The Name of This Book Is Secret (26 page)

You didn’t honestly think they’d gone up in flames—did you?

I can’t tell you much about our villains’ actions after our heroes escaped. I don’t know how many of their guests they let burn to death (probably most of them) or what awful price they extracted from those they saved (probably a high one). I don’t know what sinister alchemical materials they managed to salvage before they ran. Still less can I tell you about their nefarious plans for the future, although I would bet my life they had them; creatures like Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais do not, as a rule, give up after a setback—they vow revenge.

What I can tell you with certainty is that they were last seen silhouetted on top of a mountain ridge not far from what was once the Midnight Sun. They were on horseback (remember those horses running loose during the fire?), and they had paused to take in the view and to say good-bye to their old fortress of a spa. Then, with a cry that echoed for miles, they whipped their horses into a gallop and disappeared over the ridge.

Wherever they were heading, it was too close. Whenever they return, it will be too soon.

THE END

WELL, NOT REALLY.

No, that last chapter wasn’t really
the
last chapter.

Don’t feel bad if you put a lot of work into it; the work wasn’t wasted. Many important things happened in that chapter—at least I think so.

I’ll tell you what, if you’re
that
angry, just push the book aside and forget all about this chapter—and all about Cass and Max-Ernest, and all about the Secret, and all about me, too.

Good riddance, right?

No, you want to keep reading?

OK, how’s this for a compromise: why not think of your chapter—Chapter Thirty-two—as the last chapter? As for this chapter—we’ll make it Chapter Zero. If anyone asks, it doesn’t exist. It’s the nothing chapter. The un-chapter. It simply doesn’t count.

And we won’t call it
the ending,
either. That grand title we’ll leave for your chapter. This chapter we’ll call
the denouement.

One dictionary defines denouement as “a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain.” By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the word sounds so sophisticated and French.

You see, there was one more occurrence in the lives of our two heroes that I must relay before we are finished. And this occurrence—I doubt it will give you what people call “a sense of closure.” If you’re anything like me—and I fear you are, if you’ve read this far—you’ll find it more maddening than anything else.

My intent is not to torture you. I want merely to show you that there is a larger picture—that our story doesn’t begin and end with this book.

Or with Cass and Max-Ernest.

Or even with you and me.

One rainy Wednesday afternoon, not very long after her experience at the Midnight Sun, but long enough so that she’d already grown extremely tired of trying to convince people that her experience was real, Cass was sitting upstairs at the firehouse having tea with Grandpa Larry—just as she had done every Wednesday for years.

This time, however, they were not alone. Much to the delight of Grandpa Larry, who loved nothing more than a fresh audience for his stories, their Wednesday ritual had recently grown to include Cass’s new friend, Max-Ernest, and as a special guest today, Benjamin Blake.

This week’s tea was Earl Grey—a tea that Benjamin insisted was incorrectly named because it tasted pale blue. (Benjamin had a similar complaint about orange pekoe, a tea that he said tasted olive green; green tea, on the other hand, was not green but bright yellow.) Grandpa Larry tried to explain that Earl Grey was named not for its color, but for Charles Grey, the Second Earl Grey, also known as Viscount Howick. However, his young listeners didn’t appear to care much about the Viscount. So Grandpa Larry gamely switched topics, and started to relate an old and gratifyingly bloody Chinese legend about the origin of tea.
^*

It was then that they heard Sebastian barking downstairs: a customer had arrived.

“It’s Gloria—I’ll be in back!” Grandpa Wayne shouted from below.

As always, Gloria had arrived at the fire station with a big box of stuff. The kids waited impatiently as Grandpa Larry carried it in for her.

“Gloria, this is Max-Ernest and Benjamin. And you remember Cass—” said Grandpa Larry, after he’d finally found space to put the box down.

“I think so,” Gloria said. “Wasn’t she here last time?”

Cass waited for more, but Gloria only smiled in a vague sort of way, as if Gloria barely remembered her.

“Yeah, and we saw each other at the Midnight Sun, too,” Cass prompted, in case Gloria thought Cass didn’t want her to mention it.

“The Midnight Sun? You mean the spa?”

Gloria seemed genuinely surprised. “You must be thinking of someone else,” she said. “I took a terrible fall right before I was supposed to go. Ask Larry, he’ll tell you. Spent a week in the hospital. They thought I might have amnesia—it was just like
Days of Our Lives
! But how was it? I’m dying to hear! I didn’t know they allowed children....”

Cass looked closely at Gloria, expecting some secret communication­­a threatening glance or a sly wink. But Gloria’s face was blank. Either she thought she was telling the truth or she was a very good actor.

“Um...it was...OK,” said Cass slowly. “But it’s not really there...now...”

“It isn’t?” Gloria asked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Cass, will you please put Sebastian outside? He’s about to chew this box apart,” Grandpa Larry broke in before Cass could answer.

“It’s so weird,” said Cass as she tied Sebastian to a post in back of the fire station. “It’s like I dreamed the whole thing. The spa. Ms. Mauvais. Everything.”

“Well, you didn’t—and even if you did, how come I dreamed it, too?” Max-Ernest protested. “Unless we had some kind of Vulcan mind meld. Or wait, I know, maybe we’re two split personalities in one schizophrenic brain! That would explain everything—”

“I didn’t mean I really thought I dreamed it—just that it felt like that,” said Cass, cutting him off. (Even though Max-Ernest had supposedly been cured, he still had a tendency to go on and on if you didn’t stop him.)

Benjamin, who’d been silently struggling to follow the conversation, mumbled something and pointed back toward the fire station.

“He says to be quiet and listen. He thinks it might be important,” Max-Ernest translated.

Inside, Gloria was telling Larry a story. As loud as she was, they could only make out about half of her words:

“...Never so surprised...in all my life...the gardener...and here I was trying to show the house...”

As she listened, Cass grew increasingly excited. “She’s talking about the magician’s house! You think she discovered something?”

They weren’t able to pose this question to Gloria immediately, because Benjamin Blake’s mother had arrived to pick him up. But as soon as he’d gone, Cass and Max-Ernest begged Gloria to start her story again from the beginning. She didn’t understand why they cared so much, but she was happy to oblige. (Gloria had lost her memory, not her love for attention.) The story went like this:

Gloria had been showing the magician’s house to some prospective buyers when, as sometimes happens at awkward moments, “nature called” and she had to excuse herself to go “freshen up.” Just as she was about to enter the bathroom, the bathroom door opened and an old man in a straw hat stepped out, carrying a box.

Needless to say, Gloria “had a heart attack.”

Very calmly, as if he’d been expecting her, he explained that he was the gardener—the one who first reported the magician’s disappearance—and that he was just cleaning up the magician’s study. He pointed out that she had missed some things when she packed up the house.

He asked Gloria if she would mind taking the box he was holding to the fire station—the
estacion de bomberos,
he called it. Gloria was so flustered she agreed right away.

Only after she’d left the house did Gloria start to wonder how he knew about the
estacion de bomberos
in the first place.

“And there you have it,” said Gloria, patting the big box she had brought in. “That’s the whole shebang.”

“Well, I have to say, you’re none the worse for the experience—you look fabulous,” said Grandpa Larry, looking at the newly svelte real estate agent. “Doesn’t she, Wayne?!” he called out to Grandpa Wayne, who was standing in the back of the store tinkering furiously with an old record player.

“Fabulous!” Wayne agreed, not looking up.

“That’s what everybody’s saying!” said Gloria wonderingly. “Ever since that fall. You know, I can’t help thinking that someone must have hypnotized me while I was unconscious. It’s almost like I really went to that spa—instead of the hospital!”

After Gloria left, Grandpa Larry let Sebastian back in. Grandpa Wayne reemerged—it turned out the record player wasn’t so desperately in need of fixing, after all—and everyone, dog included, went upstairs to have more tea, and to look through the box the gardener had sent.

Immediately taking charge, Cass opened the box with a kitchen knife, insisting that she get to handle everything in the box before anyone else. (She could tell her grandfathers thought her behavior a little selfish, but they didn’t say anything—probably because they didn’t want to reprimand her in front of Max-Ernest.) The box was filled to capacity with small items covered in newspaper. Cass eagerly unwrapped them, inspecting each one for clues and secret messages. But the more things she inspected, the clearer it became that there were no clues to be found. The box contained only dishware—plates and bowls and cups.

Cass was crushed. She’d been predicting, or at least hoping something. Something she hadn’t mentioned to her grandfathers, or even to Max-Ernest. Something about the magician’s gardener. But now, it appeared, she’d been wrong. The gardener was exactly who he said was. The box of stuff no more than a box of stuff.

Her grandfathers, on the other hand, couldn’t get over their good luck. “Can you believe somebody’s getting rid of this?” asked Grandpa Larry holding up a pastel plate. “Do you know what Russel Wright goes for these days?”