The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  It was the third weekend, and the children sat among the detritus of their afternoon snacks on the way back to Sole Manner, sleepily emerging from naps. Had they been more awake, they would have noticed the countryside around them.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Lucy with a yawn.

  “Why do we always fall asleep?” Jasper asked himself, trying to shake off the sleepiness.

  “Look at these delicious treats, and the long, bumpy ride in the cozy, comfy carriage,” said Noah. “How could we not fall asleep on the way back? There’s just no escape from—”

  “You’re right,” said Faye, sitting bolt upright, suddenly not sleepy at all.

  “I’m what?” Noah said. “I’m right about what? You’re scaring me, Faye. You never think I’m right.”

  But Faye leaned back and thought about her idea. Now wasn’t the time to present it—not when they were all so happy to see Miss Brett again. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

  “That is absolutely crazy,” Noah said.

  They had been back at the school for two days, and Faye had asked for everyone to join her outside after lunch.

  “Look,” Faye said, “it was foolish to try to escape from here. I’ll admit it. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and it would take us a month to walk to civilization. But if we sneak away from the houses, we can just run to the first big street we find and ask for a policeman. We’ll be right in the city. We can get away. We can find our parents.”

  “The city is not a children’s nursery, Faye,” Jasper said. “We may find ourselves in worse danger than—”

  “So that’s it? You’re afraid of a little risk? You’re willing to have your cakes and custards in exchange for your captivity and that of your parents? Well, I am not!”

  Faye walked away, leaving her classmates in stunned silence. She didn’t speak a word to them for the rest of the day, and not a word at breakfast the next morning. It was hardest on Lucy, who shared a bed with her and most felt the coldness of rejection.

  “We have to talk to her,” Lucy said to Jasper and the others when Faye was out of earshot.

  At lunch, Faye sat alone on the far side of the front garden while the others sat beneath the tree. Jasper went over to sit with her.

  “Faye, listen, we all feel what you’re feeling,” he said.

  “Clearly, that is not the case, Jasper,” Faye responded coldly.

  “We do, but we just... it just behaves differently inside us.”

  “Well, I want to be sure.” Faye’s voice cracked. She began to wrap her uneaten lunch in the kerchief. “I want to know. I don’t want to wait to find out that something horrible has happened and I could have done something. I am not willing to sit here and do nothing at all.” She stood up and ran back to the schoolhouse.

  For the rest of the week, Faye was willing to talk more about it, though she kept quiet. Everyone felt they had let her down, and her dark feelings were contagious. The effect was just as she had hoped—as the days passed, the other children wondered if they were indeed being weak, letting their parents down by choosing the comfort of the cage over the risk of freedom.

  After supper on Thursday, the children came to speak with Faye. They told her what she loved to hear—that she (and this was qualified by the fact that no one had absolute faith in this, but they all did entertain the possibility) was right. As a team, the children decided that something should indeed be done, and sitting here in comfort was not going to get them anywhere.

  Friday morning’s first incident, however, drove everything from their minds.

  Not that the arrival of the odd fellows in black was anything new. What was new was that there were three dressed in beekeeper suits.

  “A beehive?” Miss Brett was utterly surprised. She hadn’t seen a beehive.

  “Six. We must collect it,” the tallest one said as he stood in the doorway to the farmhouse. He held three large buckets in his hand.

  “There are six beehives here?” Miss Brett realized she had not even noticed one.

  “It must be done,” said the fattest, who held a small pail of coal and something in his hand that looked much like a can.

  “We will give it here,” said the shortest, who held a bellows in his hand.

  “Children,” Miss Brett said, seeing an excellent opportunity for a lesson, “these men are here to collect the honey from the hives at the edge of the green field. They’re wearing beekeeper suits to protect themselves from the bees.”

  “Oh, I thought they were just wearing their normal silly, silly suits,” said Lucy.

  “Well, we read about how bees make honey and why,” Miss Brett said.

  “And I knew much about such things back in India,” said Faye, “although our hives were more elegant.”

  The others, however, had not learned about bees until Miss Brett read to them about their behavior in hives.

  “The queen babies get the royal treatment,” Lucy said. “They’re the only babies who are given jelly and they get special cuddles and then, also, the honey comes from the pollen the little worker bees collect on their legs and fly all over and find good pollen flowers and blossoms and—”

  “We jolly well know you remember, Lucy,” Jasper said. “I think Miss Brett just wanted to let us know that we’ve got the real thing now.”

  “I don’t want to be eaten alive by a swarm of bees, thank you very much,” said Noah.

  “They do not eat,” said the fattest man.

  “They will buzz,” said the tallest man.

  “Do not attack them,” said the shortest man.

  “Attack them? Lunacy. Madness,” mumbled Faye.

  “Actually, he’s right to say this,” said Miss Brett. “A bee will die when it stings.”

  With five very wary students following her, Miss Brett trailed the three beekeepers to the edge of the field of greens.

  “I didn’t think any of them would be beekeepers,” Wallace quietly said as they lagged behind Miss Brett.

  “I thought they were just keepers,” said Noah.

  “Well, yes,” Wallace said, “I did think they were just guardians, here to—”

  “Keep us captive, perhaps?” Faye said.

  “Well, it is odd, isn’t it?” said Jasper. “They do more than behave like coachmen or strongmen or captors.”

  “Are you saying you don’t think they’re preventing us from leaving?” said Faye. “Does anyone remember the motorcar keeping guard? The guards who patrol the perimeter of the farm at night to prevent our escape?”

  Of course, they remembered. Even as they watched the men in black beekeeper suits retrieve the honey, they remembered.

  “Oh, may we taste it?” asked Lucy, jumping up and down as the men finished.

  “You may have two buckets,” said the shortest man.

  “We care,” said the tallest.

  “You what?” asked Jasper.

  “For the bees,” said the fattest man, as they all returned to the farmhouse. They left two buckets at the farmhouse door and walked back to the road where a black truck was waiting.

  “Lucy, we are not being cruel to Miss Brett.”

  As the children packed their things for the weekend, Faye was not pleased. They had been through this three times already since lunch.

  “Yes, we are too!” cried Lucy. “We’re not telling, and not telling is pretending that there isn’t something to tell when there really is, so we’re lying, and lying is cruel, and I don’t want to be cruel.”

  Faye was as worried about being heard as she was about Lucy backing out on the plan. She sat beside the little girl on the bed. Lucy’s feet were miles above the floor, her fingers firmly planted in her mouth.

  “This is the way it has to be,” Faye said softly.

  Lucy looked up, took her fingers from her mouth, and said, “It hurts. It’s too heavy. It weighs like bricks all over me. I don’t want to lie to Miss Brett.” Lucy put her hand back into her mouth.

  “Listen, Lucy,” Faye sa
id, speaking gently now, and taking the little girl’s hand from her mouth as she had seen Jasper do so many times before, “this is not a lie. It’s dangerous, and we don’t want to put Miss Brett in danger. We want to make sure we can break free. Then we can come back and make sure she’s safe as well. We must make sure she is safe, right?”

  Lucy looked into Faye’s eyes to see whether there was truth in them.

  But Faye did believe this. This was not a lie.

  It was then they heard Noah call, “They’re here!”

  “Hello!” shouted Lucy to the driver as she climbed into the carriage. The driver wore great fluffy earmuffs over nearly half of either side of his head. “Do you know who invented the earmuff?” The driver did not answer or react in any way.

  A loud caw, like the sound of a giant vulture, came from Noah’s corner of the carriage. “Well, seems safe to me,” Noah said. They all realized they could speak freely.

  From there, the whole ride back to Dayton was one greatly animated conversation about the “rescue” plan. At that point, it was more of an escape plan, as they had no idea how they would rescue their parents once they were free. That was “step two,” as Faye put it.

  “Why don’t we just leave, like we’re going for an evening walk or something?” said Noah.

  “Because they’ll see us and bring us back. I think those buggers are everywhere, watching... waiting in the dark of night,” said Faye.

  “What about during the day?” Wallace suggested.

  “We don’t know if they have spies waiting for us,” said Faye. “During the day, we are most vulnerable since we can be seen.”

  “But it might be worth a try,” Noah said. “But only after one of Myrtle’s fabulous roast beef and onion sandwiches. I need her lunch to give me the strength to attempt it.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Faye said. “Our nannies—”

  “Not Rosie. She loves us,” Lucy quickly countered.

  “I’m not saying they aren’t lovely ladies who care for us and want to feed us delicious things...”

  “I’d agree there,” Noah said, his stomach growling loudly.

  “But they are employed by the same men who keep us captive. The nannies would never let us go, and they’d be after us as soon as we left.”

  The thought of spies everywhere gave Jasper chills, but it wasn’t enough to break his resolve.

  “I think—and this is for the best—that Lucy and I will excuse ourselves from this,” said Jasper gingerly. “Our parents left us a note when we first arrived—they made it clear we must not bring attention to ourselves, and we must stay put. We’re not going through with the plan.”

  Faye fumed. “Then you’re a fool, Jasper Modest,” she said, and she said no more.

  After several minutes of the silent treatment, Jasper said, “And that’s all you’re going to say?”

  “What can I say? If you choose to put your head in the sand, what am I to do about it?” Faye turned away again.

  “But Mummy left us the note,” Lucy said. “She said ‘Remember Lewes Castle.’ We didn’t know exactly what that meant, but maybe it means we should trust people who don’t seem very nice and don’t get cross when we poke them in the bum.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t forced to write it?” asked Faye.

  “I don’t know,” said Jasper. “But it’s all we have. We’ve not heard from anyone else. And it doesn’t seem as if we know enough about all of this to go running around blindly searching.”

  “So you like being held captive?” Faye asked.

  “What kind of a question is that? I want to be sure Lucy is safe. And our parents said—”

  “You trust those lunatics in black?” Faye crossed her arms aggressively.

  “We trust our parents,” Jasper said, wishing his voice hadn’t cracked as he said it.

  “And Rosie doesn’t dress in black,” said Lucy, shaking her head. “Rosie is so kind and always makes the most lovely—”

  “Of course she is,” said Faye, pointedly. “They would select someone who is kind and comfortable and bakes you delicious puddings and sings to you and is like the granny you wish you had. All those things make you want to stay, don’t they? They’ve set us up to think we’re in loving hands. I can’t believe I took so long to think of it.”

  “But you always think of it!” said Lucy. “You always think of naughty things people might do.”

  “I do not,” insisted Faye. “I... I trust people.” But she knew this was simply not true.

  More softly, but with as much passion, Lucy said, “I trust Miss Brett and I trust Rosie.”

  “Rosie? The very one who lied to you about your parents?”

  “She didn’t lie,” Jasper said. “She was forced to—I mean, they made her... she didn’t—”

  “See, you’re admitting she was under their control,” said Faye.

  “But Rosie cares about us,” said Lucy.

  “Cares about you?” Faye said. “Cares about you? She doesn’t care about you! She’s been hired to act like she cares.”

  “We can’t be sure of that,” Jasper said. But not being sure was exactly the problem. Was he putting Lucy in more danger by being so trusting? His mother’s letter seemed to say they should be more aware of who they trust. But what exactly did that mean?

  Faye, he feared, made sense in some way that little else seemed to.

  Jasper had not been able to sleep, so when 11:45 p.m. came around, he was ready to go.

  By the time they’d made their fourth trip around the block that afternoon, they’d decided to meet at midnight in the meadow and head to the nearest police station they could find. There, they would explain their situation and enlist someone to help them find their parents. Having lost his confidence that everything, however odd, was really all right, Jasper, and then Lucy, changed their minds and agreed to take part in the plan.

  Jasper took a candle into his sister’s room.

  “Lucy, wake up,” he said.

  Lucy stirred, her eyes focusing on the candlelight until everything came back to her and she tried to sink back into her pillow.

  “Lucy, they’re waiting for us. We have to go through with it. It... it’s the only way.” Jasper swallowed hard “Come on, Luce.”

  Slowly, Lucy climbed out of bed. She was dressed, as Jasper had been when he got into bed that night. She slipped on her shoes and buckled them, wishing the whole time she didn’t have to go.

  As they tiptoed out of their room and down the hall, they could hear Rosie’s clucking snores from the room on the other side of the nursery. They walked past their parents’ room, which now sat perfectly tidy—all pretense at having parents sleeping there was gone. They tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen, then carefully opened the kitchen door and closed it behind them. Jasper looked back, thinking he might never see the inside of the house again. A lump stuck in his throat.

  But then, he turned back to the task at hand.

  By the time Jasper and Lucy arrived, everyone was already there. The moon was so full and bright they could see easily without flashlights.

  “It’s almost like daytime out here,” said Lucy.

  “Then keep low and keep quiet,” said Faye. Everyone lowered themselves so they were more hidden in the shrubbery.

  “Right, now,” said Faye, determined and unshaken, “I suggest we sneak out between my house and yours, Jasper. That hedge there would be an excellent place to hide if any of the nannies wake before we make a run for it.”

  Like thieves in the night, the five children stole through the bushes, shrubs and tall trees to the hedge between Faye’s and the Modests’ houses. They waited for a few seconds. A carriage passed. From the outline of the outsized hat worn by the driver, they assumed it was one of the men in black, but it was hard to tell.

  Then they heard someone walking along the sidewalk. They waited until the footsteps were no longer audible. After that, it was quiet.

  It was time.
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  And then it wasn’t. Just like the time before, on the farm, a motorcar came around the corner, driving slowly down the block. They all froze where they were, waiting for the car to pass.

  “When it turns the corner,” said Faye, “then we’ll—”

  “We know,” Noah said. “We’ll make a run for—”

  A horse whinnied and Noah stopped mid-sentence. Following the motorcar was a horse carrying a dark figure. It was the black bird wings and feathery cap that gave the man away.

  “It’s one of them,” Noah said, although they all knew.

  Coming the other way around the block was another. Altogether, the children counted four horses, one carriage, two motorcars, and what looked like a clown on a unicycle. They knew then that they would never get out unseen.

  Faye motioned and they all turned back toward the meadow, but then they stopped in their tracks. Rosie was running down the front path to the street.

  “Jasper! Lucy!” she called. Her clucking was loud enough to hear from where they sat.

  Lucy made a noise and hid her face in Jasper’s chest. Jasper looked right at Faye and mouthed, “What do we do?” Faye motioned to stay still.

  Rosie was now frantic.

  “Children! Where are you?” she called, standing at the street and looking around. It was then that the feathery rider pulled up in front of the house.

  “What missing?” he asked.

  “The children, I... I...” Rosie blew her nose.

  “Must keep them,” he said. “No run away.”

  “Oh, my dear me.” Rosie looked around, up and down the streets. “My darlings? I... I just don’t know where they’ve gone. They’ve been through so much, the darlings and, oh, don’t let anything happen to them! I love those sweet souls. Dear dear me. Dear dear me.”

  “If they start searching for us, they’ll find the lot of us. Then we’ll all be in trouble.” Jasper was firm and clear, determination in his voice. “Stay here until we’re done, and then head back to your houses—all of you.”

  Without a look behind him, Jasper grabbed Lucy and ran into the meadow, into the kitchen, and through the house. The others stayed in the shrub, anxious to see what would happen next.