by Obert Skye
“How did you guys even get here?”
“I lived in Indiana,” Meghan said. “I was a foster child, and a social worker offered me the chance to go to an exclusive school. That social worker turned out to be a Catcher. I was glaze-brained for six months before I had it knocked out of me.”
“I’m an orphan,” Keith said. “I think my parents were professional clowns. They probably died in a really funny but sad way. At least that’s what I like to think. I was glaze-brained for about six months too.”
“I don’t know how I got here,” Patrick said. “I’ve been here as long as I can remember. I used to think this was just what the world is. My brain has been glazed a few times. I’ve been clear for over four months now. I don’t think I’ve ever been off the top of this mesa.”
“Well, let’s change that,” Tobias said. “I’m pretty happy to have other clearheaded friends. So we really need to keep from being talked at again. Keep your brain clean. We also need to find out what’s on the third floor. I think that could help.”
“There’s only one way we know of to get to the third floor without having to go through the second floor,” Patrick said. “We’ve seen the door. It’s in Severe Hall, near the library. There’s a set of thin stairs that are hidden behind a large hanging tapestry. The stairs go directly to the third floor.”
“All right,” Tobias said with enthusiasm. “Tomorrow night we will climb those stairs, but I don’t think all of us should go. It’ll be too noisy.”
“I’m super quiet,” Keith said. “I once sat still for almost a whole day.”
“You should go with Tobias,” Meghan said. “I’ll keep an eye on his sister. Patrick’s bed is the hardest one to sneak away from, plus the sniffing.”
“Good. It’ll be me and Keith.” Tobias stood up and walked toward the black door.
“We don’t leave that way,” Patrick said, waving. “That door leads to a far hall that might leave us exposed.”
Patrick walked back behind one of the boilers. Against the wall was a large metal panel that kept the hissing boiler from scorching the wall. Patrick grabbed the top right corner and Meghan grabbed the left. They pushed on the corners and a soft clicking noise could be heard. They lowered the sheet of metal like a shade that was being retracted downward.
“Nice,” Tobias whispered.
“This school is filled with a lot of openings and secret passages,” Patrick said. “And the great thing is, most of the staff doesn’t even know they exist. The school was built so long ago that probably only Marvin Withers knows—and Marvin doesn’t get around much. We’ve never seen another person using these passages.”
“I’ve discovered a few passages myself,” Tobias said. “It almost makes me like this place. Almost.”
All four kids stepped into the wall. Patrick and Meghan then pulled the metal sheet back into place while Keith flipped on a small flashlight.
The space between the walls was thin, but there was more than enough room for them. Patrick led them through the maze of walls and they popped out beneath the stairs not far from Tobias’s room.
“You can go the rest of the way by yourself,” Patrick whispered. “Tomorrow night, meet Keith right here at eleven thirty.”
“I don’t have a clock,” Tobias said. “And the window in my room is covered in wood. I can’t tell if it’s morning or night.”
“Here.” Meghan took off her watch and handed it to Tobias. “It’s a gift. Actually, I found it in the lost-and-found box by the cafeteria. I think one of the staff members threw it in there because they couldn’t figure out how to set it.”
Tobias took the old digital watch and slipped it into his pocket.
“Now,” Meghan asked, “do you need me to come to your room and show you how to pick your lock?”
“No, thanks, I can figure it out.”
It was a stubborn answer, but Tobias was going to need to be stubborn—and tenacious and cunning—if he was ever going to figure a way out of Witherwood.
“Okay, then, here.” Meghan handed Tobias a small black key. “Ms. Gulp had a dozen extras made when she put in a few new locks. She keeps them in the kitchen on a ring. I may have accidentally taken one. It’s how I opened your door earlier.”
“It’s way easier to pick a lock when you have a key,” Tobias said.
Meghan smiled, and Tobias kind of liked it.
“Yeah, I’m actually not good at it,” she admitted. “But I can find things.”
Tobias left his new friends and returned to his room with a much lighter heart. It’s interesting to note how hopeful one feels simply by having supporters and a plan.
He locked himself in and took a few moments to write some things down on his hidden papers. He also drew the boiler room they had met in and the new space behind the walls on his big map.
Witherwood was taking shape.
CHAPTER 9
BAG IT
Saying one thing and then doing another can be a real problem. If you promise someone you care about that you’ll pick them up next to the crate of dynamite before the wick runs out, you had better be true to your word. Or if you promise the person you love that you’ll make sure to pack his or her parachute before you get on a rickety plane, you need to be telling the truth. But if you tell three kids you just met that you’re going to go to sleep, and then you sneak out to do some exploring on your own, that’s not such a bad thing.
Tobias was just that kind of a “not such a bad kid.”
After about an hour, he used the black key Meghan had given him and helped himself out of his room and back into the hall. According to his new watch, it was one in the morning. Things seemed much calmer. Tobias couldn’t hear any screaming or singing voices patrolling the school.
Quietly, he walked down Weary Hall. He passed door number eight, with the carving of the eagle carrying a fish in its talons, and kept going until he reached number nine. On the front of Fiddle’s door, there was an eagle with a snake in its claws. Tobias hadn’t seen or heard from Fiddle since Fiddle had helped them escape. He was worried that Marvin had punished him. So before checking out the third floor or finding Charlotte, Tobias wanted to look in on Fiddle.
Door number nine was unlocked.
Tobias pushed open the door and slipped inside. The room was completely quiet. He flipped on the lights and the smell of ozone filled the air. Fiddle’s bed was still positioned in the middle of the room. The purple curtains that hung around it were open, and it was clear that the bed was empty. In fact, the bed was completely bare—no sheets, no pillows. Tobias looked around the room. It appeared that nobody was living here any longer. Even the dresser drawer that was once filled with pens was now empty. Tobias checked the connecting bathroom. No Fiddle.
“This probably isn’t good,” Tobias told himself.
Leaving Fiddle’s room, he went back to the secret door beneath the stairs. He opened it by pushing the bottom right corner with his toes. He then slipped in and closed it behind him. Instead of heading toward the boiler room, he moved in the opposite direction.
The space behind the walls was tight and dark. He would have loved to have had a flashlight, but once his eyes adjusted he could make out things in the gray well enough to move around. He felt his way down the hall for twenty feet and then came to a fork in the wall space.
Tobias headed right.
He had been behind some of the walls of Witherwood before, but what he really wanted was to find a private stairwell or path that would take him to the other floors. The passage turned two more times. Tobias had brought a pen, and as he walked he slowly drew a line along his arm indicating the turns and spaces he was experiencing. He wanted to make sure he could accurately draw it out when he returned to his room. Two more turns and he came to a set of stairs. It was a bit disappointing, however, because they went down when he wanted them to go up.
Tobias descended the six stairs carefully and walked through a short tunnel with a low celling. He hit another set
of six stairs that brought him back up behind a first-floor wall.
“That must have taken me below the main hallway,” he said to himself, as if someone was right next to him asking for a report.
He felt his way by touching the wall. When he reached another fork in the passage, he stopped. To the right, there was darkness. To the left, there was darkness that wasn’t quite as dark.
Tobias headed toward the lighter dark.
In the far distance, at the end of the passage, he saw what appeared to be a vent on the wall, about waist-high. The vent was letting in a weak light from outside. Tobias also heard the buzz and rattle of cicadas. He moved quickly, and when he reached the vent, he fell to his knees. He could feel cobwebs on his hands but he couldn’t see the thin strands hidden in the dark. He brushed the cobwebs away and looked out the narrow slits of the vent into the courtyard gardens. Warm air wafted in and caused his nose to itch.
He fought back a sneeze, holding it in until it disappeared.
The vent was metal, and there was no give when he tried to push it out. Below the vent, however, there was a wooden peg. Tobias slid the peg six inches to the right, and the vent, as well as a good part of the wall, opened like a small door into the courtyard. He pushed and stepped out with his right foot. Looking through some bushes, he could see that he was in the gardens near the end of Severe Hall. The temptation to explore further was strong, but the fear of what was out there was stronger. Tobias backed in, closed the wall, and slid the wooden peg into place. As he turned to head back down the passage, he heard some people in the garden talking.
“Enough,” a gravelly voice said.
Tobias froze. He pushed his left ear and eye up to the vent and tried to see where the speaking was coming from.
“It’s time for you to come with me,” the same voice said.
“Can I just go to sleep?” another voice asked. “I think I’m tired.”
Tobias’s heart raced. He didn’t recognize the first voice, but he knew the second one.
“Archie,” Tobias whispered.
“Come with me,” the gravelly voice ordered. “You’ll get plenty of sleep where you’re going.”
“Thanks,” Archie said.
The conversation was too far away for Tobias to see who was bossing Archie around. Concerned for his friend, he slid the wooden peg once more and quietly pushed the wall open. Tobias crawled out of the opening, keeping his body close to the ground and remaining hidden behind the bushes. He was worried about animals attacking him, but his desire to help Archie was stronger than his fear.
“Be what you were born to be,” the voice told Archie. “Follow me, and sleep will never be a concern again.”
Tobias crawled beneath a bush to the right of him. From under the wide leaves, he could now see Archie. His shirt looked torn, and he wore no shoes, but he appeared to be okay. His head glowed under the light of one of the lamps lining a stone path. It was a relief to know he was alive. It was a horror to see who was talking to him.
Marvin, Tobias gasped.
Marvin Withers, a direct descendant of Hyrum Withers, the founder of Witherwood, was a horrible person. He was currently sitting in a small electric wagon near Archie. Tobias couldn’t see Marvin’s repulsive face because he was wearing a thin bag over it with a hat on top of the bag. Marvin’s voice was so smooth when he spoke in the square room, but out in the open, it seemed to lack the brain-glazing effect. Like always, there was a feathery ball on Marvin’s left shoulder, making him seem like an ugly pirate with a bizarre parrot. The large bird reminded Tobias of Lars and how much Charlotte had liked the little creature. Now his sister was somewhere he didn’t know, and he was having to stare at Marvin Withers alone from beneath a bush and watch the old man as he sat hunched over in his electric wagon shaking his cane at Archie.
“We saved you for a purpose,” Marvin said. “Now follow me.”
Marvin pushed a button on the handlebar of the wagon. A soft whining sound started and the little cart moved forward at a slow pace. Archie shuffled after it like a loyal dog.
Tobias came out from beneath the bush and slipped across the stone path. He pressed his back up against a large tree, keeping an eye on Marvin and Archie as they moved farther away and toward the center of the gardens.
The dark night was suspiciously void of other creatures or noises besides the whir of Marvin’s cart and the low buzzing of cicadas. There were small glowing rocks all over the ground, reminding Tobias of when he had first arrived at Witherwood.
“This is crazy,” Tobias whispered to himself.
“I know,” Keith whispered from right beside him.
Tobias’s heart leapt up his throat and almost burst from his mouth. Keith was standing behind him.
Tobias caught his breath and hit Keith lightly on the shoulder. “You nearly scared me to death.”
“I told you I was quiet.” Keith’s prickly hair made his silhouette look cartoonish.
Tobias sniffed. “Are you wearing hair gel?”
“Maybe,” Keith said. “Meghan gave me some she found.”
“That’s why I didn’t smell you. You smell like a flower.”
“Thank you,” Keith said sincerely.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was in the space behind the wall when I heard someone pass. I followed the noise and found you looking out of that vent. I was going to say something, but I wanted to see what you were up to.”
“Archie’s out here,” Tobias said. “He’s with Marvin.”
“And you think it’s a good idea to follow them?”
“If I can help Archie, I’m going to.”
“What if you get caught?” Keith asked, pushing up his glasses with his thumb. “You’ll be no help to your sister, or us, if you’re captured.”
“I’m not letting Archie go with that lunatic,” Tobias said. “So you can come with me or stay here.”
“Come with you of course,” Keith said almost happily.
They had to move quickly. Their short conversation had given Marvin and Archie a nice lead. Tobias found trees and stones to easily hide behind as they carefully followed the whir of the cart. True to his word, Keith was very quiet. Tobias had to keep checking to see if he was still following.
“I told you,” Keith whispered as Tobias looked back. “I’m super stealthy.”
They were at the center of the gardens. Even in the dark, Tobias could see a faint outline of the square building.
Keith slipped up right behind him. “What do we do if they go inside? We can’t follow them in there.”
Tobias ignored Keith and quietly darted across the path and back behind a thick stretch of bushes that smelled sweet but were covered with sticky thorns.
“Seriously,” Keith insisted, so close Tobias could feel his breath. “We can’t go in there. You know what happens inside. Marvin starts talking and everyone’s mind turns to poop.”
Tobias turned to Keith.
“Sorry, I meant mess.”
“I know what you meant,” Tobias said with a smile. “I just forgot that you’re the funny one.”
“Hey, what’s he doing?” Keith whispered with excitement.
Tobias looked through the thorny bush. Marvin was up ahead on his wagon, and Archie was right behind him. They had turned off the path and Marvin was motoring toward a huge boulder with a tree standing near it. He stopped in front of the tree.
“See that hole?” Marvin asked Archie while pointing with his cane.
Archie turned his head and focused on a small black hole in the tree trunk.
“Stick your hand in there,” Marvin ordered. “Reach up and pull down on the small chain. I’d do it myself, but my hands don’t have that kind of strength these days.”
Archie stepped right up to the tree. He put his hand in the dark hole and rooted around like it was a piñata with a single piece of candy lost inside it.
“I think I found it,” Archie said.
“Then pull.”
Archie’s arm tightened and he yanked the chain. A hissing noise rose from the soil like steam. The large boulder near Marvin shook and then rolled backward, exposing a hole in the ground where a small path could be seen. The round feathery ball on Marvin’s shoulder shook and snorted.
“There, there, Capricious,” Marvin said, petting his bird. “We will find you food soon. Now, come with us, boy.”
Archie followed Marvin as he drove his electric wagon down into the hole. In less than thirty seconds they were all gone, and the stone was rolling back into place.
“Unbelievable,” Tobias whispered.
“I know,” Keith said with disgust. “Who names a pet Capricious? I like pet names like Steven or Gary. Aren’t capriciouses some kind of pants?”
“I’m not talking about Marvin’s pet. I’m talking about where they disappeared to.”
“Oh, well, we can’t go in there,” Keith said, being the voice of reason instead of the funny one for a moment. “We should get back to our beds. We’ll regroup tomorrow and let Patrick and Meghan know what’s going on. If we get taken now, nobody will even know what happened to us.”
“That’s true,” Tobias agreed. “So you go back, and if I don’t make it out alive, tell them what happened.”
“Awwww,” Keith whined. “You know I won’t leave. I’m way too curious and not smart enough to make the right choice for myself.”
“Then we’re going in.”
“I can’t think of a single funny thing to say about that.”
“I can’t either,” Tobias admitted.
The two boys crept out from behind the bush and over to the tree with the dark hole.
“We should wait a few minutes,” Keith suggested. “Just in case they are still near and can hear the rock opening.”
It was a good suggestion, so they both stood there until Tobias’s patience ran out. He thrust his arm into the hole, located the chain, and pulled. The large bolder popped and crackled and then rolled back, exposing the entrance in the ground.
They stared down into the wide hole. There was a smooth stone ramp leading to a concrete path. The opening was circled by small glowing stones.