“Oh yeah. My powers.” He stared at the dragon’s head and concentrated. A tiny lightning bolt shot from one of his eyes. Halfway to the snake, it sputtered, turned to ash and drifted away. “Oh, man!”
“Chase!” Persephone sounded as if a frog had hopped up into her throat.
“I’m trying!”
For a second, his mind drifted back to the afternoon in New York City when he’d first tried to master his telekinesis power. Everything had seemed so out of his control, but things were different now. He wasn’t the same troubled, mixed-up kid he used to be. Well…sometimes he wasn’t.
“You can do this,” he said to himself. He stared at the knob again, willing the strong magic inside of him to work. Blue lightning bolts blasted out, sliced through the tongue and into the ruby-red eyes. The door knob gave a terrifying shriek and lost its grip on Andy. He flew across the room, pulling the others with him.
Andy jumped to his feet and frantically patted his body. “I’m not eaten!” he shouted gleefully, even though he wasn’t looking too well at the moment. His hair, which was singed and smoking, stuck out every which way. Red teeth marks speckled his cheeks and arms, and his shirt looked as if it had been put through a shredder. Wrinkling his nose, he rubbed a piece of his scraggly shirt across his face as he tried to wipe away dripping, dragon saliva. “Gross! Why am I always the one dealing with the slimy crud?”
“That was too close,” said Persephone. She rubbed her neck where bruises were beginning to show as red and purple stripes.
Chase just sat there goggling at the dead, shriveled tongue. He had to stop losing his head whenever a crisis struck. What in the world was wrong with him, anyway?
Persephone glowered at him. “Chase, what in the world is wrong with you?” she asked, echoing the question as if she’d read his mind. “Lately, it’s as if your brain turns to mush whenever you need it the most.”
Chase nodded, looking bewildered. “I don’t understand. I was fine until…” His words trailed off and then continued. “I was fine until some of Grandfather’s powers transferred to me. Now that they’re showing themselves, it’s like—it’s like they’ve jumbled my mind with too much knowledge or something.”
“Well you need to snap out of it!” snapped Persephone. “We almost lost Andy.”
“And, anyway, why didn’t you warn us about those crazy door knobs before we got here?” said Andy as he shook his finger at Chase. “First the light, now this! What’re you trying to do, kill us or something?”
“Sorry!” said Chase. “I completely forgot until I saw you going for that dragon one. Grandfather said, besides him, I’m the only one who will know which knob opens the door and to not let anyone else touch them.”
“Get to it, then!” Persephone looked as though she wanted to smack Chase a few times for his forgetfulness.
“What a dork,” muttered Andy.
“Yeah, well...” Chase searched his mind for a snappy comeback that didn’t sound lame, but apparently he wasn’t any better at thinking up those, either.
Picking up Maxwell, Chase plopped the ferret back onto his shoulder and sidled over to the door. No more mess-ups, dork! He thought as he studied the knobs.
Never in his life had he seen so many different kinds: square knobs and triangular knobs, star-shaped and moon-shaped knobs, knobs made of crystal, silver, and gold; some were dotted with sparkling jewels, a few were flashing and blinking like neon signs reading “pick me,” others were carved to look like bugs and fish and animals, bats and rats and daisies.
It was mind-boggling. His eyes blurred and crossed as he forced himself to concentrate on finding the correct one. At last he spotted what he was looking for. Stuck in the bottom left corner, between a pug-nosed gargoyle and a pink elephant trunk, was a round, chipped little knob that looked as if it had to be at least three hundred years old.
He hunkered down and twisted the handle. The door swung open on creaking hinges. Light from the room the kids were in spilled through the doorway and revealed another room, but this one was circular, like maybe it was one of the house’s tall turrets.
“Okay, let’s grab the plants,” said Chase.
They each hoisted a plant and lugged it into the next room.
Chase lined the shrubs up against the wall and stepped back. Clearing his throat, and hoping he wouldn’t sound like a complete idiot, he warbled, “Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart, how the music can free her, whenever it starts?”
Andy giggled while Chase glared at the plants. Was that enough, or did he need to sing even more of the embarrassing song? “Come on, guys, sing already,” he muttered.
When the singing finally started, Chase let out the breath he’d been unconsciously holding. For once, the plants’ off-key voices were beautiful music to his ears.
Persephone nudged him and pointed up. Orange, sparkling light now swirled toward them from the darkness above. As soon as it hit the floor, it transformed into a tall spiraling staircase.
“All right, then,” said Chase. “Up we go.”
“What about the plants?” asked Persephone.
“Don’t worry,” Chase answered. “Grandfather said the magic in the room will return them to the greenhouse.”
So, leaving the three plants still happily singing at the bottom, the three kids climbed the stairs up and up, and round and round. Chase tried his hardest to keep his eyes glued to the steps, not daring to look at the pitch-black space below them. He didn’t want to even think about falling from what now must be a great height.
“Sheesh!” said Andy after a while. “Why does there always have to be so many stairs around this place?”
“Think of it as working off all the junk food you’re always eating,” Chase threw back over his shoulder.
“Like I’m the only one,” Andy mumbled to himself.
At long last, Chase lurched to a stop. Perched in a circular alcove carved into the wall was the beautiful golden chest they were searching for. It glowed in the soft, yellowy light coming from the wall sconces surrounding it.
Persephone clutched Chase’s shirt and peered around him.
“Did we make it?” wheezed Andy from behind her.
“We have arrived,” she murmured.
“So how are we supposed to get over there?” asked Andy.
A bridge sparkled into existence at the edge of the last step. “This bridge, of course,” said Chase. He strode across it. Pulling a key from his pocket, he crouched in front of the chest. Relieved to be there at last, he paused a moment to brush his fingertips along the shiny gold trim. One day he’d be the one in charge of all this. But not for a long time, he quickly assured himself. So don’t start freaking out. He slipped the key into the lock and twisted it. Flipping open the lid, he once again gazed down, and down, and down, into total darkness.
“Okay, here I go again.” He took a deep breath and vaulted over the edge.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Some Terrible Tales
It wasn’t so bad jumping into the darkness this time, since he knew what was at the bottom, but Chase was still relieved when the drop was finished and he was standing on the glowing floor. Andy and Persephone landed beside him.
Chase grinned at them. “Just like old times.”
Andy gazed back up at the tunnel stretching into darkness above them. “Uh… maybe I should’ve thought of this sooner, but how are we supposed to get out of here?”
“We teleport, of course,” said Chase, rolling his eyes as if it should have been perfectly obvious. “That is, after we enchant something with the power.”
“Oh yeah,” said Andy, rolling his eyes, too. “Duh.”
“Come on,” said Chase, motioning to the other two as he headed down the hall. “I think I remember the room being down this way.”
When they entered the Enchantment Room, Chase was instantly reminded of the attic. Even though the two rooms were completely different, they both had the same warm glow that, in his eyes
, looked like liquid sunshine. But where the Relic lit up the attic, this room was lit by the glowing glass symbols embedded in the walls, floor and ceiling, and just like when he was in the attic, he felt a lot calmer and more relaxed just being in the magical room.
Persephone shivered as she glanced around. “Being down here reminds me too much of that day with James. He acted like such a crazed maniac with these powers.”
“The worst was the bewitching mind control,” said Andy, frowning. “When James was controlling me, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from doing whatever he wanted me to do.”
Persephone nodded. “Yeah, it was the same for me. It was like I had no free will, but I still knew what was going on...hey! Come to think of it, maybe we should enchant something with that power, too. It’d be great to be able to control the Marlowes and—”
“No!” Chase blurted out way too loudly. Andy and Persephone both stared at him with raised eyebrows. “I—I mean no, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he added.
Persephone’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something. Come on. Spit it out.”
Chase glanced at Andy out of the corner of his eye. Some of the things Grandfather had revealed to him yesterday he wasn’t about to share with Andy, but he knew he had to tell them about the Forbidden Powers Grandfather had warned him about. He could still hear the seriousness, and sadness, in his grandparent’s voice when he’d said it was a matter of life and death.
“Some of the powers down here can’t be used by anyone except the Keeper of the House,” he explained. “But the Keeper can only call on them if someone’s in mortal danger. Grandfather calls them the Forbidden Powers.”
“Forbidden?” exclaimed Andy. “How come?”
“Years ago, they were misused by some of our Tinker ancestors,” said Chase. “Innocent unmagical people were hurt and killed, so the relic took the powers away and stored them here.”
Andy slumped against the wall. “No way! There were evil Tinkers?”
“Well they weren’t totally evil the way the Marlowes are totally evil, but I guess not all Tinkers have used their magic for good. So after we found the powers a couple months ago, Grandfather realized he had to make it a whole lot harder to get to them.”
“Could we become evil?” asked Andy, his face now a little on the green side.
Chase rubbed his forehead. He’d had a feeling this would happen. From the start, Andy had been unsure of magic, so a story like this would certainly freak him out. It was a good thing Chase had held back the worst part of it. He needed to send Andy away before telling the rest of the story to Persephone.
“No need to worry,” he assured Andy, patting his shoulder. “Grandfather says we have good magic through and through.”
Still looking worried, Andy nodded.
“So none of us can ever use those powers?” asked Persephone as she wandered around the room studying the weird symbols.
“Only the Keeper of the House,” Chase answered. “And this is serious business, you guys. Back in like, 1902, one of our great-something uncles—his name was Frederick—when he was Keeper, he used the Forbidden Powers to try to take over Europe. The idiot wanted to be a king or a dictator, or something like that.” Chase rolled his eyes. “Grandfather said it was a huge mess. But when Uncle Fred was finally stopped by the rest of the family, the Relic transformed him into a sofa, and he’s supposed to stay that way for a thousand years.”
“Wow!” said Persephone. “Where is he now?”
“Somewhere around the house.”
“You mean, we’ve been sitting on him?” exclaimed Andy while he rubbed his rear end. “That’s too weird.” But then he frowned as he remembered something else. “But—but what about your watch being enchanted with the Shoot-anything-from-your-fingertips power, and your lightning bolt power, huh? Won’t you get in trouble for those?”
Chase shook his head. “They’re considered dangerous powers, but they aren’t forbidden ones since no one ever used them for anything really bad.”
“Do you know what all these Forbidden Powers are?” asked Persephone.
Chase paced the room and raked his hands through his hair. “Grandfather says there are eight of them. Let me see, there’s the killing fireballs, the Bewitching magic.” He ticked the powers off on his fingers as he said them. “The ability to summon and control all the elements. You know: fire, earth, water, and wind; the ability to conjure or turn into any liquid; the ability to control hot and cold; the ability to change anything, even live things like animals and people, into stone. There’s also the power to spit medicine or poison, and…hmm, let me see…oh yeah, the power to conjure up or turn into any kind of snake or spider.”
Persephone shuddered. “Yuck! I don’t even want to think how those last two were misused. I can’t believe Mr. Hiram has a way to do all those things if he needs to.”
“So, what about James?” said Andy. “He used the Bewitching power. Why isn’t he changed into a sofa—or better yet, a piece of navel lint! He deserves it!”
“I guess it’s because I stopped him before he had a chance to really hurt someone,” Chase answered, shrugging one shoulder.
“Figures!” muttered Andy. He propped his hands on his hips. “If these powers are so bad, then why the heck were they invented?”
“To protect ourselves and the house, of course,” said Chase. “It would be kind of hard to win a fight with only the ability to control hair growth or have eyes in the back of your head.”
“But if the Relic has all this power and has, like, a mind of its own,” said Andy, “why doesn’t it suck the Marlowes’ evil powers right out of them?”
“Grandfather says until the Relic and the missing Shard are rejoined, the Relic doesn’t have any control over the Shard or any of its magic.” As he explained this, Chase pulled his lucky race car from his pocket and approached one of the glowing patterns. He pressed the car to it. “I enchant this object with the power to teleport.” Golden beams shot from the symbol and into the race car, making it glow like a blazing neon sign. As soon as it returned to normal, he enchanted his beanie with the power to replicate. “Okay, Andy, hand over your glasses. They’ll work great for some shielding power, since you always have them on.”
“Good idea,” said Persephone. “I wear these all the time.” She slipped off her small silver pinky ring and her diamond nose ring. She stood staring into space for a moment. “There are so many powers, it’s kind of hard to decide. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I want to help in a fight.” At last she went with the ability to hum people to sleep and the invisibility power. She also pulled the silver barrette from her hair and put the power to have extra arms into it.
Andy pulled an Ichiro baseball card and a plastic spider from his pocket. “Here, how about these?”
“Okay,” said Chase, “what magic do you want?”
Andy’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I think Teleporting and Conjuring both sound good.”
“Now, remember,” said Chase when he plopped the objects back into Andy’s hand, “don’t lose these. Even non-magical people can perform magic using enchanted things, and we don’t want our magic being used by others. Or the wrong way.”
Andy nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good.” Chase turned. “So, Persephone—” Swoosh! His beanie was yanked down over his eyes. “Hey!” He pulled his hat up and swung around. No one was there. Seconds later, someone jerked his pants from behind and gave him a big wedgie. “What the—!”
Giggling erupted next to him. “This is so cool!” exclaimed a disembodied voice. “I love being invisible.”
“Persephone!” Chase hopped and squirmed around as he tugged down on his bunchy underwear. “You are so going to get it.”
“Visible.” Persephone appeared across the room, a big grin on her face. “Just testing out my new powers.” She giggled again. “I guess they’re working fine.”
Andy joined in the laughter. “You shoul
d see your face, Chase. It’s as red as an apple.”
“Real nice!” he grumbled as he gave his underwear another quick tug. “I’m happy you two are having a great time.” Chase narrowed his eyes at Andy and Persephone as they continued to giggle and enjoy his discomfort. “Dorks!” he muttered under his breath. He scooped up Maxwell, who was now busily gnawing the rubber off the toe of Chase’s sneaker. “And you, you crazy furball! Quit chewing my stuff! You’ve left teeth marks in almost everything. And every other day, I have to go searching for my socks.”
“Hey, Chase,” said Persephone as she choked back one last snicker. “I have an idea. Why don’t we stick some magic into Maxwell’s collar?”
“Good thinking!” said Andy. “How ‘bout some cool lightning bolts so he can zap bad dudes if he needs to?”
“Yeah, right,” said Chase with a loud snort. “As if he’d know how to do that.”
“You never know,” said Persephone. She took Maxwell, slipped off his collar and pressed it to a symbol. “I enchant this collar with the Lightning-Bolts-From-Eyes power.” The small blue collar glowed for a moment before returning to normal “Okay. Here you go.” She slid it back on and handed him back to Chase.
He held Maxwell at arm’s length and grimaced at him. Maxwell yawned and flicked his pink tongue across his lips. “Hey, Andy, I think Maxwell needs some food and a nap,” said Chase, hurrying across the room and depositing the ferret in Andy’s arms. “Why don’t you take him back while Persephone and I finish up here?” He eyeballed his brother. “And you should probably clean up before Mom sees you. You don’t look too good.”
Andy waggled his eyebrows at Chase. “Oh, I get it. You guys want to be alone,” he stage-whispered, dragging out the last word for a few extra heartbeats. Grinning, Andy gave Chase a thumbs up, then pulled his baseball card from his pocket. “Premonition Room!” In a quick swirl of wind, he and Maxwell disappeared.
Chase gave a loud sigh and dropped to the floor. Leaning against the wall, he propped his arms on his bent knees. He knew Persephone was studying him as she plopped down next to him.
Chase Tinker and the House of Secrets Page 12