“And I thought you were good at math.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The four of them don’t add up to one of him. Why would upper-formers spend time with you anyway? That makes no sense.”
“I’m such a nice guy,” he said, though sarcastically.
“They’re using you—us—our name.”
“Wrong.”
“Then why?”
“I mean, sure, that’s what probably got them to at least acknowledge I existed. But you know what I think, Mo? I think some of us are meant to lead and some to follow, regardless of how old we are or what grade we’re in. I came along at the right time. They need me as much as I need them. It’s like pilot fish and sharks, soldiers and generals. It’s prehistoric or something.”
“How can they possibly need you?”
“Thanks a lot!”
“I mean it! What do they get out of it?”
“They want the Bible found. They want study hall over. They think the clues are part of that, and that’s fine with me because I can use all the help I can get.”
“But not Sherlock’s help.”
“You have a crush on the guy. What do you know? A British accent doesn’t make you smarter, it just makes you sound smarter.”
“I do not!” I spoke a little too adamantly, even for myself. Did I have a crush on Lock? “He’s just smart.”
“There is no ‘us.’ Not in this, Mo,” James said. He might as well have stabbed me in the heart. “I’m the one getting the clues, not you, not Sherlock. As long as you’re on his side, you’re on his side.”
I wanted to point out how stupid that sounded. I didn’t. “There are no sides until we create them! Don’t you get that? You’re making trouble where there doesn’t have to be any! You’re excluding someone who can help you!”
“On this one, I don’t need him, Mo. The guy who basically attacked me on the way back from Crudgeon’s . . . ?” He left the sentence half-spoken as if wanting me to beg him to continue. But I’d stopped playing that game a long time ago. “He has a key just like this, tattooed under his arm.”
“What!?” I shouldn’t have let myself sound so stunned.
“You can’t tell Sherlock! Not any of this! Not if you want to be my sister.”
“What’s . . . that . . . supposed to mean?” I felt my throat tighten, heard it choke off my words. “That’s awful!”
“Between the invisible ink and this? It’s a secret society. Has to be. What else? Remember, Mo: I never wanted to come here to school. I practically begged Father. Now, here I am: trapped. You know what a cornered animal does, Mo? It attacks. If I’m going to be stuck here, I’m going to fight back. I’m going to own this place in another year. Two years from now, I’m going to be the general and Crudgeon is going to have to deal with me.”
I couldn’t swallow my reaction quickly enough.
“Laugh all you want. My new friends are loyal. There’s only a few of them at the moment, but there will be more, I know it. Whoever that guy was with the tattoo, he was talking to me as a Moriarty. I felt it. I know it. We’ve been coming here for generations. Why? There’s something about us, there’s something about the Bible, there’s something going on here that no one’s telling us. We—you and I—have a lot more power than anyone’s letting on. Crudgeon’s afraid of me—of us—believe it or not. He thinks if he intimidates me he can hold me down. But that ain’t gonna happen.”
“We just got here a few weeks ago!” I said, exasperated by all I’d heard. “What are you talking about, Jami— James? You sound paranoid. Are you okay? They say the first couple months at boarding school are the hardest.”
“See? You don’t believe me. They’ve gotten to you already.”
“Who? Who do you think’s gotten to me? You see how paranoid you sound?”
“The system here is designed to make us all like them, Mo. Don’t kid yourself. That’s what it’s all about. It’s a factory where they stamp out adults just like them. Look like them, act like them, you’ll have a life like them. Nice little job. Two cars. A couple children. They’re trying to hypnotize us into that kind of . . . life. It may be fine for them. Not for me. I’m not buying into that wear-a-uniform, walk-like-me, think-like-me kind of thing.” He tapped his chest. “I’m thinking for myself. There are going to be changes to this place, and I’m going to be the one making them. Just because something looks the same it doesn’t mean it is the same.”
“You’re scaring me, James.”
“You can be part of this, Mo, but you have to be on my side.”
“There aren’t sides, James. It’s just a boarding school.”
“There are sides to everything, and you know it! It’s a choice we make, Mo. It’s your choice to make. If you make the wrong one, it won’t be pretty for you or your friends.”
“You’re threatening me? I’m your sister!”
He hung his head and breathed deeply. “No.”
“Who . . . are . . . you? I want my best friend back.”
“Come on, Mo! It’s me!”
“I’m beginning to wonder who ‘me’ is.”
“Jamie,” he whispered.
“So the threat is meant for Sherlock?” I spoke angrily: “He can help us, James. How stupid can you be?” That was the wrong thing for me to say, and I knew it the moment it left my mouth. This was a different Jamie, to be sure, but my brother was not and would never be stupid.
“Let’s just see about that.” I’d upset him horribly. He turned away from me and ran at a jog toward the language arts building. It looked like he was going to take the long way back to the Bricks—circling half the campus to avoid having to cross the playing fields and risk being seen.
I followed.
CHAPTER 23
A MOST IMPORTANT VISITOR
“IN HERE,” A FAMILIAR VOICE CALLED.
James paused, having just stepped through the door to Bricks Lower 3. He thought maybe I was right, maybe he was overly paranoid. Why else would he be hearing Father’s voice? The vestibule shared by Bricks 3 and 4 included a custodian’s closet, the domain of Brunelli, a tired, hunched man with oily breath and dandruff. If anyone was calling him from the closet it was Brunelli, and yet it sounded like . . .
James froze in place, realizing he was all alone. The vestibule smelled of an industrial disinfectant used throughout the dorms and schoolrooms. To James it was the disgusting artificial scent of Baskerville Academy. Even some of the food tasted like it.
“James!” Definitely from Brunelli’s closet. The door was cracked open. A single eye stared out. James recognized that eye.
“Father?”
“In here.” The door opened, revealing his father dressed as usual: shirt and tie, pressed trousers. Yet he didn’t look himself. Not at all. He looked frightened.
“My room’s just—”
“In here.” Father’s tone of voice made James’s legs move. When the door was shut, the two of them were forced snugly together by a rolling bucket on the floor and mops and brooms clipped to the walls. James reached to hug Father, but the man spun to switch on the overhead bare bulb. The closet was barely wider than the door.
James had never seen his father look like this. His clothes were basically the same as always, but the man wearing them, entirely different. It looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week, his face lined with worry and fatigue. He was thinner and he’d lost some of the Cape Cod tan that typically stayed with him through Halloween.
“Really, Father, my room is—”
“Quiet!” his father hissed. “Not another word. Follow me.” He rolled away the bucket and hoisted a heavy metal plate in the floor that James hadn’t noticed. It was on hinges. He laid it open gently, quietly. Another light switch revealed a concrete pit with large pipes running left to right. His father climbed down and James followed. It wasn’t a concrete pit, as he’d first thought, but a low tunnel that ran several hundred yards toward the Main House.
“
We used to take advantage of this place when I was here,” his father said, speaking softly. “You can get from Main House to the end of Bricks 4 without being seen.”
“Awesome!”
“Nice little trick to know about.”
“Dad?”
“You’re wondering what’s going on.”
“Just a little.”
“And why the secrecy,” Father added.
“Well, yeah. Truthfully, you don’t look well.”
“Been better.” They hunched over as Father led him a short distance down the tunnel. To the right were large and small pipes. They ran continuously as far as James could see. There were bundles of wires. Valves. “We’ll be safer here.”
“Safer?” Ten feet underground in a utility bunker that stretched hundreds of yards seemed a bit of overkill for safety.
“You must be careful, son.” Father’s forced whisper ran chills through James. “Baskerville was tricky for all Moriartys. It’s more so for you. The slightest misstep on your part . . .”
“Why? What kind of misstep?”
Father looked pained. He nervously checked up and down the cramped utility tunnel. “I promise, son, soon, very soon, no more secrets.”
“Secrets?” James asked.
“Things will be asked of you here. In short order, your life is to change. You will follow in my footsteps. But the path of those footsteps will change if I’m successful.”
“I have to get through this place and college first.” James tried for a lighthearted moment.
“No, James. Much sooner than that. Much. Though we need to delay it as long as possible. You mustn’t put your sister at risk through your actions. I fear it won’t be you who suffers, but your sister. Do you understand?”
“Not at all!”
“Women in the Moriarty clan tend to . . . end badly, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“What? Why do you say that? Mother? What happened to Mother?”
“It’s your sister we’re discussing!”
“If you’re so worried about her, why’s she even here in the first place?”
“Because you need each other, and I need you two together in the same place.”
“You’re freaking me out! What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“There are forces at play. Destiny. Fate, some would call it. Legacy. You and I, son, we’re part of something by birthright. Firstborn sons. This place. The family business. It’s all interconnected. It’s all centered here at Baskerville.”
“We make money off this place?”
“No! Of course not!”
“You lost me.”
“Have the clues started?”
James looked like a fish out of water gasping for breath—lips smacking and sucking for air. “How . . . could . . . you possibly—”
“If you take too long with the clues, Moria could suffer. I can see that happening. But too quickly and we’re all doomed. The three of us.”
James knew his father to be a quietly composed man, bookish and preferring solitude to the limelight. He’d never been melodramatic.
“Why Moria?”
“You must protect her, James. You must keep a close eye on her. I believe they will use her as leverage against us both, if necessary. How many clues have you seen?”
“Who will? What are you talking about? Is this more of the hazing?”
“It wasn’t hazing. I lied about that. I’m sorry, I had to. Those young men were after something.”
“The Bible,” James said. He didn’t get an answer.
“How many clues?”
“Three. The last was a key that—”
“—with the family tree. No, no, no! Too soon, too soon!” He repeated everything as if talking to himself. Stammering like a child. James scooted away from him and banged his head on a pipe.
“Ow! Our family tree?”
Father wasn’t hearing, or at least not listening at the moment.
“Two things, James. First, no matter what happens, you and Moria must remain here at Baskerville. You understand? Don’t get any stupid ideas.”
“What’s going to happen?” James asked.
“Something long overdue. Something that can’t be explained just now.” His eyes darting, Father’s voice cracked. “I’ve done something. I’ve shaken things up. It’s time for reform. In any event, you must protect yourself and Moria at all costs. You could be used as . . . leverage.” A door thumped somewhere above. Voices of students laughing.
“Study hall’s ending,” James said warily, his eyes on the large pipes and ceiling. “There will be a room check.”
“You should go,” Father said.
“No way. I need answers, Father. I need to know what the heck is going on with you.”
“Has Crudgeon said anything about the Bible?”
“It’s missing. He told the entire school. Mo and I didn’t know we had a family Bible. What do you mean about the key and our family tree?”
“Not the Moriartys. Not our family. The Scow—” He caught himself. “No, it’s not my place to tell you. You must be as surprised as I was, and my father before me. The initiation. Remember what I said, James. Take your time. Forget the family Bible. You won’t find it. It’s a dead end. It will take care of itself. You hear me, James? Forget about the Bible. Completely.”
“What initiation? I’ve never seen you like this!”
“Indeed. Yet it’s who we are, son. We are part of a bigger whole, you and I. But it has gone afoul, and I will not stand by. I’ve worked on certain changes, as I’ve said . . . it has been my life’s ambition . . . gosh, it goes back practically to when I was your age. But there’s still work to be done.”
“Who or what are we part of, Father?”
“I’m so close, but I can’t do it without you. You must stall them, do you understand?”
“Not a thing! I don’t understand a thing!”
“I need you in lockstep with me, James. I need more time.”
“You sent Moria a card from Atlantic City.”
“Did I?” Father groaned. “Clever boy.”
“Why there?”
“Allies and enemies, son. You must know them both.”
“Your traveling has something to do with this group,” James said.
“It has everything to do with it. My life. Your life, soon. But I must have more time if I’m to gain the upper hand. They will use Moria against you, just as they did your mother with me.”
“Mother?”
“You must protect her. You must know where she is at all times.”
The voices of more kids carried from above as they hurried to make their rooms before curfew. Their presence startled Father.
“I mustn’t stay. Take good care, son.”
He leaned forward, took James by the head, kissed him on the cheek, and scrambled down the tunnel in the direction of the Main House. Away from James, who, squatting on his haunches amid the steam and the dull lighting, felt tears running from his eyes.
CHAPTER 24
AMBUSH
THEY CAME AT HIM FROM TWO SIDES. SHERLOCK stood up as quickly as he could, turning to face away from the altar and placing his attention onto a stained-glass window depicting the story of the Crucifixion.
He’d waited through the day to sneak in here after curfew. He didn’t want to share his reasoning with James, given the headmaster’s warning.
James and two other boys hurried up the chapel’s nave toward the apse. James walked stridently, like a general, trailed by Clements and Ismalin. Appearing from the choir room came Bret Thorndyke, who stopped and crossed his arms like a bouncer blocking the door.
“What in the world are you doing?” James had a newfound confidence in both his stride and voice. It was like he’d grown up in a matter of twenty-four hours.
“Waiting for you, James,” Sherlock said in his usual haughty way. “Am I to assume you’re having me watched? Or was it the chapel you were focused on? Do tell!”
; “You were sloppy,” James said, coming to a stop a few feet from Sherlock. Clements and Ismalin stood blocking the nave. Sherlock admired the precision of James’s deployment of his muscle. He’d thought this through; he’d assigned his boys to particular tasks. James had made himself into a leader of older boys as well as those his own age. Not an easy accomplishment. “That day. The first clue. When I entered, our room was like a steam bath. I complained about it, remember?”
Sherlock didn’t answer. His eyes ticked from one spot to another, assessing possible escape routes. James was onto him. Rarely, he thought, did such situations represent checkmate, but James had him in a strong check and he had yet to spot the move to defeat it. There was one move—foot on the low railing that separated the altar table; a long leap to the top of the pipe organ console; a difficult jump to the marble floor and straight down the nave at a run to the front doors. The route offered possibility. He mapped it mentally, calculated it at seven seconds. A long shot; he was more likely to break an ankle than get free.
“You had me fooled, telling me you’d just made yourself some tea,” James said. “In fact, you’d used the electric kettle to steam open the first clue. That allowed you to seem so superior and smart. You’d already read the thing. You might have gotten away with it if I hadn’t noticed the same technique on the latest—the library. You didn’t seal it correctly.”
“Indeed. I should imagine that aroused your curiosity to no end. It inspired the surveillance. I should have caught on to that.”
“You were too busy being one step ahead. I’m not entirely clear on how you solved the third clue’s invisible ink, but I’m guessing ultraviolet.”
“Who says I solved it?” asked Sherlock.
“Please. Are we going to play these games? After all, we’re all at risk by being here after hours. We could be busted any minute. Besides, we both had the same reaction to it: this place, the chapel. Why is that, do you suppose?”
Sherlock considered the escape route for a second time. He didn’t like the way this was going. A broken ankle didn’t sound so bad.
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