrolls aren’t treasure,” said Will. “And what would be the point? None of you can read Latin.” He picked up all the scrolls and clutched them in his arms.

  “Will,” Cordelia said, “you’re starting to go on a serious power trip. I mean . . . I know that Penelope’s death hurts you, and maybe you feel like you’ve gotta take control to make up for it, but—you haven’t even thanked us for freeing you!”

  “Thank you,” said Will, overpowering a hitch in his throat. “I owe you my life again. I’m only taking these scrolls so I can protect you. So I won’t let you down . . . like I did her.”

  A bang sounded at the door.

  “Who is that?” Will asked.

  “Maybe it’s that first mate, Tranquebar, come to check what the heck is going on,” said Cordelia.

  “Very well,” Will said, putting the scrolls back in the chest and giving the Walkers a look: Don’t touch them. He picked up the cutlass to answer the door. “Ahoy!” he called. “Fellow sailor mate! I welcome you into the service of Captain Dra—”

  But Will didn’t get to finish, because when he opened the door, he wasn’t looking at Tranquebar. He was face-to-face with a skeleton, standing on two feet, with a sword pointed right at him.

  “Gah!” Will shrieked, dropping the cutlass in a very un-captain-like manner. He slammed the door shut in terror, but it went thunk without latching, as if someone had wedged a broomstick in the frame to keep it open. Will saw the skeleton’s arm protruding from the doorway’s crack, holding a sword, wildly slashing up and down.

  “Can someone please explain this?” Will asked, pressing his back against the door. Although the skeleton could easily have cut him, it appeared to be aiming for someone else, making arcing swoops toward the center of the quarters.

  “It must’ve come from the bone room!” said Eleanor.

  “Bone room? What in bloody blazes is a bone room?”

  “Don’t worry! I got this,” Brendan said. He took a deep breath, charged the door, shoulder-checked it like he was in a lacrosse game—

  And snapped the skeleton’s arm clean off.

  “Nice work,” said Will as the arm and sword hit the floor with a calcified clatter. He went back to the chest and started looking through the scrolls for one that could hurt skeletons. . . .

  But the clatter never stopped. The skeleton’s arm twitched . . . raised a finger experimentally . . . and started feeling around for its sword.

  “No way,” said Eleanor. “That’s not even fair!”

  “Neither is this,” said Brendan, kicking the arm across the room. “Let’s see how you handle that, manorexia.”

  The skeletal arm landed in a corner and began crawling back toward the sword, pulling itself forward with four fingers at once.

  “Persistent,” said Will. “There must be a spell in here that can stop that—they’re all mixed up—”

  “The door!” Cordelia yelled.

  Will and Brendan turned. The doorknob was twisting. Brendan grabbed it and tried to hold it still, but the grip on the other side was surprisingly powerful. “Help!” Brendan yelled. His sisters and Will joined him, but the knob inched counterclockwise. They all heard the scraping creaks of finger joints with no cartilage trying to open the door.

  “Sounds like there’s a lot of skeletons out there!” Cordelia said.

  “They’re the bones from earlier!” said Eleanor.

  “What bones?” asked Will.

  “The ones that formed into a table,” said Eleanor.

  “You’re totally confusing me.”

  “They re-formed!” Eleanor told her siblings. “Now I remember! That was the part I skimmed over in the book. If you eat food from the cursed bone table, the skeletons come back for revenge—”

  “Now you remember?” screamed Brendan.

  “I tried to warn you—”

  “And they’re all coming after us?!”

  “They’re just coming for you and Deal,” said Eleanor. “Not me or Will. We didn’t eat the food.”

  “A lock!” Cordelia interrupted, seeing a rusty metal chain near the top of the door. “I’ll get it! Just keep the door closed!”

  Cordelia let go of the doorknob to reach for the chain, but without her adding to the group effort, the skeletons prevailed, turning the knob all the way and shoving the door open, knocking everyone to the floor. With a rustle of bony legs they flooded the room.

  Will and the Walkers stared in awe. There were two dozen skeletons, moving in fits and starts like predatory dinosaurs. They were armed with cutlasses, sabers, and spears. They all waited, seeming to sniff the air even though they lacked the necessary equipment. The one-armed skeleton walked to the corner of the room and picked up its severed limb, pressing it against its elbow . . .

  And with a dry sucking sound, it reattached.

  “Oh great,” said Brendan.

  The skeleton grinned. Its bony face, like the faces of the other skeletons, was strangely capable of conveying emotion.

  “Hold on,” Brendan said. “I have an idea—”

  “Me too.” Cordelia stood to face the skeletons. They flinched in surprise. It almost looked like they blinked.

  “Ah, sirs and/or madams? We don’t mean you any harm, and we’re sorry that we ate that food in the bone room. I mean, it was really delicious, and you have to understand, the only food we have right now is cold canned corn. . . .”

  The ex-one-armed skeleton, who appeared to be the leader, approached Cordelia. The others followed. The skeleton nonchalantly kicked Eleanor out of its way. The others handled Will, lifting him and tossing him toward the stained-glass window as he continued to rifle through spell scrolls, still trying to find the right one.

  “Wait—hold on—can’t we negotiate?” Cordelia asked the skeletons.

  “Negotiate what?” Brendan whispered to his sister. “This was your big plan?”

  “It was all I could think of!”

  The skeletons surrounded Cordelia and Brendan and raised their weapons. Cordelia couldn’t believe it: After everything she’d been through, was she really going to get killed by these stupid dead things?

  “C’mon!” she snapped. “If we hadn’t eaten that food, we’d have ended up looking like you—”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t insult their appearance,” said Brendan.

  The skeletons extended their weapons toward Brendan’s and Cordelia’s faces. Both Walkers gasped as they saw the circular gathering of blades around their heads.

  “They’re going to give us a three-hundred-sixty-degree skewering!” shouted Brendan.

  “We’re sorry—please don’t!” Cordelia screamed, shutting her eyes as the blade tips got closer. The skeleton leader’s only reply was to click its teeth, a behavior quickly mimicked by its followers, who snapped their jaws faster and faster, as if anticipating the moment when they would simultaneously stab the two siblings. Brendan and Cordelia thought of their eyes rupturing and dribbling down their cheeks, their brains being penetrated from every conceivable angle, blood and brain matter oozing everywhere. . . .

  “Duck!” Will yelled. Brendan and Cordelia did. Then they heard the pilot call, “Inter cinis crescere fortissimi flammis!”

  A tremendous fireball roared out of the back of the room and slammed into the skeletons.

  It was as big as a small car: a whirling sphere of orange flame that sc
alded the Walkers’ arms and singed the backs of their shirts as they planted their faces on the ground. The fireball knocked the skeletons over like a set of bowling pins—but when it hit the wall at the opposite end of the room, it disappeared, leaving only a charred crater in the wood.

  For one quiet second the skeletons were scattered across the room, just piles of bones with smoke coming off. Then they started stirring and grabbing their weapons.

  Will pocketed a few of the spell scrolls, grabbed the cutlass, and led the Walkers to the cabin’s broken window.

  “It’s us they want, because we ate the food!” Cordelia said. “You go. We’ll handle them!”

  “No,” said Will. “If I’m to be captain, I must take care of my mates.” He peeked out the window and saw a small ledge that a person could stand on. He showed it to Cordelia. “Ladies first.”

  Cordelia stepped out. The ocean spray made her draw in her breath. The sound of the waves under her and the cawing of seabirds made her dizzy for a moment. It was still dark, and she was terrified. But she stayed calm and looked at the stern of the Moray. The thick beam that she stood on ran the length of it. She could escape by turning her feet sideways and clinging to the back of the ship as she shimmied along the beam.

  Cordelia went for it; Brendan followed, and then Eleanor. Will brought up the rear, carrying the cutlass in case any skeletons followed.

  “What do we do?” asked Eleanor.

  “I really did have a plan, guys,” said Brendan, nodding to the ropes that connected the Moray to Kristoff House. “But to make it work, we have to get across those and back to the house before dawn.”

  Cordelia glanced at the horizon. A faint pinkish blue bled into the sky. She couldn’t believe it. It was rising like on every normal, boring day: the sun.

  “I thought I’d never see daylight again!” Cordelia told Brendan as they moved carefully along the beam.

  “Might be the last time,” he said, pointing back. The skeletons were climbing out the window, following. One moved too fast, slipped, and fell into the sea. The rest learned from their cohort’s mistake and moved with creeping persistence, holding their weapons in their teeth.