“Not until you release my great-aunt,” I said, trying to hide the quaver in my voice.
She took another step, her fingers wiggling. “Give me the box, now!”
“Everything all right over here, folks?” A security guard moseyed toward us, his blue polyester pants too tight around his bulging thighs.
Mrs. Camel relaxed her hands. “Yes, certainly everything is fine. Just fine. Thank you very much.” She smiled sweetly at the guard. After he’d walked away, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Let me make this perfectly clear, in case you are thinking about double-crossing me. If I release your great-aunt, and you decide to keep the box, I will follow you home to Chatham. I will become your worst nightmare. Do you understand?”
There was no doubt in my mind that she was fully capable of becoming my worst nightmare. I was about to say, “yes, I understand” when Tyler pushed me aside, then stepped in front of me.
“Who do you think you are, threatening a twelve-year-old girl?” he asked, his temper flaring. “Because if you’re threatening Jax, then you’re threatening my family and I wouldn’t do that if I were you. My best friend is Walker Ranson and his father is the Chatham chief of police. So intimidation isn’t going to work with us. We made a deal. You release Juniper and you can have the stupid box.”
Mr. Camel and Juniper waited, out of earshot.
Ethan stopped pinching his nose and he and I exchanged a look of surprise. For the first time ever, I was seeing Tyler in a different light. The gaming geek was acting like a hero from one of his virtual worlds. Suddenly he didn’t look so sloppy with his stained T-shirt and uncombed hair. He stood, his shoulders wide, towering over the sinister Mrs. Camel, defending me.
“Oh, and one more thing. I want five hundred dollars, cash, for my broken window. I know you have the money.” He held out his hand. Mrs. Camel’s face got so tight I thought she might have a stroke. She pulled some bills from her pocket and handed them to Tyler. Tyler counted the bills, then smirked. “Okay then. Objective complete. It’s hot, I’m hungry. Let’s do this thing.”
Anger flashed in Mrs. Camel’s eyes, but she didn’t argue. She turned and waved at her husband. He let go of Juniper’s arm. Juniper stumbled away, unsteady on her feet. “Why is she walking like that?” I asked. “What have you done to her?”
“She’s walking like that because she’s old,” Mrs. Camel hissed. Then she reached out again, her fingers twitching with anticipation. “The box.”
I handed it to her.
She inhaled sharply as she gripped the metal edges. Then her eyes narrowed. “You opened it.”
“Yes, of course I opened it,” I said, as innocently as I could. “It was my birthday present. There was a Starbucks card inside.”
Mrs. Camel’s expression was pure hatred. No one had ever looked at me like that before and it made my stomach clench. “This isn’t over,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Oh, it’s over,” Tyler said. Then he strode down the stairs and went to help our great-aunt, who was staggering through the crowd. Ethan stayed by my side. I could hear his anxious breathing.
Mrs. Camel’s gaze burned into mine. “You know how I’m feeling, don’t you? You want to protect it. You want to possess it.”
I swallowed hard. Yes, I thought. Yes, I know how you feel. How could I have something in common with this horrid woman?
“You will regret this. Pandora will hear my plea and I will have what is mine.” Then she hurried down the steps. She said nothing to Juniper as they passed each other. When she reached Mr. Camel, they both walked swiftly along the Reflecting Pool until they disappeared into the crowd.
24
Ethan
FACT: Forget it. There was no time to think about facts.
I dabbed my nose. The bleeding had stopped. Good riddance metal box. Good riddance Camels. Now it was time for an explanation.
Our Great-Aunt Juniper stood in the middle of the walkway that led to the monument, people streaming past in both directions. She’d taken hold of Tyler’s arm for balance. A few days ago we hadn’t known anything about her, yet there she was, the cause of all this mess. She motioned wildly at us. “Come on,” Jax said, running down the steps.
She looked so much older than in the photos. Her skin was wrinkled and covered in old-age splotches. Her shirt was untucked, her braids were coming undone. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes and a fresh bruise covered her right cheek. There was also a bandage on her right temple. I don’t know what I’d expected, maybe a hug for her niece and nephews who’d basically saved her life, but instead she grabbed Jax’s shoulders and said, “For the love of God, please tell me you figured it out. Please tell me you have the jar.”
“Yes, we have it,” Jax assured her, tilting her head toward the backpack.
“Good.” She let go of Jax. Her eyes were watery and slightly cloudy. “Did they hurt you? They told me they were going to hurt you. I never intended to put you in harm’s way. I . . .” Her eyes brimmed over, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I’m so very sorry.”
“I’m fine,” Jax said. “Please don’t cry. We’re all fine.”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Tyler confirmed. “But you look like someone beat you up.”
Had Mr. Camel used “stronger methods”? How could a man hit an old lady? If he was capable of that kind of brutality, what could he do to Jax? To us?
I handed Juniper a clean tissue. She wiped her face, wincing when she touched the bruise. I was going to ask her about the blood on the kitchen floor but she wobbled, as if about to faint. Tyler took her arm again. “I’m feeling a bit . . . confused,” she said.
“Do you want to sit down?” I asked.
“There’s no time,” she said. “Give me the jar and I’ll be on my way.”
“You can’t leave. You have to tell us everything.” Jax started squirming as a bunch of questions shot out. “Where did you get it? And how come you sent it to me? Why does my mom hate you? And where have you been all these years? Why do the Camels pray to Pandora? And—”
“Yes, of course, I owe you an explanation.” She wobbled again. “But I don’t want to put you in any more danger.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, but do you have any idea what we’ve been through? My car window was bashed in. Jax broke into a motel room. My friend Walker is totally perturbed because we’re supposed to be working on level six of Cyclopsville. And Ethan’s had about a million nosebleeds because this whole thing has turned him into a basket case. You owe us an explanation.”
“Uh . . . that’s kind of insulting. I’m not a basket case,” I mumbled. “I’m the one who got the box out of the safe, remember?” Give Caution Boy some credit when he deserved it.
Juniper turned her wrinkled face up at me. “You get nosebleeds?” I nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m afraid you’ve inherited them from me. Overly sensitive genes.”
Inherited? Genes? I almost smiled at those words. I’d always been told that my nosebleeds were psychological. That I was the only one in the family to suffer from them. That if I could just be more confident and less shy, I wouldn’t get them.
“Hello?” Jax said. “Can you please tell us about the jar?”
“Yes, of course. But not here. Martha and George won’t leave the country without the jar. They will forge a new plan and then come after it.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do they want it so badly?”
Juniper looked very seriously at Jax. “Even if Martha wanted to forget the jar, she wouldn’t be able to. It got into her head. You know what I mean, don’t you?” Jax nodded. “Only females can sense it.”
What was she talking about? Only females?
“And George Camel will use force if necessary. He does whatever his wife tells him to do, just to make her happy.” Juniper touched one of the backpack’s straps. “Please carry it carefully, as if you were carrying a nuclear weapon.”
“A nuclear weapon?” I said, my voice cracking. Two passing tour
ists turned and looked quizzically at me.
“Lower your voice,” Juniper warned.
“Sorry,” I said. Wait a minute, why was I apologizing? She’d sent a weapon in the mail and we’d been carrying it around. “It’s not really nuclear, is it?”
“No, of course not. But I’m afraid it can be used to hurt other people.” She pressed a trembling finger to her temple.
Powers beyond belief. That’s what Mrs. Camel had said.
The security guards stood outside the memorial entrance, watching tourists come and go. They weren’t paying any attention to us—three kids and an old lady. They had no idea that our backpack contained something dangerous. Backpacks were suspicious items these days. If Tyler set it on the ground and walked away, a SWAT team would be called in. The jar would be confiscated. Maybe that would be an end to all of this.
“Give her the jar,” I told Jax between clenched teeth. “Give her the jar and let’s go home.”
“No,” Jax said. “We’ve come this far. I want answers.”
“Agreed,” Tyler said. “The quest is not complete until we get the truth.”
I like truth. Facts are true. Science is true. But at that moment, every cell in my body screamed, walk away. Go home. The truth doesn’t need to be known. The truth doesn’t always set you free.
“I’ll explain as soon as we’re in a safe location,” Juniper said. Then she began to cross the manicured lawn. Tyler and Jax followed like eager puppies. I reached into my shorts and pulled out a five-dollar bill, all that was left after buying the bag of apples and the chips and doughnuts. Five dollars wouldn’t get me back to Chatham. Crud!
Who was I kidding? I couldn’t leave. Juniper was no longer a name—she was a person who’d been bruised and battered. She shared my overly sensitive genes. And Tyler might have been a genius, but he didn’t always have the best grip on reality. And Jax, who craved adventure, had been acting like someone under a hypnotic spell.
Call me a partner or call me a sidekick, either way, they all needed me.
25
Jax
Hello? I needed answers. Because I felt like I was going to lose it!
Juniper didn’t walk very fast. Her steps were unsteady so I took her arm. We might have gone back to our room at the Madison Hotel but she led us in the opposite direction. She said she wanted to stay out in the open, in a public place. “George Camel has a gun. He won’t use it if there are witnesses.”
“A gun?” Ethan said with a gasp.
“The Camels will do whatever necessary to get the jar.” She checked over her shoulder. “All they need is one of us.”
She was right. If they threatened to hurt Ethan or Tyler, I’d hand over the clay jar. If they threatened to hurt the great-aunt I barely knew, I’d hand it over. We cared about each other and that made us vulnerable. And yet . . .
Part of me still wanted to keep the jar. A terrible thought gripped my mind—if the jar possessed me, would I risk the people I love? I never wanted to learn the answer to that question.
Even though the jar was tucked into the backpack and hanging from Tyler’s shoulders, I could feel its voiceless presence, calling to me in some kind of magical way. So I moved to the other side of Juniper, keeping her between me and Tyler like a human shield. It worked and the feeling lessened, but did not fully go away.
A sign said we were in West Potomac Park. Lots of people strolled through the park, enjoying the sunny day. Juniper started feeling dizzy, so she agreed to rest for a moment. We stopped at a bench along the water. A little boy crouched next to a box of fishing tackle while his father cast a line. In the distance, the Washington Monument pointed at the clear blue sky like an index finger. There was no sign of the Camels.
Tyler had grabbed some sodas from an ice-cream vendor along the way. He popped them open and passed them around. Juniper took a long drink, then unwound her red bandana and dabbed sweat from her forehead. Ethan and Tyler settled at her feet while I sat on the bench next to her. I caught a glimpse of my mom in Juniper’s face. They shared the same profile, the same intense expression. She had Ethan’s overly sensitive genes but did she share anything with me? I found none of my features in her face. I still looked like the one that didn’t match.
“So?” Tyler asked. He removed the backpack and set it on his lap. “Spill it. Tell us.”
“She’s trying to catch her breath,” I said, though I was just as anxious to get some answers. I clutched the edge of the bench, trying my best to ignore the tugging sensation that had returned. I wanted to open the backpack and hold it. But I didn’t want to wrestle with those dark thoughts again.
Tyler tapped his feet impatiently. “How come the Camels wrote Pandora on their motel-room wall? How come they lit a bunch of candles, like a shrine?”
“How very interesting.” Juniper taped a finger on her chin. “They must have been trying to contact her, hoping she would guide them on their quest.”
“Contact her?” Ethan nearly choked on his soda. “Uh . . . how can you contact a character from an ancient myth?”
She looked calmly at Ethan. “Do you ever pray?” she asked him. “Do you ever ask God to help you with something?”
Ethan shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Sometimes.”
“Well, that is exactly what the Camels were doing, praying to Pandora to help them.”
“But . . .” Ethan wiped soda specks from his chin. “She’s not real.”
“Says who?” Juniper raised a single eyebrow. “She was as real to the ancient Greeks as your god is to you.”
“Did the old jar belong to Pandora?” Tyler asked matter-of-factly. “Is this thing the real Pandora’s box? ’Cause that would be totally awesome.” Juniper smiled mischievously. Hello? Why was she smiling?
“Uh . . . wait a minute,” Ethan said. “It’s not a box, it’s a jar. So it can’t be.”
“You are correct,” she said. “It is not Pandora’s box. But Pandora is the reason it exists.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temple, over the wound.
“I don’t understand.” My whole body felt fidgety. I hate it when someone takes too long to tell a story. Just help me understand, I wanted to shout. But Juniper was old. She’d been hurt. “Please,” I said gently. “Please tell us.”
“I shall do my best to explain.” She opened her eyes and took another long drink of soda. Then she looked at each of us, and as she spoke, the story took form in front of my eyes, like a movie. And the characters looked oddly familiar.
Beautiful Pandora, the first woman on earth, was given a box by Zeus. She was forbidden to open it but she did, and a cloud of evil swirled from the box and spread throughout the world. Afraid, she closed the box and hid it in her house, vowing to never open it again. But the world remained a dark, horrible place.
I could see my mother, holding the box, trying to stuff it into the trunk of her car.
Time passed. Pandora married a man named Epimetheus. They had a daughter named Pyrrha.
Pyrrha looks exactly like me. But my father has no face. He’s just a shadowy figure, standing next to my mom.
One day, Pyrrha found the box and opened it. She discovered that something was trapped at the bottom of the box—Hope. So she released Hope into the world and everything changed. People could now cope with the evil that surrounded them. The world was a better place.
Pandora was overjoyed and so proud of her daughter that she begged Zeus to give her daughter a reward. Zeus gave Pyrrha three jars. One contained Faith, one contained Love, and one contained another dose of Hope. Pyrrha could release these whenever she needed them.
I could see myself holding the old jar.
But Epimetheus, the father of Pyrrha, became jealous. He hated that the gods paid so much attention to his wife and daughter, but never to him. So he stole the three jars and tried to keep them for himself.
His act had serious consequences. The jars were designed for one single purpose—to hold Faith, Love, and Hope for Pyr
rha. Only for Pyrrha. No one else. So when Epimetheus opened the jars, the contents were destroyed. The jars were left empty.
As our great-aunt finished her story, Tyler sat speechless, mesmerized, as did I. “So are you saying that we have one of the jars?” Ethan asked, pointing to the backpack. Juniper nodded. “But you said it was dangerous. How can an empty jar be dangerous?” He sat with his arms folded, a scowl of disbelief frozen on his face.
“Well . . . let me try to put this in scientific terms.” She tapped the side of her soda can. “The law of magnetism is a good analogy. A long time ago magnetism was considered magical. It was believed that magnets were drawn together by a strange invisible force. We now know that the force is not created by magic but by . . .” She smiled at Ethan.
“Electric currents,” he said, “caused by moving electrons.”
“So what we once thought of as magic, we now understand. The law of attraction that pulls the two magnets together is the same law working in this situation. The jar that currently rests in your backpack was designed to hold Hope. It is attracted to hope, much the same way one magnet is attracted to the other.”
“Whoa,” Tyler said, blinking rapidly. “I get it. If you open the jar, it will seek hope. It’s a psychological weapon.”
“Yes, exactly.” Juniper pushed her long braids behind her shoulders. “Pyrrha’s jar seeks hope and when hope is found, the jar takes it. It sucks hope from anyone in the vicinity, leaving its victims in a nearly comatose state.” She pushed up her sleeve and scratched at a cut on her forearm.
A nearly comatose state? Suddenly, I began to understand. “Is that what happened to the people in that newspaper article? It said they were working on a Greek island and they all collapsed from a mysterious illness—all but one person.”
“How do you know about that?” she asked.
The Secret Box Page 15