by Ann Hood
Maisie stood in the doorway, bouncing up and down on her toes, ready to go.
“Coming?” she asked Felix.
Felix hesitated. “What about the Ziffs?” he asked, glancing around as if the the twins might be lurking behind a shelf, or about to drop in from the Congo all of a sudden.
“Great-Uncle Thorne can figure that out,” she said, only a little guiltily. “I mean, Mom and Dad are together downstairs. And there’s no Agatha—”
“Well, there is a Bruce Fishbaum,” Felix reminded her.
“How in the world could anyone choose Bruce Fishbaum over Dad?” Maisie shrieked.
Now Felix sighed. If he could explain the confusing way the human heart worked, he would. But he had no idea.
“Bruce Fishbaum has nautically themed clothes!” Maisie said. “He wears purple! A lot!”
Felix shrugged. “I just think—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Maisie said. “I’m going downstairs, where I’ll maybe even celebrate their reunion.”
With that, she left, making sure to stomp out so that Felix was absolutely sure she was fed up with him.
From the top of the stairs, Maisie heard the most beautiful sound she could imagine: the sound of her parents laughing together. She paused to take it in, her father’s husky chuckle and her mother’s tinkling-bell laugh, the one that she perfected doing summer- stock musicals.
Maisie breathed in the laughter and then ran down the stairs, following the sound through the Library and into the Cigar Room, which was little used now but once was where Phinneas Pickworth and his cronies would meet after dinner for cognac and cigars, retelling their great adventures.
The Cigar Room had striped wallpaper and a zebra-skin rug; the furniture was all heavy and ornate and made of teak by a craftsman in Indonesia. Despite all the time that had passed since Phinneas Pickworth was in the room, the smell of cigar smoke still lingered.
Maisie’s father sat perched on the corner of the long narrow table that held crystal decanters of cognacs and single-malt whiskeys, some of them still holding the amber liquids. Her mother looked up at him from the largest, most ornate chair, the one that looked like a throne. And she was smiling, a big toothy smile. When Maisie cleared her throat, neither of them even turned toward her.
“Hello?” Maisie said.
“Oh!” her mother said, color rushing to her cheeks. “Maisie.”
“That’s the one,” Maisie said. “What are you two up to?”
“Your father is just . . .” Her mother frowned. “He’s just making me laugh, that’s all.”
“The foibles of love,” her father said.
Maisie took this as hopeful.
“Wait until Mom tells you about Bruce Fishbaum,” she said wickedly. “He wears purple.”
“Maisie!” her mother said.
“He does,” Maisie insisted. “Also, his ties all have a nautical theme.”
Her father stifled a smile.
“Jake,” her mother said, getting up stiffly, “you were just about to leave, weren’t you?”
“I was,” he said, hopping down from the table. “But I’ll be at the Viking for a few days so I can see you two,” he said, pointing at Maisie.
The smell of dog overtook the faint aroma of cigars as James Ferocious wandered into the Cigar Room.
“Ugh!” Maisie’s mother groaned. “What are we going to do with this monstrosity?”
“Tell you what,” her father said, “I’ll come by first thing and take him to the vet and to a groomer for a bath.”
“Deal,” her mother said.
As she walked out past James Ferocious, she wrinkled her nose.
“How old is this dog?” she said. “He smells ancient.”
“Only a hundred years old,” Maisie said.
“Very funny, Maisie,” her mother said, shaking her head.
Upstairs in The Treasure Chest, Felix waited for Great-Uncle Thorne to return. He couldn’t help but start to worry—about the Ziff twins and the Fabergé egg that had mysteriously reappeared and about Maisie. One thing Felix felt fairly certain about was that their parents were not going to get married again. At least not to each other. But he could see that Maisie was already imagining it, already planning on all of them being a family again.
Felix picked up a magnifying glass and peered through it, enjoying how everything on the desk came into focus. The delicate marks on the quill pen on the desk. The smudges on a test tube. He rummaged through the objects, keeping the magnifying glass pressed against his eye.
A small gold cylinder rolled out from beneath a dried corsage. Felix lowered the magnifying glass and picked up the cylinder. It was heavy but unremarkable. Except for the odd symbol on one end. Felix frowned, trying to determine what that symbol was. A coat of arms, maybe? The center almost looked like the design on one of his father’s ties, but there were definitely flowers on it, too. And a thin layer of dark red covered it. Paint? Or . . . Felix shivered . . . blood?
Great-Uncle Thorne’s noisy return right then made Felix jump.
“What’s that you’re examining?” Great-Uncle Thorne demanded.
Felix held it up, squinting.
“Hmmm,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “It’s a seal. You melt wax onto the back of an envelope and then press that into it. Leaves the mark of . . .”
He leaned closer to see what was on the end.
“Ah! That’s the giglio. The emblem of Florence.”
“What’s a giglio?” Felix asked him.
“I’m sure even you’ve seen the fleur-de-lis on flags and coats of arms?”
“Fleur . . . what?”
“Philistines! You and that surly sister of yours!”
Felix studied the symbol again. “Maybe I’ve seen something like it somewhere,” he said.
“Somewhere?” Great-Uncle Thorne repeated, raising his arms and his eyes upward as if praying for help. “The fleur-de-lis has been the enduring symbol of France for centuries!”
“Maybe that’s where—”
“And the arms of the king of Spain!”
“Oh, maybe that’s where—”
“And the grand duke of Luxembourg!”
“Well, then, gee, sure,” Felix said.
“But that is the giglio, which distinguishes itself by showing a blossom, always red, comprised of three main petals and three thin stamens arranged symmetrically.”
Felix smiled, relieved. If this seal was pressed into red wax, then that’s what he saw. Not blood, but the remnants of wax.
“In fact,” Great-Uncle Thorne was saying, “the floral symbol goes back to ancient times, to 59 BC, when Florence was founded around the time of the Roman celebration of spring and the white iris florentina was in full bloom. Why, the Romans even called the city Florentia, and held festivities there to honor the goddess Flora. If you’re ever lucky enough to visit Florence, you’ll see the giglio everywhere. On the Ponte Vecchio and the Duomo—”
“I thought you said the gi . . . gig . . .”
“Giglio!” Great-Uncle Thorne boomed in exasperation.
“Right,” Felix said. “I thought you said it was red.”
“And?”
“Well, you said the iris florentina was white.”
To Felix’s surprise, Great-Uncle Thorne grinned at him. “You’re right! Good observation! The colors were inverted in 1266. The Guelphs took control of Florence and used a red lily on a white background on their flags. And so it has remained ever since.”
Great-Uncle Thorne got that faraway look that often crossed over him.
And Felix took that opportunity to put the seal in his pocket. He would write Lily Goldberg a letter, he decided, and melt red wax onto the back of the envelope, and press the giglio into it. He could picture her all the way in Cleveland puzzlin
g over the symbol. When she Googled it, she’d see that it was a lily! What a perfect plan, Felix decided.
But his delight faded when his very next thought was the Ziff twins’ disappearance.
“Uncle Thorne?” Felix said softly.
Great-Uncle Thorne blinked several times, as if he were blinking away a memory.
“What about Rayne and Hadley?”
“Who?”
“The Ziff twins,” Felix reminded him.
“Very troubling,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “Bothersome. Potentially catastrophic.”
“Catastrophic?” Felix repeated with a quiver in his voice. He thought about how Hadley’s curly black hair got even curlier in the damp Newport sea air, and how a glimpse of Rayne’s hot-pink braces always made him smile, and how the Ziff twins were the only friends he and Maisie actually shared, and the next thing he knew, Felix burst into tears.
Great-Uncle Thorne looked at Felix, horrified.
“Now, now,” he said awkwardly. “We’ll figure out how to get them back.”
“But how can we possibly?” Felix blurted, which made him cry harder.
“We’ll . . . why . . . You and Maisie can go back to the Congo and get them!” Great-Uncle Thorne banged his walking stick for emphasis, and grinned triumphantly.
But the last thing Felix wanted to do was go back to the Congo. And besides, Hadley and Rayne had the object.
“This is hopeless,” Felix groaned.
“Nothing is hopeless,” Great-Uncle Thorne said unconvincingly.
Felix’s crying slowed. He hiccupped and wiped the tears off his face.
“This is,” he said.
But as soon as he said it, Felix felt the slightest hint of a cool breeze. He could tell Great-Uncle Thorne felt it, too, by the way his eyebrows lifted and his nose twitched.
Felix smelled a hint of something sweet, and heard a faint sound from somewhere far, far away.
And then—just like that!—Hadley and Rayne dropped into The Treasure Chest.
Except for his father showing up at Elm Medona this afternoon, Felix had never been so happy to see someone.
“You’re alive!” he shouted as he ran over to them and spontaneously pulled them both into a hug.
“No thanks to you,” Rayne said, wriggling away from him.
“We were going to get eaten by lions,” Felix tried to explain.
But Rayne held up her hand to stop him. “Don’t bother,” she said. “You have no idea what we’ve been through. Lions. Hah!”
“Curious,” Great-Uncle Thorne said thoughtfully. “Since we’ve never had travelers left behind, I can’t explain what’s happened here or why. But hallelujah! You’re back!”
Felix turned to Hadley, who was still standing in a half-hug with him. Her hair looked like corkscrew pasta standing up all around her head.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “First Maisie got kidnapped by a silverback gorilla, and then I practically got bitten by a huge poisonous snake, and then—”
“The lions,” Hadley finished for him. “I know. I saw you.”
“You were there?”
Hadley nodded. “I was on the other side of that pride—”
“—and I was being held hostage by natives!” Rayne said indignantly. “They had never seen hair like mine before and they wanted it. All of it.” She smoothed her hair nervously as she talked. “The whole village came to stare at me and touch my hair, and then the chief started making preparations to cut it all off—”
“And then you escaped,” Hadley reminded her.
“Barely,” Rayne muttered.
“Meanwhile,” Hadley said, “I saw those lions, and I saw you and Maisie, but I was afraid to call out to you. I mean, I didn’t want the lions to see me. And then in a flash you two completely vanished.” She snapped her fingers. “Faster than that!”
“We ended up in St. Louis,” Felix said.
“Missouri?” Rayne asked, incredulous.
Felix nodded. “And then we went to Kansas, and you’ll never guess who we met.”
When neither Ziff twin tried to guess, he said, “Amelia Earhart!”
“Well,” Rayne huffed, “while you were in Kansas with Amelia Earhart, I had to spend the night alone in the jungle with a tribe chasing me, and Hadley lost.”
Felix cringed at the thought. The jungle had been scary enough in the daytime. He couldn’t imagine what it was like at night.
As if she’d read his mind, Rayne continued. “Civets,” she said, “are nocturnal. They are creepy little animals that come out around midnight to hunt. Also badgers and other animals I can’t even describe. And of course, leopards.”
“But you were fine,” Hadley said.
“Until the elephants,” Rayne said.
“Well, the elephants were kind of scary,” Hadley agreed.
“Kind of? They charged us! A whole herd of them!”
“But we managed to escape,” Hadley said proudly.
“You got charged by a herd of elephants?” Felix sputtered. “And then what?”
Hadley smiled at Felix.
“And then,” she said, “we found Amy Pickworth.”
CHAPTER 3
911
Even though Maisie did not like that her father left, she took comfort in the fact that James Ferocious stayed by her side and followed her up the Grand Staircase, and along the hallway that led to the wall with the special place to press. When the wall magically opened, James Ferocious yelped. Maisie liked that, too. She bent and petted him behind his ears until he closed his eyes in sheer happiness.
“Come on, boy,” she whispered.
James Ferocious groaned a little and pushed his big smelly head against her leg for more petting.
“We’ve got things to do,” Maisie told the dog. But she still had to tug on his collar to get him to come with her.
The staircase looked small beneath the big dog, who galumphed up it awkwardly, his claws scratching as he kept his balance. James Ferocious was the first one to reach The Treasure Chest, but instead of going inside, he slid to a halt at the door and let out a mournful howl.
Maisie came up right behind him.
She stopped dead in her tracks, too. Though instead of a howl, she gasped.
“Oh no!”
Three pairs of eyes turned toward her.
“Is he . . . ?” Maisie began, unable to say the actual word.
Great-Uncle Thorne was splayed on the floor of The Treasure Chest, his face a ghostly white, his eyes closed, and a thin line of drool coming from his gaping mouth.
Hadley kneeled beside him, her ear pressed to his chest.
From here, Great-Uncle Thorne looked oddly small and very, very old.
“His heart’s beating!” Hadley announced, and it seemed to Maisie that everyone and everything gave an enormous sigh of relief. Even James Ferocious. Even The Treasure Chest itself.
“Face pale, raise the tail,” Rayne instructed. She’d been a Girl Scout for exactly two weeks, long enough to earn exactly one merit badge. Luckily it was in first aid.
Felix grabbed a needlepoint pillow from a small footstool. Like everything in The Treasure Chest, that pillow was old. The fabric had faded from white to gray, and the crooked stitching on it was fraying. As Felix slid it beneath Great-Uncle Thorne’s head, he noted the date stitched there: 1776.
“Raise the tail,” Rayne said.
When Felix looked confused, she said, “His feet.”
Why she would call feet a tail, Felix didn’t know, but he obeyed.
Great-Uncle Thorne’s feet seemed to weigh a ton, two heavy deadweights in what he called his house slippers, black velvet things with three interlocked gold Ps on the tops.
James Ferocious refused to enter The Treasure Chest, but Maisie cautiously walked in. Great
-Uncle Thorne might have a heartbeat, but he looked about as awful as a person could look.
Rayne, all serious, stuck two of her fingers beneath Great-Uncle Thorne’s nose.
“He’s breathing, all right,” she said. “I think the old bugger just fainted, that’s all.”
“Shouldn’t we do something?” Felix asked, not convinced that this wasn’t an emergency. “Get smelling salts or call nine-one-one or something?”
Everyone turned to Rayne for her opinion. She considered, then said, “Cold compresses.”
“Could you speak English, please?” Felix grumbled.
“Cold damp facecloths,” she said, sighing.
Felix jumped to his feet and ran out to get them, muttering, “Cold compresses,” as he did.
It wasn’t until Felix was gone and Maisie stood alone with the prone Great-Uncle Thorne and the Ziff twins that she realized that they—the Ziff twins—were back. And seemingly alive and well.
“Hadley!” she shrieked, and hugged her friend. “Rayne!”
Rayne shook her head. “No hugging during first aid,” she said.
“You’re both okay,” Maisie said, another rush of relief washing over her.
“No thanks to you,” Rayne said.
Maisie looked at her, surprised. “We were about to be eaten by lions!” she began.
But Rayne shook her head again. “Lions? I was kidnapped and almost scalped, chased by a herd of elephants—”
“Saved by the cold compresses,” Hadley said as Felix rushed back in with two jewel-toned, monogrammed facecloths dripping cold water.
“On the forehead,” Rayne ordered.
Felix slapped one on Great-Uncle Thorne’s furrowed forehead, causing the old man to practically leap to his feet.
“What in tarnation?” he shouted.
As soon as he sat up, however, he had to lie right back down.
“Dizzy,” he said.
“Stay put,” Rayne told him. “You fainted,” she added.
“I’ve never fainted in my life,” Great-Uncle Thorne protested weakly.