by W. Peever
As the guards left, Professor Grayson and Joelle entered the children's empty room.
"Nice of you to join us, Grayson," came the familiar hiss of Paulo Lapertine of the Council.
Grayson smiled pleasantly and gave a nod as the councilman exited the room, his white robes swishing on the ground.
"Horrid man," said Joelle between clenched teeth. "How you put up with him I will never know."
"We put up with what we cannot control, my old friend. You know that better than most."
"Still, I would love to sink my teeth into his smug backside."
"Really." The professor laughed to himself. "I find that a most unappetizing thought."
"True. Guess I'll stick to the real rats for now." The Siamese cat looked up at Grayson. "So, by the look of this room you went through with your plan."
"I did."
"Then you think there is still a chance."
"I do."
The cat jumped up on the windowsill and sprawled in the afternoon sun. "Well, you've never been wrong in all the time we've been friends."
"Oh, my dear Joelle. I have been wrong more times that I care to remember, and this may be yet another. I've placed our world's only hope in great danger, and I'm not entirely sure he's ready to walk on this path. He is so new to our world."
"He's like his father: capable, intelligent, surrounded by friends who'd die for him."
"I hope you are wrong about that, Joelle—I really do. If Charlie follows his father's path, as enlightened and truthful as it was, we will all be doomed."
Grayson joined Joelle at the window. It was a beautiful summer morning in Boston, and the sky was clear.
Chapter Fifteen Inscription
"Nice wheels!" Mick noted as they hopped in to the back of the navy blue Mercedes convertible.
Tillie was less impressed. "You could have at least stolen a car that was a little less conspicuous," she chastised. "I mean, this car will be noticed by every cop in Massachusetts."
Colin smiled smugly back at her. "The guy who deserted this car was on his way to work. He won't miss it for hours, and by then we'll be back in Purgatory Chasm."
"What's that?" Charlie asked.
"That was the ruddy forest where Vali cornered us," Mick chimed in. "We heard the Council talking about it. They couldn't figure why we were there, and we neglected to tell them about the cave, seeing Bailey blew it up. Something's there Charlie—it's where the astrolabe was taking us."
"The next clue's in that clearing, and we need to find it," Colin instructed.
The wind felt amazing against Charlie's face. The sterile recycled air that had filtered off of his lifeforce at the safe house was finally leaving his system like rancid smoke from a dying campfire. He could breathe more easily, but there was something else that he was craving even more.
"Anyone think to bring any food? I haven't eaten in a week!" Charlie said with the first smile he had given them since he woke up.
Colin laughed and pulled into the first burger joint he could find, and ordered them all double cheeseburgers from the dollar menu and two super-sized colas.
"Do I want to know where you got the money?" Mick asked as Colin handed a crisp twenty to the pimple-faced teenager at the drive-through service window.
"Avery figured we would go after Bailey one way or another. He handed me a pile of twenties, I guess to prevent us becoming criminals." He smiled at Charlie. "Your mom's in good hands, mate!"
Charlie winced at the thought of his mom with any man while his father still lived. Only Bailey fully understood, and she was nowhere around to give his hand a squeeze. A sinking feeling overcame his hunger, and he put the burger down. Then he felt it…it was Tillie's hand in comfort.
"We're going to find her," she whispered in his ear as Colin got back on the highway.
"How long do you think?" Mick asked.
"I saw a sign a few miles back near the first Worcester exit saying we'd already entered Purgatory Chasm, so I'm guessing…" Colin began. The in-car GPS began to beep signaling their exit and they moved over to enter the park. "Not far," he concluded, laughing despite himself.
Here they were in under an hour—back in enemy territory, driving down a narrow street with trees bending in on them, lush but somehow threatening, blocking out the midday sun and putting them in early twilight.
"This is the spot," said Tillie, animatedly tapping Colin on the shoulder. "We just need to hike ten minutes in that direction."
"How do you remember?" Charlie asked, this part of the forest looking exactly the same as any other: same tall oaks, same low-lying ferns blanketing the ground.
"I'm the girl with the visions, remember?" Tillie replied, patting his arm in reassurance.
"There were, like, fifty people in Grayson's rescue party," Charlie said in disbelief. "I would've thought they'd cut a path right to this point."
"Na, only Joelle, Grayson and the Guard came this way. The rest were Qilted in," Tillie went on, trying to make light of Charlie's ignorance.
That would explain why the ferns weren't completely destroyed. Ten minutes, Charlie thought—just moments to where it all happened, to where he had lost such a huge part of himself. The desolate feeling caused Charlie to retch and then vomit on the path. Mick waved his head for the others to keep going and took his friend's arm over his shoulder.
"We do this together, mate. She means a lot to me too." Standing, and so lifting Charlie, Mick took them down the path.
"Up here!" Colin shouted.
"Watchya got, mate?" Mick called back. Charlie had been taking it slowly, but now Mick felt a sense of urgency. "Come on, Charlie. Let's catch up—not far. It's not safe for them to be by themselves."
Shaking off physical weakness and self-pity, Charlie broke into an unsteady jog. They rounded the bend in the trail, and hurried up an esker ridge around the clearing. Torched trees and scorched rocks littered the site, remnants of a battle Charlie would rather forget. Images pounded at his memory: the screaming of the wall of fire, dropping her hand, and gone.
"Over here!" called Colin. Tillie was bent over a huge slab of slate, wiping away dirt washed over it in a recent rainstorm. It was engraved, maybe in words or hopefully in some other symbols they could follow.
"How did you find it so fast?" Charlie asked, truly amazed that she was able to pick it out among the literally hundreds of possible locations.
"It wasn't hard," Tillie replied flatly. "It had already been found."
"What? You don't mean…" enquired Mick, worried.
"I mean, when we came up the hill it was obvious someone had dug it up—ferns uprooted, a pile of dirt over there. Someone found this, and it's not hard to follow their footsteps."
"It's in Latin, I think," said Charlie. "Bailey studied it a bit in school; I took Spanish because it was easier. Now I wish I hadn't."
"No worries," said Colin. "Latin was hammered into my head ever since I was five. My dad and uncle made sure of that. Let me take a look."
Cado Miles militis of navigatio St. Vindicatum entombed intemporaliter in silicis slate, intemporaliter exspecto pro peto quisnam patesco, runes ut reperio thesaurus ut exspecto, in capulum of mucro.
Reading it was easier than deciphering it. "I think it's a poem. I could be wrong, but my best translation is: 'The Fallen Knight of the voyage St. Clair, entombed eternally in rock slate, eternally waiting for the seeker who bears the runes to find the treasure that waits in the hilt of the sword.'"
Colin looked up from the slate confused.
"What's wrong?" asked Tillie.
"I just don't get what it means—its significance.
There's no reference to runes or glyphs, nothing that we could use to put in the astrolabe. I'm stuck. Sorry, guys…I really thought we'd find some clue." "You did, Colin. The astrolabe pointed us here, and we found an inscription that involves the St. Clair party. This is the clue." Charlie pondered a little. "Let's take this one piece at a time. The Vanari have the exact same info
rmation we do, so they have the same chance as us to find the next clue."
"Except they have at least a week's head start," Tillie reminded them.
"Okay," said Charlie, thriving on the challenge, his head seeming to grow clearer by the minute. "'Eternally waiting for the seeker who bears the runes to find the treasure that waits…' We already know I'm the Seeker, and that the astrolabe contains the runes…or it could be the ring that has the runes. Either way we have the objects."
Colin nodded his approval. "Could be, could be. But what about the first part of the message…the fallen knight? My dad never told me there was a special knight who died on the voyage."
"No, but it's not like the Templar voyage to the New World was a total secret. There's been speculation for years about the Newport Tower. I bet there are hundreds of books on the subject, and even more websites." Tillie was a library freak, and it wasn't as if they had a choice.
"The closest library…" mused Colin. "Let's get back to the car and turn on the GPS—it pulls up stuff like that."
The four friends made their way back through the woods, over the crumpled ferns and back to the road. In the sports car, it turned out the library was only ten minutes away in the little town of Whitinsville, Massachusetts: quintessential New England, small quaint shops, streets full of bright-eyed tourists buying maps and supplies for their day at the park. Despite the experience the children had had, there it seemed Purgatory Chasm was a tourist attraction, and this little town was eating it up.
The library was nestled between a giant stone congregational church and a huge park with memorials commemorating fallen heroes. It was small, filled to the brim with books in crinkly plastic wrap, clouding and protecting the covers from truly being enjoyed. Avoiding the stacks, Tillie raced to the nearest computer.
"Books are great!" she said. "But we need this information more timely, don't you think?" Tillie didn't wait for them to agree. "Let's see here…" She sucked on the end of half a pencil plucked from a pile of scrap paper. "Let's do a Boolean search for dead knight and entombed."
The ancient computer hummed loudly as it came to life, its small disks spinning in a herculean effort. After about two minutes the computer delivered a page showing all the possible hits. "That was kind of slow—must be still on dial-up." Tillie mused. "Okay, ya, way too broad. They have tombs in Paris here. Narrow the search…let's try Fallen Knight, entombed, and Massachusetts."
The computer again whirled at its own pace. "There," said Tillie, excitedly clicking on a website called Strange New England, a conspiracy theorists' dream, full of legends and folklore, tales of pirates, monsters—and the chronicled voyages of one Henry Saint Clair.
"Click the Saint Clair link!" Charlie urged.
"Way ahead of you."
The link chronicled the 'supposed voyage' St Clair took from Scotland to Maine, and his land route exploring New England, including…
"Click evidence." said Charlie.
The page opened up to a picture of a giant slab of rock, with the words 'The Westford Knight' plastered above it in thick luminous orange letters. It appeared as a granite face with a weathered stone effigy of a knight carved into it. The caption said scientists had carbon-dated the relic to coincide with the sudden departure of Sir Henry St Clair from Scotland. Further evidence stated that the crest on the shield of the stone knight was that of a secret sect of Templar knights charged with the secret of a Treasure Room.
The four looked up from the glowing computer screen, its blue glow giving them a smurflike quality. Colin smiled widely. "We have a location!"
Charlie forced a smile, still resolving the tumultuous feelings suppressed since he rose from his hospital bed in the safe house. "Then let's go. The faster we find this stupid treasure the sooner we get Bailey back. Where the heck is Westford?"
Tillie, from the online map, answered, "It's about an hour east of here, along Route Two. It looks like an almost straight shot."
"Not to mention," Mick chimed in, "we'd be going against rush-hour traffic. So we could easily be there before dark! Do you think it's a burial site? You know, like the slab of stone is actually a grave marker?"
Colin shook his head, "Probably not. When the Templar are out on a mission away from consecrated ground, they'll burn their dead on a funeral pyre. Much more likely this slab is a marker for us to follow."
"Great! Another marker," Mick said sarcastically.
Charlie stood up uneasily, scraping the leg of his chair across the white and black checkerboard tiling, earning him the disapproving glares of the librarians, who pointed them to the door. "I guess it's time to go then," said Charlie in a whisper.
About half way across the park on the way back to the car, Colin froze, causing Mick to crash into him.
"Bloody hell, mate! You could give a warning…" spluttered Mick.
"Shh," Colin replied, placing a finger to his lips. "We need to go…now."
The others looked in the direction of the car and understood. Two police cruisers, blue and red lights lighting up the far end of the park, flanked their car…their stolen car. One officer was looking inside while the other was patrolling the park, and noticed the four of them.
"You four!" he shouted, and blew his whistle twice. His partner looked up from the car, his hand on his gunbelt, and strode over to meet them.
The fat officer who'd been combing the park caught up with them first, his brief five-yard hustle catching him out of breath. "You…four. What are…" He coughed, obviously a heavy smoker and lover of fine donuts, from the powder on his moustache.
Why is it that the people responsible for keeping small towns safe, couldn't run to save their lives? Charlie wondered, then smiled innocently as the other cop stereotype jogged up to join his partner.
This one was tall, thin, and sported a thick seventies mustache that twitched as he spoke. "I've got this one, Mickey." said the officer lost in a decade thirty years before Charlie was born.
Where do you think you four are off to, eh?" he inquired. They stood in stunned silence. "And I see you have book bags…" This was an observation that required no response, so Charlie just shrugged.
"No answers for us, I see." The fat man, who had finally caught his breath, added to the mix. "I guess we'll have to take you downtown, for suspicious activity in a public park."
"Not at all, officers," responded Tillie, breaking their collective silence. "The book bags are because we're coming home from school. The park is a short cut to Elm Street where my two older brothers and our friend Charlie lives. Is there anything else I can answer for you, sir?" Her sweet voice had a hint of rebellion in it, but not enough to further aggravate the officers.
"Anything else…well, I guess not." Tillie had caught the two cops off guard, and the portly one was scrambling for a reason to detain them further.
"So we can go home, then?" Tillie pushed further. It was like watching Obi-Wan in Star Wars bamboozle his way through the two guards, Charlie thought. He almost expected to hear them say 'These are not the droids we are looking for'; instead they just told them to move along, which was a close second in Charlie's mind. The four kids hustled past the police officers, the cruisers with the flashing lights, and their stolen car, which still had a load of their supplies in it. Luckily, they had packed their backpacks full with as much as they could carry, so it wasn't a total loss.
Colin waited until they were far enough away from the officers before turning on Tillie. "How the heck did you know that Elm Street was nearby?"
"Well there's always an Elm Street, usually by the park, and well…I guessed."
"Good guess," said Charlie.
"I thought so," she replied with a smile.
"As good of a guesser as Tillie is," said Mick, finally piping up, "We're still down a car, and I bet stealing one is now out of the question."
Colin nodded his agreement. "We're too hot right now. The bobbies know a car thief is somewhere in their town. They'll be looking for him, and in a town thi
s small… well, it just wouldn't be a good idea."
"So we're screwed." asked Charlie.
Tillie stepped in front of the group and flashed everyone a big smile. "We're definitely not screwed, boys!" Tillie almost laughed in surprise at her own ingenuity.
"We're not screwed because that over there," she pointed towards a small, quaint building with a large parking lot flanking it, "is a train station."
"The train?" mused Colin, his eyes brightening and head nodding.
"The train." Tillie repeated.
Chapter Sixteen Fresh Apple Pie
The train pulled out of the station with a slight jerk that sent Mick into an older woman's lap. His stuttering apology did little to calm the woman over her indignant cries for help. Mick found his seat next to Tillie, and again apologized to the woman, who had pulled her embroidered carpet bag close to her chest.
"Didn't know you liked older women, mate," Colin teased, a sly smile creeping across his tanned face. "I have a lonely grandmother back in Scotland you'd just love; I'll give her your number for when you go back to school."
"Bugger off, Colin." Mick tried to hide his flushing face behind a copy of the Boston Globe he'd found on his seat.
The world outside whipped past them, the window images changing from town to farm and back to town as they stopped at each station to pick up and drop off passengers. As picture postcard views of New England came and went, memories of Bailey assaulted Charlie's mind.
Bailey was alone, kidnapped by a man bent on killing them all. Charlie wasn't with her to hold her hand, reassure her everything was going to be all right, in the way she'd been there his entire life. Charlie's right hand was sore and blistered from where he gripped the hilt of his sword. The pictures outside the window began to go by in slow motion. The train ride was taking forever.
A soft hand caressed his tear-streaked cheek. Tillie put her finger to her lips and guided Charlie's head to her lap, where she began to slowly run her fingers through his hair. The inferno of grief and anger in Charlie began to subside. His eyelids fluttered and closed with the rhythmic motion of Tillie's fingers. Tillie's scent was reminiscent of a warm spring day, full of sunshine, warmth, freshly mowed grass and emerging spring flowers…she smelled like home. The urgency that had overcome his body moments before no longer quaked through him, as she lulled him to sleep.