Kicking aside a stool, she ran from the kitchen.
CHAPTER TWO
The Forbidden Room
Chase lurked silently in the shadows at the far end of the long hallway. For nearly an hour, he’d been peeking around the corner as he watched Janie stand in front of the dark-brown door, its shiny, brass handle glinting in the light from the sconces hanging on the wall behind her. She looked as if she was having an inner tug-of-war with herself. Several times, she reached for the handle, but then lurched back without touching it, as though it were on fire or something.
They now knew that no dangerous power lived in the room, as Grandfather had first told them, but rather Clair’s own power. It was a room they once had been forbidden to enter, because Grandfather had wanted to prevent the kids from knowing Clair was really dead.
In that room, anyone would be able to perform her magical ability to move through solid objects. For some reason, Chase thought that if any of them went in there, it would make her death feel even more real, and painful. In spite of this, his curiosity still wanted Janie to fling open the door and just get it over with.
It was sort of eerie, watching his cousin standing there like a lost waif, tears rolling down her cheeks, her quiet sniffling drifting down the hall. After she’d bolted from the kitchen, leaving everyone in wide-eyed shock, Chase had gone in search of her, hoping to help somehow. He wasn’t sure what he even planned to say to her. Maybe that’s why he’d remained there, skulking in the shadows like some sort of weird Peeping Tom.
He jumped about a mile in the air when he heard Persephone’s voice behind him. “Chase, here you are.”
“We’ve been looking all over for you,” added Andy.
“Geez!” he whispered harshly. “You scared the heck outta me.”
Janie jerked at the sound of their voices. She looked as though she’d been caught spray-painting graffiti on the walls, until she realized what was happening.
“You were spying on me?”
Persephone rounded the corner. “Janie? What’s going on?”
“Ask Chase,” she answered, planting her fists on her hips. “Well?”
Everyone looked at Chase and waited. He slipped his hands into his pockets and scuffed his toe on the carpet runner. “I—I didn’t mean to sneak around or anything. I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t want to interrupt when I finally found you…here…”
“It’s Clair’s power room,” Persephone noted unnecessarily as she, Chase and Andy joined Janie in front of the door. She reached out and ran her fingertips down the smooth wood. “Has anyone been inside?”
“Maybe it’s still enchanted,” said Andy. “Do you want to try breaking in again, Chase?”
Andy smirked at his brother, who knew Andy was referring to the humiliating spanking Chase had received from the door for attempting to break into it when Grandfather had specifically told them to stay away from it.
“Did you have to bring that up?” asked Chase between clenched teeth. He gave Persephone a sideways glance before sending Andy a fierce glare. Andy just shrugged.
Persephone reached for the handle, but Janie grabbed her arm and yanked her back. “No!”
“Why not?” Persephone asked as she wrenched her arm away from Janie and straightened her shirt with an indignant tug on the hem. “It should be okay now that we all know the truth, shouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Chase. “Who wants to give it a try?”
“No one is touching this door until I say so!” shouted Janie. “She was my mom, so I think I should be the one to decide when, or if, anyone goes inside.”
“That’s absurd!” Persephone’s eyes practically shot off green sparks. “We can go in if we want.”
Chase scooted back. He’d seen Persephone angry only once. It had been the day of their time-travel trip to try to save the Relic—the source of the Tinker family power—from being damaged in the past. She hadn’t liked the idea of Chase, Andy and Janie going to talk to their ancestor, Jedadiah. They had gone anyway. And, though Chase hated to admit it, she’d been right. They had unexpectedly found themselves without their powers, and when the three bandits had arrived, the kids weren’t prepared to fight and had ended up captured instead.
She’d been especially angry at Chase, so he was happy it wasn’t him this time who was the object of her wrath.
“You are totally out of control, Janie!” she hollered. “And I’m sick and tired of it.”
“How would you feel if you lost your mother?” whined Janie.
“You can not keep using that as an excuse to behave any way you like,” said Persephone, sounding exasperated. “Do you think your mom would want that?”
Janie crossed her arms and clamped her lips together.
“Well I say she wouldn’t!” snapped Persephone. “So get over yourself!”
Chase glanced from one girl to the other. “I think—”
“Zip it, Tinker!” snapped Persephone, holding up her hand in front of his face.
“Hey!” he said, looking insulted.
“We’re going in there whether you like it or not, Janie.” Persephone swung around, grabbed the handle and gave it a sharp turn.
“I said no!”
But it was too late. The door swung open with the loud creaks and moans of long-unused hinges. Chase felt Andy beside him, close enough to be his shadow.
No one said a word as spooky, wavering, fluorescent-green light spilled out and into the hallway, followed by swirling, lime-green smoke, or maybe vapor. Chase squinted at it as it drifted around them. No, it was actually more like thick, cloying fog. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but that fog soon started to look exactly like a bunch of terrifying ghosts, their long arms reaching out to grab them, their ghostly mouths open in silent screams.
Chills raced up and down his spine as Chase realized this was a lot like a nightmare he had every now and then. He’d find himself, late at night, wandering through a creepy old cemetery. Light-gray fog would slink along the ground toward him, drifting and swirling around the tall, mossy headstones. Then, all of a sudden, the fog would rise up and change into tall phantoms with black eye-sockets, and long, bony fingers reaching out to him. At that point, he would jerk awake, sweating and shaking, but awfully happy to find himself safe in his own bed.
Andy peeked around Chase at the open doorway. “That was easy,” said Andy. “No crazy booby trap thing to get us.”
“Maybe a little too easy,” said Persephone.
Chase rubbed his eyes and looked at the creepy fog again. Nope, he wasn’t dreaming this time. He glanced back over his shoulder, wanting to see Janie’s reaction, but she was gone. “Too bad Janie didn’t stick around.”
“She sure was scary,” said Andy.
“For a second there, I thought Persephone was going to punch her,” said Chase as he stretched his neck to peer inside the eerily glowing room.
“The thought did cross my mind,” said Persephone. “So, since it’s open, we might as well go in, huh?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” said Chase. “Why not?” He shivered as he and Andy eased through the chilly fog and stepped through the doorway after Persephone. The three kids lurched to a stop when they saw they were standing at the top of a tall, narrow flagstone staircase.
Through the fog, they saw that the whole room was a huge, fantastic maze. It had dozens of complicated, criss-crossing, zigzagging and spiraling twists and turns. The ghostly-green walls shifted and shimmered as if they were made of fine sand. One moment they were almost transparent, and the next they were as solid as concrete.
“Wow!” whispered Andy. “I sure didn’t expect this.”
The lime-green fog continued to swirl and waver around them as they crept down the steps and approached the maze. The walls were much taller than the three kids. Chase glanced at Persephone’s and Andy’s faces and then at his own hands and arms. Their skin glowed with the same green light as everything else in the room.
They wandered through an opening and into one of the giant spirals. Round and round they walked, until they turned a corner and followed a narrow zigzagging passage.
“Why does it keep changing like this?” asked Persephone as she ran her finger along one of the walls.
“Weird, huh?” answered Chase, gazing around at the strangeness of it all. He’d been in a lot of magical rooms, but nothing like this. Even the floor and ceiling gave off an other-worldly, green glow, almost as if they were living entities.
“This fog stuff is weird, too,” said Andy. He brushed at the tendrils of mist curling around him. “It’s like it wants to cling to me or something.”
“Maybe it’s madly in love with you, like your girlfriend, Miss Cuddleupus,” said Chase, happy he wasn’t the only one with humiliating experiences to make fun of.
Andy shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. His first meeting with the enormous, enchanted plant, which loved to hug people, wasn’t something he liked to talk about. The goofy thing had taken a particular liking to him, much to Andy’s embarrassment and irritation. “Crazy plant, anyway!” he mumbled.
Grinning, Chase brushed at the eerie fog, which did seem to be more than a little clingy. He glanced up and saw it swirling above them, like roiling storm clouds. As he watched, a thick clump of it broke free and drifted toward him. The grin slid off his face as he again thought long skeletal arms were reaching out for him, but then to his complete astonishment, the fog took the form of Aunt Clair. Her eyes looked sad and haunted. “Chase,” she mouthed. The thick fog swooped toward him, but before it reached him, it dissolved, showering him in a fine mist.
“Yikes!” Chase shouted. His feet slipped out from under him as he scuttled backward. He crashed into the wall and slid to the floor.
“What happened?” said Andy. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Chase clamped his lips together and shook his head vigorously. He didn’t want to tell them that’s exactly what he thought he had seen. They might think he was nuts. “Tripped,” he muttered. He chanced another quick look up, but the fog had returned to drifting lazily around the room.
Persephone raised her eyebrows while Chase climbed to his feet and brushed a shaky hand through his hair. “Be more careful,” she said, shaking her finger at him.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’ll do that.” It was just a figment of my imagination, he kept telling himself. A figment of my over-active imagination. As usual.
When nothing else strange happened, Chase pushed the foggy vision from his mind. If Andy and Persephone hadn’t seen anything, then of course it hadn’t been Aunt Clair. Maybe he thought he saw her because she was on his mind a lot these days. Yeah, that’s it. He gulped. What other explanation was there?
The kids rounded another corner and abruptly ran into a dead end. They were able to sort of see through the wall and into the next part of the maze, but it was as if they were looking through sandy gelatin. Andy slid his arm into it.
“It’s like...it’s like melted ice cream, and kind of warm,” he said in awe as he slipped his other arm into it, too—just as the wall instantly became solid. “Hey, I can’t get out!” He pulled and tugged. “Chase! Do something.”
“What do you think we have to say to make the magic work?” asked Persephone.
“Liquefy,” said Chase.
“How’d you know that?”
“Beats me,” he answered with raised eyebrows. “It just popped into my brain.”
“Liquefy,” said Andy quickly, but instead of yanking his arms out, he oozed into the wall and jumped to the other side. “Come on, you guys. Try it.”
Chase and Persephone grinned at each other as they said the magic word and then slipped through the wall. “It’s weird. It’s as if your body is all squishy and liquidy for a moment, then you’re back to normal,” said Chase, squeezing his arm to make sure he really was back to his old solid self.
“This is a ridiculously cool power,” said Persephone.
“Let’s do it again,” said Andy.
They spent the next hour running around the maze, zipping through the walls and playing a game of tag. Since they never knew when the walls would change, they had to remember to say “liquefy” every time, or they would end up smashed into a solid wall that seconds earlier had been soft and easy to move through.
“Whew!” said Andy as he collapsed onto the bottom stair. “I think I worked up an appetite for some pizza.”
“Me, too,” said Persephone, dropping down beside him. “Isn’t it almost lunch time?”
Chase skidded to a stop in front of them. “You’re right,” he answered, glancing at his watch. “We’ve been in here a while.” And, he’d gone the whole time without anymore Aunt Clair sightings. So it must’ve been his imagination.
“Hey, let’s go to the room where we can shoot things out of our noses,” said Andy, his face lighting up. “We can make ice cream sundaes for dessert.”
“Great idea,” said Chase. “Pizza and ice cream works for me.”
Persephone wrinkled her nose. “But out of your nostrils? Ew. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“It is kind of an acquired taste,” said Chase, grinning as they headed up the stairs. “A-A-AAACHOOOOOO!” Losing his balance, he flew backward and slammed to the stone floor. “Owowow!” he yelled as he banged his elbow and the back of his head.
Sprawled on the floor, Chase shook his head and blinked, trying to clear his mind. He pushed himself up and waved his hand through the swirling fog.
“What in the heck is going on?”
CHAPTER THREE
An Excess of Powers
“This is crazy!” he said as he stared at Andy and Persephone in front of him…and the maze behind him. He scrambled to his feet and turned. Now he was able to see the other two behind him, gaping at him as if pink tulips had just popped out of his ears. He remembered having this experience while exploring magic rooms a couple of months ago, and if it was freaky then, it was even more so now.
Andy and Persephone hurried back down the stairs. “Chase!” said Andy. “You have eyes in the back of your head. How’d you do that?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Chase in confusion. He reached back and saw his hand waving behind himself. “They appeared all by themselves. A-A-A-ACHOOOOOO!”
The eyes vanished.
“That was too weird,” said Persephone, frowning and staring at the back of Chase’s head. “I wonder how that happened.”
Pushing past the other two, Chase tromped up the stairs and wrenched open the door. “We’re seeing things,” he said. “You know I have to be in the Eyeball Room to do that power.” He strode down the hallway, rubbing the lump on his head, which throbbed with his every heartbeat.
“We can’t all be hallucinating,” said Persephone as she and Andy jogged to keep up.
“What else can it be!” snapped Chase. “AAACHOOOO!” An unfamiliar tingling, prickling sensation rocketed through Chase from his head to his feet. The world was getting bigger—no, wait, he was getting smaller. ZZZIIIP! He was three inches tall.
“Chase?”
“I’m down here!” shouted a squeaky little voice. “Don’t step on me.”
“What are you doing down there?” said Andy. He watched his brother scrambling around on stubby legs. “You’re as puny as a mouse.”
“Help me!” squeaked Chase. “Do something.”
“What should we do?” asked Persephone as she bent over to see him better.
“I need the counterspell.”
“Don’t let Maxwell see you,” said Andy, checking up and down the hall for anything suspicious looking. “He might eat you.”
“What? A-AAACHOOOO!”
The tingling, prickling sensation hit Chase again. His arms shot out, his legs grew longer, his stomach stretched toward the ceiling. ZZZZIIIING! He patted his body to make sure all his limbs were their normal size again.
“Great! I might’
ve been eaten by a maniac furball,” he grumbled, resuming his trek down the hall. “All I can think of is I must’ve caught a magical cold. Or some kind of supernatural flu.”
He didn’t want to admit how freaked out he was. Hands down, this had to be one of the weirdest days he’d experienced since coming to live in the Tinker house.
“Yeah, right,” muttered Persephone. “A cold or flu. That surely explains everything.”
“I know!” said Andy. “Maybe little bits of magic are floating around the house and you keep walking through them.”
“Bits of magic!” exclaimed Chase, stopping to stare at his brother. “That’s ridiculous. If those existed, wouldn’t we have run into them before this? And wouldn’t you guys be sneezing magical powers right along with me?”
“It was only an idea. Sounds better than a silly cold or hallucinations,” said Andy huffily.
“Just forget it!” said Chase. “Now come on. Some pepperoni pizza’s sounding better every second.” He stomped off.
Andy and Persephone glanced worriedly at each other and then hurried after Chase. He led the way through the house to the magical room that would allow them to shoot almost anything they wanted out of their noses.
Grabbing plates and glasses from a tall cabinet, they gathered around a cozy dining table in the corner. Chase’s stomach growled with hunger as he took a deep breath, sucking in the delicious aroma of the pepperoni, mushroom and cheese pizzas they’d conjured up. He thought about how, despite everything they had to deal with, being able to enter any room of the house he lived in and perform amazing magic with only a thought was about the coolest thing imaginable.
“Mmm.” Andy sighed as he kicked back and took a huge bite of pizza. “Too delicious for words,” he mumbled around the mouthful of food.
“Okay, okay,” said Persephone, grabbing a slice of her own. “I’ll close my eyes and pretend I’m eating at a fancy restaurant in downtown Seattle. I won’t even think about how it came from someone’s nostrils.”
Chase Tinker and the House of Secrets Page 2