“Why didn’t you have him arrested?” Finn asked. “Why didn’t you just tell everyone the truth?”
“We didn’t have the kind of proof that anyone else would believe,” Almost-Grandma said. “And to keep our smuggling project going—”
“Smuggling?” Finn repeated. “Like what pirates do?”
“Better,” Natalie said, beaming proudly, as if Almost-Grandma truly belonged to her.
“We thought so.” Almost-Grandma smiled, too, but her eyes stayed sad. “With our colleagues, we’d been working to smuggle endangered people to safety in your world. We just did it under the cover of claiming to show off ‘scapegoats’ at political parties and then pretending to, uh, ‘eliminate’ them afterward. Without having them be injured by people throwing things. And we worked through cleaning crews. . . .”
Chess thought of the cleaner they’d seen slipping into Natalie’s closet, and of the odd conversation between Almost-Grandma and the cleaner the kids began thinking of as Ace Two.
“Were all the cleaners on your side?” Chess asked. “Like the guy we saw you with in the basement—was he helping you? Or was he just pretending, but really working for the Mayor?”
It didn’t seem possible, but Almost-Grandma’s eyes took on an even more troubled sheen.
“I . . . don’t know,” she said, pressing a trembling hand to her face. “I thought he was trustworthy, but . . . that’s the problem with so many double agents, so much deception. Who was he ultimately double-crossing? Us or the Mayor? What would he have done if his doppelgänger and you children hadn’t interfered?”
“Not knowing is the worst,” Emma agreed.
“No,” Almost-Grandma said. She dropped her hand so emphatically it seemed like she was punching her own bed. “Losing faith, losing hope, seeing no way out—that’s the worst. And that’s what my daughter and I grappled with. . . . That’s how we felt as the party began that afternoon.”
For a moment, everyone was silent. Chess knew all of them could remember moments from that day when they’d felt hopeless, too. Then Finn chirped, “We didn’t see a way out when that cleaner guy stole our lever! But he came back!”
“Yes . . .” Almost-Grandma didn’t look any less troubled.
“We’ve pieced together what happened,” Natalie said. “The cleaner guy who stole your lever took it back to your house in this world. He crossed back and forth there—because my mom was being held prisoner in the other-world version of your house, and he thought he could bring her in and out through our world. He didn’t know that my dad had hired the Ace Security guard to watch your house here.”
“Good thing our buddy Ace One followed Ace Two,” Emma said. “And that he picked up our lever as evidence.”
“I think that makes it sound like Ace Two was a bad guy,” Finn said.
Nobody argued with him.
“But Other-Natalie and the Judge . . . they’ll be okay back in their world, won’t they?” Chess asked, and his voice cracked, making him sound as young as Finn.
Almost-Grandma snorted.
“It looked like the Judge had the upper hand again when we left,” she said. “Once you kids incapacitated the Mayor.”
“He was a lot more allergic than our Mr. Mayhew, wasn’t he?” Chess asked. “I didn’t know that. I wasn’t trying to poison him or anything.”
“Chess, he grabbed the paper from you—” Emma began.
“And he’d probably made his allergy worse by sneaking in and out of the Judge’s office through the secret passageways so many times,” Natalie said. “Almost-Grandma thinks he’s the one who destroyed that office. Just to terrify the Judge.”
Chess gulped. “I just wanted to stop him from overpowering us. When he said no one could stop him.”
“No one human, by himself, is unstoppable,” Almost-Grandma said, gazing off into the distance. “Sometimes when good people face down evil, it starts to feel like an impossibility. Or as though you yourself have to become evil, too. But that’s not true.”
“You’re saying the Judge won!” Finn crowed.
“Not the whole war, but . . . that battle,” Almost-Grandma corrected. “It was possible for her to win once she wasn’t worried about me dying.” She patted Natalie’s leg. “And . . . once she thought her daughter was safe.”
“But her real daughter isn’t actually safe,” Chess muttered.
“You want someone to go back for Other-Natalie, don’t you?” Emma blurted.
“It’s not just that,” Natalie whispered. She glanced at Almost-Grandma before going on. “I didn’t like to talk about it, but now you know my grandmother died a year ago, and we all thought it was cancer. We thought she’d ignored her own health to take care of me. But . . .”
“After hearing about the timing, and doing some research—and hearing how Natalie felt so connected to my granddaughter—well . . .” Almost-Grandma’s voice trailed off.
“Tell us!” Finn begged. “No more hiding and secrets and lies!”
Almost-Grandma still took a deep breath before continuing.
“None of us believe now that Natalie’s grandmother had cancer,” she said. “It was agents from my world who killed her. They poisoned her—and then faked the autopsy—because they thought it would weaken me. They believe the connections between the worlds are that strong. The more that the evil and lies of the other world seep into this one, the more powerful our enemies become.”
Mom stumbled backward. She might have fallen to the floor if Finn and Emma hadn’t been holding on to her.
“It’s not fair that I ever came to this world,” Mom moaned. “I thought I was just protecting my children; Joe thought he was protecting his. But we brought evil with us. We opened the door to evil coming through. . . .”
“The other side found their way into this world on their own,” Almost-Grandma corrected gently. “There was other meddling that looked minor but really wasn’t—I also believe it was the other world’s agents who made it look like this world’s Morales house was going up for sale, and they were going to buy it. So they could have another staging area. Just like they were using your house, Kate, and moving the lever around in the basement to taunt us. . . .”
“No,” Mom wailed.
“I can only conclude that our enemies were behind both of those actions,” Almost-Grandma said. “But, Kate, if it hadn’t been for you and Joe, they would have controlled all the levers, all the routes back and forth from the very beginning.”
“We have to move,” Mom gasped. “We can’t stay another night in that house. . . .”
Once that news would have devastated Emma. But she didn’t even care right now.
“You’re saying we have to go back to the other world,” Emma whispered. “You’re saying it takes good to fight evil. And . . . no one in this world is safe, either, until we fix the other one.”
Almost-Grandma didn’t answer. But Natalie surprised everyone by springing up from the bed.
“I’m going back,” she said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. Who’s with me?”
For a moment, no one spoke. Chess and his mother gritted their teeth in exactly the same way. Ms. Morales reached over to clutch Almost-Grandma’s hands with both of hers. Finn sat up straighter and taller, and put his arm around Mom as though he believed he needed to comfort her.
Code, Emma thought. This is all like a code, too. And I know exactly what it means.
“All of us,” she said, staring steadily back at Natalie. “You know we’re all going. Because we’re all in this together.”
Acknowledgments
Second books in a series are always challenging to write, so I am particularly grateful to everyone who helped me with The Deceivers. My editor, Katherine Tegen, kept me from getting lost in my own plot twists, and I am in awe of the support she and everyone else on the team at HarperCollins have given to Greystone Secrets. Special thanks not just to Katherine, but also to Sara Schonfeld, Kathryn Silsand, Mark Rifkin, Christina
MacDonald, Allison Brown, Molly Fehr, Joel Tippie, Ann Dye, Maggie Searcy, and Aubrey Churchward. And thank you as well to Anne Lambelet for the beautiful cover and other artwork.
Several friends and relatives graciously answered some very specific and detailed questions I asked them while working on this book: My friend Dr. Andreas Schuster gave me medical information (and kindly said, “Oh, that’s possible, even if it’s not likely” when I suggested truly outlandish ideas). My friend and fellow writer Christy Esmahan and her son-in-law, Arturo Almazan, gave me advice about regionally accurate Spanish terms. And my sister and niece, Janet and Meg Terrell, helped me get into the right mind-set for thinking like the Greystone kids.
Thanks as well to the people who have helped me through many years of writing books: my agent, Tracey Adams, and my family, especially my husband, Doug. And I am always grateful for the support of the friends in my two Columbus-area writers groups: Jody Casella, Julia DeVillers, Linda Gerber, Lisa Klein, Erin McCahan, Jenny Patton, Edith Pattou, Nancy Roe Pimm, Amjed Qamar, Natalie D. Richards, and Linda Stanek.
About the Author
Photo credit Cilento Photography
MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX grew up on a farm in Ohio. As a kid, she knew two girls who had the exact same first, middle, and last names and shared the same birthday—only one year apart—and she always thought that was bizarre.
As an adult, Haddix worked as a newspaper reporter and copy editor in Indiana before her first book, Running Out of Time, was published. She has since written more than forty books for kids and teens, including the Greystone Secrets series, the Shadow Children series, the Missing series, the Children of Exile series, and lots of stand-alones. Haddix and her husband, Doug, now live in Columbus, Ohio, where they raised their two kids. You can learn more about her at www.haddixbooks.com.
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Books by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Remarkables
THE GREYSTONE SECRETS SERIES
Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers
Greystone Secrets #2: The Deceivers
Greystone Secrets #3: The Messengers
Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
GREYSTONE SECRETS #2: THE DECEIVERS. Text copyright © 2020 by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Anne Lambelet. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2020 by Anne Lambelet
Cover design by Aurora Parlagreco and Molly Fehr
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Haddix, Margaret Peterson, author.
Title: The deceivers / Margaret Peterson Haddix.
Description: First edition. | New York: Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2020] | Series: Greystone secrets ; #2 | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. | Summary: Told from separate viewpoints, as Finn, Emma, and Chess Greystone and Natalie Mayhew, ages eight to thirteen, continue their quest to rescue their mothers they must return to the alternate dimension where truth is illegal.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026615 | ISBN 9780062838407 (hardcover)
Subjects: CYAC: Missing persons—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Honesty—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction.
Classification: LCCPZ7.H1164 Dec 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026615
* * *
Digital Edition APRIL 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-283842-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-283840-7
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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