He was silent a moment, his hand still.
“Now, if I coax him a little… Oh, go on, Sir Hand. Do a trick for Anastasia. Just a little one—”
His hand quivered in the air for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do. Then in one long, fluid motion, it picked a flower off a shrub, made the flower disappear and reappear again, and finally presented the flower to Anastasia.
Anastasia laughed. “Good try, but I will not be diverted by flowers.” She tossed the flower over her shoulder. “Earlier you were speaking to your right side, not to your left hand.”
“It’s OK,” said Cass loudly. “You can tell her. You’re not fooling her, anyway.”
“So the creature exists!” exclaimed Anastasia, spinning around. “It’s one thing to imagine, another to hear….”
“Yes, I exist.”
“And you are a young girl, if I’m not mistaken?”
Cass bristled, standing. “Not that young—”
“Of course not—I did not mean to offend. It’s just that I imagined some sort of invisible beast. But I am delighted to find that my savior is human instead. Or are you a fairy or some other? Truth to tell, I did not believe in fairies an hour ago, but I did not believe in invisible girls, either.”
“Oh, I’m human… er, I think. At least back home I am.”
Not that I’ll ever get there again, she thought.
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Anastasia. “Where are you? I should like to shake the hand of the person who saved my life and the lives of my men.”
“You didn’t shake my hand,” grumbled the Jester. “Didn’t I save you, too?”
Embarrassed but pleased, Cass reached out to shake Anastasia’s hand. “Here. I’m Cass. Well, Cassandra is my full name. Nice to meet you—”
Anastasia grasped Cass’s invisible hand between her two larger ones. “Ah, long fingers. Like mine. Good for handling horses and weapons…”
“And she has ears like mine!” the Jester interjected. “Good for… good for… Must they be good for something?”
“I hear pretty well sometimes,” Cass offered. “But I don’t think it’s ’cause my ears are big and pointy. I think it’s ’cause I have strong inner ears or something like that.”
“Good hearing does run in the family,” boasted the Jester.
For the second time, Anastasia looked astonished. “You and the invisible girl are family?”
“Why are you surprised?” asked the Jester. “To you I am practically invisible myself.”
“That hardly explains it.”
“Cassandra is my great-great—oh wait. Should I not say…?”
“Oh, I think it’s OK to tell her,” said Cass. “I mean, just a little bit.”
As it turned out, Cass told the story herself, and at great length, filling in details that she had not yet mentioned even to the Jester. Naturally, Cass worried that she was betraying her vows of secrecy by revealing so much about the Secret and about the Terces Society, but she figured telling people in the past wasn’t the same as telling people in the present. Besides, the Jester was the founder of the Terces Society, or would be. If anybody should be allowed to hear mention of the Secret, it was he. As for Anastasia, Cass felt a kinship with her she couldn’t quite explain.
“I wish I could see what you look like, Cassandra,” said Anastasia. “You are a brave girl to undertake a journey across time.”
“Uh… thanks. But I just look normal, really. Except for the big ears, like the Jester said.”
“Here—” The Jester presented Cass with a scroll.
“What’s this?” asked Cass, unrolling the scroll to reveal a piece of blank parchment.
“I was going to write my letter of resignation to the King on it, but I never got the chance. You may have it.”
“Uh, what for?”
“To draw yourself, of course. This clay should work perfectly.” He handed her a lump of red clay from the ground.
“Yes, please draw, Cassandra,” said Anastasia.
“I don’t know. I’m really bad at drawing. I don’t think I could make it look like me.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, we’ll never know, will we?” the Jester pointed out.
Under pressure, Cass sketched for a few minutes. When she finished, she was distinctly unhappy with the product. Between the stiff braids and exaggeratedly pointy ears, her drawing had the cartoonish quality of something a cruel classmate might have scribbled in a notebook and pasted on Cass’s locker. But the adults seemed to like it. At the very least, they were fascinated by the sight of a drawing that appeared to draw itself.
“Ah, I see you do have the Jester’s ears—but, trust me, they are far more charming on you,” said Anastasia with a sideways glance at the Jester. “May I keep the drawing?”
“Sure. I mean, if you really want to,” said Cass shyly. “Hey, did you guys hear that?”
“What?”
“That voice.”
“The soldiers must be coming back,” said Anastasia. “I expected this. Now that they are away, they are questioning what they saw. And they are worrying what will happen to them if they fail to bring my head to the King. We must go. My men are waiting.”
The Jester smiled. There was no more talk of his being exiled from the group.
“No, don’t worry, it’s not a soldier, it’s—” Cass stopped herself before she said Max-Ernest’s name. Most likely they wouldn’t recognize it, and if they remembered her mentioning her future-residing friend, they would think she was losing her mind. And perhaps she was.
But Anastasia had already strode away and was starting to saddle her horse.
“You can go—I’ll catch up,” said Cass to the Jester, feeling faint again.
She leaned against a rock and found herself nodding off. In the distance, she kept hearing Max-Ernest saying her name. Or was she just imagining it?
“Cass, where did you go?” The Jester patted the air, trying to find her. “I shall not leave without you.”
Max-Ernest would be so disappointed when she came back without the Secret, she thought. If she came back.
Cass struggled to keep her eyes open. “I’m right here, but I don’t know for how long. I know this sounds weird, but I think someone is calling me away. Or maybe I’m just fading out of this world.”
“Nonsense. You look as good as ever—your skin is so clear you are without a blemish.”
“Ha ha.” Cass tried to laugh but couldn’t quite manage it.
The Jester turned serious. “What was it you wanted to tell me earlier? You said it was important.”
“Oh, oh! It was about Lord Pharaoh. And it is important. Really important.” Cass sat up straight, summoning all her energy. “He knows about the Secret.”
“Your secret?”
“Well, it’s not mine yet. That’s why, after I’m gone, you have to go after him for me.”
“Lord Pharaoh? That awful alchemist? Why would I want to go near him?”
“To find the Secret yourself, of course. And to keep him from learning it. Or from using it if he already knows it. So you can start the Terces Society like you’re supposed to.”
The Jester looked distressed. “I don’t know. Lord Pharaoh is a very powerful man. I’m just a jester, and not even a proper jester anymore….”
“Well, I’m sure Anastasia will help. Anyway, you don’t have a choice. History depends on it. Otherwise, the Midnight Sun will have the Secret instead of you.”
“You are very bossy for an invisible girl, do you know that?”
“Promise me.”
“Very well, I promise.”
“And then when you find the Secret, you have to leave it for me.”
“How do you leave a secret? Do you assume that it has physical properties?”
“You know what I mean. A clue. A message. Just write something and leave it for me so I can find it… in the future.”
“Where? I do not even know where you live. Or rather where you will
live.”
Cass thought quickly. The name of her hometown would mean little to him. Even the name of her home country would mean little.
She did her best to identify where she lived using names he would recognize. It was a bit like playing Twenty Questions. Then she had an inspiration.
“Forget about my house. It’s too iffy. My grandfathers have a fire station. You should leave the message there.”
The Jester looked confused. “A fire station? Is that like a signal fire?”
“No, it’s not actually a fire—it’s for people who put out fires. But that’s beside the point. The fire station isn’t even a real fire station anymore. My grandfathers have a store in it called The Fire Sale. The problem is, it doesn’t exist yet….”
Cass thought for a second. “What if you made some kind of time capsule or something? You know, like people put under cornerstones?”
“Hm, maybe…” The Jester, it appeared, was not exactly following every word. “What if I left a message under the lodestone? You would recognize the lodestone if you saw it….”
“OK,” said Cass eagerly. “Where will you leave the lodestone?”
She tried to push herself up farther, but she was too weak and she fell backward. Above her, the Jester was answering her question, but she couldn’t make out the words.
Again, she heard the voice saying her name.
“Max-Ernest?” she called out impulsively.
And soon, though she tried as hard as she could to keep her eyes open, darkness overcame her.
Will I ever wake up again? she wondered as she fell asleep.
And if I do, when will it be?
Max-Ernest had never seen Cass’s house looking like this.
Her mom, Melanie, was one of the neatest people Max-Ernest knew. It had been strange enough to find the front door unlocked with unread newspapers strewn around it, but to see dishes piled in the sink and even on the counter and on the table? The house looked almost as cluttered as Cass’s grandfathers’ store.
The one spot in the kitchen that wasn’t in complete disarray was the refrigerator. Max-Ernest and Cass had long ago devised a special, random-looking way of arranging the magnetic letters on the fridge that made it easier to leave coded messages for each other. In normal times, Cass had to reorganize the letters on an almost nightly basis because her mother compulsively alphabetized them during the day. And yet there they were, just as Cass had left them; two weeks had gone by without Cass’s mother touching the letters. Clearly, Melanie was not herself.
On the stove, a teapot was whistling. Max-Ernest got the sense the water inside had been boiling for a while.
He turned off the flame.
“Tea… tea is just the ticket….” Cass’s Grandpa Larry entered the kitchen, muttering to himself. He looked at the teakettle, perturbed. “Why did I think I heard it whistling?”
Max-Ernest coughed. “Hi, Grandpa Larry.”*
Larry’s eyes lit up. “Well, if it isn’t young Master Max—what a stroke of luck!” Larry offered his hand with forced joviality.
“Wayne. Melanie. Get down here and see who that sneaky old cat dragged in! Looks like we can go out, after all,” he called up the stairs behind him.
“I was going to see about getting a nurse to sit with Cass while we took her mother to dinner, but I feel much better with you here,” he explained to Max-Ernest. “What that girl needs right now is to be surrounded by people who love her, not more so-called medical professionals.”
Max-Ernest was shocked by the sight of Cass’s mother. There were dark, raccoon-like circles around her eyes. Her clothes hung loosely on her shoulders. Her hair was stringy. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she, not her daughter, was the patient.
Larry and Wayne, in contrast, had trimmed their long unruly beards and looked much more cleaned and pressed than usual. If grief and anxiety had made Cass’s mother fall to pieces, it had had almost the reverse effect on them. They were rising to the occasion, it seemed, taking care of Melanie, not just Cass.
It took Cass’s grandfathers over an hour to convince Cass’s mother to leave the house for under an hour.
“We need to put some meat back on your bones,” said Wayne. “You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks.”
“That’s because I haven’t. How could I? Especially now…” She broke off.
“Do you think that’s what Cass would want—for you to waste away?” asked Larry heatedly.
“You know how conscious she is of keeping everybody’s blood sugar levels up,” said Wayne. “Just in case you have to deal with a sudden electrical fire or earthquake or nuclear attack. Right, Max-Ernest?”
Max-Ernest nodded. This was absolutely true. Cass was always trying to keep everybody’s energy supply high.
“We’re taking you out for a burger right now, and when we get back I’m cleaning up this kitchen,” said Larry. “This place looks worse than the galley onboard the The Warren Harding.* I remember once when I was in the navy and I had to cook for six hundred seamen, a sudden storm rocked the ship, and my giant vat of chili spilled out onto the deck. It took me three days to clean, but I—”
Max-Ernest looked confusedly at Larry. “Navy? I thought you were in the army.”
“Details. Details. When, young man, are you going to learn to enjoy a good story?”
Eventually, Melanie succumbed to the pressure.
She agreed to go to dinner, but not without grilling Max-Ernest first:
“You really know how to read the heart monitor?”
“Yes, I swear. Remember how many times I’ve been to the hospital? I’m an expert.”
“I don’t want you to be an expert. Just make sure her heart isn’t beating too fast or too slow.”
“OK.”
“Or too unevenly.”
“Has to be even. Got it.”
“And don’t touch the IV, whatever you do. You may think you’re a medical expert, but you’re not a nurse.”
“I know I’m not, I mean, I won’t.”
“If there’s any irregularity at all, anything, call me right away.”
“OK.”
“Even if you don’t think it’s important.”
“Even if.”
“If she blinks, call me.”
“Definitely.”
“If she even twitches…”
“Absolutely.”
“And if she mumbles anything…?”
“I’ll call you.”
“Yes, immediately! And write down what she says, too.”
“OK, I’ll write it down.”
“I’m very serious, Max-Ernest.”
“I know you are.”
“Even if you don’t recognize the word. Write the sounds.”
“OK.”
“Even if it doesn’t sound like a word, just a breath or a sigh.”
“OK.”
“And you have Larry’s number in case you don’t get me for some reason?”
“Yeah.”
“And Wayne’s?”
“Uh-huh. But they never leave their phones on.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“If you can’t get any of us, the phone number of every neighbor on the street is next to the refrigerator. Also the number of the police and the nearest hospital and the city council office and school. And poison control.”
“OK.”
“But don’t poison her!”
“No poison. Got it.”
“Of course, if there’s a real emergency, you should call 9-1-1 first. Do you have that number?”
“Um, it’s 9-1-1, isn’t it?”
“Please don’t get smart with me right now, Max-Ernest….”
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be smart. You confused me, that’s all.”
“I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Come on, Melanie,” said Larry. “We’re only going to be three minutes away.”
Before she could say another word, he and Wayne e
ach took her by an arm and escorted her out the door.
“Well, here goes nothing,” said Max-Ernest to the empty room, bracing himself for his visit with the silent girl upstairs.
The author of this book has requested a fifteen-minute break to restore his energy before writing what promises to be a very intense and emotional chapter. Please take this opportunity to have a snack or use the restroom. If you choose to stay with the book during this time, we offer the following items for your consideration and/or consumption.*
IF YOU LIKE THE SECRET SERIES BY PSEUDONYMOUS BOSCH, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
a pie in the face
eating dirt
smelling your own farts
PEOPLE WHO HAVE PURCHASED THIS ISN’T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE HAVE ALSO PURCHASED:
a bullwhip
an egg timer
a wig
TREAT YOURSELF:
a melted ice-cream cone
a sat-upon sandwich
a ton of bricks
Max-Ernest had run all the way from the hospital, but he walked upstairs to Cass’s room as if his feet were dipped in concrete, not even bothering to count the steps.*
Somewhere between the hospital and Cass’s house he had begun to lose faith. Perhaps he should have been excited—now that he finally had in his possession the means of reading Cass’s mind. But that was the problem. He was afraid he didn’t have the means, after all.
The monocle, which he’d looked through again and again, hadn’t helped him see into the minds of the healthy, walking, talking people he’d passed on the street. How could he expect it to help him look inside the mind of someone in a coma?
The one clear image he’d seen through the monocle was one that, on balance, he’d rather not have seen: the image of his adult self, chocolate-addicted and seemingly half mad.
It wouldn’t hurt to try talking once, the older Max-Ernest had said.
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