He looked uncomfortable. “Ah, well, okay, but don’t stay up too much longer. You girls need your rest.”
“We won’t, Dad, promise. Good night.”
“Good night, girls.”
When her father had gone, Megan looked at Rachel. “Asking the spirits about boys?”
Rachel burst out laughing. “I had to say something he’d believe and that would get him out quickly.”
Harriet yawned. “This has been thrilling, really, but now I can’t keep my eyes open. It’s time to go to sleep, don’t you all agree?”
“I’m too wired to sleep,” Megan said. Things were working out even better than she could have planned. This was certainly the first mystery sleepover she had ever been to. She was going to be so popular after tonight, especially if they actually found something. She wasn’t expecting anything big, but poking around this big old house in the dark could prove to be fun. Certainly better than ghost stories and phony séances, and definitely not boring. She was going to milk this for all it was worth.
Rachel nodded. “Me too. So where do we start?”
“Downstairs.” She pointed to the open journal. “In the library.”
* * *
Once they were sure Megan’s father was in bed and asleep, the four girls crept down the stairs, Meg in front with a flashlight. She swept the light over the statue on the landing, and up the opposite stair. Empty.
They tiptoed through the entrance hall and into the lounge. It was eerily quiet as they stole through the drawing room; the dying embers of the fire glowed in the hearth like the eyes of strange nocturnal animals.
Megan cringed with every creak and squeak of the floorboards. She didn’t know why she was so nervous—she lived here, after all, and it was her party. Not like she was sneaking out or anything. Still, she didn’t want to have to explain their walking around the house in the middle of the night. Especially if Bailey, for whatever reason, was also up and about. Her father she could handle, Maggie, no problem, even Miranda didn’t faze her, but that butler always seemed to make Megan tongue-tied.
They reached the south wing. There were four doors. At the far end of the hall were her father’s study and a small bathroom. The third was the media room. Megan opened the fourth. Behind the door was a dim, musty library. The large room held a series of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, arranged in neat rows, their ends facing the door. A ladder was attached to each, and they had wheels on the bottom that rolled on the floor, and two at the top that slid along the shelves. The musty, musky smell of old books filled Megan’s nose.
She and Rachel ran to the windows and drew the drapes closed. Harriet clicked on the lights. The soft glow threw their shadows, long and strangely shaped, onto the bookshelves and the floor.
“I found this room the weekend after we moved in,” Megan said in a hoarse whisper. “I haven’t really looked, though, so I don’t know what’s here. But it’s the only library I could think of.”
Claire put Sir Gregory’s journal on one of the reading tables. “Just in case we need to look at it again,” she said when Harriet asked why she bothered to bring it along.
“Let’s spread out,” Rachel said. “Claire, you and Megan take those shelves over there. Harriet and I will look through these.”
“What are we looking for?” Harriet bent down to look at the bottom shelf of the bookcase to her right.
“A book on magic, maybe?” Megan took a book off the shelf. “Or maybe ancient stories, or archaeological treasures or something?”
“Well, now that narrows it down a bit, doesn’t it.” Claire climbed the roll-along ladder and looked at the first few books on the top shelf. “Most of these books are about some sort of archaeological find, or folk tales, or myths.”
“Greek Mythology, Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Folktales of Imperial China?” Rachel read aloud as she ran her finger along the spines of the books. “Weird books.”
“Probably not strange for an archaeologist,” Claire said.
“Not all of them are about that stuff.” Megan glanced at the books on the shelf she was searching. “Some of them are about art and antiques. We can rule those out right away, don’t you think?”
“Not if we’re looking for a book about something called The Art,” Rachel said. “Remember?”
“Good point.”
Megan didn’t find anything on the first shelf, so she went to another. Here the books were of a more scientific bent, like The Principles of Archaeology, and several issues of a magazine called Archaeology Today. Another shelf held nothing but books about famous artists and art collecting. But nothing about magic, and nothing called The Art.
If it was so important to him he probably wouldn’t leave it out in the open. If Sir Gregory hid the diary so well, he wouldn’t leave whatever she was looking for to be picked up so readily. The Art? Maybe there’s something tucked between the pages of some book about art? She went back to art books and flipped through some of them. Nothing. She stepped down to the next shelf; all history books.
“Do you think we’re really looking a book, or is the book just a key?” Rachel said. She finished with the top shelf and stepped down to the next. “You know, like in those hokey old movies—we pull the right book and we’ll find a secret passage.”
Megan shrugged. “We already have a key, so I don’t think so. Let’s just see what we find.”
She skimmed the history shelf titles, but nothing jumped out at her. She looked around her—there were hundreds, if not thousands, of books in this room.
This is going to take days.
Maybe there was something else in the journal that could help them. She laid it open on the table and turned to the mysterious final entry. It didn’t help. She still couldn’t understand what it meant.
This is hopeless. I must be insane to think I could figure this out. Of course I’m insane, I’m entertaining my guests by raiding a library in the middle of the night, looking through books for some wacky old archaeologist’s secrets. Why did I think this was a good idea again? Some party. They’re going to go back to school on Monday and tell everyone how wretched a hostess I am. I’ll be a pariah, and Dad will have to send me back to New York.
Megan watched her friends. They seemed to be having a good time. The thought of leaving them suddenly struck her as painful. This place, these girls, had grown on her in just a week. Tears pricked in her eyes. She rubbed them; she was tired, that was all. She laid her head on the book. The page stuck to her head. She carefully peeled it off, and it flipped to the back of the last entry. There was something on the other side, written on the very bottom. Megan squinted at it, almost touched her nose to the page, but it was too small to make out. “Hey, what’s that?”
There was a magnifying glass on the next table. She held it over the ink, and the words came into focus. There were only two short sentences.
Knowledge is the key to all. Athena guards the way.
She called Rachel, Claire and Harriet over to look.
“Do you think that’s important?” Rachel said.
“Athena guards the way,” Claire said. “I don’t know if it’s important, but it’s interesting.”
“Why?” Harriet said. “Sounds like more gibberish to me.”
“No, it’s not. In fact…where is the poem?”
Megan pulled it out of the back of the diary and handed it to Claire.
“Just as I thought. Athena.”
“Uh, mind letting the rest of us in on the big secret,” Rachel said.
Claire pushed her glasses up her nose. “Athena was the daughter of Zeus, the ‘father’ of all Greek gods. She was born when Zeus had a splitting headache, literally. She jumped out of his split skull.”
Harriet wrinkled her nose. “Ewww. Nasty.”
Claire continued. “So the ‘from father’s head, born was she’, refers to Athena’s birth. Add that to ‘Now she guards the door for thee’ and ‘Athena guards the way’, and it’s pretty much a lock.”
“Athena guards the way—to what?” Megan said. “Maybe we’re looking for something that Athena is known for?” Megan jumped up and grabbed a book from one of the shelves. “Here’s an index of Greek gods.” She brought the book over to one of the reading tables and they all sat around.
Megan opened the book, peeked at the index in the back of the book, found a listing for Athena, and then found the page. “Athena is the virgin goddess of wisdom, arts and literature. She was born out of the head of Zeus, her father, after he swallowed Metis, her mother. Ick.”
“I told you that already,” Claire said.
“Yeah, and it doesn’t make the visual any less gross.” Megan scanned the page. “She was Zeus’s favorite child. She is the patron goddess of Athens, and represents the intellectual and civilized side of war and knowledge. Her symbols include the olive tree, sun, lance and the number seven. Sacred to her are the serpent, crow and owl.” Megan thought about tree symbol on both the poem and the diary. If it was an olive tree, maybe that’s what they were looking for?
“Well that’s not much help,” Rachel said.
Megan shut the book. “Okay, then, back to searching.”
After three more hours, the four girls were exhausted. They had each taken several dozen books from the shelves and looked through them in anticipation, only to return them, disappointed. There was nothing else to help them figure out the riddle, and none of the books triggered a door to a secret passage.
“We might as well stop looking.” Rachel held the back of her hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn. “Whatever we’re supposed to find, it’s not here.” She put the book she had been looking through back on the shelf. “Besides, it’s going to be light soon, and I’m exhausted.”
The girls put the library to rights and re-opened the curtains. The sky was still dark. Megan looked at her watch. Rachel was right, though, it would be light soon. They had about forty-five minutes before the household would start their day, more than enough time to sneak back upstairs.
Rachel closed the library door behind them and the girls slipped through the house. Back in her room, Megan stashed the diary and the poem in her desk drawer, and put the key on the ring with her house keys. “We’ll work on it later.”
There was no answer. Her friends were sprawled across her bed. All three were asleep. Megan tiptoed across the room, and Rachel let out a long, resounding snore. Claire muttered something about wanting to go horseback riding.
“Okay,” Megan whispered, and laughed quietly. She pulled off her bathrobe and threw it on the floor. “But first we should get some sleep, I think.”
She pushed Harriet to the middle of the bed, climbed in next to her, pulled up the covers and closed her eyes.
Chapter Four: The Plot Thickens
Knocking. Megan peeled her eyes open, despite their efforts to the contrary. Bright light streamed through the long windows. It hit Megan directly in the face. With a hand over her eyes, she called out. “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Meg,” her father said. “Are you girls going to sleep all day?”
Megan squinted at the clock on the bedside table. It was nearly noon. “Uh, no, Dad.” She sat up straight, and accidentally kicked Rachel, who lay across the foot of the bed. Rachel didn’t move. “We’re getting up now.”
“Okay, then. I would hate for the scrumptious-looking lunch Maggie made to go to waste. You missed a good breakfast already. I’ll see you down there?”
Megan glanced at her three friends, still sleeping soundly. The events of the previous night crept through her foggy thoughts. In the light of day, the thought of a mysterious secret hidden in this house seemed almost silly.
“Meg? You didn’t go back to sleep, did you?”
“No. Okay, Dad. We’ll be down.” She listened to her father’s footsteps fall away, then threw off the covers and shook her friends awake.
“What’s going on?” Harriet mumbled. Her eyes were barely open, her normally perfect, shiny blonde curls knotted and mussed.
“It’s time to get up,” Megan called on her way to the bathroom.
The girls quickly dressed and met Megan’s father in the dining room for lunch. Maggie had left a buffet spread of cold meats, cheeses, and fresh fruit. When Mr. Montgomery asked why the girls had slept so late, Rachel told him that after his visit they had scared each other with ghost stories and hadn’t fallen asleep until almost dawn.
Full and more awake, they said goodbye to Megan’s father and walked to the stables.
“Do you still want to ride today?” Rachel fed a stump of carrot to Annabelle, the chestnut mare Stephan had picked out for her to ride. “We could be working on the poem instead.”
Megan pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans. “We can do both. There’s a nice, private place we can go where no one will bother us. Besides if we stay locked up in my room on a day like this, my dad will be suspicious.”
A warm breeze, the last of summer’s breath, blew across the girls’ faces as they followed a narrow track that led across the rolling green meadow that lay beyond the well-kept, formal lawn.
It was so quiet, so peaceful; Megan could almost believe that they were the only people in the world. She wondered if Sir Gregory had ever been out here, on a horse or walking, and if he had felt the same peaceful feeling she had now. The meadow turned into a wood, and the path continued between the trees.
Harriet rode beside her, her face lifted toward the sun. “It’s such a beautiful day. Are we really going to waste it working out that poem?”
“It won’t be a waste.” Claire said. She rode next to Rachel, behind them, and didn’t seem to be very comfortable in the saddle. “I think whatever is hidden inside the house is really worth looking for.”
“Like what?” Harriet shook her head, and the sun’s rays bounced off her golden hair. “Clay pots? Or perhaps something more gruesome, like a dried up old mummy?”
Claire adjusted her glasses. “Sacred treasures.”
Megan looked at her. “What did you say?”
“Sacred treasures,” Claire repeated. “It’s in the second part of the poem. ‘If still you enter and wish to find, sacred treasures that once were mine.’ I think this really could lead to wherever he hid whatever it was he was talking about in that last journal entry.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I’m not interested,” Harriet said. “I’m just happy there’s no ghost. We would have seen it last night if there were. Can’t we just go shopping?”
Rachel gave Harriet an annoyed look. “So lame.” She looked at Claire and Megan. “Let’s not worry about what it is. It won’t matter unless we find out where it is.”
Megan rubbed her hands over her face and yawned. The thought of just lying in the sun and napping was tempting. After all, whatever it was had been there a long time, what would another few hours hurt? But Rachel and Claire were clearly excited, although for different reasons. She didn’t want to disappoint them—a good hostess looked after her guest’s needs, right? She remembered her mother saying that to her once. She was determined to show her guests a good time, even more so after last night’s failed midnight adventure.
“Good point, Rache,” Megan said. “But we’re clueless so far.”
“I think the first part of the poem is most important,” Claire said. “We’ve already figured out the first few lines refer to Athena. That also fits in with the notation in the diary. Then there’s the mention of a library. But…”
“It’s not in the library here, that’s for sure,” Megan finished.
“Exactly. So maybe we’re looking for something else that related to Athena.”
“Like what?” Rachel plucked a leaf from a tree as she passed. “Archibald had kind of a thing for the Greeks, in case you didn’t notice.”
“And we still haven’t figured out what the night-bird thing means,” Megan said.
/> Claire looked over the top of her glasses at Rachel. “I was getting to that. What birds come out at night?”
“Nightingales,” Harriet said dreamily. “They sing so prettily.”
“Or owls,” Megan said. “There’s one in the barn. I hear it sometimes, chasing mice or whatever else it can find in there in the middle of the night.”
“And the owl is sacred to Athena,” Rachel said. “I remember that from the book last night.”
Claire nodded. “That’s why it’s used so much in academics to symbolize wisdom.”
“And what about it?” Harriet leaned back her saddle and looked at the sky. “Are we supposed to wait for some bloody owl to just drop dead and fall out of its tree? Or do we search every carved and painted owl in that huge house? I’m confused, are we looking for a goddess or an owl, now? Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t even in the house anymore? Did you think of that?” She gave a dramatic, breathy sigh. “I’m tired of this, let’s do something else.”
The path led them to a clearing beside a fast-moving stream with a grassy bank.
Megan slid from her saddle. “Here we are.”
They tied up the horses and let them graze.
Harriet flopped onto the grass. “Okay, can we please stop talking about that stupid poem now? Let’s have some fun, already.”
“I agree.” Rachel stripped off her shoes and socks. She rolled up the bottoms of her jeans and waded into the steam. “It’s so cold.” She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. “But it feels good. Come on.”
Megan pulled her pants up to her knees and dipped a toe into the water. It wasn’t cold—it was freezing.
“Come on, tough girl,” Rachel teased. “Step in.”
Megan pulled her foot back and kicked water at her. Soon all four girls were in the water, splashing and screaming. They were quickly soaked and shivering. They climbed onto the bank, wrapped themselves in the horses’ blankets and lay on the grass to dry in the sun. They gossiped about teachers, about classmates, about boys; just four girls talking about normal things. Megan forgot for the moment about wanting to go back to New York.
LA01. The Crown of Zeus Page 5
