“Packing?” Eleanor asked.
The siblings looked at one another—and that’s when they realized that their mother wasn’t smiling. She didn’t seem anywhere near as happy to see them as they were to see her. What was wrong? They followed her downstairs and saw a startling sight.
Everything in the kitchen was packed in cardboard boxes.
“We’re moving?” Brendan asked.
“Of course we’re moving,” Mrs. Walker said. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in a few days. “You knew that.”
“Why?” Cordelia asked.
“Why? What do you mean, ‘why’? Do you have a memory problem?”
“We’re just confused, Mom,” Eleanor said. “Why are we moving?”
Mrs. Walker gave Eleanor a very curious look.
“Because it’s gone,” she said with slow obviousness.
“What?” Brendan asked.
“Where have you kids been? We’ve lost everything—all the money. We have to move.”
“When?” Eleanor asked.
“The movers are taking our boxes and personal stuff today,” said Mrs. Walker. “Tomorrow they come for our beds and furniture.”
“Where are we going to live?!” Cordelia asked, shocked.
“A sublet on Fisherman’s Wharf,” said Mrs. Walker, trying to hold back her emotions. “Hopefully we’ll sell quickly. And I’m going to have you back at your old school next week.”
“That might not be such a bad thing,” Eleanor told Brendan and Cordelia, as Mrs. Walker turned away, continuing to pack the boxes. But then Eleanor realized something and grabbed her siblings. “Oh no,” she whispered. “This is what the Wind Witch showed me. It’s all coming true! Dad really is going to die . . . and Mom’s going to go crazy . . . and we’re all going to live with Uncle Pete!”
“That’s not what I saw,” said Cordelia. “I saw myself in a dead-end marriage with Tim Bradley.”
“There’s no way those things have to come true,” said Brendan. “Those are possibilities. The Wind Witch was just playing tricks on us. Nothing’s set in stone.”
“What are you three babbling about? Come and help me with these plates!”
The doorbell rang. Brendan answered it. He was shocked to see a man in a Spartan Movers outfit—the same man who had talked his ear off when he moved into Kristoff House just a few weeks before.
“Hey!” the moving man said. “The lacrosse player! Sorry to see you’re moving out, kid. Easy come, easy go, huh?”
Brendan nodded mutely, flabbergasted and gutted. He followed the moving man up the stairs as other men in Spartan uniforms came into the kitchen and hauled boxes out. It’s one thing to run and fight in a fantasy world, Brendan thought hollowly. It’s another to deal with problems in the real world.
As Brendan went up the stairs, Cordelia turned to Eleanor. “We’re losing Kristoff House,” she said.
“I know.”
“I mean, we’re really losing it. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to be looking back at it through the trees, waving good-bye.” Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut, trapping the tear that was about to come out of one of them. “It’s a good thing I have this.”
“What?” Eleanor asked.
Cordelia reached into her back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
“The Nazi treasure map!” Eleanor said.
“Insurance,” Cordelia corrected. “If this map really leads to Nazi treasure, we can find it and give it back to the world, and save our family.”
“But how do we know that map leads to real treasure? Couldn’t it lead to a fictional treasure that’s only in Kristoff’s books?”
“I’m starting to think the real world and his world are more connected than we think. And no matter what—this is proof. This is an artifact from our adventures that no one can deny. We’ll find a way to use what we know to save our family.”
She folded the map up and put it in her pocket. Eleanor held her hand.
“Saving our family,” Eleanor said, “is one of the things we do best.”
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Epilogue
Brendan sat in his almost vacant room, with only one remaining dresser and a nightstand. He stared at the ceiling, at the empty space where his posters used to be. There were small patches of paint missing from where he had taped them up. How did we get here? thought Brendan. Things were bad before we left, but not this bad. And it feels like they’re only gonna get worse. . . .
Brendan’s attic door swung open.
Eleanor climbed into the attic, followed by Cordelia.
“Hey, Bren,” said Eleanor.
“Since it’s our last night, we thought it’d be nice if we all sat out on the roof,” said Cordelia. “We’re probably never gonna have a view like this again.”
“No kidding,” said Brendan, opening the window and climbing outside, onto the rooftop. Cordelia and Eleanor followed.
They sat at the edge of the roof, where not so long ago, in another adventure, they once hid from bloodthirsty pirates. The view was just as magical: the San Francisco Bay, illuminated by a full moon and the glorious Golden Gate Bridge. A thick layer of fog swirled all around the bridge. They sat together in silence for a long time, enjoying the breeze, listening to the sound of a heavy fog horn. Finally, Brendan said what they were all thinking.
“Maybe we should’ve gone along with the Wind Witch.”
“Yeah,” said Eleanor. “At least I’d be a princess.”
“I’d be Cordelia of Arc.”
“But we wouldn’t be together,” said Brendan. “We wouldn’t be here. Now.”
“Yeah, and the three of us together . . . ,” said Eleanor. “There’s nothing stronger than that. We’ve beaten pirates, frost beasts, Nazis . . .”
That’s when Eleanor noticed the shadow.
At first, it looked like another one of the oil tankers or sailboats in the bay. But the shadow was slowly rising out of the water, getting bigger and bigger. . . .
Now it stood nearly as tall as the top tier of the bridge. And it was no shadow. Backlit by fog, it was—
“Fat Jagger!”
Cordelia and Brendan stared open-mouthed. Sure enough, it was Fat Jagger, standing in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
“That can’t be . . . possible . . . ,” said Cordelia.
“He followed me,” said Eleanor.
“Followed you?”
“When the Wind Witch showed me my future with her, Fat Jagger was there,” said Eleanor. “He helped me get to the Door of Ways . . . he watched me go through . . .”
And then Fat Jagger lifted his head toward the sky and howled at the moon.
“Waallllk-errrr!!! Wallllk-eerrrrr!!!”
And then, as brake lights lit up on the few cars on the bridge, Fat Jagger slunk down and disappeared into the water, leaving a surprisingly small ripple in the Gate.
“Oh man,” Eleanor said. “Do you think anyone saw him?”
“I definitely didn’t see him,” Brendan said. “And even if I thought I did see him, which I’m sure I didn’t . . . I—we can’t deal with this right now.”
“We have to,” said Eleanor. “Fat Jagger’s our friend! And he’s all alone out there in the middle of the water. He’s lost and scared.”
“Get your coat,” said Cordelia, already climbing down off the roof. “We need to go to the bridge and get to Fat Jagger before somebody else does.”
“And how exactly do you help a sixty-story giant who’s stuck in the middle of San Francisco?” asked Brendan.
“We’ve had tougher missions,” said Eleanor.
So the Walkers went back downstairs, snuck outside, and headed to the steep cliff that led to the beach. As they climbed down carefully, moving toward the water, they all looked at one another—and were surprised to see smiles on their faces. Despite Brendan’s reservation
s, they couldn’t help themselves. This is where they were meant to be. This is what they were meant to do.
They were the Walkers.
And they lived for adventure.
END OF BOOK 2
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About the Authors
Sabra Embury
CHRIS COLUMBUS has written, directed, and produced some of the most successful box-office hits in Hollywood history. He first made his name by writing several original scripts produced by Steven Spielberg, including the back-to-back hits Gremlins and The Goonies. As a director, Columbus has been at the helm of such iconic projects as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Home Alone, Stepmom, and Mrs. Doubtfire. As a producer, Columbus was also behind the hit films Night at the Museum and The Help.
NED VIZZINI is the bestselling author of the acclaimed young-adult books It’s Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), The Other Normals, Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah . . . He has written for the New York Times, Salon, and the New Yorker. In television he’s written for MTV’s Teen Wolf. Ned lives in California with his wife and son. You can visit him at www.nedvizzini.com.
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Praise for House of Secrets
“A swift-paced . . . clever page-turner for any reader
who has wanted to take part in literary adventures . . .
This story is compelling, great fun, and sure to be popular.”
–ALA BOOKLIST
“The nonstop action comes with increasingly
high stakes . . . wildly imaginative.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“This book is a true masterpiece of perfection.”
—THE GUARDIAN (UK)
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
HOUSE OF SECRETS: BATTLE OF THE BEASTS. copyright © 2014 by Novel Approach LLC. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Greg Call. 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, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[TK]
ISBN 978-0-06-219249-3 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-229594-1 (international ed.)
EPub Edition January 2014 ISBN 9780062317711
* * *
14 15 16 17 18 XX/XXXX 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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