The Trap Door

by Lisa McMann

  Welcome to Infinity Ring, a daring adventure through time!

  It all starts here in the books, where you’ll discover a world in which history is broken . . . and meet the three young people who must risk their lives to set things right.

  At the end of this book, you’ll find your very own Hystorian’s Guide. The Guide has been created to help time travelers avoid the dangers that await them in the past.

  And you’re going to need all of the Guide’s tips, hints, and codes when you experience history for yourself in the action-packed Infinity Ring game. In the newest episode of the game, you must accompany a samurai through feudal Japan . . . and it will be up to you to figure out how to put history back on track.

  Fix the past. Save the future.

  infinityring.com

  Introduction

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  Amber Waves of . . . Corn?

  2

  Some Friend

  3

  Quakers

  4

  Stop. No, Really. STOP.

  5

  The Family Tree

  6

  Bread Wound to the Face

  7

  The Clue

  8

  Captured

  9

  Plan B

  10

  A Long Night

  11

  Busting Out

  12

  The Fair

  13

  Kissy Bowley

  14

  Where the Crud Are the Hystorians?

  15

  The Bidding Begins

  16

  Escape

  17

  Down by the River

  18

  The Postman Delivers

  19

  The Real Deal This Time

  20

  Finding Riq

  21

  When Goons Attack

  22

  The Journey Begins

  23

  Lost and Alone

  24

  Smooth Sailing

  25

  A Juggling Match

  26

  Girl Overboard

  27

  The Wee Hours

  28

  Good Morning, Baltimore!

  29

  The Job Has Just Begun

  30

  Onward and Upward

  31

  A Trap Is a Trap Is a Trap

  32

  Free at Last?

  33

  In Which the Hystorians Are Reshackled, Only Not Really

  34

  Eighteen-abibble!

  35

  A Very Short Trip

  36

  A Parting Gift

  37

  Safe Passages

  38

  A Glimpse Forward

  39

  Conductor, Healer, Soldier, Spy

  The Way of the Warrior Hystorian’s Guide

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Brought to you by we-bee

  “FOR THE love of Madison. Er . . . mincemeat, I mean,” Sera said, looking down at her fashionable yet extremely wimpy slipper shoes, which until recently had been red. “My toes are freezing.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Riq and Dak were there with her, too, and hopefully nobody else — after their adventures in Viking-land, when a too-enormous-to-be-genetically-possible hound named Vígi had hitched a ride, one could never be too sure.

  All of their shoes were covered in mud. It was raining — no, it was pouring, and windy, too, and they were standing in a weather-beaten cornfield. More like a huskfield, actually. The corn had obviously been picked months ago and only the tall graying stalks remained. In one direction Sera could see a small town and a sizeable river with the tips of sailing masts bobbing along it, and in another direction a few enormous plantation houses and some smaller ones, with lots of farmland in between.

  Sera put the Infinity Ring back into the satchel on her belt. They’d just used it to warp away from Washington, DC, in 1814, where they’d fixed a Break at the White House, of all places, and hung out with the First Lady, Dolley Madison, of all people. And her slaves.

  That part had been a little weird.

  “Where’s the SQuare?” she asked. She knew they had arrived somewhere in Maryland in the year 1850, but to learn why they were there, she needed to check the tablet computer given to them by the Hystorians. “And if you say it’s in your pants one more time, Dak, I’m going to get mad. Just warning you.” Dak was Sera’s best friend, but she had her limits. Hanging around with two smelly boys was getting less and less enjoyable as the days passed, that was for sure. If only they’d had time for a bath in the White House . . . now that would have been a story to bring home.

  Home. She closed her eyes as a Remnant — like an almost-memory of something that should have been — washed over her. She wasn’t sure if it was just a coincidence that warping through time seemed to make her Remnants stronger, or if these conditions met the Theory of Nonlocality, but it certainly seemed like they were related. And since Riq’s Remnants were getting worse, too — even though he wouldn’t talk about them — Sera was pretty sure the two experiences had to be connected somehow. Maybe the Remnants had to get worse before they could get better.

  “The SQuare? It’s in my pants,” Dak said, which set him off laughing and slapping his thigh.

  Riq, who was a few years older, rolled his eyes. “Knock it off. And be quiet. We don’t know if anybody’s around yet.” He sighed. “I’m getting a little tired of babysitting you two. Geez.”

  “Did you say ‘cheese’?” Dak roared with laughter again. He turned to Sera. “Did he just say ‘cheese’?”

  It had been a long, exhausting few days.

  Sera was used to Dak’s obnoxious jokes, but Riq’s comment about babysitting was just unfair. Especially after she and Riq had bonded in medieval France, when Dak had been missing in action. She hadn’t been the immature one. She hadn’t gotten captured by Vikings or lost the SQuare or eaten the king of France’s cheese or . . . or anything like that. She turned her head away, folded her arms, and hugged herself against the cold and rain as the wind whipped her sopping dress around her padded, puffy legs. She looked like a rejected yard-sale rag doll, tossed from a car window into a mud puddle.

  Riq scowled. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m just . . . I’m tired. We all are. Come on, let’s get out of this blasted hurricane and figure out what we’re here to do.”

  Sera pushed past him, but not very hard since he’d said he was sorry, and then intentionally bumped into Dak extra hard for being so annoying. She tried to stomp down the row but one of her slippers sucked right off her foot and disappeared into the mud. “Jiminy nutcracker,” she muttered. She shook her head at the spot where the useless slipper had been and kept walking, one foot bare, cold mud squelching between her toes. She’d have taken her white elbow-length gloves off, too, if they weren’t the only things keeping her from losing her fingers to frostbite.

  When they reached the end of the rows of corn, Sera saw an old shed and made a beeline for it. Head down and wishing she’d at least left the White House with a parasol, she barreled forward with one goal in mind: finding shelter inside the shed.

  Except for the howling wind, it was quiet. There seemed to be no one around at all. Just a shed with a door banging open, and a lantern swinging wildly on a post outside.

  Sera stumbled inside, her feet numb. Dak and Riq followed her. As Sera’s eyes adjusted, she saw Dak was already squinting at the SQuare.

  “Well?” she prompted. “What’s the Break?”

  “Not sure yet. We have to solve another puzzle,” Dak said. “
Pictures this time.” He handed the SQuare to Riq.

  As Riq studied the images, Sera peered around his shoulder to get a look.

  Sera looked at the first image and began talking it through to herself. “A bowl . . . fish . . . something about sunshine food?” Her teeth chattered.

  Riq flashed her a look of mild annoyance. “Do you have to do that right next to my ear? My auto-translator is going crazy trying to decipher your tooth language.”

  Sera clamped her teeth together and stepped back. “Sorry.”

  The older boy’s features softened. “It’s all right.” He held the SQuare so that both Sera and Dak could see. “Come on. We’re all on the same team. Time travelers together.”

  “Some of us are better team players than others,” Dak grumbled.

  Sera sighed and looked away, tapping her foot. She didn’t want to hear any more snide comments from either of the boys. She glanced around the shed, her eyes straining in the dim light. She wondered if there was anyplace to sit down without getting completely filthy.

  It was a small shed. Even in the dark, she could make out the whole space. Which is why she was surprised to suddenly see movement.

  Sera froze for a second, and then took a step back so she could ease the door open, letting in a bit more light. “Quiet!” she whispered. “Did you guys see that?” She pointed to the back corner of the little shed, where the floor was moving. It was a trap door, and it was opening. “We’re not alone.”

  THE FLOOR moved up a few inches, and then a few inches more. “Run!” Dak whispered. He quickly took his own advice, and it didn’t take Sera or Riq any time at all to follow him out the door. They ran wildly for a minute or two, Sera hobbling through the sticks and mud on one bare foot, until they were a good distance away and hidden in a copse of evergreens.

  “Why are we running?” Riq asked Dak between breaths.

  “Dude, the floor moved. There was something down there!”

  “Yeah, well, all we had to do was stand on it if we didn’t want the person to come out.”

  “How do you know it was a person?” Dak asked.

  “Right,” Sera said. “It could have been a monster.” She smirked.

  “Hey, you never know. The way our luck has gone, it could have been Sasquatch,” Riq said.

  Dak shook his head and sighed, annoyed. “You obviously know nothing about Sasquatch. He wasn’t sighted anywhere around here in 1850. Strictly northwest in the early years — he didn’t even have a name back then.”

  “Anywaaay,” Sera prompted. “This is serious — what if they heard us? Riq, you totally said we were time travelers!”

  Riq opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he closed it again. “I did?” he asked weakly.

  “Riq!” Dak said. “You blew it.”

  “Oh, please. I did not,” Riq scoffed. He glanced over his shoulder nervously. “But if either of you has an idea of where to go next, I’m all ears.”

  Dak began muttering. “Eighteen-fifty. Maryland. A bowl something ist.” He scratched his head, and then mumbled, “There was a lantern by that shed. . . .”

  After a second, he looked up. A sopping brown oak leaf flew through the wind and stuck to his cheek. “Duh,” he said. “Abolitionist. Come on, before we get struck by lightning.” He started walking, pulling the leaf from his cheek. Riq followed him.

  Sera hesitated. “Guys,” she called. “I don’t understand. Where are we going? We didn’t solve the whole clue.” She ducked as a branch came flying through the wind at her.

  “Because the answer is obvious. We’re supposed to join the abolitionists,” Dak said. “Seems likely that our Hystorian would be against slavery, right? So we need to find one to figure out how to help them.” He was getting cranky, slogging through the wet underbrush.

  Sera followed along behind the boys, limping. “So where do we find an abolitionist in a hurricane?” she asked.

  Dak frowned. “Technically, with a temperature this low, it’s not a —”

  “Well, der,” Sera said, “I know that. It’s a nor’easter, but I didn’t feel like explaining —”

  Riq looked up to the sky as if pleading for help, shook his head, and started trudging toward the nearest house.

  Sera and Dak looked at each other and then turned to follow Riq.

  “We look out of place, don’t forget,” Sera said, catching up to the older boy. “People might get suspicious.”

  He looked down at his outfit. “I’m quite aware. But we can’t do anything in the way of Cataclysm prevention if we have to amputate your foot.”

  “Aw,” Sera said. “You care about my foot.” She smiled.

  Riq’s face was stern. “I care about the Hystorian quest.”

  That was enough to silence everyone for the remainder of the walk.

  The first house they came to was dark. The curtains were drawn, and there was nothing in the windows or on the porch. Dak shook his head. “This one doesn’t seem right.” They continued to the next one, which also didn’t look right to Dak.

  “What are you looking for?” Riq asked.

  “I’ll let you know when I find it,” Dak said.

  Sera just bent her head into the wind and trudged after them.

  Several minutes later, they approached the third house, the wind and rain slapping their faces raw.

  Noticing a lit lantern in the window, Dak cautiously climbed the first porch step. “This might be it. They used lanterns as a signal.” He glanced out over the cornfield, identified the shed in the distance, and wondered if the field and that shed belonged to this homeowner. If so, the trap door made a bit more sense.

  Riq stopped short of the steps and frowned. Not that there’s anything unusual about Riq frowning, thought Dak.

  Sera looked at the older boy. “Do you think it’s safe?” she asked.

  But Riq didn’t respond. Instead he groaned, pitched forward, grabbed the porch railing, and closed his eyes.

  Sera reached out and held his arm. It took Dak a moment to figure out what was happening — Riq was having a Remnant.

  “Is it a bad one?” Sera whispered.

  There was no time to answer.

  The door opened a crack, and then a bit more, and a woman in a black, warm-looking woolen dress and a bonnet on her head peered out. “Come in,” she said, and then she hesitated, taking in their strange appearances. But after a moment she smiled and repeated herself, more urgently this time. “Ooh, interesting. Come in, come in.” She waved them toward her as if to hurry them, and they didn’t hesitate.

  Inside, a fire crackled in the fireplace. Riq, Sera, and Dak stood in the entryway, shivering and dripping all over the floor, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. She handed them each a towel so they could dry off.

  “Well now,” she said, looking at Sera. “Your clothes are mighty unusual.”

  Sera looked her in the eye. “We were at a party at the, um . . .”

  “Plantation up the road,” Dak continued. “It was a post-Revolutionary theme. On the way home, one of our horses, uh” — he glanced downward and saw Sera’s bare foot — “lost a shoe, and we’ve walked quite a long way in the storm, looking for a place to stay the night.”

  Sera looked like she wanted to kick Dak.

  Riq said nothing.

  The woman smiled broadly. “There’s no need to invent stories here. I’m Hester Beeson and I’m a Friend. I imagine you were looking for me.” She looked at Dak and Sera when she spoke, but tilted her head toward Riq.

  Dak lifted his shoulders just slightly in a shrug, and then nodded his head once.

  “Right,” Dak said. “Wow, so you’re a . . .” He hesitated on purpose.

  “Oh yes, I’m on your side,” she said with a grin. “It’s a joy to be of service to you.” Dak’s face lit up. Hystorian? Bingo!

  Mrs. Beeson wasted no time. “Well, come along, then. We’ve got a safe room here — you just never know who might be about on a night like this. . . .” She led them th
rough the house.

  Dak flashed Riq a puzzled look, but Riq stared straight ahead, stone-faced.

  “Can I,” she said, turning back toward them with her hands outstretched, “take anything for you? Put it in the safe?”

  Sera raised an eyebrow. “N-no, thank you. We prefer to hold on to everything.”

  “All right, then.” The woman didn’t seem to notice Riq’s odd expression, but Dak did. And he didn’t know quite what to make of it.

  The woman pulled aside a plain wooden chair and a rug to reveal a square door in the floor. She turned the inset lock and pulled it open, and then stood aside and pointed proudly at the opening. “Like magic,” she said with a grin. “You two and your slave will be comfortable down here.”

  Dak and Sera stared at each other, jaws dropped. Then Dak looked at Riq, who was bristling.

  “Mrs. Beeson,” Sera began, her cheeks blazing, “Riq is not our —”

  A swift kick to her shin shut her up just in time.

  “I’m glad you made it safely.” Mrs. Beeson began to hum as the three climbed down a ladder into a small, cool cellar, lit by lanterns. “You’ll find dry clothes to change into, and some water and soap for those cuts on your foot, miss. I’ll bring some food down in a bit.”

  “Okay . . . thank you,” Sera said, but her voice was unsure. She shot questioning glances at Dak and Riq, and they returned them. Sera leaned toward them and whispered, “She’s a weird one. Do you really think she’s the local Hystorian?”

  Dak nodded. But something sure seemed off.

  “Excuse me,” he called up the ladder. “You know who Aristotle is, right?”

  “No, dear,” Mrs. Beeson answered. “I’ve never met anyone by that name.”

  A moment later the door overhead closed.

  And then the lock clicked.

  They heard the chair scraping the floor above to cover it.

  The three incredibly smart, self-proclaimed geniuses had just willingly gotten themselves locked in a drafty cellar. All three turned to one another as Dak said, “Wait. What just happened?”