The Ravens of Solemano or The Order of the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “The light is still chasing itself across the ground,” Lucy said, pointing at the crackles of electricity continuing to shoot across the fields around them.

  Every light in the train suddenly seemed to light itself. Sizzling sounds of electricity came from everywhere. Without warning, the train turned sharply, knocking everyone right back to the floor.

  Miss Brett was up in a flash, checking to see if the children were all right. Helping Dr. Isobel Modest to her feet, she asked if anyone else needed help.

  “Get them to the rooms now!” shouted Dr. Tobias Modest.

  Without a second request, Miss Brett herded the children from the dining car into the corridor of the sleeping car. Once again, the train lurched suddenly, and everyone found themselves in a pile on the floor—except Miss Brett, who had been thrown backwards through the corridor, back into the dining room.

  Shaking themselves off, the children scrambled to get up.

  Lucy climbed over the pile of children. Jasper could see panic in her face and tried to reach her

  “I have to get her!” cried Lucy, pushing Jasper’s hand away as he tried to stop her. “She’s fallen and she might be stuck.” Lucy looked like a mad feral child, her hair still standing on end, a wild look in her eyes.

  Pulling herself up, Lucy was not going to be separated from Miss Brett. She knew, somehow, that whatever was happening might mean that her parents would have to go away again, but not Miss Brett. Jasper would always be there, and Miss Brett must as well. If her parents were going to go, they mustn’t take Miss Brett with them.

  But the way was blocked by a chair that had overturned and tumbled into the corridor. With another lurch, Lucy lost her footing and fell back into the others. This time, Jasper grabbed her in his arms and pulled her to him. Helping Faye to her feet, Jasper took Lucy and followed the others into Noah’s comfortable and elegant room. It seemed to be designed especially for Noah and his parents, as each bedroom seemed to have been decorated just for each of them.

  In Noah’s room, there was a large bed made of elegantly carved mahogany. A netted canopy draped over the posters. A writing table and a music stand were both near the window, though now leaning precariously against the wall. There were even portraits of Ariana on the wall that were now askew. Next to the big bed was a smaller bed, carved exactly like the other, but without the canopy. This was for Noah, who threw himself onto it.

  “Well, here we are,” he said, “locked up in a cabin while our parents go off without us.”

  “Going off like rotten fruit,” grumbled Faye.

  Jasper said gently, “Faye, you can’t blame—”

  “Can’t I?” Faye said, more resigned than accusingly rude. “They’re always going off, and I don’t like the smell of it.”

  “Faye.” Jasper wanted to calm her. Glancing over, he saw Lucy’s telltale sign of fear and worry

  Lucy’s hand went to her mouth, where she found her bracelet and began to chew. Over the last few days, she had fallen out of the habit of biting her nails or her bracelet, but the habit seemed to have returned.

  “We don’t know they will, or where, I mean, if . . . What about Miss Brett?” asked Wallace, not sure if he felt confident defending the decisions of their parents.

  “She fell back into the dining car,” said Faye. She considered. “She’ll be fine and surely come back to us.” But Faye was thinking of something else. “They know,” she said quietly.

  “You could see it in their eyes,” Noah said, staring at the ceiling. “Those rascals are up to something.”

  “You mean our parents?” asked Faye. Noah caught her eye and her irony, but could not deny what she had said. He had meant the mysterious men in black, but the same thing held true for their parents.

  Wallace stared out the window, trying to take deep breaths. His father had just shoved him aside. That, he could take. But without a word of explanation?

  Suddenly Wallace focused on what he was seeing. “Look!” he called.

  In a moment, all five were staring back out of the window again. There was a definite cloud of smoke and dust and sand and dirt, and when it settled, it was clear that the contraption and the shiny thing were nowhere to be seen.

  But they didn’t have long to look, because then another violent shift came and knocked them all down, Noah’s nose smashing and sticking against the glass window. Wallace’s forehead was pressed against the glass by Jasper’s elbow, which left a giant smudge. Some crumpet crumbs and jam from Noah’s cheek hit the window as he slid his face across the glass.

  The train had accelerated, and was now taking sharp turns at amazing speed.

  Climbing up again, the children were dazed. The door opened, and Miss Brett came in, winded and disheveled, but more anxious about the children than about herself. The door shut quickly behind her. Someone had shut them in.

  “Are you hurt, any of you?” she said, panting and leaning against the wall.

  “Just a nose tweak,” said Noah, rubbing his nose for emphasis.

  “What’s going on out there?” asked Jasper.

  “I don’t know,” said Miss Brett. “Your parents . . . I think . . . well—”

  “Come on!” said Faye. “Let’s get our parents!”

  “Wait!” cried Miss Brett.

  “We can’t!” said Faye. “If they’re hurt, I want to help. If they’re not, I want to shout at them!”

  “Faye!” begged Miss Brett, though she could not reject Faye’s honesty. “Children, please.” But she went unheeded as the other children scrambled past Faye to the door and rushed to pull it open, ready to run from the room to see what was happening.

  The man wearing big black bunny ears stood in the doorway, glowering. Despite the funny dark glasses and the black balaclava pulled over his chin, his face was stern.

  “Stay in room!” he said gruffly.

  “Mr. Bunny Ears!” said Lucy to the mysterious man in black. “What happened? What was shiny and why, why, why?”

  Lucy certainly spoke for the rest of them, though this may not have been how they would have put it. They all stood firm. Someone knew what was happening, and the children wanted for once to know as well.

  Miss Brett made her way to the front of the group, putting a hand on Lucy’s shoulder.

  “I want to know immediately if we have been put in danger,” said Miss Brett, trying to remain calm. “Or more danger, I should say. This is unacceptable. I demand to speak with . . .” She thought of who seemed to be the most powerful voice among the parents. “Dr. Banneker. If he is unavailable, I’ll speak with any of the other scientists.”

  “The watcher,” Mr. Bunny Ears said.

  “What?” said the children in collective confusion.

  “Who,” said the man.

  “Who?” asked Noah, speaking for the rest of them. As usual, the odd accent and strange way of talking made everything the man in black said so very confusing. There were times Noah almost felt as if he were getting the hang of the mysterious men in black’s odd language, but this was not one of those times.

  “The watcher,” said the man.

  “And what on earth is that supposed to mean?” asked Faye, hands on hips, angry glint in her eye. Jasper knew that glint and was glad it was not aimed at any of them.

  “Who was the watcher? Or what?” asked Wallace, his voice cracking. He slid his hand into Miss Brett’s and moved, ever so slightly, behind her.

  “Was the watcher the shiny thing or the thing that blew up the shiny thing?” Noah said.

  “Yes,” said the man. He turned to leave, but Miss Brett caught his arm.

  Then Jasper said, “I want to know, was it . . .” But the name caught in his throat.

  “Was it Komar Romak?” Noah blurted out, swallowing hard, nodding to Jasper

  Komar Romak.

  The mysterious men in black were no angels. Guardians or captors, they were a rather unlovable bunch, by all except Lucy But Komar Romak was the monster they feared. He haunted
their nightmares. Like the mysterious men in black, Komar Romak had been unthinkably odd—tall, strange, and skinny. If things had been different, if everything had been different, he might have been funny. In fact, at first, they had thought he was funny—before they knew better.

  And still, they knew next to nothing about him. The mysterious men in black had explained nothing. They hadn’t explained why this monster was haunting them. But as much as they did not know, they did know this: Komar Romak had only half a moustache, and Komar Romak could shed ropes that bound him and disappear out of a small locked room.

  They wanted to know more and wanted to know it right now. Was this Komar Romak? Was he after them again?

  Noah waited for an answer, but an answer did not come.

  “Well, was it?” Faye said, more harshly than Noah had. “Was it him? Only he’s been blown to smithereens. We’re free of him, are we not? We must be free of him.”

  “Never,” the man said. And with that, he walked hurriedly down the corridor and into the dining car, the door closing shut behind him.

  Faye’s cheeks grew scarlet. “Stay here,” she said through gritted teeth as she went to follow the man. Miss Brett reached out to stop her, but Faye slid past.

  It didn’t matter, though. The door to the dining car would not open. Faye pulled and pulled, but the door would not budge. She grabbed at the handle and banged upon it with her fists, but no one came. Defeated, she looked at the other children, who had followed her out.

  “Maybe we should go back into Noah’s room and wait,” Wallace said meekly

  Without a word, they walked into Noah’s room.

  The terrain was slightly different as they watched the light change from morning to afternoon. Their previous view had been nothing but empty space, plains, hills, and tumbleweeds, but now there were great piles of rocks, and they could see the mountains in the not-too-faraway distance. As they gazed out in silent thought, something happened that had not happened since boarding the train three days before.

  The train slowed to a stop.

  “Over here!” called Jasper, pointing out the window in the direction they had been headed.

  Now that the train was no longer moving, they could see they had been wrong about the rocks. That is, what had appeared to be natural rocks were in fact blocks of stone—a vast pile of rubble that seemed once to have been a building. Or a few buildings. They could see that in the middle, partially fallen, stood what might have been a tower. But the tower, unlike the rest of it, looked to have been dismantled, not destroyed. Neat piles of rebar and bolts lay next to the base. Whatever it had been, it was no longer

  “Is this all from the machine thing that the shiny thing exploded?” asked Lucy, looking up at Faye. Faye shook her head and raised her shoulders. She hadn’t a clue.

  “Let me find out what—” Jasper began, but before he could leave the room to get some answers, answers came their way. The door to the cabin opened. It was one of the mysterious men in black—the one in the frilly apron.

  “Why are we stopping?” Jasper asked.

  “You must descend,” the frilly apron man said.

  Miss Brett stepped in front of Jasper. “We are not going anywhere until I know it is safe for the—”

  “The children down,” he insisted.

  “Down where?” Faye moved to put her arms around Lucy.

  “It will be with safety,” the man said.

  “Where’s Mummy?” asked Lucy, chewing her bracelet mercilessly

  “Go,” the man insisted.

  Jasper and Lucy stepped forward. Miss Brett took a step to follow Jasper and Lucy but the man blocked her way.

  “The children,” he said.

  “Absolutely not,” Miss Brett said, trying to get past the man. But he barred her way

  “Miss Brett!” cried Lucy, standing on the steps, but the man simply picked her up and placed her on the ground, off the train.

  “I want Miss Brett!” cried Lucy. “I want Mummy!”

  “I’m here, Lucy,” Jasper said, trying to calm her.

  “No!” yelled the little girl as she tried to reboard the train.

  “Lucy!” Jasper tried to reach for her, but she pulled away. He swallowed hurt that felt like a lump in his throat.

  The man refused to let the children back onto the train, or Miss Brett off it. Trying to collect herself, Miss Brett took a deep breath. “It . . . it will be . . . We must do as he says, children. I’m sure it will be . . .” She wanted to say it would be all right, but she did not know if that was true. But they had no choice—at least not any that she knew.

  With mounting fear and growing sorrow, the children left Miss Brett behind and stood on firm ground for the first time in three days. They stepped into the ruins of at least two structures.

  “What is this place?” Noah said. “Or rather, what was it? Because it certainly isn’t what it was.”

  “What?” asked Faye, looking at Noah.

  “I’m turning into Lucy, aren’t I?” Noah grinned.

  But he was right. As the children stood in the midst of rubble, Wallace bent down and picked up a broken beaker, and then the remains of a small Bunsen burner.

  “This was a laboratory,” he said with confidence.

  “This was a magnifying transformer,” Jasper said, finding what looked to be a piece of the secondary coil. There were other bits of twisted metal and something that Jasper guessed had been a part of the electromechanical oscillator. “Whose laboratory?”

  “Mine,” came a voice both whiny and cracked.

  Jasper and Faye turned around. Noah stumbled slightly and froze when he saw from where the voice had come. Wallace instinctively reached for a hand and was glad when Noah didn’t make fun of him for grabbing his. Wallace did let go of it immediately, though, not wanting to appear scared. Noah patted Wallace on the back, then stumbled again.

  Lucy stood up from investigating rocks and pieces of wire. They all looked over to find a tall, skinny man with a tidy moustache, a somewhat beaky nose, and ears that stood out on either side of his very neat, parted black hair. He was clearly not one of the mysterious men in black, because he wore a crisp white shirt, and his face was plain and clear. He pulled from his pocket a white handkerchief and bent over to pick something up from the rubble.

  “Who is that?” asked Faye.

  “It is belonging to him,” said one of the men in black, wearing a black derby hat and short black britches, long black stockings, and black shoes that curled at the toes. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. Was he on the train? thought Jasper. Where else could he have been? Wherever he came from, the mysterious man in the black derby hat was pointing at the man in the white shirt and moustache.

  “What?” Noah shook his head as if that might clear things up.

  “All of the light.”

  Without warning, Lucy ran over to the odd skinny man in the white shirt. She pulled down on his sleeve so the man tilted toward her. Then Lucy let go and, with a hand grasping one side each, pulled hard on his moustache.

  “OUCH!” he cried. The man jumped, letting out a scream. He swatted at his face even after Lucy had released him, scrubbing away at his moustache with his white handkerchief as if something filthy had touched it.

  “It’s not the birdwatcher,” said Lucy.

  “You mean Komar Romak,” Noah said. Odd as it had been, he understood why Lucy had tugged.

  “By what insane and horrifically disgusting measure do you take such liberties with my moustache?!” cried the man, still wiping his moustache clean. It was no longer neatly combed, but rather quite bushy from being rubbed. “Komar Romak, indeed.” He pulled from his pocket a tiny comb and proceeded to tidy his moustache.

  “I wanted to be sure it was yours, on both sides,” said Lucy sweetly. “You are tall and skinny and you might be him, but for the moustache. We are all very pleased that you are not the bad person we hoped you wouldn’t be. Thank you.”

  “You honestly thought�
�”

  “Yes,” said Lucy, sincerely.

  The man searched her face, then those of the other children. He stood at full height, dusted himself off, and attempted to straighten his moustache once again before replacing the comb in his pocket. He then extended his hand, holding the handkerchief. When no one reacted, he cleared his throat.

  “You may shake my handkerchief,” he said curtly. The others looked at one another, but Lucy reached out and took the corner of the handkerchief, shaking it as if it were a limp hand. The man pulled it back and returned it to his pocket.

  “I am none other than—”

  “Sir,” said the man in the black derby hat.

  The man in the white shirt turned without finishing his introduction. He went to speak with the derby-wearing man. They spoke in mutters, so none of the children could hear what they said. The man pointed to various areas in the rubble, then up at the partially disassembled tower. Seeming to remember the children again, the odd skinny man in the white shirt looked at them, and then off behind them.

  “Ah, yes, they’ve come for you,” he said, gesturing toward the rubble. The children looked to find that there, on the far side of the ruins, away from the train, were three large black motorcars.

  “Where did those come from?” said Noah to no one in particular. He certainly did not expect an answer.

  “They have come for you, as I said.” The odd skinny man rolled his eyes.

  “But who are you?” Faye asked, exasperated.

  “Ah, more on that later.”

  “Later?” said Jasper. “You mean we’re coming back here?”

  “Heavens no,” the man said, dismissively.

  The derby-wearing man in black shuffled the children toward the cars.

  Lucy bent to pick up something. “Look at what someone left,” she said, handing the paper to Jasper.

  Jasper looked at the torn paper. On it was an equation, or part of one, and, at the bottom, where the page was torn, it said, “ors Gui.”

  “And that is mine,” said the man, plucking the paper from Jasper’s hand with a thumb and forefinger as if he were touching something contaminated. Deftly, and still with two fingers, he folded the piece of paper and put it into his jacket pocket. Then looking around, he gestured grandly, “It’s all mine.”