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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “We should be used to being abandoned by now,” said Faye.

  They pulled apart the train car doors and crossed from the third car into the second. The second car, they quickly discovered, was at least as remarkable as the third.

  At the end, where they entered, there were several desks against the walls—five to be exact. These were great wooden desks with chairs, pens, writing blotters, and microscopes. The desks were just the kind one would find in an inventor’s laboratory.

  “Are these for us?” Wallace asked.

  Lucy sat in one of the seats. Her feet didn’t even reach the ground, and she could hardly see the top of the desk. “The size is all wrong for me,” she said, jumping down.

  “You’re like Goldenlocks, sitting in Papa Bear’s chair,” said Jasper, laughing.

  “Look at me,” said Noah, laughing. “They got my size wrong!” He sat at a very small desk, his knees right up to his chin. Lucy pulled him from the seat and took his place. He sat down in the chair that Lucy had been sitting in.

  “This one is just right,” said Lucy. “I’m Goldenlocks!”

  “And I’m the Mama Bear!” said Noah.

  They all found a perfect desk for each of them. Thoughtfully, Faye looked at the others and said, quietly, “We’d never have known that story if it hadn’t been for Miss Brett.”

  “I hope she’s all right,” said Noah.

  “Where do you think that leads?” Wallace asked, pointing to the large wooden door on the far side of the room.

  “Might as well go and see,” said Noah. “No one’s here to stop us.”

  Opening the door and stepping through, they found themselves in a beautiful dining room, like one might find in the fanciest chateau or hotel. There were two chandeliers and a long, elaborately laid table down the center. Although there was only warm bread in baskets and fresh fruit set out in bowls, they could smell the aroma of roasted meats and grilled vegetables. There was just the faintest hint of a blueberry tart, and perhaps a bit of treacle, cinnamon, and vanilla.

  “I’m getting hungry just looking at it,” said Jasper.

  “Someone has to be cooking all of this,” Wallace said.

  “Probably a man with a black chef’s hat. And a black apron,” said Noah.

  “Whatever he’s wearing,” said Jasper, “he sure can cook.”

  But there was still one car left to explore. When the children stepped into it, they were struck by two rather remarkable things. The first thing was the size of the room. The entire car was one grand space. There were two fireplaces with roaring fires, and several couches and chairs that looked comfortable enough to be beds. There were bowls full of oranges and apples and grapes laid about the room. The walls that were not covered in soft blue silk were lined with books like the grandest of libraries. The ceiling seemed impossibly tall and arched at the center. But for the windows, one might never even know that one was on a train.

  The second thing was even more remarkable. In fact, it was more amazing than anything else they had ever discovered. It was so amazing, none of them felt the train begin to move. There, right in front of the roaring fire, the children, the inventors, those brilliant scientists, discovered what they had been wanting most of all.

  Their parents.

  Drs. Isabelle and Tobias Modest and Gwendolyn and Rajesh Vigyanveta sat with Dr. Ben Banneker IV and Dr. Clarence Canto-Sagas. The children stood frozen for a moment, a thousand things running through their minds, but questions and accusations flew away like bats from a cave, and all five children came running into the outstretched arms that awaited them.

  Then Noah, hugging his father, heard it first, and recognized it immediately: the gargling singing exercise emerging from the powder room at the rear of the library. It was a sound he always heard after a long voyage.

  “Mother!” cried Noah, flying from his father’s arms into his mother’s as she exited the powder room. Turning back to his father, Noah was caught instantly in a double embrace.

  Faye was in the warmest arms she could remember. “We’ve missed you so much, my little marmelo,” Rajesh Vigyanveta said, holding his daughter close. Somehow, it was that term of affection that reignited her anger. She opened her mouth, ready to accuse, ready to demand if he had missed her, had even thought about her and, if so, why had he not come back for her or made contact with her? But instead, Faye let herself be held, and the warmth of her father’s embrace tempered the cold hard anger she felt toward her parents, even if only for the time being.

  “Where have you been?” Jasper asked his mother.

  “We’ve been working very hard,” she said, but that was all she offered.

  “We’ve wanted to see you,” Tobias Modest said, holding tight to Lucy.

  “We... well, we were just unable to do so,” said his wife.

  “Son,” Dr. Banneker said, trying to offer a stiff chin but unable to keep it from quivering, “it’s so darn good to see you.” Wallace wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.

  “I’ve missed you, Father,” Wallace said.

  “I have something for you,” his father said, opening Wallace’s hand and putting something into his palm.

  “My lucky coin!” Wallace exclaimed, squeezing the familiar object in his hand. “Did it work?”

  “Work?” His father looked taken aback.

  “Did it bring you luck?”

  Dr. Banneker laughed, and his whole demeanor seemed to change. He relaxed and breathed a deep sigh. “Yes, son, it did,” he said. “And I am surely going to be needing that luck again. But you keep it for now.”

  And he held his son tight.

  “It’s been something of a mystery to me, too, luvvie,” Noah’s mother said, caressing Noah’s hair and looking at her husband.

  “To me, as well,” Dr. Canto-Sagas said. “We haven’t been told very much, either. But we were totally secluded and the work is very, very important.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Ariana said, covering her ears. “I don’t want to hear anything about it. It will frustrate me to no end to hear you are doing something worrisome.”

  “I don’t think Father could tell you anyway,” said Noah, reaching for his father’s hand. “Could you, Father?”

  With very sad eyes, his father nodded. “I’m so sorry, both of you. There’s so much... Well, it’s just good to be together.”

  “Where’s Ralph?” Noah asked.

  “Glenda is taking great care of him,” Ariana said. “In fact, Fifi is staying at home as well. It seems the two little creatures have struck up something of a friendship.”

  Noah found this hard to believe, but it didn’t matter. He was glad to hear about Ralph. And his mother had, after all, left that dog of hers behind to come here and be with him and Father.

  The car door opened.

  “Miss Brett!” Noah heard Lucy shout.

  And there stood Miss Brett in the doorway between the first two cars. The children rushed to greet her, and suddenly, everyone was talking at once. “My angels,” Miss Brett said, returning the kisses and embraces of her students.

  But between the animated chatter lay great mounds of hesitation. Happy though they were all to be reunited, it felt like they were all standing behind fences they were not at liberty to cross.

  MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

  OR

  THE MYSTERIOUS BEYOND

  Soon, the children and their parents followed Miss Brett into the dining room. As Jasper had predicted, there was a man in a black chef’s hat, and he was ladling soup from a huge terrene into large bowls on the table. The soup smelled of roast garlic and vegetable broth. The chef was assisted by a very, very short man in a long black stocking cap, who wore pointy black shoes with little bells upon the toes, wearing a suit that could only belong to one of Santa’s helpers—but black, of course. He had a pair of black spectacles perched on the end of his nose, steamed up from the hot soup.

  As the second course of roast beef, fried potatoes, and grilled leeks
was being served, and the soup bowls removed, conversation returned to common ground.

  “We were all worried about you,” Dr. Banneker said to Wallace. “We heard that there had been trouble.”

  “We were worried about you,” Wallace said. “All of you left us without saying a word. We didn’t know a thing. We thought the men in black kidnapped you.”

  The parents laughed.

  “Kidnapped us?” Faye’s mother said. “Well, that is funny. Really. You see, the men in black—”

  “Gwendolyn.” Faye’s father stopped her gently, taking his wife’s hand and shaking his head ever so slightly.

  Faye’s mother put her hand to her lips. “Well, let’s just say we were not kidnapped.”

  The children all sat, waiting to hear more. But clearly, more was not forthcoming.

  “Well?” Faye said. “What happened, then? What was so important that abandoning your children was worth it?”

  “Dear...” her mother began.

  “You all just left us,” said Jasper. “And what’s even worse, you tried to pretend that you hadn’t.”

  “We...” the Modests began in unison, but there wasn’t really any argument they could make.

  “We were not at liberty to say,” said Dr. Banneker. “We still are not.”

  “You couldn’t tell your children?” asked Wallace.

  His father turned a shocked face toward his son. “Wallace, I... well, you needn’t—”

  “You all left us, without warning, without word,” said Jasper. “We’re only children! We have feelings and we worry. And we’re not just any children, we’re your children!”

  Wallace turned and looked his father right in the eyes. “Father.” Wallace spoke firmly, surprising both himself and his father. “It was... very unkind.” Wallace knew this was not enough to describe what he felt. Bravely, he added, “More than that, it was horridly cruel.” The vision of his father driving away as Wallace stood on the side of the road punctuated his words and made his face feel hot.

  “I... I’m sorry, son.” Dr. Banneker had nothing else to say. The other children got similar looks and declarations from their own parents, but still no further information.

  Lucy cleared her throat. “Can you tell us about Komar Romak?” she asked.

  The parents gave a collective gasp, with forks dropped, water sipped, coughs coughed.

  “How on earth do you know about Komar Romak?” Faye’s mother asked, recovering first.

  Not knowing how to answer, the children all looked down into their plates. Gwendolyn Vigyanveta continued, “Even we were never told much about... I mean... Well, how do you children know?”

  “Because...” started Jasper, but then he thought better of it. “Nothing,” he said instead. “We just thought we’d ask.”

  The five children looked at one another. They didn’t want to tell their parents, for five very private reasons—Faye out of spite, Noah out of protection, Wallace out of fear, Jasper out of concern, and Lucy out of confusion. They also knew that after all the worrying they had done, they didn’t want anything more to worry about.

  “I think it is safe to say,” Dr. Banneker said, looking at the other parents as if checking whether or not it was, in fact, safe to say, “I mean, what I can say—and I speak for all of us—is that, from what we have heard, Komar Romak is, we believe, a very bad man.”

  Dr. Banneker looked at the children, who looked back, unsatisfied. He cleared his throat again. “All I know, and I don’t think it is saying too much... that is...” Dr. Banneker seemed to consider his words carefully.

  After what seemed like ages of silence, Miss Brett asked, “What do you know, Dr. Banneker?”

  Dr. Banneker cleared his voice. “Komar Romak, as I have heard—as we have heard—was, I believe, originally... from Transylvania.”

  “I am sure you mean Australia,” Gwendolyn Vigyanveta said. Then, blushing, she said, “I mean Austria, don’t I?”

  “We know that his parents were in the circus,” said Dr. Canto-Sagas. “Or was it the symphony?”

  “I had come to believe they were sailors,” Dr. Banneker said. “And they had joined the Spanish—no, it was the French Navy.”

  “No, that isn’t what I heard,” Gwendolyn Vigyanveta said. “I am almost positive that his mother was a contortionist and his father, well, at least I am certain that they both were involved in a plot to steal the Crown Jewels. But that might have been ages ago.”

  “Yes. Yes, indeed, there was a plot,” said Dr. Banneker, “but it was the emperor’s gold in China. And it was Romak’s mother, I thought, who had disguised herself as an acrobat in the caper.”

  “No, not an acrobat. Komar Romak’s mother was disguised as a dancer,” Dr. Canto-Sagas said.

  “No, that was his father,” said Isabelle Modest. “The mother was something else. A seamstress, I think. Or maybe a milliner.”

  “I am sure I have heard the name in theatrical circles,” Ariana said, sipping from her flute of champagne. “I was under the impression that Komar Romak was the great Czechoslovakian escape artist. Yes, he was a teacher to that young American who is so famous in London right now—you know, they call him the King of Handcuffs. Now, what was that young man’s name—ah, yes, Houdini. Yes, Komar Romak was the teacher of young Harry Houdini. Komar Romak the escape artist, that’s what he—”

  “Nothing,” said the man in the black chef’s hat.

  Everyone turned, surprised to hear him speak.

  “Komar Romak is that,” he said.

  “He is what?” asked Ariana.

  “He is what,” said the man, serving helpings of sweet potatoes smothered in butter and maple syrup.

  “What is he?” Miss Brett asked. “Komar Romak is what? What do you know of Komar Romak?”

  “Nothing,” said the man.

  “Nothing?” Ariana said. “But that’s impossible. You must—someone must know.”

  “Two,” said the man.

  “Nothing, too? Two? To what?” Miss Brett asked, leaning forward in her seat.

  “Changes, escapes, but steals,” the man in the chef’s hat said. “And we fear him. Two. Always fear. Two. Always.” He then walked back into the kitchen.

  There was silence for a while after that, until Faye, glaring across the table at her parents, finally said what had long been on her mind. “Was Komar Romak someone you knew might be around?” she asked. “Someone you knew might harm us?”

  Her parents denied it instantly.

  “We had no idea...” Dr. Canto-Sagas said. “We had no idea that he would—”

  “He would what?” demanded Wallace.

  “So you did know he might do something?” Lucy asked, her eyes wide as saucers.

  The parents all became quite interested in what was on their forks, and the whole set of them fell silent again.

  The children, too, fell silent. It was difficult even to lift their eyes to look at anyone else.

  Faye felt the burning anger rising in her face. She wanted to shout and accuse all of their parents of putting them in danger and not caring at all about any of them. She tried to breathe deeply, but her breath caught in her throat and anger was not the only thing that burned her cheeks. The sting of unwanted tears could not be wiped away by a mere napkin.

  Noah could not believe his father could have known, but Dr. Canto-Sagas was looking down as well. Even Noah’s mother seemed unable to face her son.

  Wallace leaned against the table with the arm that held his fork. His hand began to shake, although he didn’t know if it was from fear, hurt, or anger.

  Jasper felt the weight of the world shift awkwardly on his shoulders. Once again, he carried the crushing fear of being the only one there for Lucy, and for the second time today, he felt it was she who was there for him.

  Lucy was the only one who looked from face to face. Mystified and utterly confused, she did not know what to think and suddenly felt a stranger in the presence of her parents.

  After
several heavy moments, the silence was broken.

  “Sweet Lucy, and all of you children,” said Dr. Tobias Modest, so softly his words seemed to carry on the silence. “You have been inadvertently, without your consent and without our desire, brought into a strange world. It is a world that remains a mystery, even to us. The word magic comes to mind, but only in that things we do not understand seem to be magic. Things that have not yet been invented seem mythical and things first discovered seem... well, they can be terrifying, exciting, and miraculous.”

  The children shot looks at one another. They understood all of this very, very well.

  “It was never our intention to lead you into harm. It was, in fact, our intention to lead you out of harm’s way. This will be the course taken always. Please understand that there is much we cannot tell you right now, just as, it seems, there is much you feel you cannot tell us. We must tell you that some of what you hold secret is not unknown to us.”

  Faye threw a look toward Jasper. But none of them would have, and certainly none of them had, any opportunity to tell anyone.

  “There will be a time, perhaps very soon and perhaps not, that you will need to know all we know, and by then, you may know all the more. Until then...”

  For the first time in Jasper and Lucy’s life, they saw tears form in the eyes of their father. Isabelle Modest placed a hand on her husband’s cheek and caressed it softly. “Until then,” Tobias said, “please know that we love you.”

  Tobias Modest buried his face in his wife’s shoulder. Lucy and Jasper stood and embraced their parents.

  As the inventors dressed for bed, there was much to think about. But as four of them finished dressing, a sound came through the halls that brought a strange calm among them.

  Noah had found, lying on his bed, his violin. The bow was rosined and the strings tuned. Gingerly, he picked up the bow and found it taut and ready for use. He plucked the strings and found them in perfect tune.

  As his mother began to hum Bach’s Zerreiβet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft from her dressing room in the bathing area of the cabin, Noah picked up the violin that felt, even after all these weeks, so natural beneath his chin. Plucking the string part he knew so well, Noah joined his mother so that voice and violin blended into perfect harmony.