The Strange Round Bird: Or the Poet, the King, and the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “But Mummy and Daddy were young, too,” said Lucy, “and they were inventing, and all of them were like us, but now they’re the other ones because they had mummies and daddies, too.”

  “What?” Noah turned to Lucy.

  “I think she’s right,” said Wallace. “It appears to be true that our parents were likely members of the Young Inventors Guild, except for Noah’s mother, of course.”

  “What does this have to do with…?” Noah turned back to Wallace.

  “It means that whatever is happening, it’s been happening for a long time,” Wallace said. “That is, I believe we are looking at something that has been protected or somehow hidden from Komar Romak for many years.”

  “What is this thing that Komar Romak must be searching for?” Noah didn’t expect an answer.

  “As you said,” Faye cut in, “whether it’s a lost treasure or something else, let’s focus on finding your mother. We can do that and figure out what Komar Romak can’t find. We can do it, but—”

  “But what?” asked Noah, “You don’t understand. I’d gladly give the horrid Komar Romak monster—I know, Lucy, monsters—whatever they want if they’d just let my mother free.”

  “I don’t think you mean that,” said Jasper.

  “Don’t I?” Noah’s face showed no humor. Jasper felt a chill run up his spine.

  “But what if Komar Romak can get that something, and it’s awful and terrible or wonderfully, magically powerful that could really hurt people or make them sad or make things bad or…or…really hurt everyone, Noah, even your mother?” Lucy asked quietly.

  Noah looked and felt like a cornered fox, surrounded by hounds. The truth was, he couldn’t answer. He knew that anything that threatened the world also threatened his mother.

  Jasper cleared his throat. “We need to find out how, or if, this fits together. This does not mean we stop trying to find and free your mother, Noah, just that we work on the two things at once. I’d have to agree with Faye. I think they’re connected.”

  Noah nodded. He thought so, too.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PAST

  OR

  MR. BELL READS A WARNING

  Though the winter air was still cool, the sun felt warm. Miss Brett was surprised that here in Cairo, Egypt, in the desert, which always seemed to radiate heat from the pages of her books, it could be as cold as a New England morning. She shivered. Dr. Banneker put her shawl over her shoulders. They were sitting on the veranda that led from the first open room off the main corridor of the castle. She looked over at Ralph, who was lying on his back, his legs sprawled out, snoring in the sun. What a funny fellow.

  “I’m glad to know that Clarence has you helping care for him,” said Dr. Benneker.

  “I’m afraid I’ve not been much help,” Miss Brett said, unhappily, “His fever is still high and we cannot seem to break it. I was able to get him to drink some water, but only spoon by spoon. He has not truly woken from his delirium. I am hopeful, though. I am.”

  “You have truly been a blessing, Miss Brett,” said Dr. Banneker, his cheeks suddenly hot as he dared correct himself. “Astraea.”

  She was caught off guard. “Well, Doctor…Benjamin, I don’t know that I’m a blessing.” She wiped her lips with her handkerchief, deciding that now was the time to speak her mind. “But I do care deeply about the children. And… I worry. I do feel—and forgive me for speaking out—but I do feel that that these children of ours should not be left so in the dark.”

  “We want to protect them,” Dr. Banneker said softly.

  “But they see what is around them. They need to understand.” Miss Brett’s flush was now from indignation and hurt on the children’s behalf. “They were hauled from their lives to strange places. Now, here in Cairo, they had expected some ease from their burden of fear. Instead, they find themselves locked into a deeper, darker, more terrifying mystery. They must know what is happening. They must be told.”

  “But…they cannot.” Dr. Banneker spoke softly, as if he wished the words did not have to be spoken.

  “Why?”

  “It would put them in harm’s way.” Dr. Banneker’s voice cracked.

  “But they are in harm’s way.” Miss Brett turned to the scientist. “They fear for Madame Canto-Sagas. Poor Noah, now his father, too. They fear for all of their parents, and they do not know the cause of this fear.”

  “But it is our duty to protect them, to keep things from them that might cause them pain or allow them to be…to be in danger.” Dr. Banneker was now looking off into the midday light.

  “It is not fair to the children,” insisted Miss Brett. “It is not fair to put fear in their hands and not tell them why.”

  Miss Brett slipped her hand into Dr. Banneker’s large, strong hand. He looked down at his hand holding hers and shook his head.

  “It is not my choice,” he said.

  Miss Brett wondered whose choice it was. But it didn’t matter. This was her choice.

  “It is time we speak,” said Miss Brett. “Everyone. Please find the adults. I will get the children.”

  Nikola Tesla, Mr. Bell, the Modests, Vigyanvetas, and Dr. Banneker gathered in Mr. Bell’s office. No one said anything when Miss Brett and the children arrived.

  Everyone found seats. Mr. Bell walked over to the bookshelf behind him. He pulled a small lever hidden in the wood. With a click, a section of the bookshelf swung open, revealing an ancient safe behind the books. Mr. Bell took a scroll from the safe. He sat back down at his desk as two brothers stepped forward, each holding a polished stone. Mr. Bell unrolled the parchment and each brother placed his stones on the corners of the scroll to hold it down.

  “These words are presented to each generation,” Mr. Bell said. There was a sorrow in his voice. “I feel it is time to present them to you. The story must come in waves, as it is a vast sea of information, but I must present you with this before we can go further. It is meant to be read to one person at a time, to ensure a private acceptance or rejection. However, considering the circumstances, I shall read to all of you together.”

  Mr. Bell placed a pair of silver pince-nez on his nose and began to read,

  “BE PREPARED BEFORE

  YOU GO ANY FURTHER.

  If this comes before your eyes, dear reader, you are entering among the few.

  What you are about to learn has a history as long as its secret. At the time of this writing, only six living people on earth, outside Il Ordni ta’ Kavallieri fl-Iswed (the Order of the Knights in Black), sometimes known as Ahwa fl-iswed Iswed (the Brothers in Black), know of what is written below. There are some who know much of it, but for five hundred years, it has been a struggle to keep this secret.

  An immense devastation and calamity would ensue if even one person, one very wrong person, were to discover even the smallest hint of the following. If even one very, very wrong person was to connect some of the pieces below, the picture for our world, the entirety of this precious planet, would be a very dark one indeed. It would change the world and the course of mankind forever. The secret has been handed down from generation to generation, although each generation believed itself to be the first inheritor.

  It is true that so much has been blurred by time that ritual plays as big a role as original cause and, over the centuries, ceremony has taken the place of intention. Each piece has taken on a new identity and stands, alone, in its part of the world, waiting to join its brothers, waiting for a time when it can.

  Some believe that buried deep within this history is still a treasure, though what grew out of love, poetry, beauty, and dreams twisted unrecognizably into something so dark that the dream is now a nightmare that must never be unleashed. Still, the fire that burns in the center of all of this intrigue is fierce. Its power has not waned and its need for protection is, thus, all the greater as darkness threatens a new generation.

  It is true, as it has always been, that once in a generation it rises up, the unyielding
strength of a world behind it. It is a burden and a privilege, a debt and a payment, to be brought into the silent fold and to know the truth. There are six alive who know the whole story. When you have finished reading these pages, there will be seven.”

  “He said ‘treasure,’” whispered Lucy, loud enough that everyone heard.

  “Shhhh,” warned Faye.

  “I think there will only be a seven if you mean one is really six and then we’ll be six new people and so twelve total,” said Lucy. “But if we were one person and someone else was—”

  “Ma chère,” said her mother, “please, you must understand that what we know…for us all…we fear…there is danger.”

  “We know there is danger, Mother,” said Jasper.

  “But you don’t know, Jasper,” his father said, sternly. “You’ve been blinded by the belief that knowing will solve everything. It will not. You are not the only ones at risk of knowing.”

  “‘At risk of knowing?’” Faye said as she looked incredulously at the parents. “What are you saying? You didn’t want to know?”

  “We were always told that merely knowing certain things could be a danger,” Dr. Banneker said, looking at Wallace. “And we believe this. We have seen devastation. We have experienced loss…” He swallowed hard. “And we were warned, when we were young, about keeping those we love safe. We made our choices based on what we thought best. Simply knowing certain things has led to murder. We want to protect you from knowledge which can kill.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kill’?” asked Noah, his voice cracking. “Who has been killed?” Suddenly, the urgency to find his mother burned through his guts. This mad history and the mystery it served seemed a cruel distraction.

  “We’ve lost some of our number in the past,” Dr. Tobias Modest said tentatively. “Throughout the generations, there have been untold casualties.”

  “We’ve been so afraid,” Dr. Gwendolyn Vigyanveta said, her voice frail. “We’ve been so afraid for all of you, we’ve tried …”

  “You’ve lost members of your team?” asked Noah. “Only members of your group, not people outside. Not family members. Is that right?”

  “Noah, mon cher,” began Dr. Isobel Modest, “it has been a challenge to protect against the danger, to protect those we love, in our circle and near it.”

  “We’ve learned that the warnings are not simply words.” Dr. Tobias Modest put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “It is true, we have lost people we love, and Komar Romak will never be far. We suspect, with some, who was at the heart of bad things. And we know, with others, tragedy at the hands of Komar Romak.”

  “But maybe Komar Romak won’t kill.” Noah’s voice was louder and more demanding. “Maybe it’s just about something you have, and it’s not about killing, right?”

  “We have lost people.” Dr. Banneker could not look directly at Noah or Wallace.

  “You mean like Mother?” Wallace felt a dawning fear. “Father, please, is that what you mean?”

  “We believe so, Wallace.” It was Tobias Modest who put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ve never been able to prove anything, to ourselves, that is, but we believe there was, well, an attempt.”

  “Father?” Wallace pulled the sleeve of his father’s shirt. When Dr. Banneker turned, Wallace could see the pain in his eyes. “Did Komar Romak kill my mother?”

  Dr. Tobias Modest now put his hand on Dr. Banneker’s shoulder. “We believe so.”

  Wallace let his glasses slide down his nose. He stood staring at nothing because visions of his mother, the memory of her cancer and her decline, suddenly came into view.

  “My whole life…you let me believe that she had died of cancer. My whole life. It’s been a lie. It’s—”

  “Wallace,” said Dr. Rajesh Vigyanveta, “it is not a lie. She did have cancer. It’s just that we know only so much. We can only tell so much. We have learned that sometimes we must make difficult decisions to protect our children and that includes not telling everything we suspect.”

  Miss Brett urged Dr. Banneker towards his son.

  Dr. Banneker put his arm around his son. “Son, it’s true, I…I did not tell you all of our fears. You were so young and we…I did not tell you—”

  “Anything,” said Wallace. “You didn’t tell me anything. Why? I want to know.”

  Dr. Banneker took a deep breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but when the words did not come, he shook his head.

  Dr. Isobel Modest said, “Because we did not want to know. We wanted to escape the danger of knowing.”

  “‘Escape the dangers of knowing?’” Faye was on fire. “Worrying about risk and escape? You think not knowing something will shield you from it? You of all people? Scientists? Not wanting to know?”

  Dr. Tobias Modest spoke. “There was an accident at Zamek Salomon, a castle in Poland. There had been a breach in the safe room where…something was held. At that time the…project…was protected in separate pieces in secure locations. However, it was a coordinated attack. The breach at Zamek Salomon happened at the same time as a fire at the palace of Sulaimana in Agra, India. Rajesh’s father was there and was able to secure…um…certain items…at the time of the accident—”

  “We thought it was an accident,” Dr. Isobel Modest added, wiping her eyes. “We thought each one was an accident.”

  “Yes,” continued Dr. Tobias Modest, “we thought, perhaps, elements of the…project…had been brought together and that was what had caused the problems. But there was no accident. It was an attempt to activate the…project by using stolen radium. Our dear friend, Maria Sklodowska—”

  “Mon cher,” interrupted Dr. Isobel Modest, “the children know her and her husband, Pierre, from the many times we have visited them in Paris. You remember their daughter, little Irène, and now there is the new baby, Eve. Children, you remember les docteurs Curie?”

  “Ah, yes, of course,” Dr. Tobias Modest agreed. “Maria—Marie Curie—had been working with what she believed to be a new element. She had been working at the castle with this element, uranium, and with thorium brought from Slottet Sulmyen in Sweden.”

  “Excuse me, but are you saying that Pierre and Marie Curie are a part of this?” Jasper looked to his father.

  “Were they like us?” asked Lucy, tugging on her mother’s sleeve, “Were they Young Inventors Guild children?”

  “Well, Pierre and his brother, Jacques, were…among us,” Dr. Banneker said softly. “Their father, Eugene, worked with our own parents and Maria, as well as the brilliant Hertha Ayrton, were both brought in when—”

  “Let us look to the question young Master Banneker wishes answered,” said Mr. Bell, sending what Jasper thought was a gentle warning look at Dr. Banneker. “Dear child, we believe that the elements stolen from Madame Curie were used to create a deadly catalyst, a compound to enact a terrible series of events that would cause devastation. We discovered that the young brother in black guarding the item had been killed and replaced by an imposter.”

  “An imposter?” Faye wondered how many others might once have been replaced. Considering how strange they were dressed, it would not be hard to hide the deception.

  “Wallace, your mother was there. She was able to wrest the items apart, but in the struggle, she was attacked, injected with, well, we don’t know. While she was successful in thwarting the theft, she did not escape without harm. It was this injection, we believe, that caused the cancer to grow,” Mr. Bell said.

  Dr. Banneker spoke softly, as if this was something he had thought many times to himself but had never ventured to say aloud. “Maria, Marie Curie, still refuses to admit that her glowing ‘baby’ could have been the cause of Louisa’s death. There was nothing we could…nothing…”

  “I see,” said Wallace.

  “I don’t see,” demanded Faye. “What items? What project? You still have not told us anything except that the mysterious men in black might be imposters and that Komar Romak can be anywhere.”

&nb
sp; “Yes, they have.” Noah’s heart pounded in his ears. “We know that Komar Romak does not shy away from killing our mothers.”

  “But…do we know for certain Komar Romak captured Madame Ariana?” asked Faye. “How do we know he has Noah’s mother?”

  “This arrived,” said Mr. Bell, handing a photograph to Noah. It was a photograph of his mother, in her costume, semi-asleep, as she leaned against the wall of a hut, sitting on a rough mattress. The light was coming in through the small window above Ariana’s head. All that could be seen outside was a pigeon house and the ruins of a minaret, the crumbled top still hanging from the upper wall.

  Bile welled up in Noah’s gut. “What did it say?”

  “Nothing,” said Mr. Bell. “Just the photograph. And what is on the back.”

  Noah picked up the photograph. He turned it over and shot a look at Mr. Bell. When Mr. Bell returned the look, the little man gave a very small but evident nod towards Noah. Noah looked at the back of the photograph. In tight script, the words “Komar Romak” were stamped on the back. The writing was not in ink but seemed to have been pressed into the paper itself.

  “When did this arrive?” asked Noah, looking directly at Mr. Bell.

  “It arrived six hours after we arrived back here,” Mr. Bell said. “It is all we have.”

  Dr. Banneker pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. He had given up all attempts to stem the tears.

  Noah’s face was free of tears. “We must go now.” This was a command for the children. They all knew it.

  “Where are you going?” Miss Brett said, standing.

  A sting of cold sweat covered Noah’s pale face as he walked to the door. The other children followed. Noah turned to look around at the parents. “We are going to do what we can to save my mother.”

  Dr. Tobias Modest tried to reach for the boy’s arm “But—”