Amy stared at him in amazement. He had just done a pitch-perfect imitation of Aunt Beatrice!
Aunt Beatrice had said something almost exactly
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like that on the day Grace's will was read. The mimicry was dead-on. It could only have been done by someone who knew her well-- very well.
"You were there?" Amy whispered.
"Yes. Hidden, and listening from another room. My oldest sister's voice can be quite irritating, as of course you know."
Amy looked at Dan. He gave her a combined nod and shrug.
She shook her head in response. "It could still be a trick," she said. "He could have, like, studied her. You know, followed her around like a stalker, or filmed her, or something like that. And practiced imitating her. Or maybe he's working on some kind of plot with her--"
"With Beatrice?" Fiske Cahill said.
"With Aunt Beatrice?" Dan said.
Not only had they spoken at the same moment, but they had identical incredulous expressions on their faces. Amy was struck by a revelation. For so long, she had heard about how much she reminded people of Grace. Miss Alice had recognized their resemblance to each other even though she hadn't seen Grace in years. Now Amy saw precisely the same kind of likeness between Dan and the man in gray!
They had to be related.
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CHAPTER 22
* * *
"I have so much to tell you, I hardly know where to start," Fiske Cahill said. "I will do my best. You already know that you are Madrigals."
"Yeah, and we know that's bad news," Dan said.
"Not necessarily," Fiske replied. "It depends on your point of view."
"Oh, great," Dan said, "now everything's much clearer."
For a split second, Amy thought Fiske might smile. But then his eyebrows drew together and he looked very serious.
"Gideon and Olivia Cahill had four children," Fiske said. He paused, waiting.
Dan and Amy looked at each other. Apparently, this was sort of a quiz.
"Katherine, Luke, Thomas, and Jane," Amy said.
Fiske nodded his approval. "Gideon spent a fortune and a lifetime trying to find a cure for the plague. The serum he created did indeed protect against the plague, and also had unexpected side effects.
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Although he didn't know it at the time, his serum altered the DNA of those who took it, giving them greater abilities in every area of human endeavor. Eventually, Gideon gave each of his children part of the formula. Soon afterwards, he died in a fire that destroyed his laboratory. His children suspected one another of sabotage, which sundered the family. Each child went off to spearhead a particular branch of the Cahill clan." Pause.
Dan's turn. "Ekaterina, Lucian, Tomas, Janus."
Another nod. "For centuries now, the branches have been on a relentless search, battling one another to find clues to the ingredients that will reconstruct the formula, both their own particular serum and the master serum that contains the secret to the powers of all four branches. But every time a branch comes close, they are prevented from achieving success."
"By the Madrigals," Amy whispered.
"So that's why all the other branches hate them--I mean, us," Dan said. "But how did the Madrigals get mixed up with the clue hunt in the first place?"
Fiske answered the question with one of his own. "Amy," he said, "may I see that miniature painting?"
Puzzled, Amy took the painting out of her backpack and handed it to him.
He gazed at it for a few moments, then spoke slowly. "At the time of the fire, no one knew that Gideon's wife, Olivia, was pregnant with their fifth child."
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He turned the painting around so it was facing them.
"Meet Madeleine Cahill," he said. "Founder of the Madrigal line."
Amy had looked at the little painting dozens of times before, but it was as if she were seeing it for the first time. It was incredible--no wonder the woman in the picture was a dead ringer for her mother!
"Your great-great--well, about twenty-two greats--grandmother," Fiske said.
"She's the one who wrote the poem," Dan said, gesturing at the box. "MC. Madeleine Cahill."
Fiske nodded as he put the painting down gently. He cleared his throat. "Olivia Cahill supported her husband's efforts at first," he said, "when he was trying to find a cure for the plague. But she was devastated by what the obsession with the serum's side effects did to the family. Her children scattered across the globe to begin their own schemes. She was left alone with the baby.
"Olivia was terrified of the corrupting power of the serum. She also desperately wanted to bring the family together again, and she raised Madeleine to believe that nothing was more important."
Amy made a small noise of surprise. Her face lit up, not in happiness, but in understanding.
Fiske Cahill cracked his first smile. "Why don't you go ahead, young lady?"
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"That's in the poem, too!" Amy burst out. "One web, many a tether, united--that's what the Madrigals do! They try to get the other branches to stop fighting!"
"Exactly," Fiske said.
"I don't get it," Dan said crossly. "If you ask me, they sure don't act like peacekeepers a lot of the time."
Fiske looked solemn again. "I'm afraid you're right, Dan. Preventing the branches from achieving too much power has not always been a pleasant task. And just as important, the Madrigals try to protect innocent people from becoming victims of the battle."
"Oh. Ah." Dan was momentarily struck speechless, and Amy knew he was trying to wrap his mind around the same thoughts she was having.
The Madrigals--they're the good guys? But how--
"The other branches would be most unhappy to learn that the Madrigals have equal status as Cahill heirs and even more unhappy if they knew what the Madrigal quest was," Fiske continued. "That is why the branch has always been shrouded in secrecy."
"And--and Mom and Dad?" Amy asked. "That's what they were doing, too?"
Fiske nodded. "They were among our most active members. Something else you should know: The Lucians pinned the blame for one of their own evil acts on Hope and Arthur. It happened in South Africa."
Winnie Thembeka! Amy's mind flashed back to the terrible moment when she and Dan had been told that their parents were murderers.
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"I knew it! I knew they were good all along!" Dan exulted as he held his fist out toward Amy.
Amy returned his fist bump, but inside she didn't feel quite the same triumph as her brother. They had to make hard choices, too, she thought. Being good might seem simple, but it's never easy.
"What about Austria?" Dan asked. "Was that all part of the plan, too--to blow us up? Then what, rescue us? Pretty risky if you ask me--we could have died!"
"It was Alistair Oh who triggered the explosion," Fiske said. "Believe me, we were relieved beyond words to learn that you were safe. You assumed that I was the culprit, and we decided it would be useful not to correct that assumption. It reinforced the image of Madrigal power among those in the other branches."
Now Nellie spoke up. "You two scared me to death when you said you wanted out of the hunt," she said. "I knew how much the Madrigals needed you."
Fiske nodded solemnly. "Without the Madrigals working at full strength, there would be countless people who would meet a fate like Lester's," he said gently. "Who knows how many more ..."
The fate of the world, Amy thought.
There was quiet around the table. Amy saw that some of the hurt had returned to Dan's eyes but not the empty hurt like before. Instead, she saw a kind of determination there. No one else would die like Lester had, not if Dan could help it.
She was with him on that one.
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It was Dan who broke the silence.
"There's one thing I still don't get," he said. "Why couldn't we have known all this before? Why did Mr. McIntyre tell us to beware the Madrigals? Why couldn't Grace have told us we
were Madrigals and what the Madrigals do?"
Fiske sighed. "That is, perhaps, the most complicated part of the equation," he said. "Madeleine Cahill swore an oath on her mother's deathbed to do everything in her power to reunite the family. She was well aware of how difficult the Madrigals' task would be and spent years designing and implementing guidelines for the branch.
"Some of these you already know, even if you don't know you know them. The Madrigal branch is matrilineal--Madrigals often take the last name of their mothers, not their fathers. It was a symbol of Madeleine's devotion to Olivia."
"So that's why we're Cahills and not Trents," Dan said.
"Mom always told me it was a feminist thing," Amy recalled.
Dan thought for a moment. "That wasn't really a lie," he said.
"But most important," Fiske continued, "Madeleine knew that the only chance for success was if the Madrigals themselves were the best of the best. Amelia Earhart, as you discovered. Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Nanny Sharpe. All Madrigals. Many more names--Mother Teresa, Frederick Douglass, Roberto Clemente. And
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more than half of the Nobel Peace Prize winners."
"Wow." That was Amy and Dan, together.
"There's more," Fiske went on. "The Madrigal line is the only one of the Cahill branches for which active status must be earned. Simply being born into the line is not enough."
"Earned?" Dan said. "Earned how?"
"Cahills who exhibit the potential to become active Madrigals have to undergo a period of rigorous trials, without knowing they are doing so. That way, if they do not succeed, the secret of the Madrigal line remains inviolate.
"Some of the trials result from conflict with the other branches or from the hunt itself. Others are--how can I put it--designed by the Madrigals themselves. This last challenge was actually a combination. We needed the fang and hoped fervently that you could obtain it. Once you had achieved that, we decided you should be put to the test of opening the box under rather menacing conditions."
"So the Madrigals have deliberately been trying to trip us up all along?" Dan's voice rose higher, on the edge of anger.
"They have also given you aid from time to time," Fiske shot back. "Believe me, we want all the active members we can get. We want you to succeed. But we cannot let our desires get in the way of our goal to select only the most worthy.
"The activities of potential Madrigals are tracked
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quite closely, hence, Miss Gomez's involvement. And the need for her deception."
"I'm sorry, guys," Nellie said. "I wanted to tell you about a million times, but--"
Then Nellie put her head down on the table, and a moment later, Amy could hear strange snuffling noises.
What the heck--is she--no, it can't be-- "Are you crying?" Dan asked, staring at Nellie in amazement.
Nellie raised her tear-streaked face to Amy. "It was s-so awful," she said. "H-having to lie to you, and--and then when you f-found out, you didn't trust me anymore, it was almost like you hated me--and--and I had to keep g-going somehow--" She put her head down again, shaking with sobs.
For a long moment, Amy felt almost blind with anger. Part of her wanted to hit something or someone as hard as she could--for putting the three of them through all this.
Nellie had indeed betrayed them. Many times over--to Mr. McIntyre, to the man in black, to the Madrigals.
But she had done it for the right reasons. And it couldn't have been easy.
Amy took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly, trying to blow away all of her anger.
It worked. Mostly, anyway.
When her vision cleared, she found herself staring at
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Nellie's spiky blond-and-black hair ... tough-as-nails Nellie, reduced to a puddle by the Clue hunt. ...
She reached out and put her hand on Nellie's arm. "Nellie?" she said softly. "I'm sorry, too. Really sorry. It must have been so hard for you."
"Yeah, Nellie," Dan said, his voice anxious. "Everything's cool now, so you can quit bawling, okay?"
The snuffling noises grew quieter.
Fiske cleared his throat. "Miss Gomez was not always as cooperative as we would have liked," he said. "There were a number of times when she acted against our wishes. Helping you with Isabel Kabra earlier, for example. And just now with the box."
Nellie sat up, sniffed loudly, and scrubbed at her tears, leaving mascara tracks in interesting designs all over her cheeks.
"What you gonna do," she said, and managed a watery wink at Amy.
Amy winked back.
It was amazing how the tiny twitch of an eyelid could give her such a huge feeling of relief.
"Indeed." Fiske seemed almost amused. Then he went on again. "After the designated trial period, those who are deemed worthy are notified of their active Madrigal status, and the secrets of the Madrigal line are revealed to them."
Amy drew in a sharp breath. "So if you're telling us all this now--"
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Fiske Cahill nodded.
"Yes. I have been authorized to tell you both, Amy and Dan, that you have been granted active Madrigal status." He paused. "I might add, you are by far the youngest candidates ever to have achieved this."
Amy was pretty sure his eyes were watering again.
"Your grandmother would be so proud of you," he said. "As am I."
Dan bounced in his chair. "Is there, like, a certificate? Or a pin or a badge or something?"
Fiske smiled and inclined his head. "Sorry, nothing like that. But there is a reward of a different sort--"
He stopped and glanced around furtively. "As of today, seven Madrigal clues have been discovered," he said. "Mace, of course, thanks to your good selves. Also--" he leaned toward them and whispered the other Clues quickly but clearly.
I should try to remember them all, Amy thought. Just then, Dan elbowed her gently and nodded. She knew what that meant. He's already got them memorized.
"With this knowledge comes a great responsibility," Fiske said. "The Cahill clan must be reunited. It was Grace's greatest desire; she spent her lifetime preparing for it. It's why she wrote her will the way she did: to trigger the hunt for the thirty-nine clues. She hoped the hunt would prove so difficult that the clans would band together to complete it."
He paused and looked at each of them in turn.
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"As you well know, that hasn't happened. The hunt is nearly over now. England will be our last chance. Your focus there will be twofold: to win the clue hunt for the Madrigal branch, and even more important, to bring the family together."
"The family?" Amy said, confused. Who was he talking about--him and Aunt Beatrice?
"Yes," Fiske said. "The other Cahill branches. You must work with them, get them to cooperate, and trust you and one another. It will be the most difficult challenge you have ever faced."
Amy could hardly believe what she was hearing. Winning the Clue race would be hard enough, but to get all four branches to cooperate?
The feuding, lying, treacherous Wizards and Ohs and Holts?
And worst of all ...
"Isabel?" Dan screeched in alarm. "You expect us to work with her? No way--never in a million years!"
"We c-couldn't," Amy stuttered. "Our parents, she--they--we--"
Fiske lowered his head. "I knew your mother as a girl," he said softly. "A terrible loss, for one so bright to die so young. And the same for your father."
Another silence. Then Fiske cleared his throat.
"Tell me," he said, "what do you think they would want you to do?"
How many times had Amy wondered that herself? Would her parents want her to stay out of trouble--to
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be safe and to keep Dan safe? Maybe ... but how safe could they ever be in a world run by someone like Isabel? How safe would anyone be?
Dan pushed back his chair and stood up. Amy could see that his mind was made up, and she knew he was right.
/> Not revenge, she thought again. Justice. And not just for us and our parents, but for the whole world.
"We better get going," Dan said. "England! But first we pick up Saladin, and then"--his voice grew quieter--"then we have to go see Miss Alice."
They were all quiet for a few moments.
Amy felt her heart breaking when she thought of Miss Alice, how lonely she would be without Lester.
"The Madrigals will help her, financially and otherwise," Fiske said. "Now, and for the rest of her life."
Lester would like that, Amy thought. If only we could do more for her somehow. ...
"And," Fiske said, "they have made another decision. For the first time in their history, the Madrigals are granting active status to someone not born to the bloodline."
He turned to Nellie.
"Miss Gomez? Welcome to the Madrigals."
Amy watched as the expression on Nellie's face went from confusion to astonishment to pleasure. Then she blushed a very rosy pink.
"Dude," she said.
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The 39 Clues Book 9: Storm Warning Page 13
