by Geoff Watson
“Then I’ll be the one to deal with Curt Keller,” Tom’s dad answered. “But no amount of treasure is worth putting all your lives at risk.”
“This one is!” Tom yelled, so loudly a few commuters turned their heads and shot Mr. Edison irritated stares. “This is our family’s greatest secret, and you’re just going to sit back and let Tesla’s great-grandson walk away with it. Do you even realize what would happen if a guy like Keller got his hands on the formula?”
“We’ll finish this conversation at home. With your mother.” Tom’s dad’s voice meant business. “Now march!”
Tom, Noodle, and Colby headed toward the exit doors, but after three steps, Tom couldn’t bring himself to move any farther.
“You know what the first thing kids at school say when I tell them my last name’s Edison?” Tom asked his father.
“T, don’t,” Colby whispered under her breath.
“They say, ‘Wow. What happened to you?’ ”
It killed Tom to hurt his father like this, but he couldn’t keep the words from coming out. But more than that, he couldn’t let the adventure end. Not here. Not now.
“My last name,” he continued, his voice choking up, “is just another word for failure.”
Mr. Edison didn’t open his mouth. He just stood there, silent.
“We’re going home, and that’s all there is to it,” he finally said. “Your safety’s the only thing I’m worried about.”
Tom closed his eyes. It felt like someone had taken a hot poker to all his internal organs and squished them around.
“Some things are worth the risk,” he said, catching his father’s unwavering stare as he trudged toward the doors.
“Please tell me we’re not going back the same way we came,” said Noodle in an effort to lighten the mood.
“I’ll put the taxi on my credit card.” Tom’s dad placed his hands on Colby’s and Noodle’s shoulders and followed Tom toward the terminal’s exit. “Right now we all just need to get home.”
As the four of them walked, Mr. Edison couldn’t shake the heavy weight tugging at his heart. He’d felt disappointment loads of times in his life, but today was the first time he’d ever seen that same disappointment in his son’s eyes.
He made a silent promise to do better. He didn’t want his only son growing up with the same feelings of failure that he carried with him every day. That would not be his legacy.
“… and the terminal’s celestial sky was painted in nineteen twelve by the artist Paul Helleu.” Mr. Edison overheard a tour guide passing by with a group of old ladies, who were all snapping photos like machine guns. Their heads were craned upward to take in the terminal’s green-blue ceiling mural that was peppered with stars and gold-shaded drawings of zodiac characters—the Gemini twins, the Taurus bull—all gazing blankly down onto the concourse.
“But due to an embarrassing error on the artist’s part, the entire celestial map is painted backward!” continued the tour guide. “The Vanderbilt family, who commissioned the piece, joked that Helleu was painting the night sky from God’s point of view.”
Tom pushed through the crowd of eager tourists and exited Grand Central Terminal.
It was impossible for him to accept that the hunt was over—that everything he’d worked so hard for, all the dangers he’d endured, it was all for nothing. His dad had the next clue, and Keller had the rest. It was too crushing.
This is the fate of the Edison men, Tom thought as they waited in line for the next available cab to take them back to Yonkers.
A small yellow minivan pulled up to the curb, and as the four of them stepped into it, Tom’s dad was also wrestling with his decision not to tell his son about the stock ticker clue. Although he understood Tom’s frustrations, he simply didn’t know what a man like Curt Keller was capable of.
Better to let the authorities handle things.
The van turned right onto 42nd Street, and Tom’s dad watched Grand Central’s imposing entrance grow smaller in the side-view mirror. It was really was quite striking to look at. The ornate stone-chiseled facade encircling the old clock, the two reclining Roman gods staring up at—
Now which one was it? Mr. Edison wondered. He could never remember. Zeus? No, it was the one who wore the hat. The messenger god …
As the van continued along the road, the messenger god’s name finally came to Mr. Edison, and as it danced around in his brain, he wondered why it sounded so familiar, so strangely important.
Then the answer dawned on him, and the color drained from his face, while excited goose bumps formed on every inch of his body. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced for longer than he could remember. It was a feeling of hope.
“Mercury!” he yelled out of nowhere, frightening the cab driver as well as the kids in back. “ ‘Through Mercury’s gate, you’ll reach the backward horse!’ ”
“Dad, who are you talking to?”
“Turn the car around,” Mr. Edison practically screamed to the driver. “We have some unfinished business to attend to.”
No, failure would not be his legacy.
There’s the little twerp!”
Relief washed visibly over Curt Keller’s face when he saw young Tom Edison, along with his friends and his father, enter the terminal concourse.
“Let’s hope they’ve got some answers for us,” said Lieutenant Faber, who was standing to his left in a sweatshirt and jeans. “Because I don’t know how else I’m going to be able to get you out of these kidnapping charges if they come up.”
“You’ll get me out of trouble if you want those checks to keep coming,” said Keller. “And I assure you, the alchemy formula is well worth the risk.”
“So do you want me to arrest the Edison kid or not?” Faber didn’t like her strange old benefactor too much, but ten thousand dollars a week was certainly worth putting her neck on the line.
“Hang tight.” Keller wore a mischievous grin as he flicked an invisible speck of dust from his impeccable Italian suit. “Let’s see if old Edison leads us right to it.”
“Lemme call in a couple off-duty cops, just in case.” Lieutenant Faber grabbed her cell and speed-dialed a few guys she knew she could trust. Guys who, like her, weren’t afraid to bend a few rules.
“I hope you’re calling someone more competent than that imbecile private investigator you pawned off on me.” Keller spun on the heel of his alligator-leather loafer and retreated a few steps from the balcony ledge to make sure he wasn’t spotted.
“Hey, Nicky Polazzi’s one of the best private eyes in the business,” Faber called after him, bristling at the attack. “You’re the genius who tried to make your own rules when you had him throw two seventh graders into an unmarked van.”
“It was meant to be an empty threat,” said Keller. “Just to shake them up.”
“Well, it’s against the law.”
“We’ve all broken a few laws, Lieutenant.”
He’d be happy when this hunt was over and the alchemy formula was safely in his hands. Between feisty police officers and bratty children, it was all giving him quite a headache, but he knew it would be worth it in the end.
Nikola Tesla’s revenge was just within his grasp.
How do we get close enough to see it?”
Tom stared up at the golden Pegasus, the winged horse, that had been painted in the corner of the Grand Central ceiling.
“ ‘Through Mercury’s gate, you’ll reach the backward horse,’ ” his dad repeated for maybe the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes.
“We all got that part, Big T,” said Noodle with an exaggerated eye roll.
“ ‘The circled rose will light your course.’ ” Mr. Edison whispered the second part of the riddle softer to himself. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking from nerves and excitement.
“What circled rose?” Tom scanned the entire ceiling for some kind of clue, a sign, anything. “I don’t see it anywhere.”
“The only way to find out what it means
is by taking a much closer look at that horse.” Mr. Edison took several steps one way, then another, in hope of seeing the problem from a different angle. It wasn’t working.
All around them, commuters were flooding the station’s Main Concourse as the evening rush hour ritual began. Uniformed police officers had begun popping up all over the place, too, and Tom couldn’t help noticing the sheathed guns and nightsticks holstered at their waists.
“Shame I left my web spinners at home,” said Tom, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“Like I’ve always said, nothing’s ever easy with the old Sub Rosa.” Colby collapsed onto a nearby bench and dropped her head in her hands. It was the second time she’d closed her eyes in almost forty-eight hours, and she could feel herself quickly dozing off.
“Spider-Man, huh.” Tom’s dad wiped his glasses with the bottom of his still-damp shirt. “It’s an interesting proposition.”
“Where’re you going with this, Dad?”
“Well, I know it might sound crazy, but …” His voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“No, never mind. I really shouldn’t even be thinking like this.”
“Out with it, Big T.”
“Well.” He paused for a moment. “Remember the Clorox SuperDuperStick patent you helped me with last summer?”
“Yeah, but we couldn’t get it to work.”
Mr. Edison nodded. “Because I think we didn’t use a strong enough binder. Perhaps if we reworked the ratios a little …”
Tom felt a small flicker of anticipation zap his stomach. “We’d need to find Zytrol somewhere, though. And oil, resin. Some sort of compound to make rubber.”
“And a hot stove.” Lost in thought, Mr. Edison rubbed his forehead and paced away from the group about ten yards.
“Plus, it’d be dangerous,” said Tom, catching up to walk alongside him. “I’m not sure I could get high up enough before the solution—”
“Oh, no. You wouldn’t be the one going up,” said Tom’s dad. “I would.”
“You sure that’s a good idea? You’re old.”
“I’m not that old, wise guy.” He gave Tom a light smack on the back of the head. Tom grinned. It was nice to see his father so intrigued. It had been a long time since Tom had witnessed that. “And no. I think this is all one big terrible idea, but I’m all out of any better ones—”
“And I have no clue what the two of you are talking about when you speak in Edisonian geek ciphers,” Noodle interrupted, trailing them.
“Trust me, it’s better that you don’t,” Tom called back as he scanned the concourse for some place where they might find the necessary ingredients for SuperDuperStick. “What about that restaurant?” he said, pointing toward the Oyster Bar at the end of a lower walkway, just off the Main Concourse. “They’ve gotta have stoves at a fancy place like that, right? And maybe the ingredients we need.”
“It’s worth a shot,” said his dad.
Fifteen minutes is all we ask, then my son here and I will do your dishes for the rest of the night.”
The Oyster Bar’s bearded head chef, who looked more pirate than cook, held Mr. Edison’s stare for a long moment, trying to figure out whether or not this was some kind of joke. This was one of those times Tom was thankful his dad had such an innocent face.
“All right,” the cook finally said. “It’s a real strange request, but I know a good deal when I see one.”
“I could tell that just from looking at you,” Tom’s dad said.
“I’ll give you these two burners and any basic pantry ingredients you need for ten minutes. But touch my seafood, I kill you.”
“Great. Hands off the seafood. Got it.” Tom’s dad nodded quickly since the chef looked like he was prepared to make good on his threat. “I appreciate this.”
“And once we get slammed with the dinner rush, you and your boy will start in on pots and pans.”
“Absolutely.”
And with a low grunt, the chef stomped back toward his station behind a massive grill, where his minions sautéed shrimp, fried calamari, filleted salmon, and prepared just about every other edible sea creature.
Wasting no time, Mr. Edison grabbed a large pot and saucepan from the shelf behind him, then added in a cup of oil and waited for it to bubble. A few waiters shot him confused looks as they passed through to grab hot plates of food and drop off orders.
Several minutes later, Tom returned from the rear of the kitchen lugging a can of blue paint, a bottle of Clorox bleach, and a small metal tin of industrial wood varnish.
“Your thirteen dollars got me access to the storage closet. Janitor said I could borrow whatever I wanted.” Tom placed all the ingredients onto the countertop. “Zytrol in the paint, bleach in the Clorox, and we can reduce the varnish down to a resin.”
“Excellent.” Tom’s dad gave a thumbs-up, all the while stirring the oil until it was splattering over the edges of the pan. “Now measure me out six ounces of bleach.”
Tom did, then dumped it into the large pot. In seconds, the smell of burning Clorox filled the room.
“Yo!” The chef yelled over from across the kitchen with his palms in the air. “You didn’t mention anything about stinking up the entire joint.”
“I’m sorry. It’ll only be another five minutes, max.”
The chef didn’t look pleased or convinced.
“If he thinks that’s bad,” said Tom’s dad under his breath, “wait till I start simmering the paint.”
“Yeah, this one could get ugly.”
As Tom carefully ladled six tablespoons of gooey blue paint into a measuring cup, he felt an overwhelming warmth come over him. He hadn’t worked on an invention with his dad in months, and he’d forgotten how much fun it was.
“The Zytrol’s ready when you are,” he said.
This is sooooo super boring.”
Colby leaned against one of the many vaulted archways outside the Oyster Bar and let out a huge yawn. “They’re taking forever in there.”
“When did you become Indiana Jones?” Noodle asked. “The Colby I know used to have germ-induced panic attacks at recess.”
“A: that was one time when the pollen count was particularly high. And B: the old Colby had never climbed through hundred-foot-high museum vents or been chased by a maniac through Brooklyn, run down by a speeding train, kidnapped, then chased again by said maniac through some freaky haunted mansion.”
“Touché,” said Noodle with a small eyebrow raise, then went back to amusing himself with another round of people watching. “Check out this guy coming in off the Metro-North. He’s totally rocking out on his iPod like he’s alone in his bedroom.” Colby was about to walk over and help him make fun of the singing freak when—
“You’re kinda weird,” came a ghostly voice from behind her head. She turned toward Noodle.
“Why’d you just call me weird?”
“I didn’t, dork. Even though it happens to be true.”
The ghostly voice behind her giggled.
Colby spun onto her hands and knees. Perhaps it was lack of sleep, but if she didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn the wall was speaking to her. Slowly she peered close to the base of the archway.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Look behind you,” said the voice.
She turned. Standing about fifty feet away from her was a little boy, both hands in the air, waving. Colby stared back at the curving wall.
“How am I able to hear you?” she asked.
“Because it’s the Whispering Gallery.”
“Who are you talking to?” A confused Noodle approached with caution. “You just became way more interesting to watch than any of the weirdo commuters.”
“I’m talking to him.” She nodded across the archway, then to prove her point, cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned close to the wall. “Say something for my friend.”
“He looks like a poodle,” said the voice.
Noodle squinted
his eyes to make out the little boy.
“I’m twice your size, punk,” he whispered.
Another echoing giggle.
Colby stepped out into the middle of the archway. “It’s like perfect acoustic symmetry. The pressure waves from our voices must be internally reflected somehow.”
“Colb!” Noodle’s mouth was wide open. “Didn’t that old record say something about a whisper?”
It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about.
“Oh, yeah!” Colby clapped her hands together. “It was like, ‘My whisper takes you to the place,’ then something about being right below your feet.”
“Right, right, but it kept repeating the whisper part.” Noodle followed her, snapping his fingers to an unheard waltz, trying to recall the song. “Then hop on a railway cart, remember? To some secret suite.”
“Our secret suite.”
“Yes!”
The little boy scurried away toward a woman in a business suit, who was talking on her cell outside the Oyster Bar.
“What do you think it means? Our secret suite?” Colby now approached the other side of the archway and ran her hand along its stone surface, searching for any secret levers, marks, or symbols.
“That there’s a hidden room somewhere around here, obvi,” said Noodle as he walked to the middle of the archway. A few businessmen brushed past him.
“ ‘My whisper takes you to the place, I’m right below your feet,’ ” Colby said to herself as she turned her gaze toward the ground. “Right below your feet,” she repeated.
The floor was dark with square tiles. Nothing out of the ordinary, except …
“Noodle, what are you standing on?” Colby raced over and pointed at his sneakers, where a sliver of shiny yellow peeked out from beneath his soles.
He stepped back to reveal a gold-plated, encircled rose that had been laid into the floor. It was smaller than a DVD.
He crouched down to inspect it. “Thousands of people probably walk over this thing every day and never think twice about it.”