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

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  “Mind you don’t fall down a rabbit hole,” Noah said with a smile.

  “Oh, there are no rabbits on the ship,” said Lucy. “At least not where I’ve been looking. I’d love to find a bunny rabbit. Then Vercingetorix can have a wedding.”

  “What?” Noah goggled at Lucy.

  “Who on earth is Vercingetorix?” Faye shook her head.

  “And why should he marry a rabbit?” Noah’s eyebrows were nearly hidden by his hair, they were so high up on his forehead.

  Lucy picked up her bunny rabbit doll from her lap. “This is Vercingetorix,” she said. “And you’re all just making silliness at me because I wished for bunnies in a bunny hole.” Lucy humphed.

  “Moi? To shame!” declared Noah in mock offense. “I merely noted that it is very dangerous wandering into places that do not wish you to enter them.”

  “He means, be careful about exploring in places you shouldn’t,” Faye said sternly. “Strange as it may seem, I’d have to agree with Noah.”

  Noah put his hand to his heart and mock-fainted into Faye’s lap,

  “Oh, get off!” Faye said, wiping Noah from her lap as if he were a pile of crumbs. Noah slid to the floor in true crumb style,

  “I would never go where I shouldn’t go,” said Lucy. “I only went to peek in places I hadn’t been.”

  Noah came up from the floor and looked into everyone else’s confused faces. Then he shrugged and sat back down in his seat. He grabbed three pieces of toast, spread jelly and cream on each one, piled all three together, and then, in three bites, devoured it all.

  “Find anything interesting?” Noah asked Lucy, reaching for the last piece of toast on the table. He received a slap from Faye, who took it herself.

  “Oh, yes,” said Lucy, her mouth full of toast. “I found the kitchen and the salon. And I found a grand closet filled with books— more books than I could count—and another filled with dress-up things.”

  “Dress-up things?” Faye hadn’t a clue what Lucy meant.

  “Well, there were hats and cloaks and funny wigs,” said Lucy. “Since Halloween is in ten days, we can use those things for dress-up.”

  “We’ll celebrate a holiday on the ship, you fancy?” Jasper thought about it and considered that they might be on the boat for more than one holiday. They might well be traversing the entire ocean, and that could take . . . Jasper could only imagine.

  “Oh, it isn’t the first holiday.” Lucy giggled. Then, she spoke as if she was telling secrets: “Miss Brett’s birthday is today, and I gave her a special birthday kiss filled with wishes and happy thoughts of cream custards and puddings and chocolate cakes.”

  “We forgot Miss Brett’s birthday?” Wallace gulped, thinking of how kind she had been on his own birthday

  “How do you know?” Faye asked Lucy.

  “Miss Brett told us,” Lucy said. “It’s the same day as Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and started the Nobel Prize. That’s today.”

  Faye was amazed. She didn’t remember ever having been told.

  Miss Brett came back, carrying a large plate of hot crumpets and some raspberry tarts. All eyes turned to her.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Happy birthday, Miss Brett,” Wallace said, sheepishly. “We should have brought presents.”

  All the children wished her a happy birthday. A few moments followed where only the slurping of Lucy’s tea could be heard.

  “Children, no long faces,” she said. “In truth, I forgot myself, until Lucy reminded me. I’d say we’ve had a great deal to think about these days.” Miss Brett picked up the empty jam pot and went back to the kitchen to refill it,

  Jasper quickly leaned toward his sister and whispered. “You could have reminded us, Lucy. It would have been the sporting thing to do.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, honest confusion on her face.

  “You remembered it was Miss Brett’s birthday.” Jasper was surprised at Lucy’s thickheadedness. “And we didn’t.”

  “But what about it?” Lucy asked, picking a currant from her scone and nibbling it like a bunny rabbit.

  Jasper felt his face go red. How could Lucy be so thoughtless?

  “Forget it,” Jasper hissed as Miss Brett returned. Lucy looked hurt and shocked by his response. She looked down at her teacup, then put it back in its saucer, tears welling in her eyes. Jasper almost moved his hand to comfort her, but he didn’t. Anger and guilt battled it out in his head and his heart,

  “I didn’t mean to do anything,” Lucy mumbled.

  “I . . . I said forget it.” Jasper patted Lucy on the shoulder. Lucy grinned and blinked and the tears, though no longer needed, fell.

  “Where do you think we’re headed?” Faye asked quickly.

  “Well, I haven’t a clue,” said Miss Brett, looking out at the sea. “I only know we’re going east, so we could be headed toward a number of places. Anyone care to guess?”

  “Europe,” said Jasper.

  “India,” said Faye, hopefully.

  “Africa or England, or, perhaps, Atlantis,” said Noah.

  “Oh!” Lucy’s eyes grew very big. “You think we might be going to Atlantis? It’s the lost city. That would mean we’d be the ones to find it! They’ll all be so pleased not to be lost anymore.”

  “I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” Miss Brett said, kissing Lucy on the head. She looked out at the sky hitting the sea, her fears unspoken about their journey.

  “And when might that be?” asked Wallace.

  Again, Miss Brett had no idea.

  After breakfast, the children settled in quickly, a talent they had acquired—and explored the ship. They learned that, however grand the ship was, they were certainly its only passengers. This did not surprise them, though, since the only members of the crew were the mysterious men in black.

  Lucy showed the children the kitchen and the closet of books. They lit a lamp and found five shelves filled with books of all sizes. This was a deep closet that went back into darkness. What was remarkable wasn’t that there were so very many books, but that they were all so different. Some had pictures, and some had only computations. Some were in Latin and some, handwritten, looked very old indeed. There was a book on navigation by a famous American navigator and a book on the history of Persia,

  “And look!” Noah pulled a book from the shelf. “It’s Jules Verne! Voyages Extraordinaires. And there’s another,” he said, pulling from the shelf another book by the same author. These, he could tell, were collections of stories,

  After perusing the books and, with the help of Lucy’s memory, putting them back on the shelves exactly where they belonged, Lucy took the children to other spots she’d discovered. While the broom closet was not very exciting, the costume closet was to everyone’s interest. It was a strange collection of things that no one expected to find,

  “You’d think the costumes would be all in black,” said Noah.

  “That would make the most sense.” Faye held a very small shoe in her hand. It had no mate, and was very old. “I’d like to see the lady who could fit into this.”

  Lucy took the shoe and placed it easily, like Cinderella, upon her tiny foot. “It’s for me,” she said.

  “But there’s only one,” said Faye. “And it’s old. Probably from the century before last.”

  There were many things that looked at least that old. Folded on the shelves and hanging on hooks were old-fashioned coats and cloaks that seemed to be from the middle ages. There were beautiful dresses and hats, too. And strangely, almost all of them seemed to be small enough to fit the children,

  “Do you think they were brought here for us?” asked Lucy. Having selected a lovely hat with silk flowers which she was now wearing, she held up a tiny dress that was just her size. The dress was made of velvet and lace. “I could be a princess.”

  “I doubt it,” said Faye, who noticed that there were a few more single shoes in a corner. “It looks as if these are things people left on the
ship.”

  “You mean passengers left them?” asked Wallace, wiping his glasses so he could better examine the costumes.

  “Who knows?” Faye had no idea to whom these things belonged, only that they were not being worn by any of the men in black.

  Noah pulled at a long piece of cloth folded neatly in a corner. It was huge, and seemed to be red and white. Under it was another giant cloth, this one black and white.

  “What is this?” he asked, staring at the first cloth. Jasper grabbed one corner and Wallace another. Faye took the third, and Noah held his. They all began stepping back, until they came to the walls. Though the space was not large enough to spread out the cloth fully, they could see that it was some sort of a drapery, or perhaps a large tablecloth. It was rectangular, and the children had, unfortunately, opened it so that the long sides were against the walls. So they shuffled around to extend it the length of the corridor. It was indeed red and white, and checkered. Dropping it, they picked up the other cloth and began to unfold it as well. It was not checkered, but there was a black, angular design. It looked like “V” shapes facing toward the center, but they could not make out the complete image.

  And then they heard footsteps.

  “We’d better fold it back the way it was,” said Jasper, figuring that these cloths were not part of the costume collection. Since he was fairly sure the mysterious men in black would not be too pleased with an invasion of the costume room in the first place, pulling out these special cloths would certainly get them all into trouble.

  The children tried to refold the cloths neatly, but it was nearly impossible. They kept getting the corners crossed and finding that the ends did not meet. In addition, Lucy seemed to think it was fun to run through the billowing fabric and twirl through the center, pulling the corners out of the hands of her friends and giggling as she rolled herself up in a cocoon,

  “Lucy!” groaned Jasper. “Get out of there! We’re trying to fold these dratted things.”

  “You must not flop,” came a voice full of menace. It turned out to be a man wearing a pair of black, octagonal welding goggles and a black three-pointed jester’s hat. He was in a black leotard and poofy black bloomers. But judging by his voice, gravelly and deep, he was not amused,

  “Oh—sorry,” said Jasper, pulling Lucy from the mess of cloth.

  “There is no sorry,” growled the man, and even Lucy, who seemed to be fond of the men in black, stepped behind Jasper.

  “The costumes are lovely,” Lucy offered.

  “Not so but left,” he muttered.

  “Um, may, um, may we . . .” But Lucy trailed off as the jester turned his back on her.

  Grumbling to himself in words even Lucy could not understand, the man grabbed the black and white cloth and pulled it all into a ball. Then, he kissed it. And then, with a sudden flick of his wrists, he sent the huge cloth out clean and flat and, with amazing speed and remarkable skill, flipped and flopped his arms until the cloth was perfectly folded, as if it had been ironed. He did this all on his own. The children were amazed.

  Then he did the same with the other cloth. He placed both of them on the shelf, closed the door to the closet, and left the children standing there. As he walked down the hall, he did a little skip and clicked his heels together.

  “For a jester, he wasn’t very funny,” said Noah. “But he could most certainly fold.”

  The children wandered down to the engine room, where they were shooed out by the engineer, who wore short black pants, long black stockings, and thick black boots. The engine room was noisy, and the children did not in the least mind leaving.

  They went to the upper deck. Heading across it and into the first set of doors, they found themselves in a wide corridor with a set of double doors at the end. They opened the doors and were thrilled to find their laboratory just as they had left it. And, to their pleasure, they found an observation room connected to the lab. It was very much like the observation room in the train, with a rounded dome of glass as its ceiling. In the center was a huge telescope with enormous gears and many levers, so it could be positioned however they chose.

  “We must tell Miss Brett!” said Lucy, jumping up and down. “She was just saying that we should learn about astral navigation.” She tapped on the glass and was surprised at how thick it seemed to be. Her tapping made a very different sound than it did on a regular window, as if she were tapping on a stone wall.

  So, following a late afternoon tea, they took Miss Brett to the upper deck.

  “How fabulous!” she exclaimed when she saw the telescope.

  Once they were able to position the telescope properly, they took turns looking out toward the horizon. They positioned the telescope to focus on the sliver of moon, which was visible though it was still light,

  “You must be very careful when you look into the sky,” Miss Brett said. “Looking at the sun can hurt your eyes.”

  “It’s the magnification of the light,” said Wallace.

  “Well, what do you know? Look who’s the astronomer,” Noah said, patting Wallace on the back.

  Miss Brett decided that schoolwork would focus on the ocean, the stars, and sailing. What an opportunity to study hands-on.

  In the early evening, the children took Miss Brett to the room of books. She was thrilled to see so many volumes and longed to walk all the way to the back. She immediately considered this the perfect lending library for their on-board classes,

  Wallace perused a large book called The American Practical Navigator, an encyclopedia of sea and navigation, full of equations and scientific information,

  “This will be an excellent book to study while at sea,” Miss Brett declared. “Be sure to care for it well and, when we are done, return it to where we found it.” She figured it would help in different les-sons—navigation as well as meteorology and oceanography. It was a wonderful encyclopedia of all things maritime,

  They referred to the book when they discussed various navigational methods. She explained a sextant, having borrowed one from the mysterious captain in black.

  “You see, this is how they navigate using the stars,” said Miss Brett.

  “And the planets,” said Jasper.

  “And the birds,” added Lucy. Then, to a sea of questioning faces, she said, “They’re celestial.”

  “Well, birds do a lot of flying about,” said Wallace, “but I think the celestial object needs to be more fixed in the sky than a bird.” Wallace was taken with The American Practical Navigator. The calculations were amazing.

  Later, as the autumn sun descended, and the moon a thin bright streak in the sky, Miss Brett had them go outside on the deck. Because most sailing ships were not equipped with fabulous domed glass enclosures and enormous telescopes, she would teach them using ordinary equipment. Tonight, they would use one of the small telescopes positioned around the ship. Miss Brett also borrowed a map from the captain so they could use the sextant properly. The children were able to take some measurements and do some navigational investigations of their own. She brought blankets and asked one of the men in black to bring a tray of hot tea to arm them against the chill.

  Holding the sextant, Wallace looked through the lens, but when Faye moved into position to look through the scope, Wallace stumbled while getting out of her way and dropped the sextant. It tumbled over toward the edge of the deck, but when he reached for it, frantic, it slid slowly across, stopping at the edge. When he tried to pick it up, the sextant would not move. Jasper leaned over and tried to help him pull it from the edge.

  “What’s going on?” Noah said. He tried to pull it up as well. “It’s stuck,” he said, “but it isn’t stuck to anything.”

  But Jasper could see that the sextant was attached to a long, narrow, metal edge that ran around the outer perimeter of the top deck, How odd, he thought, using the back of a teaspoon from the tray to wedge the sextant from its position. He handed it back to Wallace, looking back down at what was clearly a magnetic strip. Why it sho
uld be there, he could not imagine,

  “It is strange, isn’t it?” Wallace said, taking one of his magnetic spheres from his pocket. He tried to place it on the magnetic strip, but the sphere jumped off and landed back on the deck. “They must have the same polarity.”

  “It must be used for something,” said Jasper, standing up. It was growing darker. The sun was setting behind them.

  Noah looked down at the strip. “Maybe to seal something?” He shrugged. “It’s getting dark fast—and cold, too.”

  “We still seem to be heading more or less due east,” Wallace said, standing next to Jasper.

  “And away from South America,” said Wallace.

  Noah examined the map. “If we keep this course, we’ll be heading for—”

  “The Strait of Gibraltar,” said Wallace, who was looking at the map as well.

  The Strait of Gibraltar, thought Miss Brett. She looked down at the map. That would take them into the Mediterranean Sea. There were so many possible destinations in that part of the world, and Miss Brett had read about a variety of countries in that region. This would be the first time she would be traveling there—the first time she’d be traveling anywhere, in fact, besides the United States and England, where she’d visited her mother’s family as a child. She wondered just where they would be pulling into port,

  Noah was shivering, and had neither jacket nor muffler for warmth.

  Walking over to Noah, Miss Brett placed a blanket on his shoulders. He smiled and thanked her. He looked at Jasper, who now had the same expression on his face as Noah. Miss Brett was so kind, he thought, and they hadn’t even remembered her birthday.

  “I’ll get you some tea, shall I?” Miss Brett went over to the tray.

  “I feel like a cad,” said Noah to the others.

  “She would never have forgotten our birthdays,” said Wallace with a groan.

  “I wish Lucy had said something,” Jasper said, feeling gnawing resentment.

  But they had a plan to make it up to Miss Brett. They had a plan to give something to the kindest woman they knew.