After Fern read aloud the part of Phoebe’s letter that included a description of Haryle Laffar’s plan to steal the moon, all those present were convinced that the moon rock was what Laffar sought. Apparently, he’d been pursuing the Ah Puch potion for decades. After years of plotting and planning, he was on the brink of possessing everything he needed.
For the first half hour of the meeting, the six debated how to prevent Laffar from obtaining the moon rock. The first proposal involved intercepting Laffar while he was on his way to steal the rock, but the group ultimately concluded that with the Sirens under his command, Laffar would be far too powerful. It was Candace Tutter, emboldened by her recent deductive triumph, who proposed the ultimate solution.
“What if we steal the moon rock before he does?” Can-dace suggested from her vantage point on the ledge in the entryway. Anyone larger would have broken the ledge right off the wall, but Candace weighed less than seventy pounds.
“I hardly think grand theft is the solution to our problem,” Mrs. Lin said sharply, unafraid to show her mistrust of the Normal. There was no away around it: For Mrs. Lin, Candace’s presence was an unwelcome intrusion. The Normals who comprised Fern’s family were a different matter, but according to May Lin’s way of thinking, Fern’s new friend had no business at the meeting. If she hadn’t had other things to worry about, Mrs. Lin would have insisted on ejecting the small nuisance from the room. But as it was, she just wanted to get her husband safely back.
“Candace is right,” Fern said, sitting upright. “If we steal it before he does, then he can’t make the potion.”
“You both have a point, but we have no way of knowing when he’s going to attempt his theft,” the Commander added. She was willing to listen rationally to the assembled teens’ ideas, but as the only other adult, she felt she needed to support May Lin. Furthermore, she was not particularly comfortable signing off on a plan that had her daughter committing a federal offense.
“Actually,” Candace said, “we do.” She hopped off the counter and waded into her backpack, which she’d placed beneath her. She produced her spiral-bound journal and began flipping through it.
“Yes, here it is. . . . The Washington Post reported that the Hope Diamond was stolen right after the shift change of the security guards, at one in the morning. The Air and Space Museum uses the same security detail—Air and Space and the Natural History Museum are all part of the Smithsonian,” Candace said, tracing her detailed notes with her index finger. She began pacing as she had when she was connecting the dots for Lindsey Lin in the Museum of the American Indian’s gift shop. “Miles told Fern that Laffar leaves him alone around midnight, which means that if Fern were to teleport to Miles and rescue him tonight, we would have approximately a half hour before Laffar came back and realized Miles was missing.”
Every eye in the room was on Candace, fascinated by her unflagging precociousness.
“But will he really leave Miles around midnight the night of the heist?” Mrs. Lin asked, still skeptical.
“Yes—he still has to make sure everything at the Air and Space is just as he’s planned it,” Fern offered, backing Candace up.
“Exactly. So taking into account that I’m no expert in stealing national treasures, I think half an hour should be enough time to get in and out. With Fern and Miles able to teleport and Miles able to turn invisible, it seems like—“
“But wait—Miles won’t be able to use his powers because he’s been weakened by the Sirens, right?” Lindsey questioned.
“That was my first thought too,” Candace said, scribbling something down in her notebook, “but then I realized that if Laffar intends to use Miles to steal the moon rock, then he must have allowed Miles’s powers to rejuvenate. Therefore, when Fern reaches him, he should be able to teleport out of there without a problem.”
“What’s keeping him there right now, then, if he has his powers back for the big burglary in a few hours?” Lindsey interjected. Fern was wondering the same thing, knowing that if Miles could teleport again, he’d be out of that cell in the blink of an eye.
“I know,” Mrs. Lin said, having her own “aha” moment. May Lin rose from her seat and walked to a spot right in front of Lindsey, Sam, and Fern, deliberately standing with her back to Candace. “We must not forget that Laffar is a powerful Hermes, able to control minds. I have no doubt he could subdue Miles for at least an hour without the Sirens by putting him in a trance. He is probably planning on leaving him in such a trance while he makes his final preparations for the burglary.”
“So can Fern wake him up or something?” Sam asked. “Will he snap out of it?”
“A person must be very careful when awakening someone from a Hermes trance.” Mrs. Lin turned to Fern. “The only way to do it is by talking calmly about a familiar subject. He must not be startled awake or he will fall deeper into the trance.”
Fern wasn’t worried about waking Miles—she knew the exact thing to bring him out of the trance.
May Lin had her husband in her thoughts. She wanted the boy rescued as well, but she had to be her husband’s advocate and found herself in the strange position of depending on a thirteen-year-old for help.
“Is there a way to rescue Mike as well?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m planning on waking Mr. Lin up too, and he can escape through the grate. If the Sirens are up there, this time I’ll be ready for them. Laffar will be so concerned with finding Miles, I doubt he’ll be paying any attention to Mr. Lin,” Fern said.
“But if you do succeed in rescuing Miles and Mr. Lin, why steal the moon rock at all? Without Miles, Laffar will no longer be able to get it,” the Commander offered, trying to understand why her daughter should put herself in additional danger once Laffar was no longer an immediate threat to Miles or Mr. Lin.
The group considered Mary Lou’s point. She appeared to be correct—breaking into one of the most secure places in the world when there was no immediate danger of Laffar getting the moon rock seemed unnecessarily reckless.
The idea of leaving the moon rock was deeply unsettling to Fern.
“No!” she exclaimed. She hadn’t meant to yell, but the thought of the moon rock still out there for Laffar to steal shook her to the core. “Are all of you forgetting what we already know about Haryle Laffar? He won’t stop until he finds Miles again. He’ll never give up until he captures him and steals the rock. Then he’ll kill Miles in order to transfer Miles’s powers to himself, and then guess what?” Fern was trembling. “I’ll be next.”
Mary Lou McAllister looked at her quaking daughter. The sight nearly brought tears to her eyes, but with concentrated, forceful blinks, she managed to keep her eyes dry. She thought of the manhunt Laffar had conducted to locate Phoebe, and she remembered the tragic conclusion in that case.
“Miles has already stolen the Hope Diamond. We can do this,” Fern insisted with new resolve. “This isn’t a choice—we’ve got to get that rock and then we’ve got to destroy it.”
The room grew silent for a few moments.
“All right,” the Commander said finally. She knew, though, that Fern wasn’t asking for permission. Fern would go with or without her mother’s consent. Sam and Lindsey nodded supportively as she thought of what her father would want her to do.
The group made rapid progress from that point on as all six plotters cobbled together the strategy to rescue Miles and Mike Lin from Laffar’s clutches and preemptively steal the rock. Because it was already nine fifteen p.m., they knew they would have to move quickly to be ready by the midnight deadline when Miles would be left alone. Soon every task had been assigned to a specific person and every minute had been carefully planned. At ten p.m., the party finally dispersed to begin the appointed duties.
Candace made straight for the computers in the Marriott business center, hoping to find important security details about the Air and Space Museum online and obtain a picture of the room that housed the moon rock, essential for Fern and Miles to successfully
teleport there. Lindsey Lin followed her mother down the hallway with a freshly clipped piece of Fern’s hair. Together, they would program a Sagebrush of Hyperion to follow Fern’s every movement so she could be constantly monitored.
Mrs. McAllister remained in her room, considering the different excuses she might give the DC police when her daughter was found after hours in the Air and Space Museum.
Meanwhile, Sam grabbed his sister’s arm as she headed toward her room. “What if Laffar is expecting you at midnight?”
Fern could see worry lines appear on her brother’s tan face.
“He won’t be,” Fern said, with more confidence than she actually felt.
“He was waiting the last time you teleported to Miles,” Sam whispered, scouring the hallway to make sure they were still alone. “He almost had you.”
“Which is why he won’t expect me to appear again.”
“If he captures you, Fern . . .” Though unaware of it, Sam was wringing his hands.
“He’s not going to capture me. The only way he could possibly do that would be with the Sirens. I’ll have the harmonica, and this time, I’m not going to lose it, okay?”
“I hope you’re right,” Sam said. Fern had never seen her brother so jumpy. “But if something does happen . . . if he gets the potion together . . . I, well . . .” Sam trailed off.
“What is it?”
“If the worst-case scenario happens,” Sam began again, “I have an idea.”
“Why didn’t you bring it up earlier so everyone could hear?” Her brother puzzled Fern. She could always count on Sam to be straightforward.
“Because I couldn’t.”
“Well . . . out with it already,” Fern said, careful not to let her voice exceed an acceptable decibel level.
Sam breathed in through his nose twice and then revealed the one thing essential to any successful plan: a back-up plan.
Chapter 26
Going For Miles
Fern dutifully waited until 11:59 p.m. before teleporting to the zoo. This time, though, as she stumbled to her feet in the cold darkness of the underground holding cell, she was wary of the unexpected.
With both hands, Fern groped around until she touched something smooth and round, roughly the diameter of a flagpole. It was the bar of a broken cage. When her eyes finally adjusted to the dimness, Fern saw the now familiar crate with NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK stamped on its side. Moving silently, she crept to the corner of the room where she’d last seen Mr. Lin in his cage. The large rusted cage was there.
But Mr. Lin was not.
Dread swamped Fern’s thoughts. If Mr. Lin wasn’t there, what other surprises were in store? No longer concerned about making noise, Fern pulled out her Washington, DC, gift harmonica and gripped it tightly. She doubted that she could recall the precise notes and holes in which to blow for “Amazing Grace,” but she didn’t care. At the first sign of the Sirens, Fern would begin playing the harmonica, continuing until the Sirens went to sleep or she passed out from lack of oxygen—whichever happened first.
As soon as Fern entered the smaller second room, she hunted for Miles. His cage was in the corner . . . and, to her relief, so was he.
Without waiting to see if there was anybody else lurking in the deeply shadowed corners of the backlit room, Fern darted to the door of Miles’s cage. Retrieving the bolt cutters from beneath the pile of bamboo where she had left them, Fern attacked the new lock. CLACK. The noise reverberated off the walls as the lock clanged on the floor. The grate covering the opening to the duct above Miles’s cage had been completely pushed to the side, but Fern didn’t bother looking up. There was no time to waste.
What struck Fern first was the tidy state of Miles’s cage. The cereal boxes and debris had been removed. As Fern stepped into the enclosure, she noticed that someone had even swept the inside of the cage. It looked as if Laffar was intent on covering his tracks.
Fern directed her gaze to the opposite side of the room, in the direction of a creaking noise. Her eyes narrowed, as she tried to penetrate the darkness. She clasped the harmonica tightly in her palm once more, now unable to hear anything except the pounding of her own heart. Inhaling one sharp breath after another, Fern tried to make peace with her hostile nerves.
She scanned the room again. Other than Miles, there was no one else there.
Slowly Fern sat down on the cage’s cold metal floor. The bill of Miles’s ripped and dirtied baseball cap covered his eyes. Timidly Fern extended her index finger beneath the brim of Miles’s hat and lifted it to reveal his face. His eyes were open, but empty—his pupils had disappeared. It was as if someone had set two blue-tinted glass pieces where his eyes used to be. Fern waved her hand in front of Miles’s face. Nothing. She chided herself for not working more quickly, fully aware that every second was precious.
She remembered what Mrs. Lin had said about waking a person up from a Hermes trance, and her voice morphed into a monotone whisper.
“You remember the game on August 19, 2007, don’t you, Miles? Santana was on the mound against the Rangers at the Metrodome. It was his thirteenth win that season . . . right? The Twins only got him one run, a homer against Millwood in the second inning. Santana won the Cy Young Award the year before, but you don’t happen to recall how many strikeouts he had that day, do you? Miles, I can’t remember, but you watched the game, I bet. How many was it?”
Miles’s glassy eyes rolled back into his head. Fern panicked. Had she miscalculated the best method of bringing Miles out of his trance? She began to talk more quickly. “I think it was a franchise record . . . against the Rangers. One strikeout, then another, then another. How many strikeouts did he get that game?”
Miles’s head snapped up.
“Seventeen.”
Fern covered her mouth so she wouldn’t shriek.
“Miles!”
Confusion clouded his face. He looked around and realized where he was. Fern saw his eyes return to their normal color, pupils and all. “Fern? What are you doing here?”
“We’ve got to get out of here! Miles, can you teleport? Have you seen the Sirens lately?”
“Were you just talking with me about the Minnesota Twins?” Miles said, squinting. He didn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation. “Have you been hiding the fact that you’re a fan?”
In truth, Fern had Googled “famous Twins moments” to get all the info she needed. She dug into the other pocket of her jacket and produced a color photograph Candace had found and printed in the business center.
She waved the photograph in front of Miles, who was slowly regaining his senses.
“I need you to try to teleport here,” she said, pointing at the photograph. “Can you do that?” Miles craned his neck closer to the photo. With his finger, he traced the metallic tower in front of the National Air and Space Museum.
“Where is that?”
Fern snapped her fingers in front of Miles’s face.
“See if you can teleport here, and if you can, I’m going to follow you,” Fern said, looking up nervously at the duct opening for the first time.
Fern realized with a jolt that the grate was gone and Laffar could hop down into the room at any moment, close them both in the cage, immobilize them with the Sirens, and follow through with his diabolical plan.
She held the photo inches from Miles’s face.
“Is that a spaceship?” Miles asked.
“Yes. Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing in front of the spaceship you see in the picture.” It was as if Fern had to reteach Miles to teleport.
Fern looked above the top of the paper. Miles was closing his eyes.
“I so didn’t know you were a Twins fan,” Miles repeated, his eyes still closed.
“Now, Miles!”
Fern peeked over the paper once again in order to see if Miles still had his eyes closed, but she couldn’t tell one way or another.
Miles Zapo had disappeared.
Chapter 27
Meet & Greet
Even in the dim midnight light, Candace Tutter would have recognized Miles Zapo anywhere. He had big eyes, and his dark curls were tucked under a dirty baseball cap that was too large for his head, just as Fern had described. Candace was surprised by how small he was— he was only about an inch taller than she was.
“Are you . . . you must be . . . Miles Zapo?”
“Where am I?” Miles Zapo had regained most of his cognitive faculties, and he was beginning to piece together the past few hours of his life. Silver Tooth had come back, but this time without his Quetzals. The last thing he remembered was Silver Tooth telling him that after tonight, Miles could be out of the cage. Miles recalled the strange effect Silver Tooth’s words had on him and then, as if his brain had stopped recording, all memory ceased.
Until Fern arrived, that is. At first her voice sounded like she was underwater. He heard her talking about the Twins, and then he revived and she was sitting next to him in his cage, demanding that he teleport to a strange place.
Now he was at that strange place, with a very strange girl peering at him intently.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
Candace smiled at Miles.
“I suppose it’s natural to have a lot of questions,” she said. “You’re outside the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. My name is Candace Tutter, and I am a student at St. Gregory’s and a friend of Fern’s.”
“Where is Fern?”
“She should be arriving momentarily. She wanted to make sure you safely teleported before she followed you.” Candace tried to sound official, hoping it might calm Miles down after his journey.
She took a file folder out of her trusty backpack. Then she pulled out several sheets of paper, each with three or four photos printed on them. Before she could show them to Miles, a sound broke the silence.
In the blink of an eye, Fern appeared in front of Can-dace just as Miles had moments before. Candace found it as awe-inducing as the first time she’d seen Fern disappear from their shared hotel bathroom.
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