Labyrinth Society (13 page)

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The Belvedere turned out to be a small octagon-shaped building sitting atop a rock on a tiny island in the pond of the Petit Trianon's English garden.

"Look!" Tomi pointed across the pond. Guarding each side of the two sets of stone steps leading up to the building were six sphinx statues.

"See!" I said, excitedly nudging Tomi. "I knew this was the right place. How do we get over there?"

"Come on! This way."

I followed Tomi across a stone bridge cut through a rock, which was the only way to get to the Belvedere. Once across, I started to run and hit a patch of wet grass. My foot slid out from under me and for an instant I was airborne before I fell flat on my back, mashing my backpack. I heard something inside crack and I gulped. Uh oh. There was something in my backpack I had no business having, and I was afraid I'd broken it. But I was even more afraid to look.

"You okay?" Tomi held out a hand and helped me up.

"Um… yeah," I said, looking around warily. "Let's go."

The four old ladies were already there. Three of them had their faces pressed against panes of glass on the closed peach-colored French doors looking inside the small building, while Mildred sat on the step watching us. Waiting.

"Boy, they sure got here fast. I thought we passed them," commented Tomi.

"Why don't you take the three sphinxes over there and I'll take these three," I told her.

"What are we looking for?" asked Tomi.

"Anything unusual we can connect to the necklace, I guess."

"Have you two lost something?" asked the old lady named Mildred. Her small dark eyes darted back and forth between Tomi and me.

There was something weird about her. Her head sat on her shoulders. She had no neck and soft, fine downy hair covered her face and even ruffled when a slight breeze blew past us. Kinda like feathers. Looking at her perched on the top step made me think of a fat bird. Even her nose was narrow and pointed like a beak. Just over her shoulder sat one of the sphinxes.

"No ma'am. We're just looking." I walked up the steps and got busy examining the sphinx opposite her. The other three ladies were now inside the Belvedere admiring the designs on walls and marble floor. My heart started pounding in my chest.

I started feeling around on the rough stone sphinx, which was Greek, with the head of a woman and a lion's body. Each of the sphinxes had a stone floral wreath on its head. They were all different but had similar unsmiling expressions. It must be serious business being a sphinx. I inspected every nook and cranny on the sphinx and even along the wall it sat on and couldn't find anything. Maybe Tomi and I had been wrong, and this wasn't where the clue had pointed us. There was still one more sphinx to search; the one Mildred was leaning against. This sphinx was facing away from me and just over Mildred's shoulder I could see a small slit in the stone on the back of the statue right above the tail. The one I'd just searched didn't have a slit in the back. I took a step towards Mildred, who didn't look like she planned on budging an inch, when this loud squawking sound filled the air as three big black crows came flying out of the Belvedere and landed on the sphinx Mildred had just been leaning against. But Mildred was gone. In her place, perched on the step where she'd been, was another big crow and when I say big, I mean big enough to carry a person away. I didn't see Mildred or her three friends anywhere. Where could they have gone so fast? The crows were silent and watching me with their beady black eyes. And then it suddenly hit me what had happened. Oh no! We needed to find the necklace and get out of here quick.

I crept close enough to the sphinx to see the slit and even reached out to touch it. It was about an inch wide, and as I ran my finger over it, an idea suddenly came to me and I pulled out the polished piece of onyx with the clue on it. I wondered if it would be a perfect fit and suddenly it made perfect sense. I had to feed the riddle to the sphinx! I was about to shove it in when one of the crows pecked the back of my hand, and I dropped the piece of onyx.

"Ouch!" The next thing I knew the crows were all over me in a swarm of cawing and feathers like I was made of bread. Claws tangled in my hair. Black wings beat against my head and face. I was pecked again on my shoulder.

"Tomi! Help me!" I shrieked. I spun around beating at the crows with my fists but they wouldn't let go. Tomi ran over and started swinging her backpack at the birds but hit me in the head instead.

"Sorry!"

"Tomi, get the onyx!" I yelled as I continued to battle the crows. "It's on the ground!"

"Now what do I do?" she asked, after locating and picking up the shiny black stone from the ground. Once Tomi had the onyx, the crows were beginning to loosen their grip on me.

"Put the onyx in the slot on the sphinx's butt!"

"Eew! You mean the butt cra—"

"No dummy! Just hurry up!" I yelled and kicked out towards the slot with my foot when she just stood there clutching the onyx with her mouth hanging open.

Tomi shoved the onyx in all the way. A loud scraping sound startled the crows and they sailed off right over Tomi's head and up and over the nearby treetops. Seconds later they were gone.

"What was with those crazy crows?" Tomi said, gazing off in the direction the crows flew off in. I couldn't look at her. There was no way I was going to tell her the crows had been impersonating four little old English ladies because I had something in my bag I'd taken without permission from the vault back home. And I'd broken it.

Tomi stood and started dusting herself off then at me and burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Your hair," she said, pointing at my head.

I didn't have to see it to know it was a mess. I was just happy I had some left. Now I knew how Devon felt. I reached up to smooth it down and the pain in my shoulder from where I'd been pecked made me wince. My shirt was damp and I knew it was blood. It was what I deserved.

"Lily! Are you okay?" Tomi ran over and put an arm around my waist and guided me over to sit next to the wall by the sphinx. She even gave me one of her chocolate drops, just in case I was in shock, then pulled antiseptic gel from her backpack for my hand and shoulder, which both stung like crazy. After nurse Tomi had me all bandaged up, I noticed the change in the sphinx.

"Hey, look!" I said, around my mouthful of chocolate.

We were sitting on the opposite side of the sphinx, near its head, only now the sphinx's mouth was open. Shoving the onyx in the slot had caused the statue's lower jaw to be pushed outward. We moved closer.

"There's something in its mouth," whispered Tomi.

Inside the sphinx's mouth was a small, black velvet pouch. I snatched it and Tomi and I held our breath as I slowly opened it and pulled out Marie Antoinette's necklace still hanging from a thick, silk ribbon, which had probably once been black but had faded to grey. A couple of the tiny pearls were missing but it was exactly like the picture Devon sent. Up close I noticed that the design in the center of the ring, which was an exact replica of our rings, was actually indented.

"Whoa!" said Tomi taking it out of my hand. "This was actually around Marie Antoinette's neck," she said in awe. Her eyes were actually shining. "Cool!"

"What I want to know is why it has the same design as our rings?" I took the necklace back from Tomi and held it up in front of my ring. There was a magnetic pull between the two, causing a crackling of blue electricity a lot like the blue beams of light coming out of our rings back in the Queen's Grove.

"Uh, Lily," Tomi said, nudging me.

I ignored her. The blue electricity crackling between the necklace and the ring hypnotized me. It was like the two were calling out to each other and I was about to place my ring inside the indentation on the necklace when a metal hook looped through the ribbon and yanked it out of my hand.

"Hey!" I yelped.

"Quite a bad idea, my dear," said Dr. Regina McFarland. The ribbon dangled from her hook hand and she was looking at it like it was her long lost kid. "Hello, beautiful. It's been forty long years since Regina's seen you," she cooed at the necklace. "But I knew she'd get you back one day."

Why was she talking about herself in the third person? Creepy much? "Okay, you've got the stupid thing. Now where's Alex?" I demanded.

"Who?" she said. She put the necklace around her neck and lit up her pipe.

"You said you'd give him back if we found the necklace! Now where is he?" shouted Tomi who was about to jump in Dr. McFarland's face until I grabbed her by the backpack and pulled her back. McFarland's goons took a menacing step forward.

"And you believed me? How sad for you." She blew pipe smoke right in my face making my eyes water. "But don't worry. You'll be joining Mr. Duncan quite soon." Her smile gave me goosebumps.

Tomi and I were practically backed into a corner. There was only one way off the tiny island where the Belvedere sat, the rock bridge, and McFarland and her thugs were blocking the way.

"It's killing you, isn't it?" McFarland walked up to me and lifted my chin up with her cold hook, forcing me to look at her. Her right eye was milky and I wondered if she could see out of it. Up close the deep scar slashing through her cheek was more like a burn. "You're just dying to know what this means, aren't you?" She gestured to the necklace around her neck. "You'd love to know what this pendant can do. I see it in your eyes."

"I couldn't care less, lady. We just want Alex back," I said, but I did want to know, badly.

"Nonsense!" she laughed and her goons laughed too. "I suggest you girls ask your precious Mrs. Tarpley. She of all people knows exactly what this pendant is all about. After all, this pendant is what allowed her to steal Regina's fiancé."

Tomi and I stared at each other in shock.

"You were engaged to Dr. Tarpley? In what universe would he have wanted to marry a hag like you?" I asked. McFarland's eyes narrows to slits. She swung her real hand out and slapped me hard across the face. Tomi gasped. I rubbed my sore cheek and was about to mouth off again.

"No, Lily," pleaded Tomi. "You're just making things worse."

"Roy, Max, escort these two young ladies to the car," McFarland said through gritted teeth.

"I don't think so. Catch!" I quickly reached into the front pocket on my backpack, grabbed a small grey oval rock and threw it at Regina McFarland.

She tried to catch it but it slipped through her fingers and fell on the ground. And since it was already cracked from when I fell on it, it broke in half. Suddenly crows came flying at McFarland from all directions seeking payback for their broken egg. In seconds she was covered. I couldn't tell her screams from the cries of the birds. Tomi and I ran past Roy and Max, who were frantically trying to beat the birds off their boss, and across the rock bridge. As we ran down the path leading back to the Petit Trianon, the
real
Mildred and her friends were headed towards the Belvedere from the direction of the Temple of Love.

"I can't believe you took the trickster crow eggs from the vault," Tomi panted accusingly when we reached the parking lot in front the Petit Trianon's gates.

We'd retrieved the crow eggs on a mission in Santa Fe, New Mexico a year ago, from a shady antiques dealer who'd stolen them from a Native American folk museum. Crows have a reputation for being tricksters, liars, and thieves. These particular eggs were hundreds of years old, petrified, and said to have been inhabited by Cholena, the spirit of the trickster crow of Native American legend. Crows are also notoriously protective of their eggs and their young. As long as the eggs were intact, you were safe. If any harm came to them, then the crows came after whoever inflicted the damage, and if they wanted to be sneaky, were even known to impersonate humans.

"I only took one egg and don't even go there, Tomi. Sherlock's cap is on your head. And why does it reek of chocolate?"

Tomi blushed and wouldn't answer or look me in the eye. She sighed and leaned against a car. "Now, what? How are we gonna get Alex back?"

"By following McFarland back to her lair," I said, gesturing towards McFarland's black SUV. "She probably thinks we're long gone by now. She won't even know we're here."

We popped the lock on the back of the large SUV and checked to make sure no one was watching before we crawled inside. We squeezed behind a spare tire and couple of large boxes. I covered us up with a big, stained canvas tarp smelling slightly of gasoline.

"I sure hope this works," whispered Tomi.

It took ten minutes before Dr. McFarland and the bald dudes got back to the SUV. From all the moaning and groaning she was doing, we knew those crows must have gotten her good. But she refused to be taken to the hospital.

"Just get me back to the farm!" she snapped when one of her goons suggested medical help. "We need to check on our guest."

Tomi nudged me under the tarp. McFarland had to be talking about Alex. After fifteen minutes of bumping and jolting, the SUV came to a stop and they all got out. Tomi was ready to jump out too, but I made her wait another ten minutes until I was sure the coast was clear. Once we scrambled out the back, we could see we were in the country. The SUV was parked by a stone farmhouse next to a large and open grassy field. What was in the middle field made us do a double-take.